33839	----	PROBLEM ON BALAK By ROGER DEE Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from the September 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [Sidenote: _Sometimes you can solve your problem by running out on it!_] What I'm getting at is that you don't ever have to worry about being bored stiff in Solar Exploitations field work. It never gets dull--and in some pretty strange places, at that. Take the _S.E.2100's_ discovery of Balak, which is a little planet circling 70 Ophiuchi some 20,000 light-years from Earth, for example. You'd never expect to run across the greatest race of surgeons in the Galaxy--structural, neural or what have you--on a little apple like that, any more than you'd expect a four man complement like ours to be handed the sort of life-and-death problem they put to us. And, if by some miracle of prophecy you anticipated both, it's a cinch you'd never expect that problem to be solved in the way ours was. * * * * * Captain Corelli and Gibbons and I couldn't have gone more than a hundred yards from the _S.E.2100_ before we met our first Balakian native. Or, to be more accurate, before he met us. Corelli and I were filling our little sterilized bottles with samples of soil and vegetation and keeping a wary eye out for possible predators when it happened. Gibbons, our ecologist and the scientific mainspring of our crew, was watching a swarm of little twelve-legged bugs that were busily pollinating a dwarf shrub at the top and collecting payment in drops of white sap that oozed out at the bottom in return. His eyes were shining behind their spectacles, and he was swearing to himself in a pleased monotone. "Signal the ship and tell the Quack--if you can pry that hypochondriac idiot away from his gargles and germicide sprays--to bring out a live-specimen container," he called to Captain Corelli. "We've stumbled onto something really new here, a conscious symbiosis between entirely dissimilar life-forms! If the rest of the flora and fauna cooperate like this...." At the moment, Gibbons' discovery didn't register, because it was just then that the first Balakian showed himself. The native looked at first glance something like a wrinkled pink octopus, standing three feet high and nearly as broad, and he walked in a skip-a-step swing like a man on crutches because his three short legs were set in a horizontal row. He had four arms to each side, the lower ones meant for grasping and holding and the upper ones for manipulation. He didn't have a head, exactly, but there was a face of sorts up near the top of the body that looked like nothing so much as a politely grinning Oriental's. He wasn't armed, but I took no chances--I dropped my specimen kit and yanked out the heat-gun that is a part of every S.E. field operative's gear. Captain Corelli, who was on the point of calling the Quack at the ship, took his thumb off the mike button and grabbed for his own weapon. Gibbons, like a true scientist, stood by with his mouth open, too interested to be scared. Then the Balakian spoke, and Corelli and I gaped wider than Gibbons. As I said before, Balak is some 20,000 light-years from Earth, and to our knowledge we were the first human beings ever to come within a hundred parsecs of the place. "Please don't shoot, gentlemen," he said to us in Terran. "My name is Gaffa, and I assure you that I am quite friendly." * * * * * I had to give Gibbons credit for being fast on his mental feet; he had taken over before Corelli and I could get our mouths closed, and was talking to the native as if this sort of thing happened every time we made planetfall. "You speak Terran fluently," Gibbons said. "Or is this some sort of telepathic contact that creates the illusion of oral communication?" The native grinned delightedly. "The contact is oral. We learned your language from an independent planet-hunter named Haslop, who was wrecked here some years ago." In Solar Exploitations you learn to expect the unexpected, but to me this was stretching coincidence clear out of joint. We had the latest zero-interval-transference drive made, and I couldn't believe that any independent planet-staker could have beaten us here with outmoded equipment. "A Terran?" I asked. "Where is he now?" "Coming up," Gaffa said. "With my fellows." A couple of dozen other Balakians, looking exactly like him, bore down on us through the dwarf shrubbery, and with them were two lanky Terrans dressed in loose shirt-and-drawers ensembles which obviously had been made on Balak. Even at a distance the Terrans looked disturbingly alike, and when they got closer I could see that they were identical twins. "You don't count so good, chum," I said. "I see _two_ Terrans." "Only one," Gaffa corrected, grinning wider. "The other is one of us." I didn't believe it, of course. Corelli didn't get it, either; his eyes had a glazed look, and he was shaking his head like a man with a gnat in his ear. One of the Terrans rushed up to us with tears in his eyes and his Adam's apple bobbing, so overcome with emotion that I was afraid he might kiss us. "I'm Ira Haslop," he said in a choked voice. "I've been marooned here for twenty-two eternal years, and I never thought I'd see a Terran face again. And now--" He stopped, but not for breath. The other skinny Terran had grabbed his arm and swung him around. "What the hell do you think you're doing, you masquerading nightmare?" the second one yelled. "_I'm_ Ira Haslop, and you damn well know it! If you think you're going to pass yourself off as me and go home to Earth in my place...." The first Haslop gaped at him for a moment; then he slapped the other's hand off his arm and shook a bony fist in his face. "So that's your game! That's why these grinning freaks made you look like me and threw us together all these years--they've planned all along to ring in a switch and send you home instead of me! Well, it won't work!" * * * * * The second Haslop swung on him then and the two of them went to the mat like a pair of loose-drawered tigers, cursing and gouging. The grinning natives separated them after a moment and examined them carefully for damage, chattering away with great satisfaction in their own language. Corelli and Gibbons and I stared at each other like three fools. It was impossible to think that either of the two men could be anything but what he claimed to be, a perfectly normal and thoroughly angry Terran; but when each of them swore that one of them--the other one, of course--was an alien, and the natives backed up the accusation, what else could we believe? Gaffa, who seemed to be a sort of headman, took over and explained the situation--which seemed to be an incredibly long-range gag cooked up by these octopod jokers, without the original Haslop's knowledge, against the day when another Terran ship might land on Balak. Their real intent, Gaffa said, was to present us with a problem that could be solved only by a species with a real understanding of its own kind. If we could solve it, his people stood ready to assist us in any way possible. If not.... I didn't like the sound of it, so I reached for my heat-gun again. So did Captain Corelli and Gibbons, but we were too slow. A little stinging bug--another link in the cooperative Balakian ecology--bit each of us on the back of the neck and we passed out cold. When we woke up again, we were "guests" of Gaffa and his tribe in a sort of settlement miles from the _S.E.2100_, and there wasn't so much as a nail file among us in the way of weapons. The natives hadn't bothered to shackle us or lock us up. We found ourselves lying instead in the middle of a circular court surrounded by mossy mounds that looked like flattened beehives, but which were actually dwellings where the Balakians lived. We learned later that the buildings were constructed by swarms of tiny burrowing brutes like termites, who built them up grain by grain according to specifications. I can't begin to explain the principle behind the harmony existing between all living things on Balak; it just was, and seemed to operate like a sort of hyper-sympathy or interlocking telepathy between species. Every creature on the planet performed some service for some other creature--even the plants, which grew edibles without pain-nerves so it wouldn't hurt to be plucked, and which sent up clouds of dust-dry spores once a week to make it rain. And the three-legged, eight-armed natives were right at the top of this screwy utopia, lords of it all. Not that any of us were interested at first in it as an ecological marvel, of course. From the moment we woke up we were too busy with plans for escaping the trap we'd fallen into. * * * * * "The Quack is our only hope," Captain Corelli said, and groaned at the thought. "If that hypochondriac idiot has brains enough to sit tight, we may have a chance. If they get him, too, we're lost." The Quack was a damned poor reed to lean on. His name was Alvin Frick, but no one ever used it. He was twenty-nine, and would never have rated a space berth as anything but a hydroponics attendant, which is one step above manual labor. He was short, plump and scrubbed to the pink, and he was the only hypochondriac I ever knew in this modern age of almost no sickness. He groused about the germs swarming in his reduction tanks, and he was scared green, in spite of his permanent immunization shots, that he'd contract some nameless alien disease at every planetfall. He dosed himself continuously with concoctions whipped up from an old medical book he had found somewhere, and he spent most of his off-duty time spraying himself and his quarters with disinfectant. His mania had only one good facet--if he had been the careless sort, hydroponics being what it is, he'd have smelled like a barnyard instead of a dispensary. We had never made any attempt to get rid of him, since we might have drawn an even worse tank-farmer, but we began to wish now that we had. We had hardly begun to figure ways and means of escaping when a bunch of grinning natives swung into our court and deposited the Quack, sleeping soundly, in our midst. He came to just before sundown, and when we told him what had happened, he promptly passed out again--this time from fright. "A fine lot of help _you_ are, you super-sterile slob," I said when he woke up for the second time. I'd probably have said worse, but it was just then that the real squeeze began. Gaffa came back with the two scowling Haslops in tow and handed us the problem his tribe had spent twenty-two years in working up. "We have learned enough already from Haslop," Gaffa said, "to know something of the pressures and complexities that follow the expansion of your Terran Realm through the galaxy, and to assure us that in time we must either become a part of that Realm or isolate ourselves completely. "We are a peaceful species and feel that we should probably benefit as much from your physical sciences as your people would from our biological skills, but there is a question of compatibility that must be settled first, before we may risk making ourselves known to Terra. So we have devised a test to determine what our course shall be." * * * * * We raised our brows at one another over that, not guessing at the time just what the Balakians really had on the ball. "For thousands of generations, we have devoted our energies to knowing ourselves and our environment," Gaffa said, "because we know that no species can be truly balanced unless it understands itself. The symbiosis between all life-forms on our planet is the result of that knowledge. We should like to assure ourselves that you are capable of understanding your own kind as well before we offer our services to your Terran Realm--and therein lies the test we have arranged for you." Captain Corelli drew himself up stiffly. "I think," he said, "that the three of us should be able to unravel your little riddle, if you'll condescend to tell us what it is." Gaffa sent a puzzled look at the Quack, and I could see that he was wondering why Corelli hadn't included him in the boast. But Gaffa didn't know how simple the Quack could be, nor how preoccupied with his own physiology he was. "One of these two," said Gaffa, pointing to the two Haslops, "is the original Ira Haslop, who was stranded here twenty-two Terran years ago. The other is a synthetic creation of ours--an android, if you like, who is identical, cell by cell, with the original so far as exterior likeness is concerned. We could not duplicate the interior without dissection, which of course was out of the question, so we were forced to make compromises that--" Gibbons interrupted him incredulously. "You mean you've created a living creature, brain and all?" "Only the body," Gaffa said. "Creation of intelligence is still beyond us. The brain of the duplicate Haslop is one of our own, transplanted and conditioned to Haslop's knowledge, memories and ideology." He paused for a moment, and the waiting circle of Balakians grinned with him in anticipation. "Your problem is this," Gaffa said. "If you know yourselves well enough to merit our help, then you should be able to distinguish readily between the real and false Haslops. If you fail, we shall have no alternative but to keep you here on Balak for the rest of your lives, since to release you would bring other Terrans down on us in force." And that was it. All we had to do was to take these two identical twins--who looked alike, thought alike and cursed alike--and determine which was real and which was bogus. "For a very pertinent reason which you may or may not discover," Gaffa said, "the test must be limited to a few hours. You have until sunrise tomorrow morning, gentlemen." And with that he crutched away at his skip-a-step walk, taking his grinning cohorts with him. The two Haslops remained behind, glowering and grumbling at each other. * * * * * The situation didn't look too bad at first. "There are no two things," Captain Corelli declared, "that are exactly and absolutely identical. And that applies, I should say, especially to identities." It had a heartening sound. I've never been long on logic, being a very ordinary S.E. navigator whose automatic equipment is designed to do practically everything for him, and Corelli seemed to know what he was talking about. Gibbons, being a scientist, saw it differently. "That's not even good sophistry," he said. "The concept of identity between two objects has no meaning whatever, Captain, unless we have a prior identification of one or the other. Aristotle himself couldn't have told an apple from a coconut if he'd never seen or heard of either." "Any fool would know that," one of the Haslops grunted. And the other added in the same tone: "Hey, if you guys are going at it like that, we'll be here forever!" "All right," Corelli said, deflated. "We'll try another tack." He thought for a minute or two. "How about screening them for background detail? The real Haslop was a bounty-claimer, which means that he must have made thousands of planetfalls before crashing here. The bogus one couldn't remember the details of all those worlds as well as the original, no matter how many times he'd been told, could he?" "Won't work," one of the Haslops said disgustedly. "Hell, after twenty-two years I can't remember those places myself, and I was _there_." The other Haslop gave him a dirty look. "You were _here_, fellow--_I_ was _there_." And to the captain he said, "We're getting nowhere, friend. You're underestimating these Balakians--they look and act like screwballs, but they're sharp. In the twenty-two years I've lived with that carbon copy of myself, he's learned everything I know." "He's right," Gibbons put in. He blinked a couple of times and turned pink. "Unless the real Haslop happened to be married, that is. I'm a bachelor myself, but I'd say there are some memories that a married man wouldn't discuss, even when marooned." Captain Corelli stared at him admiringly. "I never gave you enough credit, Gibbons," he said. "You're right! How about--" "Don't help any," one of the Haslops said morosely. "I never was married. And now I never will be if I've got to depend on you jerks to get me out of this mess." The sun went down just then and a soft, drowsy darkness fell. I thought at first that we'd have to finish our investigation in the dark, but the natives had made provisions for that. A swarm of fireflies as big as robins sailed in from somewhere and circled around over the court, lighting it as bright as day. The Balakian houses made a dim row of flattened shadow-mounds at the outskirts of the circle. A ring of natives sat tailor-fashion on the ground in front of them--a neat trick considering that they had three legs each to fold up--and grinned at us. They had waited twenty-two years for this show, and now that it had come they were enjoying every minute of it. * * * * * Our investigation was pretty rough going. The fireflies overhead all circled in one direction, which made you dizzy every time you looked up, and besides that the Quack had remembered that he was a prisoner in an alien environment and was at the mercy of any outlandish disease that might creep past his permanent immunization. He muttered and grumbled to himself about the risk, and his grousing got on our nerves even worse than usual. I moved over to shut him up, and blinked when I saw him pop something into his mouth. My first guess was that he had managed to sneak some food concentrate out of the ship somehow, and the thought made me realize how hungry I was. "What've you got there, Quack?" I demanded. "Come on, give--what are you hiding out?" "Antibiotics and stuff," he answered, and pulled a little flat plastic case out of a pocket. It was his portable medicine chest, which he carried the way superstitious people used to carry rabbits' feet, and it was largely responsible for our calling him the Quack. It was full of patent capsule remedies that he had gleaned out of his home medical book--a cut thumb, a surprise headache, or a siege of gas on the stomach would never catch the Quack unprepared! "Jerk," I said, and went back to Gibbons and Corelli, who were arguing a new approach to our problem. "It's worth a try," Gibbons said. He turned on the two Haslops, who were bristling like a pair of strange dogs. "This question is for the real Haslop: Have you ever been put through a Rorschach, thematic apperception or free association test?" The real Haslop hadn't. Either of them. "Then we'll try free association," Gibbons said, and explained what he wanted of them. "_Water_," Gibbons said, popping it out quick and sharp. "Spigot," the Haslops said together. Which is exactly what any spaceman would say, since the only water important to him comes out of a ship's tank. "Lake" and "river" and "spring," to him, are only words in books. Gibbons chewed his lip and tried again, but the result was the same every time. When he said "payday" they both came back "binge," and when he said "man" they answered "woman!" with the same gleam in their eyes. "I could have told you it wouldn't work," one Haslop said when Gibbons threw up his hands and quit. "I've lived so long with that phony that he even knows what I'm going to say next." "I was going to say the same thing," the other one growled. "After twenty-two years of drinking and arguing with him, we've begun--God help me!--to think alike." I tried my own hand just once. "Gaffa says that they are exactly identical so far as outside appearance goes," I said. "But he may be wrong, or lying. Maybe we'd better check for ourselves." * * * * * The Haslops raised a howl, of course, but it did them no good. Gibbons and Corelli and I ganged them one at a time--the Quack refused to help for fear of being contaminated--and examined them carefully. It was a lively job, since both of them swore they were ticklish, and under different circumstances it could have been embarrassing. But it settled one point. Gaffa hadn't lied. They were absolutely identical, as far as we could determine. We had given it up and were resting from our labors when Gaffa came grinning out of the darkness and brought us a big crystal pitcher of something that would have passed for a first-class Planet Punch except that it was nearer two-thirds alcohol than the fifty-fifty mix you get at most interplanetary ginmills. The two Haslops had a slug of it as a matter of course, being accustomed to it, and the rest of us followed suit. Only the Quack refused, turning green at the thought of all the alien bacteria that might be swimming around in the pitcher. A couple of drinks made us feel better. "I've been thinking," Captain Corelli said, "about what Gaffa said when he limited the time of the test, that we might or might not discover the reason for ourselves. Now what the hell did the grinning heathen mean by that? Is there a reason, or was he only dragging a red herring across the bogus Haslop's track?" Gibbons looked thoughtful. I sat back while he pondered and watched the Quack, who was swallowing another antibiotic capsule. "Wait a minute," Gibbons exclaimed. "Captain, you've hit on something there!" He stared at the Haslops. They stared back, unimpressed. "Gaffa said you two were exactly alike outside," Gibbons said. "And we've proved it. Does that mean you're not alike _inside_?" "Sure," one of them said. "But what of it? You're sure as hell not going to cut one of us open to see!" "You're confusing the issue," Gibbons snapped. "What I'm getting at is this--if you two aren't made alike inside, then you can't possibly exist on the same sort of diet. One of you eats the same sort of food as ourselves. The other can't. But which is which?" One of the Haslops pointed a quivering finger at the other. "It's him!" he said. "I've watched him drink his dinner for twenty-two years--he's the fake!" "Liar!" the other one yelled, springing up. Corelli stepped between them and the second Haslop subsided, grumbling. "It's true enough, only _he's_ the one that drinks his meals. This stuff in the pitcher is the food he lives on--alcohol for energy, with minerals and other stuff dissolved in it. I drink it with him for kicks, but that phony can't eat anything else." * * * * * Corelli snapped his fingers. "So that's why they limited our time, and why they brought this stuff--to keep their fake Haslop refueled! All we've got to do to separate our men now is feed them something solid. The one that eats it is the real Haslop." "Sure, all we need now is some solid food," I said. "You don't happen to have a couple of sandwiches on you, do you?" Everybody got quiet for a couple of minutes, and in the silence the Quack surprised us all by deciding to speak up. "Since I'm stuck here for life," he said, "a few germs more or less won't matter much. Pass me the pitcher, will you?" He took a man-sized slug of the fiery stuff without even wiping off the pitcher's rim. After that we gave it up, as who wouldn't have? Captain Corelli said the hell with it and took such a slug out of the pitcher that the two Haslops yelled murder and grabbed it quick themselves, and from then on we just sat around and drank and talked and waited for the sunrise that would condemn us to Balak for the rest of our lives. Thinking about our problem had reminded me of an old puzzle I'd heard somewhere about three men being placed in a room where they can see each other but not themselves; they're shown three white hats and two black ones, and then they're blindfolded and a hat is put on each of their heads. When the blindfolds are taken off, the third man knows by looking at the other two and by what they say just what color hat he's wearing himself, but I always forget how it is that he knows. We got so interested in the hat problem that the east was turning pink before we realized it. None of us actually saw the sun rise, though, except the Quack and the bogus Haslop. I was right in the middle of a sentence when all of a sudden my stomach rolled over and growled like a dying tiger, and I never had such an all-gone feeling in my life. I looked at the others, wondering if the stuff in the pitcher had poisoned us all, and saw Gibbons and Corelli staring at each other with the same startled look in their eyes. One of the Haslops was hit, too--he had the same pinched expression around the mouth, and perspiration stood out on his forehead in drops as big as grapes. And then the four of us were on our feet and dashing for open country, leaving the Quack and the remaining Haslop staring after us. The Haslop who stayed looked puzzled, I thought, but the Quack only seemed interested and very much entertained. I couldn't be sure of that, though. There wasn't time to look twice. * * * * * When we came back to the court later, shaken and pale and bracing ourselves for another dash at any minute, we found Gaffa and his grinning chums congratulating the Quack. The bogus Haslop had dropped his impersonation act and seemed very happy. "I've learned to like Haslop so well after twenty-two years," he said, "that I'm quite prejudiced in favor of his species, and I'm delighted that we are to join your Realm. Balak and Terra will get along famously, I know, since you people are so ingenious and appreciative of humor." We ignored the Balakians and swooped down on the Quack. "You put something in that pitcher after you drank out of it, you insult to humanity," I said. "What was it?" The Quack backed off with a wary look in his eye. "A recipe from the curiosa section of my medical book," he said. "I whipped up some capsules for my pocket kit, just in case of emergency, and I couldn't help thinking of them when--" "Never mind the buildup," Captain Corelli said. "_What was it?_" "A formula invented by ancient Terran bartenders, and not recommended except in extreme cases," the Quack said. "With a very odd name. It's called a twin Mickey." We'd probably have murdered him then and there if the Quack's concoction had let us. Later on we had to admit that the Quack had actually done us a service, since his identifying the real Haslop saved us from being marooned for life on Balak. And the Balakians were such an immediate sensation in the Terran Realm that the Quack's part in their admittance made him famous overnight. Somebody high up in Government circles got him out of Solar Exploitations field work and gave him a sinecure in an antibiotics laboratory, where he wound up as happy as a pig in a peanut field. Which points up the statement I made in the beginning, that one thing you never have to worry about in Solar Exploitations work is being bored. You see what I mean? 
51295	----	The Man Who Was Six By F. L. WALLACE Illustrated by ASHMAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] There is nothing at all like having a sound mind in a sound body, but Dan Merrol had too much of one--and also too much of the other! "Sorry, darling," said Erica. She yawned, added, "I've tried--but I just can't believe you're my husband." He felt his own yawn slip off his face. "What do you mean? What am I doing here then?" "Can't you remember?" Her laughter tinkled as she pushed him away and sat up. "They said you were Dan Merrol at the hospital, but they must have been wrong." "Hospitals don't make that kind of mistake," he said with a certainty he didn't altogether feel. "But _I_ should know, shouldn't I?" "Of course, but...." He did some verbal backstepping. "It was a bad accident. You've got to expect that I won't be quite the same at first." He sat up. "_Look_ at me. Can't you tell who I am?" She returned his gaze, then swayed toward him. He decided that she was highly attractive--but surely he ought to have known that long ago. * * * * * With a visible effort she leaned away from him. "Your left eye does look familiar," she said cautiously. "The brown one, I mean." "The _brown_ one?" "Your other eye's green," she told him. "Of course--a replacement. I told you it was a serious accident. They had to use whatever was handy." "I suppose so--but shouldn't they have tried to stick to the original color scheme?" "It's a little thing," he said. "I'm lucky to be alive." He took her hand. "I believe I can convince you I'm _me_." "I wish you could." Her voice was low and sad and he couldn't guess why. "My name is Dan Merrol." "They told you that at the hospital." They hadn't--he'd read it on the chart. But he had been alone in the room and the name had to be his, and anyway he _felt_ like Dan Merrol. "Your name is Erica." "They told you that too." She was wrong again, but it was probably wiser not to tell her how he knew. No one had said anything to him in the hospital. He hadn't given them a chance. He had awakened in a room and hadn't wanted to be alone. He'd got up and read the chart and searched dizzily through the closet. Clothes were hanging there and he'd put them on and muttered her name to himself. He'd sat down to gain strength and after a while he'd walked out and no one had stopped him. It was night when he left the hospital and the next thing he remembered was her face as he looked through the door. Her name hadn't been on the chart nor her address and yet he had found her. That proved something, didn't it? "How could I forget you?" he demanded. "You may have known someone else with that name. When were we married?" Maybe he should have stayed in the hospital. It would have been easier to convince her there. But he'd been frantic to get home. "It was quite a smashup," he said. "You'll have to expect some lapses." "I'm making allowances. But can't you tell me something about myself?" He thought--and couldn't. He wasn't doing so well. "Another lapse," he said gloomily and then brightened. "But I can tell you lots about myself. For instance, I'm a specialist in lepidoptera." "What's that?" "At the moment, who knows? Anyway, I'm a well-known actor and a musician and a first-rate mathematician. I can't remember any equations offhand except C equals pi R squared. It has to do with the velocity of light. And the rest of the stuff will come back in time." It was easier now that he'd started and he went on rapidly. "I'm thirty-three and after making a lot of money wrestling, married six girls, not necessarily in this order--Lucille, Louise, Carolyn, Katherine, Shirley and Miriam." That was quite a few marriages--maybe it was thoughtless of him to have mentioned them. No woman approves her predecessors. "That's six. Where do I come in?" "Erica. You're the seventh and best." It was just too many, now that he thought of it, and it didn't seem right. She sighed and drew away. "That was a lucky guess on your age." * * * * * Did that mean he wasn't right on anything else? From the expression on her face, it did. "You've got to expect me to be confused in the beginning. Can't you really tell who I am?" "I _can't_! You don't have the same personality at all." She glanced at her arm. There was a bruise on it. "Did I do that?" he asked. "You did, though I'm sure you didn't mean to. I don't think you realized how strong you were. Dan was always too gentle--he must have been afraid of me. And _you_ weren't at all." "Maybe I was impetuous," he said. "But it was such a long time." "Almost three months. But most of that time you were floating in gelatin in the regrowth tank, unconscious until yesterday." She leaned forward and caressed his cheek. "Everything seems wrong, no matter how hard I try to believe otherwise. You don't have the same personality--you can't remember anything." "And I have one brown eye and one green." "It's not just that, darling. Go over to the mirror." He had been seriously injured and he was still weak from the shock. He got up and walked unsteadily to the mirror. "Now what?" "Stand beside it. Do you see the line?" Erica pointed to the glass. He did--it was a mark level with his chin. "What does it mean?" "That should be the top of Dan Merrol's head," she said softly. He was a good six inches taller than he ought to be. But there must be some explanation for the added height. He glanced down at his legs. They were the same length from hip bone to the soles of his feet, but the proportions differed from one side to the other. His knees didn't match. _Be-dum, be-dum, be-dumdum, but your knees don't match_--the snatch of an ancient song floated through his head. Quickly, he scanned himself. It was the same elsewhere. The upper right arm was massive, too big for the shoulder it merged with. And the forearm, while long, was slender. He blinked and looked again. While they were patching him up, did they really think he needed black, red and brown hair? He wondered how a beagle felt. * * * * * What were they, a bunch of humorists? Did they, for comic effect, piece together a body out of bits and scraps left over from a chopping block? It was himself he was looking at, otherwise he'd say the results were neither hideous nor horrible, but merely--well, what? Ludicrous and laughable--and there were complications in that too. Who wants to be an involuntary clown, a physical buffoon that Mother Nature hadn't duplicated since Man began? He felt the stubble on his face with his left hand--he _thought_ it was his left hand--at least it was on that side. The emerging whiskers didn't feel like anything he remembered. Wait a minute--was it _his_ memory? He leaned against the wall and nearly fell down. The length of that arm was unexpectedly different. He hobbled over to a chair and sat down, staring miserably at Erica as she began dressing. There was quite a contrast between the loveliness of her body and the circus comedy of his own. "Difficult, isn't it?" she said, tugging her bra together and closing the last snap, which took considerable effort. She was a small girl generally, though not around the chest. It was difficult and in addition to his physique there were the memories he couldn't account for. Come to think of it, he must have been awfully busy to have so many careers in such a short time--_and_ all those wives too. Erica came close and leaned comfortingly against him, but he wasn't comforted. "I waited till I was sure. I didn't want to upset you." He wasn't as sure as she seemed to be now. Somehow, maybe he was still Dan Merrol--but he wasn't going to insist on it--not after looking at himself. Not after trying to sort out those damned memories. She was too kind, pretending to be a little attracted to him, to the scrambled face, to the mismatched lumps and limbs and shapes that, stretching the term, currently formed his body. It was clear what he had to do. * * * * * The jacket he had worn last night didn't fit. Erica cut off the sleeve that hung far over his fingertips on one side and basted it to the sleeve that ended well above his wrist, on the other. The shoulders were narrow, but the material would stretch and after shrugging around in it, he managed to expand it so it was not too tight. The trousers were also a problem--six inches short with no material to add on, but here again Erica proved equal to the task and, using the cuffs, contrived to lengthen them. Shoes were another difficulty. For one foot the size was not bad, but he could almost step out of the other shoe. When she wasn't looking, he wadded up a spare sock and stuffed it in the toe. He looked critically at himself in the mirror. Dressed, his total effect was better than he had dared hope it would be. True, he did look _different_. Erica gazed at him with melancholy affection. "I can't understand why they let you out wearing those clothes--or for that matter, why they let you out at all." He must have given some explanation as he'd stumbled through the door. What was it? "When I brought the clothes yesterday, they told me I couldn't see you for a day or so," she mused aloud. "It was the first time you'd been out of the regrowth tank--where no one could see you--and they didn't know the clothes wouldn't fit. You were covered with a sheet, sleeping, I think. They let me peek in and I could make out a corner of your face." It was the clothes, plus the brief glimpse of his face, which had made her think she recognized him when he came in. "They told me you'd have to have psychotherapy and I'd have to have orientation before I could see you. That's why I was so surprised when you rang the bell." His head was churning with ideas, trying to sort them out. Part of last night was dim, part sharp and satisfying. "What's Wysocki's theorem?" she asked. "_Whose_ theorem?" "Wysocki's. I started to call the hospital and you wouldn't let me, because of the theorem. You said you'd explain it this morning." She glanced at the bruise on her arm. It was then he'd grabbed her, to keep her from talking to the hospital. He'd been unnecessarily rough, but that could be ascribed to lack of coordination. She could have been terrified, might have resisted--but she hadn't. At that time, she must have half-believed he was Dan Merrol, still dangerously near the edges of post-regrowth shock. * * * * * She was looking at him, waiting for that explanation. He shook his mind frantically and the words came out. "Self-therapy," he said briskly. "The patient alone understands what he needs." She started to interrupt, but he shook his head and went on blithely. "That's the first corollary of the theorem. The second is that there are critical times in the recovery of the patient. At such times, with the least possible supervision, he should be encouraged to make his own decisions and carry them through by himself, even though running a slight risk of physical complications." "That's new, isn't it?" she said. "I always thought they watched the patient carefully." It ought to be new--he'd just invented it. "You know how rapidly medical practices change," he said quickly. "Anyway, when they examined me last night, I was much stronger than they expected--so, when I wanted to come home, they let me. It's their latest belief that initiative is more important than perfect health." "Strange," she muttered. "But you are very strong." She looked at him and blushed. "Initiative, certainly you have. Dan could use some, wherever he is." Dan again, whether it was himself or another person. For a brief time, as she listened to him, he'd had the silly idea that.... But it could never happen to him. He'd better leave now while she was distracted and bewildered and believed what he was saying. "I've got to go. I'm due back," he told her. "Not before you eat," she said. "Any man who's spent the night with me is hungry in the morning." It was a domestic miracle that amidst all the pressing and fitting, she'd somehow prepared breakfast and he hadn't noticed. It was a simple chore with the automatics, but to him it seemed a proof of her wifely skill. He wanted to protest, but didn't. Maybe it was the hand she was holding--it seemed to be equipped with a better set of nerves than its predecessor. It tingled at her touch. Sadly, he sat down and looked at his food. Eat? Did he want to eat? Oddly enough, he did. "How much do you remember of the accident?" She shoved aside her own food and sat watching him. * * * * * Not a thing, now that she asked. In fact, there wasn't much he did remember. There had been the chart at his bed-side, with one word scrawled on it--_accident_--and that was where he'd got the idea. There had been other marks too, but he hadn't been able to decipher them. He nodded and said nothing and she took it as he thought she would. "It wasn't anybody's fault. The warning devices which were supposed to work didn't," she began. "A Moon ship collided with a Mars liner in the upper atmosphere. The ships broke up in several parts and since they are compartmented and the delay rockets switched on immediately, the separate parts fell rather gently, considering how high they were. Casualties weren't as great as you might think. "Parts of the two ships fell together, the rest were scattered. There was some interchange of passengers in the wreckage, but since you were found in the control compartment of the Mars liner, they assumed you were the pilot. They never let me see you until yesterday and then it was just a glimpse. I took their word when they said you were Dan Merrol." At least he knew who or what Dan Merrol was--the pilot of the Mars liner. They had assumed he was the pilot because of where he was found, but he might have been tossed there--impact did strange things. Dan Merrol was a spaceship pilot and he hadn't included it among his skills. It was strange that she had believed him at all. But now that it was out in the open, he did remember some facts about spaceships. He felt he could manage a takeoff at this instant. But why hadn't he told her? Shock? Perhaps--but where had those other identities come from--lepidopterist, musician, actor, mathematician and wrestler? And where had he got memories of wives, slender and passionate, petite and wild, casual and complaisant, nagging and insecure? Erica he didn't remember at all, save from last night, and what was that due to? "What are you going to do?" he asked, deliberately toying with the last bite of breakfast. It gave him time to think. "They said they'd identified everyone, living or dead, and I supposed they had. After seeing you, I can believe they made any number of similar mistakes. Dan Merrol may be alive under another name. It will be hard to do, but I must try to find him. Some of the accident victims went to other hospitals, you know, the ones located nearest where they fell." Even if he was sure, he didn't know whether he could tell her--and he wasn't sure any longer, although he had been. On the physical side of marriage, how could he ask her to share a body she'd have to laugh at? Later, he might tell her, if there was to be a 'later.' He pushed back his chair and looked at her uncertainly. "Let me call a 'copter," she said. "I hate to see you go." "Wysocki's theorem," he told her. "The patient has decided to walk." He weaved toward the door and twisted the knob. He turned in time to catch her in his arms. "I know this is wrong," she said, pressing against him. It might be wrong, but it was very pleasant, though he did guess her motives. She was a warmhearted girl and couldn't help pitying him. "Don't be so damned considerate," he mumbled. "You'll have to put me down," she said, averting her eyes. "Otherwise.... You're an intolerable funny man." He knew it--he could see himself in the mirror. He was something to laugh at when anyone got tired of pretending sympathy. He put her down and stumbled out. He thought he could hear the bed creak as she threw herself on it. II Once he got started, walking wasn't hard. His left side swung at a different rate from his right, but that was due to the variation in the length of his thighs and lower legs, and the two rhythms could be reconciled. He swept along, gaining control of his muscles. He became aware that he was whizzing past everyone. He slowed down--he didn't want to attract attention. It was difficult but he learned to walk at a pedestrian pace. However poorly they'd matched his legs, they'd given him good ones. Last night, on an impulse, he'd left the hospital and now he had to go back. _Had_ to? Of course. There were too many uncertainties still to be settled. He glanced around. It was still very early in the morning and normal traffic was just beginning. Maybe they hadn't missed him yet, though it was unlikely. He seemed to know the route well enough and covered the distance in a brief time. He turned in at the building and, scanning the directory, went at once to the proper floor and stopped at the desk. * * * * * The receptionist was busy with the drawer of the desk. "Can I help you?" she asked, continuing to peer down. "The director--Doctor Crander. I don't have an appointment." "Then the director can't see you." The girl looked up and her firmly polite expression became a grimace of barely suppressed laughter. Then laughter was swept away. What replaced it he couldn't say, but it didn't seem related to humor. She placed her hand near his but it went astray and got tangled with his fingers. "I just thought of a joke," she murmured. "Please don't think that I consider you at all funny." The hell she didn't--and it was the second time within the hour a woman had used that word on him. He wished they'd stop. He took back his hand, the slender one, an exquisite thing that might once have belonged to a musician. Was there an instrument played with one hand? The other one was far larger and clumsier, more suited to mayhem than music. "When can I see the director?" She blinked at him. "A patient?" She didn't need to look twice to see that he had been one. "The director does occasionally see ex-patients." He watched her appreciatively as she went inside. The way she walked, you'd think she had a special audience. Presently the door opened and she came back, batting her eyes vigorously. "You can go in now," she said huskily. Strange, her voice had dropped an octave in less than a minute. "The old boy tried to pretend he was in the middle of a grave emergency." On his way in, he miscalculated, or she did, and he brushed against her. The touch was pleasant, but not thrilling. That reaction seemed reserved for Erica. "Glad to see you," said Doctor Crander, behind the desk. He was nervous and harassed for so early in the morning. "The receptionist didn't give me your name. For some reason she seems upset." She did at that, he thought--probably bewildered by his appearance. The hospital didn't seem to have a calming influence on either her or the doctor. "That's why I came here. I'm not sure who I am. I thought I was Dan Merrol." Doctor Crander tried to fight his way through the desk. Being a little wider and solider, though not by much, the desk won. He contented himself by wiping his forehead. "Our missing patient," he said, sighing with vast relief. "For a while I had visions of...." He then decided that visions were nothing a medical man should place much faith in. "Then I _am_ Dan Merrol?" The doctor came cautiously around the desk this time. "Of course. I didn't expect that you'd come walking in my office--that's why I didn't recognize you immediately." He exhaled peevishly. "Where did you go? We've been searching for you everywhere." It seemed wiser to Dan not to tell him everything. "It was stuffy inside. I went out for a stroll before the nurse came in." Crander frowned, his nervousness rapidly disappearing. "Then it was about an hour ago. We didn't think you could walk at all so soon, or we would have kept someone on duty through the night." * * * * * They had underestimated him, but he didn't mind. Of course, he didn't know how a patient from the regrowth tanks was supposed to act. The doctor took his pulse. "Seems fine," he said, surprised. "Sit down--please sit down." Without waiting for him to comply, Crander pushed him into a chair and began hauling out a variety of instruments with which he poked about his bewildered patient. Finally Crander seemed satisfied. "Excellent," he said. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were almost fully recovered. A week ago, we considered removing you from the regrowth tank. Our decision to leave you there an extra week has paid off very, very nicely." Merrol wasn't as pleased as the doctor appeared to be. "Granted you can identify me as the person who came out of regrowth--but does that mean I'm Dan Merrol? Could there be a mistake?" Crander eyed him clinically. "We don't ordinarily do this--but it is evident that with you peace of mind is more important than procedure. And you look well enough to stand the physical strain." He pressed the buzzer and an angular woman in her early forties answered. "Miss Jerrems, the Dan Merrol file." Miss Jerrems flashed a glance of open adoration at the doctor and before she could reel it in, her gaze swept past Dan, hesitated and returned to him. Her mouth opened and closed like that of a nervous goldfish and she darted from the room. _They see me and flee as fast as they can caper_, thought Merrol. It was not wholly true--Crander didn't seem much affected. But he was a doctor and used to it. Furthermore, he probably had room for only one emotion at the moment--relief at the return of his patient. Miss Jerrems came back, wheeling a large cart. Dan was surprised at the mass of records. Crander noticed his expression and smiled. "You're our prize case, Merrol. I've never heard of anyone else surviving such extensive surgery. Naturally, we have a step-by-step account of everything we did." He turned to the woman. "You may leave, Miss Jerrems." She went, but the adoration she had showed so openly for her employer seemed to have curdled in the last few moments. Crander dug into the files and rooted out photographs. "Here are pictures of the wreckage in which you were found--notice that you were strapped in your seat--as you were received into the hospital--at various stages in surgery and finally, some taken from the files of the company for which you worked." Merrol winced. The photographic sequence was incontrovertible. He had been a handsome fellow. "Here is other evidence you may not have heard of. It's a recent development, within the last ten years, in fact. It still isn't accepted by most courts--they're always lagging--but to medical men it's the last word." * * * * * Merrol studied the patterns of waves and lines and splotches. "What is it?" "Mass-cell radiographs. One was loaned by your employer. The other was taken just after your last operation. Both were corrected according to standard methods. One cell won't do it, ten yield an uncertain identity--but as few as a hundred cells from any part of the original body, excepting the blood, constitute proof more positive than fingerprints before the surgical exchange of limbs. Don't ask me why--no one knows. But it is true that cells differ from one body to the next, and this test detects the difference." The mass-cell radiographs did seem identical and Dr. Crander seemed certain. Taken altogether, the evidence was overwhelming. There had been no mistake--he was Dan Merrol, though it was not difficult to understand why Erica couldn't believe he was her husband. "You did a fine job," he said. Recalling the picture of the wreckage, he knew they had. "But couldn't you have done just a little better?" * * * * * Crander's eyebrows bounced up. "We're amazed at how well we have done. You can search case histories and find nothing comparable." His eyebrows dropped back into place. "Of course, if you have a specific complaint...." "Nothing specific. But look at this hand...." The doctor seized it. "Beautiful, isn't it?" "Perhaps--taken by itself." Dan rolled up his sleeve. "See how it joins the forearm." Crander waggled it gravely. "It coordinates perfectly. I've observed you have complete control over it. The doctor's eye, my boy. The doctor's diagnostic eye." The other just didn't understand. "But the size--it doesn't match my arm!" "Doesn't _match_?" cried the doctor. "Do you have any idea of the biological ways in which it _does_ match? True, it may not be esthetically harmonized, but here we delve into the mysteries of the human organism, and we can hardly be striving for Botticelli bodies and Michelangelo men. First, your hand moves freely at the joint, a triumph of surgical skill." He moved the hand experimentally, to show Merrol how it was done. He dropped the hand and hurried to a screen against the wall. Crander drew his finger across the surface and the mark remained. "You know about Rh positive and negative blood. Mixed, they can be lethal. This was discovered long ago, by someone I've forgotten. But there are other factors just as potent and far more complex." He scribbled meaningless symbols on the screen with his finger. "Take the bone factors--three. They must be matched in even such a slight contact as a joint ... this was done. Then there are the tissue factors--four. Tendon factors--two. Nerve-splice factors--three again. After that, we move into a complex field, hormone-utilization factors--seven at the latest count and more coming up with further research. "That's the beginning, but at the sensory organs we leave the simple stuff behind. Take the eye, for instance." Merrol leaned away because Dr. Crander seemed about to pluck one of Dan's eyes from its socket. "Surgical and growth factors involved in splicing a massive nerve bundle pass any layman's comprehension. There are no non-technical terms to describe it." * * * * * It was just as well--Merrol didn't want a lecture. He extended his arms. One was of normal length, the other longer. "Do you think you can do something with this? I don't mind variation in thickness--some of that will smooth out as I exercise--but I'd like them the same length." "There were many others injured at the same time, you know--and you were one of the last to be extricated from the ship. Normally, when we have to replace a whole arm, we do so at the shoulder for obvious reasons. But the previously treated victims had depleted our supplies. Some needed only a hand and we gave them just that, others a hand and a forearm, and so on. When we got to you, we had to use leftovers or permit you to die--there wasn't time to send to other hospitals. In fact there wasn't any time at all--we actually thought you were dead, but soon found we were wrong." Crander stared at a crack in the ceiling. "Further recovery will take other operations and your nervous system isn't up to it." He shook his head. "Five years from now, we can help you, not before." Merrol turned away miserably. There were other things, but he had learned the essentials. He was Dan Merrol and there was nothing they could do for him until it was too late. How long could he expect Erica to wait? The doctor hadn't finished the medical session. "Replacement of body parts is easy, after all. The big trouble came when we went into the brain." "Brain?" Dan was startled. "How hard do you think your skull is?" Crander came closer. "Bend your head." Merrol obeyed and could feel the doctor's forefinger slice across his scalp in a mock operation. "This sector was crushed." Roughly half his brain, it appeared. "That's why so many memories were gone--not just from shock. In addition, other sectors were damaged and had to be replaced." Crander traced out five areas he could feel, but not see. "Samuel Kaufman, musician--Breed Mannly, cowboy actor--George Elkins, lepidopterist--Duke DeCaesares, wrestler--and Ben Eisenberg, mathematician, went into the places I tapped." Dan raised his head. Some things were clearer. The memories were authentic, but they weren't his--nor did the other wives belong to him. It was no wonder Erica had cringed at their names. "These donors were dead, but you can be thankful we had parts of their brains available." Crander delved into the file and came up with a sheet. "Here are some body part contributors." He read rapidly. "Dimwiddie, Barton, Colton, Morton, Flam and Carnera were responsible for arms and hands. Greenberg, Rochefault, Gonzalez, Tall-Cloud, Gowraddy and Tsin supplied feet and legs." * * * * * He was not a man, Merrol thought. Not now. If anything, he was a convention and one body was not a large enough hotel to hold it in comfort. "These were the major human donors, but there were others I didn't bother to read, for the kidneys and so on. And I think our four-footed friends deserve some mention." He looked up. "The skin on your face is from a pig embryo." That explained why it was hard to shave. "_Oink?_" he said. "I mean did it have to be a pig?" "You'd be surprised how hard it is to transplant human skin," commented Crander. "Besides, we wanted to give you a masculine look. The finest face there is, genuine pigskin." Merrol felt like a wallet. The doctor droned on through the list, but Merrol scarcely listened. Only once did he interrupt, to ask incredulously, "Did you say a _horse_?" "Is there anything wrong with a horse?" Merrol thought back. Come to consider it, there was nothing wrong--in fact, compliments were more in order. "The skill that went into matching the unrelated parts that are now you is a landmark in medical history, quite comparable to Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood," said Dr. Crander. "I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't participated in it myself. There have been limb and brain replacements before, but never on such a scale. One of these days, we'll get out a report that will astound the medical world." Without doubt, it would. Merrol tried to feel grateful, but gratitude refused to come. They had saved him--but was it worth it? Puzzled, Crander frowned at the buzzer. He'd been pressing it intermittently for the past few minutes. "Doesn't seem to be working," he muttered, heading toward the door through which Merrol had entered. "Wait here--I'll be back. I have to cancel an appointment." * * * * * As soon as the door closed, a voice behind Merrol hissed. "I fixed the buzzer. He went for the guards." He whirled. Miss Jerrems stood in the doorway that led into the filing room on the opposite side of the office. "Guards?" he repeated. "Of course--guards for the violent patients." "What does that have to do with me?" "You escaped once, didn't you?" He hadn't escaped, he had merely walked out when he felt he could. Did that qualify him as violent? It might. "What of it? I'm no longer a patient. The doctor said I had recovered." "That's what he said to _you_. But even if he means it, there's always psychotherapy, post-re-growth orientation." Orientation--he hadn't thought of that. They'd want to keep him under observation for several days and he had no desire to stay hospitalized. Erica would come to the hospital in a few hours. Perhaps she was there now, waiting to see someone. Come to think of it, he had got past the receptionist with remarkable ease. At any rate, if she was insistent about it, she must eventually get to see the evidence he had just studied. And then there would be orientation--for both of them. Without doubt, he would be taught to accept himself as he was, and Erica would be trained to look at him without laughter, and together they would know that beneath his piebald exterior lurked a lovely personality. Then, well adjusted, they would go home and live happily ever after. Or would they? "Don't stand there, if you want to get away," Miss Jerrems whispered urgently. "Next time they won't take any chances." They wouldn't. He would be confined to a room he couldn't break out of with guards disguised as nurses. Blindly he moved toward the door. "Not there," she exclaimed. "Do you want to walk right into them? This way. They won't look for you in here." She clasped his hand in her bony fingers and led him through the maze of files to an elevator. "This takes you to the ground floor," she said. "Once outside, you can get away." He probably could--it was a large building and it would take a prolonged search to determine that he was not inside it. She smiled peculiarly, clearing her throat. "Thirty-seven Brighton Drive." Mechanically he repeated the number. "What is it?" "That's where you can find out." "Find out what?" "What they did to you here. I can't tell you now," she whispered nervously. "Oh, _do_ hurry!" If he had to move fast, this seemed a good time. The elevator dropped him to the street level and, looking cautiously around, he walked out. In a few minutes, he was blocks away. It was mid-morning, and he swung along, hands thrust into his jacket. There was a wad of paper inside and he fished it out and examined it--money, neatly folded with a note around it. The note was from Erica, saying that the money was meant for him. The sum was not great, but she must have given him everything she had in the house. Mistily, he counted it out. III Dan hadn't been stopped and didn't expect to be. He wasn't a criminal, but until the hospital released him, he was technically a mental case. But Crander would hardly be anxious to report to the police that a patient was missing--not until he had tried everything else. Merrol took the elevator. It was a bright new apartment building, which conferred some social status and not much else on those living in it. Miss Jerrems opened the door. "Come in," she said, looking around furtively as he slipped past her. He sat down gingerly, watching her scurry about. He tried to protest, but nothing he said had any effect on her aggressive hospitality. She thrust a cup of watery coffee in his hand and placed a tray of breakfast rolls beside him. She sat facing him. Their knees almost touched--it was a narrow room. "I came home at once," she said, not very successful in her attempt to control her excitement. "I told them I was upset and, after my long years of service, they didn't question me. I tore my dress and told them you had done it. I said that you ran up toward the top of the building." He appreciated her motives, but thought she shouldn't have tried so hard to convince them. Now they had reason to think he was violent. "Until today, I've been devoted to Doctor Crander," she said sternly. He recalled the first look on her face in the doctor's office--and the one after she had seen him. In seconds, her whole attitude had changed. Why? "I heard what he told you." She hissed the word--"Lies." Dan stared at her skeptically. "They didn't do what he said?" "Oh, the facts were straight enough," she said bitterly. "It was the reasons he concealed. They thought you didn't have a chance, so they did all sorts of strange things they never tried on anyone else. You were an experiment, that's all--but you surprised them." The hospital was looking for the wrong mental case. They had one working for them and didn't know it. He didn't doubt that she was right--about his being an experiment--but her observations were wrong. It was due entirely to their unorthodox procedures that he was alive. She looked him over carefully and he knew that the halves of his face didn't match by a ridiculous margin, that one shoulder was heavier than the other, that his hair was in three colors. Even in repose and fully clothed, so that some of the discrepancies of his physique were hidden, he was hardly presentable. "When I saw you standing there today, I realized what they had done to you and my loyalty to the institution and the doctor vanished," she said earnestly. "And the psychotherapy isn't to help you, it's to make sure you won't protest over what they've done. That's why I had to get you away. They've ruined you and now _you_ must ruin _them_." He had half-suspected it would come to this--but he hadn't been sure. "I don't want to ruin them," he said slowly. "I'd rather be alive, even as an experiment. And if you're thinking of a malpractice suit, you saw the files. I couldn't win against that." "I ought to know about the files--I worked on them." Her eyes sparkled and her voice lowered. "What if the evidence is missing?" * * * * * He sat back. With her co-operation, the vital parts of the file could vanish and, with that gone, he could collect a staggering amount from the institution. He had only to appear and no jury or panels of experts would decide against him. Is that what she had planned so swiftly in the director's office--that she would share the money with him? Somehow, he couldn't believe money meant that much to her. "I can't permit it," he said. "In spite of everything, I feel obligated." She flung herself across the narrow space. "I expected you to be noble," she sobbed. "One look at you, and I knew I had met the loneliest person in the world." Like called to like, at least for her, and that explained why she had grimaced when she had first seen him. It was her counterpart of the receptionist's reaction. It explained, too, why she was willing to turn against the doctor she had previously adored. As for the money, she didn't want it for herself, but as bait for him--and he'd have to take her with it. She had guessed wrong on all counts. He would have thrust her away, but it would have been too cruel. He tried to comfort her, and she dried her eyes on his shoulder. "Darling," she sniffled. "I've never yielded to any man, but if it will help you...." She pressed close and he couldn't get away without breaking through the thin walls of the cramped apartment. He had never known a female form could be shaped around so many bones. "These things take time," he said, though they didn't. "Let's not rush into anything we'll regret." He seemed to arouse the motherly instinct in some women, if only in the future tense. Presently, she sat up, blowing her nose and looking ardently at him through tear-rimmed eyes. "You can stay here. You've no place else to go, and they'll be looking for you." "Well," he said--but it was true. He shouldn't be wandering on the streets. He slept that night on a sink that converted to a bed. It would have been more comfortable unconverted. * * * * * He crept out in the morning before she was awake. He paused outside to scribble a note, principally to throw her off his track. You never could tell with so unstable a person. Implicated in his escape, she might nevertheless report to the hospital. He shoved the note under the door and left quickly and quietly. His first move was to buy a hat, which entailed further trouble. The doctors had overcompensated in replacing the missing brain tissue and, in piecing a skull together, had constructed an outsized head on which nothing seemed to fit. By careful shopping, he found something that did fit and, when he'd clapped it on, he happily noted it concealed the tricolor hair ... one item less to attract attention. He ate and afterward walked to the rocketport. It was a long distance and formerly he might have complained, but now he didn't mind it. The miles seemed to have shrunk to furlongs. He found the big _Interplanet_ sign and examined the place minutely from the outside. Once he had worked there, technically he still did. Some memories came back, but not many. He needed at least an hour inside to enable him to forget the hospital and its psychotherapy. Once cleared, he would be free for a while to concentrate on what to do about Erica. The hospital evidently had yet to call in the police. He was still safe on the streets, but the medicos must have notified _Interplanet_ and all other places at which he might show up. However, the company was too big for everyone to know about him this soon. More likely there would be only a few who could have information on him as yet. The trick was to bypass those individuals who might try to detain him and still get where he wanted. Normally, he'd go to the front office after an accident. This time, he went to the side gate and when the guard looked at him questioningly, mumbled, "Reporting for duty." Which got him through. Inside, there were more memories awaiting him. Depending on them, he walked rapidly through hall after hall and finally found the desk he sought. The man behind it looked up. "Are you sure you're in the right place?" he asked. Merrol would soon know. "Reporting for duty," he stated. This reply elicited a puzzled expression. "The devil you are. We haven't hired anyone new." "I'm not new. I've been injured, and this is my first time back. Dan Merrol's my name." "Okay, where's your slip?" "Slip?" he asked, stalling. This was something he ought to know about, but didn't. "Sure, the release from the front office after an injury." "They said they'd send it down," he replied, holding his breath. * * * * * The clerk pawed through the stack. "They don't send nothing down," he growled. "I'll call and find out." His hand reached out and then he relaxed. "No use bothering them, it'll get here tomorrow." He looked up and laughed. "Red tape," he said by way of explanation. "Why should I doubt you? If you said they released you, then they did." Merrol was glad to see one man who wasn't impressed by office routines. Still, his behavior was a little puzzling. The man screened on. The communication unit was behind the desk, tilted so he couldn't see it. The volume was low, but Dan could hear the conversation from this end. "Got a case for you. Name is Dan Merrol. I don't know, he's before my time." The reply was faint and Dan didn't catch it. But the clerk added, "He seems okay. What? Sure he's got a release. Would I send him in?" He cut the connection and looked up. "Go over to Psych. They'll test you. If you pass, we'll put you back on schedule." He started to turn away and saw Merrol standing there. "What's the matter?" "I don't know where Psych is." "I see. We must have moved things since you were here." The man got up and pointed. "Down there and turn left at the second corner. You can't miss." The examiner was scanning a card as he entered. "Lots of experience," he commented. "We'll pass over the written stuff. That's for kids, to make sure they've studied their lessons. After you've been out this long, you can almost feel a course faster than anyone can figure it." It was a relief. Merrol didn't know how much theory he remembered, but was sure he could still lift a ship as well as the next man. The examiner made a notation on the card and tossed it into a machine that snapped it up and clicked furiously over it. "Let's take the biggest thing first, if you're up to it." "I feel fine." It was not true, but it was the customary answer. Anything else, and he'd be shunted off into a series of meaningless tests, each designed to verify the results of previous tests. An ingenious scheme rigged up by the psych crew in their spare time to see how complicated they could make any given system. Answered straightforwardly, they rushed a man through with a minimum of officiousness. "Okay, let's take the trip." He accompanied Dan into a room unlike the others. For one thing, it might have been the control room of a ship. Forward, there was the usual clear view. The stars were there too, in an adaptation of the planetarium. Outside, arranged to give any effect from top acceleration to free fall, were a number of gravity coils. Except for the pilot--and Merrol would play that role--there was a full complement of officers who were invisible. * * * * * The tester flicked on a machine. "I'll give you Mars, because that's your usual run. This is a short drive, because you're in a favorable position. Got it?" Merrol nodded and climbed into the seat, facing the instruments. "I've turned on the best crew simulators, better than you'd ever actually get. Don't worry about them, just take the data and flit the way you think you should." The tester clamped a mike inches away and adjusted the visio-recorders firmly on his head, where electron beams could sneak in and tap his optic centers. "The first trip after you've been away is rough, but you'll make it." Merrol strapped himself in and hoped the other man was right. The examiner went to the door, turned and grinned. "Watch out for the interplanetary goose," he called and snapped the switch. Merrol was now in a ship. In the back of his mind there was some doubt of his ability, but it didn't reach as far as his fingers. Rockets vibrated beneath him. Outside, he could see the glazed earth-slick. He touched the power and climbed above the clouds. The sky turned black and there were stars. He checked position. The tester had given him a setup. The Moon was out of the way and the run to Mars was the shortest on record. If he couldn't handle this, he wasn't a pilot. The seat jabbed him suddenly. That's what he'd been warned about--he'd been expecting it and still wasn't prepared. The tempathy drugs flooded into him and the needle was withdrawn. Takeoff and landing were always rehearsed on the pilot's own time. The ends of a voyage were critical and it was essential to have an undistorted reaction. Besides, neither took long. The time between one planet and the next was long and nothing much happened, so it could be shortened without deleterious effect on the results. Tempathy drugs shortened it, though not completely. Part of a man's consciousness went along at normal speed and the rest, that which counted in jockeying rockets, was enormously telescoped. It telescoped on Merrol. He couldn't see. Rather, part of him could but, for the other fraction, images passed in front of his eyes too fast for his mind to evaluate. Weeks flipped past in minutes. It was a dream world turned inside out--the roles of consciousness and unconsciousness were reversed. There was something wrong with the sounds he half-heard. He could get emotions, though he couldn't separate them into sense. There were additional voices that shouldn't be there--the mechanical crew spoke to him giving silent data--but there were other actual voices, fearful or consolatory. He tried to speak, but his vocal cords were preempted. He was doing it all, speaking, moving the controls, directing the ship between planets. It ought to be easier than takeoff, but it wasn't. He shouldn't be afraid of anything he might find out there--which was nothing--but that didn't alter conditions. He was profoundly disturbed, and he hoped the tester noticed it. The examiner did spot trouble. He opened the door and reversed the switch. Lights went on, and another needle speared him, counteracting the effects of the tempathy drugs. Slowly the ship disappeared, space along with it, and the room whirled back into view and settled down. Something handed him back his eyes and ears. "Easy," said the man. "Sit there. You don't have to move. We'll find out what's wrong. It may not be serious at all." * * * * * Unhooking the visio-recorder, the tester also swung the mike away. "You were doing fine," he said. "Never saw anything smoother. About here, though, you seemed to be having difficulty. We'll slow it down and see what it was." He snapped the reels in place and darkened the room. On the screen was the vision-port and, through it, a view of Mars. A fleck of light glittered, grew, became a cloud, a swarm. A swarm? "God!" said the tester, bewildered. "A billion butterflies! How could you imagine butterflies, twenty million miles from a planet?" Merrol squirmed--he didn't know either. What was wrong with him to make him dream up butterflies? The examiner switched the film off and the lights on. "So you missed them--why, I don't know." He fiddled with another machine. "We'll slow down the sound, synchronize the two of them later, but maybe by itself the sound will give us a clue as to what happened." "What's that?" It came from the sound track, but it was Merrol's voice. "Those are lepidoptera." Another voice, also his, though of different pitch and timbre--his, because he was the only one there to speak. "I've always dreamed of discovering a new species and at last I have, since these can fly through space. What strange adaptations they have made. Aren't they beautiful?" He answered. "They won't be when I plow through them. The rockets will fry them." "Turn aside!" shouted the lepidopterist. "You can't destroy them." "I'm going to act as if this were not happening," said a cultured voice. "_Bang-bang!_" "This is upsetting," said a different person. "Since I have no instrument, I'll listen with my memory to a Bach concerto. Unfortunately, it ends in the middle of the third movement, as though it has been sliced through with a knife that separated one note cleanly from the next. Still, it's better to have this than nothing." "Your computers are awfully slow," said the fifth. "I'll figure out a new course for us." "Gimme the controls," said the wrestler. "I'll turn the ship, if I hafta do it with my bare hands." The examiner snapped off the sound and busied himself with things that may have been necessary. "You don't have to sit there," he said after a while. "Wait outside." He glanced down, "Be careful when you move, the control column will fall off. Didn't know it could be broken." As he got out of the seat, the examiner slapped his back. "Tell you what, fellow--don't wait--go now to the Compensation Board and see about retirement." IV Merrol sat in the room where he had been sitting for a day and a half since the psych test. He had walked out immediately, found a room and was still in it. It wasn't comfortable, sitting. Whichever position was right for the bend of one knee was wrong for the other. He had depended on the test to get him out of a jam, but the stratagem had failed. If he had passed, he'd have been another experienced pilot for the _Interplanet_ string and that meant something. Experienced men were valuable and I. P. would have gone to bat for him. Not everyone could pass the test and, while it didn't prove that the man who did was one hundred per cent sane, it was a big argument in that direction. It was evidence that would have to be respected publicly, whatever private doubts a psychotherapist might have. Unwittingly, he had provided additional ammunition against himself. When the results of the test sifted through the layers of red tape to the front office, _Interplanet_ would contact the hospital, which would then really want to orient him to a frazzle. Orientation sounded nice but it was not for Merrol. If they could orient everyone he would come in contact with as well--but how much insulation could a man build up against involuntary laughter? It was fine to be a comedian on the screen and then step out of character and relax--but what if you couldn't stop? Nobody could adjust to the constant expectation of hysterical mirth. But wasn't that a reason to undergo psychotherapy, so they could blunt the edges of his own reactions? It ought to be, but somehow it wasn't. He didn't dare submit. There was a difference, apparently determined by sex, in the way people behaved toward him. No man had thus far done more than smile respectfully while he was near. What they did later, he could guess. Face to face, they seemed to be reserved and incredulous until they learned to accept him as a member of their species and sex and then--how _did_ they act? It would take more than casual thinking to puzzle _that_ out. Women saw the big joke instantly and giggled, and he couldn't blame them. Seconds later, they smirked contritely and tried to touch him, as if contact could atone for their behavior. _They_ noticed appearance at all times, whereas men didn't as a rule of their own sex. He paused to re-examine his thoughts. Something seemed to be missing in his analysis. What it was, he couldn't tell. It would have to come out later, as he mingled more with people--if he ever did. * * * * * And that wasn't all. He had been a pilot, but never would be one again. His skill had been destroyed by the intrusion of five other personalities, who each brought his own odd bit of useless knowledge to the whole Merrol. He should have expected it, but he hadn't, nor had the doctors. It was obvious--the brain slices that had replaced his own damaged tissues had to be in healthy condition or they'd never have functioned properly--and what did those medical fools think was the function of any brain? He was in command of the group brain because his was the dominant fraction, but when he sat down and thought about it, what good did it do? He was sitting down and it didn't do any good, so he got up. He took two paces across the room and looked out the window, into windows that looked into his. Compensation was coming to him. Ultimately, he'd divide it with Erica and go away. She must know by now that the man she had spent the night with was actually her own husband. Intellectually she must have decided to accept him. He wasn't noble, though. Much as he wanted her, he knew he couldn't live with anyone who had to stifle her laughter when he stepped out of the bath or into bed. He walked the carpet aimlessly until, through the window, he caught a word from the telecast in the next apartment. He thought it sounded familiar. He yanked the louvers closed and grunted, but it didn't help--the word bothered him. He reached out the long arm to turn on his own screen. A face came into view and a man's voice whispered. Merrol turned up the volume, but it didn't get any louder. It was the low-pressure soothing type. Whatever he was selling, it was a welcome change. The announcer smiled reassuringly. "Actually, I'm talking to one person. The rest of you may listen or not for the next five minutes, after which I'll have something to say to you." It was a clever approach to insure that the audience didn't switch programs. "Dan Merrol, this is a personal message to you." Merrol sat up. "We'd call you if we could, but this is a large city and you've simply vanished. We have operatives trying to trace you, but with no success up to now." The announcer leaned forward confidentially. "Now, Dan, before you become alarmed, let me say you've done nothing wrong. In fact, at _Interplanet_, we think you've done everything right--but I'll come to that later." * * * * * Interplanet? Then it wasn't the hospital or the police. What could I. P. want of him? "No doubt the test you took was somewhat of a shock. Don't blame the psych examiner for the conclusions he formed--he can't be expected to know more than the leading psychologists. You're probably curious as to what this test has to do with you and _Interplanet_. We hope so--we want you to keep on listening. "The test proved you're no longer a competent pilot--but it also indicated something much bigger. Dan, _you_ are the answer to a problem that has been bothering us for generations. Before the accident, you knew nothing of music or any life science, your math was adequate but not deep, you often felt awkward in the presence of others when you had no need to and you lacked confidence in your physical ability. "Suddenly, you gained something of each and, when we contacted your doctors, we were able to surmise how it happened. Now you ask--what good does this do you and what is the problem to which this is the answer? "Simply this--_specialization_. You know what constitutes a rocket crew--pilot, radio man, engineer and several lesser technicians, each of whom knows only his own job. Although you'll never sit at the controls again--through you, we can help others." The announcer lowered his voice now. "You can unlock specialization for us. In the future, each man will concentrate on what particular aptitudes he has, then share it, via surgery, with others whose knowledge complements his own. To do this, we need to study you further and, of course, we'll pay you well for the opportunity. In addition, you'll still get your compensation. Please come and talk it over with us. "Frankly, we're a little worried about what you may be thinking. If you have any thoughts of self-destruction because of what must seem a strange condition, put them aside. You're much saner than the average man." * * * * * Merrol listened, smiling at the remark. No matter what they thought, he couldn't seriously contemplate suicide. There were too many others to dissuade him. Nevertheless, it was hard to understand and accept the sudden change of his status. He had formerly been a mere employee, but now.... The announcer hadn't finished. "In the beginning, Dan, I said you had done everything right, whether you knew it or not. After we learned what we did from your test, we checked through our files and found that we had a few other accident cases on record in which part of the brain had been replaced. In each case there was a faint trace of another personality, which we could detect when we knew what to look for. We rechecked each person we could locate. Unfortunately, the latent personalities and their share of knowledge had been submerged beyond recovery by the rigorous psychotherapy the accident victim had undergone after surgery." * * * * * The imaginary Wysocki's theorem of self-therapy. He never knew of anyone by that name, nor had he got it from one of the other five. But, however nonsensically he had invented it to express the needs he felt at the time, it was, in fact, not nonsense. When it came to that, who knew anything about six minds packaged together--and what could have been done to him in ignorance? The announcer was finished talking to Dan Merrol alone. "Remember, all of you," he said briskly. "This man is neither a criminal nor insane. He is extremely withdrawn, as a result of unpleasant experiences. If you can induce him to come to _Interplanet_, or lead our representatives to him, you will receive a substantial reward. Here is his picture." Merrol turned off the screen and scowled. He didn't like that last. He intended to take their offer, but he wanted to be free to walk the streets. He could settle that easily enough by just calling _Interplanet_. They'd send someone down to whisk him away. That would solve all his problems--or would it? Certainly, it eliminated orientation or any form of psychotherapy. After what had happened to the others, the psychologists would be content merely to observe what went on in his mind. They wouldn't want to give him much privacy, but he'd have to insist on it. They'd listen. This could be just a job, a very good job while it lasted--say three or four years--until they had learned all they need to know. Perhaps there would be other men blended more scientifically than he had been. But he could accumulate enough money to last the rest of his life, or perhaps turn his many new talents to something else. There were many things he would like to do, and he was ahead of everyone else now, even though in three or four years he would no longer be unique. Except, of course, in his body. And there it was again. Was there nothing he could do to get away from it? He had no memory of Erica except for the one night, but it was enough to convince him. What would their future be like in what was sure to follow? After that broadcast, he would be a person of some note, but would that stop laughter? Would she wait until he left the room before she giggled? He'd come to terms with _Interplanet_, but first he had to come to terms with himself ... and he hadn't. How good was his imaginary Wysocki's theorem? Could it take one last extension? He counted what was left of the money Erica had given him. It wasn't much, but with it he could leave the city. And he had to. V It was dusk when he slipped out of the room and later still when the plane lifted away from the station. It was an ancient jet, long since relegated to cheap overnight service where speed was not a factor and price was. He knew he was taking a chance and half expected to be stopped, but apparently not many people had listened to the broadcast. Casual glances slid off him and didn't linger. Partly, he suspected, because he had pulled his hat over his face and thrust his hands in the jacket. He'd gotten away in time, but by the morning there would be people on the streets looking for him. He stared at the approximation of a port. When this ship had been built, there was some feeling against the practice and so the row of picture tubes had been camouflaged as ports in the wall. There was a station selector switch, but none for _on_ or _off_. He glowered at the picture at his elbow and turned to the least annoying thing he could find. Across the aisle, there were three other programs he could see distinctly. The one directly opposite was a repeat of the broadcast he had heard a few hours previously. He scowled and looked away. If it hadn't been a night plane, in which people sought sleep, he would certainly have been spotted. Apathy was his best protection. He hunched down in his seat and dozed off. When he awakened, the familiar _Interplanet_ program was at his elbow. He reached to change stations, then on impulse let his hand continue past the knob until he felt the ash tray. He unfastened the heavy article and poked it through the screen. The glass broke, but only a few in the immediate vicinity heard it in the din. To those who stared at him, he presented a view of his back or the profile of his hat. They glanced at him indifferently, then looked away. Outside the orifice, where the tube had been in the outer of two walls, was an actual port. He gazed through it contentedly. A finger tapped him. "Yes?" he said in a loud voice. The man behind him leaned over. "I've been riding in this plane once a week for five years. I mean, would you mind if I looked out? I've never seen where I'm going." "Glad to have you." The man sat beside him and peered wistfully out. Below were lights, the patterns of cities, roads and towns and in the distance the glare of furnaces. There was also a current of cold air seeping from the space between the double walls. The man looked, shivered, turned up his collar and finally went back to his seat. It was cold, but Merrol remained where he was. There was some satisfaction in asserting himself, but the satisfaction wore off and the cold didn't. His attention was caught by the program which was flickering across the aisle. Doctor Crander--Merrol frowned. Did the hospital want him too? He listened intently. No, they didn't want him. * * * * * Crander sounded tired. "This is an emergency appeal and we'll need a wide response. We have in our care a person with a serious illness we can't diagnose. With so much interplanetary travel we can't determine what causes the disease. It may be an organism from a moon of Saturn or almost anything else. "Our staff is working at top speed. We feel, if we can keep her alive for one week, she'll be out of danger. That is by no means a certainty, but a reasonably accurate forecast. "We have a new theory, largely untested, but we hope it will work. Each person differs from the next and though, when we match limbs and organs, we try to take this into account, we never quite succeed in effecting a perfect biological match. As a result, the character of the blood changes, slightly but significantly. It's as if we had lumped together the various natural immunities of the component bodies and created an entirely new super-immunity." Crander paused. "We need persons who have had five or more major replacements. By major, I mean hands, arms, legs or parts of them--nothing so trivial as ears, or a few feet of skin, or three or four fingers. "It must be at least five, though more are correspondingly better. Nothing less--and please don't apply with only a minor replacement. Two donors have volunteered so far and we have fractioned and administered the blood of one with dramatic, if temporary, results. In a few hours, we'll have to use the second. After that, I don't know what we'll do." Merrol stirred. He was deeply suspicious. "Here's the woman," said Crander. "She needs your help." The man across the aisle leaned forward and his head was in front of the picture. Merrol tried to see, but couldn't. "It's up to you," said Crander as he faded from the screen. Merrol tapped the man across the aisle. "Please repeat it." The man glanced around and saw who it was. "Aw, you're the guy who doesn't like that stuff." He jerked his head at the broken screen. The memory cell of the picture tube didn't have a long attention span. It could recall forty-five seconds of the past program and no longer. The broadcast might be repeated, or it might not. Did he want to wait? He reached out his arm--the long one--and fastened onto the man's jacket, giving him a short rough shove. "Repeat it, I said!" The man looked down. He wasn't small himself, but it was a large fist. "Sure thing," he said, jabbing the repeat button. The scene was replayed. "Thanks," said Merrol, letting go. The man looked at his crumpled clothing. "Not at all," he muttered, sliding away against the wall. "Don't mention it." * * * * * The woman was Erica. It was too much of a coincidence that, among so many millions in the city, she should be the one. The hospital and _Interplanet_ were working together and now they had brought in Erica. How gullible did they think he was and how much had they offered her for this? It might not be money, though--they might have convinced her it was to Dan's own best interest that they get in touch with him immediately. They were baiting him crudely and if they weren't, there were others who could respond as well as he. There must be hundreds in the vicinity, scores at any rate, who could qualify. There were enough without him, depending on how often the blood fraction was needed. Crander hadn't said. It was a trick and Erica wasn't ill--or if she was, she would be safe without him. He had to make up his mind before he saw her, and he couldn't. He clenched his hands, both big and little. He had stretched Wysocki's theorem too far and it had failed. "I had a wife once." The voice startled him, but he sat still, hoping to hear it again. Maybe they would tell him what to do. "Not so slender as Erica. Rather bouncy, in fact, but I liked her. Pity she ran away with a coleopterist. Never could understand what she saw in him." The voice grew sad. "_Beetles!_" "My advice is that wives are easily come by," said a theatrical voice, modulated for effect. "But before he shuffles off this mortal coil to the last roundup, every man should have at least one wife like Erica." "I can't speak of wives or women," said the musician. "There's so little memory left, mostly music. But you've been subconsciously humming a tune for days--and I must tell you that Beethoven didn't write anything called Erica. The correct title is Eroica." "One fall don't mean nothing, it's always the best two out of three. The way I see it, you gotta get up. Get close to them, hold them tight, or they'll throw you outta the ring." "This is something that can't be figured. There are some odds no one can live by. You'll have to solve this one yourself." He sat there, not moving. They were with him always, but sometimes they weren't much help. The plane would land on the other side of the continent. He had little money, but he could get in touch with _Interplanet_ and they would advance him the fare back. Unfortunately, such a move would take time. There would be schedules to juggle, to say nothing of the ride back. A mere matter of hours on a fast ship--yet what if that was too long? * * * * * He got to his feet and went forward. "You can't go in there," said the stewardess. He looked past her into the pilot's compartment. It was securely locked from this side though not on the other. He glanced down at the girl. It was a tradition that stewardesses were gorgeous creatures, though the tradition was simply not true any longer. In an age of space exploration, air travel had dispensed with glamor. But for unfathomable reasons, this stewardess was a throwback to the old days. If she didn't quite achieve real beauty, she came close enough so that no healthy male could conceivably object to her nearness. Merrol could take the keys away from her, but she'd scream and a dozen men would come leaping to her rescue. He didn't care for the odds. He had met three women and had he misjudged the effect of the new himself on them? First Erica--her behavior had been strange, considering that, even from the first, she must have doubted he was her husband. Then the receptionist--she _had_ gone out of her way to get him into Crander's office when the latter was upset by the disappearance of a patient. And finally, the pathetic Miss Jerrems, who had thawed and would have descended to crooked schemes, had he encouraged her. Was this some form of pity or something quite different--or did it matter at all as long as they were not indifferent? There was a way to find out. He raised his arm, the shorter one, and laid his hand affectionately on the stewardess' shoulder. "Isn't there a private room in back?" She tilted her head and her lips glistened. "Yes, there is." "Small enough for two?" "I believe so." Her lashes trembled and lowered and she seemed surprised that they did. "That is if you--if we snuggled close." "I'm sure we will. Why don't you find out about that room?" "It seems like a good idea." She blushed and turned to leave. "I'll need keys, won't I?" he said. She leaned against him and the keys dropped into his hand. "I'll be waiting," she whispered. He watched her walk down the aisle and enjoyed the enticing sway of her hips. Under other circumstances, he might have considered joining her. He had the keys! It had worked! He didn't know why, nor did he have time to think about it. He inserted the key and stepped inside. "Hi, Jane," sang out the pilot, not turning, assuming he knew who it was. Merrol located the autopilot switch and, reaching past the man, turned it on. With the same motion he whirled the pilot around. "Listen, friend, don't you want to go back?" "No. Why should I?" The pilot was startled, but not intimidated. "Engine trouble or something. You figure it out. I don't care what it is, as long as we get back." He half-hoped the man would object--physical action would be a relief. In an emergency, he could handle the ship himself--it was simpler than a spaceship. * * * * * The pilot squinted beyond and behind him. "Engines don't sound so good," he muttered. He was unexpectedly docile. "Safety first is the motto of this airline." It was a good rule, but it was questionable whose safety he was referring to. The pilot was still having unaccountable difficulty with his eyes--there was a marked tendency to cross. "Sure, we'll go back," he said. "Glad you brought it to my attention. But call off your gang, will you, mister?" Merrol turned around. He was alone. There was no one behind him, though the pilot seemed convinced there was. He had a partial answer to the pilot's strange reaction. He was a multiple personality and, normally latent, in times of stress the multi-personality became dominant and impressed itself psychologically on the observer. And if the mind received the impression of several men, the eye tried hard to produce evidence that would confirm it. Not everyone was as successful at self-hypnosis as the pilot, but the temptation toward it was always there. Now that he thought of it, men never had laughed at him. Instead they had been respectful. He apparently had an unsettling effect on those of his own sex he came in contact with--just how powerful it was, he didn't know yet. The complete answer would have to await investigation by trained psychologists. Women were different. They invariably laughed first--Erica too, in spite of the general sympathy she must have felt for him. In what did the difference lie? That too he would have to determine--later. The pilot looked at him dizzily, beseechingly. Merrol decided he must be pouring it on, though he felt no different. "Remember, I can get up here in an awful hurry," said Merrol, "so no tricks." The pilot nodded and clung helplessly to the controls. He wouldn't cause any trouble. Merrol raised his arm in a gesture. "Come on, fellows." As an afterthought, he locked the stewardess in the private compartment and, as he did so, he could feel the plane swing in a wide arc that would take them to the station they had started from. The apathetic dozing passengers didn't even notice. And then all six of him walked back to his seat and Merrol sat down. VI He slid out of the plane while it was still rolling. He didn't want to argue with the passengers, when they found they were on the wrong coast and he was to blame. Nor did he particularly want to explain to the authorities. Later he would have to, but by then he would have powerful interests behind him to smooth over the incident. It was late and there were no cabs in sight, in air or on surface. He crossed the landing strip into the station and out of it and swept along the dark streets with a loose-jointed stride that made the distance seem less than it was. Presently, he broke into a trot and his speed was encouraging. A hoppicopter--one of the little surface cars that could rise and fly for a short time to avoid traffic jams--bounced down and rolled alongside. A window slid open and a head popped out. "In a hurry, mister?" He bobbed his head. "Hospital." "Jump in and we'll take you. We're not doing anything special--just riding around." The hoppicopter stopped. This was luck--he'd get there faster. The man in the front seat opened the door and stepped out, flashing a light on him. "Just a check. We don't mind taking you, but we want to be sure we don't pick up some rough character." The man didn't look so gentle himself--and the light was trained on Dan too long. If they were afraid, he'd have to refuse their offer and go on. "Hey, Carl," the man with the flash called out puzzledly. "Haven't we seen this guy somewhere before?" He should have expected something like this and not stopped--but maybe it would have been worse if he hadn't. So far, he had been lucky that no one had spotted him--and now was not the time to be discussing terms with _Interplanet_. He began to edge away. Carl climbed out of the hoppicopter and circled in the same direction Merrol was inching toward. "I guess I have at that," said Carl slowly. He was a big man. "Can't say where, though." Merrol breathed more easily. He couldn't make a break for it, but perhaps he wouldn't have to. They might not have seen the broadcast. "I've got to hurry," he said. "I'll go on." "Don't get sore," said Carl soothingly. "We'll take you. Climb in." The man with the light was frowning indecisively. "The guy on the broadcast?" he asked sharply. "Nah," said Carl disgustedly. "That guy--you look at his picture and you have to bust out laughing. Now this fellow here--while he's a long way from handsome--is clearly the executive type, a man you can trust." Carl scrutinized him thoughtfully. Before Merrol could stop him, he reached out and plucked off the hat. "There's only one guy with three-colored hair, though, and you've got it," he said unbelievingly. Merrol started to back away, but the body of the hoppicopter stopped him. "Mister, you've sure got some disguise," said the other man in an awed voice. "I could look right at you all day and not tell who it was." * * * * * It was no disguise, it was the multi-personality again. No one looked quite the same in real life as in a picture, because the personality was missing. And with him the difference was far more marked. The camera could register his features accurately, but men couldn't, not when he was actually there to inspire trust and respect--and he did arouse those emotions. Added together, these were some of the reasons why he hadn't hitherto been recognized. "Sorry to have bothered you," he said, pushing between them as they converged on him. "I'm in a hurry." "Sure, sure," said Carl, apologetically, moving aside. "But he's money!" the man with the flashlight cried in an anguished voice. "So he is!" said Carl. The vision of money seemed to carry a lot of weight with him. He seemed reluctant to act, but he reached out and swung Merrol around. "We'll take you to _Interplanet_ and then you can go to the hospital. Don't worry, we aren't going to do nothing. It don't _pay_ us to hurt you." Their original intentions were probably sincere, but now that they thought they'd found money on the street, they weren't willing to let it go. But Merrol was not going to accompany them to _Interplanet_. He jerked away. "We'll split the reward," said Carl. "Too bad we got to carry him in." Merrol tried to elude him, but Carl caught his arm in a bone-cracking hold. That is, it ought to have splintered bone. That it didn't was not due to lack of skill, but to the proportions of the arm to which it was applied. The advantage of leverage went to Merrol and he used it. He broke loose and swung the long arm with the large fist and Carl went down. The man with the light dropped it, climbed on Merrol's back and was pounding away at a nerve. Had he found the nerve, Merrol might have crumpled to the street. He didn't find it, because it wasn't there. The nerve had been surgically rerouted. Merrol peeled him off and tossed him on top of Carl. He tossed him harder than he meant to and neither man moved. He climbed into the hoppicopter and rolled it through the dark streets. They had caused him to lose time and for this they would forfeit the use of their 'copter. They could pick it up in the morning, if they felt like claiming it. He got out and hurried into the hospital. He met others in the corridors--it was a busy place in spite of the lateness--but the first person he recognized was Erica. "Dan!" she said. She didn't use anything scientific, but the hold on him was harder to break than judo. Perhaps because he didn't want to. Later, he became aware of someone tapping his shoulder. He turned around. "These things can be consummated in the privacy of one's own home," murmured Doctor Crander. "But when a life is at stake, passion should be put aside." The purely physical elation began to fade. He put Erica down, but uncertainly holding onto her. It was an ambivalent gesture. "Is this what you call an emergency?" he asked sarcastically. He had broken a number of minor laws and nearly his own neck in getting here. He had a right to be angry, though he was not sure how he felt. The doctor gave him a scandalized look. "Do you think we're unethical? There is such a woman as we described, one of our staff. We do have other donors, but we think you can do more for her. In a fit of despondency, this woman wandered into the extraterrestrial room without the customary protection, hoping to catch something--and she did." Crander frowned. "The only way we altered facts was to use your wife's photo. It was her idea. Furthermore, it is true that a pretty girl gets a better response--and, of course, Erica wanted you back." When he learned who the patient was, he was satisfied with his decision. After the blood fraction had been administered to Miss Jerrems, even his untrained eyes could see the improvement. * * * * * He watched Erica suspiciously as she pattered about in a state of dishabille that did nothing to enhance her beauty but, perversely, made her more exciting. That she had been uncertain as to his identity the last time meant little and he could forgive it. Man and wife were not thereby distinct species, separate to themselves, unattracted or repelled by all others of the opposite sex. For himself, he had only to remember the stewardess. But it was important to know what her true feelings toward him were. Laughter at the wrong time could be disastrous to a man's ego! "This time, you know there's no mistake," he said, hoping that irony was some protection. "But are you sure you want me as a husband?" She stopped fiddling with her hair. She tilted her head and looked at him, at a body that defied the laws of anatomy and the face that belonged on a clown--except that a clown could take his face off. "Are you trying to get rid of me?" She was asking questions, not answering them. Erica was examining him carefully and he could tell that she, unlike a male, saw each feature distinctly, saw the nose that had belonged to someone else and looked it, the jaw, originally very fine, but with contours that had since melted out of shape. "I'm not trying to get rid of you," he said. "Maybe you want somebody nicer." He'd have to know before he could stop feeling tormented. "Nicer?" she echoed. "Do you want me to answer that?" * * * * * She came and leaned against him. "A woman ought to have _some_ secrets," she murmured. "But if you have to know, the first time I saw you I laughed, because you are funny. And after that, well, I saw traces of the nicest features of nearly every man I ever had a crush on. That was just the physical side." She rested her head on his shoulder. "I didn't believe you actually were Dan. I didn't pay attention to a thing you said." "But if you didn't believe...." "Just what you're thinking," she answered. "I couldn't help it. You're the most exciting challenge a woman can have. Even if she doesn't know why, as I didn't then, it's still there--half a dozen men, and all of them in one monogamous package." Now that she put it that way, he could see why she hadn't been able to resist. He could see that there were few women who could. He glanced at a framed photograph of the handsome pre-accident Dan Merrol that stood on the bureau. He thought, _Poor sucker!_ 
51773	----	SCENT MAKES A DIFFERENCE By JAMES STAMERS Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine April 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] What I wanted was a good night's sleep. What I got was visitation rights with the most exasperating pack of sleepwalkers in history. A fried egg came floating up through the stone steps of the Medical Center and broke on my shoe. According to my watch, it was time for the breakfast I didn't have that morning, so I waited a moment for the usual two rashers of bacon. When they materialized, I hopped aside to avoid them and went back into the building, where the elevator took me straight up to the psychiatric floor, without asking. "Your blood pressure, salts, minerals, vitamins, basal metabolism, brain pattern, nervous reflexes and skin temperature control are within accepted tolerances," it droned, opening the doors to let me off. "You have no clinical organic disorders; you weigh a hundred and fifty-two pounds, Earth, measure six feet one inch, and have a clear pallid complexion and an egg on your shoe." I walked down the corridor to Dr. Doogle Spacio-Psycho Please Enter and went determinedly in. "Name, please," said the blonde receptionist, tapping her nail eroder. "Jones. Harry Jones." "Mr. Harry K. Jones, the physicist?" "Yes." "Oh, no," she said, fiddling with the appointment list, "Mr. Harry K. Jones has just had his morning appointment and left." "I know," I said. "An important piece of clinical data has just turned up. I have returned with an egg on my shoe." "I think you'd better see the doctor." I sat down to wait and took the little bottle of pills from my pocket. "From the Galaxy to you, through Dr. Doogle, Spacio-Psycho," it said on the label. "The last word in tranquilizers. Conservative Zen methods only, appointments any hour, first consultation free, no obligation, call personal transmitter DDK 51212-6790, Earth. Active ingredients oxylatohydrobenzoic-phe-ophenophino, sugar, coloring to 100%." * * * * * The inner office door opened and Dr. Doogle smiled fatly at me from behind his expensive desk. "Do come in," he called, "and tell me all about it." "It's happened again," I said, going into his office. "Well, why not, if you feel that way? Nurse, bring me Mr. Hing-humph's case history." "Mr. Har-ry K. Jo-nes' film is in the transcriber, Doctor," said the receptionist. "Mr. Jones, the physicist." "Ah, yes, of course. Please sit down, Mr. Jones. Now what exactly is the trouble? Hold nothing back, tell me all, reveal your intimate thoughts." "The main entrance just served me the breakfast that your diet forbids," I said, sitting down. "Plain case of wish fulfillment. Put it down to poltergeists, Mr. Jones." "And what exactly do you mean by that?" "Well, now," Dr. Doogle said, drumming his fat fingers, "I don't think we need to go into technicalities, Mr. Jones." "Look," I said firmly. "I came to you to get a quiet night's sleep. No more insomnia, you said, leave your problems in the laboratory, let not the nucleii banish sleep, work hard, sleep hard, take tranquilizers and enjoy the useful recuperation of the daily wear on body tissues, deep dreamless sleep of the innocent." He look at me suspiciously. "It sounds like the sort of advice I might have given," he admitted. "Well, at least I managed to keep my dreams in my head until I started your treatment. I have an urgent problem to solve that vitally affects national security. I can't have this sort of thing happening in the middle of an experiment." I pointed to the fried egg on my shoe and shook it off on the pile of his green carpet. "Yes. Well," he said, peering over the desk at it. "If you feel that strongly, Mr. Jones, perhaps you'd better give up the diet and just take the pills." "I want to know how it happens," I said, and I settled firmly into the consulting chair. Dr. Doogle coughed professionally. "Of course, of course. You are an intelligent man, Mr. Jones. One of our leading physical scientists. Naturally you wish to know the precise mechanism of such phenomena. Very commendable and entirely natural. Think no more about it." "Dr. Doogle, do you know what you are doing?" "Spacio-Psycho is still in its early stages, Mr. Jones. You are really privileged to be a pioneer, you know. We have had some most interesting results with that new tranquilizer. I hope you're not losing faith, Mr. Jones?" "I accept the orthodox philosophy of Spacio-Psycho, it is only the basic philosophy of Ch'anna or Zen, and I had the routine scientific education, naturally." "Ah," said Dr. Doogle with rapture, "the substratum of the universe is no-mind, and thus all material things are in constant unimpeded mutual solution. Ji-ji-muge, the appleness of an apple is indistinguishable from the cupness of a cup." "And an egg on the shoe is the breakfast I didn't have," I said. "Here," he said. "I think those pills are sending your sleeping mind down beyond the purely personal level of your own emotions and subconscious cerebrations. Take these, in a little water, half an hour before going to bed." I stood up and walked over to the door. "What are they?" I asked. "Same as before, only stronger. Should send you right down to the root of things. Pass quiet nights in no-mind, Mr. Jones, sleep beyond the trammels of self, support yourself on the universal calm sea of no-mind." "If these don't work, there'll be no-fee," I told him. * * * * * I took three of the stronger pills that night, turned off the light and lay back in bed, waiting for sleep to come and get me. The antiseptic odor of the Medical Center recalled itself, but nothing else happened, and I was still waiting to go to sleep when I woke up next morning. No dreams of a breakfast I couldn't eat, no dreams at all. I had been smelling the memory of formaldehyde and just slid off to sleep. I could still smell it, for that matter, as if it were coming from the slightly open bedroom window. I looked up. "Hallo," said the tall skinny man in a doctor's coat on the window sill. "Hallo yourself," I said. "Go away, I'm awake." "Yes, you are. At least I assume you are. But I'm not." I sat up and looked at him, and he obligingly turned his head to profile against the brightness of the window. He had a sharp, beaky face that was familiar. "Haven't we met somewhere?" I asked. "Certainly," he said, in a slightly affected voice. "Well?" "I don't know your name," he said, "but I have a very important post-operative case at present, and you keep charging around the ward when you're asleep. I just came over, as soon as I could get a few hours' sleep myself, to ask you to stop doing it, if you don't mind." "I've done no such thing." "You were doing it all last night, my friend." "I was not," I said. "I spent last night here in my own bed. I didn't even dream." "Ah, that probably accounts for it. Tell me, do you take drugs, tranquilizers, by any chance? We've had a lot of trouble with that. They seem to cause a bubble in the sequence of probabilities and things shift about. I've been taking a new one myself, while this case is on. I suspect that although I'm dreaming you, I think, you are not asleep at all. At least I wasn't when you made all that noise in my ward last night." "No, I'm awake," I said. "Very much so." "I see. Well, I shall wake up soon myself and go back to my own world, of course. But while I'm here, I suppose you haven't any advanced works on post-operative hyperspace relapse? "Pity," he said, as I shook my head. "I suppose you have no information on the fourth octave of ultra-uranium elements?" He shook his head. "Didn't even know they existed," he said. "I don't believe they do in my probable time. What are you, a physicist? Ah," he added, as I nodded, "I wanted to specialize in physics when I was in college, but I went in for medicine instead." "So did I," I said, "medicine, I mean, but I never passed pharmacology with all those confusing extraterrestrial derivatives." "Really?" he said interestedly. "It's my weakest subject, too. I'm a pretty good surgeon, but an awful fool with medications. I suppose that's how we got together. You won't come busting up the ward again, will you?" "I'd like to be obliging, but if I don't dream and I don't know where I am when I'm asleep, I don't see what I can do to stop it. It's not as if I'm really there, is it?" * * * * * He crossed his arms and frowned at me. "Look," he said. "In my probable time, you're as much physically there as I am now in your time here. I'll prove it. I know I'm asleep in the emergency surgeon's room in my hospital. You know you're awake in your bedroom." He held out his hand and walked across the floor to me. "My name's Jones," he said. "So's mine," I answered, shaking his solid hand. "This must be a very vivid dream to you." We smiled at each other, and as he turned away, I caught sight of his reflection in the wall mirror beside my hairbrush on the cabinet. "Good heavens!" I said. "In a mirror, you look exactly like me. Is your name Harry Jones?" He stopped, walked over to the mirror and moved about until he could see me in it. "Harold K. Jones," he said. "You've got the face I shave every morning, but I've only just recognized you. You're me." "I prefer to think you are me," I said. "So you did fail that final pharmacology exam, eh? And I didn't, in my probability. Well, well. I must admit it seemed more probable I would fail at the time, but I passed." "It was that tramp Kate's fault. She said yes too easily." He coughed and looked at his fingers. "She said no to me. And, as a matter of fact, after I passed I married her. She's my wife." "I'm sorry. I meant nothing personal." "You never married?" "I never really got over Kate," I said. "I wonder what would have happened if I had qualified and then not married her." "You mean what _did_ happen--to the Harry K. Jones who passed in pharmacology but did not marry Kate. He must be around in another probability somewhere, the same as we are. Good heavens," I shouted, "somewhere I may have solved the fourth octave equation." "You're right, Harry. And I may have found out how to get hyperspace relapse under control." "Harold," I said, "This is momentous! It is more probable that you-I and I-you will make a mess of things, but there must be other probability sequences where we are successful." "And we can get to them," he shouted, jumping up. "Are you using oxylatohydrobenzoic-pheophenophino?" "Something like that." "Three pills last thing at night?" "Yes." "Ever have foreign bodies materialize into your time-space?" "Several breakfasts," I said. "The last egg was yesterday, on my shoe." "It was Virginia ham with me, so I stopped dieting and increased the dosage." "So did I," I said. "I suppose, apart from major points where a whole probability branches off, we lead much the same lives. But eggs don't dream. How did the ham get into your waking world?" "Harry, really! I have a tendency to jump to conclusions, which you must control. How do you know eggs don't dream? I would have thought, though, that a pig was peculiarly liable to the nightmare that it will end up as a rasher--any reasonably observant pig, that is. But I don't think that is necessary. Obviously, we are dipping down to a stratum where things coexist in fact, and not merely one in fact and the other in mind, or one probability and not its twin alternative. Now, how do I get hold of the me that solved this hyperspace relapse business?" "And I the ultra-uranium octave relationship," I added. "Look out," he said. "I'm waking up. Good-by, Harry. Look after myself...." He flickered, paused in recovery and then faded insubstantially away. I looked around my empty bedroom. Then, because it was time to go to work at the laboratory, I shaved, dressed and left my apartment, as usual. * * * * * Some high brass and politicians had been visiting the laboratory, showing off to their females how they were important enough to visit the top-secret bomb proving labs, and the thick perfume was hanging in the sealed rooms like a damp curtain. "I wish they wouldn't bring women into the unventilated labs," I grumbled to my assistant. "Never mind, Chief. If you can make this bomb work, they'll let you build your own lab in the Nevada desert, with no roads to it. Have you found the solution?" "I'll tell you when I have," I said. "But I do have a new approach to the problem." And as soon as I could, I left the labs and went back to my apartment downtown, took three pills and lay still, waiting for sleep. I could not get the smell of that perfume in the lab out of my nose. It was a heavy gardenia-plus-whatnot odor. I woke up in the middle of the night with the perfume still clinging to the air. The room was dark and I crossed my fingers as I leaned over to turn on the bedside lamp. If mental concentration on all the possible errors in my work was the key, the successful me should be here in the room, snatched from his own segment of probability. I turned on the light. There was no one else in the room. "Hell," I said. Perhaps it just meant he, or that me, was not asleep, or was perversely not using tranquilizers. Or didn't that matter? No, I controlled this alone and had gone wrong. "Did you say something, Harry?" asked Kate, stepping out of the bathroom and pulling the top of her nightgown into, I guess, place. "Ooo, fancy dreaming about you. This is odd." I sat up and covered myself protectively in the bedsheets. "Look, Kate," I said. "I don't want to see you. I'm not your husband, really. He's a pleasant fellow, I met him today, and he's not me. I never became a doctor. No doubt you remember what I was doing instead of studying." That was a mistake, for she came and sat on the edge of the bed and ran her fingers into my hair. "I thought it was odd I should dream about my husband," she said. "I'll believe you, because I don't know how I got here and you do look like the Harry I used to know, before he went all high scientific surgeon and no time for fun." She curved more fully than she had when she was eighteen, but there was neat symmetry to her sine formulae, and she still had blonde hair. Her perfume was the same as the one in the lab I had been smelling all day, it was now reaching me at high amperage. So that was the key, the evocative power of smell association. I sniffed deeply at the perfume in appreciation. "Like it?" Kate asked, wriggling. "Only for its scientific values," I said. "It suggests a most valuable line of research." "I'm in favor," she said, and pressed me to the bed. "Your husband is coming!" I shouted, and it worked. She disappeared. Presumably she woke up in her own probability time-space. And no doubt Kate's reflexes by now were trained to snap her awake and away at the suggestion that her husband was around. It was highly improbable that Kate would alter much. I got up to make myself some coffee. There was no point in wasting sleep without a plan. Clearly, I had to take the pills and fix the appropriate smell in my mind, and when I woke up I would drag the proper slice of another probability with me. And then I would interview the me who had solved the ultra-uranium heavy element equation. And the bomb to end all bombs would be perfected. The test was ready, waiting for me to say, "Let's go, boys. We know what will happen this time." But there was, it struck me, the difficulty of finding the right scent to evoke the right probable me. * * * * * I collected all the toothpaste, deodorant, shaving stick, aftershave lotion I could find in the bathroom and started on the toothpaste. I inhaled deeply and lay down, with the first tube on my chest. But after the coffee, I slept very briefly, and when I looked up there was only a toothbrush on the carpet. It was not mine in this world and I had no idea whose it was, or rather which probable me it belonged to. But at least this established the principle. The smell produced the object--and, if I went deep enough in sleep, it would produce the whole Jones. I dressed quickly and went out for a walk in the night air, breathing deeply and memorizing every scent I came across. Then I went back to the apartment, sniffed hard at the row of personal unguents, and lay down to sleep. When I woke up, it was morning and the room was full of people. There were about a dozen of me, some wearing very odd clothes, some scowling, others grinning unbecomingly, and some looking just plain stupid. "Gentlemen," I said, standing up on my bed, "I am sorry to disturb your dreams but a matter of vital consequence has made me call you all here. I am Harry, or Harold K. Jones, and I became a physicist. I need your help. Do any of you know anything about the octaves of elements beyond uranium?" There was a babble, through which I heard chiefly: "The man's mad.... He says he's me.... Who are you, anyway?... No, you're not. _I'm_ Jones...." "Please, gentlemen," I said. "I don't expect we have much time before some of you wake up in your own probability. You, sir, in the armchair--yes, you in the tight pants--how about you?" "Me?" he said. "I'm Captain Jones. Third Vector Spacefleet. Engineer rank. Who the galactic hellix are you, eh?" Even from the bed, I could detect the smell of sweat and grease from his working uniform. "I suppose you took up flight engineering at high school?" I suggested. "Quite right," he snapped. An early deviation, obviously. I remembered being enthralled with the arrival when I was a kid of the early space rockets, but my enthusiasm was daunted by old Birchall, who made us stick to airplanes. Obviously, his was not. "How about you?" I asked, pointing to the thinnest me in the room. "Penal colony on Arcetus," he said. "Eternal labor." "Oh, I'm sorry. I wonder which time--well, how many physicists are there here, or physical chemists, or astronomers, or even general scientists?" I walked around the room, detecting toothpaste brands A, B, C and Whitebrighter, and a range of toilet preparations with manly odors contributing to our popularity with friends, relatives, girls and bosses, but no other physicist. Not a trace of research in my line. And one or two of them were already showing signs of waking up elsewhere and disappearing from the room. I was about to start tracing it back to the point when I abandoned a medical career, and I could still smell the formaldehyde, when Dr. Harold K. Jones appeared. "Look," he said, "I want you to keep away from Kate. Perhaps I didn't make that clear yesterday.... Good heavens, where did you get all of these me from? Does anyone here know anything about post-operative hyperspace relapse?" * * * * * Disgustedly, I saw that more than half of them did. Perhaps I should have been a doctor, after all. The probabilities were heavily represented in medicine. I sat on the bed and stared at my toes while the doctors babbled excitedly together. I gathered that Dr. Harold K. Jones had solved his problem, anyway. "Excuse me," said a thoughtful me in a very quiet voice. "I didn't want to make myself obtrusive, but I did do a certain amount of research on the theoretical possibilities of elements heavier than uranium. It seemed to me they might go on being discovered almost indefinitely." "They are," I said quickly, "octave after octave of them. Tell me about it, please." "Look," he said, "it was only an idea. I really specialized in biochemistry, but we do use trace elements, and the formula I worked out at the time was--let me see...." "Please try to remember," I said. "Ah, yes, it was this," he said, and the strain of remembering woke him up and he disappeared back to his own probability. "This was damned well planned, Harry!" said Dr. Harold K. Jones enthusiastically. "I think we can save hundreds of people every year now. I always knew I had it in me." "Listen, Jones," said Captain Jones of the Third Vector Spacefleet, pushing himself through the crowd. "I've been talking to one or two of the others, see, and if you have the galactic gall to disturb my sleep again, I'm going to blast you. Is that clear?" "Perfectly," I said. "It's tricky out in space, you know. No hard feelings, but the fraction of a micro-error and _poof_! You see what I mean. I must get a sound sleep at stand-down." "Don't forget what I said about Kate," Dr. Harold K. Jones remembered to warn me. "I know how to do it, too. And you can have an accident with my instruments--easily." He disappeared. I watched as the others woke up and went, one by one, even the felon from Arcetus, until they were all gone and I was alone with dark thoughts on heavy elements. It was so improbable that I was the only me who had worked on these lines, and very probable that if two of us with similar minds did work on the same problem, we could between us find the answer. Look at Dr. Jones and his hyperspace relapse. Thinking of Dr. Jones made me think of Kate, and I fell asleep again with the memory of her scent in my head, as if I were really smelling it. When I woke up again, halfway through the morning, there she was in my room. She was at least dressed this time, but she smiled familiarly at me. "For God's sake, Kate," I said, "go back to your husband!" * * * * * She began to cry. "Oh, Haroldkin," she said. "I'm so glad to see you. I must be dreaming, because I know you're dead, but I've kept everything just the way it was. Look--I haven't even touched your messy desk." "Are you sitting in a room?" I asked. "I'm in your study, Haroldkin," she said, surprised. "Can't you see?" "No, as a matter of fact, I can't." "Oh! Then I can throw out all these old papers?" "What old papers?" "Oh, I don't know, Haroldkin," Kate said. "You made such a fuss about failing that silly medical exam that you never let me touch your desk when you graduated in physics." "Physics!" "Yes," said Kate, throwing paper after paper onto the carpet. She made sweeping motions in the air and dumped a mass of notes into her lap. They appeared on her fingertips, but they stayed in existence when she dropped them on the carpet. "How did I die?" I asked, bending down and thumbing rapidly over the papers. "A bomb went off," she said. "I really don't want to talk about it. But you were so _eminent_, Haroldkin!" I must have been very soft in the discrimination to have allowed that revolting nickname, I thought, but it was clear from the papers I was holding that I knew my physics. And there it was, printed in an issue of the _Commission's Journal_ that never existed in my time-space, the whole equation I was looking for. It was so obvious when I read it that I could not understand how I failed to think of it for myself--for my own myself, that is. When I looked up, this probable Kate had gone. I wanted to thank her, but the evening would do. Meanwhile, here was the ultra-uranium fourth octave equation. I called the laboratory, read it off to my assistant, and told him to get on with the test. "Right, Chief. I'll go down myself and give you a report when I get back." I said fine and took the rest of the day off. It was the peak of my career so far, and from the widow Kate's comments, it seemed as if I had a great probable career to come. Of course, I would have to redouble our safety precautions at the labs and it would be best if I never went near the proving grounds. That other physicist me probably made some error that I would avoid, being forewarned. By evening, I decided to try to locate that probable Kate again, to thank her, and to find out exactly how that poor me blew himself up with a bomb. With care, I recalled the perfume and also the musty smell of the papers, for I did not want Dr. Harold K. Jones' Kate appearing. Then I removed all other odoriferous substances from the bedroom, took three pills and was about to lie down to sleep when my assistant called to report on the test. "That you, Chief? What a success! We're made. Your name's in lights, Chief! It was the most colossal explosion I've ever seen. It burned the area like toast. It even smelled like toast, with a touch of ozone and sulphur. Very strong smell...." "Stop!" I screamed. "Stop!" But it was too late. I could smell it clearly as he had described it. And now the pills are working. How in the name of heaven am I going to stay awake? Because once I fall asleep.... 
18581	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 18581-h.htm or 18581-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/5/8/18581/18581-h/18581-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/5/8/18581/18581-h.zip) ADRIFT IN NEW YORK Or, Tom and Florence Braving the World by HORATIO ALGER, JR. Author of "Mark Mason's Victory," "Ben Bruce," "Bernard Brook's Adventures," "A Debt of Honor," etc., etc. A. L. Burt Company, Publishers New York 1900 ADRIFT IN NEW YORK. Chapter I. The Missing Heir. "Uncle, you are not looking well to-night." "I'm not well, Florence. I sometimes doubt if I shall ever be any better." "Surely, uncle, you cannot mean----" "Yes, my child, I have reason to believe that I am nearing the end." "I cannot bear to hear you speak so, uncle," said Florence Linden, in irrepressible agitation. "You are not an old man. You are but fifty-four." "True, Florence, but it is not years only that make a man old. Two great sorrows have embittered my life. First, the death of my dearly beloved wife, and next, the loss of my boy, Harvey." "It is long since I have heard you refer to my cousin's loss. I thought you had become reconciled--no, I do not mean that,--I thought your regret might be less poignant." "I have not permitted myself to speak of it, but I have never ceased to think of it day and night." John Linden paused sadly, then resumed: "If he had died, I might, as you say, have become reconciled; but he was abducted at the age of four by a revengeful servant whom I had discharged from my employment. Heaven knows whether he is living or dead, but it is impressed upon my mind that he still lives, it may be in misery, it may be as a criminal, while I, his unhappy father, live on in luxury which I cannot enjoy, with no one to care for me----" Florence Linden sank impulsively on her knees beside her uncle's chair. "Don't say that, uncle," she pleaded. "You know that I love you, Uncle John." "And I, too, uncle." There was a shade of jealousy in the voice of Curtis Waring as he entered the library through the open door, and approaching his uncle, pressed his hand. He was a tall, dark-complexioned man, of perhaps thirty-five, with shifty, black eyes and thin lips, shaded by a dark mustache. It was not a face to trust. Even when he smiled the expression of his face did not soften. Yet he could moderate his voice so as to express tenderness and sympathy. He was the son of an elder sister of Mr. Linden, while Florence was the daughter of a younger brother. Both were orphans, and both formed a part of Mr. Linden's household, and owed everything to his bounty. Curtis was supposed to be in some business downtown; but he received a liberal allowance from his uncle, and often drew upon him for outside assistance. As he stood with his uncle's hand in his, he was necessarily brought near Florence, who instinctively drew a little away, with a slight shudder indicating repugnance. Slight as it was, Curtis detected it, and his face darkened. John Linden looked from one to the other. "Yes," he said, "I must not forget that I have a nephew and a niece. You are both dear to me, but no one can take the place of the boy I have lost." "But it is so long ago, uncle," said Curtis. "It must be fourteen years." "It is fourteen years." "And the boy is long since dead!" "No, no!" said John Linden, vehemently. "I do not, I will not, believe it. He still lives, and I live only in the hope of one day clasping him in my arms." "That is very improbable, uncle," said Curtis, in a tone of annoyance. "There isn't one chance in a hundred that my cousin still lives. The grave has closed over him long since. The sooner you make up your mind to accept the inevitable the better." The drawn features of the old man showed that the words had a depressing effect upon his mind, but Florence interrupted her cousin with an indignant protest. "How can you speak so, Curtis?" she exclaimed. "Leave Uncle John the hope that he has so long cherished. I have a presentiment that Harvey still lives." John Linden's face brightened up "You, too, believe it possible, Florence?" he said, eagerly. "Yes, uncle. I not only believe it possible, but probable. How old would Harvey be if he still lived?" "Eighteen--nearly a year older than yourself." "How strange! I always think of him as a little boy." "And I, too, Florence. He rises before me in his little velvet suit, as he was when I last saw him, with his sweet, boyish face, in which his mother's looks were reflected." "Yet, if still living," interrupted Curtis, harshly, "he is a rough street boy, perchance serving his time at Blackwell's Island, and, a hardened young ruffian, whom it would be bitter mortification to recognize as your son." "That's the sorrowful part of it," said his uncle, in a voice of anguish. "That is what I most dread." "Then, since even if he were living you would not care to recognize him, why not cease to think of him, or else regard him as dead?" "Curtis Waring, have you no heart?" demanded Florence, indignantly. "Indeed, Florence, you ought to know," said Curtis, sinking his voice into softly modulated accents. "I know nothing of it," said Florence, coldly, rising from her recumbent position, and drawing aloof from Curtis. "You know that the dearest wish of my heart is to find favor in your eyes. Uncle, you know my wish, and approve of it, do you not?" "Yes, Curtis; you and Florence are equally dear to me, and it is my hope that you may be united. In that case, there will be no division of my fortune. It will be left to you jointly." "Believe me, sir," said Curtis, with faltering voice, feigning an emotion which he did not feel, "believe me, that I fully appreciate your goodness. I am sure Florence joins with me----" "Florence can speak for herself," said his cousin, coldly. "My uncle needs no assurance from me. He is always kind, and I am always grateful." John Linden seemed absorbed in thought. "I do not doubt your affection," he said; "and I have shown it by making you my joint heirs in the event of your marriage; but it is only fair to say that my property goes to my boy, if he still lives." "But, sir," protested Curtis, "is not that likely to create unnecessary trouble? It can never be known, and meanwhile----" "You and Florence will hold the property in trust." "Have you so specified in your will?" asked Curtis. "I have made two wills. Both are in yonder secretary. By the first the property is bequeathed to you and Florence. By the second and later, it goes to my lost boy in the event of his recovery. Of course, you and Florence are not forgotten, but the bulk of the property goes to Harvey." "I sincerely wish the boy might be restored to you," said Curtis; but his tone belied his words. "Believe me, the loss of the property would affect me little, if you could be made happy by realizing your warmest desire; but, uncle, I think it only the part of a friend to point out to you, as I have already done, the baselessness of any such expectation." "It may be as you say, Curtis," said his uncle, with a sigh. "If I were thoroughly convinced of it, I would destroy the later will, and leave my property absolutely to you and Florence." "No, uncle," said Florence, impulsively, "make no change; let the will stand." Curtis, screened from his uncle's view, darted a glance of bitter indignation at Florence. "Is the girl mad?" he muttered to himself. "Must she forever balk me?" "Let it be so for the present, then," said Mr. Linden, wearily. "Curtis, will you ring the bell? I am tired, and shall retire to my couch early." "Let me help you, Uncle John," said Florence, eagerly. "It is too much for your strength, my child. I am growing more and more helpless." "I, too, can help," said Curtis. John Linden, supported on either side by his nephew and niece, left the room, and was assisted to his chamber. Curtis and Florence returned to the library. "Florence," said her cousin, "my uncle's intentions, as expressed to-night, make it desirable that there should be an understanding between us. Take a seat beside me"--leading her to a sofa--"and let us talk this matter over." With a gesture of repulsion Florence declined the proffered seat, and remained standing. "As you please," she answered, coldly. "Will you be seated?" "No; our interview will be brief." "Then I will come to the point. Uncle John wishes to see us united." "It can never be!" said Florence, decidedly. Curtis bit his lip in mortification, for her tone was cold and scornful. Mingled with this mortification was genuine regret, for, so far as he was capable of loving any one, he loved his fair young cousin. "You profess to love Uncle John, and yet you would disappoint his cherished hope!" he returned. "Is it his cherished hope?" "There is no doubt about it. He has spoken to me more than once on the subject. Feeling that his end is near, he wishes to leave you in charge of a protector." "I can protect myself," said Florence, proudly. "You think so. You do not consider the hapless lot of a penniless girl in a cold and selfish world." "Penniless?" repeated Florence, in an accent of surprise. "Yes, penniless. Our uncle's bequest to you is conditional upon your acceptance of my hand." "Has he said this?" asked Florence, sinking into an armchair, with a helpless look. "He has told me so more than once," returned Curtis, smoothly. "You don't know how near to his heart this marriage is. I know what you would say: If the property comes to me I could come to your assistance, but I am expressly prohibited from doing so. I have pleaded with my uncle in your behalf, but in vain." Florence was too clear-sighted not to penetrate his falsehood. "If my uncle's heart is hardened against me," she said, "I shall be too wise to turn to you. I am to understand, then, that my choice lies between poverty and a union with you?" "You have stated it correctly, Florence." "Then," said Florence, arising, "I will not hesitate. I shrink from poverty, for I have been reared in luxury, but I will sooner live in a hovel--" "Or a tenement house," interjected Curtis, with a sneer. "Yes, or a tenement house, than become the wife of one I loathe." "Girl, you shall bitterly repent that word!" said Curtis, stung to fury. She did not reply, but, pale and sorrowful, glided from the room to weep bitter tears in the seclusion of her chamber. Chapter II. A Stranger Visitor. Curtis Waring followed the retreating form of his cousin with a sardonic smile. "She is in the toils! She cannot escape me!" he muttered. "But"--and here his brow darkened--"it vexes me to see how she repels my advances, as if I were some loathsome thing! If only she would return my love--for I do love her, cold as she is--I should be happy. Can there be a rival? But no! we live so quietly that she has met no one who could win her affection. Why can she not turn to me? Surely, I am not so ill-favored, and though twice her age, I am still a young man. Nay, it is only a young girl's caprice. She shall yet come to my arms, a willing captive." His thoughts took a turn, as he arose from his seat, and walked over to the secretary. "So it is here that the two wills are deposited!" he said to himself; "one making me a rich man, the other a beggar! While the last is in existence I am not safe. The boy may be alive, and liable to turn up at any moment. If only he were dead--or the will destroyed----" Here he made a suggestive pause. He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and tried one after another, but without success. He was so absorbed in his work that he did not notice the entrance of a dark-browed, broad-shouldered man, dressed in a shabby corduroy suit, till the intruder indulged in a short cough, intended to draw attention. Starting with guilty consciousness, Curtis turned sharply around, and his glance fell on the intruder. "Who are you?" he demanded, angrily. "And how dare you enter a gentleman's house unbidden?" "Are you the gentleman?" asked the intruder, with intentional insolence. "Yes." "You own this house?" "Not at present. It is my uncle's." "And that secretary--pardon my curiosity--is his?" "Yes; but what business is it of yours?" "Not much. Only it makes me laugh to see a gentleman picking a lock. You should leave such business to men like me!" "You are an insolent fellow!" said Curtis, more embarrassed than he liked to confess, for this rough-looking man had become possessed of a dangerous secret. "I am my uncle's confidential agent, and it was on business of his that I wished to open the desk." "Why not go to him for the key?" "Because he is sick. But, pshaw! why should I apologize or give any explanation to you? What can you know of him or me?" "More, perhaps, than you suspect," said the intruder, quietly. "Then, you know, perhaps, that I am my uncle's heir?" "Don't be too sure of that." "Look here, fellow," said Curtis, thoroughly provoked, "I don't know who you are nor what you mean, but let me inform you that your presence here is an intrusion, and the sooner you leave the house the better!" "I will leave it when I get ready." Curtis started to his feet, and advanced to his visitor with an air of menace. "Go at once," he exclaimed, angrily, "or I will kick you out of the door!" "What's the matter with the window?" returned the stranger, with an insolent leer. "That's as you prefer, but if you don't leave at once I will eject you." By way of reply, the rough visitor coolly seated himself in a luxurious easy-chair, and, looking up into the angry face of Waring, said: "Oh, no, you won't." "And why not, may I ask?" said Curtis, with a feeling of uneasiness for which he could not account. "Why not? Because, in that case, I should seek an interview with your uncle, and tell him----" "What?" "That his son still lives; and that I can restore him to his----" The face of Curtis Waring blanched; he staggered as if he had been struck; and he cried out, hoarsely: "It is a lie!" "It is the truth, begging your pardon. Do you mind my smoking?" and he coolly produced a common clay pipe, filled and lighted it. "Who are you?" asked Curtis, scanning the man's features with painful anxiety. "Have you forgotten Tim Bolton?" "Are you Tim Bolton?" faltered Curtis. "Yes; but you don't seem glad to see me?" "I thought you were----" "In Australia. So I was three years since. Then I got homesick, and came back to New York." "You have been here three years?" "Yes," chuckled Bolton. "You didn't suspect it, did you?" "Where?" asked Curtis, in a hollow voice. "I keep a saloon on the Bowery. There's my card. Call around when convenient." Curtis was about to throw the card into the grate, but on second thought dropped it into his pocket. "And the boy?" he asked, slowly. "Is alive and well. He hasn't been starved. Though I dare say you wouldn't have grieved if he had." "And he is actually in this city?" "Just so." "Does he know anything of--you know what I mean." "He doesn't know that he is the son of a rich man, and heir to the property which you look upon as yours. That's what you mean, isn't it?" "Yes. What is he doing? Is he at work?" "He helps me some in the saloon, sells papers in the evenings, and makes himself generally useful." "Has he any education?" "Well, I haven't sent him to boarding school or college," answered Tim. "He don't know no Greek, or Latin, or mathematics--phew, that's a hard word. You didn't tell me you wanted him made a scholar of." "I didn't. I wanted never to see or hear from him again. What made you bring him back to New York?" "Couldn't keep away, governor. I got homesick, I did. There ain't but one Bowery in the world, and I hankered after that----" "Didn't I pay you money to keep away, Tim Bolton?" "I don't deny it; but what's three thousand dollars? Why, the kid's cost me more than that. I've had the care of him for fourteen years, and it's only about two hundred a year." "You have broken your promise to me!" said Curtis, sternly. "There's worse things than breaking your promise," retorted Bolton. Scarcely had he spoken than a change came over his face, and he stared open-mouthed behind him and beyond Curtis. Startled himself, Curtis turned, and saw, with a feeling akin to dismay, the tall figure of his uncle standing on the threshold of the left portal, clad in a morning gown, with his eyes fixed inquiringly upon Bolton and himself. Chapter III. An Unholy Compact. "Who is that man, Curtis?" asked John Linden, pointing his thin finger at Tim Bolton, who looked strangely out of place, as, with clay pipe, he sat in the luxurious library on a sumptuous chair. "That man?" stammered Curtis, quite at a loss what to say. "Yes." "He is a poor man out of luck, who has applied to me for assistance," answered Curtis, recovering his wits. "That's it, governor," said Bolton, thinking it necessary to confirm the statement. "I've got five small children at home almost starvin', your honor." "That is sad. What is your business, my man?" It was Bolton's turn to be embarrassed. "My business?" he repeated. "That is what I said." "I'm a blacksmith, but I'm willing to do any honest work." "That is commendable; but don't you know that it is very ill-bred to smoke a pipe in a gentleman's house?" "Excuse me, governor!" And Bolton extinguished his pipe, and put it away in a pocket of his corduroy coat. "I was just telling him the same thing," said Curtis. "Don't trouble yourself any further, uncle. I will inquire into the man's circumstances, and help him if I can." "Very well, Curtis. I came down because I thought I heard voices." John Linden slowly returned to his chamber, and left the two alone. "The governor's getting old," said Bolton. "When I was butler here, fifteen years ago, he looked like a young man. He didn't suspect that he had ever seen me before." "Nor that you had carried away his son, Bolton." "Who hired me to do it? Who put me up to the job, as far as that goes?" "Hush! Walls have ears. Let us return to business." "That suits me." "Look here, Tim Bolton," said Curtis, drawing up a chair, and lowering his voice to a confidential pitch, "you say you want money?" "Of course I do." "Well, I don't give money for nothing." "I know that. What's wanted now?" "You say the boy is alive?" "He's very much alive." "Is there any necessity for his living?" asked Curtis, in a sharp, hissing tone, fixing his eyes searchingly on Bolton, to see how his hint would be taken. "You mean that you want me to murder him?" said Bolton, quickly. "Why not? You don't look over scrupulous." "I am a bad man, I admit it," said Bolton, with a gesture of repugnance, "a thief, a low blackguard, perhaps, but, thank Heaven! I am no murderer! And if I was, I wouldn't spill a drop of that boy's blood for the fortune that is his by right." "I didn't give you credit for so much sentiment, Bolton," said Curtis, with a sneer. "You don't look like it, but appearances are deceitful. We'll drop the subject. You can serve me in another way. Can you open this secretary?" "Yes; that's in my line." "There is a paper in it that I want. It is my uncle's will. I have a curiosity to read it." "I understand. Well, I'm agreeable." "If you find any money or valuables, you are welcome to them. I only want the paper. When will you make the attempt?" "To-morrow night. When will it be safe?" "At eleven o'clock. We all retire early in this house. Can you force an entrance?" "Yes; but it will be better for you to leave the outer door unlocked." "I have a better plan. Here is my latchkey." "Good! I may not do the job myself, but I will see that it is done. How shall I know the will?" "It is in a big envelope, tied with a narrow tape. Probably it is inscribed: 'My will.'" "Suppose I succeed, when shall I see you?" "I will come around to your place on the Bowery. Good-night!" Curtis Waring saw Bolton to the door, and let him out. Returning, he flung himself on a sofa. "I can make that man useful!" he reflected. "There is an element of danger in the boy's presence in New York; but it will go hard if I can't get rid of him! Tim Bolton is unexpectedly squeamish, but there are others to whom I can apply. With gold everything is possible. It's time matters came to a finish. My uncle's health is rapidly failing-- the doctor hints that he has heart disease--and the fortune for which I have been waiting so long will soon be mine, if I work my cards right. I can't afford to make any mistakes now." Chapter IV. Florence. Florence Linden sat in the library the following evening in an attitude of depression. Her eyelids were swollen, and it was evident she had been weeping. During the day she had had an interview with her uncle, in which he harshly insisted upon her yielding to his wishes, and marrying her cousin, Curtis. "But, uncle," she objected, "I do not love him." "Marry him, and love will come." "Never!" she said, vehemently. "You speak confidently, miss," said Mr. Linden, with irritation. "Listen, Uncle John. It is not alone that I do not love him. I dislike him--I loathe--him." "Nonsense! that is a young girl's extravagant nonsense." "No, uncle." "There can be no reason for such a foolish dislike. What can you have against him?" "It is impressed upon me, uncle, that Curtis is a bad man. There is something false--treacherous--about him." "Pooh! child! you are more foolish than I thought. I don't say Curtis is an angel. No man is; at least, I never met any such. But he is no worse than the generality of men. In marrying him you will carry out my cherished wish. Florence, I have not long to live. I shall be glad to see you well established in life before I leave you. As the wife of Curtis you will have a recognized position. You will go on living in this house, and the old home will be maintained." "But why is it necessary for me to marry at all, Uncle John?" "You will be sure to marry some one. Should I divide my fortune between you and Curtis, you would become the prey of some unscrupulous fortune hunter." "Better that than become the wife of Curtis Waring----" "I see, you are incorrigible," said her uncle, angrily. "Do you refuse obedience to my wishes?" "Command me in anything else, Uncle John, and I will obey," pleaded Florence. "Indeed! You only thwart me in my cherished wish, but are willing to obey me in unimportant matters. You forget the debt you owe me." "I forget nothing, dear uncle. I do not forget that, when I was a poor little child, helpless and destitute, you took me in your arms, gave me a home, and have cared for me from that time to this as only a parent could." "You remember that, then?" "Yes, uncle. I hope you will not consider me wholly ungrateful." "It only makes matters worse. You own your obligations, yet refuse to make the only return I desire. You refuse to comfort me in the closing days of my life by marrying your cousin." "Because that so nearly concerns my happiness that no one has a right to ask me to sacrifice all I hold dear." "I see you are incorrigible," said John Linden, stormily. "Do you know what will be the consequences?" "I am prepared for all." "Then listen! If you persist in balking me, I shall leave the entire estate to Curtis." "Do with your money as you will, uncle. I have no claim to more than I have received." "You are right there; but that is not all." Florence fixed upon him a mute look of inquiry. "I will give you twenty-four hours more to come to your senses. Then, if you persist in your ingratitude and disobedience, you must find another home." "Oh, uncle, you do not mean that?" exclaimed Florence, deeply moved. "I do mean it, and I shall not allow your tears to move me. Not another word, for I will not hear it. Take twenty-four hours to think over what I have said." Florence bowed her head on her hands, and gave herself up to sorrowful thoughts. But she was interrupted by the entrance of the servant, who announced: "Mr. Percy de Brabazon." An effeminate-looking young man, foppishly dressed, followed the servant into the room, and made it impossible for Florence to deny herself, as she wished to do. "I hope I see you well, Miss Florence," he simpered. "Thank you, Mr. de Brabazon," said Florence, coldly. "I have a slight headache." "I am awfully sorry, I am, upon my word, Miss Florence. My doctor tells me it is only those whose bwains are vewy active that are troubled with headaches." "Then, I presume, Mr. de Brabazon," said Florence, with intentional sarcasm, "that you never have a headache." "Weally, Miss Florence, that is vewy clevah. You will have your joke." "It was no joke, I assure you, Mr. de Brabazon." "I--I thought it might be. Didn't I see you at the opewa last evening?" "Possibly. I was there." "I often go to the opewa. It's so--so fashionable, don't you know?" "Then you don't go to hear the music?" "Oh, of course, but one can't always be listening to the music, don't you know. I had a fwiend with me last evening--an Englishman--a charming fellow, I assure you. He's the second cousin of a lord, and yet--you'll hardly credit it--we're weally vewy intimate. He tells me, Miss Florence, that I'm the perfect image of his cousin, Lord Fitz Noodle." "I am not at all surprised." "Weally, you are vewy kind, Miss Florence. I thought it a great compliment. I don't know how it is, but evewybody takes me for an Englishman. Strange, isn't it?" "I am very glad." "May I ask why, Miss Florence?" "Because---- Well, perhaps I had better not explain. It seems to give you pleasure. You would, probably, prefer to be an Englishman." "I admit that I have a great admiration for the English character. It's a gweat pity we have no lords in America. Now, if you would only allow me to bring my English fwiend here---- "I don't care to make any new acquaintances. Even if I did, I prefer my own countrymen. Don't you like America, Mr. de Brabazon?" "Oh, of courth, if we only had some lords here." "We have plenty of flunkeys." "That's awfully clevah, 'pon my word." "Is it? I am afraid you are too complimentary. You are very good-natured." "I always feel good-natured in your company, Miss Florence. I--wish I could always be with you." "Really! Wouldn't that be a trifle monotonous?" asked Florence, sarcastically. "Not if we were married," said Percy, boldly breaking the ice. "What do you mean, Mr. de Brabazon?" "I hope you will excuse me, Miss Florence--Miss Linden, I mean; but I'm awfully in love with you, and have been ever so long--but I never dared to tell you so. I felt so nervous, don't you know? Will you marry me? I'll be awfully obliged if you will." Mr. de Brabazon rather awkwardly slipped from his chair, and sank on one knee before Florence. "Please arise, Mr. de Brabazon," said Florence, hurriedly. "It is quite out of the question--what you ask--I assure you." "Ah! I see how it is," said Percy, clasping his hands sadly. "You love another." "Not that I am aware of." "Then I may still hope?" "I cannot encourage you, Mr. de Brabazon. My heart is free, but it can never be yours." "Then," said Percy, gloomily, "there is only one thing for me to do." "What is that?" "I shall go to the Bwooklyn Bwidge, climb to the parapet, jump into the water, and end my misewable life." "You had better think twice before adopting such a desperate resolution, Mr. de Brabazon. You will meet others who will be kinder to you than I have been----" "I can never love another. My heart is broken. Farewell, cruel girl. When you read the papers tomorrow morning, think of the unhappy Percy de Brabazon!" Mr. de Brabazon folded his arms gloomily, and stalked out of the room. "If my position were not so sad, I should be tempted to smile," said Florence. "Mr. de Brabazon will not do this thing. His emotions are as strong as those of a butterfly." After a brief pause Florence seated herself at the table, and drew toward her writing materials. "It is I whose heart should be broken!" she murmured; "I who am driven from the only home I have ever known. What can have turned against me my uncle, usually so kind and considerate? It must be that Curtis has exerted a baneful influence upon him. I cannot leave him without one word of farewell." She took up a sheet of paper, and wrote, rapidly: "Dear Uncle: You have told me to leave your house, and I obey. I cannot tell you how sad I feel, when I reflect that I have lost your love, and must go forth among strangers--I know not where. I was but a little girl when you gave me a home. I have grown up in an atmosphere of love, and I have felt very grateful to you for all you have done for me. I have tried to conform to your wishes, and I would obey you in all else--but I cannot marry Curtis; I think I would rather die. Let me still live with you as I have done. I do not care for any part of your money--leave it all to him, if you think best--but give me back my place in your heart. You are angry now, but you will some time pity and forgive your poor Florence, who will never cease to bless and pray for you. Good-bye! "Florence." She was about to sign herself Florence Linden, but reflected that she was no longer entitled to use a name which would seem to carry with it a claim upon her uncle. The tears fell upon the paper as she was writing, but she heeded them not. It was the saddest hour of her life. Hitherto she had been shielded from all sorrow, and secure in the affection of her uncle, had never dreamed that there would come a time when she would feel obliged to leave all behind her, and go out into the world, friendless and penniless, but poorest of all in the loss of that love which she had hitherto enjoyed. After completing the note, Florence let her head fall upon the table, and sobbed herself to sleep. An hour and a half passed, the servant looked in, but noticing that her mistress was sleeping, contented herself with lowering the gas, but refrained from waking her. And so she slept on till the French clock upon the mantle struck eleven. Five minutes later and the door of the room slowly opened, and a boy entered on tiptoe. He was roughly dressed. His figure was manly and vigorous, and despite his stealthy step and suspicious movements his face was prepossessing. He started when he saw Florence. "What, a sleeping gal!" he said to himself. "Tim told me I'd find the coast clear, but I guess she's sound asleep, and won't hear nothing. I don't half like this job, but I've got to do as Tim told me. He says he's my father, so I s'pose it's all right. All the same, I shall be nabbed some day, and then the family'll be disgraced. It's a queer life I've led ever since I can remember. Sometimes I feel like leaving Tim, and settin' up for myself. I wonder how 'twould seem to be respectable." The boy approached the secretary, and with some tools he had brought essayed to open it. After a brief delay he succeeded, and lifted the cover. He was about to explore it, according to Tim's directions, when he heard a cry of fear, and turning swiftly saw Florence, her eyes dilated with terror, gazing at him. "Who are you?" she asked in alarm, "and what are you doing there?" Chapter V. Dodger. The boy sprang to the side of Florence, and siezed her wrists in his strong young grasp. "Don't you alarm the house," he said, "or I'll----" "What will you do?" gasped Florence, in alarm. The boy was evidently softened by her beauty, and answered in a tone of hesitation: "I don't know. I won't harm you if you keep quiet." "What are you here for?" asked Florence, fixing her eyes on the boy's face; "are you a thief?" "I don't know--yes, I suppose I am." "How sad, when you are so young." "What! miss, do you pity me?" "Yes, my poor boy, you must be very poor, or you wouldn't bring yourself to steal." "No. I ain't poor; leastways, I have enough to eat, and I have a place to sleep." "Then why don't you earn your living by honest means?" "I can't; I must obey orders." "Whose orders?" "Why, the guv'nor's, to be sure." "Did he tell you to open that secretary?" "Yes." "Who is the guv'nor, as you call him?" "I can't tell; it wouldn't be square." "He must be a very wicked man." "Well, he ain't exactly what you call an angel, but I've seen wuss men than the guv'nor." "Do you mind telling me your own name?" "No; for I know you won't peach on me. Tom Dodger." "Dodger?" "Yes." "That isn't a surname." "It's all I've got. That's what I'm always called." "It is very singular," said Florence, fixing a glance of mingled curiosity and perplexity upon the young visitor. While the two were earnestly conversing in that subdued light, afforded by the lowered gaslight, Tim Bolton crept in through the door unobserved by either, tiptoed across the room to the secretary, snatched the will and a roll of bills, and escaped without attracting attention. "Oh, I wish I could persuade you to give up this bad life," resumed Florence, earnestly, "and become honest." "Do you really care what becomes of me, miss?" asked Dodger, slowly. "I do, indeed." "That's very kind of you, miss; but I don't understand it. You are a rich young lady, and I'm only a poor boy, livin' in a Bowery dive." "What's that?" "Never mind, miss, such as you wouldn't understand. Why, all my life I've lived with thieves, and drunkards, and bunco men, and----" "But I'm sure you don't like it. You are fit for something better." "Do you really think so?" asked Dodger, doubtfullly. "Yes; you have a good face. You were meant to be good and honest, I am sure." "Would you trust me?" asked the boy, earnestly, fixing his large, dark eyes eloquently on the face of Florence. "Yes, I would if you would only leave your evil companions, and become true to your better nature." "No one ever spoke to me like that before, miss," said Dodger, his expressive features showing that he was strongly moved. "You think I could be good if I tried hard, and grow up respectable?" "I am sure you could," said Florence, confidently. There was something in this boy, young outlaw though he was, that moved her powerfully, and even fascinated her, though she hardly realized it. It was something more than a feeling of compassion for a wayward and misguided youth. "I could if I was rich like you, and lived in a nice house, and 'sociated with swells. If you had a father like mine----" "Is he a bad man?" "Well, he don't belong to the church. He keeps a gin mill, and has ever since I was a kid." "Have you always lived with him?" "Yes, but not in New York." "Where then?" "In Melbourne." "That's in Australia." "Yes, miss." "How long since you came to New York?" "I guess it's about three years." "And you have always had this man as a guardian? Poor boy!" "You've got a different father from me, miss?" Tears forced themselves to the eyes of Florence, as this remark brought forcibly to her mind the position in which she was placed. "Alas!" she answered, impulsively, "I am alone in the world!" "What! ain't the old gentleman that lives here your father?" "He is my uncle; but he is very, very angry with me, and has this very day ordered me to leave the house." "Why, what a cantankerous old ruffian he is, to be sure!" exclaimed the boy, indignantly. "Hush! you must not talk against my uncle. He has always been kind to me till now." "Why, what's up? What's the old gentleman mad about?" "He wants me to marry my cousin Curtis--a man I do not even like." "That's a shame! Is it the dude I saw come out of the house a little while ago?" "Oh, no; that's a different gentleman. It's Mr. de Brabazon." "You don't want to marry him, do you?" "No, no!" "I'm glad of that. He don't look as if he knew enough to come in when it rained." "The poor young man is not very brilliant, but I think I would rather marry him than Curtis Waring." "I've seen him, too. He's got dark hair and a dark complexion, and a wicked look in his eye." "You, too, have noticed that?" "I've seen such as him before. He's a bad man." "Do you know anything about him?" asked Florence, eagerly. "Only his looks." "I am not deceived," murmured Florence, "it's not wholly prejudice. The boy distrusts him, too. So you see, Dodger," she added, aloud, "I am not a rich young lady, as you suppose. I must leave this house, and work for my living. I have no home any more." "If you have no home," said Dodger, impulsively, "come home with me." "To the home you have described, my poor boy? How could I do that?" "No; I will hire a room for you in a quiet street, and you shall be my sister. I will work for you, and give you my money." "You are kind, and I am glad to think I have found a friend when I need one most. But I could not accept stolen money. It would be as bad as if I, too, were a thief." "I am not a thief! That is, I won't be any more." "And you will give up your plan of robbing my uncle?" "Yes, I will; though I don't know what my guv'nor will say. He'll half murder me, I expect. He'll be sure to cut up rough." "Do right, Dodger, whatever happens. Promise me that you will never steal again?" "There's my hand, miss--I promise. Nobody ever talked to me like you. I never thought much about bein' respectable, and growin' up to be somebody, but if you take an interest in me, I'll try hard to do right." At this moment, Mr. Linden, clad in a long morning gown, and holding a candle in his hand, entered the room, and started in astonishment when he saw Florence clasping the hand of one whose appearance led him to stamp as a young rough. "Shameless girl!" he exclaimed, in stern reproof. "So this is the company you keep when you think I am out of the way!" Chapter VI. A Tempest. The charge was so strange and unexpected that Florence was overwhelmed. She could only murmur: "Oh, uncle!" Her young companion was indignant. Already he felt that Florence had consented to accept him as a friend, and he was resolved to stand by her. "I say, old man," he bristled up, "don't you go to insult her! She's an angel!" "No doubt you think so," rejoined Mr. Linden, in a tone of sarcasm. "Upon my word, miss, I congratulate you on your elevated taste. So this is your reason for not being willing to marry your Cousin Curtis?" "Indeed, uncle, you are mistaken. I never met this boy till to-night." "Don't try to deceive me. Young man, did you open my secretary?" "Yes, sir." "And robbed it into the bargain," continued Linden, going to the secretary, and examining it. He did not, however, miss the will, but only the roll of bills. "Give me back the money you have taken from me, you young rascal!" "I took nothing, sir." "It's a lie! The money is gone, and no one else could have taken it." "I don't allow no one to call me a liar. Just take that back, old man, or I----" "Indeed, uncle, he took nothing, for he had only just opened the secretary when I woke up and spoke to him." "You stand by him, of course, shameless girl! I blush to think that you are my niece. I am glad to think that my eyes are opened before it is too late." The old merchant rang the bell violently, and aroused the house. Dodger made no attempt to escape, but stood beside Florence in the attitude of a protector. But a short time elapsed before Curtis Waring and the servants entered the room, and gazed with wonder at the _tableau_ presented by the excited old man and the two young people. "My friends," said John Linden, in a tone of excitement, "I call you to witness that this girl, whom I blush to acknowledge as my niece, has proved herself unworthy of my kindness. In your presence I cut her off, and bid her never again darken my door." "But what has she done, uncle?" asked Curtis. He was prepared for the presence of Dodger, whom he rightly concluded to be the agent of Tim Bolton, but he could not understand why Florence should be in the library at this late hour. Nor was he able to understand the evidently friendly relations between her and the young visitor. "What has she done?" repeated John Linden. "She has introduced that young ruffian into the house to rob me. Look at that secretary! He has forced it open, and stolen a large sum of money." "It is not true, sir," said Dodger, calmly, "about taking the money, I mean. I haven't taken a cent." "Then why did you open the secretary?" "I did mean to take money, but she stopped me." "Oh, she stopped you?" repeated Linden, with withering sarcasm. "Then, perhaps, you will tell me where the money is gone?" "He hasn't discovered about the will," thought Curtis, congratulating himself; "if the boy has it, I must manage to give him a chance to escape." "You can search me if you want to," continued Dodger, proudly. "You won't find no money on me." "Do you think I am a fool, you young burglar?" exclaimed John Linden, angrily. "Uncle, let me speak to the boy," said Curtis, soothingly. "I think he will tell me." "As you like, Curtis; but I am convinced that he is a thief." Curtis Waring beckoned Dodger into an adjoining room. "Now, my boy," he said, smoothly, "give me what you took from the secretary, and I will see that you are not arrested." "But, sir, I didn't take nothing--it's just as I told the old duffer. The girl waked up just as I'd got the secretary open, and I didn't have a chance." "But the money is gone," said Curtis, in an incredulous tone. "I don't know nothing about that." "Come, you'd better examine your pockets. In the hurry of the moment you may have taken it without knowing it." "No, I couldn't." "Didn't you take a paper of any kind?" asked Curtis, eagerly. "Sometimes papers are of more value than money." "No, I didn't take no paper, though Tim told me to." Curtis quietly ignored the allusion to Tim, for it did not suit his purpose to get Tim into trouble. His unscrupulous agent knew too much that would compromise his principal. "Are you willing that I should examine you?" "Yes, I am. Go ahead." Curtis thrust his hand into the pockets of the boy, who, boy as he was, was as tall as himself, but was not repaid by the discovery of anything. He was very much perplexed. "Didn't you throw the articles on the floor?" he demanded, suspiciously. "No, I didn't." "You didn't give them to the young lady?" "No; if I had she'd have said so." "Humph! this is strange. What is your name?" "Dodger." "That's a queer name; have you no other?" "Not as I know of." "With whom do you live?" "With my father. Leastways, he says he's my father." There was a growing suspicion in the mind of Curtis Waring. He scanned the boy's features with attention. Could this ill-dressed boy--a street boy in appearance--be his long-lost and deeply wronged cousin? "Who is it that says he is your father?" he demanded, abruptly. "Do you want to get him into trouble?" "No, I don't want to get him into trouble, or you either. Better tell me all, and I will be your friend." "You're a better sort than I thought at first," said Dodger. "The man I live with is called Tim Bolton." "I though so," quickly ejaculated Curtis. He had scarcely got out the words before he was sensible that he had made a mistake. "What! do you know Tim?" inquired Dodger, in surprise. "I mean," replied Curtis, lamely, "that I have heard of this man Bolton. He keeps a saloon on the Bowery, doesn't he?" "Yes." "I thought you would be living with some such man. Did he come to the house with you tonight?" "Yes." "Where is he?" "He stayed outside." "Perhaps he is there now." "Don't you go to having him arrested," said Dodger, suspiciously. "I will keep my promise. Are you sure you didn't pass out the paper and the money to him? Think now." "No, I didn't. I didn't have a chance. When I came into the room yonder I saw the gal asleep, and I thought she wouldn't hear me, but when I got the desk open she spoke to me, and asked me what I was doin'." "And you took nothing?" "No." "It seems very strange. I cannot understand it. Yet my uncle says the money is gone. Did anyone else enter the room while you were talking with Miss Linden?" "I didn't see any one." "What were you talking about?" "She said the old man wanted her to marry you, and she didn't want to." "She told you that?" exclaimed Curtis, in displeasure. "Yes, she did. She said she'd rather marry the dude that was here early this evenin'." "Mr. de Brabazon!" "Yes, that's the name." "Upon my word, she was very confidential. You are a queer person for her to select as a confidant." "Maybe so, sir; but she knows I'm her friend." "You like the young lady, then? Perhaps you would like to marry her yourself?" "As if she'd take any notice of a poor boy like me. I told her if her uncle sent her away, I'd take care of her and be a brother to her." "How would Mr. Tim Bolton--that's his name, isn't it?--like that?" "I wouldn't take her to where he lives." "I think, myself, it would hardly be a suitable home for a young lady brought up on Madison Avenue. There is certainly no accounting for tastes. Miss Florence----" "That's her name, is it?" "Yes; didn't she tell you?" "No; but it's a nice name." "She declines my hand, and accepts your protection. It will certainly be a proud distinction to become Mrs. Dodger." "Don't laugh at her!" said Dodger, suspiciously. "I don't propose to. But I think we may as well return to the library." "Well," said Mr. Linden, as his nephew returned with Dodger. "I have examined the boy, and found nothing on his person," said Curtis; "I confess I am puzzled. He appears to have a high admiration for Florence----" "As I supposed." "She has even confided to him her dislike for me, and he has offered her his protection." "Is this so, miss?" demanded Mr. Linden, sternly. "Yes, uncle," faltered Florence. "Then you can join the young person you have selected whenever you please. For your sake I will not have him arrested for attempted burglary. He is welcome to what he has taken, since he is likely to marry into the family. You may stay here to-night, and he can call for you in the morning." John Linden closed the secretary, and left the room, leaving Florence sobbing. The servants, too, retired, and Curtis was left alone with her. "Florence," he said, "accept my hand, and I will reconcile my uncle to you. Say but the word, and----" "I can never speak it, Curtis! I will take my uncle at his word. Dodger, call for me to-morrow at eight, and I will accept your friendly services in finding me a new home." "I'll be on hand, miss. Good-night!" "Be it so, obstinate girl!" said Curtis, angrily. "The time will come when you will bitterly repent your mad decision." Chapter VII. Florence Leaves Home. Florence passed a sleepless night. It had come upon her so suddenly, this expulsion from the home of her childhood, that she could not fully realize it. She could not feel that she was taking her last look at the familiar room, and well-remembered dining-room, where she had sat down for the last time for breakfast. She was alone at the breakfast table, for the usual hour was half-past eight, and she had appointed Dodger to call for her at eight. "Is it true, Miss Florence, that you're going away?" asked Jane, the warm-hearted table girl, as she waited upon Florence. "Yes, Jane," answered Florence, sadly. "It's a shame, so it is! I didn't think your uncle would be so hard-hearted." "He is disappointed because I won't marry my Cousin Curtis." "I don't blame you for it, miss. I never liked Mr. Waring. He isn't half good enough for you." "I say nothing about that, Jane; but I will not marry a man I do not love." "Nor would I, miss. Where are you going, if I may make so bold?" "I don't know, Jane," said Florence, despondently. "But you can't walk about the streets." "A trusty friend is going to call for me at eight o'clock; when he comes admit him." "It is a--a young gentleman?" "You wouldn't call him such. He is a boy, a poor boy; but I think he is a true friend. He says he will find me a comfortable room somewhere, where I can settle down and look for work." "Are you going to work for a living, Miss Florence?" asked Jane, horrified. "I must, Jane." "It's a great shame--you, a lady born." "No, Jane, I do not look upon it in that light. I shall be happier for having my mind and my hands occupied." "What work will you do?" "I don't know yet. Dodger will advise me." "Who, miss?" "Dodger." "Who is he?" "It's the boy I spoke of." "Shure, he's got a quare name." "Yes; but names don't count for much. It's the heart I think of, and this boy has a kind heart." "Have you known him long?" "I saw him yesterday for the first time." "Is it the young fellow who was here last night?" "Yes." "He isn't fit company for the likes of you, Miss Florence." "You forget, Jane, that I am no longer a rich young lady. I am poorer than even you. This Dodger is kind, and I feel that I can trust him." "If you are poor, Miss Florence," said Jane, hesitatingly, "would you mind borrowing some money of me? I've got ten dollars upstairs in my trunk, and I don't need it at all. It's proud I'll be to lend it to you." "Thank you, Jane," said Florence, gratefully. "I thought I had but one friend. I find I have two----" "Then you'll take the money? I'll go right up and get it." "No, Jane; not at present. I have twenty dollars in my purse, and it will last me till I can earn more." "But, miss, twenty dollars will soon go," said Jane, disappointed. "If I find that I need the sum you so kindly offer me, I will let you know, I promise that." "Thank you, miss." At this point a bell rang from above. "It's from Mr. Curtis' room," said Jane. "Go and see what he wants." Jane returned in a brief time with a note in her hand. "Mr. Curtis asked me if you were still here," she explained, "and when I told him you were he asked me to give you this." Florence took the note, and, opening it, read these lines: "Florence: Now that you have had time to think over your plan of leaving your old home, I hope you have come to see how foolish it is. Reflect that, if carried out, a life of poverty and squalid wretchedness amid homely and uncongenial surroundings awaits you; while, as my wife, you will live a life of luxury and high social position. There are many young ladies who would be glad to accept the chance which you so recklessly reject. By accepting my hand you will gratify our excellent uncle, and make me the happiest of mortals. You will acquit me of mercenary motives, since you are now penniless, and your disobedience leaves me sole heir to Uncle John. I love you, and it will be my chief object, if you will permit it, to make you happy. "Curtis Waring." Florence ran her eyes rapidly over this note, but her heart did not respond, and her resolution was not shaken. "Tell Mr. Waring there is no answer, Jane, if he inquires," she said. "Was he tryin' to wheedle you into marryin' him?" asked Jane. "He wished me to change my decision." "I'm glad you've given him the bounce," said Jane, whose expressions were not always refined. "I wouldn't marry him myself." Florence smiled. Jane was red haired, and her nose was what is euphemistically called _retrousse_. Even in her own circles she was not regarded as beautiful, and was hardly likely to lead a rich man to overlook her humble station, and sue for her hand. "Then, Jane, you at least will not blame me for refusing my cousin's hand?" "That I won't, miss. Do you know, Miss Florence"--and here Jane lowered her voice--"I've a suspicion that Mr. Curtis is married already?" "What do you mean, Jane?" asked Florence, startled. "There was a poor young woman called here last month and inquired for Mr. Curtis. She was very sorrowful-like, and poorly dressed. He came up when she was at the door, and he spoke harshlike, and told her to walk away with him. What they said I couldn't hear, but I've a suspicion that she was married to him, secretlike for I saw a wedding ring upon her finger." "But, Jane, it would be base and infamous for him to ask for my hand when he was already married." "I can't help it, miss. That's just what he wouldn't mind doin'. Oh, he's a sly deceiver, Mr. Curtis. I'd like to see him foolin' around me." Jane nodded her head with emphasis, as if to intimate the kind of reception Curtis Waring would get if he attempted to trifle with her virgin affections. "I hope what you suspect is not true," said Florence, gravely. "I do not like or respect Curtis, but I don't like to think he would be so base as that. If you ever see this young woman again, try to find out where she lives. I would like to make her acquaintance, and be a friend to her if she needs one." "Shure, Miss Florence, you will be needin' a friend yourself." "It is true, Jane. I forgot that I am no longer a young lady of fortune, but a penniless girl, obliged to work for a living." "What would your uncle say if he knew that Mr. Curtis had a wife?" "We don't know that he has one, and till we do, it would not be honorable to intimate such a thing to Uncle John." "Shure, he wouldn't be particular. It's all his fault that you're obliged to leave home, and go into the streets. Why couldn't he take no for an answer, and marry somebody else, if he can find anybody to have him?" "I wish, indeed, that he had fixed his affections elsewhere," responded Florence, with a sigh. "Shure, he's twice as old as you, Miss Florence, anyway." "I shouldn't mind that so much, if that was the only objection." "It'll be a great deal better marryin' a young man." "I don't care to marry any one, Jane. I don't think I shall ever marry." "It's all very well to say that, Miss Florence. Lots of girls say so, but they change their minds. I don't mean to live out always myself." "Is there any young man you are interested in, Jane?" "Maybe there is, and maybe there isn't, Miss Florence. If I ever do get married I'll invite you to the wedding." "And I'll promise to come if I can. But I hear the bell. I think my friend Dodger has come." "Shall I ask him in, miss?" "No. Tell him I will be ready to accompany him at once." She went out into the hall, and when the door was opened the visitor proved to be Dodger. He had improved his appearance so far as his limited means would allow. His hands and face were thoroughly clean; he had bought a new collar and necktie; his shoes were polished, and despite his shabby suit, he looked quite respectable. Getting a full view of him, Florence saw that his face was frank and handsome, his eyes bright, and his teeth like pearls. "Shure, he's a great deal better lookin' than Mr. Curtis," whispered Jane. "Here, Mr. Dodger, take Miss Florence's valise, and mind you take good care of her." "I will," answered Dodger, heartily. "Come, Miss Florence, if you don't mind walking over to Fourth Avenue, we'll take the horse cars." So, under strange guidance, Florence Linden left her luxurious home, knowing not what awaited her. What haven of refuge she might find she knew not. She, like Dodger, was adrift in New York. Chapter VIII. A Friendly Compact. Florence, as she stepped on the sidewalk, turned, and fixed a last sad look on the house that had been her home for so many years. She had never anticipated such a sundering of home ties, and even now she found it difficult to realize that the moment had come when her life was to be rent in twain, and the sunlight of prosperity was to be darkened and obscured by a gloomy and uncertain future. She had hastily packed a few indispensable articles in a valise which she carried in her hand. "Let me take your bag, Miss Florence," said Dodger, reaching out his hand. "I don't want to trouble you, Dodger." "It ain't no trouble, Miss Florence. I'm stronger than you, and it looks better for me to carry it." "You are very kind, Dodger. What would I do without you?" "There's plenty that would be glad of the chance of helping you," said Dodger, with a glance of admiration at the fair face of his companion. "I don't know where to find them," said Florence, sadly. "Even my uncle has turned against me." "He's an old chump!" ejaculated Dodger, in a tone of disgust. "Hush! I cannot hear a word against him. He has always been kind and considerate till now. It is the evil influence of my Cousin Curtis that has turned him against me. When he comes to himself I am sure he will regret his cruelty." "He would take you back if you would marry your cousin." "Yes; but that I will never do!" exclaimed Florence, with energy. "Bully for you!" said Dodger. "Excuse me," he said, apologetically. "I ain't used to talkin' to young ladies, and perhaps that ain't proper for me to say." "I don't mind, Dodger; your heart is in the right place." "Thank you, Miss Florence. I'm glad you've got confidence in me. I'll try to deserve it." "Where are we going?" asked the young lady, whose only thought up to this moment had been to get away from the presence of Curtis and his persecutions. They had now reached Fourth Avenue, and a surface car was close at hand. "We're going to get aboard that car," said Dodger, signaling with his free hand. "I'll tell you more when we're inside." Florence entered the car, and Dodger, following, took a seat at her side. They presented a noticeable contrast, for Florence was dressed as beseemed her station, while Dodger, in spite of his manly, attractive face, was roughly attired, and looked like a working boy. When the conductor came along, he drew out a dime, and tendered it in payment of the double fare. The money was in the conductor's hand before Florence was fully aware. "You must not pay for me, Dodger," she said. "Why not?" asked the boy. "Ain't we friends?" "Yes, but you have no money to spare. Here, let me return the money." And she offered him a dime from her own purse. "You can pay next time, Miss Florence. It's all right. Now, I'll tell you where we are goin'. A friend of mine, Mrs. O'Keefe, has a lodgin' house, just off the Bowery. I saw her last night, and she says she's got a good room that she can give you for two dollars a week--I don't know how much you'd be willing to pay, but----" "I can pay that for a time at least. I have a little money, and I must find some work to do soon. Is this Mrs. O'Keefe a nice lady?" "She ain't a lady at all," answered Dodger, bluntly. "She keeps an apple-stand near the corner of Bowery and Grand Street; but she's a good, respectable woman, and she's good-hearted. She'll be kind to you, and try to make things pleasant; but if you ain't satisfied----" "It will do for the present. Kindness is what I need, driven as I am from the home of my childhood. But you, Dodger, where do you live?" "I'm goin' to take a small room in the same house, Miss Florence." "I shall be glad to have you near me." "I am proud to hear you say that. I'm a poor boy, and you're a rich lady, but----" "Not rich, Dodger. I am as poor as yourself." "You're a reg'lar lady, anyway. You ain't one of my kind, but I'm going to improve and raise myself. I was readin' the other day of a rich man that was once a poor boy, and sold papers like me. But there's one thing in the way--I ain't got no eddication." "You can read and write, can't you, Dodger?" "Yes; I can read pretty well, but I can't write much." "I will teach you in the evenings, when we are both at leisure." "Will you?" asked the boy, with a glad smile. "You're very kind--I'd like a teacher like you." "Then it's a bargain, Dodger," and Florence's face for the first time lost its sad look, as she saw an opportunity of helping one who had befriended her. "But you must promise to study faithfully." "That I will. If I don't, I'll give you leave to lick me." "I shan't forget that," said Florence, amused. "I will buy a ruler of good hard wood, and then you must look out. But, tell me, where have you lived hitherto?" "I don't like to tell you, Miss Florence. I've lived ever since I was a kid with a man named Tim Bolton. He keeps a saloon on the Bowery, near Houston Street. It's a tough place, I tell you. I've got a bed in one corner--it's tucked away in a closet in the day." "I suppose it is a drinking saloon?" "Yes, that's what it is." "And kept open very late?" "Pretty much all night." "Is this Tim Bolton any relation of yours?" "He says he's my father; but I don't believe it." "Have you always lived with him?" "Ever since I was a small kid." "Have you always lived in New York?" "No; I was out in Australia. Tim was out in the country part of the time, and part of the time he kept a saloon in Melbourne. There was thieves and burglars used to come into his place. I knew what they were, though they didn't think I did." "How terrible for a boy to be subjected to such influences." "But I've made up my mind I won't live with Tim no longer. I can earn my own livin' sellin' papers, or smashin' baggage, and keep away from Tim. I'd have done it before if I'd had a friend like you to care for me." "We will stand by each other, Dodger. Heaven knows I need a friend, and if I can be a friend to you, and help you, I will." "We'll get out here, Miss Florence. I told Mrs. O'Keefe I'd call at her stand, and she'll go over and show you your room." They left the car at the corner of Grand Street, and Dodger led the way to an apple-stand, presided over by a lady of ample proportions, whose broad, Celtic face seemed to indicate alike shrewd good sense and a kindly spirit. "Mrs. O'Keefe," said Dodger, "this is the young lady I spoke to you about--Miss Florence Linden." "It's welcome you are, my dear, and I'm very glad to make your acquaintance. You look like a rale leddy, and I don't know how you'll like the room I've got for you." "I cannot afford to be particular, Mrs. O'Keefe. I have had a--a reverse of circumstances, and I must be content with an humble home." "Then I'll go over and show it to you. Here, Kitty, come and mind the stand," she called to a girl about thirteen across the street, "and don't let anybody steal the apples. Look out for Jimmy Mahone, he stole a couple of apples right under my nose this mornin', the young spalpeen!" As they were crossing the street, a boy of fourteen ran up to Dodger. "Dodger," said he, "you'd better go right over to Tim Bolton's. He's in an awful stew--says he'll skin you alive if you don't come to the s'loon right away." Chapter IX. The New Home. "You can tell Tim Bolton," said Dodger, "that I don't intend to come back at all." "You don't mean it, Dodger?" said Ben Holt, incredulously. "Yes, I do. I'm going to set up for myself." "Oh, Dodger," said Florence, "I'm afraid you will get into trouble for my sake!" "Don't worry about that, Miss Florence. I'm old enough to take care of myself, and I've got tired of livin' with Tim." "But he may beat you!" "He'll have to get hold of me first." They had reached a four-story tenement of shabby brick, which was evidently well filled up by a miscellaneous crowd of tenants; shop girls, mechanics, laborers and widows, living by their daily toil. Florence had never visited this part of the city, and her heart sank within her as she followed Mrs. O'Keefe through a dirty hallway, up a rickety staircase, to the second floor. "One more flight of stairs, my dear," said Mrs. O'Keefe, encouragingly. "I've got four rooms upstairs; one of them is for you, and one for Dodger." Florence did not reply. She began to understand at what cost she had secured her freedom from a distasteful marriage. In her Madison Avenue home all the rooms were light, clean and luxuriously furnished. Here---- But words were inadequate to describe the contrast. Mrs. O'Keefe threw open the door of a back room about twelve feet square, furnished in the plainest manner, uncarpeted, except for a strip that was laid, like a rug, beside the bedstead. There was a washstand, with a mirror, twelve by fifteen inches, placed above it, a pine bureau, a couple of wooden chairs, and a cane-seated rocking-chair. "There, my dear, what do you say to that?" asked Mrs. O'Keefe, complacently. "All nice and comfortable as you would wish to see." "It is--very nice," said Florence, faintly, sacrificing truth to politeness. "And who do you think used to live here?" asked the apple-woman. "I'm sure I don't know." "The bearded woman in the dime museum," answered Mrs. O'Keefe, nodding her head. "She lived with me three months, and she furnished the room herself. When she went away she was hard up, and I bought the furniture of her cheap. You remember Madam Berger, don't you, Dodger?" "Oh, yes, I seen her often." "She got twenty-five dollars a week, and she'd ought to have saved money, but she had a good-for-nothin' husband that drank up all her hard earnin's." "I hope she didn't drink herself," said Florence, who shuddered at the idea of succeeding a drunken tenant. "Not a drop. She was a good, sober lady, if she did work in a dime museum. She only left here two weeks ago. It isn't every one I'd be willin' to take in her place, but I see you're a real leddy, let alone that Dodger recommends you. I hope you'll like the room, and I'll do all I can to make things pleasant. You can go into my room any hour, my dear, and do your little cookin' on my stove. I s'pose you'll do your own cookin'?" "Well, not just at present," faltered Florence. "I am afraid I don't know much about cooking." "You'll find it a deal cheaper, and it's more quiet and gentale than goin' to the eatin'-houses. I'll help you all I can, and glad to." "Thank you, Mrs. O'Keefe, you are very kind," said Florence, gratefully. "Perhaps just at first you wouldn't object to taking me as a boarder, and letting me take my meals with you. I don't think I would like to go to the eating-houses alone." "To be sure, my dear, if you wish it, and I'll be glad of your company. I'll make the terms satisfactory." "I have no doubt of that," said Florence, feeling very much relieved. "If I might be so bold, what kind of work are you going to do?" "I hardly know. It has come upon me so suddenly. I shall have to do something, for I haven't got much money. What I should like best would be to write----" "Is it for the papers you mean?" "Oh, no; I mean for some author or lawyer." "I don't know much about that," said Mrs. O'Keefe. "In fact, I don't mind tellin' you, my dear, that I can't write myself, but I earn a good livin' all the same by my apple-stand. I tell you, my dear," she continued in a confidential tone, "there is a good dale of profit in sellin' apples. It's better than sewin' or writin'. Of course, a young leddy like you wouldn't like to go into the business." Florence shook her head, with a smile. "No, Mrs. O'Keefe," she said. "I am afraid I haven't a business turn, and I should hardly like so public an employment." "Lor', miss, it's nothin' if you get used to it. There's nothin' dull about my business, unless it rains, and you get used to havin' people look at you." "It isn't all that are worth looking at like you, Mrs. O'Keefe," said Dodger, slyly. "Oh, go away wid your fun, Dodger," said the apple-woman, good-naturedly. "I ain't much to look at, I know." "I think there's a good deal of you to look at, Mrs. O'Keefe. You must weigh near three hundred." "I've a good mind to box your ears, Dodger. I only weigh a hundred and ninety-five. But I can't be bothered wid your jokes. Can you sew, Miss Florence?" "Yes; but I would rather earn my living some other way, if possible." "Small blame to you for that. I had a girl in Dodger's room last year who used to sew for a livin'. Early and late she worked, poor thing, and she couldn't make but two dollars a week." "How could she live?" asked Florence, startled, for she knew very little of the starvation wages paid to toiling women. "She didn't live. She just faded away, and it's my belief the poor thing didn't get enough to eat. Every day or two I'd make an excuse to take her in something from my own table, a plate of meat, or a bit of toast and a cup of tay, makin' belave she didn't get a chance to cook for herself, but she got thinner and thinner, and her poor cheeks got hollow, and she died in the hospital at last." The warm-hearted apple-woman wiped away a tear with the corner of her apron, as she thought of the poor girl whose sad fate she described. "You won't die of consumption, Mrs. O'Keefe," said Dodger. "It'll take a good while for you to fade away." "Hear him now," said the apple-woman, laughing. "He will have his joke, Miss Florence, but he's a good bye for all that, and I'm glad he's goin' to lave Tim Bolton, that ould thafe of the worruld." "Now, Mrs. O'Keefe, you know you'd marry Tim if he'd only ask you." "Marry him, is it? I'd lay my broom over his head if he had the impudence to ask me. When Maggie O'Keefe marries ag'in, she won't marry a man wid a red nose." "Break it gently to him, Mrs. O'Keefe. Tim is just the man to break his heart for love of you." Mrs. O'Keefe aimed a blow at Dodger, but he proved true to his name, and skillfully evaded it. "I must be goin'," he said. "I've got to work, or I can't pay room rent when the week comes round." "What are you going to do, Dodger?" asked Florence. "It isn't time for the evenin' papers yet, so I shall go 'round to the piers and see if I can't get a job at smashin' baggage." "But I shouldn't think any one would want to do that," said Florence, puzzled. "It's what we boys call it. It's just carryin' valises and bundles. Sometimes I show strangers the way to Broadway. Last week an old man paid me a dollar to show him the way to the Cooper Institute. He was a gentleman, he was. I'd like to meet him ag'in. Good-by, Miss Florence; I'll be back some time this afternoon." "And I must be goin', too," said Mrs. O'Keefe. "I can't depend on that Kitty; she's a wild slip of a girl, and just as like as not I'll find a dozen apples stole when I get back. I hope you won't feel lonely, my dear." "I think I will lie down a while," said Florence. "I have a headache." She threw herself on the bed, and a feeling of loneliness and desolation came over her. Her new friends were kind, but they could not make up to her for her uncle's love, so strangely lost, and the home she had left behind. Chapter X. The Arch Conspirator. In the house on Madison Avenue, Curtis Waring was left in possession of the field. Through his machinations Florence had been driven from home and disinherited. He was left sole heir to his uncle's large property with the prospect of soon succeeding, for though only fifty-four, John Linden looked at least ten years older, and was as feeble as many men past seventy. Yet, as Curtis seated himself at the breakfast table an hour after Florence had left the house, he looked far from happy or triumphant. One thing he had not succeeded in, the conquest of his cousin's heart. Though he loved himself best, he was really in love with Florence, so far as he was capable of being in love with any one. She was only half his age--scarcely that--but he persuaded himself that the match was in every way suitable. He liked to fancy her at the head of his table, after the death of his uncle, which he anticipated in a few months at latest. The more she appeared to dislike him, the more he determined to marry her, even against her will. She was the only one likely to inherit John Linden's wealth, and by marrying her he would make sure of it. Yet she had been willing to leave the home of her youth, to renounce luxury for a life of poverty, rather than to marry him. When he thought of this his face became set and its expression stern and determined. "Florence shall yet be mine," he declared, resolutely. "I will yet be master of her fate, and bend her to my will. Foolish girl, how dare she match her puny strength against the resolute will of Curtis Waring?" "Was there any one else whom she loved?" he asked himself, anxiously. No, he could think of none. On account of his uncle's chronic invalidism, they had neither gone into society, nor entertained visitors, and in the midst of a great city Florence and her uncle had practically led the lives of recluses. There had been no opportunity to meet young men who might have proved claimants for her hand. "When did Miss Florence leave the house, Jane?" he inquired, as he seated himself at the table. "Most an hour since," the girl answered, coldly, for she disliked Curtis as much as she loved and admired Florence. "It is sad, very sad that she should be so headstrong," said Curtis, with hypocritical sorrow. "It is sad for her to go away from her own uncle's house," returned Jane. "And very--very foolish." "I don't know about that, sir. She had her reasons," said Jane, significantly. Curtis coughed. He had no doubt that Florence had talked over the matter with her hand-maiden. "Did she say where she was going, Jane?" he asked. "I don't think the poor child knew herself, sir." "Did she go alone?" "No, sir; the boy that was here last night called for her." "That ragamuffin!" said Curtis, scornfully. "She certainly shows extraordinary taste for a young lady of family." "The boy seems a very kind and respectable boy," said Jane, who had been quite won by Dodger's kindness to her young mistress. "He may be respectable, though I am not so sure of that; but his position in life is very humble. He is probably a bootblack; a singular person to select for the friend of a girl like Florence." "There's them that stands higher that isn't half so good," retorted Jane, with more zeal than good grammar. "Did Miss Florence take a cab?" "No; she just walked." "But she took some clothing with her?" "She took a handbag--that is all. She will send for her trunk." "If you find out where she is living, just let me know, Jane." "I will if she is willing to have me," answered Jane, independently. "Look here, Jane," said Curtis, angrily, "don't forget that you are not her servant, but my uncle's. It is to him you look for wages, not to Miss Florence." "I don't need to be told that, sir. I know that well enough." "Then you know that it is to him that your faithful services are due, not to Florence?" "I'm faithful to both, Mr. Waring." "You are aware that my uncle is justly displeased with my cousin?" "I know he's displeased, but I am sure he has no good reason to be." Curtis Waring bit his lips. The girl, servant as she was, seemed to be openly defying him. His imperious temper could ill brook this. "Take care!" he said, with a frown. "You seem to be lacking in respect to me. You don't appear to understand my position in this house." "Oh, yes, I do. I know you have schemed to get my poor young mistress out of the house, and have succeeded." "I have a great mind to discharge you, girl," said Curtis, with lowering brow. "I am not your servant, sir. You have nothing to do with me." "You will see whether I have or not. I will let you remain for a time, as it is your attachment to Miss Florence that has made you forget yourself. You will find that it is for your interest to treat me respectfully." A feeble step was heard at the door, and John Linden entered the breakfast-room. His face was sad, and he heaved a sigh as he glanced mechanically at the head of the table, where Florence usually sat. Curtis Waring sprang to his feet, and placing himself at his uncle's side, led him to his seat. "How do you feel this morning, uncle?" he asked, with feigned solicitude. "Ill, Curtis. I didn't sleep well last night." "I don't wonder, sir. You had much to try you." "Is--is Florence here?" "No, sir," answered Jane, promptly. "She left the house an hour ago." A look of pain appeared on John Linden's pale face. "Did--did she leave a message for me?" he asked, slowly. "She asked me to bid you good-by for her," answered Jane, quickly. "Uncle, don't let yourself be disturbed now with painful thoughts. Eat your breakfast first, and then we will speak of Florence." John Linden ate a very light breakfast. He seemed to have lost his appetite and merely toyed with his food. When he arose from the table, Curtis supported him to the library. "It is very painful to me--this conduct of Florence's, Curtis," he said, as he sank into his armchair. "I understand it fully, uncle," said Curtis. "When I think of it, it makes me very angry with the misguided girl." "Perhaps I have been too harsh--too stern!" "You, uncle, too harsh! Why, you are the soul of gentleness. Florence has shown herself very ungrateful." "Yet, Curtis, I love that girl. Her mother seemed to live again in her. Have I not acted cruelly in requiring her to obey me or leave the house?" "You have acted only for good. You are seeking her happiness." "You really think this, Curtis?" "I am sure of it." "But how will it all end?" asked Linden, bending an anxious look upon his wily nephew. "By Florence yielding." "You are sure of that?" "Yes. Listen, uncle; Florence is only capricious, like most girls of her age. She foolishly desires to have her own way. It is nothing more serious, I can assure you." "But she has left the house. That seems to show that she is in earnest." "She thinks, uncle, that by doing so she can bend you to her wishes. She hasn't the slightest idea of any permanent separation. She is merely experimenting upon your weakness. She expects you will recall her in a week, at the latest. That is all of it." Like most weak men, it made Mr. Linden angry to have his strength doubted. "You think that?" he said. "I have no doubt of it." "She shall find that I am resolute," he said, irritably. "I will not recall her." "Bravo, uncle! Only stick to that, and she will yield unconditionally within a fortnight. A little patience, and you will carry your point. Then all will be smooth sailing." "I hope so, Curtis. Your words have cheered me. I will be patient. But I hope I shan't have to wait long. Where is the morning paper?" "I shall have to humor and deceive him," thought Curtis. "I shall have a difficult part to play, but I am sure to succeed at last." Chapter XI. Florence Secures Employment. For a few days after being installed in her new home Florence was like one dazed. She could not settle her mind to any plan of self-support. She was too unhappy in her enforced exile from her home, and it saddened her to think that the uncle who had always been so kind was permanently estranged from her. Though Mrs. O'Keefe was kind, and Dodger was her faithful friend, she could not accustom herself to her poor surroundings. She had not supposed luxury so essential to her happiness. It was worse for her because she had nothing to do but give way to her morbid fancies. This Mrs. O'Keefe was clear-sighted enough to see. "I am sorry to see you so downcast like, my dear young lady," she said. "How can I help it, Mrs. O'Keefe?" returned Florence. "Try not to think of your wicked cousin, my dear." "It isn't of him that I think--it is of my uncle. How could he be so cruel, and turn against me after years of kindness?" "It's that wicked Curtis that is settin' him against you, take my word for it, Miss Florence. Shure, he must be wake-minded to let such a spalpeen set him against a swate young leddy like you." "He is weak in body, not in mind, Mrs. O'Keefe. You are right in thinking that it is Curtis that is the cause of my misfortune." "Your uncle will come to his right mind some day, never fear! And now, my dear, shall I give you a bit of advice?" "Go on, my kind friend. I will promise to consider whatever you say." "Then you'd better get some kind of work to take up your mind--a bit of sewin', or writin', or anything that comes to hand. I suppose you wouldn't want to mind my apple-stand a couple of hours every day?" "No," answered Florence. "I don't feel equal to that." "It would do you no end of good to be out in the open air. It would bring back the roses to your pale cheeks. If you coop yourself up in this dark room, you'll fade away and get thin." "You are right. I will make an effort and go out. Besides, I must see about work." Here Dodger entered the room in his usual breezy way. In his hand he brandished a morning paper. "How are you feelin', Florence?" he asked; he had given up saying Miss Florence at her request. "Here's an advertisement that'll maybe suit you." "Show it to me, Dodger," said Florence, beginning to show some interest. The boy directed her attention to the following advertisement: "Wanted.--A governess for a girl of twelve. Must be a good performer on the piano, and able to instruct in French and the usual English branches. Terms must be moderate. Apply to Mrs. Leighton, at 127 W. ---- Street." "There, Florence, what do you say to that? That's better than sewin'." "I don't know, Dodger, whether I am competent." "You play on the pianner, don't you?" "Yes." "Well enough to teach?" "I think so; but I may not have the gift of teaching." "Yes, you have. Haven't you been teachin' me every evenin'? You make everything just as clear as mud--no, I don't mean that. You just explain so that I can't help understandin'." "Then," said Florence, "I suppose I am at liberty to refer to you." "Yes; you can tell the lady to call at the office of Dodger, Esq., any mornin' after sunrise, and he'll give her full particulars." Florence did not immediately decide to apply for the situation, but the more she thought of it the more she felt inclined to do so. The little experience she had had with Dodger satisfied her that she should enjoy teaching better than sewing or writing. Accordingly, an hour later, she put on her street dress and went uptown to the address given in the advertisement. No. 127 was a handsome brown-stone house, not unlike the one in which Florence had been accustomed to live. It was a refreshing contrast to the poor tenement in which she lived at present. "Is Mrs. Leighton at home?" inquired Florence. "Yes, miss," answered the servant, respectfully. "Whom shall I say?" "I have come to apply for the situation of governess," answered Florence, feeling rather awkward as she made the statement. "Ah," said the servant, with a perceptible decline in respect. "Won't you step in?" "Thank you." "Well, she do dress fine for a governess," said Nancy to herself. "It's likely she'll put on airs." The fact was that Florence was dressed according to her past social position--in a costly street attire--but it had never occurred to her that she was too well dressed for a governess. She took her seat in the drawing-room, and five minutes later there was a rustling heard, and Mrs. Leighton walked into the room. "Are you the applicant for the position of governess?" she asked, surveying the elegantly attired young lady seated on the sofa. "Yes, Mrs. Leighton," answered Florence, easily, for she felt more at home in a house like this than in the tenement. "Have you taught before?" "Very little," answered Florence, smiling to herself, as she wondered what Mrs. Leighton would say if she could see Dodger, the only pupil she ever had. "However, I like teaching, and I like children." "Pardon me, but you don't look like a governess, Miss----" "Linden," suggested Florence, filling out the sentence. "Do governesses have a peculiar look?" "I mean as to dress. You are more expensively dressed than the average governess can afford." "It is only lately that my circumstances required me to support myself. I should not be able to buy such a dress out of my present earnings." "I am glad to hear you say that, for I do not propose to give a large salary." "I do not expect one," said Florence, quietly. "You consider yourself competent to instruct in music, French and the English branches?" "Oh, yes." "Do you speak French?" "Yes, madam." "Would you favor me with a specimen of your piano playing?" There was a piano in the back parlor. Florence removed her gloves, and taking a seat before it, dashed into a spirited selection from Strauss. Mrs. Leighton listened with surprised approval. "Certainly you are a fine performer," she said. "What--if I should engage you--would you expect in the way of compensation?" "How much time would you expect me to give?" "Three hours daily--from nine to twelve." "I hardly know what to say. What did you expect to pay?" "About fifty cents an hour." Florence knew very well, from the sums that had been paid for her own education, that this was miserably small pay; but it was much more than she could earn by sewing. "I will teach a month on those terms," she said, after a pause. Mrs. Leighton looked well pleased. She knew that she was making a great bargain. "Oh, by the way," she said, "can you give references?" "I can refer you to Madam Morrison," naming the head of a celebrated female seminary. "She educated me." "That will be quite satisfactory," said Mrs. Leighton, graciously. "Can you begin to-morrow?" "Yes, madam." "You will then see your pupil. At present she is out." Florence bowed and withdrew. She had been afraid Mrs. Leighton would inquire where she lived, and she would hardly dare to name the humble street which she called home. She walked toward Fifth Avenue, when, just as she was turning the corner, she met Mr. Percy de Brabazon, swinging a slender cane, and dressed in the extreme of the fashion. "Miss Linden!" he exclaimed, eagerly. "This is--aw--indeed a pleasure. Where are you walking this fine morning? May I--aw--have the pleasure of accompanying you?" Florence stopped short in deep embarrassment. Chapter XII. A Friend, Though A Dude. Percy de Brabazon looked sincerely glad to meet Florence, and she herself felt some pleasure in meeting one who reminded her of her former life. But it was quite impossible that she should allow him to accompany her to her poor home on the East Side. "Thank you, Mr. de Brabazon, but my engagements this morning will hardly permit me to accept your escort," she said. "I suppose that means that you are going shopping; but I don't mind it, I assure you, and I will carry your bundles," he added, magnanimously. "That would never do. What! the fashionable Mr. de Brabazon carrying bundles? You would lose your social status." "I don't mind, Miss Florence, as long as you give me--aw--an approving smile." "I will give it now, as I bid you good-morning." "May I--aw--have the pleasure of calling upon you to-morrow evening, Miss Linden?" "It is evident that you have not heard that I am no longer residing with my uncle." Mr. de Brabazon looked surprised. "No, I had not heard. May I ask--aw--where you are wesiding?" "With friends," answered Florence, briefly. "As you are a friend and will be likely to hear it, I may as well mention that my uncle is displeased with me, and has practically disowned me." "Then, Miss Florence," said Mr. de Brabazon, eagerly, "won't you accept--aw--my heart and hand? My mother will be charmed to receive you, and I--aw--will strive to make you happy." "I appreciate your devotion, I do, indeed, Mr. de Brabazon," said Florence, earnestly; "but I must decline your offer. I will not marry without love." "I don't mind that," said Percy, "if you'll agree to take a feller; you'll learn in time to like him a little. I am wich--I know you don't care for that--but I can give you as good a home as your uncle. If you would give me hope--aw----" "I am afraid I cannot, Mr. de Brabazon, but if you will allow me to look upon you as a friend, I will call upon you if I have need of a friend's services." "Will you, weally?" "Yes, there is my hand on it. I ought to tell you that I must now earn my own living, and am to give lessons to a young pupil in West ---- Street, three hours daily." "You don't mean to say you are actually poor?" said Mr. de Brabazon, horrified. "Yes, indeed, I am." "Then, won't you let me lend you some money? I've got more than I need, I have, 'pon my honor." "Thank you, I promise to call upon you if I need it." Mr. de Brabazon looked pleased. "Would you mind telling me where you are going to teach, Miss Florence?" Florence hesitated, but there was something so sincere and friendly in the young man's manner--dude though he was--that she consented to grant his request. "I am to teach the daughter of Mr. Robert Leighton." "Why, Miss Leighton is my cousin," said Percy, in joyous excitement. "Indeed! Had I known that I would hardly have told you." "Don't be afwaid! I will be vewy discreet," said Mr. de Brabazon. "Thank you, and good-morning." Florence went on her way, cheered and encouraged in spite of herself, by her success in obtaining employment, and by the friendly offers of Mr. de Brabazon. "It is wrong to get discouraged," she said to herself. "After all, there are warm hearts in the world." When she entered her humble home, she found Dodger already there. There was an eagerness in his manner, and a light in his eye, that seemed to indicate good news. "Well, Dodger, what is it?" "I've been waitin' half an hour to see you, Florence," he said. "I've got some work for you." "What is it--sewing on a button, or mending a coat?" "No, I mean workin' for money. You can play on the pianner, can't you?" "Yes." "They want a young lady to play the pianner at a dime museum, for nine dollars a week. It's a bully chance. I just told the manager--he's a friend of mine--that I had a young lady friend that was a stunnin' player, and he wants you to come around and see him." It was a preposterous idea--so Florence thought--that she should consent to play at such a place; but she couldn't expect Dodger to look at the matter in the same light, so she answered, very gently and pleasantly: "You are very kind, Dodger, to look out for me, but I shall not need to accept your friend's offer. I have secured a chance to teach uptown." "You have? What'll you get?" "I am to be employed three hours daily, at fifty cents an hour." "Geewhillikens! that's good! You'd have to work as much as twelve hours at the museum for the same pay." "You see, therefore, that I am provided for--that is, if I suit." Dodger was a little disappointed. Still, he could not help admitting that it would be better for Florence to teach three hours, than to work ten or twelve. As to her having any objection to appearing at a dime museum, that never occurred to him. Florence had sent for her trunk, and it was now in her room. Dodger accompanied an expressman to the house, and luckily saw Jane, who arranged everything for him. "How's the old gentleman?" asked Dodger. "Florence wanted me to ask." "He's feeble," said Jane, shaking her head. "Does he miss Florence?" "That he do." "Why don't he send for her, then, to come back?" asked Dodger, bluntly. "Because Curtis Waring makes him believe she'll come around and ask forgiveness, if he only holds out. I tell you, Dodger, that Curtis is a viper." "So he is," answered Dodger, who was not quite clear in his mind as to what a viper was. "I'd like to step on his necktie." "If it wasn't for him, my dear young mistress would be back in the house within twenty-four hours." "I don't see how the old gentleman can let him turn Florence out of the house." "He's a snake in the grass, Dodger. It may be wicked, but I just wish something would happen to him. And how is Miss Florence lookin', poor dear?" "She's lookin' like a daisy." "Does she worry much?" "She did at first, but now she's workin' every day, and she looks more cheerful-like." "Miss Florence workin'! She that was always brought up like a lady!" "She's teachin' a little girl three hours a day." "Well, that isn't so bad!" said Jane, relieved. "Teachin' is genteel. I wish I could see her some day. Will you tell her, Dodger, that next Sunday is my day out, and I'll be in Central Park up by the menagerie at three o'clock, if she'll only take the trouble to be up there?" "I'll tell her, Jane, and I'm sure she'll be there." A day or two afterward Curtis Waring asked: "Have you heard from my Cousin Florence since she went away?" "Yes, sir." "Indeed! Where is she staying?" "She didn't send me word." "How, then, did you hear from her?" "Dodger came with an expressman for her trunk." Curtis Waring frowned. "And you let him have it?" he demanded, sternly. "Of course I did. Why shouldn't I?" "You should have asked me." "And what business have you with Miss Florence's trunk, I'd like to know?" said Jane, independently. "Never mind; you ought to have asked my permission." "I didn't think you'd want to wear any of Miss Florence's things, Mr. Waring." "You are silly and impertinent," said Curtis, biting his lips. "Did that boy tell you anything about her?" "Only that she wasn't worryin' any for you, Mr. Curtis." Curtis glanced angrily at his cousin's devoted friend, and then, turning on his heel, left the room. "I'll bring her to terms yet," he muttered. "No girl of seventeen shall defy me!" Chapter XIII. Tim Bolton's Saloon. Not far from Houston Street, on the west side of the Bowery, is an underground saloon, with whose proprietor we are already acquainted. It was kept by Tim Bolton, whose peculiar tastes and shady characteristics well fitted him for such a business. It was early evening, and the gas jets lighted up a characteristic scene. On the sanded floor were set several tables, around which were seated a motley company, all of them with glasses of beer or whiskey before them. Tim, with a white apron on, was moving about behind the bar, ministering to the wants of his patrons. There was a scowl upon his face, for he was not fond of work, and he missed Dodger's assistance. The boy understood the business of mixing drinks as well as he, and often officiated for hours at a time, thus giving his guardian and reputed father a chance to leave the place and meet outside engagements. A tall, erect gentleman entered the saloon, and walked up to the bar. "Good-evening, colonel," said Tim. "Good-evening, sir," said the newcomer, with a stately inclination of the head. He was really a colonel, having served in the Civil War at the head of a Georgia regiment. He had all the stately courtesy of a Southern gentleman, though not above the weakness of a frequent indulgence in the strongest fluids dispensed by Tim Bolton. "What'll you have, colonel?" "Whiskey straight, sir. It's the only drink fit for a gentleman. Will you join me, Mr. Bolton?" "Of course, I will," said Tim, as, pouring out a glass for himself, he handed the bottle to the colonel. "Your health, sir," said the colonel, bowing. "Same to you, colonel," responded Tim, with a nod. "Where's the boy?" Col. Martin had always taken considerable notice of Dodger, being naturally fond of boys, and having once had a son of his own, who was killed in a railroad accident when about Dodger's age. "Danged if I know!" answered Tim, crossly. "He hasn't left you, has he?" "Yes; he's cleared out, the ungrateful young imp! I'd like to lay my hands on the young rascal." "Was he your son?" "He was my--stepson," answered Tim, hesitating. "I see, you married his mother." "Yes," said Tim, considering the explanation satisfactory, and resolved to adopt it. "I've always treated him as if he was my own flesh and blood, and I've raised him from a young kid. Now he's gone and left me." "Can you think of any reason for his leaving you?" "Not one. I always treated him well. He's been a great expense to me, and now he's got old enough to help me he must clear out. He's the most ungrateful cub I ever seen." "I am sorry he has gone--I used to like to have him serve me." "And now what's the consequence? Here I am tied down to the bar day and night." "Can't you get some one in his place?" "Yes, but I'd likely be robbed; I had a bartender once who robbed me of two or three dollars a day." "But you trusted the boy?" "Yes, Dodger wouldn't steal--I can say that much for him." "There's one thing I noticed about the boy," said the colonel, reflectively. "He wouldn't drink. More than once I have asked him to drink with me, but he would always say, 'Thank you, colonel, but I don't like whiskey.' I never asked him to take anything else, for whiskey's the only drink fit for a gentleman. Do you expect to get the boy back?" "If I could only get out for a day I'd hunt him up; but I'm tied down here." "I seed him yesterday, Tim," said a red-nosed man who had just entered the saloon, in company with a friend of the same general appearance. Both wore silk hats, dented and soiled with stains of dirt, coats long since superannuated, and wore the general look of barroom loafers. They seldom had any money, but lay in wait for any liberal stranger, in the hope of securing a free drink. "Where did you see him, Hooker?" asked Tim Bolton, with sudden interest. "Selling papers down by the Astor House." "Think of that, colonel!" said Tim, disgusted. "Becomin' a common newsboy, when he might be in a genteel employment! Did you speak to him, Hooker?" "Yes, I asked him if he had left you." "What did he say?" "That he had left you for good--that he was going to grow up respectable!" "Think of that!" said Tim, with renewed disgust. "Did he say where he lived?" "No." "Did he ask after me?" "No, except he said that you were no relation of his. He said he expected you stole him when he was a kid, and he hoped some time to find his relations." Tim Bolton's face changed color, and he was evidently disturbed. Could the boy have heard anything? he wondered, for his suspicions were very near the truth. "It's all nonsense!" he said, roughly. "Next time you see him, Hooker, foller him home, and find out where he lives." "All right, Tim. It ought to be worth something," he insinuated, with a husky cough. "That's so. What'll you take?" "Whiskey," answered Hooker, with a look of pleased anticipation. "You're a gentleman, Tim," he said, as he gulped down the contents of a glass without winking. Briggs, his dilapidated companion, had been looking on in thirsty envy. "I'll help Hooker to look for Dodger," he said. "Very well, Briggs." "Couldn't you stand a glass for me, too, Tim?" asked Briggs, eagerly. "No," answered Bolton, irritably. "I've been at enough expense for that young rascal already." But the colonel noticed the pathetic look of disappointment on the face of Briggs, and he was stirred to compassion. "Drink with me, sir," he said, turning to the overjoyed Briggs. "Thank you, colonel. You're a gentleman!" "Two glasses, Tim." So the colonel drained a second glass, and Briggs, pouring out with trembling fingers as much as he dared, followed suit. When the last drop was drunk, he breathed a deep sigh of measureless enjoyment. "If either of you bring that boy in here," said Tim, "I'll stand a couple of glasses for both." "We're your men, Tim," said Hooker. "Ain't we, Briggs?" "That's so, Hooker. Shake!" And the poor victims of drink shook hands energetically. Long since they had sunk their manhood in the intoxicating cup, and henceforth lived only to gratify their unnatural craving for what would sooner or later bring them to a drunkard's grave. As they left the saloon, the colonel turned to Tim, and said: "I like whiskey, sir; but I'll be hanged if I can respect such men as those." "They're bums, colonel, that's what they are!" "How do they live?" "Don't know. They're in here about every day." "If it's drink that's brought them where they are, I'm half inclined to give it up; but, after all, it isn't necessary to make a beast of yourself. I always drink like a gentleman, sir." "So you do, colonel." At that moment a poor woman, in a faded calico dress with a thin shawl over her shoulders, descended the steps that led into the saloon, and walked up to the bar. "Has my husband been here to-night?" she asked. Tim Bolton frowned. "Who's your husband?" he asked, roughly. "Wilson." "No, Bill Wilson hasn't been here to-night. Even if he had you have no business to come after him. I don't want any sniveling women here." "I couldn't help it, Mr. Bolton," said the woman, putting her apron to her eyes. "If Bill comes in, won't you tell him to come home? The baby's dead, and we haven't a cent in the house!" Even Tim was moved by this. "I'll tell him," he said. "Take a drink yourself; you don't look strong. It shan't cost you a cent." "No," said the woman, "not a drop! It has ruined my happiness, and broken up our home! Not a drop!" "Here, my good lady," said the colonel, with chivalrous deference, "you have no money. Take this," and he handed the astonished woman a five-dollar bill. "Heaven bless you, sir!" she exclaimed, fervently. "Allow me to see you to the street," and the gallant Southern gentleman escorted her up to the sidewalk. "I'd like to horsewhip that woman's husband. Don't you sell him another drop!" he said, when he returned. Chapter XIV. The Missing Will. An hour after the depart of the colonel there was an unexpected arrival. A well-dressed gentleman descended the stairs gingerly, looked about him with fastidious disdain, and walked up to the bar. Tim Bolton was filling an order, and did not immediately observe him. When at length he turned around he exclaimed, in some surprise: "Mr. Waring!" "Yes, Bolton, I have found my way here." "I have been expecting you." "I came to you for some information." "Well, ask your questions: I don't know whether I can answer them." "First, where is my Cousin Florence?" "How should I know? She wasn't likely to place herself under my protection." "She's with that boy of yours--Dodger, I believe you call him. Where is he?" "Run away," answered Bolton, briefly. "Do you mean that you don't know where he is?" "Yes, I do mean that. I haven't set my eyes on him since that night." "What do you mean by such negligence? Do you remember who he is?" "Certainly I do." "Then why do you let him get of your reach?" "How could I help it? Here I am tied down to this bar day and night! I'm nearly dead for want of sleep." "It would be better to close up your place for a week and look after him." "Couldn't do it. I should lose all my trade. People would say I was closed up." "And have you done nothing toward his recovery?" "Yes, I have sent out two men in search of him." "Have you any idea where he is, or what he is doing?" "Yes, he has been seen in front of the Astor House, selling papers. I have authorized my agent, if he sees him again, to follow him home, and find out where he lives." "That is good! Astor House? I may see him myself." "But why do you want to see him? Do you want to restore him to his rights?" "Hush!" said Curtis, glancing around him apprehensively. "What we say may be overheard and excite suspicion. One thing may be secured by finding him--the knowledge of Florence's whereabouts." "What makes you think she and the boy are together?" "He came for her trunk. I was away from home, or I would not have let it go----" "It is strange that they two are together, considering their relationship." "That is what I am afraid they will find out. She may tell him of the mysterious disappearance of her cousin, and he----" "That reminds me," interrupted Bolton. "He told Hooker--Hooker was the man that saw him in front of the Astor House--that he didn't believe I was his father. He said he thought I must have stolen him when he was a young kid." "Did he say that?" asked Curtis, in evident alarm. "Yes, so Hooker says." "If he has that idea in his head, he may put two and two together, and guess that he is the long-lost cousin of Florence. Tim, the boy must be got rid of." "If you mean what I think you do, Mr. Waring, I'm not with you. I won't consent to harm the boy." "You said that before. I don't mean anything that will shock your tender heart, Bolton," said Curtis, with a sneer. "I mean carried to a distance--Europe or Australia, for instance. All I want is to keep him out of New York till my uncle is dead. After that I don't care what becomes of him." "That's better. I've no objection to that. How is the old gentleman?" "He grieved so much at first over the girl's loss, that I feared he would insist on her being recalled at once. I soothed him by telling him that he had only to remain firm, and she would come around, and yield to his wishes." "Do you think she will?" asked Tim, doubtfully. "I intend she shall!" said Curtis, significantly. "Bolton, I love the girl all the more for her obstinate refusal to wed me. I have made up my mind to marry her with her consent, or without it." "I thought it was only the estate you were after?" "I want the estate and her with it. Mark my words, Bolton, I will have both!" "You will have the estate, no doubt; Mr. Linden has made his will in your favor, has he not?" and Bolton looked intently in the face of his visitor. "Hark you, Bolton, there is a mystery I cannot fathom. My uncle made two wills. In the earlier, he left the estate to Florence and myself, if we married; otherwise, to me alone." "That is satisfactory." "Yes, but there was another, in which the estate goes to the son, if living. That will has disappeared." "Is it possible?" asked Bolton, in astonishment. "When was it missed?" "On the night of the burglary." "Then you think----" "That the boy, Dodger, has it. Good Heavens! if he only knew that by this will the estate goes to him!" and Waring wiped the perspiration from his brow. "You are sure he did not give you the will?" he demanded, eying Bolton sharply. "I have not seen him since the night of the robbery." "If he has read the will, it may lead to dangerous suspicions." "He would give it to your cousin, Florence, would he not?" "Perhaps so. Bolton, you must get the boy back, and take the will from him, if you can." "I will do my best; but you must remember that Dodger is no longer a small kid. He is a boy of eighteen, strong and well grown. He wouldn't be easy to manage. Besides, as long as he doesn't know that he has any interest in the will, his holding it won't do any harm. Is the old gentleman likely to live long?" "I don't know. I sometimes hope---- Pshaw! why should I play the hypocrite when speaking to you? Surely it is no sin to wish him better off, since he can't enjoy life!" "He might if Florence and his son were restored to him." "What do you mean, Bolton?" asked Curtis, suspiciously. "What could I mean? It merely occurred to me," said Bolton, innocently. "You say he is quiet, thinkin' the girl will come around?" "Yes." "Suppose time passes, and she doesn't? Won't he try to find her? As she is in the city, that won't be hard." "I shall represent that she has left the city." "For any particular point?" "No, that is not necessary." "And then?" "If he worries himself into the grave, so much the better for me." "There is no halfway about you, Mr. Curtis Waring." "Why should there be? Listen, Bolton; I have set my all on this cast. I am now thirty-six, and still I am dependent upon my uncle's bounty. I am in debt, and some of my creditors are disposed to trouble me. My uncle is worth--I don't know how much, but I think half a million. What does he get out of it? Food and clothes, but not happiness. If it were mine, all the avenues of enjoyment would be open to me. That estate I must have." "Suppose you get it, what is there for me?" asked Bolton. "I will see that you are recompensed if you help me to it." "Will you put that in writing?" "Do you take me for a fool? To put it in writing would be to place me in your power! You can trust me." "Well, perhaps so," said Tim Bolton, slowly. "At any rate you will have to. Well, good-night. I will see you again. In the meantime try to find the boy." Tim Bolton followed him with his eyes, as he left the saloon. "What would he say," said Bolton to himself, "if he knew that the will he so much wishes to find is in my hands, and that I hold him in my power already?" Chapter XV. The New Governess. "Wish me luck, Dodger!" "So I do, Florence. Are you goin' to begin teachin' this mornin'?" "Yes; and I hope to produce a favorable impression. It is very important to me to please Mrs. Leighton and my future pupil." "I'm sure you'll suit. How nice you look!" Florence smiled, and looked pleased. She had taken pains with her dress and personal appearance, and, being luckily well provided with handsome dresses, had no difficulty in making herself presentable. As she stepped out of the shabby doorway upon the sidewalk no one supposed her to be a tenant, but she was generally thought to be a visitor, perhaps the agent of some charitable association. "Perhaps all will not judge me as favorably as you do, Dodger," said Florence, with a laugh. "If you have the headache any day, Florence, I'll take your place." "You would look rather young for a tutor, Dodger, and I am afraid you would not be dignified. Good-morning! I shall be back to dinner." "I am glad to find you punctual, Miss Linden," said Mrs. Leighton, as Florence was ushered into her presence. "This is your pupil, my daughter, Carrie." Florence smiled and extended her hand. "I hope we will like each other," she said. The little girl eyed her with approval. This beautiful young lady was a pleasant surprise to her, for, never having had a governess, she expected to meet a stiff, elderly lady, of stern aspect. She readily gave her hand to Florence, and looked relieved. "Carrie," said Mrs. Leighton, "you may show Miss Linden the way to the schoolroom." "All right, mamma," and the little girl led the way upstairs to a back room on the third floor. "So this is to be our schoolroom, is it, Carrie?" said Florence. "It is a very pleasant room." "Yes; but I should have preferred the front chamber. Mamma thought that I might be looking into the street too much. Here there is only a back yard, and nothing to look at." "Your mamma seems very judicious," said Florence, smiling. "Are you fond of study?" "Well, I ain't exactly fond, but I will do my best." "That is all that can be expected." "Do you know, Miss Linden, you don't look at all like I expected." "Am I to be glad or sorry for that?" "I thought you would be an old maid, stiff and starched, like May Robinson's governess." "I am not married, Carrie, so perhaps you may regard me as an old maid." "You'll never be an old maid," said Carrie, confidently. "You are too young and pretty." "Thank you, Carrie," said Florence, with a little blush. "You say that, I hope, because you are going to like me." "I like you already," said the little girl, impulsively. "I've got a cousin that will like you, too." "A young girl?" "No; of course not. He is a young man. His name is Percy de Brabazon. It is a funny name, isn't it? You see, his father was a Frenchman." Florence was glad that she already knew from Percy's own mouth of the relationship, as it saved her from showing a degree of surprise that might have betrayed her acquaintance with the young man. "What makes you think your cousin would like me, Carrie?" "Because he always likes pretty girls. He is a masher." "That's slang, Carrie. I am sure your mamma wouldn't approve your using such a word." "Don't tell her. It just slipped out. But about Percy--he wants very much to be married." Florence was not surprised to hear this, for she had the best reason for knowing it to be true. "Is he a handsome young man?" she asked, demurely. "He's funny looking. He's awful good-natured, but he isn't the sort of young man I would like," concluded Carrie, with amusing positiveness. "I hope you don't let your mind run on such things. You are quite too young." "Oh, I don't think much about it. But Percy is a dude. He spends a sight for clothes. He always looks as if he had just come out of a bandbox." "Is he in any business?" "No; he has an independent fortune, so mamma says. He was in Europe last year." "I think, Carrie, we must give up talking and attend to business. I should have checked you before, but I thought a little conversation would help us to get acquainted. Now show me your books, and I will assign your lessons." "Don't give me too long lessons, please, Miss Linden." "I will take care not to task you beyond your strength. I don't want my pupil to grow sick on my hands." "I hope you won't be too strict. When May Robinson makes two mistakes her governess makes her learn her lessons over again." "I will promise not to be too strict. Now let me see your books." The rest of the forenoon was devoted to study. Florence was not only an excellent scholar, but she had the art of imparting knowledge, and, what is very important, she was able in a few luminous words to explain difficulties and make clear what seemed to her pupil obscure. So the time slipped quickly and pleasantly away, and it was noon before either she or her pupil realized it. "It can't be twelve," said Carrie, surprised. "Yes, it is. We must defer further study till to-morrow." "Why, it is a great deal pleasanter than going to school, Miss Linden. I dreaded studying at home, but now I like it." "I hope you will continue to, Carrie. I can say that the time has passed away pleasantly for me." As Florence prepared to resume her street dress, Carrie said: "Oh, I forgot! Mamma asked me to invite you to stay to lunch with me. I take lunch as soon as school is out, at twelve o'clock, so I won't detain you long." "Thank you, Carrie; I will stay with pleasure." "I am glad of that, for I don't like to sit down to the table alone. Mamma is never here at this time. She goes out shopping or making calls, so poor I have to sit down to the table alone. It will be ever so much pleasure to have you with me." Florence was by no means sorry to accept the invitation. The meals she got at home were by no means luxurious, and the manner of serving them was by no means what she enjoyed. Mrs. O'Keefe, though a good friend and a kindhearted woman, was not a model housekeeper, and Florence had been made fastidious by her early training. Lunch was, of course, a plain meal, but what was furnished was of the best quality, and the table service was such as might be expected in a luxurious home. Just as Florence was rising from the table, Mrs. Leighton entered the room in street dress. "I am glad you remained to lunch, Miss Linden," she said. "You will be company for my little girl, who is very sociable. Carrie, I hope you were a good girl, and gave Miss Linden no trouble." "Ask Miss Linden, mamma," said Carrie, confidently. "Indeed, she did very well," said Florence. "I foresee that we shall get along admirably." "I am glad to hear that. She is apt to be indolent." "I won't be with Miss Linden, mamma. She makes the studies so interesting." After Florence left the house, Carrie pronounced an eulogium upon her which led Mrs. Leighton to congratulate herself upon having secured a governess who had produced so favorable an impression on her little girl. "Was you kept after school, Florence?" asked Dodger, as she entered her humble home. "I am afraid you'll find your dinner cold." "Never mind, Dodger. I am to take dinner--or lunch, rather--at the house where I am teaching; so hereafter Mrs. O'Keefe need not wait for me." "And how do you like your place?" "It is everything that is pleasant. You wished me good luck, Dodger, and your wish has been granted." "I was lucky, too, Florence. I've made a dollar and a quarter this mornin'." "Not by selling papers, surely?" "Not all. A gentleman gave me fifty cents for takin' his valise to the Long Branch boat." "It seems we are both getting rich," said Florence, smiling. Chapter XVI. Dodger Becomes Ambitious. "Ah, there, Dodger!" Dodger, who had been busily and successfully selling evening papers in front of the Astor House, turned quickly as he heard his name called. His glance rested on two men, dressed in soiled white hats and shabby suits, who were apparently holding each other up, having both been imbibing. He at once recognized Hooker and Briggs, for he had waited upon them too many times in Tim's saloon not to recognize them. "Well," he said, cautiously, "what do you want?" "Tim has sent us for you!" answered the two, in unison. "What does he want of me?" "He wants you to come home. He says he can't get along without you." "He will have to get along without me," said the boy, independently. "Tell him I'm not goin' back!" "You're wrong, Dodger," said Hooker, shaking his head, solemnly. "Ain't he your father?" "No, he ain't." "He says he is," continued Hooker, looking puzzled. "That don't make it so." "He ought to know," put in Briggs. "Yes; he ought to know!" chimed in Hooker. "No doubt he does, but he can't make me believe he's any relation of mine." "Just go and argy the point with him," said Hooker, coaxingly. "It wouldn't do no good." "Maybe it would. Just go back with us, that's a good boy." "What makes you so anxious about it?" asked Dodger, suspiciously. "Well," said Hooker, coughing, "we're Tim's friends, don't you know." "What's he goin' to give you if I go back with you?" asked the boy, shrewdly. "A glass of whiskey!" replied Hooker and Briggs in unison. "Is that all?" "Maybe he'd make it two." "I won't go back with you," said Dodger, after a moment's thought; "but I don't want you to lose anything by me. Here's a dime apiece, and you can go and get a drink somewhere else." "You're a trump, Dodger," said Hooker, eagerly holding out his hand. "I always liked you, Dodger," said Briggs, with a similar motion. "Now, don't let Tim know you've seen me," said the newsboy, warningly. "We won't." And the interesting pair ambled off in the direction of the Bowery. "So Tim sent them fellers after me?" soliloqized Dodger. "I guess I'll have to change my office, or maybe Tim himself will be droppin' down on me some mornin'. It'll be harder to get rid of him than of them chumps." So it happened that he used to take down his morning papers to the piers on the North River, and take his chance of selling them to passengers from Boston and others ports arriving by the Fall River boats, and others from different points. The advantage of this was that he often got a chance to serve as guide to strangers visiting the city for the first time, or as porter, to carry their valise or other luggage. Being a bright, wideawake boy, with a pleasant face and manner, he found his services considerably in demand; and on counting up his money at the end of the week, he found, much to his encouragement, that he had received on an average about a dollar and twenty-five cents per day. "That's better than sellin' papers alone," thought he. "Besides, Tim isn't likely to come across me here. I wonder I didn't think of settin' up for myself before!" In the evening he spent an hour, and sometimes more, pursuing his studies, under the direction of Florence. At first his attention was given chiefly to improving his reading and spelling, for Dodger was far from fluent in the first, while his style of spelling many words was strikingly original. "Ain't I stupid, Florence?" he asked one day, after spelling a word of three syllables with such ingenious incorrectness as to convulse his young teacher with merriment. "Not at all, Dodger. You are making excellent progress; but sometimes you are so droll that I can't help laughing." "I don't mind that if you think I am really gettin' on." "Undoubtedly you are!" "I make a great many mistakes," said Dodger, dubiously. "Yes, you do; but you must remember that you have taken lessons only a short time. Don't you think you can read a good deal more easily than you did?" "Yes; I don't trip up half so often as I did. I'm afraid you'll get tired of teachin' me." "No fear of that, Dodger. As long as I see that you are improving, I shall feel encouraged to go on." "I wish I knew as much as your other scholar." "You will in time if you go on. You mustn't get discouraged." "I won't!" said Dodger, stoutly. "If a little gal like her can learn, I'd ought to be ashamed if I don't--a big boy of eighteen." "It isn't the size of the boy that counts, Dodger." "I know that, but I ain't goin' to give in, and let a little gal get ahead of me!" "Keep to that determination, Dodger, and you will succeed in time, never fear." On the whole, Florence enjoyed both her pupils. She had the faculty of teaching, and she became very much interested in both. As for Dodger, she thought, rough diamond as he was, that she saw in him the making of a manly man, and she felt that it was a privilege to assist in the development of his intellectual nature. Again, he had picked up a good deal of slang from the nature of his associates, and she set to work to improve his language, and teach him refinement. It was necessarily a slow process, but she began to find after a time that a gradual change was coming over him. "I want you to grow up a gentleman, Dodger," she said to him one day. "I'm too rough for that, Florence. I'm only an ignorant street boy." "You are not going to be an ignorant street boy all your life. I don't see why you should not grow up a polished gentleman." "I shall never be like that de Brabazon young man," said he. "No, Dodger; I don't think you will," said Florence, laughing. "I don't want you to become effeminate nor a dude. I think I would like you less than I do now." "Do you like me, Florence?" asked Dodger, brightening up. "To be sure I do. I hope you don't doubt it." "Why, it don't seem natural-like. You're a fashionable young lady----" "Not very fashionable, Dodger, just at present." "Well, a high-toned young lady--one of the tip-tops, and I am a rough Bowery boy." "You were once, but you are getting over that rapidly. Did you ever hear of Andy Johnson?" "Who was he?" "He became President of the United States. Well, at the age of twenty-one he could neither read nor write." "At twenty-one?" repeated Dodger. "Why, I'm only eighteen, and I do know something of readin' and writin'." "To be sure! Well, Andy Johnson was taught to read and write by his wife. He kept on improving himself till, in course of time, he became a United States Senator, Vice-President, and afterward, President. Now, I don't expect you to equal him, but I see no reason why you should not become a well-educated man if you are content to work, and keep on working." "I will keep on, Florence," said Dodger, earnestly. "If I ever find my relations I don't want them to be ashamed of me." It was not the first time he had referred to his uncertain origin. "Won't Tim Bolton tell you anything about your family?" "No; I've asked him more'n once. He always says he's my father, and that makes me mad." "It is strange," said Florence, thoughtfully. "I had a young cousin stolen many years ago." "Was it the son of the old gentleman you lived with on Madison Avenue?" "Yes; it was the son of Uncle John. It quite broke him down. After my cousin's loss he felt that he had nothing to live for." "I wish I was your cousin, Florence," said Dodger, thoughtfully. "Well, then, I will adopt you as my cousin, or brother, whichever you prefer!" "I would rather be your cousin." "Then cousin let it be! Now we are bound to each other by strong and near ties." "But when your uncle takes you back you'll forget all about poor Dodger." "No, I won't, Dodger. There's my hand on it. Whatever comes, we are friends forever." "Then I'll try not to disgrace you, Florence. I'll learn as fast as I can, and see if I don't grow up to be a gentleman." Chapter XVII. A Mysterious Adventure. Several weeks passed without changing in any way the position or employment of Dodger or Florence. They had settled down to their respective forms of labor, and were able not only to pay their modest expenses, but to save up something for a rainy day. Florence had but one source of regret. She enjoyed her work, and did not now lament the luxurious home which she had lost. But she did feel sore at heart that her uncle made no sign of regret for their separation. From him she received no message of forgiveness or reconciliation. "He has forgotten me!" she said to herself, bitterly. "He has cast me utterly out of his heart. I do not care for his money, but I do not like to think that my kind uncle--for he was always kind till the last trouble--has steeled his heart against me forever." But she learned through a chance meeting with Jane, that this was not so. "Mr. Linden is getting very nervous and low-spirited," said the girl, "and sits hour after hour in the library looking into the fire, a-fotchin' deep sighs every few minutes. Once I saw him with your photograph--the one you had taken last spring--in his hands, and he looked sad-like when he laid it down." "My dear uncle! Then he does think of me sometimes?" "It's my belief he'd send for you if Curtis would let him." "Surely Curtis cannot exercise any restraint upon him?" "He has frequent talks with the old gentleman. I don't know what he says, but it's sure to be something wicked. I expect he does all he can to set him against you. Oh, he's a cunning villain, he is, even if he is your cousin, Miss Florence." "And do you think my uncle is unhappy, Jane?" said Florence, thoughtfully. "That I do, miss." "He never was very bright or cheerful, you know." "But he never was like this. And I do think he's gettin' more and more feeble." "Do you think I ought to call upon him, and risk his sending me away?" "It might be worth tryin', Miss Florence." The result of this conversation was that Florence did make up her mind the very next afternoon to seek her old home. She had just reached the front steps, and was about to ascend, when the door opened and Curtis appeared. He started at sight of his cousin. "Florence!" he said. "Tell me why you came here?" "I am anxious about my uncle," she said. "Tell me, Curtis, how he is." "You know he's never in vigorous health," said Curtis, evasively. "But is he as well as usual?" "He is about the same as ever. One thing would do more for him than anything else." "What's that?" "Your agreement to marry me," and he fixed his eyes upon her face eagerly. Florence shook her head. "I should be glad to help my uncle," she said, "but I cannot agree to marry you." "Why not?" he demanded, roughly. "Because I do not love you, and never shall," she responded, firmly. "In other words, you refuse to do the only thing that will restore our uncle to health and happiness?" "It is too much to ask." Then, fixing her eyes upon him keenly: "Why should uncle insist upon this marriage? Is it not because you have influenced him in the matter?" "No," answered Curtis, falsely. "He has some secret reason, which he will not disclose to me, for desiring it." Florence had learned to distrust the words of her wily cousin. "May I not see him?" she asked. "Perhaps he will tell me." "No; I cannot permit it." "You cannot permit it? Are you, then, our uncle's guardian?" "No, and yes. I do not seek to control him, but I wish to save him from serious agitation. Should he see you, and find that you are still rebellious, the shock might kill him." "I have reason to doubt your words," said Florence, coldly. "I think you are resolved to keep us apart." "Listen, and I will tell you a secret; Uncle John has heart disease, so the doctor assures me. Any unwonted agitation might kill him instantly. I am sure you would not like to expose him to such a risk." He spoke with apparent sincerity, but Florence did not feel certain that his words were truthful. "Very well," she said. "Then I will give up seeing him." "It is best, unless you are ready to accede to his wishes--and mine." She did not answer, but walked away slowly. "It would never do to have them meet!" muttered Curtis. "The old gentleman would ask her to come back on any terms, and then all my scheming would be upset. That was a happy invention of mine, about heart disease," he continued, with a low laugh. "Though she only half believed it, she will not dare to run the risk of giving him a shock." It was about this time that the quiet tenor of Dodger's life was interrupted by a startling event. He still continued to visit the piers, and one afternoon about six o'clock, he stood on the pier awaiting the arrival of the day boat from Albany, with a small supply of evening papers under his arm. He had sold all but half a dozen when the boat touched the pier. He stood watching the various passengers as they left the boat and turned their steps in different directions, when some one touched him on the shoulder. Looking up, he saw standing at his side a man of slender figure, with gray hair and whiskers. "Boy," he said, "I am a stranger in the city. Can I ask your assistance?" "Yes, sir; certainly," answered Dodger, briskly. "Do you know where the nearest station of the elevated road is?" "Yes, sir?" "I want to go uptown, but I know very little about the city. Will you accompany me as guide? I will pay you well." "All right, sir," answered Dodger. It was just the job he was seeking. "We will have to walk a few blocks, unless you want to take a carriage." "It isn't necessary. I am strong, in spite of my gray hair." And indeed he appeared to be. Dodger noticed that he walked with the elastic step of a young man, while his face certainly showed no trace of wrinkles. "I live in the West," said the stranger, as they walked along. "I have not been here for ten years." "Then you have never ridden on the elevated road?" said Dodger. "N-no," answered the stranger, with curious hesitation. Yet when they reached the station he went up the staircase and purchased his ticket with the air of a man who was thoroughly accustomed to doing it. "I suppose you don't want me any longer," said Dodger, preparing to resign the valise he was carrying, and which, by the way, was remarkably light considering the size. "Yes, I shall need you," said the other hurriedly. "There may be some distance to walk after we get uptown." "All right, sir." Dodger was glad that further service was required, for this would of course increase the compensation which he would feel entitled to ask. They entered one of the cars, and sat down side by side. The old gentleman drew a paper from his pocket, and began to read, while Dodger, left to his own devices, sat quiet and looked about him. He was rather surprised that the old gentleman, who, according to his own representation, was riding upon the elevated road for the first time, seemed to feel no curiosity on the subject, but conducted himself in all respects like an experienced traveler. "He's a queer customer!" thought Dodger. "However, it's all one to me, as long as he pays me well for the job." They got out at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, and struck down toward the river, Dodger carrying the valise. "I wonder where we're going?" he asked himself. At length they reached a wooden house of three stories, standing by itself, and here the stranger stopped. He rang the bell, and the door was opened by a hump-backed negro, who looked curiously at Dodger. "Is the room ready, Julius?" asked the old man. "Yes, sir." "Boy, take the valise upstairs, and I will follow you." Up two flights of stairs walked Dodger, followed by the old man and the negro. The latter opened the door of a back room, and Dodger, obedient to directions, took the valise inside and deposited it on a chair. He had hardly done so when the door closed behind him, and he heard the slipping of a bolt. "What does all this mean?" Dodger asked himself in amazement. Chapter XVIII. In A Trap. "Hold on there! Open that door!" he exclaimed, aloud. There was no answer. "I say, let me out!" continued our hero, beginning to kick at the panels. This time there was an answer. "Stop that kicking, boy! I will come back in fifteen minutes and explain all." "Well," thought Dodger, "this is about the strangest thing that ever happened to me. However, I can wait fifteen minutes." He sat down on a cane chair--there were two in the room--and looked about him. He was in an ordinary bedroom, furnished in the usual manner. There was nothing at all singular in its appearance. On a book shelf were a few books, and some old numbers of magazines. There was one window looking into a back yard, but as the room was small it was sufficient to light the apartment. Dodger looked about in a cursory manner, not feeling any particular interest in his surroundings, for he had but fifteen minutes to wait, but he thought it rather queer that it should be thought necessary to lock him in. He waited impatiently for the time to pass. Seventeen minutes had passed when he heard the bolt drawn. Fixing his eyes eagerly on the door he saw it open, and two persons entered. One was the hump-backed negro, carrying on a waiter a plate of buttered bread, and a cup of tea; the other person was--not the old man, but, to Dodger's great amazement, a person well-remembered, though he had only seen him once--Curtis Waring. "Set down the waiter on the table, Julius," said Waring. Dodger looked on in stupefaction. He was getting more and more bewildered. "Now, you can go!" said Curtis, in a tone of authority. The negro bowed, and after he had disposed of the waiter, withdrew. "Do you know me, boy?" asked Curtis, turning now and addressing Dodger. "Yes; you are Mr. Waring." "You remember where you last saw me?" "Yes, sir. At your uncle's house on Madison Avenue." "Quite right." "How did you come here? Where is the old man whose valise I brought from the Albany boat?" Curtis smiled, and drew from his pocket a gray wig and whiskers. "You understand now, don't you?" "Yes, sir; I understand that I have been got here by a trick." "Yes," answered Curtis, coolly. "I have deemed it wise to use a little stratagem. But you must be hungry. Sit down and eat your supper while I am talking to you." Dodger was hungry, for it was past his usual supper time, and he saw no reason why he should not accept the invitation. Accordingly, he drew his chair up to the table and began to eat. Curtis seated himself on the other chair. "I have a few questions to ask you, and that is why I arranged this interview. We are quite by ourselves," he added, significantly. "Very well, sir; go ahead." "Where is my Cousin Florence? I am right, I take it, in assuming that you know where she is." "Yes, sir; I know," answered Dodger, slowly. "Very well, tell me." "I don't think she wants you to know." Curtis frowned. "It is necessary I should know!" he said, emphatically. "I will ask her if I may tell you." "I can't wait for that. You must tell me at once." "I can't do that." "You are mistaken; you can do it." "Then, I won't!" said Dodger, looking his companion full in the face. Curtis Waring darted a wicked look at him, and seemed ready to attack the boy who was audacious enough to thwart him, but he restrained himself and said: "Let that pass for the present. I have another question to ask. Where is the document you took from my uncle's desk on the night of the burglary?" And he emphasized the last word. Dodger looked surprised. "I took no paper," he said. "Do you deny that you opened the desk?" asked Curtis. "No." "When I came to examine the contents in the presence of my uncle, it was found that a document--his will--had disappeared, and with it a considerable sum of money." And he looked sharply at Dodger. "I don't know anything about it, sir. I took nothing." "You can hardly make me believe that. Why did you open the desk if you did not propose to take anything?" "I did intend to take something. I was under orders to do so, for I wouldn't have done it of my own free will; but the moment I got the desk open I heard a cry, and looking around, I saw Miss Florence looking at me." "And then?" "I was startled, and ran to her side." "And then you went back and completed the robbery?" "No, I didn't. She talked to me so that I felt ashamed of it. I never stole before, and I wouldn't have tried to do it then, if--if some one hadn't told me to." "I know whom you mean--Tim Bolton." "Yes, Tim Bolton, since you know." "What did he tell you to take?" "The will and the money." "Eactly. Now we are coming to it. You took them, and gave them to him?" "No, I didn't. I haven't seen him since that night." Curtis Waring regarded the boy thoughtfully. His story was straightforward, and it agreed with the story told by Tim himself. But, on the other hand, he denied taking the missing articles, and yet they had disappeared. Curtis decided that both he and Tim had lied, and that this story had been concocted between them. Probably Bolton had the will and the money--the latter he did not care for--and this thought made him uneasy, for he knew that Tim Bolton was an unscrupulous man, and quite capable of injuring him, if he saw the way clear to do so. "My young friend," he said, "your story is not even plausible. The articles are missing, and there was no one but yourself and Florence who were in a position to take them. Do you wish me to think that my Cousin Florence robbed the desk?" "No, sir; I don't. Florence wouldn't do such a thing," said Dodger, warmly. "Florence. Is that the way you speak of a young lady?" "She tells me to call her Florence. I used to call her Miss Florence, but she didn't care for it." "It seems you two have become very intimate," said Curtis, with a sneer. "Florence is a good friend to me. I never had so good a friend before." "All that is very affecting; however, it isn't to the point. Do you know," he continued, in a sterner tone, "that I could have you arrested for entering and breaking open my uncle's desk with burglarious intent?" "I suppose you could," said Dodger; "but Florence would testify that I took nothing." "Am I to understand, then, that you refuse to give me any information as to the will and the money?" "No, sir; I don't refuse. I would tell you if I knew." Curtis regarded the boy in some perplexity. He had every appearance of telling the truth. Dodger had one of those honest, truthful countenances which lend confirmation to any words spoken. If the boy told the truth, what could have become of the will--and the money? As to the former, it might be possible that his uncle had destroyed it, but the disappearance of the money presented an independent difficulty. "The will is all I care for," he said, at length. "The thief is welcome to the money, though there was a considerable sum." "I would find the will for you if I could," said Dodger, earnestly. "You are positive you didn't give it to Bolton?" "Positive, sir. I haven't seen Tim since that night." "You may be speaking the truth, or you may not. I will talk with you again to-morrow," and Curtis arose from his chair. "You don't mean to keep me here?" said Dodger, in alarm. "I shall be obliged to do so." "I won't stay!" exclaimed Dodger, in excitement, and he ran to the door, meaning to get out; but Curtis drew a pistol from his pocket and aimed it at the boy. "Understand me, boy," he said, "I am in earnest, and I am not to be trifled with." Dodger drew back, and Curtis opened the door and went out, bolting it after him. Chapter XIX. An Attempt To Escape. While Dodger had no discomfort to complain of, it occurred to him that Florence would be alarmed by his long absence, for now it seemed certain that he would have to remain overnight. If only he could escape he would take care not to fall into such a trap again. He went to the window and looked out, but the distance to the ground was so great--for the room was on the third floor--that he did not dare to imperil his life by attempting a descent. If there had been a rope at hand he would not have felt afraid to make the attempt. He examined the bed to see if it rested upon cords, but there were slats instead. As has already been said, there were no houses near by. That part of the city had not been much settled, and it was as solitary as it is in the outskirts of a country village. If he could only reveal his position to some person outside, so as to insure interference, he might yet obtain his freedom. With this thought he tore a blank leaf from one of the books in the room, and hastily penciled the following lines: "I am kept a prisoner in this house. I was induced to come here by a trick. Please get some one to join you, and come and demand my release." Some weeks before Dodger could not have written so creditable a note, but he had greatly improved since he had been under the influence and instruction of Florence. Dodger now posted himself at the window and waited anxiously for some one to pass, so that he might attract his attention and throw down the paper. He had to wait for fifteen minutes. Then he saw approaching a young man, not far from twenty-one, who looked like a young mechanic, returning from his daily work. Now was Dodger's opportunity. He put his head out of the window and called out: "Hello, there!" The young man looked and saw him at the window. "What do you want?" he asked. "Catch this paper, and read what there is on it." He threw down the leaf, which, after fluttering in the gentle evening breeze, found its way to the ground and was picked up. After reading it, the young man looked up and said: "I'll go around to the door and inquire." He was as good as his word. He went to the outer door and rang the bell. Julius came to the door. "What's wanted, boss?" he said. "You've got a boy locked up in a room." "Who told you, boss?" "He threw down a paper to me, telling me he was kept a prisoner." "What did he say?" asked Julius. The young man read the note aloud. "What have to say to that, you black imp?" he demanded, sternly. The ready wit of Julius served him in this emergency. "Dat boy is crazy as a loon, boss!" he answered, readily. "We have to keep him shut up for fear he'll kill some of us." "You don't say!" ejaculated the young mechanic. "He don't look like it." "No, he don't; dat's a fact, boss. Fact is, dat boy is the artfullest lunytick you ever seed. He tried to kill his mother last week." "Is that true?" "Dat's so, boss. And all de while he looks as innocent as a baby. If I was to let him out he'd kill somebody, sure." "I never would have believed it," said the young man. "If you want to take the risk, boss, you might go up and see him. I believe he's got a carvin'-knife about him, but I don't dare to go up and get it away. It would be as much as this niggah's life is worth." "No," answered the young man, hastily. "I don't want to see him. I never did like crazy folks. I'm sorry I gave you the trouble to come to the door." "Oh, no trouble, boss." "I guess I've fixed dat boy!" chuckled Julius. "Ho, ho! he can't get ahead of old Julius! Crazy as a loon, ho, ho!" Dodger waited anxiously for the young man to get through his interview. He hoped that he would force his way up to the third floor, draw the bolt, and release him from his imprisonment. He kept watch at the window, and when the young man reappeared, he looked at him eagerly. "Did you ask them to let me out?" he shouted. The other looked up at him with an odd expression of suspicion and repulsion. "You're better off where you are," he said, rather impatiently. "But they have locked me up here." "And reason enough, too!" "What makes you say that?" "Because you're crazy as a loon." "Did the black man say that?" inquired Dodger, indignantly. "Yes, he did--said you tried to kill your mother, and had a carving-knife hidden in the room." "It's a lie--an outrageous lie!" exclaimed Dodger, his eyes flashing. "Don't go into one of your tantrums," said the man, rather alarmed; "it won't do any good." "But I want you to understand that I am no more crazy than you are." "Sho? I know better. Where's your carving-knife?" "I haven't got any; I never had any. That negro has been telling you lies. Just go to the door again, and insist on seeing me." "I wouldn't dast to. You'd stab me," said the man, fearfully. "Listen to me!" said Dodger, getting out of patience. "I'm not crazy. I'm a newsboy and baggage-smasher. An old man got me to bring his valise here, and then locked me up. Won't you go around to the station-house and send a policeman here?" "I'll see about it," said the young man, who did not believe a word that Dodger had said to him. "He won't do it!" said Dodger to himself, in a tone of discouragement. "That miserable nigger has made him believe I am a lunatic. I'll have him up, anyway." Forthwith he began to pound and kick so forcibly, that Julius came upstairs on a run, half inclined to believe that Dodger had really become insane. "What do you want, boy?" he inquired from outside the door. "I want you to unbolt the door and let me out." "I couldn't do it, nohow," said Julius. "It would be as much as my place is worth." "I will give you a dollar--five dollars--if you will only let me out. The man who brought me here is a bad man, who is trying to cheat his cousin--a young lady--out of a fortune." "Don't know nothin' 'bout that," said Julius. "He has no right to keep me here." "Don't know nothin' 'bout that, either. I'm actin' accordin' to orders." "Look here," said Dodger, bethinking himself of what had just happened. "Did you tell that young man who called here just now that I was crazy?" Julius burst into a loud guffaw. "I expect I did," he laughed. "Said you'd got a long carvin'-knife hid in de room." "What made you lie so?" demanded Dodger, sternly. "Couldn't get rid of him no other way. Oh, how scared he looked when I told him you tried to kill your mother." And the negro burst into another hearty laugh which exasperated Dodger exceedingly. "How long is Mr. Waring going to keep me here? Did he tell you?" Dodger asked, after a pause. "No; he didn't say." "When is he coming here again?" "Said he'd come to-morrow most likely." "Will you bring me a light?" "Couldn't do it. You'd set the house on fire." It seemed useless to prolong the conversation. Dodger threw himself on the bed at an early hour, but he did not undress, thinking there might possibly be a chance to escape during the night. But the morning came and found him still a prisoner, but not in the solitary dwelling. Chapter XX. A Midnight Ride. Curtis Waring had entrapped Dodger for a double purpose. It was not merely that he thought it possible the boy had the will, or knew where it was. He had begun to think of the boy's presence in New York as dangerous to his plans. John Linden might at any time learn that the son, for whose appearance he had grieved so bitterly, was still living in the person of this street boy. Then there would be an end of his hopes of inheriting the estate. Only a few months more and the danger would be over, for he felt convinced that his uncle's tenure of life would be brief. The one essential thing, then, seemed to be to get Dodger out of the city. The first step had already been taken; what the next was will soon appear. Scarcely had Dodger failed in his attempt to obtain outside assistance when an unaccountable drowsiness overcame him, considerably to his surprise. "I don't know what's come to me," he said to himself. "It can't be more than seven or eight o'clock, and yet I feel so sleepy I can hardly keep my eyes open. I haven't worked any harder than usual to-day, and I can't understand it." Dodger had reason to be surprised, for he didn't usually retire till eleven o'clock. In a city like New York, where many of the streets are tolerably well filled even at midnight, people get in the way of sitting up much later than in the country, and Dodger was no exception to this rule. Yet here he was ready to drop off to sleep before eight o'clock. To him it was a mystery, for he did not know that the cup of tea which he had drunk at supper had been drugged by direction of Curtis Waring, with an ulterior purpose, which will soon appear. "I may as well lie down, as there is nothing else to do," thought Dodger. "There isn't much fun sitting in the dark. If I can sleep, so much the better." Five minutes had scarcely passed after his head struck the pillow, when our hero was fast asleep. At eleven o'clock a hack stopped in front of the house, and Curtis Waring descended from it. "Stay here," he said to the driver. "There will be another passenger. If you are detained I will make it right when I come to pay you." "All right, sir," said the hackman. "I don't care how long it is if I am paid for my time." Curtis opened the door with a pass-key, and found Julius dozing in a chair in the hall. "Wake up, you sleepy-head," he said. "Has anything happened since I left here?" "Yes, sir; the boy tried to get away." "Did he? I don't see how he could do that. You kept the door bolted, didn't you?" "Yes, sir; but he throwed a piece of paper out'n de window, sayin' he was kep' a prisoner here. A young man picked it up, and came to de house to ax about it." Curtis looked alarmed. "What did you say?" he inquired, apprehensively. "Told him de boy was crazy as a loon--dat he tried to kill his mother las' week, and had a carvin'-knife hid in his room." "Good, Julius! I didn't give you credit for such a fertile imagination. "What's dat, massa?" asked Julius, looking puzzled. "I didn't know you were such a skillful liar." "Yah! yah!" laughed Julius, quite comprehending this compliment. "I reckon I can twis' de trufe pretty well, Massa Curtis!" "You have done well, Julius," said Curtis, approvingly. "Here's a dollar!" The negro was quite effusive in his gratitude. "What did the young man say?" "He looked scared. I tol' him he could go up and see de boy if he wasn't afeared of the carvin'-knife, but he said he guessed he wouldn't--he didn't like crazy folks." Curtis laughed heartily. "So it all ended as it should. Did the boy make any more trouble?" "Yes; he pounded and kicked till I had to go up and see what was the matter. I didn't give him no satisfaction, and I guess he went to bed." "He ought to be in a deep sleep by this time. I will go up and see. Go up with me, Julius, for I may have to ask you to help me bring him down." Though Julius was naturally a coward, he felt quite brave when he had company, and he at once went upstairs with Curtis Waring. Curtis drew the bolt, and, entering the chamber, his glance fell upon Dodger, fast asleep on the bed. "I am glad the boy did not undress," he said. "It will save me a great deal of trouble. Now, Julius, you can take his feet and I will lift his head, and we will take him downstairs." "S'pos'n he wakes up, Massa Curtis?" "He won't wake up. I took care the sleeping potion should be strong enough to produce profound slumber for eighteen hours." "Seems as if he was dead," said Julius, nervously. "Tush, you fool! He's no more dead than you or I." The hackman looked curious when the two men appeared with their sleeping burden, and Curtis felt that some explanation was required. "The boy has a very painful disease," he said, "and the doctor gave him a sleeping draught. He is going abroad for his health, and, under the circumstances, I think it best not to wake him up. Drive slowly and carefully to Pier No. --, as I don't want the boy aroused if it can be helped." "All right, sir." "Julius, you may lock the door and come with me. I shall need your help to get him on board the ship." "All right, Massa Curtis." "And, mind you, don't go to sleep in the carriage, you black rascal!" added Curtis, as he saw that the negro found it hard to keep his eyes open. "All right, massa, I'll keep awake. How am I to get home?" "I will instruct the hackman to take you home." "Yah, yah; I'll be ridin' like a gentleman!" The journey was successfully accomplished, but it took an hour, for, according to directions, the hackman did not force his pace, but drove slowly, till he reached the North River pier indicated. At the pier was a large, stanch vessel--the _Columbia_--bound for San Francisco, around Cape Horn. All was dark, but the second officer was pacing the deck. Curtis Waring hailed him. "What time do you get off?" "Early to-morrow morning." "So the captain told me. I have brought you a passenger." "The captain told me about him." "Is his stateroom ready?" "Yes, sir. You are rather late." "True; and the boy is asleep, as you will see. He is going to make the voyage for his health, and, as he has been suffering some pain, I thought I would not wake him up. Who will direct me to his stateroom?" The mate summoned the steward, and Dodger, still unconscious, was brought on board and quietly transferred to the bunk that had been prepared for him. It was a critical moment for poor Dodger, but he was quite unconscious of it. "What is the boy's name?" asked the mate. "Arthur Grant. The captain has it on his list. Is he on board?" "Yes; but he is asleep." "I do not need to see him. I have transacted all necessary business with him--and paid the passage money. Julius, bring the valise." Julius did so. "This contains the boy's clothing. Take it to the stateroom, Julius." "All right, Massa Curtis." "What is your usual time between New York and San Francisco?" asked Curtis, addressing the mate. "From four to six months. Four months is very short, six months very long. We ought to get there in five months, or perhaps a little sooner, with average weather." "Very well. I believe there is no more to be said. Good-night!" "Good-night, sir." "So he is well out of the way for five months!" soliloquized Curtis. "In five months much may happen. Before that time I hope to be in possession of my uncle's property. Then I can snap my fingers at fate." Chapter XXI. A Seasick Passenger. The good ship _Columbia_ had got fifty miles under way before Dodger opened his eyes. He looked about him languidly at first, but this feeling was succeeded by the wildest amazement, as his eyes took in his unusual surroundings. He had gone to sleep on a bed--he found himself on awakening in a ship's bunk. He half arose in his birth, but the motion of the vessel and a slight feeling of dizziness compelled him to resume a recumbent position. "I must be dreaming," thought Dodger. "It's very queer. I am dreaming I am at sea. I suppose that explains it." He listened and heard the swish of the waters as they beat against the sides of the vessel. He noted the pitching of the ship, and there was an unsteady feeling in his head, such as those who have gone to sea will readily recall. Dodger became more and more bewildered. "If it's a dream, it's the most real dream I ever had," he said to himself. "This seems like a ship's cabin," he continued, looking about him. "I think if I got up I should be seasick. I wonder if people ever get seasick in dreams?" There was another pitch, and Dodger instinctively clung to the edge of his berth, to save himself from being thrown out. "Let me see," he said, trying to collect his scattered recollection. "I went to sleep in a house uptown--a house to which Curtis Waring lured me, and then made me a prisoner. The house was somewhere near One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. Now it seems as if I was on board a ship. How could I get here? I wish somebody would come in that I could ask." As no one came in, Dodger got out of the berth, and tried to stand on the cabin floor. But before he knew it he was staggering like one intoxicated, and his head began to feel bad, partly, no doubt, on account of the sleeping potion which he had unconsciously taken. At this moment the steward entered the cabin. "Hello, young man! Have you got up?" he asked. "Where am I?" asked Dodger, looking at him with a dazed expression. "Where are you? You're on the good ship _Columbia_, to be sure?" "Are we out to sea?" "Of course you are." "How far from land?" "Well, about fifty miles, more or less, I should judge." "How long have I been here?" "It seems to me you have a poor memory. You came on board last evening." "I suppose Curtis Waring brought me," said Dodger, beginning to get his bearings. "There was a gentleman came with you--so the mate told me. I don't know his name." "Where is the ship bound?" "To San Francisco, around Cape Horn. I supposed you knew that." "I never heard of the ship _Columbia_ before, and I never had any idea of making a sea voyage." The steward looked surprised. "I suppose your guardian arranged about that. Didn't he tell you?" "I have no guardian." "Well, you'll have to ask Capt. Barnes about that. I know nothing, except that you are a passenger, and that your fare has been paid." "My fare paid to San Francisco?" asked Dodger, more and more at sea, both mentally and physically. "Yes; we don't take any deadheads on the _Columbia_." "Can you tell me what time it is?" "About twelve o'clock. Do you feel hungry?" "N--not very," returned Dodger, as a ghastly expression came over his face, and he tumbled back into his berth, looking very pale. The steward smiled. "I see how it is," he said; "you are getting initiated." "What's that?" muttered Dodger, feebly. "You're going to be seasick. You'll hardly be able to appear at the dinner table." "It makes me sick to think of eating," said Dodger, feebly. As he sank back into his berth, all thoughts of his unexpected position gave way to an overpowering feeling of seasickness. He had never been tried in this way before, and he found the sensation far from agreeable. "If only the vessel would stop pitching," he groaned. "Oh, how happy I should be if I were on dry land." But the vessel wouldn't stop--even for a minute. The motion, on the other hand, seemed to increase, as was natural, for they were getting farther and farther from land and were exposed to the more violent winds that swept the open ocean. There is something about seasickness that swallows up and draws away all minor cares and anxieties, and Dodger was too much affected to consider how or why it was that he so unexpectedly found himself a passenger to California. "Lie flat on your back," said the steward. "You will feel better if you do." "How long is it going to last?" groaned Dodger, feeling quite miserable. "Oh, you'll feel better to-morrow. I'll bring you some porridge presently. You can get that clown, and it is better to have something on your stomach." He was right. The next day Dodger felt considerably better, and ventured to go upon deck. He looked about him in surprise. There had been a storm, and the waves were white with foam. As far as the eye could see there was a tumult and an uproar. The ship was tossed about like a cockle shell. But the sailors went about their work unruffled. It was no new sight for them. Though his head did not feel exactly right, the strong wind entered Dodger's lungs, and he felt exhilarated. His eyes brightened, and he began to share in the excitement of the scene. Pacing the deck was a stout, bronzed seaman, whose dress made it clear even to the inexperienced eyes of Dodger that he was the captain. "Good-morning, Master Grant," he said, pleasantly. "Are you getting your sea legs on?" The name was unfamiliar to Dodger, but he could see that the remark was addressed to him. "Yes, sir," he answered. "Ever been to sea before?" "No, sir." "You'll get used to it. Bless me, you'll stand it like an old sailor before we get to 'Frisco." "Is it a long voyage, captain?" asked Dodger. "Five months, probably. We may get there a little sooner. It depends on the winds and weather." "Five months," said Dodger to himself, in a tone of dismay. The captain laughed. "It'll be a grand experience for a lad like you, Arthur!" said the captain, encouragingly. Arthur! So his name was Arthur! He had just been called Master Grant, so Arthur Grant was his name on board ship. Dodger was rather glad to have a name provided, for he had only been known as Dodger heretofore, and this name would excite surprise. He had recently felt the need of a name, and didn't see why this wouldn't answer his purpose as well as any other. "I must write it down so as not to forget it," he resolved. "It would seem queer if I forgot my own name." "I shouldn't enjoy it much if I were going to be seasick all the time," he answered. "Oh, a strong, healthy boy like you will soon be all right. You don't look like an invalid." "I never was sick in my life." "But your guardian told me he was sending you on a sea voyage for your health." "Did Mr. Waring say that?" "Yes; didn't you know the object of your sea trip?" asked Capt. Barnes, in surprise. "No." "There may be some tendency to disease in your system--some hereditary tendency," said the captain, after a pause. "Were your parents healthy?" "They--died young," answered Dodger, hesitatingly. "That accounts for your guardian's anxiety. However, you look strong enough, in all conscience; and if you're not healthy, you will be before the voyage ends." "I don't know what I am to do for clothes," said Dodger, as a new source of perplexity presented itself. "I can't get along with one shirt and collar for five months." "You will find plenty of clothes in your valise. Hasn't it been given you?" "No, sir." "You may ask the steward for it. You didn't think your guardian would send you on a five-months' voyage without a change of clothing, did you?" And the captain laughed heartily. "I don't know Mr. Waring very well," said Dodger, awkwardly. As he went downstairs to inquire about his valise, this question haunted him: "Why did Curtis Waring send him on a sea voyage?" Chapter XXII. The Other Passenger. Dodger sought the steward, and asked for his valise. "Isn't it in your stateroom?" asked that functionary. "I haven't seen it." "I remember now. It was put with the luggage of the other passenger. I will show it to you." He took Dodger to a part of the ship where freight was stored, and pointed to a sizable valise with a card attached to it on which was inscribed the name: "Arthur Grant." "This must be yours," he said. "Yes, I suppose so," answered Dodger, glad to have found out the new name which had been given him, otherwise he would have supposed the valise belonged to some other person. He took the valise to his stateroom, and, finding a key tied to the handles, he opened it at once. It proved to contain a very fair supply of underclothing, socks, handkerchiefs, etc., with a tooth brush, a hair brush and comb, and a sponge. Never in his life had Dodger been so well supplied with clothing before. There were four white shirts, two tennis shirts, half a dozen handkerchiefs and the same number of socks, with three changes of underclothing. "I begin to feel like a gentleman," said Dodger to himself, complacently. That was not all. At the bottom of the valise was an envelope, sealed, on which was inscribed the name: "Dodger." "That is for me, at any rate," thought our hero. "I suppose it is from Curtis Waring." He opened the envelope, and found inclosed twenty-five dollars in bills, with a few lines written on a half-sheet of paper. These Dodger read, with interest and curiosity. They were as follows: "Dodger:--The money inclosed is for you. When you reach California you will find it of use. I have sent you out there because you will find in a new country a better chance to rise than in the city of New York. I advise you to stay there and grow up with the country. In New York you were under the influence of a bad man, from whom it is best that you should be permanently separated. I know something of the early history of Tim Bolton. He was detected in a crime, and fled to escape the consequences. You are not his son, but his nephew. Your mother was his sister, but quite superior to himself. Your right name is Arthur Grant, and it will be well for you to assume it hereafter. I have entered you in the list of passengers under that name. "I thought you had taken the will from my uncle's desk, but I am inclined to think you had nothing to do with it. If you know where it is, or whether Bolton has it, I expect you to notify me in return for the money I have expended in your behalf. In that case you can write to me, No. -- Madison Avenue. "Curtis Waring." Dodger read the letter over twice, and it puzzled him. "He seems from the letter to take an interest in me," he soliloquized. "At any rate, he has given me money and clothes, and paid my passage to California. What for, I wonder? I don't believe it is to get me away from the bad influence of Tim. There must be some other reason." There was another part of the letter with which Dodger did not agree. Curtis asserted positively that he was the nephew of Tim Bolton, while he was positive that there was no relationship between them. In that case Curtis must have been an early acquaintance of Tim's. At any rate, he seemed to know about his past life. Dodger now comprehended his present situation fully. He was a passenger on the ship _Columbia_, and there was no chance of leaving it. He had ascertainel on inquiry that the vessel would not put in anywhere, but would make the long voyage direct. It would be over four months, at any rate, before he could communicate with Florence, and in the meantime, she and Mrs. O'Keefe, whom he recognized as a good friend, would conclude that he was dead. It was very provoking to think that he could not even telegraph, as that would relieve all anxiety, and he felt sure that Florence was enough his friend to feel anxious about him. He had just closed up his valise, when a young man of dark complexion and of an attractive, intellectual expression, entered the cabin. He nodded pleasantly to Dodger, and said: "I suppose this is Arthur Grant?" "Yes, sir," answered Dodger, for he had decided to adopt the name. "We ought to become close friends, for we are, I believe, the only passengers." "Then you are a passenger, too?" said Dodger, deciding, after a brief scrutiny, that he should like his new acquaintance. "Yes. My name is Randolph Leslie. I have been, for the last five years, a reporter on leading New York daily papers, and worked so closely that my health has become somewhat affected. My doctor recommended a sea voyage, and I have arranged for a pretty long one." "What papers have you worked for?" "Oh, all the leading ones--_Tribune, World, Herald,_ and _Sun_-- sometimes one, and sometimes another. Your reason for taking this trip can hardly be the same as mine. You don't look as if your health required you to travel." "No," answered Dodger, smiling; "but I understand that the gentleman who engaged my passage said I was going to sea for my health." "If I were as robust as you, I shouldn't give much thought to my health. Do you intend to remain in California?" "I don't know what I do intend," replied Dodger. "I didn't know I was going to California at all until I woke up in my stateroom." The young man looked surprised. "Didn't you know the destination of the vessel when you came on board?" he asked. "I was brought aboard in my sleep." "This is curious. It looks to me as if you had a story to tell. "Of course, I don't want to be curious, but if there is anyway in which I can help you, by advice, or in any other way, I am quite ready to do so." Dodger paused, but only briefly. This young man looked friendly, and might help him to penetrate the mystery which at present baffled him. At any rate, his experience qualified him to give friendly advice, and of this Dodger felt that he stood in need. "I ought to tell you, to begin with," he said, "that I am a poor boy, and made my living as best I could, by carrying baggage, selling papers, etc." "I don't think any the worse of you for that. Did you live at the lodging houses?" "No; until lately I lived with a man who keeps a saloon on the Bowery, and tended bar for him." "What was his name? As a reporter I know the Bowery pretty well." "Tim Bolton." "Tim Bolton? I know his place well. I think I must have seen you there. Your face looked familiar to me as soon as I set eyes on you." "Very likely. A good many people came into Tim's. I couldn't pretend to remember them all." "Was Tim a relative of yours?" "I don't believe he was. I always thought that he got hold of me when I was a kid. I don't remember the time when I wasn't with him." "I suppose you have always lived in New York?" "No; I lived for several years in Australia. Tim was in the same business there. I came on with him a year or more since." "Do you think you ever lived in New York before?" "Yes; Tim has told me that I was born in New York." "I understand that you have left Tim now?" "Yes." "Why, may I ask?" "Because I didn't like the business he was in. But I liked it better than the one he wanted me to go into." "What was that?" "Burglary." The young reporter started in surprise. "Well," he said, "this is a new tack for Tim. However, I never looked upon him as a man who would shrink from any violation of the laws, except murder. I don't think he would do that." "No; Tim isn't quite so bad. He isn't the worst man alive, though he is a rather hard customer. It was his wanting me to enter a house on Madison Avenue and open a desk that led to me going on this trip." "Tell me about it, if you don't mind." Thus invited, Dodger told his story to Randolph Leslie, keeping nothing back. He finished by showing him the letter he had found in the valise. Chapter XXIII. Through The Golden Gate. "Well, this is certainly a remarkable letter," said the reporter, as he handed it back to Dodger. "I am at a loss to understand the interest which this man appears to feel in you." "I look upon him as my enemy," said Dodger. "But an enemy doesn't spend so much money upon another as he has." "Unless he has object in it," amended Leslie, shrewdly. "Do you know of any connection this man has with you?" "No; I never heard of him until I entered his house," and Dodger flushed as he thought that his entrance into the mansion on Madison Avenue had been as a burglar. "It seems to me that he knows more about you than you do about him. It also seems to me that he is anxious to get you out of New York, the farther the better." "But what harm could I do him in New York?" asked Dodger, puzzled. "That is the question which I cannot answer. You say he was instrumental in getting his Cousin Florence out of the house?" "Yes; he wanted to marry her." "And she would not consent?" "No; I think she hates him." "How old is she?" "Seventeen." "And he?" "He looks about thirty-five." "The difference in years isn't great enough to constitute an obstacle, provided she loved him. I am thirty years old." "I am sure Florence would prefer you to Curtis Waring." "Don't flatter me. I am vain enough already. The time may come when I may ask your good offices with Miss Linden. What I was about to ask was: Is Miss Linden also entitled to a share in her uncle's estate?" "She is just as nearly related to him as Mr. Waring." "Then I can understand his wishing to get rid of her. I don't know why he should want to send you to a distance. I suppose there can't be any relationship?" "Is it likely that I--a poor street boy--should be related to a rich man like Mr. Linden?" "It doesn't seem likely, I admit," said Leslie, musingly. "Well, I suppose," he continued, after a pause, "there is no use in speculating about the matter now. The important point is, what are we to do with ourselves during the four or five months we must spend on shipboard?" "I don't know what I can do," said Dodger. "I can't sell papers, and I can't smash baggage." "And there appears to be no need of your doing either, as you are provided with board and lodging till we reach shore." "That seems strange to me, for I've always had to hustle for a living." "I was about to make a proposal to you. But first let me ask you about your education. I suppose you are not an accomplished scholar?" "I'm about as ignorant as they make 'em," answered Dodger, drolly. "Tim was afraid to send me to college, for fear I'd get to know too much for my business." "Tending bar does not require an acquaintance with Latin and Greek. Would you like to know more?" "I wish I did. Florence was teaching me nights when I was in New York. Now I've got to give up all that." "Not necessarily. Listen to me, Arthur. Before I came to New York to go into journalism, I taught school for two years; and I believe I may say that I was tolerably successful. Suppose I take you as a scholar?" "I should like it very much, Mr. Leslie, but I'm afraid I haven't got money enough to pay you." "That is true. You will need all the money you have when you land in California. Twenty-five dollars won't go far--still you have all the money that is necessary, for I do not intend to charge you anything." "You are very kind to me, Mr. Leslie, considerin' you don't know me," said Dodger, gratefully. "On the contrary, I think I know you very well. But about the kindness --my motives are somewhat mixed. I should like to do you a service, but I should also like to find employment for myself that will make the days less monotonous. I have a collection of books in my trunk, enough for our needs, and if you will agree we will commence our studies to-morrow." "I should like it very much. I'd like to show Florence, when I see her, that I have improved. Till I saw her I didn't care much, but when I talk with her I feel awfully ignorant." "In four months a great deal can be accomplished. I don't know how quick you are to learn. After we have had one or two lessons I can judge better." Two days later Mr. Leslie pronounced his opinion, and a favorable one. "You have not exaggerated your ignorance," he said to Dodger. "You have a great deal to learn, but on the other hand you are quick, have a retentive memory, and are very anxious to learn. I shall make something of you." "I learn faster with you than with Florence," said Dodger. "Probably she would succeed better with girls, but I hold that a male teacher is better for boys. How long are you willing to study every day?" "As long as you think best." "Then we will say from two to three hours. I think you have talent for arithmetic. I don't expect to make you fit for a bookkeeper, but I hope to make you equal to most office boys by the time we reach San Francisco. What do you intend to do in California?" "I don't know. I should like to go back to New York, but I shall not have money enough." "No; twenty-five dollars would go but a little way toward the passage. Evidently Mr. Waring did not intend to have you return, or he would have provided you with more." "That is just why I should like to go back. I am afraid he will do some harm to Florence." "And you would like to be on hand to protect her?" "Yes." Randolph Leslie smiled. "You seem to take a great deal of interest in Florence, if I may make as free with her name as you do." "Yes; I do, Mr. Leslie." "If you were only a little older I might suspect the nature of that interest." "I am older than she is." "In years, yes. But a young lady of seventeen, brought up as she has been, is older by years than a boy of eighteen. I don't think you need apprehend any harm to Miss Linden, except that Mr. Waring may cheat her out of her rightful share of the inheritance. Is her uncle in good health?" "No, sir; he is a very feeble man." "Is he an old man?" "Not so very old. I don't believe he is over sixty." Really Mr. Linden was but fifty-four, but, being a confirmed invalid, he looked older. "Should you say that he was likely to live very long?" "No," answered Dodger. "He looks as if you could knock him over with a feather. Besides, I've heard Florence say that she was afraid her uncle could not live long." "Probably Curtis Waring is counting upon this. If he can keep Florence and her uncle apart for a few months, Mr. Linden will die, and he will inherit the whole estate. What is this will he speaks of in the letter you showed me?" "I don't know, sir." "Whatever the provisions are, it is evident that he thinks it important to get it into his possession. If favorable to him, he will keep it carefully. If unfavorable, I think a man like him would not hesitate to suppress it." "No doubt you are right, sir. I don't know much about wills," said Dodger. "No; I suppose not. You never made any, I suppose," remarked the reporter, with a smile. "I never had nothing to leave," said Dodger. "Anything would be a better expression. As your tutor I feel it incumbent upon me to correct your grammar." "I wish you would, Mr. Leslie. What do you mean to do when you get to San Francisco?" "I shall seek employment on one of the San Farncisco daily papers. Six months or a year so spent will restore my health, and enable me to live without drawing upon my moderate savings." "I expect I shall have to work, too, to get money to take me back to New York." And now we must ask the reader to imagine four months and one week passed. There had been favorable weather on the whole, and the voyage was unusually short. Dodger and the reporter stood on deck, and with eager interest watched the passage through the Golden Gate. A little later and the queen city of the Pacific came in sight, crowning the hill on which a part of the city is built, with the vast Palace Hotel a conspicuous object in the foreground. Chapter XXIV. Florence In Suspense. We must now return to New York to Dodger's old home. When he did not return at the usual hour, neither Florence nor Mrs. O'Keefe was particularly disturbed. It was thought that he had gone on some errand of unusual length, and would return an hour or two late. Eight o'clock came, the hour at which the boy was accustomed to repair to Florence's room to study, and still he didn't make his appearance. "Dodger's late this evening, Mrs. O'Keefe," said Florence, going up to the room of her landlady. "Shure he is. It's likely he's gone to Brooklyn or up to Harlem, wid a bundle. He'll be comin' in soon." "I hope he will be well paid for the errand, since it keeps him so long." "I hope so, too, Florence, for he's a good boy, is Dodger. Did I tell you how he served the rapscallion that tried to stale my apples the other day?" "No; I would like to hear it." "A big, black-bearded man came along, and asked me for an apple. "'You can have one for two pennies,' says I. "'But I haven't got them,' says he. "'Then you must go widout it,' says I. "'We'll see about that,' says he. "And what do you think?--the fellow picked out one of my biggest apples, and was walkin' away! That made me mad. "'Come back, you thafe of the worruld!' says I. "'Silence, you old hag!' says he. "Actilly he called me an old hag! I wanted to go after him, but there was two hoodlums hangin' round, and I knew they'd carry off some of my apples, when, just as I was at my wits' end, Dodger came round the corner. "'Dodger,' I screamed, 'go after that man! He's taken one of my apples, widout lave or license!' "Upon that, Dodger, brave as a lion, walked up to the man, and, says he: "'Give back that apple, or pay for it!' "'What's that to you, you impudent young rascal?' says the man, raisin' the apple to his mouth. But he didn't get a chance to bite it, for Dodger, with a flip of his hand, knocked it on the sidewalk, and picked it up. "Wasn't the man mad just?" "'I'll smash you, boy,' he growled. "'I'm a baggage-smasher myself,' says Dodger, 'and I can smash as well as you.' "Wid that the man up with his fist and struck at Dodger, but he dodged the blow, and gave him one for himself wid his right. Just then up came a cop. "'What's all this?' says he. "'That man tried to run off wid one of my apples,' says I. "'Come along,' says the cop. 'You're wanted at the station-house.' "'It's a lie,' says the man. 'I paid the woman for the apple, and that young rascal knocked it out of my hand.' "'I know the boy,' says the cop, 'and he ain't one of that kind. I'll let you go if you buy five apples from the lady, and pay for 'em.' "The man made up an ugly face, but he didn't want to be locked up, and so he paid me a dime for five apples." "Dodger is very brave," said Florence. "Sometimes I think he is too daring. He is liable to get into trouble." "If he does he'll get himself out of it, never you fear. Dodger can take care of himself." Nine o'clock came, and Florence became alarmed. She had not been aware how much she had depended upon the company of her faithful friend, humble as his station was. Again she went into Mrs. O'Keefe's room. The apple-woman had been out to buy some groceries and had just returned. "I am getting anxious about Dodger," said Florence. "It is nine o'clock." "And what's nine o'clock for a boy like him? Shure he's used to bein' out at all hours of the night." "I shall feel relieved when he comes home. What should I do without him?" "Shure I'd miss him myself; but it isn't the first time he has been out late." "Perhaps that terrible Tim Bolton has got hold of him," suggested Florence. "Tim isn't so bad, Florence. He isn't fit company for the likes of you, but there's worse men nor Tim." "Didn't he send out Dodger to commit a burglary?" "And if he hadn't you'd never made Dodger's acquaintance." "That's true; but it doesn't make burglary any more excusable. Don't you really think Tim Bolton has got hold of him?" "If he has, he won't keep him long, I'll make oath of that. He might keep him over night, but Dodger would come back in the morning." Florence was somewhat cheered by Mrs. O'Keefe's refusal to believe that Dodger was in any serious trouble, but she could not wholly free herself from uneasiness. When eleven o'clock came she went to bed very unwillingly, and got very little rest during the night. Morning came, and still Dodger did not show up. As we know, he was fairly started on his long voyage, though he had not yet recovered consciousness. Florence took a very light breakfast, and at the usual time went to Mrs. Leighton's to meet her pupil. When the study hour was over, she did not remain to lunch, but hurried back, stopping at Mrs. O'Keefe's apple-stand just as that lady was preparing to go home to prepare dinner. "Have you seen anything of Dodger, Mrs. O'Keefe?" asked Florence, breathlessly. "No, I haven't, Florence. I've had my eye out watchin' for him, and he hasn't showed up." "Is there anything we can do?" asked Florence, anxiously. "Well, we might go around and see Tim--and find out whether he's got hold of him." "Let us go at once." "Shure I didn't know you cared so much for the boy," said Mrs. O'Keefe, with a shrewd look at Florence's anxious face. "Why shouldn't I care for him? He is my only friend." "Is he now? And what's the matter wid Bridget O'Keefe?" asked the apple-woman. "Excuse me, Mrs. O'Keefe. I know very well you are my friend, and a kind friend, too. I should not have forgotten you." "It's all right, Florence. You're flustrated like, and that's why you forget me." "I have so few friends that I can't spare one," continued Florence. "That's so. Come along wid me, and we'll see what Tim has to tell us." A short walk brought the two strangely assorted companions to the entrance of Tim Bolton's saloon. "I'm afraid to go in, Mrs. O'Keefe," said Florence. "Come along wid me, my dear, I won't let anything harm you. You ain't used to such a place, but I've been here more than once to fill the growler. Be careful as you go down the steps, Florence." Tim Bolton was standing behind the bar, and as he heard steps he looked carelessly toward the entrance, but when he saw Florence, his indifference vanished. He came from behind the bar, and advanced to meet her. "Miss Linden," he said. Florence shrank back and clung to her companion's arm. "Is there anything I can do for you? I am a rough man, but I'm not so bad as you may think." "That's what I told her, Tim," said Mrs. O'Keefe. "I told Florence there was worse men than you." "Thank you, Mrs. O'Keefe. Can I offer you a glass of whiskey?" The apple-woman was about to accept, but she felt an alarmed tug at her arm, and saw that Florence would be placed in an embarrassing position if she accepted. So, by an exercise of self-denial--for Mrs. O'Keefe was by no means insensible to the attractions of whiskey, though she never drank to excess--she said: "Thank you kindly, Mr. Bolton. I won't take any just now; but I'll remind you of your offer another day." "Have it your own way, Mrs. O'Keefe. And now, what can I do for you and Miss Linden?" "Oh, Mr. Bolton," broke in Florence, unable to bear the suspense longer, "where is Dodger?" Chapter XXV. Finding The Clew. Tim Bolton looked at Florence in undisguised astonishment. "Dodger!" he repeated. "How should I know? I supposed that you had lured him away from me." "He didn't like the business you were in. He preferred to make a living in some other way." "Then why do you ask me where he is?" "Because he did not come home last night. Shure he rooms at my house," put in Mrs. O'Keefe, "and he hasn't showed up since----" "And you thought I might have got hold of him?" said Bolton, inquiringly. "Then you are mistaken. I haven't seen the boy for weeks." Tim Bolton spoke so straightforwardly that there was no chance to doubt his word. "When he was living with you, Mr. Bolton," continued Florence, "did he ever stay away like this?" "No," answered Bolton. "Dodger was always very regular about comin' home." "Then something must have happened to him," said Florence, anxiously. "He might have got run in," suggested the apple-woman. "Some of them cops is mighty officious." "Dodger would never do anything to deserve arrest," Florence said, quickly. "Thrue for you, Florence, but some innersent parties are nabbed. I know of one young man who was standin' on a strate corner waitin' for the cars, when a cop came up and arristed him for disorderly conduct." "But that is shameful!" said Florence, indignantly. "Thrue for you, my dear. We might go round to the police headquarters and inquire if the boy's been run in." "What do you think, Mr. Bolton?" asked Florence. Tim Bolton seemed busy thinking. Finally he brought down his hand forcibly on the bar, and said: "I begin to see through it." Florence did not speak, but she fixed an eager look of inquiry on the face of the saloon-keeper. "I believe Curtis Waring is at the bottom of this," he said. "My cousin!" exclaimed Florence, in astonishment. "Yes, your cousin, Miss Linden." "But what can he have against poor Dodger! Is it because the boy has taken my part and is a friend to me?" "He wouldn't like him any better on account of hat; but he has another and a more powerful reason." "Would you mind telling me what it is? I cannot conceive what it can be." "At present," answered Bolton, cautiously, "I prefer to say nothing on the subject. I will only say the boy's disappearance interferes with my plans, and I will see if I can't find out what has become of him." "If you only will, Mr. Bolton, I shall be so grateful. I am afraid I have misjudged you. I thought you were an enemy of Dodger's." "Then you were mistaken. I have had the boy with me since he was a kid, and though I've been rough with him at times, maybe, I like him, and I may some time have a chance to show him that old Tim Bolton is one of his best friends." "I will believe it now, Mr. Bolton," said Florence, impulsively, holding out her hand to the burly saloon-keeper. He was surprised, but it was evident that he was pleased, also, and he took the little hand respectfully in his own ample palm, and pressed it in a friendly manner. "There's one thing more I want you to believe, Miss Linden," he said, "and that is, that I am your friend, also." "Thank you, Mr. Bolton. And now let us all work together to find Dodger." "You can count on me, Miss Linden. If you'll tell me where you live I'll send or bring you any news I may hear." "I live with Mrs. O'Keefe, my good friend, here." "I haven't my kyard with me, Tim," said the apple-woman, "but I'll give you my strate and number. You know my place of business?" "Yes." "If you come to me there I'll let Florence know whatever you tell me. She is not always at home." The two went away relieved in mind, for, helpless and bewildered as they were, they felt that Tim Bolton would make a valuable ally. When they had gone Tim turned to Hooker and Briggs, who were lounging at a table, waiting for some generous customer to invite them to the bar. "Boys," said Tim, "has either of you seen anything of Dodger lately?" "No," answered the two in unison. "Have you heard anything of him?" "I heard that he was baggage-smashin' down by the steamboat landings," said Hooker. "Go down there, both of you, and see if you can see or hear anything of him." "All right, Tim." And the two left the saloon and took a westerly route toward the North River piers. Three hours later they returned. "Have you heard anything?" asked Bolton. "Did you see Dodger?" "No; we didn't see him." "But you heard something?" "Yes; we found a boy, a friend of his, that said the last he saw of Dodger was last evenin'." "Where did he see him?" "Near the pier of the Albany boats." "What was he doin'?" "Carryin' a valise for a man." "What kind of a man? How did he look?" "He had gray hair and gray whiskers." Tim was puzzled by the description. If, as he suspected, Curtis were concerned in the abduction, this man could not have been he. "The man was a passenger by the Albany boat, I suppose?" "No; that was what looked queer. Before the Albany boat came in the man was lyin' round with his valise, and the boy thought he was goin' off somewhere. But when the boat came in he just mixed in with the passengers, and came up to the entrance of the pier. Two boys asked to carry his valise, but he shook his head till Dodger came round, and he engaged him right off." Tim Bolton nodded knowingly. "It was a plan," he said. "The man wanted to get hold of Dodger. What puzzles me is, that you said he was an old man." "His hair and beard were gray." "And Curtis has no beard, and his hair is black." "But the boy said he didn't look like an old man, except the hair. He walked off like a young man." Tim Bolton's face lighted up with sudden intelligence. "I'll bet a hat it was Curtis in disguise," he soliloquized. "That's all we could find out, Mr. Bolton," said Briggs, with another longing look at the bar. "It is enough! You have earned your whiskey. Walk up, gentlemen!" Hooker and Briggs needed no second invitation. "Will either of you take a note for me to Mrs. O'Keefe? For another drink, of course." "I will, Tim," said Hooker, eagerly. "No; take me, Mr. Bolton," entreated Briggs. "You can both go," said Tim, generously. "Wait a minute, and I'll have it ready for you." He found a half sheet of note paper, and scribbled on it this message: "Mrs. O'Keefe:--Tell Miss Linden that I have a clew. I am almost surtin her cozen has got away with Dodger. He won't hurt him, but he will get him out of the city. Wen I hear more I will right. "T. Bolton." Chapter XXVI. Bolton Makes A Discovery. "I see it all," Bolton said to himself, thoughtfully. "Curtis Waring is afraid of the boy--and of me. He's circumvented me neatly, and the game is his--so far my little plan is dished. I must find out for certain whether he's had anything to do with gettin' Dodger out of the way, and then, Tim Bolton, you must set your wits to work to spoil his little game." Bolton succeeded in securing the services of a young man who had experience at tending bar, and about eight o'clock, after donning his best attire, he hailed a Fourth Avenue surface car and got aboard. Getting out at the proper street, he made his way to Madison Avenue, and ascended the steps of John Linden's residence. The door was opened by Jane, who eyed the visitor with no friendly glance. "What do you want?" she asked, in a hostile tone. "Is Mr. Waring at home?" "I don't know." "Is Miss Florence at home?" "Do you know her?" she asked. "Yes; I am a friend of hers." Jane evidently thought that Florence must have made some queer friends. "Have you seen her lately?" she asked eagerly. "I saw her to-day." "Is she well?" "Yes; she is well, but she is in trouble." "Is she---- Does she need any money?" "No; it isn't that. The boy Dodger has disappeared, and she is afraid something has happened to him." "Oh, I am so sorry! He was a good friend of Miss Florence." "I see you know him. I am trying to help him and her." "But you asked for Mr. Waring?" said Jane, suspiciously. "So I did. Shall I tell you why?" "I wish you would." "I think he has something to do with gettin' Dodger out of the way, and I'm goin' to try to find out." "He won't tell you." "You don't understand. I shall make him think I am on his side. Was he at home last night?" "He went away at dinner time, and he didn't come home till after twelve. I ought to know, for he forgot his latchkey, and I had to get up and let him in. I won't do it again. I'll let him stay out first." "I see; he was with Dodger, no doubt. Did you say he was in?" "No, sir; but he will be in directly. Won't you step into the library?" "Shall I meet the old gentleman there?" asked Bolton, in a tone of hesitation. "No. He goes up to his chamber directly after dinner." "How is he?" "I think he's failing." "I hope there is no immediate danger," said Bolton, anxiously. "No; but he's worrying about Miss Florence. It's my belief that if she were at home, he'd live a good while." "Doesn't he ask for her?" "Mr. Curtis tells him she'll come round soon if he'll only be firm. I don't see, for my part, why Mr. Linden wants her to marry such a disagreeable man. There's plenty better husbands she could get. Come in, sir, and I'll tell him as soon as he comes in. Shall you see Miss Florence soon?" "I think so." "Then tell her not to give up. Things will come right some time." "I'll tell her." Bolton was ushered into the library, where, amid the fashionable furniture he looked quite out of place. He did not feel so, however, for he drew a cigar out of his pocket and, lighting it nonchalantly, leaned back in a luxurious armchair and began to smoke. "Curtis Waring is well fixed--that's a fact!" he soliloquized. "I suppose he is the master here, for the old man isn't likely to interfere. Still he will like it better when his uncle is out of the way." He had to wait but fifteen minutes in solitude, for at the end of that time Curtis Waring appeared. He paused on the threshold, and frowned when he saw who it was that awaited him. "Jane told me that a gentleman was waiting to see me," he said. "Well, she was right." "And you, I suppose, are the gentleman?" said Curtis, in a sneering tone. "Yes; I am the gentleman," remarked Bolton, coolly. "I am not in the habit of receiving visits from gentlemen of your class. However, I suppose you have an object in calling." "It shall go hard with me if I don't pay you for your sneers some day," thought Bolton; but he remained outwardly unruffled. "Well," he answered, "I can't say that I have any particular business to see you about. I saw your cousin recently." "Florence?" asked Curtis, eagerly. "Yes." "What did she say? Did you speak with her?" "Yes. She doesn't seem any more willin' to marry you." Curtis Waring frowned. "She is a foolish girl," he said. "She doesn't know her own mind." "She looks to me like a gal that knows her own mind particularly well." "Pshaw! what can you know about it?" "Then you really expect to marry her some time, Mr. Waring?" "Certainly I do." "And to inherit your uncle's fortune?" "Of course. Why not?" "I was thinkin' of the boy." "The boy is dead----" "What!" exclaimed Bolton, jumping to his feet in irresistible excitement. "Don't be a fool. Wait till I finish my sentence. He is dead so far as his prospects are concerned. Who is there that can identify him with the lost child of John Linden?" "I can." "Yes; if any one would believe you. However, it is for your interest to keep silent." "That is just what I want to know. I suppose you can make it for my interest." "Yes, and will--after I get the property. I don't believe in counting my chickens before they are hatched." "Of course you know that the boy has left me?" said Bolton. "Yes," answered Curtis, indifferently. "He is with my cousin, I believe." "Yes; and through her I can learn where he is, and get hold of him if I desire." A cynical smile played over the face of Curtis Waring. "Do you propose to get him back?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders. "I am right," thought Bolton, shrewdly. "From his manner it is easy to see that Curtis is quite at ease as regards Dodger. He knows where he is!" "You asked me what business I came about, Mr. Waring," he said, after a pause. "Yes." "Of course I am devoted to your interests, but is it quite fair to make me wait till you come into your fortune before allowing me anything?" "I think so." "You don't seem to consider that I can bring the boy here and make him known to your uncle as the son he lost so long ago?" "You are quite sure you can bring the boy here?" asked Curtis. "Why not? I have only to go to Florence and ask her to send the boy to me." "You are quite at liberty to do so if you like, Tim Bolton," said Curtis, with a mocking smile. "I am glad, at any rate, that you have shown me what is in your mind. You are very sharp, but you are not quite so sharp as I am." "I don't understand you." "Then I will be more explicit. It's out of your power to make use of the boy against me, because----" "Well?" "Because he is not in the city." "Where is he, then?" "Where you are not likely to find him." "If you have killed him----" Bolton began, but Curtis interrupted him. "The boy is safe--I will tell you that much," he said; "but for reasons which you can guess, I think it better that he should be out of New York. When the proper time comes, and all is safe, he may come back, but not in time to help you in your cunning plans, Mr. Tim Bolton." "Then, I suppose," said Bolton, assuming an air of mortification and discomfiture, "it is no use for me to remain here any longer." "You are quite right. I wish you a pleasant journey home. Give my love to Florence when you see her." "That man is a fiend!" soliloquized Bolton, as he walked back, leisurely, to his place of business. "Let me get hold of Dodger and I will foil him yet!" Chapter XXVII. Dodger Strikes Luck. When Dodger landed in San Francisco, in spite of the fact that he had made the journey against his will, he felt a natural exhilaration and pleasure in the new and striking circumstances and scenes in which he found himself placed. It was in the year 1877, and the city was by no means what it is now. Yet it probably contained not far from two hundred thousand people, lively, earnest, enterprising. All seemed busy and hopeful, and Dodger caught the contagion. As he walked with the reporter to a modest hotel, where the rates were a dollar and a half a day, not far from Montgomery Street, Randolph Leslie asked: "How do you like San Francisco thus far, Arthur?" It will be remembered that Dodger, feeling that the name by which he had hitherto been known was hardly likely to recommend him, adopted the one given him by Curtis Waring. "I think I shall like it ever so much," answered Dodger. "Everybody seems to be wideawake." "Do you think you will like it better than New York?" "I think a poor boy will have more of a chance of making a living here. In New York I was too well known. If I got a place anywhere some one would recognize me as Tim Bolton's boy--accustomed to tend bar--or some gentleman would remember that he had bought papers of me. Here nobody knows me, and I can start fair." "There is a great deal in what you say," returned Leslie. "What do you think of trying to do?" "First of all I will write a letter to Florence, and tell her I am all right. How long does it take a letter to go from here to New York?" "About seven days." "And it took us over four months! That seems wonderful." "Yes; there is a great difference between coming by sea around Cape Horn and speeding across the country on an express train." "If I could only know how Florence is getting along," Dodger said, anxiously. "I suppose she thinks I am dead." "You forget the letter you gave to the vessel we spoke off the coast of Brazil." "Yes; but do you think it went straight?" "The chances are in favor of it. However, your idea is a good one. Write, by all means, and then we will discuss future plans." "What are your plans, Mr. Leslie?" "I shall try to secure a reporter's berth on one of the daily papers-- the _Call_ or _Chronicle_. I will wait a few days, however, as I have a few hundred dollars by me, and can afford to take a little time to look around." "I wish I were as well provided; but I have less than twenty-five dollars." "Don't worry about that, Arthur," said Randolph, laying his hand affectionately on the boy's shoulder. "I shall not allow you to want." "Thank you, Mr. Leslie," said Dodger, gratefully. "It's something new to me to have a friend like you. But I don't want to be any expense to you. I am large enough and strong enough to earn my own living." "True; and I feel sure you will have a chance in this enterprising city." They bought copies of the day's papers, and Dodger looked eagerly over the advertising columns. At length he saw an advertisement that read as follows: WANTED--A young man of 18 or 20 to assist in the office of a local express. Inquire at No. -- ---- St." "Do you think I would answer for such a place?" he asked. "I don't see why not. At any rate, 'nothing venture, nothing gain.' You may as well go around and inquire. And, by the way, as your suit is rather shabby, let me lend you one of mine. We are of nearly the same size." "Thank you, Mr. Leslie." "Fine feathers make fine birds, you know, and a neat dress always increases the chances of an applicant for employment, though, when it is carried too far, it is apt to excite suspicion. I remember a friend of mine advertised for a bookkeeper. Among the applicants was a young man wearing a sixty-dollar suit, a ruffled shirt, a handsome gold watch and a diamond pin. He was a man of taste, and he was strongly impressed with the young man's elegant appearance. So, largely upon the strength of these, he engaged him, and in less than six months discovered that he had been swindled to the extent of eight hundred dollars by his aesthetic bookkeeper." "Then I will leave my diamond pin at home," said Dodger, smiling. "Suppose they ask me for recommendations?" "I will go with you and indorse you. I happen to know one or two prominent gentlemen in San Francisco--among them the president of a bank--and I presume my indorsement will be sufficient." Dodger went back to the hotel, put on a suit of Mr. Leslie's, got his boots blacked, and then, in company with the young reporter, went to the express office. "I am afraid some one will have been engaged already," said the reporter; "but if not, your chances will be good." They entered a good-sized office on a prominent street, and Dodger inquired for Mr. Tucker. A small man of about forty, keen-eyed and alert, eyed him attentively. "I am Mr. Tucker," he said. "I saw your advertisement for an assistant, Mr. Tucker," said Dodger, modestly; "have you filled the place?" "Let me see," said Tucker, reflectively, "you are the ninth young man who has applied--but the place is still open." "Then I am afraid you won't want me, as you have rejected so many." "I don't know. How long have you been in the city?" "I only just arrived." "Where from?" "From New York." "Have you any idea of going to the mines when you get money enough?" "I think I would prefer to remain in the city." "Good! How is your education?" "I have never been to college," answered Dodger, with a smile. "Good! I don't care for your college men. I am a practical man myself." "I am a poor scholar, but Mr. Leslie tells me I write a fair hand." "Let me see a specimen of your writing." Now Dodger had taken special pains on the voyage to improve his penmanship, with excellent results. So it happened that the specimen which he furnished had the good fortune to please Mr. Tucker. "Good!" he said. "You will, a part of the time, be taking orders. Your handwriting is plain and will do. Never mind about Latin and Greek. You won't need it. Chinese would be more serviceable to you here. When can you go to work?" "To-morrow morning. To-day, if necessary," answered Dodger, promptly. Mr. Tucker seemed pleased with his answer. "To-morrow morning let it be, then! Hours are from eight in the morning till six at night." "Very well, sir." "Your wages will be fifteen dollars a week. How will that suit you?" Dodger wanted to indulge in a loud whoop of exultation, for fifteen dollars was beyond his wildest hopes; but he was too politic to express his delight. So he contented himself with saying: "I shall be quite satisfied with that." "Oh, by the way, I suppose I ought to have some reference," said Mr. Tucker, "though as a general thing I judge a good deal by outward appearance." "I can refer you to my friend, Mr. Leslie, here." "And who will indorse him?" asked the expressman, shrewdly. Leslie smiled. "I see, Mr. Tucker, you are a thorough man of business. I can refer you to Mr. ----, president of the ---- Bank in this city." "That is sufficient, sir. I am sure you would not refer me to him unless you felt satisfied that he would speak favorably of you. I won't, therefore, take the trouble to inquire. Where are you staying?" "At the Pacific Hotel; but we shall take a private apartment within a day or two." As they passed out of the office, Randolph Leslie said: "You've done splendidly, Arthur." "Haven't I? I feel like a millionaire." "As you are to go to work to-morrow, we may as well take up a room at once. It will be cheaper." In a short time they had engaged a neat suite of rooms, two in number, not far from the Palace Hotel, at twenty dollars per month. The next day Leslie procured a position on the San Francisco _Chronicle_, at twenty-five dollars per week. Chapter XXVIII. Florence Receives A Letter. The discovery, through Tim Bolton, that Curtis Waring had a hand in the disappearance of Dodger, partially relieved the anxiety of Florence--but only partially. He might be detained in captivity, but even that was far better than an accident to life or limb. She knew that he would try to get word to her at the earliest opportunity, in order to relieve her fears. But week after week passed, and no tidings came. At length, at the end of ten weeks, a note came to her, written on a rough sheet of paper, the envelope marked by a foreign stamp. It ran thus: "Dear Florence:--I am sure you have worried over my disappearance. Perhaps you thought I was dead, but I was never better in my life. I am on the ship _Columbia_, bound for San Francisco, around Cape Horn; and just now, as one of the officers tells me, we are off the coast of Brazil. "There is a ship coming north, and we are going to hail her and give her letters to carry home, so I hope these few lines will reach you all right. I suppose I am in for it, and must keep on to San Francisco. But I haven't told you yet how I came here. "It was through a trick of your cousin, Curtis Waring. I haven't time to tell you about it; but I was drugged and brought aboard in my sleep; when I woke up I was forty miles at sea. "Don't worry about me, for I have a good friend on board, Mr. Randolph Leslie, who has been a reporter on one of the New York daily papers. He advises me to get something to do in San Francisco, and work till I have earned money enough to get home. He says I can do better there, where I am not known, and can get higher pay. He is giving me lessons every day, and he says I am learning fast. "The ship is almost here, and I must stop. Take good care of yourself, and remember me to Mrs. O'Keefe, and I will write you again as soon as I get to San Francisco. "Dodger. "P. S.--Don't let on to Curtis that you have heard from me, or he might try to play me some trick in San Francisco." Florence's face was radiant when she had read the letter. Dodger was alive, well, and in good spirits. The letter arrived during the afternoon, and she put on her street dress at once and went over to the apple-stand and read the letter to Mrs. O'Keefe. "Well, well!" ejaculated the apple-woman. "So it's that ould thafe of the worruld, Curtis Waring, that has got hold of poor Dodger, just as Tim told us. It seems mighty quare to me that he should want to stale poor Dodger. If it was you, now, I could understand it." "It seems strange to me, Mrs. O'Keefe," said Florence, thoughtfully. "I thought it might be because Dodger was my friend, but that doesn't seem to be sufficient explanation. Don't you think we ought to show this letter to Mr. Bolton?" "I was going to suggest that same. If you'll give it to me, Florence, I'll get Mattie to tend my stand, and slip round wid it to Tim's right off." "I will go with you, Mrs. O'Keefe." Mattie, who was playing around the corner, was summoned. "Now, Mattie, just mind the stand, and don't be runnin' away, or them boys will get away wid my whole mornin's profits. Do you hear?" "Yes, mum." "And don't you be eatin' all the while you are here. Here's one apple you can have," and the apple-woman carefully picked out one that she considered unsalable. "That's specked, Mrs. O'Keefe," objected Mattie. "And what if it is? Can't you bite out the specks? The rest of the apple is good. You're gettin' mighty particular." Mattie bit a piece out of the sound part of the apple, and, when Mrs. O'Keefe was at a safe distance, gave the rest to a lame bootblack, and picked out one of the best apples for her own eating. "Bridget O'Keefe is awful mane wid her apples!" soliloquized Mattie, "but I'm too smart for her. Tryin' to pass off one of her old specked apples on me! If I don't take three good one I'm a sinner." Arrived at the front of the saloon, Mrs. O'Keefe penetrated the interior, and met Tim near the door. "Have you come in for some whiskey, old lady?" asked Tim, in a jesting tone. "I'll take that by and by. Florence is outside, and we've got some news for you." "Won't she come in?" "No; she don't like to be seen in a place like this. She's got a letter from Dodger." "You don't mean it!" ejaculated Tim, with sudden interest. "Where is he?" "Come out and see." "Good afternoon, Miss Linden," said Tim, gallantly. "So you've news from Dodger?" "Yes; here is the letter." Bolton read it through attentively. "Curtis is smart," he said, as he handed it back. "He couldn't have thought of a better plan for getting rid of the boy. It will take several months for him to reach 'Frisco, and after that he can't get back, for he won't have any money." "Dodger says he will try to save money enough to pay his way back." "It will take him a good while." "It doesn't take long to come back by cars, does it?" "No; but it costs a great deal of money. Why, it may take Dodger a year to earn enough to pay his way back on the railroad." "A year!" exclaimed Florence, in genuine dismay--"a year, in addition to the time it takes to go out there! Where will we all be at the end of that time?" "Not in jail, I hope," answered Bolton, jocularly. "I am afraid your uncle will no longer be in the land of the living." A shadow came over Florence's face. "Poor Uncle John!" she said, sadly. "It is terrible to think he may die thinking hardly of me." "Leavin' his whole fortune to Curtis," continued Tim. "That is the least thing that troubles me," said Florence. "A woman's a queer thing," said Tim, shrugging his shoulders. "Here's a fortune of maybe half a million, and half of it rightfully yours, and you don't give it a thought." "Not compared with the loss of my uncle's affections." "Money is a great deal more practical than affection." "Perhaps so, from your standpoint, Mr. Bolton," said Florence, with dignity. "No offense, miss. When you've lived as long as I, you'll look at things different. Well, I'm glad to hear from the lad. If Curtis had done him any harm, I'd have got even with him if it sent me to jail." A quiet, determined look replaced Tim Bolton's usual expression of easy good humor. He could not have said anything that would have ingratiated him more with Florence. "Thank you, Mr. Bolton," she said, earnestly. "I shall always count upon your help. I believe you are a true friend of Dodger----" "And of yours, too, miss----" "I believe it," she said, with a smile that quite captivated Tim. "If it would be any satisfaction to you, Miss Florence," he continued, "I'll give Curtis Waring a lickin'. He deserves it for persecutin' you and gettin' you turned out of your uncle's house." "Thank you, Mr. Bolton; it wouldn't be any satisfaction to me to see Curtis injured in any way." "You're too good a Christian, you are, Miss Florence." "I wish I deserved your praise, but I can hardly lay claim to it. Now, Mr. Bolton, tell me what can I do to help Dodger?" "I don't see that you can do anything now, as it will be most three months before he reaches 'Frisco. You might write to him toward the time he gets there." "I will." "Direct to the post office. I think he'll have sense enough to ask for letters." "I wish I could send him some money. I am afraid he will land penniless." "If he lands in good health you can trust him for makin' a livin'. A New York boy, brought up as he was, isn't goin' to starve where there are papers to sell and errands to run. Why, he'll light on his feet in 'Frisco, take my word for it." Florence felt a good deal encouraged by Tim's words of assurance, and she went home with her heart perceptibly lightened. But she was soon to have trials of her own, which for the time being would make her forgetful of Dodger. Chapter XXIX. Mrs. Leighton's Party. "Miss Linden," said Mrs. Leighton, one day in the fourth month of Dodger's absence, "Carrie has perhaps told you that I give a party next Thursday evening." "She told me," answered the governess. "I expected Prof. Bouvier to furnish dancing music--in fact, I had engaged him--but I have just received a note stating that he is unwell, and I am left unprovided. It is very inconsiderate on his part," added the lady, in a tone of annoyance. Florence did not reply. She took rather a different view of the professor's letter, and did not care to offend Mrs. Leighton. "Under the circumstances," continued the lady, "it has occurred to me that, as you are really quite a nice performer, you might fill his place. I shall be willing to allow you a dollar for the evening. What do you say?" Florence felt embarrassed. She shrank from appearing in society in her present separation from her family, yet could think of no good excuse. Noticing her hesitation, Mrs. Leighton added, patronizingly: "On second thought, I will pay you a dollar and a half"--Prof. Bouvier was to have charged ten dollars--"and you will be kind enough to come in your best attire. You seem to be well provided with dresses." "Yes, madam, there will be no difficulty on that score." "Nor on any other, I hope. As governess in my family, I think I have a right to command your services." "I will come," said Florence, meekly. She felt that it would not do to refuse after this. As she entered the handsomely decorated rooms on the night of the party, she looked around her nervously, fearing to see some one whom she had known in earlier days. She noticed one only--Percy de Brabazon, whose face lighted up when he saw her, for he had been expecting to see her. She managed to convey a caution by a quiet movement, as it would not be wise for Mrs. Leighton to know of their previous acquaintance. But Percy was determined to get an opportunity to speak to her. "Who is that young lady, Aunt Mary?" he asked. "The one standing near the piano." "That is Carrie's governess," answered Mrs. Leighton, carelessly. "She seems quite a ladylike person." "Yes. I understand she has seen better days. She is to play for us in the absence of Prof. Bouvier." "Will you introduce me, aunt?" "Why?" asked Mrs. Leighton, with a searching look. "I should like to inquire about Carrie's progress in her studies," said the cunning Percy. "Oh, certainly," answered the aunt, quite deceived by his words. "Miss Linden," she said, "let me introduce my nephew, Mr. de Brabazon. He wishes to inquire about Carrie's progress in her studies." And the lady sailed off to another part of the room. "I can assure you, Mr. de Brabazon," said Florence, "that my young charge is making excellent progress." "I can easily believe it, under your instruction," said Percy. "I am very glad you take such an interest in your cousin," added Florence, with a smile. "It does you great credit." "It's only an excuse, you know, to get a chance to talk with you, Miss Linden. May I say Miss Florence?" "No," answered Florence, decidedly. "It won't do. You must be very formal." "Then tell me how you like teaching." "Very well, indeed." "It must be an awful bore, I think." "I don't think so. Carrie is a warm-hearted, affectionate girl. Besides, she is very bright and gives me very little trouble." "Don't you think you could take another pupil, Miss Linden?" "A young girl?" "No, a young man. In fact, myself." "What could I teach you, Mr. de Brabazon?" "Lots of things. I am not very sound in--in spelling and grammar." "What a pity!" answered Florence, with mock seriousness. "I am afraid your aunt would hardly consent to have a boy of your size in the schoolroom." "Then perhaps you could give me some private lessons in the afternoon?" "That would not be possible." Just then Mrs. Leighton came up. "Well," she said, "what does Miss Linden say of Carrie?" "She has quite satisfied my mind about her," answered Percy, with excusable duplicity. "I think her methods are excellent. I was telling her that I might be able to procure her another pupil." "I have no objection, as long as it does not interfere with Carrie's hours. Miss Linden, there is a call for music. Will you go to the piano and play a Stauss waltz?" Florence inclined her head obediently. "Let me escort you to the piano, Miss Linden," said Percy. "Thank you," answered Florence, in a formal tone. For an hour Florence was engaged in playing waltzes, gallops and lanciers music. Then a lady who was proud of her daughter's proficiency volunteered her services to relieve Florence. "Now you can dance yourself," said Percy, in a low tone. "Will you give me a waltz?" "Not at once. Wait till the second dance." Percy de Brabazon was prompt in presenting himself as soon as permitted, and he led Florence out for a dance. Both were excellent dancers, and attracted general attention. Florence really enjoyed dancing, and forgot for a time that she was only a guest on sufferance, as she moved with rhythmic grace about the handsome rooms. Percy was disposed to prolong the dance, but Florence was cautious. "I think I will rest now, Mr. de Brabazon," she said. "You will favor me again later in the evening?" he pleaded. "I hardly think it will be wise." But when, half an hour later, he asked her again, Florence could not find it in her heart to say no. It would have been wise if she had done so. A pair of jealous eyes was fixed upon her. Miss Emily Carter had for a considerable time tried to fascinate Mr. de Brabazon, whose wealth made him a very desirable match, and she viewed his decided penchant for Florence with alarm and indignation. "To be thrown in the shade by a governess is really too humiliating!" she murmured to herself in vexation. "If it were a girl in my own station I should not care so much," and she eyed Florence with marked hostility. "Mamma," she said, "do you see how Mr. de Barbazon is carrying on with Mrs. Leighton's governess? Really, I think it very discreditable." Mrs. Carter looked through her gold eye-glasses at the couple. "Is the girl really a governess?" she added. "She is very well dressed." "I don't know where she got her dress, but she is really a governess." "She seems very bold." "So she does." Poor Florence! She was far from deserving their unkindly remarks. "I suppose she is trying to ensnare young de Brabazon," said Emily, spitefully. "People of her class are very artful. Don't you think it would be well to call Mrs. Leighton's attention? Percy de Brabazon is her nephew, you know." "True. The suggestion is a good one, Emily." Mrs. Carter was quite as desirous as her daughter of bringing about an alliance with Percy, and she readily agreed to second her plans. She looked about for Mrs. Leighton, and took a seat at her side. "Your nephew seems quite attentive to your governess," she commenced. "Indeed! In what way?" "He has danced with her three or four times, I believe. It looks rather marked." "So it does," said Mrs. Leighton. "He is quite inconsiderate." "Oh, well, it is of no great consequence. She is quite stylish for a governess, and doubtless your nephew is taken with her." "That will not suit my views at all," said Mrs. Leighton, coldly. "I shall speak to her to-morrow." "Pray don't. It really is a matter of small consequence--quite natural, in fact." "Leave the matter with me. You have done quite right in mentioning it." At twelve o'clock the next day, when Florence had just completed her lessons with Carrie, Mrs. Leighton entered the room. "Please remain a moment, Miss Linden," she said. "I have a few words to say to you." Mrs. Leighton's tone was cold and unfriendly, and Florence felt that something unpleasant was coming. Chapter XXX. Florence Is Followed Home. "I am listening, madam," said Florence, inclining her head. "I wish to speak to you about last evening, Miss Linden." "I hope my playing was satisfactory, Mrs. Leighton. I did my best." "I have no fault to find with your music. It came up to my expectations." "I am glad of that, madam." "I referred, rather, to your behavior, Miss Linden." "I don't understand you, Mrs. Leighton," Florence responded, in unaffected surprise. "Please explain." "You danced several times with my nephew, Mr. Percy de Brabazon." "Twice, madam." "I understood it was oftener. However, that is immaterial. You hardly seemed conscious of your position." "What was my position, Mrs. Leighton?" asked Florence, quietly, looking her employer in the face. "Well--ahem!" answered Mrs. Leighton, a little ill at ease, "you were a hired musician." "Well?" "And you acted as if you were an invited guest." "I am sorry you did not give me instructions as to my conduct," said the governess, coldly. "I should not have danced if I had been aware that it was prohibited." "I am sorry, Miss Linden, that you persist in misunderstanding me. Mr. de Brabazon, being in a different social position from yourself, it looked hardly proper that he should have devoted himself to you more than to any other lady." "Did he? I was not aware of it. Don't you think, under the circumstances, that he is the one whom you should take to task? I didn't invite his attentions." "You seemed glad to receive them." "I was. He is undoubtedly a gentleman." "Certainly he is. He is my nephew." "It was not my part to instruct him as to what was proper, surely." "You are very plausible. Miss Linden, I think it right to tell you that your conduct was commented upon by one of my lady guests as unbecoming. However, I will remember, in extenuation, that you are unaccustomed to society, and doubtless erred ignorantly." Florence bowed, but forbore to make any remark. "Do you wish to speak further to me, Mrs. Leighton?" "No, I think not." "Then I will bid you good-morning." When the governess had left the house, Mrs. Leighton asked herself whether in her encounter with her governess the victory rested with her, and she was forced to acknowledge that it was at least a matter of doubt. "Miss Linden is a faithful teacher, but she does not appear to appreciate the difference that exists between her and my guests. I think, however, that upon reflection, she will see that I am right in my stricture upon her conduct." Florence left the house indignant and mortified. It was something new to her to be regarded as a social inferior, and she felt sure that there were many in Mrs. Leighton's position who would have seen no harm in her behavior on the previous evening. Four days afterward, when Florence entered the Madison Avenue car to ride downtown, she had scarcely reached her seat when an eager voice addressed her: "Miss Linden, how fortunate I am in meeting you!" Florence looked up and saw Mr. de Brabazon sitting nearly opposite her. Though she felt an esteem for him, she was sorry to see him, for, with Mrs. Leighton's rebuke fresh in her mind, it could only be a source of embarrassment, and, if discovered, subject her in all probability to a fresh reprimand. "You are kind to say so, Mr. de Brabazon." "Not at all. I hoped I might meet you again soon. What a pleasant time we had at the party." "I thought so at the time, but the next day I changed my mind." "Why, may I ask?" "Because your aunt, Mrs. Leighton, took me to task for dancing with you twice." "Was she so absurd?" ejaculated Percy. "It is not necessarily absurd. She said our social positions were so different that it was unbecoming for me to receive attention from you." "Rubbish!" exclaimed Percy, warmly. "I am afraid I ought not to listen to such strictures upon the words of my employer." "I wish you didn't have to teach." "I can't join you in that wish. I enjoy my work." "But you ought to be relieved from the necessity." "We must accept things as we find them," said Florence, gravely. "There is a way out of it," said Percy, quickly. "You understand me, do you not?" "I think I do, Mr. de Brabazon, and I am grateful to you, but I am afraid it can never be." Percy remained silent. "How far are you going?" asked Florence, uneasily, for she did not care to have her companion learn where she lived. "I intend to get out at Fourteenth Street." "Then I must bid you good-afternoon, for we are already at Fifteenth Street." "If I can be of any service to you, I will ride farther." "Thank you," said Florence, hastily, "but it is quite unnecessary." "Then, good morning!" And Percy descended from the car. In another part of the car sat a young lady, who listened with sensations far from pleasant to the conversation that had taken place between Florence and Mr. de Brabazon. It was Emily Carter, whose jealousy had been excited on the evening of the party. She dropped her veil, fearing to be recognized by Mr. de Brabazon, with whom she was well acquainted. She, too, had intended getting off at Fourteenth Street, but decided to remain longer in the car. "I will find out where that girl lives," she resolved. "Her conduct with Percy de Brabazon is positively disgraceful. She is evidently doing her best to captivate him. I feel that it is due to Mrs. Leighton, who would be shocked at the thought of her nephew's making a low alliance, to find out all I can, and put her on her guard." She kept her seat, still keeping her veil down, for it was possible that Florence might recognize her; and the car moved steadily onward till it turned into the Bowery. "Where on earth is she leading me?" Miss Carter asked herself. "I have never been in this neighborhood before. However, it won't do to give up, when I am, perhaps, on the verge of some important discoveries." Still the car sped on. Not far from Grand Street, Florence left the car, followed, though she was unconscious of it, by her aristocratic fellow-passenger. Florence stopped a moment to speak to Mrs. O'Keefe at her apple-stand. "So you're through wid your work, Florence. Are you goin' home?" "Yes, Mrs. O'Keefe." "Then I'll go wid you, for I've got a nasty headache, and I'll lie down for an hour." They crossed the street, not noticing the veiled young lady, who followed within ear shot, and listened to their conversation. At length they reached the tenement house--Florence's humble home--and went in. "I've learned more than I bargained for," said Emily Carter, in malicious exultation. "I am well repaid for coming to this horrid part of the city. I wonder if Mr. de Brabazon knows where his charmer lives? I will see that Mrs. Leighton knows, at any rate." Chapter XXXI. Florence Is Discharged. Mrs. Leighton sat in her boudoir with a stern face and tightly compressed lips. Miss Carter had called the previous afternoon and informed her of the astounding discoveries she had made respecting the governess. She rang the bell. "Janet," she said, "when the governess comes you may bring her up here to me." "Yes, ma'am." "She's going to catch it--I wonder what for?" thought Janet, as she noted the grim visage of her employer. So when Florence entered the house she was told that Mrs. Leighton wished to see her at once. "I wonder what's the matter now?" she asked herself. "Has she heard of my meeting her nephew in the car?" When she entered the room she saw at once that something was wrong. "You wished to see me, Mrs. Leighton?" she said. "Yes," answered Mrs. Leighton, grimly. "Will you be seated?" Florence sat down a few feet from her employer and waited for an explanation. She certainly was not prepared for Mrs. Leighton's first words: "Miss Linden, where do you live?" Florence started, and her face flushed. "I live in the lower part of the city," she answered, with hesitation. "That is not sufficiently definite." "I live at No. 27 -- Street." "I think that is east of the Bowery." "You are right, madam." "You lodge with an apple-woman, do you not?" "I do," answered Florence, calmly. "In a tenement house?" "Yes, madam." "And you actually come from such a squalid home to instruct my daughter!" exclaimed Mrs. Leighton, indignantly. "It is a wonder you have not brought some terrible disease into the house." "There has been no case of disease in the humble dwelling in which I make my home. I should be as sorry to expose your daughter to any danger of that kind as you would be to have me." "It is a merciful dispensation of Providence, for which I ought to be truly thankful. But the idea of receiving in my house an inmate of a tenement house! I am truly shocked. Is this apple-woman your mother?" "I assure you that she is not," answered Florence, with a smile which she could not repress. "Or your aunt?" "She is in no way related to me. She is an humble friend. "Miss Linden, your tastes must be low to select such a home and such a friend." "The state of my purse had something to do with the selection, and the kindness shown me by Mrs. O'Keefe, when I needed a friend, will explain my location further." "That is not all. You met in the Madison Avenue car yesterday my nephew, Mr. Percy de Brabazon." "It is coming," thought Florence. "Who could have seen us?" Then aloud: "Yes, madam." "Was it by appointment?" "Do you mean to insult me, Mrs. Leighton?" demanded Florence, rising and looking at the lady with flashing eyes. "I never insult anybody," replied Mrs. Leighton. "Pray, resume your seat." Florence did so. "Then I may assume that it was accidental. You talked together with the freedom of old friends?" "You are correctly informed." "You seem to make acquaintances very readily, Miss Linden. It seems singular, to say the least, that after meeting my nephew for a single evening, you should become such intimate friends." "You will be surprised, Mrs. Leighton, when I say that Mr. de Brabazon and I are old friends. We have met frequently." "Where, in Heaven's name?" ejaculated Mrs. Leighton. "At my residence." "Good Heavens!" exclaimed the scandalized lady. "Does my nephew Percy visit at the house of this apple-woman?" "No, madam. He does not know where I live." "Then you will explain your previous statement?" said Mrs. Leighton, haughtily. "I am at present suffering reversed circumstances. It is but a short time since I was very differently situated." "I won't inquire into your change of circumstances. I feel compelled to perform an unpleasant duty." Florence did not feel called upon to make any reply, but waited for Mrs. Leighton to finish speaking. "I shall be obliged to dispense with your services as my daughter's governess. It is quite out of the question for me to employ a person who lives in a tenement-house." Florence bowed acquiescence, but she felt very sad. She had become attached to her young charge, and it cost her a pang to part from her. Besides, how was she to supply the income of which this would deprive her? "I bow to your decision, madam," she said, with proud humility. "You will find here the sum that I owe you, with payment for an extra week in lieu of notice." "Thank you. May I bid Carrie good-by, Mrs. Leighton?" "It is better not to do so, I think. The more quietly we dissolve our unfortunate connection the better!" Florence's heart swelled, and the tears came to her eyes, but she could not press her request. She was destined, however, to obtain the privilege which Mrs. Leighton denied her. Carrie, who had become impatient, came downstairs and burst into the room. "What keeps you so long, Miss Linden?" she said. "Is mamma keeping you?" Florence was silent, leaving the explanations to Mrs. Leighton. "Miss Linden has resigned her position as your governess, Carrie." "Miss Linden going away! I won't have her go! What makes you go, Miss Linden?" "Your mamma thinks it best," answered Florence, with moistened eyes. "Well, I don't!" exclaimed Carrie, stamping her foot, angrily. "I won't have any other governess but you." "Carrie, you are behaving very unbecomingly," said her mother. "Will you tell me, mamma, why you are sending Miss Linden away?" "I will tell you some other time." "But I want to know now." "I am very much displeased with you, Carrie." "And I am very much displeased with you, mamma." I do not pretend to defend Carrie, whose conduct was hardly respectful enough to her mother; but with all her faults she had a warm heart, while her mother had always been cold and selfish. "I am getting tired of this," said Mrs. Leighton. "Miss Linden, as you are here to-day, you may give Carrie the usual lessons. As I shall be out when you get through, I bid you good-by now." "Good-by, Mrs. Leighton." Carrie and Florence went to the schoolroom for the last time. Florence gave her young pupil a partial explanation of the cause which had led to her discharge. "What do I care if you live in a poor house, Miss Linden?" said Carrie, impetuously. "I will make mamma take you back!" Florence smiled; but she knew that there would be no return for her. When she reached her humble home she had a severe headache and lay down. Mrs. O'Keefe came in later to see her. "And what's the matter with you, Florence?" she asked. "I have a bad headache, Mrs. O'Keefe." "You work too hard, Florence, wid your teacher. That is what gives you the headache." "Then I shan't have it again, for I have got through with my teaching." "What's that you say?" "I am discharged." "And what's it all about?" Florence explained matters. Mrs. O'Keefe became indignant. "She's a mean trollop, that Mrs. Leighton!" she exclaimed, "and I'd like to tell her so to her face. Where does she live?" "It will do no good to interfere, my good friend. She is not willing to receive a governess from a tenement house." "Shure you used to live in as grand a house as herself." "But I don't now." "Don't mind it too much, mavoureen. You'll soon be gettin' another scholar. Go to sleep now, and you'll sleep the headache away." Florence finally succeeded in following the advice of her humble friend. She resolved to leave till the morrow the cares of the morrow. She had twelve dollars, and before that was spent she hoped to be in a position to earn some more. Chapter XXXII. An Exciting Adventure. Dodger soon became accustomed to his duties at Tucker's express office, in his new San Francisco home. He found Mr. Tucker an exacting, but not an unreasonable, man. He watched his new assistant closely for the first few days, and was quietly taking his measure. At the end of the first week he paid the salary agreed upon--fifteen dollars. "You have been with me a week, Arthur," he said. "Yes, sir." "And I have been making up my mind about you." "Yes, sir," said Dodger, looking up inquiringly. "I hope you are satisfied with me?" "Yes, I think I may say that I am. You don't seem to be afraid of work." "I have always been accustomed to work." "That is well. I was once induced to take the son of a rich man in the place you now occupy. He had never done a stroke of work, having always been at school. He didn't take kindly to work, and seemed afraid that he would be called upon to do more than he had bargained for. One evening I was particularly busy, and asked him to remain an hour overtime. "'It will be very inconvenient, Mr. Tucker,' said the young man, 'as I have an engagement with a friend.' "He left me to do all the extra work, and--I suppose you know what happened the next Saturday evening?" "I can guess," returned Dodger, with a smile. "I told him that I thought the duties were too heavy for his constitution, and he had better seek an easier place. Let me see--I kept you an hour and a half overtime last Wednesday." "Yes, sir." "You made no objection, but worked on just as if you liked it." "Yes, sir; I am always willing to stay when you need me." "Good! I shan't forget it." Dodger felt proud of his success, and put away the fifteen dollars with a feeling of satisfaction. He had never saved half that sum in the same time before. "Curtis Waring did me a favor when he sent me out here," he reflected; "but as he didn't mean it, I have no occasion to feel grateful." Dodger found that he could live for eight dollars a week, and he began to lay by seven dollars a week with the view of securing funds sufficient to take him back to New York. He was in no hurry to leave San Francisco, but he felt that Florence might need a friend. But he found that he was making progress slowly. At that time the price of a first-class ticket to New York was one hundred and twenty-eight dollars, besides the expense of sleeping berths, amounting then, as now, to twenty-two dollars extra. So it looked as if Dodger would be compelled to wait at least six months before he should be in a position to set out on the return journey. About this time Dodger received a letter from Florence, in which she spoke of her discharge by Mrs. Leighton. "I shall try to obtain another position as teacher," she said, concealing her anxiety. "I am sure, in a large city, I can find something to do." But Dodger knew better than she the difficulties that beset the path of an applicant for work, and he could not help feeling anxious for Florence. "If I were only in New York," he said to himself, "I would see that Florence didn't suffer. I will write her to let me know if she is in need, and I will send her some money." About this time he met with an adventure which deserves to be noted. It was about seven o'clock one evening that he found himself in Mission Street. At a street corner his attention was drawn to a woman poorly dressed, who held by the hand a child of three. Her clothing was shabby, and her attitude was one of despondency. It was clear that she was ill and in trouble. Dodger possessed quick sympathies, and his own experience made him quick to understand and feel for the troubles of others. Though the woman made no appeal, he felt instinctively that she needed help. "I beg your pardon," he said, with as much deference as if he were addressing one favored by fortune, "but you seem to be in need of help?" "God knows, I am!" said the woman, sadly. "Perhaps I can be of service to you. Will you tell me how?" "Neither I nor my child has tasted food since yesterday." "Well, that can be easily remedied," said Dodger, cheerfully. "There is a restaurant close by. I was about to eat supper. Will you come in with me?" "I am ashamed to impose upon the kindness of a stranger," murmured the woman. "Don't mention it. I shall be very glad of company," said Dodger, heartily. "But you are a poor boy. You may be ill able to afford the expense." "I am not a millionaire," said Dodger, "and I don't see any immediate prospect of my building a palace on Nob Hill"--where live some of San Francisco's wealthiest citizens--"but I am very well supplied with money." "Then I will accept your kind invitation." It was a small restaurant, but neat in its appointments, and, as in most San Francisco restaurants, the prices were remarkably moderate. At an expense of twenty-five cents each, the three obtained a satisfactory meal. The woman and child both seemed to enjoy it, and Dodger was glad to see that the former became more cheerful as time went on. There was something in the child's face that looked familiar to Dodger. It was a resemblance to some one that he had seen, but he could not for the life of him decide who it was. "How can I ever thank you for your kindness?" said the lady, as she arose from the table. "You don't know what it is to be famished----" "Don't I?" asked Dodger. "I have been hungry more than once, without money enough to buy a meal." "You don't look it," she said. "No, for now I have a good place and am earning a good salary." "Are you a native of San Francisco?" "No, madam. I can't tell you where I was born, for I know little or nothing of my family. I have only been here a short time. I came from New York." "So did I," said the woman, with a sigh. "I wish I were back there again." "How came you to be here? Don't answer if you prefer not to," Dodger added, hastily. "I have no objection. My husband deserted me, and left me to shift for myself and support my child." "How have you done it?" "By taking in sewing. But that is a hard way of earning money. There are too many poor women who are ready to work for starvation wages, and so we all suffer." "I know that," answered Dodger. "Do you live near here?" The woman mentioned a street near by. "I have one poor back room on the third floor," she explained; "but I should be glad if I were sure to stay there." "Is there any danger of your being ejected?" "I am owing for two weeks' rent, and this is the middle of the third week. Unless I can pay up at the end of this week I shall be forced to go out into the streets with my poor child." "How much rent do you pay?" "A dollar a week." "Then three dollars will relieve you for the present?" "Yes; but it might as well be three hundred," said the woman, bitterly. "Not quite; I can supply you with three dollars, but three hundred would be rather beyond my means." "You are too kind, too generous! I ought not to accept such a liberal gift." "Mamma, I am tired. Take me up in your arms," said the child. "Poor child! He has been on his feet all day," sighed the mother. She tried to lift the child, but her own strength had been undermined by privation, and she was clearly unable to do so. "Let me take him!" said Dodger. "Here, little one, jump up!" He raised the child easily, and despite the mother's protest, carried him in his arms. "I will see you home, madam," he said. "I fear the child will be too heavy for you." "I hope not. Why, I could carry a child twice as heavy." They reached the room at last--a poor one, but a welcome repose from the streets. "Don't you ever expect to see your husband again?" asked Dodger. "Can't you compel him to support you?" "I don't know where he is," answered the woman, despondently. "If you will tell me his name, I may come across him some day." "His name," said the woman, "is Curtis Waring." Dodger stared at her, overwhelmed with surprise. Chapter XXXIII. An Important Discovery. "Curtis Waring!" ejaculated Dodger, his face showing intense surprise. "Is that the name of your husband?" "Yes. Is it possible that you know him?" asked the woman, struck by Dodger's tone. "I know a man by that name. I will describe him, and you can tell me whether it is he. He is rather tall, dark hair, sallow complexion, black eyes, and a long, thin nose." "It is like him in every particular. Oh, tell me where he is to be found?" "He lives in New York. He is the nephew of a rich man, and is expecting to inherit his wealth. Through his influence a cousin of his, a young lady, has been driven from home." "Was he afraid she would deprive him of the estate?" "That was partly the reason. But it was partly to revenge himself on her because she would not agree to marry him." "But how could he marry her," exclaimed the unfortunate woman, "when he is already married to me?" "Neither she nor any one of his family or friends knew that he was already married. I don't think it would trouble him much." "But it must be stopped!" she exclaimed, wildly. "He is my husband. I shall not give him up to any one else." "So far as Florence is concerned--she is the cousin--she has no wish to deprive you of him. But is it possible that you are attached to a man who has treated you so meanly?" asked Dodger, in surprise. "There was a time when he treated me well, when he appeared to love me," was the murmured reply. "I cannot forget that he is the father of my child." Dodger did not understand the nature of women or the mysteries of the female heart, and he evidently thought this poor woman very foolish to cling with such pertinacity to a man like Curtis Waring. "Do you mind telling me how you came to marry him?" he asked. "It was over four years ago that I met him in this city," was the reply. "I am a San Francisco girl. I had never been out of California. I was considered pretty then," she added, with a remnant of pride, "faded as I am to-day." Looking closely in her face, Dodger was ready to believe this. Grief and privation had changed her appearance, but it had not altogether effaced the bloom and beauty of youth. "At any rate, he seemed to think so. He was living at the Palace Hotel, and I made his acquaintance at a small social gathering at the house of my uncle. I am an orphan, and was perhaps the more ready to marry on that account." "Did Mr. Waring represent himself as wealthy?" "He said he had expectations from a wealthy relative, but did not mention where he lived." "He told the truth, then." "We married, securing apartments on Kearney Street. We lived together till my child was born, and for three months afterward. Then Mr. Waring claimed to be called away from San Francisco on business. He said he might be absent six weeks. He left me a hundred dollars, and urged me to be careful of it, as he was short of money, and needed considerable for the expenses of the journey. He left me, and I have never seen or heard from him since." "Did he tell you where he was going, Mrs. Waring?" "No; he said he would be obliged to visit several places--among others, Colorado, where he claimed to have some mining property. He told me that he hoped to bring back considerable money." "Do you think he meant to stay away altogether?" "I don't know what to think. Well, I lived on patiently, for I had perfect confidence in my husband. I made the money last me ten weeks instead of six, but then I found myself penniless." "Did you receive any letters in that time?" "No, and it was that that worried me. When at last the money gave out, I began to pawn my things--more than once I was tempted to pawn my wedding-ring, but I could not bring my mind to do that. I do not like to think ill of my husband, and was forced, as the only alternative, to conclude that he had met with some accident, perhaps had died. I have not felt certain that this was not so till you told me this evening that you know him." "I can hardly say that I know him well, yet I know him a good deal better than I wish I did. But for him I would not now be in San Francisco." "How is that? Please explain." Dodger told her briefly the story of his abduction. "But what motive could he have in getting you out of New York? I cannot understand." "I don't understand myself, except that I am the friend of Florence." "His cousin?" "Yes." "But why should she be compelled to leave her uncle's home?" "Because Curtis Waring made him set his heart upon the match. She had her choice to marry Curtis or to leave the house, and forfeit all chance of the estate. She chose to leave the house." "She ought to know that he has no right to marry," said the poor woman, who, not understanding the dislike of Florence for the man whom she herself loved, feared that she might yet be induced to marry him. "She ought to know, and her uncle ought to know," said Dodger. "Mrs. Waring, I can't see my way clear yet. If I were in New York I would know just what to do. Will you agree to stand by me, and help me?" "Yes, I will," answered the woman, earnestly. "I will see you again to-morrow evening. Here is some money to help you along for the present. Good-night." Dodger, as he walked away, pondered over the remarkable discovery he had made. It was likely to prove of the utmost importance to Florence. Her uncle's displeasure was wholly based upon her refusal to marry Curtis Waring, but if it should be proved to him that Curtis was already a married man, there would seem no bar to reconciliation. Moreover--and thas was particularly satisfactory--it would bring Curtis himself into disfavor. Florence would be reinstated in her rightful place in her uncle's family, and once more be recognized as heiress to at least a portion of his large fortune. This last consideration might not weigh so much with Florence, but Dodger was more practical, and he wished to restore her to the social position which she had lost through the knavery of her cousin. But in San Francisco--at a distance of over three thousand miles-- Dodger felt at a loss how to act. Even if Mr. Linden was informed that his nephew had a wife living in San Francisco, the statement would no doubt be denied by Curtis, who would brand the woman as an impudent adventuress. "The absent are always in the wrong," says a French proverb. At all events, they are very much at a disadvantage, and therefore it seemed imperatively necessary, not only that Dodger, but that Curtis Waring's wife should go to New York to confront the unprincipled man whose schemes had brought sorrow to so many. It was easy to decide what plan was best, but how to carry it out presented a difficulty which seemed insurmountable. The expenses of a journey to New York for Dodger, Mrs. Waring and her child would not be very far from five hundred dollars, and where to obtain this money was a problem. Randolph Leslie probably had that sum, but Dodger could not in conscience ask him to lend it, being unable to furnish adequate security, or to insure repayment. "If I could only find a nugget," thought Dodger, knitting his brows, "everything would be easy." But nuggets are rare enough in the gold fields, and still rarer in city streets. He who trusts wholly to luck trusts to a will-o'-the-wisp, and is about as sure of success as one who owns a castle in Spain. The time might come when Dodger, by his own efforts, could accumulate the needed sum, but it would require a year at least, and in that time Mr. Linden would probably be dead. Absorbed and disturbed by these reflections, Dodger walked slowly through the darkened streets till he heard a stifled cry, and looking up, beheld a sight that startled him. On the sidewalk lay the prostrate figure of a man. Over him, bludgeon in hand, bent a ruffian, whose purpose was only too clearly evident. Chapter XXXIV. Just In Time. Dodger, who was a strong, stout boy, gathered himself up and dashed against the ruffian with such impetuosity that he fell over his intended victim, and his bludgeon fell from his hand. It was the work of an instant to lift it, and raise it in a menacing position. The discomfited villain broke into a volley of oaths, and proceeded to pick himself up. He was a brutal-looking fellow, but was no larger than Dodger, who was as tall as the majority of men. "Give me that stick," he exclaimed, furiously. "Come and take it," returned Dodger, undaunted. The fellow took him at his word, and made a rush at our hero, but a vigorous blow from the bludgeon made him cautious about repeating the attack. "Curse you!" he cried, between his teeth. "I'd like to chaw you up." "I have no doubt you would," answered Dodger; "but I don't think you will. Were you going to rob this man?" "None of your business!" "I shall make it my business. You'd better go, or you may be locked up." "Give me that stick, then." "You'll have to do without it." He made another rush, and Dodger struck him such a blow on his arm that he winced with pain. "Now I shall summon the police, and you can do as you please about going." Dodger struck the stick sharply on the sidewalk three times, and the ruffian, apprehensive of arrest, ran around the corner just in time to rush into the arms of a policeman. "What has this man been doing?" asked the city guardian, turning to Dodger. "He was about to rob this man." "Is the man hurt?" "Where am I?" asked the prostrate man, in a bewildered tone. "I will take care of him, if you will take charge of that fellow." "Can you get up, sir?" asked Dodger, bending over the fallen man. The latter answered by struggling to his feet and looking about him in a confused way. "Where am I?" he asked. "What has happened?" "You were attacked by a ruffian. I found you on the sidewalk, with him bending over you with this club in his hand." "He must have followed me. I was imprudent enough to show a well-filled pocketbook in a saloon where I stopped to take a drink. No doubt he planned to relieve me of it." "You have had a narrow escape, sir." "I have no doubt of it. I presume the fellow was ready to take my life, if he found it necessary." "I will leave you now, sir, if you think you can manage." "No, stay with me. I feel rather upset." "Where are you staying, sir?" "At the Palace Hotel. Of course you know where that is?" "Certainly. Will you take my arm?" "Thank you." Little was said till they found themselves in the sumptuous hotel, which hardly has an equal in America. "Come to my room, young man; I want to speak to you." It was still early in the evening, and Dodger's time was his own. He had no hesitation, therefore, in accepting the stranger's invitation. On the third floor the stranger produced a key and opened the door of a large, handsomely-furnished room. "If you have a match, please light the gas." Dodger proceeded to do so, and now, for the first time, obtained a good view of the man he had rescued. He was a man of about the average height, probably not far from fifty, dressed in a neat business suit, and looked like a substantial merchant. "Please be seated." Dodger sat down in an easy-chair conveniently near him. "Young man," said the stranger, impressively, "you have done me a great favor." Dodger felt that this was true, and did not disclaim it. "I am very glad I came up just as I did," he said. "How large a sum of money do you think I had about me?" asked his companion. "Five hundred dollars?" "Five hundred dollars! Why, that would be a mere trifle." "It wouldn't be a trifle to me, sir," said Dodger. "Are you poor?" asked the man, earnestly. "I have a good situation that pays me fifteen dollars a week, so I ought not to consider myself poor." "Suppose you had a considerable sum of money given you, what would you do with it?" "If I had five hundred dollars, I should be able to defeat the schemes of a villain, and restore a young lady to her rights." "That seems interesting. Tell me the circumstances." Dodger told the story as briefly as he could. He was encouraged to find that the stranger listened to him with attention. "Do you know," he said, reflectively, "you have done for me what I once did for another--a rich man? The case was very similar. I was a poor boy at the time. Do you know what he gave me?" "What was it, sir?" "A dollar! What do you think of that for generosity?" "Well, sir, it wasn't exactly liberal. Did you accept it?" "No. I told him that I didn't wish to inconvenience him. But I asked you how much money you supposed I had. I will tell you. In a wallet I have eleven thousand dollars in bank notes and securities." "That is a fortune," said Dodger, dazzled at the mention of such a sum. "If I had lost it, I have plenty more, but the most serious peril was to my life. Through your opportune assistance I have escaped without loss. I fully appreciate the magnitude of the service you have done me. As an evidence of it, please accept these bills." He drew from the roll two bills and handed them to Dodger. The boy, glancing at them mechanically, started in amazement. Each bill was for five hundred dollars. "You have given me a thousand dollars!" he gasped. "I am aware of it. I consider my life worth that, at least. James Swinton never fails to pay his debts." "But, sir, a thousand dollars----" "It's no more than you deserve. When I tell my wife, on my return to Chicago, about this affair, she will blame me for not giving you more." "You seem to belong to a liberal family, sir." "I detest meanness, and would rather err on the side of liberality. Now, if agreeable to you, I will order a bottle of champagne, and solace ourselves for this little incident." "Thank you, Mr. Swinton, but I have made up my mind not to drink anything stronger than water. I have tended bar in New York, and what I have seen has given me a dislike for liquor of any kind." "You are a sensible young man. You are right, and I won't urge you. There is my card, and if you ever come to Chicago, call upon me." "I will, sir." When Dodger left the Palace Hotel he felt that he was a favorite of fortune. It is not always that the money we need is so quickly supplied. He resolved to return to New York as soon as he could manage it, and take with him the wife and child of Curtis Waring. This would cost him about five hundred dollars, and he would have the same amount left. Mr. Tucker was reluctant to part with Dodger. "You are the best assistant I ever had," he said. "I will pay you twenty dollars a week, if that will induce you to stay." "I would stay if it were not very important for me to return to New York, Mr. Tucker. I do not expect to get a place in New York as good." "If you come back to San Francisco at any time, I will make a place for you." "Thank you, sir." Mrs. Waring was overjoyed when Dodger called upon her and offered to take her back to New York. "I shall see Curtis again," she said. "How can I ever thank you?" But Dodger, though unwilling to disturb her dreams of happiness, thought it exceedingly doubtful if her husband would be equally glad to see her. Chapter XXXV. The Darkest Day. When Florence left the employ of Mrs. Leighton she had a few dollars as a reserve fund. As this would not last long, she at once made an effort to obtain employment. She desired another position as governess, and made application in answer to an advertisement. Her ladylike manner evidently impressed the lady to whom she applied. "I suppose you have taught before?" she said. "Yes, madam." "In whose family?" "I taught the daughter of Mrs. Leighton, of West -- Street." "I have heard of the lady. Of course you are at liberty to refer to her?" "Yes, madam," but there was a hesitation in her tone that excited suspicion. "Very well; I will call upon her and make inquiries. If you will call to-morrow morning, I can give you a decisive answer." Florence fervently hoped that this might prove favorable; but was apprehensive, and with good reason, it appeared. When she presented herself the next day, Mrs. Cole said: "I am afraid, Miss Linden, you will not suit me." "May I ask why?" Florence inquired, schooling herself to calmness. "I called on Mrs. Leighton," was the answer. "She speaks well of you as a teacher, but--she told me some things which make it seem inexpedient to engage you." "What did she say of me?" "That, perhaps, you had better not inquire." "I prefer to know the worst." "She said you encouraged the attentions of her nephew, forgetting the difference in social position, and also that your connections were not of a sort to recommend you. I admit, Miss Linden, that you are very ladylike in appearance, but, I can hardly be expected to admit into my house, in the important position of governess to my child, the daughter or niece of an apple-woman." "Did Mrs. Leighton say that I was related to an apple-woman?" "Yes, Miss Linden. I own I was surprised." "It is not true, Mrs. Cole." "You live in the house of such a person, do you not?" "Yes, she is an humble friend of mine, and has been kind to me." "You cannot be very fastidious. However, that is your own affair. I am sorry to disappoint you, Miss Linden, but it will be quite impossible for me to employ you." "Then I will bid you good-morning, Mrs. Cole," said Florence, sore at heart. "Good-morning. You will, I think, understand my position. If you applied for a position in one of the public schools, I don't think that your residence would be an objection." Florence left the house, sad and despondent. She saw that Mrs. Leighton, by her unfriendly representations, would prevent her from getting any opportunity to teach. She must seek some more humble employment. "Well, Florence, did you get a place?" asked Mrs. O'Keefe, as she passed that lady's stand. "No, Mrs. O'Keefe," answered Florence, wearily. "And why not? Did the woman think you didn't know enough?" "She objected to me because I was not living in a fashionable quarter --at least that was one of her objections." "I'm sure you've got a nate, clane home, and it looks as nate as wax all the time." "It isn't exactly stylish," said Florence, with a faint smile. "You are, at any rate. What does the woman want, I'd like to know?" "She doesn't want me. It seems Mrs. Leighton did not speak very highly of me." "The trollop! I'd like to give her a box on the ear, drat her impudence!" said the irate apple-woman. "And what will you be doin' now?" "Do you think I can get some sewing to do, Mrs. O'Keefe?" "Yes, Miss Florence--I'll get you some vests to make; but it's hard work and poor pay." "I must take what I can get," sighed Florence. "I cannot choose." "If you'd only tend an apple-stand, Miss Florence! There's Mrs. Brady wants to sell out on account of the rheumatics, and I've got a trifle in the savings bank--enough to buy it. You'd make a dollar a day, easy." "It isn't to be thought of, Mrs. O'Keefe. If you will kindly see about getting me some sewing, I will see how I can get along." The result was that Mrs. O'Keefe brought Florence in the course of the day half a dozen vests, for which she was to be paid the munificent sum of twenty-five cents each. Florence had very little idea of what she was undertaking. She was an expert needlewoman, and proved adequate to the work, but with her utmust industry she could only make one vest in a day, and that would barely pay her rent. True, she had some money laid aside on which she could draw, but that would soon be expended, and then what was to become of her? "Shure, I won't let you starve, Florence," said the warm-hearted apple-woman. "But, Mrs. O'Keefe, I can't consent to live on you." "And why not? I'm well and strong, and I'm makin' more money than I nade." "I couldn't think of it, though I thank you for your kindness." "Shure, you might write a letter to your uncle, Florence." "He would expect me, in that case, to consent to a marriage with Curtis. You wouldn't advise me to do that?" "No; he's a mane blackguard, and I'd say it to his face." Weeks rolled by, and Florence began to show the effects of hard work and confinement. She grew pale and thin, and her face was habitually sad. She had husbanded her savings as a governess as closely as she could, but in spite of all her economy it dwindled till she had none left. Henceforth, she must depend on twenty-five cents a day, and this seemed well-nigh impossible. In this emergency the pawnbroker occurred to her. She had a variety of nice dresses, and she had also a handsome ring, given her by her uncle on her last birthday. This she felt sure must have cost fifty dollars. It was a trial to part with it, but there seemed to be no alternative. "If my uncle has withdrawn his affection from me," she said to herself, "why should I scruple to pawn the ring? It is the symbol of a love that no longer exists." So she entered the pawnbrowker's--the first that attracted her attention--and held out the ring. "How much will you lend me on this?" she asked, half frightened at finding herself in such a place. The pawnbroker examined it carefully. His practiced eye at once detected its value, but it was not professional to admit this. "Rings is a drug in the market, young lady," he said. "I've got more than I know what to do with. I'll give you four--four dollars." "Four dollars!" repeated Florence, in dismay. "Why, it must have cost fifty. It was bought in Tiffany's." "You are mistaken, my dear. Did you buy it yourself there?" "No, my uncle gave it to me." "He may have said he paid fifty dollars for it," said the pawnbroker, wagging his head, "but we know better." "But what will you give?" asked Florence, desperately. "I'll give you five dollars, and not a penny more," said the broker, surveying her distressed face, shrewdly. "You can take it or not." What could Florence do? She must have money, and feared that no other pawnbroker would give her more. "Make out the ticket, then," she said, wearily, with a sigh. This was done, and she left the place, half timid, half ashamed, and wholly discouraged. But the darkest hour is sometimes nearest the dawn. A great overwhelming surprise awaited her. She had scarcely left the shop when a glad voice cried: "I have found you at last, Florence!" She looked up and saw--Dodger. But not the old Dodger. She saw a nicely dressed young gentleman, larger than the friend she had parted with six months before, with a brighter, more intelligent, and manly look. "Dodger!" she faltered. "Yes, it is Dodger." "Where did you come from?" "From San Francisco. But what have you been doing there?" And Dodger pointed in the direction of the pawnbroker's shop. "I pawned my ring." "Then I shall get it back at once. How much did you get on it?" "Five dollars." "Give me the ticket, and go in with me." The pawnbroker was very reluctant to part with the ring, which he made sure would not be reclaimed; but there was no help for it. As they emerged into the street, Dodger said: "I've come back to restore you to your rights, and give Curtis Waring the most disagreeable surprise he ever had. Come home, and I'll tell you all about it. I've struck luck, Florence, and you're going to share it." Chapter XXXVI. Mrs. O'Keefe In A New Role. No time was lost in seeing Bolton and arranging a plan of campaign. Curtis Waring, nearing the accomplishment of his plans, was far from anticipating impending disaster. His uncle's health had become so poor, and his strength had been so far undermined, that it was thought desirable to employ a sick nurse. An advertisement was inserted in a morning paper, which luckily attracted the attention of Bolton. "You must go, Mrs. O'Keefe," he said to the apple-woman. "It is important that we have some one in the house--some friend of Florence and the boy--to watch what is going on." "Bridget O'Keefe is no fool. Leave her to manage." The result was that among a large number of applicants Mrs. O'Keefe was selected by Curtis as Mr. Linden's nurse, as she expressed herself willing to work for four dollars a week, while the lowest outside demand was seven. We will now enter the house, in which the last scenes of our story are to take place. Mr. Linden, weak and emaciated, was sitting in an easy-chair in his library. "How do you feel this morning, uncle?" asked Curtis, entering the room. "I am very weak, Curtis. I don't think I shall ever be any better." "I have engaged a nurse, uncle, as you desired, and I expect her this morning." "That is well, Curtis. I do not wish to confine you to my bedside." "The nurse is below," said Jane, the servant, entering. "Send her up." Mrs. O'Keefe entered in the sober attire of a nurse. She dropped a curtsey. "Are you the nurse I engaged?" said Curtis. "Yes, sir." "Your name, please." "Mrs. Barnes, sir." "Have you experience as a nurse?" "Plenty, sir." "Uncle, this is Mrs. Barnes, your new nurse. I hope you will find her satisfactory." "She looks like a good woman," said Mr. Linden, feebly. "I think she will suit me." "Indade, sir, I'll try." "Uncle," said Curtis, "I have to go downtown. I have some business to attend to. I leave you in the care of Mrs. Barnes." "Shure, I'll take care of him, sir." "Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Linden?" asked the new nurse, in a tone of sympathy. "Can you minister to a mind diseased?" "I'll take the best care of you, Mr. Linden, but it isn't as if you had a wife or daughter." "Ah, that is a sore thought! I have no wife or daughter; but I have a niece." "And where is she, sir?" "I don't know. I drove her from me by my unkindness. I repent bitterly, but it's now too late." "And why don't you send for her to come home?" "I would gladly do so, but I don't know where she is. Curtis has tried to find her, but in vain. He says she is in Chicago." "And what should take her to Chicago?" "He says she is there as a governess in a family." "By the brow of St. Patrick!" thought Mrs. O'Keefe, "if that Curtis isn't a natural-born liar. I'm sure she'd come back if you'd send for her, sir," said she, aloud. "Do you think so?" asked Linden, eagerly. "I'm sure of it." "But I don't know where to send." "I know of a party that would be sure to find her." "Who is it?" "It's a young man. They call him Dodger. If any one can find Miss Florence, he can." "You know my niece's name?" "I have heard it somewhere. From Mr. Waring, I think." "And you think this young man would agree to go to Chicago and find her?" "Yes, sir, I make bold to say he will." "Tell him to go at once. He will need money. In yonder desk you will find a picture of my niece and a roll of bills. Give them to him and send him at once." "Yes, sir, I will. But if you'll take my advice, you won't say anything to Mr. Curtis. He might think it foolish." "True! If your friend succeeds, we'll give Curtis a surprise." "And a mighty disagreeable one, I'll be bound," soliloquized Mrs. O'Keefe. "I think, Mrs. Barnes, I will retire to my chamber, if you will assist me." She assisted Mr. Linden to his room, and then returned to the library. "Mrs. Barnes, there's a young man inquiring for you," said Jane, entering. "Send him in, Jane." The visitor was Dodger, neatly dressed. "How are things going, Mrs. O'Keefe?" he asked. "Splendid, Dodger. Here's some money for you." "What for?" "You're to go to Chicago and bring back Florence." "But she isn't there." "Nivir mind. You're to pretend to go." "But that won't take money." "Give it to Florence, then. It's hers by rights. Won't we give Curtis a surprise? Where's his wife?" "I have found a comfortable boarding house for her. When had we better carry out this programme? She's very anxious to see her husband." "The more fool she. Kape her at home and out of his sight, or there's no knowin' what he'll do. And, Dodger, dear, kape an eye on the apple-stand. I mistrust Mrs. Burke that's runnin' it." "I will. Does the old gentleman seem to be very sick?" "He's wake as a rat. Curtis would kill him soon if we didn't interfere. But we'll soon circumvent him, the snake in the grass! Miss Florence will soon come to her own, and Curtis Waring will be out in the cold." "The most I have against him is that he tried to marry Florence when he had a wife already." "He's as bad as they make 'em, Dodger. It won't be my fault if Mr. Linden's eyes are not opened to his wickedness." Chapter XXXVII. The Diplomacy Of Mrs. O'Keefe. Mrs. O'Keefe was a warm-hearted woman, and the sad, drawn face of Mr. Linden appealed to her pity. "Why should I let the poor man suffer when I can relieve him?" she asked herself. So the next morning, after Curtis had, according to his custom, gone downtown, being in the invalid's sick chamber, she began to act in a mysterious manner. She tiptoed to the door, closed it and approached Mr. Linden's bedside with the air of one about to unfold a strange story. "Whist now," she said, with her finger on her lips. "What is the matter?" asked the invalid, rather alarmed. "Can you bear a surprise, sir?" "Have you any bad news for me?" "No; it's good news, but you must promise not to tell Curtis." "Is it about Florence? Your messenger can hardly have reached Chicago." "He isn't going there, sir." "But you promised that he should," said Mr. Linden, disturbed. "I'll tell you why, sir. Florence is not in Chicago." "I--I don't understand. You said she was there." "Begging your pardon, sir, it was Curtis that said so, though he knew she was in New York." "But what motive could he have had for thus misrepresenting matters?" "He doesn't want you to take her back." "I can't believe you, Mrs. Barnes. He loves her, and wants to marry her." "He couldn't marry her if she consented to take him." "Why not? Mrs. Barnes, you confuse me." "I won't deceive you as he has done. There's rason in plinty. He's married already." "Is this true?" demanded Mr. Linden, in excitement. "It's true enough; more by token, to-morrow, whin he's out, his wife will come here and tell you so herself." "But who are you who seem to know so much about my family?" "I'm a friend of the pore girl you've driven from the house, because she would not marry a rascally spalpeen that's been schemin' to get your property into his hands." "You're a friend of Florence? Where is she?" "She's in my house, and has been there ever since she left her home." "Is she--well?" "As well as she can be whin she's been workin' her fingers to the bone wid sewin' to keep from starvin'." "My God! what have I done?" "You've let Curtis Waring wind you around his little finger--that's what you've done, Mr. Linden." "How soon can I see Florence?" "How soon can you bear it?" "The sooner the better." "Then it'll be to-morrow, I'm thinkin', that is if you won't tell Curtis." "No, no; I promise." "I'll manage everything, sir. Don't worry now." Mr. Linden's face lost its anxious look--so that when, later in the day, Curtis looked into the room he was surprised. "My uncle looks better," he said. "Yes, sir," answered the nurse. "I've soothed him like." "Indeed! You seem to be a very accomplished nurse." "Faith, that I am, sir, though it isn't I that should say it." "May I ask how you soothed him?" inquired Curtis, anxiously. "I told him that Miss Florence would soon be home." "I do not think it right to hold out hopes that may prove ill-founded." "I know what I am about, Mr. Curtis." "I dare say you understand your business, Mrs. Barnes, but if my uncle should be disappointed, I am afraid the consequences will be lamentable." "Do you think he'll live long, sir?" Curtis shrugged his shoulders. "It is very hard to tell. My uncle is a very feeble man." "And if he dies, I suppose the property goes to you?" "I suppose so." "But where does Florence come in?" "It seems to me, Mrs. Barnes, that you take a good deal of interest in our family affairs," said Curtis, suspiciously. "That's true, sir. Why shouldn't I take an interest in a nice gentleman like you?" Curtis smiled. "I am doing my best to find Florence. Then our marriage will take place, and it matters little to whom the property is left." "But I thought Miss Florence didn't care to marry you?" "It is only because she thinks cousins ought not to marry. It's a foolish fancy, and she'll get over it." "Thrue for you, sir. My first husband was my cousin, and we always agreed, barrin' an occasional fight----" "I don't think Florence and I will ever fight, Mrs. Barnes." "What surprises me, Mr. Curtis, is that a nice-lookin' gentleman like you hasn't been married before." Curtis eyed her keenly, but her face told him nothing. "I never saw one I wanted to marry till my cousin grew up," he said. "I belave in marryin', meself. I was first married at sivinteen." "How long ago was that, Mrs. Barnes?" "It's long ago, Mr. Curtis. I'm an old woman now. I was thirty-five last birthday." Curtis came near laughing outright, for he suspected--what was true-- that the nurse would never see her fiftieth birthday again. "Then you are just my age," he said. "If I make him laugh he won't suspect nothing," soliloquized the wily nurse. "That's a pretty big lie, even for me." "Shure I look older, Mr. Curtis," she said, aloud. "What wid the worry of losin' two fond husbands, I look much older than you." "Oh, your are very well preserved, Mrs. Barnes." Curtis went into his uncle's chamber. "How are you feeling, uncle?" he asked. "I think I am better," answered Mr. Linden, coldly, for he had not forgotten Mrs. Barnes' revelations. "That is right. Only make an effort, and you will soon be strong again." "I think I may. I may live ten years to annoy you." "I fervently hope so," said Curtis, but there was a false ring in his voice that his uncle detected. "How do you like the new nurse?" "She is helping me wonderfully. You made a good selection." "I will see that she is soon discharged," Curtis inwardly resolved. "If her being here is to prolong my uncle's life, and keep me still waiting for the estate, I must clear the house of her." "You must not allow her to buoy you up with unfounded hopes. She has been telling you that Florence will soon return." "Yes; she seems convinced of it." "Of course she knows nothing of it. She may return, but I doubt whether she is in Chicago now. I think the family she was with has gone to Europe." "Where did you hear that, Curtis?" asked Mr. Linden, with unwonted sharpness. "I have sources of information which at present I do not care to impart. Rest assured that I am doing all I can to get her back." "You still want to marry her, Curtis?" "I do, most certainly." "I shall not insist upon it. I should not have done so before." "Have you changed your mind, uncle?" "Yes; I have made a mistake, and I have decided to correct it." "What has come over him?" Curtis asked himself. "Some influence hostile to me has been brought to bear. It must be that nurse. I will quietly dismiss her to-morrow, paying her a week's wages, in lieu of warning. She's evidently a meddler." Chapter XXXVIII. The Closing Scene. The next day Tim Bolton, dressed in a jaunty style, walked up the steps of the Linden mansion. "Is Mr. Waring at home?" he asked. "No, sir; he has gone downtown." "I'll step in and wait for him. Please show me to the library." Jane, who had been taken into confidence by the nurse, showed him at once into the room mentioned. Half an hour later Curtis entered. "How long have you been here, Bolton?" "But a short time. You sent for me?" "I did." "On business?" "Well, yes." "Is there anything new?" "Yes, my uncle is failing fast." "Is he likely to die soon?" "I shouldn't be surprised if he died within a week." "I suspect Curtis means to help him! Well, what has that to do with me?" he asked. "You will step into the property, of course?" "There is a little difficulty in the way which I can overcome with your help." "What is it?" "I can't get him to give up the foolish notion that the boy he lost is still alive." "It happens to be true." "Yes; but he must not know it. Before he dies I want him to make a new will, revoking all others, leaving all the property to me." "Will he do it?" "I don't know. As long as he thinks the boy is living, I don't believe he will. You see what a drawback that is." "I see. What can I do to improve the situation?" "I want you to sign a paper confessing that you abducted the boy----" "At your instigation?" "That must not be mentioned. You will go on to say that a year or two later--the time is not material--he died of typhoid fever. You can say that you did not dare to reveal this before, but do so now, impelled by remorse." "Have you got it written out? I can't remember all them words." "Yes; here it is." "All right," said Bolton, taking the paper and tucking it into an inside pocket. "I'll copy it out in my own handwriting. How much are you going to give me for doing this?" "A thousand dollars." "Cash?" "I can't do that. I have met with losses at the gaming table, and I don't dare ask money from my uncle at this time. He thinks I am thoroughly steady." "At how much do you value the estate?" "At four hundred thousand dollars. I wormed it out of my uncle's lawyer the other day." "And you expect me to help you to that amount for only a thousand dollars?" "A thousand dollars is a good deal of money." "And so is four hundred thousand. After all, your uncle may not die." "He is sure to." "You seem very confident." "And with good reason. Leave that to me. I promise you, on my honor, to pay you two thousand dollars when I get the estate." "But what is going to happen to poor Dodger, the rightful heir?" "Well, let it be three hundred dollars a year, then." "Where is he now?" "I don't mind telling you, as it can do no harm. He is in California." "Whew! That was smart. How did you get him there?" "I drugged him, and had him sent on board a ship bound for San Francisco, around Cape Horn. The fact is, I was getting a little suspicious of you, and I wanted to put you beyond the reach of temptation." "You are a clever rascal, Curtis. After all, suppose the prize should slip through your fingers?" "It won't. I have taken every precaution." "When do you want this document?" "Bring it back to me this afternoon, copied and signed. That is all you have to do; I will attend to the rest." While this conversation was going on there were unseen listeners. Behind a portiere Mrs. Barnes, the nurse, and John Linden heard every word that was said. "And what do you think now, sir?" whispered Mrs. O'Keefe (to give her real name). "It is terrible. I would not have believed Curtis capable of such a crime. But is it really true, Mrs. Barnes? Is my lost boy alive?" "To be sure he is." "Have you seen him?" "I know him as well as I know you, sir, and better, too." "Is he--tell me, is he a good boy? Curtis told me that he might be a criminal." "He might, but he isn't. He's as dacent and honest a boy as iver trod shoe leather. You'll be proud of him, sir." "But he's in California." "He was; but he's got back. You shall see him to-day, and Florence, too. Hark! I hear the door bell. They're here now. I think you had better go in and confront Curtis." "I feel weak, Mrs. Barnes. Let me lean on you." "You can do that, and welcome, sir." The nurse pushed aside the portiere, and the two entered the library-- Mrs. Barnes rotund and smiling, Mr. Linden gaunt and spectral looking, like one risen from the grave. Curtis eyed the pair with a startled look. "Mrs. Barnes," he said, angrily, "what do you mean by taking my uncle from his bed and bringing him down here? It is as much as his life is worth. You seem unfit for your duties as nurse. You will leave the house to-morrow, and I will engage a substitute." "I shall lave whin I git ready, Mr. Curtis Waring," said the nurse, her arms akimbo. "Maybe somebody else will lave the house. Me and Mr. Linden have been behind the curtain for twenty minutes, and he has heard every word you said." Curtis turned livid, and his heart sank. "It's true, Curtis," said John Linden's hollow voice. "I have heard all. It was you who abducted my boy, and have made my life a lonely one all these years. Oh, man! man! how could you have the heart to do it?" Curtis stared at him with parched lips, unable to speak. "Not content with this, you drove from the house my dear niece, Florence. You made me act cruelly toward her. I fear she will not forgive me." But just then the door opened, and Florence, rushing into the room, sank at her uncle's feet. "Oh, uncle," she said, "will you take me back?" "Yes, Florence, never again to leave me. And who is this?" he asked, fixing his eyes on Dodger, who stood shyly in the doorway. "I'll tell you, sir," said Tim Bolton. "That is your own son, whom I stole away from you when he was a kid, being hired to do it by Curtis Waring." "It's a lie," said Curtis, hoarsely. "Come to me, my boy," said Mr. Linden, with a glad light in his eyes. "At last Heaven has heard my prayers," he ejaculated. "We will never be separated. I was ready to die, but now I hope to live for many years. I feel that I have a new lease of life." With a baffled growl Curtis Waring darted a furious look at the three. "That boy is an impostor," he said. "They are deceiving you." "He is my son. I see his mother's look in his face. As for you, Curtis Waring, my eyes are open at last to your villainy. You deserve nothing at my hands; but I will make some provision for you." There was another surprise. Curtis Waring's deserted wife, brought from California by Dodger, entered the room, leading by the hand a young child. "Oh, Curtis," she said, reproachfully. "How could you leave me? I have come to you, my husband, with our little child." "Begone! woman!" said Curtis, furiously. "I will never receive or recognize you!" "Oh, sir!" she said, turning to Mr. Linden, "what shall I do?" "Curtis Waring," said Mr. Linden, sternly, "unless you receive this woman and treat her properly, you shall receive nothing from me." "And if I do?" "You will receive an income of two thousand dollars a year, payable quarterly. Mrs. Waring, you will remain here with your child till your husband provides another home for you." Curtis slunk out of the room, but he was too wise to refuse his uncle's offer. He and his wife are living in Chicago, and he treats her fairly well, fearing that, otherwise, he will lose his income. Mr. Linden looks ten years younger than he did at the opening of the story. Florence and Dodger--now known as Harvey Linden--live with him. Dodger, under a competent private tutor, is making up the deficiencies in his education. It is early yet to speak of marriage, but it is possible that Florence may marry a cousin, after all. Tim Bolton has turned over a new leaf, given up his saloon, and is carrying on a country hotel within fifty miles of New York. He has five thousand dollars in the bank, presented by Dodger, with his father's sanction, and is considered quite a reputable citizen. As for Mrs. O'Keefe, she still keeps the apple-stand, being unwilling to give it up; but she, too, has a handsome sum in the bank, and calls often upon her two children, as she calls them. In the midst of their prosperity Florence and Dodger will never forget the time when they were adrift in New York. The end. * * * * * A. L. Burt's Catalogue of Books for Young People by Popular Writers, 52-58 Duane Street, New York BOOKS FOR BOYS. Joe's Luck: A Boy's Adventures in California. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. The story is chock full of stirring incidents, while the amusing situations are furnished by Joshua Bickford, from Pumpkin Hollow, and the fellow who modestly styles himself the "Rip-tail Roarer, from Pike Co., Missouri." Mr. Alger never writes a poor book, and "Joe's Luck" is certainly one of his best. Tom the Bootblack; or, The Road to Success. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. A bright, enterprising lad was Tom the Bootblack. He was not at all ashamed of his humble calling, though always on the lookout to better himself. The lad started for Cincinnati to look up his heritage. Mr. Grey, the uncle, did not hesitate to employ a ruffian to kill the lad. The plan failed, and Gilbert Grey, once Tom the bootblack, came into a comfortable fortune. This is one of Mr. Alger's best stories. Dan the Newsboy. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Dan Mordaunt and his mother live in a poor tenement, and the lad is pluckily trying to make ends meet by selling papers in the streets of New York. A little heiress of six years is confided to the care of the Mordaunts. The child is kidnapped and Dan tracks the child to the house where she is hidden, and rescues her. The wealthy aunt of the little heiress is so delighted with Dan's courage and many good qualities that she adopts him as her heir. Tony the Hero: A Brave Boy's Adventure with a Tramp. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Tony, a sturdy bright-eyed boy of fourteen, is under the control of Rudolph Rugg, a thorough rascal. After much abuse Tony runs away and gets a job as stable boy in a country hotel. Tony is heir to a large estate. Rudolph for a consideration hunts up Tony and throws him down a deep well. Of course Tony escapes from the fate provided for him, and by a brave act, a rich friend secures his rights and Tony is prosperous. A very entertaining book. The Errand Boy; or, How Phil Brent Won Success. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. The career of "The Errand Boy" embraces the city adventures of a smart country lad. Philip was brought up by a kind-hearted innkeeper, named Brent. The death of Mrs. Brent paved the way for the hero's subsequent troubles. A retired merchant in New York secures him the situation of errand boy, and thereafter stands as his friend. Tom Temple's Career. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Tom Temple is a bright, self-reliant lad. He leaves Plympton village to seek work in New York, whence he undertakes an important mission to California. Some of his adventures in the far west are so startling that the reader will scarcely close the book until the last page shall have been reached. The tale is written in Mr. Alger's most fascinating style. * * * * * * * * * * * * For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. * * * * * * * * * * * * BOOKS FOR BOYS. Frank Fowler, the Cash Boy. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Frank Fowler, a poor boy, bravely determines to make a living for himself and his foster-sister Grace. Going to New York he obtains a situation as cash boy in a dry goods store. He renders a service to a wealthy old gentleman who takes a fancy to the lad, and thereafter helps the lad to gain success and fortune. Tom Thatcher's Fortune. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Tom Thatcher is a brave, ambitious, unselfish boy. He supports his mother and sister on meagre wages earned as a shoe-pegger in John Simpson's factory. Tom is discharged from the factory and starts overland for California. He meets with many adventures. The story is told in a way which has made Mr. Alger's name a household word in so many homes. The Train Boy. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Paul Palmer was a wide-awake boy of sixteen who supported his mother and sister by selling books and papers on the Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad. He detects a young man in the act of picking the pocket of a young lady. In a railway accident many passengers are killed, but Paul is fortunate enough to assist a Chicago merchant, who out of gratitude takes him into his employ. Paul succeeds with tact and judgment and is well started on the road to business prominence. Mark Mason's Victory. The Trials and Triumphs of a Telegraph Boy. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Mark Mason, the telegraph boy, was a sturdy, honest lad, who pluckily won his way to success by his honest manly efforts under many difficulties. This story will please the very large class of boys who regard Mr. Alger as a favorite author. A Debt of Honor. The Story of Gerald Lane's Success in the Far West. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. The story of Gerald Lane and the account of the many trials and disappointments which he passed through before he attained success, will interest all boys who have read the previous stories of this delightful author. Ben Bruce. Scenes in the Life of a Bowery Newsboy. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Ben Bruce was a brave, manly, generous boy. The story of his efforts, and many seeming failures and disappointments, and his final success, are most interesting to all readers. The tale is written in Mr. Alger's most fascinating style. The Castaways; or, On the Florida Reefs. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This tale smacks of the salt sea. From the moment that the Sea Queen leaves lower New York bay till the breeze leaves her becalmed off the coast of Florida, one can almost hear the whistle of the wind through her rigging, the creak of her straining cordage as she heels to the leeward. The adventures of Ben Clark, the hero of the story and Jake the cook, cannot fail to charm the reader. As a writer for young people Mr. Otis is a prime favorite. * * * * * * * * * * * * For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. * * * * * * * * * * * * Transcriber's Notes Typographical errors have been left as found, including: "I do not love him," ending with a comma in chapter 4. "siezed" and "doubtfullly" in chapter 5. "soliloqized" in chapter 16. "Eactly" in chapter 18. "ascertainel" in chapter 22. "San Farncisco" in chapter 23. "Stauss" in chapter 29. "thas" in chapter 33. "utmust" in chapter 35. Dialect has been left as printed, even where inconsistent. Accented letters and ligatures have been removed in the plain text version. 
39724	----	http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made available by the Hathi Trust) THE IMITATOR A NOVEL By PERCIVAL POLLARD SAINT LOUIS WILLIAM MARION REEDY 1901 CHAPTER I. "The thing is already on the wane," said young Orson Vane, making a wry face over the entree, and sniffing at his glass, "and, if you ask me, I think the general digestion of society will be the better for it." "Yes, there is nothing, after all, so tedious as the sham variety of a table d'hote. Though it certainly wasn't the fare one came to this hole for." Luke Moncreith turned his eyes, as he said that, over the place they sat in, smiling at it with somewhat melancholy contempt. Its sanded floor, its boisterously exposed wine-barrels, the meaningless vivacity of its Hungarian orchestra, evidently stirred him no more. "No; that was the last detail. It was the notion of dining below stairs, as the servants do. It had, for a time, the charm of an imitation. Nothing is so delightful as to imitate others; yet to be mistaken for them is always dreadful. Of course, nobody would mistake us here for servants." The company, motley as it was, could not logically have come under any such suspicion. Though it was dining in a cellar, on a sanded floor, amid externals that were illegitimate offsprings of a _Studenten Kneipe_ and a crew of Christy minstrels, it still had, in the main, the air of being recruited from the smart world. At every other table there were people whom not to know was to argue oneself unknown. These persons obviously treated the place, and their being there, as an elaborate effort at gaiety; the others, the people who were plainly there for the first time, took it with the bewildered manner of those whom each new experience leaves mentally exhausted. The touch of rusticity, here and there, did not suffice to spoil the sartorial sparkle of the smart majority. The champagne that the sophisticated were wise enough to oppose to the Magyar vintages sparkled into veins that ran beautifully blue under skin that held curves the most aristocratic, tints the most shell-like. Tinkling laughter, vocative of insincerity, rang between the restless passion of the violins. "When it is not below stairs," continued Vane, "it is up on the roof. One might think we were a society without houses of our own. It is, I suppose, the human craving for opposites. When we have stored our sideboards with the finest glass you can get in Vienna or Carlsbad, we turn our backs on it and go to drinking from pewter in a cellar. We pay abominable wages to have servants who shall be noiseless, and then go to places where the service is as guttural as a wilderness of monkeys. Fortunately, these fancies do not last. Presently, I dare say, it will be the fashion to dine at home. That will make us feel quite like the original Puritans." He laughed, and took his glass of wine at a gulp. "The fact of the matter is that variety has become the vice of life. We have not, as a society, any inner steadfastness of soul; we depend upon externals, and the externals pall with fearful speed. Think of seeing in the mirror the face of the same butler for more than thirty days!" He shuddered and shook his head. "We are a restless lot," sighed the other, "but why discompose yourself about it? Thank your stars you have nothing more important to worry over!" "My dear Luke, there is nothing more important than the attitude of society at large. It is the only thing one should allow oneself to discuss. To consider one's individual life is to be guilty of as bad form as to wear anything that is conspicuous. Society admires us chiefly only as we sink ourselves in it. If we let the note of personality rise, our social position is sure to suffer. Imitation is the keynote of smartness. The rank and file imitate the leaders consciously, and the leaders unconsciously imitate the average. We frequent cellars, and roofs, and such places, because in doing so we imagine we are imitating the days of the Hanging Gardens and the Catacombs. We abhor the bohemian taint, but we are willing to give a champagne and chicken imitation of it. We do not really care for music and musicians, but we give excellent imitations of doing so. At present we are giving the most lifelike imitation of being passionately fond of outdoor life; I suppose England feels flattered. I am afraid I have forgotten whose the first fashionable divorce in our world was; it is far easier to remember the names of the people who have never been divorced; at any rate those pioneers ought to feel proud of the hugeness of their following. We have adopted a vulgarity from Chicago and made it a fashionable institution; divorce used to be a shuttlecock for the comic papers, and now it makes the bulk of the social register." Moncreith tapped his friend on the arm. "Drop it, Orson, drop it!" he said. "I know this is a beastly bad dinner, but you shouldn't let it make you maudlin. You know you don't really believe half you're saying. Drop it, I say. These infernal poses make me ill." He attacked the morsel of game on his plate with a zest that was beautiful to behold. "If you go on in that biliously philosophic strain of yours, I shall crunch this bird until I hear nothing but the grinding of bones. It is really not a bad bit of quail. It is so small, and the casserole so large, that you need an English setter to mark it, but once you've got it,"--he wiped his lips with a flip of his napkin, "it's really worth the search. Try it, and cheer up. The woman in rose, over there, under the pseudo-palm, looks at you every time she sips her champagne; I have no doubt she is calculating how untrue you could be to her. I suppose your gloom strikes her as poetic; it strikes me as very absurd. You really haven't a care in the world, and you sit here spouting insincerity at a wasteful rate. If there's anything really and truly the matter--tell me!" Orson Vane dropped, as if it had been a mask, the ironical smile his lips had worn. "You want sincerity," he said, "well, then I shall be sincere. Sincerity makes wrinkles, but it is the privilege of our friends to make us old before our time. Sincerely, then, Luke, I am very, very tired." "A fashionable imitation," mocked Moncreith. "No; a personal aversion, to myself, to the world I live in. I wish the dear old governor hadn't been such a fine fellow; if he had been of the newer generation of fathers I suppose I wouldn't have had an ideal to bless myself with." Moncreith interrupted. "Good Lord, Luke, did you say ideals? I swear I never knew it was as bad as that." He beckoned to the waiter and ordered a Dominican. "It is so ideal a liquor that when you have tasted it you crave only for brutalities. Poor Orson! Ideals!" He sighed elaborately. "If you imitate my manner of a while ago, I shall not say what I was going to say. If I am to be sincere, so must you." He took the scarlet drink the man set before him, and let it gurgle gently down his throat. "It smacks of sin and I scent lies in it. I wish I had not taken it. It is hard to be sincere after a drink that stirs the imagination. But I shall try. And you are not to interrupt any more than you can help. If we both shed the outer skin we wear for society, I believe we are neither of us such bad sorts. That is just what I am getting at: I am not quite bad enough to be blind to my own futility. Here I am, Luke, young, decently looking, with money, position, and bodily health, and yet I am cursed with thought of my own futility. When people have said who I am, they have said it all; I have done nothing: I merely am. I know others would sell their souls to be what I am; but it does not content me. I have spent years considering my way. The arts have called to me, but they have not held me. All arts are imitative, except music, and music is not human enough for me; no people are so unhuman as musical people, and no art is so entirely a creation of a self-centred inventor. There can be no such thing as realism in music; the voices of Nature can never be equalled on any humanly devised instruments or notes. Painting and sculpture are mere imitations of what nature does far better. When you see a beautiful woman as God made her you do not care whether the Greeks colored their statues or not. Any average sunset stamps the painted imitation as absurd. These arts, in fact, can never be really great, since they are man's feeble efforts to copy God's finest creations; between them and the ideal there must always be the same distance as between man and his Creator. Then there is the art of literature. It has the widest scope of them all. Whether it is imitative or creative depends on the temperament of the individual; some men set down what they see and hear, others invent a world of their own and busy themselves with it. I believe it is the most human of the arts. Its devotees not infrequently set themselves the task of discovering just how their fellows think and live; they try to attune their souls to other souls; they strive for an understanding of the larger humanity. They--" Moncreith interrupted with a gesture. "Orson, you're not going to turn novelist? Don't tell me that! Your enthusiasms fill me with melancholy forebodings." "Not at all. But, as you know, I've seen much of this sort of thing lately. In the first place I had my own temperamental leanings; in the next place, you'll remember, we've had a season or two lately when clever people have been the rage. To invite painters and singers and writers to one's house has been the smart thing to do. We have had the spectacle of a society, that goes through a flippant imitation of living, engaged in being polite to people who imitate at second hand, in song, and color, and story. Some smart people have even taken to those arts, thus imitating the professional imitators. As far as the smart point of view goes, I couldn't do anything better than go in for the studio, or novelistic business. The dull people whom smartness has rubbed to a thin polish would conspire in calling me clever. Is there anything more dreadful than being called clever?" "Nothing. It is the most damning adjective in the language. Whenever I hear that a person is clever I am sure he will never amount to much. There is only one word that approaches it in deadly significance. That is 'rising.' I have known men whom the puffs have referred to as 'a rising man' for twenty years. Can you imagine anything more dismal than being called constantly by the same epithet? The very amiability in the general opinion, permitting 'clever' and 'rising' to remain unalterable, shows that the wearer of these terms is hopeless; a strong man would have made enemies. I am glad you are wise enough to resist the temptation of the Muses. Society's blessing would never console you for anything short of a triumph. The triumphs are fearfully few; the clever people--well, this cellar's full of them. There's Abbott Moore, for instance." "You're right; there he is. He's a case in point. One of the best cases; a man who has really, in the worldly sense, succeeded tremendously. His system of give and take is one of the most lovely schemes imaginable; we all know that. When a mining millionaire with marriageable daughters comes to town his first hostage to the smart set is to order a palace near Central Park and to give Abbott Moore the contract for the decorations. In return Abbott Moore asks the millionaire's womenfolk to one of his studio carnivals. That section of the smart set which keeps itself constantly poised on the border between smart and tart is awfully keen on Abbott Moore's studio affairs. It has never forgotten the famous episode when he served a tart within a tart, and it is still expecting him to outdo that feat. To be seen at one of these affairs, especially if you have millions, is to have got in the point of the wedge. I call it a fair exchange; the millionaire gets his foot just inside the magic portal; Moore gets a slice of the millions. All the world counts Moore a success from every point of view, the smart, the professional, the financial. Yet that isn't my notion of a full life. It's only a replica of the very thing I'm tired of, my own life." "Your life, my dear fellow, is generally considered a most enviable article." "Of course. I suppose it does have a glamour for the unobserving. Yet, at the best, what am I?" Moncreith laughed. "Another Dominican!" he said to the waiter. "The liqueur," he said, "may enable me to rise to my subject." He smiled at Vane over the glass, when it was brought to him, drained it under closed eyes, and then settled himself well back into his chair. CHAPTER II. "I will tell you what you are," began Moncreith, "to I the eye of the average beholder. Here, in the most splendid town of the western world, at the turning of two centuries, you are possessed of youth, health and wealth. That really tells the tale. Never in the history of the world have youth and health and wealth meant so much as they do now. These three open the gates to all the earthly paradise. Your forbears did their duty by you so admirably that you wear a distinguished name without any sacrifice to poverty. You are good to look at. You are a young man of fashion. If you chose you could lead the mode; you have the instincts of a beau, though neither the severe suppression of Brummell nor the obtrusive splendor of D'Aurevilly would suit you. Our age seems to have come to too high an average in man's apparel to permit of any single dictator; to be singled out is to be lowered. Yet there can be no denying that you have often, unwittingly, set the fashion in waistcoats and cravats. That aping has not hurt you, because the others never gave their raiment the fine note of personal distinction that you wear. You are a favorite in the clubs; people never go out when you come in; you listen to the most stupid talk with the most graceful air imaginable; that is one of the sure roads to popularity in clubdom. When it is the fashion to be artistic, you can be so as easily as the others; when sport is the watchword your fine physique forbids you no achievement. You play tennis and golf and polo quite well enough to make women split their gloves in applause, and not too well to make men sneer at you for a 'pro.' When you are riding to hounds in Virginia you are never far from the kill, and there is no automobilist whom the Newport villagers are happier to fine for fast driving. You are equally at home in a cotillon and on the deck of a racing yacht. You could marry whenever you liked. Your character is unspotted either by the excessive vice that shocks the mob, or the excessive virtue that tires the smart. You have means, manners and manner. Finally, you have the two cardinal qualities of smartness, levity and tolerance." He paused, and gave a smile of satisfaction. "There, do you like the portrait?" "It is abominable," said Vane, "it is what I see in my most awful dreams. And the horror of it is that it is so frightfully true. I am merely one of the figures in the elaborate masquerade we call society. I make no progress in life; I learn nothing except new fashions and foibles. I am weary of the masquerade and the masks. Life in the smart world is a game with masks; one shuffles them as one does cards. As for me, I want to throw the whole pack into the fire. Everyone wears these masks; nobody ever penetrates to the real soul behind the make-up." "It is a game you play perfectly. One should hesitate long about giving up anything that one has brought to perfection. These others dabble and squabble in what you call the secondary imitations of life; you, at any rate, are giving your imitation at first hand." "Yes, but it no longer satisfies me. Listen, Luke. You must promise not to laugh and not to frown. It will seem absurd to you; yet I am terribly in earnest about it. When first I came out of college I went in for science. When I gave it up, it was because I found it was leading me away from the human interest. There is the butterfly I want to chase; the human interest. I attempted all the arts; not one of them took me far on my way. My failure, Luke, is an ironic sentence upon the vaunted knowledge of the world." "Your failure? My dear Orson; come to the point. What do you mean by the human interest?" "I mean that neither scientist nor scholar has yet shown the way to one man's understanding of another's soul. The surgeon can take a body and dissect its every fraction, arguing and proving each function of it. The painter tries, with feeble success, to reach what he calls the spirit of his subject. So does the author. He tries to put himself into the place of each of his characters; he aims, always, for the nearest possible approach to the lifelike. And, above all the others, there is the actor. In this, as in its other qualities, the art of acting is the crudest, the most obvious of them all; yet, in certain moments, it comes nearest to the ideal. The actor in his mere self is--well, we all know the story of the famous player being met by this greeting: 'And what art thou to-night?' But he goes behind a door and he can come forth in a series of selves. A trick or so with paint; a change of wig; a twist of the face-muscles, and we have the same man appearing as _Napoleon_, as _Richelieu_, as _Falstaff_. The thing is external, of course. Whether there shall be anything more than the mere bodily mask depends upon the actor's intelligence and his imagination. The supreme artist so succeeds, by virtue of much study, much skill in imitating what he has conceived to be the soul of his subject, in almost giving us a lifelike portrait. And yet, and yet--it is not the real thing; the real soul of his subject is as much a mystery to that actor as it is to you or me. That is what I mean when I say that science fails us at the most important point of all; the soul of my neighbor is as profound a mystery to me as the soul of a man that lived a thousand years ago. I can know your face, Luke, your clothes, your voice, the outward mask you wear; but--can I reach the secrets of your soul? No. And if we cannot know how others feel and think, how can we say we know the world? Bah! The world is a realm of shadows in which all walk blindly. We touch hands every day, but our souls are hidden in a veil that has not been passed since God made the universe." "You cry for the moon," said Moncreith. "You long for the unspeakable. Is it not terrible enough to know your neighbor's face, his voice, his coat, without burdening yourself with knowledge of his inner self? It is merely an egoistic curiosity, my dear Orson; you cannot prove that the human interest, as you term it, would benefit by the extension in wisdom you want." "Oh, you are wrong, you are wrong. The whole world of science undergoes revolution, once you gain the point I speak of. Doctors will have the mind as well as the body to diagnose; lovers will read each others hearts as well as their voices; lies will become impossible, or, at least, futile; oh--it would be a better world altogether. At any rate, until this avenue of knowledge is opened to me, I shall call all the rest a failure. I imitate; you imitate; we imitate; that is the conjugation of life. When I think of the hopelessness of the thing,--do you wonder I grow bitter? I want communion with real beings, and I meet only masks. I tell you, Luke, it is abominable, this wall that stands between each individual and the rest of the world. How can I love my neighbor if I do not understand him? How can I understand him if I cannot think his thoughts, dream his dreams, spell out his soul's secrets?" Moncreith smiled at his friend, and let his eyes wander a trifle ironically about his figure. "One would not think, to look at you, that you were possessed of a mania, an itch! If you take my advice you will content yourself with living life as you find it. It is really a very decent world. It has good meat and drink in it, and some sweet women, and a strong man or two. Most of us are quite ignorant of the fact that we are merely engaged in incomplete imitations of life, or that there is a Chinese wall between us and the others; the chances are we are all the happier for our innocence. Consider, for instance, that rosy little face behind us--you can see it perfectly in that mirror--can you deny that it looks all happiness and innocence?" Vane looked, and presently sighed a little. The face of the girl, as he found it in the glass, was the color of roses lying on a pool of clear water. It was one of those faces that one scarce knows whether to think finer in profile or in full view; the features were small, the hair glistened with a tint of that burnish the moon sometimes wears on summer nights, and the figure was a mere fillip to the imagination. A cluster of lilies of the valley lay upon her hair; they seemed like countless little cups pouring frost upon a copper glow. All about her radiated an ineffable gentleness, a tenderness; she made all the other folk about her seem garish and ugly and cruel. One wondered what she did in that gallery. "To the outer eye," said Vane, as he sighed, "she is certainly a flower, a thing of daintiness and delight. But--do you suppose I believe it, for a moment? I have no doubt she is merely one of those creatures whom God has made for the destruction of our dreams; her mind is probably as corrupt as her body seems fair. She is perhaps--" He stopped, for the face in the mirror had its eyes thrown suddenly in his direction. The eyes, in that reflex fashion, met, and something akin to a smile, oh, an ever so wistful, wonderful a smile, crept upon the lips and the eyes of the girl, while to the man there came only a sudden silence. "She is," continued Vane, in another voice altogether, and as if he were thinking of distant affairs, "very beautiful." The girl's eyes, meanwhile, had shifted towards Moncreith. He felt the radiance of them and looked, too, and the girl's beauty came upon him with a quick, personal force that was like pain. Vane's spoken approbation of her angered him; he hardly knew why; for the first time in his life he thought he could hate the man beside him. The girl turned her head a little, put up her hand and so hid her face from both young men, or there is no telling what sudden excuse the two might not have seized for open enmity. It sounds fantastic, perhaps, but there are more enmities sown in a single glance from a woman's eyes than a Machiavelli could build up by ever so devilish devices. Neither of the two, in this case, could have said just what they felt, or why. Moncreith thought, vaguely enough perhaps, that it was a sin for so fair a flower to waste even a look upon a fellow so shorn of faith as was Orson Vane. As for Vane-- Vane brought his hand upon the table so that the glasses rocked. "Oh," he exclaimed, "if one could only be sure! If one could see past the mask! What would I not give to believe in beauty when I see it, to trust to appearances! Oh, for the ability to put myself in the place of another, to know life from another plane than my own, to--" But here he was interrupted. CHAPTER III. "The secret you are seeking," said the man who had put his hand on Orson Vane's shoulder, "is mine." Vane's eyes widened slightly, roving the stranger up and down. He was a man of six feet in height, of striking, white-haired beauty, of the type made familiar to us by pictures of the Old Guard under Napoleon. Here was still the Imperial under the strong chin, the white mustache over the shapely lips; the high, clear forehead; the long, thin hands, where veins showed blue, and the nails were rosy. The head was bowed forward of the shoulders; the man, now old, had once been inches taller. You looked, on the spur of first noting him, for the sword and the epaulets, or, at least, for the ribbon of an order. But his clothes were quite plain, nor had his voice any touch of the military. "I overheard a part of your conversation," the stranger went on, "not intentionally, yet unavoidably. I had either to move or to listen. And you see the place is so full that moving was out of the question. Did you mean what you were saying?" "About the--" "The Chinese wall," said the stranger. "Every word of it," said Vane. "If the chance to penetrate another's soul came to you, would you take it?" "At once." Moncreith laughed aloud. "Where are we?" he said, "in Aladdin's cave? What rubbish!" And he shook himself, as if to disturb a bad dream. He was on the point of reaching for his hat, when he saw the face of the girl in the mirror once more; the sight of it stayed him. He smiled to himself, and waited for the curious conversation between Vane and the stranger to continue. "My name," the stranger was observing, taking a card from an _etui_, "may possibly be known to you?" Vane bent his head to the table, read, and looked at the white-haired man with a quick access of interest. "I am honored," he said. "My name is Orson Vane." "Oh," said the other, "I knew that. I do not study the human interest in mere theory; I delight in the tangible. That is why I presume upon you"--he waved his hand gracefully--"thus." "You must join us," said Vane; "there is plenty of room at this table." "No; I must--if your friend will pardon me--see you alone. Will you come to my place?" He spoke as youthfully as if he were of Vane's own age. Vane considered a second or so, and then sprang to his feet. "Yes," he said, "I will come. Good-night, Luke. Stay on; enjoy yourself. Shall I see you to-morrow? Good-night!" They went out together, the young man and the one with the white hair. One glance into the mirror flashed from Orson's eyes as he turned to go; it brought him a memory of a burnished halo on a fragile, rosy, beauty. He sighed to himself, wishing he could reach the truth behind the robe of beauty, and, with that sigh, turned with a sort of fierceness upon his companion. "Well," said Vane, "well?" They were passing through a most motley thoroughfare. Barrel-organs dotted the asphalt; Italian and Sicilian poverty elbowed the poverty of Russian and Polish Jews. The shops bore signs in Italian, Hebrew, French--in anything but English. The Elevated roared above the music and the chatter; the cool gloom of lower Broadway seemed far away. "Patience," said the old man, "patience, Mr. Vane. Look about you! How much of the heart of this humanity that reeks all about us do we know? Think,--think of your Chinese wall! Oh--how strange, how very strange that I should have come upon you to-night, when, in despair of ever finding my man, I had gone for distraction to a place where, I thought, philosophy nor science were but little welcome." "My dear Professor," urged Vane finally, when they were come to a stiller region, where many churches, some parks and ivy-sheltered houses gave an air of age and sobriety and history, "I have no more patience left. Did I not know your name for what it is I would not have followed you. Even now I hardly know whether your name and your title suffice. If it is an adventure, very well. But I have no more patience for mysteries." "Not even when you are about to penetrate the greatest mystery of all? Oh, youth, youth! Well, we have still a little distance to go. I shall employ it to impress upon you that I, Professor Vanlief, am not over-fond of the title of Professor. It has, here in America, a taint of the charlatan. But it came to me, this title, in a place where only honors were implied. I was, indeed, a fellow student with many of whom the world has since heard; Bismarck was one of them. I have eaten smoked goose with him in Pommern. You see, I am very old, very old. I have spent my life solving a riddle. It is the same riddle that has balked you, my young friend. But I have striven for the solution; you have merely wailed against the riddle's existence." Vane felt a flush of shame. "True," he murmured, "true. I never went further into any art, any science, than to find its shortcomings." "Yet even that," resumed the Professor, "is something. You are, at any rate, the only man for my purpose." "Your purpose?" "Yes. It is the same as yours. You are to be the instrument; I furnish the power. You are to be able to feel, to think, as others do." "Oh!" muttered Vane, "impossible." Now that his wish was called possible of fulfilment, he shrank a little from it. He followed the Professor up a long flight of curving steps, through dim halls, to where a bluish light flickered. As they passed this feeble glow it flared suddenly into a brilliant jet of flame; a door swung open, revealing a somewhat bare chamber fitted up partly as a study, partly as a laboratory. The door closed behind them silently. "Mere trickery," said the Professor, "the sort of thing that the knaves of science fool the world with. Will you sit down? Here is where I have worked for--for more years than you have lived, Mr. Vane. Here is where I have succeeded. In pursuit of this success I have spent my life and nearly all the fortune that my family made in generations gone. I have this house, and my daughter, and my science. The world spins madly all about me, in this splendid town; here, in this stillness, I have worked to make that world richer than I found it. Will you help me?" Vane had flung himself upon a wicker couch. He watched his host striding up and down the room with a fervor that had nothing of senility in it. The look of earnestness upon that fine old face was magnetic. Vane's mistrust vanished at sight of it. "If you will trust me," he answered. He saw himself as the beneficiary, his host as the giver of a great gift. "I trust you. I heard enough, to-night, to believe you sincere in wishing to see life from another soul than your own. But you must promise to obey my instructions to the letter." "I promise." A sense of farce caught Vane. "And now," he said, "what is it? A powder I must swallow, or a trance you pass me into, or what?" The professor shook his head gravely. "It is none of those things. It is much simpler. I should not wonder but that the ancients knew it. But human life is so much more complex now; the experiences you will gain will be larger than they could ever have been in other ages. Do you realize what I am about to give you? The power to take upon you the soul of another, just as an actor puts on the outer mask of another! And I ask for no reward. Simply the joy of seeing my process active; and afterwards, perhaps, to give my secret to the world. But you are to enjoy it alone, first. Of course--there may be risks. Do you take them?" "I do," said Vane. He could hear the whistling of steamers out in the harbor, and the noise of the great town came to him faintly. All that seemed strangely remote. His whole intelligence was centered upon his host, upon the sparsely furnished room, and the secret whose solution he thought himself approaching. He was, for almost the first time in his life, intense in the mere act of existence; he was conscious of no imitation of others; his analysis of self was sunk in an eagerness, a tenseness of purposeness hitherto unfelt. The professor went to a far, dark corner of the room, and rolled thence a tall, sheeted thing that might have been a painting, or an easel. He held it tenderly; his least motion with it revealed solicitude. When it was immediately in front of where Vane reclined, Vanlief loosed his hold of the thing, and began pacing up and down the room. "The question of mirrors," he began, after what seemed to Vane an age, "has never, I suppose, interested you." "On the contrary," said Vane, "I have had Italy searched for the finest of its cheval-glasses. In my dressing-room are several that would give even a man of your fine height, sir, a complete reflection of every detail, from a shoe-lace to an eyebrow. It is not altogether vanity; but I never could do justice to my toilette before a mirror that showed me only a shoulder, or a waist, or a foot, at a time; I want the full-length portrait or nothing. I like to see myself as others will see me; not in piece-meal. The Florentines made lovely mirrors." "They did." Vanlief smiled sweetly. "Yet I have made a better." He paced the floor again, and then resumed speech. "I am glad you like tall mirrors. You will have learned how careful one must be of them. One more or less in your dressing-room will not matter, eh?" "I have an excellent man," said Vane. "There has not been a broken mirror in my house for years. He looks after them as if they were his own." "Ah, better and better." Vane interrupted the Professor's silence with, "It is a mirror, then?" "Yes," said Vanlief, nodding at the sheeted mirror, "it is a mirror. Have you ever thought of the wonderfulness of mirrors? What wonder, and yet what simplicity! To think that I--I, a simple, plodding old man of science--should be the only one to have come upon the magic of a mirror!" His talk took the note of monologue. He was pacing, pacing, pacing; smiling at Vane now and then, and fingering the covered mirror with loving touch as he passed near it. "Have you ever, as a child, looked into a mirror in the twilight, and seen there another face beside your own? Have you never thought that to the mirror were revealed more things than the human eye can note? Have you heard of the old, old folk-superstitions; of the bride that may not see herself in a mirror without tragedy touching her; of the Warwickshire mirror that must be covered in a house of death, lest the corpse be seen in it; of the future that some magic mirrors could reveal? Fanciful tales, all of them; yet they have their germ of truth, and for my present discovery I owe them something." He drew the sheet from the mirror, and revealed another veil of gauze resting upon the glass, as, in some houses, the most prized pictures are sometimes doubly covered. "You see; it is just a mirror, a full-length mirror. But, oh, my dear Vane, the wonderfulness of this mirror! I have only to look into this mirror; to veil it; and then, when next you glance into it, if it be within the hour, my soul, my spirit, my very self, passes from the face of the mirror to you! That is the whole secret, or at least, the manifestation of it! Do you wish to be the President, to think his thoughts, feel as he feels, dream as he dreams? He has only to look into this mirror, and you have only to take from it, as one plucks a lily from the pool, the spiritual image he has left there! Think of it, Vane, think of it! Is this not seeing life? Is this not riddling the secret of existence? To reach the innermost depths of another's spirit; to put on his soul, as others can put on your clothes, if you left them on a chair,--is this not a stupendous thing?" In his fever and fervor the professor had exhausted his strength; he flung himself into a chair. Vane saw the old man's eyes glowing and his chest throbbing with passion; he hardly knew whether the whole scene was real or a something imposed upon his senses by a species of hypnotism. He passed his hand before his forehead; he shook his head. Yet nothing changed. Vanlief, in the chair, still quaking with excitement; the mirror, veiled and immobile. For a time the room stood silent, save for Vanlief's heavy breathing. "Of course," he resumed presently, in a quieter tone, "you cannot be expected to believe, until you have tried. But trial is the easiest thing in the world. I can teach you the mere externals to be observed in five minutes. One trial will convince you. After that,--my dear Vane, you have the gamut of humanity to go. You can be another man every day. No secret of any human heart will be a secret to you. All wisdom can be gained by you; all knowledge, all thought, can be yours. Oh, Orson Vane, I wonder if you realize your fortune! Or--is it possible that you withdraw?" Vane got up resolutely. "No," he said, "I have faith--at last. I am with you, heart and soul. Life seems splendid to me, for the first time. When can I have the mirror taken to my house?" CHAPTER IV. Vane's dressing-room was a tasteful chamber, cool and light. Its walls, its furniture, and its hangings told of a wide range of interest. There was nowhere any obvious bias; the æsthetic was no more insistent than the sporting. Orson Vane loved red-haired women as Henner painted them, and he played the aristocratic waltzes of Chopin; but he also valued the cruel breaking-bit that he had brought home from Texas, and read the racing-column in the newspaper quite as carefully as he did the doings of his society. Some hint of this diversity of tastes showed in this, the most intimate room of his early mornings. There were some of those ruddy British prints that are now almost depressingly conventional with men of sporting habits; signed photographs of more or less prominent and personable personages were scattered pell-mell. All the chairs and lounges were of wicker; so much so that some of the men who hobnobbed with Vane declared that a visit to his dressing-room was as good as a yachting cruise. The morning was no longer young. On the avenue the advance guard of the fashionable assault upon the shopping district was already astir. The languorous heat that reflects from the town's asphalt was gaining in power momentarily. Orson Vane, fresh from a chilling, invigorating bath, a Japanese robe of exquisite coolness his only covering, sat regarding an addition to his furniture. It had come while he slept. It was proof that the adventure of the night had not been a mere figment of his dreams. He touched a bell. To the man who answered the call, he said: "Nevins, I have bought a new mirror. You are to observe a few simple rules in regard to this mirror. In the first place, to avoid confusion, it is always to be called the New Mirror. Is that plain? "Quite so, sir." "I may have orders to give about it, or notes to send, or things of that sort, and I want no mistakes made. In the next place, the cord that uncovers the mirror is never to be pulled, never to be touched, save at my express order. Not--under any circumstances. I do not wish the mirror used. Have you any curiosity left, Nevins? "None, sir." "So much the better. In Lord Keswick's time, I think, you still had a touch of that vice, curiosity. Your meddling got you into something of a scrape. Do you remember?" "Oh, sir," said the man, with a little gesture of shame and pain, "you didn't need reminding me. Have I ever forgotten your saving me from that foolishness?" "You're right, Nevins; I think I can trust you. But this is a greater trust than any of the others. A great deal depends; mark that; a very great deal. It is not an ordinary mirror, this one; not one of the others compares with it; it is the gem of my collection. Not a breath is to touch it, save as I command." "I'll see to it, sir." "Any callers, Nevins?" "Mr. Moncreith, sir, looked in, but left no word. And the postman." "No duns, Nevins?" "Not in person, sir." "Dear me! Is my position on the wane? When a man is no longer dunned his credit is either too good or too bad; or else his social position is declining." He picked up the tray with the letters, ran his eye over them quickly, and said, "Thank the stars; they still dun me by post. There should be a law against it; yet it is as sweet to one's vanity as an angry letter from a woman. Nevins, is the day dull or garish?" "It's what I should call bright, sir." "Then you may lay out some gloomy clothes for me. I would not add to the heat wittingly. And, Nevins!" "Yes sir." "If anyone calls before I breakfast, unless it happens to be Professor Vanlief,--Vanlief, Nevins, of the Vanliefs of New Amsterdam--say I am indisposed." He dressed himself leisurely, thinking of the wonderful adventures into living that lay before him. He rehearsed the simple instructions that Vanlief had given him the night before. It was all utterly simple. As one looked into the mirror, the spirit of that one lay on the surface, waiting for the next person that glanced that way. There followed a complete exodus of the spirit from the one body into the other. The recipient was himself plus the soul of the other. The exodus left that other in a state something like physical collapse. There would be, for the recipient of the new personality, a sense of double consciousness; the mind would be like a palimpsest, the one will and the one habit imposed upon the other. The fact that the person whose spirit passed from him upon the magic mirror was left more or less a wreck was cause for using the experiment charily, as the Professor took pains to warn Orson. There was a certain risk. The mirror might be broken; one could never tell. It would be better to pick one's subjects wisely, always with a definite purpose. This man might be used to teach that side of life; that man another. It was not a thing to toy with. It was to be played with as little as human life itself. Vivisection was a pastime to this; this implicated the spirit, the other only the body. Consideration of the new avenues opening for his intelligence had already begun to alter Vane's outlook on life. Persons who remarked him, a little later, strolling the avenue, wondered at the brilliance of his look. He seemed suddenly sprayed with a new youth, a new enthusiasm. It was not, as some of his conversations of that morning proved, an utter lapse into optimism on his part; but it was an exchange of the mere passive side of pessimism for its healthier, more buoyant side. He was able to smile to himself as he met the various human marionettes of the avenue; the persons whose names you would be sure to read every Sunday in the society columns, and who seemed, consequently, out of place in any more aristocratic air. He bowed to the newest beauty, he waved a hand to the most perennial of the faded beaux. The vociferous attire of the actors, who idled conspicuously before the shop-windows, caused him inward shouts of laughter; a day or so ago the same sight would have embittered his hour for him. At Twenty-third street something possessed him to patronize one of the Sicilian flower-sellers. The man had, happily, not importuned him; he merely held his wares, and waited, mutely. Orson put a sprig of lily-of-the-valley into his coat. Before he left his rooms he had spent an hour or so writing curt notes to the smartest addresses in town. All his invitations were declined by him; a trip to Cairo, he had written, would keep him from town for some time. He took this ruse because he felt that the complications of his coming experiment might be awkward; it was as well to pave the way. Certainly he could not hope to fulfil his social obligations in the time to come. An impression that he was abroad was the best way out of the dilemma. The riddance from fashionable duties added to his gaiety; he felt like a school-boy on holiday. It was in this mood that he saw, on the other side of the avenue, a figure that sent a flush to his skin. There was no mistaking that wonderful hair; in the bright morning it shone with a glow a trifle less garish than under the electric light, but it was the same, the same. To make assurance surer, there, just under the hat--a hat that no mere male could have expressed in phrases, a thing of gauze and shimmer--lay a spray of lilies-of-the-valley. The gown--Vane knew at a glance that it was a beautiful gown and a happy one, though as different as possible from the filmy thing she had worn when first he saw her, in the mirror, at night. At first unconsciously, and then with quite brazen intent, he found himself keeping pace, on his side of the street, with the girl opposite. He knew not what emotion possessed him; no hint of anything despicable came to him; he had forgotten himself utterly, and he was merely following some sweet, blind impulse. Orson Vane was a man who had tasted the froth and dregs of his town no less thoroughly than other men; there were few sensations, few emotions, he had not tried. Almost the only sort of woman he did not know was The woman. In the year of his majority he had made a summer of it on the Sound in his steam yacht, and his enemies declared that all the harbors he had anchored in were left empty of both champagne and virtue. Yet not even his bitterest enemy had ever accused him of anything vulgar, brazen, coarse, conspicuous. Luke Moncreith was a friend of Vane's, there was no reason for doubting that. But even he experienced a little shock when he met Vane, was unseen of him, and was then conscious, in a quick turn of the head, that Vane's eyes, his entire vitality, were upon a woman's figure across the avenue. "The population of the Bowery, of Forty-second street, and of the Tenderloin," said Moncreith to himself, "have a name for that sort of thing." He clicked his tongue upon his teeth once or twice. "Poor Orson! Is it the beginning of the end? Last night he seemed a little mad. Poor Orson!" Then, with furtive shame at his bad manners, he turned about and watched the two. Even at that distance the sunlight glowed like a caress upon the hair of her whom Orson followed. "The girl," exclaimed Moncreith, "the girl of the mirror." He came to a halt before a photographer's window, the angle of which gave him a view of several blocks behind. Orson Vane, in the meanwhile, was as if there was but one thing in life for him: a meeting with this radiant creature with the lilies. Once he thought he caught a sidelong glance of hers; a little smile even hovered an instant upon her lips; yet, at that distance, he could not be sure. None of the horrible things occurred to him as possibilities; that she might be an adventuress, or a mere masquerading shop-girl, or an adroit soubrette. No tangible intention came to the young man; he had not made it clear to himself whether he would keep on, and on, and on, until she came to her own door; whether he would accost her; whether he would leave all to chance; or whether he would fashion circumstances to his end. The girl turned into a little bookshop that, as it happened, was one of Vane's familiar haunts. It was a place where one could always find the new French and German things, and where the shopman was not a mere instrument for selling whatever rubbish publishers chose to shoot at the public. When Vane entered he found this shopman, who nodded smilingly at him, busy with a bearded German. The girl stood at a little table, passing her slim fingers lovingly over the titles of the books that lay there. It was evident that she had no wish for advice from the assistant who hovered in the background. She did not so much as glance at him. Her eyes were all for her friends in print. She did look up, the veriest trifle, it is true, when Orson came in; it was so swift, so shy a look that he, in a mist of emotions, could not have sworn to it. As for him, a boyish boldness took him to the other side of the table at which she stood; he bent over the books, and his hands almost touched her fingers. In that little, quiet nook, he became, all of a moment, once more a youth of twenty; he felt the first shy stirrings of tenderness, of worship. The names of the volumes swam for him in a mere haze. He saw nothing save only the little figure before him, the shimmer of rose upon her face passing into the ruddier shimmer of her hair; the perfume of her lilies and some yet subtler scent, redolent of fairest linen, most fragile laces and the utterest purity, came over him like a glow. And then the marvel, the miracle of her voice! "Oh, Mr. Vane," he heard her saying, "do help me!" Their eyes met and he was conscious of a bewildering beauty in hers; it was with quite an effort that he did not, then and there, do something absurd and stupid. His hesitation, his astonishment, cost him a second or so; before he caught his composure again, she was explaining, sweetly, plaintively, "Help me to make up my mind. About a book." "Why did you add that?" he asked, his wits sharp now, and his voice still a little unsteady. "There are so many other things I would like to help you in. A book? What sort of a book? One of those stories where the men are all eight feet high, and wear medals, and the women are all models for Gibson? Or one of those aristocratic things where nobody is less than a prince, except the inevitable American, who is a newspaper man and an abomination? Or is it, by any chance," he paused, and dropped his voice, as if he were approaching a dreadful disclosure, "poetry?" She shook her head. The lilies in her hair nodded, and her smile came up like a radiance in that dark little corner. And, oh, the music in her laugh! It blew ennui away as effectually as a storm whirls away a leaf. "No," she said, "it is none of those things. I told you I had not made up my mind." "It is a thing you should never attempt. Making up the mind is a temptation only the bravest of us can resist. One should always delegate the task to someone else." The girl frowned gently. "If it is the fashion to talk like that," she said, "I do not want to be in the fashion." He took the rebuke with a laugh. "It is hard," he pleaded, "to keep out of the fashion. Everything we do is a fashion of one sort or another." He glanced at her wonderful hat, at the gown that held her so closely, so tenderly. "I am sure you are in the fashion," he said. "If Mr. Orson Vane tells me so, I must believe it," she answered. "But I wear only what suits me; if the fashion does not suit me, I avoid the fashion." "But you cannot avoid beauty," he urged, "and to be fair is always the fashion." She turned her eyes to him full of reproach. They said, as plainly as anything, "How crude! How stupidly obvious!" As if she had really spoken, he went on, in plain embarassment: "I beg your pardon. I--I am very silly this morning. Something has gone to my head. I really don't think I'd better advise you about anything to read. I--" "Oh," she interrupted, already full of forgiveness, since it was not in her nature to be cruel for more than a moment at a time, "but you must. I am really desperate. All I ask is that you do not urge a fashionable book, a book of the day, or a book that should be in the library of every lady. I am afraid of those books. They are like the bores one turns a corner to avoid." "You make advice harder and harder. Is it possible you really want a book to read, rather than to talk about?" "I really do," she admitted, "I told you I had no thought about the fashion." "You are like a figure from the Middle Ages," he said, "with your notion about books." "Am I so very wrinkled?" she asked. She put her hand to her veil, with a gesture of solicitous inquiry. "To be young," she sighed, with a pout, "and yet to seem old. I am quite a tragedy." "A goddess," he murmured, "but not of tragedy." He laughed sharply, and took a book from the table, using it to keep his eyes from the witchery of her as he continued: "Don't you see why I'm talking such nonsense? If it meant prolonging the glimpse of you, there's no end, simply no end, to the rubbish I could talk!" "And no beginning," she put in, "to your sincerity." "Oh, I don't know. One still has fits and starts of it! There's no telling what might not be done; it might come back to one, like childishness in old age." He put down the book, and looked at her in something like appeal. "There is such a thing as a sincerity one is ashamed of, that one hides, and disguises, and that the world refuses to see. The world? The world always means an individual. In this case the world is--" "The world is yours, like _Monte Cristo_," she interposed, "how embarassed you must feel. The responsibility must be enervating! I have always thought the clever thing for _Monte Cristo_ to have done was to lose the world; to hide it where nobody could find it again." She tapped her boot with her parasol, charmingly impatient. "I suppose," she sighed, "I shall have to ask that stupid clerk for a book, after all. He looks as if he would far rather sell them by weight." "No, no, I couldn't allow that. Consider me all eagerness to aid you. Is it to be love, or ghosts, or laughter?" "Love and laughter go well together," she said. "I want a book I can love and laugh with, not at." "I know," he nodded. "The tear that makes the smile come after. You want something charming, something sweet, something that will taste pleasantly no matter how often you read it. A trifle, and yet--a treasure. Such a book as, I dare say, every writer dreams of doing once in his life; the sort of book that should be bound in rose-leaves. And you expect me to betray a treasure like that to you? And my reward? But no, I beg your pardon; I have my reward now, and here, and the debt is still mine. I can merely put you in the way of a printed page; while you--" He stopped, roving for the right word. His eyes spoke what his voice could not find. He finished, lamely, and yet aptly enough, "You--are you." "I don't believe," she declared, with the most arch elevation of the darkest eyebrows, "that you know one book from another. You are an impostor. You are sparring for time. I have given you too much time as it is. I am going." She picked up her skirts with one slim hand, turned on a tiny heel, and looked over her shoulder with an air, a mischievousness, that made Orson ache, yes, simply ache with curiosity about her. He put out a hand in expostulation. "Please," he pleaded, "please don't go. I have found the book. I really have. But you must take my word for it. You mustn't open it till you are at home." He handed it to the clerk to be wrapped up. "And now," he went on, "won't you tell me something? I--upon my honor, I can't think where we met?" "One hardly expects Mr. Orson Vane to remember all the young women in society," she smiled. "Besides, if I must confess: I am only just what society calls 'out.' I have seen Mr. Orson Vane: but he has not seen me. Mr. Vane is a leader; I am--" She shrugged her shoulder, raised her eyebrows, pursed up her mouth, oh, to a complete gesture that was the prettiest, most bewildering finish to any sentence ever uttered. "Oh," said Orson, "but you are mistaken. I have seen you. No longer ago than last night. In--" "In a mirror," she laughed. Then she grew suddenly quite solemn. "Oh, you mustn't think I didn't know who you were. It was all very rash of me, and very improper, my speaking to you, just now, but--" "It was very sweet," he interposed. "But," she went on, not heeding his remark at all, "I knew you so well by sight, and I had really been introduced to you once,--one of a bevy of debutantes, merely an item in a chorus--and, besides, my father--" "Your father?" repeated Orson, jogging his memory, "you don't mean to say--" "My father is Augustus Vanlief," she said. He took a little time to digest the news. The clerk handed him the book and the change. He saw, now, whence that charm, that grace, that beauty came; he recalled that the late Mrs. Vanlief had been one of the Waddells; there was no better blood in the country. With the name, too, there came the thought of the wonderful revelations that were presently to come to him, thanks to this girl's father. A sort of dizziness touched him: he felt a quick conflict between the wish to worship this girl, and the wish to probe deeper into life. It was with a very real effort that he brushed the charm of her from him, and relapsed, again, into the man who meant to know more of human life than had ever been known before. He took out a silver pencil and held it poised above the book. "This book," he said, "is for you, you know, not for your father. Your father and I are to be great friends but--I want to be friends, also, with--" he looked a smiling appeal, "with--whom?" "With Miss Vanlief," she replied, mockingly. "My other name? I hate it; really I do. Perhaps my father will tell you." She had given him the tip of her fingers, her gown had swung perfume as it followed her, and she was out and away before he could do more than give her the book, bow her good-bye, and stand in amaze at her impetuousness, her verve. The thought smote him that, on the night before, he had seen her, in the mirror, and spurned the notion of her being other than a sham, a mockery. How did he know, even now, that she was other than that? Yet, what had happened to him that he had been able so long to stay under her charm, to believe in her, to wish for her, to feel that she was hardly mortal, but some strange, sweet, splendid dream? Was he the same man who, only a few hours ago, had held himself shorn of all the primal emotions? He beat these questionings back and forth in his mind; now doubting himself, now doubting this girl. Surely she had not, in that dining-room, been sitting with her father? Would he not have seen them together? Perhaps she was with some of her family's womenfolk? Yes; now he remembered; she had been at a table with several other ladies, all elderly. He wished he knew the name one might call her, if ... if.... Luke Moncreith came into the shop. Orson caught a shadow of a frown on the other's face. Moncreith's voice was sharp and bitter when he spoke. "Been buying the shop?" he asked. "No," said Orson, in some wonder. "Only one book." "Hope you'll like it," said the other, with a manner that meant the very opposite. "I? Oh, I read it ages ago. It was for somebody else. You seem very curious about it?" "I am. You aren't usually the man to dawdle in bookshops." "Dawdle?" Orson turned on the other sharply. "What the deuce do you mean? Are you my keeper, or what? If I choose to, I can _live_ in this shop, can't I?" "Oh, Lord, yes! Looks odd, just the same, you trailing in here after a petticoat, and hanging around for--" he pulled out his watch,--"for a good half hour." Orson burst out in a sort of clenched breath of rage. He kept the phrases down with difficulty. "Better choose your words," he said. "I don't like your words, and your watch be damned. Since when have my--my friends taken to timing my actions? It's a blessing I'm going abroad." He turned and walked out of the shop, fiercely, swiftly. As the fresh air struck his face, he put his hand to it, and shook his head, wonderingly. "What's the matter with Moncreith? With me?" He thought of the title of the book he had just given away. "Are we all as mad as that?" he asked himself. The title was "March Hares." CHAPTER V. A young man so prominent in the town as Orson Vane had naturally a very large list of acquaintances. He knew, in the fashionable phrase, "everybody," and "everybody" knew him. His acquaintances ranged beyond the world of fashion; the theatre, the turf, and many other regions had denizens who knew Orson Vane and held him in esteem. He had always lived a careful, well-mannered life; his name had never been in the newspapers save in the inescapable columns touching society. When he was ready to proceed with the experiment of the mirror, the largeness of his social register was at once a pleasure and a pain. There were so many, so many! It was evident that he must use the types most promising in eccentricity; he must adventure forth in company with the strangest souls, not the mere ordinary ones. Sitting in the twilight of his rooms one day, it occurred to him that he was now ripe for his first decision. Whose soul should he seize? That was the question. He had spent a week or so perfecting plans, stalling off awkward episodes, schooling his servants. There was no telling what might not happen. He picked up a newspaper. A name caught his eye; he gave a little laugh. "The very man!" he told himself, "the very man. Society's court fool; it will be worth something to know what lies under his cap and bells." He scrawled a note, enclosed it, and rang for Nevins. "Have that taken, at once, to Mr. Reginald Hart. And then, presently, have a hansom called and let it wait nearby." "Reggie will be sure to come," he said, when alone. "I've told him there was a pretty woman here." He felt a nervous restlessness. He paced his room, fingering the frames of his prints, trying the cord of his new mirror, adjusting the blinds of the windows. He tingled with mental and physical expectation. He wondered whether nothing, after all, would be the result. How insane it was to expect any such thing to happen as Vanlief had vapored of! This was the twentieth century rather than the tenth; miracles never happened. Yet how fervently he wished for one! To feel the soul of another superimposing itself upon his own; to know that he had committed the grandest larceny under heaven, the theft of a soul, and to gain, thereby, complete insight into the spiritual machinery of another mortal! Nevins returned, within a little time, bringing word that Mr. Hart had been found at home, and would call directly. Vane pushed the new mirror to a position where it would face the door. He told Nevins not to enter the room after Mr. Hart; to let him enter, and let the curtain fall behind him. He took up a position by a window and waited. The minutes seemed heavy as lead. The air was unnaturally still. At last he heard Nevins, in gentle monosyllables. Another voice, high almost to falsetto, clashed against the stillness. Then the curtain swung back. Reginald Hart, whom all the smart world never called other than Reggie Hart, stood for a moment in the curtain-way, the mirror barring his path. He caught his image there to the full, the effeminate, full face, the narrow-waisted coat, the unpleasantly womanish hips. He put out his right hand, as if groping in the dark. Then he said, shrilly, stammeringly. "Vane! Oh, Vane, where the de--" He sank almost to his knees. Vane stepping forward, caught him by the shoulder and put him into an arm-chair. Hart sat there, his head hunched between his shoulders. "Silly thing to do, Vane, old chappy. Beastly sorry for this--stunt of mine. Too many tea-parties lately, Vane, too much dancing, too much--" his voice went off into a sigh. "Better get a cab," he said, limply. He had quite forgotten why he had come: he was simply in collapse, mentally and physically. Vane, trembling with excitement and delight, walked up to the mirror from behind and sent the veil upon its face again. Then he had Nevins summon the cab. He watched Hart tottering out, upon Nevins' shoulder, with a dry, forced smile. So it was real! He could hardly believe it. In seconds, in the merest flash, his visitor had faded like a flower whose root is plucked. The man had come in, full of vitality, quite, in fact, himself; he had gone out a mere husk, a shell. But there was still the climax ahead. Had he courage for it, now that it loomed imminent? Should he send for Hart and have him pick up his soul where he had dropped it? Or should he, stern in his first purpose, fit that soul upon his own, as one fits a glove upon the hand? There was yet time. It depended only upon whether Hart or himself faced the mirror when the veil was off. He cut his knot of indecision sharply, with a stride to the mirror, a jerk at the cord and a steady gaze into the clear pool of light, darkened only by his own reflection. * * * * * Strain his eyes as he would, he could feel no change, not the faintest stir of added emotion. He let the curtain drop upon the mirror listlessly. Walking to his window-seat again, he was suddenly struck by his image in one of the other glasses. He was really very well shaped; he felt a wish to strip to the buff; it was rather a shame to clothe limbs as fine as those. He was quite sure there were friends of his who would appreciate photographs of himself, in some picturesque costume that would hide as little as possible. It was an age since he had any pictures taken. He called for Nevins. His voice struck Nevins as having a taint of tenor in it. "Nevins," he said, "have the photographer call to-morrow, like a good man, won't you? You know, the chap, I forget his name, who does all the smart young women. I'll be glad to do the fellow a service; do him no end of good to have his name on pictures of me. I'm thinking of something a bit startling for the Cutter's costume ball, Nevins, so have the man from Madame Boyer's come for instructions. And see if you can find me some perfume at the chemist's; something heavy, Nevins. The perfumes at once, that's a dear man. I want them in my pillows tonight." When the man was gone, his master went to the sideboard, opened it, and gave a gentle sigh of disappointment. "Careless of me," he murmured, "to have no Red Ribbon in the place. How can any gentleman afford to be without it? Dear, dear, if any of the girls and boys had caught me without it. Another thing I must tell Nevins. Nothing but whisky! Abominably vulgar stuff! Can't think, really, 'pon honor I can't, how I ever came to lay any of it in. And no cigarettes in the place. Goodness me! What sweet cigarettes those are Mrs. Barrett Weston always has! Wonder if that woman will ask me to her cottage this summer." He strolled to the window, yawned, stretched out his arms, drawing his hands towards him at the end of his gesture. He inspected the fingers minutely. They needed manicuring. He began to put down a little list of things to be done. He strolled over to the tabouret where invitations lay scattered all about. That dear Mrs. Sclatersby was giving a studio-dance; she was depending on him for a novel feature. Perhaps if he did a little skirt-dance. Yes; the notion pleased him. He would sit down, at once, and write a hint to a newspaper man who would be sure to make a sensation of this skirt-dance. That done, he heard Nevins knocking. "Oh," he murmured, "the perfumes. So sweet!" He buried his nose in a handful of the sachet-bags. He sprayed some Maria Farina on his forehead. Perfumes, he considered, were worth worship just as much as jewels or music. The more sinful a perfume seemed, the more stimulating it was to the imagination. Some perfumes were like drawings by Beardsley. He looked at the walls. He really must get some Beardsleys put up. There was nothing like a Beardsley for jogging a sluggish fancy; if you wanted to see everything that milliners and dressmakers existed by hiding, all you had to do was to sup sufficiently on Beardsley. He thought of inventing a Beardsley cocktail; if he could find a mixture that would make the brain quite pagan, he would certainly give it that name. His mind roved to the feud between the Montagues and Capulets of the town. It was one of those modern feuds, made up of little social frictions, infinitesimal jealousies, magnified by a malicious press into a national calamity. It was a feud, he told himself, that he would have to mend. It would mean, for him, the lustre from both houses. And there was nothing, in the smart world, like plenty of lustre. There were several sorts of lustre: that of money, of birth, and of public honors. Personally, he cared little for the origin of his lustre; so it put him in the very forefront of smartness he asked for nothing more. Of course, his own position was quite impeccable. The smart world might narrow year by year; the Newport set, and the Millionaire set, and the Knickerbocker set--they might all dwindle to one small world of smartness; yet nothing that could happen could keep out an Orson Vane. The name struck him, as it shaped itself in his mind, a trifle odd. An Orson Vane? Yes, of course, of course. For that matter, who had presumed to doubt the position of a Vane? He asked himself that, with a sort of defiance. An Orson Vane, an Orson Vane? He repeated the syllables over and over, in a whisper at first, and then aloud, until the shrillness of his tone gave him a positive start. He rang the bell for Nevins. "Nevins," he said, and something in him fought against his speech, "tell me, that's a good man,--is there anything, anything wrong with--me?" "Nothing sir," said Nevins stolidly. Orson Vane gave a sort of gasp as the man withdrew. It had come to him suddenly; the under-self was struggling beneath the borrowed self. He was Orson Vane, but he was also another. Who? What other? He gave a little shrill laugh as he remembered. Reggie Hart,--that was it,--Reggie Hart. He sat down to undress for sleep. He slipped into bed as daintily as a woman, nestling to the perfumed pillows. Nevins, in his part of the house, sat shaking his head. "If he hadn't given me warning," he told himself, "I'd have sent for a doctor." CHAPTER VI. The smart world received the change in Orson Vane with no immediate wonder. Wonder is, at the outset, a vulgarity; to let nothing astonish you is part of a smart education. A good many of the smartest hostesses in town were glad that Vane had emerged from his erstwhile air of aristocratic aloofness; he took, with them, the place that Reggie Hart's continuing illness left vacant. In the regions where Vane had been actually intimate whispers began to go about, it is true, and it was with no little difficulty that an occasional story about him was kept out of the gossipy pages of the papers. Vane was constantly busy seeking notoriety. His attentions to several of the younger matrons were conspicuous. Yet he was so much of a stimulating force, in a society where passivity was the rule, that he was welcome everywhere. He had become the court fool of the smart set. To him, the position held nothing degrading. It was, he argued, a reflection on smart society, rather on himself, that, to be prominent in it, one must needs wear cap and bells. Moreover his position allowed him, now and then, the utterance of grim truths that would not have been listened to from anyone not wearing the jester's license. At the now famous dinner given by Mrs. Sclatersby, Orson Vane seized a lull in the conversation, by remarking, in his ladylike lisp: "My dear Mrs. Sclatersby, I have such a charming idea. I am thinking of syndicating myself." Mrs. Sclatersby put up her lorgnettes and smiled encouragement at Orson. "It sounds Wall Streety," she said, "you're not going to desert us, are you?" "Oh, nothing so dreadful. It would be an entirely smart syndicate, you know; a syndicate of which you would be a member. I sometimes think, you know, that I do not distribute myself to the best advantage. There have been little jealousies, now and then, have there not?" He looked, in a bird-like, perky way, at Mrs. Barrett Weston, and the only Mrs. Carlos. "I have been unable to be in two places at once. Now a syndicate--a syndicate could arrange things so that there would be no disappointments, no clashings of engagements, no waste of opportunity. "How clever you always are," said a lady at Orson's right. She had chameleon hair, and her poise was that of a soubrette. The theatre was tremendously popular as a society model that season. Orson blew a kiss at her, and went on with his speech. "Actors do it, you know. Painters have done it. Inventors do it. Why not I?" He paused to nibble an olive. "To contribute to the gaiety of our little world is, after all, the one thing worth while. Think how few picturesque people we have! Eccentricity is terribly lacking in the town. We have no Whistler; Mansfield is rather a dull imitation. Of course there is George Francis Train; but he is a trifle, a trifle too much of the larger world, don't you think?" "I never saw the man in my life," asserted the hostess. "Exactly," said Orson, "he makes himself too cheap. It keeps us from seeing him. But Whistler; think of Whistler, in New York! He would wear a French hat, fight duels every day, lampoon a critic every hour, and paint nocturnes on the Fifth avenue pavement! He would make Diana fall from the Tower in sheer envy. He would go through the Astoria with monocle and mockery, and smile blue peacock smiles at Mr. Blashfield and Mr. Simmons. He would etch himself upon the town. We would never let him go again. We need that sort of thing. Our ambitions and our patience are cosmopolitan; but we lack the public characters to properly give fire and color to our streets. Now I--" He let his eyes wander about the room, a delicate smile of invitation on his lips. "Don't you think," said one of the ladies, "that you are quite--quite bohemian enough?" Orson shuddered obviously. "My dear lady," he urged, "it is a dreadful thing to be bohemian. It is no longer smart. If I am considered the one, I cannot possibly be the other. There is, to be sure, a polite imitation; but it is quite an art to imitate the thing with just sufficient indolence. But I really wish you would think the thing over, Mrs. Sclatersby. I know nobody who would do the thing better than I. Our men are mostly too fond of fashion, and too afraid of fancy. One must not be ashamed of being called foolish. Whistler uses butterflies; somebody else used sunflowers and green carnations; I should use--lilies, I think, lilies-of-the-valley. Emblematic of the pure folly of my pose, you know. One must do something like that, you see, to gain smart applause; impossible hats and improbable hair, except in the case of actresses, are quite extinct." A Polish orchestra that had been hitherto unsuccessful against the shrill monologue of Orson, and the occasional laughter of the ladies, now sent out a sudden, fierce stream of melody. It was evident that they did not mean to take the insult of a large wage without offering some stormy moments in exchange. The diners assumed a patient air, eating in an abstracted manner, as if their stomachs were the only members of their bodies left unstunned by the music. The assemblage wore, in its furtive gluttony, an air of being in a plot of the most delicious danger. Some rather dowdy anecdotes went about in whispers, and several of the ladies made passionate efforts to blush. Orson Vane took a sip of some apricotine, explaining to his neighbor that he took it for the color; it was the color of verses by Verlaine. She had never heard of the man. Ah; then of course Mallarmé, and Symons and Francis Saltus were her gods? No; she said she liked Madame Louise; hers were by far the most fragile hats purchasable; what was the use of a hat if it was not fragile; to wear one twice was a crime, and to give one away unless it was decently crushed was an indiscretion. Orson quite agreed with her. To his other neighbor he confided that he was thinking of writing a book. It would be something entirely in the key of blue. He was busy explaining its future virtues, when an indiscreet lull came in the orchestral tornado. "I mean to bring the pink of youth to the sallowest old age," he was saying, "and every page is to be as dangerous as a Bowery cocktail." Then the storm howled forth again. Everyone talked to his or her neighbor at top voice. Now and then pauses in the music left fag ends of conversation struggling about the room. "The decadents are simply the people who refuse to write twaddle for the magazines...." "The way to make a name in the world is to own a soap factory and ape William Morris on the side...." "I can always tell when it is Spring by looking at the haberdashers' windows. To watch shirts and ties blooming is so much nicer than flowers and those smelly things...." "The pleasantest things in the world all begin with a P. Powders, patches and poses--what should we do without them?..." This sort of thing came out at loose ends now and then. Suddenly the music ceased altogether. The diners all looked as if they had been caught in a crime. The lights went out in the room, and there were little smothered shrieks. After an interval, a rosy glow lit up the conservatory beyond the palms; a little stage showed in the distance. Some notorious people from the music-halls began to do songs and dances, and offer comic monologues. The diners fell into a sort of lethargy. They did not even notice that Orson Vane's chair was empty. Vane was in a little boudoir lent him by the hostess. His nostrils dilated with the perfume of her that he felt everywhere. He sank into a silk-covered chair, before which he had arranged a full-length mirror, and several smaller glasses, with candles glowing all about him. He was conscious of a cloying sense of happiness over his physical perfections. He stripped garment after garment from him with a care, a gentleness that argued his belief that haste was a foe to beauty. He stretched himself at full length, in epicurean enjoyment of himself. The flame of life, he told himself, burnt the more steadily the less we wrapped it up. If we could only return to the pagan life! And yet--what charm there was in dress! The body had, after all, a monotony, a sameness; the tenderest of its curves, the rosiest of its surfaces, must pall. But the infinite variety of clothes! The delight of letting the most delicate tints of gauze caress the flesh, while to the world only the soberest stuffs were exposed! The rustle of fresh linen, the perfume that one could filter through the layers of one's attire! Orson Vane closed his eyes, lazily, musingly. At that moment his proper soul was quite in subjection; the ecstasy in the usurping soul was all-powerful. He was thinking of what the cheval-glass in that little room must have seen. It would be unspeakably fine to be a mirror. The little crystal clock ticking on the dressing-table tinkled an hour. It brought him from his reveries with a start. He began gliding into some shining, silken things of umber tints; they fitted him to the skin. He was a falconer. It was a costume to strike pale the idlers at a bathing beach. There was not a crease, not a fold anywhere. A leathern thong upon a wrist, a feathered cap upon his head, were almost the only points that rose away from the body as God had fashioned it. Satisfaction filled him as he surveyed himself. But there was more to do. Above this costume he put the dress of a Spanish Queen. When he lifted the massively brocaded train, there showed the most exquisitely chiseled ankles, the promise of the most alluring legs. The corsage hinted a bust of the most soothing softness. He spent fully ten minutes in happy admiration of his images in the mirrors. When he proceeded to the conservatory, it was by a secret corridor. The diners were wearily watching a Frenchwoman who sang with her gloves, which were black and always on the point of falling down. She was very pathetic; she was trying to sing rag-time melodies because some idiot had told her the Newport set preferred that music. A smart young woman had danced a dance of her own invention; everyone agreed, as they did about the man who paints with his toes, that, considering her smartness in the fashionable world, it was not so much a wonder that she danced so well, as that she danced at all. They were quite sure the professional managers would offer her the most lavish sums; she would be quite as much of an attraction as the foreign peer who was trying to be a gentleman, where they are most needed, on the stage. At a sign from Orson, the lights went out again, as the Frenchwoman finished her song. Several of the guests began to talk scandal in the dark; there are few occupations more fascinating than talking scandal in the dark. The question of whether it was better to be a millionaire or a fashionable and divorced beauty was beginning to agitate several people into almost violent argument, when the lights flared to the full. The chorus of little "Ohs" and "Ahs," of rapid whispered comment, and of discreetly patted gloves, was quite fervid for so smart an assemblage. Except in the rarest cases, to gush is as fatal, in the smart world, as to be intolerant. There is a smart avenue between fervor and frowning; when you can find that avenue unconsciously, in the dark, as it were, you have little more to learn in the code of smartness. Mrs. Sclatersby herself murmured, quite audibly: "How sweet the dear boy looks!" Her clan took the word up, and for a time the sibilance of it was like a hiss in the room. A man or two in the company growled out something that his fairer neighbor seemed unwilling to hear. These basso profundo sounds, if one could formulate them into words at all, seemed more like "Disgusting fool!" or "Sickening!" than anything else. But the company had very few men in it; in this, as in many other respects, the room resembled smart society itself. The smart world is engineered and peopled chiefly by the feminine element. The male sex lends to it only its more feminine side. It is almost unnecessary to describe the picture that Orson Vane presented on that little stage. His beauty as "Isabella, Queen of Spain," has long since become public property; none of his later efforts in suppression of the many photographs that were taken, shortly after the Sclatersby dinner, have succeeded in quite expunging the portraits. At that time he gave the sittings willingly. He felt that these photographs represented the highest notch in his fame, the completest image of his ability to be as beautiful as the most beautiful woman. Shame or nervousness was not part of Orson Vane's personality that night. He sat there, in the skillfully arranged scheme of lights, with his whole body attuned only to accurate impersonation of the character he represented. He got up. His motion, as he passed across the stage, was so utterly feminine, so made of the swaying, undulating grace that usually implies the woman; the gesture with his fan was so finically alluring; the poise of his head above his bared shoulders so coquettish,--that the women watching him almost held their breaths in admiration. It was, you see, the most adroit flattery that a man could pay the entire sex of womankind. Then the music, a little way off, began to strum a cachuca. The tempo increased; when finally the pace was something infectious, Orson Vane began a dance that remains, to this day, an episode in the annals of the smart. The vigor of his poses, the charm of his skirt-manipulation, carried the appreciation of his friends by storm. Some of the ladies really had hard work to keep from rushing to the stage and kissing the young man then and there. When we are emotional, we Americans--to what lengths will we not go! But the surprises were not yet over. A dash of darkness stayed the music; a swishing and a flapping came from the stage; then the lights. Vane stood, in statue position, as a falconer. You could almost, under the umber silk, see the rippling of his veins. Only a second he stood so, but it was a second of triumph. The company was so agape with wonder, that there was no sound from it until the music and the bare stage, following a brief period of blackness, recalled it to its senses. Then it urged Mrs. Sclatersby to grant a great favor. Mr. Vane must be persuaded not take off his falconer's costume; to mingle, for what little time remained, with the company without resuming his more conventional attire. Vane smiled when the message came to him. He nodded his head. Then he sent for the Sclatersby butler. "Plenty of Red Ribbon!" he said to that person. "Plenty, sir." "Make a note of your commissions; a cheque in the morning." Then he mingled again with his fellow-guests, and there was much toasting, and the bonds all loosened a little, and the sparkle came up out of the glasses into the cheeks of the women. The other men, one by one, took their way out. Women crushed one another to touch the hero of the evening. Jealousies shot savage glances about. Every increase in this emulation increased the love that Orson Vane felt for himself. He caressed a hand here, a lock there, with a king's condescension. If he felt a kiss upon his hand, he smiled a splendid, slightly wearied smile. If he had hot eyes turned on him, burning so fiercely as to spell out passion boldly, he returned, with his own glances, the most ineffable promises. There have been many things written and said about that curious affair at the Sclatersbys, but for the entire history of it--well, there are reasons why you will never be able to trace it. Orson Vane is perhaps the only one who might tell some of the details; and he, as you will find presently, has utterly forgotten that night. "Time we went home, girls," said Vane, at last, disengaging himself gently from a number of warm hands, and putting away, as he moved into freedom, more than one beautiful pair of shoulders. He needed the fresh air; he was really quite worn out. But he still had a madcap notion left in him; he still had a trump to play. "A pair of hose," he called out, "a pair of hose, with diamond-studded garters, to the one who will play 'follow' to my 'leader!'" And the end of that dare-devil scamper did not come until the whole throng reached Madison Square. Vane plunged to the knees in the fountain. That chilled the chase. But one would not be denied. Hers was a dark type of beauty that needed magnolias and the moon and the South to frame it properly. She lifted her skirts with a little tinkling laugh, and ran to where Orson stood, splashing her way bravely through the water. Vane looked at her and took her hand. "I envy the prize I offered," he said to her. CHAPTER VII. Dawn found Orson Vane nodding in a hansom. He had told the man to drive to Claremont. The Palisades were just getting the first rosy streaks the sun was putting forth. The Hudson still lay with a light mist on it. The ascent to Claremont, in sunshine so clustered with beauty, was now deserted. A few carts belonging to the city were dragging along sleepily. Harlem was at the hour when the dregs of one day still taint the morn of the next one. Vane was drowsy. He felt the need of a fillip. He did not like to think of getting back to his rooms and taking a nap. It was still too early, it seemed, for anything to eat or drink. He spied the Fort Lee ferry, and with it a notion came to him. The cabman was willing. In a few minutes he was aboard the ferry, and the cooler air that sweeps the Hudson was laving him. On the Jersey side he found a sleepy innkeeper who patched up a breakfast for him. He had, fortunately, some smokable cigars in his clothes. The day was well on when he reached the New York side of the river again, and gave "The Park!" as the cabman's orders. His body now restored to energy again, his mind recounted the successes of the night. He really had nothing much to wish for. The men envied him to the point of hatred; the women adored him. He was the pet of the smartest people. He was shrewd enough, too, to be petted for a consideration; his adroitness in sales of Red Ribbon added comfortably to his income. He took pride in this, as if there had ever been a time, for several generations, when the name of Vane had not stood good for a million or so. The Park was not well tenanted. Some robust members of the smart set were cantering about the bridle paths, and now and then a carriage turned a corner; but the people who preferred the Park for its own sake to the Park of the afternoon drive were, evidently, but few. Vane felt quite neglected; he was still able to count the number of times that he had bowed to familiars. The deserted state of the Park somewhat discounted the tonic effects of its morning freshness. Nature was nothing unless it was a background for man. The country was a place from which you could come to town. Still--there was really nothing better to do, this fine morning. He rather dreaded the thought of his rooms after the brilliance of the night. His meditations ceased at approach of a girlish figure on horseback, a groom at a discreet distance behind. It was Miss Vanlief. He saw that she saw him, yet he saw no welcome in her eyes. He rapped for the hansom to stop; got out, and waved his hat elaborately at the young woman. She, in sheer politeness, had reined in her horse. "A sweet day," he minced, "and jolly luck my meeting you! Thought it was rather dull in the old Park, till you turned up. Sweet animal you're on." He looked up with that air that, the night before, had been so bewitching. Somehow, as the girl eyed him, he felt haggard. She was not smiling, not the least little bit. "I have read about the affair at Mrs. Sclatersby's," she said. "Really? Dreadful hurry these newspapers are always in, to be sure. It was really a great lark." "It must have been," was her icy retort. She beckoned to the groom. "That--that sheet," she ordered, sharply, holding out one gauntleted hand. The groom gave her the folded newspaper. She began to read from it, in a bitter monotone: "The antics of Mr. Orson Vane," she read, "for some time the subject of comment in society, have now reached the point where they deserve the censure of publicity. His doings at a certain fashionable dinner of last night were the subject of outspoken disgust at the prominent clubs later. Now that the case is openly discussed, it may be repeated that a prominent publication recently had occasion to refuse print to a distinctly questionable photograph of this young man, submitted, it is alleged, by himself. In the more staid social circles, one wonders how much longer Mrs. Carlos and the other leaders of the smartest set will continue to countenance such behavior." Vane, as she read, was enjoying every inch of her. What freshness, what grace! What a Lady Godiva she would have made! "Sweet of you to take such interest," he observed, as she handed the paper to the groom. "Malice, you know, sheer malice. Dare say I forgot to give that paper some news that I gave the others; they take that sort of thing so bitterly, you know. As for the photo--it was really awfully cunning. I'll send you one. Oh, must you go? I'm so cut up! Charming chat we've had, I'm sure." She had given her horse a cut with the whip, had sent Vane a stare of the most open contempt, and was now off and away. Vane stood staring after her. "Very nice little filly," he murmured. "Very!" Then he gave his house number to the cabman. Turning into Park avenue, at Thirty-Ninth street, the horse slipped on the asphalt. The hansom spun on one wheel, and then crashed against a lamp-post. Vane was almost stunned, though there was no mark on him anywhere. He felt himself all over, but he could feel not as much as a lump. But his head ached horribly; he felt queerly incapable of thought. Whatever it was that had happened to him, it had stunned something in him. What that something was he did not realize even as he told Nevins, who opened the door to him in some alarm: "Send the cab over to Mr. Reginald Hart's. Say I must--do you hear, Nevins?--I must have him here within the hour--if he has to come in a chair!" Not even when he let the veil glide from the new mirror did he understand what part of him was stunned. He moved about in a sort of half wakefulness. The time he spent before Hart's arrival was all a stupor, spent on a couch, with eyes closed. Hart came in feebly, leaning on a stick. "Funny thing of you to do," he piped, "sending for me like this. What the--" He straightened himself in front of the new mirror, and, for an instant, swayed limply there. Then his stick took an upward swing, and he minced across the room vigorously. "Why, Vane," he said, "not ill, are you? Jove, you know, I've had a siege, myself. Feel nice and fit this minute, though. Shouldn't wonder if the effort to get here had done me good. What was the thing you wanted me for?" Vane shook his head, feebly. "Upon my word, Hart, I don't know. I had an accident; cab crushed me; I was a little off my head, I think. All a mistake." "Sorry, I'm sure," lisped Hart, "hope it won't be anything real. I tell you I feel quite out of things. All the other way with you, eh! Hear you're no end of a choice thing with the _cafe au lait_ gang. Well, adios!" Vane lay quite still after the other had gone. When he spoke, it was to say, to the emptiness of the room, but nodding to where Hart had last stood: "What a worm! What an utter worm!" The voice was once more the voice of Orson Vane. As realization of that came to him, he spoke again, so loud that Nevins, without, heard it. "Thank God," he said. CHAPTER VIII. The time that had passed since he began the experiment with the Professor's mirror now filled Vane with horror. The life that had seemed so splendid, so triumphant to him a short while ago, now presented itself to him as despicable, mean, hateful. Now that he had safely ousted the soul of Reginald Hart he loathed the things that, under the dominance of that soul, he had done. The quick feeling of success that he had expected from his adventure into the realm of the mind was not his at all; his emotions were mixed, and in that mixture hatred of himself was uppermost. It was true: he had succeeded. The thoughts, the deeds of another man had become his thoughts, his deeds. The entire point of view had been, for the time, changed. But, where he had expected to keep the outland spirit in subjection, it was the reverse that had happened; the usurping soul had been in positive dominance; he had been carried along relentlessly by the desires and the reflections of that other. The fact that he knew, now, to the very letter, the mind that animated that fellow, Reginald Hart, was small consolation to him. The odium of that reputation was inescapably his, Orson Vane's. Oh, the things he had said,--and thought,--and done! He had not expected that any man's mind could be so horrible as that. He thought of the visitation he had conjured upon himself, and so thinking, shuddered. How was he ever to elude the contempt that his masquerade, if he could call it so, would bring him? Above all, that scene with Miss Vanlief came back to him with a bitter pang. What did it profit him, now, to fathom the foul depths of Reginald Hart's mind concerning any ever so girlish creature? It was he, Orson Vane, for all that it was possible to explain to the contrary, who had phrased Miss Vanlief's beauty in such abominable terms. Consternation sat on his face like a cloud. He could think of no way out of the dark alley into which he had put himself. Each public appearance of his now had its tortures. Men who had respected him now avoided him; women to whom he had once condescended were now on an aggravating plane of intimacy. Sometimes he could almost feel himself being pointed out on the street. The mental and physical reaction was beginning to trace itself on his face. He feared his Florentine mirrors now almost as much as the Professor's. The blithe poise had left him. He brooded a good deal. His insight into another nature than his own filled him with a sense of distaste for the human trend toward evil. He spent some weeks away from town, merely to pick up his health again. His strength returned a little, but the joy of life came back but tardily. On his first day in town he met Moncreith. There was an ominous wrinkle gathering in the other's forehead, but Vane braved all chance of a rebuff. "Luke," he said, "don't you know I've been ill? You can't think how ill I've been. Do you remember I told you I was going abroad? I've been abroad, mentally; I have, Luke, really I have. It's like a bad dream to me. You know what I mean." Moncreith found his friend rather pathetic. At their last meeting he had been hot in jealousy of Orson. Now he could afford to pity him. He had made Jeannette Vanlief's acquaintance, and he stood quite well with her. He had made up his mind to stand yet better; he was, in fact, in love with her. He was quite sure that Vane had quite put himself out of that race. So he took the other's hand, and walked amicably to the Town and Country Club with him. "You have been doing strange things," he ventured. "Strange," echoed Vane, "strange isn't the word! Ghastly, horrible--awful things I've been doing. I wish I could explain. But it--it isn't my secret, Luke. All I can say is: I was ill. I am, I hope, quite well again." It seemed an age since he had spent an hour or so in his favorite club. The air of the members was unmistakably frosty. The conversation shrank audibly. He was glad when Moncreith found a secluded corner and bore him to it. But he was not a bright companion; his own thoughts were too depressing to allow of his presenting a sparkling surface to the world. They talked in mere snatches, in curt syllables. "I've seen a good deal of Miss Vanlief," said Moncreith, with conscious triumph. "Oh," said Vane, with a start, "Miss Vanlief? So you know her? Is she--is she well?" "Quite. I see her almost every day." "Fortunate man!" sighed Vane. He was a little weary of life. He wanted to tell somebody what his dreams about Miss Vanlief were; he wanted to cry out loud, "She is the dearest, sweetest girl in the world!" merely to efface, in his own mind, the alien thought of her that had come to him weeks ago. Moncreith did not seem the one to utter this cry to. Moncreith was too engrossed in his own success. He could bear Moncreith's company no longer, not just then. He muttered lame words; he stumbled out to the avenue. Some echo of an instinct turned his steps to the little bookshop. It was quite empty of customers. He passed his fingers over the back of books that he thought Miss Vanlief might have handled. It was an absurd whim, a childish trick. Yet it soothed him perceptibly. Our nerves control our bodies and our nerves are slaves of our imaginations. He was turning to go, when his eye fell on a parcel lying on the counter. It was addressed to "Miss Jeannette Vanlief." "Jeannette, Jeannette!" he said the name over to himself time and again. It brought the image of her before him more plainly than ever. The sunset glint in her hair, the roses and lilies of her skin, the melody in her voice! The charm with which she had first met him, in that very shop. It all came to him keenly. The more remote the possibility of his gaining her seemed, the more he hugged the thought of her. He admitted to himself now, all the more since his excursion into an abominable side of human nature, that she was the most unspoilt creature in his world. A girl with that face, that hair, that wit, was sure to be of a charm that could never lose its flavor; the allurement of her was a thing that could never die. Nothing but thoughts of this girl came to him on the way to his rooms. Once in his own place, he felt that his reflections on Miss Vanlief had served him as a tonic. He felt an energy once more, a vigor, a desire for action. In that mood he turned fiercely upon some of the drawings on his walls. He called Nevins, and had a heap made of the things that now filled him with loathing. "All of the Beardsleys must come down," he ordered. "No; not all. The portrait of Mantegna may stay. That has nobility; the others have the genius of hidden evil. They take too much of the trapping from our horrible human nature. The funeral procession by Willette may hang; his Montmartre things are trivially indecent. Heine and his grotesqueries may stay in jail for all I care. Leave one or two of Thoeny's blue dragoons. Leandre's crowned heads will do me no harm; I can see past their cruelties. But take the Gibsons away; they are relegated to the matinee girl. What is to be done with them? Really, Nevins, don't worry me about such things. Sell them, give them, lose them: I don't care. There's only one man in the world who'd really adore them, and he--" he clenched his hands as he thought of Hart,--"he is a worm, a worm that dieth and yet corrupts everything about him." He sat down, when this clearance was over, and wrote a rather long letter to Professor Vanlief. He told as much as he could bring himself to tell of the result of the experiment. He begged the Professor, knowing the circumstances as no other did, to do what was possible to reinstate him, Vane, in the esteem of Miss Vanlief. As to whether he meant to go on with further experiments; he had not yet made up his mind. There were consequences, obligations, following on this clear reading of other men's souls, that he had not counted upon. CHAPTER IX. To cotton-batting and similar unromantic staples the great house of R.S. Neargood & Co. first owed the prosperity that later developed into world-wide fame. It was success in cotton-batting that enabled the firm to make those speculations that eventually placed millions to its credit, and familiarized the Bourse and Threadneedle Street with its name. What ever else can be said of cotton-batting, however, it is hardly a topic of smart conversation. So in smart circles there was never any mention of cotton-batting when the name of Neargood came up. Instead, it was customary to refer to them as "the people, you know, who built the Equator Palace for the Tropical Government, and all that sort of thing." A certain vagueness is indispensable to polite talk. Yet not even this detail of politics and finance counted most in the smart world. The name of Neargood might never have been heard of in that world if it had not been for the beautiful daughters of the house of Neargood. There is nothing, nowadays, like having handsome daughters. You may have made your millions in pig, or your thousands in whisky, but, in the eyes of the complaisant present, the curse dies with the debut of a beautiful daughter. It is true that the smart sometimes make an absurd distinction between the older generation and the new; sometimes a barrier is raised for the daughter that checks the mother; but caprice was ever one of the qualities of smartness. Through two seasons the beautiful Misses Neargood--Mary and Alice--reigned as belles. They were both good to look at, tall, stately, with distinct profiles. There was not much to choose, so to put it, between them. Mary was the handsomer; Alice the cleverer. Through two seasons the society reporters, on the newspapers that are yellow as well as those that make one blue, exhausted the well of journalese in chronicling the doings of these two young women. The climax of descriptive eloquence was reached on the occasion of the double wedding of Mary and Alice Neargood. Mary changed the name of Neargood for that of Spalding-Wentworth; Alice became Mrs. Van Fenno. Up to this time--as far, at least, as was observable--these two sisters had dwelt together in unity. Never had the spirits of envy or uncharitableness entered them. But after marriage there came to each of them that stormy petrel of Unhappiness, Ambition. As a composer of several songs and light operas. Van Fenno was fairly well known. Spalding-Wentworth was known as a man of Western wealth, of Western blue blood, and of prominence in the smart set. For some time the worldly successes of the Van Fennos did not disturb Mrs. Spalding-Wentworth at all. Her husband was smart, since he moved with the smart; he and his hyphen were the leaders in a great many famous ways, notably in fashion and in golf. From the smart point of view the Van Fennos were not in the hunt with the other family. Mrs. Van Fenno chafed and churned a little in silence, but hope did not die in her. She made up her mind to be as prominent as her sister or perish in the attempt. She did not have to perish. Things took a turn, as they will even in the smart world, and there came a time when it was fashionable to be intellectual. The smart set turned from the distractions of dinners and divorces to the allurements of the arts. Music, painting and literature became the idols of the hour. With that bland, heedless facility that distinguishes To-day, the men and women of fashion became quickly versed in the patter of the Muses. The Van Fennos became the rage. Everybody talked of his music and her charm. Where the reporters had once used space in describing Spalding-Wentworth's leadership in a cotillon or conduct of a coach, they were now required to spill ink in enumeration of "those present" at Mrs. Van Fenno's "musical afternoons." Wherefore there was a cloud on the fair brow of Mary Wentworth. Her intimates were privileged to call her that. Ordinary mortals, omitting the hyphen, would have been frozen with a look. When there is a cloud on the wife's brow it bodes ill for the husband. The follies of a married man should be dealt with leniently; they are mostly of his wife's inspiration. One day the cloud cleared from Mary Wentworth's brow. She was sitting at breakfast with her husband. "Why, Clarence," she exclaimed, with a suddenness that made him drop his toast, "there's literature!" "Where?" said Clarence, anxiously. "Where?" He looked about, eager to please. "Stupid," said his wife. "I mean--why shouldn't we, that is, you--" She looked at him, sure that he would understand without her putting the thing into syllables. "Yes," she repeated, "literature is the thing. There it is, as easy, as easy--" "Hasn't it always been there?" asked her dear, dense husband. A woman may brood over a thing, you see, for months, and the man will not get so much as a suspicion. She went on as if he had never spoken. "Literature is the easiest. Clarence, you must write novels!" He buttered himself another slice of toast. "Certainly, my dear," he nodded, with a pleasant smile. "Quite as you please." It was in this way that the Spalding-Wentworth novels were incited. The art of writing badly is, unfortunately, very easy. In painting and in music some knowledge of technic is absolutely necessary, but in literature the art of writing counts last, and technic is rarely applauded. The fact remains that the smart set thought the Spalding-Wentworth novels were "so clever!" Mrs. Van Fenno was utterly crushed. Mary Wentworth informed an eager world that her husband's next novel would be illustrated with caricatures by herself; she had developed quite a trick in that direction. Now and again her husband refused to bother his head with ambitions, and devoted himself entirely to red coats and white balls. Mrs. Wentworth's only device at such times was to take desperately to golf herself. She really played well; if she had only had staying power, courage, she might have gone far. But, if she could not win cups, she could look very charming on the clubhouse lawn. One really does not expect more from even a queen. It did not disturb Mrs. Wentworth at all to know that, where he was best known, her husband's artistic efforts were considered merely a joke. She knew that everyone had some mask or other to hold up to the world; and she knew there was nothing to fear from a brute of a man or two. In her heart she agreed with them; she knew her husband was a large, kindly, clumsy creature; a useful, powerful person, who needed guidance. Kindly and clumsy--Clarence Spalding-Wentworth had title to those two adjectives: there was no denying that. It was his kindliness that moved him, after a busy day at a metropolitan golf tournament, toward Orson Vane's house. He had heard stories of Vane's illness; they had been at college together; he wanted to see him, to have a chat, a smoke, a good, chummy hour or two. It was his clumsiness that brought about the incident that came to have such memorable consequences. Nevins told him Mr. Vane was out; Wentworth thought he would go in and have a look at Vane's rooms, anyway; sit down, perhaps, and write him a note. Nevins had swung the curtain to behind him when Wentworth's heel caught in the wrapping around the new mirror. He looked into the pool of glass blankly. "Funny thing to cover up a mirror like that!" he told himself. He flung the stuff over the frame carelessly. It merely hung by a thread. Almost any passing wind would be sure to lift it off. "Wonder where he keeps his smokes?" he hummed to himself, striding up and down, like a good natured mammoth. He found some cigars began puffing at one with an audible satisfaction, and at last let himself down to an ebony escritoire that he could have smashed with one hand. He wrote a scrawl; waited again, whistled, looked out of the window, picked up a book, peered at the pictures, and then, with a puff of regret, strode out. As he passed the Professor's mirror the current of air he made swept the curtain from the glass and left it exposed. CHAPTER X. At about the time that Wentworth was scrawling his note in Vane's rooms a slender young woman, dressed in a grey that shimmered like the winter-sea in sunlight, wearing a hat that had the air of having lit upon her hair for the moment only,--merely to give the world an instant's glance at the gracious combination that woman's beauty and man's millinery could effect--was coming out from one of those huge bazaars where you can buy almost everything in the world except the things you want. As she reached the doors, a young man, entering, brushed her arm; his sleeve caught her portemonnaie. He stooped for it, offered it hastily, and then--and not until then, gave a little "Oh!" of--what was it, joy? or mere wonder, or both? "Oh," he repeated, "I can't go in--now. It's--it's ages since I could say two words to you. 'Good-morning!' and 'How do you do?' has been the limit of our talk. Besides, you have a parcel. It weighs, at the very least, an ounce. I could never think of letting you tire yourself so." He took the flimsy mite from her, and ranged his steps to hers. It was true, what he had said about their brief encounters. Do what she would to forget that morning in the Park, and the weeks before it, Jeannette Vanlief had not quite succeeded. Not even the calm dissertations of her father, the arguments pointing to the unfathomable freakishness of human nature, had altogether ousted her aversion to Orson Vane. It was an aversion made the more keen because it came on the heels of a strong liking. She had been prepared to like this young man. Something about him had drawn her; and then had come the something that had simply flung her away. Yet, to-day, he seemed to be the Orson Vane that she had been prepared to like. She remembered some of the strange things her father had been talking about. She noted, as Orson spoke, that the false tenor note was gone out of his voice. But she was still a little fluttered; she could not quite trust herself, or him. "But I am only going to the car," she declared. "It will hardly be worth while. I mustn't take you out of your way." "I see," he regretted, "you've not forgotten. I can't explain; I was--I think I was a little mad. Perhaps it is in the family. But--I wish you would imagine, for to-day, that we had only just known each other a very little while, that we had been in that little bookshop only a day or so ago, that you had read the book, and we had met again, and--." He was looking at her with a glow in his eyes, a tenderness--! Her eyes met his for only an instant, but they fathomed, in that instant, that there was only homage, and worship, and--and something that she dared not spell, even to her soul--in them. That burning greed that she had seen in the Park was not there. She smiled, wistfully, hesitatingly. Yet it was enough for him to cling to; it buoyed his mood to higher courage. "Let us pretend," he went on, "that there are no streetcars in the town. Let us be primitive; let us play we are going to take a peep-show from the top of the Avenue stage! Oh--please! It gets you just as near, you know; and if you like we can go on, and on, and do it all over again. Think of the tops of the hats and bonnets one sees from the roof! It's such a delightful picture of the avenue; you see all the little marionettes going like beads along the string. And then, think of the danger of the climb to the roof! It is like the Alps. You never know, until you are there, whether you will arrive in one piece or in several. Come," he laughed, for she was now really smiling, openly, sweetly, "let us be good children, come in from Westchester County, to see the big city." "Perhaps," she ventured, "we will make it the fashion. And that would spoil it for so many of the plainer people." "Oh," and he waved his hand, "after us--the daily papers! Let us pretend--I beg your pardon, let me pretend--youth, and high spirits, and the intention to enjoy to-day." A rattling and a scraping on the asphalt warned them of an approaching stage, and after a scramble, that had its shy pleasures for both, they found themselves on the top of the old relic. "It is a bit of the Middle Ages," said Orson, "look at those horses! Aren't they delightfully slender? And the paint! Do you notice the paint? And the stories those plush seats down below us could tell! Think of the misers and the millionaires, the dowagers and the drabs, that have let these old stages bump them over Murray Hill! You can't have that feeling about a street-car, not one of the electric ones, at any rate. Do you know the story of the New Yorker who was trying to sleep in a first-class compartment on a French railway? There was a collision, and he was pitched ten feet onto a coal-heap. He said he thought he was at home and he was getting off the stage at Forty-Second street." They were passing through the most frequented part of the avenue. Noted singers and famous players passed them; old beaux and fresh belles; political notabilities and kings of corruption. A famous leader of cotillions, a beauty whose profile vied with her Boston terriers for being her chief distinction, and a noted polo-player came upon the scene and vanished again. Vane and his companion gave, from time to time, little nods to right and left. Their friends stared at them a little, but that caused them no sorrow. Automobiles rushed by. They looked down upon them, lofty in their ruined tower. "As a show," said Vane, "it is admirably arranged. It moves with a beautiful precision. There is nothing hurried about it; the illusion of life is nearly complete. Some of them, I suppose, really are alive?" "I am not sure," she answered, gravely. "Sometimes I think they merely move because there is a button being pressed somewhere; a button we cannot see, and that they spend their lives hiding from us." "I dare say you are right. In the words of Fay Templeton, 'I've been there and I know.' I have made my little detours: but the lane had, thank fortune, a turning." She saw through his playfulness, and her eyes went up to his in a sympathy--oh, it made him reel for sweetness. "I am glad," she said, simply. "But we are getting serious again," he remonstrated, "that would never do. Have we not sworn to be children? Let us pretend--let us pretend!" He looked at the grey roofs, the spires oozing from the hill to the sky. He looked at the grey dream beside him: so grey, so fair, so crowned with the hue of the sun before the world had made him so brazen. "Let us pretend," he went on, after a sigh, "that we are bound for the open road, and that we are to come to an inn, and that we will order something to eat. We--" "Oh," she laughed, "you men, you men! Always something to eat!" "You see, we are of coarse stuff; we cannot sup on star-dust, and dine on bubbles. But--this is only to pretend! An imaginary meal is sometimes so much more fun than a real one. At a real one, you see, I would have to try to eat, and I could not spend the whole time looking at you, and watching the sunshine on your hair, and the lilies--" He caught his breath sharply, with a little clicking noise. "Dear God," he whispered, "the lilies again! And I had never seen them until now." "You are going to be absurd," she said, though her voice was hardly a rebuke. "And wouldn't I have excuse," he asked, "for all the absurdities in the world! I want to be as absurd as I can; I want to think that there's nothing in the world any uglier than--you." "And will you dine off that thought?" "Oh, no; that is merely one of the condiments. I keep that in reach, while the other things come and go. I tell you: how would it be if we began with a bisque of crab? The tenderest pink, you know, and not the ghost of any spice that you can distinguish; a beautiful, creamy blend." "You make it sound delicious," she admitted. "We take it slowly, you know, religiously. The conversation is mostly with the eyes. Dinner conversation is so often just as vapid as dinner-music! The only point in favor of dinner-music is that we are usually spared the sight of it. There is no truth more abused than the one that music must be heard and not seen. When I am king I mean to forbid any singing or playing of instruments within sight of the public; it spoils all the pleasure of the music when one sees the uglinesses in its execution." "But people would not thank you if you kept the sight of Paderewski or De Pachmann from them." "They might not thank me at first, but they would learn gratitude in the end, A contortionist is quite as oppressive a sight as an automaton. No; I repeat, performers of music should never, never be visible. It is a blow in the face of the art of music; it puts it on the plane of the theatre. What persons of culture want to do is to listen, to listen, to listen; to shut the eyes, and weave fancies about the strains as they come from an unseen corner. Is there not always a subtle charm about music floating over a distance? That is a case in point; that same charm should always be preserved. The pianist, the soloist of any sort, as well as the orchestra, or the band--except in the case of the regimental band, in battle or in review, where actual spectacle, and visible encouragement are the intention--should never be seen. There should always be a screen, a curtain, between us and the players. It would make the trick of music criticism harder, but it would still leave us the real judges. Take out of music criticism the part that covers fingering, throat manipulation, pedaling, and the like, and what have you left? These fellows judge what they see more than what they hear. To give a proper judgment of the music that comes from the unseen; that is the only test of criticism. There can be no tricks, no paddings." "But the opera?" wondered the girl. "The opera? Oh, the opera is, at best, a contradiction in terms. But I do not waive my theory for the sake of opera. It should be seen as little as any other form of music. The audience, supplied with the story of the dramatic action, should follow the incidents by ear, not by eye. That would be the true test of dramatic writing in music. We would, moreover, be spared the absurdity of watching singers with beautiful voices make themselves ridiculous by clumsy actions. As to comic opera--the music's appeal would suffer no tarnish from the merely physical fascination of the star or the chorus ... I know the thought is radical; it seems impossible to imagine a piano recital without long hair, electric fingers, or visible melancholia; opera with only the box-holders as appeals to the eye seems too good to be true; but--I assure you it would emancipate music from all that now makes it the most vicious of the arts. Painters do not expect us to watch them painting, nor does the average breed of authors--I except the Manx--like to be seen writing. Yet the musician--take away the visible part of his art, and he is shorn of his self-esteem. I assure you I admire actors much more than musicians; actors are frankly exponents of nothing that requires genius, while musicians pretend to have an art that is over and above the art of the composer.... Music--" "Do you realize," interrupted the girl, with a laugh that was melody itself, "that you are feasting me upon dinner-music without dinner. It must be ages since we began that imaginary feast. But now, I am quite sure we are at the black coffee. And I have been able to notice nothing except your ardor in debate. You were as eager as if you were being contradicted." "You see," he said, "it only proves my point. Dinner-music is an abomination. It takes the taste of the food away. While I was playing, you admit, you tasted nothing between the soup and the coffee. Whereas, in point of fact--" "Or fancy?" "As you please. At any rate--the menu was really something out of the common. There were some delightful wines. A sherry that the innkeeper had bought of a bankrupt nobleman; so would run his fable for the occasion, and we would believe it, because, in cases of that sort, it takes a very bad wine to make one pooh-pooh its pedigree. A Madeira that had been hidden in a cellar since 1812. We would believe that, every word of it, because we would know that there was really no Madeira in all the world; and we must choose between insulting our stomachs or our intelligence. And then the coffee. It would come in the tiniest, most transparent, most fragile--" "Yes," she laughed, "I dare say. As transparent and as fragile as the entire fabric of our repast, I have no doubt. But--pity me, do!--I shall have to leave the beautiful banquet about where you have put it, in the air. I have a ticking conscience here that says--" "Oh, hide it," he supplicated, "hide it. Watches are nothing but mechanisms that are jealous of happiness; whenever there is a happy hour a watch tries to end it. When I am king I shall prohibit the manufacture and sale of watches. The fact that they may be carried about so easily is one of their chief vices; one never knows nowadays from what corner a woman will not bring one; they carry them on their wrists, their parasols, their waists, their shoulders. Can you be so cruel as to let that little golden monster spoil me my hour of happiness--" "But I would have to be cruel one way or the other. You see, my father will wonder what has become of me. He expects me to dinner." "Ah, well," he admitted soberly, if a little sadly, "we must not keep him waiting. You must tell the Professor where we have been, and what we said, and how silly I was, and--Heigho, I wish I could tell you how the little hour with you has buoyed me up. Your presence seems to stir my possibilities for good. I wish I could see you oftener. I feel like the provincial who says good-bye with a: 'May I come 'round this evening?' as a rider." "A doubtful compliment, if I make you rustic," she said. "But I have something on this evening; an appointment with a man. The most beautiful man in the world, and the best, and the kindest--" "His name?" he cried, with elaborate pretense of melodrama, for he saw that she was full of whimsies. "Professor Vanlief," she curtsied. They were walking, by now, in the shade of the afternoon sun. Vane saw a stage approaching them, one that would take him back to the lower town. She saw it, too, and his intention. She shook hands with him, and took time to say, softly: "Do you never ride in the Park any more?" "Oh," he said, "tell me when. To-morrow morning? At McGowan's Pass? At ten? Oh, how I wish that stage was not coming so fast!" In their confusion, and their joyous sense of having the same absurd thought in common, they both laughed at the notion of a Fifth avenue stage ever being too fast. Yet this one, and Time, sped so swiftly that Vane could only shake hands hastily with his fair companion, look at her worshipfully, and jump upon the clattering vehicle. He would never have believed that so ramshackle a conveyance could have harbored so many dreams as had been his that day. That thought was his companion all the way home. That, and efforts to define his feelings toward Miss Vanlief. Was it love? What else could it be! And if it was, was he ready, for her, to give up those ambitions of still further sounding hitherto unexplored avenues of the human mind? Was this fragile bit of grace and glamour to come between him and the chance of opening a new field to science? Had he not the opportunity to become famous, or, at the very least, to become omnipotent in reading the hearts, the souls, of men? Were not the possibilities of the Professor's discovery unlimited? Was it not easy by means of that mirror in his rooms, for any chief of police in the world to read the guilt or innocence of every accused man? Yet, on the other hand, would marriage interfere? Yes; it would. One could not serve two such goddesses as woman and science. He would have to make up his mind, to decide. But, in the meanwhile, there was plenty of time. Surely, for the present, he could be happy in the thought of the morrow, of the ride they were to take in the Park, of the cantering, the chattering together, the chance to see the morning wind spin the twists of gold about her cheeks and bring the sparkle to her eyes. He let himself into his house without disturbing any of the servants. He passed into his room. He lifted the curtain of the doorway with one hand, and with the other turned the button that lighted the room. As the globes filled with light they showed him his image in the new mirror. He reeled against the wall with the surprise of the thing. He noted the mirror's curtain in a heap at the foot of the frame. Perhaps, after all, it had been merely the wind. He summoned Nevins. The curtain he replaced on the staring face of the mirror. Whence the thought came from, he did not know, but it occurred to him that the scene was like a scene from a novel. "Nevins," he asked, "was anyone in my rooms?" "Mr. Spalding-Wentworth, sir." Orson Vane laughed,--a loud, gusty, trumpeting laugh. He understood. But he understood, also, that the accident that had brought the soul of Spalding-Wentworth into his keeping had decreed, also, that the dominance should not be, as on a former time, with the usurper. He knew that the soul of Spalding-Wentworth, to which he gave the refuge of his own body, was a small soul. Yet even little souls have their spheres of influence. CHAPTER XI. It was a morning such as the wild flowers, out in the suburban meadows, must have thought fit for a birthday party. As for the town, it lost, under that keen air and gentle sun, whatever of garish and unhealthy glamour it had displayed the night before. "The morning," Orson Vane had once declared, in a moment of revelation, "is God's, and the night is man's." He was speaking, of course, of the town. In the severe selectiveness that had grown upon him after much rout and riot through other lands, he pretended that the town was the only spot on the map. Certainly this particular morning seemed to bear out something of this saying; it swept away the smoke and the taint, the fever and the flush of the night before; the visions of limelights and glittering crystals and enmillioned vice fled before the gust of ozone that came pouring into the streets. Before night, to be sure, man would have asserted himself once more; the pomp and pageant of the primrose path would have ousted, with its artificial charm, the clean, sweet freshness of the morning. The grim houses on upper Fifth avenue put on semblance of life reluctantly that morning. Houses take on the air of their inmates; these houses wore their best manner only under artificial lights. Surly grooms and housemaids went muttering and stumbling about the areas. Sad-faced wheelmen flashed over the asphalt, cursing the sprinkling carts. It was not too early for the time-honored preoccupation of the butcher cart, which consists of turning corners as if the world's end was coming. Pallid clubmen strode furtively in the growing sunshine. To them, as to the whole town, the sun and its friend, the breeze, came as a tonic and a cure. So strange a thing is the soul of man that Orson Vane, riding towards the Park that morning, caught only vague, fleeting impressions of the actual beauty of the day. He simply wondered, every foot of the way to McGowan's Pass, whether Miss Vanlief played golf. The first thing he said to her after they had exchanged greetings, was: "Of course you golf?" She looked at him in alarm. There was something--something, but what was it?--in his voice, in his eye. She had expected a reference to the day before, to their infantile escapade on the roof of the coach. Instead, this banale, this stupid, this stereotyped phrase! Her flowerlike face clouded; she gave her mare the whip. "No," she called out, "I cannot bear the game." His horse caught the pace with difficulty; the groom was left far out of sight, beyond a corner. But the diversion had not touched Vane's trend of thought at all. "Oh," he assured her, when the horses were at an amble again, "it's one of those things one has to do. Some things have to be done, you know; society won't stand for anything less, you know, oh, no. I have to play golf, you know; part of my reputation." "I didn't know," she faltered. She tried to remember when Orson Vane had ever been seen on either the expert or the duffer list at the golf matches. "Oh, yes; people expect it of me. If I don't play I have to arrange tournaments. Handicapping is great fun; ever try it? No? You should. Makes one feel quite like a judge at sessions. Oh, there's nothing like golf. Not this year, at least. Next year it may be something else. I may have to take to polo or tennis. One is expected to show the way, you know; a man in my position--" He looked at her with a kind of 'bland, blunt, clumsy egoism, that made her wonder where was the Orson Vane of yesterday. This riddle began to sadden her. Perhaps it was true, as she had heard somewhere, that the man was mentally unbalanced; that he had his--well, his bad days. She sighed. She had looked forward to this ride in the Park; she admitted that to herself. Not in a whole afternoon spent with Luke Moncreith had she felt such happy childishness stirring in her as yesterday, in the hour with Orson Vane. And now--She sighed. The hum of an approaching automobile reached them, the glittering vehicle proclaiming its progress in that purring stage whisper that is still the inalienable right of even the newest "bubble" machine. The coat worn by the smart young person on the seat would have shocked the unenlightened, for that sparkling, tingling morning it struck the exact harmonious note of artifice. Orson Vane bowed. It was "the" Miss Carlos. Just as there is only one Mrs. Carlos, so there is only one Miss Carlos. "She plays a decent game," said Vane to his companion. "Of life?" "No; golf." He looked at her in amazement. Life! What was life compared to golf? Life? For most people it was, at best, a foozle. Nearly everybody pressed; very few followed through, and the bunkers--good Lord, the bunkers! "I'm thinking of writing a golfing novel," began Orson, after an interval in which he managed to wonder whether one couldn't play golf from horseback. "Oh," said Miss Vanlief wearily, "how does one set about it!" He was quite unaware of her weariness. He chirped his answer with blind enthusiasm. "It's very easy," he declared. "There are always a lot of women, you know, who are aching to do things in that line. You give them the prestige of your name, that's all. One of them writes the thing; you simply keep them from foozling the phrases now and then. Another illustrates it." "And does anyone buy it?" "Oh, all the smart people do. It's one of those things one is supposed to do. There's no particular reason or sense in it; but smart people expect one another to read things like that. The newspapers get quite silly over such books. Then, after novels, I think, I shall take to having them done over for the stage? Don't you think a golfing comedy, with a sprinkling of profanity and Scotch whiskey, would be all the rage?" Jeannette Vanlief reined in her mare. She looked at Orson Vane; looked him, as much as she could, through and through. Was it all a stupid jest? She could find nothing but dense earnestness in her face, in his eyes. Oh, the riddle was too tiresome, too hopeless. It was simply not the same man at all! She gave it up, gave him up. "Do you mind," she said, "if I ride home now? I'm tired." It should have been a blow in the face, but Orson Vane never so much as noticed it. "Tired?" he repeated. "Oh; all right. We'll turn about. Rather go back alone? Oh, all right. Wish you'd learn to play golf; you really must!" And upon that he let her canter away, the groom following, some little wonder on his impassive front. As for Jeannette Vanlief she burst into her father's room a little later, and then into tears. "And I wanted to love him!" she wailed presently, from out her confusion and her distress. The Professor was patting her hair, and wondering what in all the world was the matter. At her speech, he thought he saw a light. "And why not?" he asked, soothingly, "He seems quite estimable. He was here only a moment ago?" "Who was here?" she asked in bewilderment. "Mr. Moncreith." At that she laughed. The storm was over, the sunshine peeped out again. "You dear, blind comfort, you!" she said, "What do I care if a thousand Moncreiths--" "Then it's Orson Vane," said the Professor, not so blind after all. "Well, dear, and what has he been doing now?" He listened to her rather rambling, rather spasmodic recital; listened and grew moody, though he could scarce keep away some little mirth. He saw through these masquerades, of course. Who else, if not he? Poor Jeannette! So she had set her happy little heart upon that young man? A young man who, to serve both their ends, was playing chameleon. A young man who was mining greater secrets from the deeps of the human soul than had ever been mined before. A wonderful young man, but--would that make for Jeannette's happiness? At any rate he, the Professor, would have to keep an eye open for Vane's doings. There was no knowing what strange ways these borrowed souls might lead to. He wondered who it was that, this time, had been rifled of his soul. Wonder did not long remain the adjuncts of the Professor and his daughter only. The whole world of society began to wonder, as time went on, at the new activities of Orson Vane. Wonder ceased, presently, and there was passive acceptance of him in his new role. Fashions, after all, are changed so often in the more external things, that the smart set would not take it as a surprising innovation if some people took to changing their souls to suit the social breeze. Orson Vane took a definite place in the world of fashion that season. He became the arbiter of golf; he gave little putting contests for women and children; he looked after the putting greens of a number of smart clubs with as much care as a woman gives her favorite embroideries. He took to the study of the Turkish language. There were rumors that he meant to become the Minister to Turkey. He traveled a great deal, and he published a book called "The Land of the Fez." Another little brochure bearing his name was "The Caddy; His Ailments and Diseases." It was rumored that he was busy in dramatization of his novel, "Five Loaves and Two Fishes!" When Storman Pasha made his memorable visit to the States it was Orson Vane who became his guide and friend. A jovial club of newspaper roysterers poked fun at him by nominating him for Mayor. He went through it all with a bland humorlessness and stubborn dignity that nothing could affront. His indomitable energy, his intense seriousness about everything, kept smart society unalterably loyal. He led its cotillions, arranged its more sober functions, and was a household word with the outsiders that reach society only through the printed page. His novels--whether they were his own or done for him hardly matters--were just dull enough to offend nobody. The most indolent dweller in Vanity Fair could affect his books without the least mental exertion. The lives of our fashionables are too full, too replete with a multitude of interests and excitements, to allow of the concentration proper for the reading of scintillating dialogue, or brilliant observations. Orson Vane appeared to gauge his public admirably; he predominated in the outdoor life, in golf, in yachting, in coaching, yet he did not allow anyone else to dispute the region of the intellect, of indoors, with him. He shone, with a severe dimness, in both fields. Jeannette Vanlief, meanwhile, lost much of the sparkle she had hitherto worn. She drooped perceptibly. The courtship of Luke Moncreith left her listless; he persevered on the strength of his own ambition rather than her encouragement. His daughter's looks at last began seriously to worry Professor Vanlief. Something ought to be done. But what? It was apparently Orson Vane's intention to keep that borrowed soul with him for a long time. In the meanwhile Jeannette.... The Professor, the more he considered the matter, felt the more strongly that just as he was the one who had given Vane this power, so had he the right, if need be, to interfere. The need was urgent. The masquerade must be put an end to. His resolve finally taken, Professor Vanlief paid a visit to Orson Vane's house. Vane was, as he had hoped, not at home. He cross-questioned Nevins. The man was only too willing to admit that his master's actions were queer. But Mr. Vane had given him warning to that effect; he must have felt it coming on. It was a malady, no doubt. For his part he thought it was something that Mr. Vane would wish to cure rather than endure. He didn't pretend to understand his master of late, but-- The Professor put a period to the man's volubility with some effort. "I want you," he urged, "to jog your memory a little. Never mind the symptoms. Give me straightforward answers. Now--did you touch the new mirror, leaving it uncovered, at any time within the past few weeks?" "Oh," was the answer, "the new mirror, is it! I knows well the uncanny thing was sure to make trouble for me. But I gives you my word, as I hopes to be saved, that I've never so much as brushed the dust off it, much less taken the curtain off. It's fearsome, is that mirror, I'm thinking. It's--" "Then think back," pressed the Professor, again stemming the tide of the other's talk relentlessly, "think back: was anyone, ever, at any time, alone in Mr. Vane's rooms? Think, think!" "I disremember," stammered Nevins. "I think not--Oh, wait! It was a long time ago, but I think a gentleman wrote Mr. Vane a note once, and I, having work in the other rooms, let him be undisturbed. But I told the master about it, the minute he came in, sir. He was not the least vexed, sir. Oh, I'm easy in my mind about that time." "Yes, yes,--but the gentleman's name!" The Professor shook the man's shoulder quite roughly. "His name? Oh, it was just Mr. Spalding-Wentworth, sir, that was all." The Professor sat down with a laugh. Spalding-Wentworth! He laughed again. Nevins had the air of one aggrieved. "Mr. Vane laughed, too, I remember, when I told him. Just the minute I told him, sir, he laughed. I've puzzled over it, time and again, why--" The Professor left Nevins puzzling. There was no time to be lost. He remembered now that Spalding-Wentworth had for some time been ailing. The world, in its devotion to Orson Vane, had forgotten, almost, that such a person as Spalding-Wentworth had ever existed. To be forgotten one has only to disappear. Dead men's shoes are filled nowhere so quickly as in Vanity Fair; though, to be paradoxic, for the most part they are high-heeled slippers. It took some little time, some work, to arrange what the Professor had decided must be done. He went about his plans with care and skill. He suborned Nevins easily enough, using, chiefly, the plain truth. Nevins, with the superstition of his class, was willing to believe far greater mysteries than the Professor half hinted at. By Nevins' aid it happened that Orson Vane slept, one night, face to face with the polished surface of the new mirror. In the morning it was curtained as usual. That morning Augustus Vanlief called at the Wentworth house. He asked for Mrs. Wentworth. He went to his point at once. "You know who I am, I dare say, Mrs. Wentworth. You love your husband, I am sure; you will pardon my intrusion when I tell you that perhaps I can do something the best thing of all--for him. It is, in its way, a matter of life and death. Do the doctors give you any hope?" Mrs. Wentworth, her beauty now tired and touched by traces of spoilt ambition, made a listless motion with her hands. "I don't know why I should tell you," she said, "or why I should not. They tell me vague things, the doctors do, but I don't believe they know what is the matter." "Do you?" "I?" she looked at Vanlief, and found a challenge in his regard. "It seems," she admitted, "as if--I hardly like to say it,--but it seems as if there was no soul in him any more. He is a shell, a husk. The life in him seems purely muscular. It is very depressing. Why do you think you can do anything for Clarence, Professor? I did not know your researches took you into medicine?" "Ah, but you admit this is not a matter for medicine, but for the mind. Will you allow me an experiment madame? I give you my word of honor, my honor and my reputation, that there is no risk, and there may be--perhaps, an entire restoration. There is--a certain operation that I wish to try--" "An operation? The most eminent doctors have told me such a thing would be useless. We might as well leave my poor husband clear of the knife, Professor." "Oh, it is no operation, in that sense. Nothing surgical. I can hardly explain; professional secrets are involved. If you did not know that I am but a plodding old man of science--if I were an unknown charlatan--I would not ask you to put faith in me. But--I give you my word, my promise, that if you will let Mr. Wentworth come with me in my brougham I will return with him within the hour. He will be either as he is now, or--as he once was." "As he once was--!" Mrs. Wentworth repeated the phrase, and the thought brought her a keen moment of anguish that left a visible impress on her features. "Ah," she sighed, "if I could only think such a thing possible!" She brooded in silence a moment or two. Then she spoke. "Very well. You will find him in the library. Prim, show the gentleman to the library. If you can persuade him, Professor--" She smiled bitterly. "But then, anybody can persuade him nowadays." She turned to some embroidery as if to dismiss the subject, to show that she was resigned even to hopeless experiments. The very fact that she was plying the needle rather than the social sceptre was gauge of her descent from the heights. As a matter of fact Vanlief found Wentworth amenable enough. Wentworth was reading Marie Corelli. His mind was as empty as that. Nothing could better define his utter lapse from intelligence. He put the book down reluctantly as the Professor came in. He listened without much enthusiasm. A drive? Why not? He hadn't driven much of late, but if it was something that would please the Professor. He remembered, through a mist, that he had known Vanlief when he himself was a boy; his father had often spoken of Vanlief with respect. Nothing further in the way of mental exertion came to him. He followed Vanlief as a dog follows whoso speaks kindly to it. The conversation between the two, in the brougham, would hardly tend to the general entertainment. It was a thing of shreds and patches. It led nowhither. The brougham stopped at the door of Orson Vane's house. Nevins let them in, whispering an assuring confidence to the professor. As they reached the door of the dressing-room Vanlief pushed Wentworth ahead of him, and bade him enter. He kept behind him, letting the other's body screen him from the staring mirror. Wentworth looked at himself. A hand traveled slowly up to his forehead. "By Jove!" he said, hesitatingly, "I never put the curtain back, after all." And he covered up the mirror. "Curious thing," he went on, with energy vitalizing each word, "what possessed me to come here just now, when I know for a fact that they're playing the Inter-State Golf championships to-day. Dashed if I know why I didn't go!" He walked out, plainly puzzled, clumsily heedless of Vanlief and Nevins, but--himself once more. Orson Vane, at just that time, was on the links of the Fifeshire Golf Club. He was wearing a little red coat with yellow facings. He was in the act of stooping on a green, to look along the line of his putt, when he got to his feet in a hurried, bewildered way. He threw his putter down on the green. He blushed all over, shaming the tint of his scarlet coat. "What a foolish game for a grown-up man!" he blurted out, and strode off the grounds. The bystanders were aghast. They could not find words. Orson Vane, the very prophet of golf, to throw it over in that fashion! It was inexplicable! The episode was simply maddening. But it was remarked that the decline of golf on this side of the water dated from that very day. CHAPTER XII. Orson Vane was taking lunch with Professor Vanlief. Jeannette, learning of Vane's coming, had absented herself. "It is true," Vane was saying, "that I can assert what no other man has asserted before,--that I know the exact mental machinery of two human beings. Yes; that is quite true. But--" "I promised nothing more," remarked Vanlief. "No. That is true, too. I have lived the lives of others; I have given their thoughts a dwelling. But I am none the happier for that." "Oh," admitted Vanlief, "wisdom does not guarantee happiness...." He drummed with his fine, long fingers, upon the table-cloth. Vane, watching him, noted the almost transparent quality of his skin. Under that admirable mask of military uprightness there was an aging, a fading process going on, that no keen observer could miss. "It is the pursuit, not the capture of wisdom, that brings happiness. Wisdom is too often only a bubble that bursts when you touch it." "Perhaps that is it. At any rate I know that I do not love my neighbor any more because I have fathomed some of his thoughts. Moreover, Professor, has it occurred to you that your discovery, your secret, carries elements of danger with it? Take my own experiments; there might have been tragic results; whole lives might have been ruined. In one case I was nearly the victim of a tragedy myself; I might have become, for all time, the dreadful creature I was giving house-room to. In the other, there was no more than a farce possible; the visiting spirit was, after all, in subjection to my own. I think you will have to simplify the details of your marvelous secret. It works a little clumsily, a little--" "Oh," the Professor put in, "I am perfecting the process. I spend my days and my nights in elaborating the details. I mean to have it in the simplest, most unmistakable perfection before I hand it over to the human race." "Sometimes I think," mused Vane, "that your boon will be a doubtful one. I can see no good to be gained. My whole point of view is changing. I ached for such a chance of wisdom once; now that it has come to me I am sad because the things I have learned are so horrible, so silly. I had not thought there were such souls in the world; or not, at any rate, in the immediate world about me." "Oh," the Professor went on, steadfastly, "there will be many benefits in the plan. Doctors will be able to go at once to the root of any ailments that have their seat in the brain. Witnesses cab be made to testify the truth. Oh--there are ever so many possibilities." "As many for evil as for good. Second-rate artists could steal the ideas, the inventions of others. No inventor, no scientist, would be sure of keeping his secrets. The thing would be a weapon in the hands of the unscrupulous." "Ah, well," smiled Vanlief, "so far I have not made my discovery public, have I? It is a thing I must consider very carefully. As you say, there are arguments on either side. But you must bear in mind that you are somewhat embittered. It was your own fault; you chose the subject wittingly. If you were to read a really beautiful mind, you might turn to the other extreme; you might urge me to lose no time in giving the world my secret. The wise way is between the two; I must go forward with my plans, prepared for either course. I may take it to my grave with me, or I may give it to the world; but, so far, it is still a little incomplete; it is not ripe for general distribution. Instead of the one magic mirror there must be myriads of them. There are stupendous opportunities. All that you have told me of your own experiences in these experiments has proved my skill to have been wisely employed; your success was beyond my hopes. Do you think you will go on?" Orson Vane did not answer at once. It was something he had been asking himself; he was not yet sure of the answer. "I haven't made up my mind," he replied. "So far I have hardly been repaid for my time and the vital force employed. I almost feel toward these experiments as toward a vice that refines the mind while coarsening the frame. That is the story of the most terrible vices, I think; they corrode the body while gilding the brain. But this much I know; if I use your mirror again it will not be to borrow a merely smart soul; I mean to go to some other sphere of life. That one is too contracted." "Strange," said the Professor, "that you should have said that. Jeannette pretends she thinks that, too. I cannot get her to take her proper position in the world. She is a little elusive. But then, to be sure, she is not, just now, at her best." "She is not ill?" asked Vane, with a guilty start. "Nothing tangible. But not--herself...." Vane observed that he wished he might have found her in; he feared he had offended her; he hoped the Professor would use his kind offices again to soften the young lady's feelings toward him. Then he got up to go. Strolling along the avenue he noted certain aspects of the town with an appreciation that he had not always given them. He had seen these things from so many other points of view of late; had been in sympathy with them, had made up a fraction of their more grotesque element; that to see them clearly with his own eyes had a sort of novelty. The life of to-day, as it appeared on the smartest surfaces, was, he reflected, a colorful if somewhat soulless picture.... The young men sit in the clubs and in the summer casinos, smoking and wondering what the new mode in trousers is to be; an acquaintance goes by; he has a hat that is not quite correct, and his friends comment on it yawningly; he has not the faintest notion of polite English, but nobody cares; a man who has written great things walks by, but he wears a creased coat, and the young men in the smoking-room sniff at him. In the drags and the yachts the women and the girls sit in radiance and gay colors and arrogant unconsciousness of position and power; they talk of golfing and fashion and mustachios; Mrs. Blank is going a hot pace and Mrs. Landthus is a thoroughbred; adjectives in the newest sporting slang fly about blindingly; the language is a curious argot, as distinct as the tortuous lingo of the Bowery. A coach goes rattling by, the horses throwing their heads in air, and their feet longing for the Westchester roads. The whip discusses bull-terriers; the people behind him are declaring that the only thing you can possibly find in the Waldorf rooms is an impossible lot of people. The complexions of all these people, intellectually presentable in many ways, and fashionable in yet more modes, are high in health. They look happy, prosperous and satisfied.... Yes, there was a superficial fairness to the picture, Vane admitted. If only, if only, he had not chosen to look under the surface! Now that he had seen the world with other eyes, its fairness could rarely seem the same to him. A sturdy beggar approached him, with a whine that proved him an admirable actor. But Vane could not find it in him to reflect that if there is one thing more than another that lends distinction to a town it is an abundance of beggars. He wondered how it would be to annex this healthy impostor's mite of a soul. But no; there could be little wisdom gained there. He made, finally, for the Town and Country Club, and tried to immerse himself in the conversation that sped about. The talked turned to the eminent actor, Arthur Wantage. The subject of that man's alleged eccentricities invariably brought out a flood of the town's stalest anecdotes. Vane, listening in a lazy mood, made up his mind to see Wantage play that night. It would be a distraction. It would show him, once again, the present limit in one human being's portraiture of another; he would see the highest point to which external imitation could be brought; he could contrast it with the heights to which he himself had ascended. It would be a chance for him to consider Wantage, for the first time in his life, as a merely second-rate actor. This player was an adept only in the making the shell, the husk, seem lifelike; since he could not read the character, how could he go deeper? The opportunities the theatre held for him suddenly loomed vast before Vane. CHAPTER XIII. The fact that Arthur Wantage was to be seen and heard, nightly, in a brilliant comedy by the author of "Pious Aeneas," was not so much the attraction that drew people to his theatre, as was the fact that he had not yet, that season, delivered himself of a curtain speech. His curtain speeches were wont to be insults delivered in an elaborately honeyed manner; he took the pose of considering his audiences with contempt; he admired himself far more for his condescension in playing to them than he respected his audiences for having the taste to admire him. The comedy in which he was now appearing was the perfection of paradox. It pretended to be frivolous and was really philosophic. The kernel of real wisdom was behind the elaborately poised mask of wit. A delightful impertinence and exaggeration informed every line of the dialogue. The pose of inimitable, candid egoism showed under every situation. The play was typical of the author as well as of the player. It veiled, as thinly as possible, a deal of irony at the expense of the play going public; it took some of that public's dearest foibles and riddled them to shreds. It was currently reported that the only excuse for comparatively amicable relations between Wantage and O'Deigh, who had written this comedy, was the fact of there being an ocean between them. Even at that Wantage found it difficult to suffer the many praises he heard bestowed, not upon himself but O'Deigh. He had burst out in spleen at this adulation, once, in the hearing of an intimate. "My dear Arthur," said the other, "you strike me as very ungrateful. For my part, when I see your theatre crowded nightly, when I see how your exchequer fills steadily, it occurs to me that you should go down on your knees every night, and thank God that O'Deigh has done you such a stunning play." "Oh," was Wantage's grudging answer, "I do, you know I do. But I also say: Oh, God, why did it have to be by O'Deigh?" The secret of his hatred for O'Deigh was the secret of his hatred for all dramatists. He was a curious compound of egoism, childishness and shrewdness. Part of his shrewdness--or was it his childishness?--showed in his aversion to paying authors' royalties. He always tried to re-write all the plays he accepted; if the playwrights objected there was sure to be a row of some sort. When he could find no writers willing to make him a present of plays, for the sake, as he put it, of having it done by as eminent an actor as himself, and in so beautiful a theatre, he was in the habit of announcing that he would forsake the theatre, and turn critic. He pretended that the world--the public, the press, even the minor players--were in league against him. There was a conspiracy to drive him from the theatre; the riff-raff resented that a man of genius should be so successful. They lied about him; he was sure they lied; for stories, of preposterous import, came to him; he vowed he never read the newspapers--never. As for London--oh, he could spin you the most fascinating yarn of the cabal that had dampened his London triumph. He mentioned, with a world of meaning in his tone, the name of the other great player of the time; he insinuated that to have him, Wantage, succeed in London, had not been to that other player's mind; so the wires had been pulled; oh, it was all very well done. He laughed at the reminiscence,--a brave, bluff laugh, that told you he could afford to let such petty jealousies amuse him. The riddle of Arthur Wantage's character had never yet been read. There were those who averred he was never doing anything but acting, not in the most intimate moments of his life; some called him a keen moneymaker, retaining the mummer's pose off the stage for the mere effect of it on the press and the public. What the man's really honest, unrehearsed thoughts were,--or if he ever had such--no man could say. To many earnest students of life this puzzle had presented itself. It began to present itself, now, to Orson Vane. This, surely, was a secret worth the reading. Here were, so to say, two masks to lift at once. This man, Arthur Wantage, who came out before the curtain now as this, now as that, character of fancy or history, what shred of vital, individual personality had he retained through all these changings? The enthusiasm of discovery, of adventure came upon Vane with a sharpness that he had not felt since the day he had mocked the futility of human science because it could not unlock other men's brains. The horseshoe-shaped space that held the audience glittered with babble and beauty as Orson Vane took his seat in the stalls. The presence of the smart set gave the theatre a very garland of charm, of grace, and of beauty's bud and blossom. The stalls were radiant, and full of polite chatter. The boxes wore an air of dignified twilight,--a twilight of goddesses. The least garish of the goddesses, yet the one holding the subtlest sway, was Jeanette Vanlief. She sat, in the shadow of an upper box, with her father and Luke Moncreith. On her pale face the veins showed, now and then; the flush of rose came to it like a surprise--like the birth of a new world. She radiated no obvious, blatant fascination. Her hands slim and white; her voice firm and low; her eyes of a hue like that of bronze, streaked like the tiger-lilies; her profile sharp as a cameo's; the nose, with its finely-chiseled nostrils, curved in Roman mode; the mouth, thin and of the faintest possible red, slightly drooping. And then, her hair! It held, again, a spray of lilies of the valley; the artificial lights discovered in the waves and the curls of it the most unexpected shades, the most mercurial tints. The slight touch of melancholy that hovered over her merely enhanced her charm. Moncreith told himself that he would go to the uttermost ends of evil to win this woman. He had come, the afternoon of that day, through the most dangerous stream in the world, the stream of loveliness that flows over certain portions of the town at certain fashionable hours. It is a stream the eddies of which are of lace and silk; its pools are the blue of eye and the rose of mouth; its cataracts are skirts that swirl and whisper and sing of ivory outlines and velvet shadows. Yet, as he looked at Jeannette Vanlief, all that fascinating, dangerous stream lost its enticement for him; he saw her as a dream too high for comparison with the mere earthiness of the town. He felt, with a grim resolution, that nothing human should come between him and Jeannette. Orson Vane, from his chair, paid scant attention to his fellow spectators. He was intent upon the dish that O'Deigh and Wantage had prepared for his delectation. He felt a delicious interest in every line, every situation. He had made up his mind that he would go to the root of the mystery that men called Arthur Wantage. Whether that mask concealed a real, high intelligence, or a mere, cunning, monkeylike facility in imitation--his was to be the solution of that question. Wrapped up in that thought he never so much as glanced toward the box where his friends sat. At the end of the first act Vane strolled out into the lobby. He nodded hither and thither, but he felt no desire for nearer converse. A hand on his shoulder brought him face to face with Professor Vanlief. He was asked to come up to the box. He listened, gravely, to the Professor's words, and thanked him. So Moncreith was smitten? He smiled in a kindly way; he understood, now, the many brusqueries of his friend. That day, long ago, when he had been so inexplicable in the little bookshop; the many other occasions, since then, when Luke had been rude and bitter. A man in love was never to be reckoned on. He wished Luke all the luck in the world. It struck him but faintly that he himself had once longed for that sweet daughter of Augustus Vanlief's; he told himself that it was a dream he must put away. He was a mariner bent on many deep-sea voyages and many hazards of fate; it would be unfair to ask any woman to share in any such life. His life would be devoted to furthering the Professor's discoveries; he meant to be an adventurer into the regions of the human soul; it was a land whither none could follow. Perhaps, if he had seen Jeannette, he might have felt no such resignation. His mood was so tense in its devotion to the puzzle presented by the player, Wantage, that the news brought him by Vanlief did not suffice to rouse him. He had a field of his own; that other one he was content to leave to Moncreith. Moncreith, in the meanwhile, was making the most of the opportunity the Professor, in the kindness of his heart, had given him. The orchestra was playing a Puccini potpourri. It rose feebly against the prattle and the chatter and the hissing of the human voices. Moncreith, at first, found only the most obvious words. "A trifle bitter, the play," he said, "rather like a sneer, don't you think?" "Well," granted Jeannette, indolently, "I suppose it is not called 'Voltaire' for nothing. And there are moods that such a play might suit." "No doubt. But--do you think one can be bitter, when one loves?" The girl looked up in wonder. She blushed. The melancholy did not leave her face. "Bitter? Love?" she echoed. "They spell the same thing." "Oh," he urged, "the play has made you morbid. As for me, I have heard nothing, seen nothing, but you. The bitterness of the play has skimmed by me, that is all; I have been in too sweet a dream to let those people on the stage--" "How Wantage would rage if he heard you," said the girl. She felt what was coming, and she meant to fence as well as she could to avoid it. "Wantage? Bother Wantage!" He leaned down to her, and whispered, "Jeannette!" The flush on her cheek deepened, but she did not stir. It was as if she had not heard. She shut her eyes. All her weapons dropped at once. She knew it had to come; she knew, too, that, in this crisis, her heart stood plainly legible to her. Moncreith's name was not there. "Jeannette," Moncreith went on, in his vibrant whisper, "don't you guess what dream I have been living in for so long? Don't you know that it is you, you, you--" He faltered, his emotions outstriding his words. "It is you," he finished, "that spell happiness for me. I--oh, is there no other, less crude way of putting it?--I love you, Jeannette! And you?" He waited. The chattering and light laughter in the stalls and throughout the house seemed to lull into a mere hushed murmur, like the fluttering and twittering of a thousand birds. Moncreith, in his tense expectation, had heed only for the face of the girl beside him. He did not see, in the aisle below, Orson Vane, sauntering to his seat. He did not follow the direction of Jeannette Vanlief's eyes, the instant before she turned, and answered. "I wish you had not spoken. I can't say anything--anything that you would like. Please, please--" She shook her head, in evident distress. "Ah," he burst out, "then it is true, after all, what I have feared. It is true that you prefer that--that--" She stayed him with a quick look. "I did not say I preferred anyone. I simply said that you must consider the question closed. I am sorry, oh, so sorry. I wish a man and a woman could ever be friends, in this world, without risking either love or hate." "All the same," he muttered, fiercely, "I believe you prefer that fellow--" "Orson Vane's downstairs," said the Professor entering the box at that moment. "That damned chameleon!" So Moncreith closed, under his breath, his just interrupted speech. CHAPTER XIV. A little before the end of that performance of "Voltaire," Orson Vane made his way to Arthur Wantage's dressing-room. They had, in their character of men in some position of eminence in different phases of the town's life, a slight acquaintance. They met, now and then, at the Mummers' Club. Vane's position put him above possibility of affront by Wantage in even the most arrogant and mannerless of the latter's moods. Vane's invitation to a little supper, a little chat, and a little smoke, just for the duet of them, brought forth Wantage's most winning smile of acquiescence. "Delighted, dear chap," he vowed. He could be, when he chose, the most winning of mortals. He was, during the drive to Vane's house, an admirable companion. He told stories, he made polite rejoinders, he was all glitter and graciousness. But it was when he was seated to an appetizing little supper that he became most splendid. "My dear Vane," he said, lifting a glass to the light, "you should write me a play. I am sure you could do it. These fellows who are in the mere business of it,--well, they are really impossible. They are so vulgar, so dreadful to do business with. I hate business, I am a child in such affairs; everyone cheats me. I mean to have none but gentlemen on my business staff next season. The others grate on me, Vane, they grate. And if I could only gather a company of actors who were also gentlemen--Oh, I assure you, one cannot believe what things I endure. The stupidity of actors!" He pronounced the word as if it were accented on the last syllable. He raised his eyes to heaven as he faltered in description of the stupidities he had to contend with. "Write a play?" said Orson, "I fear that would be out of my line. I merely live, you know; I do not describe." "Oh, I think you would be just the man. You would give me a play that society would like. You would make no mistakes of taste. And think, my dear fellow, just think of the prestige my performance would give you. It would be the making of you. You would be launched. You would need no other recommendation. When you approach any of these manager fellows all you have to do is to say, 'Wantage is doing a play of mine.' That is a hallmark; it means success for a young man." "Perhaps. But I have no ambitions in that way. How do you like my Bonnheimer?" "H'm--not bad, Vane, not bad. But you should taste my St. Innesse. It is a '74. I got it from the cellars of the Duke of Arran. You know Merrill, the wine-merchant on Broadway? Shrewd fellow! Always keeps me in mind; whenever he sees a sale of a good cellar on the other side, he puts in a bid; knows he can always depend on Wantage taking the bouquet of it off his hands. You must take dinner with me some night, and try that St. Innesse. Ex-President Richards told me, the other evening, that it was the mellowest vintage he had tasted in years. You know Richards? Oh, you should, you should!" Vane listened, quietly amused. The vanity, the egoism of this player were so obvious, so transparent, so blatant. He wondered, more than ever, what was under that mask of arrogance and conceit. The perfect frankness of the conceit made it almost admirable. "You know," Wantage remarked presently, "I'm really playing truant, taking supper with you. I ought to be studying." "A new play?" "No. My curtain speech for to-morrow night. It's the last night of the season, and they expect it of me, you know. I've vowed, time and again, I would never make another curtain-speech in my life, but they will have them, they will have them!" He sighed, in submission to his fate. Then he returned to a previous thought. "I wish, though," he said, "that I could persuade you to do a play for me. Think it over! Think of the name it would give you. Or you might try managing me. Eh, how does that strike you? Such a relief to me if I could deal with a gentleman. You have no idea--the cads there are in the theatre! They resent my being a man who tries to prove a little better educated than themselves. They hate me because I am college-bred, you know; they prefer actors who never read. How many books do you think I read before I attempted _Voltaire_? A little library, I tell you. And then the days I spent in noting the portraits! I traveled France in my search. For the actor who takes historic characters there cannot be too many documents. Imagination alone is not enough. And then the labor of making the play presentable; I wish you could see the thing as it first came to me! You would think a man like O'Deigh would have taken into consideration the actor? But no; the play, as O'Deigh left it, might have been for a stock company. _Frederick the Great_ was as fine a part as my own. Oh, they are numbskulls. And the rehearsals! Actors are sheep, simply sheep. The papers say I am a brute at rehearsals. My dear Vane, I swear to you that if Nero were in my place he would massacre all the minor actors in the land. And they expect the salaries of intelligent persons!" Vane, listening, wondered why Wantage, under such an avalanche of irritations, continued such life. Gradually it dawned on him that all this fume and fret was merely part of the man's mummery; it was his appeal to the sympathy of his audience; his argument against the reputation his occasional exhibitions of rage and waywardness had given him. Vane's desire to penetrate the surface of this conscious imitator, this fellow who slipped off this character to assume that, grew keener and keener. Where, under all this crust of alien form and action, was the individual, human thought and feeling? Or was there any left? Had the constant corrosion of simulated emotions burnt out all the original character of the mind? Vane could not sufficiently hasten the end for which he had invited Wantage. "You are," he said presently, as a lull in the other's monologue allowed him an opening, "something of an amateur of tapestry, of pictures, of bijouterie. I have a little thing or two, in my dressing-room, that I wish you would give me an opinion on." They took their cigarettes into the adjoining dressing-room. Wantage went, at once, to the mirrors. "Ah, Florence, I see." He frowned, in critical judgment; he went humming about the room, singing little German phrases to the pictures, snatches of chansonettes to the tapestries. He was very enjoyable as a spectacle, Vane told himself. He tiptoed over the room, now in the mode of his earliest success, "The King of Dandies," now in the half limping style of his "Rigoletto." "You should have seen the Flemish things I had!" he declared. That was his usual way of noting the belongings of others; they reminded him of his own superior specimens. "I sold them for a song, at auction. Don't you think one tires of one's surroundings, after a time? People go to the hills and the seashore, because they tire of town. I have the same feeling about pictures, and furniture, and bric-a-brac. After a time, they tire me. I have to get rid of them. I sell them at auction. People are always glad to bid for something that has belonged to Arthur Wantage. But everything goes for a song. Oh, it is ruinous, ruinous." He peered, and pirouetted about the corners. "Ah," he exclaimed, "and here is something covered up! A portrait? Something rare?" He posed in front of it, affecting the most devouring curiosity. "A sort of portrait," said Vane, touching the cord at back of the mirror. "Ah," said Wantage, gazing, "you are right. A sort of portrait." And he laughed, feebly, feebly. "That Bonnheimer," he muttered, "a deuce of a wine!" He clutched at a chair, reeling into it. Vane, passing to the mirror's face, took what image it turned to him, and then, leisurely, replaced the curtain. He surveyed the figure in the chair for a moment or so. Then he called Nevins. "Nevins," he said, "where the devil are you? Never where you're wanted. What does one pay servants outrageous wages for! They conspire to cheat one, they all do. Nevins!" Nevins appeared, wide-eyed at this outburst. He was prepared for many queer exhibitions on the part of his master, but this--this, to a faithful servant! He stood silent, expectant, reproachful. "Nevins," his master commanded, "have this--this actor put to bed. Use the library; make the two couches serve. He'll stay here for twenty-four hours; you understand, twenty-four hours. You will take care of him. The wine was badly corked, to-night, Nevins. You grow worse every day. You are in league to drive me distracted. It is an outrage. Why do you stand there, and shake, in that absurd fashion? It makes me quite nervous. Do go away, Nevins, go away!" CHAPTER XV. The papers of that period are all agreed that the eminent actor, Arthur Wantage, was never seen to more advantage than on the last night of that particular season. His _Voltaire_ had never been a more brilliant impersonation. The irony, the cruelty of the character had rarely come out more effectively; the ingenuity of the dialogue was displayed at its best. Yet, as a matter of fact, Arthur Wantage, all that day and evening, was in Orson Vane's house, subject to a curious mental and spiritual aphasia that afterwards became a puzzle to many famous physicians. The _Voltaire_ was Orson Vane. It was the final triumph of Professor Vanlief's thaumaturgy. Vane was now in possession of the entire mental vitality sufficient for playing the part of the evening; the lines, the every pose, came to him spontaneously, as if he were machinery moving at another's guidance. The detail of entering the theatre unobserved had been easy; it was dusk and he was muffled to the eyes. Afterwards, it was merely a matter of pigment and paints. His fingers found the use of the colors and powders as easily as his mind held the words to be spoken. There was not a soul, in the company, in the audience, that did not not find the _Voltaire_ of that night the _Voltaire_ of the entire season. Above the mere current of his speeches and his displayed emotions Orson Vane found a tide of exaltation bearing him on to a triumphant feeling of contempt for his audience. These sheep, these herdlings, these creatures of the fashion, how fine it was to fling into their faces the bitter taunts of a _Voltaire_, to see them take them smilingly, indulgently. They paid him his price, and he hated them for it. He felt that they did not really understand the half of the play's delicate finesse; he felt their appreciation was a sham, a pose, a bit of mummery even more contemptible than his own, since they paid to pose, while he, at least, had the satisfaction of their money. The curtain-fall found him aglow with the splendor of his success. The two personalties in him joined in a fever of triumph. He, Orson Vane, had been _Voltaire_; he would yet be all the other geniuses of history. He would prove himself the greatest of them all, since he could simulate them all. A certain vein of petty cunning ran under the major emotion; Orson Vane laughed to think how he had despoiled Arthur Wantage of his very temperament, his art, his spirit. This same cunning admonished, too, the prompt return of Wantage's person, after the night was over, to the Wantage residence. The commotion "in front" brought Orson to a sense of the immediate moment. The cries for a speech came over a crackling of hand-claps. He waited for several minutes. It was not well to be too complaisant with one's public. Then he gave the signal to the man at the curtain, and moved past him, to the narrow space behind the lights. He bowed. It had the very air of irony, had that bow. It does not seem humanly possible to express irony in a curving in the spine, a declension of the head, a certain pose of the hands, but Vane succeeded, just as Wantage had so often succeeded, in giving that impression. The bow over, he turned to withdraw. Let them wait, let them chafe I Commuters were missing the last trains for the night? So much the better! They would not forget him so easily. When he finally condescended to stride before the curtain again, it was a lift of the eyebrows, a little gesture, an air that said, quite plainly: Really, it is very annoying of you. If I were not very gracious indeed I should refuse to come out again. I do so, I assure you, under protest. He gave a little, delicate cough, he lifted his eyes. At that the house became still, utterly still. He began without any vocative at all. "The actor," he said, "who wins the applause of so distinguished a company is exceedingly fortunate. The applause of such a very distinguished company--" he succeeded in emphasizing his phrase to the point where it became a subtle insult--"is very sweet to the actor. It reconciles him to what he must take to be a breach of true art, the introduction of his own person on the scene where he has appeared as an impersonator of character. Some actors are expected to make speeches after their exertions should be over. I am one of those poor actors. In the name of myself, a poor actor, and the poor actors in my company, I must thank this distinguished body of ladies and gentlemen for the patience with which they have listened to Mr. O'Deigh's little trifle. It is, of course, merely a trifle, _pour passer le temps_. Next season, I hope, I may give you a really serious production. Mr. O'Deigh cables me that he is happy such distinguished persons in such a critical town have applauded his little effort. I am sure ever so many of you would rather be at home than listening to the apologies of a poor actor. For I feel I must apologize for presenting so inconsiderable a trifle. A mere summer night's amusement. I have played it as a sort of rest for myself, as preparation for larger productions. If I have amused you, I am pleased. The actors' province is to please. The poor actor thanks you." He bowed, and the bewildered company who had heard him to the end, clapped their hands a little. The newspaper men smiled at one another; they had been there before. The old question of "Why does he do it?" no longer stirred in them. They were used to Wantage's vagaries. The newspapers of the following day had Wantage's speech in full. The critics wrote editorials on the necessity for curbing this player's arrogance. The public was astonished to find that it had been insulted, but it took the press' word for it. Wantage had made that sort of thing the convention; it was the fashion to call these curtain speeches an insult, yet to invoke them as eagerly as possible. The widespread advertising that accrued to Wantage from this episode enabled his manager to obtain, in his bookings for the following season, an even higher percentage than usual. To that extent Orson Vane's imitation of an imitator benefited his subject. In other respects it left Wantage a mere walking automaton. It was fortunate that the closing time for Wantage's theatre was now on. There was no hitch in Vane's plan of transporting Wantage to his home quarters; the servants at the Wantage establishment found nothing unusual in their master having been away for a day and a night; he was too frequently in the habit, when his house displeased him in some detail, to stay at hotels for weeks and months at a time; his household was ready for any vagary. Indisposition was nothing new with him, either; in reality and affectation these lapses from well-being were not infrequent with the great player. The doctor told him he needed rest--rest and sea-air; there was nothing to worry over; he had been working too hard, that was all. So the shell of what had been Wantage proceeded to a watering-place, while the kernel, now a part of Orson Vane, proceeded to astonish the town with its doings and sayings. Practice had now enabled Vane to control, with a certain amount of consciousness, whatsoever alien spirit he took to himself. Vigorous and alert as was the mumming temperament he was now in possession of, he yet contrived to exert a species of dominance over it; he submitted to it in the mode, the expression of his character, yet in the main-spring of his action he had it in subjection. He had reached, too, a plane from which he was able, more than on any of the other occasions, to enjoy the masquerade he knew himself taking part in. He realized, with a contemptuous irony, that he was playing the part of one who played many parts. The actor in him seemed, intellectually, merely a personified palimpsest; the mind was receptive, ready to echo all it heard, keen to reproduce traits and tricks of other characters. He held in himself, to be brief, a mirror that reflected whatever crossed its face; the base of that mirror itself was as characterless, as colorless, as the mere metal and glass. Superficialities were caught with a skill that was astonishing; little tricks of manner and speech were reproduced to the very dot upon the i; yet, under all the raiment of other men's merely material attributes, there was no change of soul at all; no transformation touched the little ego-screaming soul of the actor. The superficial, in the meanwhile, was enough to make the town gossip not a little about the newest diversions of Orson Vane. He talked, now, of nothing but the theatre and the arts allied to it. He purposed doing some little comedies at Newport in the course of the summer that was now beginning. He eyed all the smart women of his acquaintance with an air that implied either, "I wonder whether you could be cast for a girl I must make love to," or, "You would be passable in _Prince Hal_ attire." At home, to his servants, Vane was abominable. When the dreadful champagne, that some impulse possessed him to buy of a Broadway swindler, proved as flat as the Gowanus, his language to Nevins was quite contemptible. "What," he shrieked, "do I pay you for? Tell me that! This splendid wine spoiled, spoiled, utterly unfit for a gentleman to drink, and all by your negligence. It is enough to turn one's mind. It is an outrage. A splendid wine. And now--look at it!" As a conclusion he threw the stuff in Nevins' face. Nevins made no answer at all. He wiped the sour mess from his coat with the same air of apology that he would have used had he spilt a glass himself. But his emotions were none the less. They caused him, in the privacy of the servants' quarters, to do what he had not done in years, to drop his h's. "It's the 'ost's place," said Nevins, mournfully, "to entertain his guests, and not bully the butler." Which, as a maxim, was valid enough, save that, in this special case, the guests had come to look upon Vane's treatment of the servants as part of the entertainment a dinner with him would provide. Another distress that fell to the lot of poor Nevins was the fact that his master was become averse to the paying of bills. The profanity fell upon Nevins from both the duns and the dunned. "The man from Basser's, Mr. Vane, sir," Nevins would announce, timidly. "Can't get him to go away at all, sir." "Basser's, Basser's? Oh--that tailor fellow. An impudent creature, to plague me so, when I do him the honor of wearing his coats; they fit very badly, but I put up with that because I want to help the fellow on. And what is my reward? He pesters me, pesters me. Tell him--tell him anything, Nevins. Only do leave me alone; I am very busy, very nervous. I am going to write a comedy for myself. I have some water-colors to paint for Mrs. Carlos; I have a ride in the Park, and ever so many other things to do to-day, and you bother me with pestiferous tailors. Nevins, you are, you are--" But Nevins quietly bowed himself out before he learned what new thing he was in his master's eyes. A malady--for it surely is no less than a malady--for attempting cutting speeches at any time and place possessed Vane. Shortsightedness was another quality now obvious in him. He knew you to-day, to-morrow he looked at you with the most unseeing eyes. His voice was the most prominent organ in whatever room or club he happened to be; when he spoke none else could be intelligible. When he knew himself observed, though alone, he hummed little snatches to himself. His gait took on a mincing step. There was not a moment, not a pose of his that had not its forethought, its deliberation, its premeditated effect. The gradual increase in the publicity that was part of the penalty of being in the smart world had made approachment between the stage and society easier than ever before. Orson Vane's bias toward the theatre did not displease the modish. Rumors as to this and that heroine of a romantic divorce having theatric intentions became frequent. The gowns of actresses were copied by the smart quite as much as the smart set's gowns were copied by actresses. The intellectual factor had never been very prominent in the social attitude toward the stage; it was now frankly admitted that good-looking men and handsome dresses were as much as one went to the theatre for. Theatrical people had a wonderful claim upon the printer's ink of the continent; society was not averse to borrowing as much of that claim as was possible. Compliments were exchanged with amiable frequence; smart people married stage favorites, and the stage looked to the smart for its recruits. Orson Vane could not have shown his devotion to the mummeries of the stage at a better time. He gained, rather than lost, prestige. CHAPTER XVI. It was the fashionable bathing hour at the most exclusive summer resort on the Atlantic coast. The sand in front of the Surf Club was dotted with gaudy tents and umbrellas. Persons whom not to know was to be unknowable were picturesquely distributed about the club verandahs in wicker chairs and lounges. The eye of an artist would have been distracted by the beauties that were suggested in the half-lifted skirts of this beauty, and revealed in the bathing-suit of that one. The little waves that came politely rippling up the slope of sand seemed to know what was expected of them; they were in nowise rude. They may have longed to ruffle this or that bit of feminine frippery, but they refrained. They may have ached to drown out Orson Vane's voice as he said "good morning" to everybody in and out of the water; but they permitted themselves no such luxury. Orson Vane was a beautiful picture as he entered the water. His suit was immaculate; a belt prevented the least wrinkle in his jersey; a rakish sombrero gave his head a sort of halo. He poised a cigarette in one hand, keeping himself afloat with the other. He bowed obsequiously to all the pretty women; he invited all the rich ones to tea and toast--"We always have a little tea and toast at my cottage on Sundays, you know; you'll meet only nice-looking people, really; we have a jolly time." Most of the men he was unable to see; the sunlight on the water did make such a glare. On the raft Orson Vane found the only Mrs. Carlos. "If it were not for you, Mrs. Carlos," he assured her, "the ocean would be quite unfashionable." Mrs. Carlos smiled amiably. Speeches of that sort were part of the tribute the world was expected to pay her. She asked him if the yachts in the harbor were not too pretty for anything. "No," said Vane, "no. Most melancholy sight. Bring up the wickedness of man, whenever I look at them. I bought a yacht you know, early in the summer. Liked her looks, made an offer, bought her. A swindle, Mrs. Carlos, an utter swindle. A disgraceful hulk. And now I can't sell her. And my cook is a rascal. Oh--don't mention yachts! And my private car, Mrs. Carlos, you cannot imagine the trials I endure over that! The railroads overcharge me, and the mob comes pottering about with those beastly cameras. Really, you know, I am thinking of living abroad. The theatre is better supported in Europe. I am thinking of devoting my life to the theatre altogether. It is the one true passion. It shows people how life should be lived; it is at once a school of morals and comportment." He peered into the water near the raft. Then he plunged prettily into the sea. "I see that dear little Imogene," he told Mrs. Carlos, as he swam off. Imogene was the little heiress of the house of Carlos; a mere schoolgirl. It was one of Vane's most deliberate appeals for public admiration, this worship of the society of children. He gamboled with all the tots and blossoms he could find. He knew them all by name; they dispelled his shortsightedness marvelously. After a proper interval Vane appeared, in the coolest of flannels, on the verandah of the Club. He bowed to all the women, whether he knew them or not; he peered under the largest picture hats with an air that said "What sweet creature is hidden here?" as plainly as words. Someone asked him why he had not been to the Casino the night before. "Oh," he sighed, "I was fearfully busy." "Busy?" The word came in a tone of reproach. A suspicion of any sort of toil will brand one more hopelessly in the smart set of America than in any other; one may pretend an occupation but one may not profess it in actuality. "Oh, terribly busy," said Vane. "I am writing a comedy. I have decided that we must make authorship smarter than it has been. I shall sacrifice myself in that attempt. You've noticed that not one writing-chap in a million knows anything about our little world except what is not true? Yes; it's unmistakable. An entirely false impression of us is given to the world at large. The real picture of us must come from one of ourselves." "And you will try it?" "Yes. I shall do my very best. When it is finished I want you all to play parts in it. We must do something for the arts, you know. Why not the arts, as well as tailors and milliners? By the way, I want you all to come to my little lantern-dance to-night, on the _Beaurivage_. It is something quite novel. You must all come disguised as flowers. There will be no lights but Chinese lanterns. I shall have launches ready for you at the Casino landing. My cook is quite sober to-day, and the yacht is as presentable as if she were not an arrant fraud. I mean to have a dance that shall fit the history of society in America. For that reason the newspapers must know nothing about it. There can be no history where there are newspapers. I shall invite nobody who knows how to write; I am the only one whose taste I can trust. Some people write to live, and some live to write, and the worst class of all are merely dying to write. They are all barred to-night. We must try and break all the conventions. Conventions are like the strolling players: made to be broke." He rattled on in this way, with painful efforts at brilliance, for quite a time. His hearers really considered it brilliance and listened patiently. Summer was not their season for intellectual exertion; it might be a virtue in others, in themselves it would have been a mistake. The lantern-dance on Orson Vane's _Beaurivage_ was, as everyone will remember, an event of exceeding picturesqueness. Mrs. Sclatersby appeared as a carnation; Mrs. Carlos as a rose. Some of the younger and divinely figured women appeared as various blossoms that necessitated imitation of part of Rosalind's costume under the trees. The slender, tapering stem of one white lily, fragrant and delicious, lingered long in the memories of the men who were there. A sensation was caused by the arrival of Mrs. Barrett Weston. She came in a scow, seated on her automobile. A shriek of delight from the company greeted her. The weary minds of the elect were really tickled by this conceit. The automobile was arranged to imitate a crysanthemum. Just before she alighted Mrs. Barrett Weston touched a hidden lever and the automobile began to grind out a rag-time tune. A stranger, approaching the _Beaurivage_ at that moment, might have fancied himself in the politest ward of the most insane of asylums. But Orson Vane found it all most delightful. It was the affair of the season. "Look," he cried, in the midst of a game of leapfrog in which a number of the younger guests had plunged with desperate glee, "there is the moon. How pitably weak she seems, against this brilliance here! It bears out the theory that art is always finer than nature, and that the theatre is more picturesque than life. Look at what we are doing, this moment! We are imitating pleasure. And will you show me any unconscious pleasure that is so delightful as this?" By the time people had begun to feel a polite hunger Vane had completed his scheme of having several unwieldy barges brought alongside the _Beaurivage_. There were two of the clumsy but roomy decks on either side of the slender, shapely yacht. Over this now quite wide space the tables were arranged. While the supper went on, Orson Vane did a little monologue of his own. Nobody paid any attention, but everyone applauded. "What a scene for a comedy," he explained, proudly surveying the picture of the gaiety before him, "what a delicious scene! It is almost real. I must write a play around it. I have quite made up my mind to devote my life to the theatre. It is the only real life. It touches the emotions at all points; it is not isolated in one narrow field of personality. Have I your permission to put you all in my play? How sweet of you! I shall have a scene where we all race in automobiles. We will be quite like dear little children who have their donkey-races. But I think automobiles are so much more intelligent than donkeys, don't you? And they have such profound voices! Have you ever noticed the intonation of the automobiles here? That one of Mrs. Barrett Weston has a delicate tenor; it is always singing love-songs as if it were tired of life. Then we have bassos, and baritones, and repulsive falsettos. My automobile has a voice like a phonograph. When it bubbles along the avenue I can hear, as plainly as anything, that it is imitating one of the other automobiles. Some automobiles, I suppose, have the true instinct for the theatre. Have you noticed how theatric some of the things are, how they contrive to run away just when everyone is looking?" "Just like horses," murmured one of his listeners. "Oh, no; I wouldn't say that. Horses have a merely natural intelligence; it is nothing like the splendidly artificial reasoning of the automobile. The poor horse, I really pity him! He has nothing before him but polo. But how thankful he should be to polo. He was a broncho with disreputable manners; now he is a polo-pony with a neat tail. In time, I dare say, the horse can learn some of the higher civilization of the automobile, just as society may still manage to be as intelligent as the theatre." The conclusion of that entertainment marked the height of Orson Vane's peculiar fame. The radical newspapers caught echoes of it and invented what they could not transcribe. The young men who owned newspapers had not been invited by Orson Vane, because, in spite of his theatric mania, he had no illusions about the decency of metropolitan journalism. He avowed that the theatre might be a trifle highflavored, but it had, at the least, nothing of the hypocrisy that smothers the town in lies to-day and reads it a sermon to-morrow. The most conspicuous of these newspaper owners went into something like convulsions over what he called the degeneracy of our society. Himself most lamentably in a state of table-d'hotage, this young man trumpeted forth the most bitter editorials against Orson Vane and his doings. He frothed with anarchistic ravings. Finally, since the world will always listen if you only make noise loud enough and long enough, the general public began to believe that Vane was really a dreadful person. He was a leader in the smart set; he stood for the entire family. His taste for the theater would debauch all society. His egoisms would spoil what little of the natural was left in the regions of Vanity Fair. So went the chatter of the man-on-the-street, that mighty power, whom the most insignificant of little men-behind-the-pen can move at will. One may be ever so immersed in affairs that are not of the world and its superficial doings, yet it is almost impossible to escape some faint echo of what the world is chattering about. Professor Vanlief, who had betaken himself and Jeanette, for the summer, to a little place in the mountains, was finally routed out of his peace by the rumors concerning Orson Vane. The give and take of conversation, even at a little farm-house in the hills, does not long leave any prominent subject untouched. So Augustus Vanlief one morning bought all the morning papers. He found more than he had wanted. The editorials against the doings of the smart set, the reports of the sermons preached against their goings-on, were especially pregnant that morning. In another part of the paper he found a line or two, however, that brought him sharply to a sense of necessary action. The lines were these: "Mr. Arthur Wantage is still seriously ill at Framley Lodge. Unless a decided turn for the better takes place very shortly, it is doubtful if he can undertake his starring season at the usual time this year." Augustus Vanlief saw what no other mortal could have guessed. He saw the connection between those two newspaper items, the one about Vane and the one about Wantage. CHAPTER XVII Professor Vanlief lost no time in inventing an excuse for his immediate departure. Jeannette would be well looked after. He got a few necessaries together and started for Framley Lodge. After some delay he obtained an interview with the distinguished patient. "Try," urged Vanlief, "to tell me when this illness came upon you. Was it after your curtain-speech at the end of last season?" Wantage looked with blank and futile eyes. "Curtain-speech? I made none." "Oh, yes. Try to remember! It made a stir, did that speech of yours. Try to think what happened that day!" "I made no speech. I remember nothing. I am Wantage, I think. Wantage. I used to act, did I not?" He laughed, feebly. It was melancholy to watch him. He could eat and drink and sleep; he had the intelligence of an echo. Each thought of his needed a stimulant. Vanlief persisted, in spite of melancholy rebuffs. There was so much at stake. This man's whole career was at stake. And, if matters were not mended soon, the evil would be under way; the harm would have begun. It meant loss, actual loss now, and one could scarcely compute how much ruin afterwards. And he, Vanlief, would be the secret agent of this ruin! Oh, it was monstrous! Something must be done. Yet, he could do nothing until he was sure. To meddle, without absolute certainty, would be criminal. "What do you remember before you fell ill?" he repeated. "Oh, leave me alone!" said Wantage. "Isn't the doctor bad enough, without you. I tell you I remember nothing. I was well, and now I am ill. Perhaps it was something Orson Vane gave me at supper that night, I don't remember--" "At supper? Vane?" The Professor leaped at the words. "Yes. I said so, didn't I? I had supper in his rooms, and then--" But Vanlief was gone. He had no time for the amenities now. His age seemed to leave him as his purpose warmed, and his goal neared. All the fine military bearing came out again. The people who traveled with him that day took him for nothing less than a distinguished General. At the end of the day he reached Vane's town house. Nevins was all alone there; all the other servants were on the _Beaurivage_. The man looked worn and aged. He trembled visibly when he walked; his nerves were gone, and he had the taint of spirits on him. "Mr. Vanlief, sir," he whined, "it'll be the death of me, will this place. First he buys a yacht, sir, like I buy a 'at, if you please; and now I'm to sell the furniture and all the antics. These antics, sir, as the master 'as collected all over the world, sir. It goes to me 'eart." Vanlief, even in his desperate mood, could not keep his smile back. "Sell the antiques, eh? Well, they'll fetch plenty, I've no doubt. But if I were you I wouldn't hurry; Mr. Vane may change his mind, you know." "Ah," nodded Nevins, brightening, "that's true, sir. You're right; I'll wait the least bit. It's never too soon to do what you don't want to, eh, sir? And I gives you my word, as a man that's 'ad places with the nobility, sir, that the last year's been a sad drain on me system. What with swearing, sir, and letters I wouldn't read to my father confessor, sir, Mr. Vane's simply not the man he was at all. Of course, if he says to sell the furniture, out it goes! But, like as not, he'll come in here some line day and ask where I've got all his trappings. And then I'll show him his own letter, and he'll say he never wrote it. Oh, it's a bad life I've led of late, sir. Never knowing when I could call my soul my own." The phrase struck the Professor with a sort of chill. It was true; if his discovery went forth upon the world, no man would, in very truth, know when he could call his soul his own. It would be at the mercy of every poacher. But he could not, just now, afford reflections of such wide scope; there was a nearer, more immediate duty. "Nevins," he said, "I came about that mirror of mine." "Yes, sir. I'm glad of that, sir; uncommon glad. You'll betaking it away, sir? It's bad luck I've 'ad since that bit of plate come in the house." "You're right. I mean to take it away. But only for a time. Seeing Mr. Vane's thinking of selling up, perhaps it's just as well if I have this out of the way for a time, eh? Might avoid any confusion. I set store by that mirror, Nevins; I'd not like it sold by mistake." "Well, sir, if you sets more store by it than the master, I'd like to see it done, sir. The master's made me life a burden about that there glass. I've 'ad to watch it like a cat watches a mouse. I don't know now whether I'd rightly let you take it or not." He scratched his head, and looked in some quandary. "Nonsense, Nevins. You know it's mine as well as you know your own name. Didn't you fetch it over from my house in the first place, and didn't you pack it and wrap it under my very eyes?" "True, sir; I did. My memory's a bit shaky, sir, these days. You may do as you like with your own, I'll never dispute that. But Mr. Vane's orders was mighty strict about the plaguey thing. I wish I may never see it again. It's been, 'Nevins, let nobody disturb the new mirror!' and 'Nevins, did anyone touch the new mirror while I was gone?' and 'Nevins, was the window open near the new mirror?' until I fair feel sick at the sight of it." "No doubt," said the professor, impatiently. "Then you'll oblige me by wrapping it up for shipping purposes as soon as ever you can. I'm going to take it away with me at once. I suppose there's no chance of Mr. Vane dropping in here before I bring the glass back, but, if he does, tell him you acted under my orders." "A good riddance," muttered Nevins, losing no time over his task of covering and securing the mirror. "I'll pray it never comes this way again," he remarked. The professor, after seeing that all danger of injury to the mirror's exposed parts was over, walked nervously up and down the rooms. He would have to carry his plan through with force of arms, with sheer impertinence and energy of purpose. It was an interference in two lives that he had in view. Had he any right to that? But was he not, after all, to blame for the fact of the curious transfusion of soul that had left one man a mental wreck, and stimulated the other's forces to a course of life out of all character with the strivings of his real soul? If he had not tempted Orson Vane to these experiments, Arthur Wantage would never be drooping in the shadow of collapse, and in danger of losing his proper place in the roll of prosperity. Vanlief shuddered at thought of what an unscrupulous man might not do with this discovery of his; what lives might be ruined, what successes built on fraud and theft? Fraud and theft? Those words were foul enough in the material things of life; but how much more horrid would they be when they covered the spiritual realm. To steal a purse, in the old dramatic phrase, was a petty thing; but to steal a soul--Professor Vanlief found himself launched into a whirlpool of doubt and confusion. He had opened a new, vast region of mental science. He had enabled one man to pass the wall with which nature had hedged the unforeseen forces of humanity. Was he to learn that, in opening this new avenue of psychic activity, he had gone counter to the eternal Scheme of Things, and let in no divine light, but rather the fierce glare of diabolism? His thoughts traversed argument upon argument while Nevins completed his work. He heard the man's voice, finally, with an actual relief, a gladness at being recalled to the daring and doing that lay before him. When the Professor was gone, a wagon bearing away the precious mirror, Nevins poured himself out a notably stiff glass of Five-Star. "Here's hoping," he toasted the silent room, "the silly thing gets smashed into everlasting smithereens!" And he drowned any fears he might have had to the contrary. This particular species of time-killing was now a daily matter with Nevins; the incessant strain upon his nerves of some months past had finally brought him to the pitch where he had only one haven of refuge left. The Professor sped over the miles to Framley Lodge. He took little thought about meals or sleep. The excitement was marking him deeply; but he paid no heed to, or was unaware of, that. Arrived at the Lodge a campaign of bribery and corruption began. Servant after servant had to be suborned. Nothing but the well-known fame and name of Augustus Vanlief enabled him, even with his desperate expenditures of tips, to avert the suspicion that he had some deadly, some covertly inimical end in view. One does not, at this age of the world, burst into another man's house and order that man's servants about, without coming under suspicion, to put it mildly. Fortunately Vanlief encountered, just as his plot seemed shattering against the rigor of the household arrangements, the doctor who was in attendance on Wantage. The man happened to be on the staff of the University where Vanlief held a chair. He held the older man in the greatest respect; he listened to his rapid talk with all the patience in the world. He looked astonished, even uncomprehending, but he shook his shoulders up and down a few times with complaisance. "There seems no possible harm," he assented. "Don't ask me to believe in the curative possibilities, Professor; but--there can be no harm, that I see. He is not to be unduly excited. A mirror, you say? You don't think vanity can send a man from illness to health, do you? Not even an actor can be as vain as that, surely. However, I shall tell the attendants to see that the thing is done as quietly as possible. I trust you, you see, to let nothing detrimental happen. I have to get over to the Port of Pines. I shall give the orders. Goodbye. I wish I could see the result of your little--h'm, notion--but I dare say to-morrow will be soon enough." And he smiled the somewhat condescending smile of the successful practitioner who fancies he is addressing a campaigner whose usefulness is passing. The setting up of the professor's mirror, so as to face Wantage's sickbed, took no little time, no little care, no little exertion. When it was in place, the professor tiptoed to the actor's side. "Well," queried Wantage, "what is it? Medicine? Lord, I thought I'd taken all there was in the world. Where is it?" "No," said the professor, "not medicine. I am going to ask you to look quite hard at that curtain by the foot of the bed for a moment. I have something I think may interest you and--" As the actor's eyes, in mere physical obedience to the other's suggestion, took the desired direction, Vanlief tugged at a cord that rolled the curtain aside, revealing the mirror, which gave Wantage back the somewhat haggard apparition of himself. A few seconds went by in silence. Then Wantage frowned sharply. "Gad," he exclaimed, vigorously and petulantly, "what a beastly bad bit of make-up!" The voice was the voice of the man whom the town had a thousand times applauded as "The King of the Dandies." An exceedingly bad quarter of an hour followed for Vanlief. Wantage, now in full possession of all his mental faculties, abused the Professor up hill and down dale. What was he doing there? What business had that mirror there? What good was a covered-up mirror? Where were the servants? The doctor had given orders? The doctor was a fool. Only the mere physical infirmity consequent upon being bedridden for so long prevented Wantage from becoming violent in his rage. Vanlief, sharp as was his sense of relief at the success of his venture, was yet more relieved when his bribes finally got his mirror and himself out of the Lodge. The incident had its humors, but he was too tired, too enervated, to enjoy them. The very moment of Wantage's recovery of his soul had its note of ironic comedy; the succeeding vituperation from the restored actor; Vanlief's own meekness; the marvel and rapacity of the servants--all these were abrim with chances for merriment. But Vanlief found himself, for, perhaps, the first time in his life, too old to enjoy the happy interpretations of life. Into all his rejoicings over the outcome of this affair there crept the constant doubts, the ceaseless questionings, as to whether he had discovered a mine of wisdom and benefit, or a mere addition to man's chances for evil. His return journey, his delivery of the mirror into Nevins' unwilling care, were accomplished by him in a species of daze. He had hardly counted upon the danger of his discovery. Was he still young enough to contend with them? Nevins almost flung the mirror to its accustomed place. He unwrapped it spitefully. When he left the room, the curtain of the glass was flapping in the wind. Nevins heard the sound quite distinctly; he went to the sideboard and poured out a brimming potion. "I 'opes the wind'll play the Old 'Arry with it," he smiled to himself. He smiled often that night; he went to bed smiling. His was the cheerful mode of intoxication. Augustus Vanlief reached the cottage in the hills a sheer wreck. He had left it a hale figure of a man who had ever kept himself keyed up to the best; now he was old, shaking, trembling in nerves and muscles. Jeannette rushed toward him and put her arms around him. She looked her loving, silent wonder into his weary eyes. "Sleep, dear, sleep," said this old, tired man of science, "first let me sleep." CHAPTER XVIII. Orson Vane, scintillating theatrically by the sea, was in a fine rage when Nevins ceased to answer his telegrams. Telegrams struck Vane as the most dramatic of epistles; there was always a certain pictorial effect in tearing open the envelope, in imagining the hushed expectation of an audience. A letter--pooh! A letter might be anything from a bill to a billet. But a telegram! Those little slips of paper struck immediate terror, or joy, or despair, or confusion; they hit hard, and swiftly. Certainly he had been hitting Nevins hard enough of late. He had peppered him with telegrams about the furniture, about the pictures; he had forbidden one day what he had ordered the day before. It never occurred to him that Nevins might seek escape from these torments. Yet that was what Nevins had done. He had tippled himself into a condition where he signed sweetly for each telegram and put it in the hall-rack. They made a beautiful, yellow festoon on the mahogany background. "Those," Nevins told himself, "is for a gentleman as is far too busy to notice little things like telegrams." Nevins watched that yellow border growing daily with fresh delight. He could keep on accepting telegrams just as long as the sideboard held its strength. Each new arrival from the Western Union drove him to more glee and more spirits--of the kind one can buy bottled. At last Orson Vane felt some alarm creeping through his armor of dramatic pose. Could Nevins have come to any harm? It was very annoying, but he would have to go to town for a day or so. That seemed unavoidable. Just as he had made up his mind to it, he happened to slip on a bit of lemon-peel. At once he fell into a towering rage. He cursed the entire service on the _Beaurivage_ up hill and down dale. You could hear him all over the harbor. It was the voice of a profane Voltaire. That night, at the Casino, his rage found vent in action. He sold the _Beaurivage_ as hastily as he had bought her. He left for town, by morning, full of bitterness at the world's conspiracy to cheat him. He felt that for a careless deck-hand to leave lemon-peel on the deck of the Beaurivage was nothing less than part of the world-wide cabal against his peace of mind. He reached his town-house in a towering passion, all the accumulated ill-temper of the last few days bubbling in him. He flung the housedoor wide, stamped through the halls. "Nevins!" he shouted, "Nevins!" Nothing stirred in the house. He entered room after room. Passing into his dressing-room he almost tore the hanging from its rod. A gust of air struck him from the wide-open window. Before he proceeded another step this gust, that his opening of the curtain had produced, lifted the veil from the mirror facing him. The veil swung up gently, revealed the glass, and dropped again. Then he realized the figure of Nevins on a couch. He walked up to him. The smell of spirits met him at once. "Poor Nevins!" he muttered. Then he fell to further realizations. The whole history of his three experiments unfolded itself before him. What, after them all, had he gained? What, save the knowledge of the littleness of the motives controlling those lives? This actor, this man the world thought great, whose soul he had held in usurpation, up to a little while ago, what was he? A very batch of vanities, a mountain of egoisms. Had there been, in any of the thoughts, the moods he had experienced from out the mental repertoire of that player, anything indicative of nobility, of large benevolence, of sweet and light in the finest human sense? Nothing, nothing. The ambition to imitate the obvious points of human action and conduct, to the end that one be called a character-actor; the striving for an echoed fame rightly belonging to the supreme names of history; a yearning for the stimulus of immediate acclamation--these things were not worth gaining. To have experienced them was to have caught nothing beneficial. Orson Vane began to consider himself with contempt. Upon himself must fall the odium of what the souls he had borrowed had induced in him. The littleness he had fathomed, the depths of character to which he had sunk, all left their petty brands on him. He had penetrated the barriers of other men's minds, but what had it profited him? As a ship becalmed in foul waters takes on barnacles, so had he brought forth, from the realm of alien springs and motives he had made his own, a dreadful incrustation of painful conjectures on the supremacy of evil in the world. It needed only a glance at the man, Nevins, to force home the destructiveness born of these incursions into other lives. That trembling, cowering thing had been, before Orson Vane's departure from the limitations of his own temperament, a decent, self-respecting fellow. While now-- Vane paced about the house in bitter unrest. In the outer hall he noticed the yellow envelopes bordering the coat-rack. He took one of them down, opened it, and smiled. "Poor Nevins!" he murmured. The next moment a lad from the Telegraph office appeared in the doorway. Vane went forward himself; there was no use disturbing Nevins. The wire had followed him on from the _Beaurivage_, or rather from the man to whom he had sold her. It was from Augustus Vanlief. Its brevity was like a blow in the face. "Am ill," it said, "must see you." It was still possible, that very hour, to get an express to the Professor's mountain retreat. There was nothing to prevent immediate departure. Nothing--except Nevins. The man really must exercise more care about that mirror. He was safely out of all his experiments now, but the thing was dangerous none the less; if it had been his own property, he would have known how to deal with it. But it was the Professor's secret, the discovery of a lifetime. For elaborate precautions, or even for hiding the thing in some closet, there was no time. He could only rouse Nevins as energetically as possible to a sense of his previous defection from duty; gently and quite kindly he admonished him to take every care of the new mirror in the time coming. Nevins listened to him wide-eyed; his senses were still too much agog for him to realize whence this change of voice and manner had come to his master. It was merely another page in the chapter of bewilderment that piled upon him. He bowed his promise to be careful, he assented to a number of things he could not fathom, and when Vane was gone he cleared the momentary trouble in his mind by an ardent drink. The liquor brought him a most humorous notion, and one that he felt sure would relieve him of all further anxieties on the score of the new mirror. He approached the back of it, tore the curtain from its face, wheeled it to the centre of the room, and placed all the other cheval-glasses close by. Throughout this he had wit enough, or fear enough--for his memory brought him just enough picture of Orson's own handling of this mirror to inspire a certain awe of the front of the thing--never to pass in face of the mirror. When he had the mirrors grouped in close ranks, he spun about on his heels quickly, as if seized with the devout frenzy of a dervish. He fell, finally, in a daze of dizziness and liquor. Yet he had cunning enough left. He crept out of the room on his stomach, like a snake with fiery breath. He knew that the angle at which the mirrors were tilted would keep him, belly to the carpet, out of range. Then he reeled, shouting, into the corridors. He had accomplished his desire. He no longer knew one mirror from the other. Orson Vane, in the meanwhile, was being rushed to the mountains. It was with a new shock of shame that he saw the ravages illness was making on the fine face of Vanlief. This, too, was one of the items in the profit-and-loss column of his experiments. Yet this burden was, perhaps, a shared one. "Ah," said Vanlief, with a quick breath of gladness, "thank God!" He knew, the instant Vane spoke, that it was Orson Vane himself who had come; he knew that there was no more doubt as to the success of his own recent headlong journeyings. They had prostrated him; but--they had won. Yet there was no knowing how far this illness might go; it was still imperative to come to final, frank conclusions with the partner in his secret. The instant that Vane had been announced Jeannette Vanlief had left her father's side. She withdrew to the adjoining room, where only a curtain concealed her; the doors had all been taken down for the summer. She did not wish to meet Orson Vane. Over her real feelings for him had come a cloud of doubts and distastes. She had never admitted to herself, openly, that she loved him; she tried to persuade herself that his notorious vagaries had put him beyond her pale. She was determined, now, to be an unseen ear to what might pass between Orson and her father. It was not a nice thing to do, but, for all she knew, her father's very life was at stake. What dire influence might Vane not have over her father? She suspected there was some bond between them; in her father's weakened state it seemed her duty to watch over him with every devotion and alertness. Yet, for a long time, the purport of the conversation quite eluded her. "I have not gone the gamut of humanity," said Orson, "but I have almost, it seems to me, gone the gamut of my own courage." Vanlief nodded. He, too, understood. Consequences! Consequences! How the consequences of this world do spoil the castles one builds in it! Castles in the air may be as pretty as you please, but they are sure to obstruct some other mortal's view of the sky. "If I were younger," sighed Vanlief, "if I were only younger." They did not yet, either of them, dare to be open, brutal, forthright. "I could declare, I suppose," Vanlief went on, "that it was somewhat your own fault. You chose your victims badly. You have, I presume, been disenchanted. You found little that was beautiful, many things that were despicable. The spectacles you borrowed have all turned out smoky. Yet, consider--there are sure to be just as many rosy spectacles as dark ones in the world." "No doubt," assented Vane, though without enthusiasm, "but there are still--the consequences. There is still the chance that I could never repay the soul I take on loan; still the horror of being left to face the rest of my days with a cuckoo in my brain. Mind, I have no reproaches, none at all. You overstated nothing. I have felt, have thought, have done as other men have felt and thought and done; their very inner secret souls have been completely in my keeping. The experiment has been a triumph. Yet it leaves me joyless." "It has made me old," said Vanlief, simply. "Ah," he repeated, "if only I were younger!" "The strain," he began again, "of putting an end to your last experiment has told on me. I overdid it. Such emotion, and such physical tension, is more than I should have attempted. I begin to fear I may not last very long. And in that case I think I shall have to take my secret with me. Orson, it comes to this; I am too old to perfect this marvelous thing to the point where it will be safe for humanity at large. It is still unsafe,--you will agree to that. You might wreck your own life and that of others. The chances are one in a thousand of your ever finding a human being whom God has so graciously endowed with the divine spirit as to be able to lose part of it without collapse. I have hoped and hoped, that such a thing would happen; then there would be two perfectly even, exactly tempered creatures; even if, upon that transfusion, the mirror disappeared, there would be no unhappiness as a reproach. But we have found nothing like that. You have embittered yourself; the glimpses of other souls you have had have almost stripped you of your belief in an eternal Good." "You mean to send for the mirror?" "It would be better, wiser. If I live, it will still be here. If I die, it must be destroyed. In any event--" At the actual approach of this conclusion to his experiments Orson Vane felt a sense of coming loss. With all the dangers, all the loom of possible disaster, he was not yet rid of the awful fascination of this soul-snatching he had been engaged in. "Perhaps," he argued, "my next experiment might find the one in a thousand you spoke of." "I think you had better not try again. Tell me, what was Wantage's soul like?" "Oh, I cannot put it into words. A little, feverish, fretful soul, shouting, all the time: I, I, I! Plotting, planning for public attention, worldly prominence. No thoughts save those of self. An active brain, all bent on the ego. A brain that deliberately chose the theatre because it seems the most spectacular avenue to eminence. A magnetism that keeps outsiders wondering whether childishness or genius lurks behind the mask. The bacillus of restlessness is in that brain; it is never idle, always planning a new pose for the body and the voice." "Well," urged Vanlief, "think what might have been had I not put a stop to the thing. You don't realize the terrible anxiety I was in. You might have ruined the man's career. However petty we, you and I, may hold him, there are things the world expects of him; we came close to spoiling all that. I had to act, and quickly. You may fancy the difficulties of getting the mirror to Wantage. Oh, it is still all like an evil dream." He lay silent a while, then resumed: "Is the mirror in the old room?" "Yes. With the others, in the dressing-room." "Nevins looks out for it?" "As always. Though he grows old, too." Vanlief looked sharply at Orson, he suspected something behind that phrase about Nevins. Again he urged: "Better have Nevins bring the mirror back to me." Vane hesitated. He murmured a reply that Jeannette no longer cared to hear. The whole secret was open to her, now; she saw that the Orson Vane she loved--she exulted now in her admission of that--was still the man she thought him, that all his inexplicable divagations had been part of this awful juggling with the soul that her father had found the trick of. She realized, too, by the manner of Vane, that he had not yet given up all thought of these experiments; he wanted one more. One more; one more; it was the cry of the drunkard, the opium-eater, the victim of every form of mania. It should never be, that one more trial. What her father had done, she could do. She glided out of the room, on the heels of her quick resolution. The two men, in their arguments, their widening discussions, did not bring her to mind for hours. By that that time she was well on her way to town. Her purpose was clear to her; nothing should hinder its achievement. She must destroy the mirror. There were sciences that were better killed at the outset. She did not enter deeply into those phases of the question, but she had the clear determination to prevent further mischief, further follies on the part of Vane, further chances of her father's collapse. The mirror must be destroyed. That was plain and simple. It took a tremendous ringing and knocking to bring Nevins to the door of Vane's house. "I am Miss Vanlief," she said, "I want to see my father's mirror." "Certainly, miss, certainly." He tottered before her, chuckling and chattering to himself. He was in the condition now when nothing surprised him; any rascal could have led him with a word or a hint; he was immeasurably gay at everything in the world. He reeled to the dressing-room with an elaborate air of courtesy. "At your service, miss, there you are, miss. You walk straight on, and there you are, miss. There's the mirror, miss, plain as pudding." She strode past him, drawing her skirt away from the horrible taint of his breath. She knew she would find the mirror at once, curtained and solitary sentinel before the doorway. She would simply break it with her parasol, stab it, viciously, from behind. But, once past the portal, she gave a little cry. All the mirrors were jumbled together, all looked alike, and all faced her, mysterious, glaringly. "Nevins," she called out, "which--which is the one?" "Ah, miss," he said, leeringly, "don't I wish I knew." No sense of possible danger to herself, only a despair at failure, came upon Jeannette. Failure! Failure! She had meant to avert disaster, and she had accomplished--nothing, nothing at all. She left the house almost in tears. She felt sure Vane would yield again to the temptation of these frightful experiments. She could do nothing, nothing. She had felt justified in attempting destruction of what was her father's; but she could not wantonly offer all that array of mirrors on the altar of her purpose. She stumbled along the street, suffering, full of tears. It was with a sigh of relief that she saw a hansom and hailed it. The cab had hardly turned a corner before Orson Vane, coming from another direction, let himself into his house. His conference with Vanlief had ceased at his own promise to make just one more trial of the mirror. He could not go about the business of the life he led in town without assuring himself the mirror was safe. He found Nevins incoherent and useless. He began to consider seriously the advisability of discharging the man; still, he hated to do that to an old servant, and the man might come to his senses and his duties. He spent some little time re-arranging the mirrors in his room. He was sure there had been no intrusion since he was there himself, and he knew Nevins well enough to know that individual's horror of facing the mirror. He himself faced the new mirror boldly enough, sure that his own image was the only one resting there. He knew the mirror easily, in spite of the robbery that the wind, as he thought, had committed. Nevins, hiding in the corridor, watched him, in drunken amusement. CHAPTER XIX. The sun, glittering along the avenue, shimmering on the rustling gowns of the women and smoothing the coats of the horses, smote Orson Vane gently; the fairness of the day flooded his soul with a tide of well-being. In the air and on the town there seemed some subtle radiance, some glamour of enchantment. The smell of violets was all about him. The colors of new fashions dotted the vision like a painting by Hassam; a haze of warmth covered the town like a kiss. His thoughts, keyed, in some strange, sweet way, to all the pleasant, happy, pretty things in life, brought him the vision of Jeannette Vanlief. How long, how far away seemed that day when she had been at his side, when her voice had enveloped him in its silver echoes! As carriage after carriage passed him, he began to fancy Jeannette, in all her roseate beauty, driving toward him. He saw the curve of her ankle as she stepped into the carriage; he dreamed of her flower-like attitude as she leaned to the cushions. Then the miracle happened; Jeannette, a little tired, a little pale, a little more fragile than when last he had seen her, was coming toward him. A smile, a gentle, tender, slightly sad--but yet so sweet, so sweet!--a smile was on her lips. He took her hand and held it and looked into her eyes, and the two souls in that instant kissed and became one. "This time," he said--and as he spoke all that had happened since they had pretended, childishly, on the top of the old stage on the Avenue, seemed to slip away, to fade, to be forgotten--"it must be a real luncheon. You are fagged. So am I. You are like a breath of lilies-of-the-valley. Come!" They took a table by an open window. The procession of the town nearly touched them, so close was it. To them both it seemed, to-day, a happy, joyous, fine procession. "Will you tell me something?" asked the girl, presently, after they had laughed and chattered like two children for awhile. "Anything in the world." "Well, then--are you ever, ever going to face that dreadful mirror again?" He smiled, as if there was nothing astonishing in her knowledge, her question. "Do you want me not to?" She nodded. He put his hand across the table, on one of hers. "Jeannette," he whispered, "I promise. Why do you care? It is not possible that you care because, because--Jeannette, will you promise me something, too?" They have excellent waiters at the Mayfair. They can be absolutely blind at times. This was such a time. The particular waiter who was serving Vane's table, took a sudden, rapt interest in the procession on the avenue. Jeanette crumbled a macaroon with her free hand. "You have my hand," she pouted. "I need it," he said. "It is a very pretty hand. And very strong. I think it must have lifted all my ills from me to-day. I feel nothing but kindness toward the whole world. I could kiss--the whole world." "Oh," said Jeannette, pulling her hand away a little, "you monster! You are worse than Nero." "Do you think my kisses would be so awful, then? Or is it simply the piggishness of me that makes you call me a monster. That's not the right way to look at it. Think of all the dreadful people there are in the world; think how philanthropic you must make me feel if I want to kiss even those." "Ah, but the world is full of beautiful women." "I do not believe it," he vowed. "I do not think God had any beauty left after he fashioned--you." He was not ashamed, not one iota of the grossness of that fable. He really felt so. Indeed, all his life he never felt otherwise than that toward Jeannette. And she took the shocking compliment quite serenely. "You are absurd," she said, but she looked as if she loved absurdity. "Please, may I take my hand?" "If you will be very good and promise--" "What?" "To give me something in exchange." "Something in exchange?" "Yes. The sweetest thing in the world, the best, and the dearest. You, dear, yourself. Oh! dearest, if I could tell you what I feel. Speech--what a silly thing speech is! It can only hint clumsily, futilely. If I could only tell you, for instance, how the world has suddenly taken on brightness for me since you smiled. I feel a tenderness to all nature. I believe at heart there is good in everyone, don't you? To-day I seem to see nothing but good. I could find you a lovable spot in the worst villain you might name. I suppose it is the stream of sweetness that comes from you, dear. Why can't this hour last forever. I want it to, oh, I want it to!" "It is," she whispered, "an hour I shall always remember." "Yes, but it must last, it can't die; it sha'n't! Jeannette, let us make this hour last us our lives! Can't we?" "Our lives?" she whispered. "Yes, our lives. This is only the first minute of our life. We must never part again. I seem to have been behind a cloud of doubt and distrust until this moment. I hardly realize what has happened to me. Is love so refining a thing as all this? Does it turn bitter into sweet, and make all the ups and downs of the world shine like one level, beautiful sea of tenderness? It can be nothing else, but that--my love, our--can I say our love, Jeannette?" The sun streamed in at the window, kissing the tendrils of her hair and bringing to their copper shimmer a yet brighter blush. The day, with all its perfume, the splendor of its people, the riot of color of its gowns, the pride and pomp of its statues and its fountains, flushed the most secret rills of life. "It is a marvel of a day," said Jeannette. "A marvel? It is an impossible day; it is not a day at all--it is merely the hour of hours, the supreme instant, the melody so sweet that it must break or blind our hearts. You are right, dear, it is a marvelous hour. You make me repeat myself. Can we let this hour--escape, Jeannette?" "It goes fast." "Fast--fast as the wind. Fleet as air and fair as heaven are the instants that bring happiness to common mortals. But we must hold the hour, cage it, leash it to our lives." "Do you think we can?" She had used the "we!" Oh yes, and she had said it; she had said it; he sang the refrain over to himself in a swoon of bliss. "I am sure of it," he urged. "Will you try?" "You are so much the stronger," she mocked. "Oh--if it depends on me--! Try? I shall succeed! I know it. Such love as mine cannot fail. If only you will let me try. That is all; just that. "I wish you luck!" she smiled. "You have said it," he jubilated, "you have said it!" And then, realizing that she had meant it all the time, he threatened her with a look, a shake of the head--oh, you would have said he wanted to punish her in some terrible way, some way that was filled with kisses. "Jeannette," he whispered, "I have never heard you speak my name." "A pretty name, too," she said. "I have wondered if I might not spoil it in my pronunciation." "You beautiful bit of mockery, you," he said, "will you condescend to repeat a little sentence after me? You will say it far more prettily than I, but perhaps you will forgive my lack of music. I am only a man. You--ah, you are a goddess." "For how long?" she asked. "Men marry goddesses and find them clay, don't they?" "You are not clay, dear, you are star-dust, and flowers, and fragrance. There is not a thought in your dear head that is in tune with mere clay. But listen! You must say this after me: I--" "I--" "Love--" "Love--" "You--" "You--" "Jeannette--" Her lips began to frame the consonant for her own name, but at sight of the pleading in his gaze she stilled the playfulness of her, and finished, shyly, but oh, so sweetly. "Orson." The dear, delightful absurdities of the hour when men and women tell each other they love, how silly, and how pathetic they must seem to the all-seeing force that flings our destinies back and forth at its will! Yet how fair, how ineffably fair, those moments are to their heroes and heroines; how vastly absurd the rest of the sad, serious world seems to such lovers, and how happy are the mortals, after all, who through fastnesses of doubt and darkness, come to the free spaces where the heart, in tenderness and grace, rules supreme over the intellect, and keeps in subjection, wisdom, ignorance and all the ills men plague their minds with! When they left the Mayfair together their precious secret was anything but a secret. Their dream lay fair and open to the world; one must have been very blind not to see how much these two were in love with each other. They had gone over every incident of their friendship; they had stirred the embers of their earliest longings; they had touched their growing happiness at every point save where Orson's steps aside had hurt his sweetheart's memory. Those periods both avoided. All else they made subject for, oh, the tenderest, the most lovelorn conversation thinkable. It was enough, if overheard, to have sickened the whole day for any ordinary mortal. One must, to repeat, have been very stupid not to see, when they issued upon the avenue, that they shared the secret that this world appears to have been created to keep alive. Love clothed them like a visible garment. Luke Moncreith could never have been called blind or stupid. He saw the truth at once. The truth; it rushed over him like a salt, bitter, acrid sea. He swallowed it as a drowning man swallows what overwhelms him. One instant of terrible rage spun him as if he had been a top; he faced about and was for making, then and there, a scene with this shamelessly happy pair. But the futility of that struck him on the following second. He kept his way down the avenue, emotions surging in him; he felt that his passions were becoming visible and conspicuous; he took a turning into one of the streets leading eastward. A sign of a wineshop flashed across his dancing vision, and he clung to it as to an anchor or a poison. He found a table. He wanted nothing else, only rest, rest. The wine stood untasted on the bare wood before him. He peered, through it, into an unfathomable mystery. This chameleon, this fellow Vane--how was it possible that he had won this glorious, flower-like creature, Jeannette? This man had been, as the fancy took him, a court fool, a sporting nonentity, and a blatant mummer. And what was he now? By the looks of him, he was, to-day--and for how long, Moncreith wondered--a very essence of meekness and sweetness; butter would not think of melting in his mouth. What, in the devil's name, what was this riddle! He might have repeated that question to himself until the end of his life if the door had not opened then and let in Nevins. Nevins ordered the strongest liquor in the place. The sideboard on Vanthuysen Square might be empty, but Nevins had still the money. As for the gloomy old Vane house, he really could not stand it any longer. He toasted himself, did Nevins, and he talked to himself. "'An now," he murmured, thickly, "'ere's to the mirror. May I never see it again as long as I 'as breath in my body and wits in me 'ead. Which," he observed, with a fatuous grin, "aint for long. No, sir; me nerves is that a-shake I aint good for nothin' any more. And I asks you, is it any wonder? 'Ere's Mr. Vane, one day, pleasant as pie. Next day, comes in, takes a look at that dratted mirror of the Perfessor's, and takes to 'igh jinks. Yes, sir, 'igh jinks, very 'igh jinks. 'As pink tea-fights in his rooms, 'angs up pictures I wouldn't let me own father see--no, sir, not if 'e begged me on his bended knee, I wouldn't--and wears what you might call a tenor voice. Then--one day, while you says 'One for his Nob' 'e's 'imself again. An' it's always the mirror this, an' the mirror that. I must look out for it, an' it mustn't be touched, and nobody must come in. And what's the result of it all? Me nerves is gone, and me self-respect is gone, and I'm a poor miserable drunkard!" He gulped down some of his misery. "Join me," said a voice nearby, "in another of those things!" Nevins turned, with a swaying motion, to note Moncreith, whose hand was pointing to the empty glass before Nevins. "You are quite right," he went on, when the other's glass had been filled again, "Mr. Vane's conduct has been most scandalous of late. You say he has a mirror?" All circumspection had long since passed from Nevins. He was simply an individual with a grievance. The many episodes that, in his filmy mind, seemed to center about that mirror, shifted and twisted in him to where they forced utterance. He began to talk, circuitously, wildly, rapidly, of the many things that rankled in him. He told all he knew, all he had observed. From out of the mass of inane, not pertinent ramblings, Moncreith caught a glimmer of the facts. What a terrible power this must be that was in Orson Vane's possession! Moncreith shuddered at the thought. Why, the man might turn himself, in all but externals--and what, after all, was the husk, the shell, the body?--into the finest wit, the most lovable hero of his time; he might fare about the world wrecking now this, now that, happiness; he might win--perhaps he actually had, even now, won Jeannette Vanlief? If he had, if--perhaps there was yet time! There was need for sharp, desperate action. He plunged out of the place and toward Vanthuysen Square. Then he remembered that he could not get in. He aroused Nevins from his brutish doze. He dragged him over the intervening space. Nevins gave him the key, and dropped into one of the hall chairs. Moncreith leaped upstairs, and entered the room where the mirror stood, white, silent, stately. He contemplated everything for a time. He conjured up the picture he had been able to piece together from the rambling monologues of Nevins. He wondered whether to simply smash in the mirrors--he would destroy them all, to make sure--by taking a chair-leg to them, or whether he would carefully pour some acid over them. The simpler plan appealed most to him. It was the quickest, the most thorough. He took a little wooden chair that stood by an ebon escritoire, swung it high in the air and brought it with a shattering crash upon the face of the Professor's mirror. But there was more than a mere crash. A deadly, sickening, stifling fume arose from the space the clinking glass unbared; a flame burst out, leaped at Moncreith and seized him. The deadly white smoke flowed through the room; flame followed flame, curtains, hangings, screens went, one after the other, to feed the ravenous beast that Moncreith's blow had liberated. The room was presently a seething furnace that rattled in the cage of the walls and windows. Moncreith lay, choked with the horrid smoke, on the floor. The flames licked at him again and again; finally one took him on the tip of its tongue, twisted him about, and shriveled him to black, charred shapelessness. The windows fell, finally, out upon the street below. The fire sneaked downward, laughing and leaping. When the firemen came to save Orson Vane's house, they found a grinning, sodden creature in the hall. It was Nevins. "That settles the mirror!" was all he kept repeating. CHAPTER XX. The Professor shivered a little when Jeannette came to him with her budget of wonderful news. She told him of her engagement. He patted her head, and blessed her and wished her happiness. Then she told him of her visit to Vane's house. It was at that he shivered. He wondered if Vane had taken her image from that fatal glass. If he had, how, he wondered, would this experiment end? Surely it could not have happened; Jeannette was quite herself; there was no visible diminution of charm, of vitality. When Vane arrived, presently, the Professor questioned him. The answer brought the Professor wonder, but he did not count it altogether a calamity. There could be no doubt that Orson Vane was now wearing Jeannette's sweet and beautiful soul as a halo round his own. Well, mused Vanlief, if anything should happen to Jeannette one can always-- "Oh, father!" Jeannette burst into the room with the morning paper from town. "Orson's house is burnt to the ground. And who do you think is suspected? Luke Moncreith! They found his body. Read it!" The Professor took the report and scanned it. There could be no doubt; the mirror, the work of his life, was gone. He could never fashion one like it. Never--Yet--He looked at the two young people at the window, whither they had turned together, each with an arm about the other. "What a marvel of a day!" Jeannette was saying. "The days will all be marvels for us," said Orson. "The days, I think, must have souls, just as we have. Some days seem to have such dark, such bitter thoughts. "Yes, I think you are right. There are days that strike one as having souls; others that seem quite soulless. Beautiful, empty shells, some of them; others, dim, yet tender, full of graciousness." "Orson!" "Sweetheart!" "Do you know how wonderfully you are changed? Do you know you once talked bitterly, as one who was full of disappointments and disenchantments?" "You have set me, dear, in a garden of enchantment from which I mean never to escape. The garden is your heart." Something glistened in the Professor's eyes as he listened. "God, in his infinite wisdom," he said, in a reverent whisper, "gave her so much of grace; she had enough for both!" 
50988	----	Bodyguard By CHRISTOPHER GRIMM Illustrated by CAVAT [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] When overwhelming danger is constantly present, of course a man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that he had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate! The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner. Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was almost ordinary-looking. As for the extraterrestrials--it was a free bar--they were merely amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably hideous. Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a short man standing next to the pair--young, as most men and women were in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though not death--but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century. The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one--or at least he felt he was, which was what mattered. "Sorry, colleague," Gabe said lazily. "All my fault. You must let me buy you a replacement." He gestured to the bartender. "Another of the same for my fellow-man here." The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth hastily supplied by the management. "You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look at them. "Here, have yourself a new suit on me." _You could use one_ was implied. And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance, was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's handsome face. * * * * * Suddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. "Don't do that," the nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. "You wouldn't want to go to jail because of him." The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces now ranged against him--including his own belated prudence--were too strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to smash back, and now it was too late for that. Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. "So, it's you again?" The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up for you?" "I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful at times, you know." "So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again. "Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from yourself--you lost yourself a while back, remember?" Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you something--I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out." "I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving." "Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked. He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he happened to have been telling the truth. * * * * * Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions, reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to the letter combination _bodyguard_, he went out into the street. If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for years. The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?" the driver asked. "I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there. "Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?" But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head. "Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?" "Is there a good zarquil game in town?" The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit suicide? It's cleaner and quicker." "I can't contact your attitude," the passenger said with a thin smile. "Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a thrill-mill." He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy. "Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?" The driver spat out of the window. "If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ... anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em." "But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a commission, wouldn't it?" the other man asked coolly. "Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though." "I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun." "You're the dictator," the driver agreed sullenly. II It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn. "Let me take the controls, honey," the light-haired girl urged, but he shook his handsome head. "Show you I can do something 'sides look pretty," he said thickly, referring to an earlier and not amicable conversation they had held, and of which she still bore the reminder on one thickly made-up cheek. Fortunately the car was flying low, contrary to regulations, so that when they smashed into the beacon tower on the outskirts of the little town, they didn't have far to fall. And hardly had their car crashed on the ground when the car that had been following them landed, and a short fat man was puffing toward them through the mist. To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment before the fuel tank exploded and the 'copter went up in flames. Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him speculatively. "My guardian angel," he mumbled--shock had sobered him a little, but not enough. He sat up. "Guess I'm not hurt or you'd have thrown me back in." "And that's no joke," the fat man agreed. The girl shivered and at that moment Gabriel suddenly seemed to recall that he had not been alone. "How about Helen? She on course?" "Seems to be," the fat man said. "You all right, miss?" he asked, glancing toward the girl without, she thought, much apparent concern. "_Mrs._," Gabriel corrected. "Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," he said, bowing from his seated position toward the girl. "Pretty bauble, isn't she?" "I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," the fat man said, looking at her intently. His small eyes seemed to strip the make-up from her cheek and examine the livid bruise underneath. "I hope you'll be worthy of the name." The light given off by the flaming car flickered on his face and Gabriel's and, she supposed, hers too. Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them. There were no public illuminators this far out--even in town the lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and beginning to slide downhill.... Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see. * * * * * There was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before, which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and his was not included in her gallery. The girl pulled her thin jacket closer about her chilly body. "Aren't you going to introduce your--your friend to me, Gabe?" "I don't know who he is," Gabe said almost merrily, "except that he's no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?" "Of course I have a name." The fat man extracted an identification card from his wallet and read it. "Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks ago, and now he isn't ... anything." "You saved our lives," the girl said. "I'd like to give you some token of my--of our appreciation." Her hand reached toward her credit-carrier with deliberate insult. He might have saved her life, but only casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation held little gratitude. The fat man shook his head without rancor. "I have plenty of money, thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come," he addressed her husband, "if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the future! Sometimes," he added musingly, "I almost wish you would let something happen. Then my problem would not be any problem, would it?" Gabriel shivered. "I'll be careful," he vowed. "I promise--I'll be careful." When he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night, the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification. Perhaps--and this was the most likely hypothesis--he just didn't care. Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course--so much so that there were many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of "crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly applied. And this was one crime--for it was crime in law as well as nature--in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator; otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse. * * * * * Playing the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien human beings; all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs. Which was why they came to Terra to make profits--there has never been big money in musical chairs as such. When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent--as they had strange powers, which, not being definable, were beyond the law--they suffered their sentences with equanimity. No Earth court could give an effective prison sentence to a creature whose life spanned approximately two thousand terrestrial years. And capital punishment had become obsolete on Terra, which very possibly saved the terrestrials embarrassment, for it was not certain that their weapons could kill the Vinzz ... or whether, in fact, the Vinzz merely expired after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet. The taxi driver took the fat man to one of the rather seedy locales in which the zarquil games were usually found, for the Vinzz attempted to conduct their operations with as much unobtrusiveness as was possible. But the front door swung open on an interior that lacked the opulence of the usual Vinoz set-up; it was down-right shabby, the dim olive light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was the trouble in these smaller towns--you ran greater risks of getting involved in games where the players had not been carefully screened. The Vinoz games were usually clean, because that paid off better, but, when profits were lacking, the Vinzz were capable of sliding off into darkside practices. Naturally the small-town houses were more likely to have trouble in making ends meet, because everybody in the parish knew everybody else far too well. The fat man wondered whether that had been his quarry's motive in coming to such desolate, off-trail places--hoping that eventually disaster would hit the one who pursued him. Somehow, such a plan seemed too logical for the man he was haunting. However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. "One?" the small green creature in the slightly frayed robe asked. "One," the fat man answered. III The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. "Only weighted out," he muttered, "he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you two to come out to a place like this?" "I really think Gabriel _must_ be possessed...." the girl said, mostly to herself. "I had no idea of the kind of place it was going to be until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse. It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?" "It does indeed," the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable and it wasn't worth the trouble of fixing up. The girl looked closely at him. "You look different, but you _are_ the same man who pulled us out of that aircar crash, aren't you? And before that the man in the gray suit? And before that...?" The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. "Yes, I'm all of them." "Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people who go around changing their bodies like--like hats?" Automatically she reached to adjust the expensive bit of blue synthetic on her moon-pale hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance; if she had not been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that. * * * * * He smiled again, but coughed instead of speaking. "But why do you do it? _Why!_ Do you like it? Or is it because of Gabriel?" She was growing a little frantic; there was menace here and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was included in its scope. "Do you want to keep him from recognizing you; is that it?" "Ask him." "He won't tell me; he never tells me anything. We just keep running. I didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what we've been doing ever since we were married. And running from you, I think?" There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she wondered how much control he had over a body that, though second- or third- or fourth-hand, must be new to him. How well could he make it respond? What was it like to step into another person's casing? But she must not let herself think that way or she would find herself looking for a zarquil game. It would be one way of escaping Gabriel, but not, she thought, the best way; her body was much too good a one to risk so casually. * * * * * It was beginning to snow. Light, feathery flakes drifted down on her husband's immobile body. She pulled her thick coat--of fur taken from some animal who had lived and died light-years away--more closely about herself. The thin young man began to cough again. Overhead a tiny star seemed to detach itself from the pale flat disk of the Moon and hurl itself upward--one of the interstellar ships embarking on its long voyage to distant suns. She wished that somehow she could be on it, but she was here, on this solitary old world in a barren solar system, with her unconscious husband and a strange man who followed them, and it looked as if here she would stay ... all three of them would stay.... "If you're after Gabriel, planning to hurt him," she asked, "why then do you keep helping him?" "I am not helping _him_. And he knows that." "You'll change again tonight, won't you?" she babbled. "You always change after you ... meet us? I think I'm beginning to be able to identify you now, even when you're ... wearing a new body; there's something about you that doesn't change." "Too bad he got married," the young man said. "I could have followed him for an eternity and he would never have been able to pick me out from the crowd. Too bad he got married anyway," he added, his voice less impersonal, "for your sake." She had come to the same conclusion in her six months of marriage, but she would not admit that to an outsider. Though this man was hardly an outsider; he was part of their small family group--as long as she had known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect that he was even more closely involved than that. "Why must you change again?" she persisted, obliquely approaching the subject she feared. "You have a pretty good body there. Why run the risk of getting a bad one?" "This isn't a good body," he said. "It's diseased. Sure, nobody's supposed to play the game who hasn't passed a thorough medical examination. But in the places to which your husband has been leading me, they're often not too particular, as long as the player has plenty of foliage." "How--long will it last you?" "Four or five months, if I'm careful." He smiled. "But don't worry, if that's what you're doing; I'll get it passed on before then. It'll be expensive--that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then it was tough on me too, wasn't it?" "But how did you get into this ... pursuit?" she asked again. "And why are you doing it?" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should know him better than most. "Ask your husband." The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate, snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name, and stirred it with his toe. "I'd better call a cab--he might freeze to death." He signaled and a cab came. "Tell him, when he comes to," he said to the girl as he and the driver lifted the heavy form of her husband into the helicar, "that I'm getting pretty tired of this." He stopped for a long spell of coughing. "Tell him that sometimes I wonder whether cutting off my nose wouldn't, in the long run, be most beneficial for my face." * * * * * "Sorry," the Vinzz said impersonally, in English that was perfect except for the slight dampening of the sibilants, "but I'm afraid you cannot play." "Why not?" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes. "You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house." "But I have plenty of money." The young man coughed. The Vinzz shrugged. "I'll pay you twice the regular fee." The green one shook his head. "Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This game is really clean." "In a town like this?" "That is the reason we can afford to be honest." The Vinzz' tendrils quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung with him. "We do a lot of business here," he said unnecessarily, for the whole set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by no means poor when it came to worldly goods. "Why don't you try another town where they're not so particular?" The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game. He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration. And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own discoverment and identification simply as an excuse to cover the fact that none of the bodies that fell to his lot ever seemed to fit him? Was he activated solely by revenge or as much by the hope that in the hazards of the game he might, impossible though it now seemed, some day win another body that approached perfection as nearly as his original casing had? He didn't know. However, there seemed to be no help for it now; he would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl, seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that the hulk he inhabited was a sick one; he still couldn't understand how he could so casually have entrusted her with so vital a piece of information. * * * * * The Vinzz had been locking antennae with another of his kind. Now they detached, and the first approached the man once more. "There is, as it happens, a body available for a private game," he lisped. "No questions to be asked or answered. All I can tell you is that it is in good health." The man hesitated. "But unable to pass the screening?" he murmured aloud. "A criminal then." The green one's face--if you could call it a face--remained impassive. "Male?" "Of course," the Vinzz said primly. His kind did have certain ultimate standards to which they adhered rigidly, and one of those was the curious tabu against mixed games, strictly enforced even though it kept them from tapping a vast source of potential players. There had also never been a recorded instance of humans and extraterrestrials exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or biological impossibility, no one could tell. It might merely be prudence on the Vinzz' part--if it had ever been proved that an alien life-form had "desecrated" a human body, Earthmen would clamor for war ... for on this planet humanity held its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear--and the Vinzz, despite being unquestionably the stronger, were pragmatic pacifists. It had been undoubtedly some rabid member of the anti-alien groups active on Terra who had started the rumor that the planetary slogan of Vinau was, "Don't beat 'em; cheat 'em." "It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take such a risk." The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How much?" "Thirty thousand credits." "Why, that's three times the usual rate!" "The other will pay five times the usual rate." "Oh, all right," the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do. * * * * * He looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body; tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful student of the "wanted" fax that had decorated public buildings from time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily, nor whom the police intended to capture easily. _This might be a lucky break for me after all_, the new tenant thought, as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious rude health, was not a very comfortable fit. _I can do a lot with a hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe I'll be able to get away with it._ IV "Look, Gabe," the girl said, "don't try to fool me! I know you too well. And I know you have that man's--the real Gabriel Lockard's--body." She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror. Lockard--Lockard's body, at any rate--sat up and felt his unshaven chin. "That what he tell you?" "No, he didn't tell me anything really--just suggested I ask you whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to see his body spoiled." "It _is_ a pretty good body, isn't it?" Gabe flexed softening muscles and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved at having someone with whom to share his secret. "Not as good as it must have been," the girl said, turning and looking at him without admiration. "Not if you keep on the way you're coursing. Gabe, why don't you...?" "Give it back to him, eh?" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be _his_ wife then. That would be nice--a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little more than you deserve?" "I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe," she said truthfully enough, for she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. "Of course I'd go with you," she went on, now knowing she lied, "when you got your ... old body back." _Sure_, she thought, _I'd keep going with you to farjeen houses and thrill-mills._ Actually she had accompanied him to a thrill-mill only once, and from then on, despite all his threats, she had refused to go with him again. But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash that experience from her mind or her body. "You wouldn't be able to get your old body back, though, would you?" she went on. "You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose, does he?" "I don't want to know!" he spat. "I wouldn't want it if I could get it back. Whoever it adhered to probably killed himself as soon as he looked in a mirror." He swung long legs over the side of his bed. "Christ, anything would be better than that! You can't imagine what a hulk I had!" "Oh, yes, I can," she said incautiously. "You must have had a body to match your character. Pity you could only change one." * * * * * He rose from the bed and struck her right on the mouth. Although he hadn't used his full strength, the blow was painful nonetheless. She could feel the red of her lipstick become mixed with a warmer, liquid red that trickled slowly down her freshly powdered chin. She wouldn't cry, because he liked that, but crumpled to the ground and lay still. If, experience had taught her, she pretended to be hurt, he wouldn't hit her again. Only sometimes it was hard to remember that at the actual moment of hurt and indignity. He was too afraid of prison--a tangible prison. And perhaps, to do him credit, he didn't want to deface his own property. He sat down on the edge of the bed again and lit a milgot stick. "Oh, get up, Helen. You know I didn't hit you that hard." "Did you have to beat him up to get him to change bodies?" she asked from the floor. "No." He laughed reminiscently. "I just got him drunk. We were friends, so it was a cinch. He was my only friend; everybody else hated me because of my appearance." His features contorted. "What made him think he was so damn much better than other people that he could afford to like me? Served him right for being so noble." She stared at the ceiling--it was so old its very fabric was beginning to crack--and said nothing. "He didn't even realize what he had here--" Lockard tapped his broad chest with complacence--"until it was too late. Took it for granted. Sickened me to see him taking the body for granted when I couldn't take mine that way. People used to shrink from me. Girls...." She sat up. "Give me a milgot, Gabe." He lighted one and handed it to her. "For Christ's sake, Helen, I gave him more than he had a right to expect. I was too god-damn noble myself. I was well-milled; I didn't have to leave half of my holdings in my own name--I could have transferred them all to his. If I had, then he wouldn't have had the folio to hound me all over this planet or to other planets, if I'd had the nerve to shut myself up on a spaceship, knowing he probably would be shut up on it with me." He smiled. "Of course he won't hurt me; that's the one compensation. Damage me, and he damages himself." "But it's your life he saves, too," she reminded him. "My life wouldn't ever have been in danger if it hadn't been for this continual persecution--it's driving me out of this dimension! I planned to start a new life with this body," he pleaded, anxious for belief and, as a matter of fact, she believed him; almost everybody has good intentions and there was no reason to except even such a one as Gabriel Lockard, or whatever he was originally named. "It was my appearance that got me mixed up," he went on. "Given half a chance I could have straightened out--gone to Proxima Centauri, maybe, and then out to one of the frontier planets. Made something of myself up there. But nobody ever gave me a chance. Now, as long as he follows me, there's nothing I can do except run and try to hide and know all the time I can't escape--I'm already in the trap." "What can he do if you stay and face him?" "I don't know--that's the hell of it. But he's smart. Somehow he'll lure me into another game. I don't know how, but that must be what he has in mind. What else could it be?" "What else indeed?" Helen asked, smiling up at the ceiling. * * * * * The milgot vanished in his fingers and he took another. "It'd take time for him to arrange any kind of private game set-up, though, and as long as I keep on the move, he won't be able to create anything. Unless he runs into a floating zarquil game." He smiled mirthlessly. "And he couldn't. Too much machinery, I understand.... Lucky he doesn't seem to have connections, the way I have," Lockard boasted. "I have connections all over the god-damn planet. Transferred them when I transferred my holdings." She got up, seated herself on the vanity bench, and took up a brush, which she ran absently over the pale hair that shimmered down to her paler shoulders. "So we keep running all over the planet.... What would you do if I left you, Gabriel?" "Kill you," he said without hesitation. "Slowly. Even if I have to put this precious hulk of mine in jeopardy. And you wouldn't like that. Neither would your boy friend." "Stop calling him my--" "Wait a minute--maybe there is an escape hatch!" His blue eyes sharpened unbecomingly. "He can't kill me, but there's nothing to stop my killing him." "How about the police?" She tried to speak calmly as she passed the brush up and down, sometimes not even touching her hair. "The body you have won't be any good to you with them looking for it. And you're not a professional exterminator, Gabe--you wouldn't be able to get away with it." "I can hire somebody else to do the killing. Remember I still have plenty of foliage. Maybe I didn't leave him exactly half of my property, but, what the hell, I left him enough." "How will you recognize him?" she asked, half-turning, fearfully. "He'll have a new body, you know." "You'll recognize him, Helen--you said you could." At that moment she could have wrapped her own hair tightly around her white throat and strangled herself; she was so appalled by her own witless treachery. He dragged her to her feet. "Aah, moonbeam, you know I didn't mean to hurt you. It's just that this whole crazy pattern's driving me out of this world. Once I get rid of that life-form, you'll see, I'll be a different man." As his arms tightened around her, she wondered what it would be like, a different man in the same body. V "What makes you think _I_ would do a thing like that?" the little lawyer asked apprehensively, not meeting the bland blue eyes of the man who faced him across the old-fashioned flat-top desk. It was an even more outmoded office than most, but that did not necessarily indicate a low professional status; lawyers were great ones for tradition expressed in terms of out-of-date furniture. As for the dust that lay all over despite the air-conditioning ... well, that was inescapable, for Earth was a dusty planet. "Oh, not you yourself personally, of course," Gabriel Lockard--as the false one will continue to be called, since the dutchman had another name at the moment--said. "But you know how to put me in touch with someone who can." "Nonsense. I don't know who gave you such libelous information, sir, but I must ask you to leave my office before I call--" "It was Pat Ortiz who gave me the information," Lockard said softly. "He also told me a lot of other interesting things about you, Gorman." Gorman paled. "I'm a respectable attorney." "Maybe you are now; maybe not. This isn't the kind of town that breeds respectability. But you certainly weren't sunny side up when Ortiz knew you. And he knew you well." The lawyer licked his lips. "Give me a chance, will you?" Lockard flushed. "Chance! Everybody rates a chance but me. Can't you see, I am giving you a chance. Get me somebody to follow my pattern, and I promise you Ortiz won't talk." Gorman slipped the plastic shells from his face and rubbed the pale watery eyes underneath. "But how can I get you a man to do ... the thing you want done? I have no connections like that." "I'm sure you can make the right connections. Take your time about it, though; I'm in no hurry. I'm planning to adhere to this locale for a while." "How about this man you want ... put out of the way?" Gorman suggested hopefully. "How can you be sure he won't leave?" Gabriel laughed. "He'll stay as long as I do." The little lawyer took a deep breath. "Mr. Lockard, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I really cannot do anything for you." Gabe rose. "Okay," he said softly. "If that's your pattern, I'll just put a call through to Ortiz." He turned to go. "Wait a minute!" the lawyer cried. Lockard stopped. "Well?" Gorman swallowed. "Possibly I may be able to do something for you, after all.... I just happened to have heard Jed Carmody is in town." Gabriel looked at him inquiringly. "Oh ... I thought you might have heard the name. He's a killer, I understand, a professional exterminator ... on the run right now. But this is his head-quarters--I'm told--and he probably would come here. And he might be short on folio. Naturally, I've never had any dealings with him myself." "Naturally," Gabe mocked. "But I'll see what I can do." Gorman's voice was pleading. "You'll wait, Mr. Lockard, won't you? It may be a little while before I can find out where he is. This isn't--" his voice thinned--"at all my type of pattern, you know." "I'll wait ... a reasonable length of time." The door closed behind him. Descending pneumo tubes hissed outside. The little lawyer rose and went to the window--a flat expanse of transparent plastic set immovably into the wall of the building, an old building, an old town, an old planet. As he watched the street below, a faint half-smile curved his almost feminine mouth. He went back to the desk and punched a code on the vidiphone. * * * * * Gabriel crossed the street to the little cafe with the gold letters FOR HUMANS ONLY embedded in the one-way glass front; this was a town that adhered rigidly to the ancient privileges of the indigenous species. He entered as the shrillness of a vidiphone bell cut through the babble inside without in any way checking it. After a moment, his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness and he could see his wife waiting at a table near the entrance, daintily peeling a tigi fruit. "Well," she asked as she put a plump pink section into her mouth, "did you hire your killer?" "Shhh, not so loud!" He threw himself into the chair next to hers. "Do you want me to get into trouble...? And I wouldn't put it past you," he continued without waiting for an answer. "Remember, it's your boy friend's body that gets into trouble." "He's not my boy friend." A waiter beckoned from the vidiphone booth to someone sitting in the dark shadows at the rear of the restaurant. "Where is he?" Gabriel exclaimed suddenly. "He must be here somewhere. Tell me which he is, Helen?" His hand gripped her arm cruelly, as he swung her around on her chair to face each part of the room. "Is it that guy over there...? That one...? That one?" She could not repress a start of surprise as her eyes met those of the thin-featured young man entering the vidiphone booth. He returned her gaze with somber interest. Gabe relaxed. "So that's the one, eh? Not very formidable. Looks the way he always should have looked." He lit a milgot. "I'll get Gorman to tip off the zarquil boys--only one game in this parish, I'm told--that that life-form's not to be allowed to play; I'll make any loss good out of my own pocket. That'll keep him onstage for the nonce. He won't leave to get himself fixed up somewhere else as long as I stay. And I'm going to stay ... to the bitter end." He smiled lovingly to himself. _But it's not the right man_, Helen thought gladly. _He did manage to change, after all. Gabe has the wrong man._ She felt a little sorry for the unknown and doomed individual who inhabited the delicate, angular body, but it was so close to death anyhow that the immediate threat didn't matter. And Gabriel--the real Gabriel--was safe. VI The emaciated young man entered Gorman's office and locked the door behind him with an electroseal. "Disembodiment," he identified himself. "So you did get a new body, Jed," the lawyer remarked affably. "Very good packaging. Makes you look like a poet or something." "Good as a disguise, maybe, but one hell of a lousy hulk." The young man hurled himself into the chair by the desk. Even Gorman winced at the cruel treatment accorded such obvious fragility. "Gimme a milgot, Les. This thing--" he indicated his body with contempt--"is shot to Polaris. Won't last more than a few months. Some bargain I got." Gorman lit a stick himself. "The guy who got your body didn't get such a bargain either," he murmured through a cloud of purple smoke. "At least he'll live. If he's lucky. I wish he'd hurry and get himself picked up, though, so I could collect the folio and jet off. Can't go after it now. Hounds will be sniffing after anybody gravitating around the place where I've stashed it until they're sure they have me. They don't know where the money is exactly, of course, or they'd soak it up, but they've got an idea of the general sector." "Want me to pick it up for you, Jed?" the lawyer asked, his pale, flickering eyes brushing across the young man's dark intense ones. "Oh, sure. All I need is for you to know where it is and all I'd see would be your rocket trail." The young man leaned across the expanse of littered steel. "Or _do_ you know where it is, Les?" he asked softly. "Do you know where it is and are you just hibernating until I'm safely out of the way?" In spite of himself, Gorman could not help moving back. "Don't be a fool, Jed," he said in a voice that was several tones higher. "If I knew where it was ... well, you're not very frightening in your present embodiment, you know." "Don't be too sure of that, Gorman. And you were always yellow; anybody could frighten you." He began to laugh shrilly. "Hey, that's good. Get it? Any body, see?" The lawyer did not join in the mirth. "How are you fixed for cash?" he asked abruptly. * * * * * The young man's face split in a sardonic grin. "Why do you think I risked public communion with a darkside character like you, Les? I shot my wad making the shift. I could use a little loan. You know I have millions stashed away," the young man said angrily as Gorman remained silent. "I'll pay you as soon as the hounds take the chump who's leasing my hulk." "Maybe you can earn some money." Gorman toyed with a paperweight. "Did you get a look at that big blond guy in the cafe--the one I told you about on the phone?" "Yeah. Nice life-form he had with him. I wouldn't mind being in that body." "Seems he wants somebody exterminated. And I told him I heard Jed Carmody was in the parish and might be interested." The young man sprang to his feet, furious. "You _what_?" "Turn your antigravs off. I told him Jed Carmody was in the parish. Are you Jed Carmody?" The other sat down and exhaled heavily. "You're on course--I'm nobody just now." "Any identification come with the package?" "Naah, what'd you expect...? But why tell anyone that Jed Carmody's hitting the locality?" "I thought you might be interested in picking up a little free-falling foliage." The young man shook his head impatiently. "Risk having this hulk heated up for a half-credit crime? Don't be an alien, Gorman. I'm going to hit subsoil until this other life-form gets collected by the hounds." "Thought you might like to do it to help me out," Gorman murmured. The other man stared. "How do you fit into the pattern?" Gorman shrugged. "Oh, I get it: this guy's putting the barometer on you?" Gorman nodded. "Bad landing, counselor. But you don't seriously expect...? Hey!" The wide-set eyes glistened darkly. "I got it! Why don't you get this guy who's got my hulk to make the flight? Send somebody out to magnetize him like you thought he was the real Carmody, see?" * * * * * Gorman looked hopeful for a moment; then shook his thin-haired head. "No reason to think the man is an extralegal." "Anyone who finds himself in my hulk damn well has to be if he wants to stay out of the sardine box.... Look, what's the first thing he's going to want to do when he finds out what he's been stuck with? Go to another parish and hop hulks, right? And he'll need plenty of foliage to do it." "Maybe he has money," Gorman suggested wearily. "No fuel lost finding out." The young man rubbed his hands together gleefully. "If he takes on the flight, though, see that he gets my flash, huh? Rosy up the picture." "Maybe he can kill whoever this Lockard has in mind without getting picked up by the police. Such things have happened; otherwise you wouldn't have been able to run around loose so long, Jed." "An amateur? Not a chance! Besides, just to make sure, little...." He stopped in the act of tapping his chest. "Say, I don't have a name, do I? What's a good epithet for me, Les? Something with class." The lawyer studied the pale, bony face for a moment or two. "How about John Keats?" he suggested. "Simple and appropriate." The other man thought. "Yeah, I like that. John Keats. Plain, but not like John Smith. Subtle. I'll buy it. Okay, so you think I'm going to take my view-finder off the fake Carmody? I'm going to adhere to that life-form closer than Mary's lamb. So when he knocks off whoever the other guy wants novaed, I can yell doggie. Then the hounds get him--with my flash on him and all, they'll never have the nebula of a notion that they don't have all of me.... I pick up the foliage and rock out to some place where I can buy me a new jewel case, no questions asked. Don't fret, Gorman--you'll get your nibble. I've never played the game with you, have I?" Instead of answering, Gorman asked a question of his own. "Kind of hard on the other guy, isn't it?" "He rates it for sticking me with a piece of statuary like this. Look at it this way, Les--in his own hulk he would've died; this way he's got a chance to live. Yeah, get him to make the flight, Les. You can charm the juice out of a lemon when you want to; it's your line of evil. And don't let on you know he's not the genuine article." "I won't," Gorman sighed. "I only hope I can persuade him to take on the flight. Don't forget it's important to me too, Jed--uh, John." "Make planetfall, then," John Keats said. "So long, Les." "Good-by, Johnny." VII Helen was brushing her long creamy hair at the dressing table when there came a tap at the door to the living room of the suite--a tap so light that it could have been someone accidentally brushing past in the corridor outside. Gabriel sprang up from the bed where he had been lolling, watching her and stood for a moment poised on the balls of his feet, until the knock was repeated more emphatically. He started toward the other room. "But who could be knocking at the door at this hour?" she asked. "It's almost one.... Gabe, do be careful." He halted and looked back at her suspiciously. "Why do you say that? You know you don't care what happens to me?" That last was a question rather than a statement and had a plaintive quaver which failed to touch her. Once she had still been able to feel some compassion; now, nothing he said or did could arouse more than fear and disgust. "If somebody knocks you over the head when you open the door," she murmured, smiling at her own image, "then who will be there to protect me?" A choked sound came from the back of the man's throat. He turned toward her, his fists clenched. She braced herself for the blow, but then the knock came for the third time and her husband reluctantly continued on into the living room, letting the door shut behind him. She rose and pushed it open a little. She had a pretty good idea of who might be expected, but was not especially perturbed, for she knew the real Gabriel Lockard, in whatever guise he might be now, was safe from her husband. And she was curious to see what the exterminator looked like. The door to the corridor was out of her line of vision, but she could hear it as it opened. "Lockard?" a deep, husky voice whispered. "Gorman sent me." "Come in, Mr. Carmody. You _are_ Carmody?" "Shhh," the husky voice warned. "If you get me into trouble, I'm not going to be able to complete your pattern for you, am I?" "Sorry--I wasn't thinking. Come on in." A heavy tread shook the ancient floorboards, and presently the man responsible for it came into the girl's sight. He was a huge creature, bigger even than Gabriel, with dark hair growing low to a point on his forehead, and a full-lipped sensual face. Then, as he spoke, as he moved, she knew who he was. She pressed close against the wall of the bedroom, her slender shoulders shaking, her handkerchief stuffed into her mouth, so that the sound of her wild, irrepressible laughter would not reach her husband's ears. "Sit down, Carmody," Gabriel said cordially, as he handed the newcomer a glass, "and make yourself comfortable." There was a brief, rather awkward silence. "Well," Gabriel went on, with a smile that would have been thoroughly ingratiating to anyone who hadn't known him, "I don't suppose I have to cruise around the asteroids with you?" "No," Carmody replied, looking speculatively toward the bedroom door. "No, you don't." * * * * * Gabriel followed the direction of his gaze. "Worried about somebody overhearing? There's only my wife in there. She's listening, all right, but she won't talk. Come in, Helen." Carmody rose automatically as she came in, his dark eyes following every line of her long, smooth body in its close-fitting, though opaque, negligee of smoke-gray silk--a fabric which, through extreme scarcity, had come into fashion again. "Sit down," Gabriel ordered brusquely. "We're not formal here." Carmody sat, trying not to stare at the girl. She began to mix herself a drink. "Moonbeam," her husband said, "you won't tell anybody about this little peace conference, will you?" "No," she said, looking at Carmody. "I won't talk." She lifted her glass. "Here's to murder!" "Helen," Gabriel insisted, unable to rationalize the vague uneasiness that was nagging at him, "you won't dare say anything to anybody? Because, if you do, you'll regret it!" "I said I wouldn't talk. Have I ever broken my word?" "You've never had the chance." But it would be incredible that she should have the temerity to betray him. After all, she was his wife. She should stick to him out of gratitude and self-interest, for he was rich, at least, and he wasn't exactly repulsive. And he'd been good to her. All men lost their tempers at times. "Let's get down to business, huh?" Carmody said harshly. "Whom do you want knocked off?" "I don't know his name," Gabriel replied, "but I can describe him." After he had finished doing so, there was a small pause. Carmody was silent. Helen turned back to the bar; her face was concealed from the men. Her body shook a little. Lockard thought she was crying, and wondered again whether his confidence in her was entirely justified. "I think maybe I know the guy," Carmody went on. "Only been around the--the parish a couple of days, if it's the life-form I mean." "Must be the one," Lockard told him. "Think you can do it?" "A cinch," Carmody assured him. * * * * * As Helen Lockard emerged from the door marked _Females; Human and Humanoid_, and rounded the turn in the corridor, a brawny arm reached out of a vidiphone booth and yanked her inside. The girl gave a startled cry, then relaxed. "Oh, it's you; you gave me a turn." "You're not afraid? You know who I am, then?" She nodded. "You're the real Gabriel Lockard." His big body was pressing hers in the close-fitting confines of the booth. In some ways it could be considered more attractive than her husband's. "Why are you hiding here?" "I'm not hiding, I'm lurking," he explained. "Wouldn't do for me to appear too openly. The police--that is, the hounds--are on Carmody's trail. I don't want them to find me." "Oh." She pulled away from him. She mustn't let her interest be aroused in a body so soon to be discarded. "I've been looking for an opportunity to talk to you since last night," he growled, the only way he could gentle a voice as deep as the thick vocal cords of the body produced. "But your husband is always around.... You haven't told him who I was, have you?" She shook her head slowly, reproachfully. "I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't have told him about the other one either, but I ... well, I guess I jumped or something when I caught sight of him and Gabe mistakenly picked it up." There was a tense silence as they stood almost pressed against one another. "It's easy to see how you got into Carmody's body," she went on, speaking a little too rapidly, "but how did you happen to get into this particular line of evil?" "Simple--that lawyer your husband went to see sent scouts out to have Carmody picked up. And they flushed me. Naturally I would have turned down the job if he hadn't happened to mention for whom it was...." "That other man is the real Carmody now, isn't he?" She looked up at him. Her eyes were gray or green; he couldn't determine which. "So it doesn't matter even if he does get killed." "But how can he get killed?" the big man reminded her with a gentleness completely out of keeping with the ferocity of his appearance. "I'm not a killer, please believe me--I have never killed anybody and I hope I never have to." * * * * * She had never thought about who he was--who he had been--before he started playing the game. Gabriel Lockard, of course. But what had Gabriel Lockard been? Surely not the narco-filled, fear-ridden dilettante the man--the body, at least--was now. He couldn't possibly have been or the hulk wouldn't have stood up so well under the treatment it was getting from its current tenant. But all that didn't seem to matter. All she wanted was the rightful man in his rightful body, and that seemed almost impossible of achievement. "What do you intend to do?" she asked, almost sharply. "I don't know," he said. "By agreeing to kill this--John Keats he calls himself--I felt I had the situation in hand. And I suppose I have, in a sense. But the end result is a stalemate. I've been following him around just to make everything looks on course for your husband until I decide what to do. Sometimes, though, I get the curious feeling that Keats is following me." "Maybe for the same reason you've been following Gabriel?" Helen touched his arm gingerly; it was more muscular than her husband's. "This isn't a bad body, you know--maybe he sets some store by it." "But that doesn't make sense!" he said, impatiently shaking off her hand, not wanting her to like this criminal's body that, despite its superficial attractiveness, fitted him no more easily than any of the others. "Logically, it seems to me, he should try to get as far away from his own hulk as possible.... Duck! Here comes your husband!" He blocked her with his wide body as Gabriel Lockard's swung past the booth, its perfect features marred by a frown. "Okay," he whispered, as Lockard rounded the corner, "rock back to your table and act angry because he's late." He watched until Gabriel had retraced his steps and gone back to the hotel dining room; then sauntered in the same direction. From the next booth, John Keats stared sullenly after the departing figure. He had been straining his ears, but the booths were effectively soundproofed; all he could learn was that the stranger had developed some kind of quick understanding with Lockard's wife and, knowing the potentialities of his former packaging, this saddened rather than surprised the young man. He punched Gorman's number without turning on the visual. "Disembodied," he said curtly. "Look here, Gorman, I've been wondering--just who is this life-form supposed to be sending to the joyful planetoids?" "I haven't any idea," Gorman's voice said curiously. "Didn't seem any of my evil, so I didn't ask. And I don't suppose Lockard would have told me. Why do you want to know?" "Because I don't see him taking a fix on anybody except Lockard's wife and I don't hold with exterminating females except maybe by accident. Besides, I kind of radiate for that tigi myself." The lawyer's voice definitely showed interest. "Isn't there anybody else he could possibly be after?" "Well--" John Keats gave a sick laugh--"there's only one other possible flight pattern. It's kind of extradimensional, but sometimes I think maybe he's after me." There was a long pause. "Absurd," the little lawyer said thoughtfully. "Absurd. He doesn't even know who you are." Pale blood surfaced under the young man's transparent skin. "I never thought of that, but you're wrong. He does. He's got to. It was a private game." His voice thickened and he had to stop for coughing. "When you told him he was Jed Carmody, naturally he could figure out who was squatting in his hulk." "But magnetizing him was your own idea, Johnny," Gorman pointed out gently. "Besides, that's no reason he should be after you; what's the percentage in it? And, anyhow, where does Lockard fit into this?" He seemed to be asking the question of himself as much as of the other man. "Yeah," John Keats muttered, "that's what I've got to find out." "Me, too," Gorman half-whispered. "What did you say?" "I said tell me when you find out; I'm sort of curious myself." VIII "Look, Gorman," Carmody said, "I'm not working for you; I'm working for Lockard. What's the idea of sending for me this hour of the night?" "Then why did you come this hour of the night when I asked you to?" the lawyer inquired, leaning back in his chair and smiling. The big man hesitated and shrugged. "Can't say, myself. Curiosity, maybe.... But you can hardly expect me to violate my employer's confidence?" Gorman laughed. "You get your ideas from the viddies, don't you? Only don't forget that you're the villain, not the hero, of this piece, fellow-man." Carmody, completely taken aback, stared at him--the little alien couldn't know! And, furthermore, he was mistaken--Carmody, Lockard, the dutchman, had done nothing wrong, committed no crime, violated no ethic. On the other hand, he had done nothing right either, nothing to help himself or any other. "What do you mean?" he finally temporized. "Tell me this--Lockard hired you to kill the man who goes under the name of John Keats, didn't he?" "Yes, but how did you know that?" He was beginning to have the same primitive fear of Gorman that he had of the Vinzz; only it was more natural for an extraterrestrial to have apparently supernatural powers. "Keats told me--and Keats, of course, is the real Carmody." "So you found out?" "Found out!" Gorman laughed. "I knew it all along. Does a man keep any secrets from his lawyer?" "If he's smart, he does." Carmody absently beat his hand on the desk. "This Keats isn't too smart, though, is he?" "No ... he isn't a very bright guy. But it was his idea that this would be a fine method of getting you out of the way. And not too bad an idea, either.... You had to be disposed of, you know," he explained winningly. "And how nice to have hounds do it for us. Of course we had no idea of who your quarry was." "I can see your point of view," Carmody said ironically. "But why tell me now?" And then he thought he saw the answer. "Are you afraid I'll really kill him?" The lawyer shook his head and smiled back. "Afraid you really won't." He placed the tips of his fingers together. "I am prepared to double whatever Lockard is offering you to make sure that Keats, with Carmody inside him, is definitely put out of the way forever." * * * * * So even here there was no basis of trust--none of the reverse honor that legend commonly assigned to extralegals. Carmody got up. Even seated, he had towered above the lawyer. Standing, he was like a larger-than-life statue of doom--of doom, Gorman nervously hoped, pointing in the desired direction. "And if I refuse?" Carmody asked. Gorman moved his chair back uneasily. "I might persuade Keats that he could risk one murder in his present shape, if it was to insure his ultimate safety." "Meaning it would be a good idea for him to kill me?" "Meaning it would be an excellent idea for him to kill you." "Look here, Gorman," Carmody said, in a low voice that gradually increased in volume. He could no longer restrain the anger that had been seething up in him for all the years of his wandering. "I've had enough of all this, hiding, running, shifting bodies and now hiring out as a killer. Because I'm an honest man. Maybe you've never seen one before, so take a good look at me. You may never have the chance again." "I am looking and I see Jed Carmody. Not my idea of the prototype of honesty." "But I don't feel like Jed Carmody." "Tell that to the hounds." Gorman laughed uproariously. "By law, you're responsible for Carmody's crimes. Of course, if they put you away or--as they'd undoubtedly prefer--accidently exterminate you in the line of duty, and _then_ suspect Carmody hulk-hopped, they might look around some more. But there wouldn't be any percentage in that for you, especially if you were dead." "I know, I know," Carmody retorted impatiently. "You can't tell me anything I haven't told myself." He paused for a moment. "This is a good body, though," he added. "Almost as good as my old one." Gorman raised his eyebrows. "You can't be referring to the corpus currently going by the epithet of John Keats?" "The name was your idea, I take it. No, that wasn't my original body." "Oh, so you're a dutchman, eh? A thrill boy?" There was contempt, even from such as Gorman. "Getting a lot of free falls out of all this, are you?" Carmody tried to ignore this, but he couldn't. It wasn't true, he told himself; he had suffered years of playing the game and derived no pleasure from those sufferings--no pleasure at all. But he would not stoop to argue with Gorman. "Maybe I can get away with this body to one of the frontier planets," he mused. "At least I can make a run for it; at least that would be a worthwhile kind of running." "Brave words!" the lawyer sneered. "But rather risky to put into action. Don't you think the best thing to do would be just go ahead with the pattern as set? How much did Lockard offer you?" "Half a million credits." Gorman sucked in his breath. "You're lying, of course, but I'll match that. Carmody--Keats--has ten times that amount and maybe more hidden away where I can lay my hands on it as soon as I'm sure he's where he can't hurt me. It's worth half a million to me. And, in the remote instance that you're telling the truth, you can't turn down a million credits ... whoever you are, dutchman!" "Oh, can't I?" Carmody went to the door; then turned. "It may interest you to know that I'm worth a hundred times that amount and maybe more." The lawyer laughed skeptically. "If you have enough money to buy your way, then why are you doing this?" Carmody frowned. "You wouldn't understand.... I'm not sure I understand myself." The door slammed behind him. Descending pneumos hissed. "Just talking with his elbows," Gorman said comfortingly to himself. "He'll do it. He's got to do it." But he wasn't altogether convinced. IX As Carmody left the office building, John Keats' figure emerged from the shadows of a nearby doorway. He looked up at the golden rectangle of Gorman's window and then toward the direction in which Carmody had gone; and bit his lip irresolutely. After a moment's reflection, he chose to follow his old body. Somehow he didn't have much confidence in Gorman any more; not that he'd ever really trusted him. In their line of evil you couldn't afford to trust anybody. He had made a mistake. But it could still be rectified. If the big man was aware of his tracker, he did not seem to care. He moved purposefully in the direction of the hotel, scorning the helicabs that swooped down to proffer their services, striding through the brilliantly lit avenues gay with music and the dark alleys mournful with the whine of the farjeen wires as if they were all the same. The hotel was on one of the avenues, because the Lockards always had only the best of whatever there was to be had. Carmody crossed the almost deserted lobby in swift strides and took the pneumo to the seventh floor. Knowing that his body could have only one objective in that place, Keats took the stairs to the basement. Carmody sprang out of the pneumo exit and ran down the corridor to bang lustily on the intricately embossed metal door of the Lockards' suite. After a moment, the girl, again in negligee, opened it. Her green-gray eyes widened when she saw who the late visitor was, and she put a finger to her lips. "Shh, Gabe's asleep; let's not wake him unless it's necessary." She closed the door softly behind him. "What is it ... Jed?" He was so choked with excitement that he could hardly get the words out. "Helen; will you make a break with me for Proxima Centauri? They won't ask any questions there, if we can get there. And from Proxima we can go--" "But your body?" "The hell with my body." He gripped her arms with powerful hands. "You mean much more to me than that worthless hulk." "But, Jed, Gabe'll never let us go...." Proxima Centauri--that had been Gabriel's dream, too.... His hands pressed so hard into her flesh, she knew there would be bruises on her skin; was she always doomed to fall in love with men who would leave marks on her? "Let him try to stop us. I'm bigger than he is, now." She looked up at him. "You always were, darling. But he has influence, though he wouldn't need it; he could simply set the police on you." "That's the chance we're going to have to take.... But perhaps I'm asking too much. I haven't the right to ask you to take such risks," he added bitterly. "I was thinking only of myself, I see, not of you." "Oh, no, Jed!" * * * * * "Who're you talking to, Helen?" a drowsy voice asked from the bedroom. It was followed by the comely person of Gabriel himself, fastening his dressing gown. "Oh, hello, Carmody." His face lighted up avidly, all sleepiness vanishing like a spent milgot. "Did you do it already?" "No, I didn't. And, what's more, I'm not going to do it!" Lockard looked astonished. "But what's wrong? You said you would." Carmody sighed. "Yes, I know I did. I was stalling. That's what I've always done--stalled, put things off, hesitated to make decisions. Well, I've made my decision now." "You're not afraid of him?" Lockard said in a voice that was meant to be taunting and emerged as querulous. "A little pipsqueak like that Keats? Or maybe half a million credits isn't enough for you? Is that it?" That was enough for the man whose emaciated body was torturedly cramped in the air-conditioning vent and further agonized by the strain of repressing the cough that sought to tear its way out of his chest. He had found out what he wanted to know and, as he inched his way back down to the basement, he was already making plans for getting even with all those he now knew to be enemies. It had been a conspiracy against him from the start; the hounds probably weren't even aware that he was in town. It was Gorman who had told him they knew of his general whereabouts--Gorman, the good friend who had suggested he change bodies, knowing that whatever hulk he wound up with was bound to be more vulnerable than his primal form. And Gorman would pay.... "More than enough," Carmody replied, as unaware of the fact that he had lost one-third of his audience as he had been that he was addressing three rather than two listeners. "Only I'm not a killer." "But I understood you were supposed to be a professional exterminator?" "Jed Carmody is a killer. Only I'm not Jed Carmody." Lockard moved backward and stared at the still bigger man. Lockard retreated still further. "You--you're him! You were all along!" He whirled on his wife. "And you knew, you double-crosser! Knew and didn't tell me! By God, I'll break every bone in your body!" "Lay a hand on her and I'll break every bone in _my_ body!" Lockard stopped where he was. "It doesn't mean anything to me any more, you see," Carmody explained. "I wanted it when I didn't have anything else. But now I have Helen. I could kill you, you know. As Carmody, an acknowledged exterminator, I have nothing to lose. But I'm letting you live, as a hostage for Helen.... And, besides, as I've been busy trying to convince everybody all evening, I am _not_ a murderer." He turned to the girl. "_Will_ you come with me to Proxima, Helen?" "Y-yes, Jed," she said, looking apprehensively at her husband. "Gather your packs. I'm going to the air office to make the arrangements." Carmody consulted his chronometer. "It's three o'clock. I should be back by eight or so. Get some sleep if you can." Her wide frightened eyes turned again toward her husband. "Here." Jed tossed her the gun Gorman had given him. "If he tries anything, use it." "Yes, Jed. But...." "Don't worry; I have another one." The door slammed behind him. "Gimme that gun, you little tramp!" Lockard snarled, twisting it out of her flaccid hand. X Carmody marched out of the hotel and turned left in the direction of the airstation which stayed open all night. He had walked a short distance when suddenly a high voice came out of the darkness behind him, "Not so fast, Mr. ... Carmody," and a hard knob was pressed in his back. "Mr. Keats, I believe," Carmody said, wondering why he wasn't frightened. "Right." The other coughed at some length. "You thought you were pretty smart, didn't you, foisting me off with a hulk that wasn't only shopworn but hot?" "Your intentions weren't exactly noble either, were they, Mr. Keats?" "I want my frame back!" Suddenly the idea came to Carmody, and so wonderful it was he could hardly throttle his voice down to calmness. "Shooting me won't help you get it back. In fact, it might make it rather difficult." "You have your choice between going back to the zarquil house with me and switching or getting your current insides burned out." Carmody exhaled a small hissing sigh that he hoped would not be recognized as obvious relief to the man behind him. "You'll have to pay. I haven't enough folio on me." "I'll pay; I'll pay," the voice snarled. "I always pay. But you'll come peacefully?" he asked in some surprise. "Yes. Matter of fact, I'll be glad to get out of this body. No matter how much I try, somehow I can never manage to keep it clean.... Gently, now, you don't want to muss up a body you're planning to occupy yourself, now do you?" "This is too easy," Keats' voice murmured dubiously. "Maybe it's another trap...." "You're always going to imagine traps, Mr. Exterminator, whether they're there or not. You and Lockard both--people who run must have something to run from, and half the time it's not there and half the time, of course, it is; only you never know which is which--" "You talk too much," the man behind him snarled. "Shut up and keep moving." "Back again?" the Vinzz at the door asked. The present Carmody was a little startled. Somehow he had thought of the Vinzz as too remote from humanity to be able to distinguish between individual members of the species. "I'm afraid neither of you is qualified to play." "No reason why we shouldn't have a private game, is there?" John Keats demanded belligerently. The Vinzz' tendrils quivered. "In that case, no, no reason at all. If you want to be so unsporting and can afford it. It will cost you a hundred thousand credits each." "But that's twice what I had to pay last week!" Keats protested angrily. The Vinzz shrugged an antenna. "You are, of course, at liberty to take your trade elsewhere, if you choose." "Oh, hell," the temporarily poetic-looking killer snarled. "We're stuck and you know it. Let's get it over with!" * * * * * It was odd to come out of unconsciousness back into the thin young man's body again. More uncomfortable than usual, because the criminal's body had been in such splendid physical condition and this one so poor--now worse than before, because it had been worked far beyond its attenuated capabilities. The individuality that had originally been Gabriel Lockard's, formerly housed in Jed Carmody's body, now opened John Keats' eyes and looked at the Vinzz who stood above him. "The other human has been told you awakened before him and have already departed," the Vinzz explained. "He has violence in his heart and we do not care for violence on our doorstep. Bad for business." "Has he gone already?" The Vinzz nodded. "How long has he been gone?" He scrambled to his feet and investigated the clothing he wore. Carmody had been in too much of a hurry to clean himself out. There was some money left, a container of milgot sticks, and a set of electroseals. "He has just left." The extra-terrestrial's eyes flickered in what might have been surprise. "Don't you wish to avoid him?" "No, I must go where he goes." The Vinzz shrugged. "Well, it's your funeral in the most literal sense of the word." He sighed as the young man plunged out into the darkness. "But, from the objective viewpoint, what a waste of money!" The massive, broad-shouldered figure of Jed Carmody was still visible at the end of the street, so the thin man slowed down. He wanted to follow Carmody, to keep close watch on where he was going and, if necessary, guide him in the right direction, though he didn't think he'd have to do that. But he had no intention of overtaking him. Carmody might not want openly to use the gun the former tenant had so carefully left him, but with his physique he could break the fragile body of John Keats in two, if he so desired, and he probably did. Meanwhile Carmody--the real Carmody--having been deprived of an immediate revenge, had begun to realize how much better the situation was as it now stood. If he killed Keats out of hand, he might miss out on half a million credits, because it was his custom to get cash in advance for all his flights, and this was his flight pattern now. He wouldn't trust that Lockard life-form to defoliate after the job was done. Of course he himself had plenty of money stashed away, but every half million helped. It would be no trouble to find the sickly Keats later. And there was no reason the hounds should get him--Carmody--after all, the other had been rocketing around in his body and he hadn't been caught. Carmody had allowed himself to be stampeded into panic. He smiled. Gorman wouldn't ever be able to chart any pattern like that, or like anything, again. Fortunately there was no permanent harm done, and a half million credits to cover the zarquil losses, with a nice profit left over. Maybe he could even beat Lockard up to a million; that one was obviously a coward and a fool. A few threats should be enough to get him to hand over. Carmody paused for a moment outside the hotel. It still took some nerve to walk boldly into the brightly lit lobby. * * * * * The automatic doors slid open as he entered. At the same time, the pneumo gates lifted and Gabe Lockard came out, dragging a heavily veiled Helen, their luggage floating behind them. Both stopped as they caught sight of the killer; Lockard paled--Helen gasped. _Too bad I have to leave her in the tentacles of this low life-form_, Carmody thought with regret, but there was no help for it. He approached them with what he thought was an ingratiating smile. "Mr. Lockard, I've decided to give you another chance." It was an unhappy choice of word. "Oh, you have, have you!" the big blond man yelled. "I thought I did have another chance. And now you've spoiled that, too!" "What do you mean by that?" Carmody demanded, his thick dark brows almost meeting across his nose. "I figured on getting away before you came back," Gabriel babbled in a frenzy, "but you'd have found me anyway. You always find me. I'm sick of this running. There's only one way to stop you, only one way to be sure that, whatever happens to me, you won't be around to enjoy it." "Listen, Lockard, you're making a mistake. I--" "The only mistake I made was in hiring somebody else to do the job I should have done myself." He pulled out the gun--Carmody's own gun--and fired it. He wasn't a good shot, but that didn't matter. He had the flash on full blast and he pumped and pumped and pumped the trigger until the searing heat rays had whipped not only the killer's astonished body but all through the lobby. The few people still there rushed for cover as rug, chairs, potted palms were shriveled by the lancing holocaust. There was a penetrating odor of burning fabric and frond and flesh. Helen let out a wail as Carmody, more ash than man, fell to the charred carpet. "Gabe, Gabe, what have you done!" The gun dropped from his hand to rejoin its owner. His face crumpled. "I didn't really mean to kill ... only to scare him.... What'll I do now?" "You'll run, Mr. Lockard," John Keats' body said as he entered the devastated lobby. "You'll run and run and run. He's dead, but you'll keep on running forever. No, not forever--I apologize--some day you'll get caught, because the hounds aren't amateurs like you and ... him...." He pointed to the crumbling, blackened corpse, keeping his hand steady with an effort for, God knew, he was the biggest amateur of them all. Lockard licked his lips and gazed apprehensively around. Frightened faces were beginning to peer out from their places of concealment. "Look, Carmody," he said in a low, stiff voice, "let's talk this over. But let's get out of here first before somebody calls the hounds." "All right," the thin man smiled. "I'm always willing to talk. We can go over to Gorman's office. They won't look for us there right away." "How'll we get in?" "I have a 'seal," Keats said. Surely one of the electroseals he carried must belong to Gorman's office. It was a chance he'd have to take. XI Keats had to try five different seals before he found the one that opened the lawyer's office. He was afraid his obvious lack of familiarity would arouse Lockard's suspicions, but the big man was too much preoccupied with his own emotions. An unpleasantly haunting aroma of cooked meat seeped out from inside. "For Christ's sake, Carmody, hurry!" Lockard snarled, and gave a sigh of relief as the door swung open and the illuminators went on, lighting the shabby office. Gorman was there. His horribly seared body lay sprawled on the dusty rug--quite dead. "You--you killed him?" Gabriel quavered. The sight of murder done by another hand seemed to upset him more than the murder he himself had just committed. The thin man gave a difficult smile. "Carmody killed him." Which was undoubtedly the truth. "The gun that did it is in his pocket. I had nothing to do with it." His eyes sought for the ones behind the veil. He wanted the girl who stood frozenly by the door to know that this, at least, was the truth. Gabriel also stayed near the door, unable to take his eyes off the corpse. In death Carmody and Gorman, the big man and the small man, had looked the same; each was just a heap of charred meat and black ash. No blood, no germs--all very hygienic. "You're smart, Carmody," he said from taut lips. "Damn smart." "I'm Keats, not Carmody! Remember that." He dropped into the chair behind the desk. "Sit down, both of you." Only Gabriel accepted the invitation. "Why don't you take that thing off your face, Mrs. Lockard? You aren't hiding from anybody, are you?" Gabriel gave a short laugh. "She's hiding her face from everybody. I spoiled it a little for her. She was going to sell me out to ... the guy in your body." Keats' hand tightened on the arm of his chair. Lose his temper now and he lost the whole game. "It was a good body," he said, not looking at the thing on the rug, trying not to remember the thing on the rug on the other side of town. "A very good body." Through the veil, Helen's shadowy eyes were fixed on his face. He wanted to see what Lockard had done to her, but he couldn't tear off the veil, as he longed to do; he was afraid of the expression that might be revealed on her face--triumph when there should have been anguish; anguish when there should have been triumph. "Not as good as the one I have here." Lockard thumped his own chest, anxious to establish the value of the only ware he had left. "Matter of opinion," Keats said. "And mine was in better shape." "This one isn't in bad condition," Gabriel retorted defensively. "It could be brought back to peak in short order." "You won't have much opportunity to do it, though. But maybe the government will do it for you; they don't pamper prisoners, I understand, especially lifers." * * * * * Gabriel whitened. "You're an extralegal, Carmody--Keats," he whined. "You know your course. You know how to hide from the hounds.... I'm a--a respectable citizen." He spread his hands wide in exaggerated helplessness. "Strictly an amateur, that's what I am--I admit I've been playing out of my league." "So?" "I'm worth a lot of money, Keats, a hell of a lot. And half of it can be yours, if you ... change bodies with me." Keats' angular face remained expressionless, but there was a sharp cry from the girl--a cry that might have been misunderstood as one of pain, but wasn't. Gabriel turned toward her, and his upper lip curled back over his teeth. "I'll throw her in to the bargain. You must have seen her when she wasn't banged up so you know she's not permanently disfigured. Isn't she worth taking a risk for?" Keats shrugged. "If the hounds pull you down, she'll be a legal widow anyway." "Yes, but you'd have no ... chance with her in the body you now have.... No chance," he repeated. His voice broke. "Never had a chance." "Go ahead, feel sorry for yourself," the other man said. "Nobody else will." Gabriel's face darkened, but he also had to control his temper to gain what he fancied were his own ends. "You won't deny that this hulk is better than the one you have now?" "Except that there's one thing about the head that I don't like." Gabriel stared in bewilderment. His body was beyond criticism. "What is it you don't like about the head?" "There's a price on it now." Gabriel pressed his spine against the back of the chair. "Don't play the innocent, Carmody. You've killed people, too." "Well, sure, but not out in the open like that. You know how many people saw you blast him? Too many. If you're going to exterminate somebody, you do it from a dark doorway or an alley--not in a brilliantly lit hotel lobby, and you blast him in the back. But there's no use giving you lessons; it's not likely you'll ever be able to use them where you're going." Gabriel suddenly sagged in his chair. He looked down at the floor. "So you won't do it?" Keats grew apprehensive. He hadn't expected the big man to give in to despair so soon--it might spoil all his plans and leave him trapped in this sick unwanted body. He lit a milgot. "I didn't say that," he pointed out, trying to sound unconcerned. "Matter of fact, I might even consider your proposition, if...." There was hope in Lockard's eyes again. It made Keats a little sick to think of the game he had to play with the other; then he thought of the game the other had played with him, the game the other had played with his wife, and the faint flickering of compassion died out in him. "What do you want?" Gabriel asked. Keats took a moment before he answered. "I want _all_ of what you've got." Gabriel uttered an inarticulate sound. "You can't take it with you, colleague. If we hulk-hop, it's got to be tonight, because the hounds will be baying on your trail any moment. You wouldn't have the chance to transfer the property to my name and, if you take my word that I'll hand over half afterward, you're just plain out of this dimension.... Think of it this way, Lockard--what's worth more to you, a couple of lousy billions or your freedom?" "All right, Carmody," Lockard said dully, "you're the dictator." XII The Vinzz' eyes flickered in astonishment. "_Another_ private game? However...." he shrugged eloquently. "It will cost you a hundred thousand credits each, gentlemen." "No discount for a steady customer?" Keats inquired lightly, though he was trembling inside. The Vinzz' tendrils quivered. "None. You ought to be glad I didn't raise the price again." "Why didn't you?" he couldn't help asking. The Vinzz looked steadily into the man's eyes. "I don't know," it answered at last. "Perhaps I have been so long on this planet that I have developed a sentimental streak.... In any case, I am going back to Vinau the day after tomorrow...." "For God's sake," Lockard, his senses so confused with fear and apprehension that he was able to catch only fragments of their talk, screamed, "pay him what he asks and don't haggle!" "All right," Keats agreed. "The lady will wait for me here," he told the Vinzz. The extraterrestrial quivered indecisively. "Most irregular," it murmured. "However, I cannot refuse a slight favor for such an old customer. This way, madam." * * * * * Gabriel Lockard opened Gabriel Lockard's eyes. "Well," the Vinzz who stood above him lisped, "how does it feel to be back in your own body again?" Gabriel got up and stretched. He stretched again, and then an expression of wonderment came over his handsome features. "I feel ... exactly the way I felt in ... any of the others," he said haltingly. "I'm not comfortable in this one either. It's not right--it doesn't fit. My own body...." "You've grown out of it," the green one told him, not unkindly. "But you will be able to adjust to it again, if you'll give it a chance...." "There's that word again." Gabriel winced. "I'm beginning to respond to it the way my ... predecessor did. Do we ever really get another chance, I wonder?" "Take my advice." The Vinzz' face became almost human. "This is costing my people money, but we've made enough out of you and your--shall we say?--friends. It is a shame," it murmured, "to prey upon unsophisticated life-forms, but one must live. However, I'll tell you this: The compulsion will come over you again and again to play the game--your body will torment you unbearably and you will long for relief from it, but you must conquer that desire or, I warn you, you will be lost to yourself forever. It's a pattern that's enormously difficult to break, but it can be broken." Gabriel smiled down at the little green creature. "Thanks, colleague. I'll remember that advice. And I'll take it." "The other is still asleep," the Vinzz told him. "This time I thought it best to let you awaken first. Good-by, and ... good luck." "Thanks, fellow-man," Gabriel said. The Vinzz' tendrils quivered. * * * * * Helen awaited him in an anteroom, her veil flung back so that he could see her poor, marred face. Anger rose hotly in him, but he pushed it down. Her suffering had not been meaningless and revenge was already consummated. "Gabriel!" Her voice was taut. "... Jed!" "Gabriel," he smiled. "The genuine, original Gabriel--accept no substitutes." "I'm so glad." Her lips formed the words, for she had no voice with which to make them. "Come." He took her arm and led her out into the quiet street. It was almost daylight and the sky was a clear pearl gray. Again a star detached itself from the translucent disk of the Moon and sped out into the Galaxy. _Soon_, he thought, _we'll be on a starship like that one, leaving this played-out planet for the new worlds up in the sky._ "You're going to let Gabe--the other Gabriel--go?" she asked. He bent his head to look at her swollen face. "You're free, Helen; I have my body back; why should we concern ourselves with what happens to him? He can't hurt us any more." "I suppose you're right," she muttered. "It seems unfair...." She shivered. "Still, you have no idea of the things he did to me--the things he made me do...." She shivered again. "You're cold. Let's get started." "But where are we going?" She placed her hand on his arm and looked up at him. "Back to the hotel to pick up your luggage. And then--I still think Proxima is a good idea, don't you? And then perhaps farther out still. I'm sick of this old world." "But, Je--Gabriel, you must be mad! The police will be waiting for you at the hotel." "Of course they'll be waiting, but with a citation, not handcuffs." She looked at him as if he had gone extradimensional. He laughed. "What your ex-husband didn't know, my dear, was that there was a reward out for Jed Carmody, _dead or alive_." Her face was blank for a moment. "A reward! Oh, G-G-G-Gabriel!" The girl erupted into hysterical laughter. "Shhh, darling, control yourself." He put his arm around her, protectively, restrainingly. "We'll be conspicuous," for already the Sun's first feeble rays were beginning to wash the ancient tired streets with watery gold. "Think of the reward we're going to get--five thousand credits, just for us!" She wiped her eyes and pulled down her veil. "Whatever will we do with all that money!" "I think it would be nice if we turned it over to the hotel," he smiled. "I made rather a shambles of their lobby when, pursuant to my duty as a solar citizen, I exterminated the killer Carmody. Let's give it to them and leave only pleasant memories behind us on our journey to the stars." And he couldn't help wondering whether, if things got really tough, somewhere up in those stars he could find another zarquil game. 
40449	----	Google Books (Oxford University) Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: http://books.google.com/books?id=IUkPAAAAQAAJ (Oxford University) NOVELS BY POPULAR AUTHORS. * * * Mistress Nancy Molesworth. By Joseph Hocking. Judith Boldero. By William J. Dawson. The Harvest of Sin. By Marie Connor Leighton. By Roaring Loom. By J. Marshall Mather. Paul Carah, Cornishman. By Charles Lee. Through Battle to Promotion. By Walter Wood. The Story of Phil Enderby. By Adeline Sergeant. A Rose-Coloured Thread. By Jessie Mansergh. The House by the Lock. By Mrs. C. N. Williamson. Wanderers. By Sydney Pickering. The 'Paradise' Coal Boat. By Cutcliffe Hyne. The Pride of the Family. By Ethel F. Heddle. An Idyll of the Dawn. By Mrs. Fred Reynolds. The Birthright. By Joseph Hocking. 'And Shall Trelawney Die?' By Joseph Hocking. Dead Selves. By Julia Magruder. Just a Girl. By Charles Garvice. The Charmer. By Shan F. Bullock. A Deserter from Philistia. By E. P. Train. Frivolities. By Richard Marsh. Tom Ossington's Ghost. By Richard Marsh. Lady Mary of the Dark House. By Mrs. Williamson. The Last Lemurlan. By G. Firth Scott. Folks from Dixie. By Paul Lawrence Dunbar. The Rogues' Paradise. By Edwin Pugh And C. Gleig. At Friendly Point. By G. Firth Scott. * * * London: JAMES BOWDEN. BY RICHARD MARSH. * * * FRIVOLITIES: For Those Who are Tired of Being Serious. _Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 6s. 2nd Edition_. "Brimful of fun."--_Daily Telegraph_. "Mr. Marsh is a humorist who is genuinely funny."--_St. James's Gazette_. "For pure amusement we have not of late met anything to equal 'Frivolities.' The title is a little misleading, for the careless might imagine the book to contain nothing but trifles. In reality the stories are finished with the utmost skill. Their humour is irresistible."--_The Yorkshire Post_. "You do not merely smile as you read, but laugh outright, and you laugh all the time. Deliciously funny, and could not be better told."--_The Scotsman_. TOM OSSINGTON'S GHOST. _Crown Svo, cloth_, 3s. 6d. Illustrated by Harold Piffard. "Opens with a singularly dramatic and exciting situation, and the interest thus at once aroused is sustained steadily to the close."--_The Sketch_. "Mr. Marsh has been inspired by an entirely original idea, and has worked it out with great ingenuity. We like this weird but not repulsive story better than anything he has ever done."--_The World_. * * * London: James Bowden. THE WOMAN WITH ONE HAND * * * * * MR. ELY'S ENGAGEMENT [Illustration: "THIS TIME I SUCCEEDED IN WARDING HIM OFF." (_Page_ 102.)] THE WOMAN WITH ONE HAND AND Mr. Ely's Engagement BY RICHARD MARSH _Author of "Frivolities," "Tom Ossington's Ghost," "In Full Cry_." _"The Beetle: a Mystery," etc_. _WITH FRONTISPIECE BY STANLEY L. WOOD_ SECOND EDITION London JAMES BOWDEN 10, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. [_All rights reserved_.] The Woman with One Hand CHAPTER I AN "AGONY" It caught my eye at once. When a man is dining off his last half-crown he is apt to have his eyes wide open. Having just disposed of a steak which, under the circumstances, did not seem to be so large as it might have been, I picked up a paper which, as he had laid it down, the diner in front appeared to have done with. As it was folded, the agony column stared me in the face. And among the "agonies" was this:-- "If James Southam, at one time of Dulborough, will apply to the undersigned, he will hear of something to his advantage.--Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton, Solicitors, Thirteen, Bacup Street, London, S.E." Now, I am James Southam, at one time of Dulborough, but, although I do answer to that description, a very clear something told me that if I did hear of anything to my advantage by applying to anybody, then the age of miracles was not yet done with. Still, as, when a man has spent on a doubtful meal one-and-sevenpence out of his last half-crown, something to his advantage is exactly what he wants to hear of, I clipped that advertisement out of the paper under the waiter's nose, and put it in my waistcoat pocket. On referring to a directory in a convenient post-office, I found that Bacup Street was in the neighbourhood of the Old Kent Road. That did not seem to be a promising address, and, so far as appearances went, it fulfilled its promise. It struck me that Bacup Street, speaking generally, looked more than a trifle out at elbows, and Number Thirteen seemed to be the shabbiest house which it contained. An untidy youth received me. After keeping me waiting for a quarter of an hour in what might have served as an apology for a cupboard, he ushered me into a room beyond. In this inner room there were two men. One was seated at a table, the other was standing with his hat at the back of his head in front of the empty fireplace. They looked at me, then they looked at each other; and, unless I am mistaken, they exchanged a glance of surprise. The man at the table addressed me, without evincing any desire to rise. "Well, sir, and what can we do for you?" "That," I said, "is what I want to know." The man smiled, as if he was not quite sure that there was anything to smile at. I took the newspaper cutting out of my waistcoat pocket. "I have just seen this advertisement. I am James Southam, at one time of Dulborough, and if you are Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton, I have come to you to hear of something to my advantage." For some moments my words remained unanswered. They both stared at me as if they were endeavouring by mere force of visual inspection to find out what sort of person I really was. Then the man at the table spoke again. "Of course you have evidence as to the truth of what you say?" "I have my card in my pocket; here are letters which have been addressed to me. If you will tell me what I am going to hear of to my advantage I will place you in the way of obtaining a sufficiency of any sort of evidence you may require." I placed a card on the table, and some old envelopes, having first of all taken out the letters. The two men forgathered. They examined my "documents." They spoke to each other in whispers. Holding out one of the envelopes, the man who had already spoken pointed with a stubby and unclean first finger to the address which was on the front of it. "Is this your present address?" "No; at present I have no address." "What do you mean?" "I have been presented with the key of the street." "Do you mean that you are impecunious?" "I do." The individual with the hat on who had not yet spoken to me, spoke to me now, with a decidedly unpleasant grin. "Stone-broke?" he said. I did not like to turn myself inside-out to strangers, especially to such strangers: but I had recently had to do a good many things which I had not liked. Above all, I had begun to realise the truth of the adage which tells us that beggars must not be choosers. "I am as nearly stone-broke as a man can be who is in possession of a fair variety of pawn-tickets, the clothes he stands up in, and elevenpence in cash." There was some further whispering between the pair, then the individual with the hat on addressed me again. "If you will step outside, in a few minutes we will speak to you again." I stepped outside. They kept me outside longer than I altogether relished. I was on the point of, at all hazards, asserting my dignity, when the man with the hat on, opening the door of the inner office, invited me to enter. It was he, when I entered, who took up the conversation. "We are not, you must understand, at liberty to furnish you with particulars of the matter referred to in our advertisement without first of all communicating with our client." "Who is your client?" "That, without having received permission, we cannot tell you either. Can you not guess?" The fellow stared at me in a manner which I instinctively resented. His glance conveyed a meaning which seemed to be the reverse of flattering. "I certainly cannot guess, nor have I the least intention of trying. I have the pleasure of wishing you good-day." I turned to go; the fellow stopped me. "One moment! Where are you off to?" I turned to him again. This time he was eyeing me with what I felt was an insolent grin. "For a man in the position in which you say you are you don't seem over anxious to hear of something to your advantage." "Nor do you seem over anxious to tell it me." "We are solicitors, man, not principals. It is our business to act on the instructions we have received. Listen to me." I listened. "We have reason to believe that our client would desire to be acquainted with your address, so that he may be able to place himself in immediate communication with you, should you turn out to be the James Southam he is in search of. As you don't appear, at present, to have an address of your own, we are willing to provide you with one." "Explain yourself." "We will take you to an hotel, and we will guarantee your reasonable expenses there until you hear from us again. Should you not turn out to be the required James Southam, we will pay your bill, withdraw our guarantee, and there will be an end of the matter, so far as we are concerned. You will have received some advantage, at any rate." I accepted the proposition. When the sum of elevenpence stands between a man and starvation he is apt not to be over particular in picking holes in proffered offers of board and lodging. The untidy youth fetched a cab. The individual with the hat on accompanied me in it, there and then, to one of those innumerable private hotels which are found in the side streets off the Strand. He went inside, while I waited for him in the cab. When he reappeared he fetched me in, introduced me to a tall, thin woman, whom he called Mrs. Barnes, drew me aside, told me that he had made all arrangements, that I should hear from him again, and that, in the meantime, I should find myself all right. Then he went, leaving me in that private hotel, for all I knew to the contrary, a pensioner on his bounty. CHAPTER II THE WAITER--AND THE HAND When I had dined--they gave me for nothing a better dinner than the one I had had in the middle of the day for one-and-sevenpence--the feeling that, to say the least of it, I was in an equivocal position, began to chasten. Instead, I began to feel, as the schoolboys have it, that I was in for a lark. That I really was going to hear, either through Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton, or through anybody else, of something to my advantage, I never for a moment believed. I was an orphan. I had what I take it are the best of reasons for knowing I have not a single living relative. I have no friends: I never had. I was, at my mother's death, employed in an office from which I was shortly after ignominiously ejected, owing to a difference of opinion I was so unfortunate as to have with the senior clerk. I had spent my substance, such as it was, and twelve months, in seeking for other occupation. My story was a prosaic and a sordid one. That I could hear of something to my advantage, from any source whatever, was an idea I utterly scouted. I dined alone. The waiter informed me that, for the moment, I was the only visitor in the house. No doubt, under those circumstances, I was welcome. This waiter was a man with iron-grey hair and a pair of curiously big, black eyes; I noticed them as he flitted about the room, but I had much better reason to notice them a little later on. As I rose from the table I gave outspoken utterance to words which were a sort of tag to the sequence of my thoughts-- "Well, James Southam," I exclaimed, "you're in for it at last." This I said out loud, foolishly, no doubt. The waiter was moving towards the door. He had some plates in his hand; as I spoke, he dropped these plates. They smashed to pieces on the floor. He turned to me as if he turned on a pivot. The fashion of his countenance changed; he glared at me as if I or he had suddenly gone mad. The pupils of his eyes dilated--it was then I realised what curious eyes they were. "Who the devil are you?" he cried. "How do you know my name's James Southam?" I do not know how it was, but a splash of inspiration seemed all at once to come to me--I do not know from where. "You are James Southam," I said; "at one time of Dulborough." I could plainly see that the man was trembling, either with fear or with rage, and it struck me that it was with a mixture of both. "What has that to do with you?" he gasped. "It has this to do with me--that I want you." An empty beer-bottle was on the table. With the rapidity of some frantic wild animal, rushing forward he caught this bottle by the neck, and, before I had realised his intention, he struck me with it on the head. He was a smaller man than I, but, when next I began to take an interest in the things of this world, I was lying on the floor, and the room was empty. My namesake, all the evidence went to show, had felled me like a log, and, without any sort of ceremony, had left me where I fell. I sat up on the floor, I put my hand to my head. It ached so badly that I could scarcely see out of my eyes. With some difficulty I sprang to my feet. On attaining a more or less upright position I became conscious that the trepidation of my legs inclined me in another direction. "If this," I told myself, "is hearing of something to my advantage, I've heard enough." As I endeavoured to obtain support by leaning against the mantelpiece the room door opened, and the tall, thin woman, whom I had been told was Mrs. Barnes, came in. "I beg your pardon," she began. She looked round the room, then she looked at me. So far as I could judge in the then state of my faculties, she appeared surprised. "I thought the waiter was here." "He was here." "How long has he been gone?" "Some minutes." "It is very odd! I have been looking for him everywhere. I thought that he was still upstairs with you." She glanced at the ruined crockery. "What has happened?--who has broken the plates?" "The waiter--he dropped them. He also dropped the bottle." I did not explain that he had dropped the latter on my head, and almost broken it into as many pieces as the plates. "It is very careless of him. I must see where he is." I fancied, from the expression of her face, that she perceived that there was more in the matter than met the eye. But, if so, she did not give audible expression to her perceptions. She left the room, and, when she had gone, I also left the room, and went to bed. I realised that the complications, and, if I may be permitted to say so, the ramifications of the situation, were for the moment beyond my grasp. In the morning I might be able to look the position fairly in the face, but, just then--no! I hastened to put myself between the sheets. Scarcely was I between them than I fell asleep. I was awakened, as it seemed to me, just after I had fallen asleep, by some one knocking at the bedroom door. The knocking must have startled me out of a dreamless slumber, because it was a moment or two before I could remember where I was. Then I understood that some one was endeavouring to attract my attention from without. "Who's there?" I said. "It is I, Mrs. Barnes, the landlady. I wish to speak to you." "What, now? What time is it? Won't the morning do? "No, I must speak to you at once." It seemed that, in my hurry to get into bed, I had forgotten to put the gas out. Slipping into some garments I opened the door. There stood Mrs. Barnes, with a lighted candle in her hand. For some cause or other she was in a state of unmistakable uneasiness. She looked white and haggard. "I cannot find the waiter," she said. "You cannot find the waiter!" I stared. "I am sorry to hear it, if you want to find him. But may I ask what that has to do with me?" "I believe it has a good deal to do with you. What took place between you in the coffee-room?" "Really, I am not aware that anything took place between us in the coffee-room that was of interest to you." She came a step forward. Raising the lighted candle, she almost thrust it in my face. She stared at me with strained and eager eyes. She seemed to see something in my face: though what there was to see, except bewilderment, was more than I could guess. "I don't believe you. You are deceiving me. Did you quarrel with him? Who are you? Tell me! I have a right to know--I am his wife!" "His wife!" Complications seemed to be increasing. "I thought your name was Barnes." "So is his name Barnes. What has happened? What do you know about him? Tell me." "What do I know about him? I know nothing. So far as I am aware, I never saw the man in my life before." "I don't believe you--you are lying! Where has he gone, and why? You shall tell me--I'll make you!" She forced her way into the room; in doing so she forced me back. When she was in, she shut the door and stood with her back to it. Her voice had risen to a scream. Her manner almost threatened personal violence. I felt that the hotel to which I had been introduced was conducted on lines with which I had not been hitherto familiar. "If, as you say, and as I have no reason to doubt, this person is your husband, and he has really disappeared, I can understand that your excitement is not unjustified; but you are mistaken if you suppose that I am in any way to blame. I will tell you exactly what happened between us." I turned aside so that I might have some sort of chance of making up my mind as to how much, on the spur of the moment, it might be advisable to tell her. "Your husband waited on me at dinner. During dinner we scarcely exchanged half a dozen words. After dinner I said something which, although it was spoken out loud, was said to myself, but which affected him in the most extraordinary and unexpected manner." "What did you say?" "I said 'I want you.'" "You said, 'I want you'?" The woman gave a sort of nervous clutch at the door behind her. "Are you a policeman?" "I am nothing of the kind. You ought to know better than I what your husband has on his conscience. I can only suppose that, for some cause, he stands in terror of the officers of the law; because, no sooner had I innocently uttered what, I believe, is a regular policeman's formula, than, without a word of warning, he caught up the empty bottle which was on the table, like a madman, and knocked me down with it." "Knocked you down with it!" The woman's face was as white as her own sheets. I saw that she needed the support of the door to aid her stand. "You said nothing to me when I came in." "I was so astounded by the man's behaviour, and so stunned by his violence, that I was not in a fit state for saying anything. I intended to wait till the morning, and then have it out both with you and with him." "You are telling me the truth?" "I am." So I was, though I might not have been telling all of it. I appeared to have told enough of it for her, because immediately afterwards she departed--unless I err, not much easier in her mind because of the visit she had paid to me. In the morning, as might have been expected, I woke with a headache. I did not feel in the best of health, either physical or mental, when I went down to breakfast. That meal was served by a maidservant. Bringing in a letter on a waiter, she asked if it was for me. As it was addressed to me by name--"Mr. James Southam "--I not only claimed, I opened it. It contained a letter and some enclosures. Here is the letter, word for word:-- "Dear Sir,--I have just had a telegram from Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton, acquainting me with your address. It gives me great pleasure to write to you. I am just now detained by business, but I hope to call on you at the very earliest opportunity, at latest in the course of a day or two. I assure you that it will be greatly to your advantage. As some slight guarantee of this I beg your acceptance of the enclosed. You need have no fear. You will find in me, in all respects, a friend. "I will let you know, by telegram, when I am coming. Until then, "Believe me, your sincere well-wisher, "DUNCAN ROTHWELL." The "enclosed" took the shape of four five-pound bank-notes. Who "Duncan Rothwell" was I had not the faintest notion. To me the name was wholly unfamiliar. The letter was neither addressed nor dated. The post-mark on the envelope was Manchester. Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton must have telegraphed so soon as I had left them, and clearly Mr. Rothwell had written immediately on receipt of their wire. The letter was fairly worded, but something about the writing, and indeed about the whole get up of the thing, suggested that it had not been written by a highly educated man--a gentleman. In any case it seemed sufficiently clear that it was not intended for me, until, fingering the thing, and turning it over and over, I chanced to open the sheet of paper on which it was written. It was a large sheet of business letter-paper. The communication was all contained on the front page, and as there was still plenty of room to spare, it did not occur to me that there could be additions, say, for instance, in the shape of a postscript. It was by the purest chance that my fidgety fingers pulled the sheet wide open. So soon as they had done so I perceived that I was wrong. In the middle of the third page was this:-- "P.S.--It was with great regret that I heard of your mother's lamented death at Putney. I had the melancholy satisfaction of visiting her grave in Wandsworth Cemetery. This will facilitate matters greatly." Then the letter was intended for me after all. My mother had died at Putney--she had been buried in Wandsworth Cemetery. There might, although I had not been aware of it, have been two James Southams in Dulborough; the coincidence was credible. But it was scarcely credible that the other James Southam's mother could also have died at Putney, and have been buried in Wandsworth Cemetery. Why, or in what sense, my mother's death might facilitate matters, was more than I could say. But, in the face of that postscript, there still seemed sufficient doubt as to which James Southam was about to hear of something to his advantage, to justify me in remaining where I was, and allowing events to take their course. As I was standing at the window, meditating whether or not I should go for a stroll, the maidservant appeared with a message. "Mrs. Barnes's compliments, and if you are at liberty, could she speak to you in the private parlour?" I was not anxious to see Mrs. Barnes. I had a suspicion that if I was not careful I might become more involved than was desirable in her private affairs. Still, if I remained in her house I could scarcely avoid speaking to her. My impulse was to go to Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton, and ask them to shift my quarters. But they might decline, and--well, I shrugged my shoulders, and went and spoke to her. The private parlour proved to be a small room, and a stuffy one. Mrs. Barnes received me on the threshold. She opened the door to permit me to enter, and having followed me in she shut it behind us. "He has not returned," she said. "You mean----?" "I mean my husband." "Frankly, I think it is almost as well that he should not have returned--at least, while I remain an inmate of your house. You can scarcely expect me to pass over his extraordinary behaviour in silence." She stood staring at me in that strained, eager manner which I had noticed overnight. Her hands were clasped in front of her, her fingers were twisting and untwisting themselves in what seemed pure nervousness. "I have been married to Mr. Barnes twelve months." As she paused, I nodded--I did not know what else to do. "I have regretted it ever since. There is a mystery about him." "I am bound to admit that there is a good deal about him which is mysterious to me; but whether it is equally mysterious to you is another question." "He is a mystery to me--he always has been." She paused again. She drew in her lips as if to moisten them. "You are a stranger to me, but I want a confidant. I must speak to some one." "I beg that you will not make a confidant of me--I do assure you----" As she interrupted me, her voice rose almost to a scream. "I must speak to you--I will! I can endure no longer. Sit down and let me speak to you." Perceiving that, unless I made a scene, I should have to let her at least say something, I did as she requested and sat down. I wished that she would sit down also, instead of standing in front of the door, twisting her hands and her body, and pulling faces--for only so can I describe what seemed to be the nervous spasms which were continually causing her to distort her attenuated countenance. "I never wished to marry him," she began. "He made me." "I suppose you mean that he made you in the sense in which all ladies, when their time comes, are made to marry." "No, I don't. I never wanted to marry him--never. He was almost as great a stranger to me as you are. Why should I marry a perfect stranger, without a penny to his name--me, who had been a single woman, and content to be a single woman, for nearly forty years?"--I could not tell her; I am sure I had no notion.--"This house belongs to me; It was my mother's house before me. He came in one day and asked me if I wanted a waiter--came in with hardly a shoe to his foot. It was like his impudence! I did not want a waiter, and I told him so; but he mesmerised me, and made me have him!" "Mesmerised you, Mrs. Barnes! You are joking!" "I'm not joking." To do her justice any one who looked less like joking I never saw. "I've always been a nervous sort of a body. Directly he saw me he could do anything he liked with me. He was always mesmerising me. In less than a month he had mesmerised me into marrying him. As soon as we were married I began to think that he was mad!"--In that case, I told myself, that most promising couple must have been something very like a pair!--"He was always asking me if I would like to sell myself to the devil. He used to say that he would arrange it for me if I wanted. Then he used to dream out loud--such dreams! Night after night I've lain and listened to him, frightened half out of my wits. Then he took to walking in his sleep. The only thing he brought into the place was a little wooden box, tied up in a pocket-handkerchief. I never could make out what was in this box. Once when I asked him I thought he would have killed me. One night, in the middle of a dream, he got out of bed and went downstairs. Although I was so frightened that my knees were knocking together, I went after him. He came in here. This box of his was in that bureau--it's in that bureau now." She pointed to a tall, old-fashioned bureau which was just behind my chair. "He kept muttering to himself all the time; I could not catch all that he said, he spoke so low, but he repeated over and over again something about the devil. He took this box of his out of the bureau. He did something to it with his hands. What he did I don't know. I suppose there was a secret spring about it, or something. But though I've tried to make it out over and over again since then, I've never been able to find the secret of it to this day. When he handled it the top flew open. He put the box down upon that table; and I stood watching him in the open doorway--just about where I am standing now--without his having the least notion I was there. I believe that, if he had known, he would have killed me." "Do you mean to say, while he was doing all you have described, that he was asleep?" "Fast asleep." "You are quite sure, Mrs. Barnes, that you also were not fast asleep?" "Not me; I almost wish I had been. I've never had a good night's sleep from that hour to this. I've grown that thin, for want of it, that I'm nothing but a skeleton. As I was saying, when he had opened it he put the box down on the table. He gave a laugh which made my blood run cold."--She struck me as being the sort of woman whose blood on very slight provocation would run cold.--"Then he took something out of the box. When I saw what it was I thought I should have fainted." A nervous paroxysm seemed to pass all over her; her voice dropped to a whisper: "It was a woman's finger!" "A woman's finger, Mrs. Barnes?" "It was a woman's finger. There was a wedding-ring on it: it was too small for the finger, so that the ring seemed to have eaten into the flesh. He stood staring at this wedding-ring." "What! staring! and he was fast asleep!" "I don't know much about sleep-walkers; he was the first I ever saw, and I hope he'll be the last. But I do know that when he was sleep-walking his eyes were wide open, and he used to stare at things which, I suppose, he wanted to see, in a way which was horrible to look at. It was like that he stared at this wedding-ring. Then he said, right out loud: 'I'll cut you off one of these fine days, and see how you look upon my finger.' Then he put the finger down on the table, and out of the box he took three other fingers and a thumb." "You are quite sure they were real, genuine, human fingers, Mrs. Barnes?" "I know fingers when I see them, I suppose. You hear me out. He placed them on the table, nails uppermost, close together, just as the fingers are upon your own hand. He spoke to them. 'You'll never play any more of your devil's tricks with me that's a certainty!' he said. And he leered and grinned and chuckled more like a demon than a man. Then he took something out of the box, wrapped in a piece of calico. I saw that on the calico there were stains of blood. Out of it he took the palm of a woman's hand. Raising it to his lips, he kissed it, looking like the perfect devil that he was. He put it down palm downwards on the table, and he did something to the fingers. Then"--Mrs. Barnes gave utterance to a gasping sound, which it did not do one good to hear--"he picked it up, and I saw that by some devil's trickery he had joined the separate parts together, and made it look as if it were a perfect hand." She stopped. I do not mind owning that if I had had my way, she would have stopped for good. Unfortunately I did not see my way to compel her to leave her tale unfinished. "I suppose that at that dreadful sight I must have fainted, because the next thing I can remember is finding myself lying on the floor and the room all dark. For some time I dared scarcely breathe, far less move; I did not know where my husband might be. How I summoned up courage to enable me to creep upstairs, to this hour I do not know. When I did I found my husband fast asleep in bed." "You really must excuse my asking, Mrs. Barnes, but do you happen to recollect what you ate for supper that night, and are you in the habit of suffering from nightmare?" "Nightmare! That was the first time I watched him. I have watched him over and over again since then. I soon found out that regularly every Friday night he walked in his sleep, and went downstairs, and gloated over that dreadful hand." "You say that he did this every Friday. Are you suggesting that with him Friday was some sort of anniversary?" "I don't know. What was I to think? What was any one to think? Don't laugh at me--don't! You think I am a fool, or lying. You shall see the hand for yourself, and tell me what you make of it. I will show it you, if I have to break his box open with a hammer." In a state of considerable and evident excitement, she crossed the room. I rose to enable her to approach the bureau. She took a small canvas bag out of the pocket of her dress. Out of this bag she took some keys. "He has my keys. He made me give him them. He never knew that I had duplicates. But I always have had. He seldom went outside the front door; I think he was afraid of being seen in the streets. Whenever he did go I used to lock myself in here, and try to find the spring which opened the box. I had an idea that there might be something in it which I had not seen. I will open it now, if I have to smash it into splinters." She let down the flap of the bureau. Within there were nests of drawers, and one small centre cupboard. This cupboard she unlocked. When she had done so, she gave a stifled exclamation. "It has gone!" she said. I stooped beside her. "What has gone?" She turned to me a face which was ghastly in its revelation of abject terror. Her voice had suddenly degenerated into a sort of panting hiss. "The box! It was here last night. After he had gone I unlocked the bureau, and I looked, and saw it was there." She caught me by the arm, she gripped me with a strength of which, in her normal condition, I should imagine her incapable. "He must have come back like a thief in the night and taken it. He may be hidden somewhere in the house this moment. Oh, my God!" CHAPTER III THE MAN IN THE DOORWAY I called at Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton's to ask what I should do with the four five-pound notes which had arrived in the letter. The individual who had taken me to the hotel was the only person in the office. It seemed, from his own statement, that he was Mr. Cleaver, the senior partner. When he learned why I had come, he laughed. "Do with them? Why, spend them, or throw them into the river, or give them to me." I hesitated. The truth is, the situation threatened to become too complicated. I had an uneasy consciousness that the something which James Southam was to hear of might be something to his exceeding disadvantage. I had heard enough of that sort of thing of late. I did not wish to stand in somebody else's shoes for the sake of hearing more. I resolved to have some sort of understanding with Mr. Cleaver. "Who is Duncan Rothwell? Is he the client for whom you are acting?" Mr. Cleaver was occupying himself in tearing a piece of paper into tiny shreds with his fingers. He replied to my question with another. "Why do you ask?" "Because the signature attached to the letter which brought the bank-notes is Duncan Rothwell; and, as to my knowledge, I know no Duncan Rothwell, I should like to know who Duncan Rothwell is." "Do you mind my looking at the letter?" I did not mind. I let him look at it. He read it through. "If you will take a hint from me, Mr. Southam, I think I should advise you to restrain your not unnatural curiosity, and wait for things to take their course." "But, unless I am careful, I may find myself in a false position. I may not be the required James Southam. In fact, I don't mind telling you that I don't believe I am. I am acquainted with no Duncan Rothwell. His whole letter is double Dutch to me. There may be dozens of James Southams about." "Recent inhabitants of Dulborough? I thought Dulborough was a mere hamlet." "So it is." "How long did you live there?" "I was born and bred in the place." "Have you any relatives of your own name?" "I have not a relative in the world." "If, as you say, you were born and bred in such a place as Dulborough, I presume that you had some knowledge of the inhabitants?' "I believe I knew something of every creature in all the country side." "And did you know anything of another James Southam?" "That is the queer part of it. So far as I know, I was the only Southam thereabouts." Mr. Cleaver laughed. "According to your own statement, it appears that, to put it mildly, there is at least a possibility of your being the James Southam we have been instructed to find. Frankly, Mr. Southam, we know very little more about the matter than you do yourself. We have simply been instructed to discover the present address of James Southam, at one time of Dulborough, and we have done so." "Is that the case?" From their manner the day before I had suspected that Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton might be merely, as it were, lay figures, and that it was somebody else who held the strings. "There is something else I should like to mention: I wish to change my hotel." Mr. Cleaver stared. "Change your hotel? Why? Isn't it good enough?" "It is not that exactly. It is the domestic arrangements which are not to my taste." "The domestic arrangements? What do you mean?" I did not know how to explain; or rather, I did not know how much to explain. "What do you know of Mrs. Barnes's husband?" "Really, Mr. Southam, your bump of curiosity appears to be fully developed. What has Mrs. Barnes's husband to do with you--or with me? If you don't like your present quarters you are at perfect liberty to change them;--only in that case you must become responsible for your own expenditure." I turned to go. "One moment. If you intend to change your quarters, perhaps, under the circumstances, you will be so good as to let us know where you propose to go." "I will let you know if I do go. At any rate, until to-morrow I intend to remain where I am." Whether it would have been better for me, considering the tragedy which followed, never to have returned to Mrs. Barnes's house at all, is more than I can say. That particular tragedy might not have happened, but, looking at the matter from a purely personal and selfish point of view, whether that would have been better for me, or worse, is another question altogether. That night I went to a music-hall, changing one of Mr. Rothwell's notes to enable me to do so. Afterwards I supped at a restaurant in the Strand. Then I returned to the hotel to bed. I was more than half afraid of being waylaid by Mrs. Barnes. But, to my relief, it was the maidservant who let me in. I saw and heard nothing of the landlady. I spent the night in peace. A telegram was brought me the next morning after breakfast. It was short and to the point-- "Shall be with you at twelve-thirty.--DUNCAN ROTHWELL." As I perceived that it had been despatched from Derby station, I concluded that Mr. Rothwell had telegraphed while in the very act of journeying to town. Half-past twelve arrived, and no one, and nothing came for me. About a quarter to one I went into the hall with some vague idea of seeing if some likely looking person might be coming down the street. The hall was really nothing but a narrow passage. The front door was open. With his feet just inside the open doorway was a man lying face downwards on the floor. My first impulse was to beat a retreat, because I at once jumped to the conclusion that Mr. Barnes, or Mr. James Southam, or whatever the landlady's mysterious husband's name might be, had returned to the bosom of his family, not only unpleasantly inclined, but drunk. A brief inspection from the other end of the passage, however, made it sufficiently clear that, whoever the recumbent individual was, it was not the gentleman who had first waited on and then assaulted me. I could see that he was, in every way, a larger man. His silk hat had fallen sufficiently off his head to enable one to perceive that he was bald. As I stood and watched him, I began to be conscious of a curiously unpleasant feeling. He lay so still; and in such an uncomfortable posture. He was a big, fat man; it struck me that he must weigh some seventeen or eighteen stone. He had fallen flat upon his stomach; his face was so close to the floor that he must have found it difficult to breathe. His right arm was bent under him, in a way which disagreeably suggested a broken limb. The man must surely be something more than drunk. He must, I told myself, have fallen in a fit. With an indefinable feeling of repugnance, I advanced to give him aid. I bent over him. I laid my hand upon his shoulder; I withdrew it with a start. The man's coat was wet. I glanced at my own palm; it was covered with some red pigment. Thoroughly aroused I sprang to my feet. "Help! Mrs. Barnes!" I cried. Mrs. Barnes and the maidservant came running up together. "Mrs. Barnes," I said, still staring at the patch of red upon my hand, "I believe there has been murder done." "Murder! Oh, my God! Do you think he did it?" I looked at her. I knew what she meant, but I did not answer her, "You had better send for the police, and for a medical man." It was the servant who retained sufficient presence of mind to catch at my suggestion. "Doctor Granger lives across the road. I'll fetch him!" She did fetch him. Luckily the doctor was at home. So soon as he learned what urgent need there was for his services, he came hurrying to render them. Presently a policeman came upon the scene. He was followed by others. They kept the street clear, for some distance from the hotel, of the crowd which began rapidly to gather. The whole house, as it were, was taken in charge. CHAPTER IV THE ALIAS "This man was alive within the last few minutes." That was the doctor's verdict. "He is still quite warm." The doctor looked at me. "What do you know about the matter?" "Nothing. I was expecting a visitor. As he was late, I came down from the coffee-room, and went into the hall with the intention of seeing if he was coming. As I was coming down the stairs I saw this man lying on the floor." The body had been moved into the little front room on the ground floor, which, I afterwards learned, was used as a private sitting-room for such visitors to the house as chose to pay for one. There were present in the room, besides myself, the doctor, a young man with a shrewd but kindly face, an inspector of police, a sergeant, who kept the door, while Mrs. Barnes and the maid kept each other close company in the corner by the fireplace. When I had answered the doctor, the inspector questioned me upon his own account. "What is that upon your hand?" I held out the hand to which he referred. "Blood! This unfortunate man's blood! When I saw him lying on the floor my impression was that he was either drunk or in a fit. I laid my hand upon his shoulder with a view of rousing him. Directly I did so I found that his coat was wet. When I withdrew my hand I saw that it was covered with blood. It was then I realised that there had been foul play." The dead man had been laid on the table. It was not large enough to hold the whole of him, so that his feet hung over the edge. He was a big man all over--in particular, he had one of the biggest heads I ever saw. There was not a hair on the top. But on his large, fat cheeks were what used to be called mutton-chop whiskers, which were in colour a dirty red. He was dressed from top to toe in glossy black broadcloth. He wore black kid gloves upon his hands. In the centre of his wide expanse of shirtfront was, so far as I was a judge of such things, a large diamond stud. A heavy gold chain spanned his waistcoat. "Is this the person you were expecting?" inquired the inspector. "That is more than I can tell you. The person I was expecting was to me personally a stranger." "What was his name?" "Duncan Rothwell. I received a telegram from him this morning to say that he would be here by half-past twelve. Here is the telegram." I handed it to the inspector. "Half-past twelve. And when do you say that you discovered this man on the floor?" "About a quarter to one. When I gave the alarm the landlady of the hotel and the servant came running to me immediately. They will be able to tell you what time it was; and I should say that the doctor was here within five minutes." The inspector turned to the doctor. "And what was the time, sir, when you arrived?" "I should say as nearly as possible about ten minutes to one. I lunch at one; I was just going to wash when I was called." "And how long do you say, sir, he had then been dead?" "He had probably been alive five minutes before." "Then, in that case, he must have been alive when this man says he entered the hall." The inspector pointed to me. "I do not say that. The man was stabbed in the back, under the left shoulder, probably just as he was in the act of entering the house. I have only made a superficial examination, but I think it probable that the blow killed him in an instant--before, that is, he could breathe the breath which he was breathing, as it were, right out. And I do say this, that if this gentleman had entered the hall a minute before he actually did, he would have seen the man in the very act of being murdered." The inspector turned again to me. "Where did this Mr. Duncan Rothwell live?" "That also is more than I can tell you. The fact is, I know nothing whatever about him. A firm of solicitors placed him in communication with me." "What was he coming to see you about?" "With reference to this advertisement." I gave the inspector the advertisement which had placed me in the position which, so far, did not promise to be much to my advantage. "What is your name?" "James Southam." "Are you the James Southam here alluded to?" "That, again, is more than I can tell you. I saw that advertisement the day before yesterday. I at once communicated with Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton. Yesterday I received this letter, and this morning the telegram which you already have." The inspector carefully read the letter which had come to me signed "Duncan Rothwell." Then, without asking with your leave or by your leave, he placed the letter, the advertisement, and the telegram in his pocket-book, and the pocket-book in his pocket. The action struck me as extremely, and indeed unpleasantly, significant. An examination of the dead man's pockets disclosed the somewhat curious fact that they contained nothing but a massive gold watch, without a maker's name; a sheaf of bank-notes, which, unenclosed in any cover, was simply thrust in the breast-pocket of his coat, and consisted of no less than one hundred ten-pound notes; some gold and silver coins--four pounds, thirteen shillings, if I remember rightly--in a plain leather purse; and, in an apparently forgotten corner of his right-hand waistcoat pocket, was a torn scrap of a visiting card. On it was the name, "Raymond." But the card was torn in such a manner that, whether this was a surname or a Christian name, there was, as the police would themselves have said, no evidence to show. But beyond these articles there was absolutely nothing which would serve or could be used as a means of identification. It almost seemed as if the dead man had taken care that there should be nothing about him by means of which he could be identified. As soon as the inspector seemed disposed to allow me to quit his presence I went straight away to Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton. Again I found the senior partner alone. My appearance seemed to surprise him; possibly in my bearing there was something which was a trifle suggestive of the condition of my mind. "Well, has Mr. Rothwell been?" I shut the door behind me, looking him full in the face. "You appear to have let me in for a nice little thing, Mr. Cleaver." "What do you mean?" "It is what you mean I intend to understand before I leave this room. You will be so good as to answer me one or two questions, Mr. Cleaver. First, is Mr. Duncan Rothwell the name of the client for whom you have been acting?" He leaned back in his chair, regarding me with rather a curious smile. "You have a singular method of address, Mr. Southam. Before I answer this question perhaps you will answer mine. Has Mr. Rothwell been to see you?" "What does he look like?" "Look like!" Again the curious smile. "You continue to answer question with question. Tell me, sir, has any one calling himself Duncan Rothwell been to see you? We will discuss the question of what he looked like afterwards." I paused before I spoke again, then keenly noted the effect of my words. "For all I know, Mr. Duncan Rothwell lies murdered at Mrs. Barnes's hotel." Mr. Cleaver sprang to his feet. "Murdered!" "Precisely! Some one lies there murdered. If you will tell me what he looks like I will tell you if it is Mr. Duncan Rothwell." Not unnaturally, Mr. Cleaver appeared bewildered. "Explain yourself a little more clearly, Mr. Southam; and, to begin with, will you be so good as to answer Yes or No to my question. Has any one calling himself Duncan Rothwell been to see you?" I told him what had happened--so far as I understood it. His amazement unmistakably was genuine. "You say that the dead man had nothing on him by means of which he could be recognised. Then, in that case, we can do nothing to assist in his identification; we ourselves have never seen Mr. Duncan Rothwell in our lives. All our communications with him have been by letter." He acknowledged one thing: that the person for whom they had been acting was Mr. Duncan Rothwell. But, beyond that one fact, I learned nothing at all. He protested that Mr. Duncan Rothwell had instructed them, by letter, to advertise for a James Southam, of Dulborough, and that that was all they knew of the matter. He even suggested that, since I was James Southam, I, if I chose, could fill up the blanks. When I returned to the hotel, little wiser than I left it, as soon as I set foot inside the door the inspector of police, clapping his hand upon my shoulder, drew me aside. I did not like the fashion in which he addressed me at all. "See here, Mr. Southam. I do not wish to make myself disagreeable, but I need scarcely point out to you that there are circumstances in this case which are, to say the least of it, peculiar. I may as well tell you that your movements will be under the surveillance of the police; and, should you make any attempt to elude us we may consider it our duty to place you in safe custody." "That's all right," I replied. "Lock me up and hang me, do! It only needs some little trifle of that kind to make the situation altogether what it should be. The man is a perfect stranger to me, and I know no more how he came to his death than the man in the moon; which things are, possibly, a sufficient reason why the police should make of me one of their proverbial examples." It struck me that the inspector did not altogether know what to make of me; Although he did not arrest me, to all intents and purposes he might almost as well have done. Until the inquest took place the hotel was practically in charge, with everybody in it. A policeman slept on the premises; other policemen were continually about the premises, asking questions and making themselves objectionable both by day and night. I myself began to feel that I had a haunted, hangdog sort of air. As for Mrs. Barnes, if she had not a great crime upon her conscience, it was not because she did not look it. She seemed to be growing hourly thinner. I knew very well that she was full of a great anxiety to say a word or two to me in private, but dared not for fear of prying eyes and ears. She solved the difficulty in her own way by pinning a note to my pillow, so that I found it on going to bed on the night before the inquest. It had neither beginning nor end, and ran something like this; every word was underlined-- "Say nothing to-morrow about my husband, for God's sake! I am quite sure that he had nothing to do with this deed of horror--you know that he had not--and I know! No good purpose will be served by dragging him into it, and so bringing on me greater ruin than has come already!" As I read this scarcely judicious appeal I told myself that Mrs. Barnes was certainly wrong in saying that I knew that her mysterious husband had had nothing to do with the crime which had been wrought. As a matter of fact, I knew nothing. The more I reflected, however, the less I liked the look of the circumstances, which seemed to suggest a guilty knowledge on the part of my whilom friend, the waiter. It appeared at least possible that he was the James Southam who had been actually advertised for, and that he was very well aware that Duncan Rothwell had something to say to him which was, very distinctly, not to his advantage. Looking at the violence which, without hesitation, he had used towards me, was it not conceivable that he might have, and indeed had, used still greater violence towards Mr. Rothwell? The inquest was not over in a day, though the only light it threw upon the crime went to prove the identity of the murdered man. A singular state of things the evidence upon this point revealed--by no means tending to elucidate the mystery. The dead man actually turned out to be Jonas Hartopp--the head, and, in fact, the sole remaining partner, in the well-known firm of manufacturing jewellers--Hartopp and Company. The strange part of the business was that he seemed to have been Duncan Rothwell as well--that is, he had assumed that name for reasons which were very far from being plain. Hartopp and Company were a Birmingham firm--a wealthy one. Jonas Hartopp himself had had the reputation of being as rich as a reasonable man would care to be. Duncan Rothwell had written to Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton from Liverpool, where he had taken rooms, as it would seem, for the special purpose of communicating with them. He had never occupied the rooms, but had given the most peremptory instructions that all letters and telegrams should at once be forwarded to an address at Aston. The address at Aston turned out to be a tobacconist's shop. The tobacconist at once recognised the dead man as being the person he had known as Duncan Rothwell. Why the wealthy Birmingham jeweller, Jonas Hartopp, had chosen to masquerade as Duncan Rothwell, or what was the something to his advantage which he proposed to communicate to James Southam, there was not a shred or tittle of evidence to show; nor was there a thread of light thrown upon the shadows which enveloped the mystery of his sudden death. As it chanced, no question was asked me while I was in the witness-box which gave me an opportunity of bringing in the incident of Mrs. Barnes's husband. I had a sufficiently bad time of it without being actuated by a burning desire to involve myself in further complications. Never in my life had I been so badgered. They would not accept my plain statement that I had not the faintest notion why James Southam had been advertised for, or who had advertised for him, or what was the something which he was to learn to his advantage. The coroner and the police, and, for the matter of that, the public too, appeared to be under the impression that, since I owned that my name was James Southam, therefore I held the key of the mystery in the hollow of my hand; or, at any rate, that I ought to. They had raked up the circumstances of my life from my earliest days; they had made all sorts of inquiries about me in all sorts of directions, yet they could find nothing which could fairly be said to tell against me; and that for the sufficient, and, from my point of view, satisfactory reason, that there was nothing to find. Notwithstanding which, when the inquiry closed, I was conscious that more than one person in court, and a good many out of it, cherished the impression that I had had a hand indirectly, if not directly, in the murdered man's despatch, the verdict of the coroner's jury being that Jonas Hartopp, otherwise known as Duncan Rothwell, had been murdered by some person or persons unknown. CHAPTER V THE NEW GUEST Oddly enough it was not until I was smarting under the feelings occasioned by the reflection that I had come out of the inquiry with a smirch upon my character that it occurred to me what a fool I had been, when I was in the witness-box, in not going even out of my way to transfer suspicion from myself to the scamp whom Mrs. Barnes had assured me was her husband. I arrived, then and there, at a resolution. I would play, on lines of my own, that favourite part in fiction--the role of the amateur detective. I would trace to their sources the various threads which had become complicated in such a tangled web of crime. I would unravel them, one by one. Single-handed, if necessary, I would make the whole thing plain. In theory, an excellent resolution; situated as I was, not an easy one to put into practice. Before the end of the coroner's inquest Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton informed me that their guarantee to provide for the expenses of my sojourn at Mrs. Barnes's establishment thenceforward was withdrawn. Of the four banknotes which had come to me in Duncan Rothwell's letter about fifteen pounds remained. If that sum might be credited to my account, on the debit side of the column was the injury which my connection with the affair had, at least temporarily, done my character. If before I had found it difficult to obtain remunerative employment, I should find it now still harder. On the morning after the close of the inquiry I was meditating taking an immediate departure from the house in which I had met with experiences which had been to anything but my advantage, when Mrs. Barnes came into the room. Her worries had worn her almost to a shadow. I felt that, if she continued to diminish at the same rate long, she soon, literally, would entirely waste away. Her nervous tricks seemed to have become accentuated. She stood rubbing her hands together, apparently for the moment at a loss for something to say. "I hope, sir, that you are not going?" "Then you hope wrong, Mrs. Barnes. I certainly am going, and that at once." "You mustn't sir--you really mustn't." "You are wrong again, Mrs. Barnes, for I really must, if on one account only--that I am not in a position to pay your terms." She gave a sudden movement forward, coming to lean with both her hands upon the table. Her voice dropped to that odd, palpitating whisper of which she seemed to be so fond. "You needn't let that trouble you. You can live board and lodging free, and you'll be welcome." I observed her closely. In her face there was something which was positively uncanny. If ever a person had a haunted look it was Mrs. Barnes. "Why do you make to me such a proposition? Do you consider that I am the sort of person who would be willing to snatch at anybody's charity, or are you in the habit of giving strangers board and lodging free?" "Indeed, no; but it's different with you. If you leave me now I shall not dare to stay in the house, and that's the truth. I feel as if you were guarding me; as if hungry eyes were on the house, seeking for a chance to work me evil, but that the hidden watchers dare not come in to do that to me which they desire while my roof still shelters you. Sir, do you think that 'he' did it?" "Do I think that who did what?" "Do you think that my husband killed that man?" "To be frank with you, I think it extremely possible that he knows as much of the business as may altogether be good for him--more, for instance, than you or I. I have been reproaching myself for having done as you requested, and not having at least alluded to the gentleman in question when giving my evidence before the coroner." My words set her trembling. "You did quite right. You would have been sorry for it afterwards. I cannot tell you why or how, but I am certain that my husband had no more to do with that deed of blood than you or I." The woman's intense earnestness made me stare. "I can only say, Mrs. Barnes, that I regret that I am unable to share your certainty." "That is one reason why I ask you--why I implore you to stay. There is a cloud hanging over you and over me--it is the same cloud! If you stay I feel that it may be lifted; but, if you leave, it may rest on us for ever." What she said was nonsense pure and simple. Still, I suffered myself to be persuaded. I agreed to stay on--at any rate, for a time. The satisfaction with which she received my decision was so pronounced that one might have thought that I had done her the greatest service in the world. I went out in the afternoon. When I came back in the evening, not a little to my surprise, my food was brought me by a man. I stared at him askance. Hitherto the whole service of the house, in which I had been the only guest, had been done by the maid. Now I found myself confronted by a quite irreproachable-looking waiter, attired in the orthodox costume of his kind. His presence was so unexpected that I found it impossible to conceal my astonishment. "Who the deuce are you?" I blurted out. The fellow began to smirk in reply. "New waiter, sir--only came this afternoon, sir!" "I had no notion that Mrs. Barnes contemplated making such an addition to her establishment." "No, sir; perhaps not, sir. Business is very slack just now, but the season is coming on, and the house will very soon be full." This was emphatically a lie. So far from the season just coming on, in an hotel-keeper's sense, it was rapidly drawing to an end; and so far as Mrs. Barnes was personally concerned, apparently a bitter one, too. What she wanted, circumstanced as she was, with such a gorgeous individual as this about the place, or what she could find for him to do, surpassed my comprehension. The fellow bustled about the room, pretending to busy himself, in accordance with a trick of his trade, with nothing at all. "Been here long, sir?" "You know very well how long I have been here." "Beg pardon, sir, how's that?" "You have read it in the papers. Don't feign ignorance with me, my man." The fellow turned away. He was industriously polishing an already spotless glass. "You allude to the recent unfortunate occurrence, sir? I believe that I did see something about it." "You believe! Is that all? You are perfectly aware that you are as well up in what you call the recent occurrence as I am. You know all about me; how I came into the house, when I came, my name, and everything." I do not know why I said this, but I did say it, and I felt that it was true. The man seemed taken aback. "Mrs. Barnes did mention your name," he murmured. "You knew it without her mentioning it. You can leave the room. When I want you I will ring." I was glad to be rid of him. His presence seemed to chafe me. I knew not why. He was not ill-looking. His bearing was wholly respectful; and yet some instinct had seemed to warn me that while I was in his near neighbourhood it would be just as well that I should be upon my guard. When I had eaten I sallied forth in quest of Mrs. Barnes. Her nervous system had not improved since the morning; even the sight of me seemed to fill her with terror. Her eyes looked at everything except at me. I wondered if some disaster had been added to the sum of her already over-numerous troubles. "You have a new waiter," I began. "Yes." She spoke in a stammering whisper. Her features were agitated with the former reminiscence of St. Vitus's Dance. "Yes; a new waiter." "I hope very sincerely, for your sake, Mrs. Barnes, that he may ere long have other guests to wait upon besides myself." "Yes." The same irresolute muttering. "Yes; I hope he may." "I had no idea that you thought of making an engagement of the kind just now." "No--I don't think--I told you." What was the matter with the woman? Why did she persist in speaking in that tone of voice, as if she was fearful of being overheard! And why did she apparently not dare to allow her eyes to rest, even for a moment, on my face? She had been so effusive in the morning. Now, on a sudden, she had returned to the condition of almost doddering terror which had marked her bearing during the time we had a policeman quartered in the house. "Where did you get the man? What is his name? And what do you know of him?" As I put my questions I thought for a moment that she was going to favour me with one of her frenzied bursts of confidence. But while I waited for her to speak, all at once her frame became rigid. I seemed to see the unspoken words lying on her lips. Turning to discover the cause of the obvious change in her manner, I found that the new waiter had opened the door and, unannounced, had entered the room. At sight of him her agitation again assumed the upper hand. "I--I must ask you to excuse me, sir. I have something which I must do." I did excuse her; but when I had left her I decided in my own mind that my instinct had been right, and that there was more in the new waiter than met the eye. It seemed scarcely likely that even a landlady of such an eccentric type as Mrs. Barnes would increase her staff when the only guest which her house contained was such an emphatically unprofitable one as I bade fair to be. However, in one respect the position of affairs was destined to be speedily changed. The house received not only another guest, but also one who bade fair to be as profitable a one as a landlady's heart could wish. It was on the day immediately following that Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor arrived. I had been out all the morning and afternoon, renewing the weary search for employment which might provide me with the means for obtaining my daily bread. The first intimation I had of her arrival was when, having dined, I was thinking of a quiet pipe, and of an early retirement to bed. CHAPTER VI THE WOMAN WITH ONE HAND "Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor's compliments, sir, and would you mind stepping upstairs?" I had a lighted match in my hand, and was in the very act of applying it to the bowl of my pipe when the latest importation in waiters brought me the message. "Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor?" I let the match go out. "And pray who may Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor be?" "The lady who arrived to-day, sir, and who has taken a private sitting-room--No. 8." "Indeed! And what does Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor want with me?" "I don't know, sir; she asked me to give you her compliments, and would you be so kind as to step upstairs." I stepped upstairs, wondering. I was received by a tall and somewhat ponderous woman, who was dressed in a dark-blue silk costume, almost as if she were going to a ball. She half rose from the couch as I came in, inclining her head in my direction with what struck me as a slightly patronising smile. She spoke in a loud, hearty tone of voice, which was marked by what struck me as being a Yorkshire twang. "It is so good of you to come to see me, Mr. Southam. I was really more than half afraid to ask you. As it is, I beg ten thousand pardons, but I do so want you to write me a letter." "To write you a letter? I am afraid I am a little slow of comprehension." "I have lost my hand." She stretched out her right arm. Both arms were bare to the shoulder. I could not but notice how beautifully they were moulded, their massive contours, their snowy whiteness. She wore gloves which reached nearly to her elbows. So far as I could judge there appeared to be a hand inside of both. She seemed to read my thoughts, still continuing to hold her right arm out in front of her. "You think my hand is gloved? I always wear it so. But the glove conceals a dummy. Come and feel it." I bowed. I was content to take her at her word; I had no wish to put her to the actual test. "I have never been able to gain complete control over my left hand--to use it as if it were my right. I suppose it is because I am not clever enough. I can scribble with it, but only scribble. When I desire to have a letter properly written I am dependent upon outsiders' help. Will you write one for me now?" It was an odd request for a new-comer at an hotel to address to a perfect stranger, but I complied. The letter she dictated, and which I wrote at her dictation, seemed to me the merest triviality--a scribble would have served the purpose just as well. She chattered all the time that I was writing, and, when I had finished, she went on chattering still. All at once she broke into a theme to which I ought to have become accustomed, but had not. "Do you know, Mr. Southam, that I have been reading about this dreadful murder case? How the papers have all been full of it! And I don't mind telling you, as a matter of fact, that in a sort of a way it was that which has brought me to this hotel." If that were so, I retorted, then her tastes were individual; she perceived attractions where the average man saw none. She laughed. "I don't know that it was exactly that, but the truth is, Mr. Southam, I was interested in you." The way in which she emphasised the pronoun a little startled me. "I made up my mind that I would ferret you out directly I got to the hotel, and that then, if I liked the look of you, would make you an offer. You see how frank I am." She certainly was frank to a fault, in one sense. And yet I wondered. As I replied to her my tone was grim. "It is very good of you. And now that, as I take it for granted that you do like the look of me--as you can scarcely fail to do--may I inquire what is the nature of the offer you propose to make?" She laughed again. Possibly my perceptions were unusually keen, but, all the time, it occurred to me that there was about her a something--an atmosphere, if you will--which was not exactly suggestive of laughter. Unless I was mistaken, her faculties were as much on the alert as mine were. She was engaged in summing me up when she feigned to be least observant. "You must understand, Mr. Southam, that I know all about you which the papers had to tell, and that was not a little! So we are not exactly strangers. At least, that is, you are not wholly a stranger to me. Besides which, I myself once knew a person whose name was Southam." I started. The woman's eyes were fixed on me, although she pretended to be trifling with her dress. "You knew a person whose name was Southam. Indeed! Who was it, a man or a woman?" She ignored my question. "Have you any relatives of your own name? "Not that I am aware of, though there seems to be more than one Southam about in the world. What Southam was it you knew?" Her tone was ostentatiously indifferent. "Oh, it doesn't matter. It was a long time ago, and, as you say, I suppose there are heaps of Southams about in the world. I only wanted to explain to you that you were not so absolutely unknown to me as the fact that this is our first actual meeting might lead you to imagine. Will you allow me to ask if you are still seeking employment? I thought, from what I read in the papers, that it was just possible you might be." "You have supposed correctly. I am." "Would you like to fill the post of secretary?" "Of secretary?" I paused for a moment to consider--not the suggestion of such a post, but the source from whence the suggestion came. "To whom?" "To me." "It is very kind of you, but do you clearly understand, madam, that you are speaking to a person whose character is under a cloud?" "Because you were suspected of having murdered that man?" Her question was brutal in its candour. "Precisely. Because I was suspected, and, for all I know, still am." "The people who suspected you were fools. I will back my capacity as a judge of character, even at sight, against their suspicions. You are not of the stuff of which murderers are made." Her tone was short and sharp--I had almost written sarcastic--as if she thought it a shame to a man not to be made of the stuff of which murderers are. She went on, speaking quickly, even brusquely. "I will trust you, if you, on your part, will trust me. As I have told you, and as I will prove to you, if--as I almost believe--you doubt me, I have lost my hand. See!" Hastily, before I could stop her, she began to unbutton her right glove. She only unloosed a button or two, when the whole thing, glove, hand and all, came clean away, and she held out towards me her handless arm. I stared, at a loss for words, not a little shocked--the disfigurement was so dreadful, and seemed to have been so recent. Her voice grew bitter. "I lost that hand under circumstances which impressed its loss upon my memory. As it were, I seem to be losing it anew, every hour of every day. It has left me impotent. Will you relieve my impotence? Will you become my secretary? There will not be much for you to do, but there will be something; the salary which I shall pay you will not be a large one, but it will, perhaps, suffice till something better offers; I will give you a hundred pounds a year, and, as they say in the advertisements, all found. Do not give me your answer at once. It may be that I shall stay in the hotel some time, and, at any rate, while I am here, possibly you will not refuse to act as my amanuensis. You can see with your own eyes how much I am in want of one." Again she drew my attention to her mangled arm. As she suggested, I neither accepted nor declined her offer there and then; it was one which needed consideration from more points than one. For instance, while she did know something of me--if what she had read in the newspaper reports could be called knowledge--I knew literally nothing of her; for all I could tell, she might be an adventuress lately freed from the purlieus of a gaol. I did consent to do any secretarial work she might require during her stay in the hotel. By the time she left it I might be able to see my way more clearly than I did just then. I saw a good deal of Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor during the few days which followed, and the more I saw of her the less I could make her out. There was a good deal of work for me to do, such as it was. I wondered if she had brought it with her in order to furnish her with an excuse to give me occupation. There were papers for me to copy--papers which seemed to be of the very slightest importance. While I was supposed to be engaged in copying them, she interrupted me without remorse, and talked and talked and talked. During those conversations she learned a great deal of my history, while I ascertained nothing at all of hers. I found that she was a woman of quick and imperious temper: to fence with one of her interminable questions annoyed her; to have declined point-blank to answer one would have involved an immediate breach. If I took service with her, it would be with my eyes open; I should have to be prepared for squalls. Though she gave me employment as if she were bestowing charity, she would expect and require perfect obedience from me in return. I do not think that, as a rule, I am quick in taking dislike at a person, but there did, in spite of myself, grow up in my mind a sense of antipathy towards Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor. I felt as if she were watching me; pumping me, turning me inside out, as if I were some old glove; playing with me with that cruel sort of enjoyment with which a cat plays with a mouse, and I did not find the feeling an agreeable one. To add to my comfort, I had an uneasy consciousness that the new waiter had an attentive eye upon my movements in a non-waiterial sense. It was an eye for which I did not thank him; I almost suspected that he was playing the part of a sleepless spy. I half believed that, not infrequently, he was an unseen auditor of my interviews with Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor--I should like to have caught him in the act! One night I could not sleep, I found that I had left my pipe downstairs. I started off to get it; I had scarcely got outside the bedroom door when I all but stumbled over the new waiter. Before I had discovered who it was, I had pinned him to the floor. He was profuse in his apologies, but I do not think that he could altogether have liked the way in which I handled him. CHAPTER VII THE SECOND ENCOUNTER I began, as the days went by, to be more and more a prey to unhealthy, and apparently unreasonable doubts and fears--fears which, in truth, were so intangible that they were without form and void, but which were very real for all that. I began to feel as if a net were being drawn tighter and tighter round me, and as if every step I took was beset by hidden dangers. Such a mental condition was as I have said, an unhealthy one. I realised that well enough, and I had been wandering one evening to and fro on the Embankment, striving to free myself, if only for a time, from the imaginary mists and shadows which seemed to compass me about, when as I was turning into the street in which stood Mrs. Barnes's hotel, I saw a man crouching in the darkness of the wall. What was the man's purpose I had no doubt: he was seeking for concealment. He had seen me before I saw him, and was endeavouring to escape my scrutiny. I took him to be the new waiter. I supposed that I had caught him in the act of spying on me at last. I turned swiftly on him, and before he could retreat I had him by the shoulders. "Before I let you go, my friend, you will be so good as to tell me, now and here, what is the cause of the extreme interest which you evidently take in my proceedings." That was what I said to him; but already, before I had said my say right out, I perceived that I was wrong: that the man I had hold of was not the man I thought he was. This man was shorter and of slighter build, and he showed more signs of fight than, within my experience, the other had evinced. He wriggled in my grasp like an eel, but, holding tightly on to him, I dragged him a little into the light. When I succeeded in getting a glimpse at him there came from between my lips a series of interjections:-- "You!--James Southam!--Mr. Barnes! Good God!" I had hardly spoken when he knocked me down. I was so taken by surprise that I was unable to offer the least resistance; he felled me again, as he had felled me before, as if I had been a ninepin. By the time I had realised what had happened I was lying on my back on the pavement. His hand was on my throat, and his knee was on my chest. He was peering closely into my face--so closely that I could feel his breath upon my cheeks. "It's you again, is it? I thought it was. Don't you make a noise, or I'll choke the life right out of you. You tell me, straight out, what it is you want with me--do you hear?" As if to drive his question well home, he gave my head a sharp tap against the pavement. His strength must have been prodigious. I was conscious that, with him above me thus and with that iron grasp upon my throat, I was wholly at his mercy. The hour was late. Although almost within a stone's throw of the Strand, the place was solitary; not a creature might pass just where we were the whole night through. "Take your hand from my windpipe--I cannot speak--you are choking me," I gasped. "Give me your word you will make no noise if I do. See here!" He was clutching a knife--as ugly a looking knife as ever I saw. He brandished it before my eyes. "I give my word," I managed to utter. He relaxed his hold. It was a comfort to be again able to freely inflate my lungs, though the continued presence of his knee on my chest was none too pleasant. With the point of his knife he actually pricked my nose. "Don't you try to move, or I will cut your throat as if you were a pig. Lie still and answer my questions--and straight, mind, or you'll be sorry. What is it you want with me?" "I want nothing from you--I have never wanted anything. You have been under an entire misapprehension throughout." Once more, with gruesome sportiveness, he tickled my nose with his knife. "Stow that, my lad! It's no good trying to catch this bird with salt. How did you come to know that my name was James Southam?" "I never did know it. The simple truth is that that name happened to be mine." "What's that?" "I say that that name happens to be mine--I am James Southam." Bending down he glared at me with eyes which seemed to glow like burning coal. "What do you mean?" "I mean precisely what I say. If you choose to examine the contents of my pockets--they are at your mercy--you will find ample proof of the truth of what I say. Besides, I take it that you have had truth of this proof from the contents of the papers." "The contents of the papers--what papers?" I looked at him to see if his seeming ignorance of what I meant was real. It appeared to be. "You and I, Mr. Southam, or Mr. Barnes, or whatever your name is, have been, and it would seem still are, at cross purposes. I take no more interest in your affairs than you take in mine--perhaps not so much. The mention of my name seems to have awoke uncomfortable echoes in your breast, which fact is of the nature of an odd coincidence." "You are not a policeman, or a detective, or a private inquiry agent, or anything of that kind--you swear it?" "Very willingly. I am simply a poor devil of a clerk out of a situation. Why you should object to me, or, still more, why you should fear me, I have not the faintest notion." He hesitated before he spoke again--then his tone was sullen. "I don't know if you are lying: I expect you are: but anyhow, I'll chance it. I fancy that I'm about your match, if it's tricks you're after. If I let you get up, can I trust you?" "You can: again I give you my word for it." He let me rise. When I had done so, and was brushing the dust off my clothes, I took his measure. Even by the imperfect light I could see how shabby he was, and how hollow his cheeks were. He seemed to have shrunk to half his size since that first short interview I had had with him. "You will excuse my saying you don't look as if you have been living in clover." "I haven't. I am nearly starving. It is that which has brought me back." "Why did you ever go? Mrs. Barnes tells me that you are her husband. I should imagine that you had a pretty comfortable birth of it." He glowered at me with renewed suspicion. "Oh, she has told you so much, has she? What has she told you more?" "Very little. She has been half beside herself trying to think what has become of you, especially since this affair of Duncan Rothwell." We had crossed the road and were on the Embankment, walking towards the City side by side. Although I had made the allusion of set purpose, I was scarcely prepared for the effect which it had on him. Plainly, he was a person of ungovernable impulses. He stopped, swung, round, again the knife was gleaming in his grasp, and his hand was at my throat. But this time I succeeded in warding him off. "What is the matter with you, man? Are you stark mad?" He was breathing in great gasps. "What name--was that--you said?" "Surely the name must be a familiar one to you by now. It has been to the front enough in all the papers." "The paper! What papers?" "The newspapers, man, of course!" "How do I know what is in the newspapers? I never look at them. There is nothing in them which is of interest to me. What name was that you said? Tell me if you dare!" He made a threatening gesture with his knife, seeming to be half frenzied with excitement. "Duncan Rothwell--the man who was murdered at your wife's front door." "Duncan Rothwell! Murdered--at my wife's--front door!" The knife fell from his hand. He gave such a backward lurch that I half expected to see him fall down after it. In an instant, stooping, I had the knife in my grasp. I felt strongly that such a weapon was safer in my possession than in his. He did not seem for the moment to be conscious of what it was which he had lost and I had gained. He stood staring in front of him with an air of stupefaction. He repeated his own words over to himself, stammeringly, as if he were unable to catch their meaning: "Murdered--at my wife's--front door!" "Where have you been living not to have heard of it? It has been the topic of every tongue." I could see that he was struggling to collect his scattered senses. He spoke at last as if he were waking from a dream. "I have heard nothing. I do not understand what you are talking about. Tell me everything." I told him all that there was to tell. Evidently the whole of it was news to him. He listened greedily, gulping down, as it were, every word I uttered, as if I had been feeding him with physical food as well as mental. As I noted his demeanour, it seemed incredible that he could have been the chief actor in the tragedy to the details of which he listened with such apparently unfeigned amazement. I had been guilty of an unintentional injustice in doubting him. As I told my tale we leaned upon the parapet--he never looking at me once, but straight into the heart of the river. When I had finished he was silent for some moment. Then he put to me a question: "Do you mean to say that nothing has been found out to show who did it?" "Absolutely nothing." Unless I erred, he smiled. Had I not done him an injustice after all? Could the man be such a consummate actor? "And yet you almost saw him killed?" "Had I come into the hall half a moment sooner I might have seen the murderer in the act of perpetrating his crime." This time he laughed right out--an evil laugh. "For goodness' sake, man, don't laugh like that--it makes me shiver." He was still, with a stillness which, somehow, I did not care to break. A far-away look began to come into his face. He seemed to become lost in thought. When, after a long interval, during which I was sufficiently engaged in watching the different expressions which seem to chase each other across his face, he broke the silence, it was as though he muttered to himself, oblivious of his companion and of the place in which he was: "What a woman she is!" That was what he said. I caught the words as he uttered them beneath his breath--uttered them, as it seemed, half in admiration, half in scorn. And he again was still. CHAPTER VIII "MURDERER!" He would not go home. I spent, I daresay, an hour in seeking to persuade him. I pointed out the injury he was doing to himself, the wrong which he was doing his wife. I went further--I more than hinted at the suspicions which might fall upon him in connection with the Rothwell murder; plainly asserting that it would be the part of wisdom, to speak of nothing else, for him to put in an appearance on the scene, look the business squarely in the face, and see it boldly through. But he was not to be induced. The most that I could get from him was a promise that he would come to the front, to use his own words, "when the time was ripe"--what he meant by them was more than I could tell. In return, he extracted a promise from me that I would say nothing of our meeting to his wife until he gave me leave--a promise which was only given on the strength of his solemn asseveration that such silence on my part would be best for his wife's sake, and for mine. He would give me no address. In reply to my fishing inquiries into the mystery of his personal action he maintained an impenetrable reserve--he was not to be drawn. One thing he did condescend to do: he borrowed all the loose cash which I had in my pockets. Mrs. Barnes had supplied me with a latchkey; I had been accustomed to let myself in with it when I was late. My surprise was therefore considerable when, directly I inserted the key in the lock, the door was opened from within, and there confronting me stood the ubiquitous new waiter, with the inevitable smile upon his face. "What are you sitting up for at this hour of the night? You know very well that I have a key of my own." He continued to stand in the stiff, poker-like attitude which always reminded me of a soldier rather than of a waiter. Not a muscle of his countenance moved. "I have been accustomed to act as a night porter, sir." "Then you needn't trouble yourself to act as a night porter to me. Let me take this opportunity to speak to you a word of a sort. What is the nature of the interest you take in my proceedings, I do not know. That you do take a peculiar interest is a little too obvious. While I remain in this house I intend to come, and to go, and to do exactly as I please. The next time I have cause to suspect you of spying upon my movements you will be the recipient of the best licking you ever had in all your life. You understand? I shall keep my word, so you had better make a note of it." The fellow said nothing in return; his lips were closely pursed together. I might have been speaking to a dummy, except that there came a gleam into his eyes which scarcely suggested that his heart was filled with the milk of human kindness. When I had reached my bedroom, and, having undressed, was opening my night shirt preparatory to putting it on, there fell from one of the folds of the garment a scrap of paper. "What now?" I asked myself, as I watched it go fluttering to the floor. I picked it up; it only contained four words, and they were in Mrs. Barnes's writing: "You are in danger." This, veritably, was an hotel of all the mysteries. Whether the husband or the wife was the more curious character, was, certainly, an open question. For days she had avoided me. In spite of my attempts to induce her to enter into conversation I had scarcely been able to get a word out of her edgeways. Why had she chosen this eccentric method of conveying to me such an enigmatic message? I was in danger! Of what? It struck me forcibly, and not for the first time, that if I remained much longer an inmate of Barnes's hotel I should be in distinct danger of one thing--of going mad! I had still some papers left to copy, out of the last batch which Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor had given me. I had been accustomed to do my work in her private sitting-room, it being my habit, as I understood it, in accordance with her wish, first to have breakfast, and then to go upstairs and ask her if she was prepared for me to commence my duties. The next morning I followed the ordinary course of procedure, and was at her door, if anything, rather before the usual hour. But instead of vouchsafing me a courteous greeting, as it was her wont to do, she commenced to rate me soundly, asking me if I thought that her time was of no account, since I kept her waiting till it suited me to give her my attention. I made no attempt to excuse myself, imagining that she was suffering from an attack of indigestion, or from some other complaint which female flesh is peculiarly heir to, contenting myself with repeating my inquiry as to whether she was ready to avail herself of my proffered services. The fashion of her rejoinder hardly suggested that the lady who made it was stamped with the stamp which is, poetically, supposed to mark the caste of Vere de Vere. "Don't ask me such absurd questions! You don't suppose that I'm the servant, and you're the master. Sit down, and begin your work at once, and don't try any of your airs with me!" I sat down, and began my work at once. It was not for me to argue with a lady. Beggars may not be choosers, and I could only hope that the infirmities of a feminine temper might not be too frequently in evidence as a sort of honorary addition to the charms of my salary. That the lady meant to be disagreeable I could have no doubt as the minutes went by; and scarcely had I commenced to write than she began at me again. She found fault with my work, with what I had done, with what I had left undone, as it seemed to me, quite causelessly. I bore her reproaches as meekly as the mildest mortal could have done. My meekness seemed to inflame rather than to appease her. She said things which were altogether uncalled for, and which beyond doubt an office boy would have resented. That I should keep my temper in face of her continued provocation evidently annoyed her. Suddenly springing out of her chair, she bounced from the room. "I trust," I said, apostrophising her when she had gone, "that when you do return your temperature will be appreciably lower. In any case, I fancy, Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor, that you and I shall not long stand towards each other in the position of employee and employer. Even by a lady one does not care to be called over the coals--and such coals!--for nothing at all. One had almost better starve than be treated, in and out of season, as a whipping boy." The papers which I was engaged in copying comprised all sorts of odds and ends, more worthy, I should have thought, of the rubbish heap than of transcription. They were about all sorts of things, and were in no sort of order, and why they should be deemed worthy of being enshrined in the beautiful manuscript book with which Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor had supplied me was beyond my comprehension. I had finished transcribing one paper. Laying it down, I drew towards me another. It was a letter, and was in a hand which I had not previously encountered. The caligraphy, even the paper on which the letter was written, filled me with a strange sense of familiarity. Where had I seen that carefully crabbed, characteristic handwriting before?--every letter as plain as copperplate, yet the whole conveying the impression of coming from an unlettered man. I had had a previous acquaintance with it, and that quite recently. I had it--it came to me in a flash of memory! The writing was that which had come to me in the communication which had been signed Duncan Rothwell. This letter and that letter had emanated from the same scribe. I could have sworn to it. Even the paper was the same. I remembered taking particular notice of the large sheet of post, with the unusually coarse grain; here was that sheet's twin brother! What was a letter from Duncan Rothwell doing among Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor's papers? It was my duty to copy the thing. It was, therefore, necessary that I should read it. It bore no date and no address. It began:--"My dearest Amelia." Who was my dearest Amelia? A glance sufficed to show me that it was a love-letter, and a love-letter of an uncommon kind. Clearly, there had been some blunder. Such an epistle could not intentionally have been lumped with that olla podrida of scraps and scrawls. It was out of place in such a gallery. What was I to do? The question was answered for me. While I still hesitated, Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor reappeared. I said nothing, but I daresay that the expression of my features and the gingerly style in which I held the letter out in front of me, conveyed a hint that I had lighted on something out of the way. Probably, too, she recognised the letter directly she caught sight of it, even from the other side of the room. Anyhow, she came striding forward--she was a woman who could stride--and, without any sort of ceremony, leaning across the table, she snatched it from my hand. For an instant I expected she would strike me--she was in such a passion. The veins stood out on her brow like bands; her lips gave convulsive twitches. Since it seemed that rage had deprived her of the faculty of speech, I endeavoured to explain the situation by feigning ignorance that there was a situation to explain. "Do you wish me to copy this letter in the same way as the others?" My voice was suave; hers, when it came, was not. "You beast!" That was the epithet which she was pleased to hurl at me. "I might have guessed you were a thief!" "Madam!" Her language was so atrocious, and her anger, so far as I was concerned, so unjustifiable, that I knew not what to make of her. "Where did you steal that letter?" I stood up. "Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor, you go too far. You appear to be under the, I assure you, erroneous impression that, in engaging a man to fill the honourable post of your secretary, you buy him body and soul to do as you will." "You smooth-tongued hound! Don't think to play the hypocrite with me, or you will find yourself in custody on a charge of theft." I looked her steadily in the face--fury seemed to have distended her naturally generous proportions. "I fear, madam, that this morning you are suffering from ill-health. When you are yourself again, I feel sure you will tender your apologies." I moved towards the door. But she would not let me go. She placed herself in front of me. "Don't think that you deceive me! Don't think that your attitudinising can impose on me! If you do, you are in error. I have known you from the first--yes, before I saw you in the actual flesh. I knew Jonas Hartopp as well as you, and when he fell I swore that I would gibbet the wretch who slew him. All this time I have been watching you, the avenger of blood; I have been tracking you, step by step, playing the very sleuth-hound: It only needs a very little to enable me to prove your guilt up to the hilt; and you may be very sure of this, James Southam, that though you seek to hide yourself in the nethermost corners of the earth, I will have you brought back to hang!" Her words were so wild, and the charge with which she sought to brand me such a monstrous birth of a diseased imagination, that the most charitable supposition could be that the woman was mentally unhinged. I treated her with the contempt she merited. "Possibly, madam, when at your leisure you have credited me with all the vices, you will suffer me to leave the room." "That is the tone you take up; you sneer, and sneer, and sneer! I foresaw it. Do not suppose that this further proof of your deficiency in all sense of shame takes me by surprise. So black-hearted a villain was not likely to have a conscience which could be easily pricked. You may go--still this once! It will not be for long; your wings will soon be clipped. I shall soon have you in a cage. Be sure of this: I will show you as little mercy as you showed your helpless victim when he had walked into the trap which you had set for him. You had best be careful. And never forget that wherever you go my emissaries keep you well in sight; whatever you do is known to me within the hour. I have no intention of letting the cord which holds you run too loose." When she stopped to take breath, I bowed. "I thank you, madam, for your permission to leave the room, and do protest that I esteem myself highly honoured, in that you should take so acute an interest, as you say you do, in my humble person." She let me go, though seemingly not a little against her will. Even at the last moment I should not have been surprised if she had assailed me with actual physical violence. But she retained sufficient vestiges of self-control to refrain from doing that. When I opened the door she caught hold of the handle to prevent my shutting it. As I went out she followed me on to the landing. I, supposing she desired to go downstairs, moved aside so as to permit of her passage. She took no notice of my action, so I went downstairs. As I went, she stood at the head of the flight, observing me as I descended, and she said, in a tone of voice which was too audible to be pleasant for me-- "Murderer!" CHAPTER IX THROWN IN HER FACE I must admit that, in spite of my efforts to keep up the outward semblance of indifference, when I reached the hall I was at a loss what next to do. A man scarcely ever has a passage of arms with an angry woman without suffering some loss of dignity, and that no matter how much in the right he is. I had a mine sprung on me from a wholly unexpected quarter; I had been accused of being an assassin by the woman who, for at any rate one sanguine second, I had fondly fancied was about to play the part of my good fairy; and now, as I was endeavouring with the finest air of conscious rectitude which I had at my command, to remove myself from the lash of her vigorous tongue, she had thrown after me in public that hideous epithet. I was aware that the maid, with eyes and ears wide open, was peeping at me from the banisters above, while standing stolidly at the foot of the stairs was that much too attentive waiter. As he moved to let me pass Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor--I was always fond of double-barrelled names, being persuaded that they were invariably marks of birth and breeding--gave me an assurance that I was still in range. She addressed the waiter with perfect spontaneity. "You may let him go, my man, for the present. But his course is nearly run, and he will be in the hands of the police sooner than he thinks." I did not feel myself entitled to knock the man down because the woman insulted me, though my inclination went that way. I was still less disposed to turn and slang her back again, being convinced that in such a contest I should not be her equal. My impulse was to seek out Mrs. Barnes, as the landlady, and therefore responsible for all that took place in her establishment, and submit my grievances to her. But a glimpse that I caught of her, beating a precipitate retreat into her sanctum, directly she saw me glance in her direction, informed me that such a mode of procedure would be worse than vain. I turned into the coffee-room. Then, feeling that I must go somewhere to cool my brain, I quitted it almost immediately, to sally forth into the street. I had brought my wares to a pretty market! Disaster seemed to be heaped upon disaster's head. Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor might be mad, but there seemed to be method in her madness, and if she really was possessed by the fixed idea that I was an assassin, though I might not stand in actual peril of my life, I could hardly be in a more awkward situation. No wonder I had felt towards her an instinctive antagonism, even when she had appeared to be most friendly. I was not sure that I had done wrong in not seeking to rebut even the wildest of her wild words with a greater show of gravity. The levity with which I had received them might be urged against me if it came to an arrest. An arrest! At the mere thought of such a climax I involuntarily stood still. Cold sweat was on my brow. I remembered what Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor had said about her emissaries being always on my track. For some time past I had had an uneasy feeling that my footsteps were being dogged and that I was being watched. I turned to see if any one was shadowing me now: he would have a bad time of it if I found him. I noted no one whose obvious attentions I could resent. But then I was in the Strand; in that busy thoroughfare the merest tyro could ply his trade of spy without fear of premature detection. I turned towards Waterloo Bridge, a sudden thought striking me as I did so. I would go for advice to Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton: it was through them, in the first place, I had got into this scrape; it ought to be their business to get me out of it. I went, though I might have saved myself the trouble. They expressed their willingness to undertake my defence, if it came to that, and if funds were forthcoming. But so far from giving me the sort of advice I wanted--advice which would enable me to escape the dreadful ordeal of the prisoner's dock--I could see from their manner, if not from their words, that they thought it as likely as not that I was guilty of the crime which, as it seemed, was about to be imputed against me. I left them, feeling very little reassured, and sick at heart returned to the hotel. On one point I was finally resolved: under that roof I would not sleep another night. After what had happened in the morning, even Mrs. Barnes would not have the hardihood to suggest that I should continue with her any longer--even as a gratuitous guest. I went straight upstairs to my bedroom meaning to put the few things together which were mine, and then, and only then, I would have an interview and an explanation with Mrs. Barnes. This was my programme, but, like so many other programmes I had arranged, it was not destined to be carried out. Directly I reached the bedroom door I became conscious that some one was inside. Supposing it was the maid, who was performing her necessary routine duties, I unceremoniously entered. The person within was not, however, the attendant abigail--it was a man. He lay on his stomach on the floor, with half his length beneath the bed. It was the new waiter. There could be no mistake about the nature of his occupation--I had caught him in the act. So engrossed was he with his researches, that, before he had realised my presence, I had my knee on the small of his back and a stick in my hand. "As you wouldn't take my friendly warning, take that!" I brought the stick down smartly on the nether portion of his frame. He had woke to the consciousness of what was happening at last. With unlooked-for agility, twisting himself partially free, he scrambled from beneath the bed, I continuing, as he struggled, to get in my blows wherever I could. "Stop this," he gasped, "or you'll regret it!" "I fancy," I retorted, "that the regret will be yours." He showed more fight than I had expected. It occurred to me that perhaps, after all, the whipping might not be confined to one side only. But my blood was up--I was not likely to allow such trifles to affect me. All at once, just as I was in the very act of bringing down on him the best blow of any, he caught my wrist and gave it a sharp wrench which numbed the muscles of my arm as if they had been attacked by temporary paralysis. "You fool!" he said. "You don't know what it is you are doing. I am an officer of police, and I arrest you on a charge of murder." He had taken my breath away with a vengeance. I gazed at him askance. "It is false. You are one of that woman's spies." "I am nothing or the kind, as a shrewd man like you ought to be aware. I have had this case in hand from the first. I came here to play the part of a waiter with the special intention of keeping an eye on you--and I have kept an eye upon you, I fancy, to some purpose." "It's all a lie!" "Don't talk nonsense. The game is up, my lad, and you know it. The question is, are you going to come quietly, or am I to use the bracelets--I can get plenty of assistance, I assure you, if I choose to call." "If you can prove to me the truth of what you say, and can show me that you really are an officer of police, I can have no objection to your doing what you conceive to be your duty, though, I declare to you, as there is a God above us, that in arresting me you are making a grievous mistake." The fellow eyed me with what struck me as being a grin of genuine admiration. "You're a neat hand--I never saw a chap carry a thing off neater, though it's my duty to warn you that anything which you may say will be used against you. But you've made a slight mistake, my lad--perhaps you didn't think I found it." He picked up something from the coverlet. It was a long, thin blade, of a fashion which I had never seen before. It had a point of exquisite fineness. Here and there the gleaming steel was obscured by what seemed stains of rust. "Perhaps it is owing to my stupidity that I am unable to grasp your meaning. This is not mine, nor have I seen it before." "Haven't you? That remains to be seen. Unless I am out of my calculations, I shall not be surprised to learn that that knife killed Jonas Hartopp. Oddly enough, I found it just as you were coming into the room--inside the wainscotting, in a little slit in the wall which was not half badly concealed, and which was hidden by your bed. I rather reckon that that small bit of evidence will just round my case up nicely." "If it is true that you found it where you say you did, I can only assert that I do not know who put it there. I certainly did not." "No? That is a point which must be left open for further consideration. Now I am afraid that I shall have to trouble you to walk downstairs. You perfectly understand, Mr. Southam, that you are my prisoner." The bedroom door, in the hurry of my entrance, had been left wide open. Turning, I perceived that Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor was staring in at us. "Your prisoner!" She echoed the fellow's words. "Mr. Southam is your prisoner? Who, then, are you?" She put her hand to her breast as if to control her agitation. "I am a detective." "And you have arrested Mr. Southam--for what?" "For the murder of Jonas Hartopp." She clasped her hands together in a kind of ecstasy. "I am so glad! so glad! I congratulate you, sir, on having brought the crime home to the real criminal at last." She addressed me with an air of triumph which was wholly unconcealed. "Did I not tell you that your course was nearly run? It was nearer its close even than I thought." "I am obliged to you for your prognostication, madam, but I may assure you that though I am not the first person who has been wrongfully accused of a crime of which he was completely innocent, I do venture to indulge in a hope that this is the first occasion on which a woman has permitted herself to gloat over the misfortunes of a man who, without having wronged a living creature, is himself friendless, helpless, and injured." So far from my words succeeding in reaching the sympathetic side of her--if she had one--she glared at me, if it were possible, more malignantly than before. "You hypocrite!" she hissed. My captor placed his hand upon my shoulder. "Come," he said, in a tone which was unmistakably official. "It is no use staying here to bandy words. Downstairs, Mr. Southam, if you please, and mind, no tricks upon the way." I told him that he need not apprehend anything in the nature of what he called tricks from me. We went downstairs, Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor close at our heels. "Step into the coffee-room, Mr. Southam, if you please. I am going to send for a cab. Mrs. Barnes!" That lady appeared. "I have effected this man's capture, as I told you that I probably should do." So she had known all along who he was, and in concealing the fact, in a sense, had betrayed me. And this was the meaning of her futile, eleventh-hour attempt at warning of the night before. "Let me have a cab at once. And allow no one to enter this man's bedroom until I have had an opportunity of examining all that it contains. I shall hold you responsible." I saw that Mrs. Barnes's head was nodding like a Chinese mandarin's, and that it was set in motion evidently by the agitated condition of her nerves. The detective perceived that it would be as well for him to repeat his instructions if he wished them to be acted on. "Now then, Mrs. Barnes, pull yourself together! Let me have that cab." As Mrs. Barnes moved aside, with the possible intention of taking steps to execute the officer's commands, I observed that some one was standing at her back. It was her husband. He stood just inside the hall door as if he had just come in, and was wondering what was taking place. He was as shabbily and as poorly dressed as he very well could have been. But there was something in his face and in his bearing which, for some reason which I will not stay to fathom, brought good hope into my heart. "It's you? Thank God!" I cried. "They have arrested me for murder! I hope you have come to help me!" At the sound of my voice they turned to see to whom it was I was speaking. When Mrs. Barnes saw her husband, without any sort of notice she broke into a fit of hysterics, laughing and screaming and kicking all at once so that the maid had to hold her tightly round the waist to prevent her making an untimely descent to the ground. But there was one person on whom his sudden appearance seemed to have an even greater effect than it had on Mrs. Barnes, and that was Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor. When she realised who it was who had come so unexpectedly on the scene, she began to stare at him as if he exercised over her the fabulous fascination of the snake. She shrank from before his glance, crouching closer and closer to the wall. She seemed to actually diminish in size. "You!--you!" she gasped. "No!--no!--not you!" She put up her hands as if to ward him off her. As he made a forward movement, one could see that she shivered, as if in mortal terror. "And you!" he said, with an intensity of meaning in his voice of which I had not thought it capable. "And you!" He turned to me, pointing an accusatory finger at the woman in whose bearing so strange a metamorphosis had taken place. "If you had told me last night that she was here, I would have solved the mystery for you there and then. Her presence here makes the thing as clear as daylight. It was she who killed Duncan Rothwell. Acknowledge it, you woman with the blood-red hand!" He addressed her with a gesture of terrible denunciation. His stature seemed to have magnified, even as the woman seemed to have decreased. His face and eyes were blazing. I understood then how it came about that he had mesmerised poor, weak-minded, nerveless Mrs. Barnes. "No!" wailed Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor. "No! I never touched him!" "You dare to deny it!" In the man's voice there seemed to be a wonderful resonance, in his bearing a singular air of command. He took from his pocket a box, and from wrappings in the box the ghastly relics which still haunted Mrs. Barnes in dreams. "Here are the four fingers and the thumb, and the palm of your right hand, woman, with which you would have made an end of me. Clearly, therefore, it was with your left hand that you murdered Duncan Rothwell. Deny it if you dare!" As he spoke he threw at her the dreadful fragments. They struck her full in the face. "I did it! I own it! Don't touch me--not that!" she screamed. She fell to the ground--as with amazement and, so far as I was concerned, with horror, we stared at her--in what proved to be an epileptic fit. CHAPTER X THE JEWEL KING The story of Duncan Rothwell's murder, when it came to be unfolded in a court of law, proved to be not the least strange of the many strange tales which have been unfolded there. Its turnings and twistings and involutions were many, but briefly summed up it came to this: The man who had married the landlady of that hotel in the turning off the Strand, and who, in marrying her, had brought such havoc on her head, turned out to be a man with many names. What his real name was, if he ever had one, was never clearly shown. But there had been a time during which the name by which he had been best known to a certain section of society had been that of the "Jewel King." He had been the perpetrator of most of the remarkable jewel robberies which have so much disturbed society during recent years--a scamp, in short, on a truly notorious scale. Jonas Hartopp had played receiver to his thief. These two had been really remarkable men--men of parts which, fortunately for the world at large, are not often found joined in two individuals. For years these two had been close friends--colleagues--with souls but for a single thought, which thing was plunder, until a woman came between. This was the woman who has figured in these pages as Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor, but whose real patronymic was shown to be rather more plebeian--Amelia Martin. The man who, for the sake of convenience, I will continue to call Mr. Barnes, was in his way a genius, and a little mad. He lived for a long time with Amelia Martin as her husband, without ever having married her. It is probable that during the whole of this period the woman was in a state of daily and hourly terror. He had a pleasant habit of playing tricks with women, particularly mesmeric tricks, of a sort which would hardly have endeared any husband to any wife. It was seriously alleged, for instance, that on a Monday he would throw her into a mesmeric sleep, and leave her quite alone in the house, and in a state of trance, until he returned on the Saturday to restore her, at his leisure--very much at his leisure--to a condition of consciousness. Thus she was continually losing large slices out of her life, under circumstances which no one could describe as wholly satisfactory. By degrees she transferred her affections to Jonas Hartopp, and with them she decided to transfer herself as well. Mr. Barnes had just made a great coup. The world will remember the disappearance of the Countess of Crawley's wedding presents. Mr. Barnes walked away from Crawley House with those priceless gems packed comfortably away in his pockets. Amelia Martin persuaded Jonas Hartopp to rob his friend, if, in a little transaction of that peculiar kind, one may speak of robbery. She offered Mr. Hartopp the Countess's gems for nothing if he would take her with them. In a weak moment Mr. Hartopp yielded to temptation. Unfortunately Mr. Barnes detected her in the very act of flight. She struck a blow for freedom--with a knife. The injury which she inflicted was, however, a superficial one. Before she could strike again he had her in a mesmeric sleep. While she was in that state he cut off at the wrist her right hand, the one with which she had tried to stab him. Restoring her, he showed her what he had done. In her agony she vowed that she would turn Queen's evidence and betray him to the tender mercies of the police, let the consequences to herself be what they might. In short, she made herself so extremely disagreeable that, all things considered, Mr. Barnes thought it the better part of wisdom to decamp. It was while he was in full flight that he lighted on that hotel in the street off the Strand, on the landlady of which he so generously and rapidly bestowed the name of Barnes. He perfectly realised that his friend and his mistress were leagued together against him, and he took it that Barnes's hotel would form a convenient resting-place and cover until such time as he saw his way to crying quits with the pair. It is here that the odd part of the story begins, having its origin in one of those freaks of coincidence which, after all, are not so common in fiction as they are in actual life, and are certainly not stranger. The _soi-disant_ Mr. Barnes had, in his palmy days, taken up his residence for business purposes, of all places in the world, at Dulborough. Finding that there had been a James Southam thereabouts, and conceiving that it would be as well, in case of accidents, that the credit of his misdeeds should stand a chance of being fathered on the real James Southam instead of on the false one, he had not only taken to himself my name, but had actually located himself in the house in which I had been bred and born. Jonas Hartopp regretted his treachery almost as soon as he had played the traitor. Either he did not find the lady such a good bargain as he thought he should, or, at any rate, not a commensurate exchange for the good offices of his ingenious and profitable friend. He decided after a while to extend the olive branch towards his whilom colleague. It was with that idea in view that he had inserted the advertisement addressed to James Southam, of Dulborough, which had caught my eye. Under the circumstances, when the newly-fledged Mr. Barnes, acting his _rôle_ of waiter, heard the stranger on whom he was attending pronounce his quondam cognomen, it was not surprising that he jumped to the conclusion that the Philistines had tracked him to his lair, and that, in consequence, he turned tail and ran. Amelia Martin, having played the part of traitor herself, was quick at suspecting intended treachery in another. She had an inkling of what it was Jonas Hartopp, _alias_ Duncan Rothwell, proposed to do. The pair had a violent quarrel the night before he went to town. She followed him without his being conscious of the fact, on that eventful journey, in a dangerous mood; and in what, doubtless, was a moment half of fear and half of frenzy, she struck him dead. The evidence at the inquest, and the discovery that there was a real James Southam in the world, and that "Duncan Rothwell," therefore, had started on a futile quest, gave her the idea of removing suspicion from herself by attributing the crime to me--which ingenious plan she might have carried to a successful issue, and I been hanged for what I never had the faintest thought of doing, if the false James Southam had not come on the scene in the very nick of time. It was she who placed the knife with which she had done the deed behind the wainscot in my bedroom! The trial of Amelia Martin for the murder of Jonas Hartopp, during which this tale was unfolded, continued for a week. On her behalf medical evidence was brought to show that she suffered from periodical attacks of mania, during which she could not justly be held responsible for her actions--for which condition of affairs Mr. Barnes's mesmeric experiments had probably something to do. She was sentenced to be confined as a criminal lunatic during her Majesty's pleasure. Mr. Barnes's suicide in his cell, on the night before he was to be brought to trial--for, in spite of the assistance which he rendered in the case of Amelia Martin, the police, apparently, had no intention of letting him go "scot free"--was the sensation of a "special edition." "Mrs. Barnes" sold the hotel and retired into private life. At present, I believe, she is residing with some relatives in a corner of far-off Canada. As for me, I still seem very far from being on the road which leads to the making of a fortune; but, at any rate, I am not at present out of employment, and I sincerely trust that the time is very far distant when I shall be. The End. MR. ELY'S ENGAGEMENT CHAPTER I THE FIRST WOOER Number Two, Draper's Gardens, the office of Mr. John Ash, dealer in stocks and shares. Time, noon. Mr. Ash, with his hat pushed on to the back of his head, seated at a table studying a letter. "Whatever women find to write about beats me. A man puts a volume inside two lines. A woman puts two lines inside a volume." Mr. Ash rustled the letter irritably in his hands. It was a voluminous production, written by a feminine pen, crossed and recrossed in a way which, in these days of cheap paper and cheap postage, none but a feminine pen would dream of. "However a man is supposed to read it is more than I can tell. I can just make out the opening: 'My dearest guardian,'--yes, dear at any price! And the signature--where is it? I know I saw it somewhere. Yes, of course, there it is--straggling across the date and the address: 'Your affectionate ward, Lily Truscott'!" He laid the letter down, and thrust his hands into his breeches-pockets, leaned back in his chair, and began to whistle softly beneath his breath. "I wish I could get some one to marry her--a decent sort of man. Though, upon my word, if this sort of thing is to go on"--he glanced at the letter with a look of mild despair--"I sha'n't mind who it is. She knows I hate letters--that's why she keeps on writing them. If two men can't know each other without one of them dying and leaving the other with his daughter on his hands, no wonder a man likes to keep his circle of acquaintance small. And when the girl's got looks and money, God help the man who's got to stay and mind her! Well, here goes. I suppose I'll have to answer it, or she'll be writing again to-morrow to know if I am ill." Taking up the letter he regarded it with a look of ineffable disgust. "What she says I don't know. Rather than decipher these hieroglyphics I'd lose a hundred pounds. Anyhow, here goes to make the best of it." Drawing towards him a sheet of paper and a pen he began to nibble the end of the pen. "What the dickens shall I say? How can a man answer a letter when he doesn't know what is in it!" He began to write, indulging in a sort or commentary by the way. "MY DEAR LILY,--I have read your charming letter with the greatest interest. (I have! I have!) You are indeed a mistress of the epistolary art. (I hope she won't imagine that's writ sarkastick. Now, what shall I say?) The account which you give of the doings of your neighbourhood (I hope that's safe--it ought to be, women always do talk about that kind of thing) is most entertaining. (Most!) It is with the greatest pleasure that I hear of your continuance in good health. (I wonder if she says anything about her being ill?) I am glad to hear, too, that your aunt, Mrs. Clive, is still in the enjoyment of nature's greatest blessing. (I wonder if she mentions the old girl's name!) Pray convey to her my compliments. (Old fool! Now for something to wind up with.) I envy you your peaceful sojourn amidst summer's scenic splendours. (Not so bad! 'summer's scenic splendours.') Tied as I am to the Juggernaut of commerce, I can, however, but look and long. (I wouldn't live in a place like that for thirty thousand a year.) "Your affectionate guardian, "JOHN ASH." "I think that'll do. It will, at any rate, prevent her writing again to-morrow to know if I am ill." While he was examining, with a certain satisfaction, this example of polite correspondence, a voice was heard inquiring for him in the office without: "Mr. Ash in?" When Mr. Ash heard the voice, an acidulated expression appeared upon his countenance. "Ely! What does the fool want here? It's not so very long ago since I very nearly had to hurt his head." "All right; you needn't trouble him. I'll show myself in." The owner of the voice did show himself in. He was a dapper little man, with fair hair and a little fair moustache, the ends of which were arranged with the utmost nicety, and a pair of rather washed-out blue eyes, which could, however, look keen enough when they pleased. He was what might be described as a bandbox sort of man. Beautiful grey trousers fitted over exquisite patent shoes. A spotless white waistcoat relieved an irreproachable black coat. His necktie was arranged in an absolutely perfect little bow. His hat gleamed as though it had just that moment left the manufacturer's hands. He carried a metal pencil-case, and one of those long, thin note-books which gentlemen of the Stock Exchange use to enter their bargains in. A diamond ring sparkled on the little finger of his left hand, and in the button-hole of his coat, backed by a sprig of maiden-hair, was a sweet blush-rose. This beautiful little gentleman seemed to be satisfied with himself and all the world. "Surprised to see me, I daresay." His rather metallic voice did not altogether accord with the radiancy of his appearance. One expected flute-like notes to come from him. His actual tones were sharp and shrill. "I am; considering that last time I had the privilege of your conversation you were good enough to say I was a thief." The dapper little man stood before the empty stove picking his beautiful white teeth with his metal pencil-case. "Well, Ash, business is business, and no man likes to be robbed, you know." "Is that what you have come to tell me? Because, if so, you can impart the information equally well while I am pitching you through the window." The little man did not seem at all annoyed. He did not even seem amused. He appeared to be quite accustomed to that sort of speech. He seemed to take it for granted, at any rate. "Well, no--quite the other way. Fact is, I'm looking for a wife." "A what?" "A wife." "The deuce you are! And do you think I've a selection on view here?" "Not a selection. You've got one." "What the dickens do you mean?" "Come, Ash, you know. It's your ward, Miss Truscott." Mr. Ash gave a loud whistle of surprise. Then he turned in his chair and stared at the dapper little man. The dapper little man went on, in the calmest, matter-of-fact sort of way-- "The fact is, I'm sick of chambers, and I'm sick of dining at the club. I want a house, and I don't care to take a house unless I take a wife. Why shouldn't it be Miss Truscott, Ash?" He paused as if for a reply. But if he did, none came. "There's another thing. You know Rosenbaum?" Mr. Ash signified assent. "He wants to plant one of his girls on me. All six of them, so far as I can see. He's always shying them at my head. Besides, he's been hammered twice. If he went again, where should I be, I'd like to know. Not to mention that the whole six of them have got carbuncles instead of noses, and moustaches quite as good as mine." "I did hear that you were engaged to a Miss Rosenbaum." "Then you heard wrong; I ain't. Why shouldn't it be Miss Truscott, Ash? I've got something and she's got something. I tell you fairly, if she hadn't it wouldn't do. And if we pulled together, you and I, we might put something in each other's way." He winked at Mr. Ash. Mr. Ash grinned, and turned aside. He regarded the letter on his desk. "Have you spoken to her yet?" "Not a word. I wanted first to have things clear with you. I'll run down to-morrow if it's all serene." Mr. Ash appeared to be turning the matter over in his mind. "There's no man in England that girl need ask to marry her." "I'm sure I never said there was." "Ah, I daresay if you were to take nine men out of ten and heap them in a crowd, she might take her pick out of the lot!" "If it comes to that, I might take my pick out of a few. Frederic Ely's a man who never need go begging." Mr. Ash smiled. His smile was scarcely flattering to his friend. He continued to turn the matter over in his mind. Suddenly he got up. "Ely, I like you. We've had our differences, but as you say, that's because we're both men of business, and like to see the entries on the right side of the ledger." That was not exactly what Mr. Ely had said but no matter. "Lily Truscott's a girl in a thousand--in million, sir. I know her--I know her well. There's nothing in that girl's heart which is hidden from me, and that girl's heart's all good, and that's something to say of a girl at this time of day. If she were my daughter, and I were her father, there's no man to whom I should be more willing to give her, sir, than you. Take her, sir; take her! and I wish you joy!" He turned away, but whether it was to hide a tear or even some deeper sign of heartfelt emotion, is a difficult thing to say. Mr. Ely did not appear much touched. "That's the time of day, old man. You send her along a line to say I'm on the road; prepare her mind, you know." If Mr. Ash did not know, at least Mr. Ely winked. "I'll be up in time. If you write to her now, she'll get it the first thing in the morning, and she'll have time to settle herself before I come. Ta, ta! See you in the house!" Mr. Ely moved towards the door. Mr. Ash spoke to him just as he reached it. "How about that Erie syndicate?" Mr. Ely paused. He stared steadily at Mr. Ash's back. For some reason Mr. Ash continued with his back turned away. "You help me with this and I'll help you with that. I can't say fairer than that, my boy." Apparently Mr. Ash did not seem to think he could, for when Mr. Ely was gone, and the door was closed, he indulged in a little quiet laughter. He reseated himself in his chair and began to nurse his knee. "I think--yes--I think that will do. Ely's a curious combination; in business matters one of the shrewdest men I know, out of them one of the greatest idiots on earth. However, I think that it will do. I'll just add a postscript to that letter of mine." He drew the letter towards him, and to the end of it tagged the following-- "P.S.--By the way, a friend of yours--Mr. Frederic Ely--will be with you to-morrow morning--perhaps almost as soon as you get this. He is a gentleman for whose character I have the greatest respect. He will ask my dear Lily a question in which both he and I are deeply interested. I earnestly trust that my dear Lily's heart will answer 'Yes.'" He scanned the P.S. with admiring eyes. "I call that neat but not gaudy. None of the awful guardian there. And, upon my word, I don't see why she shouldn't have him; one idiot's as good as another, and if he chooses he can be as good as a hundred thousand pounds to me." Folding the letter, he placed it in an envelope and addressed it: "Miss Truscott, The Cliff, Shanklin, Isle of Wight." While he was still engaged in this proceeding, the clear, ringing tones of a man's voice was heard in the outer office, and for the second time that morning the door of Mr. Ash's sanctum was unceremoniously opened, and, again unannounced, a second visitor came in. CHAPTER II THE SECOND WOOER A very different visitor this to the first. A tall, stalwart fellow, with a guardsman's chest, a long fair beard which hid his neck, and a huge pair of the most ridiculous moustaches. No bandbox fellow he! Dressed in a shooting suit, crowned by a soft, deer-stalker's hat, flourishing what was a bludgeon rather than a stick in his hand, he seemed hardly the type of figure which is generally to be found in the neighbourhood of Capel Court. "Hallo, Ash, tracked you down, old man." His voice was like himself: there was plenty of it. It should have been worth a fortune to him on the Stock Exchange. "Summers! Whatever brings you here?" "What doesn't often bring a man to the City--love, and my lady's eyes." "What!" Mr. Ash fairly sprang out of his chair. He stared at his visitor with bewildered surprise. "You may well stare, and stare your fill. I'm worth staring at to-day, for I just don't feel as though I know whether I'm standing on my head or heels. The greatest stroke of luck has happened to me that ever happened to a man before--I've sold my picture for a thousand pounds." "You've done what?" "Ah, I knew you wouldn't believe it. It does sound incredible, doesn't it? But it is a fact, though, all the same. I've sold my New Gallery picture, 'A Dream of Love: an Idyll, by William Summers,' for a thousand pounds." "And have you come all the way to Draper's Gardens to tell me so? It's very good of you, I'm sure. "It would be good of me if that was all, but it's not; there happens to be more. What does that sale mean? It means that I've made a hit--that I've got a commission for another at the same price--that my fortune is made. I'm a man of fortune, sir." "I assure you I am very glad to hear it; but I hope you will excuse my mentioning that I still have my fortune to make, and that this is the busiest hour of the day." "All right, wait half a jiffy, man. Keep yourself in hand, for upon my soul I can't. What does my being a man of fortune mean? It means that I have become a marrying man--a man who has a right to marry. So I'm going to marry." "I congratulate you with all my heart. Do I know the lady?" "Well, rather, considering that she's your ward." "What!" "Miss Truscott's going to be my wife. I thought I would just drop in and let you know." "Drop in and let me know! If this isn't the coolest proceeding I ever heard of in my life!" The amazed Mr. Ash stared at his visitor, who seemed, so to speak, to be laughing all over his face. Then he dropped into his chair, and stared at the addressed letter which lay upon his desk. He appeared to be conscious of a certain confusion of mind. "Good gad!" he told himself; "just now I was wishing that some one would come along and marry her. This is a case of one's wishes being too plentifully granted. It strikes me there's one too many." Then he addressed himself to his visitor aloud-- "Really, Mr. Summers, I fail to understand you." "It's plain enough." "It may be plain enough to you. You must allow me to say that it is anything but plain enough to me. May I ask when you made what I must call this surreptitious request to my ward for her hand?" "Oh, that's just the point. I haven't spoken to her yet." "You haven't spoken to her yet! I understood you to say that she was going to marry you?" "That's right enough--so she is." "This may be plain enough to you, but it is really getting still less plain to me. You evidently think that her guardian's consent is not required. May I ask if you think that the lady's is unnecessary too?" "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy--I see that plainly, Ash! Don't you know that there is a language more eloquent than speech? That it is possible for a man and woman to understand each other perfectly and yet not interchange a word? We understand each other like that, my friend." "I should be sorry to say anything which might lessen your self-conceit, but I think you are mistaken, Mr. Summers." "Oh, no, I'm not." "But I say you are! Hang it, sir, I never saw a more 'Came, saw, and conquered' style about a man before. If I were you, I would wait for victory to forward your despatch. As it is, I happen to know that Miss Truscott is engaged already." So saying, Mr. Ash slipped his letter into the inner pocket of his coat. "What!" "For goodness' sake, Mr. Summers, don't shout the ceiling down! You will have the people coming in from the street, not to speak of the clerks outside." "If I didn't know that you meant it for a jest, I should say it was a lie." "You may say exactly what you please, it won't alter the fact." "The fact! You call that a fact! I'll go down to Shanklin by the next train, and learn the truth from her own lips." Mr. Summers made for the door, but Mr. Ash interposed; he was conscious that it would be advisable to induce this impetuous suitor to hasten slowly. "One moment, Mr. Summers. I am sure you would be unwilling to do another an injury, even unconsciously. If you will restrain your impatience I will endeavour to explain to you exactly how the matter lies." "How the matter lies? That's just what it does do--it lies! Or some one does, at any rate." "Mr. Summers, you are a man of honour--we are both men of honour, I trust. Would you have me break my plighted word?" "Break your plighted word? That depends. If you've plighted your word to break my heart, by George! I'd have you break it, then!" "Let me remove this matter from the realms of romance into the regions of common sense." "When you City men begin to talk about common sense you mean something very common indeed." "Mr. Summers, this is a very solemn subject to me." "Solemn subject to you! I wonder what sort of subject you think it is to me. Is she going to be my wife or yours?" "Miss Truscott will be the wife of neither." "Won't she? By George, we'll see!" Again Mr. Summers made helter-skelter for the door. Again Mr. Ash made haste to interpose. "If you will permit me to speak half a dozen consecutive words without interruption, I will make it plain to you that what I have at heart is the interest of all concerned." "Except me! Never mind, I'll listen. Out with your half a dozen words." Mr. Summers dropped into a chair in a way which must have been a severe test of its solidity, and brought his bludgeon down upon the floor with a bang. Mr. Ash started. He felt that this was a sort of suitor he had not bargained for. "The case in a nutshell is simply this. Just before you came there was a gentleman here who made exactly the same proposal you have done. He, too, solicited the honour of Miss Truscott's hand." Mr. Summers was up like a rocket. Again his bludgeon came down with a bang. "The devil there was! Confound his impudence! What was the scoundrel's name?" "The scoundrel's name is immaterial. The point is that I agreed that he should go down to Shanklin to-morrow, and, in proper form, make to the lady the offer of his hand." "To-morrow, did you? Then I am off tonight." "Still one moment, Mr. Summers, if you please. You appeared to be so certain of the lady's affection that I was scarcely prepared to find you so alarmed at the prospect of a rival in the field." "Alarmed! Not I! I will back my darling's truth against the world!" "Then supposing, instead of confining yourself to words, you prove your faith by deeds. Let this man try his luck to-morrow. If he fails, there is the next day left for you. "Look here, Ash; when he's failed, will you consent to Lily being mine?" "If he fails and Miss Truscott gives her consent, then I will." "Then it's agreed! To-morrow, the beggar shall have his chance! The day after, I'll try mine." Just then the door opened and Mr. Ely appeared. Mr. Summers rushed to him with outstretched hand. "Hallo, Ely, haven't seen you for an age! You're looking queer! You ought to try a change of air." "Think so? To-morrow I'm going out of town." "Are you? That's odd! The day after I'm going too." These remarks were exchanged while the two gentlemen shook hands. CHAPTER III MR. ELY ARRIVES Miss Truscott was evidently not in the pleasantest frame of mind. It was unfortunate, for she was the kind of maid one feels instinctively ought always to be in a pleasant frame of mind. Tall, slender, with great, big eyes, sunny hair, and the sweetest smile. The latter, however, was conspicuous by its absence, as she sat at the breakfast-table with an open letter in her hand. She was at breakfast with her aunt. Mrs. Clive was a precise old lady, who always indoors wore lace cuffs and collar, and the neatest of caps. It was a peculiarity of hers that she was never known to be anything but cool and self-possessed. Sometimes her niece was neither. Then it increased the young lady's sense of aggravation to observe how her aunt's demeanour contrasted with her own--as, for instance, it did now. "You don't seem to be in the least surprised or annoyed or hurt. You quite take it for granted that I should be insulted." Mrs. Clive considered for a moment before she answered. She sat bolt upright, her hands in her lap, the model of decorum. "My dear Lily, the younger generation is impetuous." Miss Truscott sighed. To be called impetuous under the circumstances of the case seemed almost more than she could bear. "I write to my guardian on the whole four sides of a sheet of paper to tell him that I must get away from this dreadful place or I shall die, and this is the answer he sends." She spread the letter out before her on the table and read it aloud, with comments by the way. "'My dear Lily' (yes, dear at any price, I know), 'I have read your charming letter with the greatest interest.' (Did anybody ever hear the like of that? He read my charming letter with the greatest interest, when I wrote to tell him that I quite believed that I should die!) 'You are indeed a mistress of the epistolary art.' (That is a pretty compliment to pay when you write and tell a person that life is not worth living!) 'The account which you give of the doings of your neighbours is most entertaining.' (Now I never mentioned a single word about anything but the state of my mind!) 'It is with the greatest pleasure that I hear of your continuance in good health.' (When the whole letter was written to tell him that I was nearly dead!) 'I am glad to hear, too, that your aunt, Mrs. Clive, is still in the enjoyment of nature's greatest blessing.' (What nature's greatest blessing is I don't know, but I am sure I never even breathed your name.) 'Pray convey to her my compliments.' (With pleasure, aunt!) 'I envy you your sojourn amidst summer's scenic splendours.' (That is what he says, and I actually told him that I was convinced that if I stayed any longer amidst what he calls 'summer's scenic splendours' I should just go raving mad!) 'Tied as I am to the Juggernaut of commerce, I can, however, but look and long.' Now did you--did you ever hear anything like that? And yet you say the younger generation is impetuous! I should just like to have my affectionate guardian here; I'd let him know what the Juggernaut really was!" The young lady seemed a little excited, but the elder one was still quite calm. "You have forgotten the postscript, my dear." "Forgotten the postscript! Oh, aunty, don't I wish I could!' By the way, a friend of yours, Mr. Frederic Ely, will be with you to-morrow morning, perhaps almost as soon as you get this.' Perhaps the wretch is actually on the doorstep now!" "Lily, Lily! How can you talk like that!" "So he is a wretch! But never mind, it's all the same to me. 'He is a gentleman for whose character I have the greatest respect. He will ask my dear Lily a question in which both he and I are deeply interested. I earnestly trust that my dear Lily's heart will answer Yes.' Talk about a woman's postscript! Mr. Ash puts nothing in his letter, and the whole library of the British Museum in his P.S.! Well, aunty, what do you think of that?" "I congratulate you, my dear, on the near approach of your settlement in life." Miss Truscott gave a little shriek, and then was dumb. She glared at her aunt as though she could believe neither her eyes or ears. Mrs. Clive went placidly on. "It is indeed gratifying to learn that Mr. Ash has made his choice." "Who has made his choice?" asked Miss Truscott between her little teeth. "One for whose character he has the greatest respect. Such words coming from Mr. Ash are satisfactory in the extreme. You are indeed fortunate in possessing a guardian who has your interests so entirely at heart." "What are you talking about?" asked Miss Truscott. "Do you think I shall marry this man?" "Lily!" exclaimed Mrs. Give. "You have such a singular way of expressing yourself. But perhaps"--the old lady smoothed her gown--"perhaps you are a little surprised." Miss Truscott gave a sort of gasp. "I am," she said. "I am a little surprised!" "I suppose we are all when our turns come. I remember in my young days when my dear mother told me that I was to marry Mr. Clive." "Told you you were to marry Mr. Clive?" "Yes, my dear. And I remember quite well how bewildered I was at first." "Didn't you love him, then?" "My dear, how can you ask me such a question! We were comparative strangers. I had only been acquainted with him about three months." "Three months! Good gracious! Why, I thought three minutes was long enough to fall in love!" "Lily, I am amazed to hear you talk so flippantly! It is plain that it is quite time that you had more settled views of life. Among the new responsibilities on which you are now about to enter I trust that you will learn the solemnity of woman's position in the world, and the deference which she owes to the married state." Miss Truscott laughed. Her laughter was of rather an hysterical kind, as though it were near akin to tears. But Mrs. Clive was shocked. She regarded Miss Truscott with what she intended to be considered as severe disapprobation. Then, with her most stately air, she rose and left the room. Pausing at the door, however, she delivered herself of a final expression of her opinion. "Lily, I am disappointed in you. I can only hope that Mr. Ely will not have cause to be disappointed too." When Miss Truscott was left alone she sat quite still, looking into vacancy. The smile about the corners of her mouth was hardly up to its usual character for sweetness. There was a glitter in her eyes which gave them quite a new expression. Suddenly she leaned her face upon her hands and shivered. It could hardly have been with cold, for the sun was shining and the day was warm. Then she got up, and began pacing restlessly about the room. "Is it a dream? Is it a dream?" Her hands were clasped with a sort of hysteric energy. "What does it matter! He has forgotten me! What fools we women are!" She took out a locket which was hidden in the bosom of her dress, and gazed upon the face which it contained. "Willy!"--how softly she breathed the name--"twelve months since you told me that story with your eyes--twelve months ago! Where have you been this weary time! I suppose it was an incident with you. I have heard those sort of things are incidents with men. What a fool I was to take it seriously! What fools we women are! I ought to have known that it was the fashion with Mr. Summers to love and ride away." She stood gazing at the portrait. All at once something angered her--some recollection, perhaps, of long ago. She snapped the slender chain to which it was attached, and flung the locket on the floor. As if not content with this degradation of her treasure, she placed her little foot upon it and crushed it beneath her heel. "What fools we women are!" For a moment she looked upon the ruins she had wrought. The pretty little locket was crushed all out of shape. Then came penitence, and stooping down with streaming eyes she picked the broken locket up and pressed it to her lips; and, still upon her knees, flinging herself face downwards on to the seat of a great arm-chair, she cried as though her heart would break. "I didn't mean to do it, Willy, I didn't mean to do it; but it's all the same, it doesn't matter whom I marry now!" She was only a girl: and it is a charming characteristic of the better sort of girls that they will do foolish things at times. But there was very little of the girl about her when Mr. Ely came; she was the stateliest of young ladies then. The air of having just come out of a bandbox was more apparent about Mr. Ely in the country even than in town. He was one of those very few men who are never seen out of a frock-coat. Throgmorton Street or a Devonshire lane it was the same to him. Wherever he was his attire remained unaltered. But it must be allowed that he was conscious that things were not compatible--patent shoes, top-hat, frock-coat, and a Devonshire lane. So from the Devonshire lane he religiously stayed away. He did his ruralising in centres of fashion where his frock-coat was in place, and not in the equivalents of the Devonshire lane. He was not affected by the modern craze for the country side. He objected to it strongly: a fact which he made plain as soon as he appeared on the scene. Mrs. Clive received him. She began the conversation on what she fondly conceived were the usual lines. "How glad you must be to get into the country. It must be such a change from town." "Change! I should think it is a change! Beastly change, by George!" Mrs. Clive was a little shocked. The adverb did not fall sweetly on her ear. But Mr. Ely went glibly on. He had a grievance which he wished to air. "Why they don't have decent cabs at the station I don't know. If there was a live man in the place he'd put some hansoms on the road. Fly, they called the thing I came up in! Fly! I should like to know what's the aboriginal definition of 'to crawl'! And dusty! I left my mark upon that seat, and that seat left its mark on me. I feel like a regular dustman--upon my word I do." Miss Truscott made her first appearance at the luncheon-table. The meal was not an entire success. This was partly owing to the fact that Miss Trustcott seemed to have gone back into the glacial or prehistoric period, and partly because Mr. Ely still had his grievance on his mind. Mrs. Clive did her best to entertain the company, but in spite of her meritorious efforts the conversation languished. "And how are things in the City?" She felt that this was the sort of question she ought to ask. "All over the shop!" Mrs. Clive started. She felt that the answer was not so explanatory as it might have been. Still she bravely persevered. "Dear me! I suppose that commercial matters are affected by the seasons." She thought that this sort of remark would go home to the commercial mind. "Eh? Oh, yes; rather! I should think they were! In fine weather traffics go up all round. Noras have gone up one, Doras one seven-eighths, Trunks are flat: there's a rig-out there and rates are pooled, but this side bulls are in the right hole pretty near all along the line. Bertha's about the only one got stuck." Mrs. Clive was speechless. She looked at Miss Truscott with imploring eyes. But that young lady was tranquilly engaged with the contents of her plate. "Poor girl!" It was a study to see Mr. Ely's face when the old lady made this innocent remark. "I beg your pardon! What did you say?" "I said, poor girl! I hope she has done nothing wrong." "Who's done nothing wrong?" "The young lady you mentioned. Miss Bertha, I think you said. I am not acquainted with her surname." Mr. Ely was silent. He was not a man gifted with a keen sense of humour, and was not at all clear in his own mind that the old lady was not amusing herself at his expense. Mrs. Clive, conscious that something was wrong, went painfully plodding on. "I trust, Mr. Ely, that I have not, unintentionally, said something to hurt your feelings. Is the young lady a friend of yours?" "What young lady?" Mr. Ely placed his knife and fork together, with a little clatter, on his plate. Was she at it again? This was more than a man could stand. "Miss Bertha--the young lady you mentioned." "Bertha's not a lady." "Not a lady! Dear me! One of the lower classes! I perceive! Now I understand. Ah, I'm afraid that from them anything may be expected nowadays." Mr. Ely turned pink, not with suppressed mirth, but with what was very much like rage. For some moments an unprejudiced spectator might have debated in his own mind as to whether he was not about to be profane. But if it were so, he conquered his impious tendency, and adopted another line of conduct instead. He rose from his seat. "If you will allow me, I'll go outside for a change of air"; and without waiting for the required permission he marched through the French window out on to the lawn. The old lady turned to her niece-- "My dear Lily, what have I said or done?" "My dear aunt, I believe that Bertha, in the slang of the Stock Exchange, signifies the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway. I suspect that Mr. Ely imagines that you have been amusing yourself at his expense." Mrs. Clive was aghast. "Go to him, Lily. Don't leave him alone in his present state of mind. He might return at once to town!" Miss Truscott rose with her most tranquil air. "We might survive his departure if he did." But her aunt was shocked. "Lily, it pains me to hear such language from your lips. You are now approaching one of the most solemn moments of your life. Rise to the occasion, child, and show that, although still a child in years, you have within you the wherewithal with which to make a woman in good time." Miss Truscott looked as if she could have said something if she would, but she refrained. She left the room without a word. CHAPTER IV MR. ELY WOOES The interview between Mr. Ely and the object of his heart's devotion was not so solemn as it might have been. Possibly that was in a measure owing to what had gone before. But it must be owned that Miss Truscott's mood was hardly attuned to the occasion. We must also, at the same time, allow that Mr. Ely's demeanour was hardly that of the ideal wooer. "Your aunt seems to have a nice idea of business! I've heard a few things, but she beats all! I thought she was getting at me, upon my word I did!" This was scarcely the remark with which to open a tender interview. Miss Truscott said nothing. She was seated in a low garden-chair, hatless, her little feet peeping from under the hem of her summer gown. She seemed sufficiently cool just then, but her silence did not appear to be altogether to Mr. Ely's liking. He himself did not seem to be as cool as he might have been. "I believe, Miss Truscott, that Mr. Ash has told you what's brought me here." Mr. Ely's tone seemed even waspish--not loverlike at all. "Indeed!" Miss Truscott just parted her lips and let the word drop out, that was all. "May I ask what I am to understand by that?" Just then a fat white dog, of the doormat species, appeared on the top of the steps. Miss Truscott addressed this animal-- "Pompey! Pompey! Good dog! Come here!" The "good dog" referred to slowly waddled across the grass, and on reaching Miss Truscott's chair was raised to the seat of honour upon that lady's knee. "Are you interested in dogs, Mr. Ely? If so, I am sure you must like Pompey. He generally bites strangers at first, but perhaps after a time he won't bite you!" "I'll take care he doesn't get a chance--either first or last." "Why not? He bit a piece of cloth out of the Curate's trousers the other day, but Mr. Staines says that he doesn't think his teeth quite met in the calf of his leg." Mr. Ely gasped. His temperature seemed rapidly to increase. "I did not come here to talk about dogs: and you'll excuse my mentioning that you have not yet informed me as to whether Mr. Ash has told you what I did come for." "Let me see!" Miss Truscott took out her guardian's letter and referred to it before Mr. Ely's distended eyes. "Hum--hum--Pompey, lie down! There, now Pompey has torn it all to bits!" As indeed the animal had, and was now chewing some of the fragments as though they were a sort of supplementary meal. "What shall I do? Pompey has the most extraordinary taste. It runs in the family, I think. Do you know that his mother once ate nearly the whole of a pair of my old shoes?" Mr. Ely wiped his brow. He was becoming very warm indeed. He seated himself in another garden chair. For a moment he contemplated drawing it closer to Miss Truscott's side, but the thought of Pompey and his extraordinary taste--which ran in his family--induced him to refrain. "Miss Truscott, I'm a business man, and I like to do things in a business kind of way." Mr. Ely paused. He felt that he was feeling his way. But the young lady disarranged his plans. "By the way, Mr. Ely, have you been up Regent Street just lately?" "Been up Regent Street?" "Can you tell me if there are any nice things in the shop-windows?" Mr. Ely did not exactly gasp this time. He choked down something in his throat. What it was we cannot say. "Miss Truscott, I'm a business man----" "You said that before." The words were murmured as Miss Truscott stroked Pompey's woolly head. "Said it before! I say it again! I wish you'd allow me to get right through." "Right through what?" "Right through what! Right through what I have to say!" "Oh, go on, pray. I hope I haven't interrupted you?" "Interrupted me!" Mr. Ely snorted; no other word will describe the sound he made. "I say, I'm a business man----" "Third time of asking!" Mr. Ely got up. He looked very cross indeed. Pompey snarled. That faithful animal seemed to scent battle in the air. "Well, I'm--hanged!" We fear that Mr. Ely would have preferred another termination, but he contented himself with "hanged." Miss Truscott looked up. She allowed her long, sweeping eyelashes gradually to unveil her eyes. She regarded Mr. Ely with a look of the sweetest, most innocent surprise. "Mr. Ely! Whatever is there wrong?" Mr. Ely was obliged to take a step or two before he could trust himself to speak. As he was sufficiently warm already the exercise did not tend to make him cool. Under the circumstances, he showed a considerable amount of courage in coming to the point with a rush. "Miss Truscott, I want a wife!" "You want a what?" "A wife! Don't I say it plain enough? I want a wife!" "I see. You want a wife." With her calmest, coolest air Miss Truscott continued stroking Pompey's head. "Did you notice how they are wearing the hats in town?" Mr. Ely sprang--literally sprang!--about an inch and a half from the ground. "What the dickens do I know about the hats in town?" "Mr. Ely! How excited you do get! I thought everybody knew about the hats in town--I mean, whether they wear them on the right side or the left." Mr. Ely was not an excitable man as a rule, but he certainly did seem excited now. His handkerchief, which he had kept in his hand since the commencement of the interview, he had kneaded into a little ball which was hard as stone. "Miss Truscott, I'll--I'll give a sovereign to any charity you like to name if you'll stick to the point for just two minutes." "Hand over the sovereign!" Mr. Ely was taken aback. Miss Truscott held out her small, white hand with a promptitude which surprised him. "I--I said that I would give a sovereign to any charity you like to name if you'll stick to the point for just two minutes." "Cash in advance, and I'll keep to any point you like to name for ten." Mr. Ely was doubtful. Miss Truscott looked at him with eyes which were wide enough open now. Her hand was unflinchingly held out. Mr. Ely felt in the recesses of his waistcoat pocket. He produced a sovereign purse, and from this sovereign purse he produced a coin. "It's the first time I ever heard of a man having to pay a sovereign to ask a woman to be his wife!" "Hand over the sovereign!" She became possessed of the golden coin. "This sovereign will be applied to the charitable purpose of erecting a monument over Pompey's mother's grave. Now, Mr. Ely, I'm your man." Mr. Ely seemed a little subdued. The business-like way in which he had been taken at his word perhaps caused him to feel a certain respect for the lady's character. He reseated himself in the garden-chair. "I've already said that I want a wife." "Do you wish me to find you one? I can introduce you to several of my friends. I know a young lady in the village, aged about thirty-eight, who has an impediment in her speech, who would make an excellent companion for your more silent hours." "The wife I want is you." "That is very good of you, I'm sure." There was a pause. The lady, with a little smile, tranquilly tickled Pompey with the sovereign she had earned. The gentleman fidgeted with his handkerchief. "Well, Miss Truscott, am I to be gratified?" "Why do you want me? Won't some one else do as well?" Immediately the gentleman became a little rose. "May I ask you for an answer to my question?" "You haven't asked me a question yet." "Will you be my wife?" The question was put in a rather louder key than, in such cases, is understood to be the rule. Miss Truscott raised her head, and for some moments kept her glance fixed upon the gentleman, as though she were trying to read something in his face. Then she lowered her glance and made answer thus-- "Frankly--you say you are a business man--let us, as you suggest, understand each other in a business kind of way. In asking me to be your wife, you are not asking for--love?" As she spoke of love her lips gave just the tiniest twitch. "I believe that a wife is supposed to love her husband--as a rule." "In your creed love comes after marriage?" "At this present moment I'm asking you to be my wife." "That's exactly what I understand. You're not even making a pretence of loving me?" "Miss Truscott, as you put it, I'm a business man. I have money, you have money----" "Let's put the lot together and make a pile. Really, that's not a bad idea on the whole." It was the young lady who gave this rather unexpected conclusion to his sentence. Then she looked at him steadily with those great eyes of hers, whose meaning for the life of him he could not understand. "I suppose that all you want from me is 'Yes'; and that in complete indifference as to whether I like you or do not?" "If you didn't like me you wouldn't be sitting here." "Really, that's not a bad idea again. You arrive at rapid conclusions in your own peculiar way. I suppose if I told you that I could like a man--love him better than my life--you would not understand." "That sort of thing is not my line. I'm not a sentimental kind of man. I say a thing and mean a thing and when I say I'll do a thing it's just as good as done." "Then all you want me to be is--Mrs. Ely?" "What else do you suppose I want you to be? It's amazing how even the most sensible women like to beat about the bush. Here have I asked you a good five minutes to be my wife, and you're just coming to the point. Why can't you say right out--Yes or No." Miss Truscott shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose it doesn't matter?" "What doesn't matter?" "What I say." "By George, though, but it does!" Miss Truscott leaned her head back in her chair. She put her hand before her mouth as if to hide a yawn. She closed her eyes. She looked more than half asleep. "Then I will." "Will what?" "Say 'Yes.'" "You mean that you will be my wife? It's a bargain, mind!" "It is a bargain. That's just the proper word to use." "That's all right. Then I'll send a wire to Ash to let him know it's done." "Yes, send a wire up to town to let him know it's done." Mr. Ely moved towards the house. From her voice and manner Miss Truscott still seemed more than half asleep; but hers was a curious kind of sleepiness, for in the corner of each of her closed eyelids there gleamed something that looked very like a drop of diamond dew. Prosaic people might have said it was a tear. CHAPTER V MR. ELY DEPARTS Mr. Ely returned to town on the following morning, and Miss Truscott was an engaged young woman. The interval between the moment of her becoming engaged and the departure of the gentleman was not--we are rather at a loss for the proper word to use--let us put it, was not exactly so pleasant as it might have been. Although the man and the maid had plighted troth they certainly did not seem like lovers; they scarcely even seemed to be friends. The position seemed to be a little strained. Mr. Ely noticed this as the day wore on. He resented it. In the garden after dinner he relieved his mind. The lady was seated, the admirable Pompey on her knee, so engaged in reading as to appear wholly oblivious that the gentleman was in her neighbourhood. For some time Mr. Ely fidgeted about in silence. The lady did not appear even to notice that. At last he could keep still no longer. "You seem very fond of reading?" "I am." The lady did not even take her eyes off her book to answer him, but read tranquilly on. "I hope I'm not in your way." "Not at all"; which was true enough. He might have been miles away for all the notice the lady appeared to take of him. "One has to come into the country to learn manners." "One has to come into the country to do what?" As if conscious that he was skating on thin ice, Mr. Ely endeavoured to retrace his steps. "Considering that only this morning you promised to be my wife, I think that you might have something to say." Partially closing the book, but keeping one slender finger within it to mark the place, the lady condescended to look up. "Why should you think that?" "I believe it is usual for persons in our situation to have something to say to each other, but I don't know, I'm sure." The lady entirely closed her book and placed it on a little table at her side. "What shall we talk about?" The gentleman was still. Under such circumstances the most gifted persons might have found it difficult to commence a conversation. "Are you interested in questions of millinery?" "In questions of millinery!" "Or do you take a wider range, and take a living interest in the burning questions of the progress of revolution and the advance of man?" Mr. Ely felt clear in his own mind that the lady was chaffing him, but he did not quite see his way to tell her so. "I'm fond of common sense." "Ah, but common sense is a term which conveys such different meanings. I suppose, that, in its strictest definition, common sense is the highest, rarest sense of all. I suppose that you use the term in a different way." This was exasperating. Mr. Ely felt it was. "I suppose you mean that I'm a fool." "There again--who shall define folly? The noblest spirits of them all have been by the world called fools." Miss Truscott gazed before her with a rapt intensity of vision, as though she saw the noble spirits referred to standing in the glow of the western sky. "I must say you have nice ideas of sociability." "I have had my ideas at times. I have dreamed of a social intercourse which should be perfect sympathy. But they were but dreams." Mr. Ely held his peace. This sort of thing was not at all his idea of conversation. It is within the range of possibility to suspect that his idea of perfect conversation was perfect shop--an eternal reiteration of the ins-and-outs and ups-and-downs of stocks and shares. However that might be, it came to pass that neither of these two people went in a loverlike frame of mind to bed. But this acted upon each of them in different ways. For instance, it was hours after Miss Truscott had retired to her chamber before the young lady placed herself between the sheets. For a long time she sat before the open window, looking out upon the star-lit sky. Then she began restlessly pacing to and fro. All her tranquillity seemed gone. "I have been ill-mannered--and a fool!" And again there was that hysteric interlacing of her hands which seemed to be a familiar trick of hers when her mind was much disturbed. "I have made the greatest mistake of all. I have promised myself to a man I--loathe." She shuddered when she arrived at that emphatic word. "A man with whom I have not one single thing in common; a man who understands a woman as much as--less than Pompey does. I believe that selfish Pompey cares for me much more. A man whose whole soul is bound up in playing conjuring tricks with stocks and shares. And where are all my dreams of love? Oh! they have flown away!" Then she threw herself upon the bed and cried. "Oh, Willy! Willy! why have you been false? If you had been only true! I believe that I am so weak a thing that if you should call to me to-morrow, I would come." After she had had enough of crying--which was only after a very considerable period had elapsed--she got up and dried her eyes--those big eyes of hers, whose meaning for the life of him Mr. Ely could not understand! "What does it matter? I suppose that existence is a dead level of monotony. If even for a moment you gain the heights, you are sure to fall, and your state is all the worse because you have seen that there are better things above." This was the lady's point of view. The gentleman's was of quite another kind. As he had said, sentiment was not at all his line. When he reached his room, he wasted no time getting into bed. While he performed his rapid toilet he considered the situation in his own peculiar way. "That's the most impudent girl I ever met." This he told himself as he took off his coat. "I like her all the better for it, too." Here he removed his vest. "She doesn't care for me a snap--not one single rap. I hate your spoony kind of girl, the sort that goes pawing a man about. If she begins by pawing you she'll be pawing another fellow soon. Oh! I've seen a bit of it, I have!" Here he removed his collar and tie. "What I want's a woman who can cut a dash--not the rag-bag sort, all flounces and fluster--but a high-toned dash, you know. The sort of woman that can make all the other women want to have her life; who can sit with two hundred other women in a room and make 'em all feel that she doesn't know that there's another person there. By Jove! she'd do it, too!" Mr. Ely laughed. But perhaps--as he was a sort of man who never laughed, in whom the bump of humour was entirely wanting--it would be more correct to describe the sound he made as a clearing of the throat. At this point he was engaged in details of the toilet into which it would be unwise to enter. But we really cannot refrain from mentioning what a very little man he looked in his shirt. Quite different to the Mr. Ely of the white waistcoat and frockcoat. The next morning he took his departure. He had been under the painful necessity of spending one day away from town; he could not possibly survive through two. In fact he tore himself away by the very earliest train--in his habits he was an early little man--not with reluctance but delight: by so early a train, indeed, that he had left long before his lady-love came down. Mrs. Clive did the honours and sped the parting guest. She, poor lady, was not used to quite such early hours and felt a little out of sorts, but she did her best. "Shall I give dear Lily a message when you are gone?" Mr. Ely was swallowing ham and eggs as though he were engaged in a match against time. A healthy appetite for breakfast was one of his strong points. "Tell her that dog of hers is ever so much too fat." Pompey, who was at that moment reclining on a cushion on the rug, was perhaps a trifle stout--say about as broad as he was long. Still, Mrs. Clive did not like the observation all the same. "Pompey is not Lily's dog, but mine." "Ah! then if I were you, I'd starve the beggar for a week." Mrs. Clive bridled. If she had a tender point it was her dog. "I can assure you, Mr. Ely, that the greatest care is taken in the selection of dear Pompey's food." "That's where it is, you take too much. Shut him in the stable, with a Spratt's biscuit to keep him company." "A Spratt's biscuit!--Pompey would sooner die!" "It wouldn't be a bad thing for him if he did. By the look of him he can't find much fun in living--it's all that he can do to breathe. It seems to me every woman must have some beast for a pet. An aunt of mine has got a cat. Her cat ought to meet your dog. They'd both of them be thinner before they went away." It is not surprising that Mr. Ely did not leave an altogether pleasant impression when he had gone. That last allusion to his aunt's cat rankled in the old lady's mind. "A cat! My precious Pompey!" She raised the apoplectic creature in her arms; "when you have such an objection to a cat! It is dreadful to think of such a thing, even when it is spoken only in jest." But Mr. Ely had not spoken in jest. He was not a jesting kind of man. When Miss Truscott made her appearance she asked no questions about her lover. If he had sent a message, or if he indeed had gone, she showed no curiosity upon these points at all. She seemed in a dreamy frame of mind, as if her thoughts were not of things of life but of things of air. She dawdled over the breakfast-table, eating nothing all the while. And when she had dismissed the meal she dawdled in an easy chair. Such behaviour was unusual for her, for she was not a dawdling kind of girl. CHAPTER VI THE WOOING IN THE WOOD In the afternoon she took a book and went for a ramble out of doors. It was a novel of the ultra-sentimental school, and only the other day the first portion of the story had impressed her with the belief that it was written by a person who had sounded the heights and depths of life. She thought differently now. It was the story of a woman who, for love's sake, had almost--but not quite--thrown her life away This seemed to her absurd, for, in the light of her new philosophy, she thought she knew that the thing called love was non-existent in the world. And for love's sake to throw one's life away! It was not until she reached a leafy glade which ran down to the edge of the cliff that she opened the book. She seated herself on a little mossy bank with her back against the trunk of a great old tree, and placed the book on her knees. After she had read for a time she began to be annoyed. The heroine, firmly persuaded that life without love was worthless, was calmly arranging to sacrifice as fine prospects as a woman ever had, so as to enable her to sink to the social position of her lover, an artisan. The artisan belonged to the new gospel which teaches that it is only artisans who have a right to live. He was a wood-engraver, she was the daughter of a hundred earls. As a wood-engraver--who declined to take large prices for his work--he considered that she was in an infinitely lower sphere than he: a state of degradation to be sorrowed over at the best. So she was making the most complicated arrangements to free herself from the paternity--and wealth--of the hundred earls. Miss Truscott became exceedingly annoyed at the picture of devotion presented by these two, and threw the book from her in disgust. "What nonsense it all is! How people do exaggerate these things. I don't believe that love makes the slightest difference in anybody's life. I do believe that people love a good dinner, or a pretty frock, or ten thousand pounds a year, but anything else----!" She shrugged her shoulders with a significant gesture. "There may be weak-minded people somewhere who believe in love, but even that sort is the love that loves and rides away. As for love in married life! In the present state of society, if it did exist it is quite clear to me that it would be the most uncomfortable thing about the whole affair. Mr. Ely is a sensible man. He wants a wife, not a woman who loves him. That's the royal road to marriage!" As Miss Truscott arrived at this conclusion, she rose from her mossy seat and shook herself all over, as if she were shaking off the last remnants of her belief in love. "Miss Truscott!" She stood amazed, motionless, with a curious, sudden fascination as the sound of a voice fell on her ears. It came again. "Miss Truscott, won't you turn and look at me?" She turned and looked, and there was a man. She seemed wonderstruck. A very perceptible change came over her. She became more womanly as she looked: softer, more feminine. The scornful look passed from her eyes and face and bearing. She became almost afraid. "Mr. Summers! Is it you?" It was a new voice which spoke, a voice which Mr. Ely would never live to hear. And in it there was a hidden music which was sweeter that the music of the birds. "Yes, Miss Truscott, it is I." He held out his hand. She timidly advanced, and he advanced a step, and their two hands met. And their eyes met, too. And both of them were still. Then she gently disengaged her hand, and looked at the bracken at her feet. "Some spirit of the wild wood must have led me. I have come straight up from the station here. It must have been some curious instinct which told me where you would be found." "Oh, I am often here--you know that I am often here." "I know you used to be." "I think that most of my habits are still unchanged. And where have you been this great, long time? I thought that you would never come again." "Did you think that? Is that true?" He leaned forward. He spoke in a low, eager, insistent tone, which, for some cause, made the blood surge about the region of her heart, and made her conscious that new life was in her veins. "Oh! I did not think of it at all. Out of sight is out of mind, you know!" "And I have been thinking of you all the time. You have been with me in my dreams both day and night. Your face has stared at me from every canvas which I touched. You were at the end of every brush. Everything I tried to paint turned into you. I thought my heart would burst at the anticipation of meeting you again." She was silent: for the world she could not have spoken then. This sceptic maiden, who but a moment back was so incredulous of the existence of the thing called love, was stricken dumb, conquered by the magic of the spell woven by this man's tongue and eyes. "I tried to paint you, and I failed--there are fifty failures in my room! But one night there came to me the glamour of my lady's eyes. At the first dawn of day I stood before my canvas, and all at once, as if it were by witchcraft, I had you there. You shall look at that portrait one fine day, and you shall know that I have you even when you are not near. And so, through all the weary time, you have been there; sleeping and waking I have had you by my side. And you--not once--have thought of me!" Silence. Then she raised her head and looked at him. "I have thought of you--at times." "What times?" There was a pause before she spoke, as if each was conscious of a fascination in the other's glance; eyes continued looking into eyes. "All times--I think." "Lady of my heart's desire!" He still carried the bludgeon which we have seen he had in Mr. Ash's office. He let it fall upon the ground. He stretched out his two hands, and, as if unconsciously, she yielded hers to his. So they were face to face, hands clasped in hands. "Love lives no longer now. They tell us that it is only in the fables it is found. Yet I think that they are wrong--nay, it is certain that I know they are--for I love you better than my life!" Silence. Even the myriad sounds of nature seemed to be suddenly quite still. There was no rustling of leaves, no twittering of birds, there was not even audible the murmuring of the sea. And he went on-- "I pray you tell me--do you love me?" "Willy!" That was all she said. Then he stooped and kissed her on the lips. "My dear!" he said. Then they were still. He did not even draw her to him. He only held her hands and looked upon her face. And she regarded him with shy, proud eyes. "Why have you been so long?" "Because I had made myself a promise." "What promise?" "That I would earn my prize." "How could you do that?" "Ah! how indeed! For, truly, it could not be earned. But when I saw you first I was the laziest of men. Until that hour I had thrown my life away. I told myself that until I had done something to redeem the past, until I had made my mark upon the time, I might not make my petition for the prize." "Then it is your fault, my friend." "If there is a fault, it certainly is mine, for I am full of fault. But what especial evil have I done?" She removed her hands from his, and tapping a pebble with her little foot, she smiled. "You can never guess." "Is it so black a crime?" Suddenly she put her two hands to her face and laughed. But her cheeks were crimson all the same. "Oh! what have I done? I shall never dare to tell." She peeped at him round the edges of her hands. "Shall you be angry with me, Will?" "Never, if you call me Will!" "Do you know--- But let me begin at the beginning." She removed her hands, and putting them behind her back, looked at him shyly, and then looked down. "Do you know, I thought that you would never come again." He laughed, and there was something in his laughter made her laugh too. "So I was not happy--for I loved you all the time." He laughed again, and, putting his arm about her waist, drew her closer to his side. "Do you know what happened yesterday?" "Did the cat drink all the cream?" "No, worse than that--for we haven't got a cat. Have you forgotten Pompey, sir? Somebody asked me to be his wife!" "What! Who?" "Do you know Mr. Frederic Ely?" "Good heavens! Was he the man?" "What man? Willy--surely you do not know!" "So that was what he was coming into the country for! To think of the little beggar's impudence. And I wished him luck, by gad!" He laughed. But she was still. "Willy! what do you mean? Do you know all about it, then?" "Why, it was a bargain, sweet. He was to try his luck, and then I mine. I was so sure of you, you see!" She released herself from his embrace, and again covering her face with her hands, she shivered. "What have you done?" "It was this way; let me unfold the tale. I went to Mr. Ash and told him what you know: how all my life was centred in my love for you. He told me that just before I came another man had brought to him the self-same tale." "Surely not quite the same? Surely he did not say that all his life was centred in his love for me?" "No, not exactly that! Yet, sweet, why not? For who shall know you and not love you as his life? But at least another man had come to him who wished to win your hand--that priceless hand! And he had given him his word. So it was agreed that he should try his fortune first, and if he failed--I knew that he would fail!--I should try mine. And if I won--ah, how I longed to win!--Mr. Ash would crown success with his consent." Silence reigned again. They stood a little way apart, he with his eyes fixed on her face, she with hers upon the ground. "What have I done?" The words were whispered in an undertone. Then she looked up at him with a sudden fire in her eyes. "Do you know what I have done? I have promised this other man to be his wife." "What! Good God! Lily! what do you mean?" "He asked me to be his wife. I said I would. I thought that you were false, you see." "You thought that I was false! But--it is madness! It is a foolish dream!" "Do not look so utterly dismayed. You said that you would not be vexed, you know. Besides, now it is another thing." "Another thing! But--Lily, tell me exactly what it is that you have done." "I will tell you just exactly what it is that I have done. To begin, then. You see, I have not been happy--ever since you went away." "You foolish maid! And yet you wisest of them all." "I waited--oh, Will, I waited such a weary time! I thought that you would write, or--or do something that you never did. And at last I began to think that waiting was in vain. And when I was in the most hopeless of my hopeless moods--it was no further back than yesterday, yet it seemed years ago!"--she put forth her hand and touched his arm, and he laughed beneath his breath--"a letter came from Mr. Ash. He said that Mr. Ely was coming here. I showed the letter to my aunt. She seemed to take it for granted that I would do exactly what my guardian wished me to--as though it were a decree that was written in the skies. So when he came, and asked me to be his wife--just out of spite and wickedness I said I would. He never asked me if I loved him; he never pretended even to love me. It was just a bargain: I was to be his wife." "My little love! What is it you have done? And now, pray, what is it that you mean to do?" "I shall write and tell him I have changed my mind." "Changed your mind! What do you suppose that he will say to that?" "Why, what can he say? It is like a commercial treaty which is in the air. There are some of the clauses to which I am unable to agree. So I withdraw from the negotiations and refuse to sign." "One thing is sure: you cannot be his wife." "Will, I am just like you! I love you better than my life!" "Sweetheart! Then I have won the prize! I thought that I had won the prize! Will you forgive me my presumption in that I thought that I had won the prize?" "You should not have kept me so long waiting. It is your fault that I have sinned." "You shall not have cause again to esteem me false; and observe, fair maid, I had a higher estimate of you." "Willy! That is unkind!" Then she turned her face up to his, and when he saw that sweet face upturned and those sweet eyes, what could he do but kiss, not once nor twice, but many times, those sweetest lips? And by this time the two were close together. He had his arm about her waist and pressed her to his breast. "Do you know that, from my point of view, fair queen, this was worth waiting for?" "And do you know, sir, that is my point of view as well?" Then there was silence, and they feasted on the love that was in each other's eyes. "Lily! Mr. Summers!" And while they were still engaged in this delectable pursuit, all at once their names were spoken from behind; and turning, they saw that Mrs. Clive was standing in the shadow of the trees. CHAPTER VII MRS. CLIVE--AND POMPEY Mrs. Clive had the faithful Pompey in her arms. That faithful animal was out for exercise, and exercise meant as a rule, to him, being carried all the way. His mistress stared at the lovers, and the lovers, taken aback for a moment, stared at her. "Can I believe my eyes!" In her amazement she let the faithful creature fall. Pompey gave a dismal groan. He did not belong to the order of dogs who can fall with comfort to themselves. Where he fell he lay. In the agitation of her feelings Mrs. Clive did not notice the quadruped's distress. "Lily! Is it possible it is my niece!" Quite possible, it seemed, and not at all surprising, either. Recovering from the first momentary shock, Miss Truscott was the most charming niece alive. Removing herself from the gentleman's near neighbourhood, she inclined her body and gave a little graceful curtsey--a prettier curtsey never yet was seen. "Yes, aunty, it is I." Then she drew herself up straight. "You always said I was your niece." Then she turned to the gentleman. "Willy, don't you know my aunt?" Mr. Summers laughed. The old lady bridled, but the gentleman, not at all abashed, took off his hat and advanced to her with outstretched hand. "Mrs. Clive, it is twelve months since I saw you. I am afraid you have forgotten me." But he was mistaken if he thought that she would take his hand. There never was an old lady with a stiffer mien, and she was at her stiffest now. She had her mittened hands down by her sides, and looked him in the face as though she could not see that he was there. "I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir." This was a fib, but there are occasions when fibs must be expected. "My name is Summers--William Summers. I thought I heard you just now mention me by name. And I, at least, have not forgotten the pleasant hours I spent with you last year." "Lily, I must trouble you to come with me." That was the only answer he received to his small compliment. With her most unbending air the old lady turned to go. But the impression she desired to convey was in a measure spoiled. In sweeping round--her action could only be described as sweeping round--she kicked the faithful Pompey; and when the faithful Pompey received that kick he raised a dreadful howl, and that dreadful howl awoke the echoes far and wide. In an instant Mr. Summers had the ill-used creature in his arms. "Poor Pompey! I am afraid you have hurt him, Mrs. Clive. How well he looks! See, Mrs. Clive, he seems in pain. I'm afraid you must have kicked him in the side, and in his condition that is rather a serious thing. Don't you know me, Pompey?" It appeared that Pompey did, for, in a feeble kind of way, he put out his tongue and licked his protector's nose. Such a sight could not but touch the lady's heart. Still, of course, it was out of the question that she should unbend. "I must trouble you, sir, to let me have my dog." "Permit me to carry him for you towards the house. I'm sure he is in pain--see how still he is." If stillness were a sign of pain, then the faithful beast must have been pretty constantly in pain, for motion--or emotion--of any sort was not in Pompey's line. Mrs. Clive would have grasped the subterfuge if she had been left alone, but her perfidious niece came to the gentleman's aid. She began to stroke and caress the faithful beast. "Poor Pompey! Poor 'ickle Pompey, then! I hope he has not broken any bones. Do you think it is his ribs?" Miss Truscott's back was turned to Mrs. Clive. If the aunt had seen the way in which her niece glanced under her long eyelashes at the gentleman in front of her she would have seized the animal and marched away. "I scarcely think it is his ribs." It was not probable, considering how they were swathed in fat. "Perhaps it is his leg." "I hope that it is not." Mr. Summers threw such a tone of doubt into this expression of his hopes that Mrs. Clive's heart gave quite a jump. Her Pompey's leg! Broken! And by her! But she was not by any means going to give in yet. There was the bearded gentleman holding the wheezing quadruped as though it were the most precious thing on earth, and there was her niece very close in front of him. All her sense of moral rectitude was up in arms. "Lily! I am surprised at you!" "Surprised at me, aunty! Why? Because you have broken Pompey's leg? I didn't do it, it was you. Supposing he should die? You know what a delicate constitution he always had." "It is quite possible the injury is less serious than we suppose"; this the gentleman suggested in a consoling kind of way, "though"--here some one gave the dog a pinch, and the dog gave expression to his feelings in a howl--"though decidedly he seems in pain. I think that I had better go on with him straight to the house." "Lily! I insist upon your coming here." Miss Truscott did as she was told. With meek face and downcast eyes she fell in decorously by the old lady's side. Mr. Summers, ignored and snubbed, but still triumphant, bore Pompey away in front. "Lily, what is the meaning of all this?" "I think you must have let Pompey fall, and then have kicked him when he fell. I cannot see how you can have done it; you are so careful as a rule." "I am not speaking about the dog; you know that very well. I am speaking of the--the extraordinary scene I interrupted." "Willy was telling me that he loved me." "Willy was telling you what! And who is Willy, pray?" "Willy is Mr. Summers's Christian name." "Lily, are you stark, raving mad? Have you forgotten what happened yesterday? Are you aware that it is not four-and-twenty hours since you promised Mr. Frederic Ely to be his wife?" "Yes, auntie; but I have changed my mind." "You have--what?" "I have changed my mind." Mrs. Clive was so overcome that she sank down on a grassy bank which they were passing. It was a thing she had not done for years. She was always under the impression that the grass was damp--even when it burned you as you touched it with the palm of your hand. "Lily, either you are mad or I must be. Changed your mind! Do you think that in such a matter it is possible for a woman to change her mind?" "It would seem to be, wouldn't it? Especially when you look at me." "You treat it as a jest! The most astounding behaviour I ever heard of! I don't wish to forget myself if you have done so; I simply call it the most astounding behaviour I ever heard of! A niece of mine!" "Perhaps that's it. I--I have such a remarkable aunt." The temptation was irresistible, but the effect was serious. For some moments Mrs. Clive sat speechless with indignation. Then she rose from the mossy bank and walked away without a word. Left behind, Miss Truscott covered her face with her hands and laughed--a little guiltily, it seemed. Then she went after. So the march to the house resolved itself into a procession of three. CHAPTER VIII MR. ROSENBAUM'S SIX DAUGHTERS In the meantime Mr. Ely was dreaming of his love. It sounds contradictory at first, bearing in mind that he was not a man of sentiment; but the fact was that in his case absence made the heart grow distinctly fonder. By the time he reached Ryde Miss Truscott occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of all else; he never even troubled himself about the purchase of a paper--which was fortunate, for at that hour none had yet arrived from town, and to him the local prints were loathsome. All the way on the boat he dreamed--yes, literally dreamed--of the girl he left behind him. More than once, incredible though it may appear, he sighed. "She don't care for me a snap, not a single rap, by Jove she don't!" He sighed when he said this, for, for some occult reason, the idea did not seem to amuse him so much as it had done last night. "I don't know why she shouldn't, though. Perhaps she thought I didn't want her. More I didn't then, though I don't see why she shouldn't if I did. I know how to make a girl like me as well as any man--look at the Rosenbaums!" He sighed again. It was "look at the Rosenbaums," indeed! When he thought of those six young women, with their well-developed noses and the fringe of hair upon their upper lips, and of their twice-hammered father, and then of Miss Truscott, that vision of a fair woman, with her noble bearing, her lovely face, and her wondrous eyes, the contrast went deeply home. He felt that he was a lucky--and yet not altogether a lucky--man. "She's going to be my wife, that's one thing, anyhow." The Isle of Wight is a great place for honeymoons. It lends itself naturally to couples in a certain phase of their existence. Such a couple were on board the boat with Mr. Ely. Their demeanour was tender towards each other. "Couple of idiots!" said Mr. Ely to himself as he observed this pair; "it makes a man feel ill to look at them!" She was a pretty girl, and he was not an ugly man; she hung upon his arm and looked into his eyes. It was plain the honeymoon was not yet done for them. In spite of his disgust, Mr. Ely found himself thinking, almost unconsciously, of another figure and of another pair of eyes--of that other figure hanging upon his arm, and of that other pair of eyes looking into his. He sighed again. "She doesn't care for me a snap, by Jove!" Instead of amusing him, it seemed that this reflection began to give him pain. The little man looked quite disconsolate. "I'll make her, though! I will! If--if it costs me a thousand pounds!" He had been on the point of stating the cost he was willing to incur at a much higher sum than this. He had been on the very verge of saying that he would make her care for him if it cost him every penny he had. But prudence stepped in, and he limited the amount to be squandered to a thousand pounds, which was not so bad for a man who did not believe in sentiment. But a singular change had come over him between Shanklin and Stokes Bay. The change was emphasised by a little encounter which he had with a friend in the train. He had taken his seat in the corner of a carriage, when the door was darkened by a big, stout man, who was all hair and whiskers and gorgeous apparel. "What, Ely! My boy, is it bossible it is you! "Rosenbaum! What the devil brings you here?" "Ah! what the teffel is it brings you?" Mr. Rosenbaum spoke with a decidedly German accent. He settled himself in the seat in front of Mr. Ely, and beamed at him, all jewellery and smiles. It was as though some one had applied a cold douche to the small of Mr. Ely's back. He was dreaming of the sweetest eyes, and his too-friendly six-daughtered friend--the man who had been hammered twice!--appeared upon the scene. It was a shock. But Mr. Rosenbaum seemed beamingly unconscious of anything of the kind. The train started, and he began a conversation--which rather hung fire, by the way. "It is some time since we have seen you in Queen's Gate." Queen's Gate was where Mr. Rosenbaum resided. After each "hammering"--mysterious process!--he had moved into a larger house. It had been first Earl's Court, then Cromwell Road, and now Queen's Gate. "Been so much engaged." Mr. Rosenbaum was smoking a huge cigar, and kept puffing out great clouds of smoke. Mr. Ely was engaged on a smaller article, which scarcely produced any smoke at all. They had the compartment to themselves; Mr. Ely would rather have seen it full. He knew his friend. "Miriam has missed you." Miriam was the eldest of the six: the one whose nose and moustache were most developed; a sprightly maiden of thirty or thirty-one. "So has Leah." Leah was a year or so younger than her sister, and quite as keen. Mr. Ely drew in his lips. He had once played cards with Miss Leah Rosenbaum, and detected her in the act of cheating. He admired the woman of business, but regretted his eighteenpence. "I've no doubt she has." "That's a fine girl, Leah! A smart girl, too." Mr. Ely had not the slightest doubt of her "smartness," not the least. "She'll be a fortune to any man. She's very fond of you." Mr. Ely was certainly not fond of her, but he could scarcely say so to her father's face. So he kept still. "Rachel, she miss you too." Silence. Mr. Ely saw plainly that he was going to be missed by all the six. Since he could not escape from the train while it was travelling at the rate of forty miles an hour, the only course open was to sit still and say as little as he could. He knew his friend too well to suppose that anything he could say would induce him to turn the conversation into other channels. The fond father went blandly on. "She say you gave her a little gift, eh? That so?" "Never gave her anything in my life." "No! She says you gave her a lock of your hair; it was little to you, it was much to her. Rachel, she treasures up these little things. She show it me one day; she says she keep it here." Mr. Rosenbaum patted his waistcoat in the region where his heart might anatomically be supposed to be. "I tell you what it is, Rosenbaum, your girls are like their father, smart." "We're not fools," admitted Mr. Rosenbaum. "One night, when I was asleep on the couch in that back room of yours in Cromwell Road--before you failed last time"--it is within the range of possibility that this allusion was meant to sting, but Mr. Rosenbaum smoked blandly on--"that girl of yours cut off some of my hair, and drew blood in doing it, by George!" "Ah! she says you give it her--from sympathy, my friend. She admire you very much, that girl." Mr. Ely kept silence. If there was any one of the six he disliked more than the others it was the young lady whom her father said admired him very much--Miss Rachel Rosenbaum. Some fathers, if they had had the names of three of their daughters received in this rather frigid way, would have changed the subject perhaps. But if Mr. Rosenbaum had not been a persevering man, his address would not have been Queen's Gate. Besides, Mrs. Rosenbaum was dead, and he had to act the parts of mother and father too. And there were six. "Judith, she miss you too." This was the fourth; there still were two to follow. Mr. Ely resolved to have a little plunge upon his own account. "Doing anything in Unified?" Mr. Rosenbaum looked at him, puffed out a cloud of smoke, and smiled. "I say, Judith, she miss you too." "And I said, 'Doing anything in Unified?'" Mr. Rosenbaum leaned forward and laid his great, fat, jewelled hand on Mr. Ely's knee. "Now, my friend, there is a girl for you; plump, tender--what an eye!" "And what a nose! And a moustache!" was on Mr. Ely's lips, but he refrained. "That girl just twenty-four, and she weigh a hundred and seventy pound--she do credit to any man. And, my goodness, how she is fond of you, my boy!" A vision passed before Mr. Ely's mental eye of the girl whom he had left behind. And then he thought of the young lady whose chief qualification was that she weighed a hundred and seventy pounds at twenty-four. "She not a worrying girl, that Judith; that's the sort of wife for a man to have who wants to live an easy life. She let him do just what he please, and never say a word." Mr. Ely fidgeted in his seat. "I say, Rosenbaum, I wish you'd try some other theme." Mr. Rosenbaum held up his fat forefinger, with its half a dozen rings, and wagged it in Mr. Ely's face. "But the great point is Sarah, my good friend; there is something between you and she." "What the dickens do you mean?" "Oh! you know what I mean. What passed between you on the river that fine day?" "What fine day?" "What fine day! So there has been more than one! That I did not know; the one it was enough for me." "And upon my word, with all due respect to Miss Sarah Rosenbaum, it was enough for me." "You did not kiss her, eh? You did not kiss her that fine day?" "I don't know if I kissed her or she kissed me. I say, Rosenbaum, those girls of yours don't seem to keep many secrets from their father." "That is as good a girl as ever lived; you will do justice to her, eh?" "I hope I should do justice to every girl." "So! That is it! You would marry half a dozen, perhaps!" "By George, I don't believe you'd offer any objection if I wanted to!" Mr. Rosenbaum sat back in his seat. Apparently this observation did go home. He appeared to reflect, but he showed that he was by no means beaten by suddenly discovering a fresh attack. "My good friend, you think you are a clever man. I allow you are no fool, but you have met your match in me." In his secret heart Mr. Ely was quite willing to allow the fact. "You have played with my six daughters--very good! You have trifled with their hearts. I say not any word, but there is one of them you must marry, and Ruth is she." Mr. Ely was silent. He kept his eyes cast down. Mr. Rosenbaum, on the other hand, kept his eyes fixed upon his good friend's face. "Come, I am her father. When is it to be?" Then Mr. Ely did look up. The two friends' glances met; Mr. Ely certainly did not flinch. "It won't do; try some other lay." "What you mean--try some other lay?" "Mean what I say." "You never asked her to marry you?" "I swear I never did." "You never gave her to understand that you wished her for your wife, eh?" "I'm not responsible for her understanding." "So--that is it!--I see! Griffith of Tokenhouse Yard is your solicitor--not so?" Mr. Rosenbaum took out a note-book and a pencil-case. "What's it matter to you?" "My good friend, it matters this. Before we reach Waterloo you tell me the day on which you marry Ruth, or to-morrow a writ issues for breach of promise." "Issue fifty writs for all I care." "You have played hanky-panky with my six daughters, but we have you on the last; at least, we'll see." "I guess we will. Take my advice, Rosenbaum, and don't you be a fool. I never asked your daughter in my life to marry me." "We'll talk of that a little later on. There is a letter and some other little things which will make a sensation when they are produced in Court. You understand that it is my duty to see that you do not break my daughter's heart." "Which of them? All six?" "At present it is with Ruth we are concerned." "Oh, Ruth be hanged!" With that observation the conversation closed. The remainder of the journey passed in silence. But when they reached Waterloo Mr. Rosenbaum remarked-- "Well, my friend, what is it to be? Will you name the day?" "Name your grandmother!" Mr. Ely courteously rejoined. And with that courteous rejoinder he left the train. CHAPTER IX MR. ELY HAS A LETTER Mr. Ely took a cab into the city. On the road he stopped to buy a ring. He was the kind of man whose determination is intensified by opposition. He had been half in love with Miss Truscott before he met his German friend; now, in his own peculiar way, he was quite. Miss Ruth Rosenbaum was the youngest and most prepossessing of the six, and that there had been certain passages between them he was well aware. But in any case her father's attempt to force his daughter down his throat would have had the effect of making him fly off at a tangent in quite another direction. Now the effect it had upon him was to send him off helter-skelter to purchase Miss Truscott an engagement-ring. But he was the man of business even then. The jeweller found some difficulty in meeting his requirements. What Mr. Ely wanted was an article of the greatest value at the smallest cost. For instance, for a ring priced at a hundred and fifty guineas he offered fifteen pounds--and this with such an air of making a first-rate bid that the tradesman did not know whether to treat it as an insult or a jest. Finally he expended twenty pounds, and had his value for it, rest assured. Directly he entered the Stock Exchange he encountered Mr. Ash. "I had your wire," began that gentleman. "I congratulate you, my dear boy." "Yes." Mr. Ely looked the other straight in the face, which was a trick he had when there was something which he particularly wished to say. Then he slipped his arm through Mr. Ash's, and drew that gentleman aside. "She's a fine girl, Ash--finer than I thought she was. Finest girl in England, in the world, by George she is!" Mr. Ash was a little surprised at his friend's enthusiasm. But he let no sign of this escape him. "She's a good girl too, my boy." "Best girl ever yet I came across." "And she's true--true as a die." "Truer--truest girl ever yet I saw." "And when she says she loves a man----" Mr. Ash paused. He glanced at his friend. Mr. Ely gave no sign. "When she says she loves a man, you may be quite certain that she does." Mr. Ely looked down at his toes, then up at Mr. Ash. "I've bought the ring." "What! The wedding-ring!" "The wedding-ring! Good gad, no! I never thought of that. It's the engagement ring I've got." "The other one comes after, eh?" "I gave twenty sovereigns for it." "That's a pile." What the smile meant in Mr. Ash's eyes it would be difficult to say. "He wanted forty-five. I beat him down. Said I'd seen its own brother at Attenborough's for ten." There was a pause. Then Mr. Ely began again. "I say, Ash, when do you think the wedding could come off?" "In a hurry? Well, what do you say to twelve months, my boy?" "Twelve months! Twelve months be hanged! A month's enough for me." "A month! The girl won't have time to turn herself round. And you've a house to take, and all the rest of it." "You say the word, and I'll have a house by to-morrow night, and get it furnished in a week." "But, my dear boy, you don't seem to be aware that the lady generally has a voice in that kind of thing." "You say a month, and I'll make it right with her." "You may marry her to-morrow for all I care. "I should like to marry her to-morrow," said Mr. Ely candidly; "but--I suppose it'll have to be a month." But even a month was not an impassable space of time. Mr. Ely reflected that there were a good many things which must be done--it should be a lunar month, he decided in his own mind--his time would be much occupied, the days would quickly pass, and then--then the maid with the big eyes, the finest girl in the world, the best and the truest, would be his bride. His happiness was consummated on the following morning. It had never occurred to him to suggest that there should be any correspondence. He was not a man who was fond of writing himself, and a love-letter--the idea of a sane man writing a love-letter!--was an idea which up to the present moment had never entered his mind. And that in spite of a certain unfortunate document which was in the possession of Miss Ruth Rosenbaum. So when he found upon his breakfast table the following morning a large square envelope, addressed to "Frederic Ely, Esq." in an unmistakably feminine hand, the postmark of which was Shanklin, his heart gave quite a jump. It was from Miss Truscott, as sure as fate: the first letter from his love? CHAPTER X THE AMAZING CONTENTS OF MR. ELY'S LETTER Mr. Ely played with that letter as a cat plays with a mouse. It was a tender morsel, a _bonne bouche_, which must not be hastily dismissed. He turned it over and over, examining first the superscription, the bold, flourishing hand in which she had penned his name--how well it looked; the first time his name had been inscribed by her! Then he examined the reverse--the monogram. He could make it out quite well--L. T.--Lily Truscott. He blushed as he caught himself in the act of raising the magic letters to his lips. Then he laid it down in a prominent position in front of his plate, and studied the exterior as he began to eat. "I wonder what she has to say!" Ah, what! "I wonder if--if she's come round to my point of view? Got--got spoony, and--and all that. By George, I hope she has!" What with the food he had in his mouth, and the sigh, he was almost choked. "I think every woman ought to love the man she's going to marry. I love her--I know I do." He began to know that fact too well. The man who had had nothing to do with sentiment was painfully conscious that he was on the point of becoming the most sentimental of men. "I mismanaged the affair all through. I ought to have told her that I loved her. How can a man expect a girl to love him if she don't believe that he loves her? Perhaps she has written to say that she can conceal the fact no longer: that she loves me whether I want her to or don't. By George! I hope she has." He feasted his eyes again upon the envelope, and helped himself to another serving of ham and eggs. "I thought her behaviour was a trifle cold. It was that beastly dog that did it. How can a man make himself agreeable to a woman when there's a dog ready to bite his nose off sitting on her knee? Still, I thought her behaviour was a trifle cold. She didn't seem to pay much attention to what I had to say; I believe she would have preferred to read; and when she did begin to talk she was taking pot-shots at one all over the place, as it were." He sighed, and took another egg. "And when I asked her to marry me I might have been asking her to take a tart; she didn't seem to be interested in the least. She was most uncommon anxious to treat the thing in a business-like kind of way. I oughtn't to have been so particular about saying I was a business man. That was a mistake; I know it was." He sighed again. He put down his knife and fork. "By George, if she writes to say she loves me, I--I'd give a hundred pounds!" He took the letter in his hands. "I wonder if she does!" In his anxiety he rose from his seat and began to pace the room, holding the letter tightly in his hand. He paused before the mantelshelf and regarded himself in the glass. "Well, upon my word, I never thought that I should come to this--I never did. Here's all the papers, and goodness knows what news from Paris, and I haven't looked at one, and don't want to neither, that's the truth. If she's only written to say she loves me, whether I want her to or don't, I--I'd give a thousand pounds. Here goes! I can't stand fooling here all day! Goodness knows what the state of things in the City may be." He was about to tear the envelope open with his finger. He changed his mind. "She may have written something on the flap. I'd better use a knife." He used a knife. To see him use it, opening an envelope might have been the most delicate operation on earth. "Now for it!" He heaved the greatest sigh of all. "By George, if it's only to confess her love!" He seated himself at the table with the letter spread out in front of him. It might have been as fragile as it was priceless to observe the ginger way in which he opened it and spread it out. Then he arrayed himself for its perusal with as much precision as though it were some formal and rather complicated revelation just to hand from the gods. "'Dear Mr. Ely' (I say! She might have said 'Dear Fred,' or even 'Frederic'! 'Dear Mr. Ely'! It's rather a stiffish way of writing to the man you're going to marry, don't you know.) 'Just a line with reference to what passed between us yesterday. I have changed my mind. I thought it better to let you know at the earliest possible moment. It is quite impossible for me to be your wife. The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead. Yours truly, Lily Truscott.'" Mr. Ely read this note through without, in his astonishment, being in the least able to grasp its meaning. "What--what the blazes is all this!" He ploughed through it again. "'Dear Mr. Ely' (it's evidently meant for me), 'just a line with reference to what passed between us yesterday'! (What passed between us yesterday--what's she mean? She hasn't put a date; I suppose she means my asking her to be my wife. That's a pretty good way of referring to it, anyhow.) 'I have changed my mind!' (Oh, has she? About what? It didn't strike me she had a mind to change.) 'I thought it better to let you know at the earliest possible moment'! (If she had only told me what it was she thought it better to let me know, it would have been perhaps as well. If this is a love-letter, give me the other kind of thing.) 'It is quite impossible for me to be your wife.' (What--what the blazes does she mean?) 'The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead'!" Mr. Ely's jaw dropped, and he stared at the letter as though it were a ghost. "Well--I'm--hanged!' The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead.' That takes the cake!' Yours truly, Lily Truscott.'--If that isn't the sweetest thing in love-letters ever yet I heard of!" Quite a curious change had come over Mr. Ely. If we may be forgiven a vulgarism which is most expressive--he seemed to have been knocked all of a heap. His head had fallen forward on his chest, one limp hand held Miss Truscott's letter, the other dangled nerveless by his side. "And I gave twenty pounds for an engagement-ring!" They were the first words in which he gave expression to the strength of his emotion. "Good Lord, if I had given him what he asked, and stumped up forty-five!" The reflection sent a shudder all through his frame. The horror of the picture thus conjured up by his imagination had the effect of a tonic on his nerves, it recalled him to himself. "I'll have another read at this. There isn't much of it, but what there is requires a good deal of digesting." He pulled himself together, sat up in his chair, and had another read. "'Dear Mr. Ely' (yes, by George, dear at any price, I'll swear! Like her impudence to call me 'dear'! I wonder she didn't begin it 'Sir'), 'just a line with reference to what passed between us yesterday.' (That is, I think, about the coollest bit I ever heard of. Quite a casual allusion, don't you know, to a matter of not the slightest importance to any one, especially me. That young woman's graduated in an establishment where they teach 'em how to go.) 'I have changed my mind!' (That's--that's about two stone better than the other. She's changed her mind! Holy Moses! About something, you know, about which we change our minds as easily and as often as we do our boots.) 'I thought it better to let you know at the earliest possible moment.' (She certainly has done that. Unless she had changed her mind before she had made it up, she could scarcely have let me know it sooner. She might have wired, to be sure! But perhaps she never thought of that.) 'It is quite impossible for me to be your wife.' (It is as well that the explanation follows immediately after, or echo would have answered 'Why?') 'The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead.' I suppose there never was a larger amount of meaning contained in a smaller number of words. Among the remarkable women the world has seen the record's hers; she is certainly unique." Rising from his seat, he put the letter back in the envelope, and placed the envelope within his letter-case. "I'll take that letter up to Ash; I'll have a word to say to him. I wonder if he knows what sort of a ward he's got? That's the best and truest girl alive; a woman whose word is just her bond; who, when she says a thing, sticks to it like glue. And to think that I spent twenty pounds on an engagement-ring!" He put his hands into his trousers pockets. He balanced himself upon his toes and heels. "Twenty pounds for an engagement-ring! I wonder how much Mr. Summers intends to pay?" The reflection angered him. "By George, I'll let her know if she's going to pitch me overboard quite so easily as that. I'll make her marry me, or I'll know the reason why." When he left for the City his first business was to pay a visit to Mr. Ash. He dismissed the cab at the corner of Throgmorton Street. He had not taken half a dozen steps along that rather narrow thoroughfare when a hand was laid upon his shoulder; turning, he saw Mr. Rosenbaum. "My good friend, I have a little paper here for you." And Mr. Rosenbaum deftly slipped a paper into his good friend's hand. "Rosenbaum! What's this?" "It's a writ, my friend; a writ. You would not tell me the name of your solicitor, so I try personal service instead." With a beaming smile and a nod of his head, Mr. Rosenbaum swaggered away. In a somewhat bewildered state of mind Mr. Ely stared after him, the paper in his hand. "It never rains but it pours! Here's two strokes of luck in a single day, and I've only just got out of bed!" He opened the legal-looking document with which he had been so unexpectedly presented by his generous friend, and glanced at its contents. It was headed "Rosenbaum _v_. Ely," and, so far as he could judge from his hasty glance, it purported to relate to an action brought by Ruth Rosenbaum against Frederic Ely, to recover damages for breach of promise of marriage. "Well! This is a pretty go!" He could scarcely believe his eyes; the damages were laid at thirty thousand pounds! And he had already spent twenty pounds for an engagement-ring! His first impulse was to tear the paper up and scatter the pieces in the street. His second--which he followed--was to place it in the inner pocket of his coat as a companion to his letter-case. "Rosenbaum must be a greater fool even than I thought. Thirty thousand pounds! By George! One girl values me at a considerably higher figure than another does." He found that Mr. Ash was still in his office, and alone; so, without troubling to have himself announced, he marched straight in. "Hallo, Ely, here again! Anything settled about the date? Or is it something more tangible than love?" Mr. Ash was engaged with a file of correspondence, from which he looked up at Mr. Ely, with a laugh. "I have to get through all this before I can put in an appearance in the House. And here's a man who gives me so many minute directions about what he wants to do that I can't for the life of me understand what it is he wants. Why people can't just say 'Buy this,' 'Sell that,' is more than I can tell. But what's the matter? You look quite glum." "So would you look glum if you had as much cause for looking glum as me." "I don't know! You've won one of the prettiest girls in England--and one of the nicest little fortunes, too. After that it would take something to make me look glum." "She's one of the prettiest girls in England." "There's no mistake about that. Any man might be proud of such a prize. I've been thinking about it all night." "I've been thinking about it, too." "And the result is to give you that dyspeptic look? Not flattering to her, eh?" There was a pause before Mr. Ely answered. With much deliberation he put his hand into his pocket and drew out his letter-case. "I'm sorry you don't think it's flattering." Another pause before he spoke again; then it was with an even more acidulated expression of countenance. "I have received a letter by this morning's post." "No! From her? She's going it." "Yes, she is going it, I think." "That sort of thing's hardly your line, eh?" "That sort of thing hardly is my line." "Don't care for love-letters--as a rule?" "I should like to refer to a dictionary to know what a love-letter is. If this is a love-letter, I prefer a summons." It was on his tongue to say a writ, but he remembered that he already had one in his pocket, and chose another word. "Ah, Ely, you must remember that this is a romantic girl. If her language seems too flowery--too kissy-kissy--you must bear in mind that in romantic girls affection is apt to take such shapes. Besides, I should think you'd rather have that than the other kind of thing--I know I would." "Perhaps, before you pass an opinion on that subject, you'll allow me to read to you the letter I've received." "Read it! I say! Is that quite fair? Men don't read their love-letters even to their young women's guardians as a rule. Especially the first--I thought that was sacred above the rest." "Look here, Ash, I'm the mildest-mannered man alive, but you never came nearer having an inkstand at your head than since I've been inside this room." "Ely! Good gracious, man! What's the matter now?" "I repeat--perhaps you'll allow me to read to you the letter I've received." With the same air of excessive deliberation, Mr. Ely opened his letter-case, took from it an envelope, and from it a letter, unfolded the epistle, and looked at Mr. Ash. Mr. Ash did nothing but stare at him. "This is my first love-letter--the one which you thought was sacred above the rest. I don't know about the rest. This is quite enough for me. You are sure you're listening?" "I'll take my oath on that." "'Dear Mr. Ely' (you observe how warmly she begins! Kissy-kissy kind of way, you know), 'just a line with reference to what passed between us yesterday.' (That's a gentle allusion to the trivial fact that on the day before she pledged herself to be my wife. We're getting warm, you see.) 'I have changed my mind.'" "She has what?" "She says that she has changed her mind." "What does she mean by she's changed her mind?" "Ah, that's what we have to see. It's an obscure allusion which becomes clearer later on; an example of the flowery language in which romantic girls indulge. 'I thought it better to let you know at the earliest possible moment.' (You'll observe that she wastes no time. Perhaps that's another characteristic of the romantic state of mind.) 'It is quite impossible for me to be your wife.'" "What's that?" "She says that it's quite impossible for her to be my wife." "But--good heavens!--I thought you told me she said yes." "She did say yes." "But an unhesitating--a final and decisive yes?" "It was an unhesitating, a final and decisive yes. "You sent me up a wire!" "It was agreed between us that I should send you up a wire." "You talked about having the marriage in a month." "I did talk, about having the marriage in a month." "And buying a house and furniture, and all the rest of it." "Precisely; and all the rest of it." "And you told me that you had bought a ring." "That's a fact. I did. I paid twenty pounds for an engagement-ring. It's in my pocket now. That's one of the pleasantest parts of the affair." "Then what the dickens does she mean? Is the girl stark mad? Are you sure the letter comes from her?" "You shall examine it for yourself in a moment, and then you'll be able to decide. You understand it is the first love-letter I ever had, and therefore sacred above the rest. As for what she means, the explanation comes a little further on--in the next sentence, in fact, Perhaps you will allow me to proceed!" "Oh, go on! It is plain the girl is mad." "'The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead.'" "Good----! What--what's that?" "She says that she's going to marry Mr. Summers instead." "Instead! Instead of whom?" "Instead of me." "Well, I'm--hanged!" "Yes, that's exactly what I am. And as this is the result of my first love-letter, I don't want to have a second experience of the same kind, you understand." "Then he's done it after all! What a fool I've been!" "Well, it does seem that there's a fool somewhere in the case." "I've done it all!" "The deuce you have!" "Do you know this man Summers?" "Of course I do. Didn't you see I did when I met him here the other day?" "Do you know what he came for then?" "How should I? For half a crown, I shouldn't be surprised. He's one of those painter fellows who run up pictures by the yard." "He came for Lily." "What the dickens do you mean?" "I mean exactly what I say. He came to ask my consent to make my ward an offer of his hand." "What! Before I did?" "No; directly you had gone." "But you had given your consent to me!" "I told him so. He didn't seem to think that it mattered in the least." "Well, he's a cool hand, upon my Sam!" "When I told him what I had arranged with you, he wanted to start off for Shanklin there and then. It was with the greatest difficulty that I got him to listen to common sense--I never saw a man in such a state of imbecility. Finally, I agreed that if you failed then he should have his chance." "But I didn't fail." "Well, it looks queer." "Looks queer! Do you want to drive me mad? And I paid twenty pounds for my engagement-ring! Do you think I should buy engagement-rings if I wasn't sure that it was clear? A girl promises to be my wife, and another man comes directly after and eggs her on to break her word! Looks queer! I should think it does, by George! Look here, Ash, if you think I'm going to sit down quietly and stand this sort of thing, you're wrong!" "Shall I tell you what my own opinion of the matter is?" "Get it out!" "The girl's a fool!" "She's either that or something worse." "I have only to go down and talk the matter over with her quietly, and you'll see it will be all right." "You go down! And where do you suppose that I shall be?" "You leave the matter in my hands, and you'll find that I will make it all right." "I'll be shot if I will! The girl has promised to be my wife, and if there's any man who's got a right to talk to her it's me. I've had one day out of town; I think I'll spare myself another. You've got a time-table, haven't you? When is there a train?" Producing a Bradshaw, Mr. Ash plunged into its intricacies. "It's now eleven. There's a train leaves Waterloo eleven thirty-five. Reaches Shanklin three forty-three. It's too late for that." "Eleven thirty-five? Is it too late--we'll see. You don't seem to be aware of the fact that at this moment, for all I know, that man's amusing himself with the woman who promised to be my wife. It don't occur to you that there is any necessity for haste. I'm off; you may come or stay, just as you please." "I'll come--it's a little awkward, but I'll come." "It is awkward! You'd think it awkward if you were in the pair of shoes that I'm wearing now." "Half a minute! Just let me speak one word to my managing man." Mr. Ash called in his clerk. Mr. Ely passed into the street, and engaged a hansom cab. In a remarkably short space of time he was joined by Mr. Ash. Mr. Ely gave instructions to the cabman. "Waterloo! Main line! And go like blazes!" And the cab was off. CHAPTER XI AN ENCOUNTER IN THE TRAIN Mr. Ely's last journey from Shanklin up to town had not been exactly of a cheerful kind. Mr. Rosenbaum's appearance on the scene had put a damper on to that. The tale of the six daughters had banished peace from the successful wooer's mind. The journey from town to Shanklin was not exactly pleasant either. Under the best of circumstances Mr. Ely was not the most cheerful of companions. Under existing circumstances he was the most cheerless man alive. He showed his mettle at the start. "First-class smoking," Mr. Ash suggested to the guard. Mr. Ely pulled up short. "Not for me." "What do you mean?" "No smoking carriage for me. I've got enough on my hands already, without having to disinfect myself immediately I arrive." So they were shown into a non-smoking compartment. Mr. Ash wished his friend at Jericho. The idea of a journey to Portsmouth without the aid of a cigar did not commend itself to him. Besides, he knew that Miss Truscott had liberal-minded notions on the subject of tobacco. But he deemed it prudent to refrain from treading on the tail of the coat which Mr. Ely was obviously trailing on the ground. And he had his revenge! Just as the train was actually starting there was a cry of "Stop!" Some one came rushing down the platform, the door was opened, and first a lady and then a gentleman were assisted in. "That was a narrow squeak!" exclaimed the gentleman. Then he turned laughing to the lady: "That's a nice beginning, Mrs. B." The lady laughed at him again. "It's a matter of no importance, but I suppose all our luggage is left behind." He put his head out of the window to see. "No, they're putting it in! In such a style! What a scene of ruin will greet our eyes when we reach the other end." He drew his head into the compartment and took a survey of his surroundings. "What, Ash! What, Ely! Here's a go! What brings you two thieves in here? Quite a happy family, my boys." The gentleman extended one hand to Mr. Ash and the other to Mr. Ely. Mr. Ash laughingly grasped the one which came his way; Mr. Ely acidly declined the other, but the gentleman did not seem to be in the least cast down. He gave Mr. Ely a resounding thwack upon the shoulder, which doubled him up as though he were some lay figure. "Ely, my boy, you look as though you had been living on sour apples for a week! What's the matter with him, Ash? Been induced to lend his aged mother half a crown? He'll never get over it, you know." "Mr. Bailey," gasped Mr. Ely, "I'll trouble you not to play your practical jokes on me." Mr. Bailey laughed. Behind the cover of his paper Mr. Ash laughed too. Mr. Bailey--better known as "Jack" Bailey--was also a member of the "House," and as such known both to Mr. Ely and to Ash. One of those hearty, healthy Englishmen, who having not the slightest reserve themselves have no notion of the existence of such a sense in anybody else. He was Mr. Ely's particular abhorrence. When Mr. Bailey had done laughing, he turned to the lady who accompanied him. She was a feminine repetition of himself: a tall, strapping, buxom wench, with bright black eyes and bright red cheeks; the very embodiment of health and strength; the sort of damsel who is in her element on the tennis-lawn or on the river, or doing four-and-twenty dances off the reel. "Who do you think that is?" The lady laughed. "Jack! shut up," she said. "Just hark at her! We've not been married an hour, and she's beginning to order me about already! Allow me to introduce you to my wife, Mrs. Bailey--Miss Williamson that was. Married this morning in the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, six bridesmaids, and such a wedding-cake! Only we couldn't stop to eat this wedding-cake, we had to catch the train!" Mr. and Mrs. Bailey laughed again. Mr. Ash laughed too. But Mr. Ely--he turned green. Mr. Ash raised his hat and bowed to the lady. "Allow me to offer you my congratulations, Mrs. Bailey. Am I justified in supposing that you are starting on your honeymoon?" "Justified! I should think you are!" Seating himself, Mr. Bailey slipped his arm about the lady's waist. "I say, Bess, it's lucky we've fallen among men I know. I should have had to apologise for kissing you in front of strangers." He kissed her then. But the lady only laughed. "You know Jack," she explained. "Every one knows Jack! He has a way of his own." "I should think I have got a way of my own!" cried the gentleman referred to. And he slipped the lady on to his knee. "I wouldn't give a button for the man who hadn't; eh, Ely, what do you say? I say, Ely, why don't you go in for something in this line?" And he nodded towards his wife. "I'm afraid I do not understand you." "He says he doesn't understand me, Bess. Isn't that a funny man?" "Are you not married, Mr. Ely?" inquired the bride of an hour. "I have not that happiness." For the life of him Mr. Ash could not have resisted the chance which offered. "But he's going to be--he's engaged," he said. Mr. Ely turned the colour of a boiled beetroot. But Mr. and Mrs. Bailey quite mistook the reason. It was not because he was shy; it was because the exigencies of civilisation debarred him from cutting Mr. Ash's throat. "I wish you joy!" exclaimed the gentleman. "When's it going to be!" chimed in the lady. "I'll be best man!" "If you promise to send me a piece of the cake I'll let you have a piece of mine." Mr. Bailey turned to his wife. "To look at him you wouldn't think he was engaged, now, would you?" "Why? Is there anything funny about the looks of a man when he's engaged?" "Funny! I should think there is! Ely, what do you think? Don't you feel funny? You ought to if you don't." "May I inquire, Mr. Bailey, what you mean?" There was such a savage tone in Mr. Ely's voice that even the not quick-witted Mr. Bailey was struck by it. "Hallo! What's up now? I say, Ash, you ought to tip a fellow the wink when a man's had an unfortunate misunderstanding with his best girl." "Mr. Bailey--I beg Mrs. Bailey's pardon,--but I suppose that in the presence of a lady you take it for granted that you may permit yourself the utmost license of speech." Mr. Bailey whistled, Mrs. Bailey laughed, then looked out of the window with a look of innocent surprise--that look of innocent surprise which means so much. Mr. Bailey nudged his wife with his elbow. "Beautiful scenery, isn't it?" They were then passing a long, level stretch of what seemed turnip-fields. Mrs. Bailey laughed again. "Ah, it's a serious thing to have a misunderstanding with your best girl!" Mrs. Bailey laughed again. "It's all very well to laugh, but I've had more than one, and nobody knows what it feels like who hasn't gone through it all. Poor chap, no wonder he feels down!" "Mr. Ely," explained the lady, "never you mind Jack, it's a way he's got; he will always have his joke." Then she showed the tact for which women are so famous. "I hope that there really has been no misunderstanding with--with the lady?" "S--sh!--Bess!--For shame!--I'm surprised at you! I wouldn't have asked such a question, not for a thousand pounds!" "Mr. Bailey, if the worst comes to the worst, I feel quite convinced that you will be able to provide Mrs. Bailey with an excellent establishment by becoming a professional buffoon." This was Mr. Ely's final word. The train just then drew up at Guildford. Mr. Bailey rose with the air of a martyr. "I'm afraid, my dear Bess, we must really tear ourselves away. We ought to find a separate compartment. Our friends are most anxious to smoke, and the presence of a lady prevents them, you know." When the pair were gone, Mr. Ely turned upon Mr. Ash with something that was very much like a snarl. "I have to thank you for that." "For what? What do you mean?" "You know very well what I mean. For that clown's impertinence--great, lumbering buffoon!" "Good gracious, Ely, you don't seem to be in the pleasantest of moods. What did I tell him? I only said you were engaged. What harm is there in that? I don't know what good you expect to come from keeping it hidden from the world." Mr. Ely turned the matter over in his mind. He gnashed his teeth, not figuratively, but very literally indeed. "By George, I'll make her marry me, or I'll know the reason why!" "One way to that desirable consummation is to compromise the lady's name. Advertise the fact that she has promised to be your wife." "If I thought that, I'd stick it up on every dead wall in town." "Let's try milder means at first. Leave more vigorous measures to a little later on. Unless I'm much mistaken, you'll find the milder means will serve. There's a little misunderstanding, that is all." "Little misunderstanding you call it, do you? I should like to know what you call a big one, then." If they did not actually come to blows they did more than one little bit of figurative sparring on the way. Mr. Ash found it best to keep quite still. Directly he opened his mouth Mr. Ely showed an amazing disposition to snap at his nose. For instance, once when the train stopped at a station-- "This is Rowland's Castle, isn't it?" "No, it isn't Rowland's Castle. I should like to know what on earth makes you think it's Rowland's Castle. I wonder you don't say it's Colney Hatch." Mr. Ash gazed mildly at his friend, and subsided into his paper. He felt that with things as they were conversation might be labelled "dangerous." CHAPTER XII THE RIVALS--NEW VERSION When they reached Shanklin, Mr. Ely was shown into the drawing-room, while Mr. Ash disappeared upstairs. "You wait in there," suggested Mr. Ash; "there's a word or two I want to say to the old lady. I want to get to the bottom of the thing, because it's quite possible we've come on a wild goose chase after all. You wait half a minute, and I'll see Miss Lily's sent to you. I shouldn't be at all surprised to see her come flying headlong into your arms. Then you'll find out that it's almost worth while to fall out for the sake of the reconciliation." Left alone in the drawing-room, Mr. Ely was not by any means so sure. He was inclined to be sceptical as to the young lady's flying leap into his arms. And as to falling out for the sake of the reconciliation--well, there might be something, perhaps, in that, but he would like to have felt as sure about the reconciliation as he did about the falling out. He seated himself on an ottoman, thrust his hands into his trousers pockets, and stared at his patent toes. A minute passed, more than a minute, more than five minutes, indeed, still he was left alone. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes had elapsed since he entered the room. "This is a pretty state of things; ten living minutes have I sat stewing here! And Ash said that in less than half a minute he wouldn't be surprised to see her in my arms. It looks like it!" He got up and surveyed the apartment. "I wonder where she is? And where the other fellow is? That's the man to whom I ought to apply for information. I lay my hat that she's done some bounding into his arms since yesterday. That's a pleasant thought to think about the woman who's promised to be your wife!" Mr. Ely disconsolately paced the room. "And to think that I paid twenty pounds for an engagement-ring! And I might have forked up forty-five! That's what gets at me! And I've got Rosenbaum's writ in my coat pocket. Damages laid at thirty thousand pounds! Oh, lor! This is a nice day's work I've done!" Pausing before the fireplace he leaned his elbow on the mantelshelf, and his head upon his hand, and groaned. "Excuse me, but can you tell me where Miss Truscott is?" There was a voice behind him. Mr. Ely turned. "Hallo, Ely! I had no idea that it was you! How are you, dear old man?" Mr. Ely turned--metaphorically--into a pillar of ice. Into a pillar of red-hot ice, if we may confound our metaphors. For while his exterior demeanour was several degrees below zero, his interior economy left boiling point at the post. A gentleman had strolled into the room through the opened window--Mr. William Summers. Mr. William Summers as large as life, and larger. There were no signs of guilt upon his countenance; certainly there were none in his bearing. He held a soft crush hat in one hand, the other he held out to Mr. Ely. "Well, I'm--hanged!" "I say, Ely, what's the row?" Speechless with indignation, Mr. Ely turned and strode towards the door. When he reached it he paused, and turning again, he gazed at the intruder. The intruder did not seem to be at all abashed. "That's the way they used to do it at the Coburg. Exit vanquished vice." "Sir!" "That's a little Coburg, too. They used to roll their r's." Mr. Summers tugged at his beard. Retracing his steps, Mr. Ely strode on until he was in a measurable distance of Mr. Summers's nose. "Understand this once for all: you are a perfect stranger, sir, to me." "That's all right; I thought I was. Excuse one stranger speaking to another, but could you tell me where Miss Truscott is?" Mr. Ely gasped. "This--this beats anything I ever heard of! Mr. Summers!" "That's right, Ely, I'm awake. Wire in and lay me flat; I sha'n't mind a bit." "In all this there may be something funny, sir, which commends it to your mind--if you have a mind--but I see nothing comic in desecrating nature's most sacred ties and in corrupting the innocence of youth." "More don't I, Ely; not the way you put it--and I couldn't put it better if I tried." "Are you aware that Miss Truscott has promised to be my wife?" "Ah, that was a mistake!" "A mistake! What the devil do you mean?" "You see, Ely, I've been in love with her a good twelve months--aye, that and more. I fell in love with her the first moment she came across my path." "What the dickens do I care if you've been in love with her twelve years? More shame you! Do you consider that a justification to the scoundrel who betrays another fellow's wife?" "In love with her in a sense you do not understand--in love with her with my whole life." "What on earth has that to do with me?" "I have lived for her, and worked, and hoped, and dreamed, until she has grown to be the centre of my being. Does she mean all that to you?" "What business have you to ask me such a question? When you have ruined Mrs. Jones do you put a similar inquiry to Jones? I should think Jones would feel that you were a logical sort of person if you did." "Ah, but here she is not your wife." "But she's going to be!" "As I live she never will." "Hang it, sir; don't I tell you that she promised?" "And don't I tell you that was a mistake. If you will keep cool I will give you an explanation. If you decline to listen to an explanation, you must be content to realise the fact." "Look here, Mr. Summers, you are a sort of man with whom I have had very little to do----" "My misfortune--not your fault." "But I suppose you have some idea of common decency, if you have none of honour----" "I hope I have." "And I ask you if you think it's decent, directly a woman has promised a man to be his wife, to go behind his back and induce the woman to dishonour herself and him?" "But that is not what I have done." "It is what you have done. One day Miss Truscott promises to be my wife, the next--directly my back is turned--you come and persuade her to be false to herself and me." "My good Ely, there is one factor you are omitting from your calculations, and that is--love." "Which with you stands higher--love or honesty?" "Oh, they both go hand-in-hand. Would it have been honest for her to have married you when she loved me?" "Pooh! Stuff and nonsense! I never heard such impudence! What the dickens do you mean by saying that the woman who has promised to be my wife loves you?" "You perceive, it is from that that I saved you--that curse of all existence, that canker which eats into the very root of life--a loveless marriage. But there are not many signs of gratitude, that I can see." And Mr. Summers sighed. Mr. Ely gasped. "Look here, Mr. Summers, I am not a fighting man." "No?" "But if I were----!" "Yes. If you were? Go on!" "By George, sir, if I were----!" At this moment Mr. Ash entered the room. "I'm sorry, Ash, that you have come. You've interrupted the most agreeable interview that I ever had in all my life." "I'm surprised, Mr. Summers, after what has passed, to see you here." "Why? I assure you I'm not at all surprised at seeing you." Rising, Mr. Summers held out his hand. But Mr. Ash declined to see it. "Oh, take his hand! For goodness' sake take his hand! Shake it off his wrist! Don't let him suppose that you're not delighted to have the pleasure." "Our friend Ely----" "Your friend Ely! What the dickens, sir, do you mean by calling me your friend?" Very red in the face, Mr. Ely struck an attitude in front of Mr. Summers which was probably intended to express ferocity. Mr. Summers tugged at his beard, and smiled. Mr. Ash interposed. "I can hardly think, Mr. Summers, that it is necessary for me to suggest that your presence is not required here." "My dear fellow, I am only waiting to obtain a little information." "What information can you possibly expect to receive?" "I only want to know where Miss Truscott is." "Yes, that's all! That's all he wants to know! A more modest request I never heard! He only wants to know where my wife is!" "Excuse me, Ely, but Miss Truscott is not your wife!" "But she's going to be!" "That she will never be!" "Hang it, sir!" Mr. Ely rushed forward. But again Mr. Ash thought it advisable to interpose. "Mr. Summers, be so kind as to leave this house." "Oh, don't turn him out! For goodness' sake don't turn him out! Pray tell him where the lady is! And also acquaint him with the situation of the spoons! And entreat him, next time he calls, to bring his burglar friends, and other relatives." Mr. Ash endeavoured to pacify his friend. But the attempt was vain. Mr. Ely's blood was up. His wrongs were more than he could bear. "My dear Ely, I beg that you will not pay the slightest attention to this--gentleman." "Attention! Not me! I'm not paying the attention! It's he! And to my young woman, by the Lord!" Still tugging at his beard, Mr. Summers laughed and turned away. "I'm sorry you cannot give me the information I require. And you really are inhospitable, Ash, you really are. But never mind, I'll have my revenge! When you come to see me I'll not show you the door; nor Ely, if he'll condescend to call." He had reached the window when the door opened, and Mrs. Clive appeared. "Ah, here is Mrs. Clive! I am sure that Mrs. Clive will take pity on a man, especially a man in the forlorn situation which I am. May I ask if you can tell me where I am likely to find Miss Truscott?" "Mr. Summers!" Mrs. Clive's attitude was a study. It was as though all the pokers in England were down her back. But Mr. Summers did not show any sign of discomposure. "Surely you will not be hard upon a man, especially upon a man in love. Consider our position. I seek Lily, she seeks me. Life's summer-time is short. You would not have us waste its sweetness?" "Mr. Summers, I am more amazed than I can say." "Oh, don't be amazed! For goodness' sake don't be amazed! And don't be hard upon a man--especially upon a man in love! Consider his position, and don't waste the sweetness of life's summer-time--oh, don't, for gracious' sake!" Mr. Ely pulled up his shirt-collar and "shot" his cuffs. "I reckon I'm spending one of the pleasantest half hours I ever had in all my life." "Mrs. Clive, will you not listen to the all-conquering voice, the voice of love?" "Mr. Summers, I must decline to listen to another word. And I am amazed to think that you should attempt to address me at all, especially as I have given you to understand that our acquaintance, sir, had ceased." "Ceased! And I am going to marry your niece! Could you so divide the family? She who loves you so! And whom, for her sweet sake and Pompey's, I love too?" "Well, this--this does beat cock-fighting! That allusion to Pompey was one of the most touching things I've heard. And he is going to marry your niece, so you and I, Ash, had better go back to town." And again Mr. Ely's collar and cuffs came into play. Mr. Ash advanced. "Mr. Summers, I have already requested you to go. You can scarcely wish us to use force." "No, not force--not that. If it must be then--goodbye! After all, parting is such sweet sorrow. Goodbye, Mrs. Clive, you will weep for me when I am gone. Ta-ta, Ely, we shall meet at Philippi--I leave you--yes, you three!--perchance to wrangle, in very truth thinking angry thoughts--in such an air of discord, too! While I--I go under the shadow of the trees, where love lies dreaming--and waiting perhaps for me. If I meet Miss Truscott, Ely--and I shall under the trysting tree--I will tell her that if you had been a fighting man you certainly would have murdered me." CHAPTER XIII THE LOVER GREETS THE LADY There was a pause when he had gone. Mrs. Clive, the very essence of dignified disapprobation, stood in the centre of the room. Mr. Ash, a little flustered, was near the window, first gazing through it in the direction which Mr. Summers had taken, and then, a little dubiously, out of the corners of his eyes at his indignant friend. Mr. Ely's hands were in his trouser pockets, his legs were wide apart his countenance was red. He seemed to be in a very dissatisfied frame of mind indeed. It was he who broke the silence. "You see, Ash, it was a wild goose chase we came upon! That man looks like it, by George!" "My dear fellow, I hope you will not pay the slightest attention to what that person says. He is the kind of man who will say anything. I assure you there is not the slightest occasion for you to feel concerned." From Mr. Ash's manner it almost seemed as though he desired to convey a greater feeling of assurance that he quite felt himself. He cast several glances in the direction of Mrs. Clive, as though seeking for support. "It depends upon what you call the 'slightest occasion' for concern," retorted Mr. Ely drily. "When a man tells you that he is going to marry the girl who has promised to be your wife, and that he is going to meet her underneath the trysting tree--where love lies dreaming, he said, by gad!--some people would think that there was some reason to feel concerned!" Mr. Ash smiled and rubbed his hands, and fidgeted upon his feet, and looked at Mrs. Clive. He seemed to find some difficulty in finding something suitable to say. But Mrs. Clive came nobly to his rescue. She advanced to Mr. Ely with a smiling countenance and an outstretched hand. "Good afternoon, Mr. Ely; you have not spoken to me yet. I am pleased to have you back with us so soon." Mr. Ely seemed in two minds at first as to whether he should take her hand. Then he just touched it with his own. "Good afternoon, ma'am! If you're pleased, I'm sure I am--though I must say your pleasure's easily found." But the old lady was not to be so easily put down. Her cue seemed to be to assume unconsciousness of there being anything unpleasant in the air. "The pleasure of your visit is heightened by its unexpectedness. Lily has been working all the morning in her room upstairs--you have no idea how industrious she is." Mr. Ely looked at her suspiciously, as though he doubted if she were a strict exponent of the truth. "I thought he said that he was going to meet her underneath the trysting tree!" The old lady smiled a superior smile. "You really must not believe such nonsense as that. I assure you it is the greatest presumption upon his part." "It would require a good deal of assurance to make me believe that it was not." "Lily will be with us directly. Young ladies cannot rush into a gentleman's presence quite at a moment's notice, you know." "I beg that Miss Truscott will take her time!" Mr. Ely marched to the other end of the room, and stood looking in rather too obvious admiration at an engraving after Landseer which hung upon the wall. Mrs. Clive, a little disconcerted, was left to make conversation with Mr. Ash. But Mr. Ash was in a distinctly uneasy frame of mind. "I suppose," he said in a whisper to the lady, keeping one eye fixed on Mr. Ely all the time, "I suppose she'll come?" "My dear Mr. Ash, what do you mean?" The lady's modulated tones betrayed the most intense surprise. Mr. Ash coughed. His manner was apologetic. But without volunteering an explanation he sauntered off towards Mr. Ely. He had hardly taken a step when the door opened and Miss Truscott appeared. The young lady's entrance, in its way, was perfect. She was so extremely at her ease. She stood at the door a moment, and then advanced with outstretched hands and the sweetest smile to Mr. Ash. She did not seem to notice Mr. Ely. He, on his part, continued to admire the engraving. "Guardian! How kind of you to take me by surprise like this!" Mr. Ash took the two hands she offered and looked at her. Certainly this was a woman whom no man need be ashamed to call his wife. Tall above the average of her sex, yet her figure was exquisitely feminine--she bore herself with the daintiest grace. She was dressed in white from head to foot; a silver belt went round her waist; in the belt were some red roses; there was another rosebud in the bosom of her dress. As Mr. Ash held her two soft, white hands in his he involuntarily glanced in the direction of the dapper little gentleman who was continuing to examine the engraving which hung upon the wall. Even if they made a match of it they would scarcely make a pair, these two. "What have you to say for yourself?" asked the lady, seeing that he was still. "Do you know how long it is since you came to look upon my face? Does your conscience not reproach you, sir? I suppose it is the Juggernaut of commerce which has kept you so long away?" Mr. Ash smiled, and pressed her hands. Possibly the source from which she drew the reference to the Juggernaut of commerce was still fresh in his mind, for there was something a little uneasy in his smile. "I think you will allow that I have atoned for my misconduct when you perceive whom I have brought as my companion." Mr. Ash motioned towards Mr. Ely with his now disengaged hand. Miss Truscott turned with her most innocent air. When she perceived the little gentleman, her countenance was illumined with a seraphic smile. "Mr. Ely! Who would have thought of seeing you? This is a compliment! To be able to tear yourself away again so quickly from your Noras and Doras, and bulls and bears." Mr. Ely ceased to examine the engraving. Turning, he pulled his spotless white waistcoat down into its place, and then thrust his thumbs into the armholes. He looked the lady in the face. "I knew you would be surprised," he said. "Surprised! Surprised is not the word!" Then she turned again to Mr. Ash. "Guardian, would you like to look at the garden? You have no idea how beautiful it is." Mr. Ash cleared his throat. He felt that this was a defiance, that in these seemingly innocent words the gage of challenge was thrown down. Miss Truscott was quite aware that he had not come down to look at the garden. He looked at Mr. Ely, but that gentleman kept his eyes fixed upon his faithless fair one with a sort of glare. He looked at Mrs. Clive, but there were no signs that help was likely to come from there. The stockbroker felt that it was incumbent upon him to come to the point. "My dear Lily, I shall be delighted to see the garden--delighted--by and by!" This interpolation was necessary because the young lady sailed towards the window as though she wished to fly into the garden on the wings of the wind. "Before I can give myself that pleasure, there is one little point which I should like to have cleared up." Miss Truscott, brought to a standstill, looked down at the toe of the little shoe with which she was tapping the floor. "Yes, guardian. What is that?" Nothing could be better--in its way--than the air of shy, sweet modesty with which she asked the question. But Mr. Ash felt that it was a little disconcerting all the same. "It's--eh!--rather a delicate point for an old--and crusty--bachelor like me to handle." Mr. Ash said this with an air of forced joviality which was anything but jovial. His gruesome effort to be cheerful seemed to strike Miss Truscott, for she gave him a quick, penetrating glance which took him considerably aback. "Guardian! Aren't you well?" "Well? God bless the girl, yes! What do you mean?" Back went the eyes to the toe, which again began tapping the floor. "I didn't know." Mr. Ash pulled himself together. He made another effort, and began again. He was not a man who was deficient in tact as a rule, but he was conscious that his was a position in which even something more than tact might be required. Joining the tips of his fingers, he balanced himself upon his toes and heels, assuming what he intended to be a judicial attitude. "My dear Lily, you are quite aware that you have reached an age at which it is no longer possible to treat you as a girl." "Would you treat me as an old woman, then?" This was disconcerting; even more disconcerting was the glance with which it was accompanied. Mr. Ash--who had the sense of humour which Mr. Ely lacked--was quite aware that the young lady was laughing in her sleeve, and he had very clearly in his mind the memory of previous occasions on which the young lady had beaten him with weapons against which none of his were of the least avail. Still, he stuck to his guns. Was not Mr. Ely looking on? And Mrs. Clive? "I would treat you as a person who has arrived at years of discretion, who is conscious of the meaning of the words which she may use. One moment!" For Miss Truscott murmured something about her not being yet twenty-one, and he felt that interruption might be fatal. "Lily, you are at least aware of what a promise means." The young lady sighed. "It depends," she said. "Depends!--depends on what?" She looked up. Feeling that it would be impossible for him to preserve his gravity and yet meet the wicked light which he knew was in her eyes, Mr. Ash's glance in turn sought refuge on the ground. "Supposing," she explained, "when you were suffering from an attack of indigestion you promised a friend to cut your throat--you know what one is inclined to promise when one does feel ill. Would you feel constrained to carry out your promise when you found that a dose of somebody's medicine had brought you round?" Mr. Ash was still. Mrs. Clive took up the parable instead. "Lily! I'm amazed at you!" "My dear aunt, why are you amazed?" "I never thought a niece of mine could have acted so." Miss Truscott sighed. "It seems to me that of late I'm always doing wrong. I don't know how it is. I think I had better go into the garden all alone." She gave a half-step towards the window. Mr. Ash cleared his throat with rather a suspicious "hem!" "It won't do, Lily. I know your genius for turning serious questions upside down, but I ask you to put it to your conscience if, on the present occasion, that is fair. A matter which affects the lives of a man and of a woman ought to be approached with gravity at least." "Is the woman me?" She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. "Oughtn't that to be--Is the woman I?" Then she broke into a smile. "What can you expect when even the elementary rules of grammar are not there?" So far Mr. Ely had kept a judicious, if not a judicial, silence. But when he saw that Miss Truscott was smiling at Mr. Ash, and more than suspected that Mr. Ash was smiling back at her, he felt that it was time for him to speak. "If you will allow me, Ash, I'll manage this myself." "Delighted, my dear fellow, I am sure!" "I fancy I am the person principally concerned." "Quite so, quite so!" "If you will leave me alone with Miss Truscott, I've no doubt that in a few minutes we shall understand each other very well indeed." "I'm sure you will! I feel quite sure you will!" Mr. Ash's tone was cheerful--Mr. Ely felt that it was even exasperatingly cheerful. Advancing, he laid his hand upon his ward's well-rounded arm. "Mind you behave yourself," he told her. Then he left the room. "Lily," said Mrs. Clive, when Mr. Ash had gone, "I trust you will do credit to the precepts which I have so constantly, and I hope conscientiously, endeavoured to instil into your mind, and that I shall not have cause to blush for my own sister's child." Then Mrs. Clive went after Mr. Ash, and the two were left alone. CHAPTER XIV THE LADY ENDEAVOURS TO EXPLAIN "Sounds like the last words of a funeral sermon," muttered Mr. Ely, directly the door was closed. "It does sound a little that way, doesn't it?" Then the two were still. Mr. Ely took up the position in front of the fireplace which had been occupied by Mr. Ash; Miss Truscott seated herself by a five-o'clock tea-table, and pensively regarded so much of her toes as she permitted to peep from under the hem of her dress. A considerable pause ensued. Possibly Mr. Ely was endeavouring to find words with which to clothe his thoughts. "This is like a Quaker's meeting," murmured the lady. Mr. Ely started. But he checked the retort which rose to his lips, and continued his reflections. At last he spoke. The words issued from his lips with excessive deliberation, as though he weighed each one to be quite sure it was of proper weight. "Miss Truscott, the exigencies of modern civilisation compel from man a chivalrous attitude towards the weaker sex." She looked up at the first sound of his voice--and he immediately wished she would look down again. "But there are occasions on which chivalry should give place to even higher things." He certainly wished she would look down again. Her countenance was perfectly grave, but he had a horrid suspicion that there was laughter in her eyes. She murmured something to herself. "What was that you said?" he asked, with a sudden departure from his air of ceremonious state. "Nothing." She looked down--and smiled. Mr. Ely felt that he was growing warm. He was not a man easily put out of countenance as a rule, but this young lady had an effect upon him which was quite unprecedented. He changed his method of attack, and from excessive deliberation passed to excessive haste. "Miss Truscott, I am a plain business man." "You are." "The day before yesterday I asked you to be my wife." "You did." "You said you would." "And immediately afterwards I changed my mind." She said this with her sweetest smile. "Changed your mind! What do you mean? Do you know I spent twenty pounds on an engagement-ring?" Mr. Ely produced a little leather case from his waistcoat pocket, and from the case a ring. "Do you see that? Do you know I paid twenty pounds for that? And it might have cost me forty-five." Taking the ring, Miss Truscott slipped it on her long, slender finger. "What a pretty ring! How well it fits me, too. I'll buy it from you if you'll let me have it cheap." Mr. Ely was for a moment speechless. "Cheap! Do you think I buy engagement-rings to sell them at a profit, then?" "I don't know. You say you are a business man." "Say I'm a business man! I should have to be a very funny business man if I did that kind of thing." Taking off the ring, Miss Truscott put it back into the case. "Never mind, Mr. Ely; as a business man you know that a good investment is never thrown away. If you don't meet with a good offer for it at once it is sure to come in by and by. If you go on asking girls to marry you, possibly in time you will light on one who will not change her mind." "Miss Truscott, I don't think you quite know what sort of man I am." "You say you are a business man." "But, excuse me, you don't seem to know what a business man is either. A business man is a man who sticks to his own bargains, and expects other people to stick to theirs." "Is he, indeed. How very interesting!" "You promised to be my wife." "Always supposing that I did not change my mind." "Always supposing nothing of the kind. There was no sort of supposition even hinted at. It was as plain and unequivocal a promise as was ever made by A to B." "Don't you see, Mr. Ely, that you're placing me in a delicate position?" "In what sort of a position do you think you're placing me?" "Would you have me marry you--now?" "By George, I would!" Rising from her seat, Miss Truscott placed her two hands behind her back--in the manner in which the children do at school---and looked him boldly in the face. "When I love another man?--when my whole heart only beats for him?--when, in a sense which you shall never understand, I am his, and he is mine?" Mr. Ely fidgeted beneath the clear scrutiny of her wide-open eyes. "Look here, Miss Truscott, I've told you already that I am not a man of sentiment." "Do you call this a question of sentiment? Would you marry a woman who frankly tells you that she loathes you, and that she yearns for another man?" "Loathes me, by gad! Nice thing, by George! Look here, Miss Truscott, you promised to be my wife----" Mr. Ely was accentuating his words by striking together the palms of his hands, but Miss Truscott cut him short. "Really, Mr. Ely, you are like a child. You indulge in the vainest repetitions. I promised fiddlesticks, for all I know! I don't intend to marry you, so there's an end of it." "Don't you? We shall see!" "We certainly shall see!" "Miss Truscott, if you decline to fulfil the promise which you made to me--according to your own confession--I go straight from here to my solicitor and instruct him to immediately commence an action against you for breach of promise of marriage. You will find that even a woman is not allowed to play fast-and-loose exactly as she pleases." "You threaten me! You dare to threaten me! Now I see the business man, indeed! It is damages you want to mend your broken heart--the money, not the wife. How foolish I was not to understand all that before! Can we not compromise the case, we principals? Why should all the plunder go into the lawyer's hands? Let me beg your acceptance of a ten-pound note." Miss Truscott took out her purse. "Ten pounds!" Mr. Ely remembered the writ which he had in the pocket of his coat. "I'll get thirty thousand pounds at least!" "Thirty thousand pounds! What a sum am I not valued at! I am afraid, Mr. Ely, that I am not able to treat with you when you speak of such noble figures as that. You see, at present, my guardian has the charge of my pecuniary affairs. But I beg you to believe that I am glad to learn that you can find compensation even in the prospect of such a sum as that. I had feared that your wounded affections were incurable." "Compensation! Oh, yes, I'll find compensation fast enough! And you shall find it too! That letter of yours shall be produced in court. You shall have as first rate an advertisement as ever yet a woman had. I'll give Summers cause to be proud of his wife." "I am so pleased to hear you speak like that, because, of course, I hope he always will be proud of me, you know. I hope you will not put it down to my insufferable conceit, but I don't think he's ashamed of me, as yet. But it is quite a relief to my mind to think that we are agreed. For we are agreed, are we not?" "Agreed! On what?" "On the principle of compensation." "Oh, yes, there's no doubt that we agree on that--as you will see directly I get back to town." "That is most gratifying, isn't it? As we do agree now, won't you take my hand?" Before he knew it she had her hand in his. She was looking at him with laughter lighting all her face. "I knew that we should understand each other after all." And while they still stood there hand in hand, looking at each other--but with such different expressions on their faces--the door opened and Mr. Ash came in. CHAPTER XV THE LADY EXPLAINS STILL FURTHER "When a woman says she will, she will! You may depend on't! And when she says she won't, she won't! And there's an end on't!" "I knew you would! I knew you had only got to get together to understand each other perfectly." This was what Mr. Ash said as he entered the room. He had caught Miss Truscott's words, but misapplied their meaning. He advanced towards Mr. Ely with beaming countenance. "I congratulate you, Ely; I do with all my heart. Who was right about the little misunderstanding, now? Did I not tell you that there was a romantic side about the feminine character with which you were unacquainted, a sort of airy nothing which is a source of continual perplexity to the most experienced man. And wasn't it worth it all for the sake of the reconciliation at the end?" Mr. Ely gasped. "This--this is the final straw!" "Ah, my boy, I know more about a woman than you. We old bachelors are not quite blind, after all." It was with difficulty that Mr. Ely obtained sufficient self-control to enable him to speak. "Do I understand that you are offering me your congratulations?" "Certainly! I congratulate you with all my heart, my boy." Mr. Ash held out his hand. Mr. Ely ignored it. He did more. He looked as though he would have liked to have spurned it from him. He eyed Mr. Ash with withering scorn. "I'm a fit subject for congratulations. I'm the happiest man alive. I suppose there's no man in England who has more cause to bless his stars than I have." "I am so glad to hear it, Mr. Ely, I cannot tell." Mr. Ely started as though he had been shot. Mrs. Clive had, in her turn, made her appearance on the scene. She, too, had overheard his words. She came sailing across the room all smiles and condescension. "I knew my niece, you see. Who should know her if not I? The girl has been to me as my own child. What I learnt at my mother's knees I, in my turn, have taught to her--what she is she owes to me. Receive my sincerest congratulations, Mr. Ely, upon this fortunate event." Mr. Ely stared at the old lady as though his eyes were starting from his head. It was only after an interval that his thoughts were able to find expression in speech. "I don't know if all the world has lost its mental equilibrium, or if it's only I! What she is she owes to you? I don't know that I should like to be owed a debt like that, by George! You have taught her what you yourself learnt at your mother's knee? You must have learnt some funny things! And as for your congratulations--as for your congratulations, madam"--Mr. Ely settled his waistcoat in its place--"I don't know if a deliberate insult is intended, but in any case you may postpone your congratulations to a future date." Mr. Ash looked surprised, Mrs. Clive bewildered. But Miss Truscott laughed--the most musical of little laughs. "You see, my good people, although you are all of you older than I, there is not one of you who understands." "That's one consolation," said Mr. Ely, "at any rate." Miss Truscott, without heeding him, went on, to Mr. Ash's and Mrs. Clive's increasing bewilderment-- "One would really think that love was quite a new creation--you seem never to have heard of it before! You see, guardian"--she turned with an air of the most bewitching frankness to Mr. Ash--"when your letter came I was more than twelve months gone in love. I think that love must be a sort of disease which has to run its course through different stages. I was in the stage of dark despair. At that moment I would have married Pompey had he asked me--I looked on Mr. Ely just as I would have looked on Pompey, you understand." "Flattering, upon my word!" Mr. Ely was just able to articulate. But Miss Truscott only looked at him and laughed. "But the morning after, that stage had passed away, and with it all the things which appertained to it had gone--whether you call it Pompey or Mr. Ely, it is just the same, those things had gone--I was sane again, in my right mind. Love claimed me on that day, and, of course when love claimed me I was his. For to think"--she bore herself quite straight, with her head a little back, so that, in some strange way, she seemed to have grown in stature before their very eyes--"for to think that this to me means love"--she motioned to Mr. Ely with her hand--"this little gentleman of stocks and shares--it is the most foolish thing that ever yet I heard. None knows better than this gentleman himself that love is just the thing he does not even care to understand; and to me, love, with the eternity of meaning the little word conveys, is all the world." She favoured Mr. Ely with her most sweeping curtsey, the sweetest mockery of laughter in her eyes. "Mr. Ely, I wish you, sir, good day. For the engagement-ring which cost you twenty pounds I hope that you will find a wearer soon." She went to the window, and stood just outside, with her finger on her lips. "One word in confidence. Next time you ask a girl to be your wife, do not insist upon it as your chiefest qualification for the married state that you are indeed a business man!" She passed down the steps, and across the lawn, and went away; and directly she was out of sight they heard her voice upraised in a burst of joyous song. CHAPTER XVI THUNDER IN THE AIR There was silence in the room--an awkward silence. For some moments nobody seemed to think that there was anything left to say. It was noticeable that neither of the trio seemed to care to look the other in the face. Mr. Ely stood with his hands thrust to the extremest depths of his trouser pockets, staring moodily, not to say savagely, at the window through which Miss Truscott had disappeared. Mr. Ash stroked his chin with something of an embarrassed air--he did not seem to know where to rest his eyes. From the expression of her countenance, and from her bearing altogether, Mrs. Clive seemed to have had the faculty of speech knocked out of her. As perhaps was natural, Mr. Ely was the first who found his tongue. He pointed his words by looking at Mrs. Clive out of the corners of his eyes. "That's a nice way in which to bring up a girl!" His tone was distinctly venomous. Mr. Ash continued to stroke his chin. "It does seem," he hazarded, in a sort of deprecatory undertone, "it does seem as though she had imbibed some curious ideas." "That's the sort of girl to do anybody credit." "I confess," said Mr. Ash with a little cough, as though he wished to apologise for his confession, "I confess that I am surprised." Mrs. Clive, blissfully unconscious that it could enter into anybody's philosophy to think of attacking her, remained sublimely statuesque. "I say, without the slightest hesitation, that the person who is responsible for the education of that young woman has committed a crime against society." Mr. Ely turned on Mrs. Clive with something that was very like a snarl. The old lady started. For the first time it seemed to occur to her that the words were spoken with intention. Mr. Ash, who was still engaged upon his chin, did not appear to be able to go quite as far as his friend. "That--eh--is perhaps a strongish thing to say--hardly crime--but it really does appear that blame rests somewhere--it really does." But Mr. Ely was not to be gainsayed. No toning down of truths for him! "I said, and I say again, that the person who is responsible for the bringing up of that young woman has committed a crime against society." He turned so that he looked Mrs. Clive straight in the face. "A girl is entrusted to her aunt to receive her education. If that aunt betrays her trust--miseducates the child!--then I challenge contradiction when I say that that aunt pulls away one of the props, the absence of whose support threatens to undermine the very fabric of society." "Eh--there is--eh--of course one must admit that there is a certain substratum of truth in that." "Is it possible"--smoothing the front of her dress with her two hands, it was evident that Mrs. Clive was awaking to the nature of the outrageous attack of which she was being made the victim--"is it possible that these remarks are directed against me?" Thrusting his thumbs into his waistcoat armholes, Mr. Ely began to stride about the room. "Oh, it's easy to throw about oneself the cloak of womanhood, and to claim that the privilege of sex exonerates from blame, but I should like to know, if this is to be the fate of the coming generation of young women, what will our future mothers be?" Imitating Mr. Ely, Mr. Ash also thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat armholes. "Just so! What will our future mothers be?" "Our future mothers! Am I not a mother, then?" But neither of the gentlemen paid the slightest attention to Mrs. Clive. "It is not a question of our mothers only, it is a question of our fathers, too!" "That is so. There can be no doubt that the maternal and paternal questions are closely intertwined." "I never thought"--Mrs. Clive produced her handkerchief--"I never thought that I should have lived to see this day!" Mrs. Clive began to cry; but neither of the gentlemen seemed at all abashed. They had a duty to perform, and evidently meant to carry it through. "'Our acts our judges are, for good or ill. Fatal shadows--which march by us still!'" It was such an unusual thing for Mr. Ely to essay quotation that it was not surprising if the poet's words got slightly mangled in production. "The thing you do is like the seed you sow, it grows and grows until it assumes gigantic proportions, and blights your life and the lives of all whose paths you cross. You cannot get away from that!" "You certainly cannot get away from that! That is well put--very well put, indeed!" But Mrs. Clive was not to be trampled upon in silence. She turned on Mr. Ely with undaunted mien. "May I ask, Mr. Ely, for an explanation of the language which you use?" "Your niece, ma'am, is sufficient explanation. You say that what she is she owes to you. I presume her singular notions of morality among the rest!" "Ahem!" Mr. Ash contented himself with clearing his throat. "Mr. Ely, I am as much surprised at my niece's behaviour as you can possibly be." "Surprised, madam! Why are you surprised? You say that you have handed on to her the precepts which you yourself imbibed at your mother's knee!" "Sir!" Mrs. Clive turned towards Mr. Ash with her grandest air. "Mr. Ash, may I ask you to protect me from this gentleman?" "I certainly understood you to say," stammered Mr. Ash, when he was thus appealed to, "that you had handed on to her the precepts which you had imbibed at your mother's knees?" "Mr. Ash!" Up went the handkerchief to the injured lady's eyes. "It's easy enough to cry," sneered Mr. Ely. "I believe that some people keep a stock of tears on hand. At the same time"--he turned on Mr. Ash with a sudden ferocity that was really startling--"don't suppose for a moment that I acquit you entirely from blame." Mrs. Clive's tears were checked in the very act of starting to her eyes. Mr. Ash, about to move from the position in front of the fireplace which he had occupied until then, was apparently momentarily turned into stone. This sudden change of front seemed to take him very much aback. "Oh, I know! I know!" continued Mr. Ely. "You may stare at me as much as you please, but I'm not to be frightened by your looks! I've not forgotten how you tried to rob me once before." "This," exclaimed Mr. Ash, looking up, as though he apostrophised the skies, "is the most outrageous attack of which I ever heard!" He had apparently forgotten that Mrs. Clive had just been the victim of a very similar attack in which he and his present antagonist had joined their forces. "Bah!" cried Mr. Ely; "stuff and nonsense! Whenever there is any dirty work about I always see your hand. Who robbed me of a thousand pounds!" "This," exclaimed Mr. Ash, extending his hands as though he were addressing an unseen audience, "is the man who robbed me of five hundred and thirty-three pounds thirteen and fourpence!" Mr. Ely flung himself upon a seat and nursed his knee. "If I had done what I ought to have done, I should have locked you up." "Locked me up!" The words were gasped rather than spoken. Mr. Ash turned to Mrs. Clive with the apparent intention of explaining to her the situation--it perhaps required explanation. "Madam, you see this man" ("this man" was the recent friend of his bosom, Frederic Ely), "he is so incapable of concealing his true character that even an inexperienced girl has found him out, and because she--very properly--refuses to have anything to do with him at any price, he turns on me! Madam," Mr. Ash became warmer as he spoke, "you are not acquainted with the intricacies of the Stock Exchange, but I think you will understand me when I tell you that I once sold him a quantity of a certain stock, and when there was a fall, so that there was a profit in my favour of five hundred and thirty-three pounds thirteen shillings, he had the audacity to say that I had bought, not sold, and he actually declared that the transaction had referred to double amount of the stock than was in reality the case, and he even preferred a claim against me for over a thousand pounds!" "How shocking!" said Mrs. Clive. Though it may be suspected that she would have found it difficult to explain what was shocking if she had been required to do so on the spot. Mr. Ely rose from his seat. He seemed more at his ease than he had been since he entered the room, as though falling out with Mr. Ash had relieved his mind. "Ah," he observed, "that's the sort of man he is; if he robbed his mother he would swear that she'd robbed him. But perhaps he's not to blame. According to the new philosophy that sort of thing is in the blood." Mr. Ash turned pale. "Mrs. Clive, may I ask you to withdraw?" "That's another of his dodges; he doesn't want you to know what sort of man he is. But I don't mind telling you, not the least. He's not the sort of man I should care to choose to be trustee to my girl. He is the sort of man who regards a trusteeship as the royal road to wealth." Mr. Ash began to grow angry, which was not surprising on the whole. "Mrs. Clive, that man is the greatest thief in town." "That's why he wanted me to marry his ward--that we might go halves, you know." This remark so evidently enraged Mr. Ash that Mrs. Clive actually feared that hostilities would be commenced upon her drawing-room floor. She endeavoured to interpose. "Gentlemen, I must beg of you to consider where you are!" "You mustn't ask from him impossibilities; he can't realise that he's in a respectable house, you know." Mr. Ash almost foamed at the lips. "If you will not withdraw, Mrs. Clive, then in your presence I shall be compelled to thrash this man within an inch of his life." "Gentlemen! I do beg of you!--I pray!" "There's not the slightest occasion to be alarmed. Threatened men proverbially live long. Honest men know from experience that they can listen unmoved to the tall language used by the more doubtful members of society." Mr. Ely ostentatiously jingled the money in his trouser pockets, and smiled a beatific smile. "You hound!" Mrs. Clive was in time to seize Mr. Ash's uplifted arm. "Mr. Ash!" she cried. "Hallo, Ash! What's the matter, Ash? Want to exhibit a little valour on the cheap?" "You cur!" Mr. Ash caught Mr. Ely by the collar, and Mr. Ely sprang at Mr. Ash's throat. The lady screamed. A very pretty fight was spoiled by the sudden appearance of other actors on the scene. CHAPTER XVII MR. ELY THROWS THE LADY OVER "Guardian! Mr. Ely! What is the matter now?" Miss Truscott and Mr. Summers were standing at the window. They had approached unperceived in the excitement of the little argument which had been taking place within. The lady's face was lighted with her sweetest, happiest smile. The gentleman, too, seemed at his ease; he had the lady's hand in his. The perfect agreement which evidently existed between the lovers was in striking contrast to the perfect disagreement which was conspicuous within. Outside the room, perfect peace; inside the room, a raging storm. On the appearance of this united pair the combatants had the grace to let each other go. All signs of actual violence vanished into space. The old lady ceased to scream. Mr. Ash hastened to the window; his plumes were still a little ruffled. "Lily, you have been better advised than I. I commend your choice. Rather than see you the wife of such a man as Frederic Ely, I would cut your throat." Miss Truscott looked surprised. Mr. Ash's language was strong in an unexpected place. Mr. Summers laughed outright. Mr. Ely picked up his hat, which had been up to now reposing on a chair, and settled it upon his head. "Mr. Summers, I can't congratulate you--I really can't. Not that I have anything to say against the lady--at least not much. But the man Ash--her guardian--is the most notorious character in town. Rather than become in any way connected with such a person as that I would march single to the silent grave. Good day, Mrs. Clive. I hope that Pompey continues in the enjoyment of good health." Nodding slightly to Mrs. Clive, Mr. Ely swaggered from the room. Miss Truscott's look of surprise when he had gone was comical. "Guardian, what does this mean?" Mr. Ash still seemed a little uncomfortable, but he tried to pass it off as lightly as he could. "Nothing, my dear, nothing. Let me beg of you to dismiss the incident wholly from your mind. Mr. Ely has revealed an unexpected phase in his character, but it was a phase which was better discovered early than late. I assure you that your engagement with my old friend Summers gives me complete content. May your days be happy and your love live long." The lady looked her lover in the face. "It will live long, I think." "I am sure it will," said he. They clasped each other by the hand; the old lady and the stockbroker turned away. There is a candour about true love which worldly minds find at times embarrassing. Shortly afterwards the following announcement appeared in a daily paper-- "Ely--Rosenbaum.--On the 6th instant, at St. Philip's, South Kensington, Frederic Ely, Esq., of the Stock Exchange, to Ruth, sixth and youngest daughter of Myer Rosenbaum, Esq., of Queen's Gate, S.W., and the Stock Exchange. No cards." Miss Truscott showed this to Mr. Summers. They laughed together when they read it. Not many weeks elapsed before their names appeared in the same column of the _Times_. UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON. 
57975	----	available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/excavatinghusban00wall EXCAVATING A HUSBAND by ELLA BELL WALLIS The McLean Company Publishers Baltimore, Md. Copyright 1916 Ella Bell Wallis EXCAVATING A HUSBAND Katherine Boulby had reached her fiftieth year, and all these years had been spent in single blessedness. It is true that she had not realized the entirety of the perfect calm and peace that abides in the maiden state, for her brother Joseph and she lived together. But Miss Katherine--as she was commonly called in her native town--was of a cheerful disposition and said that she felt she was indeed blessed among women, as she had graciously been endowed with sense enough to choose a free and unfettered life, and the vexations and limitations contingent upon the proximity of one of the male sex, had been mitigated as much as possible for her as her brother was a quiet, fairly pliant man who rarely interfered with her plans for broadening and enriching her mind. This mental culture was Miss Katherine's chief aim in life, and it was not a selfish one. She never refused to give abundantly of her knowledge, and ever strove to correct and purify the literary and artistic tastes of her friends. It would be quite impossible to state upon what lines Miss Katherine pursued her mental cultivation, for, like the great geniuses, she was extremely versatile, and in almost every subject she described an avenue which, if followed to the end would lead at last to the goal whither she was bound. As Miss Katherine strayed from one path to another in the great labyrinth of learning, it is very probable that she was inextricably lost and didn't know it. But she found pleasure and sustenance therein, and never sought to find herself. Now, it is far from my purpose to represent my heroine as a blue-stocking or as other than a most charming person. Had she pursued her studies methodically and scientifically she might not have been the same delightful woman that she was, but she flitted from romantic prose to didactic poetry and from poetry to astrology, and thence to architecture, history or biology. In Miss Katherine you found a person who possessed a rare instinct concerning hobbies. She never became so abstruse as to be unintelligible to her friends who were not hobbyists. She dealt in interesting and easy generalities. In fact, Miss Katherine was one of a type the world cannot spare. Of good, sound, common sense she possessed the usual allotment, but in rare, child-like enthusiasm and love of romance she was richly endowed. It is true that at times everything but romantic fancies seemed expelled from her mind, but the complications thus arising were of no moment when all the brightness and zest she infused into life were considered. It was psychologically impossible for Miss Katherine to view the commonplace occurrences of everyday life in the same light as do most of us. She found in a very ordinary event the nucleus of something interesting and romantic. So you see there was nothing of the blue-stocking about my heroine. There is another matter upon which the reader must be clear. One might think from Miss Katherine's fervent thankfulness for her single state that she had an aversion to men. Such was the case only in theory. It seemed more fitting for a single woman of artistic temperament to avow a distaste for the society of the coarser sex, but in reality she got along rather better with men than women. As a rule, men are better listeners than women, and Miss Katherine found them more disposed to listen to her latest ideas and freshest aspirations than were women. She did not credit these listeners with ability to understand all she was saying and this incapacity in man was the reason she had never married. She had a susceptible heart, but it would respond only to him who would understand her. She was not at all averse to marriage and kept a vigilant eye upon the horizon that she might catch the first possible glimpse of the romantic figure she confidently expected would one day loom thereon. His appearance was long delayed, and, while Miss Katherine did not mourn because of this, still she wisely considered moving to where she would view a new and broader horizon. One day she came upon the following advertisement: "For Rent--Furnished house, property of Captain Peter Shannon; delightful situation, attractive and comfortable house; garden contains very choice plants and shrubs. Apply, W. J. Skinner, Ocean View." "There!" exclaimed Miss Katherine to her brother, "isn't it delightful to find just what we want with so little trouble?" "How do you know it's just what we want?" asked Joseph, who had partially consented to his sister's suggestion that they rent a house near the sea during the spring and summer. Miss Katherine did not possess any occult power by which she could visualize the property advertised, but she did have a remarkable faculty for reading between lines. It often happened that she found there that which defied every other interpretation, but this was possibly owing to her highly developed imagination. She had so often urged her brother to develop this quality, that now his utter lack of imagination made her reply crisply-- "How do I know? Because my mind has certain qualities that I see yours will never possess, and besides I think a little. Now consider this advertisement with the aid of a very little imagination and common sense. The owner is a sea captain. That is a volume in itself to me. Sailors are very fond of the picturesque, so I should expect Captain Shannon's house to be delightfully situated, quaint and comfortable. I can't imagine anyone from whom I'd rather buy property than from such a man as Captain Shannon must be," concluded Miss Katherine. "Why don't he live in it himself, then, if it's such a fine place?" inquired Joseph with an attempt at sarcasm which was quite beyond him. "Can he live in a house on the land and sail on the sea at the same time?" demanded his disgusted sister. "Well, if I had such a place as you say it is I wouldn't be risking my neck on the sea. I'd stay right there and raise vegetables," returned Joseph. Joseph was several years older than his sister and as he had just retired from business with the intention of spending the remainder of his days in peace and calm, he thought it wise not to jeopardize this residue of his life by running counter to any fixed idea of his sister. But in yielding to Miss Katherine's strong desire to spend the spring and summer near the sea, Joseph was not solely actuated by fear of her displeasure. He thought that a few months of undisturbed gardening would be the purest possible happiness, so readily consented to Miss Katherine's going to view the place for rent. She went, she saw and she was captivated. Such a view! Such a garden! Nothing could be more delightful. Ocean View was not far distant from their home, so the day after his sister's return Joseph set out to see the house for himself. He found Miss Katherine's praise very just. It was indeed a most pleasant place, and though the garden sadly needed care, that fact, in Joseph's eyes, did not detract from the desirability of the place. Beneath a very impassive exterior he concealed a tenderness and real passion for flowers and a garden. He had passed his days in his hardware shop among unlovely objects, and had never gratified this one passion, which was still strong. But now Joseph thought of the long spring and summer days spent in the garden, and went in haste to interview the agent. "Captain Shannon's place, eh?" said Mr. Skinner. "It used to be a pretty place when the Captain lived there, and I have had good tenants who have kept it up pretty well, but we didn't rent it last year so it's grown up rather wild. Would you happen to be fond of flowers, now?" Upon Joseph's replying that he was, Mr. Skinner continued: "Captain Shannon lived there only two years when he took to sea again. I don't know whether he's dead or alive, for that's seven years ago, and I've never seen or heard from him since. I send the rent to his bank in New York, but it's my opinion that he's gone where he don't need money, for if he was alive why wouldn't he come back and spend the rest of his days here? He ain't a young man by any means, about sixty, I think. But I was going to tell you why I asked if you were fond of flowers. The Captain was crazy about them and kept a record of all his choice plants. That book's in the library now. Well, when he told me he was going to sea again and asked to rent the place, he said to get a tenant that would look after the plants. It just seemed to me he wanted to stay, but the sea pulled too strong for him and he had to go. But now if you like pottering round in a garden, that's just the place for you." Joseph felt it was but did not express himself too strongly until he had concluded a very good bargain. To Miss Katherine's extreme delight Joseph was ready to move to Ocean View without delay. She had drawn from him all the information concerning Captain Shannon that he had obtained from Mr. Skinner. She had immediately jumped to the conclusion that the Captain had been lost at sea. To tell the truth, although she had as tender a heart as woman ever possessed, the owner's tragic end rather increased her delight in her surroundings. It wasn't every day one had the opportunity of handling things that had belonged to one for whom fate had destined such a tragic end. It was towards the books in the library that she felt most reverently. Not for a moment could she forget that these books had been selected, read and loved by Captain Peter Shannon, victim of the cavernous seas. But soon she came to value the books for themselves, for she found them much to her taste. There was nothing in literature that so captivated Miss Katherine as tales of daring on land or sea, and of these the Captain's library was full. "Captain Shannon must have been a very interesting man," she remarked rather sadly to Joseph. "I can tell by his books. His tastes were just like mine," she added naively. "Don't let your mind run on him too much, Katie," advised Joseph. "It would only lead to disappointment, for he's most likely drowned or dead, it don't matter which." "I'd try to exercise a little common sense, Joseph Boulby," returned his sister acidly. "Why, ain't I?" asked Joseph. "I don't see anything unreasonable about warning you not to set your heart upon a dead man. There's not much chance of a corpse coming to life these days." Joseph's delight in his garden was actually making him facetious. However strongly Miss Katherine became convinced that, had he lived, there would have been a strong affinity and perhaps something more between Captain Shannon and herself, she did not become depressed. But without doubt there entered into Miss Katherine's heart a sentiment that she had never experienced before. In a closet full of rubbish she found a portrait of a seamanly looking, heavily whiskered man. This she rightly conjectured to be a feeble attempt to reproduce on canvas Captain Shannon's noble countenance. She tastefully framed the portrait and hung it over the books she fancied he had best loved. Having made an exhaustive examination of the books on the library shelves, Miss Katherine turned her attention to the papers which the table and desk contained. She felt no compunction in doing this, although she rarely meddled with the affairs of others. But to Captain Shannon's personal papers she felt she had a peculiar right, a sort of spiritual right. What she found among these papers was of such interest and import that she rushed at once to find her brother. "Joseph! Joseph Boulby!" she gasped. "You'll never guess what I've found! The log of a schooner! Captain Shannon's schooner. He was shipwrecked and the schooner was lost but--I'll read it to you, Joseph: 'Log of Schooner Fare-thee-well'--isn't that a fine name--'Peter Shannon owner and master. "'May 17, '05. "'Sailed from Manzanilla with cargo of lumber for Panama. Wind blowing strong from N. W. "'Made 105 miles. "'May 18. "'Wind increased in volume. Still running with wind on starboard beam. Unable to make an observation. Made 190 miles by dead reckoning. "'May 19. "'Wind veered slightly to westward and continued to freshen. Glass falling rapidly. Made 204 miles. "'Above is log of schooner up to May 20, from which time it was impossible to keep further record until she was beached. Following is story of the last voyage of the Fare-thee-well. It was written after landing on Cocos Island. "'May 20. Hurricane struck us at four bells in the afternoon watch, as nearly as I can remember. Called all hands to close reef the mainsail, intending to run before wind under storm jib and mainsail reefed down, when enormous sea struck us washing away mate and two seamen, leaving only myself and boy. Schooner heeled so far to port that I feared she could not right herself, and water covered half the desk. Strain on mainsail so great that it snapped about fourteen feet above deck carrying sail and top hamper with it. Boy and I managed to cut away all stays and shrouds and cleared away the wreckage, after which we scuddled before the wind under bare poles. With help of boy I managed to rig spare topsail from stump of mainmast and with storm jib we managed to keep steerage way upon her. "'May 21. Still running before the wind. "'May 22. Do. "'May 23. Do. "'May 24. Just before midnight, as near as I can remember, schooner struck with terrible force and waves swept her from stem to stem. Boy carried overboard. Was unable to do anything to save him. "'May 25. When morning came the sea had gone down somewhat and I discovered an island about one hundred fathoms on port bow. Was afraid vessel would break up so made a raft with what spars and lumber I could get together, and taking the log book, a few tools, instruments and provisions, I endeavored to reach the land. After great difficulty I landed on what proved to be Cocos Island.'" For a moment or two after she had ceased reading, Miss Katherine remained silent as if overpowered. She soon recovered speech however. "I thought I had estimated Captain Shannon correctly when I said that he was no ordinary man, but I don't believe I did full justice to him. Did you notice the style of this narrative, Joseph? It is so direct and simple, but forceful and compelling. I don't think I would be going too far to say that there is the stamp of genius upon this manuscript. And his modesty, Joseph! Nothing about his wonderful seamanship that kept the ship afloat or about the quick wittedness and strength that saved him, or about his sojourn on the island or his daring escape from it!" "I suppose a ship came along and took him off," said Joseph. "I don't see any daring in that." "Well, if you don't, I do," retorted his sister. "The idea of a man like Captain Shannon waiting for a ship to take him away!" "Well, it would be more sensible to wait a spell before he started out," observed Joseph. Tenderly disposed as she was to the memory of Captain Shannon, Joseph's remark grated upon Miss Katherine, and she made a very cutting remark about people who had no fine sensibilities themselves and could not feel for others who had. However, she forgave and forgot very quickly, and the next evening she confided to Joseph a most important discovery. "You remember that I read last night that Captain Shannon had been on Cocos Island?" she asked. Joseph replied that he remembered all she had read to him. "Well," continued Miss Katherine, "the name of that island bothered me all night, and to-day I set to work to find out what I had heard about it. This is what I found in the encyclopedia: "'Cocos Island, volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean, S. W. of Costa Rica, with steep rugged coasts and quite level interior; comprises about nine square miles, is uninhabited and is reported to have been the place of concealment of treasure, jewelry and plate sent there by wealthy inhabitants of Spanish colonies on the neighboring mainland early in the nineteenth century, during the wars in which they achieved their independence from Spain. The belief that many of these valuables have never been recovered led to a number of unsuccessful search expeditions.' "They have never been recovered, Joseph," repeated Miss Katherine with glistening eyes. "Did you note the significance of that? The treasure was there when Captain Shannon landed on the island, and there he was alone on the island, with provisions enough to enable him to remain there a considerable time, with tools to aid him in a complete search, and with a raft to carry him to the mainland when he had found the object of his search. What do you think now, Joseph?" "He must have had a devil of a time landing on that island in a raft if the coast is rugged and steep, as it says," remarked Joseph irrelevantly. Miss Katherine wanted to shake her brother, but she brought wile instead of strength to her aid. Joseph was known among his neighbors to be "a little close." He certainly regarded with respect and almost reverence whatever represented a good sum of dollars. "That treasure must have been worth millions of dollars," began Miss Katherine. "Even if Captain Shannon discovered or brought away only a small part of it, there would have been great wealth in that part." "But he might not have known anything about it," interposed Joseph, who was becoming interested. "The idea!" exclaimed his sister, "Captain Shannon not to know all about Cocos Island!" But Joseph wasn't to be scorned off well taken ground, and maintained that the Captain had had too much sense to put dependence in such yarns as that. Miss Katherine began very patiently: "It isn't a yarn, but a well substantiated fact that every sea captain would know. But I have good reasons for believing he found it," concluded Miss Katherine mysteriously. Miss Katherine closed her lips tightly as if she knew a great deal but was resolved to make no more disclosures to a skeptic. She acted very wisely, for curiosity is not confined exclusively to females. Joseph resisted as long as he could and then said in a gruffly apologetic tone: "I didn't mean to offend you, Katie; but I was trying to see all sides of the case. Would you have any idea where he put the money and valuables, if he found them?" Miss Katherine was quite mollified. "I wouldn't want to say that I knew exactly where he put them, but I'll tell you what I've deduced from the facts of the case. One would suppose that Captain Shannon had put all his money into his schooner which was lost, but notwithstanding that he immediately settles here and spends a good deal of money upon this property. I am convinced that that money was part of the treasure he found on Cocos Island." Miss Katherine paused impressively. "Where is the rest?" asked her brother in almost child-like faith. "Fate destined the Captain to be a victim of the sea, so he had to leave, and he thought to himself that he wanted his treasure to fall into the hands of some kindred spirit, should he never return. Captain Shannon is a man whom few understand, but I am convinced that I do. He was a man of strong human sympathy--" "Yes, Katie, dear," interrupted Joseph meekly. "What you say is perfectly correct, but what were you going to say about the treasure?" "I was just about to explain it all, Joseph. He wanted his treasure to fall into the hands of some kindred spirit, should he never return, some one who would be able to deduce his idea from the clews he left behind. First he leaves instructions that only congenial people are to rent this property, then he leaves his diary. Then he says to himself, 'If the person that reads this diary is really interested in me, that person will find out the history of Cocos Island and infer my discovery of the treasure.' And then he thought it would be but a short step to the actual finding of the treasure." "Humph!" grunted Joseph. "A short step? In what direction I'd like to know?" "I am not prepared to say exactly where it is," explained Miss Katherine, "but my theory is that it is secreted about the house or garden." "If it's in that garden," began Joseph, energetically but was interrupted. "We must be very guarded and no one must suspect our purpose," cautioned Miss Katherine. "We cannot tell to what ends people might go if it was discovered that there was a great treasure concealed here. We will have to be careful about admitting strangers to the house or garden. It is very probable that some sailors, friends of Captain Shannon's, might have suspected this, for I never read a treasure story yet where someone didn't make trouble." Twice that night, after Miss Katherine had retired to rest, she almost rose from her bed at the thought that the house was in a most unfortified state. Whether she expected to see John Silver, wooden leg, urbanity and all, climbing in at the window, I can not say, but she felt so insecure that it was long after midnight when she fell asleep. She dreamed that Captain Shannon and she were sailing away to Cocos Island and he was telling her that all the jewels there were hers if she would only take him, too. Ah! the futility of the sweetest dreams! But the next day Miss Katherine had the treasure searching problem well in hand. Her mind had at once turned to the classic on this subject, and she hastened to find Poe's "Purloined Letter" and "Gold Bug." Therein she found many possible methods and studied in detail the house-searching methods of the Parisian commissaire de police. She imparted something of what she had learned to Joseph, but he didn't have any faith in 'yarns.' His fingers were itching to use the spade and pick-axe, but this Miss Katherine strictly forbade as yet. The next day she continued her studies and was in a most interesting and instructive part when the door bell rang. She knew that Mrs. White, their only maid, was so employed that she could not go to the door. Reluctantly she laid down her book and answered the ring. A well-built, fresh, clean shaven man of about sixty regarded Miss Katherine pleasantly as he inquired if Mr. Boulby were home. Upon being informed that Mr. Boulby was not home, the stranger said that with permission he would step in and explain his business. The line of thought upon which Miss Katherine had been intent for the past few days had inclined her to be suspicious, and she regarded the stranger with a distrustful eye. He, however, was quite unobservant of this attitude toward himself, and he stepped into the hall. Miss Katherine was compelled to conduct him to the library, the other rooms being in the throes of house-cleaning. As the stranger entered that room his eye fell immediately upon Captain Shannon's portrait which occupied a very conspicuous place. He seemed struck by it, and as Miss Katherine turned to offer him a chair she saw him gazing at it with great interest. "Ah, you observe Captain Shannon's portrait," said Miss Katherine in a pleased voice. "We have just come here, but I am greatly interested in the Captain. I found the portrait in a closet and framed it. I think it is a remarkable face, don't you?" The question seemed to confuse the stranger. "I--er--do you?" he stammered. "I--er--I believe I have met the Captain, oh, I mean I knew him quite well. Now, er, well really what is remarkable about the face?" "There is so much remarkable about it, to me," returned Miss Katherine. "There is unusual strength in every feature, it seems to me, and the face is a most interesting and attractive one." The stranger's hand crept to his face where it went through the motions of clutching a beard, an adornment which he lacked. He gazed stupidly from the portrait to Miss Katherine and back again to the portrait. He spoke in a very hesitating and uncertain way. "Did you say--that you--er--found the portrait in a closet--er--and went to the trouble of framing it?" "Yes, that is quite correct. But it was no trouble, only a pleasure and the contemplation of those features has amply repaid me," replied Miss Katherine. "It--er--will naturally be very gratifying to--er--the Captain--ah--when he returns--ah--to find his portrait so--er--highly valued," observed the man. "I'm sure I couldn't say about that as the poor Captain was drowned, at least he is supposed to have been lost at sea. But I believe him to have been a very modest man, and I doubt whether it would really gratify him to see his portrait there." The stranger's hand again went to his face, and as it was a large hand almost covered the features. "I hadn't heard," he began in a very throaty voice, "I--I--didn't know that the Captain--ah--wasn't--er--what you just said, you know." Miss Katherine observed the stranger sympathetically. He had evidently been a friend of the Captain and felt his loss. "Sit down, sir," she said kindly, "I see you feel this, and no wonder. Of course in cases like this one is never sure just what has happened; but it is believed that Captain Shannon must have met with some misfortune as he has not been heard from for seven years." "Oh! seven years!" repeated the man. "Ah, I see." "It is a pity that such a man as Captain Shannon should be cut off in his prime," sighed Miss Katherine. "Ah, you think that the late Captain was--er--a--ah--some good in the world?" inquired the stranger. "I am very sure he was that and a most charming man besides," replied Miss Katherine, her eyes dwelling admiringly and wistfully on the portrait. "The Captain should be hap--ah, I mean--er--it is pleasant--er--I should say, madam, that--ah--in fact I am detaining you," he lucidly concluded. "Not at all," returned Miss Katherine affably. "If you would explain your business I might serve in place of my brother, or I can tell him you called, Mr. ----" "Oh--a--Murphy," supplied the stranger hastily. "I knew this place was for rent but didn't know whether it had been taken or not so I thought I'd see about it. It would suit me splendidly. Would you--ah--could you consider a lodger, madam?" "Well, really," replied Miss Katherine very pleasantly--the man was very gentlemanly and not at all ordinary--"really, I'm afraid not, although I should very much like to accommodate you." "Oh, that's alright," Mr. Murphy assured her. "It's a nice healthy spot and I think I'll spend a few months here--to--er--recover my health." Miss Katherine looked at his fresh face and vigorous frame in some surprise, whereupon Mr. Murphy made haste to explain: "I am feeling very much better now, but not quite right. I--ah--should be able to lift five hundred pounds. Well now, I'll just say good morning and I'll see if I can get suitable lodgings somewhere near. I feel--er--that our common friendship for the late Captain Shannon should be--ah--a sort of bond, so to speak, between us, so I shall drop in to see you again." Miss Katherine gave him a very cordial invitation to come and see her brother and herself frequently. When the door had closed upon Mr. Murphy, a shade passed over her face and she betook herself again to the library. Could it be that this stranger was a spy? Had he really known the Captain and suspected the existence of the treasure? Was he going to stay in the vicinity to keep watch upon them? Miss Katherine trembled as she thought of what might have become of Joseph and herself if she had taken him as a lodger. But here poor Miss Katherine's heart suffered a pang, for she thought of the gentlemanly deportment and attractive appearance of her visitor. He had seemed quite impressed with her, too. There was no denying it. She rose from the chair with a sigh and walked about the room. "I must hide the book, anyway," she exclaimed aloud. "There's no telling what that man was after and I'd better put it in a safe place." She took the treasured volume--Capt. Shannon's diary--and, after glancing out of the window to make sure she was not watched, she stole cautiously from the room as if the house were full of spies. When she reached the floor above she stood still, wondering what hiding places the house afforded. There were not many, she knew, but now she could think of none. Downstairs was out of the question. Anyone could come in there at night and carry it off. The second floor was little better for the windows were all open and anyone could enter them by means of a ladder. The attic! Yes, that was the only place and Miss Katherine flew up the steep stairs to the attic. There was a very little light admitted through a small window, and when her eyes became accustomed to the dim light, she saw a trap door in the ceiling. Of all places in the world this was the most desirable. As luck would have it she found an old ladder among the rubbish. One end of this she placed against the trap door, then, pushing with all her might at the other end, she succeeded in raising the door and liberating clouds of dust, spiders, dead flies and cob-webs. Though half choked and blinded she proceeded to execute her scheme. Placing an end of the ladder in the opening she endeavored to make it secure from slipping. Of its strength she was fairly satisfied, but she could not feel confident of its equilibrium. She did the best she could and then began the perilous ascent. She held the book in one hand and with the other clung fearfully to the rickety ladder. She stood in need of another prehensile member for the rungs of the ladder were worn smooth as glass and every upward step was fraught with danger. The ladder creaked ominously beneath a weight that was far from trifling. However, she made a steady progress, and when she had climbed as far as she dared, she very cautiously reached upward and placed the book upon the rafters. In her relief at having placed the book in safety she forgot caution and gave the ladder the excuse it was looking for. She felt the ladder going and frantically grabbed the side of the trap door. It was well her arms were not slender ones for they had to support her entire weight. The very ceiling creaked. A severe fall was to be preferred to bringing the roof down upon her, so she suddenly let go her hold and came crashing down upon the floor that quivered to receive its burden. But it was only a moment before Miss Katherine was sufficiently recovered to assure herself that, as the book was securely hidden nothing else was of consequence. Poor Miss Katherine was bruised all over and had considerable difficulty in hiding her physical sufferings from Mrs. White, who was a native of Ocean View, and therefore it would never do to arouse her suspicions. When that lady asked Miss Katherine how she got such a bruise on her arm, she replied that her flesh bruised at a touch and she must have struck it against something. But when Mrs. White inadvertently touched Miss Katherine upon quite another part of her body and she flinched before she recollected caution, the aforementioned lady began to wonder, and when a woman begins to wonder she soon has something to tell. When Joseph returned his sister related all that had occurred during his absence. His evident uneasiness concerning Mr. Murphy's motives was quite comforting. It is so gloomy to be the only anxious one in the house. "He can't set foot on the property if we forbid him," said Joseph with a determined countenance. "But we can't do that, at least it wouldn't be wise," remonstrated his sister gently. It was soothing to her bruises to note Joseph's anxiety. "He is a perfect gentleman, a man we couldn't treat rudely. He mightn't be spying at all and then we'd look ridiculous, or we might arouse suspicions in him by over caution. Now my plan is to let him call if he cares to, but never to leave him alone and to watch all his movements very carefully. He might unconsciously give us a clew if he has any exact knowledge of the whereabouts of the treasure. Now don't you think that's the wisest course to pursue?" Joseph had no wile in his makeup, so would have preferred a pugilistic encounter at the gate, as the best way of dealing with a spy, but his sister was undeniably the leader in this affair, so he agreed to remain passive while she matured her plan. It was well that they made their decision concerning the stranger when they did for the next day, in the afternoon, as Joseph was digging among the flowers in the front garden, Mr. Murphy appeared at the gate. Joseph's interest in his work had driven all thoughts of treasure and treasure seekers out of his mind. He supposed it to be one of his neighbors and merely looked up and nodded to the caller to enter. "Good afternoon neighbor," said Joseph with what breath his unwonted exertions allowed him, "could you tell me whether it's too late to separate these roots and transplant them? I think they're too thick, but I don't want to spoil 'em for blossoming this year. I think a piny is as pretty a flower as grows." "Why, now, I'd think this was about the right time to separate the roots, but you want to do it right. Now, if you'd just give me the spade I'll show you how to handle it and not cut the roots and I'll separate them, too," replied Joseph's neighbor, throwing off his coat and seizing the spade. Joseph stood by and watched for a few moments and then trotted off to get himself a spade. The two men spaded and puffed until all the peony roots lay on the fresh earth. Then the work of separation began. The supposed neighbor acted as teacher and Joseph was an interested pupil. "Bless my soul!" exclaimed Miss Katherine, as she looked out of the window. "Mr. Murphy!" For almost the first time in her life she experienced a pang of jealousy and pique. When she had advocated tolerancy towards the suspect, it must be confessed that Miss Katherine was influenced by more than one consideration. She had been inclined to think that if the stranger came again, she would be the magnet and not the treasure. And now here he was pottering around with Joseph! She didn't stay vexed long, for soon she thought he might have been coming to see her and Joseph in his stupid way had stopped him with questions about his flowers. And then he very likely was fond of flowers and gardening. All nice men were. The Captain had been passionately fond of them. Finally Miss Katherine sallied out with her most engaging countenance. "So you have pressed Mr. Murphy into service, Joseph?" she asked brightly. "Eh?" returned Joseph. How did Kate know this neighbor's name? "I haven't even introduced myself to your brother, Miss Boulby," explained Mr. Murphy. "We have been working so hard I clear forgot." "I mentioned Mr. Murphy's calling, if you remember," said Miss Katherine to her brother, nudging him sharply. "Oh, Mr. Murphy," repeated Joseph. He recollected it all now, and being no actor, dared do nothing but stare. "You must come in to tea," said Miss Katherine to Mr. Murphy, who accepted promptly. When his sister became leader in this scene, Joseph retired to the background and subsequently to the back yard. Miss Katherine conducted her guest to the library. Supper would soon be ready. "You remind me somewhat of Captain Shannon," remarked Miss Katherine. Mr. Murphy looked rather startled. "I mean that you are fond of gardening. I have been told that it was a passion with the Captain," explained Miss Katherine. "I heard something like that, too, about the Captain," returned Mr. Murphy, who seemed more fluent than upon his first visit. "How are you feeling to-day, Mr. Murphy?" inquired Miss Katherine kindly. "Feeling,--feeling?" repeated her guest in a puzzled way. "Do you think Ocean View will completely restore your health?" explained Miss Katherine. "Oh! Ah, yes!" hastily began Mr. Murphy. "To tell you the truth I have been so hearty lately that I forget I came here for my health." "Isn't that lovely!" exclaimed Miss Katherine delightedly. "Ah--er--yes, it is," replied her guest helplessly. He was unaccustomed to feminine effusiveness. "I--ah--really I find that Captain Shannon interests me. Would you tell me something more about him?" asked Mr. Murphy. "I suppose it is some years since you knew him?" interrogated Miss Katherine, and, as her guest made a rather unintelligible reply, she continued: "I have gathered very little from others concerning Captain Shannon, but I have deduced a great deal. I don't think there is any class of people so interesting as sailors, and especially captains. They are daring, picturesque, romantic, don't you think?"--Mr. Murphy scratched his head as if he would make an inlet for these new ideas.--"Paul Jones, Long Tom and even Captain Kidd were such captivating characters."--Mr. Murphy changed off to the other hand.--"On this account I was disposed to admire Captain Shannon, and when I noticed the books he had read and loved I admired him much more. I have always told my brother that a man is charming in proportion to his love of tales of daring and chivalry and romance." Here the tide of Miss Katherine's eloquence was interrupted by an eager gesture from her listener. "If Captain Shannon set such store by those books, I believe I'll have a try at them," he said. Miss Katherine's face glowed. Here was a man! She went to the shelves and read over the names. Seeing Mr. Murphy's lips moving as if he were committing them to memory she offered to make a list for him. This was too great a kindness! How much he would value it! All this and more that followed on the same lines raised Mr. Murphy to a great height in Miss Katherine's estimation. Through strict vigilance he succeeded in maintaining this exalted position. * * * * * Though other matters might temporarily thrust aside her central subject of interest, Miss Katherine invariably returned to it. The morning after Mr. Murphy's second visit she set to work in earnest to obtain a clew to the hiding place of Captain Shannon's treasure. Where was she to begin? She was well informed on the subject of secret drawers and closets and she knew that one was apt to stumble upon them unawares. An inadvertent touch upon a panel, the slightest pressure on some bit of carving might expose the most cleverly concealed hiding place. For this reason Miss Katherine experienced more or less uneasiness when Mrs. White was not directly under her eye. She found excuses to follow her about constantly, until that honest woman, being of ordinary penetration, concluded that she was not thought strictly trustworthy. As she was a very sensible being she decided that it was not unreasonable for Miss Boulby, an entire stranger, to keep an eye on her. She had heard of such substantials as butter, meat and flour disappearing through the back door, through the agency of the domestic, so she offered to get a testimonial from the minister. Miss Katherine saw her mistake at once and lied glibly but not well. She explained that since coming to that house she had been strangely timid and didn't like to be alone, and if Mrs. White had noticed her following her about it was for that reason and no other. To give weight to her assertion, she threw in a ghost or two that she had suspected the house of harboring. Miss Katherine would not have congratulated herself upon the success of her explanation had she known that Mrs. White was saying to herself that perhaps all that was true and perhaps it wasn't, but it would be wise for her to keep an eye on Miss Boulby. Miss Katherine had not yet made a sufficiently exhaustive study of Poe's Prose tales and was thus employed in the library the next morning, when, happening to glance up from her book, her eyes fell upon the great fireplace that occupied almost the entire end of the room. Miss Katherine received an inspiration. She sat up, straight and alert. "It is a most likely place," she said aloud. She went over to the fireplace, looked at it carefully and began a careful examination of the old-fashioned iron ornamentations. In the centre of the mantle was a dog's head in gilded iron. She pinched and pushed him, trying to find a spring in his eyes, nose, ears or tail. He remained immovable, however, as did everything else pertaining to the mantle. But there was still hope. She lightly tapped the brick walls for she had been reading Poe's frightful tale of the black cat, and she had learned that an unusual space in a wall could be detected by a light rap upon it. Miss Katherine's ear was not trained to this sort of divination, but she persevered, testing first a wall she was certain was solid and then working on a suspected area. Mrs. White had not forgotten her suspicions of the previous day and was on the alert. She knew Miss Boulby was in the library and when she caught the sound of a gently repeated, mysterious rapping in that room, she tiptoed to the door and applied her eye to the keyhole. What she saw would have made anyone inquire whether Miss Boulby were in possession of her senses or if she never had had any. She was down upon her knees before the hearth, gently tapping the bricks and listening intently to the sound she produced. "My stars alive!" whispered Mrs. White to herself as she rose on trembling limbs, "what's she after or is she crazy? It's my belief she's stark crazy." Unable to satisfactorily answer her own query she crept back to the kitchen, where she sat down and faced the situation. Was she not in danger by remaining there with a lunatic? She shivered when she thought that she very likely had been within an inch of death when Miss Boulby had taken to following her around. Thank goodness, she had taken to tearing the house to bits and not her! Mrs. White resolved to have a bad attack of sciatica that very night and to leave the next morning. Meanwhile she would be constantly on guard. All unsuspecting this attitude on Mrs. White's part, Miss Katherine was preparing for bed that night and thinking about the unfortunate impression she had made upon Mrs. White. "She is a good and sensible woman," said Miss Katherine to herself. "I should be very sorry to hurt her feelings or awaken any suspicions in her, but--I declare to goodness I've never searched the cellar and that's one of the likeliest places. I can't possibly do it in the daytime for she goes there so frequently. I'd just better slip down now and have a look." So saying, Miss Katherine slipped a heavy wrapper over her night dress, drew on her stockings and slippers, and with the extreme caution that makes every board in a floor creak and every joint in one's body crack, she proceeded down the stairs. Now this stealthy tread was just what Mrs. White's ears was expecting. "She's prowling round the house," whispered that lady to herself. "It's a mercy I didn't fall asleep." Having located the enemy, Mrs. White slipped out in cautious pursuit. She heard Miss Katherine enter into the kitchen and open the cellar door and start down the stairs. She stole out the front way and went round the house to a cellar window. When she arrived at that vantage point she beheld Miss Katherine standing in the centre of the cellar, holding a lamp above her head that she might first get a good general view before beginning particular investigations. "This is a difficult task," she said aloud, "the cellar is so large that it would take me all night to sound all the walls. Now, would there be an old iron-bound sea-chest, the kind sailors hide things in, in a corner here?" Holding her lamp well above her head, she slowly turned herself about that she might see every corner. Now it happened that old Tabby had just presented the thankless household with a family of kittens. She had thought that some straw that lay in a corner of the cellar would be a soft, safe bed for her babies, and as a broken window provided ingress and egress for herself, she had taken possession of the corner. Old Tabby's guard over her family was most vigilant, but she had not been disturbed until this strange figure made its appearance in the centre of the cellar. As Miss Katherine brought her light to bear upon Tabby's corner, the watcher at the window, who knew nothing of the family in the cellar, beheld the lamp dashed to the ground and heard a terrified but half-suppressed shriek and then flying footsteps. She did not wait to see or hear more but stole upstairs as fast as she could in a panic, not knowing but that she might meet the maniac on the stairs. "I'll be crazy, too, if I stay here any longer," she said to herself. "If I'm spared till morning I'll get out of this." She put all the movable furniture in her room against the door, sent up a fervent prayer for protection and got into bed, but not with the intention of sleeping. The next morning she informed Miss Boulby that she was far from well, was all crippled with sciatica and would have to leave. Her pale face corroborated her words and reluctantly Miss Katherine let her go. * * * * * I should like now to turn the reader's attention to our friend, Mr. Murphy. That gentleman had found comfortable lodgings and seemed to be getting much attached to Ocean View. By watching rather closely one might suspect that he wished to avoid the adults of Ocean View, excepting Mr. and Miss Boulby. He called upon them pretty frequently. The boys of the neighborhood found his society very entertaining and followed in a pack at his heels. He did not always welcome this following, however, for he often put a book in his pocket and rambled along the shore until he found just the right spot where he could sit and read undisturbed. He had taken to doing this immediately after his second call at the Boulbys'. The books he carried at first bore the mark of Ocean View Public Library. But one afternoon when he had found his favored spot, he drew from his pocket a glistening new volume. "Gosh darn it!" muttered Mr. Murphy, as he regarded the book, "if I'd ever thought I'd come to this I suppose I'd 've drowned myself." He leafed over the book and looked at the illustrations. "It ain't dull reading anyway. It might be worse. They say Cooper was a clever man so I guess it won't spoil my intellect to read 'em. But it does beat all how tenants use things. To think of those brand new books looking like that!" Mr. Murphy turned to the first chapter and began "The Pilot." He became very much interested therein and read on till the greyness of the page told him that it was growing late. He closed the book, put it in his pocket, stretched out his legs and gazed across the water. "I'll be damned if it isn't the best of any of 'em, and I've read upwards of two dozen now. Well, I'd never have believed it. You'll come to almost anything in this world, that's my belief. But it does take a woman to give you the push that starts you down." He meditated silently for sometime, but began again to hold audible commune with himself. "I wonder if I've got the correct picture in my head of that knight of the waves hanging up in that library? It would be a good pattern to model myself after if the elements of all those high qualities ain't in me already. By darn, that's it! They are in me all the time, too, and I don't realize it. They just need bringin' to the surface, excavating 'em so to speak. 'Daring' was one of 'em--well, I never was called a coward. 'Picturesque'--that's a hard one to come at. Now an Indian dressed up in his war togs, or a Mexican or even a cowboy would have some claim on that quality, but I'll be darned what a plain, sober, God-fearing man can do to be it and keep the respect of his mates. I'm doubtful of making that one. If I remember right she claimed he was 'romantic.'" Mr. Murphy kicked the pebbles about and then resumed his monologue. "It wouldn't be as hard to make that one as the other one. I've got half a dozen to steer by in any one of the books I've been pouring down me. Let me see, though, she mentioned two or three: Captain Kidd was among 'em, I remember. I'd hate to have to carry on my conscience all he must have had on his, if that's necessary to qualify. But I've heard he wore stunning whiskers and that's probably what took her eye. I can't call the others to mind but I'm bound to hit on them soon if my eyes don't give out." The lengthening shadows warned Mr. Murphy that it was past supper time, so he rose, stretched himself and started homeward. * * * * * All this time we have been ignoring Joseph, who had again fallen into the even tenor of his way. The vision of gold that had for a time disturbed his tranquility had vanished almost as suddenly as it had arisen. Such flights of imagination were not for him and he was leading a life of perfect content when a malicious sprite stumbled upon him and marked him for her own. Joseph and Willie Brown, a neighbor's boy, were spading up the ground where he had decided to replant his currant bushes. Mr. Murphy had been sauntering about and had pulled a book out of his pocket and departed when Joseph's unlucky spade threw up something which, in hitting against a stone, had given forth such a clear, ringing sound that he stooped down and felt about in the fresh earth. His fingers closed upon something cold, flat and round. He rubbed it against his overalls until a piece of gold milled like a coin came to view. In a moment his mind had made the connection between his sister's theories and his discovery. He stood gazing at the piece of gold. "Holy Moses!" he softly ejaculated. Suddenly he remembered Willie. He had found but a clew to the treasure. Where was the bulk of it? Willie suspected something already. Joseph looked at the boy, then at the gold piece, and then at the place where he had found it. I have remarked before that there was no strategy in Joseph's nature. He seized Willie by the arm and marched him towards the house. "That ground's too hard for currant bushes," he said to the astonished boy. "We won't work any more to-day." However, Willie felt he had no cause for complaint, as Joseph gave him a whole day's pay and Miss Katherine filled his pockets with cookies. Brother and sister now held a consultation and decided that they must be up and doing. Miss Katherine believed that they were in imminent danger of having their treasure looted. "I know boys," she said, "they're all eyes and ears. He saw what you found before you did and he'll tell all the rest of the boys and they'll come in the night and carry the whole thing away. I think we'd better not go out to that spot again to-day for you can depend upon it, he's watching. He'll forget about it by night and then we can go out with the lantern." Now, Willie Brown was like all other boys. After being dismissed by Mr. Boulby he sat down in the corner of a fence and thought. A light broke in upon him after a few moments of silent meditation. "I'll bet yuh anything!" he almost yelled, slapping his leg, "that's it!" True to the terrible oath he had sworn, he was off like a shot to rally the Faithful Band. It happened that he met Mr. Murphy before any of the Band. "I thought you were helping Mr. Boulby," said Mr. Murphy. "So I was but--but--." Willie's pride in his secret and mystery was his downfall. From that moment he was an empty vessel in Mr. Murphy's sight. That night found the brother and sister plying their spades in the garden. Their lantern was burning dimly, but it gave sufficient light to show the boys all they wished to see. "What did I tell yuh?" whispered Willie to his comrades of the Faithful Band. "Don't that beat everything? And here it was all the time and we didn't know it." "I'll bet the old Captain was a pirate," whispered Ned Larkins. "I'll bet so, too," whispered another. There is always somebody to throw cold water on our most cherished theories, as Willie Brown was soon to learn. "If you didn't take that thing in your own hands and examine it, you don't know what it was, Willie," remarked Tom Parker. "There is a mystery here alright enough, but I wouldn't say you're right, Willie." When they were a safe distance away they besought Tom to give them the benefit of his theory, but he absolutely refused. There was no good, he said, in his getting mixed up with it, for if he wasn't mistaken there'd be trouble about this thing yet. Considerably sobered, the band dispersed. The next day, though dejected and cast down, Willie Brown again circulated the fiery cross among his faithful followers, and did not even except the skeptic. He was fated to again fall in with Mr. Murphy, who had been doing some midnight scouting himself and was therefore in both glee and perplexity. By a few skillful questions and tentative remarks, Mr. Murphy obtained all the information he could desire. The next day Joseph and his sister were feeling pretty stiff and sore after the unaccustomed exposure to the dew and cold. They decided not to work that night. "You had better drag that big packing box over the hole, Joseph," said Miss Katherine. "Somebody might fall in and break a leg." The Faithful Band appeared later than the previous night. Mr. Murphy had dropped a hint about the folly of undertaking certain kinds of expeditions at any other time than midnight. They saw the faint outlines of the box but nothing else. At first they were discomfited and then elated. Ned Larkins said that they must climb over the fence into the garden and dig in the exact spot where the box then was. Tom Parker, the dissenter, being the oldest and biggest, was appointed leader. "No, sir!" declared he emphatically. "I know better than that. I've got too much sense to meddle with that. The biggest detective in New York wouldn't dare go and leave his tracks around there. Oh, no! they're too cute for that." Tom, of course, meant to imply that he also was "too cute for that." Willie had taken one snub from Tom and he was determined that should be the last. "You're a calf," was his polite reply to Tom as he vaulted over the fence. "Who's goin' to foller me?" They all followed, even Tom Parker. They advanced cautiously. Willie's temerity was moderating and he waited for the rest to come up with him. They advanced in a semicircle. As the wavering line was within ten yards of the box that object seemed to lift itself from the ground and a deep groan arose as from the bowels of the earth. Oh what a fright was that--my Faithful Banders! In a moment the fence seemed alive with terrified and struggling boys. Mr. Murphy crawled out of his cramped quarters and went home. The boys had, of course, been properly sworn to secrecy, but somehow, the next day an uneasy feeling pervaded the village. No one seemed to possess any definite information, but there were rumors to the effect that there were peculiar folks now in the neighborhood; people weren't really safe and Mrs. White could tell a good deal if she would. That lady had exercised a good deal of prudence and had said very little about the Boulbys, but the day after the boys' adventure she was credited with volumes. It was not long before the strong minded mother of a member of the Faithful Band had obtained from him enough to warrant her sending to all the matrons of the village a pressing invitation to tea that afternoon. It was a formidable group that foregathered that afternoon. The discoveries and adventures of the Band were duly narrated and embellished. Out of the chaos of frightful tales that flourished exceedingly and waxed more and more fearful, one could have deduced the fact that the Boulbys were nothing more or less than modern Blue-Beards. Well, their families had to be protected, and if they told the men all they knew it would be all over the country in no time, and for some reason they didn't think that would be well. As far as they could see the best thing to be done was for them to investigate for themselves that very night. And so it was that for the third time the Boulbys were to undergo a night attack. Miss Katherine was not the sort of woman to be caught sleeping. She had been unable to continue the excavation, owing to a slight attack of rheumatism. She felt uneasy about so vast a treasure lying unguarded and begged Joseph to make himself some sort of shelter in the garden and keep watch during the night. "You wouldn't have to keep awake all the time," she said, "you'd hear any noise in your sleep and it would do you good to sleep out in the fresh air." But Joseph was not a fresh air enthusiast, and the very idea of sleeping in the garden gave him rheumatic twinges. However, Miss Katherine was not to be balked. She took the faithful old dog Bruno by the collar and led him to the garden where she pointed out the box and explained his duty to him. Bruno understood and consented. "A woman has always one she can depend on, if she has a dog," Miss Katherine cuttingly remarked as she re-entered the house. Just a word about Mr. Murphy before we proceed with the night attack. He had been very busy all day, walking about the village, chatting with the boys and gossiping with the women. There might have been method in his gossip, as he seemed to elicit just what he desired. Towards evening he took a walk along the shore and held communion with himself. "I don't think she'd call it chivalrous to scare them. But she'd rate it pretty high if I kept watch to come to the rescue of the besieged or the besiegers, whichever needs help." As Mr. Murphy has reached this satisfactory conclusion we will leave him and return to follow the female posse across the fields to the Boulbys' garden. When the group of trembling females had reached the garden fence they beheld the confirmation of the boy's story. There was a whispered discussion of the advisability of further investigation. The pros won and the means to this end now stared them in the face. The picket fence had presented no difficulties to the boys but it was a great obstacle to their mothers. To climb it was impossible. The only other way was to make a breach wide enough to admit a portly form. One picket was gone and they began loosening several on each side of the opening. It was difficult to do this and prevent the loosening nails from screeching. The process was a very slow one as such care had to be exercised. Meanwhile Bruno was quite cognizant of their presence and with bristling hair and bared teeth was crouching for an attack when further provocation should be given. The Boulbys had retired early, as neither was feeling very well, but towards midnight Miss Katherine awoke and began to think of poor old Bruno. She thought she would get up and peek out to see if he were all right. The trespassers were making sure but slow progress and were still hanging on the pickets with their whole weight as Miss Katherine looked out of the window. She was not at all alarmed. She understood her own sex, her faithful dog and her own resources. The heaviest of the group had now been pressed into service as weights on the loosening pickets which suddenly surrendered with a frightful wrenching sound. Simultaneously with this noise there arose from the box a savage growl and a great, black beast threw himself into the air like an imprisoned spirit released from Hades. From the window had come a sharp report and from the opposite fence a yell that must have been emitted from a savage throat. At the too sudden surrender of the pickets four heavy females were precipitated against their companions and the whole posse fell in an inextricable mass upon the ground. Miss Katherine let the burst paper bag flutter to the ground as she hung upon the window curtain, helpless with laughter. Mr. Murphy scudded away from behind the fence ejaculating, "Bully for her! She doesn't need a protector. It's no wonder she's set her heart on a romantic man." When morning came and they could speak more calmly concerning their bruises the same females were again met in conclave. Some were for placing the matter in the hands of the constable, but this did not meet with unanimous approval. "Poor old constable Wilson couldn't get up enough courage to go there," said one. "It would be a shame to ask him," said another. "Everybody knows he isn't expected to look after anything dangerous. Such a thing as this was never heard of before in this neighborhood, so they just put in old man Wilson for he could keep the boys out of the orchards and 'tend pound and that's about all there is to do in this neighborhood. Now isn't there somebody that could handle them Boulbys?" "I've got a plan," began an earnest faced matron. "I think Mr. Horton's the man to see to this. If he can't exhort the evil spirit to come out of them Boulbys, nobody can. And he ain't afraid of anything either. It's his duty, too, to look after things like this, for we all know that the Evil One has taken control of the Boulbys, body and soul. But we won't have to do any urging to get Mr. Horton to do his duty. Just last Sunday he said in his sermon that the scent of the battle and the battle cry was like perfume to his nostrils and music in his ears, when he could wage war upon the forces of evil." "That's a good plan," agreed a sister in the church. "You're right in saying he ain't afraid of anything. His sermon last Sunday was a splendid one. I thought he'd break the old pulpit to pieces, he was that earnest. He preached about Gideon and Gideon always makes a good subject. Do you remember that he said that when he felt he was armed with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon he could face ten thousand foes?" It was agreed that this fearless spirit would be undaunted by this task and a committee was appointed to place the matter before him. Mr. Horton was a man, who, had he been of another religious persuasion, would have made one of Alva's fiercest bloodhounds. He was untiring in his zeal for the cause he espoused. He knew not mercy and he gave no quarter in the battle. And so he listened with hardening face to the tale poured forth by the suffering females, the most faithful of his flock. No need to urge him forward on the path of duty. He gave his word that he would go forth without delay to wrestle with the evil spirit that possessed these unfortunate people. And thus it was that Joseph caught sight of the ministerial form stalking up the walk just as his sister was concluding a recital of the events of the night before. "The minister's coming," he warned Miss Katherine. "Don't let him hear you laughing about scaring those women--likely it's that he's coming about." "Nonsense!" exclaimed his sister. "I'd pretty soon tell him to mind his own business." Grim and undaunted Mr. Horton stood upon the verandah, awaiting admittance. Not even the pleasant, welcoming smile upon Joseph's mild and open countenance softened his austerity. "A wolf in sheep's clothing, no doubt," he said to himself. It was well that he had steeled his heart, for Miss Katherine was at her pleasantest this morning, and she was very charming in that mood. But even she could not soften that heart of adamant. When he had seated himself he calmly began a searching scrutiny of the two faces before him. Perhaps he was a student of natural history and had learned that this was one way of taming wild animals, and as he had come to cage the roaring lion that walked up and down the world seeking whom he could devour, it would be well to follow approved methods. Mr. Horton was not a man to hesitate when his duty lay plain before him, so he informed the brother and sister that he had come to inquire after the welfare of their souls and to save them if they felt themselves lost and guilty sinners condemned to a fearful punishment. Under this attack Joseph was more nettled than his sister. Miss Katherine told herself that he must be a religious fanatic and as they hadn't yet attended church in Ocean View, he believed them to be godless people. "I have every sympathy with religious enthusiasm," she gently informed Mr. Horton, "but, of course, I don't feel as strongly on the subject as you do." This remark confirmed his wolf theory and he began to fear that he had to deal with the wiliest of Satan's lieutenants. He thought he had better strengthen himself by a word of prayer so informed them that they must kneel with him. Joseph's face grew dark, but Miss Katherine imperatively motioned to him to be silent and passive. Mr. Horton implored aid in the task he had undertaken and begged that he might be the instrument to bring these poor, lost, guilty souls to repentance. Under shelter of this storm of words Miss Katherine whispered to her brother that he must control himself and must not be violent. When they rose from their knees, Mr. Horton was breathless, so Miss Katherine had him at her mercy. She politely asked him to excuse her brother as he was not feeling well, at which Joseph gratefully withdrew. "A guilty soul is a terrible thing, Miss Boulby," said Mr. Horton mopping his forehead. "Yes, I suppose it must be," she returned calmly, "but what is even worse is to have a mind that is constantly imagining evil in others. Now, Mr. Horton, the ladies of your church have quite ignored us since we came, but I should be very much pleased if Mrs. Horton and some of the prominent ladies in the church would call and we can discuss what I can do and where I can fit in in church work." Mr. Horton fairly shone with triumph. Here was a repentant sinner. "There is joy among--" he began but that was too much for Miss Katherine. * * * * * About this time Mr. Murphy was giving the pebbles on the shore the benefit of one of his frequent monologues: "I've seen them taken with it before," he informed himself, "but never so bad as she's got it. Treasure hunting is like yellow fever. You've got to let it burn itself up. I should think her treasure hunting fever would be about cured, but you never can tell with a woman. Perhaps she's onto a new place by this time. I hope she won't go tearing the place down to see if there's a secret chamber anywhere. I like her to enjoy herself, but she's apt to get into trouble with Skinner if she destroys much property. I'll have to think up some way of satisfying her or she'll land in the penitentiary. "I wonder if she's found any more qualities in the old Cap's picture? I think the picture's got all the strength when she's around, for darn me if I ain't as weak as water when she goes talking about him being the kind of man she admires! For I know that there's just so many qualities that I'll begin to dig up out of me or to plant in me. But she might come to the end of the choicest characteristics soon and give a feller time to cultivate a few." The Captain tugged at a large volume in his pocket. He succeeded in tearing it out. The place where he had been reading was marked by a slip of paper upon which was a long list of books written in a feminine hand. The name of the volume Mr. Murphy was reading was the twenty-first on the slip and was 'Treasure Island.' "If I'd ever had a villain like that Silver around me I'd 've strung him up. Such dilly-dallying around makes me sick," commented the reader. "Why, Mr. Murphy, do you talk to yourself or are you reading aloud? Your expression is wonderful if you were reading," said the pleasant voice of Miss Boulby who had quite innocently chosen for her afternoon walk Mr. Murphy's usual direction. That gentleman jumped to his feet in great trepidation. What had he been saying? "Oh--why--I believe I was reading aloud. I get so interested in those books you were telling me about--the ones the Captain read so much, you know, that I read aloud before I think." Miss Katherine seated herself and motioned to Mr. Murphy to do the same. She picked up the book which had fallen in the reader's surprise. "Treasure Island! That is a most delightful book. I am so glad you enjoy it. I do think that a man who can, as it were, live these adventures with Stevenson's characters is as delightful and interesting a person as,--as even old John Silver himself," said Miss Katherine with enthusiasm. "A-hem," Mr. Murphy cleared his throat and rubbed his chin. "Do you like John Silver?" "I think he's just fascinating, don't you?" returned Miss Katherine. "Exactly, Miss Boulby. Fascinating's the word I was hunting for just before you came up. But it's the subject of the book itself that fetches me. I was always after hidden treasure, Captain Kidd's and so on. I don't suppose you were ever taken that way?" Miss Katherine looked at her questioner out of the corner of her eye, but he was gazing abstractedly over the water. "Well, yes, I must confess that I have been rather interested in hidden treasures. But, of course, I have never done any actual hunting as I have never had any clues. But I should think it would be very interesting. Did you mean that you have actually sought a specific treasure?" "Not exactly that," explained Mr. Murphy, "at least not till I came here." Miss Katherine's eyes grew wide. "I haven't done any real diggin' here yet," he went on, "but I hope to begin soon. Now I don't mind telling you for I'd like a partner, one who thinks as I do about it, you understand. It isn't for the love of the money, you know, but the romance, that's it, the romance. Now you know all about Captain Kidd?" Miss Katherine nodded. "Well, I've figured it out pretty well, and it's my opinion that some of his hoard lies right along this shore and not very far from here." Mr. Murphy's imagination was pretty well exhausted so he stopped to recuperate. "Along this shore and not far from here!" exclaimed Miss Katherine. "Dear me! Who'd have thought it? But have you any maps or plans or charts or whatever tells you where to look?" Mr. Murphy's imagination had taken a new lease on life. "I've got them hidden carefully in my rooms," he explained. "I have been comparing them with the physiognomy of the shore here and I believe with a little help on the subject which you can supply I would be able to identify the spot to-morrow." "I should love to help you," exclaimed Miss Katherine. "It's so very kind of you." "Oh, no, no!" returned Mr. Murphy. "It's only just now since you told me that you were interested in treasure seeking that I have really enjoyed thinking about it." "You said you had always been interested in hidden treasures," Miss Katherine reminded him. Mr. Murphy's face grew red. He hastened to explain: "I mean that the books that I've been reading under your direction have been so interesting that I couldn't bear to stop reading and look for the treasure." Miss Katherine beamed. "We will search together," she said coyly. As they were walking home together, Mr. Murphy observed casually-- "A friend of mine who was a great friend of Captain Shannon's told me once that the Captain had produced a new species of rose and that he had been awarded a gold medal by the American Horticultural Society. The Captain told my friend that he used to wear it on his chain but he lost it while working in his garden here. Wasn't it a pity? I don't suppose you have ever come across it?" "Not that I know of," returned Miss Katherine composedly. When she got home she went immediately to the library and to the drawer that held the ancient golden coin that Joseph had found. She took it to the kitchen where she scraped and brushed it well. Behold! there was the name of the American Horticultural Society on one side and on the other the inscription: "Consequitur quodcunque petit!" * * * * * When Mr. Horton returned from his visit to the Boulbys, he told his wife of the gratifying results and of Miss Boulby's wish that she and other church workers would call upon her. "The brother was strangely moved," concluded Mr. Horton, "and the sister was greatly softened." Mrs. Horton and her friends did not delay calling upon Miss Boulby. That lady has been walking on air since the above-related conversation with Mr. Murphy and was in a very sweet and forgiving mood. She allowed her callers to talk just as much as they pleased and on the subject dearest to them. They discussed and re-discussed every phase of church work. Miss Katherine professed herself willing to make endless quilts for the missionary box, pin-cushions for the bazaar, socks for the Old Men's Home and cakes for the sewing circle. The minister's wife was dazed by such liberality and when Miss Katherine spoke of the number of years her brother had been deacon in their home church, and of her own activities in every conceivable church society, the ladies felt that a terrible injustice had been done this exemplary brother and sister. When Miss Katherine had seen that her words fell on receptive ground she still mellowed that soil by tempting refreshments after which she proposed a walk in the garden. As Joseph was from home she offered slips, roots and seeds without number. At last she came to a rose tree which, she judged, would do as well as any other and she launched into the story of Captain Shannon's experiments to produce a new species and final triumph. "We knew," said the unblushing Miss Katherine, "that he had been awarded a medal by the American Horticultural Society. Mr. Murphy, who is an old friend of the Captain's, told us he had lost the medal in the garden, so we began looking for it. Come with me and I'll show you where we found it." Miss Katherine did so, elaborating on the trouble they had taken to discover it. "It is solid gold," said she, "and we were afraid that the boys might suspect what we were looking for and come at night and hunt for it, so we set Bruno to watch at night, but fortunately we found it. Come in the house and I'll show it to you." As Miss Katherine watched her visitors go away she said to herself: "I confess that all I said this afternoon was not strictly true, but there are times when a prudent woman will deviate somewhat from the exact truth." * * * * * When Miss Katherine had bade Mr. Murphy good afternoon, on the day of his startling disclosure concerning Captain Kidd's treasure, the aforementioned gentleman fell to chuckling. "I'm in a devil of a fix, but I've saved the house from destruction, that's sure. I'll trust her to make peace with the neighbors and then I'll gradually ease her off the Captain Kidd proposition and then there should be plain sailing. But Jehosaphat! What about that chart? Well, I'll just have to get some paper and a pencil and go back to the shore and draw it, that's all. I can't lie worth a darn. I've got to get myself in a worse mess every time instead of lying out." So saying, Mr. Murphy procured the paper and pencil and retraced his steps to the shore where he labored long and arduously, for he was neither an artist nor a cartographer. In a couple of days Mr. Murphy informed Miss Katherine that he thought he had located the right spot and that afternoon, they would begin their search. Miss Katherine was to join him at the spot where she had found him the day they became partners in this affair. He would be laden with the necessary tools. Miss Katherine asked if she should bring a bag in case of success, but Mr. Murphy said no, they were more apt to find it if they acted as if they thought they wouldn't. At the appointed time and place the junction of the forces was successfully accomplished. Miss Katherine and Mr. Murphy sat down side by side to study the chart. The latter explained that he had worn out the original and this was a copy he had made. The chart fully came up to Miss Katherine's idea of a chart. "Now you can see if you study it," exclaimed Mr. Murphy, "that it's this bit of shore that's meant. See where it juts out here by the pine tree! Well, just look down the shore there and you'll see the very spot. From there just follow along and compare the chart with the shore. Line for line, ain't they?" "Isn't that remarkable!" exclaimed Miss Katherine. "What a wonderful observer you must be to have noticed the similarity! But wouldn't you think there would be changes in the shore line since the time this chart was made?" "Well, you see it's sheltered here," returned Mr. Murphy. "That makes a big difference." "Oh does it?" cried Miss Katherine. "Oh, yes!" replied Mr. Murphy. "And now where is the treasure?" asked Miss Katherine. "Well, the first place I'd try is right in this little hollow. We'll go right along to it." Mr. Murphy shouldered his spade, pick and axe and directed Miss Katherine to the spot, a little sandy hollow between two little sandy mounds. "Now you must keep guard while I dig," said Mr. Murphy. "It wouldn't do to let others into the secret you know." Miss Katherine was quite disappointed, for she had anticipated watching the excavation sink deeper and deeper until the spade suddenly struck the iron lid of a box, and a king's ransom glowed at their feet. But she realized the wisdom of this request and uncomplainingly complied with it. In silence and with inward protest Mr. Murphy plied his spade until he was obliged to straighten his aching back. He looked at his task mistress entreatingly, but she was on guard and had no eyes for the toiler. The poor man gazed about him in distress. Would he fall from grace if he took a little rest? Fortunately for Mr. Murphy, at this moment, Miss Katherine's eye fell upon the little lunch basket she carried. A pang of remorse shot through her heart as she turned and beheld her hero leaning wearily upon his spade. At the suggestion of lunch Mr. Murphy climbed out of prison with such alacrity that Miss Katherine's soft heart suffered another pang. But as pity is akin to another, warmer and tendered passion let us hope all was working for the highest good of Miss Katherine and Mr. Murphy. Whatever hopes of a prolonged rest that gentleman had at first entertained were soon destroyed by a word or two from his inexorable partner, and again the gentle chuck, chuck as the spade struck against the soft sand, was the only sound that broke the silence. Miss Katherine, though not watching the digger, kept time with his steady spade and strained her ear to catch a clink instead of a click. That would announce the bursting of an old leather bag or the striking upon an iron box. There it would be! Gold! Gold glittering in the light after years of darkness! "Damn it!" broke in upon Miss Katherine's golden dream. In mild surprise she turned about and beheld her erstwhile obedient partner hurl his spade from him and scramble out of the deep hole he had dug. Rebellion was written on his face, but as he approached Miss Katherine there was something much softer and infinitely agreeable to the female eye in his expression. "Confound it all!" said Captain Peter Shannon, "let's stop this foolishness and get married." * * * * * * Transcriber's note: Punctuation errors have been corrected. Archaic and variant spelling is preserved as printed. The following emendations have been made: Page 6--Katharine's amended to Katherine's--... so readily consented to Miss Katherine's going ... Page 7--be amended to he--... why wouldn't he come back ... Page 9--Katharine amended to Katherine--However strongly Miss Katherine became convinced ... Page 19--ever amended to every--"There is unusual strength in every feature, ..." Page 20--captain amended to Captain--... to--er--the Captain--ah--when he returns ... Page 21--captain amended to Captain--"Ah, you think that the late Captain was ..." Page 27--by amended to my--"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Miss Katherine, ... Page 31--snbstantials amended to substantials--She had heard of such substantials ... Page 32--Pue's amended to Poe's--... for she had been reading Poe's frightful tale of the black cat, ... Page 36--hook amended to book--... for he often put a book in his pocket ... Page 37--llustrations amended to illustrations--... and looked at the illustrations. Page 39--aainst amended to against--... which, in hitting against a stone, ... Page 42--your're amended to you're--"... but I wouldn't say you're right, Willie." Page 46--seem amended to seemed--... as he seemed to elicit just what he desired. Page 48--know's amended to knows--"Everybody knows he isn't expected ..." Page 53--thing amended to think--I think the picture's got all the strength ... Page 53--a sweak amended to as weak--... I ain't as weak as water ... Page 54--villian amended to villain--"If I'd ever had a villain like that Silver ..." Page 54--one's amended to ones--... the ones the Captain read so much, ... Page 55--omitted double closing quote added--"... Now you know all about Captain Kidd?" Page 55--horde amended to hoard--... it's my opinion that some of his hoard lies right along this shore ... Page 57--omitted word 'he' added--The Captain told my friend that he used to wear it ... Page 57--Consequitar amended to Consequitur--"Consequitur quodcunque petit!" Page 59--forunately amended to fortunately--... but fortunately we found it. Page 60--everytime amended to every time--... in a worse mess every time ... 
54350	----	generously made available by the Google Books Library Project (https://books.google.com) Note: Images of the original pages are available through the Google Books Library Project. See https://books.google.com/books?id=gnj9LVjclz8C&hl=e JED, THE POORHOUSE BOY by HORATIO ALGER, JR. Author of "Ragged Dick," "Luck and Pluck," "Tattered Tom," etc., etc. The John C. Winston Co. Philadelphia Chicago Toronto Copyright, 1899, by Henry T. Coates & Co. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. JED, 1 II. MR. AND MRS. FOGSON, 11 III. THE SCRANTON POORHOUSE, 20 IV. AN EXCITING CONTEST, 30 V. JED SECURES AN ALLY, 37 VI. MR. FOGSON MAKES UP HIS MIND, 49 VII. FOGSON'S MISTAKE, 59 VIII. MR. FOGSON IS ASTONISHED, 68 IX. JED LEAVES THE POORHOUSE, 77 X. JED REACHES DUNCAN, 87 XI. JED'S FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE, 96 XII. PERCY DIXON IS BEWILDERED, 106 XIII. FOGSON IN PURSUIT, 115 XIV. JED'S LUCK, 125 XV. TWO OLD ACQUAINTANCES, 135 XVI. MISS HOLBROOK, SPINSTER, 144 XVII. JED MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE, 153 XVIII. MR. FOGSON RECEIVES A LETTER, 162 XIX. DISCHARGED, 167 XX. JED'S POOR PROSPECTS, 172 XXI. JED ARRIVES IN NEW YORK, 182 XXII. JED MAKES TWO CALLS, 192 XXIII. JED'S BAD LUCK, 202 XXIV. A STARTLING DISCOVERY, 212 XXV. WITHOUT A PENNY, 222 XXVI. IN SEARCH OF EMPLOYMENT, 232 XXVII. AN INTRACTABLE AGENT, 241 XXVIII. A STRANGE COMMISSION, 250 XXIX. A SURPRISE PARTY, 260 XXX. JED ENTERTAINS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE, 270 XXXI. JED RETURNS GOOD FOR EVIL, 280 XXXII. AT BAR HARBOR, 290 XXXIII. THE POORHOUSE RECEIVES TWO VISITORS, 299 XXXIV. THE DETECTIVE, 308 XXXV. MRS. AVERY'S STORY, 313 XXXVI. "WHO WAS JED?" 318 XXXVII. JANE GILMAN, 328 XXXVIII. THE DETECTIVE SECURES AN ALLY, 338 XXXIX. JED LEARNS WHO HE IS, 343 XL. GUY FENWICK'S DEFEAT, 349 XLI. CONCLUSION, 365 JED, THE POORHOUSE BOY. CHAPTER I. JED. "Here, you Jed!" Jed paused in his work with his axe suspended above him, for he was splitting wood. He turned his face toward the side door at which stood a woman, thin and sharp-visaged, and asked: "Well, what's wanted?" "None of your impudence, you young rascal! Come here, I say!" Jed laid down the axe and walked slowly to the back door. He was a strongly-made and well-knit boy of nearly sixteen, but he was poorly dressed in an old tennis shirt and a pair of overalls. Yet his face was attractive, and an observer skilled in physiognomy would have read in it signs of a strong character, a warm and grateful disposition, and a resolute will. "I have not been impudent, Mrs. Fogson," he said quietly. "Don't you dare to contradict me!" snapped the woman, stamping her foot. "What's wanted?" asked Jed again. "Go down to the gate and hold it open. Squire Dixon will be here in five minutes, and we must treat him with respect, for he is Overseer of the Poor." Jed smiled to himself (it was well he did not betray his amusement), for he knew that Mrs. Fogson and her husband, though tyrannical to the inmates of the poorhouse, of which they had been placed in charge by Squire Dixon three months before, were almost servile in the presence of the Overseer of the Poor, with whom it was their object to stand well. "All right, ma'am!" he said bluntly, and started for the gate. He did not appear to move fast enough for the amiable Mrs. Fogson, for she called out in a sharp voice: "Why do you walk like a snail? Hurry up, I tell you. I see Squire Dixon coming up the road." "I shall get to the gate before he does," announced Jed, independently, not increasing his pace a particle. "I hate that boy!" soliloquized Mrs. Fogson, looking after him with a frown. "He is the most independent young rascal I ever came across--he actually disobeys and defies me. I must get Fogson to give him a horse-whipping some of these fine days; and when he does, I'm going to be there and see it done!" she continued, her black eyes twinkling viciously. "Every blow he received would do me good. I'd gloat over it! I'd flog him myself if I was strong enough." The amiable character of Mrs. Fogson may be inferred from this gentle soliloquy. When Fogson married her he caught a Tartar, as he found to his cost. But he was not so much to be pitied, for his own disposition was not unlike that of his wife, but he lacked her courage and intense malignity, and was a craven at heart. As Jed walked to the gate his face became grave and almost melancholy. "I can't stand this kind of life long!" he said to himself. "Mrs. Fogson is about the ugliest-tempered woman I ever knew, and her husband isn't much better. What a contrast to Mr. Avery and his good wife! When they kept the poorhouse we were all happy and contented. They had a kind word for all. But when Squire Dixon became overseer he put in the Fogsons, and since then we haven't heard a kind word or had a happy day." Just then Squire Dixon's top buggy neared the gate. He was a pompous-looking man with a bald head and red face, the color, as was well known, being imparted by too frequent potations of brandy. With him was his only son and heir, Percy Dixon, a boy who "put on airs," and was, in consequence, heartily detested by his schoolmates and companions. He had small, mean features and a pair of gray eyes, while his nose had an upward tendency, as if he were turning it up at the world in general. Jed held the gate open in silence and the top buggy passed through. Then he slowly closed the gate and walked up to the house. There stood Mrs. Fogson, her thin lips wreathed in smiles, as she ducked her head obsequiously to the town magnate. "How do you do, Squire Dixon?" she said. "It does me good to see you. But I needn't ask for your health, you look so fine and noble this morning." Squire Dixon was far from being inaccessible to flattery. "I am very well, I thank you, my good friend, Mrs. Fogson," he said in a stately tone, with a gracious smile upon his florid countenance. "And how are you yourself?" "As well as I can be, squire, thanking you for asking, but them paupers is trials, as I daily discover." "Nothing new in the way of trouble, I hope, Mrs. Fogson?" "Well, no; but walk in and I'll send for my husband. He would never forgive me if I didn't send for him when you were here. Master Percy, forgive me for not speaking to you before. I hear such good accounts of you from everybody. Your father is indeed fortunate to have such a son." Percy raised his eyebrows a little. Even he was aware of his unpopularity, and he wondered who had been speaking so well of him. "I'm all right!" he answered curtly. Squire Dixon, too, though he overestimated Percy, who was popularly regarded as a chip of the old block, was at a loss to know why he should be proud of him. Still it was pleasing to have one so near to him complimented. "You are kind to speak of Percy in that way," he said. "He's so like you, the dear boy!" murmured Mrs. Fogson. This might be a compliment, but as Percy stood low in his studies and frequently quarreled with his school companions, Squire Dixon hardly knew whether to feel flattered. Percy looked rather disgusted to be called a "dear boy" by a woman whom he regarded as so much his social inferior as Mrs. Fogson, but it was difficult to resent so complimentary a speech, and he remained silent. He looked scornfully about the plainly-furnished room, and reflected that it would be pleasanter out of doors. "I guess I'll go out in the yard," he said abruptly. "Would you be kind enough in that case, Master Percy, to tell the boy Jed to go and call my husband from the three-acre lot? He is at work there." "Yes, Mrs. Fogson, I'll tell him." Percy left the room and walked up to where Jed was splitting wood. "Go and call Mr. Fogson from the three-acre lot!" he said peremptorily. Jed paused in his work. "Who says so?" he inquired. "I say so!" "Then I shan't go. You are not my boss." "You are an impudent boy." "Why am I?" "You have no business to talk back to me. You'd better go after Mr. Fogson, if you know what's best for yourself." "Did Mrs. Fogson send the message by you?" "Yes." "Then I will go. Why didn't you tell me that before?" "Because it was enough that I told you. My father's the Overseer of the Poor." "I am aware of that." "And he put the Fogsons where they are." "Then I wish he hadn't. We had a good time when Mr. Avery was here. Now all is changed." "So you don't like Mr. and Mrs. Fogson?" asked Percy curiously. "No, I don't. But I must be going to the lot to call Mr. Fogson." "I'll go with you. I don't want to be left alone." Jed ought doubtless to have felt complimented at this offer of company from his high-toned visitor, but he did not appear to be overwhelmed by it. "You can go along if you like," he said. "Of course I can. I don't need to ask permission of you." "Certainly not. No offense was meant." "It is well for you that there isn't. So you liked Mr. and Mrs. Avery better than the Fogsons?" "Yes," answered Jed guardedly, for he understood now that Percy wanted to "pump" him. "Why?" "Because they treated me better." "My father thinks well of the Fogsons. He says that old Avery pampered the paupers and almost spoiled them." "I won't argue the question. I only know that we all liked Mr. and Mrs. Avery. Now it's scold, scold, scold all day and every day, and we don't live nearly as well as we did." "Paupers mustn't expect to live as well as at a first-class hotel!" said Percy sarcastically. "They certainly don't live like that here." "And they won't while my father is overseer. He says he's going to put a stop to their being pampered at the town's expense. You live well enough now." "If you think we live so well, I wish you would come and board here for a week." "_Me_--board at a poorhouse!" ejaculated Percy in intense disgust. "You are very kind, but I shouldn't like it." "I don't think you would." "All the same, you ought to be grateful for such a good home." "It may be a good home, but I shan't stay here long." "You shan't stay here long?" exclaimed Percy in amazement. "Do you mean to tell me you are going to run away?" "I haven't formed any plans yet." "I'll tell my father, and he'll put a spoke in your wheel. What do you expect to do if you leave? You haven't got any money?" "No." "Then don't make a fool of yourself." Jed did not reply, for they had reached the fence that bounded the three-acre lot, and Mr. Fogson had discovered their approach. CHAPTER II. MR. AND MRS. FOGSON. Mr. Fogson was about as unpleasant-looking as his wife, but was not so thin. He had stiff red hair with a tendency to stand up straight, a blotched complexion, and red eyes, corresponding very well with the color of his hair. He was quite as cross as his wife, but she was more venomous and malicious. Like her he was disposed to fawn upon Squire Dixon, the Overseer of the Poor, with whom he knew it was necessary to stand well. Had Jed come alone he might have met with a disagreeable reception; but Mr. Fogson's quick eye recognized in his companion the son of the poorhouse autocrat, Squire Dixon, and he summoned up an ingratiating smile on his rugged features. "How are you, Master Percy?" he said smoothly. "Did your pa come with you?" "Yes, he's over to the house. Mrs. Fogson wants you to go right home, as he may want to see you." "All right! It will give me pleasure. It always does me good to see your pa." Percy looked at him critically, and thought that Mr. Fogson was about as homely a man as he had ever seen. It was fortunate that the keeper of the poorhouse could not read his thoughts, for, like most ugly men, Mr. Fogson thought himself on the whole rather prepossessing. Fogson took his place beside Percy, and curtly desired Jed to walk behind. Jed smiled to himself, for he understood that Mr. Fogson considered him not entitled to a place in such superior company. Mr. Fogson addressed several questions to Percy, which the latter answered languidly, as if he considered it rather a bore to be entertained by a man in Fogson's position. Indeed he almost snubbed him, and Jed was pleased to find the man who made so many unpleasant speeches to others treated in the same manner himself. As a general thing, a man who bullies others has to take his turn in being bullied himself. Meanwhile Mrs. Fogson was chatting with Squire Dixon. "Nobody can tell what I have to put up with from them paupers," she said. "You'd actilly think they paid their board by the way they talk. The fact is, the Averys pampered and indulged them altogether too much." "That is so, Mrs. Fogson," said the squire pompously, "and that, I may remark, was the reason I dismissed them from their responsible position. Do they--ahem!--complain of anything in particular?" "Why, they want butter every day!" exclaimed Mrs. Fogson. "Think of it! Butter every day for paupers!" "As you justly observe, this is very unreasonable. And how often do you give them butter?" "Once a week--on Sundays." "Very judicious. It impresses them with the difference between Sunday and other days. It shows your religious training, Mrs. Fogson." "I always aim to be religious, Squire Dixon," said Mrs. Fogson meekly. "Well, and what else?" "Likewise the old people expect tea every day. They say Mrs. Avery gave it to them." "I dare say she did. It's an imposition on the town to spend their--ahem!--hard-earned money on such luxuries." "That's the way I look at it, Squire Dixon." "How often do you give them meat?" "Every other day. I get the cheapest cuts from the butcher--what he has left over. But they ain't satisfied. They want it every day." "Shocking!" exclaimed the squire, arching his brows. "So I say. Of course I get a good many sour looks, and more complaints, but I tell 'em that if they ain't suited with their boarding-house they can go somewhere else." "Very good! Very good indeed; ha, ha! I presume none of them have left the poorhouse in consequence?" "No, but one has threatened to do so." "Who is that?" asked Squire Dixon quickly. "The boy Jed." "Oh, yes, he was the one who opened the gate for me. Now, what sort of a boy is he, Mrs. Fogson?" "He's an impudent young jackanapes," answered Mrs. Fogson spitefully, "begging your pardon for using such an inelegant expression." "It is forcible, however, Mrs. Fogson. It is forcible, and I think you are quite justified in using it. So he is impudent?" "Yes; you'd think, by the airs he puts on, that he owned the poorhouse, instead of being a miserable pauper. Why, I venture to say he considers himself the equal of your son, Master Percy." "No, no, Mrs. Fogson, that is a little too strong. He couldn't be so absurd as that." "I am not so sure of that, Squire Dixon. There is no end to that boy's impudence and--and uppishness. Why, he said the other day that the meat wasn't fit for the hogs." "And was it, Mrs. Fogson?" asked the squire in an absent-minded way. "To be sure, squire, though I must admit that it was a trifle touched, being warm weather; but paupers can't expect first-class hotel fare--can they, now, squire?" "To be sure not." "Then, again, Jed is always praising up Mr. and Mrs. Avery, which, as you can imagine, isn't very pleasant for Mr. Fogson and me. I expect he was Mr. Avery's pet, from all I hear." "Very likely he was. He was brought to the poorhouse when a mere baby, and they took care of him from his infancy. I've heard Mrs. Avery say she looked upon him as if he were her own child." "And that is why she pampered him--at the town's expense." "As you truly observe, at the town's expense. I am sure you and Mr. Fogson will feel it your duty to make the poorhouse as inexpensive as possible to the town, bearing in mind the great responsibility that has devolved upon you." "Of course, squire, me and Fogson bear that in mind, but we ain't paid any too well for our hard labor." "That reminds me, Mrs. Fogson, another month has rolled by, and----" "I understand, squire," said Mrs. Fogson. "I have got it all ready," and she drew a sealed envelope out of her pocket and passed it to the squire, who pocketed it with a deprecatory cough. His face brightened up, for he knew what the envelope contained. "You can depend on me to use my official influence in your favor, Mrs. Fogson," he said cheerfully. "As long as you show a proper appreciation of my service in giving you the place, I will stand by you." Squire Dixon was a rich man. He was paid by the town for his services as overseer, yet he was not above accepting five dollars a month from the man he had installed in office. He had never distinctly asked for it, but he had hinted in a manner not to be mistaken that it would be politic for Mr. Fogson to allow him a percentage on their salary and profits. They got the money back, and more, for in auditing their accounts he did not scrutinize too closely the prices they claimed to have paid for supplies. It was an arrangement mutually advantageous, which had never occurred to Mr. and Mrs. Avery, who in their scrupulous honesty were altogether behind the times, according to the squire's thinking. "And how many paupers have you in the house at present, Mrs. Fogson?" asked the overseer. "Nineteen, squire. Would you like to look at them?" "Well, perhaps in my official capacity it would be as well." "Come in here, then," and Mrs. Fogson led the way into a large room where sat the paupers, a forlorn, unhappy-looking company. Two of the old ladies were knitting; one young woman, who had lost her child, and with it her mind, was fondling a rag baby; two were braiding a rag carpet, and others were sitting with vacant faces, looking as if life had no attraction for them. "Will you address them, squire?" asked Mrs. Fogson. "Ahem!" said the squire, straightening up and looking around him with the air of a benignant father. "I will say a few words." "Attention all!" exclaimed Mrs. Fogson in a sharp voice. "Squire Dixon has consented to make a few remarks. I hope you will appreciate your privilege in hearing him." CHAPTER III. THE SCRANTON POORHOUSE. "Ahem!" began Squire Dixon, clearing his throat; "the announcement of my friend Mrs. Fogson furnishes me with a text. I hope you all appreciate your privileges in sharing this comfortable home at the expense of the town. Here all your material wants are cared for, and though you are without means, you need have no anxiety. A well-filled board is spread for you three times a day, and you enjoy the maternal care of Mrs. Fogson." Here there was a shrill laugh from one of the old women. Squire Dixon frowned, and Mrs. Fogson looked anything but maternal as she scowled at the offending "boarder." "I am surprised at this unseemly interruption," said Squire Dixon severely. "I am constrained to believe that there is at least one person present who does not appreciate the privileges of this happy home. You are probably all aware that I am the Overseer of the Poor, and that it was through my agency that the services of Mr. and Mrs. Fogson were obtained." Here it would have been in order for some one to propose "Three cheers for Mr. and Mrs. Fogson," but instead all looked gloomy and depressed. "I don't know that I have any more to say," concluded Squire Dixon after a pause. "I will only exhort you to do your duty in the position in which Providence has placed you, and to give as little trouble as possible to your good friends Mr. and Mrs. Fogson." Here there was another cackling laugh, which caused Mrs. Fogson to look angry. "I'm on to you, Sally Stokes," she said sharply. "You'll have to go without your supper to-night." The poor, half-witted creature immediately burst into tears, and rocked to and fro in a dismal manner. "You have done perfectly right in rebuking such unseemly behavior, Mrs. Fogson," said Squire Dixon. "I didn't mind the insult to myself, squire," returned Mrs. Fogson meekly. "It made me angry to have you insulted while you were making your interesting remarks. The paupers are very ill-behaved; I give you my word that I slave for them from morning till night, and you see how I am repaid." "Mrs. Fogson, virtue is its own reward," observed the squire solemnly. "It has to be in my case," said Mrs. Fogson; "but it comforts me to think that you at least appreciate my efforts." "I do; I do, indeed! You can always rely upon me to--to--in a word, to back you up." Here a diversion was made by the appearance of Mr. Fogson and the two boys. "Oh, Simeon!" exclaimed Mrs. Fogson impulsively. "You don't know what you have lost." Mr. Fogson mechanically glanced at his vest to see whether his watch-chain and the watch appended were gone. "What have I lost?" he demanded. "Squire Dixon's interesting speech to the paupers. It was truly eloquent." "My dear Mrs. Fogson," said the squire, looking modest, "you quite overrate my simple words." "They were simple, but they were to the point," said the lady of the poorhouse, "and I hope--I do hope that the paupers will lay them to heart." There was an amused smile on the face of Jed, who was sharp enough to see through the shallow humbug which was being enacted before him. He understood very well the interested motives of Mrs. Fogson, and why she saw fit to flatter the town official from whom she and her husband had received their appointment. "I wish you had heard the squire, too, Jed!" said Mrs. Fogson, detecting the smile on the boy's face. "Perhaps, ma'am, you can tell me what he said," returned Jed demurely. Mrs. Fogson was a little taken aback, but she accepted the invitation. "He said you ought to consider yourself very lucky to have such a comfortable home." "I do," said Jed with a comical look. "I am glad to hear it," said Mrs. Fogson, suspiciously, "though it hasn't always looked that way, I am bound to say." "Are you going to stay much longer, father?" asked Percy, who was getting tired. "Perhaps we had better go," said Squire Dixon. "We have staid quite a while." "When do you have dinner?" asked Percy, turning to Jed. "In about an hour. I have no doubt Mrs. Fogson will invite you, if you would like to stay." "_Me_--eat with paupers?" retorted Percy with fine scorn. "I don't think you would like it," said Jed. "I don't." "Why, you are a pauper yourself." "I don't think so. I earn my living, such as it is. I work from morning till night." "What do they give you for dinner?" asked Percy, moved by curiosity. "Mrs. Fogson puts a bone in the boiler and makes bone soup," answered Jed gravely. "You can't tell how good it is till you try it." "Is there anything else?" "A few soggy potatoes, and some stale bread without butter." "Don't you have tea?" "Once on Sundays. It don't do to pamper us, you know." "Do you have puddings or pies?" "No; the town can't afford it," returned Jed without a smile. "What do you think of our bill of fare?" "Pretty mean, I think. Do Mr. and Mrs. Fogson eat with you?" "No; they eat later, in the small room adjoining." "Do they have the same dinner as you?" "Sometimes they have roast chicken, and the other day when I went into the room there was a plum pudding on the table." Percy laughed. "Just what I thought. The old man and old woman aren't going to get left." "I don't know about that." "What do you mean?" "I'll explain another time," said Jed, nodding. "I wish I was Overseer of the Poor." "What would you do?" "I'd turn out the Fogsons and put back Mr. and Mrs. Avery." "Father says they spoiled the paupers." "At any rate they didn't starve them." "Old Fogson is saving money to the town--so father says." "Wait till the end of the year. You'll find the town will have just as much to pay. What they save off the food they will put into their own pockets." "What are you talking about?" asked Mrs. Fogson suspiciously. Jed did not have to reply, for Percy took offense at what he rightly judged to be a piece of impertinence. "Mrs. Fogson," he said, "what we are talking about is no concern of yours." A bright red spot showed itself in either cheek of Mrs. Fogson, and she would have annihilated the speaker if she could; but she was politic, and remembered that Percy was the son of the overseer. "I didn't mean any offense, Master Percy," she said. "It was simply a playful remark on my part." "I'm glad to hear it," responded Percy. "You didn't look very playful." Squire Dixon was conversing with Mr. Fogson, and didn't hear this little conversation. "I am just digging my potatoes," said Fogson deferentially. "I have some excellent Jackson whites. I will send you round a bushel to try." "You are very kind, Mr. Fogson," said the squire, smiling urbanely. "I shall appreciate them, you may be sure. Mr. Avery never would have made me such an offer. It is clear to me that you are the right man in the right place." "I am proud to hear you say so, Squire Dixon. With such an Overseer of the Poor as you are, I am sure the interests of the town will be safe." "Thank you! Good-by." "Come again soon, squire," said Mrs. Fogson with a frosty smile. She did not extend a similar invitation to Percy, who had wounded her pride by his unceremonious words. "They are very worthy people, Percy," said the squire as they rode away. "Do you think so, father? I don't admire your taste." "My son, I am surprised at you," but in his secret heart the squire agreed with Percy. Soon after Squire Dixon and Percy left the poorhouse dinner was served. It answered very well the description given by Jed. Though the boy was hungry, he found it almost impossible to eat his portion, scanty though it was. "Turning up your nose at your dinner as usual!" said Mrs. Fogson sharply. "If you don't like it you can get another boarding-house." "I think I shall," answered Jed. "What do you mean by that?" demanded Mrs. Fogson quickly. "If the board doesn't improve I shall dry up and blow away," returned Jed. Mrs. Fogson sniffed and let the matter drop. Towards the close of the afternoon, as Jed was splitting wood in the yard, his attention was drawn to a runaway horse which was speeding down the road at breakneck speed, while a lady's terrified face was visible looking vainly around in search of help. Jed dropped his axe, ran to the bend of the road, and dashed out, waving a branch which he picked up by the roadside. The horse slowed down, and Jed, seizing the opportunity, ran to his head, seized him by the bridle, and brought him to a permanent stop. "How brave you are!" said the lady. "Will you jump into the buggy and drive me to my home? I don't dare to trust myself alone with the horse again." Jed did as desired, and at the end of the ride Mrs. Redmond (she was the wife of Dr. Redmond) gave him a dollar, accompanying it with hearty thanks. "I suppose Fogson will try to get this dollar away from me," thought Jed, "but he won't succeed." CHAPTER IV. AN EXCITING CONTEST. Jed was not mistaken. When he returned to the poorhouse supper was ready, and Mr. and Mrs. Fogson were waiting for him with sour and angry faces. "Where have you been?" demanded Fogson. "Absent on business," announced Jed coolly. "Don't you know that your business is to stay here and work?" "I have been working all day." "No, you haven't. You have been to the village." "I had a good reason for going." "Why didn't you ask permission of me or Mrs. Fogson?" "Because there wasn't time." "You are two minutes late for supper. I've a good mind to let you go without," said Mrs. Fogson. "It wouldn't be much of a loss," answered Jed, not looking much alarmed. "You are getting more and more impudent every day. Why do you say there wasn't time to ask permission to leave your work?" "Because the runaway horse wouldn't stop while I was asking." "What runaway horse?" demanded Fogson with sudden interest. "While I was splitting wood I saw Dr. Redmond's wife being run away with. She looked awfully frightened. I ran out to the bend and stopped the horse. Then she wanted me to drive her home, for she was afraid he would run off again." "Is that so? Well, of course that makes a difference. Did she give you anything?" "Now it's coming," thought Jed. "Yes," he answered. "How much?" asked Mr. Fogson with a greedy look. "A dollar." "Quite handsome, on my word. Well, hand it over." "What?" ejaculated Jed. "Give me the dollar!" said Fogson in a peremptory tone. "The dollar is mine." "You are a pauper. You can't hold any property. It's against the law." "Is it? Who told you so?" "No matter who told me so. I hope I understand the law." "I hope I understand my rights." "Boy, this is trifling. You'd better not make me any trouble, or you will find yourself in a bad box." "What do you want to do with the dollar?" "None of your business! I shall keep it." "I have no doubt you will if you get it, but it is mine," said Jed firmly. "Mrs. Fogson," said her husband solemnly, "did you ever hear of such perverseness?" "No. The boy is about the worst I ever see." "Mr. Fogson," said Jed, "when Mr. Avery was here I had money given me several times, though never as much as this. He never thought of asking me for it, but always allowed me to spend it for myself." "Mr. Avery and I are two different persons," remarked Mr. Fogson with asperity. "You are right, there," said Jed, in hearty concurrence with the speaker. "And he was very unwise to let you keep the money. If it was five cents, now, I wouldn't mind," continued Mr. Fogson with noteworthy liberality. "But a dollar! You couldn't be trusted to spend a sum like that properly at your age." "I am almost sixteen," said Jed significantly. "No matter if you are. You are still a mere boy. But I don't propose to waste any more words. Hand over that money!" Jed felt that the critical moment had come. He must submit to a flagrant piece of injustice or resist. He determined to resist. He met Fogson's glance firmly and resolutely, and uttered but two words: "I won't!" "Did you ever hear such impudence, Mrs. Fogson?" asked her husband, his face becoming red and mottled in his excitement. "No, Simeon, I didn't!" ejaculated Mrs. Fogson. "What shall I do?" "Thrash him. It's the only way to cure him of his cantankerous conduct." Jed was of good height for his age, and unusually thickset and strong. Though poorhouse fare was hardly calculated to give him strength, he had an intimate friend and school companion on a farm near by whose mother often gave him a substantial meal, so that he alone of the inmates of the poorhouse could afford to be comparatively indifferent to the mean table kept by the managers. Jed was five feet six, and Simeon Fogson but two inches taller. Fogson, however, was not a well man. He was a dyspeptic, and frequently indulged in alcoholic drinks, which, as my young readers doubtless know, have a direct tendency to impair physical vigor. "Get me the whip, Gloriana," said Mr. Fogson fiercely, addressing his wife by her rather uncommon first name. "I will see whether this young upstart is to rule you and me and the whole establishment." "I don't care about ruling anybody except myself," said Jed. "You can't rule yourself. I am put in authority over you." "Who put you in authority over me?" asked Jed defiantly. "The town." "And did the town give you leave to rob me? Answer me that!" "Did you ever hear the like?" exclaimed Mrs. Fogson, raising her arms in almost incredulous surprise. By this time Mr. Fogson had the whip in his hand, and with an air of enjoyment drew the lash through his fingers. "Take off your coat!" he said. "I would rather keep it on," replied Jed undauntedly. "It won't do you any good. I shall strike hard enough for you to feel it even if you had two coats on." "You'd better not!" said Jed, eyeing Mr. Fogson warily. "Are you going to stand the boy's impudence, Simeon?" demanded his wife sharply. "No, I'm not;" and Simeon Fogson, flourishing the whip, brought it down on Jed's shoulders and back. Then something happened which took the poorhouse superintendent by surprise. Jed sprang toward him, and, grasping the whip with energy, tore it from his grasp, and with angry and inflamed face confronted his persecutor. Mr. Fogson turned pale, and looked undecided what to do. "Shall I hold him, Simeon?" asked his wife venomously. "No; I'm a match for a half-grown boy like him," returned Fogson, ashamed to ask for help in so unequal a contest. He sprang forward and grabbed Jed, who accepted the gage of battle and clinched with his adversary. A moment afterward they were rolling on the floor, first one being uppermost, then the other. CHAPTER V. JED SECURES AN ALLY. It was trying to Mrs. Fogson to see her husband apparently getting the worst of it from "that young viper," as she mentally apostrophized Jed, and she longed to take a part, notwithstanding her husband's refusal to accept her assistance. A bright but malicious idea struck her. She seized a tin dipper and filled it half full from the tea-kettle, the water in which was almost scalding. Then she seized an opportunity to empty it over Jed. But unfortunately for the success of her amiable plan, by the time she was ready to pour it out it was Mr. Fogson who was exposed, and he received the whole of the water on his neck and shoulder. "Help! Help! Murder!" he shrieked in anguish. "You have scalded me, you--you she cat!" As he spoke he released his hold on Jed, who sprang to his feet and stood watching for the next movement of the enemy. "Did I scald you, Simeon?" asked Mrs. Fogson in dismay. "Yes; I am almost dead. Get some flour and sweet oil--quick!" "I didn't mean to," said his wife repentantly. "I meant it for that boy." "You're an idiot!" roared Fogson, stamping his foot. "Go and get the oil--quick!" Mrs. Fogson, much frightened, hurried to obey orders, and the next fifteen minutes were spent in allaying the anguish of her lord and master, who made it very unpleasant for her by his bitter complaints and upbraidings. "I think I'd better get out of this," thought Jed. "The old woman will be trying to scald me next." He disappeared through the side door, leaving the amiable couple busily but not pleasantly employed. He had scarcely left the house when Dr. Redmond drove up, his errand being to see one of the inmates of the poorhouse. "How are you, Jed?" he said pleasantly. "My wife tells me you did her a great service to-day?" "I was glad to do it, doctor," said Jed. "Here's a dollar. I am sure you can use it." "But, doctor, Mrs. Redmond gave me a dollar." "Never mind! You can use both." "Thank you," said Jed. "You'd better go right in, doctor; Mrs. Fogson has just scalded her husband, and he is in great pain." "How did it happen?" asked the doctor in amazement. "Go in and they'll tell you," said Jed. "I'll see you afterwards and tell you whether their story is correct." When Mr. and Mrs. Fogson saw the doctor enter they were overjoyed. "Oh, Dr. Redmond," groaned Fogson, "do something to relieve me quick. I'm in terrible pain." "What's the matter?" asked Dr. Redmond. "I am scalded." "How did it happen?" "_She_ did it!" said Fogson, pointing scornfully to Mrs. Fogson. Dr. Redmond set himself at once to relieve the suffering one, making use of the remedies that Fogson himself had suggested to his wife. When the patient was more comfortable he turned gravely to Mrs. Fogson and asked: "Will you explain how your husband got scalded?" "The woman poured hot water on me," interrupted Fogson with an ugly scowl. "It would serve her right if I treated her in the same manner." "You don't mean that she did it on purpose, Mr. Fogson?" exclaimed the doctor. "Of course I didn't," retorted Mrs. Fogson indignantly. "I meant it for Jed." "You meant to scald Jed?" said the doctor sternly. "Yes; he assaulted my husband, and I feared he would kill him. It was all the way I could help." "Mrs. Fogson, I can hardly believe you would be guilty of such an atrocious act even on your own confession, nor can I believe that Jed would assault your husband without good cause." "It is true, whether you believe it or not," said Mrs. Fogson sullenly. Dr. Redmond's answer was to open the outer door and call "Jed!" Jed entered at once, and stood in the presence of his persecutors, calm and undisturbed. "Jed," said the doctor, "Mrs. Fogson admits that she scalded her husband in trying to scald you, and urges, in defense, that you assaulted Mr. Fogson. What do you say to this?" "That Mr. Fogson struck me over the shoulder with a horsewhip, and that I pulled it away from him. Upon this he sprang at me, and in self-defense I grappled with him, and while we were rolling over the floor Mrs. Fogson poured a dipper of hot water over her husband, meaning it for me." "Is this true, Mr. Fogson?" asked the doctor. "Yes, it's about so. Mrs. Fogson acted like an idiot." "If she had scalded Jed instead of you, would you say the same thing?" "Well, of course that would have been different." "I can see no difference," said Dr. Redmond sternly. "It was not an idiotic, but a brutal and inhuman act." "Come, doctor, that's rather strong," protested Fogson uncomfortably. "It is not too strong! I don't think there is a person in the village but would agree with me. Had the victim of the scalding been Jed, I would have reported the matter to the authorities. Now tell me why you attempted to horsewhip the boy?" "Because he was impudent," replied Fogson evasively. "And that was all?" "He disobeyed me." "Jed, let me hear your version of the story." "Mr. Fogson knew that I had a dollar given me by Mrs. Redmond, and he called upon me to give it up to him. I wouldn't do it, and upon that he tried to horsewhip me." "You see he owns up to his disobeying me, doctor," put in Fogson triumphantly. "Why did you require him to give you the dollar, Mr. Fogson?" "Because he is a pauper, and a pauper has no right to hold money." "I won't discuss that point. What did you propose to do with the dollar in case you had obtained it from Jed?" "As you are not Overseer of the Poor, Dr. Redmond, I don't know that I have any call to tell you. When Squire Dixon asks me I will make it all straight with him." "Probably," answered the doctor in a significant tone, for he as well as others understood that there was some secret compact between Mr. Fogson and the town official, and he had earnestly opposed Squire Dixon at the polls. "Not only you, but Squire Dixon will have to give an account of your stewardship," he said. "If any outrage should be committed against the boy Jed, or any one else in this establishment, you will find that making it straight with Squire Dixon won't be sufficient." "I will report what you say to Squire Dixon," said Fogson defiantly. "I wish you would. I shouldn't object to saying the same thing to his face. Now, Mrs. Fogson, if you will lead the way I will go and see Mrs. Connolly." "Come along, then," said Mrs. Fogson, compressing her thin lips. "I don't believe there is anything the matter with that old woman." "I am a better judge of that matter than you, Mrs. Fogson." The poor old woman looked thin and wan, and hardly had strength to lift up her head to meet the doctor's glance. After a brief examination he said: "Your trouble is nervous debility. You have no strength. What you need is nourishment. Do you have tea three times a day, Mrs. Connolly?" "Only once a week, doctor," wailed the poor old woman, bursting into tears. "Only once a week!" repeated the doctor shocked. "What does this mean, Mrs. Fogson?" "It means, Dr. Redmond," answered the mistress of the poorhouse, "that this is not a first-class hotel." "I should say not," commented the doctor. "How often did you have tea, Mrs. Connolly, when Mr. and Mrs. Avery were here?" "At breakfast and supper, and on Sundays three times a day." "Precisely. What do you say to that, Mrs. Fogson?" "I say, as everybody says, that the Averys squandered the town's money." "They certainly didn't put it into their own pockets. The town, I think I am safe in saying, doesn't mean to starve the poor people whom it provides for. Do I understand that you are actuated by a desire to save the town's money?" "Of course I am, and Squire Dixon approves all I do," answered Mrs. Fogson defiantly. "If he approves your withholding the necessities of life from those under your charge he is unfit for his position. When the accounts of the poorhouse are audited at the end of the year I shall make a searching examination, and ascertain how much less they are under your administration than under that of your predecessors." Judging from her looks, Mrs. Fogson was aching to scratch Dr. Redmond's eyes out; but as he was not a pauper she was compelled to restrain her anger. "Now, Mrs. Connolly," said the doctor, "you are to have tea twice a day, and three times on Sunday. I shall see that it is given to you," he added, with a significant glance at Mrs. Fogson. "Oh, how glad I am!" said the poor creature. "God bless you, Dr. Redmond!" "Mrs. Fogson," went on the doctor, "do you limit yourself to tea once a week?" "I ain't a pauper, Dr. Redmond!" replied Mrs. Fogson indignantly. "No; you are much stronger than a pauper, and could bear the deprivation better. Let me tell you that you needn't be afraid to supply decent food to the poor people in your charge. It won't cost any more than it did under the Averys, for prices are, on the whole, cheaper." "Perhaps if it does cost more you'll pay it out of your own pocket." "I contribute already to the support of the poorhouse, being a large taxpayer, and I give my medical services without exacting payment. The town is not mean, and I will see that no fault is found with reasonable bills." "I wish you'd fall and break your neck, you old meddler," thought Mrs. Fogson, but she did not dare to say this. "One thing more, madam!" said the doctor, who had now entered the room where Jed and her husband were; "reserve your hot water for its legitimate uses. No more scalding, if you please." "That's well put, doctor!" growled Fogson. "If she wants to scald anybody else, she had better try herself." "That's all the gratitude I get for taking your part, Simeon Fogson," said the exasperated helpmeet. "The next time, Jed may beat you black and blue for all I care." "It strikes me," remarked the doctor dryly, "that your husband is a match for a boy of sixteen, and need be under no apprehension. No more horsewhips, Mr. Fogson, if _you_ please, and don't trouble yourself about any small sums that Jed may receive. Jed, jump into my buggy, and I will take you home with me. I think Mrs. Redmond will give you some supper." "The boy hasn't done his chores," said Mrs. Fogson maliciously. "Very well, I will make a bargain with you. Don't object to his going, and I won't charge Mr. Fogson anything for my attendance upon him just now." This appeal to the selfish interests of Mr. Fogson had its effect, and Jed jumped into the doctor's buggy with eager alacrity. CHAPTER VI MR. FOGSON MAKES UP HIS MIND. "I don't know, Jed, whether I can make up to you for the supper you will lose at the poorhouse," observed the doctor jocosely. "Mrs. Redmond may not be as good a cook as Mrs. Fogson." "I will risk it," said Jed. "Is the fare much worse than it was when Mrs. Avery was in charge?" "Very much worse. I don't mind it much myself, for I often get a meal at Fred Morrison's, but the poor old people have a hard time." "I will make it my business to see that there is an improvement." "Dr. Redmond," said Jed after a pause, "do you think it would be wrong for me to run away from the poorhouse?" "Have you any such intention?" asked the doctor quickly. "Yes; I think I can earn my own living, and a better living than I have there. I am young and strong, and I am not afraid to try." "As to that, Jed, I don't see why there should be any objection to your making the attempt. The town of Scranton ought not to object to lessening the number it is required to support." "Mr. and Mrs. Fogson would object. They would miss my work." "Have you ever spoken to them on the subject?" "I did one day, and they said I would have to stay till I was twenty-one." "That is not true." "I don't think I could stay that long," said Jed soberly. "I should be dead before that time if I had to live with Mr. and Mrs. Fogson, and fared no better. Besides, you see how I am dressed. I should think you would be ashamed to have me at your table." Jed's clothes certainly were far from becoming. They were of unknown antiquity, and were two sizes too small for him, so that the sleeves and the legs of the trousers were so scant as to attract attention. In his working hours he wore a pair of overalls, but those he took off when he accepted Dr. Redmond's invitation. "I didn't invite your clothes, Jed; I invited you," responded the doctor. "I confess, however, that your suit is pretty shabby. How long have you worn it?" "It was given me nearly two years ago." "And you have had no other since?" "No. If I stayed there till I was twenty-one I expect I should have to wear the same old things." Dr. Redmond laughed. "I am bound to say, Jed, that in that case you would cut a comical figure. However, I don't think it will be as bad as that. My son Ross is in college. He is now twenty. I will ask my wife to look about the house and see if there isn't an old suit of his that will fit you. It will, at any rate, be a good deal better than this." "Thank you, doctor; but will you save it till I am ready to leave Scranton?" "Yes, Jed. I will have it put in a bundle, and it will be ready for you any time you call for it." "There's another thing, doctor. I think Mr. Fogson will try to get my money away, notwithstanding all you said." "He wouldn't dare to." "He is very cunning. He will find some excuse." Jed was right. To prove this, we will go back to the poorhouse and relate the conversation between the well-matched pair after Dr. Redmond's departure. "Simeon," said his wife, "if you had any spunk you wouldn't let Dr. Redmond insult and bully you, as he did just now." "What would you have me to do?" demanded her husband irritably. "I couldn't knock him down, could I?" "No, but you could have talked up to him." "I did; but you must remember that he is an important man in the town, and it wouldn't be wise to make him an enemy." "Squire Dixon is still more important. If he backs you up you needn't be afraid of this trumpery doctor." "Well, what would you advise?" "Go this evening and see the squire. Tell him what has happened, and if he gives you authority to take Jed's money, take it." "Really, that is a good suggestion, Mrs. F. I will go soon after supper." "It would do no good to triumph over Dr. Redmond. He is an impertinent meddler." "So he is. I agree with you there." Soon after seven o'clock Squire Dixon was somewhat surprised when the servant ushered Mr. Fogson into his presence. "Ah, Fogson," he exclaimed. "I was not expecting to see you. Has anything gone wrong?" "I should think so. Jed has rebelled against my lawful authority, and Dr. Redmond is aiding and abetting him in it." "You astonish me, Fogson. Are you sure you are not mistaken?" "I'll tell you the whole story, squire, and you can judge for yourself." Upon this Mr. Fogson gave an account of the scenes that had taken place in the poorhouse, including his contest with Jed, and Mrs. Fogson's ill-judged attempt to assist him. "Certainly, you were in bad luck," said the squire. "Is the injury serious?" "The burn is very painful, squire. Mrs. Fogson acted like an idiot. Why didn't she take better aim?" "To be sure, to be sure. Wasn't the boy scalded at all?" "Not a particle," answered Fogson in an aggrieved tone. "Now, what I want to know is, didn't I have a right to take the money from Jed?" "Yes, I think so. The boy would probably have made bad use of it." "The ground I take, squire, is that a pauper has no right to possess money." "I quite agree with you. Since the town maintains him, the town should have a right to exact any money of which he becomes accidentally possessed." "I don't quite see that the town should have it," said Fogson. "As the boy's official guardian, I think I ought to keep it, to use for the boy whenever I thought it judicious." "Yes, I think that view is correct. I had only given the point a superficial consideration." "Dr. Redmond denies this. He says I have no right to take the money from Jed." "Dr. Redmond's view is not entitled to any weight. He has no official right to intermeddle." "You'd think he had, by the manner in which he lectured Mrs. Fogson and myself. I never heard such impudence." "Dr. Redmond assumes too much. He doesn't appear to understand that I, and not he, was appointed Overseer of the Poor." "He says you are not fit for the position," said Fogson, transcending the limits of strict accuracy, as the reader will understand. "What?" ejaculated Squire Dixon, his face flushing angrily. "That's just what he said," repeated Fogson, delighted by the effect of his misrepresentations. "It's my belief that he wanted the office himself." "Very likely, very likely!" said the squire angrily. "Do I understand you to say that he actually called me unfit for the position?" "Yes he did. He appears to think that he can boss you and Mrs. F. and myself. Why, he stood by that boy, though he had actually assaulted me, and invited him home to supper." "You don't mean this, Mr. Fogson?" "Yes I do. Jed is at this very moment at the doctor's house. What mischief they are concocting I can't tell, but I am sure that I shall have more trouble with the boy." Squire Dixon was very much disturbed. He was a vain man, and his pride sustained a severe shock when told that the doctor considered him unfit for his position. "However," resumed the crafty Fogson, "I suppose we shall have to give in to the doctor." "Give in!" exclaimed the squire, his face turning purple. "Never, Mr. Fogson, never!" "I hate to give in, I confess, squire, but the doctor is a prominent man, and----" "Prominent man! I should like to know whether I am not a prominent man also, Mr. Fogson? Moreover, I represent the town, and Dr. Redmond doesn't." "I am glad you will stand by me, squire. With you on my side, I will not fear." "I will stand by you, Mr. Fogson." "I should hate to be triumphed over by a mere boy." "You shall not be, Mr. Fogson." "Then will you authorize me to demand the money from him?" "I will authorize you, Mr. Fogson, and if the boy persists in refusing, I authorize you to use coercive measures. Do you understand?" "I believe I do, squire. You will let it be understood that you have given me authority, won't you? Suppose the boy complains to Dr. Redmond?" "You may refer Dr. Redmond to me, Mr. Fogson," said the squire pompously. "I think I shall be tempted to give this meddling doctor a piece of my mind." Mr. Fogson took leave of the squire and pursued his way homeward with a smile on his face. He had accomplished what he desired, and secured a powerful ally in his campaign against the boy Jed and Dr. Redmond. He returned home a little after eight, and just before nine Jed made his appearance at the door of the poorhouse. He was in good spirits, for he had decided that he would soon turn his back upon the place which had been his home for fourteen years. CHAPTER VII. FOGSON'S MISTAKE. "So you have got home?" said Mr. Fogson with an unpleasant smile as he opened the door to admit Jed later that evening. "Yes, sir." "You had a pleasant time, I presume?" "Yes, sir," answered Jed, wondering to what all these questions tended. "I suppose Dr. Redmond put himself out to entertain such a distinguished guest?" "No, Mr. Fogson, I don't think he did." "He didn't make arrangements to run the poorhouse, with your help, did he?" "No," answered Jed with emphasis. "We ought to be thankful, Mrs. Fogson and I, humbly thankful, that we ain't to be turned out by this high and mighty doctor." "If you don't like the doctor you had better tell him so," said Jed; "he don't need me to defend him." "Do you know where I've been to-night?" queried Fogson, changing his tone. "How could I tell?" "I've been to see Squire Dixon." "Well, sir, I suppose you had a right to. I hope you had a pleasant call." "I did, and what's more, I told him of Dr. Redmond's impertinent interference with me in my management of the poorhouse. He told me not to pay any attention to Redmond, but to be guided by him. So long as he was satisfied with me, it was all right." "You'd better tell Dr. Redmond that when he calls here next time." "I shall; but there's something I've got to say to you. He said I had a perfect right to take the dollar from you, for as a pauper you had no right to hold property of any kind. That's what Squire Dixon says. Now hand over that money, or you'll get into trouble." "I wouldn't give the money to Squire Dixon himself," answered Jed boldly. "You wouldn't, hey? I'll tell him that. You'll give it to me to-night, though." He put out his hand to seize Jed, but the boy quietly moved aside, and said, "You can't get the money from me to-night, Mr. Fogson." "Why can't I? There's no Dr. Redmond to take your part now. Why can't I, I'd like to know?" "Because I haven't got it." "WHAT!" exclaimed Fogson. "Do you mean to say you've spent it already? If you have----" "No, I haven't spent it, but I have given it to Dr. Redmond to keep for me." Fogson showed in his face his intense disappointment. He expected to get the money without fail, and lo! the victory was snatched from him. He glared at Jed, and seemed about to pounce upon him, but he thought better of it. "You'll go and get the money in the morning," he said. "You and Dr. Redmond are engaged in a conspiracy against the town and the laws, and I am not sure but I could have you both arrested. Mind, if that money is not handed to me to-morrow you will get a thrashing. Now go to bed!" Jed was not sorry to avail himself of this permission. He had not enjoyed the interview with Mr. Fogson, and he felt tired and in need of rest. Accordingly he went up stairs to the attic, where there was a cot bed under the bare rafters, which he usually occupied. There had been another boy, three months before, who had shared the desolate room with him, but he had been bound out to a farmer, and now Jed was the sole occupant. Tired as he was, he did not go to sleep immediately. He undressed himself slowly in the obscurity, for he was not allowed a lamp, and made a movement to get into bed. But a surprise awaited him. His extended hand came in contact with a human face, and one on which there was a mustache. Somebody was in his bed! Naturally, Jed was startled. "Who are you?" he inquired. "Who'm I? I'm a gentleman," was the drowsy reply. "You're in my bed," said Jed, annoyed as well as surprised. "Where is _my_ bed?" hiccoughed the other. "I don't know. How did you get in here?" "I came in when no one was lookin'," answered the intruder. "Zis a hotel?" "No; it's the Scranton poorhouse." "You don't say? Dad always told me I'd end up in the poorhouse, but I didn't expect to get there so quick." "You'd better get up and go down stairs. Fogson wouldn't like to have you stay here all night." "Who's Fogson?" "He is the manager of the poorhouse." "Who cares for Fogson? I don't b'lieve Fogson is a gen'leman." "Nor I," inwardly assented Jed. This was the last word that he could get from the intruder, who coolly turned over and began to snore. Fortunately for Jed, there was another cot bed--the one formerly occupied by the other boy--and he got into it. Fatigued by the events of the day, Jed soon slept a sound and refreshing sleep. In fact his sleep was so sound that it is doubtful whether a thunderstorm would have awakened him. Towards morning the occupant of the other bed turned in such a way as to lie on his back. This position, as my readers are probably aware, is conducive to heavy snoring, and the intruder availed himself of this to the utmost. Mr. and Mrs. Fogson slept directly underneath, and after awhile, the door leading to the attic being open, the sound of the snoring attracted the attention of Mrs. Fogson. "Simeon!" she said, shaking her recumbent husband. "What is it, Mrs. F.?" inquired her lord and master drowsily. "Did you hear that?" "Did I hear what?" "That terrific snoring. It is loud enough to wake the dead." By this time Fogson was fairly awake. "So it is," he assented. "Who is it?" "Jed, of course. What possesses the boy to snore so?" "Can't say, I'm sure. I never heard a boy of his age make such a noise." "It must be stopped, Simeon. It can't be more than three o'clock, and if it continues I shan't sleep another wink." "Well, go up and stop it." "It is more suitable for you to go, Mr. Fogson. I do believe the boy is snoring out of spite." Even Fogson laughed at this idea. "He couldn't do that unless he snored when he was awake," he replied. "It isn't easy to snore when you are not asleep. If you don't believe it, try it." "I am ashamed of you, Simeon. Do you think I would demean myself by any such low action? If that snoring isn't stopped right off I shall go into a fit." "I wouldn't like to have you do that," said Fogson, rather amused. "It would be rather worse than hearing Jed snore." About this time there was an unusual outburst on the part of the sleeper. "A little hot water would fix him," said Fogson. "It is a pity you had not saved your hot water till to-night." "Cold water would do just as well." "So it would. Mrs. F., that's a bright idea. I owe the boy a grudge for giving his money to Dr. Redmond. I'll go down stairs and get a clipper of cold water, and I'll see if I can't stop the boy's noise." Mr. Fogson went down stairs, chuckling, as he went, at the large joke he was intending to perpetrate. It would not be so bad as being scalded, but it would probably be very disagreeable to Jed to be roused from a sound sleep by a dash of cold water. "I hope he won't wake up before I get there," thought Mr. Fogson, as he descended to the kitchen in his stocking feet to procure the water. He pumped for a minute or two in order that the water might be colder, and then with the dipper in hand ascended two flights of stairs to the attic. Up there it was still profoundly dark. There was but one window, and that was screened by a curtain. Moreover, it was very dark outside. Mr. Fogson, however, was not embarrassed, for he knew just where Jed's bed was situated, and, even if he had not, the loud snoring, which still continued, would have been sufficient to guide him to the place. "It beats me how a boy can snore like that," soliloquized Fogson. "He must have eaten something at Dr. Redmond's that didn't agree with him. If I didn't know it was Jed I should feel frightened at such an unearthly hubbub. However, it won't continue long," and Fogson laughed to himself as he thought of the sensation which his dipper of water was likely to produce. He approached a little nearer, and in spite of the darkness could see the outlines of a form on the bed, but he could not see clearly enough to make out the difference between it and Jed's. He poised himself carefully, and then dashed the water vigorously into the face of the sleeping figure. The results were not exactly what he had anticipated. CHAPTER VIII. MR. FOGSON IS ASTONISHED. The sleeper had already slept off pretty nearly all the effects of his potations, and the sudden cold bath restored him wholly to himself. But it also aroused in him a feeling of anger, justifiable under the circumstances, and, not belonging to the Peace Society, he was moved to punish the person to whom he was indebted for his unpleasant experience. With a smothered imprecation he sprang from the bed and seized the astonished Fogson by the throat, while he shook him violently. "You--you--scoundrel!" he ejaculated. "I'll teach you to play such a scurvy trick on a gentleman." Mr. Fogson screamed in fright. He did not catch his late victim's words, and was still under the impression that it was Jed who had tackled him. Meanwhile the intruder was flinging him about and bumping him against the floor so forcibly that Mrs. Fogson's attention was attracted. Indeed, she was at the foot of the stairs, desiring to enjoy Jed's dismay when drenched with the contents of the tin dipper. "What's the matter, Simeon?" she cried. "Jed's killing me!" called out Fogson in muffled tones. "You don't mean to say you ain't a match for that boy!" ejaculated Mrs. Fogson scornfully. "I'll come up and help you." Disregarding her light attire she hurried up stairs, and was astonished beyond measure when she saw how unceremoniously her husband was being handled. She rushed to seize Jed, when she found her hands clutching a mustache. "Why, it ain't Jed!" she screamed in dismay. "No, it ain't Jed," said the intruder. "Did you mean that soaking for Jed, whoever he is?" "Yes, yes, it was--quite a mistake!" gasped Fogson. "I am glad to hear you say so, for I meant to fling you down stairs, and might have broken your neck." "Oh, what a dreadful man!" ejaculated Mrs. Fogson. "How came you here and where is Jed?" "I am here!" answered Jed, who had waked up two or three minutes previous and was enjoying the defeat of his persecutor. "Did you bring in this man?" demanded Mrs. Fogson sternly. "No. I walked in myself," answered the intruder. "I was rather mellow--in other words I had drunk too much mixed ale, and I really didn't know where I was. I had an idea that this was a hotel." "You made a mistake, sir. This is the Scranton poorhouse." "So the boy told me when he came in. I wouldn't have taken a bed here if I had known your playful way of pouring cold water on your guests." "Sir, apart from your assault on me, _me_, the master of the poorhouse," said Fogson, trying to recover some of his lost dignity, "you committed a trespass in entering the house without permission and appropriating a bed." "All right, old man, but just remember that I was drunk." "I don't think that is an excuse." "Isn't it? Just get drunk yourself, and see what you'll do." "I don't allow Mr. Fogson to get drunk," said his wife with asperity. "Maybe my wife wouldn't let me, if there was any such a person, but I haven't been so fortunate as Mr. Fogson, if that is his name." "Mrs. F.," said her husband with a sudden thought, "you are not dressed for company." Mrs. Fogson, upon this hint, scuttled down stairs, and the intruder resumed: "If I've taken a liberty I'm willing to apologize. What's more, I'll pay you fifty cents for the use of your bed and stay the night out." He was appealing to Mr. Fogson's weak point, which was a love of money. "I see you're ready to do the square thing," he said in softened accents. "If you'll say seventy-five----" "No, I won't pay over fifty. I don't care to take it another night on those terms, if I am to be waked up by a dipper of water. You've wet the sheet and pillow so that I may take my death of cold if I sleep here any longer." "I'll bring you a comforter which you can lay over the wet clothes." "All right! Bring it up and I'll hand you the fifty cents." "And--and if you would like breakfast in the morning, for the small extra sum of twenty-five cents----" "Isn't that rather steep for a poorhouse breakfast?" "You will not eat with the paupers, of course, but at a private table, with Mrs. Fogson and myself." "All right! Your offer is accepted." Mr. Fogson brought up the comforter, and the visitor resumed the slumbers which had been so unceremoniously interrupted. The sun rose early, and when its rays crept in through the side window both Jed and his companion were awake. "I say, boy, come over here and share my bed. I want to talk to you." Jed's curiosity was excited, and he accepted the invitation. He found his roommate to be a good-looking young man of perhaps thirty, and with a pleasant expression. "So you are Jed?" he asked. "Yes, sir." "And you live in the poorhouse?" "Yes," answered Jed, half-ashamed to admit it, "but I don't mean to stay here." "Good! A smart boy like you ought not to be a pauper. You are able to earn your own living outside. But perhaps you are attached to the queer people who made me a visit last night." "Not much!" answered Jed emphatically. "I don't admire them much myself. I didn't see the old lady. Is she beautiful?" Jed laughed heartily. "You'll see her at the breakfast table," he said. "Then you can judge for yourself." "I don't think I shall do anything to excite Fogson's jealousy. Zounds, if this isn't the queerest hotel I ever struck. I am sorry to have taken your bed from you." "I was glad not to be in it when Mr. Fogson came up." "You're right there," said the other laughing. "Whew! how the cold water startled me. Sorry to have deprived you of it." "Mr. Fogson got a dose himself yesterday, only it was hot water." "You don't say so! Was that meant for you, too?" "Yes;" and Jed told the story of his struggle with Mr. Fogson, and his wife's unfortunate interference. "That's a capital joke," said the visitor laughing. "Now I suppose you wonder who I am." "Yes; I should like to know." "I'm Harry Bertram, the actor. I don't know if you ever heard of me." "I never attended the theatre in my life." "Is that so? Why, you're quite a heathen. Never went to a theatre? Well, I _am_ surprised." "Is it a good business?" asked Jed. "Sometimes, if the play happens to catch on. When you are stranded five hundred miles from home, and your salary isn't paid, it isn't exactly hilarious." "Are you going to play anywhere near here?" asked Jed, who was beginning to think he would like to see a performance. "We are billed to play in Duncan to-morrow evening, or rather this evening, for it's morning now." "Duncan is only five miles away." "If you want to attend I'll give you a pass. It's the least I can do to pay for turning you out of your bed." "I could walk the five miles," said Jed. "Then come. I'll see you at the door and pass you in. Ask for Harry Bertram." "Thank you, Mr. Bertram." "Old Fogson won't make a fuss about your going, will he?" "Yes, he will; but I've made up my mind to leave the poorhouse, and I might as well leave it to-day as any time." "Good! I admire your pluck." "I wish I knew what I could do to make a living." "Leave that to me. I'll arrange to have you travel with the show for two or three days and bunk with me. Have you got any--any better clothes than those?" and Bertram pointed to the dilapidated garments lying on a chair near by. "Yes, I am promised a good suit by a friend of mine in the village. I'll go there and put them on before starting." "Do; the actors sometimes look pretty tough, but I never saw one dressed like that." "Jed!" screamed Mrs. Fogson from the bottom of the stairs. "You get right up and come down stairs!" "They're calling me," said Jed, starting up. "Will I have to get up too?" "No; Mr. and Mrs. Fogson don't breakfast till seven. They'll send me up to call you." "All right! We'll soon be travelling together where there are no Fogsons." "I hope so," and Jed went down stairs with new life in his step. CHAPTER IX. JED LEAVES THE POORHOUSE. At eight o'clock Harry Bertram was summoned to breakfast in the private sitting-room of Mr. and Mrs. Fogson. In spite of the poor fare of which the paupers complained the Fogsons took care themselves to have appetizing meals, and the well-spread table looked really attractive. "Sit down here, Mr. Bertram," said Mrs. Fogson, pointing to a seat. The place opposite was vacant, as the heads of the table were occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Fogson. "Mrs. Fogson," said the actor, "I am going to ask a favor." "What is it?" returned the lady, wreathing her features into a frosty smile. "I see the seat opposite me is unoccupied. Will you oblige me by letting the boy Jed take it?" Mrs. Fogson's face changed. "I should prefer not to have him here," she answered in a forbidding tone. "Of course I propose to pay for his breakfast the same price that I pay for my own." "The boy is insubordinate and disobedient," said the lady coldly. "Still he gave me his bed last night. Some boys would have objected." "My dear," said Fogson, whose weakness for money has already been mentioned, "I think, as the gentleman has agreed to pay for Jed's breakfast, we may give our consent, merely to gratify him." "Very well," answered Mrs. Fogson, resolved to claim the twenty-five cents for herself. She rose from her seat, went to the window, and opening it, called to Jed, who was at work in the yard. He speedily made his appearance. "Sit down to the table, Jedediah," said Mr. Fogson with dignity. "Mr. Bertram desires you to breakfast with him." Jed was very much surprised, but as he noted the warm biscuit and beefsteak, which emitted an appetizing odor, he felt that it was an invitation not to be rejected. "I am very much obliged to Mr. Bertram," he said, "and also to you and Mrs. Fogson." This was a politic remark to make, and he was served as liberally as the guest. "Do you find your position a pleasant one, Mr. Fogson?" asked Bertram politely. "No, Mr. Bertram, far from it. The paupers are a thankless, ungrateful set, but I am sustained by a sense of duty." "The paupers were spoiled by our predecessors, Mr. and Mrs. Avery," chimed in Mrs. Fogson. "Really, Mr. Bertram, you would be surprised to learn how unreasonable they are. They are always complaining of their meals." "I am sure they must be unreasonable if they complain of meals like this, Mrs. Fogson," said the actor. "Of course we can't afford to treat them like this. The town would object. But we give them as good fare as we can afford. Are you going to stay long in Scranton?" "No; I am merely passing through. I shall sleep to-night at Duncan." "At the poorhouse?" asked Jed with a comical smile. "Yes, if I could be sure of as good fare as this," replied the actor with an answering smile. "But that would be very doubtful." Mrs. Fogson, who, cross-grained as she was, was not above flattery, mentally pronounced Mr. Bertram a most agreeable young man--in fact, a perfect gentleman. "I am really ashamed," continued Bertram, "to have entered your house in such a condition, but I was feeling a little internal disturbance, and fancied that whisky would relieve it. Unfortunately I took too much." "It might have happened to anyone," said Fogson considerately. "I am myself a temperance man, but sometimes I find whisky beneficial to my health." Bertram, noticing the ruddy hue of Mr. Fogson's nose, was quite ready to believe this statement. "May I ask if you are a business man?" remarked Fogson. "My business is acting. I belong to the Gold King Company, which is to play at Duncan to-night." "Indeed!" said Mrs. Fogson, with a glance of curiosity. "I never saw an actor before." "I am sorry you should see such an unworthy representative of the Thespian art. If we were to play in Scranton, it would give me pleasure to offer you and Mr. Fogson complimentary tickets." "I wish you were to play here," said Mrs. Fogson in a tone of regret. "I haven't seen a play for five years." "I suppose you couldn't come to Duncan?" "No; we could not be spared. Besides, we have no horse and carriage," said Fogson. "We must wait till you perform in Scranton." Jed was very much relieved to hear this remark, for it would have interfered with his own plans if Mr. and Mrs. Fogson had accepted an invitation to witness the play at Duncan. "Is it a good paying business?" asked Mr. Fogson. "Well, so so. My salary is fifty dollars a week." "You don't say so!" exclaimed Fogson in envious surprise. "You ought to lay up money." "It seems so, but in the summer we generally have a long vacation. Besides, we have to pay our hotel bills; so that, after all, we don't have as much left as you would suppose. Besides, we have to buy our costumes, and some of them are quite expensive." In spite of these drawbacks the Fogsons evidently looked upon Bertram as a wealthy young man. At length they rose from the table. Jed had never before eaten such a meal since he entered the poorhouse, and he felt in a degree envious of Mr. and Mrs. Fogson, who probably fared thus every day. When he considered, however, how they nearly starved the poor people of whom they had charge he felt indignant, and could not help wishing that some time they might exchange places with the unfortunate paupers. He went out to the yard again, and resumed his work at the woodpile. Harry Bertram strolled out and lazily watched him. "I suppose you never did work of this kind, Mr. Bertram?" said Jed. "Oh yes, I lived for nearly a year with an aunt who required me to prepare all the wood for the kitchen stove. I can tell you one thing, though, I did not enjoy it, and when I left her I retired forever from that line of business." "Are you going to stay in Scranton to-day?" "No; I must be getting over to Duncan. We have taken on a new actor and shall be obliged to have a rehearsal. Will you go along with me?" "I should like to, but it would only get me into trouble. I will start about four o'clock, and go over to Dr. Redmond's to get the suit of clothes he promised me." "I suppose you won't have to take a trunk of clothes from here?" "About all the clothes I own are on my back. If I leave any behind me, anyone is welcome to them." "Do you think there will be any difficulty in your getting away?" "I think I can slip off without being noticed." "Do you think they will go after you?" "They might if they suspected where I was going." "Then I shall have to help you. Join me at the theatre, and it will go hard if, between us, we cannot foil the enemy." "Thank you, Mr. Bertram. You are a real friend." "Some people say I am everybody's friend but my own. You can judge for yourself about that when you know me better." Harry Bertram walked off whistling, and Jed was left to his reflections. It is needless to say that he felt in an excited mood, for it seemed to him that he had come to a turning-point in his life. As far back as he could remember he had been an inmate of the Scranton poorhouse. When Mr. and Mrs. Avery were in charge he had not minded this much, such was the kindness with which he was treated by those good people. But when, through the influence of Squire Dixon, they were removed and Mr. and Mrs. Fogson put in their place he began to feel the bitterness of his position. The three months which had passed since then seemed to him like so many years. But now he had resolved, once for all, to end his thralldom, and go out into the great world and see what he could do for himself. Circumstances favored him. About half-past three Mr. Fogson called him down. "I want you to go to Squire Dixon's and carry this letter," he said. Jed's heart leaped with joy. It at once occurred to him that Squire Dixon lived only about twenty rods from Dr. Redmond, and that he could call at the doctor's house after doing his errand. "Is there any answer?" he asked. "No; I have asked the squire to call here this evening, if he can. He is the overseer, and I wish to consult him." "Very well, sir." Jed took the letter, glad that no answer would be required. Even if there had been, he would have neglected to bring it, for he could not afford to throw away this chance of escape. The distance from the poorhouse to Squire Dixon's residence was about three-quarters of a mile. Jed covered it in less than fifteen minutes. In the front yard Percy Dixon was strutting about with the airy consequence habitual to him. "What brings you here?" he asked rudely. "I've come with a note for your father. After I've delivered it I will stop a little while and play with you if you want me to." "You needn't trouble yourself. I don't care to play with paupers." "Don't call me that again, Percy Dixon!" said Jed, his patience worn out. "What will happen if I do?" demanded Percy tauntingly. "I may be obliged to give you a thrashing." CHAPTER X. JED REACHES DUNCAN. Percy Dixon's face flushed with resentment. "Do you know who you are talking to?" he demanded. "Yes," answered Jed coolly. "I am talking to a boy who thinks a great deal more of himself than any one else does." "I would punish you, but I don't want to dirty my hands with you. I'll tell my father, and he'll see that old Fogson flogs you." Jed smiled. He never meant to see Fogson again if he could help it, but he was too wise to impart his plans to Percy. At this moment his father came up to the gate, and as he opened it his attention was drawn to Jed. "Have you come here with any message for me?" he asked. "I have a note for you." "Give it to me." "Humph!" said the squire, casting his eye over the note. "Mr. Fogson asks me to call this evening. I will do so." "Very well, sir." "Father," interrupted Percy, "there is to be a play performed at Duncan this evening." "Is there?" "Yes; I saw a bill in the post-office. It's the 'Gold King,' I believe. May I go?" "I don't know," said the squire, hesitating. "Mr. Fogson wants me to call at the poorhouse." "If you don't care about going, I can drive mother and Alice over. You know you promised we should attend the next theatrical performance anywhere near." "If your mother and Alice would like to go I have no objection. You must drive carefully, and you can leave the horses in the hotel stable." "All right," said Percy joyfully. "Did you ever go to a theatre?" he asked Jed in a patronizing tone. "No." "I have been quite often," said Percy complacently. "But, of course, paupers can't attend amusements." "You may change your mind this evening," thought Jed. Jed went at once to the doctor's house. Dr. Redmond had just arrived from a round of visits. "Good morning, Jed," he said pleasantly. "Good morning, Dr. Redmond." "Do you want to see me?" "I have come to claim your promise," said Jed. "What is that?" "You promised me a suit of clothes when I got ready to leave the poorhouse." Dr. Redmond's face instantly assumed a look of interest. "And you have decided to take this important step?" he said. "Yes, doctor. I am tired of being called a pauper. I am sure I can earn my own living, and I mean to try it." "I don't know but you are right, Jed. At any rate, you have my best wishes. Come into the house, and I will ask Mrs. Redmond to look up the suit. If I am not mistaken you will need other things also--socks, handkerchiefs, and underclothing." "I need them, no doubt, but I don't want to ask too much." "I think Mrs. Redmond can fit you out. And, by the way, I think you can manage a little supper. In what direction are you going?" "To Duncan." "Why there, in particular?" "I have a friend there." "Who is it?" "Harry Bertram, the actor." Dr. Redmond looked surprised. "How did you get acquainted with him?" Jed told the story. The incident of Fogson's assault on the sleeping actor and his defeat amused the doctor not a little. "He may be of service to you," he said. "At any rate, an actor sees a good deal of the world, and he may be able to give you some advice. Now put on your clothes and see what a transformation they will make." Mrs. Redmond took Jed up to a small chamber belonging to her absent son, and laid the clothing on the bed, advising Jed to go into the bathroom close by and take a good bath. When, half an hour or more later, he descended to the floor below, Dr. Redmond started in surprise. In place of the poorhouse drudge there stood before him a good-looking boy, attired in a brown suit, with clean linen and his hair neatly brushed. Dr. and Mrs. Redmond exchanged glances. "I wouldn't believe clothes made such a difference," exclaimed the doctor. "Nor I," chimed in his wife. The same idea came into the mind of each. Jed's personal appearance would do credit to any family, however exclusive. Yet he had been brought up in the Scranton poorhouse, and associated with paupers all his life. "I mustn't forget to give you your money," said the doctor, and he put a roll of bills into Jed's hand. "But here is five dollars!" said Jed. "It was only two you had of mine." "Take the five. You will need it. It is small enough capital for a boy to go forth into the world with to seek his fortune. Now how are you going to Duncan?" "I am going to walk." "I am afraid you will get very tired," said Mrs. Redmond in a tone of sympathy. "No, ma'am, it is only five miles." "And five miles is a trifle to a strong boy like Jed." "Won't you wait till after supper?" asked Mrs. Redmond. "No, thank you. It would get me there too late." "Then I will make up some sandwiches for you. Your walk will make you hungry." Jed started with a small valise in which were packed some extra underclothing, and he carried in his hand a substantial lunch wrapped in paper. It was far better than the supper which he missed at the poorhouse. He was rather afraid of meeting some one whom he knew, particularly Percy Dixon, who he was sure would be delighted to thwart his plan by reporting him; but fortunately he escaped observation. He passed two men whom he knew very well, but in his new dress they did not know him. Jed had walked about half way when a man in a top buggy overtook him, and, stopping his horse, called out, "Is this the road to Duncan?" "Yes, sir." "Is it a straight road all the way?" "Not quite, sir. There are one or two turns." "I am sorry to hear it. I am not acquainted hereabouts, and I shouldn't like to lose my way. Are you going to Duncan?" "Yes, sir." "Then jump in, unless you prefer walking. With a good guide I shall be all right." "I would rather ride, and I will accept your invitation with pleasure." "Then we are both suited." Jed's new acquaintance was a stout man of middle age, with a prompt, alert manner, and looked like a business man. He had a quick, impulsive way with him. "Are you travelling?" he asked, noticing Jed's valise. "Yes, sir." "Going to see the world, eh?" "I'm going in search of a living, sir," answered Jed. "Got parents?" "No, sir. I'm alone in the world." "Well, you've got a tough job before you." "Yes, sir, I don't doubt it; but I am young and healthy, and I think I ought to be able to earn my living. Are you a business man?" "No, not exactly. Why do you ask?" "I thought you might have a place for me if you were." "I am not in the right sort of business for you, my lad. I am the manager of the Gold King Dramatic Company." "Then you are acquainted with Harry Bertram?" said Jed eagerly. "Yes, he is one of my actors. What do you know of Harry Bertram?" "He slept in the same room with me last night. He told me to come to Duncan, and he would see what he could do for me." "Ha, indeed! Well, Harry is a good fellow, and a good friend. He has one fault. He is a little too convivial." "Yes, sir; I thought so. Is he a good actor?" "Excellent in his line. He gets a very good salary, but I am afraid he doesn't save very much of it. Are you going to see the play this evening?" "Yes; Mr. Bertram thought he could get me in." "You won't need to ask him for a pass. Here is one;" and the manager scribbled on a leaf from his note-book _Admit Bearer._ MORDAUNT. "Thank you, sir," said Jed, as he pocketed the pass. "I suppose you are Mr. Mordaunt?" "John Mordaunt, manager of the Gold King Company. In my humbler days I was known to my friends as Jack Mordaunt." By this time they had reached Duncan, and drove at once to the hotel. CHAPTER XI. JED'S FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. Several gentlemen were sitting on the piazza in front of the hotel. Among them was Jed's acquaintance of the night before, Harry Bertram. When he saw Mr. Mordaunt in the buggy he advanced to greet him. "I am glad to see you, Mr. Mordaunt," he said. "I wanted to consult you." "Any hitch, Bertram?" asked the manager. "Yes. Young Clinton is sick and can't play to-night." "What's the matter with the boy?" "He is threatened with fever." "Couldn't he play to-night? His part is a small one, but it is important." "The doctor absolutely forbids his appearing on the stage." "That is awkward. If we were in the city we might get a substitute, but a common country boy would make a mess of the part." "You have a boy with you. Do you think he would do?" "You have known him longer than I. I refer the matter to you." "Why, it's Jed!" exclaimed Bertram, examining our hero closely. "Didn't you know me, Mr. Bertram?" asked Jed smilingly. "Who could, with such a change of dress? You must have met some good fairy. And how did you fall in with Mr. Mordaunt?" "He kindly offered me a ride." "Then you have left Scranton for good?" "For good, I hope. If I can help you in any way I will do my best." "Try him, Bertram," said the manager. "He is very presentable. Take him in hand, and see if you can't get him ready to take Ralph Clinton's place." "Then no time is to be lost. Come up to my room, Jed, and I will tell you what you are expected to do--that is, if you have had supper." "I ate my supper on the road before I fell in with Mr. Mordaunt." "Follow me, then, Jed." Harry Bertram led the way to a comfortable chamber on the second floor. "Now sit down, and I'll tell you what you will have to do. First, do you think you have the nerve to stand before an audience and play the part of a telegraph boy?" "Yes, sir. I am not troubled with bashfulness." "Have you ever spoken in public?" "Yes, at school examinations." "Then I think you'll do. Here is your part." He handed Jed a small manuscript book containing the lines of his rôle, with the cues. "You see it isn't long. I may be able to give you a little rehearsal, as you appear only in the first and last acts." The next half hour was devoted to teaching Jed his part. Bertram was delighted with the aptitude shown by his pupil. "Have you never attended a theatre?" he asked, almost incredulously. "Never, Mr. Bertram." "Then I can only say that you have the dramatic instinct, luckily for us. If you are sure you won't be afraid before the footlights, you'll do." "Then I shall do," said Jed. "I never should think of being nervous." "One thing more--nothing will be said of any substitution. To the audience you will be Ralph Clinton, as put down on the bill." "That will suit me. I am afraid if I were announced as JED, THE POORHOUSE BOY, it wouldn't help you," continued Jed with a smile. "You may have to continue in the part a week or more. As to the pay, I can't speak of that yet. Mr. Mordaunt will arrange with you." "If I can earn my board I shall be satisfied." "I can promise you that, and fully as good board as you have been accustomed to." "I hope it won't be worse," said Jed laughing. "When you go to the theatre I will see if Ralph Clinton's uniform will fit you. I haven't much doubt on that point, as you seem to be about the same size." The performance was to commence at eight. Harry Bertram and his protégé went to the hall, which was to be used as a theatre, early, so that Jed might be introduced to his fellow-actors and receive a little instruction as to the business of his part. He was very quick to comprehend, and forgot nothing, so that Bertram felt quite easy in regard to him, though it was his first appearance on any stage. Jed was very well received by the other members of the company, all of whom expressed satisfaction at having the gap so quickly filled. "I am glad to make your acquaintance, my boy," said George Osprey, the leading man. "Where have you played?" "Nowhere, sir. This is my first appearance." "I hope you won't funk." "If that means break down, I am sure I won't." "Good! Your confidence will pull you through." "Mr. Osprey, introduce me, please," lisped an elderly young lady, of affected manners. "This is Miss Celesta Raffles,Mr.----, I don't think I know your name." "Jed Gilman, but I believe I am to be billed as Ralph Clinton." "I am delighted to meet you, Mr. Gilman," said Miss Raffles. "I am sure you will be an honor to our noble profession." "I hope so, Miss Raffles," said Jed smilingly, "but I shall be able to tell better to-morrow." "I always sympathize with youth--with impulsive, enthusiastic youth," gushed Miss Raffles. "If they are of the male sex," interpolated Mr. Osprey. "Mr. Gilman, I must warn you that Miss Raffles is a dangerous woman. She will do her best to make an impression on your heart." "Oh, you wicked slanderer!" said the delighted Celesta. "Mr. Gilman, I am not dangerous at all. I will merely ask you to look upon me as your sister--your elder sister." "Thank you, Miss Raffles," said Jed, showing a tact and self-possession hardly to be expected of one with his training. "Is Mr. Osprey one of your brothers?" "Yes, she told me that she would be a sister to me. I have never--never recovered from the blow." "I may change my mind," said Celesta, who admired the handsome leading man. "If you try again, you may meet with better success----" "No," answered Osprey warily. "I never ask the same favor a second time. I leave you to Mr. Gilman. May you be happy, my children!" As Celesta Raffles looked to be thirty-five, and Jed was but sixteen, he was a good deal amused, but Miss Raffles was disposed to take the matter in earnest. "Don't let him prejudice you against me, Mr. Gilman!" she murmured. "We shall soon be better acquainted, I am sure. Do you know, I am to be your mother in the play? It is a little absurd, as I am only twenty-three, but we have to do strange things on the stage." "She's thirty-six if she's a day," whispered Osprey, "but if you want to keep in her good graces you must believe her own reports of her age." "Time to dress, Jed!" said Harry Bertram. "It will take you longer than usual, as it is the first time. Your nerve won't fail you, will it?" Jed shook his head. "I feel as cool as ever I did," he answered. Fortunately the telegraph boy's uniform fitted him exactly. He hardly knew himself as he looked at his reflection in the little mirror in his dressing-room. "I wonder if Mr. and Mrs. Fogson would recognize me if they should see me on the stage?" thought Jed. Then it occurred to him that Percy Dixon and his mother would be present. He smiled to himself as he thought of Percy's bewilderment when he saw him under such a strange change of circumstances. It is not necessary to give the plot of the Gold King. It is sufficient to say that Jed, the telegraph boy, had been stolen from his parents in early life, the Gold King being his father. He is obliged to earn his own living as a boy, but in the last act he is restored to his friends and his old station in life. In the first act Jed appeared in his predecessor's uniform. In the last he wore his own suit, this being quite as well adapted to the character as Ralph Clinton's street costume. Mrs. Dixon and Percy occupied seats in the third row from the front. They always paid the highest prices, and secured the most eligible seats. At the end of ten minutes Jed's cue was called and he appeared on the stage. Percy, who was watching the play with the greatest attention, started in amazement when he saw the boy actor. "Mother," he whispered, "that boy is the perfect image of Jed, the poorhouse boy." "Is he, indeed? Very singular, on my word!" "And he has the same voice," continued Percy, still more excited. "But I suppose it can't be he," said Mrs. Dixon inquiringly. "No, I think not," answered Percy. "Jed doesn't know anything about acting, and this boy is perfectly at home on the stage." This was indeed true. Jed was quite self-possessed. Moreover, he never hesitated for a word or stumbled, but was letter-perfect. His scene was with George Osprey, as member of a fashionable club, who had inquired into his history. "Yes," said Jed, repeating his part, "yes, Mr. Glendower, I am a poor boy, but those who look down upon me will one day find their mistake--they may find that the poor telegraph boy whom they once despised is able to look down upon them." As he uttered these words, Jed, perhaps intentionally, let his glance rest on Percy Dixon, while the latter gazed at him open-mouthed. "I believe it is Jed, after all, mother!" he ejaculated. CHAPTER XII. PERCY DIXON IS BEWILDERED. At the end of the first act Jed and George Osprey were called before the curtain. Jed had been instructed to bow his thanks, and did so. Percy watched his face eagerly, for this brought Jed within a few feet of him. "Mother," he said, "if that boy isn't Jed, it is his twin brother." "But, Percy," said his mother, who was a practical woman, "I never heard that the boy had a twin brother." "Oh, pshaw! I meant that he is exactly like him." "But this boy is Ralph Clinton. The bill says so." "I know it," said Percy, with a puzzled expression. "I don't understand it at all." "The boy you mean is probably in bed at the Scranton poorhouse." "Perhaps he is. I don't see, for my part, how he could be here, or know how to act." The play proceeded. It was in five acts, and Jed was not called upon to appear again till the last one. He proved himself up to the requirements of the part, and evidently produced a favorable impression on the audience. "Mother," said Percy, "I would like to wait at the stage door till the actors come out." "But, Percy, it is already late. We ought to be starting for home." "But, mother, you know father is Overseer of the Poor, and if this boy is Jed, he has run away from the Scranton poorhouse, and father will be held responsible." "Why should he?" "Because the paupers are under his charge. If one of them runs away he will be blamed." "Well, if you think we ought to stop," said the lady undecidedly. "But I don't see what you expect to accomplish." "I want to see that boy face to face. I want to speak to him, and find out for certain who he is." "Well, don't be any longer than you can help." "I won't." Meanwhile Jed and Harry Bertram were conversing in the greenroom. "You did yourself proud, my boy," said Bertram. "You acted as well as Clinton, and in some respects better." "I am glad to hear you say so, Mr. Bertram," said Jed, gratified. "I could hardly believe that this was your first appearance on the stage. Weren't you frightened at all?" "Not a bit. I enjoyed it." "Did you see any of your Scranton friends in the audience?" "I saw none of my Scranton _friends_," answered Jed, "but I saw two Scranton acquaintances." "Who were they?" "Percy Dixon, son of the Overseer of the Poor, and his mother." "Where were they sitting?" "In the third row from the stage." "Do you think they recognized you?" "I saw Percy watching me very closely I am sure he noticed my resemblance to his old acquaintance Jed, but he couldn't understand how it was possible for me to be the same boy." "Then you baffled him?" "I don't know. I shouldn't wonder if he would be waiting outside to get a view of me." "And if he does?" "He will do all he can to get me back to the poorhouse." "Then I'll tell you what to do. Go out of the stage door arm in arm with me, and I will address you as Ralph. If he speaks, appear not to know him." "That will be a capital joke," said Jed taking in the humor of the situation. "Between us, I think we can bluff him off." Jed had appeared in the last act in his street costume, and had no preparations to make, but Bertram had to exchange his stage for his ordinary dress. When they were ready they emerged from the stage door arm in arm. A glance showed Jed that Percy was waiting to intercept him. He did not appear to notice Percy, but passed on. Percy hastened forward, and touched him on the arm. "Look here, I want to speak to you," he said. "Speak on, my boy," said Jed, assuming the style of his new profession. "How did you come here?" demanded Percy bluntly. "What do you mean?" "I mean that you are Jed Gilman." "My dear Ralph, what does this person mean?" said Bertram. "He evidently mistakes me for some one he knows," said Jed coolly. "May I ask your name, young man?" "You know me well enough," said Percy angrily, for Jed had not tried to change his voice. "I am Percy Dixon." "Percy Dixon?" repeated Jed. "Where have I met you?" "Where have you met me?" retorted Percy. "At the Scranton poorhouse." "Do you reside there?" asked Jed with admirable composure. "Do I live at the poorhouse?" repeated Percy, exasperated. "Of course I don't." Mrs. Dixon had heard this colloquy, as she was sitting in the carriage only six feet away. "Percy," she said, "I told you you had made a mistake." "I don't believe I have," said Percy in a sulky tone. "For whom do you take me, Mr. Dixon?" asked Jed. "For Jed Gilman, a poorhouse boy." "I feel very much complimented," said Jed smoothly. "I hope Jed is a nice boy." "No, he isn't. He is an impudent young rascal." "Then how dare you compare my friend Ralph to a boy like that?" demanded Bertram savagely. "You must be crazy, or do you mean to deliberately insult him?" Poor Percy was overwhelmed. He wasn't half so certain now that he was right. True, there was a wonderful resemblance between the young actor and Jed, but then it seemed impossible that Jed should have left the poorhouse suddenly (and Percy remembered seeing him that very afternoon at his own home) and developed into a member of a dramatic company. "I may have made a mistake," he said doubtfully. "I am glad you realize this possibility," said Bertram. "Did you witness the play this evening?" "Yes, sir." "Do you think your friend Jed----" "He is not my friend." "Well, do you think that Jed, whatever he is, could act like my friend Ralph?" "No, I don't think he could," Percy admitted. "Probably this Jed is a very ordinary boy?" "I should say so. Ordinary is no name for it. He is stupid." "Then you will see for yourself that it is not very likely that he should become an accomplished actor all at once. If it were you it might be different. You are evidently a young man of social position, while this Jed is a poor boy, and I presume without education." "Yes, he is very ignorant," answered Percy, falling into the trap. "Is it--hard to learn to act?" he added. "Not if you have talent and education. Do you think of trying the stage?" "I might some time," said Percy, flattered by the question. "If you do, I hope you will succeed. Now, Mr. Dixon, I must bid you good night, as my friend Ralph and myself are fatigued with our acting and must get to bed." "Good evening!" said Jed, raising his hat gravely. "Good evening!" returned Percy, more puzzled than ever. He jumped into the carriage and started to drive home. "Then it wasn't Jed?" said his mother. "I suppose not," answered Percy, "but I never in all my life saw such a resemblance." "Very likely," replied Mrs. Dixon placidly. "There was a woman in Trenton who looked just like me, so that no one could tell us apart." "Yes," admitted Percy; "I must be mistaken. This boy had a very nice suit on, while Jed was dressed in rags." When they reached home Squire Dixon was abed and asleep. Percy came down late to breakfast. "By the way, Percy," said his father, as he helped him to breakfast, "Fogson has just been over to report that the boy Jed has mysteriously disappeared. He never went back after bringing me the message yesterday afternoon." Percy dropped his knife and fork and stared at his father in open-eyed amazement. "Then it was Jed, after all!" he exclaimed. CHAPTER XIII. FOGSON IN PURSUIT. "What do you mean, Percy?" asked Squire Dixon, referring to his son's exclamation at the close of the preceding chapter. "Do you know anything of Jed?" "Yes; I saw him last evening at Duncan." "But what took him there? What was he doing?" "He was on the stage. He was playing in 'The Gold King.'" "What do you mean by this absurd statement?" demanded his father angrily. "It is true. Ask mother if it isn't." "I think Percy is right," said Mrs. Dixon. "The young actor bears a wonderful resemblance to the boy Jed." "But Jed doesn't know anything about acting." "That is why I thought I was mistaken. But if Jed has run away it must be he." "Why didn't you manage to speak to him after the play?" "I did, and he denied that he was Jed. He calls himself Ralph Clinton." "Really, this is a most surprising circumstance," said the squire. "The boy is a hardened young villain. His running away from those who are lawfully set over him in authority is a most audacious and highhanded outrage." "That's what I think," chimed in Percy. "What shall you do about it? Shan't you go after him?" "I think it my duty to do so. As soon as breakfast is over, ask Mr. Fogson to come round here. Tell him I have news of the fugitive." Three-quarters of an hour later Simeon Fogson was admitted into the august presence of the Overseer of the Poor. "I hear you have news of Jed Gilman," he said. "That is what your son Percy tells me." "It is true, Mr. Fogson. The young scapegrace has joined a company of actors. What is he coming to?" "To the gallows, I think," answered Fogson. "But how did you learn this?" "Percy saw him on the stage last evening." "And he actually played a part?" "Yes." "In his ragged suit?" "No," answered Percy. "He had a telegraph boy's suit first, and afterwards a nice brown suit--as nice as mine." "Where did he get 'em?" asked Fogson. "That's the question!" returned the squire solemnly. "There is a strange mystery about the boy's goings on. Have you observed anything queer in his conduct of late?" "I have noticed that he has been unusually impudent. Ha, I have it!" said Fogson, suddenly, slapping his thigh. "What have you?" asked Percy. "There was an actor stayed at the poorhouse night before last--an actor named Bertram. It is he that has lured Jed astray." "There was an actor by that name in the play last evening." "Then that settles it. Squire Dixon, what shall I do?" "I think, Mr. Fogson, you had better go at once to Duncan--I will lend you my buggy--and secure the boy, tying him hand and foot, if necessary, and take him back to the poorhouse." Simeon Fogson smiled grimly. It was an errand that suited him. "I will do so," he said, "and I will lose no time." "Don't ask for Jed Gilman," suggested Percy. "Ask for Ralph Clinton. That's the name he goes by now." Mr. Fogson drew out a stub of a lead-pencil and put down this name. In twenty minutes he was on his way, and an hour later he drew up in front of the hotel in Duncan. He left the buggy and entered the public room of the inn. "Is there such a boy as Ralph Clinton here?" he asked the clerk. "Yes; do you want to see him?" "I should like very much to see him," answered Fogson grimly. "He is in No. 12. Jim, show the gentleman up. He is sick." Fogson nodded. "I dare say," he added significantly. "I guess his acting made him sick." "Yes, that's what I heard. Is he your son?" "No, but I am his guardian." Fogson was quite elated at so easily getting on the track of the fugitive. "Sick!" he repeated to himself, as he ascended the staircase. "I guess he'll be sick before he gets through with me." The servant knocked at No. 12, and a boy's voice was heard to say "Come in!" The door was opened, and Fogson, rushing in, grasped the arm of a boy sitting in a rocking-chair. "I've got you, you young rascal!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean, you lunatic?" demanded the boy in a clear voice, higher pitched than was Jed's. Then for the first time Fogson, who was shortsighted, found out that the boy was not Jed, but a youth of lighter complexion and slighter physique. He fell back in confusion. "I was told you were Ralph Clinton," he explained, looking rather foolish. "I am Ralph Clinton." "But I want Jed Gilman." "Then why don't you look for Jed Gilman? What have I got to do with him?" "Do you act with the Gold King Company?" "Yes, when I am well." "Did you act last evening?" "No; there was another boy that took my place." "That's the one I want. He ran away from me." "Are you his father?" "No, I'm his guardian." "I don't like your looks," said Ralph, who was a very free-spoken young man. "I don't blame him for running away from you." Fogson scowled. "I believe you're as bad as he," he growled. "There's one thing sure--I'm going to get the boy back. Where is he?" "On the road, I expect. He will take my place till I get well." "Not much, he won't. Have the rest of the actors left Duncan?" "You'd better ask down stairs. I'm not going to help you get the boy back." Fogson had nothing to do but to go down again to the public room. The clerk told him that the company were to play that evening at Bolton, twelve miles away, and were probably there now, having taken the morning train. "Twelve miles away!" thought Fogson in dismay. "I can't drive so far as that. Squire Dixon wouldn't like to have me drive his horse so many miles. What shall I do?" This was a question easier asked than answered. If he had not been burdened with the horse and buggy he would have taken the next train for Bolton. As it was, he didn't feel at liberty to do this. He wished Squire Dixon were at hand, so that he might ask his advice, for he felt quite unable to decide for himself what was best to be done. As he stood beside his team in a state of indecision he heard the sound of approaching wheels, and looking up, recognized Dr. Redmond's carriage. "What brings you to Duncan, Mr. Fogson?" asked the doctor with a peculiar smile. "I've come after that rascal Jed." "Is he here?" asked the doctor innocently. "He has run away from the poorhouse and joined some strolling players. He played in the theatre last evening." "Did he, indeed?" asked the doctor, really surprised. "He must be a smart boy to take up acting so suddenly." "He is a very impudent boy." "Is he? Then I should think you would be glad to get rid of him." "I don't mean to let him off so easily. I'm going to bring him back to the poorhouse, and when I get hold of him I'll----" Mr. Fogson nodded his head significantly. It was clear that he intended that the way of the transgressor should be hard. "It strikes me, Mr. Fogson, that you are acting in a very foolish manner," said the doctor. "Why am I?" "I will tell you. Jed has got tired of being supported by the town, and he has taken the matter into his own hands. In other words, he proposes to relieve the town of the expense of his maintenance. The town will doubtless be glad to have one dependent less on its hands. You appear to want to get him back, and make the town once more responsible for his support. Is it not so?" Fogson looked blank. The matter had never presented itself to him in that light before. "You certainly won't make yourself very popular by this action," proceeded Dr. Redmond. "As a good citizen you ought to be glad that the town's expenses are lessened." "Would you have me let the boy go?" Fogson ejaculated. "Certainly, I would. Jed is able to support himself, and there is no earthly reason for keeping him in the poorhouse. I advise you to represent the matter to Squire Dixon, and see what he thinks about it." Mr. Fogson drove home slowly. He found it hard to have Jed escape from his clutches, but Squire Dixon, upon consultation, reluctantly decided that perhaps it was best to drop the matter then and there. No one was more disappointed over this decision than Percy Dixon. CHAPTER XIV. JED'S LUCK. Jed continued to act in the part assigned to him. He knew that he was liable to be superseded at any time by Ralph Clinton, but he did not care to borrow trouble. As a matter of fact, however, he was allowed to play till the end of the season, but this was not very far off. Warm weather had set in, and audiences became small. One day Harry Bertram called Jed aside. "Well, Jed," he said, "I am afraid we must part." "Why, Mr. Bertram?" "The weather has become so warm that we are no longer paying expenses. Mr. Mordaunt has decided to close the season on Saturday night." Jed looked blank. He didn't know what would come next. "I thought we might hold out another week, and we might if the weather had remained comfortable, but people won't come to see 'The Gold King' or any other play when the thermometer stands at eighty degrees." "What shall you do, Mr. Bertram?" "Fall back on my trade, if possible." "What is that?" "I am a telegraph operator, and I may be able to fill in the summer in some Western Union office. I have to work at summer prices, but as long as I make my board and lodging I shall be content." "I wish _I_ had a trade," said Jed thoughtfully. "You don't feel like going back to your old home?" "In the Scranton poorhouse? Not much!" answered Jed energetically. "I'll starve first. Have you got any place engaged?" "No, but I have worked two summers at Sea Spray, an Atlantic coast summer resort. I shall go there and see if there is an opening." "Is it far away?" "About fifty miles. I'll tell you what, Jed, you had better come with me. Something may turn up for you." "What is the fare, Mr. Bertram?" "About a dollar and a half. You will have some money coming to you. You haven't been paid anything yet, have you?" "No; I didn't suppose I was entitled to any." "You will get something. I will speak to the treasurer and arrange matters for you." Accordingly on Saturday evening, after the last performance, Jed was made happy by receiving twelve dollars, or at the rate of four dollars per week for the time he had been employed. "Mr. Mordaunt directs me to say that he would pay you more if the business would permit," said the treasurer. "Tell him this is more than I expected," said Jed elated. "That isn't professional," remarked Bertram smiling. "Actors generally claim to be worth a good deal more than they are paid." "I haven't been on the stage long enough to be professional," said Jed. Early on Monday morning Jed and his friend Bertram took the cars for Sea Spray. As they neared the coast, the ocean breeze entered cool and refreshing through the open windows. Presently the cars stopped, only two hundred feet from the bluff, and Jed for the first time gazed with delight at the Atlantic billows rolling in on the beach. "This is beautiful!" he exclaimed. "I hope I can stay here all summer." "Have you never seen the sea before?" "No; I have never travelled before. All my life has been spent at Scranton." "Take a walk with me along Ocean Avenue, and I will see what chance there is of my obtaining employment." Harry Bertram made his way to the principal hotel, where he knew there was a Western Union office. He told Jed to sit down in the reading-room while he sought for information. In ten minutes he came back with a smile of satisfaction on his face. "I am in great luck," he said. "The operator here has just been summoned home by the serious illness of his father in Chicago. He was considering whom he could get to take his place when I presented myself. The result is that I am engaged to take charge of the telegraph office at twelve dollars a week and my board." "Then you are provided for." "Yes. I can get through the summer very well." "I should think so. You will have the twelve dollars a week clear." "No; I must get a room outside. However, my predecessor has recommended his--in a private house about a quarter of a mile from the shore--at only four dollars a week." "Then I suppose we must part," said Jed with a tinge of sadness. "No, Jed. You shall room with me, and your room will cost you nothing. As to meals, I can see you through till you secure some work." "But I don't want to be a burden upon you, Mr. Bertram." "I don't mean that you shall be, any longer than is necessary. It will go hard if a boy like you can't find something to do that will buy his meals at a crowded watering-place." "Thank you, Mr. Bertram. I have money enough left to buy my meals for two weeks at least." "If we were at a regular office I could employ you as messenger, but most of the messages will come to guests in the hotel." "I don't know exactly what I can do, but I am ready to do anything." "Except black boots," said Bertram with a smile. "I don't think I should like to do that if there is anything else to be found." "I couldn't think of allowing a member of our honorable profession to undertake such menial employment." Harry Bertram went to work that evening. Jed kept him company in the office a part of the time, and during the three succeeding days went from one hotel to another to see if he could obtain anything to do. But every position had been filled for the season. Jed began to fear that there was no work for him at Sea Spray. On the fourth morning, as he was sitting with Bertram, a gentleman whom he had several times seen--a guest of the house--approached them. "Is this boy your brother?" he asked of Bertram. "No, but he is my valued friend. In fact, I may call myself his guardian for the time being." "Yes," assented Jed with a smile. "He does not assist you?" "No, he knows nothing of telegraphy." "Would you like employment?" asked the gentleman, turning to Jed. "I am very anxious to get work," said Jed quickly. "Then I think I may be able to meet your wishes. How old are you?" "Sixteen." "You may have seen a boy of ten walking about with me?" "Yes, sir." "He is my son. He and I are here alone, but until yesterday I had a nurse in my employ whose sole business was to look after Chester. I felt entire confidence in her, but discovered last evening that she had purloined some jewelry belonging to me. Of course I discharged her instantly, and in consequence am obliged to find some one in her place. "Chester objects to another nurse. It hurts his boyish pride to have a woman accompanying him everywhere. It appears to me that a boy old enough to look after him will suit him much better. But perhaps you would not like being encumbered with a small boy?" "I should like it very much, sir," said Jed. "I like young boys, and I am sure I should like your son." "Come up stairs, then. I will see how he likes you." Jed followed his new acquaintance up to a suite of two rooms on the second floor. A young boy was at the window. He looked inquiringly at his father and Jed. "Come here, Chester," said the former. "Are you quite sure you don't want another nurse?" "Yes," answered the boy. "Some of the boys in the hotel call me 'sissy' because I have a girl always with me." "Would you prefer this boy?" Chester took a long, close look at Jed, who met his glance with a smile. "Yes," said the little boy confidently. "I shall like him much better than a girl." "That settles it," said Mr. Holbrook in a tone of satisfaction. "What is your name?" "Jed Gilman." "What was your last employment?" "I took the boy's part in 'The Gold King.'" "Are you an actor?" asked Chester, much interested. "Not much of one." "You must have some talent," remarked Mr. Holbrook, "or Mr. Mordaunt, who is a manager of reputation, would not have employed you. Is your season over?" "Yes, sir." "I think you will suit me. I am obliged to be in New York every day on business, and this leaves Chester alone. I wish you to act as his companion, to go with him on the beach and in bathing, and to look after him while I am away. Are you boarding here?" "No, sir; I could not afford it." "I shall arrange to have you take meals here with Chester, but after eight o'clock in the evenings you will be your own master. Now as to the matter of compensation. Will ten dollars a week satisfy you?" "Ten dollars a week and my meals?" "Yes." "I didn't expect so much." "I like to pay liberally, and expect to be well served." "When shall I commence, sir?" "At once. I want to take the next train for the city. As I go down stairs I will tell them that you are to take your meals here. Now, Chester, I will leave you with your new friend, as I have barely time to reach the next train for New York." CHAPTER XV. TWO ODD ACQUAINTANCES. "Ten dollars a week!" repeated Harry Bertram, to who Jed communicated his good luck. "Why, that is famous!" "Ten dollars a week and my meals!" "Better still. That is better than acting." "I don't know how I shall suit Mr. Holbrook." "You will suit him if you suit the boy." By this time Chester made his appearance. "I want to walk on the beach," he said. "Come, Jed." And the boy put his hand confidingly in that of Jed. They descended the steps that led from the bluff to the beach, and walked leisurely up and down on the sand. Presently Chester expressed a wish to sit down, and before long was engaged with a small wooden spade in making a sand fortification. Relieved from duty, since his young charge could come to no harm, Jed had leisure to watch the crowds passing him in both directions. Presently a thin, dark-complexioned man, of perhaps thirty-five, after walking up and down the beach, came to a stop, and, apparently without motive, seated himself on the sand beside Chester and his youthful guardian. "A pleasant day," he remarked, looking at Jed. "Yes," answered Jed politely. He was not favorably impressed by the stranger's appearance, but recognized the claims of courtesy. "Is this little boy your brother?" "No," answered Jed. "I thought perhaps you brought him down to the beach." "I did." "I have seen him about before--with a girl." "That was Clara, my old nurse," said Chester, who caught the drift of the conversation. "I haven't got any nurse now," he added proudly. "I saw you talking to Clara one day," he added, after a closer examination of the stranger's features. "Oh, no, my little boy!" said the man, seeming annoyed. "I don't know Clara, as you call her." "Then you look just like the man that was talking with her." The stranger opened his mouth and smiled unpleasantly. "I dare say there are people that look like me," he said, "though I can't say I ever met one. What is your name, my little friend?" "I am not your friend," said Chester, who did not appear favorably impressed by his new acquaintance. "My little enemy, then." "My name is Chester Holbrook." "And how old are you?" "Ten years old. How old are you?" Again the man's lips opened in an unpleasant smile. "You have an inquiring mind, Chester," he said. "I am--thirty years old." "You look older than that." "I am afraid that is not polite, Chester," said Jed gently. "Why isn't it?" asked Chester innocently. "People don't like to be thought older than they are." "Oh, never mind," said the dark man. "A child is licensed to say what he pleases. So he is your charge?" "Yes, sir." "I don't think I have seen you here before. Have you known Mr. Holbrook long?" "No." Then upon the impulse of the moment Jed inquired, "Do you know him?" The man's face changed, and he looked a shade embarrassed. "Why do you think I know him?" he asked. "I don't think it, but as you seemed interested in the boy, I asked you the question." "Oh, that's it. I have seen Mr. Holbrook, and I may have spoken to him. I can't be sure on the subject, as I meet a good many people. Are you going in bathing?" "Do you want to bathe, Chester?" asked Jed. "No; papa told me not to go to-day, as I have a cold." "I thought perhaps I would have had your company in the surf. Well, I must be going or I shall be late for the bath." The stranger got up slowly and sauntered away. "I don't like that man. Do you, Jed?" asked Chester. "Not very much. I never saw him before." "I have seen him. I saw him one day last week." "Did you see him on the beach?" "Yes; he came up and talked with Clara." "But he said you were mistaken about that." "I was not mistaken," said Chester positively. "I remember him very well." "Do you remember what he was talking about?" asked Jed, struck by what the boy said. "Yes; he was asking questions about me." "He seems a good deal interested in you. Perhaps he is especially fond of small boys." Chester shook his head. "I don't think he is," he answered. When the bathing hour was over they ascended the steps and took seats in a summer house on the bluff. Ten minutes later a tall woman, with piercing black eyes and a swarthy complexion, entered the arbor and sat down beside them. "Do you want your fortune told?" she asked of Jed. He shook his head. "I don't believe in fortune-tellers," he said. "Don't you? Let me convince you of my power. Give me your hand." There seemed a fascination about the woman, and almost involuntarily he suffered her to take his hand. "You look prosperous," she began abruptly, "but your life has been full of poverty and privation. Is this true?" "Yes," answered Jed, impressed in spite of himself by the woman's words. "Shall I tell you where your early years were passed?" "No," answered Jed, with a quick look at Chester. He did not care to have the boy hear that his life had been passed in the Scranton poorhouse. "You are right. The knowledge could do no good and might embarrass you. You admit that I have told the truth?" "Yes." "Then shall I tell you of the future?" Jed did not answer, but the woman took his assent for granted and went on. "You will be rich--some day." "Shall I? I am glad to hear that. But I don't know where the wealth is to come from." "It is not necessary for you to know. It will be enough if it comes." "I agree with you there," said Jed, smiling. "Will it be soon?" "That is a question which I might answer, but I will not." "I don't care to know, as long as I am to be prosperous some day. Shall I ever go back to--to the place where my earlier years were passed?" "You may, but not to live. That part of your life is over." "I am glad of that at any rate. One question more. Shall I meet my--any one belonging to me--any one to whom I am related?" Jed fixed his eyes anxiously upon the fortune-teller, for skeptical as he was at first, he was beginning to have some confidence in her claims to knowledge. "Yes." "When?" "Don't seek to know more. Let me look at this boy's hand. Do you want me to tell your fortune, my pretty?" Chester laughed. "Yes," he said. "Perhaps you can tell me if I will ever be a soldier. I would like to be a General." "No; you will never be a soldier, but you will have a fight before you." "A fight? What kind of a fight?" The fortune-teller turned to Jed and said rapidly, "This boy is threatened with a serious danger. He has an enemy." "How can a young boy have an enemy?" "There are few who do not have enemies," said the woman sententiously. "Can you describe the enemy?" "He is a dark man, not tall, but taller than you. He is thin." "I met such a man on the beach," said Jed, surprised. "I met him only this morning. Is he the one you mean?" "When you meet such a man beware of him!" said the woman, and without waiting for a reply she rose from her seat and walked away rapidly. "What a funny old woman!" said Chester. "I am hungry. Let us go up to the hotel. It is time for lunch." Jed's face became thoughtful. What he had heard left a deep impression upon his mind. CHAPTER XVI. MISS HOLBROOK, SPINSTER. It was at first on Jed's mind to tell Mr. Holbrook of his encounter with the young man upon the beach and his subsequent conversation with the fortune-teller and her predictions in regard to Chester. But he was afraid of being laughed at. Moreover, as the days passed the impression made upon his mind became weaker, and was only recalled when from time to time he saw the young man on the sands or walking on the bluff. He got on very well with Chester. The boy became strongly attached to him, much to the satisfaction of his father. "So you like Jed, do you?" said Mr. Holbrook one evening, on his return from the city. "Yes, papa, I like him ever so much." "Do you like him as much as Clara?" "Why, I don't like her at all." Time wore on till the middle of August. Jed enjoyed his generous meals and the sea bathing which he shared in company with his young charge. He still lodged with Harry Bertram, but he shared the expense of the room. But a change was coming, and an unwelcome one. "Chester," said his father one evening, "I am going away for a week or ten days." "Take me with you, papa!" "No, I cannot. I am called to Chicago on business, and you will be much better off here at the beach." "Jed will stay with me?" "Yes, and I have sent for your Aunt Maria to come and look after you while I am gone." "But I don't like Aunt Maria," objected the little boy. "She's always scolding me. She doesn't like boys." "Perhaps not," said Mr. Holbrook with a smile. "If Maria had married it might have been different, but I believe few maiden ladies are fond of children." "Then why do you have her come here, papa? Jed can take care of me." "I have great confidence in Jed, Chester, but you will need some one to look after your clothes and oversee you in other ways." "Isn't there any one else you can send for, papa? I don't like old maids." "Don't trouble me with your objections, Chester. It will only be for a little while, remember. I am sure you can get along with your aunt for ten days." "I will try to," answered the boy with a look of resignation. The next day Miss Maria Holbrook came to Sea Spray with her brother. She was a tall, slender lady of middle age, with a thin face, and looked as if she were dissatisfied with a large proportion of her fellow-creatures. Chester looked at her, but did not show any disposition to welcome her to the beach. "You may kiss me, Chester," said the lady with an acid smile. "Thank you, Aunt Maria, but I am not particular about it." "Well, upon my word!" ejaculated the spinster. "My own brother's child, too!" "Kiss your aunt, Chester," said his father. "No, it is not necessary," put in Miss Holbrook sharply. "I don't want any hypocritical caresses. Robert, I am afraid you are spoiling that boy." "Oh, no, Maria, not quite so bad as that. Chester is a middling good boy." Miss Maria Holbrook sniffed incredulously. "I am afraid you judge him too leniently," she said. "Well, you can tell better after you have had time to observe him. It is two years now since you have seen Chester." "Let us hope that my first impressions may be modified," said the spinster in a tone that indicated great doubt whether such would be the case. "Jed, you may go. Chester will not need you any more this evening," said Mr. Holbrook. "Thank you, sir," said Jed, and walked away. "Who is that boy?" asked the spinster abruptly, looking at him through her eyeglasses. "He is in charge of Chester while I am in the city." "Why, he is only a boy!" "Is that against him?" "I thought Chester had a nurse." "So he did, but she proved dishonest." "Then why didn't you engage another?" "Because Chester felt sensitive about having a girl following him. The other boys in the hotel laughed at him." "Let them laugh!" said Miss Holbrook severely. "Are you to have your plans changed by a set of graceless boys?" "As to that, Maria, I find this boy more satisfactory, both to Chester and myself." "Humph! What is his name?" "Jed." "A very plebeian name." "It isn't exactly fashionable, but names are not important." "I beg your pardon. I think names _are_ important." "Perhaps that is the reason you have never changed yours, Maria. You might have been Mrs. Boggs if you had been less particular." "I would rather remain unmarried all my life. But where did you pick up this boy?" "I met him in the hotel." "Was he boarding here?" "No; I think he was boarding somewhere in the village." "Do you know anything of his family?" "No." "Do you know anything of his antecedents?" continued Miss Holbrook. "Yes; he played a part last season in the 'Gold King.'" "Heavens and earth!" ejaculated the spinster, holding up her hands in horror. "Do you mean to tell me that you have placed your son in the charge of a young play actor?" Mr. Holbrook laughed. "Why not?" "I am surprised that you should ask. You know as well as I do the character of actors." "I know that some of them are very estimable gentlemen. As to Jed, he has not been long on the stage, I believe." "Do you know anything of his family? Is he respectably connected?" "I didn't think it important to inquire. It seems to me that the boy's own character is much more to the point. I have found Jed faithful and reliable, without bad habits, and I feel that Chester is safe in his hands." "Oh you men, you men!" exclaimed Miss Holbrook. "You don't seem to have any judgment." "I suppose," said Mr. Holbrook with good-natured sarcasm, "that all the good judgment is monopolized by the old maids. What a pity they have no children to bring up." "Brother!" said Miss Holbrook in a freezing tone. "I beg your pardon, Maria, but please credit me with a little good sense." Miss Holbrook went up to the room assigned her with an offended expression, and had nothing further to say about Jed that evening. The next morning Jed reported for duty just as Mr. Holbrook was leaving for his journey. "Look after Chester while I am gone, Jed," said Mr. Holbrook pleasantly. "This is my sister, Miss Maria Holbrook, who will take my place here while I am gone." Jed took off his hat politely, and Miss Holbrook honored him with a slight inclination of her head and a forbidding look. "Good-by, Maria! I will telegraph you on my arrival in Chicago." "Good-by, brother! You need have no apprehensions about Chester while I am here." "I shall rest quite easy. Between you and Jed I am sure he will come to no harm." Miss Holbrook pursed up her mouth at the conjunction of her name with Jed's, but said nothing. "Shall I go and take a walk with Jed?" asked Chester. "Yes, in a moment. I wish to speak to the young man first." "What young man?" "Jedediah." "Jedediah!" echoed Chester with a merry laugh. "How funny that sounds!" "I apprehend that Jedediah is your right name," said Miss Holbrook severely. "I suppose so," answered Jed. "You _suppose_ so?" "I mean that I have always been called Jed. I don't remember ever having been called by the full name." "Don't your parents call you so?" "My parents are not living." "When did they die?" Jed looked troubled. "When I was a baby," he answered gravely. "Indeed! Then who brought you up?" "Mr. and Mrs. Avery." "Were they any relations of yours?" "No, but they were very kind to me." "Come along, Jed! There's the steamboat just leaving the pier!" called Chester impatiently. Without waiting to be further questioned Jed answered the call of his young charge. He was glad to get away, for he felt that the spinster might ask him some questions which he would find it difficult to answer. CHAPTER XVII. JED MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. Jed was not long in finding that Chester's aunt looked upon him, if not with hostility, at least with distrust. This was an unpleasant discovery. Mr. Holbrook had always appeared to have confidence in him, and approved his management of his son. While Chester and Jed were walking on the beach Miss Holbrook took a seat upon the bluff and watched them through her spectacles, as Jed could not help seeing. "I say, Jed," asked the little boy, "how do you like Aunt Maria?" "I don't feel very well acquainted with her yet," answered Jed cautiously. "_I_ don't like her!" said Chester emphatically. "Why not?" "Oh, she's always scolding and finding fault. Papa says it's because she's an old maid." Jed smiled. "I wish papa had not sent for her," went on Chester. "We could get along well enough without her." "I think _we_ should get along very well together, Chester." "I am sure we should. Have you got any old maid aunts?" "Not that I know of," replied Jed soberly, as he had forced upon him the thought of his solitary condition. "Then you are lucky. I'll give you Aunt Maria if you want her." "Perhaps she might not consent to be given away, Chester." Half an hour later Jed met with a surprise, and one not altogether agreeable. "Hello! you here!" exclaimed an amazed voice that sounded familiar to Jed. He looked up and saw Percy Dixon approaching. "Oh, it's you, Percy?" he said. "When did you arrive?" "This morning. Father and I are staying at the Spray House." This was the largest hotel, and Percy mentioned the name with evident pride. "It is a nice hotel," responded Jed. "I should say so. Why, it's the most expensive one here. But you haven't told me how you came here." "I have been here for some weeks." "Where do you live?" "I have a room in the village, but I take my meals at the Spray House." "You take your meals at the Spray House?" ejaculated Percy. "Yes." "How can you afford it?" "This boy's father pays my board. I look after Chester." "What's your name?" asked Chester, who was by no means bashful. "Percy Dixon," answered Percy politely, for he judged that Chester belonged to a rich family. "So you know Jed?" "Yes. I have that honor," returned Percy with a curl of the lip. "When did you leave off acting?" he asked, turning to Jed. "At the end of the season. Few dramatic companies play during the summer." "Are you going to play with them again?" "I don't know yet. The boy whose place I took may be ready to take his own part in the fall." "I saw your old friends Mr. and Mrs. Fogson just before I came away," said Percy significantly. "Wouldn't you like to know how they are?" "No; I feel no particular interest in them." "They are interested in you. Fogson says he's bound to get you back some time." "I don't care to talk of them," said Jed coldly. "Are you going in bathing?" asked Chester. "Yes, I think so. Do you go in?" "Shall we go in, Jed?" asked the little boy. "Yes, if you like, Chester." The three boys repaired to the bathing-houses and prepared for their bath. As they walked up to the hotel together afterwards, Percy remarked: "It seems strange to see you in such a place as this." "I suppose so." "It's funny how you get on. How did you get the chance to take care of the little boy?" Jed explained. "Is Chester's father rich?" "I presume so, from what I hear." "Is he here now?" "No; he is in Chicago for a week or ten days." "And is there no one except you to take care of the boy?" "There is an aunt of Chester's in the hotel--his father's sister. There she is now!" and Jed pointed out Miss Maria Holbrook. Percy noticed her attentively, and was observed in turn by the spinster, who privately resolved to seek some information about Jed from one who appeared to know him. After dinner, while on the piazza, Miss Holbrook noticed Percy sitting but a few feet distant. "Ahem!" she began. "Young man, will you do me the favor to move your chair a little nearer?" Percy did so gladly. He wished for a chance to become acquainted with Jed's employers. "Thank you. May I ask your name?" "Percy Dixon." "I noticed that you seemed to be acquainted with the boy who is in charge of my young nephew Chester." "Yes, ma'am, I know him." "Have you known him long?" "As far back as I can remember." "Did you live in the same town?" "Yes, ma'am." "Where?" "Scranton." "You must pardon my curiosity, but my brother--Chester's father--engaged this boy without apparently knowing much about him, except that he had been on the stage." "He wasn't on the stage long." "Perhaps not, but probably he didn't get any good from it. What is your opinion of him. Though, as you are his friend----" "I am _not_ his friend!" said Percy bluntly. "Then you haven't a high opinion of him?" said Miss Holbrook eagerly. "No; I never liked him." "I don't like him myself, though I can't tell exactly why not, and I am bound to say that Chester and his father seem infatuated with him." "I think you are quite right, Miss Holbrook." "I can't help thinking there is some mystery about him." "You are right, Miss Holbrook. There _is_ a mystery about him." "I was sure of it," exclaimed the spinster. "What is the character of his relations?" "He has none that I know of." "I believe he told me his parents were dead, and that he was brought up by a Mr. and Mrs. Avery." "Ho, ho!" laughed Percy. "Why do you laugh?" "At his being brought up by Mr. and Mrs. Avery." "Isn't it true, then?" "Yes; but he probably didn't tell you that Mr. and Mrs. Avery had charge of the Scranton poorhouse." "What!" ejaculated the spinster. "It is as I say. Until a few weeks since Jed was an inmate of the Scranton poorhouse." "And this boy is actually in charge of my nephew!" exclaimed Miss Holbrook, overwhelmed with horror. "Yes; I was very much surprised to see Jed in such company." "My poor brother must be quite unaware of this astounding fact!" "No doubt, Miss Holbrook. Jed is cunning. He wouldn't be very apt to tell your brother that he is a pauper." "A pauper! What a horrid thought! And that boy has actually the effrontery to push himself in among people of position. I can hardly believe it." "If you have any doubt about it, Miss Holbrook, just write a note to Mr. Simeon Fogson, and ask him what he thinks of Jed Gilman." "But I thought it was Mr. Avery who kept the poorhouse." "He did; but when my father became Overseer of the Poor," said Percy with conscious pride, "he removed the Averys and put in Mr. and Mrs. Fogson, whom he considered more fit for the office. The Averys were weak people and pampered the paupers." "Mr. Simeon Fogson, Scranton," Miss Holbrook entered on her tablets. "Really, Mr. Dixon, I am very much obliged to you for the important information you have given me, and so ought my brother to be. He has been very careless and indiscreet in engaging a boy of unknown antecedents, but it is fortunate that Chester has an aunt who is keenly alive to his interests." As she rose to go to her room to write to Mr. Fogson, Percy smiled. "Jed Gilman will find that his goose is cooked," he said to himself. "Won't he be astonished when the thunderbolt falls?" CHAPTER XVIII. MR. FOGSON RECEIVES A LETTER. Let us go back to the Scranton poorhouse. Mr. Fogson was sawing wood near the house. It was a task which Jed had been accustomed to do, but in his absence it devolved upon Mr. Fogson, who was very much disinclined to that form of labor, but still more to paying for having it done. He had thought of requiring Isaac Needham, one of the paupers, to do the sawing; but the old man, who was over seventy-five, proved physically unable to do the work, and very much against his will Mr. Fogson found himself compelled to undertake it himself. "Drat that Jed!" he muttered, as he stopped to mop his forehead with his red cotton handkerchief. "It's an outrage for him to throw his work on me. I wish I had him here this blessed minute and could give him a taste of the strap." At this point a neighbor's boy, Joe Coakley, entered the yard. "Here's a letter for you, Mr. Fogson," he said. "I guess it's from a lady." With considerable surprise Mr. Fogson took the letter in his hand. The envelope was square, and of fine paper, while the address was in a lady's handwriting. Mr. Fogson examined the postmark curiously. "Sea Spray!" he repeated. "Why, that's a fashionable watering-place. Who can have written me from there?" Just then Mrs. Fogson came out from the side door. "What letter have you there?" she asked. "It is from a lady, Mrs. F.," answered her husband with a grin. "What business has a lady writing to you?" demanded Mrs. Fogson suspiciously. "Really I don't know, as I have not read the letter." "Give it to me!" "No, thank you. I read my own letters." "Mr. Fogson, if you are engaged in a private correspondence with any lady I intend to find out all about it." "Don't be a fool, Mrs. F.; I don't know who the writer is, and I have never had a letter from her before." By this time he had opened the envelope, and his face quickly assumed an expression of interest. "It's about Jed," he exclaimed. "I'll read it to you." This was the letter: MY DEAR SIR: I am informed that you can give me information as to the past history of Jedediah Gilman. Some weeks ago my brother, Robert Holbrook, a well-known merchant of New York, engaged the boy as a companion and personal attendant of his young son Chester, without knowing much about him or taking the trouble to inquire. Having seen the boy, I have doubts as to whether he is a suitable companion for a boy in my nephew's high social station. I learn from young Mr. Percy Dixon, of your town, that you can give me full information as to the boy's antecedents. I shall feel indebted to you if you will take the trouble to communicate with me by letter. My brother is now in Chicago, and I am in temporary charge of my nephew. I feel that it is my duty to inquire into the character of a boy who by his intimate association with him may, if he is unworthy, do incalculable harm to his young and trustful nature. Yours very truly, MARIA HOLBROOK, _Spray Hotel_, Sea Spray, N. J. "Well, upon my word!" ejaculated Mrs. Fogson. "So that young villain has wormed his way into the confidence of a rich New York merchant!" "Like a snake in the grass," suggested Simeon Fogson. "Exactly. It makes me shudder to think what an impostor he is. It is providential that Percy Dixon should find him out and show him up." "I'll show him up!" said Fogson, nodding. "I'll just write to Miss Holbrook, and tell her of his goin's on. I reckon he won't keep his place long after they get my letter." "You'd better let me write the letter, Simeon." "No, Mrs. F., the letter was addressed to me, and I'm goin' to answer it." "Just as you like, Mr. Fogson, but you are well aware that you are weak in your spelling." "Never mind, Mrs. F., I reckon I can make myself understood." "Just as you like, Fogson. Only make it strong enough." "You can trust me for that." CHAPTER XIX. DISCHARGED. In a front room on the second floor of the Spray Hotel sat Miss Maria Holbrook with a letter in her hand. It was written on the cheapest note-paper, and inclosed in a plebeian brown envelope. Of course it will be understood that it was the epistolary effort of Mr. Simeon Fogson. "Just as I thought!" soliloquized the lady. "This boy seems to be a disreputable character of the lowest antecedents, and utterly unworthy to associate even as a servant with a member of my family." Here Chester entered in his usual impetuous manner. "Oh, Aunt Maria," he cried, "I had a bully bath." "I am shocked to hear you use such a low term as 'bully,' Chester," said his aunt. "No doubt you learned it of Jedediah." "No, I didn't. Jed never uses the word. At least I never heard him." "Will you tell Jedediah that I wish to see him at once on important business?" "It seems funny to hear you call him Jedediah, Aunt Maria." "I apprehend that it is his right name; 'Jed' sounds low." "Well, I'll tell him to come up." When Jed made his appearance Miss Holbrook said: "You may go below, Chester. I wish to speak to Jedediah in private." "What's up now, I wonder?" thought Jed. The lady turned upon him a severe look. "Jedediah," she said, "is it true that your earlier years were spent at the Scranton poorhouse?" "Yes, madam," answered Jed, coloring. "Did you apprise my brother of this fact when he engaged you?" "No, madam. I suppose you learned it from Percy Dixon." "I learned it from young Mr. Dixon, but I could hardly believe it. He referred me to Mr. Simeon Fogson, of Scranton, and I have a letter from that gentleman in my hand. You probably will not care to read it." "I should like very much to read it, Miss Holbrook. I should like to know whether Mr. Fogson tells the truth." "Here is the letter, then." Jed read it with conflicting emotions. RESPECTED MADAM: I am glad to give you the informashun you ask about that young villen Jed Gilman, who ran away from the Poor House some weeks since after a violent assault on me, his offishul guardeen. Words cannot tell you how much trouble I have had with that boy. Likewise he has been very impident to Mrs. Fogson. The reeson is that he was too much indulged by my predicesors in offis Mr. and Mrs. Avery. I have tried to do my dooty by the boy, but as Squire Dixon, the Overseer will tell you my efforts has been in vane. I am not supprised that your brother was took in by Jed for he is the artfulest boy I ever seen. I hope for the sake of your young nefew's welfare you will discharge him at once and not allow him to corrup his youthful mind. Yours respectfully, SIMEON FOGSON. "Well," said Miss Holbrook triumphantly, "that doesn't seem to commend you very highly." "No," answered Jed, returning the letter to the envelope. "It is such a letter as I should expect Mr. Fogson to write." "Why?" "Because he is unfit for his place," answered Jed boldly. "He half starves the poor people under his charge, treats them roughly, and is detested by all." "He says you are impudent and troublesome." "I did not allow him to impose upon me." "He says you ran away." "I had a right to leave, as I felt able to support myself. I was recommended to do so by Dr. Redmond, the best physician in Scranton, who is a friend of mine." "I have listened to your side of the story," said Miss Holbrook coldly, "and the terms in which you speak of Mr. Fogson convince me that his charges are correct. Of course you will not expect me to keep you in charge of my nephew." "Will you wait till Mr. Holbrook returns?" pleaded Jed, who felt sad at the prospect of parting with Chester. "No; I shall not feel justified in doing so. I will pay you up to date, and assume the charge of Chester myself." She drew a bill from her pocket and handed it to Jed, who took it mechanically and left the room with a sober face. He was dismissed from his position in disgrace, a disgrace which he felt was not deserved. What was he to do next? CHAPTER XX. JED'S POOR PROSPECTS. Jed walked around to the office of his friend Harry Bertram. The telegraph operator noticed at once that he looked disturbed. "What has happened, Jed?" he asked. "I am discharged! That is all." "Discharged? Who discharged you?" "Miss Holbrook." "What is her reason? What have you done?" asked Bertram, much surprised. "I have done nothing, but she has discovered that I was brought up in the Scranton poorhouse," announced Jed despondently. "As if that made you any the worse!" ejaculated Bertram indignantly. "It isn't to my credit, at any rate. I am ashamed of it myself." "I don't know why you should be ashamed. You have left it, and are now earning your own living." "I was, but I am out of work now, and I may find it hard to get another position." "You can perhaps go back to the stage." "If I can take my part in the 'Gold King' I shall be satisfied," said Jed hopefully. "When will the season commence?" "September 7--three weeks from next Thursday." At that moment one of the bell boys came to the telegraph office with a letter in his hand. "I have a letter for you, Mr. Bertram," he said. "Ha! This is from Mordaunt. Now we shall know." He tore open the envelope hastily. His countenance fell, and he handed it in silence to Jed. This is the letter. DEAR BERTRAM: Season of the Gold King opens at Jersey City on the seventh of September. As we shall have two new actors I shall call rehearsals for the Tuesday previous. Please report at Middleton Agency in New York on the first. JOHN MORDAUNT, Manager. P. S.--Ralph Clinton has recovered from his sickness, and will be ready to resume his part. "That settles it!" said Jed soberly, as he handed back the letter. "That opening is closed to me." "I am awfully sorry, Jed," returned Bertram in a tone of sympathy. "Perhaps if you enroll your name at the agency you can get a chance in some other play. I will speak a good word for you, and so I am sure will Mordaunt." Jed shook his head. "I don't think my chance would be very good," he said, "as I have had so little experience. Besides, it is three weeks from now. I must try to get work before then." "Stay here, Jed. I will pay your expenses." "Thank you, Mr. Bertram, but I have more than money enough for that, and you will need all yours. It will be better for me to leave Sea Spray, and go out in the world in search of work." "I hate to have you go, Jed. I shall feel lonesome." "So shall I, Mr. Bertram, but we are sure to meet again," said Jed with forced cheerfulness. "You must promise if things don't go well with you to write to me. You can learn from the _Clipper_ or any of the dramatic papers where we are playing." "I'll promise that, Harry," said Jed, pressing the hand of his friend. "That's right, Jed! Don't call me Mr. Bertram again." "I will remember." "Don't go till to-morrow." "No, I won't. I shall need a little time to get ready." At this point a message came for Bertram to transmit, and Jed walked over to the beach, feeling dull and despondent. As he sauntered on slowly with his eyes on the sand some one called out, "Hallo, there!" Looking up, he met the gaze of Percy Dixon. "Where's Chester?" asked Percy. "In the hotel, I suppose." "Why isn't he with you?" "Because he is no longer under my charge," answered Jed eyeing Percy fixedly. "Ho, ho! you don't mean to say that you're bounced!" queried Percy, with a look of malicious pleasure. "That is about the size of it." "Well, I _am_ surprised," returned Percy cheerfully. "What have you been up to?" "Nothing." "Then why are you discharged?" asked Percy with a look of innocent wonder. "I don't think _you_ need ask, Percy Dixon," said Jed coldly. "If you had not made your appearance at Sea Spray I should have kept my place." "Ho, ho! What have I been doing, I should like to know?" asked Percy smiling. "I don't need to tell you. You told Miss Holbrook that I had been brought up in the Scranton poorhouse." "Well, it's true, isn't it?" "Yes, it is true, but you understood very well what would be the result of your communication." "As she asked me about you, I had to tell." "You gave her the name of Mr. Fogson, and led to her writing to him." "So he's written, has he." "Yes; Miss Holbrook showed me the letter this morning." "What did he say?" asked Percy, smiling. "Probably Miss Holbrook will show you the letter if you ask her." "I will. I should like to see what old Fogson says. He don't admire you very much." "There is no love lost between us." "Well, what are you going to do?" inquired Percy, whose weak point was curiosity. "I shall try to get another position." "Do you expect to go back to the stage?" "No; my old part in the 'Gold King' has been taken by the actor whose place I filled during his sickness." "Then you haven't anything in view." "Nothing particular." "Then I advise you to go back to the poorhouse. Fogson will be glad to see you. I will arrange it with father." "You are very kind, but I have no more idea of returning to the poorhouse than you have of making your home there." "I'll thank you not to mention my name in connection with the poorhouse," said Percy, coloring and speaking angrily. "I will make the same request of you." "You are getting on your high horse," remarked Percy sarcastically. "Perhaps so. Good morning." "That fellow's the proudest beggar I ever saw," mused Percy, as he stood still on the beach and watched Jed's receding figure. "It's so ridiculous, too! A boy brought up in a poorhouse! I wonder if he has any idea what a fool he is making of himself." "Why is Percy so malicious?" thought Jed, as he pursued his way, feeling, if anything, a little more despondent than before. "If our situations were changed I should delight in helping him along. He seems determined to force me back to the poorhouse. But I won't go! I'll starve first." To one who has been steadily employed enforced idleness is tedious and tiresome. As Jed paced the sands his life seemed perfectly aimless, and he wondered how he was going to get through the day. Moreover he missed Chester. The boy's warm heart and affectionate ways had endeared him to his young guardian, and Jed felt sad to think that in all probability he should never again be on terms of intimacy with the little fellow. Plunged in thought and despondent he sauntered along till suddenly he heard a young fresh voice, that brought a brighter look to his face. "Jed, Jed!" Jed turned, and saw only a couple of rods distant the boy of whom he had been thinking, walking beside his tall and stately aunt, who, after discharging Jed, had felt obliged to undertake the charge of her young nephew herself. "Why, Chester!" said Jed with a bright smile. Chester broke away from his aunt, and running up to Jed took his hand confidingly. "Aunt Maria says you are going away!" he broke out. "What makes you go away?" "Your aunt has sent me away," announced Jed. "But I won't let you go," said the little boy, taking a firmer grip of Jed's hand. "Come back directly, Chester!" said Miss Holbrook frowning. "I want to stay with Jed," said Chester rebelliously. "But I don't want you to stay with him. Come back directly, you naughty boy!" exclaimed Miss Holbrook angrily. "I'd rather stay with Jed!" "Jedediah!" said Miss Holbrook, turning a look of displeasure upon Jed. "I am sorry that you incite Chester to acts of disobedience." "Miss Holbrook," returned Jed independently, "I don't think I have done what you charge me with. I like Chester, and I cannot drive him away." "That is all very well, but I understand your motives. You want to force me to take you back." "Excuse me, I have no such thought. If your brother will take me back I shall be glad to return to him." "I will see that he does not recall you. Chester, if you don't come back at once I will punish you." Looking at his aunt's angry face, Chester very reluctantly felt compelled to obey. "Kiss me, Jed!" he said. Jed bent over and kissed the little boy. Tears nearly came to his eyes when he felt that it might be for the last time. "I trust, Jedediah," said Miss Holbrook stiffly, "that your sense of propriety will prevent your speaking to Chester again." "Miss Holbrook," said Jed with a tremor in his voice, "as I am to leave Sea Spray to-morrow morning I shall hardly meet Chester again." Then, as Chester walked away unwillingly with his aunt, Jed's heart sank within him. In all the world he seemed to be alone, and he cared little at that moment what was to become of him in the future. CHAPTER XXI. JED ARRIVES IN NEW YORK. Jed counted over his money and found he had thirty-nine dollars and thirty-seven cents. He would have had more, but he had supplied himself with clothes, so that he was on the whole very well provided in that way. He resolutely refused to borrow from Harry Bertram, though the actor pressed a loan upon him. "No, Harry," he said, "I have almost forty dollars, and I am sure that will last me till I can earn some more." "Well, perhaps so," replied the actor, "but you have no idea how fast money melts away. What are your plans?" "I am afraid I haven't any," answered Jed, looking perplexed. "I want to make a living, but I don't know what I am fit for." "Where do you mean to go?" "I think I should like to go to New York," answered Jed. "I have never been there." "You will find the city very dull at this time of year. Business is very quiet in August." "But there must be a good many chances in a city of over a million inhabitants." "Well, perhaps you may as well find out for yourself. I am afraid you will be disappointed." Jed attached considerable importance to the opinion of his friend Bertram, but in his own mind there was a conviction that the other exaggerated the chances of failure. He was of a sanguine temperament himself, and this made him hopeful. There were two ways of reaching New York from Sea Spray. One was a combination of cars and boat, the other took one all the way by steamer. This, on the whole, Jed preferred. With his modest gripsack in his hand he passed over the gang-plank and took a seat forward. Next to him was a tall, thin man, dressed in shabby attire, who did not appear to have shaved for several days. Though the weather was warm, he had his coat buttoned tight across his chest, possibly to conceal the lack of a vest. When the boat had been perhaps fifteen minutes under way, he turned and eyed Jed with some attention. "Are you staying at Sea Spray this summer, young man?" he asked. "I have spent some weeks there," answered Jed. "I suppose you are going to New York for the day?" "No; I am going for good. That is I hope I am going for good." "You are going to fill a business position, perhaps?" "I hope so, but I have none engaged." "Are you acquainted in New York?" "No; I have never been there. This will be my first visit." "Indeed! This is very interesting. I should be glad to help you to a position." Jed thought privately that his new acquaintance must stand quite as much in need of a place as he, but courtesy led him to say, "Thank you." "Have you any particular choice as to the business you take up?" "No; anything that will enable me to pay my expenses will satisfy me." "Just so. You have heard of H. B. Claflin, probably?" "Yes; he is a dry goods merchant." "On a very large scale. I have a mind to give you a letter to him." "Do you know him?" asked Jed doubtfully. "Yes; Horace and I used to go to school together. He was older than I, but we were pretty intimate." "Why don't you apply for a position for yourself?" "Dry goods are not in my line. I am an editor--that is, an editorial writer." "Indeed!" Jed had read from time to time squibs and witty paragraphs touching the poverty of editors, and this seemed to explain the shabby appearance of his new friend. "What paper do you write for?" he ventured to ask. "I contribute editorially to most of the city dailies. Sometimes I get as high as fifteen and twenty dollars a column." Jed was rather surprised at this. He concluded that Mr. Hamilton Barry--for this was the name the stranger had given--was not a very good financial manager. "That seems a high price," said Jed. "Yes, but brain-work ought to be paid handsomely. Do you ever write for publication yourself?" "Oh, no," said Jed, flattered nevertheless by the question. "I haven't education enough." "I thought if you did I might get you something to do. But perhaps business is more in your line?" "I think it will be." "Then I had better write you a note to Mr. Claflin. When we get to the city I will run into some hotel and write you a letter of recommendation." "But, Mr. Barry, you don't know me. How can you recommend me?" "My dear boy, I judge you by your appearance. Besides, I know something of phrenology, and you have a good head--a very good head. I read in it honesty, integrity, enterprise and fidelity. Those qualities certainly ought to qualify you to succeed in business." "I don't know anything about phrenology, but I hope it's true." "My young friend you may rely implicitly on the verdict of the wonderful science." "I shall be glad to," said Jed smiling, "since, as you say, it is so favorable to me." When they reached the pier Hamilton Barry passed his arm familiarly through Jed's, and led the way to a small public house, the office of which seemed also to be a bar. "Won't you take a glass of something?" asked the editor. "I don't drink," answered Jed, rather embarrassed. "Take a glass of sarsaparilla. It won't harm an infant." "Thank you. I don't mind." Upon this Mr. Barry stepped up to the bar and ordered one sarsaparilla and one whisky straight. While Jed was solemnly drinking the first, the editor poured down the whisky at one gulp. Then he felt in his pockets for the fifteen cents which were due. But somehow no silver was forthcoming. "Upon my word," he exclaimed, "I must have left my money at home. Mr. Gilman, can you oblige me with a quarter?" Jed produced the required coin. Taking it, Barry paid the score, and quietly pocketed the change. "Now for the letter!" he said. "Where is your writing-room?" "Haven't got any," answered the barkeeper. "Can't you scare up a sheet of paper and an envelope?" After some time these were produced, also a pen and a bottle of ink. Barry sat down at one of the tables generally used for bar customers, and in a short time produced a letter which he handed to Jed. It ran thus: DEAR HORACE: This letter will be handed to you by a talented young friend, who is in search of a business position. Mr. J. Gilman is in my judgment possessed of superior business qualifications, and will prove a valuable man in your store. I advise you to engage him at once. Your old friend, HAMILTON BARRY. This note was placed in an envelope directed to Horace B. Claflin. In the corner Barry wrote: "To introduce Mr. J. Gilman." "There," he said. "Take this letter round to Claflin and he will undoubtedly give you a good place." He spoke with so much confidence that Jed was led to think himself in luck to be the recipient of such a testimonial. "Thank you," he said. "I feel very much obliged." "Oh don't mention it!" said Barry in an airy way. "It gives me pleasure to assist you, Mr. Gilman, I assure you. When you have ascended round by round until you are at the top of the ladder, I trust you will not forget your chance acquaintance, Hamilton Barry." "I certainly will not, Mr. Barry," said Jed warmly, grasping the hand of the editor. "I hope some day to thank you as I wish." "My dear boy, the sentiment does you credit. I know you are sincere." "Certainly," said Jed. "It is because I know this that I venture to suggest that you may do me a favor at once." "What is it?" "Let me have a fiver till next Monday. I shall then call at the office of the _Tribune_ for twenty dollars due me for two editorials published early this week." This request rather staggered Jed. Now that he had paid his fare to New York he had only about thirty-seven dollars, and five dollars would cut rather seriously into his small balance. "I am afraid," he said awkwardly, "that I can hardly spare five dollars. If two dollars would help you----" "It would materially," interposed Barry. "Of course it is only a loan. Meet me here next Monday, at six o'clock, say, after your duties are over at Claflin's, and I will gladly repay you." This off-hand allusion to Claflin, taking for granted his engagement there, made Jed ashamed of his temporary distrust, and he drew from his pocketbook a two-dollar note, which he handed to Mr. Barry. "Thanks," said the editor, as he carelessly slipped it into his pocket. "Be here on Monday at six o'clock sharp." Then with a jaunty air he touched his hat and walked rapidly around the corner. "I think I will go around to Claflin's at once," decided Jed. "I may as well strike while the iron is hot." CHAPTER XXII. JED MAKES TWO CALLS. On Church Street Jed found an imposing-looking building which a passing policeman informed him was Claflin's place of business. The size rather impressed Jed, accustomed as he had been hitherto to the small stores in Scranton, but he felt that it was no time for diffidence. So he opened the outer door and entered. He found himself in a scene of activity. The shelves were filled with goods, and behind the counters were numerous salesmen. No one took any notice of Jed at first till a tall, stout man, in walking across the room, espied him. "Any one waiting on you, young man?" he asked. "No," answered Jed. "Here, Wilkins," said the floor-walker, "attend to this young man. What house do you represent?" "None, sir," answered Jed uncomfortably, feeling out of place. "Ah, you want to buy at retail. Go into the next room." "No, sir, I didn't come to buy anything," stammered Jed. "I have a letter for Mr. Claflin." The great merchant is now dead, but at the time of Jed's call he was living. "Wilkins, you may take the letter and carry it to Mr. Claflin." Wilkins took the letter from Jed's hands, walked across the room, and ascended to Mr. Claflin's office on the second floor. He reappeared within five minutes and signaled to Jed to approach. "Mr. Claflin will see you," he said. "Follow me." Presently Jed found himself in the presence of the great merchant, who surveyed him curiously. "Are you Mr. J. Gilman?" he asked. "Yes, sir," answered Jed, blushing. "You bring a letter from--" here Mr. Claflin referred to a note--"from a man who calls himself Hamilton Barry?" "Yes, sir." "I don't know any such man. How did he happen to offer you a letter?" "I told him I wanted a position." "Exactly. Did he say he knew me?" "Yes, sir. He said he used to go to school with you." Mr. Claflin laughed. "Did he borrow any money from you?" "Yes," answered Jed, surprised that the merchant should have guessed this. "Not much, I hope." "Two dollars." "That was all?" "No, sir; he treated me to some sarsaparilla and did not have the money to pay for it." "He is evidently a fraud and an impostor. Did he say he ever worked for me?" "No, sir; he said he was an editor--that he wrote articles for the daily papers." "When did he offer to repay you?" "Next Monday, when he had received pay from the _Tribune_ for some articles he had written." "What was the man's appearance?" "He was tall, and not very well dressed." "It is hardly likely that he ever wrote an article for the _Tribune_ or any other of the city dailies. I hope he did not get all your money?" "No, sir. I have considerable besides." "I advise you to take good care of it, and to steer clear of questionable acquaintances." Mr. Claflin turned to a letter which he was writing, and Jed felt that he was dismissed. Mr. Claflin had said nothing about taking him into his employment, and he went down stairs feeling mortified and depressed. Mingled with these feelings was one of anger at having been so cruelly deceived by his steamboat acquaintance. "I'd just like to meet him again!" soliloquized Jed, involuntarily doubling up his fist. "I wonder whether he really writes for the _Tribune_?" he asked himself. He decided to solve this question at once, though he had not much doubt on the subject. He wanted to know exactly what he had to depend on. He walked up to Broadway, then down to the City Hall Park, and asked a boy whom he met, "Where is the _Tribune_ office?" "There it is across the park," said the boy, pointing to a tall building with a lofty tower. "What do you want to do--sell papers?" "No," answered Jed. "I want to ask about one of the editors." "You're from the country, ain't you?" "Yes. What makes you think so?" "Because all the boys in the city know the _Tribune_ building. Say, what do you do for a livin'?" inquired the boy confidentially. This was rather a puzzling question, but Jed, remembering that he had been on the stage for a time, felt justified in answering, "I am an actor." "Cracky! you don't say. You ain't little Lord Fauntleroy, are you?" "No; I played the telegraph boy in the play of 'The Gold King.'" "How did you like it?" asked the newsboy, becoming interested. "Very much." "Are you goin' to play it again?" "No; I took the place of the regular actor for a few weeks while he was sick. Now he is well, and I am not needed." "Say, does actin' pay well?" asked the boy curiously. "I was paid pretty well." "Do you think you could get me a chance?" "I am afraid I can't get another chance myself." The newsboy had no more questions to ask, and Jed, following directions, crossed the park and the street beyond to the _Tribune_ building. He entered the office, and walked up to a window, beyond which stood a young man who was handing out papers to a purchaser who wanted some back numbers. Jed presented himself next, and the clerk looked at him inquiringly. "Do you wish to subscribe?" asked the clerk, as Jed remained silent. "No; I want to ask whether you have an editor named Hamilton Barry?" "I don't think so. Why do you ask?" "He borrowed some money of me, and said he would pay me when he collected some money due him from the _Tribune_." The clerk smiled. "I am sure none of our editors borrow money from boys," he said. "You have been imposed upon, young man." "I guess you are right," responded Jed, coloring. "If you like, I will send up to the city editor to inquire if there is a man named Barry in his department." "I guess I won't trouble you." Jed turned away quite satisfied in his own mind that he had been cleverly swindled and would never see his two dollars again. He reflected that it might have been more, and stoutly resolved not to let any designing persons wheedle him out of any more money. He had never visited New York before, and the streets were all new to him. So he strolled about for a couple of hours, gazing curiously at shops, buildings, streets, and street scenes. This naturally led to a feeling of hunger, and at twelve o'clock he began to look around for a restaurant. He found one on Fulton Street, and went in. He took a seat on the right-hand side, about midway up the room, and consulted the bill of fare. He found that roast meats were fifteen and twenty-five cents, the latter being for large plates. Tea and coffee were five cents each, and pie or pudding was ten cents. He ordered a large plate of roast beef, feeling quite hungry, and a cup of coffee. Jed had about half finished his dinner when his attention was drawn by a familiar voice at the next table. Looking up, he saw that two men had entered the restaurant since he had been served and were sitting with their backs to him. One of them he recognized, with a thrill of excitement, as his acquaintance of the morning, Hamilton Barry. "I say, Barry," said his companion, "you've had a streak of luck. How do you happen to be in funds?" "I negotiated a loan, my boy." "That is interesting. Would the party accommodate me, do you think?" "Depends upon your invention, my boy. I told him a plausible story, and did him a favor." "Explain." "He was looking for a position, and I gave him a letter of introduction to H. B. Claflin." The friend burst into a fit of laughter. "I admire your cheek," he said. "What do you know of Claflin?" "I told him that Claflin and I went to school together." "A lie, of course?" "Yes; I never set eyes on the man in my life." "And on the strength of that you negotiated a loan." "Precisely." "How much?" "I struck him for a five, but he only let me have two." "Which, of course, you promised to repay." "I told him I would repay him next Monday when the _Tribune_ paid me for two editorial articles I wrote for them." This tickled the fancy of both, and they burst into uproarious laughter. It may be imagined with what feelings of indignation poor Jed listened to these rascals, and understood how adroitly he had been swindled. He felt tempted to get up and address the man who had swindled him in fitting terms, but concluded to wait until he had finished his dinner. He felt particularly angry when Barry ordered a high-priced dish--a plate of roast turkey--to be paid for with his money. At last his dinner was over, and taking the check in his hand, Jed made his way to the table in front. "Mr. Barry," he said as calmly as he could, "I believe you owe me two dollars. I shall be glad if you will pay me now." Barry looked up quickly, and actually seemed embarrassed when he recognized Jed. "Confusion!" he ejaculated. "The kid!" CHAPTER XXIII. JED'S BAD LUCK. "Yes," answered Jed coolly, "it is the kid. I have called upon Mr. Claflin, and also at the office of the _Tribune_. Probably you can guess what I was told at both places." Mr. Barry felt that he was in a tight place, but reflecting that Jed was only a boy, he determined to bluff him off. "I don't know what you are talking about, boy," he said. "I know nothing of Mr. Claflin, and have nothing to do with the _Tribune_ office." "I am aware of that, but you gave me a letter of introduction to H. B. Claflin, and borrowed two dollars of me, promising to pay me when you settled with the _Tribune_ for editorial contributions." "There is not a word of truth in this," said Barry, fidgeting in his chair. "I have been listening to your conversation for fifteen minutes," continued Jed, "and I heard you give an account of the matter to your friend here." Barry hesitated a moment. Even his brazen hardihood was scarcely adequate to the emergency. He was the more uneasy because a policeman was sitting at the next table but one. "It was only a practical joke, boy," he said hurriedly. "I'll pay you back the two dollars." "That will be satisfactory," returned Jed. "But I can't do it to-day. I'll meet you on Monday afternoon, as I said. I am in rather a hurry now and must be going." He rose from the table precipitately, and went up to the desk followed by his friend. "Shall I stop him?" thought Jed. He decided not to do so, as he felt sure Barry could not pay him. The loss was not a serious one, but it would not do to make a second mistake. He paid his check and left the restaurant. Jed knew very little of New York, even for a country boy. Some Scranton people doubtless had visited the great city, but, as an inmate of a poorhouse, he had not been thrown in their way. Accordingly he was like a mariner without a compass. He could only follow where impulse led. He turned into Broadway, and with his gripsack in his hand walked up the great thoroughfare, looking in at shop windows as he strolled along. Travelling in this leisurely manner, it was perhaps four o'clock when he reached Union Square. He was by this time fatigued and ready to rest on one of the benches which he found in the park. One person was sitting there already. It was a slender young man with a diamond ring on one of the fingers of his right hand. At least it looked to be a diamond. He was dressed in rather a showy manner. He was perhaps twenty-two, but so slender that he must have weighed a dozen or fifteen pounds less than Jed, who was only sixteen. He looked casually at the country boy as the latter sat down, and presently turned and addressed him. "It is a warm day," he said. "Yes," answered Jed, who felt lonely and was glad to be social with some one. "I judge from your bag," he glanced at the gripsack, "that you are a visitor to New York." "Yes," answered Jed frankly. "I have never been in New York before." "That was my case two years ago. Now I feel quite like an old resident. Are you staying at a hotel?" "No; that is what I should like to ask about. I must spend the night somewhere. Can you recommend a _cheap_ hotel?" "Why do you go to a hotel? No hotel is cheap in the long run. It is much better to hire a room in a lodging-house and take your meals at restaurants." "Yes, I suppose it would be. But I don't know where to find such a lodging-house." "Come, I'll make you an offer. I have a room on Twenty-Seventh Street. You shall pay for my supper, and I will let you stay in my room without charge till to-morrow. Then if you like it well enough to room with me, I shall be glad to have you." "Thank you; how much do you pay for your room?" "Four dollars a week. That will be two dollars a piece. That is cheap for the city. You can't get a room at a hotel for less than a dollar a night." "Is that so?" asked Jed. "That would be seven dollars a week." "Precisely." "I couldn't afford to pay that." "There is no reason why you should. I couldn't afford it myself. Well, do you accept my offer? Do just as you please. Of course I have no motive except to give a helping hand to a stranger in the city." "You are very kind," said Jed gratefully. "I know so little of New York that I feel quite helpless." "Quite natural. I've been through it all." "Are you--in business?" rather wondering how his companion should be free at that hour. "Yes, I am in a broker's office down town. We have easy hours. I am off for the day at three o'clock." "Are you well paid? But perhaps you don't care to tell." "Oh, yes, I don't mind. I get twenty dollars a week." "I wish I could get twelve," said Jed wistfully. "I shall have to get work soon." "You have some money to keep you while you are waiting for work?" said the other quickly. "Yes. I have about thirty-five dollars." The young man's face brightened up. "I am glad for you," he said. "You can make that last a good while, if you are guided by me, and keep down your expenses." "That is exactly what I want to do," responded Jed earnestly. "Oh well, I will put my experience at your service. I hope you will conclude to room with me. I feel rather lonesome at times. Of course I could easily get a roommate, but I am rather particular." "You might not like me," said Jed. "I am sure I shall. I can tell in five minutes whether I am going to like a person or not. How old are you?" "Sixteen." "Indeed! You look older. That's going to help you, you know, about a situation. You can pass for a young man, and they won't think of offering you boy's pay." "Perhaps you will be able to advise me about the kind of place I had better apply for." "Of course I will. I already begin to take a great interest in you. What kind of work have you done?" "Well, I have acted a little." "You don't say so!" ejaculated his new friend in genuine surprise, for he had looked upon Jed as an unsophisticated country boy who probably had never seen the inside of a theatre. "I suppose you mean," he suggested as an afterthought, "in some village entertainment." "No; I played in 'The Gold King' for some time." "You don't say so! What part did you take?" "The boy's part." The young man regarded Jed with more respect. "I shouldn't have thought it," he said. "How did you happen to get such a fine chance as that?" "I knew one of the actors--Harry Bertram--and the one who played the boy's part regularly was taken sick. I only played about four or five weeks all together." "Still that makes you a regular actor. Do you think of trying to get a place at Daly's or Palmer's?" "Oh, no. I don't suppose I should stand any show. I could only take a boy's part." "Well, we can talk over our plans later. I don't mind confessing that I am hungry. How about yourself?" "I think I could eat some supper." "Come along, then. I'll take you to a good restaurant. It's some way off, but it is near my room." "All right." The two rose, and leaving the park, walked up Broadway, past the Fifth Avenue Hotel, the Hoffman House, and the St. James, till they reached a well-known eating-house known as Smith & Green's, situated on the east side of Broadway, between Twenty-Seventh and Twenty-Eighth Streets. "Come in here. I won't take you to Delmonico's, a little further down, as you haven't a private bank to draw from. This is a nice restaurant and moderate in its charges." They entered, sat down at a round table and studied the bill of fare. The prices seemed to be moderate. Jed's dinner cost thirty-five cents, but his companion was more lavish in his orders, and ran up a bill of sixty-five cents. "That makes just a dollar," he remarked. It seemed considerable to Jed, who decided that he would rather order and pay for his own meals separately hereafter. During the repast Jed learned that his new friend's name was Maurice Graham. "Now we'll go around to my room, and you can dispose of your gripsack." "I shall be glad to do so. I am tired of carrying it about." Graham led the way to a three-story brick house near Seventh Avenue, and mounted to a small square room on the upper story. It was plainly furnished with a three-quarters bed, a bureau, and the usual chamber furniture. "You can leave your bag anywhere, and then we will go out for a walk." "I think I would rather stay here and lie down." "All right! Make yourself at home. I will go out. Shall probably be back by ten." When Graham returned at a little past ten he found Jed in bed and fast asleep. His eyes sparkled with pleasure. He raised Jed's clothes from the chair on which he had thrown them and went through the pockets expeditiously. Poor Jed's small stock of money was quickly transferred to his own pockets. "He hasn't any watch," soliloquized Graham. "That's a pity." When his search was completed he put on his hat again. "I shall sleep in Jersey City to-night," he said to himself. "That will be safer." He went out softly, leaving Jed alone, the victim of a cruel trick. CHAPTER XXIV. A STARTLING DISCOVERY. Jed slept on, unconscious of his loss, till the sun flooded the room with golden light. Then he opened his eyes and wondered for a moment where he was. But recollection came to his aid, and he recalled the incidents of his meeting with Graham and sharing the latter's room. He looked over to the other side of the bed, but his roommate was not to be seen. "I suppose it is late and he has gone to his business," thought Jed tranquilly. "Probably he didn't want to wake me up." This explanation seemed natural enough till he noticed that the pillow on the right-hand side of the bed did not seem to have been used. Lifting the quilt, he discovered that the sheet was smooth. Clearly Graham had not slept there at all. "What does it mean?" thought Jed, perplexed. "Why didn't he come back last evening?" This was a question which he could not answer. No suspicion, however, had yet dawned upon him that anything was wrong. "Well," he said, jumping out of bed, "I must get up and try for a place. I guess I can find that eating-house where we took supper. Let me see, what was the name? Oh, Smith & Green. Well, I feel as if I could dispose of a good breakfast." He washed his face and hands and proceeded to dress. Mechanically, but not from any feeling of uneasiness, he thrust his hand into his pocket in search of his wallet. The pocket was empty! His heart gave a jump, and he hurriedly examined his other pockets, but it was of no avail. Then he looked about the room and on the floor, but there was no trace of the lost wallet. Jed felt faint, and his legs trembled under him, as he thought of the terrible situation in which he was placed. He began to connect Graham's absence with his loss, and understood that his new acquaintance had played him false. It was a shock to him, for his nature was trustful, and he hated to believe that a young man who had seemed so friendly should prove so treacherous. "What shall I do?" thought poor Jed. "I haven't enough money for my breakfast, and I am _very_ hungry." At this point, just as he was ready to go out, there came a knock at the door. Jed rose and opened it. He confronted a stout woman of middle age with a very serious expression of countenance that seemed to indicate that she meant business. She regarded Jed with surprise. "I expected to see Mr. Graham," she said. "Are you a friend of his?" "I only met him yesterday. He invited me to come and spend the night in his room." "Is he here, or has he gone out?" "I don't think he slept here at all last night. He left early in the evening, and said he would come back, but the bed doesn't seem to have been slept in except by myself." "He is very liberal in offering the use of a room that he has not paid for," said the lady sarcastically. "I don't know anything about that," faltered Jed. "No, I suppose not. But it's true. He only came here two weeks and a half ago, and paid one week's rent in advance--four dollars. When the next week's rent became due he said that his employer was on a visit to Chicago, and he could not get his pay till he came back. Do you know whether that is true?" "No, I don't. I never saw him before yesterday afternoon about four o'clock in a park about half a mile from here." "So he wasn't at work at that time?" "No; he said he worked for a broker and got through at three o'clock." "A broker? Why he told me he was working in a wholesale house down town. At any rate, I wish he'd pay me the eight dollars he owes me." "I wish he'd pay me the thirty-five dollars he owes me," said Jed despondently. "You don't mean to say that you were goose enough to lend him thirty-five dollars?" exclaimed Mrs. Gately in a crescendo voice. "No; I didn't lend it to him," returned Jed bitterly. "He must have taken it out of my pocket when I was asleep." "Well, I declare! So he's a thief, too." She looked around the room, and opening a bureau examined the drawers. "He's gone off and taken all of his things," she reported. "That settles it. We shall not see our money again." "I--I don't know what to do," said Jed sorrowfully. "Did he take _all_ your money?" asked Mrs. Gately, drawn from a consideration of her own misfortune to that of her fellow-sufferer. "Yes, he took every cent," answered Jed mournfully. "And the worst of it is that I am a stranger in New York." "Well, that is too bad!" said the landlady, an expression of sympathy relieving the severity of her face. "Your case is worse than mine. You actually haven't anything left?" "Except my gripsack." "And of course you haven't had any breakfast?" "No, ma'am." "Well, I do pity you. I suppose you are hungry?" "I don't know when I have ever felt so hungry," answered Jed. "I will see that you don't leave the house in that condition at any rate. I'm a poor woman, as any one must be who has to depend on lodgers for an income, but I'm not penniless. Come down stairs, Mr.--Mr.--" "Gilman," suggested Jed. "And I will skirmish round and scare you up something to eat." "You are very kind," said Jed gratefully. "Wait and see what you get," returned Mrs. Gately with a laugh and a softer expression, for Jed's case appealed to her heart. She led the way to the front basement. A table was set in the centre of the room. Evidently it had not yet been cleared off. "I'm a little behindhand this morning," remarked Mrs. Gately, beginning to bustle round. "I don't take boarders in a general way, but I have a young girl in the house that works at Macy's. I suppose you've heard of Macy's?" "No, ma'am." "Never heard of Macy's? I thought everybody had heard of Macy's, Fo'teenth Street and Sixth Avenue. Luella Dickinson works there, and I give her breakfast in the house as a favor. Let me see, there's a little coffee left--I'll warm it over--and there's bread and butter, and--I can cook you a sausage, and boil a couple of eggs." "I hope you won't take too much trouble," said Jed. "I guess I can afford to take a little trouble, especially as there's no knowing when you will have any dinner." Jed owned to himself with a sigh that there was a good deal of doubt on that point. However, it isn't wise to borrow trouble too far in advance, and the odor of the sausage as it was frying was very grateful to his nostrils. He was sure of one meal at any rate, and that was something, though the day before he thought he had enough money to last a month. "I don't think the coffee will do," said Mrs. Gately, as she bustled round the stove in the next room. "I'll make some fresh. I don't think coffee amounts to much when it is warmed over." Jed was of the same opinion, and did not utter a protest. He was very fond of coffee, and felt that with a fresh pot of it the breakfast would be fit for a king. "Haven't you got any folks, Mr. Gilman?" asked the landlady, as she brought the pot of coffee and sat it on the table. "No, ma'am," answered Jed. "I am alone in the world." "Dear me, that's sad! And so young as you are, too!" "Yes, ma'am. I'm only sixteen." "What did you calc'late to do, if you could get a chance?" "Anything. I'm not particular." "You haven't any trade, have you?" "No. I've been living in the country most of the time, and did chores on a farm." "Well, we haven't many farms in New York," said the landlady with a laugh. "No. I suppose not. Even if there were, I don't like that kind of work." "Have you never done anything else?" "I acted for a few weeks." "Gracious! You don't mean to say you've been a play actor?" "Yes, ma'am." "How Luella Dickinson would like to see you! She dotes on play actors, but I don't think she ever met one." "I am afraid she would be disappointed in me. "Oh, I guess not. If you've played on the stage that's enough. Why can't you call round some evening? Luella would _so_ like to see you." "Thank you, Mrs. Gately. If I can get anything to do, I will call." Jed finished his breakfast. He ate heartily, for he had no idea where he should get another meal. "I guess I'll be going," he said, as he rose from the table. "You have been very kind." "Oh, that's nothing. I hope you'll meet that rascally Graham and make him give up your money." "I am afraid there is little hope of that. Good morning, and thank you!" And so Jed passed out of the hospitable house into the inhospitable street, without a cent of money or a prospect of earning any. CHAPTER XXV. WITHOUT A PENNY. There is nothing that makes one feel so helpless as to be without a penny in a strange city. If Jed had had even a dollar he would have felt better. The fact of his poverty was emphasized when a boy came up to him and asked him to buy a morning paper. Jed instinctively felt in his pocket for a penny, but not even a cent was forthcoming. "I have no change," he said, by way of excuse. "I can change a dollar," responded the newsboy, who was more than usually enterprising. "I wish _I_ could," thought Jed, but he only said, "No, it is no matter." So he walked along Broadway, fairly well dressed, but, so far as money went, a pauper. Yes, though no longer an inmate of the Scranton poorhouse, he was even poorer than when he was there, for then he had a home, and now he had none. "I wonder when it is all going to end?" reflected poor Jed despondently. Then his anger was excited when he thought of the unprincipled rascal who had brought him to this pass. "If I could only get hold of him," muttered Jed vengefully, "I would give him something to remember me by." All the while Jed walked on, though his walk was aimless. He was as well off in one part of the city as another, and only walked to fill up time. He found himself passing a drug store. Just outside the door he saw the sign "Boy wanted," and with a little kindling of hope he entered the store. Just behind the counter stood a man with a sandy beard, who appeared to be the proprietor. To him Jed addressed himself. "I see you want a boy," he said. "Yes; do you want a place?" "Yes, sir." "I hardly think you would be satisfied with the wages we pay, unless you particularly wish to learn our business." "What do you pay, sir?" "Three dollars a week." Three dollars a week! It was certainly better than no income at all, but Jed knew well that it would be impossible to live on this sum, and he had no reserve fund to draw upon. "No," he said, "I am afraid I couldn't get along on that salary." "Are you entirely dependent on your earnings?" asked the druggist. "Yes, sir." "Have you parents residing in the city?" "No, sir; I am all alone." "That would be an objection. We prefer to employ those who live at home." "Do most employers require that, sir?" "Many do." Here a customer came in and asked for a bottle of cough medicine, and the druggist turned away to fill the order. Jed walked slowly out of the store. "I wonder whether there is any work for me anywhere?" he asked himself despondently. Jed continued his walk down Broadway. It was a bright, clear, exhilarating day, and Jed would have enjoyed it thoroughly if he had been better fixed, but it is hard to keep up the spirits when your pocket is empty. When Jed reached City Hall Park he went in and sat down on one of the benches. One of the boy bootblacks who carry on business in the park came up to him with his box on his shoulder and asked, "Shine your boots?" Jed shook his head. "Not this morning," he replied. "They need it," said the boy. Jed looked at his boots, and was fain to admit that the boy was right. But he was not possessed of the necessary nickel. "Yes, they do need it," he said, "but I haven't money enough to pay you for doing it." "Only five cents." "I haven't five cents. I'm poorer than you are, my boy," said Jed in a burst of confidence. The boy looked puzzled. "You don't look like it," he said after scrutinizing Jed's appearance. "How did you come to be so poor?" "Had all my money stolen last night." "How much was there?" "Thirty-five dollars." "Whew!" whistled the bootblack. "That was a haul. Who did it?" "A young man I fell in with. He invited me to share his room. I woke this morning to find that he had stolen all my money." "He was a snide, he was! I'd like to step on his necktie." "I'd like to do something of that sort myself," said Jed with a smile. "Would you know him if you saw him again?" "Yes; I shan't forget him very soon." "When you do see him hand him over to a cop. Just hold out your foot," and the boy got down in a position to black Jed's shoe. "But I haven't any money. I can't pay you." "I'll do it for nothin', seein' as you're down on your luck. You can pay me some time when times is better." "I am afraid you will have to wait a good while for your money." "Never mind! It won't kill me if I lose it." "You're very kind to a stranger," said Jed, grateful for the boy's friendly proffer. "Oh, it ain't nothin'. You look like a good fellow. You'll get a place quicker if your shoes look nice." There was something practical in this suggestion, and Jed accepted the offer without further hesitation. The boy exerted himself specially, and Jed's dirty shoes soon showed a dazzling polish. "There, you can see your face in 'em!" exclaimed the boy, as he rose from his knees. "Thank you," said Jed. "I see you understand your business. Will you tell me your name?" "Jim Parker." "Well, Jim, I am much obliged to you. I hope some time I can do you a favor." "Oh, that's all right. So long! I hope you'll get a job." And the independent young bootblack, with his box over his shoulder, walked across the park in search of another job. Somehow Jed was cheered by this act of kindness. He felt a little better satisfied with himself, moreover, when he saw the transformation of his dirty shoes to the polish that marks the gentleman. A man rather shabbily dressed was drawn by this outward sign of affluence to sit down beside him. He took a brief inventory of Jed, and then doffing his hat, said deferentially, "Young gentleman, I hope you will excuse the liberty I am taking, but I have walked all the way from Buffalo, and am reduced almost to my last penny. In fact this nickel," producing one from his pocket, "is all the money I have left. If you will kindly loan me a quarter I shall esteem it a great favor." Jed felt like laughing. He had not a penny, yet here was a man richer than himself asking for a loan. "I wish I were able to oblige you," he said, "but you are asking me for more than I possess." The man glanced incredulously at Jed's polished shoes. "You don't look poor," he said, in a tone of sarcasm. "No, I don't look poor, but you are five cents richer than I." The man shrugged his shoulders. He evidently did not believe Jed. "It is quite true," continued Jed, answering the doubt on the man's face. "Last night I was robbed of all the money I had. Had you applied to me yesterday I would have granted your request." This frank statement disarmed the man's suspicion. "I think your are speaking the truth," he said. "Though there are plenty who pretend to be poor to get rid of giving. Perhaps I shall surprise you when I say that a year ago I should have been able to lend you five thousand dollars, and have as much more left." "Yes, you do surprise me! How did you lose your money?" "I was a fool--that explains it. I bought mining stocks. I was in San Francisco at the time, and my money melted like snow in the sun. A year since I was worth ten thousand dollars. To-day I am worth a nickel. Do you know what I will do with it?" Jed looked at him inquiringly. "I will buy a glass of beer, and drink to our good luck--yours and mine." "I hope it will bring the good luck," said Jed smiling. "I would offer you a glass too, if I had another nickel." "Thank you, but I never drink beer. I thank you all the same." His companion rose and left the park, probably in search of a beer saloon. Jed got up, too, and took another walk. By half-past twelve he felt decidedly hungry. His breakfast had lasted him till then, but he was young and healthy, and craved three meals a day. "How shall I manage to get dinner?" thought Jed seriously. He paused in front of the Astor House, which he knew to be a hotel, and saw business men entering in quest of their midday lunch. It was tantalizing. There was plenty of food inside, but he lacked the wherewithal to purchase a portion. "Why, Jed, how are you?" came unexpectedly to his ears. He looked up and saw a brown-bearded, pleasant-faced man, whom he recognized as a fellow-guest at the Spray Hotel at Sea Spray. "When did you leave Sea Spray?" asked his friend. "Only yesterday." "Going to stay in the city?" "Yes, if I can get anything to do." "Have you been to lunch?" "Not yet." "Come in and lunch with me, then. I think we can find something inviting at the Astor." "Saved!" thought Jed, as he gladly passed into the famous hostelry with his friend. "I wonder if he has any idea how glad I am to accept his invitation?" CHAPTER XXVI. IN SEARCH OF EMPLOYMENT. Jed followed his hotel friend up stairs into an upper dining-room, and they took seats at a corner table. "I never like to dine alone," said Howell Foster. "I am glad I fell in with you, Jed." "So am I," answered Jed. "I am more glad than you have any idea of," he said to himself. "What will you order?" asked Mr. Foster, pushing over the bill of fare to his companion. "I have a healthy appetite and shall enjoy anything," said Jed with a smile. "Please order the same for me as for yourself." Howell Foster was rather proud of his gastronomic knowledge, and took this as a compliment. "You can trust me to do that," he replied. "I am used to the place and know what they succeed best in." Thereupon he ordered a dinner which Jed found delicious. No expense was spared, and Jed, glancing at the bill when it was brought, found that the charge was three dollars and a half. During the repast the host kept up a bright and chatty conversation. "I hope you enjoyed your dinner," he said, when it was over. "Actions speak louder than words," answered Jed with a smile. "This is a good, reliable place. I advise you to come here often." "What would he say if he could see the inside of my pocket-book?" thought Jed. "I am afraid," he said aloud, "it is too expensive for my means." "Yes, probably; I didn't think of that. By the way, what have you in view?" "I hardly know yet." "Come round and see me some day," and Foster handed Jed his card. "Thank you, sir." "Will you have a cigar?" "No, thank you, sir. I don't smoke." "It would be money in my pocket if I didn't. My cigars cost me last year five hundred dollars." "I wish I was sure of that for my entire income," thought Jed. They parted at the entrance to the hotel. It was clear from his manner and speech that Howell Foster thought Jed in easy circumstances. It made the boy feel almost like an impostor, but he reflected that he had done nothing to give Mr. Foster a false impression. It was about half-past one when he left the hotel. The dinner had occupied an hour. The world was still before him, but he had eaten a hearty meal and felt that he could get along, if necessary, till the next morning, so far as eating was concerned. Where to sleep presented a perplexing problem, but it would be some time before it required to be solved. How to spend the afternoon puzzled Jed. He went back to City Hall Park, and on the seat he had formerly occupied he found a copy of the New York _Herald_ which somebody had left there. He took it up and looked over the advertisements for Help Wanted. He found the following: WANTED.--Smart, enterprising agents to sell packages of stationery. Fifteen dollars a week can easily be made. Call at No. 182 Nassau Street, Room 22. This struck Jed as just the thing. It could not be very hard to sell stationery, and fifteen dollars a week would support him comfortably. "Where is Nassau Street?" he inquired of a bootblack who took a temporary seat beside him. "There 'tis," said the street boy, pointing in the direction of the _Tribune_ building. "You just go down in front of the Tribune." "Is No. 182 far off?" "No, it's close by. You can get there in less than no time." "Thank you!" and with hope in his heart Jed rose and walked in the direction indicated. He found the building. At the entrance was a list of occupants of rooms. He went up two flights of stairs, and halted in front of No. 22. He knocked at the door and was bidden in a deep, hoarse voice to "Come in!" Opening the door, he found himself in the presence of a short, humpbacked man, whose voice was quite out of proportion to his size. "I suppose you come to see me about the advertisement in the _Herald_," said the dwarf. "Yes, sir," answered Jed, gazing as if fascinated at the stunted figure, huge head and long arms of the person before him. "I have engaged several agents already this morning," went on the dwarf, turning over a large book on the desk before him. "Then perhaps you don't need any more?" said Jed despondently. "Oh, yes, I do if I can get the right ones," was the answer. "It is to sell packages of stationery, I believe. Can you show me some?" The dwarf handed Jed a flat package, on the outside of which was printed a list of the contents. They included a pen holder, pens, a quire of paper, a supply of envelopes, and several other articles. "This is the best package in the market for the money," said the dwarf. "Observe how varied are the contents, and only a paltry twenty-five cents for the whole." "Yes, it seems a good bargain," said Jed. "You are right there," said the dwarf confidently. "Why, you can make money hand over hand. Our agents are actually coining it. We allow them to retain ten cents on each package. Two or three, and sometimes five, are sold to the same person. Would you like to have me read one or two agents' letters?" "Yes, if you please." "Here is one from Theodore Jenkins, who is operating in Pennsylvania: "'HUGO HIGGINS, ESQ. "'DEAR SIR: "'Please send me at once two hundred packages of stationery. They sell like hot cakes. I got rid of forty yesterday, and it rained half the day, too. I have held several agencies for different articles, but none that paid as well as this. I shall be disappointed if I don't make forty dollars per week. It looks as if it might exceed that sum. "'Yours respectfully, "'THEODORE JENKINS.' "That letter speaks for itself," remarked the dwarf as he folded it up and replaced it in an envelope. "Yes," said Jed, "it is certainly very encouraging." "I will read you another from a party who has been in our employ for fourteen months. He is operating in Ohio. "'DEAR SIR: "'You may send me three hundred packages by Adams Express, and please don't delay, for I need them at once. I have been working for you for fourteen months. During that time I have supported my family and bought a house, on which I have paid cash down a thousand dollars. In the course of the next year and a half I expect to complete the payment and own the house clean. It was certainly a lucky thing for me when I saw your advertisement for agents and engaged in your service. "'Yours gratefully, "'ARTHUR WATERS.' "That is another letter that speaks for itself," observed Mr. Higgins. "I have plenty more, but I don't think I need to read any others to convince you that the business will pay any one that takes hold of it." "Perhaps," added Jed, "these gentlemen had experience as agents." "One of them had, but the other was quite green in the business." "You think then that I could succeed?" "Undoubtedly. You look smart and have a taking way with you. You can't fail to succeed." This was pleasant to hear, and Jed felt strongly impelled to engage in the service of the plausible Higgins. "If you will trust me with twenty packages," he said, "I will see what I can do." "Certainly. That will be three dollars. You see we charge you fifteen cents each, and you sell them for twenty-five. That gives you two dollars. You had better take fifty packages, and then you won't have to come back to-morrow." "Very well, I will take fifty." "All right. You may pay me seven dollars and a half, and I will get the packages ready." "Do you require payment in advance?" asked Jed quickly. "Certainly. You are a stranger to me, and even if you were not, I should not feel like risking so much money or money's worth. What is there to hinder your making off with it and never coming back?" "I wouldn't be dishonest for a great deal more money than that." "I dare say you are right, but we must adhere to our business methods. You will get your money back in two days probably." "But I haven't the money to pay in advance." "Oh, that alters the matter," said Higgins, become less gracious. "How much have you?" "I am unable to pay anything," said Jed desperately. Mr. Hugo Higgins turned away, no longer interested in Jed. Poor Jed felt sadly disappointed at losing so good a chance, but something happened to mitigate his regret. A stout man with red hair opened the door of the office and dashed in, carrying in his hands a large package. "I want my money back!" he said. "You are a big schwindler!" CHAPTER XXVII. AN INTRACTABLE AGENT. The new visitor was a large man, evidently a German, weighing not less than two hundred pounds. He approached Hugo Higgins, towering above the dwarf by at least fourteen inches, and shook his fist in his face. Mr. Higgins shrank back as if fearful of a personal assault, and inquired in uneasy tones: "Who are you, my friend?" "Who am I?" retorted the other, laughing gutturally. "You know me well enough, you villain!" "I think I have seen you somewhere," said Hugo, not daring to show the anger he felt at the hard name by which the other addressed him. "You have seen me somewhere? Come, that's good. My name is Otto Schmidt, and I am one of your victims. You understand that, hey?" "No. I can't say I do." "Then I'll tell you. I came in here last week and bought some of your confounded packages. I was to make big wages by selling them, hey?" "Certainly, I hope you did." "You hope I did?" repeated Mr. Otto Schmidt fiercely. "Well, I tell you. I went round two days in Montclair, and how many packages you think I sell, hey?" "About fifty," answered Hugo with a sickly smile. "About fifty? Ha, ha!" returned the German, laughing wildly. "I sell just one to a young boy named Chester Noyes. That's all I sell." "My dear Mr. Schmidt, I am afraid you got discouraged too soon," said Hugo suavely. "So I am your dear Mr. Schmidt, hey? You cost me dear enough with your lies about the business, you scoundrel!" "I cannot allow you to talk to me in this way," said Hugo in a dignified tone. "Oh, you won't, hey?" retorted the German, beginning to dance about the floor. "Well, I won't. Maybe you prefer to have me step on your necktie, hey?" Hugo Higgins looked alarmed, and Jed could hardly help laughing. "Well, what do you want?" asked Hugo, afraid some applicant for an agency might enter and be frightened away. "What do I want? I want my money back." "That is against our rules," said Hugo. "My good Mr. Schmidt, take the packages and go to some other place. Other agents have told me that Montclair is not a good town for business. Go to--to Rahway! I am sure you will sell all your packages there." "No; I don't go to Rahway. I sell all my packages here." "But, my good friend----" "I am not your good friend. I am no friend to a rascal." "Really, this language----" "Never mind about the language! I ain't going to be schwindled by no fakir. I've got forty-nine packages here, and I want you to pay me back my money, seven dollars and thirty-five cents." "I can't think of such a thing." "Then I give you in charge for schwindling," said Otto Schmidt, thrusting a fat fist directly under Hugo's nose. "I may be one Dutchman, but I ain't so dumb as you think I am." "I don't think you dumb at all," said Hugo soothingly. "I think you are a smart man of business." "You find me too schmart to be schwindled, I tell you that." "Still, if you don't want to go on with the business, I'll take back the packages and give you five dollars for them." "And I to lose two dollars and thirty-five cents, besides all my time. Not much, Mr. Hugo Higgins." "You can't expect me to give you back all the money." "Well, I do," said Mr. Schmidt stoutly. "I give you just two minutes to make up your mind." Just then the door opened, and a young man who was evidently from the country entered. "I seed your advertisement," he said. "I want to be an agent, if you can give me a chance." Otto Schmidt smiled sardonically, and was about to speak, when Hugo said hurriedly, "Come out into the hall, Mr. Schmidt, and I think we can arrange your business satisfactorily." "All right! I come," and he followed Hugo out into the entry. "I will pay you your money," said the agent. "It is quite against my rules, but I will make an exception in your case." "I want a dollar more to pay me for my time," said the German, appreciating his advantage. "But, my dear sir, this is very unreasonable," said Mr. Higgins uneasily. "Then I go back into the room and show you up." "Very well, here is your money!" and Hugo with great reluctance drew out eight dollars and thirty-five cents and handed it to Mr. Schmidt. Otto Schmidt chuckled and nodded significantly at the discomfited Hugo. "I may be a Dutchman," he said, "but I ain't no chump." Hugo re-entered the office and smiled affably at the young man from the country. "One of our successful agents," he said, nodding towards the door. "I won't tell you how much that German gentleman has made by selling our famous packages, for you might not believe me." "Can you give me a chance?" asked the young hayseed anxiously. "Well, I think I can," said Hugo with assumed hesitation, and then he explained on what terms he sold, as he had done to Jed. "How many packages will you take?" he asked pleasantly. "I guess I'll take a dozen to begin with," said the young man from the country. "A dozen!" replied Hugo, much disappointed. "My, that's no order at all. You would have to come back for more before the day was out." "Well, I'll take fifteen," said the young man after reflection. "You'd better take fifty. Very few of our agents take less than fifty." "No, I ain't got much money. I'll only take fifteen to begin with." And to this determination he adhered, in spite of the persuasions of Mr. Higgins. As Hugo wrapped up the packages and received back two dollars and twenty-five cents, he regretted that he had so hastily agreed to buy back Mr. Schmidt's boxes at an advance on the original cost. "Where would you advise me to sell?" asked the young man. "Country towns are best," said Hugo. "Some distance from the city, I advise, as those who live near New York can come here and buy, and are less ready to patronize agents." Jed smiled to himself. He understood that Mr. Higgins wished to guard against a visit from the young man in case his business failed to meet his anticipations. He lingered behind after the rural visitor had gone. "I hope," said Hugo, "you took no stock in what that stupid Dutchman said." "Well," replied Jed, "it shows that some of your agents are not successful." "A man like that could not succeed in selling anything," said Hugo scornfully. "Now it is different with you. You look smart." Jed smiled. He began to understand Mr. Higgins and his methods. "Then you remember the letters from the agents which I read you." "Yes," answered Jed, but he felt convinced now that the letters were bogus, and manufactured by Mr. Higgins himself. "When you can command the necessary funds I shall be glad to have you call and buy a bundle of samples." "I don't think I shall care to enter into the business, Mr. Higgins," said Jed. "It would be an experiment, and I am not in a position to try experiments." Higgins looked at Jed, and saw that he was understood. "Very well!" he said coldly. "You must do as you like, but you are making a mistake." Jed left the office and went down stairs. What had happened did not encourage him. It seemed a good deal harder to make a living in a large city than he supposed. He saw now that there were sharpers ready to fleece the young and inexperienced. If he had not been robbed of his money, in all probability he would have fallen a victim to the persuasive but deceptive representations of Mr. Higgins, and have come back disappointed like Mr. Otto Schmidt. He continued his walk down Nassau Street, and presently turned into Broadway. His attention was attracted to a church with a very high spire facing Wall Street. He inquired the name and found it was Trinity Church. The Scranton meeting-house could easily have been tucked away in one corner of the large edifice, and as far as height was concerned, it was but an infant compared with a six-footer. He walked still further down Broadway, till he reached a green park, which he found was called the Battery. Feeling somewhat fatigued, he sat down on a bench near the sea-wall and looked over toward Governor's Island. Craft of different sizes were passing, and Jed was interested and exhilarated by the spectacle. CHAPTER XXVIII. A STRANGE COMMISSION. Jed's companion on the seat was a sallow-faced, black-bearded man. Jed merely glanced at him, but presently became aware that he had become the object of the sallow man's scrutiny. Finally the latter moved rather nearer Jed, and showed a disposition to be sociable. "A fine day, young man," he began. "Yes, sir." "And a fine view we have before us," went on the stranger, pointing to the harbor and the numerous craft that were passing in both directions. "However, I suppose it is quite familiar to you?" "No, sir; I am a stranger in the city." "Indeed!" and here the stranger allowed his gaze to rest on the small gripsack that Jed had placed on the seat beside him. "Perhaps you have come in quest of work?" "Yes, sir," answered Jed. "Have you found anything yet?" "No, sir, but I have only been here since yesterday morning. Do you know of any situation that I could fill?" "Well, no, no permanent position," answered the other deliberately. "I might give you a chance to earn," here he hesitated, "two dollars this evening. But perhaps that would not be worth your while." "Yes, sir, I should be glad to earn even that," said Jed eagerly. "Then perhaps I may employ you. Can you row a boat?" "Yes, sir. I think so. I have rowed on a pond up in Scranton." "Then you can probably row here. I would row part of the way myself." "When do you want me?" asked Jed. "Not till late this evening. I will explain when the time comes." Jed was disappointed. He had hoped to do the work at once, and receive the money. Then he could buy himself some supper, for he was already hungry. He found that his appetite was just as regular as if he were earning a living income, instead of being impecunious and without work. "At what time shall I meet you, sir?" "At eleven o'clock, here." "Yes, sir," answered Jed, wondering what he was to do during the intervening time. As he had no money, he must defer eating till then, and it occurred to him that he would hardly feel able to row any considerable distance unless refreshed by food. Could he venture to ask a part of the sum he was to earn in advance? He decided to do so. "I am going to ask a favor," he said hurriedly. "I have been robbed of all my money, and I have not enough to buy my supper. If you let me have half a dollar on account----" He feared that this proposal would be distasteful to his companion, but the sallow-faced man did not seem offended. "Perhaps," he said thoughtfully, "I had better keep you with me, and let you eat supper with me." "Very well, sir," said Jed, feeling relieved. The other looked relieved. "It is half-past five," he said. "We may as well start now." He rose leisurely from his seat, and Jed followed him. He walked to the head of the Battery, and keeping near the piers, led the way to a humble tavern called "The Sailor's Rest." "This will do," he said. "It is not very fashionable, but they can give us a comfortable meal." Certainly the interior presented a great contrast to the Astor House, where Jed had lunched, or rather dined. The floor was sanded, the tables were unprovided with tablecloths. There was a bar on one side of the room, over which presided a stout bartender with mottled cheeks and a dirty white apron. "Where is the restaurant?" asked Jed's companion. "In there," answered the bartender with a jerk of his finger in the direction of a back room. With a nod the sallow-faced man beckoned Jed to follow him. Opening a door, he led the way into a room provided with four tables only. On each table was a small bell. Jed and his guide sat down, and the latter rang the bell. A dirty-faced man, with a beard of several days' growth, made his appearance. "We want some supper." "What'll you have?" "What can we have?" "Beefsteak, ham and eggs." "What else?" "Eggs without." "Without what?" "Ham." The sallow man shrugged his shoulders. "It seems we must choose between beefsteak and ham and eggs," he said. "What will you have?" "Ham and eggs," answered Jed. "All right. Ham and eggs for two." "Anything else?" "Two bottles of lager. You drink beer, don't you?" "No," answered Jed. "Then bring the boy some tea or coffee--whichever he prefers." "Tea," suggested Jed. "Bread and butter, of course, and fried potatoes, if you can get them ready." While they were waiting the man leaned back in his chair and stared out of the window at a dirty back yard, but his thoughts seemed to be otherwise occupied. Jed's eyes wandered about the room, but found little to attract him in the two or three prints--one of a yacht, another of a merchant vessel--that adorned the walls. On the mantel was a soiled piece of coral and a large seashell. All seemed to harmonize with the name of the inn. Jed, however, felt but a fleeting interest in the furnishings of the place. His mind dwelt rather on the promised supper. He could not understand how in this crisis of his fortunes, when there was so much to discourage him, he should have such an appetite. Savory odors from the neighboring kitchen found their way into the room when the waiter opened the door and entered to set the table. Jed was glad to overlook the cheap and dark-hued crockery, the rusty knives and forks and the chipped glasses, as the odor of the ham and eggs was wafted to his nostrils. Finally the beer and tea were brought in, and his companion signaled to him to fall to. "Where did you dine?" he asked abruptly. "At the Astor House." The sallow-faced man paused with his glass, which he had just filled, half-way to his lips. "Was that before you were robbed of your money?" he asked. "No, sir, but I met a gentleman whom I knew at the seaside, and he invited me to dine with him." "Oh, that explains it. This is a very different place from the Astor House." "I should think so," said Jed smiling. "Still we can probably satisfy our hunger." "Oh, yes," responded Jed, and he made a vigorous onslaught on the contents of his plate. In a few minutes supper was over, and Jed felt better. It is wonderful how much more cheerful views we take of life and the world on a full than on an empty stomach. Jed experienced this. He couldn't, to be sure, look very far ahead, but he had had three meals that day in spite of an empty purse, and the money he was to earn would insure him a bed and three meals for the coming day, in all probability. "It is half-past six" said his companion, referring to his watch--"a good while before I shall need your services. Do you feel tired?" "Yes, sir; I have been on my feet all day." "Wait a minute." He went out and returned in a moment. "I have engaged a room for you," he said. "You can occupy it now if you like it, and after our expedition return to pass the balance of the night. You can leave your valise there, as it will only be in your way on the boat." "Thank you, sir." This solved one of Jed's problems in a pleasant manner. The waiter led the way up stairs to a small room just large enough to hold a bed and washstand, and said, "That'll do you, I guess." "Oh yes," responded Jed cheerfully. "The gentleman says you can lie down, and he'll call you when you're wanted." Jed was glad of this permission, for he felt very much in need of rest. He took off his coat and laid down on the bed. The couch he found not a very luxurious one. It consisted of a thin--a very thin--mattress laid upon wooden slats, and the pillow was meagre. But he soon fell asleep, and slept so soundly that it seemed as if only five minutes had elapsed when some one shook him, and opening his eyes, they rested on his sallow-faced employer. "Time to get up," said the latter abruptly. Jed sprang from the bed, and, his eyes only half open, said, "I am ready." "Follow me, then." He followed his guide, who walked rapidly through the dark streets till he reached a pier not far from the Battery. There was a boat moored alongside, rising and falling with the tide. There was one man already in it. "Come along!" said his guide briefly. Jed descended a ladder, and took his place in the boat. His companion seized the oars, signing to Jed to take his seat in the bow. Then he began to row, much better then Jed could have done. They struck out towards Governor's Island, passed it, and proceeded a considerable distance beyond. Here lay a yacht. There was no light on board, so far as Jed could see, and it looked to be quite deserted. The rower slackened his speed (he had not yet called upon Jed to row) and said quickly: "I want you to board that yacht. Go down into the cabin. There you will see a box, perhaps a foot square and ten inches deep. Bring it to me." "But," said Jed, in bewilderment, "is--is it yours?" "No," answered the sallow-faced man composedly. "It belongs to a friend of mine, the owner of the yacht. I promised to come out and get it for him." CHAPTER XXIX. A SURPRISE PARTY. The words of the sallow-faced man dissipated any suspicions which Jed may have entertained, and he clambered on board the yacht without much difficulty, for he was active and agile. "Good!" said his employer. "Now go into the cabin, and be quick about it." Jed did not understand why he should be quick about it. There was plenty of time, he thought. Another thing puzzled him, now that he had had a chance to think the matter over. Why was the visit postponed till near midnight? A city boy would not have had his suspicions so easily allayed; but Jed was unused to city ways, and, it may be added, to city wickedness. The cabin seemed to be dark. He felt his way down stairs, and struck a match which he had in his pocket in order to see better the location of the box. He had just picked up the latter, finding it to be heavy, when he felt a hand laid on his arm, and looking up, met the stern gaze of a young man about twenty-eight years of age. "What are you about here, young fellow?" he asked abruptly. Jed was a little startled, but, not being aware that he was doing anything wrong, he replied composedly, "I was taking this box, sir." "I see you were; but what business have you to take the box?" "I was sent for it." "Sent for it?" repeated the young man, looking puzzled. "Who sent you for it?" "The gentleman in the boat outside." "Oh ho! So there is a gentleman in the boat outside?" "Certainly, sir. Isn't it--all right?" "Well, I should say not, unless you consider theft right." "What!" exclaimed Jed aghast. "Is the man who employed me a thief?" "It looks very much like it." At this moment the sallow-faced man called in an impatient tone, "What are you about there, you lazy young rascal? Don't be all night!" "Is there more than one man in the boat?" asked the young man in the cabin. "Yes, sir; there are two." "The harbor police ought to be somewhere about. I'll rouse them if I can." The young man went to the port-hole which served to light the cabin and fired a pistol. "Confusion! There's some one on the yacht!" exclaimed the sallow-faced man. "We must get off." Dipping his oars in the water, he rowed quickly away, leaving Jed to his fate. But the shot had been heard on another boat not fifty rods distant, and the piratical craft was pursued and eventually overhauled. Meanwhile Jed remained on board the yacht, whether as a prisoner or not he did not know. "Your companions have taken alarm," said the young man. "I hear them rowing away. They have deserted you." "I am glad of it," said Jed. "I don't want anything more to do with them. Will you tell me if that box contains anything valuable?" "Probably the contents are worth five thousand dollars." "Is it possible!" ejaculated Jed in amazement. "You see you have lost quite a prize," said the young man, eyeing him closely. "Don't say that I have lost a prize," returned Jed half indignantly. "I supposed the man who sent me for it was honest." "What did he tell you?" "He said that the box belonged to a friend, who had employed him to get it." "All a lie! I am the owner of the box, and the yacht also, and I have no acquaintance with your principal. If I had not been here he would have got a rich prize." "I am glad you were here," said Jed earnestly. "I don't understand your connection with such a man. How much were you to be paid for your services?" "Two dollars," answered Jed. "Didn't it strike you as singular that you should have been employed on such an errand?" "Well, a little; but I am a stranger to the city, and I thought it might be because I was inexperienced." "Do you mind telling me how long you have known the person who employed you?" "I met him for the first time at five o'clock this afternoon on the Battery. He asked me if I wanted a job, and that is how I came to be engaged." "That sounds plausible and I am inclined to believe you." At this moment they were interrupted. There was a sound of oars, and leaving the cabin, Jed and his companion saw the boat of the harbor police under the side. It had in tow the boat in which Jed had come from shore. "Was there any attempt to rob the yacht?" asked the captain of police. "Yes, sir," answered the owner. "Have you one of the thieves aboard?" "No, sir." "That's not true!" said the sallow-faced man, now a prisoner. "That boy came with us," and he pointed to Jed. "Is that true?" asked the police captain. "This boy was sent on board by the thieves, but he was quite ignorant of the character of his employer. He is a country boy, and was an innocent agent of the guilty parties." "You are convinced then of his innocence?" "Entirely so." "We shall need his evidence against these men. Will you guarantee that it shall be forthcoming?" "Yes, captain. I will give my name and his, and will call at your office to-morrow morning." "That will answer." The young man took out one of his cards, bearing the name of Schuyler Roper, and wrote Jed's name, which he had ascertained, underneath. "You will be responsible for the boy's appearance, Mr. Roper?" said the officer respectfully, reading the name by the light of a lantern. "Yes; he will stay with me." This seemed satisfactory, and the boat rowed away. "I am very much obliged to you for believing in my innocence, Mr. Roper," said Jed earnestly. "You have an innocent face," responded the young man kindly. "I am sure you are a good boy." "I hope you won't see any reason to doubt it. I am afraid I am putting you to trouble," continued Jed, realizing that he could not leave the yacht, and was thrown on the hospitality of the owner. "Not at all. I can accommodate you easily. You must be tired, if you have been about the city all day." Jed admitted that he was. In fact he felt very tired, and found it hard work to keep his eyes open. "I have sleeping accommodations for six persons on board my yacht, so that I can easily provide for you. So far from giving me trouble I shall be glad of your company, though I don't expect any more visitors to-night." Mr. Roper pointed out a comfortable bunk, and Jed lost no time in taking possession of it. He sank into a deep sleep, which was only broken by a gentle shake from his young host. As he opened his eyes, and they met the unusual surroundings, he was at first bewildered. "Don't you know where you are?" asked Schuyler Roper, smiling. "Don't you remember boarding my yacht with felonious intent last night?" "Yes," answered Jed with an answering smile. "I remember that I was taken prisoner." "Then you are subject to my orders. When I am on a cruise we have meals aboard the yacht, but I am not keeping house now. If you will assist me, we'll direct our course to land and find breakfast somewhere." Jed did not know much about a yacht, but he liked the water and proved very quick in comprehension, so that in a comparatively short time they had reached the Battery. Here Mr. Roper found two men whom he had engaged to help man the yacht, and leaving the Juno in their charge he walked up Broadway with Jed. "We will take breakfast at the Astor House," he said. "I dined there yesterday," replied Jed. "You did!" exclaimed the other in a tone of surprise. "Yet you tell me you are penniless?" "Yes, sir, but I fell in with a gentleman whom I knew at Sea Spray, a Mr. Foster." "Not Howell Foster?" "Yes." "I know him very well. If he is a friend of yours, I shall feel that I am justified in reposing confidence in you." Just then Mr. Foster entered the room. "Good morning, Jed," he said in a friendly tone. "So you like the Astor well enough to come back?" "I am here by invitation of Mr. Roper." Mr. Foster, who was shortsighted, now for the first time observed Jed's companion. "So you know Roper, too?" he said. "Why, he's one of my closest friends. When did you pick him up, Schuyler?" "I caught him boarding my yacht on a marauding expedition last night," said Roper, smiling. "Bless my soul! What do you mean?" "Sit down and take breakfast with us, and I will explain." "And what are you going to do with this desperate young man?" asked the broker at the end of the story. "I shall invite him to accompany me to Bar Harbor on my yacht. But first we must call on the harbor police, as our testimony will be needed to convict the rascals who came near robbing me of five thousand dollars' worth of valuables." CHAPTER XXX. JED ENTERTAINS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. Though the trial of the harbor thieves was expedited, it was a week before Jed and Mr. Roper were able to leave New York. Jed's testimony settled the matter, and the two thieves were sentenced to terms of five years' imprisonment. "I'll get even with you yet, young fellow!" muttered the sallow-faced man, eyeing Jed with deep malignity as he left the witness-box. "Where is your trunk?" asked Mr. Roper after their first visit to the office of the harbor police. "I never owned one, Mr. Roper." "Your valise, then." "It is at a small hotel near the Battery." "Get it and bring it on board the yacht." Jed did so, and Mr. Roper asked to see it. "You are poorly equipped, Jed," he said. "That reminds me that if I am going to monopolize your services I must pay you some salary. How will fifty dollars a month answer?" "But, Mr. Roper, I can't earn as much as that." "Perhaps not, but if I am willing to pay it, you can set your mind at rest. I will see that you are better provided with clothing, undergarments, et cetera. Here, give me a piece of paper." Mr. Roper drew up a list of articles which he thought Jed might need--a very liberal list, by the way--and sent him with a note to his own tradesmen, with directions to supply him with such articles as he might select. He also gave him an order on his own tailor for a suit of clothes. "But, Mr. Roper, it will take me a long time to pay for all these out of my wages," protested Jed. Schuyler Roper laughed. "My dear boy," he said, "I haven't the least idea of making you pay for them. Just look upon me as your older brother, who is able and willing to provide for you." "I am deeply grateful to you, Mr. Roper," responded Jed earnestly. "I certainly stumbled into luck when I boarded your yacht." "I don't know how it is," said Roper, as he eyed Jed thoughtfully, "you didn't seem a stranger to me even when I first saw you. It seemed natural for me to look after you. I am an only son, and you never knew what it was to have a brother. I begin to think that I have lost a great deal in being so much alone." "You may be deceived in me, Mr. Roper. You know very little of me, and that is not at all to my advantage." "Well, I admit that, Jed. Considering that I caught you in the act of robbing me, I may be said to have known you at your worst." "You know nothing of my past life." "You shall tell me all about it after a while, when we are not so busy." Meanwhile Jed became familiar with his duties on board the yacht, and during the absence of Mr. Roper was regarded by the men as his representative. No one could have treated him with more generous confidence than his new friend. Jed was intrusted at times with considerable sums for disbursements, and was proud of the confidence reposed in him. Of Mr. Roper, except that he appeared to be a rich young man, he knew next to nothing, till one day he fell in with his watering-place friend, Howell Foster. "You are still with Schuyler?" he asked. "Oh yes, sir. I am going with him to Bar Harbor." "And then?" "I believe he means to keep me with him." "You are in luck. Schuyler is a generous, open-hearted young man, liberal to a fault, and ready to do anything for one he takes to. I suppose you know that he is rich?" "I thought he must be." "His father died two years since, leaving him half a million of dollars. He spends freely, but does not squander his money. He is paying for the college education of a poor boy in whom he feels an interest--the son of an old bookkeeper of his father's--as I happen to know. He is a favorite in society, but has never shown an inclination to marry." "Is his mother living?" asked Jed. "No; she died before his father. He is very much alone in the world." "That is why he is so generous to me, I think." "Perhaps so, but it is his nature to be kind. By the way, Jed, when my family comes back from Sea Spray I would like to have you call upon us. We live on Madison Avenue." "Thank you, Mr. Foster. If I am in New York I shall be glad to do so." "I begin to think I am getting into society," thought Jed. "It is not over three months since I left the Scranton poorhouse, and here I am adopted by one rich man and welcomed at the house of another." It was natural that Jed should feel elated by his good luck. But he was not allowed to forget his early adversity, for on the fourth day after entering the service of Mr. Roper he met on Broadway, just above Chambers Street, his old enemy, Percy Dixon. Percy was the first to recognize him. "Oh it's you, is it?" he said in considerable surprise. Jed smiled. He felt that he could afford to disregard Percy's impertinence. "My dear friend Percy," he said. "How well you remember me!" "Yes, I remember you, and so does Mr. Fogson of the Scranton poorhouse." "Remember me to the kind old man!" said Jed comically. "How soon are you going back?" "Not very soon. Of course it would be pleasant to me to be able to see you every day, Percy, but----" "You needn't flatter yourself that I would take any notice of you. What are you doing for a living?" "I am going yachting in a few days." "What! Oh, I understand. You have hired out as a sailor." "Well no, not exactly." "What yacht are you working on?" "Perhaps you would like to visit it?" "Yes, I would," said Percy, feeling puzzled and curious. "Come to the Battery with me, then. We'd better board the next car." Percy followed Jed into a Broadway car, and Jed, to his surprise, paid the fare. "_I_ was going to pay the fare," said Percy. "Oh never mind!" returned Jed carelessly. "I don't want to put you to expense." "Oh! it's not worth minding." Arrived at the Battery, Jed called a boatman and said, "Row me out to the Juno, beyond Governor's Island." Jed leaned back in the boat, and Percy stared at him in wonder. When they reached the yacht one of the men produced a ladder, and Jed led the way on board. "Any orders, Mr. Gilman?" asked the sailor respectfully. "No, Kimball; I haven't seen Mr. Roper since morning, and don't know if he wants anything done." "Do you think you can spare me to go on shore for a couple of hours?" "Yes, you may go." Jed went to the side and said to the boatman, "You may take this man on shore, and come back in an hour and a half for my friend and myself. "Now, Percy, allow me to offer you a little refreshment." Jed went to the pantry and brought out some cold meat, bread and butter, and two bottles of ginger ale, with the necessary dishes. "I can't offer you anything very tempting," he said, "but the boat ride may have given you an appetite for plain fare." Percy could hardly conceal his surprise. He stared at Jed as if fascinated. "Won't you get into trouble by making so free with your master's things?" "Who told you I had a master?" "Who owns this yacht?" "Mr. Schuyler Roper." "He must be rich." "I hear that he is worth half a million dollars," said Jed in an off-hand manner. "And how did you get in with him?" asked Percy rather enviously. "It was an accident," answered Jed, by no means disposed to tell Percy the particulars of his first meeting with Mr. Roper. "Suppose he should come now, what would he say to your making so free?" "That he was glad to have me entertain my friends." "You seem to be pretty sure of your footing with him." "I have reason to be. He tells me to look upon him as an older brother." "He may find you out some time," suggested Percy with disagreeable significance. "What do you mean?" "He may find out that his _younger brother_ was raised in a poorhouse." "I have no doubt he will learn it if he gets acquainted with you." "What do you mean?" asked Percy coloring. "That you would probably tell him. By the way, has Mr. Holbrook got home from Chicago yet?" "I believe not. Do you expect he will take you back?" "No; I prefer my present position. I shall probably sail for Bar Harbor with Mr. Roper on Saturday." "It's strange how you've got on since you left the poorhouse," said Percy uncomfortably. "Yes; I think even you will agree that I did well to leave it." "Your luck may turn," added Percy hopefully. "Perhaps it will, but I hope not." Presently the boatman came back, and Jed sent Percy back to the city, paying the boatman in advance. "It beats all how that pauper gets along!" reflected Percy, but from his expression the reflection gave him no pleasure. CHAPTER XXXI. JED RETURNS GOOD FOR EVIL. In the short time before the Juno left for Bar Harbor, Schuyler Roper became quite intimate with Jed. There was never a trace of condescension in his manner to his boy friend, but Jed was always treated as if in birth and position he was the equal of the young patrician. Together they walked about the city, and frequently dined together, always at some expensive hotel or restaurant. "What time is it, Jed?" asked Mr. Roper one day as they were passing the Star Theatre. "I am afraid I left my watch at home," answered Jed, smiling. "Then we shall have to supply its place." Schuyler Roper turned the corner of Fourteenth Street, and led the way to Tiffany's well-known establishment on the corner of Fifteenth Street and Union Square. "Let us see some gold watches," he said to a salesman. A tray of handsome timepieces was produced. "How expensive a watch would you like, sir? Is it for yourself?" "No, for this young gentleman. Look over these watches, Jed, and see what one you like best." Jed made choice of a very neat gold watch with a handsome dial. "What is the price?" asked Mr. Roper. "A hundred and twenty-five dollars." Jed opened his eyes wide in astonishment. A hundred and twenty-five dollars seemed to him a very large sum, and so unaccustomed was he to expensive jewelry that he had not known that there were any watches so costly. "Very well; we will take it. Show me some gold chains." Choice was made of a fifty-dollar gold chain. It was attached to the watch, and Mr. Roper, handing it to Jed, said, "Put it in your pocket." "Do you really mean the watch and chain for me?" asked Jed, almost incredulous. "Certainly." "How can I thank you, Mr. Roper?" said Jed gratefully. "My dear boy," rejoined Roper kindly, "I want your appearance to do me credit. That _you_ will do me credit I feel confident." It was about this time that Jed met an old acquaintance--one whom he had no reason to remember with kindly feelings. He had occasion to go across Cortlandt Street ferry, when on board the boat he saw in front of him a figure that seemed familiar. He walked forward till he could see the face of the young man to whom it belonged. Then it flashed upon him that it was Maurice Graham, the young man who had invited him to his room on Twenty-Seventh Street and robbed him of his small stock of money. Now that the tide had turned, Jed did not feel so incensed against the fellow as at first. Still he determined to let him understand that he knew exactly how he had been swindled. He touched Graham on the shoulder, and the young man wheeled round with an apprehensive look, which he did not lose when he saw and recognized Jed. "Did you touch me?" he asked, with an evident intention of ignoring Jed's acquaintance. "Yes, Mr. Graham. We parted rather suddenly, you remember," said Jed significantly. "Oh, I see. You are----" "Jed Gilman." "I was wondering what became of you. I was called up town to the house of a sick friend that evening, and when I went back the next day Mrs. Gately told me you had gone away." "Indeed! Did she tell you that I was robbed of thirty-five dollars during the night, and that I awoke penniless?" "No," answered Graham faintly. "I am surprised." "I thought you might be. Are you in the habit of borrowing money from people who are asleep?" "What do you mean? You don't think I took the money?" "Yes, I think you did." "Why, didn't I tell you that I spent the night with a sick friend in--in Eighty-Seventh Street. How could I rob you?" "You came back during the evening and found me asleep." "That's a mistake!" said Graham quickly. "It is true. Mrs. Gately let you in, as she informed me the next morning." Maurice Graham looked very much disconcerted, and looked eagerly to the Jersey shore, which they were fast approaching. "Do you know that I would have had no breakfast if Mrs. Gately had not taken compassion on me?" "You don't look--very destitute--now." "I am not. I have been lucky enough to find a good position. But that thirty-five dollars belonged to me. How much of it can you return to me?" Maurice Graham colored and looked embarrassed. "I--the fact is," he stammered, "I'm almost broke." "Is this true?" "On my honor I've only got a dollar and ten cents in my pocket, and I don't know what will become of me when that is gone." "You have got rid of it very quick." "I've been a fool," said Graham gloomily. "I spent it mostly on pool and drinks. Then of course I've had to live." "But your situation----" "I haven't any." "Perhaps you will meet another boy from the country." "I treated you awful mean--I know I did," burst out Graham, "and I've been very sorry for it. I've often wished that I had left you five dollars." "Well, that would have helped me. But don't you think it would have been better to have left me the whole?" "Yes, it would; but I am very unlucky." "I am afraid you don't deserve good luck. Isn't there anything you can do?" "Yes." "Can't you find another broker to take you in his office?" "I never was in a broker's office," confessed Graham. "What was your business, then? I suppose you had some way of making a living?" "I am a barber by trade, but I got tired of the confinement, and so I thought I'd become a sport. I started out with a hundred dollars which it took me a year to save up, and I got rid of it in two weeks. Then I fell in with you." "And with my thirty-five dollars." "Yes." "The best thing you can do is to go back to your business." "I would if I could." "Why can't you?" "Because my razors are in hock." It is the custom of journeymen barbers to supply their own razors and a pair of shears for hair-cutting. "I suppose that means in pawn?" "Yes." "When can you get a place if you get your razors back?" "I can go to work to-morrow." "What sum will get them out?" "Four dollars and a half." "Where are they?" "In a pawnshop on the Bowery." "Come with me and I will get them out for you if you will promise to go to work." "I will," answered Graham earnestly. "I'll give you my word I will." "Come back on the next boat, then, and I will go with you to the pawnshop." "It will take up your time. You don't mean to give me in charge when we reach New York?" said Graham apprehensively. "No; I am willing to give you a fresh chance. I hope you will improve it." Jed took out his watch to note the time. "Is that watch yours? It's a beauty," said Graham. "Yes; it came from Tiffany's." "Did you have it when I met you?" "No; if I had, that would have gone the same way as the money." "You must be awfully lucky!" "I suppose I have been. At any rate I have been honest." "Honesty seems to pay. I must try it." "I advise you to," said Jed, smiling. When Jed parted from Graham it occurred to him that he would call on Mrs. Gately. She had provided him with a breakfast when he needed one, and seemed kindly disposed towards him. When he rang the bell of the small house on Twenty-Seventh Street, Mrs. Gately herself came to the door. "Did you wish to see me, sir?" "You don't remember me, Mrs. Gately?" The old lady peered through her glasses. "Why bless me!" she said, "if it isn't the young man from the country. But you're dressed so fine I hardly knew you. I hope you're prosperin'." "Yes, thank you, Mrs. Gately. I have been quite lucky, but I was pretty low in spirits as well as in pockets when I left you." "Why, you're lookin' fine. Won't you stay for supper? Luella Dickinson will be home soon--she that tends at Macy's. I've often spoken to her about you. Luella's very romantic." "I am not, Mrs. Gately, and I'm afraid I can't stop. I must be on board my yacht in an hour." "Your yacht! Bless me, you don't mean to say you've got a yacht?" "Well, it belongs to a friend, but we enjoy it together." "Have you seen the bad young man who robbed you?" "Yes; I saw him this afternoon." "You don't say! Did you have him arrested?" "No; I helped him get some things out of pawn." "That's a real Christian act, but I don't think I'd have done it. You deserve to prosper. I wish you could stay and meet Luella." "Some other time, Mrs. Gately." At supper the landlady told Miss Dickinson of Jed's call. Luella expressed great regret that she had not seen him. "I should fall in love with Mr. Gilman, I know I would," she said. "Why didn't you ask him to call at Macy's?" "I will when I see him again." CHAPTER XXXII. AT BAR HARBOR. About eleven o'clock one forenoon the yacht Juno came to anchor in the harbor of Mount Desert. Jed gazed admiringly at the rugged shores, the picturesque village, the background of hills, the smaller islands surrounding the main island, like the satellites of a larger planet. "It is beautiful!" he said. "I never dreamed of such a place." "Yes," said Roper, "it is by far the most attractive island on the American coast. I think we shall find it pleasant to stay here for a time." "I shall enjoy it at any rate," said Jed. "Where shall we stay?" "I generally go to the Newport. It is one of the smaller hotels, but its location is excellent, being very near the water. Besides, I am expecting my aunt, Mrs. Frost, to arrive in a few days. She always goes to the Newport, and has the same room every year. There is the hotel yonder." Mr. Roper pointed out a pleasant but unpretentious hostelry on the left of the pier. "The large house farther up the hill is Rodick's," he said. "Rodick is an old name at Mount Desert, and the island just across from the wharf, separated by a bar, was once called Rodick's island." The yacht was anchored, and Jed and Mr. Roper were rowed to shore. They secured rooms at the Newport, and walked up the hill. As they passed the post-office Schuyler Roper said, "I will see if there are any letters awaiting me. There may be one from my aunt." Jed waited at the door. Mr. Roper came out, holding a letter which he regarded with some curiosity. "Here is a letter in an unknown hand, post-marked Scranton," he said. "I don't know any person living there." "I do," said Jed. "It was my old home." "Then why should it be addressed to me? It ought to have been sent to you." "Will you let me see the handwriting?" asked Jed. His heart beat a little rapidly, for he recognized the hand as that of Percy Dixon. "I know who it is from," he said. "Is it from a friend of yours?" "No, an enemy." "I don't understand." "You will understand when you come to read it, Mr. Roper. It is from a boy whom I entertained on the yacht three days before we sailed for Bar Harbor. He has probably written you in the hope of injuring me." "Does he know anything to your disadvantage then?" "Not to the disadvantage of my character. But please read the letter, Mr. Roper, and then you will understand." Schuyler Roper's curiosity was aroused, and he cut open the envelope. The letter, which was written in a schoolboy hand, read thus: DEAR SIR: Though I am a stranger to you, I will take the liberty to write and let you know something of the boy who is travelling with you. He is not fit to associate with a gentleman like yourself, for he was brought up in the poorhouse in this place, and lived here till four months ago, when he ran away, and has been living since by hook or by crook. He has a great deal of cheek, and that is what has helped him to push himself in among people who are far above him. Perhaps you may like to know who I am. My father, Squire Dixon, is a prominent man in Scranton, and is Overseer of the Poor, which makes him a sort of guardian of Jed Gilman. He could force him to go back to his old home, but the boy gave so much trouble, being naturally headstrong and rebellious, that he thinks it best to let him follow his own course. Probably Jed will some time apply to be taken back to his old home, as he is likely to be found out to be an impostor sooner or later. I have taken the trouble to write you because my father thinks it very proper that you should know the character of the boy whom you have taken into your employ. When I was in New York lately he invited me to go on board of your yacht in order to show off. He made as free as if the yacht were his own, treating me to a lunch, and ordering the men around as if he owned the yacht. I couldn't help being amused, remembering that he was nothing but a pauper a few months since. Excuse me for taking up so much of your valuable time. I have no ill-will against Jed, but I should think better of him if he would keep his place, and not try to intrude into fashionable society. Yours respectfully, PERCY DIXON. Jed noticed the face of Mr. Roper rather anxiously when he was reading this letter. "Will it prejudice him against me?" he asked himself. He felt that in that case he should indeed be depressed, for he had come to have a sincere attachment for his patron. He was reassured by the smile that lighted up the young man's countenance as he finished reading the letter. "This letter appears to have been written by a great friend of yours, Jed," he said. "He is a great friend of mine, too, for he seems afraid that I shall be injured by associating with you, and so puts me on my guard." "I thought as much," said Jed. "I suppose he tells you that I was brought up in the Scranton poorhouse." "Yes; is this true?" "Yes," answered Jed soberly. "But how did it happen? Did your parents lose their property?" "I know nothing of them, Mr. Roper. I was only two years of age when I was placed in the poorhouse. Mr. and Mrs. Avery were in charge. They were kind people and took good care of me." "Did they never tell you the circumstances of your being placed in the institution?" "No; but Mrs. Avery always promised that she would tell me all she knew on my sixteenth birthday." "Are you not sixteen yet?" "Yes; but when I reached that age Mr. and Mrs. Fogson were in charge of the poorhouse. Mr. and Mrs. Avery were removed by the father of this Percy Dixon who has written to you." "What sort of people are they?" "Mean, selfish and unkind to the poor people who are unfortunate enough to be under their charge. Mr. Fogson tried to tyrannize over me, and I rebelled." "I can't blame you," said Roper. "Finally I ran away, as Percy writes. It was high time I did, for I felt able to earn my own living, and was ashamed to be supported by the town, though I am sure I did work enough to pay for the miserable board I got at the poorhouse. "When Mr. and Mrs. Avery were in charge I did not feel my position. It seemed to me as if I were living with kind friends. When they went away I realized that I was a pauper. Indeed, Mr. and Mrs. Fogson reminded me of it half a dozen times a day." "So you ran away? What did you do first?" "Perhaps you will laugh, Mr. Roper, but I became an actor." Schuyler Roper looked amazed. "But how on earth did you get a chance to go on the stage?" he asked. "Through an actor whose acquaintance I made. He was playing in 'The Gold King.' The young actor who took the boy's part was taken suddenly sick, and they tried me. The manager seemed satisfied, and I played in it till the end of the season." "There must be something in you, Jed, or you could not have met the requirements of such a position. Well, and what next?" "I went to Sea Spray and was given the charge of a young boy, boarding at the Spray Hotel, by his father. I lost the place through the same Percy Dixon who wrote to you." "How was that?" "He informed the boy's aunt, in the absence of his father at Chicago, that I was only a pauper, and Miss Maria Holbrook discharged me at once." "Do you think Mr. Holbrook would have discharged you?" "I don't think so, for the boy was very fond of me." "So am I, Jed," said Mr. Roper affectionately, "and I shall not allow young Dixon to separate us." "Thank you, Mr. Roper," replied Jed gratefully. "As to your history, you ought to know more of it. When we leave Bar Harbor I will let you go back to Scranton and obtain from the Averys all the information you can. You may get a clew that may lead to a discovery of your parentage." "I hope so," answered Jed. "I don't like to feel that I have no relations." "Meanwhile you may take this letter of your friend Percy's and answer it as you see fit." A few days later Percy Dixon received the following letter: MY DEAR AND CONSIDERATE FRIEND PERCY: Mr. Roper has asked me to answer your kind letter. He appreciates your interest in him, but he doesn't seem to think that my company will injure him as much as you imagine. He thinks I shall enjoy myself better with him than in the company of Mr. and Mrs. Fogson, and therefore won't send me away. We are staying at the Newport House, and enjoying ourselves very much. If you come down this way call on us, and I will give you a good dinner. Tell Mr. and Mrs. Fogson not to worry about me, as I am well and happy. Yours truly, JED GILMAN. "I never saw such cheek!" said Percy in mortified anger as he tore Jed's letter to pieces. "It is strange how that young pauper prospers. But it won't always last!" and this reflection afforded him some satisfaction. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE POORHOUSE RECEIVES TWO VISITORS. Let us change the scene to the Scranton poorhouse. Mr. Fogson has just come in from splitting wood. It was a task to which he was very much averse, but he had not been able to find any one to fill Jed's place. "Drat that boy!" he said, as he sank into a chair. "What boy?" "Jed Gilman. He ought to be here at work instead of roaming round doing no good to himself or anybody else." "Perhaps he would be glad to come back. I dare say he has seen the time when he didn't know where his next meal was coming from," rejoined Mrs. Fogson hopefully. "I hope so." "I don't know as I want him back," went on the woman. "I do! He's good for splitting wood, if he ain't good for anything else." At this moment a knock was heard at the door, and Percy Dixon entered the house. "How do you do, Master Percy?" said Mrs. Fogson deferentially. "I am always glad to see you enter our humble house." "We were just talking of Jed Gilman before you came in," added Fogson. "I saw him two days since," said Percy. "You did!" exclaimed Fogson eagerly. "Where was he?" "In the streets of New York. You know I went to the city Tuesday." "What was he doing--blacking boots for a living?" "Not much! I wish he was. That boy is about the luckiest chap I ever set eyes on." "What did he do?" asked Mrs. Fogson curiously. "Invited me to go on board his yacht." "What!" "That's just what he did." "He was bluffing. He wanted to deceive you." "No he didn't, for I accepted his invitation and went on board." "You don't say! Jed Gilman got a yacht!" exclaimed Fogson, his eyes almost protruding from their sockets. "Well, I don't say it's his, but he acts as if it were. He hired a boat to take me out to the Juno--that's the name of the yacht, and it's a regular beauty--and took me on board and treated me to some lunch. He ordered the men about just as if he were a gentleman." "Well, of all things!" exclaimed Mrs. Fogson, looking surprised and scandalized. "Did he explain how he came to have anything to do with the boat?" "Yes; he said the owner had taken a fancy to him and was taking care of him." "Did he say who the owner was?" "Yes; it's Schuyler Roper, a rich young man living in New York." "Well, what next?" "I stayed on board an hour or more, and then went back to the city." "It seems strange how that boy gets along. Mr. Roper will find him out sooner or later." "I should say he would. I've written him a letter, and I brought it along, thinking you might like to hear it read." So Percy read the letter already laid before the reader in the last chapter. Mr. and Mrs. Fogson nodded delighted approval as Percy read his exposure of Jed's humble past. "I do say that's about the best-written letter I ever heard," said Mrs. Fogson, as Percy concluded. "Do you think so?" asked Percy with a gratified smile. "Think so! I am sure of it. Master Percy, I had no idea you had so much talent. Did it take you long to write it?" "Oh no, I just dashed it off in a few minutes," answered Percy carelessly. "You ought to be a lawyer; you do express things so neat. Don't you think so, Simeon?" "Yes, Mrs. Fogson. I always thought Percy a smart boy. But where are you going to send the letter?" "To Bar Harbor. Jed said that they were going there in a day or two. I thought Mr. Roper ought to know what a low fellow he has with him." "Of course he ought. You've only done your duty in informing him against Jed. When are you going to mail the letter?" "To-night. It'll go off the first thing to-morrow morning." "I'm very much obliged to you for letting us hear the letter, Master Percy. I expect it'll cook Jed's goose." "Probably Mr. Roper will send him off as soon as he reads it. I'd just like to be there when it is read." Percy left the poorhouse and went on his way to the post-office. He sealed the letter, first reading it over again to himself complacently, and inclined to agree with the Fogsons that it was a decidedly clever piece of composition. He had hardly walked a hundred yards when he met a quiet-looking man of medium height dressed in a gray suit. "Young man," said the stranger, "am I on my way to the poorhouse?" "Well, sir," replied Percy jocosely, "that depends on your habits." The other smiled. "I see you are a young man of original humor. Is the building used as a poorhouse near by?" "Yes, sir, that is it," said Percy, pointing to the forlorn-looking dwelling he had just left. "Thank you, sir," said the stranger, and resumed his walk. "I wonder what he wants," speculated Percy. "Perhaps he is a relation of Mr. and Mrs. Fogson. I wish I had asked him." The quiet-looking man was soon at the outer door of the poorhouse, and knocked, for there was no bell. Mrs. Fogson answered the knock, and surveyed the stranger with some curiosity. "I believe this is the Scranton poorhouse." "Yes, sir." "And you, perhaps, are in charge." "Yes, sir. Did you wish to see any of the paupers?" asked Mrs. Fogson, thinking that the visitor, who was inexpensively dressed, might be related to some of her boarders. "First let me inquire how long you have been in your present position, Mrs.----" "Fogson." "Exactly, Mrs. Fogson." "Me and Fogson have been here about a year." The stranger's countenance fell. "Only a year!" he repeated. "Who was here before you?" "Mr. and Mrs. Avery; but the Overseer of the Poor thought there was need of a change, and persuaded me and Fogson to come here." "Very obliging of you!" murmured the visitor. "Can you tell me how long Mr. and Mrs. Avery were here?" "Fifteen years." The stranger brightened up. "They live in the village--in a small four-room house not far from the post-office." "Thank you," and the visitor took out a note-book and wrote something in it. He stood a moment silent, and then said, in a hesitating tone, "Is there a boy in the institution named Jed Gilman?" Instantly the face of Mrs. Fogson expressed surprise and curiosity. "There was!" she answered, "but he's run away." "Run away!" ejaculated the stranger, looking disappointed. "Yes; he was a bad, rebellious boy. Me and Fogson couldn't do anything with him." "It is very sad," said the visitor with a dubious smile. "Do you want to see him particular?" asked Mrs. Fogson. "Yes; I wished to see him." "Has he got into any scrape?" asked she with malicious eagerness. The visitor eyed Mrs. Fogson closely, and saw at once that she was Jed's enemy. "That's about the size of it," he answered. "Of course as you are his friend you would rather not tell me where he is." "Who said I was his friend? I'll tell you with pleasure. Percy Dixon came and told me only a few minutes since. He's probably at Bar Harbor, or he'll get there some time this week." "Bar Harbor!" repeated the visitor in evident surprise. "Yes; he's working for a Mr. Roper--Mr. Schuyler Roper. He went down there on a yacht. If you want to arrest him, or anything, you'd better go down there right off, for Percy Dixon has written to Mr. Roper that Jed was brought up in the poorhouse, and will probably get bounced very soon." "Thank you very much for telling me, Mrs. Fogson. I am glad you have put me on his track." "You don't mind telling me what he has been doing?" asked the lady. "No; I might defeat the ends of justice by doing so." "Just so!" rejoined Mrs. Fogson. "I do wonder what that boy's done?" she said to herself as the stranger turned into the public road. "Very likely it's burglary, or forgery." CHAPTER XXXIV. THE DETECTIVE. The man in drab smiled to himself as he left the presence of Mrs. Fogson. "I wonder whether that woman's husband has her amiable traits?" he speculated. "If so, the Scranton poor must be made very uncomfortable." As he reached the village he met Percy Dixon once more. Percy had an ungovernable curiosity, and he crossed the street to intercept the stranger. "I suppose you found the poorhouse," he said suggestively. "Yes; I could not miss it after your clear directions." "Are you related to Mr. and Mrs. Fogson?" asked Percy, rather boldly. "Well no," answered the stranger with a smile. "I haven't the honor." "Have you any relations among the paupers?" "Not that I am aware of. However, I called to inquire after one of them--a boy." "Jed Gilman?" said Percy eagerly. "Yes; I believe that is his name. Are you acquainted with him?" "I have known him for years." "I suppose he is a friend of yours?" "Not much. Do you think I would be friends with a pauper?" "I don't know. I see no reason why not if he is a nice boy." "But Jed isn't a nice boy. He's an artful, forward, presuming young jackanapes, and was awfully troublesome." "I am sorry to hear it. Mrs. Fogson seems to think of him very much as you do." "I should think she would. She and Fogson couldn't do anything with him." "Mrs. Fogson says he isn't there now." "No; he ran away after making a brutal assault on Fogson." The man in drab felt an inclination to smile, but suppressed it. "I don't know as I ought to have spoken against him," continued Percy with a cunning look of inquiry. "You may be after him." The man in drab paused a moment, then assuming a look of mystery, said, "Can you keep a secret?" "Yes," answered Percy eagerly. "Come here, then." Percy drew near, and the other whispered mysteriously, "_I am a detective!_" "You don't say so!" ejaculated Percy, gazing at him with a species of awe, begotten of his idea of detectives as introduced into books which he had read. The other nodded. "And I am after Jed Gilman!" he continued. "Is that so?" said the delighted Percy. "What has he done?" "That is a secret which I am not permitted to reveal at present." "Do you want to find him?" "Very much." "Then I'll tell you where he is. He's gone to Bar Harbor--in Maine, you know." The detective nodded. "He went on a yacht--the Juno--owned by Mr. Schuyler Roper--a rich New York gentleman." "But how did he get into such company?" "Oh, Mr. Roper took pity on him and gave him a place." "Then you think he is comfortably situated?" "Yes, but he won't be long." "Why not?" "Because I have written a letter to Mr. Roper, telling him Jed's real character. I expect he'll be bounced when that letter arrives." "That would upset all my plans and enable him to escape." Percy looked perplexed and disappointed. "I am sorry for that," he said. "I guess I'd better write again and tell him to keep Jed another week." "Perhaps you had better do so. Say that---- But no. I will telegraph to him to keep Jed with him till I arrive." "That'll do better. You couldn't possibly tell me what Jed has done?" "Not at present." "You'll let me know sometime?" "I think I shall be able to gratify your curiosity before long." "I'll give you my address, and you can write to me. I wish I knew whether Jed had stolen anything or not." "I cannot say a word! My lips are sealed!" said the detective in a solemn tone. Percy was impressed. The man in drab quite came up to his idea of a detective. "By the way," said his companion, "I want to call on Mr. and Mrs. Avery, who, I understand, know something of the boy's early life." "They live there--in that small house. I'll go with you." "No, I prefer to go alone. One can't be too careful." "All right," said Percy. "I wonder what under the canopy Jed's been doing? It's likely he'll have to go to jail." CHAPTER XXXV. MRS. AVERY'S STORY. The detective crossed the street, walked up a tiny footpath and rang the bell of the small house. Mrs. Avery came to the door, a gentle-faced little woman with white hair. She looked inquiringly at the visitor. "Mrs. Avery, I believe?" said the man in drab. "That is my name." "I would like the favor of a few words with you, madam." "Come in then," and she led the way to a modest sitting-room. "My husband," she said, introducing him to a kindly old man, as white-haired as herself. "My name is Fletcher," said the visitor, "and I have come to you for information. But first, am I right in my belief that you were once in charge of the Scranton poorhouse?" "Yes, sir. My husband and I had charge of it for fifteen years. We should have been there now, but for Squire Dixon, the new Overseer of the Poor, who wanted the place for some friends of his, Mr. and Mrs. Fogson." "I have had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Fogson," said Fletcher with a smile. "I am sure, now that I have seen you both, that the change was for the worse." "I fear that the poor people are very shabbily treated," said Mrs. Avery gravely. "It makes me feel very badly, but what can I do? Squire Dixon sustains them, and he has everything to say. But you say you want some information. I shall be glad to tell you what I can." "I want information touching a boy, now perhaps sixteen years of age, bearing the name of Jed Gilman." Mr. and Mrs. Avery immediately showed signs of interest. "He has left the poorhouse," said Mr. Avery. "So I am told." "Do you inquire as a friend of the poor boy?" asked Mrs. Avery. "Emphatically his friend. But first tell me, what kind of a boy is he?" "A fine, manly, spirited lad, warm-hearted and attractive." The detective looked pleased, but surprised. "That doesn't correspond with what Mrs. Fogson told me," he said. "I suppose not. She and her husband tried to bully Jed and overwork him, till he was compelled to run away. I don't know where he is now." "But I do. He is at Bar Harbor, in the company of a rich gentleman from New York, and I believe employed on his yacht." "I am thankful to hear it." "But what I wish to learn are the circumstances attending his being placed at the poorhouse. I suppose you remember them?" "Oh yes, as well as if it were yesterday, though it is fourteen years since." "Go on, madam, I am all interest." "It was a cold evening in November," began Mrs. Avery reflectively, "and I was about to lock up, though it was but nine o'clock, for we kept early hours at the poorhouse, when there was a knock at the door. I opened it and saw before me a young woman of dark hair and complexion, holding by the hand a pretty boy of about two years of age. "'Can you give me and my boy a night's lodging?' she asked. "We often had such applications, and never sent away a decent-looking person. So I said yes readily enough and the two entered. They seemed hungry, and though it was late for us I gave them some bread and milk, of which the child in particular partook heartily. I asked the young woman some questions but she was very close-mouthed. "'Wait till morning,' she said. 'The boy and I are very tired.' "I asked no more but gave them a bed, and I suppose they both slept well. I was able to give them a small room to themselves. "In the morning when I entered I found only the boy. The young woman had gone, but pinned to the child's clothing was this note: "'I am obliged to leave the boy with you for the present. I hope you will take care of him. His name is Jed Gilman. Some time he will probably be called for. Don't try to find me for it will be useless.' "That was all. Mr. Avery and myself were dumfounded, but we had taken a fancy to the boy and resolved to keep him. There was some difficulty about it, for he was not legally entitled to be brought up at the town's cost. However, Mr. Avery and I agreed to pay part of the expense for the first year, and after that he was looked upon as one of the regular inmates and cared for as such." "And the young woman never called again?" "Never." "Nor sent you any message, oral or written?" "Never." "Was there any article of dress, or any ornament, left with the child that might help to identify it?" "Yes. Wait here a minute and I will show you something which I have carefully preserved from that day to this." CHAPTER XXXVI. "WHO WAS JED?" Mrs. Avery went up stairs to her own room, but reappeared in five minutes. She had in her hand an old-fashioned gold locket. "This," she said, "was attached to the neck of the boy when he came into our hands." "Have you opened it?" asked the detective eagerly. "Is there a picture inside?" "There are two miniatures--one on each side." She opened the locket, and it proved to be as she said. One of these was a miniature of a young and handsome man, apparently thirty years of age, the other of a young lady with a very sweet and attractive face, probably five years younger. "These must represent the parents of the boy Jed," said the detective. "So we concluded--Mr. Avery and myself." "Does the lady bear any resemblance to the girl who brought the child to you?" "Not the slightest. The girl was common in appearance. She probably filled the position of a servant or nursemaid." "Did it occur to you that she might be in any way related to the child?" "Not for a moment. He was evidently the child of parents wealthy or well to do." "Did you form any conjectures relative to her or her object in bringing you the child?" "No. There was nothing to serve as a clew. It was all guesswork on our part. Still the thought did occur to us that the child had been stolen or abducted from his people for some reason unknown to us." The detective hesitated a moment, and then, having apparently made up his mind to confide in the worthy couple, said: "Your guess was very near the truth. The child, I have every reason to believe, was stolen from its mother--the father was dead--through the machinations of an uncle who wanted the boy's title and estate." "Title!" exclaimed Mrs. Avery, in great surprise. "Yes. This boy I believe to be the only son of the late Sir Charles Fenwick, of Fenwick Hall, Gloucestershire, England." "Well, well!" ejaculated Mrs. Avery. "Then if the boy had his rights would he be Sir Jed Gilman?" "No," answered the detective smiling. "He has no more claim to the name Jed Gilman than I have." "What is his real name?" "Robert Fenwick, as I have every reason to believe." "Why has there been no search for him till now?" "There has been a search covering all the intervening years; but the mother, who is still living, had no information to guide her, and the search has been a groping in the dark." "And did the wicked uncle get the title and estate?" asked Mrs. Avery. "Yes. He is enjoying both now." "Is it a large estate?" "It would not be considered large in England. Probably it amounts to five thousand pounds annual rental." "Five thousand pounds!" said Mrs. Avery. "Yes, or in our money about twenty-five thousand dollars." "And this large estate ought to belong to poor Jed?" "I submit that, if so, he will not need to be called poor Jed." "And you say that the mother is living?" "She is living, and in New York. She is comfortably established at the Windsor Hotel on Fifth Avenue. It is by her that I am employed. This is my card." He drew out a small card bearing the name JAMES PEAKE. "Yes. I am an American," he said in reply to a question by Mrs. Avery. "I am a New York detective, and was detailed for this work by Inspector Byrnes." "What sort of a person is Jed's mother?" asked Mrs. Avery. "Still a beautiful woman, though she cannot be far from forty years of age." "Does she look like the picture in the locket?" "There is considerable resemblance--of course, making allowance for the difference in the ages of the two. This locket, Mrs. Avery, is most important, and will, I think, establish the identity of Jed Gilman with the stolen heir of the Fenwick estate. Will you permit me to take it and show it to Lady Fenwick?" "Has she a title, too?" "Certainly. She was the wife of Sir Charles Fenwick." "And what is the name of the wicked uncle?" "Guy Fenwick. He is known as Sir Guy Fenwick, but probably, almost positively, has no rightful claim to the title." "Does he know that you are looking for his nephew?" "I presume he has taken measures to keep acquainted with all the movements of Lady Fenwick." "I wonder how the girl came to give the boy the name of Jed Gilman?" "I think I can explain this. The name of this treacherous nursemaid was Jane Gilman. She selected a name as near to her own as possible. You say you have neither seen nor heard anything of this girl since Jed was left in your hands?" "We have heard nothing whatever." At this moment there was a ring at the door-bell--a sharp, quick, impatient ring. Mrs. Avery answered it. She came back, her face showing excitement. "It is a woman of middle age," she said, "and she, too, has come to make inquiries about Jed Gilman." The detective also looked excited. "Do you think," he asked, "it can be Jane Gilman herself come back after all these years?" "That's it!" said Mrs. Avery, her face lighting up. "I wondered where I had seen her face before. Now, though she is so much older, I recognize in this middle-aged woman the girl who brought Jed to the door fourteen years ago." "Bring her in here, hear what she has to say, and place me somewhere, so that, myself unseen, I can hear what she says." This was what the detective said in a quick, decided tone. "Very well, sir, go in there. It is a small bedroom. You can keep the door ajar." The detective lost no time in concealing himself. The woman came in. She was a stout, florid-complexioned woman, rather showily dressed, with the look of an Englishwoman of the middle class. Before we proceed to record the interview that took place between Mr. and Mrs. Avery and herself we must go back again to the poorhouse, and our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Fogson. Twenty minutes after the departure of James Peake, the detective, this woman knocked at the door of the poorhouse. Her summons was answered by Mrs. Fogson. "What's wanted?" asked the poorhouse matron, looking inquisitively at the new arrival. "Is there a boy named Jed Gilman living here?" asked the woman eagerly. "Jed Gilman again!" repeated Mrs. Fogson. "What do you want of Jed Gilman?" "Answer my question first, if you please." "Such a boy was living here till lately, but he became very troublesome and finally ran away." "Then he is not here now?" said the woman, looking very much disappointed. "No, but I expect he'll have to come back some time. A bad penny generally returns. You haven't told me what you have to do with him?" "Then I will tell you. I was the person who brought him here fourteen years ago." "You don't say so?" ejaculated Mrs. Fogson, her little bead-like eyes sparkling with curiosity. "Was he your child?" "Certainly not, but he was my brother's child." "And what was your object in bringing him here?" "My brother was dead, and the child was thrown upon me for support," answered the woman after a little hesitation. "I could not support him, and so brought him where I thought he would have a home. But you are not the woman who was in charge of the poorhouse at that time." "No; that was Mrs. Avery." "And is Mrs. Avery still living?" "Yes; she lives in a small house in the village." "I will go and see her." But this did not suit the views of Mrs. Fogson, who was curious to hear more about the antecedents of Jed. "Won't you come in and take a cup of tea?" she asked with unusual hospitality. "I don't care for tea--it's slops," answered the visitor. "If you could give me a thimbleful of whiskey I wouldn't mind taking it. When I am tired and dragged out it goes to the right spot." "Yes, I can give you a glass," answered Mrs. Fogson. "Me and Fogson generally keeps a little in case of sickness, though we wouldn't have it known, as this is a temperance town." "You are safe with me, I won't mention it," said the caller. She then learned that Jed was probably at Bar Harbor; but Mrs. Fogson found out very little from her in return. After a few minutes the strange woman set out on her walk to the Avery cottage. CHAPTER XXXVII. JANE GILMAN. The visitor took a seat in the rocking-chair offered her by Mrs. Avery. "Do you remember me?" she asked, throwing back her veil so as to give an unobstructed view of her full, florid face. "Are you the girl who brought the boy Jed to me fourteen years ago?" "The same. I don't find you in your old place." "No; we--my husband and I--left the poor farm about a year since. Have you been there?" "Yes, I saw the new woman, and a spiteful piece she is, I'll be bound." Mrs. Avery smiled. "I don't admire Mrs. Fogson," she said, "but I suppose that is natural." "She tells me the boy is no longer in the poorhouse." "No." "Can you tell me why he left?" "He was ill-treated by Mr. and Mrs. Fogson." "That woman tells me he was very troublesome." "We never found him so, and up to a year ago he was under our charge." "I surmised as much. Then he has grown up a good boy?" "Excellent. I feel great affection for Jed." "That is gratifying to my feelings, seeing I am his aunt." Mrs. Avery regarded her visitor with surprise. "Do you claim Jed as your nephew?" she asked. "Certainly. He is the son of my only brother." But for her interview with the detective Mrs. Avery would have believed this story. As it was, she did not choose to dispute it. She only sought to draw out her visitor so as to understand better her object in calling. "Are you willing to explain why it was that you were led to place your nephew under my care?" "Certainly. There is no secret about that _now_. My brother, who was a blacksmith, failed, and was unable to support the boy." "What was your brother's name?" "Jedediah Gilman. That is why I desired to have the boy called Jed Gilman, after his father. My name is Jane Gilman." "Then you are not married?" "No," said Miss Gilman. "Not but I might have been married half a dozen times if I had wanted to. But the men are a shiftless lot, in my opinion." "Not all of them. I never charged my husband with being shiftless." "Oh, well, there are exceptions. But I liked my freedom, so I am Jane Gilman still. I may change my mind yet, and get married. There's a many after me, and I am only thirty-two." Mrs. Avery was too polite to question her statement, but privately decided that the other was ten years older. "Are you an American?" she asked. "No, I'm English, and I'm proud to own it." "Was Jed born in England?" Jane Gilman hesitated, but finally answered in the affirmative. "In what English town or village was he born?" "Oh, lor, you wouldn't know any better if I should tell you. My brother came over here with Jed when he was a baby, to better his fortunes. He went out to Iowa, leaving the baby with me. But I found I couldn't get a place with a baby on my hands, and so I took it to the Scranton poorhouse." "And where have you been since?" "I went to Philadelphia and got a position there. Since then I've been in a many places." "I wonder you didn't write to me for some news of the baby." "I got news of him from time to time, though I don't mean to tell you how," answered Jane Gilman with a cunning smile. "But I've been away for the last three years, and so I didn't know that Jed had gone off." "You must be disappointed not to find him." "So I am. It seems so long since I've seen the dear child," and Jane drew out a handkerchief of ample size and pressed it to her tearless eyes. "Is he a nice-looking boy?" "He has a fine, frank, open face, but you'll excuse my saying that he doesn't resemble you in the least." "No," answered Jane, not the least bit disconcerted. "He didn't look like the Gilmans, but like his ma's family." "What was his mother's maiden name?" "Fenwick," responded Jane Gilman, having no suspicion that Mrs. Avery had heard the name before. Mrs. Avery started. "I've heard that name before," she said. "Have you?" asked Jane, momentarily uneasy, but quickly recovering her self-possession she reflected that the Averys could not possibly know anything of Jed's real history. "I suppose there's a many Fenwicks in the world and some of 'em in America. My brother's wife was a good-looking woman, and the boy takes after her." "She died young, I suppose?" "Only three months after he was born." "Is your brother still living?" "No; he was killed in a railroad accident out in Iowa six months since. He was a brakeman on the railroad. He left me a tidy sum of money, and said that I was to look up Jed." "This accounts for your visit, then?" "Yes; I want to take my nephew with me and see to his education, as my brother wished me to." "Did Mrs. Fogson give you any idea where he was?" "She said he had run away, but she had information that he was at Bar Harbor, wherever that is, in the service of some rich gentleman." "We have heard the same thing. What do you propose to do?" "I'll have to go there, I suppose. But there is one thing I want to ask you about." "What is that?" "When I left the baby with you there was a gold locket suspended from his neck. Did you find it?" "Yes, I found it." "I'll thank you if you'll give it to me. I meant to take it at the time, but I went away in a hurry, as you know, and I thought it would be safe in your hands." "I can't let you have it to-day, Miss Gilman." "And why not?" demanded Jane suspiciously. "I deposited it with a party I had confidence in, for safe keeping," replied Mrs. Avery. "Then I'll be glad to have you get it as soon as you can. I want it," rejoined Jane Gilman sharply. "How am I to feel sure you are entitled to it?" asked Mrs. Avery. "If I am not, who is, I'd like to know? I'm the one that left the boy with you at the poorhouse." "I presume this is true." "Of course it's true. I'll tell you what, Mrs. Avery, I'm not much pleased with your trying to keep the locket. Are you sure you haven't sold or pawned it?" "Yes, I am sure of that. But perhaps I shall not have to make you wait long for it. The gentleman in whose hands I placed it is in this house at this very minute." Jane Gilman looked very much surprised. "Where is he?" she asked. Detective Peake answered for himself. He stepped into the room from the small bedroom and held up the locket. "Is this the one?" he asked. "Yes," answered the woman eagerly. "Give it to me." Mr. Peake quietly put it back into his pocket. "Not till I have asked you a few questions," he answered. "What right have you to ask me questions?" asked Jane defiantly. "I will assume that I have the right," the detective answered. "Whose miniatures are those in the locket?" "They are my brother and his wife." "Your brother doesn't seem to look like you, Miss Gilman." "Perhaps you know better than I who it is," said Jane sullenly. "Well, perhaps so." "And who do you say they are?" "Sir Charles and Laura Fenwick of Fenwick Hall, England." Jane Gilman started to her feet in astonishment. "Who told you?" she asked hoarsely. "It is not necessary for me to tell you. It is enough that I am commissioned by the boy's mother to find him and restore him to her. There may be trouble in store for you, Miss Jane Gilman," he added significantly. Jane Gilman fanned herself vigorously and seemed very ill at ease. "However," continued the detective, "you can save yourself and secure a handsome reward by giving me all the help you can, and making full confession of your stealing the child, and telling who instigated you to do it." The woman hesitated, but her hesitation was brief. "Will you promise this?" she asked. "Yes. I am the confidential agent of Lady Fenwick, who is now in America." "Then I'll do it. Guy Fenwick hasn't treated me right, and I don't mind if I do go back on him. It was he that hired me to make off with little Robert, though I didn't let him know what I did with him." "And what was your present object?" "To take the boy away and make Sir Guy pay a good round sum for my keeping the secret." CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE DETECTIVE SECURES AN ALLY. "Are you in communication with Guy Fenwick? Do you know whether he is now at Fenwick Hall?" asked the detective. "No, he is not there." "Where is he, then?" "At sea. In a day or two he will probably be in New York," answered Jane Gilman coolly. Mr. Peake started. This was unexpected intelligence. "What brings him to New York?" he inquired hastily. "I do." "What do you mean by that?" "I wrote him some time since for a hundred pounds. He sent me five pounds and told me that I needn't call on him again." "He doesn't seem much afraid of you." "No; he thought the boy was dead." "I suppose you told him so?" "I let him think that the boy had died of fever four years ago. That made him feel safe, and he concluded that he had no more use for Jane Gilman. He'll find out!" and Jane tossed her head, in an independent manner. "Have you any letters from him in reference to the matter?" asked Detective Peake. From a pocket of unknown depth Miss Gilman drew out an epistle which she handed to the detective. "You can read it if you want to," she said. Mr. Peake opened the letter and read it. It ran thus: MISS JANE GILMAN: Your letter requesting me to send you a hundred pounds is received. Your request is certainly an audacious one. Why I should send you a hundred pounds, or even ten pounds, I am at a loss to imagine. The boy Robert, whose existence you think would be dangerous to me, is dead by your own admission, and my right to the Fenwick title and estates is undisputed and indisputable. If you expect me to support you for the balance of your life, your expectations are doomed to disappointment. You are strong and healthy, and are able to earn your own living in the sphere in which you were born. Besides, if you had been prudent you would have saved a considerable sum out of the large pension you have received from me during the last dozen or more years. I think it quite probable that you have a snug sum invested and are not in any danger of suffering. Still I don't want to be hard upon you. I accordingly inclose a five-pound note, which you will please consider as a final gift on my part. GUY FENWICK. "Miss Gilman," said Detective Peake, "will you permit me to keep this letter--for the present?" "What do you want to do with it?" asked Jane suspiciously. "Use it against the man who calls himself Sir Guy Fenwick. In connection with your testimony it will prove valuable evidence." "You have promised that I shall be well paid?" "Yes, I can take it upon myself to promise that." "Very well. You may keep the letter." "One question more. You tell me that Sir Guy Fenwick is on his way to New York. Can you tell me why he is coming?" "Yes. I dropped him a hint, in answer to this letter, that the boy Robert was still living, and this alarmed my gentleman," she added with a laugh. "Did he write you that he was coming?" "Yes." "Have you that letter?" "No; but I can tell you what was in it. He wrote that he did not believe my story, but he would come to New York, and I might call upon him at the Brevoort House on Monday next." "You infer from that that he was anxious?" "It looks like it, doesn't it?" "Yes. What did you propose to say to him?" "That the boy was living, and that I could lay my hand upon him." "That is why you came to Scranton?" "Yes." "I see. The whole thing lies in a nutshell. Even without your evidence I shall probably be able to establish the rights of my young client. But your help will make it surer." "I am at your service, if you will keep your promise. What do you want me to do?" "Go with me to Bar Harbor and see the boy." "I would like to," said Jane Gilman with an expression of pleasure. "I haven't seen him since he was a baby. I'd like to see how he looks now." "When he is restored to his title and estate he will not see you suffer." "When will you start for Bar Harbor?" "We shall leave Scranton by the next train." CHAPTER XXXIX. JED LEARNS WHO HE IS. Mr. Roper and Jed were having a very enjoyable time at Bar Harbor. They made trips, chiefly on foot, to the various interesting localities--Schooner Head, Great Head, Hull's Cove and The Ovens--being favored with unusually fine and clear weather. They had just returned at four o'clock in the afternoon from a trip to the summit of Green Mountain when they were informed at the hotel that a gentleman wished to see them. Mr. Roper took the card and examined it. "James Peake," he said. "I don't know of any such person. Do you, Jed?" "No, sir," answered Jed. "You may bring him up," said Roper, turning to the bell boy. In less than a minute the latter reappeared, followed by a plain-looking man, who scanned both attentively as he entered, but devoted the most attention to Jed. "Mr. Peake?" said Schuyler Roper interrogatively. "Yes, sir." "You have business with me?" "Rather with your young friend. Is he known as Jed Gilman?" "Yes," answered the boy so designated. "I am a detective from the staff of Inspector Byrnes of New York." Jed blushed and looked uneasy. This announcement naturally alarmed him. "Am I charged with any offense?" he asked quickly. "No," answered Mr. Peake with a pleasant smile. "When I state my business I am inclined to think you will be glad to see me." "I feel relieved, Jed," said Mr. Roper with a smile. "I took you without a character, and I trembled lest some terrible charge was to be brought against you." "Rest easy on that score, Mr. Roper," returned the detective. "My mission may involve some one else in trouble, but not your young friend. Will you permit me to ask him a few questions?" "I am sure he will be quite ready to answer any questions you may ask." Jed nodded assent. "Then, Mr. Gilman, may I inquire your age?" "I am sixteen." "What is the date of your birth?" Jed colored and looked embarrassed. "I do not know," he answered. "Can you tell me where you were born?" "No, sir," returned Jed. "I was left at the age of two years at the Scranton poorhouse by a girl who disappeared the next morning. Of course I was too young to know anything of my earlier history." "Exactly; and you spent the intervening years at that interesting institution." Jed laughed. "It didn't prove very interesting at the last," he said. "When my good friends the Averys were turned out, Mr. and Mrs. Fogson succeeded them, and I concluded to leave." "I am not surprised to hear it. I have seen Mrs. Fogson," remarked the detective dryly. "Did she give me a good character?" "Quite the contrary. She prepared me to find you a desperate young ruffian." Jed laughed. "Do I come up to your expectations?" he asked. "Not altogether. I may conclude that you have no information in regard to your family or parentage?" "No, sir. Can you"--something in the detective's face prompted the question--"can you give me any information on the subject?" Jed fixed his eyes with painful intensity upon the visitor. "I think I can," he answered. "Who, then, am I?" "To the best of my knowledge you are the nephew of Sir Guy Fenwick, of Fenwick Hall, Gloucestershire, England." Both Mr. Roper and Jed looked exceedingly surprised. "Sir Guy Fenwick?" repeated Roper. "He is so called, but I have reason to believe he is a usurper, and that the title and estates belong to your young friend, who, if I am correct, isn't Jed Gilman, but Sir Robert Fenwick." Jed looked dazed. Schuyler Roper went up to him and grasped his hand. "My dear Jed, or rather Robert," he said, "let me be the first to congratulate you. But, Mr. Peake, are you prepared to substantiate Jed's claim to his title and inheritance?" "I think so. I will tell you how the case stands." When he had concluded, Mr. Roper asked, "And where is this nurse whose testimony is so important?" "At Rodick's. I brought her with me to Bar Harbor." "And what is your program?" "I should like to carry our young friend with me to New York to confront the pseudo baronet." "We will be ready whenever you say. I say _we_, for I propose to accompany Jed--I beg pardon, Sir Robert--and stand by him at this eventful period." "Call me Jed, Mr. Roper, till I have proved myself entitled to the other name," returned the "poorhouse boy." CHAPTER XL. GUY FENWICK'S DEFEAT. Sir Guy Fenwick sat in his handsome apartment at the Brevoort House. He was of slender build and dark complexion, bearing a very slight resemblance to Jed, but his expression was much less agreeable. "Jane Gilman was to have called this morning. She ought to be here now," he muttered, consulting his watch. "She is certain to come," he added with a sneer, "for she wants money. I shall never be safe from annoyance while she lives. However, she can do me little harm." There was a knock at the door, and a bell boy appeared with a card. Sir Guy took it from his hand, and regarded it with surprise. "Mr. James Peake!" he repeated. "What does he want?" "I don't know, Sir Guy." "Let him come up, but the interview must be brief, for I am expecting another party." Directly afterward Detective Peake entered the presence of the baronet. "You wish to see me, Mr.--ahem!--Mr. Peake?" "Yes. Mr. Fenwick?" "Mr. Fenwick!" repeated the Englishman, frowning. "I am Sir Guy Fenwick." "I am aware that you call yourself so," said the detective quietly. "What do you mean by this insolence?" demanded Guy Fenwick, his face flaming. "You will understand me when I say I call in behalf of Sir Robert Fenwick, the real baronet." Guy Fenwick half rose from his seat. He looked angry and alarmed. "I don't know what you mean," he said. "I think you do. Sir Robert is your nephew, and the title and estate are his by right." Guy Fenwick laughed--a harsh, mirthless laugh. "Really," he said, "this is most amusing. Robert Fenwick is dead. If any one calls himself by that name he is an impostor." "That remains to be seen. I have to inform you that Sir Robert Fenwick is in this city, in the company of his mother, who has received and acknowledged him." "This is a conspiracy!" exclaimed Guy Fenwick, whose appearance showed that he was deeply disturbed. "It is a very foolish conspiracy, I will add. Of course I understand the object of my amiable sister-in-law in giving her countenance to what she must know to be an imposture. Do me the favor to inform me where you discovered the boy who impudently claims the title and estate which I inherited from my brother." "Only by procuring the disappearance of that brother's lawful heir." "Who says this--who dares say it?" "You are partially acquainted with a woman named Jane Gilman?" Guy Fenwick's countenance changed. "Yes," he said after a pause, "I do know a woman of that name. She has been writing me blackmailing letters, and threatening to injure me if I did not send her a hundred pounds. So this is the mare's nest you have stirred up? I congratulate you." "Call it a mare's nest if you like, Mr. Fenwick," said the detective undisturbed. "You may find it a very serious matter. Shall I tell you what we are able to prove?" "If you please. I should like to know the details of this base conspiracy." "Fourteen years ago Jane Gilman appeared towards nightfall at the door of a poorhouse not far away and left a child of two years old with the people in charge. Before morning she disappeared. The child grew up a healthy, sturdy boy; frank and handsome." "So he prepared himself to claim the Fenwick title in an almshouse?" "It wasn't his fault that he was brought up there, only his misfortune." "What name was given him?" "Jed Gilman." "He had better retain it." "Not while he has a better claim to the name of Robert Fenwick. Hanging from his neck at the time he was placed in the poorhouse was a locket containing miniatures of your brother, the late Sir Charles Fenwick, and Lady Mary Fenwick, still living." "Have you the locket with you?" "It is in safe custody. You will admit that this is pretty strong evidence of our claim. But we have in addition the confession of Jane Gilman, who testifies that, in obedience to your instructions, she abducted and disposed of the boy as aforesaid." "This is a very cunning conspiracy, Mr. Peake, if that is your name, but it won't succeed. I shall defend my right to the title and estate; but if this boy is poor I don't mind settling a pension of a hundred pounds upon him, and finding him some employment." "In his name I decline your offer." "Then I defy you! What are you going to do about it?" "Lady Fenwick has engaged the services of one of our most famous lawyers, and legal proceedings will be commenced at once. We will, however, give you a week to decide on your course." "Give me the name of your lawyer. I will call upon him and show him that he has consented to aid an imposture." Before the week ended, however, Sir Guy, to give him this title once more, had decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and had consented to surrender the title and estates, his nephew agreeing to pay him an income of a thousand pounds per annum, in order that he might still be able to live like a gentleman. When matters were arranged Guy Fenwick returned hastily to England, and, making but a short stay there, went to the continent, where he would not have the humiliation of meeting old acquaintances whom he had known in the days of his grandeur. CHAPTER XLI. CONCLUSION. Not the least gratifying circumstance in his sudden change of fortune was Jed's discovery of a mother--a gracious and beautiful woman--to whom he was drawn in almost instinctive affection. Before leaving New York for his native land he expressed a wish to revisit Scranton, and view once more the scenes of his early privations. His mother not only consented, but decided to accompany him. Mr. and Mrs. Fogson were engaged in their usual morning labors when a handsome carriage stopped at the gate. A servant descended and made his way to the front door, which Mrs. Fogson herself opened. "Madam," said the servant bowing, "do you receive visitors?" Mrs. Fogson espying the handsome carriage was dazzled, and responded graciously: "We ain't fixed for company," she said, "but if you'll make allowances I shall be happy to receive visitors. Who is it?" she inquired curiously. "Lady Fenwick and Sir Robert Fenwick, of Fenwick Hall, England." "You don't say!" ejaculated Mrs. Fogson, awe-stricken. "Tell 'em to come right in." Jed assisted his mother to alight and walk up to the front door, Mrs. Fogson having retreated inside to change her dress. "And you say you lived in this forlorn place, Robert?" asked Lady Fenwick with a shudder. "For fourteen years, mother." "I never can forgive Guy Fenwick--never!" "I am none the worse for it now, mother." Jed led the way into Mrs. Fogson's private sitting-room, where that lady found them. She stopped short at the threshold. "Why, it's Jed Gilman!" she said sharply, with a feeling that she had been humbugged. "Mrs. Fogson," said Jed, gravely, "I am Jed Gilman no more. I have found out that I am entitled to a large estate in England, but best of all I have found a mother, and am no longer alone in the world." Mr. Fogson, who had followed his wife into the room, was the first to "take in" the surprising news. Jed's handsome suit, his gold watch-chain and diamond scarf-pin, as well as his mother's stately figure, convinced him that the story was true. "No one is more glad to hear of your good fortune, my dear boy, than Mrs. F. and myself," he said in a gushing tone. "I have often thought that you were a nobleman in disguise." "You never let me suspect it, Mr. Fogson," said Jed, amused. "Probably you didn't want to raise my expectations." "Just so, Jed, I mean Sir Robert. We feel that it was an honor to have you so long under our roof--don't we, Mrs. F.?" "Certainly, Simeon. If Lady Fenwick will permit me to offer an humble collation, some of my ginger snaps; you remember them, Jed, I mean Sir Robert." "You are very kind," said Lady Fenwick hastily, "but I seldom eat between meals." Just then Percy Dixon, who came with a message from his father, appeared in the door. He opened his eyes wide in amazement when he saw Jed. "Jed Gilman!" he exclaimed in astonishment. "No, Master Percy," said Mrs. Fogson. "We have just learned that our dear Jed is Sir Robert Fenwick, of Fenwick Hall, England." "Jehoshaphat!" cried Percy, astounded. "Percy," said Jed, whose good fortune made him good-natured, "let me introduce you to my mother, Lady Fenwick. Mother, this is Master Percy Dixon." "I am glad to meet any of your friends, Robert," said Lady Fenwick, really supposing that Jed and Percy were on intimate terms. "Glad to know you--to make your acquaintance, Lady Fenwick," replied Percy. "Are you really and truly a lord, Jed?" "No, not a lord, but a baronet. However, that needn't make any difference between friends like ourselves." "No, of course not. You know I always liked you, Jed, I mean Sir Jed." "Sir Robert," prompted Mr. Fogson. "Sir Robert. I feel sort of confused by the sudden change," explained Percy embarrassed. "Call me Jed, then. In Scranton I mean to be Jed." "Won't you call at our house? My father, Squire Dixon, will be honored by a visit." "We are to call on Mr. and Mrs. Avery first, and then if we have time we will call on you. Won't you get into the carriage and go with us, Percy?" Percy Dixon accepted the invitation with intense delight, and long afterwards boasted of his ride with Lady Fenwick. Though Jed and his mother were able to spend but ten minutes at the house of Squire Dixon, the squire showed himself deeply sensible of the honor, and several times alluded to his dear young friend Sir Robert. It was the way of the world. Mr. and Mrs. Avery received from Lady Fenwick a handsome present in recognition of their past kindness to Jed, and this was the first of many. Jed and his mother remained at the Windsor till they were ready to embark for England. While walking on Fifth Avenue one day he saw just ahead his little friend, Chester Holbrook, accompanied by his aunt, Miss Maria Holbrook. He hurried forward, and taking off his hat to Miss Holbrook, said, "Chester, don't you remember me?" Chester uttered a cry of delight. "Why it's Jed!" he said. Miss Maria Holbrook, surprised at Jed's improved appearance, eyed him with suspicion. "Where are you staying, Jedediah?" she inquired. "Have you a situation?" "I am boarding at the Windsor Hotel, Miss Holbrook. I am in no situation." "Then how can you afford to board at a first-class hotel?" asked the spinster in surprise. "I am with my mother, Lady Fenwick. Allow me to hand you my card." Jed placed in her hand a card on which was engraved the name: SIR ROBERT FENWICK, BART. The story had already appeared in the daily papers of New York, but Miss Holbrook never suspected that the young English baronet was Chester's humble guardian. "Are you Sir Robert Fenwick?" she ejaculated in amazement. "I believe so," he answered with a smile. "Now, Miss Holbrook, I have a favor to ask. May I take Chester in and introduce him to my mother?" "I should also like to meet Lady Fenwick," said Miss Holbrook. "I shall be most happy to present you." "Isn't your name Jed after all?" asked Chester, as he confidingly placed his hand in that of his former guardian. "You may call me so, Chester; I wish you would." Miss Maria Holbrook was delighted with her visit. Like many Americans, she had a great respect for English aristocracy, and did not understand that there was considerable difference between titles. It is wonderful how differently she came to regard one whom she had been accustomed to style "that boy Jedediah." She was much pleased with Lady Fenwick's gracious reception, though she found it difficult to think of her as Jed's mother. I neglected to say in the proper place that Jed did not fail to call, when in Scranton, on his two friends Dr. and Mrs. Redmond, and gave them a cordial invitation to visit his mother and himself if they should ever come to England. He did not see fit to extend a similar invitation to Mr. and Mrs. Fogson. Misfortune has come to these worthy people. Their mismanagement of the poorhouse had become so notorious that the best citizens of Scranton not only demanded their removal from the poorhouse, but at the next town meeting defeated Squire Dixon for re-election to the position of Overseer of the Poor. Mr. and Mrs. Avery were invited to succeed the Fogsons, but felt that they were entitled to rest and quiet for the balance of their lives. The liberal gifts of Jed and his mother made them independent, and they were willing that younger persons should fill their old positions. Jed devoted several years to making up the deficiencies in his education. The only disagreeable thing in his change of fortune was his removal from America, but he will probably arrange to spend a portion of his time in his adopted country, to which he feels the attachment of a loyal son. Then he has a link connecting him with it in the frequent visits at Fenwick Hall of his friend Schuyler Roper. Notwithstanding his accession to the ancestral title and estate, he has not forgotten the fourteen years during which he was known as "Jed, the Poorhouse Boy." * * * * * Every Child's Library _Books "That Every Child Can Read" for Four Reasons_: 1. Because the subjects have all proved their lasting popularity. 2. Because of the simple language in which they are written. 3. Because they have been carefully edited, and anything that might prove objectionable for children's reading has been eliminated. 4. Because of their accuracy of statement. +This Series of Books+ comprises subjects that appeal to all young people. Besides the historical subjects that are necessary to the education of children, it also contains standard books written in language that children can read and understand. +Carefully Edited.+ Each work is carefully edited by Rev. Jesse Lyman Hurlbut, D.D., to make sure that the style is simple and suitable for Young Readers, and to eliminate anything which might be objectionable. Dr. Hurlbut's large and varied experience in the instruction of young people, and in the preparation of literature in language that is easily understood, makes this series of books +a welcome addition to libraries, reading circles, schools and home+. Issued in uniform style of binding. _Cloth. 12mo. Illustrated. Price, 75 Cents._ LIST OF TITLES. LIVES OF OUR PRESIDENTS--Every child can read. THE LEATHERSTOCKING TALES--Every child can read. THE STORY OF JESUS--Every child can read. THE HISTORY OF AMERICA--Every child can read. PILGRIM'S PROGRESS--Every child can read. STORIES OF OUR NAVAL HEROES--Every child can read. STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS--Every child can read. STORIES ABOUT CHILDREN OF ALL NATIONS--Every child can read. ROBINSON CRUSOE--Every child can read. STORIES ABOUT INDIANS--Every child can read. STORIES OF ROYAL CHILDREN--Every child can read. DICKENS' STORIES ABOUT CHILDREN--Every child can read. (Other Titles in Preparation) CATALOGUE MAILED ON APPLICATION _THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY, Publishers_ 1006-1016 Arch Street, Philadelphia Pa. 
59814	----	BRAINCHILD BY HENRY SLESAR _Ron definitely didn't like what had happened. But who can blame him? How would you like to wake and find your body had been switched for a child's?_ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, April 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Ron Carver's day was beginning strangely. For one thing, the legs he swung off the narrow bed wouldn't touch the floor. And his hands, whose ten strong fingers could manipulate the controls of any ship ever launched into space, were weak and clumsy. He looked at the hands first, looked at them for a long time. Then he screamed. He screamed until footsteps were loud in the corridor outside his room; shrill, piping screams that didn't stop even when the giant woman-face was bending over him, speaking gentle, soothing words, stroking his thin shoulders with giant, comforting gestures. "There, there, now," the woman was saying. "You're all right, Ronnie. You're all right. It was only a nightmare... a bad old nightmare...." She was right. Only the nightmare hadn't ended. The nightmare was before his face, in her gargantuan features, in her motherly touch on his frail body, in the sight of the small, soft appendages that were his hands. They were the hands of a boy of twelve. And Ron Carver was thirty years old. Two men giants joined the woman at his bedside, and one of them forced a small speckled capsule past his resisting lips. Then his viewpoint became detached and distant, and a pleasurable drowsiness overcame him. He stretched out and shut his eyes, but he could still hear the worried tones of their speech. "Dr. Minton warned us," one of the men said, lifting Ron's bony wrist and feeling for the pulse. "The boy has suffered some severe traumatic shock..." Dr. Minton! Ron Carver's mind grasped the familiar name--the name of his own physician--gratefully. But his body gave no sign. "Maybe we better call him," the woman said nervously. "I think he's still in the sick bay." "Good idea." In another moment, a familiar hairy face was floating over Ron's head like a captive balloon, a face grown grotesque in size. "Doctor..." he said with his lips. "There." Dr. Minton patted his shoulder. "You're all right now, Ronnie. You're perfectly all right. Just relax and try to sleep." The balloon came closer, and the scraggly ends of the doctor's beard brushed his cheek. Then the doctor's mouth was covering his small ear. "Play the game," the doctor whispered. "For your own sake. Play the game, Ron..." Then he was asleep. * * * * * He awoke to the sound of running feet. He sat up in bed and looked towards the door of the small white room in which he was confined. It was partly open, and the sound of clattering soles and shrill young voices came through clearly. The door slammed open, startling him. A hoydenish youngster gaped at him. There was a flat lock of reddish hair over his forehead, and his face was freckled. "Hoy," he said. "What's the matter with _you_?" Ron stared back wordlessly. "You sick or something?" the boy said, edging into the room. "No." His own voice, strange and reedy, frightened him. "No, I'm all right." "Andy!" A tall man with a frowning face appeared behind the boy. "Come on, fella. Let's not waste any time." He looked at Ron. "You the new chap?" "Yes." "Feel well enough for some breakfast?" "I guess so." "Fine. Then get some clothes on and come along." "Hoy," the freckle-faced boy said curiously. "You play airball?" "That's enough of that." The man paddled the boy's rump. "Get along, Andy. You'll have plenty of time to get acquainted later." The boy giggled and ran down the hall. Ron got out of bed slowly, and walked towards the undersized clothing that was draped on a nearby chair. He slipped into a gray coverall and said: "Listen--can I talk to you?" The man looked at his watch. "Well ... all right, I suppose. But only for a minute. I promised the boys a game this morning; I'm Mr. Larkin, the athletic director." Ron hesitated. "Mr. Larkin, I--where am I?" "Don't you know?" Even the man's smile was half a frown. "You're at Roverwood Home for Boys. Didn't they tell you that?" "No," Ron said carefully. "I--I don't seem to remember very much. How I got here, I mean." "Dr. Minton brought you in last evening. He's one of our directors." "Oh." Ron laced on the tiny scuffed shoes. "And where's Dr. Minton now?" "Gone back to the city. He's a busy man. Hear they've got him working on some big government project. Well, come on, Ronnie. Breakfast's waiting." "Yes, sir," Ron Carver said. He followed the tall man down the hall, having trouble guiding the short stumpy legs that were now his own. They entered a communal dining room, filled with the clatter of dishes and the laughter of boys. He was brought to a long table and seated beside Larkin. The other boys greeted him with only mild interest, but the freckle-faced youth at the other end dropped him a broad wink. He ate sparingly, choking on the food, his mind working. It was the longest nightmare of his life, and the moment of awakening seemed too far off for comfort. Then Larkin was standing up and rattling a spoon against a water glass. "Fellas," he said, "all those interested in this morning's airball game will assemble on the field in half an hour after breakfast. Please don't volunteer unless you're able to handle a PF. Everybody else is invited to see the game." He sat down, amid cheers. He smiled sadly at Ron, and asked: "How about you, Ronnie? Can you operate a PF?" "Of course," he answered, without thinking. He'd been using Personal Flyers since he was old enough to dream about flight. On his tenth birthday, his father had bought him one of the earliest models, a cumbersome machine then called a "platform". Since that day, he had become familiar with every man-made thing that flew, from the double-rotored PF's to the sixty-rocket space liners. "Fine," Larkin said cheerfully. "Then maybe you'd like to play the game." Ron Carver looked up sharply. _Play the game...._ "Sure, Mr. Larkin," he said, forcing his eagerness. Half an hour later, they were assembled on the huge lawn outside of the main building of Roverwood Home for Boys. The long row of PF's, looking like chrome-plate pot-bellied stoves, gleamed in the morning sun. The boys began to run when they saw their Flyers, and Ron found his arm taken by the freckled youth who had entered his room. "Hoy," he said. "Follow me. I'll pick you out a lively one!" The redhead clambered inside a machine marked Seven, and Ronnie followed his instructions by choosing the vehicle marked Nine. They secured themselves inside, and tested the jet tube set in front of the Flyer. The boys took off from the ground in perfect unison, the redhead bellowing out an introduction over the sound of the wind roaring past their ears. The PF's descended on a blast from Mr. Larkin's whistle, congregating in the center of the field. Teams were chosen, and Andy was picked as Captain of the Odds. A coin was tossed to decide the playing sequence, and they were ready. Larkin released the first airball, and the two teams streamed up after it. Andy gunned the engine and reached the ball first. He sent it scooting thirty yards ahead of him with the blast of the airjet pipe, but a member of the Evens team was there to veer it off to the left. Another Evens man, a burly youth of fourteen, took command of it, neatly getting the airball in the sight of his airjet and cork-screwing it towards the goalpost. Ron had grown too old before the game of airball had become popular with the nation's youngsters, but he had seen enough action to have learned some tricks. He pointed his PF directly for the Even machine, and kept coming. The burly youth looked up, startled at the onslaught, and pulled his Flyer away. The fact that the PF's were magnetically collision-proof didn't matter; it was pure instinct. Ron captured the ball in his airjet pipe, and shouted for Andy to block his path towards the goal. The Odds scored, and the two teams descended for a rest. Andy, the grin wide on his brown-spotted face, said: "You're okay, Ronnie! Hoy, I mean it. You're okay!" "Thanks," Ron said. He found himself panting. The game resumed. It ended in a 3-2 score, favor of the Odds. Andy and Ron were cheered as they left the Flyers and headed for the communal showers of the Roverwood Home for Boys. In the stall, Ron Carver looked down at the spindly frame that was now his body, and began to weep. Andy heard him, but said nothing. Then they dressed and ambled back to the main house, sharing the awkward silence of new friends. Finally, the older boy said: "I don't mean to butt in, Ronnie. But is somethin' the matter?" "I--I don't know, Andy. I'm all mixed up. I don't even know how I got here." "That's easy. Dr. Minton brought you." "But where is he now, Andy? Dr. Minton? It's very important that I see him." Andy shrugged. "Not much chance of that. Dr. Minton only comes around once, twice a year. "But I have to see him! Right away! Will they call him for me?" "Gosh. I don't think so. He's some kind of big shot in the government now." They flopped on the grass, and Andy tore out a ragged clump and chewed on it blankly. Ron said: "Andy, I'm in trouble. I need some help." "No kidding?" "Yes!" He brought his voice to a whisper. "Andy--what if I told you that I was really--" He stopped, and examined the open, innocent face in front of his eyes. He knew that it would be useless to tell the truth. "Skip it," he said. "I don't get you. What's on your mind, Ronnie?" "Nothing, Andy. I just have to get away from here." "But you can't. I mean, not until they let you. It's the rules." "Andy--how long have you been here?" The boy thought a moment. "Almost nine years," he said blissfully. "Since my folks got killed." "How long do you have to stay?" "Why, 'til I'm old enough to work. Eighteen, I guess." _Only six years to go_, Ron thought sourly. He stood up. "Andy--where do they put the PF's?" "In the shed." "Is it possible to get one out?" "'Course not. Only when we play the game." "And when will we play another game?" "Dunno. Tomorrow maybe. It's Sunday." _Play the game._ Ron said to himself. * * * * * The Evens team member caught the spinning, gas-filled airball in the path of his airjet and kept it moving in front of his Flyer. Andy was after him in a flash, shouting for Ron to join him. But Ron's daring tactics of yesterday seemed to have deserted him. He steered the PF out of the path of the Evens man, and the goal was scored. On the ground, Andy said: "What's the trouble, Ronnie? Didn't you hear me?" "Yes, I heard you. Andy, listen. I'm taking off--" "Sure, in just a minute," the freckled boy said. "But, look, the next time you see me cut across the--" "You don't understand!" Ron said intensely. "I'm running away!" "What?" Larkin's whistle sounded the signal to resume play. The airball shot into the sky, and the two teams sped after it. Andy was late getting started. He looked at Ron and gasped: "You can't do that--" But Ron Carver was already in flight, and his PF was heading away from the center of the action, heading over the jagged pinetree tops that surrounded the Roverwood Home for Boys, heading for the misty green hills beyond. Larkin saw what was happening, and he blew his whistle shrilly. The teams descended, thinking a foul had been called. Larkin shouted a command towards the burly youth who had played so aggressively the day before, but then realized it was far too late to stop the swift passage of the PF now disappearing behind the trees. * * * * * Ron dropped the PF to earth as soon as his eyes spotted the first sign of a settled community. He landed the small machine in the shadow of a hillside, and dragged it into the thick underbrush for concealment. Then he trekked to the main highway, until he reached a road sign that informed him of his location. He was in a town called Spring Harbor, just fifteen miles outside of the city. He looked down at the waxy newness of his gray Roverwood coverall, and wondered if it was a familiar uniform to the residents. But he had to take the chance. He covered the cloth with dust, and rolled up the trouser legs almost to his knees. Then he broke off a long branch from a sapling and used it as a walking stick. Casually, he strolled into the town proper. The pose worked. Some people on the porches looked after him with mild curiosity, but no one stopped him. Then he paused at a gas station, and asked the owner of the automatic pump if there was transportation available to the city. The owner scratched his face and looked at the boy curiously. Ron told a plausible story about being separated from a scouting group, and the man seemed satisfied. He had a pick-up copter going into the city at ten o'clock; he invited Ron to wait inside his house, and even served him a sandwich. The copter pilot, a genial red-faced man, asked him some gentle questions. Ron answered them guardedly, and told him that his destination was Fordham Terrace. The copter dropped him on the rooftop of the massive office building, and the pilot left with a friendly wave of his hand. When he was gone, Ron rolled down his trouser legs, brushed his uniform clean, and descended to the fourteenth floor of the building. He walked rapidly along the corridors until he came to the door marked: WILFRED G. MINTON, M.D. He rattled the knob. When he found the door locked, he let out an adult oath. It was Sunday, of course. Dr. Minton wouldn't be in on Sunday. And Ron had never known his home address. He returned to the elevator and went to the ground floor. There was an information booth, and the woman behind the glass was a motherly type. Her eyes softened at his approach. "Dr. Minton?" she said, lifting an eyebrow. "Why, I guess I do have his address. But who sent you, young man?" "Nobody," Ron said. "I was supposed to see him, that's all." She kept her eyes on his face while her hand leafed through the directory on her desk. "Of course, Dr. Minton doesn't use his office anymore. He gave up his practice here almost a year ago. He was put on an important government project. Dr. Jurgens, his assistant, handles all his patients now. Would you like Dr. Jurgens' number?" "No," Ron said. "Please. I must see Dr. Minton." "All right. But I don't know if you can see him without an appointment. He's staying at the Government Medical Center in Washington." She smiled. "That's a long way for a little boy...." "Thank you," Ron said curtly, and walked off. His mind was racing, tripping over his thoughts. A year ago! But that was impossible! It seemed only days since he had returned from Andromeda, after a five-year absence. One of his first visits had been to Dr. Minton's office--not just to renew an old friendship, but to allow the physician to examine him thoroughly for traces of the varied and deadly diseases that man was subject to on alien worlds. Could it have been a whole year ago? Where had he spent the time between? And what had happened to give him the body of a twelve-year-old child? He fought off the questions. He had no time for the puzzle now; there weren't enough pieces to make sense. He had only one thought: to find the doctor. But that was a major problem all by itself. Washington was a good hour away by fast copter service. And in this big, suspicious city, it wouldn't be as easy to obtain free transport to his destination. He could do nothing--not without money. When he thought of money, he thought of Adrian. Adrian.... Of course! Adrian would know what to do next. Adrian always seemed to know what to do. Her father's money had opened every conceivable door in this city, and she herself had often suggested that it open doors for him. Doors to the executive heights of the Space Transport Company. Doors to the plush offices in the sky tower, doors to the select circle of cigar-smoking men who controlled the transportation empire of which Ron had been only a spare part. But Ron Carver had been young (he thought now, sourly) and his head had been stuffed with ideals. He detested the groundworms who stayed home and counted the profits of space travel. He wanted the stars. So he had become a pilot, one of the best in her father's fleet. She had sworn at him for his decision, and turned away from his embrace. But on the night of their parting, the night before the dawn ascent towards the speck of light that was Andromeda, she had softened, and cried in his arms. He thought now of that moment, and his small fingers rolled into fists. _Adrian_, he thought. _I must go to her...._ The doorman was magnificent and imposing in his braided uniform, but his eyes were cold when he saw Ron. "What do you want, son?" "I--I have a message for Miss Walder. It's very important." "Okay, son. You just give your message to me." "No! I'm supposed to deliver it in person!" The doorman grunted. "Wait a minute." He put in a call to the penthouse apartment. The idea of a twelve-year-old visitor must have amused the girl. He brought back an invitation for Ron to enter her home. Ron stepped off the elevator, and his stomach was churning. What would she say when she saw him? Would she believe his story? Would she help him find an answer? Adrian came to the door herself, and the amusement was evident on her long, smoothly-planed face. Her auburn hair was swept back in Grecian ringlets, and the gown she wore was blindingly white. "Come in, dear," she said, smiling. The effect of looking up at the girl, now a sort of giantess in his eyes, made Ron dizzy. He swayed against the doorframe, and her cool fingers steadied him. "You poor boy," she crooned. "Come inside." She half-carried him to the downy sofa. For a full minute, he was too choked to speak. She offered him a glass of milk, but he asked for water. She brought some to him, and he coughed. "Now," the girl said, spreading the wide skirt over her knees, "just what was it you wanted to tell me?" "I--" "Come now." She smiled endearingly, and brushed back the hair from his forehead. "You must have had something on your mind." "Yes," he said at last, his voice strained. "Yes, Adrian. I--I'm Ron...." "What?" "I'm Ron Carver! No, listen, I'm not mad. It's really me, Ron!" She had stood up, shocked. Then she laughed. "Adrian, listen to me! Something happened to me when I returned from Andromeda. I don't know what. I found myself at a boy's home near Spring Harbor." "Now, really! This is the craziest--" "I know it's crazy!" He wiped his forehead in an adult gesture. "But it's true, Adrian. I've been--changed somehow. I don't know why. But it's something to do with Dr. Minton." She sat down again, limply. Then she studied his face, and for a moment, Ron thought she was seriously considering his predicament. But then the laugh started again, the same slightly off-key laugh Ron remembered. "Adrian, you must believe me! I can prove it! Just listen to me for a moment!" She stopped the laugh and grew serious, her eyes caught by the intensity of his own. "All right," she whispered. "I'll listen...." "My name is Ronald Carver. I'm thirty years old. I'm a Captain of the Walder Space Transport Company. I have been in the Andromeda system for the past five years. I returned to Earth--" he stopped, and swallowed hard. "I don't know exactly when. I went to see Dr. Minton, an old friend and a physician. He examined me, and then--" She stared, fascinated. "And then I was a child! A child of twelve, in a home for boys. I ran away from there this morning, and came looking for Dr. Minton. I've been told that he's in Washington. I must get to him. I must find out what's happened to me--" She was shaking her head, slowly, eyes still fixed on his face. He got up from the sofa and came towards her. His small hand reached out and patted the fine bones of hers. "You must remember," he said. "You must believe me, Adrian. Remember our last night together? Right here? We stood by that window, and you cried in my arms. And then we...." She tore her hand away, as if burned. Then she stood up, looking horrified. "Get out of here!" she shrieked. "You little monster!" "Adrian--" Only now did he realize what it must have been like to her, to hear those words from his childish lips, to feel the touch of his tiny hand as he spoke of the night they.... "Get out!" she cried, covering her face. "Get out before I call the police!" "Adrian!" She screamed, piercingly. This time, the sound brought heavy foot-side clumping outside her front door. It was thrown open, and a uniformed man with bouncing epaulets was striding towards him. "No," Ron said. "You must listen--" "Get him out of here!" "Sure, Miss Walder!" He struggled in the big man's grip, while the girl turned her head aside. He managed to squirm from his hold, and broke for the door. The houseman started after him, cursing. Ron's hand went out and grasped a solid metal ash tray. He threw it without thought or aim, but it crashed squarely into the man's face and sent him thudding to the carpet. Adrian screamed again. He looked at her once more, imploringly. Then he ran for the door, just before she reached for the house telephone. In the elevator cage, he punched the button marked roof, and fell against the wall, panting. On the rooftop, he galloped across the metallic surface towards the ledge. He peered over it, and his heart sank when he saw that his stratagem had deceived no one. Police were entering the building, and some were pointing fingers in his direction. With a sigh, he dropped to his knees and rested his head against the cool aluminum surface. "It's no use," he said aloud. Then he heard the copter overhead. He looked up, thinking it was a police vehicle. But then he saw the outmoded design of its fuselage, and the young face at the controls. It hovered over his head, and a rope ladder unfolded. The youthful pilot said: "Quick! Climb in!" He blinked at the voice, unbelievingly. Then he scrambled to his feet, and grabbed the dangling ladder. He barely made it into the copter; the pilot had to help. "Who are you?" he said, gasping. The boy laughed. "I hate cops, too." Then they were in the air, and speeding towards the west. * * * * * Ron Carver watched the back of the young boy's neck for twenty minutes, while he steered the ancient copter expertly across the skies. He figured that the boy might have been fourteen or fifteen, but there was a competence in the way his hands moved over the controls, and a steeliness in the way his head sat on his thin neck. They didn't make much conversation, but Ron gathered that the boy was a member of something called the Red Rockets, an organization with some inexplicable purpose. It was only after the copter had landed on the roof of a half-decayed slum in the worst part of town, that Ron realized who the Red Rockets were. They were kids, all of them, banded together for mutual defense and in common antagonism toward the world. When he clambered out of the copter, his rescuer grinned and said: "This is it, pal. This is where the gang meets." "The Red Rockets?" "Yeah. This is Shock's house. He's the leader." They had to descend by stairs; there was no building elevator. When they reached the second floor, the boy put a finger to his lips, and rapped one-two, two-two on the apartment door. A boy no older than Ron's new body opened it. His dark pinched face grew smaller and darker when he saw the stranger. He looked back into the room before letting them in. The room was a study in decay. Someone had once wallpapered it in an optimistic pink pattern that was now sardonic in the surroundings. The furniture was rudimentary, and there were no working light fixtures. A battery lamp was sitting in the middle of a wooden table, and three youngsters were playing with a ragged deck of cards. The tallest of them arose when the newcomers entered. He was the only one wearing a jacket; the others were in shirtsleeves. His hair was black, and unruly to the point of being ludicrous. His wide mouth twisted when he spoke. "Who's this?" he said. "What's the idea?" "He's okay," Ron's protector said. "He's an okay kid. I spotted him on a rooftop down on Park. A million cops after him. I dropped down in the copter and picked him up." The tall boy studied Ron's face. "What's your name?" "Ron." "What were the cops chasin' you for?" Ron hesitated. "Any of your business?" The tall boy smiled. "Maybe not." He looked towards the others, and winked as if pleased. "Guess he's okay." He held his right hand out to Ron, while his left ducked into his jacket pocket. "My name's Shock, pal. And I'm the leader here. And just so's you don't forget it--" Pain lanced through Ron's arm and struck the base of his skull. He tried to free himself from the tall boy's grip, but his fingers wouldn't part from the other's flesh. He dropped to his knees in agony, until the grip was broken. He looked up, his face damp. "That's your 'nitiation," the tall boy grinned. "Now you know what's what, Ronnie boy. So if you want to join the Rockets, you'll know where your orders come from." Shock helped him to his feet. "Right, Ronnie boy?" Ron shook his head, still bewildered. "Good deal," Shock said. "Now let's finish that game. You play, kid?" "No," Ron said. He staggered towards a wooden chair on the side of the room and dropped on it heavily. "No," he repeated, still trying to regain his breath. _Play the game...._ His rescuer sat beside him. "Don't mind that guy," he whispered. "He does that to everybody. He got some kind of a power in his hands. But he's not a bad guy. Honest." "Sure," Ron said weakly. "We get a lot of kicks," the boy said eagerly. "You'll see. We have dogfights with the other gangs. With copters. We only got one, that ain't so much. But we're figurin' on gettin' some PF's next year, if we can collect enough dough in the treasury...." "That'll be great," Ron said. Then he dropped his hand on the other's arm. "Listen--is there any chance of takin' a trip? In the copter?" "Yeah, sure," the boy said warily. "Only you gotta ask for it in advance. I mean, it's Rocket property, and you gotta sign for it. And even then, if Shock wants to use it--well...." "Why?" Ron said. "Why's that? Because he's the leader?" "Sure," the boy said simply. "That's the reason." Ron looked across the room at the card players. "How do you get to be the leader?" "I dunno. Shock's the leader 'cause he can lick anybody in the Rockets. That makes sense, don't it?" "Yes. I suppose so." He chewed his lip. "Listen. Let's say _I_ was leader. Could I use the copter then? Any time I wanted?" "Sure. I mean, if you're the leader, who's gonna stop you?" "Yes," Ron said. He stood up and walked to the table, watching the cards as they were slapped on the wood. "Hey, Shock," he said. The tall boy didn't look up. "What is it?" "You cheat." A thrill ran through Ron's new body as he said it, and he muttered a small prayer that his guess about Shock's power was correct. "I _what_?" "I've been watching you play, and you cheat. You don't even cheat good. You cheat sloppy." The tall boy stood up slowly, and the other chairs were scraped back in anticipation. "Now that's something," he said. "That's really something! The kid's here ten minutes, and right away he wants to be buried." His face became grim. "Boy, we've had 'em wise before, pal. But never like this." Ron planted himself in front of him. "So?" he said. Shock's face clouded. "Say, are you kidding? You really like trouble that bad?" His right hand lashed out, while the left headed for his jacket pocket. But it wasn't the right that Ron avoided. Both of his short arms shot out towards the tall boy's left, and stopped the descent of the arm. Shock's right hand thudded against Ron's shoulder, the blow only stinging him. "Hey!" Shock cried. "Hey, you--" It was a triumph for Ron. He had been right about the electrical circuit woven through Shock's clothing, the circuit he couldn't complete without his left hand tripping the mechanism in his pocket. With the power off, Shock's weapon was useless. He was caught by surprise, and Ron's quick-moving hands tumbled him to the floor. Before he had a chance to do anything else, Ron was upon him with an upraised chair. He closed his eyes before he swung. The sound of the crash might have sickened him in other circumstances; now it sounded good and satisfying. Ron looked around the room, panting. "I'm the leader now," he said. "Understand? I'm the leader!" The looked at each other uncertainly. "I'm taking the copter for a while," Ron said, backing towards the door. "Any arguments?" Nobody answered. "Swell. So long, pals." Outside the door, he ran all the way back to the roof and was off before the gang could follow. The trip took almost two hours. Even Ron's experienced guidance of the controls couldn't push the old copter past its limits, and he was keeping a worried eye on the fuel gauge. It was with a sigh of relief that he dropped the vehicle atop a public parking station in the downtown district, within walking distance of the Government Medical Center. The sun was dropping fast, and the Washington streets were still filled with Sunday sightseers who found nothing odd in the sight of a solitary twelve-year-old. When he entered the enormous U-shaped edifice that housed a hundred and one government medical projects, he was thinking fast about a plausible story for the receptionist. The best he could do was: "I'm looking for Dr. Wilfred Minton. He--he's my uncle." "Dr. Minton?" She was young, and the efficient type. "I'm sorry, but Dr. Minton's been on special assignment for some time. It's not easy to locate him." "Oh, I know about that," Ron said airily. "But I was supposed to see him today. You see, my mom--his sister that is--she was in a very bad accident...." He swallowed hard, wondering if he was being believed. The woman frowned. "Well, if it's an emergency, I suppose I could check with central control. If it's really important." "Oh, it's important, all right!" He said this with great conviction. "Very well, then." She picked up her telephone, and there was much transferring from party to party. Finally, she lowered the receiver, saying: "He's in the east wing. It's Security territory, so I'll have to see about a pass." It took another ten minutes for her to locate the authority she was seeking. A young man with crinkly hair and a grim expression came briskly to the desk, asked him a few questions, and then signed his name on a document. Ron put the paper into the pocket of his coveralls, and followed the man to a bank of private elevators. The man waved him inside one, and he couldn't resist a wide-eyed question. "Gosh, mister. Are you from the FBI?" The man couldn't conceal a small pleased grin. "That's right, son. Only you keep it a secret." "Sure," Ron said. When the door closed and the elevator ascended, he grinned too. Being twelve had its advantages sometimes. He got off the elevator, and a uniformed guard checked his paper and led him into an anteroom. "You wait here, son," he said, and left. Ron waited five minutes. When nothing happened, he tried an adjoining door. It was open. He stepped inside the next room, and saw that it was a bare room with nothing but a row of filing cabinets and an abandoned swivel chair with a definite list to port. He went to the files and peered at the designation cards. They read: PROJECT SCHOLAR. He shrugged, and tried to open the top file. It was locked. He tried the others, with no better luck. Then he heard the voices in the anteroom. For some reason, he sensed danger. He knew he shouldn't be in the file room, that if he were found his visit to Dr. Minton might come to a sudden end. He couldn't take the chance. He tiptoed to the front door of the file room and turned the knob. He slipped out, and ran on his toes down the empty corridor. Quickly, without thought of the consequence, Ron opened still another door and closed it behind him. He looked at the shining brass fixtures and ultra modern appliances, and wondered what a kitchen was doing in a government medical building. Then, when he heard a sound in the adjoining room, he reasoned that he had stumbled into someone's living quarters. He went to a brown mahogany door and pushed against it gently, until he widened the crack sufficiently to make out the figure walking up and down in the other room. When the man crossed his line of vision, Ron's breath tumbled out in a gasp. It was his own body. His thirty-year-old body, with its six-foot-two frame of big bones and long muscles, its sandy, close-cropped hair, its brooding eyes and full mouth. It was Ron Carver. It was himself as he had been before. "Here's the little rascal," a voice said behind him. * * * * * The crinkly-haired man took his arm roughly. "Okay, kid. Let's hear it." "Hear what?" Ron said plaintively. "I wasn't doing anything!" "Sure," the guard sneered. "He wasn't doin' a thing. Just snoopin' around, that's all." The swinging door opened. "What's going on here?" Ron Carver looked at himself; at his own face, now strange and stony; at his own eyes, now bright and disinterested; at his own mouth, now a thin line of discontent. He heard his own voice, in a dangerous inflection he had never known before. "Sorry, sir," the guard said, reddening. "Didn't know you were inside. Wouldn't have disturbed you--" "How did he get here?" "Gosh, sir, I really don't know. He says he was lookin' for Dr. Minton--" "Minton," Ron Carver's voice said. "Yes, of course. He would be looking for Minton, wouldn't he?" "Sir?" "Never mind. Bring the boy into my quarters. Then get Dr. Minton up here at once." "Yes, sir!" They pushed the swinging door open and shoved Ron ahead of them. The room was an anomaly in this pristine government building, a warm room of deep-colored woods and thick carpeting. He was placed in a leather chair, his feet not touching the floor. The two men exited, and Ron Carver's body walked to an oaken desk and sat in the padded swivel chair behind the blotter. "Well," he said. "This is something of a surprise for me." "And how about me?" Ron said hoarsely. The man laughed. "Yes, we are both surprised. Was it Robert Burns? Yes, of course. 'To see ourselves as others see us....'" He chuckled, and reached for a cigarette. "Filthy habit, this. Don't know how I picked it up. Possibly a deep-seated trait of yours, Mr. Carver. Odd how these things can be transferred." The door opened again. "Dr. Minton!" Ron leaped to his feet. The doctor's face went white behind the gray beard and moustache. "Then you've found him," he said softly, to neither of them in particular. "No," Ron Carver's body answered. "I didn't find him, doctor. Rather, he found us. Isn't that right, Mr. Carver?" "Yes!" Ron said. "And now I want to know the truth!" "I, too, need answers," the Ron-body said stiffly. "I need answers at once, Dr. Minton. I would think this requires an explanation." "I couldn't do it," the doctor whispered. "I couldn't do what you wanted, Scholar." "Do what?" Ron said. "All right, then," the Ron-body said coldly. "You failed once. But you're far too intelligent to make the same mistake twice. So you have your assignment, Dr. Minton. I will get you the help you need. But kill this--this remnant--" He turned away in disgust, and picked up the telephone. He spoke under his breath for a few moments, and then hung up. "Dr. Luther will be here in just a moment. He'll arrange things with the laboratory. It will all be very painless and quick." Ron said: "What are you talking about?" He looked wildly towards the old man, who had aged even further since entering the room. "Dr. Minton--" The door opened. A brisk young man, carrying a small valise, appeared. "All set downstairs," he said. "Good," the Ron-body answered. "Then get it over with." Ron struggled for a moment in the young man's grip, but he found it iron. "Please, Ron." Doctor Minton's eyes were moist. "Don't make any trouble. Please...." * * * * * The laboratory was in the basement of the building, an antiseptic room with the acrid odor of chemicals. Dr. Luther prepared something in a hypodermic syringe, while Dr. Minton strapped his former patient onto a padded examining table. "Doctor ..." Ron whispered. "Hush, Ron. It's all right...." "But what is all this? Who am I?" The doctor frowned. "You're Ronald Carver. You're the same Ronald Carver you always were. But you have made an exchange of bodies. That is all." "But why? How?" "I don't really know. God help us. It was _his_ project from start to finish--that thing upstairs." "Who is he?" "A phenomenon. A mutation. A freak. A genius. A god. I can't explain him. He was born twelve years ago, to normal parents in the middle west. He was a recognized prodigy at the age of six months, a mathematical wizard at one, a scientific genius at three.... You've heard of this kind of thing, Ron. Once a generation, something like this. And once a millenium--a horror like this one." "I don't understand! What is Project Scholar?" "He is. All by himself. The government has taken charge of his abilities, at least for the time being." He snorted. "He's already done things I wouldn't have believed possible in five thousand years of evolution. And yet he is still only twelve years old...." "Only twelve?" Ron squirmed in the straps. "Doctor! This body--" "Yes, Ron. It's his, of course. He grew angry with it; wanted to discard it, like everything else which doesn't fit his conception of the fitness of things. It was awkward--a giant's brain in a child's body. So he developed a solution--an operation, involving the total transference of electrical energy...." The doctor's shaggy head bowed. "He needed human help for that. That's when I was brought in as assistant. And it was my function to select the perfect body as a temporary house for his ego...." "Temporary?" "When this body ages and grows feeble, there will be another. Our friend has outwitted Death itself." The doctor looked up, his jaw firm. "I was instructed to destroy his body when the transference was completed. I couldn't do it, Ron. I managed to spirit you away where you would be cared for. It was almost a year before you came to your senses after the operation. By that time, I didn't know what to do with you. My first thought was the Roverwood Home, where I am a director, where you would be lost among many, many boys' faces...." "But why me, doctor? Why me?" "I had to choose someone, Ron. It was merely a question of who...." Dr. Luther entered, priming the needle. "Ready?" he said. "One moment." The doctor's hand covered Ron's mouth, and he felt the contours of a small round pill against his lips. He realized he was meant to swallow it, and he did. "Ready now," Dr. Minton said. Dr. Luther performed the injection. "Good night, sweet prince," he said gently. * * * * * When Ron awoke, it was under a blanket of darkness and ice. He blinked until his eyes became accustomed to the impoverished light that was glowing behind a glass-paned door. He was on a block of some cold composition, in what must have been the Medical Center's morgue. He reacted with revulsion at the thought, and leaped off. Then he saw that his left hand was holding a sheet of paper. He carried it to the meager light source and read it quickly: _Ron_-- _Don't wait another moment. You'll find a suit of clothes in the closet left. Leave through back stairway marked N. There is money in suit. Use it to leave the city. Do not return if you value your safety and the life of_ _M._ He found the clothes as directed, a neatly-cut suit of boy's clothing, with a small wallet stuffed with bills amounting to three hundred dollars. He dressed rapidly, opened the door, and peered down the hall. It was empty as he ran silently towards the exit marked N. Now he was doubly in debt to Dr. Minton. But he couldn't spare the doctor even now, for his life had been given a new direction and purpose. He was going to kill the Scholar. He walked rapidly through the dark streets towards the public parking lot where the helicopter had been stored. He took the lift to the roof, and walked up to it quickly. "It's about time, pal." It was Shock, his hair tousled over his hard, bright eyes. There was a gun in his hand. "I've been waitin' an hour, you punk. Think you were gettin' off so easy?" "Look, Shock--" "You thought you were a clever boy, didn't you? Well, I got news for you--" "Look, I don't want to be leader. I just needed a copter for a few hours." "Yeah, sure. Only you forgot something. We put Finder equipment on this baby a long time ago, so we could keep tabs on it." "You can _have_ the copter--" "I don't want just the copter, Ronnie boy. I want to square a few things with you." "Look, Shock. I'll make a deal with you. I'll give you two hundred bucks for that gun." The tall boy's face changed. "What?" "You heard me. You hand over that gun, I'll give you two hundred dollars." His eyes narrowed. "Then what? I suppose you'd shoot me and take off. Uh-uh, pal." "You can check the gun downstairs, and sell me the key." "Okay," Shock said slowly. "But if you're pullin' something--" He balled his hands menacingly. They went down to the lower level together. Shock bought himself a public locker, and shoved the gun inside. Then he held up the key. "Here it is, pal. Two hundred bucks worth." Ron handed him the money. Shock whistled at the sight of the bills. "Now," Ron said. "Would you like to make a hundred more?" He looked at Ron with respect. "Okay. What's the pitch?" "I want you to make a phone call for me." "Yeah, sure." Shock looked bewildered. Then Ron explained. They reached the guard in the East Wing of the Medical Center without much difficulty. Shock crouched over the receiver and said: "This is Dr. Luther. Something's happened; you better connect me with _him_." "Okay, hold on." There was a wait. Then Ron Carver's own voice, in its eerie new inflection, was on the other end. "What is it?" "This is Luther. Something's happened down here. I think the boy got away." "What? Where are you?" "In the morgue, downstairs. I think you better come down yourself." "How could it happen?" The Ron-voice was raging. "How?" "I don't know. But you better meet me here in ten minutes--" Ron jabbed Shock in the side, and the tall boy slammed the receiver back into place with a relieved sigh. "I don't get it," he said. "Who was that guy?" "Me," Ron said, with a grim smile. He handed Shock the money, and watched him depart, still looking baffled. Then he went to the locker and removed the gun, stuffing it inside his jacket. It bulked large against his narrow chest. He raced through the streets back to the medical center, heading for Exit N and the morgue. * * * * * Ron was waiting, gun poised, behind the empty slab. A shadow covered the dim light behind the glass-plated door, and the Ron-body entered the silent room. He saw his own hand reaching out to flick on the light switch. He saw his own face register dismay and annoyance at the quiet scene. Then the Ron-body turned and was about to leave. "Stay awhile," Ron said. He stood up, revealing the weapon, holding it in both of his small hands for firm control of the trigger. "Well," his voice said. "Yes, well," Ron answered. "Very well, thanks. Only I won't speak for you, Scholar. Because I don't think you're well at all. I think you're out of your mind...." The Ron-lips curled. "Naturally. Genius is akin to madness. It's one of the deep-rooted convictions of the human ego. It reflects their suspicion, their distrust of the superintelligent ... I understand you, Mr. Carver." "And I don't understand you! You're something new to me. Maybe you're better than us, maybe you're worse. I don't know, Scholar. But that's not why I'm going to kill you--" "Oh?" "No! You think I want to kill you for the sake of the world? Because you're a menace to homo sapiens? Because of your contempt for us ordinary mortals? Hell, no, Scholar! I'm too ordinary myself. I'm killing you for _me_, for Ron Carver! Because I'm sore! Just plain sore!" He raised the gun. For a moment, Ron didn't know what had happened. Something else blurred his vision, a fast-moving figure bulking up in front of his target. It was only when he heard the voice that he recognized the intruder as Dr. Minton, and he saw then that the doctor had rescued the Scholar from certain death. "Stop, Ron--" "Doctor! Get out of the way!" "No, Ron. You don't know what you're doing--" The old man was shielding the Ron-body with his own. Ron put the weapon down. "But why?" he said. "Because this is no answer! This is the assassin's way--" He turned to the Ron-body, and his voice was shaking. "Listen, Scholar. I want to arbitrate. Will you listen?" "Do I have a choice?" "Yes!" the doctor said fiercely. "Life or death! Will you listen to my terms?" The Ron-body shrugged. "All right." "Very well. Then I want you to spare Ron Carver. I want you to allow me to deliver him into the hands of friends, deliver him alive and safe. In return, I promise that your twelve-year-old body will leave this Earth virtually at once. I will send it to the colony on Mars, where it will stay until adulthood. Will you allow this?" The Scholar's smile was thin. "And that is your only condition?" "My only one!" "Doctor--" Ron stepped towards him. "You can't leave things as they are--" "Are you willing, Scholar? Will you let Ron Carver live his life in peace?" The Ron-body stiffened. "Yes," he snapped. "Ron--" the doctor waved towards him. "Hand him your gun." "What?" "Give it to him! We've made a pact." Ron hesitated, and then extended the butt towards the Scholar. He took it with a slight bow, weighed it in his palm, and then slipped the weapon into his pocket. "You did wisely," the doctor said, with noticeable relief. "If you had turned that gun on us, Scholar, I would have killed you on the spot." He patted the metallic bulk beneath his own coat. "I came prepared, too...." * * * * * The copter rose serenely towards the heavenly vault. Ron's small body was feeling the effects of the day's strain. It collapsed against the leathery cushions, the short arms and legs limp and dangling. The doctor patted his knee. "Another few moments," he said. "Where are we going?" "To the spaceport in Winnipeg. I have a friend there. He has two children of his own, both born in the Mars Colony. He'll be returning there within the week." "And you want me to go with him?" "Yes, Ron. I want you to grow up all over again, and then return to Earth. It won't be easy for you, but there will be advantages. Your life span has been lengthened. And right now, you know, you're something of a prodigy yourself." He chuckled dryly. "And what happens here?" Ron said bitterly. "What kind of Earth will I find on my return?" "An older Earth. Perhaps a wiser Earth...." "No, doctor." Ron forced himself to a sitting position. "Not with the Scholar alive and thriving, growing stronger and more intelligent with every passing year. It'll be _his_ Earth when I return...." The doctor stared at the night sky before answering. "No, Ron. He'll never live to see it. I knew that when I selected _your_ body to house his mind...." "What do you mean?" "I chose you for a reason, Ron. A vital reason. When you came to my office on your return from Andromeda, I discovered something about you which made up my mind. An ailment without a name or a symptom, found only rarely in the bodies of a few space travelers. You had it, Ron, and in a year or two, it would have struck you down with the savagery and surprise of lightning. "It was then that I agreed to the Scholar's plan to exchange bodies. Agreed to it on my own terms, with the body of Ron Carver...." "Then I'll die!" Ron said. "No, Ron. You will live. It's the Scholar who has made the bad bargain...." In the distance, the lights of the Winnipeg spaceport blinked a welcome. 
51996	----	of the Digital Library@Villanova University (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) NEW EAGLE SERIES No.682 15 CENTS My Pretty Maid By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller [Illustration] _STREET & SMITH PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK._ MY PRETTY MAID; OR LIANE LESTER BY MRS. ALEX. MCVEIGH MILLER AUTHOR OF "Sweet Violet," "The Pearl and the Ruby," "The Senator's Bride," "The Senator's Favorite," "Lillian, My Lillian," and numerous other excellent romances published exclusively in the EAGLE and NEW EAGLE SERIES. [Illustration: S AND S NOVELS] NEW YORK STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS 79-89 SEVENTH AVENUE Copyright, 1898 and 1899 By Norman L. Munro My Pretty Maid Publisher's Note Notwithstanding the fact that the sales of magazines have increased tremendously during the past five or six years, the popularity of a good paper-covered novel, printed in attractive and convenient form, remains undiminished. There are thousands of readers who do not care for magazines because the stories in them, as a rule, are short and just about the time they become interested in it, it ends and they are obliged to readjust their thoughts to a set of entirely different characters. The S. & S. novel is long and complete and enables the reader to spend many hours of thorough enjoyment without doing any mental gymnastics. Our paper-covered books stand pre-eminent among up-to-date fiction. Every day sees a new copyrighted title added to the S. & S. lines, each one making them stronger, better and more invincible. STREET & SMITH, Publishers 79-89 SEVENTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY MY PRETTY MAID. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. A DESPERATE CHANCE. CHAPTER II. FATE IS ABOVE US ALL. CHAPTER III. "MY PRETTY MAID." CHAPTER IV. SECRET LOVE. CHAPTER V. ROMA'S LOVERS. CHAPTER VI. AFTER THE CRIME. CHAPTER VII. GRANNY'S REVENGE. CHAPTER VIII. THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT. CHAPTER IX. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. CHAPTER X. ROMA SEEKS A NEW MAID. CHAPTER XI. THE BEAUTY SHOW. CHAPTER XII. "THE QUEEN ROSE." CHAPTER XIII. EDMUND CLARKE'S SUSPICION. CHAPTER XIV. ROMA FINDS AN ALLY. CHAPTER XV. "A DYING MOTHER." CHAPTER XVI. A LOVE LETTER. CHAPTER XVII. A CRUEL FORGERY. CHAPTER XVIII. LIANE'S FLEETING LOVE DREAM. CHAPTER XIX. WHAT DOLLY TOLD. CHAPTER XX. "AS ONE ADMIRES A STATUE." CHAPTER XXI. A HARVEST OF WOE. CHAPTER XXII. AT A FIEND'S MERCY. CHAPTER XXIII. A MURDEROUS FURY. CHAPTER XXIV. A STRAND OF RUDDY HAIR. CHAPTER XXV. A TRUE FRIEND. CHAPTER XXVI. TREMBLING HOPES. CHAPTER XXVII. WHEN HAPPINESS SEEMED NEAR! CHAPTER XXVIII. A SWORD THRUST IN HIS HEART. CHAPTER XXIX. THE BRIDAL. CHAPTER XXX. BEFORE THE DAWN. CHAPTER XXXI. WHEN THE CLOUDS ROLLED BY. CHAPTER I. A DESPERATE CHANCE. "How fast the river flows! How it roars in my ears and drowns the sound of your voice, my dearest! It is bearing me away! Oh, save me! save me!" The river was the stream of Death, and the lone voyager floating out on its rushing tide was a loved and loving young wife. The frail white hands clung fondly to her husband's as she rested with her head upon his breast, and the faint voice murmured deliriously on: "How it rushes on--the wild river! How it rocks me on its broad breast! It is not so noisy now; it is deeper and swifter, and its voice has a lulling tone that soothes me to sleep. Hold me tight--keep me awake, dear, lest it sweep me away to the sea!" Ah, he would have given the world to hold her back, his darling, the dearest of his heart, but the rushing torrent was too strong. It was sweeping her away. Several days ago a beautiful daughter--her first-born after five years' wifehood--had been laid in her yearning arms. But, alas! the first night of its birth, during a temporary absence of the old nurse from the room, the little treasure had been stolen from its mother. Panic seized the whole household, and rigorous search was at once begun and kept up for days, but all to no avail. The father was frantic, but, though he would have given his fortune for the return of the child, he was powerless; and now, as a sequel to this tragedy of loss and pain, his dear young wife lay dying in his arms--dying of heartbreak for the lost babe--poor bereaved young mother! Tears rained from his eyes down on her pallid face as he strained her to his breast, his precious one, going away from him so fast to death, while outside, heedless of his despair, the golden sun was shining on the green grass, and the fragrant flowers, and the little birds singing in the trees as if there were nothing but joy in the world. The old family physician came in softly, with an anxious, sympathetic face, and whispered startling words in his ear. A look of aversion crossed the young husband's face, and he groaned: "Doctor Jay, I cannot bear the thought!" "I feared you would feel so, Mr. Clarke, but all my medical colleagues agree with me that nothing but the restoration of her child can save my patient's life. It is the desperate chance we take when we feel that all hope is lost." "Then I must consent!" "You are wise," the old doctor answered, tiptoeing from the room, only to reappear a little later, followed by the nurse with a little white bundle in her arms. The low voice of the delirious woman went babbling on. "Darling," murmured her husband, pressing his lips to her pale brow. "Yes, yes, dear, I'm going away from you. Hark!" The sudden wail of an infant had caught her hearing. Her dull eyes brightened with returning intelligence, she moved restlessly, and the nurse laid a wailing infant against her breast. "Dear mistress, can you hear me? Here is your baby back again." They had taken a desperate chance when all hope seemed lost. By the advice of the consulting physicians, another child had been substituted for the stolen one, and, at its helpless cry, hope crept back to the mother's breaking heart; the rushing waves ceased to moan in her ears, silenced by that little piping voice, and the sinking life was rallied. She lived, and the babe grew and throve in its luxurious surroundings, and the mother worshiped it. No one ever dared tell her the truth--that it was not her own infant that had been restored to her arms, but a little foundling. No other child ever came to rival it in Mrs. Clarke's love, and it was this fact alone that sealed her husband's lips to the cruel secret that ached at his heart. He feared the effect of the truth on his delicate wife, taking every precaution to keep her in ignorance, even to moving away from his own home, and settling in a distant place. Though he never relaxed his efforts to find his lost child, the years slipped away in a hopeless quest, and Roma, the adopted girl, grew eighteen years old, and her beauty and her prospects brought her many suitors. In his heart Mr. Clarke hoped the girl would make an early marriage, for he was tired of living a lie, pretending to love her as a daughter to deceive his wife, while an aching void in his own heart was always yearning for his own lost darling. CHAPTER II. FATE IS ABOVE US ALL. It was six o'clock by all the watches and clocks at Stonecliff, and the girls at Miss Bray's dressmaking establishment hastily put up their work and were starting for home, chattering like a flock of magpies, when their employer called after them testily: "Say, girls, one of you will have to take this bundle up to Cliffdene. Miss Clarke wanted it very particularly to wear to-night. Liane Lester, she lives nearer to you than any of the others. You take it." Liane Lester would have liked to protest, but she did not dare. With a decided pout of her rosy lips, she took the box with Miss Clarke's new silk cape and hurried to overtake Dolly Dorr, the only girl who was going her way. "What a shame to have to carry boxes along the village street late in the afternoon when every one is out walking! I think Miss Bray ought to keep a servant to fetch and carry!" cried Dolly indignantly. "Oh, look, Liane! There's that handsome Jesse Devereaux standing on the post-office steps! Shouldn't you like to flirt with him? Let's saunter slowly past so that he may notice us!" "I don't want him to notice me! Granny says that harm always comes of rich men noticing poor girls. Come, Dolly, let us avoid him by crossing the street." Suiting the action to the word, Liane Lester turned quickly from her friend and sped toward the crossing. But, alas, fate is above us all! Her haste precipitated what she strove to avoid. Drawing the veil down quickly over her rosy face, the frolicsome wind caught the bit of blue gossamer and whirled it back toward the sidewalk. Jesse Devereaux gave chase, captured the veil, and flew after the girl. She had gained the pavement, and was hurrying on, when she heard him at her side, panting, as he said: "I beg pardon--your veil!" A white hand was thrust in front of her, holding the bit of blue gauze, and she had to stop. "I thank you," she murmured, taking it from his hand and raising her eyes shyly to his face--the brilliant, handsome face that had haunted many a young girl's dreams. The dazzling dark eyes were fixed eagerly on her lovely face, and his red lips parted in a smile that showed pearly-white teeth as he exclaimed gayly: "Old Boreas was jealous of your hiding such a face, and whisked your veil away, but out of mercy to mankind I concluded to return it." "Thank you, very much!" she answered again, and was turning away when Dolly Dorr rushed across the street, breathless with eagerness. "How do you do, Mr. Devereaux?" she cried gayly, having been introduced to him at a church festival the evening before. "Ah, Miss----" he hesitated, as he lifted his hat, and she twittered: "Miss Dorr; we met at the festival last night, you know. And this is my chum, Liane Lester." "Charmed," he exclaimed, while his radiant black eyes beamed on Liane's face, and he stepped along by Dolly's side as she placed herself between them, intent on a flirtation. "May I share your walk?" he asked, and Dolly gave an eager assent, secretly wishing her girl friend a mile away. But as she could not manage this, she proceeded to monopolize the conversation--an easy task, for Liane walked along silent and ill at ease, "for all the world," thought the lively Dolly to herself, "like a tongue-tied little schoolgirl." No wonder Liane was demure and frightened, dreading to get a scolding from granny if Jesse Devereaux walked with them as far as her home. Liane lived alone, in pinching poverty, with a feeble old grandmother, who was too old to work for herself, and needed Liane's wages to keep life in her old bones; so she was always dreading that the girl's beauty would win her a husband who would pack the old woman off to the poorhouse as an incumbrance. She kept Liane illy dressed and hard worked, and never permitted her to have a beau. Marriage was a failure, she said. "What was the use of marrying a poor man, to work your fingers to the bone for him?" she exclaimed scornfully. "But one might marry rich," suggested innocent Liane. "Rich men marry rich girls, and if they ever notice a poor girl, she mostly comes to grief by it. Don't never let me catch you flirting with any young man, or I'll make you sorry!" granny answered viciously. She had not made her sorry yet, for the girl had obeyed her orders, although her beauty would have brought her a score of lovers had she smiled on their advances, but Liane had not seen any man yet for whom she would have risked one of granny's beatings. How would it be now, when her young heart was beating violently at the glances of a pair of thrilling dark eyes, and the tones of a rich, musical voice, when her face burned and her hands trembled with exquisite ecstasy? Old Boreas, why did you whisk her veil away and show Jesse Devereaux that enchanting young face, so rosy and dimpled, with large, shy eyes like purple pansies, golden-hearted, with rims of jet, so dark the arched brows and fringed lashes, while the little head was covered with silky waves of thick, shining chestnut hair? What would be the outcome of this fateful meeting? Sure enough, as they came in sight of Liane's humble home, there was granny's grizzled head peeping from the window, and, with an incoherent good evening to her companions, Liane darted inside the gate, hurrying into the house. But at the very threshold the old woman met her with a snarl of rage, slapping her in the face with a skinny, clawlike hand as she vociferated: "Take that for disobeying me, girl! Walking out with that handsome dude, after all my warnings!" "Oh, granny, please don't be so cruel, striking me for nothing! I'm too big a girl to be beaten now!" pleaded Liane, sinking into a chair, the crimson lines standing out vividly on her white cheeks, while indignant tears started into her large, pathetic eyes. But her humility did not placate the cruel old hag, who continued to glare at her victim, snarling irascibly. "Too big, eh?" she cried; "well, I'll show you, miss, the next time I see you galivanting along the street with a young man! Now, who is he, anyhow?" "Just a friend of Dolly Dorr's, granny. I--I--never saw him till just now, when he asked Dolly if he might share her walk." "Um-hum! A frisky little piece, that Dolly Dorr, with her yellow head and doll-baby face! I don't want you to walk with her no more when he goes along, do you hear me, Liane? Two's company, and three a crowd." "Yes, ma'am"--wearily. "Now, what have you got in that pasteboard box, I say? If you've been buying finery, take it back this minute. I won't pay a cent for it!" "It's finery, granny, but not mine. Miss Bray sent me to carry it to the rich young lady up at Cliffdene, and I just stopped in to see if you will make your own tea while I do my errand, for I shouldn't like to come back alone after dark." "Better come alone than walking with a man, Liane Lester!" grunted the old woman, adding more amicably: "Go along, then, and hurry back, and I'll keep some tea warm for you." "Thank you, granny," the poor girl answered dejectedly, going out with her bundle again, her face shrouded in the blue veil, lest she should meet some one who would notice the marks of the cruel blow on her fair cheek. Her way led along the seashore, and the brisk breeze of September blew across the waves and cooled her burning face, and dried the bitter tears in her beautiful eyes, though her heart beat heavily and slow in her breast as she thought: "What a cruel life for a young girl to lead--beaten and abused by an old hag whom one must try to respect because she is old, and poor, and is one's grandmother, though I am ashamed of the relationship! I fear her, instead of loving her, and it is more than likely she will kill me some day in one of her brutal rages. Sometimes I almost resolve to run away and find work in the great city; but, then, she has such a horror of the poorhouse, I have not the heart to desert her to her fate. But I could not help being ashamed of her when Mr. Devereaux saw her uncombed head and angry face leering at us out of the window. Never did I feel the misery of my condition, the poverty of my dress and my home, so keenly as in his presence. I do not suppose he would stoop to marry a poor girl like me, especially with such a dreadful relation as granny," she ended, with a bursting sigh of pain from the bottom of her sore heart. The tide swept in almost to her feet, and the sea's voice had a hollow tone of sympathy with her sorrow. "Oh, I wish that I were dead," she cried with a sudden passionate despair, almost wishing that the great waves would rush in and sweep her off her feet and away out upon the billows, away, from her weary, toilsome life into oblivion. But here she was at the gates of beautiful Cliffdene, the home of the Clarkes, a handsome stone mansion set in spacious ground on a high bluff, washed at its base by the murmuring sea. She opened the gate, and went through the beautiful grounds, gay with flowers, thinking, what a paradise Cliffdene was and what a contrast to the tumble-down, three-roomed shanty she called home. "How happy Miss Clarke must be; so beautiful and rich, with fine dresses, and jewels, and scores of handsome lovers! I wonder if Mr. Devereaux knows her, and if he admires her like all the rest? He would not mind marrying her, I suppose. She does not live in a shanty, and have a spiteful old grandmother to make her weary of her life," thought poor, pretty Liane, as she paused in the setting sunlight before the broad, open door. At that moment a superb figure swept down the grand staircase toward the trembling girl--a stately figure, gowned in rustling silk, whose rich golden tints, softened by trimmings of creamy lace, suited well with the handsome face, lighted by spirited eyes of reddish brown, while the thick waves of shining, copper-colored hair shone in the sunset rays like a glory. Liane knew it was Miss Clarke, the beauty and heiress; she had seen her often riding through the streets of Stonecliff. "What do you want, girl?" cried a proud, haughty voice to Liane as they stood face to face on the threshold, the heiress and the little working girl. "Miss Bray has sent home your silk cape, Miss Clarke." "Ah? Then bring it upstairs, and let me see if it is all right. I have very little confidence in these village dressmakers, though Miss Bray has very high recommendations from the judge's wife," cried haughty Roma Clarke, motioning the girl to follow her upstairs, adding cruelly: "You should have gone round to the servants' entrance, girl. No one brings bundles to the front door." Liane's cheeks flamed and her throat swelled with resentful words that she strove to keep back, for she knew she must not anger Miss Bray's rich customer. But she hated her toilsome life more than ever as she followed Roma along the richly carpeted halls to a splendid dressing room, where the beauty sank into a cushioned chair, haughtily ordering the box to be opened. Liane's trembling white fingers could scarcely undo the strings, but at last she held up the exquisite evening cape of brocaded cream silk, lined with peach blossom and cascaded with billows of rare lace. It was daintily chic, and had been the admiration of the workroom. All the girls had coveted it, and Dolly Dorr had draped it over Liane's shoulders, crying: "It just suits you, you dainty princess." The princess stood trembling now, for Roma flew into a rage the instant her wonderful red-brown eyes fell on the cape. "Just as I feared! It is ruined in the arrangement of the cascades of lace. Who did it--you?" she demanded sharply. "Oh, no, Miss Bray arranged it herself, I assure you," faltered Liane. "It must be altered at once, for I need it walking out in the grounds with my guests to-night. You're one of the dressmaker's girls, aren't you? Yes? Well, you shall change it for me at once, under my directions. Hurry and rip the lace off carefully." Liane's heart fluttered into her throat, but she protested. "I--I cannot stay. I should be afraid to go home after dark. I am sure Miss Bray will alter it to-morrow." "To-morrow! when I want it to-night? You must be crazy, girl! Do as I bid you, or I'll report you to your employer to-morrow and have you discharged." Liane's throat choked with a frightened sob, and she dared not disobey and risk dismissal from Miss Bray and a beating from granny. "I will do it, but I am terribly afraid to go home alone," she faltered, taking up the scissors and the garment. "Nonsense! Nothing will hurt you. Here, this is the way I want it, and be sure you do not botch it, or you will have to do it all over again! Now, I am going down to dinner. I'll be back in an hour and a half, and you ought to have it done by that time!" cried the imperious beauty, sweeping from the room, though Liane heard her tell the maid in the hall to keep an eye on that girl from the dressmaker's, that she did not slip anything in her pocket. The clever maid sidled curiously into the lighted dressing room, and, as soon as she saw the tears in the eyes of Liane and the crimson print on her fair cheek, she jumped to her own conclusions. "You poor, pretty little thing, did Miss Roma fly in a rage and slap your face, too?" she exclaimed compassionately. "Certainly not!" the girl answered, cresting her graceful chestnut-brown head with sudden pride. "Do you think I would allow your mistress to insult me so?" "She would insult you whether you liked it or not," the maid replied tartly. "She has slapped my face several times in her tantrums since I came here, and I would have quit right off, but her mother is an angel, and when I complained to her, the sweet lady gave me some handsome presents and begged me to overlook it, because her daughter was somewhat spoiled by being an only child and an heiress. So I stayed for the kind mother's sake, and if Miss Roma really did strike you in her rage over the cape, let me tell Mrs. Clarke, and she will reward you handsomely to keep silence!" "But I assure you Miss Clarke did not strike me!" Liane protested. "There's the print of her fingers on your face to speak for itself, poor child!" "That mark was on my face when I came," Liane answered, almost inaudibly, out of her keen humiliation. "Oh, I see. What is your name?" "Miss Lester--Liane Lester." "A pretty-sounding name! I've heard of you before, Miss Lester--the lovely sewing girl whose grandmother beats her. All the village knows it and pities you. Why do you stand it? Why don't you run away and get married? You are so lovely that any man might be glad to get you for his bride." The color flamed hotly into Liane's cheek. She was proud, in spite of her poverty, and it chafed her to have her private affairs so freely discussed by Miss Clarke's servant. "Please do not talk to me while I'm sewing," she said firmly, but so gently that the pert maid did not take offense, but slipped away, returning when the cape was nearly done, with a dainty repast on a silver waiter. "Mrs. Clarke sent this with her compliments. She heard about your being up here sewing, and felt so sorry for you." Liane had not tasted food since her meager midday luncheon, but she was too proud to own that she was faint from fasting. "She was very kind, but I--I really am not hungry," she faltered. "But you have not had your tea yet, and one is apt to have a headache without it," urged the tactful maid, and she presently persuaded Liane to eat, although not before the cape was done, so great was her dread of Miss Clarke's coarse anger. The maid had adroitly let Mrs. Clarke know all about Liane, and now she slipped a crisp banknote into her hand, whispering: "Mrs. Clarke sent you this for altering the cape for her daughter." Liane was almost frightened at the new rustling five-dollar bill in her hand. She had never seen more than three dollars at a time before--the amount of her weekly wages from Miss Bray. "Oh, dear, I can't take this. It's too much! Miss Bray only gets five dollars for the making of the whole cape," she exclaimed. "Never mind about that, if Mrs. Clarke chooses to pay you that for altering it, my dear miss. She is rich and can afford to be liberal to one who needs it. So just take what she gives you, and say nothing--not even to her daughter, who has a miserly heart and might scold her for her kindness," cautioned the maid, who pitied Liane with all her heart. Liane cried eagerly: "Oh, please thank the generous lady a hundred times for me! I love her for her kindness to a poor orphan girl. Now, do you think Miss Roma would come and look at the cape? For I must be going. Granny will be angry at my coming back so late." "Here she comes now, the vixen!" and, sure enough, a silken gown rustled over the threshold, and Roma caught the cape up eagerly, crying: "Ten to one you have botched it worse than before! Well, really, you have followed my directions exactly, for a wonder! That will do very well. You may go now, and if you think you ought to be paid anything for these few minutes' extra work, you can collect it off Miss Bray, as she was responsible for the alterations. Sophie, you can show the girl out," and, throwing the cape over her arm, the proud beauty trailed her rustling silk over the threshold and downstairs again. "The heartless thing! I'd like to shake her!" muttered Sophie angrily, as she led the way out of the beautiful house down upon the moonlight lawn, adding: "I'll go to the gates with you, so you won't get frightened at Mr. Clarke's big St. Bernard." "What a beautiful night, and how sweet the flowers smell!" murmured Liane, lifting her heated brow to the cool night breeze, and the pitying stars that seemed to beam on her like tender eyes. "Would you like some to take home with you? You will be welcome, I know, for the frosts will be getting them soon, anyhow," cried Sophie, loading her up with a huge bunch of late autumn roses, "and now good night, my dear young lady," opening the gate "you have a long walk before you, but I hope you will get home safely." Liane opened her lips to tell the woman how frightened she was of the lonely walk home, but she was ashamed of her cowardice, and the words remained unsaid. With a faltering "I thank you for your kindness; good night," she clasped the roses to her bosom and sped away like a frightened fawn in the moonlight, down the road along the beach, a silent prayer in her heart that granny would not be angry again over her long stay, and accuse her of "galivanting around with beaus." Sophie leaned over the gate, watching her a minute, with pity and admiration in her clear eyes. "What a beautiful creature!--a thousand times lovelier than Miss Roma!" she thought. "But what a cruel lot in life. It is enough to make the very angels weep." CHAPTER III. "MY PRETTY MAID." There was not a more nervous, startled maiden in all New England that night than Liane as she flew along the beach, haunted by a fear of drunken men, of whom Stonecliff had its full quota. And, indeed, she had not gone so very far before her fears took shape. She heard distinctly, above her frightened heartbeats and her own light steps, the sound of a man's tread gaining on her, while his voice called out entreatingly: "Elinor, Elinor! wait for me!" The sea's voice, with the wind, seemed to echo the call. "Elinor, Elinor! wait for me!" But Liane did not wait. She only redoubled her speed, and she might have escaped her pursuer but that her little foot tripped on a stone and threw her prone upon the sands. Before she could rise a man's arms closed about her tenderly, lifting her up, while he panted: "Elinor, what girlish freak is this? Why wouldn't you wait for me, dear?" Liane gasped and looked up at him in terror, but that instant she recognized him, and her fears all fled. "Oh, Mr. Clarke, you have made a mistake, sir. You don't know me, although I know what your name is. I am Liane Lester!" she cried breathlessly. He dropped her hand and recoiled in surprise, answering: "I beg a hundred pardons for my apparent rudeness. I saw you flying along as I smoked my cigar above the hill, and your figure looked so exactly like my wife's that I flew after you. I hope you will find it easy to forgive me, for you do resemble my wife very much, and, although you are young and fair, you may take that as a compliment, for my wife is very beautiful." "I thank you, sir, and forgive you freely. I have never seen Mrs. Clarke, but I have just come from your house, and was running home every step of the way because I had to stay till after dark, and I feared my grandmother would be uneasy over me!" faltered Liane, blushing at his intent gaze, for the wind had blown her veil aside, and her lovely features, pure as carven pearl, shone clearly in the moonlight. "And I am detaining you yet longer! Excuse me, and--good night," he said abruptly, smiling kindly at her, lifting his hat and turning back toward Cliffdene, while he thought with pleasure: "What a lovely girl! She reminded me of Elinor when she was young." Liane thought kindly of him, too, as she hurried along. "What a noble face and gracious voice! Miss Roma Clarke is blessed in having such a splendid father." She had only granny, poor child; coarse, ugly, repulsive, cruel granny. She could not even remember her parents or any other relation. A lonely childhood, whose only bright memories were of its few school days, a toilsome girlhood, robbed of every spark of youthful pleasure; coarse scoldings and brutal beatings. It was all a piteous life--enough, as Sophie, the maid had said, to make the very angels weep in pity. Strange, as she hastened on, how Jesse Devereaux's eyes and smile haunted her thoughts with little thrills of pleasure; how she wondered if she should ever see him again. "Perhaps Dolly Dorr will make him fall in love with her, she is so pretty, with her fluffy yellow hair and big torquoise-blue eyes," she thought, with a curious sensation of deadly pain, jealous already, though she guessed it not. The night was still and calm, and suddenly the dip of oars in the water came to her ears. She looked, and saw a little boat headed for the beach, with a single occupant. The keel grated on the shore, the man sprang out, and came directly toward her, pausing with hat in hand--a tall fellow, dark and bewhiskered, with somber, dark eyes. "Ah, good evening, my pretty maid. Taking a stroll all alone, eh? Won't you have a moonlight row with me?" "No, thank you, sir; I am in a hurry to get home. Please stand aside," for he had placed himself in her way. "Not so fast, pretty maid. It is good manners, I trow, to answer a stranger's courteous questions, is it not?" still barring her way. "Well, show me the way to Cliffdene." The trembling girl pointed mutely back the way she had come. "Thank you--and again: Do you know Miss Roma Clarke?" "I have just seen her at Cliffdene," she answered. "So she is not married yet?" "Oh, no," Liane answered, trying to pass, but he caught her hand, exclaiming mockingly: "Not married yet? Well, that is very good news to me. I will give you a kiss, pretty one, for that information." "You shall not! Release me at once, you hound!" cried the girl, struggling to free herself. But the insolent stranger only clasped her closer and drew her to him, the fumes of his liquor-laden breath floating over her pure brow as he struggled to kiss her shrieking lips. And, absorbed in the conflict, neither one noticed a third person coming toward them from the town--an exceedingly handsome young man, who hurried his steps in time to comprehend the meaning of the scene before him, and then shot out an athletic arm, and promptly bowled the wretch over upon the wet sands. "Lie there, you cur, till I give you leave to rise!" he thundered, planting his foot on the fellow's chest while he turned toward the young lady. "Why, good heavens! Is it you, Miss Lester?" he cried, in wonder. "Yes, Mr. Devereaux. I was hurrying home from an errand to Cliffdene when this man jumped out of his boat, and threatened to kiss me." "Apologize to the lady on your knees, cur!" cried Jesse Devereaux, helping him with a hand on his coat collar. The wretch obeyed in craven fear. "Now tell me where you came from in the boat." "From the nearest town," sullenly. "Then get into that boat and go back to it as fast as you can row, and if you are ever caught in Stonecliff again, I promise to thrash you within an inch of your life." The defeated bully obeyed in craven silence, but the gleam of his somber eyes boded no good to the man who had so coolly mastered him. Devereaux and Liane stood side by side, watching the little boat shoot away over the dancing billows, leaving ripples of phosphorescent light in the wake of the oars. Then he turned and took her hand. "You had quite an adventure," he said. "Why, you are trembling like a leaf, poor child!" He felt like drawing her to his breast, and soothing her fears; but that would not be conventional. So he could only regard her with the tenderest pity and admiration, while clasping the trembling little hand as tight as he dared. Liane was so nervous she could not speak at first, and he continued gently: "It was rather imprudent for a young girl like you to be walking out alone after nightfall. Did you not know it, Miss Lester?" She faltered nervously: "Oh, yes, I knew it! I was frightened almost to death, but I--I could not help it!" "Why?" "My employer sent me on an errand to Cliffdene, and I was detained there until after dark." "They should have sent some one to see you safely home." "Yes," Liane answered, shivering, but not making any explanation. She hated in her simple, girlish pride to have him know how she had been treated by Roma Clarke. "I--I must be going now. Thank you ever so much for coming to my rescue," she added, stooping to gather her roses, that lay scattered on the sands. Jesse Devereaux helped her, and kept them, saying as he drew her little hand closely within his arm: "I will carry them and see you safe home." Arm in arm they paced along under the brilliant moonlight, with the solemn voice of the ocean in their ears. But they were heedless. They heard only the beating of their own excited hearts. The mere presence of this man, whom she had never met till to-day, filled Liane's innocent heart with ecstasy. To be near him like this, with her arm linked in his so close that she felt the quick throbbing of his disturbed heart; to meet the glances of his passionate, dark eyes, to hear the murmuring tones of his musical voice as he talked to her so kindly--oh, it was bliss such as she had never enjoyed before, but that she could have wished might go on now forever! He made her tell him all that the stranger had said to her, and Liane felt him give a quick start when Roma's name was mentioned, although he said lightly: "He must be some discarded lover of Miss Clarke." "Yes," she answered, and, raising her eyes, she saw near at hand the wretched shanty she called her home. How short their walk had been--barely a minute it seemed to the girl! But now they must part. She essayed to draw her hand from his clasping arm, murmuring: "I--I cannot let you go any farther with me, please! Granny does not allow me to walk out with--with gentlemen! She told me to come home alone!" Jesse Devereaux protested laughingly, but he soon saw that Liane was in terrible earnest, her face pale, her great eyes dilated with fear, her slender form shaking as with a chill. "Do you mean to say that you cannot have the privilege of receiving me sometimes as a visitor under your own roof?" he asked, more seriously then; but the girl suddenly uttered a low moan of alarm, and shrank from him, turning her eyes wildly upon an approaching grotesque form. Granny had worked herself into a fury over Liane's long stay, and at last hobbled forth to meet her, armed with a very stout cane, that would serve the double purpose of a walking stick and an instrument of punishment. And, in spite of her age, she was strong and agile, and Liane would have cause to rue the hour she was born when next they met. She strained her malevolent gaze all around for a sight of the truant, and when they lighted on Liane and Devereaux, arm in arm, a growl of fury issued from her lips. Before Liane could escape, she darted forward with surprising agility, and lifted her stout cane over the girl's shrinking head. A start, a shriek, and Devereaux saw, as suddenly as if the old hag had arisen from the earth by his side, the peril that menaced Liane. That descending blow was enough to kill the frail, lovely girl, the object of granny's brutal spite! Another instant and the stick would descend on the beautiful head! But Devereaux's upraised arm received the force of the blow, and that arm fell shattered and helpless by his side, but the other hand violently wrenched the old woman away from her victim, as he demanded: "You vile beast! What is the meaning of this murderous assault?" They glared at each other, and the old woman snarled: "I have a right to beat her! She disobeyed my orders, and she belongs to me. She's my granddaughter." "Heaven help me, it is true!" moaned Liane, as he looked at her for confirmation. "Let me get at her! Let me get at her!" shrieked granny, intent on punishing the girl, and writhing in Devereaux's clutch. But Devereaux, with one arm hanging helpless at his side, held her firmly with the other. "You shall not touch her!" he said sternly. "You shall go to prison for this outrage." At that both the old woman and the girl uttered a cry of remonstrance. Devereaux looked at Liane inquiringly, and she faltered: "The disgrace would fall on me!" "Yes, yes, she is my granddaughter," howled granny eagerly, seeing her advantage. Devereaux comprehended, too. He groaned: "But what can you do? You must not be exposed again to her fury!" Granny glared malevolently, while Liane bent her eyes to the ground, meditating a moment ere she looked up, and said timidly: "I think you are right. I cannot live with granny any more, for she would surely kill me some day. Let her go home, and I will go and spend the night with Dolly Dorr, who lives not far from here." "You hear what Miss Lester says? Will you go home peaceably, while she goes to her friend for safety?" demanded Devereaux, eager to close the scene, for he was faint from the pain of his broken arm. Granny saw that she was cornered, and cunningly began to feign repentance, whimpering that she was sorry, and would never do so any more if Liane would only come home with her now, for she was afraid to spend the night alone. "She shall not go with you, you treacherous cat," he answered sternly, releasing her and bidding her angrily to return home at once. Cowed by his authority, she could not but choose to obey, but as she started, she flung back one shaft: "Better come with me, Liane, than stay with him, my dear. Remember my warnings about rich young men and pretty, poor girls! A beating is safer than his love!" Liane's cheeks flamed at the coarse thrust, but Devereaux said earnestly: "Do not mind her taunt, Miss Lester. I will always be a true friend to you, believe me!" "You are a true friend already. From what horrors have you saved me to-night?" Liane cried, bursting into tears. "Your poor arm, how helpless it hangs! Oh, I fear it has been broken in my defense," and suddenly sinking on her knees, in an excess of tenderest gratitude, she pressed her warm, rosy lips to the hand that had so bravely defended her from insult and injury. "Oh, you are a hero, you have saved my life, and I can never forget you!" she sobbed hysterically. "Yes, my arm is broken; I must hurry back to town and have it set," he answered faintly. "I must let you go on to Miss Dorr's alone, but it is not far, and you are safe now. Good night," he murmured, leaving her abruptly in his pain. CHAPTER IV. SECRET LOVE. Liane gazed after Devereaux's retreating form in bewilderment, her cheeks burning with the thought: "He was angry because I kissed his hand! Oh, why was I so bold? I did not mean to be, but it made my heart ache to see him suffering so cruelly from his defense of my life! How pale he looked--almost as if he were going to faint. Oh, I love him!" and she wept despairingly, as she hurried to Dolly Dorr's, careless now of the beautiful roses that lay crushed upon the ground where they had fallen. Dolly was sitting on her little vine-wreathed porch, singing a pretty love song, and she started in surprise as Liane came up the steps. "Why, Liane, my dear, what is the matter? You are crying; your cheeks are all wet!" she cried, putting her arms about the forlorn girl, who sobbed: "May I stay with you all night, Dolly? Granny has beaten me again, and I have run away!" "I don't blame you! You should have done it long ago. Of course you may stay with me as long as you wish!" replied pretty little Dolly, with ready sympathy, that might not have been so warm if she had known all that had transpired between Liane and Devereaux, on whom she had set her vain little heart. But Liane was too shy and nervous to tell her friend the whole story. She simply explained, when pressed, that granny had beaten her for walking with Devereaux that afternoon, and attempted it again because she was late getting home, after altering Miss Clarke's cape. "So I ran away to you," she added wearily. "That was right. We will all make you welcome," said Dolly cordially, sure that her father and mother, and her two little brothers, would all make good her promise. "You should have seen them all peeping out of the window in amazement this afternoon when I came walking up with the grand Devereaux at my side," she continued consciously. "I asked him in, and he sat on the porch nearly half an hour talking to me. When he was leaving, I asked him to call again, and pinned some pansies in his buttonhole, and what do you think he said, Liane?" "I could never guess," the girl answered, with a secret pang of the keenest jealousy. "He said: 'What exquisite pansies! They remind me of Miss Lester's eyes--such a rare, purplish blue, with dark shadings." Liane caught her breath with stifled rapture, that he had remembered her, but Dolly added wistfully: "He must have read in my face that I was disappointed at not having a compliment, too, for he went on to say that my eyes were just like bluebells. Liane, which are the prettier flowers, pansies or bluebells?" "I should say that it is all a matter of taste," Liane replied gently. So presently they went upstairs to bed, but Dolly was so excited she talked half the night. "Liane, have you heard of the Beauty Show that is to be held in the town hall next week?" she asked, as she rolled her yellow locks in kid curlers to make them fluffy. Liane shook her head. "No? Why, that is strange. Every one is talking about it, and they say that you and I are pretty enough to compete for the prize, although Miss Roma Clarke intends to exhibit her handsomest portrait." "Is it a portrait show?" "It is this way, Liane: A Boston artist has a commission to design the outside cover of a magazine for December, and he wants to get a lovely young girl for the central figure--a young girl taken from life. So he has advertised for five hundred pictures of beauties, to be delivered by next week, when they will be exhibited on the walls of the town hall, and judges appointed to decide on the fairest. Of course, the artist himself is to be one of the judges, and they say that Mr. Clarke and Mr. Devereaux will be two of the others, but I don't know the rest. Don't you think it's unfair, Liane, to have Roma Clarke's father and lover for judges? Of course, they will show her some partiality in their votes." Liane murmured with dry lips in a choking voice: "Is Mr. Devereaux Miss Clarke's lover?" "So they say, but I hope it's not true. I'm trying to catch him myself," confessed Dolly quite frankly. "I don't really think it's fair for Miss Clarke to compete for the prize, anyway. She ought to leave the chance to some beautiful, poor girl that needs that hundred dollars so much worse than she does!" "A hundred dollars!" exclaimed Liane. "Yes; just think of it! You must try for the prize, Liane." "I don't know; I must think over it first. Wouldn't it seem conceited in me? As if I were sure that I was a raging beauty?" doubtfully. "Why, so you are! Every one says so, and you can see it for yourself in the glass there! Prettier than I am, really!" Dolly owned magnanimously. "Small good my pretty face has brought me!" sighed Liane. "Well, it may get you that hundred dollars, if you try for it! And it might have gotten you a nice husband long ago, but for your cantankerous old granny! The idea of her slapping you for walking with that splendid Devereaux! But I'll give him a hint, when I see him again, never to go near you any more!" exclaimed Dolly, quite eager to give the warning, for she thought: "I didn't like the way he talked about her eyes; for she had certainly made an impression on him, and I'm afraid I shouldn't stand much chance if she went in to win against me. So I'm glad of granny's opposition for once! If I'm lucky enough to marry him, I'll have Liane at my house for a long visit, and introduce her to some good catches." Liane little dreamed of these shrewd thoughts in the pretty, little, yellow noddle, while Dolly prattled on: "You have not seen the artist, either, have you? His name is Malcolm Dean, and he's quite a handsome fellow. I wish one of us could catch him, Liane! Why, I've heard he gets a fortune for everything he designs, and that magazine has promised him a fortune for their December cover." "We had better go to sleep, Dolly, or we will be too tired to go to work in the morning," suggested Liane, and Dolly obediently shut her eyes and drifted off into dreamland. CHAPTER V. ROMA'S LOVERS. Haughty Roma Clarke did not give another thought to the poor sewing girl who had pleased her fastidious taste so entirely in the alteration of her cape. She threw the dainty wrap over her graceful shoulders, for the September evenings already grew chill, and wandered out into the grounds to watch for Jesse Devereaux, whom she expected to call. Her restless, impatient nature would not permit her to wait patiently in the drawing room to receive him. She thought it would be so gloriously romantic to stroll about the grounds, clinging to his arm, the splendid moonlight etherealizing her beauty, the murmur of the sea in their ears, the fragrance of flowers all around them. She would not be bothered here with papa or mamma coming into the room to talk to Jesse, and breaking up their delightful tête-à-tête. She went into a rose arbor near the gate, thinking that she would go out to meet him as soon as she heard the click of the latch. She had been there but a few moments when Liane passed by with the maid, but she kept very still, though she thought: "That girl is actually beautiful, and would look superb in good clothes instead of that simple, dark-blue print gown. How foolish it seems for poor girls to be pretty, when they can have nothing nice to set off their beauty. I suppose they must always be pining for riches. How that poor serving girl must have envied me while sewing on this cape! Well, I suppose Miss Bray will give her perhaps twenty-five cents for the extra work, and that will buy her a new ribbon. She ought to be glad that I made her alter it, giving her a little extra pay from her employer. Of course, she could not expect me to pay her myself. My allowance from papa is much too small to permit me the luxury of charity!" She heard Sophie's light tread, as she returned to the house and muttered: "I hate that maid. I know she tells tales of me to mamma, and that mamma believes everything, instead of scolding her for tattling! Never mind, Miss Sophie; see if I don't pay you off some time for your meddling! And as for giving you those old gowns you've been hinting for so long, I'd stick them into the fire first!" She gathered a rose, pulled it to pieces viciously, as if it had been the pert maid she was demolishing, then sighed impatiently: "Heigh-ho, how slow he is coming!" The gate latch clicked, and she sprang up with a start, her eyes flashing, her heart throbbing with joy. She looked out, and saw the figure of a man coming along the graveled walk. As he came opposite she started forward, crying sweetly: "Oh, Jesse, dear, is that you?" The man stopped and faced her. It was her father, and he laughed merrily: "Not Jesse, dear; but papa, dear!" Roma recoiled in bitter disappointment, and said petulantly: "Jesse promised to come. Have you seen him?" "No, I only walked outside the gates a little way. I saw no one except a very lovely young girl coming from here. Do you know anything about her, Roma?" "If she was dressed like a kitchen maid in a print gown, she was a girl from the dressmaker's who brought home some work," Roma answered carelessly. "I did not notice her dress in the moonlight. I could not keep my eyes from her face, she was so very beautiful," Mr. Clarke replied, somewhat dreamily. Roma shrugged her shoulders scornfully: "A poor girl has no business to be pretty," she exclaimed. Mr. Clarke frowned at the sentiment. "Roma, I do not like to hear you express yourself so heartlessly. You would like to be pretty even if you were poor." "I cannot even imagine myself poor like the common herd!" she retorted, tossing her beautiful head with queenly pride. If she had been looking at the man before her, she must have seen that a strange look came upon his face as his secret thoughts ran sarcastically: "Ignorance indeed is bliss, in this case." But he knew he could never tell her the truth, much as he sometimes longed to do it, in a sudden anger at her ignoble nature. He could not love the girl who had been taken from a foundling asylum, and placed in the stead of his own lost darling. Ah, no, it was impossible! It seemed to him that there was nothing lovable about Roma, although his wife clung to her with devotion. He looked at her as she faced him in the moonlight, so proud and confident of her position; her jewels gleaming, her silks rustling as she moved, and thought that, but for the chance that had brought her into his home, she, too, might now be dressed like a servant as she had so contemptuously said of poor Liane Lester. He felt as if he should like to cast it into her face, the willful, insolent beauty, but he clinched his teeth over the bitter words. "Heaven help me to bear my cross for Elinor's sake!" he thought. Roma suddenly came closer to him, and placed her hand on his arm, saying coaxingly: "Please don't be angry, papa, dear! I didn't mean to seem heartless!" "I'm glad of that, Roma, for your heart should be full of sympathy, instead of contempt, for that poor, pretty, little sewing girl." "Yes, papa," gently answered Roma, for she intended to ask him for some new jewels to-morrow, and did not wish to vex him. "Tell me," he continued eagerly, "all that you know about this pretty Miss Lester." "I know nothing, papa. I never saw her before this evening, when she brought home my work, and said she was one of Miss Bray's sewing girls. Why, what an interest you take in her, papa! Did you stop and speak to the poor girl?" "She was running to get home in a hurry, and tripped and fell down; I assisted her to rise. We introduced ourselves, and then she went on; that was all," he explained. "Well, I will leave you to watch for Jesse, while I go and talk to your mamma." Beautiful Roma looked after Mr. Clarke with angry eyes, muttering: "The idea of scolding me, his daughter and heiress, about that insignificant little sewing girl! And he thought her very beautiful. I wonder if mamma would be jealous if she heard of his open admiration! I think I will give her a hint, and see!" and she laughed wickedly, while she again turned her eyes toward the gate, watching for her laggard lover. "Why doesn't he come?" she murmured impatiently, for Roma was so spoiled by overindulgence of a willful nature that she could not bear to wait for anything. She was imperious as a queen. As the minutes slipped past without bringing the lover, for whom she waited so eagerly, her angry temper began to flame in her great, red-brown eyes like sparks of fire, and she paced back and forth between the arbor and the gate like a caged lioness, her bosom heaving with emotion. Jesse Devereaux, who had known her only as a bright, vivacious girl, would not have known his sweetheart now, in her fury of rage at his nonappearance. Angry tears sparkled in her eyes, as she cried: "If he could not keep his word, he should have sent an excuse. He must know I shall be bitterly disappointed!" All the beauty of the night mattered nothing to her now. The moonlight, the flowers, the murmur of the sea, were maddening to the girl waiting there alone for her recreant lover. Love and hate struggled for mastery in her capricious breast. Jesse Devereaux had been hard to win, but she prized him all the more for that, and she could not bear the least apparent slight from him. "He did not care to come; he has let some trivial excuse keep him away! I will have to teach him that he cannot trifle with my love!" she vowed darkly, flying into the house in a passion. Seating herself angrily at her desk, she wrote: MR. DEVEREAUX: Your failure to keep your engagement with me this evening, without any apparent excuse, seems to me a sufficient excuse for breaking our engagement. ROMA. She tore a sparkling diamond from her finger, wrapped it in a bit of tissue paper, and inclosed it in the letter, hurrying downstairs again and sending it off to Stonecliff by a messenger, with special directions to deliver it personally to Jesse Devereaux at his hotel. Her feelings somewhat relieved by this explosion of resentment, Roma laughed harshly, murmuring to herself: "He will be here the first thing in the morning to beg me to take him back, promising never to slight me so cruelly again. Of course, I will forgive him, after pouting a while, and making him very uneasy, but from this day forward he will have learned a lesson that I must be first with him in everything. I will never tolerate neglect, and he must learn that fact at once." She was so agitated she could not go into the house just yet. She wandered about the grounds, trying to overcome her angry excitement before she went in, for she knew that her mother was sure to come to her room for a little chat before retiring, and she could not bear her questioning. "Dear mamma, I know she idolizes me, but at times I find her very tiresome," she soliloquized. "How tired I get of her lecturing on the beauty of goodness, as if I were the wickedest girl in the world! I know I am not goody-goody, as she is, and I don't want to be! Good people don't have much fun in this world; they let the wicked ones get the advantage and run over them always. However, I shall be as sweet as sugar to her to-night, for I want her to help me tease papa to-morrow for that set of rubies I want!" She leaned upon the gate, letting the cool wind caress her heated brow, waiting for her cheeks to cool, and her heart to thump less fiercely with anger before she went in to encounter her mother's searching gaze; but it would have been a thousand times better for her if she had gone to sob her grief out on that mother's gentle breast, than waited here for the fate that was swiftly approaching. The dark, sinister-looking stranger who had insulted Liane Lester on the beach had rowed back to shore as soon as Devereaux was out of sight. He was interested in Roma Clarke, as his questions to Liane had plainly shown. He came slowly, cautiously, up to the gate, his heart leaping with hope as he saw a beautiful head leaning over it that he hoped and believed must be Roma's herself. "What luck for me, and what a shock for her!" he muttered grimly, as he advanced. At the same moment Mrs. Clarke was sending Roma's maid out with a message that it was so chilly she ought to come in, or she might take cold. She would not listen to her husband's remonstrance that Roma was with her lover, and might not wish to be interrupted. "Jesse can come in, too; I am sure he would not wish Roma to get sick out in the night air with nothing on her head!" cried the anxious mother. "How you love that girl!" he cried testily, and she laughed sweetly. "Are you getting jealous of my love for our daughter, dear? You need not, for the first place in my heart is yours, but remember how devoted I have always been to Roma, ever since she was born." "I know, but has she ever seemed to show the right appreciation of your devotion?" he exclaimed abruptly. A deep and bitter sigh quivered over the wife's lips, but she parried the question with a complaint: "You are always insinuating some fault against my darling. Your heart is cold to her, Edmund." He put his arms around her, and kissed the still lovely face with the passion of a lover. "At least it is not cold to you, my darling!" he cried; and pleased at his love-making, she momentarily forgot Roma, and nestled confidingly against his breast. He was glad that she could not know his secret thoughts, for they ran stubbornly: "She is right. My heart is indeed cold to Roma. I shall be glad when Devereaux marries her and takes her away, and I do not believe it will break my wife's heart, either; for she seemed to bear it well enough when her daughter was away at boarding school those three years." Meanwhile Sophie went away most reluctantly with her message, thinking: "I am sure Miss Roma will not thank me for breaking up her tête-à-tête with her lover, for, of course, she is staying out just to keep him all to herself. But I cannot disobey Mrs. Clarke's commands, though I'll saunter along as slowly as I can, so as to give Miss Roma a little more time." Sophie was an intelligent and good-hearted girl, and might have been invaluable to Roma, if she could have appreciated such a treasure; but by her selfishness and arrogance she had completely antagonized the young woman, who only stayed, as she had frankly told Liane, for Mrs. Clarke's sake. As she strolled along, picking a flower here and there, and giving Roma all the time she could, she thought of Liane with pity and admiration. "There's a lovely girl for you! If she had been rich instead of Miss Roma, I fancy she'd make a better mistress," she murmured, and then the sound of subdued voices came to her ears. "There she is at the gate with Mr. Devereaux, sure!" she thought, as she saw two heads together, the man's outside, while the murmur of excited voices came to her ears. "I hope they aren't quarreling already! She had trouble enough hooking him, to be sure!" she thought as she went forward noiselessly, perhaps hoping to catch a word. She was rewarded by hearing Roma say: "I will come outside and talk with you. We must not run the risk of being overheard by any one from the house." The gate latch clicked as she stepped outside and joined her companion, a tall, dark man, whom Sophie did not doubt must be Jesse Devereaux. She led her companion out toward the high cliff, washed at its base by the surging sea, and Sophie stole after them, thinking curiously: "Now, what secret have they got, these two, that no one from the house must overhear, I wonder? It is very strange, indeed, and I'll bet they have a mind to elope, just to make a sensation! These rich folks will do any foolish thing to get their names and pictures in the papers! They think it's fame, but any jailbird can get published in the papers. Well, I'll follow you, my lady, and there's one from the house who will hear your secret in spite of your precautions." She crept along after them, so near that if they had turned their heads they must have seen the skulking figure; but neither Roma nor the man looked back, but kept along the edge of the cliff on the narrow path, talking angrily, it seemed to Sophie, though their words were drowned by the roar of the sea, to the great chagrin of the curious maid. "But they are certainly quarreling! Ah, now they are stopping! I don't want to interrupt them yet; so I'll hide!" she thought, darting behind a convenient ledge. In the clear and brilliant moonlight the two figures faced each other, perilously near to the edge of the cliff, and Sophie, peering at them from her concealment, suddenly saw a terrible thing happen. The man had his back to the sea, facing Roma, and both were talking vehemently, it seemed, from their gestures; when all at once the girl thrust out her foot and struck her companion's knee, causing him to lose his balance. The result was inevitable. The tall figure lurched backward, swayed an instant, trying to recover itself, toppled over with a shriek of rage, and went over the cliff a hundred feet down into the foaming waters. CHAPTER VI. AFTER THE CRIME. Sophie Nutter could hardly believe the evidence of her own startled eyes when she saw the terrible crime of her young mistress. She knew that Roma was selfish and cruel, but she had never realized that such depths of wickedness were concealed beneath her beautiful exterior. When she saw Roma push the supposed Jesse Devereaux over the face of the cliff to a dreadful death, the hair seemed to rise on her head with horror, and from her lips burst an uncontrollable shriek of dismay and remonstrance, while she tried to spring forward with outstretched arms in a futile impulse to avert the man's awful fate. Too late! The writhing, struggling body went hurtling down over the high cliff, and struck the water with a loud thud that dashed the spray high in air. Then Sophie's limbs relaxed beneath her, and she fell in a heap like one paralyzed, behind the ledge of stones, while her terrified shriek went wandering forth on the air of night like a wailing banshee. But Roma had shrieked, wildly, too--perhaps in nature's recoil from her own sin--so Sophie's protesting cry lost itself in dismal echoes. Then all grew still save for the voice of the sea and the dash of water churning itself to fury at the foot of the bluff. The maid, crouching low in her concealment, heard Roma flying with terror-haunted footsteps from the scene of her awful crime, and muttered distractedly: "She has murdered her handsome lover, the beautiful fiend! God in heaven alone knows why! I thought she loved the very ground he trod on!" The maid was suffering from severe nervous shock. She sobbed hysterically as she thought of handsome Jesse Devereaux lying drowned at the foot of the cliff, and beaten by the cruel waves that would wash him out to sea when the tide turned, so that Roma's sin would be forever hidden from the sight of men. "I will go and inform on her at once! She shall suffer the penalty!" she vowed at first; but when she thought of gentle, loving Mrs. Clarke her resolution wavered. "It will kill her to learn of her child's wickedness, the good, gentle lady who has been so kind and generous to me! I do not know what to do! I would like to punish the daughter, and spare the mother, but I cannot do both," she groaned, in a state of miserable indecision. It was some time before her trembling limbs permitted her to drag herself from the spot; and when she gained the house and her bed she could not rest. She tossed and groaned, and at length was seized with hysterical spasms, obliging the housemaid to call for assistance. In the meantime Roma, far less excited than Sophie, had also retired to her room and flung herself down by the open window to await impatiently the inevitable good-night chat with her mother. "I wish she would not come. Her affection grows really tiresome at times," she muttered rebelliously, as she heard the light footsteps outside her door. Mrs. Clarke entered and sat down close to her daughter, putting her white hand tenderly on the girl's shoulder. "Good girl, to come in when mamma sent for you," she said caressingly, as to a child. "You--sent--for--me!" Roma faltered, in surprise. "Yes, by Sophie. I feared you would take cold, bareheaded out in the night air." "I have not seen Sophie," Roma muttered sullenly, with a downcast face. "Why did Jesse leave so soon?" continued the mother curiously. "He did not come. I have been walking in the grounds alone." "But your papa said, dear----" "Yes, I know; papa told you I was waiting for Jesse at the gate, but he never came. He disappointed me!" "Why, that is very strange, dear. And you are grieved over it, I see. Your face is pale, and your whole frame trembles under my touch. Do not take it so hard, darling. Of course Jesse was detained. He will come to-morrow." "He should have sent me an excuse, mamma!" "He must have been prevented. I am sure he would not neglect you purposely. He will explain to-morrow." Roma tossed her proud head, with a bitter laugh. "I tell you, mamma, I will not brook such negligence. I have broken our engagement." "Roma!" The girl gave a reckless laugh of wounded pride. "Yes; I sent him a note, with his ring, just now, setting him free." "You were precipitate, Roma; you should have waited for an explanation." "I did not choose to wait!" "I fear you will regret it." "I do not think it likely." Mrs. Clarke gazed at her in sorrowful silence, whose reproach goaded Roma into adding haughtily: "I wished to teach Jesse, early, a lesson that I am not to be neglected for anything; that I must be foremost always in his thoughts." "But have you not gone too far in giving him this lesson? His thoughts will not belong to you now." "He will bring back his ring, and beg me to take it back to-morrow." "Are you certain, Roma?" "As sure as I am of my life!" with a confident laugh. "Well, perhaps you know him better than I do, Roma, but I fancied Jesse Devereaux very high-spirited--too high-spirited to bear dictation." "He will have to bend to my will!" Roma cried arrogantly, and the gentle lady sighed, for she knew that her daughter made this her own motto in life. Power and dominion were hers by the force of "might makes right." Mrs. Clarke rose with a sigh and touched Roma's cheeks with her lips, saying kindly: "Well, I hope it will all come right, dear. Good night." She returned to her own room, thinking: "Poor girl, she is the miserable victim of her own caprice. I could see that she is too terribly agitated to sleep an hour to-night." CHAPTER VII. GRANNY'S REVENGE. The half dozen pretty young girls who served for Miss Bray were light-hearted, hopeful young creatures in spite of their poverty, and at their daily work they sociably discussed their personal affairs with the freedom and intimacy of friends. Beaus and dress were the choice topics just as in higher circles of society. Liane Lester was the only quiet one among them, granny's edicts barring her both from lovers and finery. Dolly Dorr was turning them all green with envy the next morning by boasting of the attentions she had received from the grand Mr. Devereaux, when one of the girls, Lottie Day, interposed: "He is not likely to call on you again very soon, for I heard Brother Tom saying at breakfast this morning that Mr. Devereaux had broken his arm by a fall last night." A chorus of compassionate remarks followed this announcement, and Dolly exclaimed vivaciously: "I wish I might be allowed to nurse the poor fellow!" Nan Brooks replied chaffingly: "Miss Roma Clarke might have some objection to that scheme. They say she is engaged to him." "That's why I want a good chance to cut her out. The proud, stuck-up thing!" cried Dolly indignantly, and from the remarks that followed it was plainly to be seen that Miss Clarke was not a favorite among the pretty sewing girls. Roma had never lost an opportunity to impress them with the difference in their stations and her own, as if she were made of quite a superior sort of clay, and the high-spirited young creatures bitterly resented her false pride. Not one of them but would have been glad to see Dolly "cut her out," as they phrased it, with the handsome Devereaux, but they frankly believed that there could be no such luck. In their gay chatter, Liane alone remained silent, her beautiful head bent low over her sewing to hide the tears that had sprung to her eyes while they talked of Jesse Devereaux's accident. "It was for my sake!" she thought gratefully, with rising blushes, though her heart sank like lead when she heard them saying he was engaged to Miss Clarke. "He belongs to that proud, cruel girl! How I pity him!" she thought. "Yet, no doubt, he admires her very much. She does not show him the mean, selfish side of her character, as she does to us poor sewing girls." She would have given anything if only she had not yielded to her passionate gratitude, and kissed his hand. "He was disgusted at my boldness. He believed I had given him my love unasked, and he turned away in scorn. Yet how could I help it, he was so kind to me; first saving me from that ruffian, then from granny's blows? Oh, how could I help but love him? And I wish, like Dolly, that I might be permitted to nurse him as some reparation for his goodness," she thought, her cheeks burning and her heart throbbing wildly with the tenderness she could not stifle. Every way she looked it seemed to her she could see his dark face, with its dazzling black eyes, looking at her with an admiration and tenderness they should not have shown, if he were indeed betrothed to another. Those glances and smiles had lured Liane's heart from her own keeping and doomed her to passionate unrest. She listened to everything in silence, nursing her sweet, painful secret in her heart, afraid lest a breath should betray her, until suddenly Ethel Barry, the girl next her, exclaimed: "How quiet Liane is this morning, not taking the least interest in anything we say!" "No interest! Oh, Heaven!" thought Liane, but Dolly Dorr interposed: "You would be quiet, too, if you had been beaten as Liane was by granny last night, and forced to seek refuge with a friend." Liane crimsoned painfully at having her own troubles discussed, but granny's faults were public property, and she could not deny the truth. "She is old and cross," she said, generously trying to offer some excuse. "You need not take up for her, Liane. She doesn't deserve it!" cried one and all, while Mary Lang, the oldest and most staid of the six girls, quickly offered to share her own room with Liane if she would never return to the old woman. She was an orphan, and rented a room with a widow, living cozily at what she called "room-keeping," and the girls had many jolly visits taking tea with Mary. Liane thanked her warmly for her offer. "But will you come?" asked Mary. "I cannot." "But why?" The girl sighed heavily as she explained: "Granny came to Mrs. Dorr's this morning, all penitence for her fault, and begged me to come home, promising never to beat me again." "Do not trust her; do not go!" cried they all; but it was useless. "She is old and poor. How could she get along without me? She would have to go to the poorhouse, and think how cruelly that would disgrace me!" cried Liane, who had no love for the old wretch, but supported her through mingled pride and pity. And she actually returned to the shanty that day when her work was done, much to the relief of the old woman, who feared she had driven her meek slave off forever. "So you are back? That's a good girl!" she said approvingly, and added: "They may tell you, those foolish girls, that I am too strict with you, Liane, but I'm an old woman, and I know what's best for you, girl. It was through letting your mother have her own way that she went to her ruin; that's why I'm so strict on you." "My mother went to her--ruin!" faltered Liane, flushing crimson, but very curious, for she had never been able to extract a word from granny about her parents, except that they were both dead and had been no credit to her while living. "Yes, her ruin," granny replied, with a malicious side glance at the startled girl. "She ran away from me to be an actress when she wasn't but seventeen, and a year later she came back to me with a baby in her arms--you! She had been deceived and deserted, and you, poor thing, had no lawful name but the one she had picked out of a book--Liane Lester." "Oh, Heaven!" sobbed the girl, burying her white face in her hands, thinking that this blow was more cruel even than one of the old woman's beatings. At heart Liane had a strange pride, and she was bitterly ashamed of her low origin and her cruel grandmother, whom no one respected because of her vile temper. To be told now that she had no lawful name, that her mother had been deceived and deserted, was like a sword thrust in the poor girl's heart. She sobbed bitterly, as granny added: "I didn't never mean to tell you the truth, but now that you are getting wild and willful, like your mother was, it's best for you to know it, and take her fate as a warning." Liane knew the accusation was not true, but she did not contradict it; she only sobbed: "Did my mother die of a broken heart?" "No, indeed, the minx; she got well and ran away again, and left you on my hands." "Is she living now?" "She is, for all I know to the contrary. But she takes good care never to come near me, nor to send me a dollar for your support." "I take care of myself, and you, too, granny." "Yes, the best you can; but she ought to help--the ungrateful creature!" granny exclaimed so earnestly that she could scarcely doubt the truth of her story. It was a cruel blow to Liane's pride, and up in her bare little chamber under the eaves that night she lay awake many hours sobbing hopelessly over her fate. "I would rather be dead than the daughter of a woman who was deceived and deserted! Mr. Devereaux would never give me a second thought if he knew," she sighed, with burning cheeks, as she sank into a restless sleep, troubled with dreams in which her hero's magnetic, dark eyes played the principal part--dreams so sweet that she grieved when the cold gray light of dawn glimmered upon her face and roused her to reality and another day of toil. Very eagerly the girls questioned her when she reached Miss Bray's as to granny's mood, and she answered quietly: "No, she did not scold me or strike me this time; she was kind in her way." But she did not tell them granny's way of kindness, for her heart sank with shame as she looked around the group of her light-hearted friends, thinking how different their lot was from hers; all of them having honorable parentage, and dreading lest they would not wish to associate with her if they knew she had no right to her pretty name, Liane Lester, that her wronged mother had simply picked it out of a story book. Miss Bray had a hurry order this morning--a white gown ruffled to the waist--so she set all the girls to work, and as they worked their tongues flew--they knew pretty nearly everything that had happened in the village since yesterday. The choice bit of gossip was that Miss Clarke's maid, Sophie Nutter, had left her, and gone to Boston. "They say she had a sick spell night before last, and went out of her head, talking awful things, so that the servants were quite frightened, and called up their mistress herself. Sophie had hysterical spasms, and accused Miss Roma of dreadful crimes right before her mother's face," said Mary Lang. "Miss Roma must have been very angry--she has such a temper," cried Dolly, as she threaded her needle. "Oh, Miss Roma wasn't present, and her mother took steps never to let her find it out, you may be sure." "It must have been something awful," said Lottie Day. "I should say so! She declared to Mrs. Clarke she had seen Miss Roma push Mr. Devereaux over the bluff and drown him! Just think--when Mr. Devereaux had not been near the place, but was lying at his hotel with a broken arm!" "It was all a dream," said Miss Bray from her cutting board. "Yes, but she could hardly be convinced yesterday morning that she had not really seen Miss Roma commit a murder. They had to send for the doctor to tell her that Mr. Devereaux was really alive at his hotel, having broken his arm by a fall on the sands. They say she went off into more hysterics when she heard that, and muttered: 'A fall over the cliff was more likely, but how he escaped death and got to shore again puzzles me. And why did she do it, anyway? It must have been a lovers' quarrel. I must get away from here. She will be pushing me over the bluff next.' And she had her trunk packed and went off to Boston, though she looked too ill to leave her bed," added Mary Lang, who had had the whole story straight from the housekeeper at Cliffdene. CHAPTER VIII. THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT. "Oh, how rash and foolish I have been!" thought Roma, the next day, when she heard of Jesse Devereaux's accident. "His arm broken by a fall on the sands last night--most probably on his way to see me, poor fellow! And in my angry resentment at my disappointment I have broken our engagement! How rash and foolish I am, and how much I regret it! I must make it up with him at once, my darling!" she cried repentantly, and hurried to her mother. "Mamma, you were right last night. I regret my hasty action in dismissing Jesse without a hearing. How can I make it up with him?" "You can send another note of explanation, asking his forgiveness," suggested Mrs. Clarke. "Oh, mamma, if I could only go to him myself!" she cried, impatient for the reconciliation. "It would not be exactly proper, my dear." "But we are engaged." "You have broken the engagement." Roma uttered a cry of grief and chagrin that touched her mother's heart. "Poor dear, you are suffering, as I foreboded, for last night's folly," she sighed. "Please don't lecture me, mamma. I'm wretched enough without that!" "I only meant to sympathize with you, dear." "Then help me--that is the best sort of sympathy. I suppose it wouldn't be improper for you to call on Jesse, at his hotel, would it?" "No, I suppose not." "Then I will write my note to him, and you can take it--will you?" Mrs. Clarke assented, and was on the point of starting when a messenger arrived with a note for Roma, replying to hers of the night before. In spite of his broken right arm, Jesse Devereaux had managed a scrawl with his left hand, and Roma tore it open with a burning face and wildly beating heart, quickly mastering its contents, which read: Mr. Devereaux accepts his dismissal with equanimity, feeling sure from this display of Miss Clarke's hasty temper that he has had a lucky escape. It was cool, curt, airy, almost to insolence; a fitting match for her own; and Roma gasped and almost fainted. Where was all her boasting, now, that she would teach him a lesson; that he would be back in a day begging her to take back his ring? She had met her match; she realized it now; remembering, all too late, how hard he had been to win; a lukewarm lover, after all, and perhaps glad now of his release. Oh, if she could but have recalled that silly note, she would have given anything she possessed, for all the heart she had had been lavished on him. With a genuine sob of choking regret, she flung the humiliating note to her mother, and sank into a chair, her face hidden in her hands. Mrs. Clarke read, and exclaimed: "Really, he need not comment on your temper while displaying an equally hasty one so plainly. He must certainly be very angry, but I suppose his suffering adds to his impatience." "He--he--will forgive me when he reads my second note!" sobbed Roma. "But you do not intend to send it now, Roma!" exclaimed Mrs. Clarke, with a certain resentment of her own at Jesse's brusqueness. But Roma could be very inconsistent--overbearing when it was permitted to her; humble when cowed. She lifted up a miserable face, replying eagerly: "Oh, yes, mamma, for I was plainly in the wrong, and deserve that he should be angry with me. But he will be only too glad to forgive me when he reads my note of repentance. Please go at once, dear mamma, and make my peace with Jesse! You will know how to plead with him in my behalf! Oh, don't look so cold and disapproving, mamma, for I love him so it would break my heart to lose him now. And--and--if he made love to any other girl, I should like to--to--see her lying dead at my feet! Oh, go; go quickly, and hasten back to me with my ring again and Jesse's forgiveness!" She was half mad with anxiety and impatience, and she almost thrust Mrs. Clarke from the room in her eagerness for her return. It mattered not that she could see plainly how distasteful it was to the gentle lady to go on such a mission; she insisted on obedience, and waited with passionate impatience for her mother's return, saying to herself: "He is certainly very angry, but she will coax him to make up, and hereafter I will be very careful not to let him slip me again. I can be humble until we are married, and rule afterward. Mamma will not dare leave him without getting his forgiveness for me. She knows my temper, and that I would blame her always if she failed of success." But there are some things that even a loving, slavish mother cannot accomplish, even at the risk of a child's anger. Jesse Devereaux's reconciliation to Roma was one of them. The mother returned after a time, pale and trembling, to Roma, saying nervously: "Call your pride to your aid, dear Roma, for Jesse was obdurate, and would not consent to renew the engagement. I am indeed sorry that I humbled myself to ask it." CHAPTER IX. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. Jesse Devereaux had never spent a more unpleasant half hour in his life than during Mrs. Clarke's visit. He admired and esteemed the gentle lady very much, and it pained him to tell her that he no longer loved her daughter, and was glad of his release. Yet he did so kindly and courteously, though he was well aware that no gentleness could really soften the blow to her love and pride. "I have been betrothed to your daughter only two weeks, dear madam, but in that short time I have discovered traits in her character that could never harmonize with mine. We have both been spoiled by indulgent parents; both are willful and headstrong. Such natures do best wedded to gentle, yielding ones. It is best for our future happiness that we should separate, although I should have kept faith with Roma, had she not yielded to her hasty temper and broken the engagement," he said. She looked at his pale, handsome face as he rested on the sofa, and decided that he was only holding out for pride's sake. Surely he must love beautiful Roma still--he could not hate her so soon. "Roma is not headstrong, as you think; only hasty and impulsive," she faltered. "See how she has humbled herself to you in the depths of her love. Why, I left her weeping most bitterly over her fault, and praying for your forgiveness. How can I go back and tell her you refuse it; that you scorn her love?" She was frightened, indeed, to return from an unsuccessful mission to Roma. There were tears in her imploring eyes as she gazed at him. "I do not refuse her my forgiveness; I accord it to her freely," he replied. "Neither do I scorn her love, but I do not believe it can be very deep, else she could not have been so angry with me last night. And I am free to confess that my love was not of the strongest, either, for I realize now that I am glad of my freedom, if you will pardon me for my frankness, dear lady." How could she pardon aught that must wound her daughter vitally? An angry flush rose into her cheek, her blue eyes flashed. "You are cruelly frank!" she cried; and he answered: "I lament the painful necessity, but circumstances leave me no alternative, Mrs. Clarke. I feel that I entered into an engagement too hastily, and that its sudden rupture is a relief. I tender my friendship to your daughter with profound gratitude for her kindness, but I can never again be her lover." In the face of such frankness she sat dumb. What was there to say that could move him? Her heart sank at the thought of Roma's disappointment. She rose unsteadily to her feet, blinded by angry tears. "I may still retain your friendship?" he pleaded, but her lip curled in scorn. "No, you are cruel and unjust to Roma. I despise you!" she answered, in wrath, as she stumbled from the room, wondering at his heartlessness. She would not have wondered so much if she could have known that Roma had never really filled his heart, but that the glamour of her fascinations and her open preference had somehow drawn him into a proposal that had brought him no happiness, save a sort of pride in winning the beautiful belle and heiress from many competitors. All the while he did not really love her; it was just his pride and vanity that were flattered. There had come a sudden, painful awakening that fateful day, when rescuing Liane Lester's veil. He had looked deep into those shy, lovely eyes of hers, and felt his heart leap wildly, quickened by a glance into new life. Roma's eyes had never thrilled him that way; he had never wondered at her great beauty; he had never longed to take her in his arms and clasp her to his heart at first sight. This was love--real love, such as he had never felt for the proud beauty he had rashly promised to marry. In that first hour of his meeting with Liane, he cursed himself for his madness in proposing to Roma. Yet, he was the soul of honor. He did not even contemplate retreating from his position as Roma's affianced husband. He only felt that he must avoid the fatal beauty of Liane, lest he go mad with despair at his cruel fate. Then had followed the meeting with her again, that night when he had so fortunately saved her from the insults of a stranger and the brutality of her old grandmother. How proud and glad he had been to defend her, even at the pain of a broken arm; how he had loved her in that moment, longed to shelter her on his breast from the assaults of the cruel world. He could never forget that moment when, overcome by gratitude, the girl had bent and kissed his hand, sending mad thrills of love through his trembling frame. Had he been free, he would have poured out his full heart to her that moment, and the tender stars would have looked down on a scene of the purest love, where two hearts acknowledged each other's sway in ecstasy. But he was bound in the cruel fetters of another's love, from which he could not in honor get free. His heart must break in silence. He had to hurry away from her abruptly to hide the love he must not confess. In his sorrow and suffering that night, judge what happiness came to him with Roma's angry letter, sent by special messenger, restoring his ring and his freedom! His heart sang pæans of joy as he let his thoughts cling lovingly to Liane, realizing that now he might woo and win the shy, sweet maiden for his own. Very early in the morning he penned his note to Roma, making it purposely curt and cold, that she might not attempt a reconciliation. He felt so grateful to her that he was not at all angry, and thanked her in his heart for her summary rejection. The unpleasant interview with Mrs. Clarke over, he dismissed the whole matter from his mind, and gave all his thoughts to Liane, chafing at the delay that must ensue from his forced confinement to his room. "You must let me get out of here as soon as possible, doctor. I have something very important to do!" he cried eagerly. "Love-making, eh?" bantered the doctor, thinking of Roma. "All right, my dear fellow. I shall have you walking about in a few days, I trust; but I warn you it will be a long while before you can do any but left-handed hugging!" "Pshaw!" exclaimed his patient; but he colored up to his brows. He was indeed thinking of how impassionedly he would make love to Liane when he saw her again. "I shall ask her to marry me on the spot!" he decided joyfully, "and--I hope I'm not vain--but I don't believe she will say no. We must be married very soon, so I can take her away from her wretched surroundings. That old grandmother can be pensioned off. She shall never see Liane again after she is my wife. Of course, the world will say I've made a mésalliance, but I'm rich enough to please myself, and my darling is beautiful enough to wear a crown." The doctor found him the most impatient patient in the world. He never complained of the pain in his arm, though it was excruciating. He only chafed at his confinement. "I want to get out," he said. "Doctor, you know I'm one of the judges at the Beauty Show to-morrow night." "I'm going to let you go with your arm in a sling. Hang it all, I wouldn't miss it myself for anything! Say, there's more than one beauty in Stonecliff, but it goes without saying that you judges will award the prize to Miss Clarke, eh?" cried the jocose physician. CHAPTER X. ROMA SEEKS A NEW MAID. Roma's rage and grief at her mother's failure to set matters straight between her and Devereaux were beyond all expression. But, for very pride's sake, she concealed the deepest bitterness of her heart. She could not accuse her gentle mother of wanton carelessness, for the tears stood in her deep-blue eyes as she told the story of her interview, concluding sadly: "Do not think, my darling, that I did not do my best to bring him to reason, putting pride away, and telling him how devotedly you loved him, and that it would break your heart to lose him now. He was cold and unresponsive to all my pleadings, and as good as said he was glad to be free of you. I confess I lost my temper at the last, and told him I despised him, before I came away." Roma did not speak, she only tapped the rich carpet with a restless foot, indicative of a white heat of repressed anger; but Mrs. Clarke did not read her mood aright; she thought she was bearing the blow with fortitude. In her keen sympathy she exclaimed: "It is a cruel blow to your pride and love, my daughter, and I only wish I knew how to comfort you." Roma lifted her white face and glittering eyes to Mrs. Clarke's anxious scrutiny, and actually laughed--a strange, mirthless laugh, that chilled her mother's blood. Then she said, with seeming coolness: "You can comfort me right off, mamma, by begging papa to give me those rubies I've wanted so long! As for Jesse, he is only holding off from pride! I shall win him back, never fear!" "You shall have your rubies, dear," her mother answered kindly, though she thought: "What a strange girl? How can she think of rubies at such a moment?" "Thank you, mamma, you are very good to me!" Roma answered prettily, in her gratitude for the rubies; then, as Mrs. Clarke was going out, she added: "I wonder if Sophie is well enough to get up and wait on me. I am in need of her services." Mrs. Clarke paused in some embarrassment, and answered: "I shall have to lend you my own maid till I can get you another. Sophie Nutter left quite abruptly this morning." "I'm glad of it. I disliked the girl, and I suspected her of telling tales of me to you!" cried Roma. Mrs. Clarke neither affirmed nor denied the charge. She simply said: "We should be kind to our servants, Roma, if we expect them to bear good witness for us." "Kindness is wasted on the ungrateful things!" Roma answered impatiently. "I must have another maid immediately." "But where shall we find her? Not in this little town, I fear. So we must send to Boston." "Wait! I have an idea, mamma!" "Well?" "I should like to have that neat little sewing girl that altered my cape that night. She is so clever with her needle, she would be a real treasure to me, and save you many dressmaking bills." "Would she be willing to come?" "We can find out by asking the old woman she lives with--you know, mamma, that old tumble-down shanty at the end of town, coming out of Cliffdene? It is a little more than a mile from here. Liane Lester lives there with an old grandmother that beats her every day, I've heard, and I've no doubt she would jump at the chance of a situation here!" Mrs. Clarke forbore to remind her daughter that she, too, had been accused of beating her maid; she only said warningly: "You would have to be kinder to her than you were to Sophie, or she would not be likely to stay, my dear." "How could you believe Sophie's fibs on me?" cried Roma petulantly; but Mrs. Clarke turned the exclamation aside by saying: "Perhaps you had better go and see about the new maid at once." "Oh, mamma, I think you might do it yourself! I--I am too nervous and unhappy to attend to it just now. Won't you just drive down into town again and see about the girl?" answered Roma. Mrs. Clarke did not relish the task, but she was so used to bearing Roma's burdens that she assented without a murmur, and went out again to see about the new maid, sadly troubled in her mind about what had happened last night, when the delirious maid had told such shocking stories on her daughter. "It could not be true; of course not, but it is shocking that Sophie should even have imagined such awful things! It all came of Roma being cross and impatient with her, and making a bad impression on her mind. Now, if this young sewing girl should consent to serve Roma, I shall make it a point to see that she is not ill-used," she thought, as her handsome carriage stopped at Liane's humble home, and the footman opened the door and helped her out. She swept up the narrow walk to the door, an imposing figure, thinking compassionately: "What a wretched abode! It will be a pleasing change to Liane Lester if the girl will consent to come to Cliffdene." She tapped on the open door, but no one replied, though she saw the old woman's figure moving about in the room beyond. "She is deaf and cannot hear me. I will just step in," she thought, suiting the action to the word. Granny was sweeping up the floor, but she turned with a start, dropping her broom as a soft hand touched her shoulder, and, confronting the beautiful intruder, asked: "Who are you? What do you want?" Mrs. Clarke smiled, as she replied: "I am Mrs. Clarke, of Cliffdene. I wish to see Liane Lester." "Liane's down to her work at Miss Bray's, ma'am, but you can tell me your business with her. I'm her grandmother," snarled granny crossly. "My daughter Roma has lost her maid; she wishes to offer Liane the vacant place, with your approval. She will have a pleasant home, and much better wages than are paid to her by Miss Bray for sewing." Mrs. Clarke had never seen Liane Lester, but she felt a deep sympathy for her from what she had heard, and was strangely eager to have her come to Cliffdene. So she waited impatiently for granny's reply, and as she studied the homely figure before her, a sudden light beamed in her eyes, and she exclaimed: "How strange! I recognize you all at once as the woman who nursed me when my daughter Roma was born. You have changed, but yet your features are quite familiar. Oh, how you bring back that awful time to me! Do you remember how my child was stolen, and that I would have died of a broken heart, only that she was restored to me almost at the last moment, when my life was so quickly ebbing away?" The quick tears of memory started to the lady's eyes, but granny's fairly glared at her as she muttered: "You are mistaken!" "Oh, no, I cannot be! I recall you perfectly," declared Mrs. Clarke, who had an astonishing memory for faces. "I never saw you before in my whole life! I never was a sick nurse!" declared the old woman, so positively and angrily that Mrs. Clarke thought that, after all, she might be mistaken. "Really, it does not matter. I was misled by a resemblance, and I thought you would be glad to hear of your nurse child again," she said. A strange eagerness appeared on the old woman's face as she muttered: "It's my misfortune that I haven't such a claim on your kindness, ma'am. God knows I'd be glad to meet with rich friends that would pity my poverty-stricken old age!" Mrs. Clarke's white hand slipped readily into her pocket, taking the hint, and granny was made richer by a dollar, which she acknowledged with profuse gratitude. "And as for Liane going as maid to your daughter, ma'am, I'd like to see this Miss Roma first, before I give my consent. I want to see if she looks like a kind young lady, that would not scold and slap my granddaughter," she declared cunningly. Mrs. Clarke colored, wondering if Sophie's tales had reached the old woman's ears, but she said quickly: "I would insure kind treatment to your grandchild if she came to serve my daughter." "Thank you kindly, ma'am. I believe you, but will you humor an old woman's whim and persuade Miss Roma to come to me herself?" persisted granny, with veiled eagerness. "I will do so if I can, but I cannot promise certainly," Mrs. Clarke replied, rather coldly, as she rustled through the door. She was vexed and disappointed. Everything seemed to go against her that day. How angry Roma would be at the old woman's obstinacy, and how insolently she would talk to her, looking down on her from her height of pride and position. It was as well to give up the thought of having Liane come at all. And how strangely like the old woman was to Mrs. Jenks, the nurse she had had with her when Roma was born. She was mistaken, of course, since the old creature said so; but she had such a good memory for faces, and she had never thought of two such faces alike in the world. But if Mrs. Clarke went away perturbed from this rencontre, she left granny sadly flustrated also. The old creature sat down in the doorway, her chin in her hands, and gazed with starting eyes at the grand carriage from Cliffdene rolling away. "Who would have dreamed such a thing?" she muttered. "Here I have lived two years neighbor to the Clarkes, and never suspected their identity, and never heard their girl's name spoken before! Well, well, well! And they want Liane to wait on Roma. Ha, ha, ha!" She seemed to find the idea amusing, for she kept laughing at intervals in a grim, mocking fashion, while she watched the road to Cliffdene as if she had seen a ghost from the past. "Will the girl come, as I wish? Will she condescend to cross old granny's humble threshold? I should like to see her in her pride and beauty. Perhaps she, too, might have a dollar to fling to a poor old wretch like me!" she muttered darkly. CHAPTER XI. THE BEAUTY SHOW. Roma was indeed surprised and angry at granny's summons. She flatly refused to go, declaring: "The insolence of the lower classes is indeed insufferable. Why, I offered that girl a situation much more profitable than the one she holds now, and here that crazy old witch, her grandmother, wishes to annoy me with all sorts of conditions! Call on her, indeed, in her old rookery of a house! I shall do nothing of the kind, but I will write a note to the girl, at Miss Bray's, and I have no doubt she will fairly jump at the chance, without saying 'by your leave' to that old hag!" Delighted at the idea of outwitting the insolent old woman, as she deemed her, Roma quickly dispatched a patronizing, supercilious note to Liane, and waited impatiently for the reply. She hardly gave another thought to poor Sophie Nutter, now that she was gone. Least of all did it enter her beautiful head that the maid had quit in fear and horror at the crime she had seen her commit that night. Mrs. Clarke, in her tenderness over Roma's feelings, had bound all the servants never to betray Sophie's wild ravings to her daughter. So, secure in her consciousness that her terrible deed had had no witness, Roma tried to dismiss the whole affair from her mind, believing that her victim lay at the bottom of the sea and could never rise again to menace her with threats of exposure, as he had done that night, bringing down on himself an awful fate. The man she had remorselessly hurled from the cliff to a watery grave belonged to an episode of Roma's boarding-school days, that she hoped was forever hidden from the knowledge of the world. The thought of exposure and betrayal was intolerable. It was a moment when she dare not hesitate. Desperation made her reckless, branded her soul with crime. The strongest love of her life had been given to Jesse Devereaux. Woe be to any one who came between her and that selfish love! Woe be to Devereaux himself when he scorned that love! Turbulent passion, that brooked no obstacle, burned fiercely in Roma's breast. Proud, vain, self-indulgent, she would brook no opposition in anything. Out of all the five hundred girls whose portraits had been accepted for the Beauty Show, there was not one more eager than Roma to win the prize--not for the money, but for the additional prestige it would add to her belleship. Her handsomest portrait had been offered, and Roma had scrutinized it most anxiously, hour by hour, searching for the slightest flaw. She had a wealth of rich coloring in eyes, hair, and complexion, but her features were not quite regular; her nose was a trifle too large, her mouth too wide. Aware of these defects, she would have been a little uneasy, only that she counted on the votes of her father and Devereaux as most certain. Besides, she considered that her brilliant social position must prove a trump card. "The palm will surely be mine, both by reason of beauty and belleship," she thought triumphantly, sneering, as she added: "The town will surely choose one of its own maidens for the honor, and who would think of awarding the prize to any one here except myself? True, they say that all of Miss Bray's pretty sewing girls have had their pictures accepted, and it's true that some of them are rather pretty, especially that Liane Lester, but who would think of giving a vote to a common sewing girl? I don't fear any of them, I'm sure! But, how I should hate any girl that took the prize from me!" she concluded, with a gleam of deadly jealousy in her great, flashing eyes, that could burn like live coals in their peculiar, reddish-brown shade. But an element of uncertainty was added to the situation, now, in the defection of Jesse Devereaux. "What if, in his passionate resentment against me, he should cast his vote for another?" she thought, in dismay so great that she determined to humble herself to the dust if she could but win him back. She sent him flowers every day, and, accompanying them, love letters, in which she poured out her grief and repentance; but, alas, all her efforts fell on stony ground. The recreant knight, busy with his new love dream, scarcely wasted a thought on Roma. He replied to her letters, thanking her for the flowers and her kindly sentiments, assuring her that he bore no malice, and forgave her for her folly; but he added unequivocally that his fancy for her was dead, and could never be resurrected. "His fancy! He can call it a fancy now!" the girl moaned bitterly, and in that moment she tasted, for the first time, the bitterness of a cruel defeat, where she had been so confident of success. She could not realize that he loved her no more, that the fancy she had so carefully cultivated was dead so soon! The pain and humiliation were most bitter. She rued in dust and ashes her hasty severance of her engagement. Added to the bitterness of losing his love was the pain of having him vote against her at the Beauty Show. "He will be sure to do so out of pure spite, even if he thought me the most beautiful of all!" she thought bitterly. "Oh, I wonder for whom he will cast his vote! How I should hate her if I knew! I--I could trample her pretty face beneath my feet!" In desperation she resolved to cultivate the acquaintance of the artist, Malcolm Dean. He was to be one of the judges, she knew. Perhaps she could win him over to her side. Gradually she took heart of hope again. It could not be possible Jesse's heart had turned against her so suddenly. No, no! When they met again she would be able to draw him back again. She had heard that he was going to be present at the Beauty Show. She would wear her new rubies and her most becoming gown for his eyes. There were other girls than Roma planning to look their prettiest that night, and one was Liane Lester. Her girl friends had persuaded her to send in her picture with theirs, and all six had been photographed in a large group by the Stonecliff artist. No one could gainsay the fact that it was a beautiful group, from the petite, flaxen-haired Dolly, to the tall, stately brunette, Mary Lang. Miss Bray was quite proud of them, and wished she had not been too old and homely to compete for the prize. "How sweet they look in their plain white gowns--as pretty as any millionaire's daughters!" she said proudly. "Indeed, I don't see why one of them can't take the prize? What if they are just poor sewing girls? Almost any of them is as pretty as Miss Clarke, with her fame as a beauty! But her pa's money helped her to that! Look at Liane Lester, now; that girl's pretty enough for a princess, and if she had fine fixings, like Roma Clarke, she could outshine her as the sun outshines the stars! But, of course, I wouldn't have Liane know I said it, because a poor girl must never cultivate vanity," she concluded to her crony, Widow Smith, who agreed to everything she said. Liane had been almost frightened at first when the girls insisted on her going to the Beauty Show to see the exhibition of photographs, and hear the prize awarded. "For if you should be chosen, you must be there to receive the prize," cried Dolly. "I could never dream of being chosen," the girl cried, with a blush that made her lovelier than ever. "You must come! Tell granny you have thrown off her yoke now, and intend to have a little fun, like other young girls. If she rebels, tell her you will leave her and live with me!" encouraged Mary Lang. "You mustn't miss it for all the world!" cried Lottie Day vivaciously. "Did you know that the ladies of the Methodist church intend to have a supper in the town hall, also, that night?" Little by little they tempted Liane to rebel against granny's arbitrary will and accompany them. "But I have nothing to wear!" she sighed. "Oh, a cheap, white muslin will do! It will look real sweet by gaslight, with a ribbon round your waist," suggested Miss Bray herself, and then Liane's heart gave a thump of joy. She told them about the five dollars Mrs. Clarke had given her for the work on Roma's cape, and how she had kept all knowledge of it from granny, longing to enjoy the money herself. "You were quite right, since she takes every penny of your wages!" they all agreed, while Miss Bray added kindly: "You can get a sweet pattern of white muslin and a ribbon for your waist and neck, with five dollars. I will cut and fit your gown for nothing." "And we girls will take parts of it home at night and help you make it!" cried her young friends. "Oh, how good you all are to me! I hope I may be able to return your favors some day," cried the girl, grateful tears crowding into her beautiful eyes. And just then came the note from Roma Clarke, offering Liane a situation as her maid. The girl shared the note with her friends, and they were unanimously indignant. "The idea of thinking that any of us would stoop to be a maid!" they cried, while Liane, with flushing cheeks, quickly indited a brief, courteous, but very decided refusal of the young lady's offer. CHAPTER XII. "THE QUEEN ROSE." "What impudence! She thanks me for my offer, but finds it quite impossible to accept. And her note is worded as if written to an equal!" cried Roma angrily, as she tossed Liane's answer to her mother. Mrs. Clarke examined it somewhat curiously, commenting on the neatness and correctness of the writing. "She has made good use of her limited opportunities for education," she said. "But, mamma, the idea of her refusing my offer, to remain with Miss Bray at three dollars a week." "Perhaps there is a little pride mixed up with her position. She may consider her present place more genteel, my dear." "I really do not see any difference to speak of. Poor people are all alike to me," Roma cried scornfully. "As for Liane Lester, I should like to shake her! I suppose her pretty face has quite turned her head with vanity! Why, mamma, she and those other sewing girls at Miss Bray's have even sent their pictures to the Beauty Show." "The competition was free to all, my dear, and poverty is no bar to beauty. I have seen some of the prettiest faces in the world among working girls. But still, I do not suppose any of Miss Bray's employees can compete with you in looks," returned Mrs. Clarke, with a complacent glance at her handsome daughter. "Thank you, mamma, but you haven't seen this Lester girl, have you? She is really quite out of the ordinary, with the most classic features, while I--well, I confess my features are the weak point in my beauty. I don't see why I didn't inherit your regular features!" complained Roma. "You do not resemble me, but you are not lacking in beauty, dear. I suppose you must be more like your father's family, though I never saw any of them. But don't begin to worry, darling, lest you should lose the prize. I feel sure of your success," soothed the gentle lady. "But, mamma, there is Jesse, who will be sure to vote against me for spite, and I'm afraid that papa is the only one of the judges I can count upon." "You cannot count upon him, Roma, because he has declined to serve, fearing to be accused of partiality if he votes for you." "Then I shall have to go entirely on my own merits," Roma returned, with pretended carelessness, but at heart she was furious at her father's defection, only she knew it was useless to protest against his decision. She had learned long ago that she could not "wind him around her little finger," as she could her adoring mother. Again her hopes recurred to Jesse Devereaux. She must make every effort to lure him back. Her mother's patient maid grew very tired dressing Miss Roma for the show when the night came. "She was as fussy and particular as some old maid! I did up her hair three times in succession before it suited! My! But she was cross as a wet hen! I believe she would have slapped me in the face if she had dared! I hope to goodness she may fail to get the prize, though I wouldn't have dear Mrs. Clarke hear me say so for anything in the world! But I'm just hoping and praying that some poor girl that needs the money may get that hundred dollars!" exclaimed the maid to her confidante, the housekeeper. There was not one among the servants but disliked the arrogant heiress, who treated them as if they were no more than the dust beneath her dainty feet. They whispered among themselves that it was strange that such a sweet, kind lady as Mrs. Clarke should have such a proud, hateful daughter. While Roma was arraying herself in the finest of silk and lace, set off by the coveted new rubies, Liane Lester was making her simple toilet at the home of Mary Lang, with whom she had promised to attend the show. Granny had most grudgingly given her consent to Liane's spending the night with Mary, since she dared not offer any violent opposition. Since Liane had threatened open rebellion to her tyranny, the old woman was somewhat cowed. Liane put up her beautiful, curling tresses into the simplest of knots, but she did not need an elaborate coiffure for the chestnut glory of rippling, sun-flecked locks. It was a crown of beauty in itself. She put on the crisp, white gown she had bought with Mrs. Clarke's gift, and Mary helped to tie the soft ribbons at her waist and neck. "Oh, you lovely thing! You look sweet enough to eat!" she cried. "Now, then, put on the roses your mysterious admirer sent you to wear, and we will be off." Liane blushed divinely as she fastened at her waist a great bunch of heavy-headed pink roses, that had been sent to Miss Bray's late that afternoon, with an anonymous card that simply read: FAIR QUEEN ROSE: Please wear these sister flowers at the Beauty Show to-night. No name was signed, but the merry girls all declared that Liane had caught a beau at last, and that he would be sure to declare himself to-night. They persuaded her to wear the roses, though she was frightened at the very idea. "Suppose some great, ugly ogre comes up to claim me!" she exclaimed apprehensively, as she pinned them on and set off, all in a flutter of excitement, for the town hall, clinging to Mary's arm, for she was quite nervous over the prospect of the evening's pleasure. Now, as she passed along the lighted streets to the festive scene, and saw others, also gayly bedecked, hurrying to the same destination, she felt a thrill of pleasant participation quite new and exhilarating. "Just see what I have missed all my life, through granny's hardness!" she murmured plaintively to Mary, who squeezed her arm lovingly, and answered: "Poor dear!" The hall was already crowded with people, and the supper of the Methodist ladies was busily in progress when they entered the place that was gayly decorated with flowers and bunting, framing the pictures that lined the walls. "Let us walk around and look at the beauties," Mary said, and, following the example of the other visitors, they mingled with the crowd and feasted their eyes on the five hundred pretty faces that were deemed worthy to compete for the prize. They soon found out that Miss Clarke's portrait and the group of six sewing girls claimed more attention than any others. But there were many eyes that turned from the pictured to the living beauty, and whispers went round that drew many eyes to Liane, wondering at her marvelous grace. Liane had never appeared at a public function in the town before, and many of the people thought she was a stranger. Curious whispers ran from lip to lip: "Who is the lovely girl with the pink roses?" Roma, in her rich gown and sparkling rubies, heard the question, and bit her lips till the blood almost started. "It is only one of the dressmaker's sewing girls!" she said haughtily, and started across the room to her mother, who had paused to speak to Jesse Devereaux. He had just entered, looking pale and superbly handsome; but with his right arm in a sling, and the lady, for Roma's sake, resolved to forget her resentment and try to propitiate him. "I am afraid I was too hasty that morning," she said gently. "Will you forgive me and be friends again, Jesse?" "Gladly," he replied, for he valued her good opinion, little as he cared for her proud, overbearing daughter. The next moment Roma, coming up to them, heard her mother exclaim, to her infinite chagrin: "Tell me, Jesse, who is that perfectly lovely girl in the white gown with the pink roses at her waist?" Jesse looked quickly, and saw Liane again for the first time since that eventful evening on the beach, when he had saved her from insult and injury. His heart gave a strangling throb of joy and love, mingled with pride in her peerless loveliness. "You are right. She is peerless," he answered, in a deep voice, freighted with emotion. "Her name is Liane Lester." "Impossible!" almost shrieked the lady in her surprise; but at that moment Roma confronted them, her proud face pale, her eyes gleaming, murmuring: "Oh, Jesse, how glad I am to see you out again! No wonder you were cross with me, suffering as you were with your poor arm. But I forgive you all." "I thank you," he replied courteously, and Roma took her station at his side quite as if she had the old right. He was vexed, for he was anxious to cross over to Liane and ask her to have an ice with him. Then he would keep at her side all the rest of the evening. He would see her home, too, and before they parted he would tell her all his love, and ask for her hand. With these ecstatic anticipations in his mind, it was cruel torture to be kept away from her against his will by the two ladies, and, worst of all, with an air as if they had a right to monopolize him all the evening. In desperation he asked them to take an ice with him, vowing to himself he would escape directly afterward. But Roma was thirsty that evening, it seemed. She took two ices, and trifled over them, her mother waiting patiently, while Jesse, outwardly cool and courteous, inwardly cursed his untoward fate, for he saw other men seeking introductions to Liane, and loading her with attentions, carried away by the charm of her beauty. Still he could not shake off Roma without absolute rudeness, for she clung to his arm persistently, though it was near the hour for the announcement of the award of the evening, and yet he had not spoken one word to fair Liane, the queen of his heart. Suddenly Malcolm Dean ascended the rostrum, and the gay, laughing groups about the hall became intensely still, waiting for his verdict. "I am no orator," he smiled. "So I will briefly announce, as a member of the committee of the beauty contest, that we examined the pictures in detail to-day, and unanimously award the prize for most perfect beauty to Miss Liane Lester!" A breathless hush had fallen on the crowd as Malcolm Dean's voice was heard speaking, and every ear was strained, not to lose a word--for many a fair young girl was listening in feverish excitement, hoping to hear her own name. Roma's heart gave a wild leap, her eyes flashed, her cheeks paled, and she half rose from her seat in uncontrollable excitement. But the suspense of the aspirants for the prize lasted but a moment, for Malcolm Dean purposely made his announcement audible to every one in the hall: "Miss Liane Lester!" The name ran from lip to lip in excited tones, while many a young heart sank with disappointment, so many had hoped to be chosen queen of beauty, caring more for the honor even than the money. Then the voices swelled into plaudits, and Liane, shrinking with bashful joy, heard her name shouted from eager lips: "Miss Lester! Miss Lester!" Roma had uttered a stifling gasp of disappointment, and sank heavily back into her seat. "She is the most beautiful girl I ever saw!" cried Jesse impulsively. It was cruel to tell Roma this, and he realized it, but his heart was on his lips. He could not check it, though he saw the deadly fire of hate leap into her flashing eyes. Mrs. Clarke touched her daughter's arm caressingly, saying: "Do not feel so badly over it, Roma, darling. No doubt the committee were governed somewhat by partiality, thinking that the prize ought to be given some poor girl who needed the money." Jesse felt the delicate thrust, and answered quickly: "You were struck with her beauty yourself, Mrs. Clarke!" "Yes, she is a very pretty girl," she replied, rather carelessly, then paused, as Malcolm Dean lifted his hand for silence, and said in the hush that followed: "Will Miss Lester please come forward and receive the prize?" A wild impulse came to Devereaux to escort Liane forward. How proud he would be to take that little fluttering hand and lead her to the rostrum to receive the award! He knew that every eye would be on them, that it would be a virtual declaration of his sentiments toward her, but he gloried in the thought. He rose quickly, exclaiming: "Excuse me, please!" But Mrs. Clarke's voice, cold and grating, fell on his ear: "Please escort Roma to the open air--to the carriage! Do you not see that she is almost fainting?" Roma was indeed drooping heavily against her mother, in pretended weakness. Her ruse had its effect. Jesse had to offer his arm and lead her from the room, followed by her mother. After some little delay their carriage was found, and, while placing them in it, Mrs. Clarke said coolly: "Now if you will find my husband and send him to us, you will add greatly to the obligation you have placed us under." He bowed silently and hurried away, meeting Mr. Clarke, fortunately, coming out. A hasty explanation, and they parted, Devereaux returning to the room, wild to speak to Liane after all this baffling delay. But the prize had been presented, and Liane was surrounded by an obsequious crowd, offering eager congratulations. By her side stood the handsome young artist, Malcolm Dean, gazing with rapt admiration on her shy, blushing face, and then Devereaux remembered that the artist had said, while they were deciding on the pictures that afternoon, that this was surely the fairest face in the whole world, and he should not rest until he knew the original. "If the counterfeit presentiment can be so charming, how much more lovely, the original!" he exclaimed. And now by his looks Devereaux saw that his anticipations were more than realized. The ethereal charm of Liane's beauty held him as by a spell. It seemed to Liane as if she had fallen asleep and waked in a brighter world. But an hour ago she had been poor little Liane Lester, the humble sewing girl, who had spent her little fortune, five dollars, the largest sum she had ever possessed at once in her life, on this simple white gown for the festal occasion. Now she stood there, the centre of admiring congratulations, receiving introductions and alternately bowing and smiling like some great beauty and heiress. She felt like an heiress, indeed, with that crisp new hundred-dollar bill tucked into her belt, and her cheeks glowed with shy pride and joy, for she had dared to indulge some trembling daydreams over gaining the prize, and now she hoped they might be realized. There were sad hearts there, too, for many a vain little maiden was disappointed, among them Dolly Dorr, who stifled her chagrin, however, and kissed Liane very sweetly, saying: "Don't forget that I persuaded you to compete for the prize, although I was afraid all the time you would carry it off from us all." Every one laughed at Dolly's naïve speech. She was such a frank, pretty little thing, and, next to Liane, the prettiest girl in Miss Bray's employ. But among all the disappointed ones, no one had been so vexed as to leave the scene like Roma, and it was soon whispered through the room that she had scolded her lover for giving his vote to Liane instead of herself. "I heard them quarreling; I was just behind Mrs. Clarke," said the lady who had started the report, and she added that Roma had been taken almost fainting to her carriage, unwilling to remain and witness her rival's triumph. There were many who rejoiced over Roma's defeat, and others who wondered at Devereaux's disloyalty. He should have paid her the compliment of his vote, since it could have made no difference in the result, they said. But Devereaux, returning to the hall, eager to speak to Liane, and indifferent to comments on his actions, was forced to stand on the verge of the crowd waiting his turn, till Dolly Dorr, espying him, hastened to his side. She said to herself that here was one prize, at least, that Liane had not won yet, and she would lose no time trying to make good a claim. "If he has quarreled with Miss Clarke, so much the better. Hearts are often caught in the rebound," she thought eagerly, as she engaged his attention with some bantering words. Devereaux smiled kindly on the sunny-haired little maiden, but she found it impossible to engross his attention. She soon saw that his whole mind was fixed on Liane, and he could not keep from watching her face, until Dolly said quite crossly: "You are like all the rest! You cannot keep your eyes from off Liane Lester, now that she has taken the beauty prize!" Devereaux answered dreamily: "I could look at her forever!" His brilliant, dark eyes glowed and softened with tenderness, and a passionate flush reddened his smooth olive cheek. Dolly stared, and said sharply: "Perhaps Miss Clarke wouldn't like that so well!" "What has she to do with my looking at Miss Lester?" he cried impatiently. "But aren't you engaged to Miss Clarke?" "No, I am not!" "But everybody says so!" "Everybody is mistaken." Dolly's eyes beamed with joy as she cried gayly: "Then you are free, Mr. Devereaux?" He answered with a happy laugh: "Free as the wind--free to look at Miss Lester as much as I choose--or as long as she will allow me." This did not please Dolly at all, so she said spitefully: "I dare say she doesn't care whether you look at her or not! She has no eager eyes for any one but that handsome Mr. Dean, and he has been standing beside her ever since he gave her the prize, and walked back to her seat with her, just as if they were lovers." "You are trying to make me jealous, Miss Dolly!" he laughed, unwilling for her to perceive the pain she gave him. And he added, as some of the crowd around Liane moved aside: "Please excuse me while I speak to Miss Lester." Dolly made an angry little pout at him as he moved away. She had forgiven Liane for winning the prize of beauty, but if she carried off Devereaux's heart, too, why, that would be quite different. Liane knew how Dolly had set her heart on him. It would be mean if she came between them, she thought. She managed to get near them when they met, and marked Liane's blush and smile of pleasure. "And she always pretended not to care for flirting! But I suppose she will turn over a new leaf from to-night," she muttered jealously, as she edged nearer, trying to overhear everything that passed between the pair. She had one triumph, at least, when she heard Devereaux prefer a low request to walk home with Liane that evening. "I am very sorry, but--I have already promised Mr. Dean," the girl murmured back, in regretful tones. CHAPTER XIII. EDMUND CLARKE'S SUSPICION. Roma Clarke gave her parents a very uncomfortable quarter of an hour riding home that evening. She threw pride to the winds, and raved in grief and anger at her defeat in the contest for the beauty prize, charging it most bitterly at the door of Jesse Devereaux. Mr. Clarke learned for the first time now of the broken engagement, and, on finding that it was Roma's fault, he could not help censuring her severely for the folly by which she had lost her lover. He thought bitterly in his heart: "Ah, how different my own sweet daughter must have been from this ill-tempered, coarse-grained girl who betrays her low origin in spite of the good bringing up and fine education she has received! My poor wife! How disappointed she must feel at heart, in spite of her brave show of affection and sympathy! And, as for Jesse Devereaux, he is a splendid young fellow, and has had a lucky escape from Roma's toils. I cannot feel that she will make any man a lovable wife, though I shall be glad enough to have her married off my hands!" When Roma had gone, sobbing, to her room, he talked very earnestly to her mother, somewhat blaming her for encouraging the girl's willful temper. "She is spoiled and selfish," he declared. "I for one am willing to own that the prize was well given to Miss Lester. She is very lovely--far lovelier than Roma!" "How can you say so of our dear girl?" Mrs. Clarke cried reproachfully. "Because, my dear wife, my eyes are not blinded, like yours, by love and partiality, and thus I can do justice to others," he answered firmly. "You have never loved our daughter as you should. Therefore, I have felt it my duty to love and cherish her the more!" she sobbed. He took her tenderly in his arms, and kissed the beautiful, quivering lips, exclaiming: "Oh, my love, if our daughter were more like you, I could love her a hundredfold better! But, alas, she is so different, both in beauty and disposition, from my angel wife!" "I have fancied she must be like your own relations, Edmund." "Perhaps so," he replied evasively, continuing: "This girl who took the prize this evening won my admiration, darling, because she has a wonderful likeness to you in your young days, Elinor; when we were first married." "Oh, Edmund, I was never so exquisitely beautiful!" she cried, blushing like a girl. "Oh, yes, indeed; quite as beautiful as Liane Lester--and very lovely still," he answered, gazing into her eyes with the admiration of a lover, giving her all the tenderness he withheld from Roma, his unloved daughter. She nestled close to his breast, delighted at his praises, and presently she said: "It is rather a coincidence, your fancying that Miss Lester looks like me, while I imagine that her grandmother--a dreadful old creature, by the way--resembles Mrs. Jenks, the old woman who nursed me when Roma was born." Some startled questioning from her husband brought out the whole story of her visit to granny. "Of course I was mistaken in taking her for Mrs. Jenks, but the old crone needn't have been so vexed over it," she said. Edmund Clarke was startled, agitated, by what she had told him, but he did not permit her to perceive it. He thought: "What if I have stumbled on the solution of a terrible mystery? The likeness of Liane Lester to my wife is most startling, and, coupled with other circumstances surrounding her, might almost point to her being my lost daughter!" He trembled like a leaf with sudden excitement. "I must see this old woman--and to-night! I cannot bear the suspense until to-morrow!" he thought, and said to his wife artfully: "Perhaps I am selfish, keeping you from poor Roma in her distress." "I will go to her at once, poor child," she said, lifting her fair head from his breast. "And I will take a walk while I smoke," he replied, leaving her with a tender kiss. He lighted a cigar, and started eagerly for the cottage of granny, hoping to find her alone ere Liane returned from the hall. His whole soul was shaken with eager emotion from what his wife had told him about the old woman's identity. In the cool, clean September moonlight he strode along the beach, eager-hearted as a boy, in the trembling hope of finding his lost child again. What joy it would be to find her in the person of lovely Liane, who had already touched his heart with a subtle tenderness by the wonderful likeness that brought back so vividly his wife's lost youth in the days when they had first loved with that holy love that crowned their lives with lasting joy. Not one cloud had marred their happiness save the loss of their infant daughter. He had restored what happiness he could to Elinor by the substitution of a spurious child, but for himself there must ever be an aching void in his heart till the lost was found again. He stepped along briskly in the moonlight, and to his surprise and joy he found the old woman leaning over the front gate in a dejected attitude, as if loneliness had driven her outdoors to seek companionship with nature. "Ah, Mrs. Jenks, good evening!" he exclaimed abruptly, pausing in front of her and lifting his hat. Granny started wildly, and snapped: "I don't know you!" "You have a poor memory," laughed Mr. Clarke. "Now, I knew you at once as Mrs. Jenks, who nursed my wife when our daughter Roma was born. My name is Edmund Clarke. We used to live in Brookline. I sold my property there and moved away when Roma was an infant." "I never heard of Brookline before, nor you, either!" snapped granny. "Your memory is bad, as I said before, but you won't deny that your name is Jenks?" Mr. Clarke returned. As the whole town knew her by that name, she felt that denial was useless, but she preserved a stubborn silence, and he continued: "I came to ask you, granny, how you came by such a beautiful granddaughter." "Humph! The same way as other people come by grandchildren, I s'pose. My daughter ran away to be an actress, and came back in a year without a wedding ring, and left her baby on my hands, while she disappeared again forever," returned granny, with an air of such apparent truthfulness that he was staggered. He was silent a moment, then returned to the charge. "How old is Liane?" "Only seventeen her next birthday." "I should have taken her for quite eighteen." "Then you would have made a mistake." "Is her mother dead?" "I don't know. I never heard of her after she ran away and left her baby on my hands." "Eighteen years ago?" "No; not quite seventeen, I told you, sir." "And you do not really remember Mrs. Clarke, whom you nursed at Brookline eighteen years ago? Come, it ought to be fresh in your memory. Do you not recall the distressing facts in the case? The infant was stolen from my wife's breast, and she was dying of the shock when a spurious daughter was imposed on her, and she recovered. You, Mrs. Jenks, were sent to the foundling asylum for the child, and laid it on Mrs. Clarke's breast, restoring her to hope again. You cannot have forgotten!" Granny Jenks looked at him angrily in the moonlight. "You must be crazy! I don't know you, and I don't care anything about your family history! Go away!" she exclaimed fiercely. Mr. Clarke was baffled, but not convinced. He stood his ground, saying firmly: "You may bluster all you please, Granny Jenks, but you cannot shake my conviction that you are the wretch that stole my daughter, and placed a foundling in her place to deceive and make wretched my poor wife. This girl, Liane Lester, is the image of my wife, and I am almost persuaded she is my own daughter. If I have guessed the truth it will be wiser for you to confess the fraud at once, for denial now will be useless. I believe I am on the right track at last, and I will never stop till I uncover the truth. And--the more trouble you give me, the greater will be your punishment." His dark eyes flashed menacingly, and the hardened old woman actually shivered with fear for an instant. Then she shook off the feeling, and turned from him angrily, reëntering her house, and snarling from the doorway: "I know nothing about your child, you crazy fool! Go away!" CHAPTER XIV. ROMA FINDS AN ALLY. Dolly Dorr was right. Handsome Malcolm Dean had never quitted Liane's side since the moment he had clasped her hand in congratulating her on her triumph as queen of beauty. He remained by her side, enraptured with her beauty and her bashful grace, and he lost no time in preferring a request to walk home with her that night, thinking to himself how sweet it would be to walk with her beneath the brilliant moonlight, the little hand resting on his arm, while the low, musical voice answered his remarks with the timidity that showed how unconscious she was of her own enchanting beauty. He could scarcely credit what they had told him this afternoon when examining the portraits: that Liane Lester was only a poor sewing girl, with a cruel grandmother, who beat her upon the slightest pretext, and never permitted her to have a lover. "She looks like a young princess. It is a wonder that some brave young man has not eloped with her before now," he declared. "Every one is afraid of Granny Jenks," they replied; but Jesse Devereaux only remained gravely silent. He had decided to win sweet Liane for his own, in spite of a hundred vixenish grannies. He had sent her the fragrant roses to wear, determining to disclose his identity that night, and to win her sweet promise to be his bride. Now his plans were all spoiled by the artist's sudden infatuation, and he could have cursed Roma for the spiteful manoeuvring that had kept him an unwilling captive, while Liane was drifting beyond his reach. All his pleasure was over for to-night, yet he did not give up hope for the future. His dark eyes had not failed to detect the joy in her glance, and the blush on her cheek at their meeting, and his ears had caught the little regretful ring in her voice, as she whispered that she had already promised Mr. Dean. Presently the people all began to go away, and with keen pain he saw Liane leaving with her new admirer, her little hand resting like a snowflake on his black coat sleeve. "But it shall be my turn to-morrow," he vowed to himself, turning away with a jealous pang, and pretending not to see Dolly Dorr, who had lingered purposely in his way, hoping he would see her home. Disappointed in her little scheme, she rather crossly accepted the offer of a dapper dry-goods clerk, and went off on his arm, laughing with forced gayety as she passed Devereaux, to let him see that she did not care. Devereaux did not even hear the laughter of the piqued little flirt. He could think of nothing but his keen disappointment over Liane. He returned to his hotel in the sulks. After all his pleasant anticipations, his disappointment was keen and bitter. "How can I wait until to-morrow?" he muttered, throwing himself down disconsolately into a chair. Suddenly a messenger entered with a telegram, and, tearing it hastily open, he read: Come at once. Father has had a stroke of apoplexy. LYDE. Lyde was his only sister, married a year before, and a leader in society. He could fancy how helpless she would be at this juncture--the pretty, petted girl. Filial grief and affection drove even the thought of Liane temporarily from his mind. Calling in a man to pack his effects, he left on the earliest train for his home in Boston. But as the train rushed on through the night and darkness, Liane blended with his troubled thoughts, and he resolved that he would write to her at the earliest opportunity. He would not leave the field clear for his enamored rival. He realized, too, that the clever and handsome artist would be a dangerous rival; still, he felt sure that Liane had some preference for himself. On this he based his hopes for Malcolm Dean's failure. "She will not forget that night upon the beach, and the opportune service I did her. Her grateful little heart will not turn from me," he thought hopefully. Malcolm Dean was the only one he could think of as likely to come between him and Liane. He had not an apprehension as to Roma Clarke's baleful jealousy. And yet he should have remembered the hate that had flashed from her eyes and hissed in her voice when she taxed him with voting for Liane. Again, she had nearly fainted when he was excusing himself to speak to her successful rival. And even now, while the fast-flying train bore him swiftly from Stonecliff, Roma paced her chamber floor like one distraught, wringing her hands and alternately bewailing her fate and vowing vengeance. Before Roma's angry eyes seemed to move constantly the vision of her rival in her exquisite beauty. Liane, in her girlish white gown, with the fragrant pink roses at her slender waist--Liane, the humble sewing girl she had despised, but who had now become her hated rival. Jesse Devereaux admired her; thought her the loveliest girl in the world. Perhaps, even, he was in love with her. That was why he had taken so gladly the dismissal she had so rashly given. A fever of unavailing regret burned in Roma's veins, the fires of jealous hate gleamed in her flashing eyes. "I would gladly see her dead at my feet," she cried furiously. Before she sought her pillow, she had resolved on a plan to forestall Devereaux's courtship. She would go to-morrow morning to see the wicked old grandmother of Liane; she would have a good excuse, because the old woman had desired the visit, and she would tell her that Devereaux was engaged to herself, and warn her not to permit her granddaughter to accept attentions that could mean nothing but evil. She would even bribe the old woman, if necessary. She was ready to make any sacrifice to punish Jesse for what she called to herself his perfidy, ignoring the fact that she had set him free to woo whom he would. Granny was tidying up her floor next morning, when a footstep on the threshold made her start and look around at a vision of elegance and beauty framed in sunshine that made the coppery waves of her hair shine lurid red as the girl bowed courteously, saying: "I am Miss Clarke. Mamma said you wished to see me." Granny dropped her broom and sank into a chair, staring with dazed eyes at the radiant beauty in her silken gown. As no invitation to enter was forthcoming, Roma stepped in and seated herself, with a supercilious glance at the shabby surroundings. She thought to herself disdainfully: "To think of being rivaled in both beauty and love by a low-born girl raised in a hovel!" Yet she saw that everything was scrupulously clean and neat, as though Liane made the best of what she had. The old woman, without speaking a word, stared at Roma with eager eyes, as if feasting on her beauty, a tribute to her vanity that pleased Roma well, so she smiled graciously and waited with unwonted patience until granny heaved a long sigh, and exclaimed: "It is a pleasure to behold you at last, Miss Roma, as a beauty and an heiress! Ah, you must be very happy!" The young girl sighed mournfully: "Wealth and beauty cannot give happiness when one's lover is fickle, flirting with poor girls at the expense of their reputations." "What do you mean?" gasped the old woman, and somehow Roma felt that she was making a favorable impression, and did not hesitate to add: "I am speaking of your granddaughter, Liane Lester. The girl is rather pretty, and I suppose that her vanity makes her ambitious to marry rich. She flirts with every young man she sees, and lately she has been making eyes at my betrothed husband, Jesse Devereaux, a handsome young millionaire. He loves me as he does his life, but he is a born flirt, and he is amusing himself with Liane in spite of my objections. So I thought I would come and ask you to scold the girl for her boldness." "Scold her! That I will, and whip her, too, if you say so! I will do anything to please you, beautiful lady," whimpered granny, moving closer to Roma, and furtively stroking her rich dress with a skinny, clawlike hand, while she looked at the girl with eager eyes. Roma frowned a little at this demonstration of tenderness, but she was glad the old woman took it so calmly about Liane, and answered coolly: "So that you keep them apart, I do not care how much you whip her, for her boldness deserves a check, and I suppose that you cannot restrain her, except by beating." She was surprised and almost shocked as granny whispered hoarsely: "I would beat her--yes; I would kill her before she should steal your grand lover, darling!" CHAPTER XV. "A DYING MOTHER." Even Roma's cruel heart was somewhat shocked at granny's malevolence toward her beautiful young granddaughter, but she did not rebuke the old hag; she only resolved to make capital of it. So she said: "I don't want you to kill her, but I wish you could take her away from here, where Jesse Devereaux can never find her again. She is in my way, and I want her removed!" "It would be worth money to you to get her out of your way," leered granny cunningly: Roma hesitated a moment, then answered frankly: "Yes, but I could not promise to pay you much. Papa makes me a very small allowance." The old woman crept nearer to the beautiful, cruel creature, and gazed up into her face with an expression of humble adoration, while she murmured wheedlingly: "I would take her away from here--far away--where she could never trouble you again, pretty lady, for a reward that even you could afford to bestow." "What is that?" cried Roma eagerly, and she was startled when granny answered nervously: "A kiss!" "A kiss!" the girl echoed wonderingly. Granny was actually trembling with excitement, and she added pleadingly: "You are so pretty, Miss Roma, that I have fallen in love with you, and for my love's sake I would like to kiss you once. If you grant my wish, I will be your slave for only one kind look and kiss!" She was softened and agitated in a strange fashion, but she could not help seeing that Roma recoiled in surprise and disgust. "Really, this is very strange! I--I am not fond of kissing old women. I scarcely ever kiss even my own mother. I would much rather pay you a little money!" she exclaimed. Granny's face saddened with disappointment, and she muttered: "So proud; so very proud! She could not bear a downfall!" Roma flushed with annoyance, and added: "You seem so very poor that even a small sum of money ought to be acceptable to you!" "I am miserably poor, but I love you--I would rather have the kiss." If Roma had known the old woman's miserly character she would have been even more surprised at her fancy. As it was, she hardly knew what to say. She gazed in disgust at the ugly, yellow-skinned and wrinkled old hag, and wondered if she could bring herself to touch that face with her own fresh, rosy lips. "I--I would rather give you a hundred dollars than to kiss you!" she blurted out, in passionate disgust. Instantly she saw she had made a grave mistake. Granny drew back angrily from the haughty girl, muttering: "Hoity-toity, what pride! But pride always goes before a fall!" "What do you mean?" flashed Roma. A moment's silence, and granny answered cringingly: "I only meant that you would be humiliated if that pretty Liane stole Devereaux's heart from you and married him. The other night I beat Liane for walking with him on the beach by moonlight!" "Heavens! It is worse even than I thought!" cried Roma, springing to her feet, pale with passion. She advanced toward granny, adding: "Will you take her away by to-morrow, and never let him see her face again if I grant your wish?" "I swear it, honey!" "There, then!" and Roma held up her fresh, rosy lips, shuddering with disgust as the old crone gave her an affectionate kiss that smacked very strongly of an old pipe. "Be sure that you keep your promise!" she cried, hastening from the house. Granny watched her until she was out of sight, clasping her skinny arms across her breast, after the fashion of one fondling a beloved child. "How proud, how beautiful!" she kept saying over to herself in delight. Then she went in and closed the door, while she sat down to make her plans for gratifying Roma's wish. Not a breath of last night's happenings had reached her, for she seldom held communication with any one, being feared and hated by the whole community, as much as Liane was loved and pitied. She knew nothing of the popular beauty contest, and that Liane had won the prize of a hundred dollars. If she had known, she would have managed to get possession of the money ere now. Liane, having spent the night with Mary Lang, had gone to her work from there, and was having an ovation from her girl friends, who put self aside and rejoiced with her over her triumph. The proud and happy girl answered gratefully: "But for your persuasions I should never have ventured to send in my picture for the contest. I want to testify my gratitude by giving each of you five dollars to buy a pretty keepsake." They protested they would not take a penny of her little fortune, but the generous girl would not be denied. "I have seventy-five dollars left! I am rich yet!" she cried gayly, for Liane was the happiest girl in the world to-day. But it was neither her signal triumph nor the money that made her happy, it was because she had seen Jesse Devereaux again, and his radiant, dark eyes had told her the story of his love as plain as words. Though she was grateful to the handsome artist for his attentions, she was disappointed because he had kept Jesse from walking home with her last night. But she looked eagerly for some demonstration from him to-day. Perhaps he would send her some more flowers, for he had whispered gladly as they parted: "Thank you for wearing the roses I sent you!" Liane's heart leaped with joy at hearing the flowers had come from Jesse, and she placed them carefully away that night, determined to keep them always, for his dear sake. How her heart sank when Dolly Dorr, who had been rather quiet and sulky that morning, suddenly remarked: "Mr. Devereaux went off, bag and baggage, they say, to Boston last night, so I suppose that is the last we shall see of him!" Liane could not keep from exclaiming regretfully: "Oh, dear!" "You seem to be sorry!" Dolly cried significantly. All eyes turned on Liane, and she blushed rosy red as she bent lower over the work she was sewing. Dolly added curtly: "I did not think you would be so ready to take away another girl's chance, Liane." "But he has broken with Miss Clarke. They quarreled last night," said Lottie Day. "I did not mean Miss Clarke. I meant myself. Liane knows he has paid me some attention, and that I have set my cap at him! I thought she was my true friend, but I caught her making eyes at him last night!" Dolly exclaimed ruefully. The gay girls all laughed at Dolly's jealousy, but Liane could not say a word for embarrassment, knowing in her heart how baseless were Dolly's hopes. The angry little maiden continued: "He told me last night that he was free from Miss Clarke; and I believe I could win him if no one tried to spoil the sport. I would never have introduced him to Liane if I had thought she would try to cut me out." "Oh, Dolly, you know I have not tried. Could I help his coming to speak to me last night?" cried Liane. "No, but you needn't have encouraged him by flirting when he spoke to you, blushing and rolling up your eyes." A derisive groan went around among the merry band at Dolly's charge, and Mary Lang spoke up spiritedly: "Dolly Dorr, you are simply making yourself ridiculous, putting in a claim to Mr. Devereaux because he happened to speak to you once or twice! Any one with half an eye can see he's in love with Liane, and I'll state for your benefit that he told her last night he sent her that bouquet of roses, and he wanted to walk home with her, only Mr. Dean was ahead of him!" "Oh! Oh! Oh!" ran the chorus of voices, Liane drooping her head in blushing confusion, and Dolly pouting with disappointment, while she cried spitefully: "He's nothing but a wretched flirt! He flirted with Miss Clarke, and then with me, and next with Liane! I'm glad he got ashamed of himself, and sneaked off; and I hope he will never come back!" Her little fit of temper spoiled the rest of the day for the girls, and Liane Lester was glad to get away at six o'clock, where, after a while, she could be alone with her own thoughts. But granny was sniveling, with her apron to her eyes, when she entered the poverty-stricken room. "What is it, granny? Are you ill?" she asked. "No, I have bad news!" "Bad news?" "Yes; I've heard from my daughter, your mother, at last. She's dying down to Boston, and wants you and me to come," with an artful sob. "But, of course, we cannot go!" Liane said, with strange reluctance. "But, of course, we can. I've got a little money; enough for the trip. I've just been waiting for you to come and help me to pack our clothes." "That will not take long. Our wardrobes are not extensive. But, I--I don't want to go!" declared Liane. "You unnatural child, not to want to see your poor dying mother!" snapped the old woman. "She has been an unnatural mother!" answered the girl warmly. "No matter about that! She is my child, and I want to see her before she dies, and you've got to go, willy-nilly! So go along with you and get the tea ready; then we will get packed to go on the first train!" declared granny, with grim resolution. CHAPTER XVI. A LOVE LETTER. Liane's little sewing chair was vacant the next day, and there was grief and surprise among the five girls present when Miss Bray explained the reason. Liane had sent her a little note the night before, she said, telling her that her grandmother was taking her to Boston to see a dying relative, and she did not know when she should be back, but hoped Miss Bray would have work for her on her return. She left her dear love for all the girls, and hoped she should see them soon again. Every one expressed sorrow but Dolly Dorr, who from spite and envy had suddenly changed from a friend to an enemy of Liane. Dolly tossed her pretty, flaxen head scornfully and insinuated ugly things about Liane following Jesse Devereaux to Boston. A dying relative was a good excuse, but it could not fool Dolly Dorr, she said significantly. The other girls took the part of the absent one, and even Miss Bray gently reproved Dolly for her slanderous words. The upshot of the matter was that she grew red and angry, and developed the rage of a little termagant. Taking offense at Miss Bray's rebuke, she angrily resigned her position, tossed her jaunty cap on her fluffy, yellow head, and flew home. The ambition to captivate Jesse Devereaux had quite turned the silly little noddle, and she was passionately angry at Liane for what she denominated "her unfair rivalry." But on reaching home and finding that her father had just been thrown out of work, Dolly was a little flustrated at her own precipitancy in leaving her place, especially as Mrs. Dorr, a weak, hard-worked woman, bewailed their misfortunes in copious tears. "Don't cry like that, mamma, I know of a better place than Miss Bray's, where I can find work. Miss Clarke wants a maid," cried Dolly eagerly. Mrs. Dorr's pride rebelled at first from her pretty daughter going into service like that, but the notion had quite taken hold of Dolly, and in the end the worried mother yielded to her persuasions, especially as the wages were liberal, and would help them so much in their present strait. Dolly hurried off to Cliffdene, and asked for Miss Clarke, offering her services for the vacant place, as Liane Lester had gone away. Roma's red-brown eyes flashed with joyful fire as she cried: "Where has she gone?" "Her grandmother took her to Boston to see a dying relative, miss." "Ah!" exclaimed Roma, and her heart leaped with joy as she realized that granny had kept her promise to take Liane far away. "Now I may have some chance of winning Jesse back again," she thought. But Dolly's next words threw a damper on her springing hopes. "Liane can't fool me with a tale of a dying relative! I believe she had an understanding with Jesse Devereaux to follow him down to Boston," she exclaimed spitefully. Roma started violently, her rich color paling to ashen gray. "Jesse Devereaux gone!" she cried, in uncontrollable agitation that betrayed her jealous heart to Dolly's keen eyes. The girl thought shrewdly: "She loves him even if he did tell me he was not engaged. Whew! won't she hate Liane when she knows all!" And, taking advantage of Roma's mood, she added: "Liane has been flirting for some time with Mr. Devereaux, and the night she got the beauty prize he sent her roses to wear, and voted for her, and offered to walk home with her that night, only he was disappointed, because Mr. Malcolm Dean had asked her first." Roma, inwardly furious with jealous rage, tossed her proud head carelessly, and answered: "Mr. Devereaux cares nothing for the girl! He is engaged to me, but we had a little tiff, and he was just flirting with her to pique me because I would not make up with him just yet!" Although she regarded Dolly as greatly her inferior, she was placing herself on a level with her by these confidences, encouraging Dolly to reply: "Of course, I know he wouldn't marry Liane, but she was foolish enough to think so, and I feel certain she's down to Boston with him now." Roma knew better, but she only smiled significantly, giving Dolly the impression that she agreed with her entirely, and then she said: "I will agree to give you a week's trial, and mamma's maid can instruct you as to your duties. When can you come?" "To-morrow, if you wish." "Very well. I shall expect you," returned Roma, abruptly ending the interview. When Dolly was going back the next day, she stopped in at the post office for her mail, and the smiling little clerk in the window, as he handed it out, exclaimed: "Don't Miss Liane Lester work with you at Miss Bray's, Miss Dolly? There's a letter for her this morning, the first letter, I believe, that ever came for her, and now that I come to think about it, she never calls here for mail, anyhow!" Dolly's cheeks flushed guiltily, and her heart gave a strangling thump of surprise, but she said, quite coolly: "Yes, Liane works at Miss Bray's with me, and I'm going down there now, so I'll take her letter, if you please, and save her the trouble of calling for it." The unsuspecting clerk readily handed it out, and Dolly clutched it with a trembling hand, hurrying out so as to read the superscription and gratify her curiosity. "What a beautiful handwriting! A man's, too, and postmarked Boston. Now, it must be Devereaux or Dean writing to her!" she muttered, longing to open it, yet not quite daring to commit the crime. She placed it at last in her pocket, thinking curiously: "As I don't know where Liane is, of course I cannot forward this letter to her, and--I would give anything in the world to know what is in it, and who wrote it! Perhaps Miss Clarke would know the writing." That evening, when she was brushing out the long tresses of Roma's hair, she ventured on the subject: "To-day the postmaster gave me a letter from Boston to Liane Lester, but I don't know where to send it, and I am wondering who wrote it!" She felt Roma give a quick start as she cried: "Let me see it!" Dolly giggled, and brought it out of her pocket. "Oh! It is Mr. Devereaux's writing," cried Roma excitedly. "So I thought, miss. Now I wonder what he wrote to her about? I must be mistaken thinking he knew she had gone to Boston," cried Dolly. Roma turned the letter over and over in her hand, her eyes blazing, her cheeks crimson, her heart throbbing with jealous rage. How dared he write to Liane? How dared he forget her, Roma, so insolently, and so soon? She would have liked to see them both stretched dead at her feet! They looked guiltily at each other, the mistress and maid, one thought in either mind. Dare they open the letter? Dolly twittered: "I shouldn't think you would allow him to write to her! He belongs to you!" She felt like making common cause with Roma against Liane, in her bitter envy forgetting how often she had inveighed against Roma's pride and cruelty. She continued artfully: "The letter can never do her any good, because we don't know where to send it. And--and would it be any harm for us to take a peep at it?" "I think I have a right," Roma answered, her bosom heaving stormily, then she clutched Dolly's arm: "Girl, girl, if we do this thing--you and I--will you swear never to betray me?" she breathed hoarsely. "I swear!" Dolly muttered fiercely, in her anger at Liane, and then Roma's impatience burst all bounds. She quickly broke the seal of the letter, her angry eyes running over the scented sheets, while Dolly coolly read it over her shoulder. And if ever two cruel hearts were punished for their curiosity, they were Roma's, the mistress, and Dolly's, the maid. It was an impassioned love letter that Devereaux had written to Liane, and it ended with the offer of his hand, as she already possessed his heart. The young lover had chosen the sweetest words and phrases to declare his passion, and he explained everything that she might have misunderstood. He had fallen in love with her at first sight, but he was bound by a promise to one he no longer even admired. In honor he could not speak to Liane, but his betrothed had herself broken the fetters that bound him, and he was free now to woo his darling. He had intended to tell her so that night of the beauty contest, but Malcolm Dean had rivaled him. Then had come the summons to his sick father, tearing him away from Stonecliff. He must remain some time in Boston with his sinking father, and his impatience prompted this letter. Would Liane correspond with him? Would she be his beloved wife, the treasure of his heart and home? He should wait with burning impatience for her reply. Roma threw the letter on the floor and stamped on it with her angry foot. Not in such tender, passionate phrases had he wooed her when she promised him her hand, but in light, airy words, born of the flirtation through which she had successfully steered him to a proposal so quickly regretted, so gladly taken back. Oh, how she loved and hated him in a breath! As for the girl, thank Heaven, granny had promised to keep her out of the way. Ay, even to kill her, if she commanded it. It was strange how the old woman had fallen so slavishly under her sway, but she was thankful for it, though she shuddered still with disgust at remembrance of granny's fond caress. She said to herself that it were better for Liane Lester that she never had been born than to cross her path again, and to take from her the love of the man she had worked so hard to win, and then so rashly lost. CHAPTER XVII. A CRUEL FORGERY. At the elegant family mansion on Boston's most aristocratic avenue, Jesse Devereaux, watching by the bedside of his sick father, waited with burning impatience for the answer to the letter in which he had poured out the overwhelming tenderness of his soul. No shadow of doubt clouded his love, he felt so sure of Liane's love in return. Had it not trembled in her voice, gleamed in her eyes, and blushed on her cheeks? Oh, they would be so happy together, he and his young bride, Liane! He would make up to her for all the poverty and sorrow of her past life. Life should be flower-strewn and love-sweet for her now. Of course he expected some opposition from Lyde, his proud, fashionable sister, when she learned that he was off with his engagement to the heiress, Miss Clarke, and meant to wed a poor girl, who worked for her living. But he meant to stand firm, and when she saw how sweet and beautiful Liane was, she would be ready to excuse him and accept his darling for a sister. In these rosy daydreams the hours flew, and on the second day after posting his letter he received a reply. It gave him something of an unpleasant shock when he held the square blue envelope in his hand and read the ill-written address: MISTER JESS DEVEROW, No. -- Comonwelt Avnoo, Bostin, Mass. His cheek flushed, and he sighed. "Poor girl, of course she has had no opportunities of education, but she can have private teachers, and soon remedy all that." And he opened the letter with the eagerness of a lover, despite the slight damper on his spirits, caused by his love's bad chirography, united to even worse orthography. His eager eyes traveled quickly over the small sheet with the awkward sentences of one little used to epistolary work. STONECLIFF, the 17 Sept. DEER MISTER DEVROW: Deer me, what a s'hpise your letter wuz! I thought you wuz jest flirtin' with me! I had heerd what a flirt you wuz, so I jest tryed my hand on you! They told me you wuz ingage to the beautiful Miss Clarke, and I thought what fun to cut her out! But I didn't think I could do it. I didn' know as I was so pretty till I tuk the beauty prize that nite. Deer me, how glad I wuz of that money! I'm a grate heiress now, like Miss Clarke, ain't I? I'm much obleedge fur your offer to marry, but I can't see my way clear to accept, being as I don't love you well enuff. I never did admire these dark men with sassy, black eyes and dark hair. I've heern tell they are as jealous as a turk. I make bold to say, I think Mr. Deen is the style I most admire--deep blue eyes and brown curls. He seems to have took a fancy to me, too, and if he should ast me the question you did, I know I could say yes. Forgive if this pains, but it's best to be frank, so you won't go on loving me in vane. I'm grateful to you for your vote that helped to git me that hundred dollars! I'm goin' down to Bostin to see the sites, and buy me a red silk gown, I always wuz crazy for one! Truly yours, LIANE LESTER. Devereaux sat like one dazed, going over and over the letter of rejection. He could hardly realize that Liane's little hand had penned those words. No more cruel blow at a strong man's love and pride had ever been dealt than that letter, showing the writer to be possessed of so shallow a nature as to be incapable of appreciating the treasure of a true heart's love, so ungratefully thrown away. Jesse Devereaux thrust it away from him at last, and sat staring blankly before him with heavy eyes, like one contemplating the ruins of his dearest hope. It seemed to him as if he had just laid some dearly loved one in the grave. Hours and days of sorrow seemed to pass over him as he sat there brooding darkly over his fate. Was it indeed but an hour ago he had felt so hopeful and glad, telling himself he had just found the sweetest joy of life in the dawn of love? What foolish thoughts, what a misplaced love, what rash confidence in an innocent face and demure, pansy-blue eyes! She had just been flirting with him because she heard he was a great flirt, and was engaged to Miss Clarke, and she wanted to see if she could "cut her out." It was all heartless vanity that he had taken for shy, bashful love. The ignorant little working girl had proved herself an adept in the art of flirtation. It was a crushing blow, and his heart was very sore. He had loved her so, ever since the night they had first met, loved her with the passion of his life! Even now the memory of her sweetness would not down. He would be haunted forever by her voice, her glance, her smile, so alluring in their beauty, so false in true womanly worth and grace, will-o'-the-wisp lights, shining but to betray. And Malcolm Dean was his rival in the heart of the lovely, coquettish working girl! She admired his "deep-blue eyes and brown curls" as much as she disliked "sassy black eyes and dark hair." She would marry him if he asked her, she said. Jesse wondered cynically if Dean had been merely flirting, too, or would his love prompt him to elevate pretty Liane to the proud position of his bride. Meanwhile, Liane, innocent as an angel, of course, of the letter that Roma had sent in her name, had duly arrived in the city. Her grandmother had taken her to cheap lodgings that night, and, after they had been shown to a room, the old woman said abruptly: "Now I'll go and inquire about my daughter." Liane went to the window and looked out in awe at the lights of the great city, wondering how far away from this spot Jesse Devereaux could be to-night. Her young heart throbbed with joy at the thought of his nearness, for she had no realization of the extent of Boston. While she was musing and wondering granny returned, saying crossly: "It seems I made a mistake in the address. She ain't here at all, but I'm tired, and not a step shall I stir from this to-night, so we'll go to bed, Liane, and I'll hunt her in the morning." "But if she should die before morning, granny?" "Let her die, then; I can't help it! Go to bed!" snarled the old woman, creeping into bed; so Liane, seeing the uselessness of remonstrance, followed her example. The next morning, after breakfast, granny announced that she would leave Liane in care of the landlady, while she went out in search of the dying daughter. "Let me go with you," pleaded the girl, with a vague hope of meeting Devereaux somewhere on the street, all her thought clinging to him with tender persistence. "No, I won't have you along with me, but I'll come back for you as soon as I find her," snapped granny, so sharply that Liane gave in and watched her depart with keen regret. "I should have liked to go with her to see some of the sights of the great city," she sighed, so forlornly that the landlady said cheerily: "Well, come in here and sit a while with my sick sister, and I'll hurry up my morning's work and go out with you myself this afternoon." Lizzie White was a pretty shop girl, just recovering from a spell of fever, and she took an instant interest in the pretty new boarder. "Sister Annie can show you all over the city," she said. "But," hesitatingly, "haven't you any other clothes to wear?" her glance falling deprecatingly on Liane's simple dark-blue print gown and summer straw hat. "It's time for fall things, you know," she added. Liane blushed at the poverty of her attire, but answered gently: "These are the best clothes I have, but I have a little money of my own, and if I knew where to go, I would buy a blue serge suit." "Sister Annie can take you to a place this afternoon--the very store where I work when I am well," replied Lizzie encouragingly. Afternoon came, but no granny yet, and Mrs. Brinkley offered to take Liane out, saying it was such a pity to stay indoors all day when the sun shone so bright and warm. Liane accepted eagerly, and then her new friend, Lizzie, shyly proffered her a new fall suit of her own to wear. "Do wear it to please me, and because people will make remarks on your print gown," she said eagerly, and the girl, fearful that Mrs. Brinkley might be ashamed of her shabby attire, accepted gratefully. Her appearance was indeed quite different when clothed in Lizzie's brown cloth skirt, scarlet silk waist, and jaunty brown jacket, with a brown walking skirt to match. CHAPTER XVIII. LIANE'S FLEETING LOVE DREAM. Liane was enchanted with the beautiful city, and Mrs. Brinkley, who felt a proud proprietorship in it, was delighted with her praises. They went from one grand building to another, but the good woman soon noticed that Liane seemed best pleased walking along the crowded streets, and that instead of observing all that she pointed out, the girl's eyes wandered wistfully from one face to another, as if in search of some one. "Are you looking for your grandmother?" she asked. "Oh, no, ma'am," and Liane blushed like a rose. "Then it must be your beau, you look so bashful. Have you got a beau in Boston?" Liane shook her pretty head, but she looked so conscious that the woman plied her with curious questions, until the young girl owned that she knew one person in Boston, a young man, who had spent several weeks at Stonecliff. Then the curious matron did not rest until she had learned his name. "Jesse Devereaux! Was he handsome as a picture, with big, rolling, black eyes? Yes? Why, my pretty dear, you must not set your heart on him. He is one of the young millionaires up on Commonwealth Avenue, the swellest young man in Boston. He would never stoop to a poor working girl." She saw the beautiful color fade from the girl's rosy cheek, and her bosom heaved with emotion as she faltered: "He was very kind to me at Stonecliff!" Mrs. Brinkley knew the world so well that she took instant alarm, exclaiming warningly: "Don't you set any store by his kindness, child. No good comes of rich young men showing attentions to pretty working girls. If you have followed him here through a fancy for his handsome face, then you had better go home to-night." Eagerly, blushingly, Liane disclaimed such a purpose, saying granny had brought her to see a relative. "I--I only thought I might see his face in some of the crowded streets," she faltered. "It is better for you never to see his face again, for it's plain to be seen he has stolen your heart," chided the widow. "Come, I'll show you his grand home, and then you may understand better how much he is above you, and how useless it is to hope to catch him." Liane's cheeks burned at the chidings of the good woman, and tears leaped to her eyes, but she did not refuse the proffer of seeing Devereaux's home. She thought eagerly: "I might see him at the window, or perhaps coming down the steps into the street. Then, if he should come and speak to me joyfully, as he did that night at the beauty contest, I believe even this good, anxious woman could see that he loves me." She walked along happily by Mrs. Brinkley's side, carrying the jaunty brown jacket on her arm, as Lizzie had advised, for the sun's rays were warm, and she was weary from her sightseeing. The scarlet silk waist looked very gay, but if she had dreamed of the dreadful letter that had told Devereaux she was coming to Boston to buy a red silk gown, she would have torn it off and trampled it beneath her feet. Her beautiful eyes sparkled with pleasure at sight of the splendid homes of Boston's wealthy class, and she could not help exclaiming: "I am not envious, but I would like to be rich and live in one of these palaces." "That you can never do, child, so don't think about it any more, as I tell Lizzie, when she gets to sighing for riches," rejoined the prudent matron. "Look, now, at that grand house we're coming to; Mr. Devereaux lives there with his old father and his young married sister, the proudest beauty in Boston. You see, I read all about them in the society columns, and--oh!" She paused with a stifled shriek, for the great front door of the grand mansion had indeed opened, as Liane secretly prayed it would, and a man came down the steps--Jesse Devereaux himself! Leaving Lyde beside his father's bed, he was going out for a walk to try to shake off the benumbing influences of the letter that had shattered his air castles into hopeless ruins. It seemed to him as if his thoughts had taken bodily shape, as he beheld Liane there in reach of his hand, her timid, eager glance lifted almost appealingly to his face. He hesitated, he almost stopped to speak to her, so thrilled was he by the sight of her lovely face again, but his eyes fell on the gay red silk waist, and the words of her letter recurred to his mind: "I'm coming down to Bostin to see the sites, and buy a red silk gown. I've always been crazy for one." She was here, she had the red silk gown she craved, and idle curiosity had led her to pass his house, perhaps boasting to her companion, meanwhile, that she had flirted with the owner and refused his hand. A deep crimson rose to his brow, and his heart almost stopped its beating with wounded love and pride. Just glancing at Liane with cold, indifferent eyes, he lifted his hat, bowed stiffly, and passed her by in scorn. The girl, who had almost stopped to speak to him, gave a sigh that was almost a sob, and dropped her eyes, moving on by Mrs. Brinkley's side with a sinking heart. "That was he, Jesse Devereaux himself," whispered the latter excitedly. "My, what a cold, haughty stare and bow; enough to freeze you. You see how 'tis, my dear? When city folks visit the country they're mighty gracious, but when country folks come to the city, they don't hardly recognize 'em." Liane's pale smile at Mrs. Brinkley's observation was sadder than the wildest outburst of tears. "I see that you are right," she answered, with gentle humility that touched her new friend's heart, and made her exclaim: "Don't never give him another thought, honey. He ain't worth it. You're sweet enough and pretty enough to marry the proudest in the land, but nothing don't count now but money." They hurried home to the poor lodgings, so different from the splendid locality they had just left, and found granny just returned from her search and in rather a good humor from the day's outing. She did not scold Liane for going out, as the girl expected, but said calmly: "I was too late. I found Cora dead and the funeral just starting, so I went with it, and saw her laid away in her last home. Then I thought I had just as well finish the day looking over the things she left, but I wasn't any better off by it, for the people where she boarded took it all for debt." She was lying straight along, but, of course, Liane did not know it, and she tried to feel a little sorrow for the unknown mother laid in her lonely grave to-day, but the emotion was very faint. She could not grieve much for one she had never seen, and of whom granny had given such a frankly bad report. Her first thought was that now she could go back to Stonecliff, away from the city that had held Jesse Devereaux, whose proud glance and chilling bow had stabbed her heart with such cruel pain. But on making this request, the old woman scowled in disapproval. "Back to Stonecliff? No, indeed!" she cried. "I hate the place, and I left it for good when we came away. You can get a place to work in Boston, and we will stay here." "Yes, it will be easy to get in as a salesgirl at the store where I work. I'll recommend you," said the sick girl kindly. Liane knew there was no appeal from granny's decision, and, after thanking Lizzie for the loan of her gown and hat, she returned to the shabby little room, longing to seek solitude in her grief. But granny soon entered, carrying a bundle, and exclaiming: "Mrs. Brinkley says you bought this dress to-day, and paid for it, too! Now, where'd the money come from, I'd like to know?" Liane had to confess the truth about the beauty contest, and, as soon as the old woman took it in, she cried furiously: "And you dared to spend that money for finery, you vain hussy?" "It was my own, granny," Liane answered. "Where is the rest of it? Give me every penny that is left, before I beat you black and blue!" raged the old termagant. "Granny, you promised never to beat me again if I would stay and work for you in your old age," reminded Liane. "I don't care what I promised! Give me the rest of the money before I kill you!" hissed the savage creature, clutching Liane's arm so tight that she sobbed with pain. "Let go, or I'll call for help!" "Dare to do it, and I'll choke you before any one comes!" winding her skinny claws about the fair white throat. Liane felt as if her last hour had come, and she was so unhappy she did not greatly care, but she struggled with the old harpy, and succeeded in throwing her off, while she said rebelliously: "I will never give you the money while I live, and if you kill me to get it, it will do you no good. You will be hanged for my murder." Perhaps granny saw the force of this reasoning, for she desisted from her brutality, whining: "I'm so poor, so miserably poor, that you ought to give me every penny you get." "And dress in rags!" cried the girl indignantly. "No, granny, I will never do it again, and if you illtreat me any more, I will run away from you, and then you will starve." She knew she would never have the heart to carry out her threat, but she had found out that she could intimidate the old woman by the threat of leaving, so she put on a bold air, and continued: "Here is five dollars for a present, and it is all you will get of that money. I gave away twenty-five dollars in keepsakes to my girl friends before I left Stonecliff, and I have spent thirty dollars for some decent clothes to wear. Now, I have given you five dollars, and I have but forty left, and I shall keep that for myself, in case I have to run away from you and hide myself from your brutality." Granny snatched eagerly at the money, muttering maledictions on the girl for her extravagance, but Liane, sitting with downcast eyes, pretended not to take any notice of her, until the old woman, glaring at her in wonder at the beauty that could win such a prize, demanded harshly: "Was Miss Clarke's picture in that contest?" When Liane answered in the affirmative, she was startled at the woman's anger. "You dared to take that prize over beautiful Roma's head--you?" she cried furiously. "I did not take it. The judges gave it to me. The contest was open to any pretty girl, rich or poor," Liane answered gently. Granny looked as if she could spring upon the girl and rend her limb from limb, so bitter was her rage. She moved about the room, clinching her hands in fury, whispering maledictions to herself, but again Liane forgot to notice her, she was so absorbed in her own troubles. She had dreamed a fleeting dream of love and bliss, and the awakening was cruel! "I have been vain, foolish, to dream he loved me because he sent me a few roses and offered to walk home with me that night. He was only amusing himself," she thought, shrinking in pain from the cruel truth. CHAPTER XIX. WHAT DOLLY TOLD. Seven weeks slipped uneventfully away. The bright, cool days of October gave place to dreary, drizzly, bleak November. Liane had become absorbed into Boston's great army of busy working girls. Lizzie White had secured her a position at a glove counter in the same store with herself, and granny had rented two cheap rooms in Mrs. Brinkley's house, and gone to housekeeping. Her resentment against Liane continued unabated, and she never gave the girl a kind word, but she refrained from acts of violence, lest her meek slave should rebel and leave her alone, in her old age and poverty, to fight the battle of a useless existence. Meanwhile Judge Devereaux had died and been buried with the pomp and ceremony befitting his wealth and position, and his son and daughter had inherited his millions. Roma Clarke did not fail to send a letter of the sweetest sympathy to her former lover--a letter that in writing and expression was so far different from Liane's letter that he could not fail to note the difference. "Poor Liane! What a pity her mind is not as cultured as her lovely face!" he thought, with a bitter pang. Since the day of their meeting on the avenue, he had not seen Liane, and he supposed she had seen the sights of the city, bought some garish finery, and returned to the wretched hovel she called her home. He despised her for her shallow coquetry, but he could not help pitying her poverty, and the wretched life with the old hag, from whose brutal violence he had once rescued her at the cost of a broken arm. "How gladly I would have taken her from her wretched lot to a life of love and luxury, but she preferred Dean. I wonder if he has justified her hopes?" he thought bitterly. He grew more and more curious on the subject after his father's burial, in the quiet that comes to a house of mourning, and he suddenly resolved to return to Stonecliff and find out for himself. The little seaside town looked very gloomy in the downpour of a cold November rain, and the boom of the sea, lashed to fury in a storm, was disquieting to his nerves, but he sallied forth to the post office, and stood on the steps, watching to see Liane passing by on her way from work, as on the first day he had seen her lovely face. How freshly it all came back to him, that day but two months ago, when he had followed her to restore her truant veil, and first looked into the luring blue eyes that had thrilled his heart with passion. What a mighty passion for the shallow coquette had been born in his heart at that meeting--passion followed by pain! Ah, how he wished now that he had never met her, that he had let the blue veil blow away on the heedless wind! The little acts of kindness had brought him a harvest of pain. Even now, despite all, he was waiting and watching with painful yearning for another sight of her face. But the moments waned, and she came not. He saw the other work people of the town going home through the falling dusk. Four of Miss Bray's girls dropped in at the post office, flashing surprised glances at his handsome, familiar face, wondering at his return; then they went out again, and he thought that presently Liane and Dolly would be passing also. But he was disappointed, and presently he realized that it was useless waiting longer. "Dean must have married her and taken her off already, but it must have been a very quiet affair. I have seen nothing of his marriage in the papers," he thought with strange disquiet, as he came down the steps. A handsome carriage, with prancing gray horses, in a silver-mounted harness, with liveried footman, suddenly drew up at the curbstone, and a brilliant face flushed on him from the window. "Oh, Jesse, what a surprise! How do you do? Won't you look in our box and bring me out my mail?" cried Roma Clarke gushingly. There was nothing for it but obedience. Jesse came out to her with two letters and a paper, and as she took them, she threw open the carriage door, urging sweetly: "Come home with me, do, and see papa and mamma. They will be so glad to see you. Poor papa has been ill of a fever, and is just convalescing." He was in a reckless mood. He accepted the invitation and went home with her, but she did not find him a very congenial companion. He ignored her coquettish attempts to return to their old footing. "You hate me yet," she pouted. "Not at all. I am glad to be your friend, if you will permit me," he replied courteously. "Friend!" Roma cried, in an indescribable tone. He ignored the reproach, and said calmly: "Tell me all that has happened since I went back to Boston. Who are married and who are dead?" "No one that you know," replied Roma, and she never guessed what a thrill of joy the words sent to his heart. He was glad. He could not help it, that Malcolm Dean had not married Liane yet. He was yearning for news of her, yet he knew better than to ask Roma for it. He knew it would only make her angry and jealous. While he was alone in the drawing room, Roma having gone to apprise her parents of his arrival, he was startled to see Dolly Dorr sidle in, dressed in a dark-gray gown, with a maid's white cap and apron. He arose in surprise. "Miss Dorr! Is it possible?" Dolly colored and hung her head, muttering: "You're surprised to see me here as Miss Clarke's maid." "Yes," he replied frankly; then a sudden thought came to him, and he added: "And your pretty friend, Miss Lester? Is she at Cliffdene also?" Dolly tossed her head scornfully. "No, indeed, she is not here!" "Where, then?" he asked eagerly, with a painful curiosity. "Don't you know?" cried Dolly pertly, with her flaxen head on one side, like a bird, and he answered quickly: "Of course not!" Dolly smoothed down her white apron with her little hands, and, glancing at him sidewise with her bright blue eyes, returned indignantly: "Then, if you don't know, I can tell you. I used to like Liane, but I despise her now. That beauty prize made a fool of the girl, and turned her so silly no one liked her any more. She spent all that money for gaudy clothes and cheap jewelry, trying to entrap that artist, Mr. Dean. She was crazy about him, and didn't mind everybody knowing it, either. So at last she went chasing off to some city after him, and I don't know what became of her then, and I don't care, for every one says she must have gone straight to the bad." She studied his paling cheek with keen eyes for a moment, then added: "But I almost forgot. Mr. Clarke sent me to show you up to his room." Devereaux rose silently, and followed the pert maid upstairs. It never occurred to Devereaux to doubt Dolly's story in the least. He believed her a simple, truthful, shallow little maiden devoid of guile. The little actress had played her part well, and Roma, listening behind a curtain, was delighted with the skill of her pupil, so hastily schooled a moment before in her artful story. With a heavy heart Devereaux followed the scheming maid upstairs to Mr. Clarke's apartment, where he met a joyful welcome. "Ah, my boy, I have been ill for many weeks. It seems an age since we parted that night at the Beauty Show," he exclaimed, as he wrung Devereaux's hand, adding sadly: "The strangest thing of all is the disappearance of the successful contestant for the prize. She went away a day or two afterward, and no one has the least knowledge of her whereabouts." This was confirmation of Dolly's artful story, and Devereaux felt a strange choking in his throat that kept him silent, while Mr. Clarke continued eagerly: "To tell the truth, I was deeply interested in the beautiful Miss Lester, and felt a hearty sympathy for her troubles. She led a sad existence with that wicked old grandmother, and I was on the point of asking her to come and stay at Cliffdene as my typewriter, just to give her a better home, you know, poor girl, when she disappeared so strangely, going away, some people insinuate, to lead a gayer life," sighing. Devereaux knew quite well, from the letter he had received from her, that Liane could scarcely have filled the position of Mr. Clarke's typewriter, but he was too generous to say so. He swallowed the lump in his throat as best he could, and answered: "I hope the insinuations are not true, but I cannot tell. I saw Miss Lester once in Boston. It was a few days after the contest, and she was walking past my home with a respectable-looking, middle-aged woman. I have never seen her since." "So it was to Boston she went? I wish I could find the poor girl! I would try to interest my wife in her fate," exclaimed Mr. Clarke, but that lady, entering at the moment, overheard the words, and frowned angrily. "I will have nothing to do with the girl, and the interest you take in her is very displeasing to me," she said curtly. Roma had worked busily, fostering jealousy in her mind until she almost hated the name of Liane Lester. She shook hands with Devereaux, welcomed him cordially, and returned to the subject. "Speaking of that girl," she said, "I feel that sympathy is wasted on such as Liane Lester. At one time Roma and I were both so moved with pity for her poverty that we offered her the position of Roma's maid, with a good salary and a comfortable home, but the old woman and the girl both refused, as if they had actually been insulted, though Dolly Dorr, who worked with Liane, was glad enough to apply for the position Liane refused, and fills it very acceptably to Roma. After that we took no further interest in the girl, and rumor says that her head was quite turned by vanity after getting the beauty prize, so that she and the old granny moved away from Stonecliff." Mrs. Clarke had pitied and admired Liane until her rivalry with Roma, and the latter's specious tales had turned the scales against her, and made her jealous of her husband's interest in the lovely girl, so she said again, with flashing eyes and heightened color: "I do not approve of Mr. Clarke's strong interest in the girl, and would certainly never consent to receive her beneath the roof of Cliffdene." She did not understand the strange glance of blended reproach and pity her husband bent upon her as he thought: "My poor, deceived love, I cannot be angry with her, for she does not understand the painful interest I take in this Liane Lester, foreboding that she may possibly be our own child, doomed to poverty and woe, while her place in our homes and hearts is usurped by an upstart and an ingrate, without one lovable trait, but whom my poor wife feels compelled to blindly worship, believing her her own child! Ah, how unfortunate this illness that has prevented my tracing Nurse Jenks' history!" CHAPTER XX. "AS ONE ADMIRES A STATUE." Happily unconscious of her father's unfavorable opinion, Roma entered and seated herself close to his chair, displaying an unwonted tenderness for him that deceived no one but Devereaux, for whose benefit it was designed. Both her parents knew that Roma was never affectionate, except to gain some end of her own. On this occasion she was unwontedly sweet and gentle, with a new pensiveness in her manner more attractive to Devereaux than her usual brilliancy. She made no bids for his attention; she seemed sadly resigned to her fate, as her downcast eyes and stifled sighs attested. It touched him, but he felt too sad at heart to console others, and he soon tore himself away, returning that night to Boston, wondering if it could be possible, that the same city had held Liane all this time that he had supposed her safe at Stonecliff. He knew that Malcolm Dean was in Philadelphia, and had been there for some time, and he wondered if the artist's love for Liane had failed to realize her confident hopes. "Poor little thing! I pity her, with her sweet love dream blighted!" he thought generously, as he awakened early the next morning, pursuing the same sad train of thought. A startling surprise awaited him after breakfast, where Lyde was sitting going over the new magazines. Her dark eyes brightened suddenly, as she exclaimed: "Upon my word, Jesse, the beautiful face on the outside cover of this magazine resembles perfectly the pretty girl from whom I buy my gloves!" "Really!" he exclaimed, taking the magazine, and flushing and paling alternately, as he saw before him the cover that Dean had designed, with Liane's face for the central figure. How beautiful it was? How beautiful! His heart leaped madly, then sank again in his breast. "Do you think it can be accidental, or is it really her portrait? She is lovely, Jesse, with a natural, high-bred air, the darkest eyes, like purple pansies rimmed in jet, and the most beautiful chestnut hair, all touched with gleams of gold. I have woven quite a romance round her, fancying her some rich girl reduced to poverty." His heart was beating with muffled throbs, his eyes flashed with eagerness, but he asked with seeming carelessness: "What is her name?" He was not in the least surprised when she answered: "Miss Lester, and the other girls call her Liane. It is a pretty name, and, oddly enough, I read it once in a novel. She must have been named from it; don't you think, Jesse?" "Perhaps so." He could hardly speak, he was so excited, and Lyde rambled on: "We have fallen in love with each other, pretty Liane and I. She always hurries to meet me and show me her gloves. Her eyes smile at me so tenderly, as if she were really fond of me, and I almost believe she is, for when I allow her to try on my gloves for me, she has such a caressing way, I almost long to kiss her. But then, perhaps, she has the same manner with all, just to get trade," disappointedly. Devereaux recalled the caressing touch of her lips on his hand that night by the sea; her pretty, bashful gratitude, and groaned within himself. "Oh, my lost love, my false love!" Aloud he said cynically: "I thought you were too proud, Lyde, to notice a pretty salesgirl." "Oh, Jesse, I like to be kind to them all, poor things! And they appreciate a kind word and smile more than you might think. And many of these girls are so very pretty, too, that really, if I were looking for beauty, I believe I should seek it among the working girls in our stores. This Liane Lester, too, is lovelier than all the rest, and her voice so soft and sweet that, really, I am sure she must be a reduced aristocrat." He wondered if he dare tell her the truth about Liane, the story of his love. Smilingly he said: "You will have me falling in love with your pretty glove girl." "Oh, not for the world!" she cried, in dismay. "My dear Jesse, never think of loving and marrying out of your own set. One can admire beauty in a poor girl as one admires beauty in a statue, but, lifted above her station, my pretty Liane would not be half so admirable." "Of course not," he replied cynically, and decided not to make her his confidante. All the same, he determined to see for himself again the lovely face that had won Lyde's admiration. He knew where she bought her gloves, and that afternoon he was close by when the little army of salesgirls came pouring out into the street. By and by came two arm in arm, Lizzie White and Liane, and his eyes feasted again on the lovely face beneath the little blue hat, noting with gladness its purity of expression. "They lied. She is pure and innocent still, in spite of pardonable vanity and girlish coquetry," he thought, with a subtle thrill of joy. Then he saw Granny Jenks dart forward with a skinny, outstretched claw, whining: "I came for your wages, Liane. I was afraid you might fool away the money before you got home." "The old harpy!" he muttered, with irrepressible indignation, as he saw her clutch the money Liane had earned by her week's toil. Then he drew back quickly, lest she should see him, a sudden resolve forming in his mind. He would follow them, and find out where her home was, and if she deserved the cruel things they said of her at Stonecliff. He felt sure that she had been slandered, poor, pretty Liane, leading her simple, blameless life of toil and poverty. He thought with pleasure of Mr. Clarke's interest in Liane, and promised himself to write to that gentleman all he could find out about her, little dreaming of the cruel consequences that would follow on the writing of the letter. "Poor little girl, it is a shame that evil hearts should malign and traduce her, living her humble life of toil, poverty, and innocence!" Jesse Devereaux said to himself pityingly, on returning from following Liane to her humble abode. He satisfied himself that her surroundings, though poor, were strictly respectable, and that she earned a meager living for herself and granny by patient, daily toil, and he had turned back to his own life of ease and luxury with a sore heart. Keen sympathy and pity drove resentment from his mind, effacing all but divine tenderness. He longed for an intensity that was almost pain to brighten her daily life, so weary, toilsome, and devoid of pleasure. "Had she but loved me, beautiful, hapless Liane, how different her lot in life would have been!" he thought, picturing her as the queen of his splendid home, her graceful form clothed in rich attire, her white throat and her tiny little hands glittering with costly gems, while she leaned on his breast, happy as a queen, his loving bride. He wondered what had become of Malcolm Dean, and why his ardent admiration of Liane had waned so soon. Almost simultaneously with the thought the doorbell rang, and Malcolm Dean's card was presented to him. "Show the gentleman in." They stood facing each other, the handsome blond artist and the dark-haired millionaire, and the latter recalled with a silent pang that Liane preferred men with fair hair and blue eyes. They shook hands cordially; then, as Dean sank into a chair, he noted that he had grown pale and thin. "You have been ill?" "Yes, for weeks, of a low fever that kept me in bed in Philadelphia, while my heart was far away. Can you guess where, Devereaux?" "Perhaps at Stonecliff?" "Then you have guessed at my passion for the beautiful prize winner." "It was patent to all observers that night," Devereaux answered, in a strangled voice, with a fierce thumping of the heart. Oh, God, how cruel it was to discuss her with his fortunate rival, who had only to ask and have. Dean noticed nothing unusual. He continued earnestly: "I don't mind owning to the truth, Devereaux. Yes, I lost my heart irretrievably that night to lovely Liane Lester, and I made up my mind to overlook the difference in our position and woo her for my own. But I had to go to Philadelphia the next day, and I was detained there some time getting my design ready for the magazine, and this was followed by a spell of illness. At length, all impatience, I returned to Stonecliff two days ago to seek the fair girl who had charmed me so. Fancy my dismay when I found her gone, and no clue to her whereabouts!" Again Devereaux's heart thumped furiously. "You loved her very much?" he asked hoarsely. "I adored her. She was to me the incarnation of simple beauty and purity." "And had you any token of her preference in return?" "None. She was too shy and bashful to give me the sign the coquette might have deemed befitting. She hid her heart beneath the drooping fringe of her dark, curling lashes. Yet I dared to hope, and there was one thing in my favor: I did not have a rival." "You are mistaken!" "How?" "I was your rival!" "You, Devereaux!" They almost glared at each other, and Devereaux said hoarsely: "I was in love with Miss Lester before you ever saw her face!" "After all, that is not strange. Who could see her and not love her? But was your suit successful?" "No." "Rejected?" Devereaux flushed, then answered frankly: "Yes." Malcolm Dean could not conceal his joyful surprise. "I cannot comprehend her rejection of your suit. I should have thought you irresistible." Devereaux struggled a moment with natural pride and selfishness, then answered: "She preferred you." "Me? How should you know?" "By her own confession to me." Malcolm Dean was frankly staggered by his friend's statement. His blue eyes gleamed with joy and his bosom heaved with pride. "You have made me very happy, but how very, very strange that she should have made such a confession to you," he cried, in wonder. Again Devereaux had a short, sharp struggle with his better self and his natural jealousy of the more fortunate lover of Liane, then his pity for the girl triumphed over every selfish instinct, and he said: "She was very frank with me--the frankness of innocence that saw no harm in the confidence. On the same principle I see no harm in confiding in you, Dean;" and he impulsively drew from his breast Liane's letter. Had he dreamed of the fatal consequences, he would have withheld his eager hand. There is love and love--love that has shallow roots and love that cannot be dragged up from its firm foundations. "Read!" said Devereaux, generously placing in his rival's hand Liane's letter. For himself he could have forgiven all her faults of innocence and ignorance could she but have returned his love. It did not occur to his mind that the artist could be in any way different; that the ill spelling and the puerile mind evinced by the letter would inspire him with keen disgust. It only seemed to him that all these faults could be remedied by Liane by the influence of a true love. The glamour of a strong passion was upon him, blinding him to the truth that instantly became patent to Dean's mind. The artist, reading the shallow effusion, flung it down in keen disgust. "Heavens, what a disappointment! Such beauty and apparent sweetness united to shallowness and vanity!" he exclaimed. "It calls forth your pity?" Devereaux said. "It excites my scorn!" the artist replied hotly. "Remember her misfortunes--her bringing up by that wretched old relative in want and ignorance. Surely the influence of love will work every desirable change in the fair girl who loves you so fondly," argued Devereaux. Malcolm Dean was pacing the floor excitedly. "You could not change the shallow nature indicated by that letter, if you loved her to distraction," he exclaimed. "Mark how she confesses to deliberate coquetry to win you from your betrothed; how cold-bloodedly she gloats over her triumph. Why, my love is dead in an instant, Devereaux, slain by this glimpse at Liane Lester's real nature. Thank fortune, I did not find her at Stonecliff yesterday. I shall never seek her now, for my eyes are opened by that heartless letter. Why are you staring at me so reproachfully, Devereaux? You have even more cause to despise than I have." "And yet I cannot do it; Heaven help me, I love her still!" groaned the other, bowing his pale face upon his hands. "But, Devereaux; this is madness! She is not worth your love. Fling the poison from your heart as I do. Forget the light coquette. Return to your first love." "Never!" he cried; but in all his pain he could not help an unconscious joy that Liane could yet be won. He had not meant to turn Dean's heart against her, but the mischief was done now. Poor little girl! Would she hate him if she knew? The old pitying tenderness surged over him again, and he longed to take her in his arms and shield her from all the assaults of the cruel world. Vain and shallow she might be; coquette she might be, yet she had stormed the citadel of his heart and held it still against all intruders. "I am going now," the artist cried; turning on him restlessly. "This is good-by for months, Devereaux. I think I shall join some friends of mine who are going to winter in Italy, to study art, you know. Wish you would come with us." "I should like to, but my father is lately dead, you know, and Lieutenant Carrington, my sister's husband, is ordered to sea with his ship. I cannot leave Lyde alone, poor girl." "Then good-by, and thank you for showing me that letter. What if I had married her in ignorance?" with a shudder. "For Heaven's sake, Devereaux, be careful of getting into her toils again. Better go back to Miss Clarke, and make up your quarrel. Adieu," and with a hearty handclasp, he was gone, leaving his friend almost paralyzed with the remorseful thought: "Would she ever forgive me if she guessed the harm I have done?" CHAPTER XXI. A HARVEST OF WOE. Devereaux's thoughts clung persistently to Liane. He could not shut away from his mind her haunting image. Pity blended with tenderness, as putting himself and his own disappointment aside, he gave himself up to thoughts of bettering her poverty-stricken life, so toilsome and lonely. He took up his pen and wrote feelingly to Edmund Clarke, telling him how and where he had found Liane again, and of his full belief in her purity and innocence, despite the cruel slanders circulating in Stonecliff, the work, no doubt, he said, of some jealous, unscrupulous enemy. He assured Mr. Clarke that he was ready to assist in any way he might suggest in bettering the fair young girl's hard lot in life. The letter was immediately posted, and went on its fateful way to fall into jealous Roma's hands and work a harvest of woe. Affairs at Cliffdene were already in a critical stage, and it wanted but this letter to fan the smoldering flames into devastating fury. Mr. Clarke, impatient of his lingering convalescence, had taken a decisive step toward recovering his lost daughter. He had written a letter summoning old Doctor Jay, of Brookline, on a visit, and he had explained it to his wife by pretending he wished to avail himself of the old man's medical skill. Doctor Jay was the physician who had attended Mrs. Clarke when her daughter was born, and he received a warm welcome at Cliffdene, a guest whom all delighted to honor; all, at least, but Roma, who immediately conceived an unaccountable aversion to the old man, perhaps because his little hazel-gray eyes peered at her so curiously through his glasses beneath his bushy gray eyebrows. There was something strange in his intent scrutiny, so coldly curious, instead of kindly, as she had a right to expect, and she said pettishly to her mother: "I detest Doctor Jay. I hope he is not going to stay long." "Oh, no, I suppose not, but I am very fond of Doctor Jay. He was very kind and sympathetic to me at a time of great suffering and trouble," Mrs. Clarke replied so warmly that she aroused Roma's curiosity. "Tell me all about it," she exclaimed. Mrs. Clarke had never been able to recall that time without suffering, but she impulsively told Roma the whole story, never dreamed of until now, of the loss of her infant and its mysterious restoration at the last moment, when her life was sinking away hopelessly into eternity. Roma listened with startled attention, and she began to ask questions that her mother found impossible to answer. "Who had stolen away the babe, and by what agency had it been restored?" demanded Roma. Mrs. Clarke could not satisfy her curiosity. The subject was so painful her husband would never discuss it with her, she declared, adding that Roma must not think of it any more, either. But, being in a reminiscent mood, she presently told Roma how she had been deceived in old Granny Jenks' identity, and how indignantly the old woman had denied the imputation of having been her nurse. "I was so sure of her identity that her anger was quite embarrassing," she said. Roma's thoughts returned to granny's affection for herself, and she felt sure the old woman had lied to her mother, though from what object she could not conceive. Her abject affection for herself seemed fully explained by the fact of her having been her nurse child. But she was, somehow, ill at ease after hearing her mother's story, and longed eagerly to know more than she had already heard. "I wonder if I dare question papa or the old doctor?" she thought when her mother had left her alone, resting easily in her furred dressing gown and slippers before a bright coal fire, while in the room beyond Dolly Dorr was getting her bath ready. Roma was devoured by curiosity. She sat racking her brain for a pretext to intrude on her father and the old doctor, who were still in the library together, chatting over old times when the Clarkes had lived in Brookline. A lucky thought came to her, and she murmured: "I will pretend to have a headache, and ask Doctor Jay for something to ease it. Then I will stay a while chatting with them and making myself very agreeable until I can bring the subject around, and get the interesting fact of my abduction out of them." Stealing noiselessly from the room, she glided downstairs like a shadow, pausing abruptly at the hall table, for there lay the evening's mail, just brought in by a servant from the village post office. Roma turned over the letters and papers, finding none for any one but her father, but the superscription on one made her start with a stifled cry. She recognized the elegant chirography of Jesse Devereaux on the back of one letter. "Now, why is he writing to papa?" she wondered, eagerly turning the letter over and over in her burning hand, wild with curiosity that tempted her at last to slip the letter into her bosom. Then, taking the rest of the mail in her hand, Roma went to the library, thinking that the delivery of the mail would furnish another plausible pretext for her intrusion. There was a little anteroom just adjoining the library, and this she entered first to wait a moment till the fierce beating of her heart over Devereaux's letter should quiet down. Her slippered feet made no sound on the thick velvet carpet, and, as she rested for a moment in a large armchair, she could hear the murmur of animated voices through the heavy portières that hung between her and the library. Believing that the whole family had retired, and that they were safe from interruption, Doctor Jay and his host had returned to the tragedy of eighteen years before--the loss of the infant that had nearly cost the mother's life. Roma caught her breath with a stifled gasp of self-congratulation, hoping now to hear the whole interesting story without moving from her chair. In her hope she was not disappointed. "I have never ceased to regret the substitution of that spurious infant in place of my own lovely child," sighed Mr. Clarke. Roma gave a start of consternation, and almost betrayed herself by screaming out aloud, but she bit her lips in time, while her wildly throbbing heart seemed to sink like a stone in her breast. Doctor Jay said questioningly: "You have never been able to love your adopted daughter as your own?" "Never, never!" groaned Edmund Clarke despairingly. "And her mother?" "She knows nothing, suspects nothing; for the one object of my life has been to keep her in ignorance of the truth that Roma is not her own child. She has an almost slavish devotion to the girl, but I think in her inmost heart she realizes Roma's lack of lovable qualities, though she is too loyal to her child to admit the truth even to me." "It is strange, most strange, that no clue has ever been found that would lead to the discovery of your lost little one," mused the old doctor, and after a moment's silence the other answered: "One thing I would like to know, and that is the family from which Roma sprang. It must have been low, judging frankly from the girl herself." The listener clinched her hands till the blood oozed from the tender palms on hearing these words, and she would have liked to clutch the speaker's throat instead. But she sat still, like one paralyzed, a deadly hatred tugging at her heartstrings, listening as one listens to the sentence of death, while Doctor Jay cleared his throat, and answered: "I am sorry, most sorry, that your surmises are correct, but naturally one would not expect to find good blood in a foundling asylum, though when I sent Nurse Jenks for the child, I told her to get an infant of honest parentage, if she could." "Then you know Roma's antecedents?" Mr. Clarke questioned anxiously. "My dear friend, I wish that you would not press the subject." "Answer me; I must know! The bitterest truth could not exceed my suspicions!" almost raved Mr. Clarke in his eagerness, and again the clinched hands of the listener tightened as if they were about his throat. Hate, swift, terrible, murderous, had sprung to life, full grown in the angry girl's heart. She heard the old doctor cough and sigh again, and a futile wish rose in her that he had dropped down dead before he ever came to Cliffdene. Doctor Jay, all unconscious of her proximity and her charitable wishes, proceeded hesitatingly: "Since you insist, I must own the truth. Nurse Jenks deceived me." "How?" hoarsely. "She never went near the foundling asylum. She had at her own home an infant, the child of a worthless daughter, who had run away previously to go on the stage. Leaving this child on her mother's hands, the actress again ran away, and the old grandmother palmed it off on you as a foundling." "My God! I see it all," groaned Edmund Clarke. "The old fiend exchanged infants, putting her grandchild in the place of my daughter, and raising her in poverty and wretchedness. I have seen my child with her, my beautiful daughter. Listen to my story," he cried, pouring out to the astonished old physician the whole moving story of Liane Lester. CHAPTER XXII. AT A FIEND'S MERCY. Doctor Jay listened with breathless attention, and so did Roma. Pale as a breathing statue, her great eyes dilated with dismay and horror, her heart beating heavily and slow, Roma crouched in her chair and listened to the awful words that told her who and what she was, the base-born child of Cora Jenks, and granddaughter of old granny, whose very name was a synonym for contempt in Stonecliff. She, Roma, who despised poor people, who treated them no better than the dust beneath her well-shod feet, belonged to the common herd, and was usurping the place of beautiful Liane, whom she had despised for her lowly estate and hated for her beauty, but who had become first her rival in love and now in fortune. To the day of her death beautiful, wicked Roma never forgot that bleak November night, that blasted all her pride and flung her down into the dust of humiliation and despair, her towering pride crushed, all the worst passions of her evil nature aroused into pernicious activity. Stiller than chiseled marble, the stricken girl crouched there, listening, fearing to lose even a single word, though each one quivered like a dagger in her heart. Her greatest enemy could not have wished her a keener punishment than this knowledge of her position in the Clarke household--an adopted daughter, secretly despised and only tolerated for the mother's sake, holding her place only until the real heiress should be discovered. No words could paint her rage, her humiliation, her terrors of the future, that held a sword that might at any moment fall. Oh, how she hated the world, and every one in it, and most of all Liane Lester, her guiltless rival. While she listened, she wished the girl dead a hundred times, and all at once a throbbing memory came to her of the fierce words Granny Jenks had spoken in her rage against Liane. "I would beat her; yes, I would kill her, before she should steal your grand lover from you darling!" Roma could understand now the old hag's devotion to herself. It was the tie of their kinship asserting itself. She shuddered with disgust as she recalled the old woman's fulsome admiration and adoration, and how she had been willing to sell her very soul for one kiss from those fresh, rosy lips. How eagerly she had said: "I will scold Liane, and whip her, too. I will do anything to please you, beautiful lady!" No wonder! Roma was bitterly sorry now that she had not let granny kill Liane when she had been so anxious to do it. She felt that she had made a great mistake, for her position at Cliffdene would never be assured until Liane was dead. Edmund Clarke was certain now that Liane was his own child, and he swore to Doctor Jay that he would find her soon, if it took the last dollar of his fortune. The old doctor replied: "I do not blame you, my friend, for it does, indeed, appear plausible that this Liane Lester must be your own lost child, and I can conceive how galling it must be to your pride to call Nurse Jenks' grandchild your daughter, while, as for your noble wife, it is cruel to think of the imposition practiced on her motherly love all these years. But it is certain that she must have died but for the terrible deception we had to practice." Edmund Clarke knew that it was true. He remembered how she had been drifting from him out on the waves of the shoreless sea, and how the piping cry of the little infant had called her back to life and hope. "Yes, it was a terrible necessity," he groaned, adding: "And only think, dear doctor, how sad it is that Roma, with a devilish cunning, that must be a keen instinct, has always hated sweet Liane, and has succeeded in poisoning my wife's mind against her, arousing a mean jealousy in my uncomprehended interest in the girl! Think of such a sweet mother being set against her own sweet daughter!" "It is horrible," assented Doctor Jay, and he continued: "But this excitement is telling on your nerves, dear friend, weakened by your recent severe illness. Let me persuade you to retire to bed, with a sedative now, and to-morrow we will further discuss your plan of employing a detective to trace Liane and the fiendish Nurse Jenks." "I believe I will take your advice," Roma heard Edmund Clarke respond wearily, and Doctor Jay insisted on preparing a sedative, which he said should be mixed in a glass of water, half the dose to be taken on retiring, and the remainder in two hours, if the patient proved wakeful. "I wish it was a dose of poison," Roma thought vindictively, as she hurried from the room and gained her own unperceived, where she found her maid waiting most impatiently to assist her in her bath. "Never mind, Dolly, you can go to bed now. I went to mamma's room for a little chat, and we talked longer than I expected, so I will wait on myself this once," she said, with unwonted kindness in her eagerness to be alone; so Dolly curtsied and retired, though she said to herself: "She is lying. She was not in her mother's room at all, for I went there to see, and Mrs. Clarke had retired. She must have been up to some mischief and don't want to be found out. She had a guilty look." Meanwhile Roma flung herself into the easy-chair before the glowing fire, stretched out her slippered feet on the thick fur rug, and gave herself up to the bitterest reflections. "There are four people who are terribly in my way, and whom I would like to see dead! They are Liane Lester, Granny Jenks, old Doctor Jay, and Edmund Clarke, the man I have heretofore regarded as my father," she muttered vindictively. She knew that the two last named would know neither rest nor peace till they found Liane and reinstated her in her place at Cliffdene as daughter and heiress, ousting without remorse the usurper. "Ah, if I only knew where to find her, granny would soon put her out of my way forever!" she thought, regretting bitterly now that she had not made the old hag keep her informed of her whereabouts. The spirit of murder was rife in Roma's heart, and she longed to end the lives of all those who stood in her way. "I wish that Edmund Clarke would die to-night! How easy it would be if some arsenic were dropped into his sedative--some of that solution I was taking a while ago to improve my complexion," she thought darkly, resolving to wait until all was quiet and herself attempt the hellish deed. One death already lay on her conscience, and the form of the man she had remorselessly thrust over the bluff stalked grimly through her dreams. To her soul, already black with crime, what did the commission of other deeds of darkness matter? The death of Edmund Clarke so quickly decreed, she began to plan that of the old doctor. This was not so easy. He did not have a convenient glass of sedative ready by his bedside. But she had noticed at supper that he was fond of a glass of wine. "I must poison a draught for him before he leaves Cliffdene," she thought, regretting that she could not accomplish it to-night. But Edmund Clarke's speedy death would delay the search for Liane a while, even if it did not postpone it forever. For the old physician was not likely to prosecute it after the death of his patron. He could have no interest in doing so, though she would make sure he did not by putting him out of the way if she could. Her mind a chaos of evil thoughts, Roma rested in her chair, waiting till she thought every one must be asleep before she stole from the room to poison the draught for the man she had regarded until this hour as her own father, and to whose wealth she owed her luxurious life of eighteen years. Neither pity nor gratitude warmed her cold heart. She had never loved him in her life, and she hated him now. In her rage and despair she had forgotten Jesse Devereaux's letter to her father until, in a restless movement, she heard the rustle of paper in her corsage. An evil gleam lightened in her eyes, and she drew the letter forth, muttering: "Ah, this will beguile my weary waiting!" In five minutes she was mistress of the contents. It was the letter Devereaux had written to acquaint Edmund Clarke with Liane's address--the fateful letter that was to betray the girl into the hands of her bitterest foe. Ah, the hellish gleam of wicked joy in the cruel red-brown eyes; the stormy heaving of Roma's breast as she realized her great good fortune; all her enemies in her power, at her mercy! The mercy the ravenous wolf shows to the helpless lamb! She laughed low and long in her glee, and that laughter was an awful thing to hear. "Oh, how can I wait till to-morrow?" she muttered. "Yet I cannot go to Boston to-night, nor to-morrow, if Edmund Clarke dies to-night. Shall I spare his life till I go to Boston, and have his daughter put out of the way?" CHAPTER XXIII. A MURDEROUS FURY. Hours slipped away while the beautiful fiend, so young in years, so old in the conception of crime, crouched in her seat, waiting, musing, pondering on the best schemes for ridding herself of those who stood in her way. She was eager as a wild beast to strike quickly and finish the awful work she had set herself to do. It seemed to her that she might never have another such opportunity for ending Edmund Clarke's life as was offered to her by the conditions of the present moment. It was most important to get rid of him, she knew, and the sooner the better for the safety of her position as heiress of the Clarke millions. Let him die first, and she could attend to the others afterward. At the dark, gloomy hour of midnight, while the icy winds wailed around the house like a banshee, Roma went groping through the pitch-black corridors toward the room where Mr. Clarke lay sleeping with his gentle, loving wife by his side. Like a sleek, beautiful panther the girl crept into the unlocked door, knowing the room so well that she could find her way to the bedside in the darkness, and put out her stealthy, murderous hand, with the bottle of poison in it, seeking for the glass that held the sleeping potion Doctor Jay had prescribed. Her heart beat with evil exultation, for it seemed to her that her errand could scarcely fail of success. Edmund Clarke was sound asleep, she knew by his deep breathing, and she decided that, after pouring the poison into the glass, she would make enough noise in escaping from the room to arouse him fully, so that he would be sure to swallow the second dose ere sleeping again. It was a clever plan, cleverly conceived, and in another moment it would be executed, and no earthly power could save the victim from untimely death. But in her haste Roma made one fatal mistake. In groping for the glass, she held the vial with the arsenic clasped in her hand. And she was very nervous, her white hands trembling as they fluttered over the little medicine stand by the head of the bed. That was why, the next moment, there came the sharp clink of glass against glass as her hands came in contact with what she sought, overturning and breaking both, with such a sharp, keen, crystalline tinkle that both the sleepers were aroused suddenly and quickly, and Mr. Clarke flung out his arms, clutching Roma ere she could escape, and demanding bewilderedly: "What is the matter? Who is this?" "Edmund! Edmund!" cried his equally startled wife, hastily lighting a night lamp close to her arm, in time to see Roma writhing and struggling in her father's arms. "Roma!" he panted. "Roma!" echoed his wife. It was a situation to strike terror to the girl's guilty heart. But in her scheming she had not failed to take into account any possible contretemps. Failing in her efforts to escape before her identity was detected, Roma laughed aloud, hysterically: "Dear papa, do not squeeze me so hard, please; you take away my breath! Why, you must take me for a burglar!" Edmund Clarke, releasing her and not yet fully awake, stammered drowsily: "Yes--I--took--you--for--a--burglar. What do you want, Roma?" "Yes, what is the matter, my dear?" added Mrs. Clarke wonderingly, while Roma, mistress of the situation still, pressed her hand to her cheek, groaning hysterically: "Oh, papa, mamma, forgive me for arousing you, but I am suffering so much with a wretched toothache, and I came to ask you for some medicine to ease it!" "Poor dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Clarke, with immediate maternal sympathy, as she rose quickly from her bed and motioned Roma into her dressing room, searching for remedies within a little medicine case while she plied her with questions. "When did it begin to ache, dear? Why didn't you send Dolly for the medicine? It will make you worse, coming along the cold corridors!" "For goodness' sake, don't tease! Give me the medicine quick as you can!" Roma answered crossly, dropping into a chair and hiding her face in her hands, her whole form shaking with fury at the failure of her scheme to kill Edmund Clarke. A blind, terrible rage possessed her, and she would have liked to spring upon him and clutch his throat with murderous hands. But she dare not give way to her murderous impulse; she must wait and try her luck again, for die he must, and that very soon. She could only wreak her pent-up rage by cross answers to the gentle lady she called mother, and Mrs. Clarke, with a patient sigh of wounded feeling, turned to her, replying: "I did not mean to tease you, Roma, but here is some medicine. Put five drops of it upon this bit of cotton and press it into the cavity of your tooth, and it will give you speedy relief. In the morning you must visit a dentist." Roma lifted her pale face, and answered: "Yes, I will visit a dentist, but not one at Stonecliff. I will go to Boston by the early train." "I will go with you and do some shopping," said her mother, who had a very feminine love of finery. "Very well," the girl answered, scowling behind her hand, for she preferred to go alone on her mission to Granny Jenks. But she realized that it would not do to offend the only person who seemed to have any real fondness for her, so, making a wry face behind her hand, she went up to Mrs. Clarke, saying gently: "I did not mean to be cross to you, dear mamma, but I am in such agony with this pain that I could not help my impatience. I want you to forgive me and try not to love me any less for my faults, please." Mrs. Clarke could not help wondering what favor Roma was planning to ask for now, but she answered sweetly: "I forgive you, dear, and, of course, I shall always love my daughter." "But papa does not love me much. I often meet his glance fixed on me in cold disapproval, and at times he is very stern to me!" complained Roma. "That must be your fancy, dear. He could not help loving you, his own daughter, dearly and fondly," soothed the lady, though she knew that she had herself noticed and complained of the same thing in her husband. "You do not love Roma as I do," she had said to him, reproachfully, many times, getting always an evasive, unsatisfactory reply. So she could not offer her much comfort on this score; she could only put her arm about the form of the arch traitress, murmuring kind, tender words, actually getting in return a loving caress that surprised her very much, it was so unusual. But Roma for the first time in her life comprehended the necessity of fortifying her position by a staunch ally like her mother. "I will go back to my room now. I must not keep you up any longer in the cold, dear, patient mamma," she cried gushingly, as she kissed her and left the room. Mrs. Clarke was grateful for the caress, but she retired to bed with the firm conviction that it would take a very large check indeed to gratify Roma's desires in Boston to-morrow. Her affectionate spells were always very costly to her parents. "Do you think I had better take the second dose of that sedative? I am very nervous from my sudden awakening, and wish we had locked the door on retiring," her husband said petulantly. "It would be very unkind to lock the door on our own daughter. Roma was just now lamenting your sternness and lack of love and sympathy," returned the lady. Edmund Clarke stifled an imprecation between his teeth, then demanded earnestly: "Have I ever failed in love and sympathy to you, dear Elinor?" "Never, my darling husband," she answered, fondly clasping his hand. "And never will my love fail you, dearest; but I cannot say as much for Roma, whose nature is so unlike yours that I confess she repels instead of attracts me," he exclaimed, reaching out for the medicine and exclaiming impatiently on finding the glass broken and the draught lost. Ah, how nearly it had been a fatal draught, had not Heaven interposed to save his life! As he set it back on the table, he added: "Why, here is a broken vial on the table beside the glass. I wonder how it came there!" "I do not know; but it really does not matter, dear. There, now, shut your eyes, and try to sleep," advised his wife, knowing the importance of sound, healthful sleep to the convalescent. But to her dismay he arose and turned the key in the lock, saying as he lay down again: "I'll try to sleep now; but I'll make sure first of not being disturbed again." CHAPTER XXIV. A STRAND OF RUDDY HAIR. At early daylight the next morning a servant tapped at Edmund Clarke's door with a message from Doctor Jay. He found himself quite ill this morning, and must go home at once. Would Mr. Clarke grant him a few parting words? Mr. Clarke was up and dressed. He had just said good-by to his wife and Roma, who had taken an early train to Boston. He went at once to Doctor Jay's room, finding him seated by the window, looking ill and aged from a bad night. "Good morning, my dear old friend. You look ill, and I fear you have not rested well." "No; my night was troubled by ghastly dreams. I could scarcely wait till morning to bid you good-by." "I am very sorry for this, for I had counted on a pleasant day with you. My wife and Roma are gone to Boston for the day, leaving their regrets for you, and kindly wishes to find you here on their return." The doctor started with surprise, exclaiming: "It must have been an unexpected trip." Edmund Clarke then explained about Roma's midnight sufferings from toothache, necessitating a visit to her dentist. "My wife would not have left me, but she felt sure I should not be lonely, having you for company," he added regretfully. "My dear friend, I should like to remain with you, and, rather than disappoint you, I will wait until the late afternoon train; but--all my friendship for you could not tempt me to spend another night at Cliffdene!" "You amaze me, doctor! This is very strange! Why do you look so pale and strange? Why did you spend so uncomfortable a night, when I tried to surround you with every comfort?" "You did, my dear friend, and every luxury besides--even a key to my door, which I forgot to use," returned Doctor Jay, so significantly that Edmund Clarke reddened, exclaiming: "It is not possible you have been robbed! I believe that all my servants are honest!" He thought that the old physician must be losing his senses when he answered, with terrible gravity: "Nevertheless, I was nearly robbed of my life last night!" "Great heavens!" Doctor Jay's brow was beaded with damp as he loosened his cravat and collar, and pointed to his bared neck. Edmund Clarke leaned forward, and saw on the old man's throat some dark purple discolorations, like finger prints. "Have you in your household any persons subject to vicious aberrations of mind?" demanded Doctor Jay. "No one!" answered his startled host, and he was astounded when his guest replied: "Nevertheless, a fiend in human form entered this room last night under cover of the darkness and attempted to murder me by vicious strangling!" "Heavens! Is this so?" "You have the evidence!" exclaimed the physician, pointing to his bared throat with the print of the strangler's fingers. "This is most mysterious!" ejaculated Edmund Clarke, in wonder and distress, while the physician continued: "Last night I retired and slept soundly until after midnight, when I was aroused by the horrible sensation of steely fingers gripping my throat with deadly force. Vainly gasping for my failing breath, I struggled with the intruder, who held on with a maniacal strength, panting with fury as I clutched in my arms a form that I immediately knew to be that of a woman, soft, warm, palpitating, though her strength was certainly equal to that of a man. We grappled in a terrible struggle, and I clutched my fingers in her long hair, causing her such pain that, with a stifled moan, she released my throat, struck me in the face, and fled before I could regain my senses, that deserted me at the critical moment." "This is most mysterious, most shocking! No wonder you are anxious to leave Cliffdene, where you so nearly met your death. But this must be sifted to the bottom at once, and the lunatic identified, for it could be no other than a lunatic. I will have the whole household summoned. We will question every servant closely!" cried Clarke eagerly, turning to ring the bell. But Doctor Jay stopped him, saying: "Wait till I question you on the subject. Have you in your employ a woman with red hair?" "What a question! But, no. My women servants are all gray-haired or black-haired, with one exception. That is Roma's maid, a pretty little blonde, with the palest flaxen curls." He looked inquiringly at the doctor, who replied: "After my struggle was over and I was able to light a lamp, I found entangled in my fingers some threads of hair--beautiful long strands of ruddy hair, copperish red in the full light." He took an envelope from his breast, and drew from it a ruddy strand of long hair, holding it up to the light of the window, where it shone with a rich copper tint. "My God!" groaned Edmund Clarke. "You recognize the hair?" cried Doctor Jay. "It is Roma's hair!" was the anguished answer. "I thought so!" "You thought so! Is the girl, then, a lunatic, or a fiend? And what motive could she have to take your life--an old man, who has never harmed her in his blameless life?" cried the host, in consternation. Edmund Clarke had never been confronted with such a terrible problem of crime in his life. His face paled to an ashen hue, and his eyes almost glared as he stared helplessly at his friend. "I have a theory!" cried Doctor Jay. "What is it?" "The girl must have overheard our conversation last night." "Impossible!" "Why?" Mr. Clarke revolved the matter silently in his mind for a moment, then answered: "Well, of course, not impossible, but quite improbable." "Is there not a curtained alcove or anteroom next the library?" "Yes; but why should the girl have suspected us--why concealed herself there to listen?" "Heaven only knows, but it is possible that some accident brought her there--perhaps an errand of some kind--maybe to get medicine from me for her aching tooth. She caught a few words that aroused her curiosity, kept silence, and listened, overhearing the truth about herself." "It must indeed have happened that way!" "And the shock drove her mad," continued Doctor Jay. "Her resentment flamed against me for knowing so much of her low origin. In her first senseless fury she sought my life." "It is a terrible situation!" cried his friend, and both were silent for a moment, gazing at the lock of hair as if it had been a writhing serpent; then Clarke continued: "It is a wonder the fiend incarnate did not seek my life also, thus removing from her path the two who were plotting to oust her from her position and reinstate the real heiress!" But even as he spoke he remembered last night's accident when he had been aroused by the clink of breaking glass and found Roma in hysterics by his bedside. He told Doctor Jay the whole story, adding: "I could not imagine how the bottle came there. It was certainly not on the stand when I retired to bed, and when I read the label this morning, it ran: 'Poison--arsenic.'" "I should like to see the bottle." "Come with me," returned Mr. Clarke, leading the way to his room. Fortunately the chambermaid had not disturbed anything yet, so the fragments of the bottle and glass were found upon the table. "It is a fearfully strong solution of arsenic, and I fancy she intended to pour it into your sedative, so that in case you drank it you would be silenced forever," affirmed the doctor. They could only stare aghast at each other, feeling that Providence had surely preserved their lives last night. "She was nervous in the dark, jostling the bottle against the glass, breaking both, and thus defeating her murderous game! The toothache was probably a clever feint to explain her presence in your room," continued the old doctor, who had a wonderful insight into men and motives, and seemed to read Roma like an open book. A sudden terror seized on Mr. Clarke. "She has taken my darling wife away with her! What if she means to murder her, too? I must follow them on the next train and separate them forever!" he cried frantically. "I believe you are right, my friend." After further thought and consultation, they decided that, although Roma and Mrs. Clarke must be immediately separated, it would not be prudent to reveal the truth to her yet, for the shock would be sufficient to dethrone her reason. Therefore it would not be prudent to arrest Roma yet for her attempted crimes. "We have just time enough for a hasty breakfast before catching the next train. Come!" cried Edmund Clarke, leading the way from the room. In the corridor they encountered Dolly Dorr mincing along, with her yellow head on one side like a pert canary; and her master, stopping her, exclaimed: "Your mistress had a bad time with the toothache, I fear, last night, Dolly!" Dolly, dropping a curtsy, answered slyly: "Indeed she did, sir, and the medicine she got when she went after Doctor Jay didn't help her one bit, for she walked the floor groaning and sobbing all night." They glared at her in amazement, while she continued, with pretended sympathy: "She would not let me sit up with her, poor thing, but I was stealing back to her room to see if I could help her any when I met her flying out of Doctor Jay's room, and she said she had gone for a remedy for the toothache, and he burned her gums with iodine and almost set her crazy with the pain. Then she scolded me for being up so late, and sent me back to my room to stay." She gave Doctor Jay a quizzical glance from her saucy blue eyes, but his face was entirely noncommittal as he replied: "I am very sorry I burned her so badly with the iodine, but I thought it would give the quickest relief." "Well, she has gone to a dentist in Boston now, and he may soon help the pain," said Edmund Clarke, passing on, while Dolly Dorr muttered suspiciously: "There were mysterious carryings on in this house last night, for sure!" CHAPTER XXV. A TRUE FRIEND. Liane Lester, late that afternoon, when coming home from her work with her friend, Lizzie White, saw again the handsome face and dark, flashing eyes of Jesse Devereaux. He had believed himself unseen, but he was mistaken. Some subtle instinct had turned Liane's timid glance straight to the spot where he was watching, unseen, as he believed. The quick, passionate throb of her heart sent the blood bounding to her cheeks and made her hands tremble as they clasped the envelope with her slender weekly earnings. But at the same instant Liane dropped the thick, curling fringe of her lashes quickly over her eyes, for in his alert glance she met no sign of recognition, and her heart sank heavily again as she remembered his cold, careless greeting the day she had passed his house with Mrs. Brinkley. The good woman was right. He might have amused himself with her in the country, but he was indifferent to her in town. He would not even take the trouble to bow when they met by chance, as now. But Liane had the most loyal heart in the world, and she could never forget that night by the sea when Devereaux had saved her from the insulting caresses of the dark-browed stranger, and afterward from granny's blow, breaking his arm in her defense. "How brave and noble he was that night! He was so handsome and adorable that my heart went out to him, never to be recalled, in spite of all that has happened since," she thought sadly. With lowered lashes and a heart sinking heavily with its hopeless love and pain, Liane passed on with her friend, little dreaming that she was followed to her home by Devereaux, nor what dire consequences would follow on his learning her address. She was restless that night, and he haunted her dreams persistently, and on the morrow she rose tired, and pale, and sad, almost wishing she had not met him again, to have all the old pain and regret revived within her breast. The long day dragged away, and when she went home that evening she found awaiting her the Philadelphia magazine that had her beautiful face on the outside cover. Accompanying this was a batch of novels, together with a basket of fruit and a bunch of roses. "Hothouse roses and tropical fruit--you must have caught a rich beau, Liane!" cried Mrs. Brinkley, as she delivered the gifts. "Oh, no; there must be some mistake," she answered quickly, but her heart throbbed as she remembered the meeting with Devereaux yesterday, and she wondered if he could possibly be the donor. "Impossible!" she sighed to herself, as the woman continued: "There cannot be any mistake, for there is the card, tied to the basket, with 'Miss Liane Lester, with kind wishes of a true friend,' written on it. They came by a neat messenger boy, who would not answer a single question I asked him." "A charming mystery! Oh, what magnificent roses for the last of November!" cried Lizzie, inhaling their fragrance with delight, while Liane handed around the basket, generously sharing the luscious fruit with her friends. She was thinking all the while of the words Jesse Devereaux had said to her on the beach that never-to-be-forgotten night: "I will be a true friend to you." The card on the basket read the same: "A True Friend." It was enough to send the tremulous color flying to Liane's cheek, while a new, faint hope throbbed at her heart. Granny was out somewhere, or she would have got a scolding on suspicion of knowing the donor of the presents. She wisely kept the truth to herself, dividing the fruit with her friends, placing the books in her trunk, and the roses in a vase in Lizzie's room, though she longed very much to have them in her own. That night her dreams were sweet and rose-colored. She went to work with a blithe heart next morning, and, although it was the first day of December, and a light covering of snow lay on the roofs and pavements, she did not feel the biting wind pierce through her thin jacket; her pulse was bounding and her being in a glow because of the great scarlet rose pinned on her breast, seeming to shed a summer warmth and sweetness on the icy air--the warmth of hope and love. All day her visions were rose-colored, and her thoughts hovered about Devereaux until she almost forgot where she was, and was recalled unpleasantly to reality by a proud, impatient voice exclaiming: "I have spoken to you twice, and you have not heard me! Your thoughts must be very far away. Show me your best kid gloves--five and a half size!" At the same moment a small hand had gently pressed her arm, sending an odd thrill through her whole frame, causing her to start and look up at a handsome, richly dressed woman, whose dark-blue eyes were fixed on her in surprise and dislike. She knew the proud, cold face instantly. It belonged to a woman she had seen on Edmund Clarke's arm the night of the beauty contest. It was his wife, the mother of haughty Roma, and Liane comprehended instantly her glance of anger--it was because she had taken the prize over Roma's head. Wounded and abashed by the lady's scorn, Liane attended to her wants in timid silence, only speaking when necessary, her cheeks flushed, her soft eyes downcast, her white hands fluttering nervously over the gloves. Mrs. Clarke selected a box of gloves, paid for them, and said in a supercilious tone, quite different from her usual gentle manner: "I will take the gloves with me. You may bring them out to my carriage on the opposite side of the street." She was purposely humbling Liane, and the girl felt it intuitively. Her bosom heaved, and her blue eyes brimmed with dew, but she did not resent the proud command, only took up the box of gloves and followed her customer out of the store to the thickly crowded pavement and over the crossing, where a carriage waited in a throng of vehicles on the other side. All at once something terrible happened. Mrs. Clarke, keeping proudly in front of Liane, and not noticing closely enough her environment of vehicles and street cars, suddenly found herself right in the path of an electric car that in another moment would have crushed out her life had not two small hands reached out and hurled her swiftly aside. Hundreds of eyes had seen the lady's imminent peril, and marked with kindling admiration the girl's heroic deed. Without a selfish thought, though she was exposing herself to deadly danger, Liane bounded wildly upon the track and seized the dazed and immovable woman with frantic hands, dragging her by main force off the track of the car that, in the succeeding moment, whizzed by at its highest speed, just as the two, Liane and the rescued woman, fell to the ground outside the wheels. Eager, sympathetic men bore them to the pavement, where it was found that Mrs. Clarke was in a swoon, so deathlike that it frightened Liane, who sobbed and wrung her hands. "Oh, she is dead! The terrible shock has killed her! Can no one do anything to bring back her life? She must not die! She has a loving husband and a beautiful daughter, who would break their hearts over their terrible loss!" "Who is she?" they asked the sobbing girl, and she answered: "She is Mrs. Clarke, a wealthy lady of Stonecliff, and must be visiting in the city." At that moment the lady's eyes fluttered open, she gazed with a dazed air on the curious faces that surrounded her, and murmured: "Where am I? What has happened?" There were not lacking a dozen voices to tell her everything, loud in praise of the lovely girl who had saved her life at the imminent risk of her own. "I--I did no more than my duty!" she sobbed, blushing crimson while they all gazed on her with the warmest admiration. There are so few who do their duty even in this cold, hard world, and one man exclaimed: "It was not your duty to risk your life so nearly. Why, the car fender brushed your skirt as you fell. It was an act of the purest heroism!" Mrs. Clarke pressed her hand to her brow bewilderingly, murmuring: "I remember it all now! I stepped thoughtlessly on the track, and when I saw the car rushing down on me, I was so dazed with fear and horror I could not move or speak! No, though my very life depended on it, I could not move or speak! I could only stand like a statue, a breathing statue of horror, facing death! My feet were glued to the rail, my eyes stared before me in mute despair! Horrible anticipations thronged my mind! Suddenly I was caught by frantic hands and dragged aside! I realized I was saved, and consciousness fled." At that moment the carriage driver, who had got down from his box and was waiting on the curb, advanced, and said anxiously: "Shall I take you back to the hotel, madam?" "Yes, yes." She glanced around at Liane, and put out a yearning hand. "Come with me, dear girl. I--I am too ill to go alone. Let me lean on your strength." Somehow Liane could not refuse the request. She felt a strange, sweet tenderness flooding her heart for the proud lady who, up to the present time, had used her so cruelly in unfair resentment. She sent a message explaining her absence across to the store, and led Mrs. Clarke's faltering steps to the carriage. "Oh, I dropped the box of gloves in my rush to drag you from the track! I must go back for them!" she cried, in dismay. "No, miss, here they are. An honest man picked them up and handed them up on the box this instant," said the driver, producing the gloves. "Oh, my dear girl, no need to think of gloves at a moment like this! How can I ever thank you and bless you enough for your noble heroism that saved my life!" cried Mrs. Clarke fervently. She gazed in gratitude and admiration at the exquisite face that owed none of its charm to extraneous adornment. The wealth of sun-flecked, chestnut locks rippled back in rich waves from the pure white brow, the great purplish-blue eyes, the exquisite features, the dainty coloring of the skin; above all, the expression of innocence and sweetness pervading all, thrilled Mrs. Clarke's heart with such keen pleasure that she quite forgot it was this radiant beauty that had rivaled Roma in the contest for the prize. She said to herself that here was the loveliest and the bravest girl in the whole world. The carriage rattled along the busy streets, and Liane timidly disclaimed any need of praise; she had but tried to do her duty. "Duty!" cried Mrs. Clarke, and somehow her cold, nervous hand stole into Liane's, and nestled there like a trembling bird, while she continued with keen self-reproach: "You have returned good for evil in the most generous fashion. I was treating you in the most haughty and resentful manner, trying to sting your girlish pride and make you conscious of your inferiority. Did you understand my motive?" "You were naturally a little vexed with me because I had carried off the prize for which your lovely daughter competed," Liane murmured bashfully. "Yes, and I was wickedly unjust. You deserved the prize. Roma, with all her gifts of birth and fortune, is not one-half so beautiful as you, Liane Lester, the poor girl," cried Mrs. Clarke warmly. "Do you know I am quite proud that my husband says you resemble me in my girlhood; but, to be frank, I am sure I was never half so pretty." Liane blushed with delight at her kindness, and bashfully told her of her meeting on the beach with Mr. Clarke, when he had impulsively called her Elinor. "He told me then that I greatly resembled his wife!" she added, gazing admiringly at the still handsome woman, and feeling proud in her heart to look like her, so strangely was her heart interested. Mrs. Clarke could not help saying, so greatly were her feelings changed toward Liane: "My husband admires you greatly; did you know it? He wishes to befriend you, making you an honored member of our household. I believe he would permit me to adopt you as a daughter, so strong will be his gratitude for your act of to-day." "Oh, madam!" faltered Liane, in grateful bewilderment, feeling that she could be very happy with these kind people, only for proud, willful Roma, and she added: "Your handsome daughter would not want me as a sister!" Mrs. Clarke hesitated, then answered reassuringly: "Oh, yes, yes, when she learns how you saved my life to-day, Roma cannot help but love you dearly!" The carriage stopped in front of a grand hotel, and she added: "I want you to come in and stay all day with me, Liane, dear. I am too nervous to be left alone, and Roma has gone to a dentist and will not be back until late afternoon." Liane went with her new friend into the grand hotel, and they spent a happy day together, the tie of blood, undreamed of by either, strongly asserting itself. Mrs. Clarke found Liane a charming and congenial companion, as different from selfish, hateful Roma as daylight from darkness. In spite of her loyalty, she could not help contrasting them in her mind, so greatly to Roma's disadvantage that she murmured to herself: "I would give half my fortune if Roma were like this charming girl!" She lay on the sofa and talked, while Liane stroked her aching temples with cool, magnetic fingers, so enchanting Mrs. Clarke that she caught them once and pressed them to her lips. "I love you, dear, you are so sweet and noble. Bend down your head, let me kiss you for saving my life!" and Liane's dewy lips gave the longed-for caress so fervently that it thrilled the lady's heart with keen pleasure. How cold and reluctant Roma's lips were, even in her warmest, most deceitful moods. But ere the day was far advanced Edmund Clarke suddenly burst in upon them, pale with anxiety lest wicked Roma had already harmed his gentle wife. He was astonished when he found her in company with Liane Lester. Explanations followed, and surprise was succeeded by delight. He was so sure that Liane was his own daughter that he longed to clasp her in his arms, kiss her sweet, rosy lips, and claim her for his own. But he did not dare risk the shock to his delicate, nervous wife. "I must wait a little, till I can get proof to back up my assertion," he decided, so his greeting to Liane, though grateful and friendly, was repressed in its ardor, while he thought gladly: "Thank Heaven! She has won her way, unaided, to her mother's heart, and that makes everything easier. I shall not have to encounter her opposition in ousting Roma from the place so long wrongfully occupied." "Do you know what I am thinking of, Edmund, dear?" said his wife. "I wish to adopt Liane for a daughter." He started with surprise and pleasure, his fine eyes beaming: "A happy idea!" he exclaimed; "but do you think Roma would care for a sister?" She hesitated a moment, then answered: "Frankly, I do not, but I have fallen so deeply in love with this dear girl, and she seems already so necessary to my happiness, that Roma must yield to my will in the matter." At this moment Liane arose, saying sweetly: "I am your debtor for a charming day, Mrs. Clarke, but it is time for me to go now, or my grandmother will be uneasy about me." "Then you must promise me to come here again to-morrow morning; for I shall never let you work for a living again. Edmund, you must send her home in the carriage," cried Mrs. Clarke, kissing her charming guest farewell. CHAPTER XXVI. TREMBLING HOPES. Mrs. Brinkley was amazed to see Liane coming home in an elegant carriage, and when she entered she could not help exclaiming: "Really, my dear, I shall believe presently that you and Mistress Jenks must be rich folks in disguise! Here was your granny receiving a visit from a grand young lady in a carriage this morning, and now you coming home in another one, just when I was expecting you and Lizzie to come trudging home, afoot, from work. It's rather strange, I think, and, coupled with your gifts yesterday, it looks like you were fooling with some rich young man that means nothing but trifling, though I hope for your own sake it ain't so!" There was a sharp note of suspicion in her voice, but Liane, inured to harshness, dared not resent it, only shrank sensitively, as from a blow, and meekly explained the happenings of the day, giving the bare facts only, but withholding the promises Mrs. Clarke had made, too incredulous of good fortune coming to her to make any boast. Mrs. Brinkley flushed, and exclaimed: "That was a brave thing you did, my dear, and I want you to excuse me if I hurt your feelings just now. I spoke for your own good, wishing to be as careful over your welfare as I am over my own sister Lizzie's!" "I understand, and I thank you!" the young girl answered sweetly, emboldening Mrs. Brinkley to ask curiously: "Did the rich lady whose life you saved give you any reward?" "She asked me very particularly to return to the hotel to-morrow, and intimated that I should not have to work for my living any more!" "Then your fortune's made, my dear girl. Let me congratulate you," cried Mrs. Brinkley. "I've news for you, too. I was lucky enough to secure two new boarders for my two empty rooms this morning." Liane feigned a polite interest, and she added: "One was a man, a language teacher in a boarding school. I didn't like his looks much. He is dark and Spanish looking, but he paid my price in advance, so that reconciled me to his scowling brow and black whiskers. The other is a seamstress, very neat and ladylike, and I believe I shall find her real pleasant. Her name is Sophie Nutter, and his is Carlos Cisneros." Liane's eyes brightened as she exclaimed: "There used to be a lady's maid at Cliffdene named Sophie Nutter. I wonder if it can be the same?" "You might make a little call on her and see. Her room is next yours, and your granny has gone out to buy some baked beans for her supper." Liane was glad that granny had not seen her come home in the carriage, she hated having to explain everything to the ill-natured old crone, and she started to go upstairs, but looked back to ask: "Who was granny's caller?" "I don't know. She was in such a bad temper when she went away, I didn't dare ask. The young lady was all in silk and fur, with a thick veil over her face, but some locks of hair peeped out at the back of her neck, and they were thick and red as copper. She stayed upstairs with granny as much as an hour, and when she left the old woman seemed to be perfectly devilish in her temper. Seems to me I'd be afraid to live with her if I was you, Liane!" "So I am, Mrs. Brinkley, but she is old and poor, and it would be wicked for me to desert her, you know!" "I wonder what God leaves such as her in the world for to torment good people, while He takes away good, useful ones, that can ill be spared!" soliloquized the landlady; but Liane sighed without replying, and, running upstairs, tapped lightly on the new boarder's door. It opened quickly, and there were mutual exclamations of surprise and pleasure. It was, indeed, the Sophie Nutter of Cliffdene. "Do come in my room and sit down, Miss Lester. I'm so proud to see you again!" cried the former maid. Liane accepted the invitation, and they spent half an hour exchanging confidences. "I saw in a Stonecliff paper that you got the prize for beauty, and no wonder! You are fairer than a flower, my dear young lady! But, my goodness, how mad Miss Roma must have been! By the way, I saw her getting out of a carriage here to-day, and she was closeted with your granny an hour in close conversation. Does she visit you often?" "She has never been here before. I cannot imagine why she came, but I dare not ask granny unless she volunteers some information," confessed Liane, as she started up, exclaiming: "I hear her coming in now, so I will go and help her make the tea!" "Bless you, my sweet young lady, you deserve a better fate than living with that cross old hag!" exclaimed Sophie Nutter impulsively. She was surprised when Liane turned back to her and said with a sudden ripple of girlish laughter: "Sophie, suppose my lot should change? Suppose Mrs. Clarke should do something grand for me in return for saving her life to-day? Suppose I were rich and grand, which it isn't likely I shall ever be! Could I employ you for my maid?" "Yes, indeed, my dear Miss Lester, and I should be proud, and grateful for the chance to serve such a sweet, kind mistress!" cried Sophie earnestly. "Thank you, and please consider yourself engaged, if the improbable happens!" laughed Liane, in girlish mockery, as she hurried out, meeting in the hall a dark-browed stranger, from whom she started back in dismay as he passed scowlingly to his room. It was no wonder Liane recoiled in fear and dislike from Carlos Cisneros, the new boarder. The sight of his somber, scowling face, with its dark beard, recalled to her that night upon the beach when Devereaux had saved her from a ruffian's insults. For it was the selfsame face that had scowled upon her in the moonlight that night. It had terrified her too much ever to be forgotten. He had evidently recognized her, too, from his start of surprise, and the angry bow with which he passed her by. Trembling with the surprise of the unpleasant rencounter, Liane hastened to seclude herself within her own rooms. Granny Jenks had just entered, and she was still in the vilest of humors, glaring murderously at Liane, without uttering a word, and giving vent to her temper by banging and slamming everything within her reach. Liane, gentle, sorrowful, patient, her young heart full of the happenings of the day, and tremulous hopes for the morrow, moved softly about, laying the cloth for tea on the small table, and helping as much as the snapping, snarling old woman would permit. The sight of her humility and patience ought to have melted the hardest heart, but Granny Jenks was implacable. She only saw in the lovely creature a rival to Roma, and an impediment that must be swept from her path. Most exciting had been the interview that day between granny and her real granddaughter, and they had mutually agreed that Liane's continued life was a menace not to be borne longer. The beautiful, injured girl must die to insure Roma's continuance in her position. When Roma left the house a devilish plot had been laid, whose barest details almost had been worked out, and the beautiful schemer's heart throbbed with triumph as she swept out to her carriage. She had not noticed, on entering the house, a dark, scowling face at the parlor window, neither did she guess that, while she was with granny, the new boarder went out and slipped into the carriage, unobserved by the driver, calmly remaining there and awaiting her return. When she entered the carriage and seated herself, looking up the next moment to find herself opposite Carlos Cisneros, she opened her lips to shriek aloud, but his hand closed firmly over her lips, and his hoarse voice muttered in her ear: "Scream, and your wicked life shall end with a bullet in your heart, adventuress, false wife, murderess!" The driver, unaware of his double fare, whipped up his horses and drove on, while the strange pair glared fiercely at each other, the man hissing savagely: "I don't know how I keep my hands from your fair white throat, murderess, unless I am lenient because I remember burning kisses you once gave me before your false nature turned from me, and you fled from the school, where you had wedded the poor language teacher secretly while I lay ill of a fever. Cruel heart, to desert me while I was supposed to be dying!" "A pity you had not died!" she muttered viciously between her red lips, and he snarled: "It is not your fault that I am living! When I found you, after long, weary search, at Cliffdene, that night, and you toppled me so madly over the cliff, I am sure you meant to kill me!" "Yes, I cannot see how I failed!" she muttered. "If you wish to know, the explanation is easy. I was picked up more dead than alive by a passing yacht, and carried to the nearest town, where I spent weary months in a hospital from the blow I had received on my head in falling over the bluff. I have but lately recovered, and came here and found a position to teach in a school." "You had wisely concluded to give up your pursuit of me?" she sneered. "Yes, discouraged by the warm reception I got from you at Cliffdene; but, fate having thrown you across my path again, I believe I ought to make capital of it. You are my wife secretly, and you tried to murder me. Both are dangerous secrets. Perhaps you would pay me well to keep them?" "I suppose that I must do so?" Roma answered, after a moment's hesitancy, with bitter chagrin. "Very well. I will take what money you have about you now, and I must know what terms you will make for my silence. A liberal allowance monthly would suit me best." Roma emptied her purse into his hands, saying: "If we agree upon terms of silence, will you promise never to molest me again? Not even if I marry another man!" "I promise! And I pity the fellow who gets you, if you treat him as you did me!" "The less you say on that subject the better! Do not forget that you persuaded an innocent schoolgirl into a secret marriage, that she was bound to repent when she came to her sober senses," she cried bitterly. "But there, it is too late now for recriminations. I hoped you were dead, but, since you are not, I wish only to be rid of you!" "You can buy my silence!" replied Carlos Cisneros, so calmly that she congratulated herself, thinking: "He is not going to be dangerous, after all." Aloud, she said: "I will arrange to send you a monthly allowance of fifty dollars, the best I can do for you! Will that satisfy your greed?" "It is very little, but I will accept it," he replied sullenly. "Very well; now leave me, if you can do so without attracting the driver's attention. I shall be leaving the carriage at the next corner," she said, and he obeyed her, springing lightly to the ground, and disappearing. "He was not very violent, thank goodness!" sighed Roma, believing that as long as she paid him he would not betray her dangerous secrets; but bitterly chagrined that he was not dead, as she had believed so long. "Perhaps I can compass that later!" she thought darkly, as she gave the order to the driver for Commonwealth Avenue. She had determined to call on Lyde Carrington, with whom she had a society acquaintance, in the hope of seeing Jesse Devereaux again. Mrs. Carrington received her with graceful cordiality, and Roma proceeded to make herself irresistible, in the hope of getting an invitation to remain a few days. "I shall have to remain in Boston several days to have my teeth treated by a dentist, but mamma is compelled to return to Cliffdene to-night. I think of sending for my maid to cheer my loneliness," she said. "Come and stay with me," cried Lyde, falling into the trap. She knew that Jesse had been engaged to the dashing heiress, and amiably thought that their near proximity to each other might effect a reconciliation. She had a shrewd suspicion of Roma's object in coming; but she did not disapprove of it; she was so anxious to see him married to the proper person, a rich girl in their own set. She knew he was romantic at heart, and secretly feared he might make a mésalliance. But even while she was thinking these thoughts she remembered Liane, and said to herself: "If my pretty glove girl were rich and well-born, I should choose her above all others as a bride for my handsome brother!" CHAPTER XXVII. WHEN HAPPINESS SEEMED NEAR! Granny Jenks, after great bustling about and clattering of dishes, sat down at last to copious draughts of strong tea, flavored with whisky. "Oh, granny, aren't you taking a drop too much?" ventured Liane apprehensively. "Mind your own business, girl. I'll take as much as I choose! Ay, and pour some down your throat, too, if you don't look out!" Liane drank her tea in silence, while the old woman went on angrily: "I want that forty dollars you kept back from me, girl, and I mean to have it, too, or give you a beating!" This was a frequent threat, so Liane did not pay much heed, she only gazed fixedly at the old hag, and said: "Granny, suppose I were to go away and leave you forever, do you think you could be happy without me?" "Humph! And why not, pray?" Liane sighed, and answered: "I was just thinking how I have been your slave, beaten and cuffed like a dog for eighteen years, and I was wondering if in all that time, when I have been so patient and you so cruel, if you had in your heart one spark of love for your miserable grandchild!" "Eh?" cried granny, staring at her fixedly, while Liane continued: "Ever since I could toddle I have labored at your bidding, fetching and carrying, with nothing, but scoldings and beatings in return, and not a gleam of sunshine in my poor life. You have not shown me either mercy or pity; you have made my whole life as wretched as possible, and I have sometimes wondered why Heaven has permitted my sufferings to continue so long. Now, I have a strange feeling, as if somehow it was all coming to an end, and I wonder if you will miss me, and regret your unnatural conduct, when I am gone out of your life forever?" She spoke with such sweet, grave seriousness that the old woman regarded her earnestly, noting, as she had never closely done before, the beauty and sweetness of the young eyes turned upon her with such pathetic solemnity. "Maybe you mean to run away with some rascal, like your mother!" she sneered at length. "I was not thinking of any man, or of running away, granny; only, it seems to me, there's a change coming into my life, and I am going out of yours forever!" "Do you mean you're going to die?" "No, granny, I mean that I shall be happy, after all these wretched years; that my starved heart will be fed on love and kindness, and I want to tell you now that if Heaven grants me the blessings I look for, I shall leave you that forty dollars as a gift, for then I shall not need it," returned Liane solemnly. "Better give it here, now; you might forget when your luck comes to you. And--and, you ain't never going to need it after to-night, anyway!" returned granny, with a ghastly grin. "No, I prefer to wait till to-morrow!" the young girl answered, with a sudden start of fear, for the glare the old woman fixed on her was positively murderous. She got up, thinking she would go down and see if Lizzie had returned from her work yet; but granny sprang from her chair and adroitly turned the key in the lock, standing with her back against the door. Liane's eyes flashed with impatience. "Let me out, granny!" she cried. "This is not fair!" "Give me that money!" grumbled the hag, with the tone and look of a wild beast. "I--I--Mrs. Brinkley put it in a savings bank for me!" faltered Liane, bracing herself for defense, for her startled eyes suddenly saw murder in the old woman's face. She felt all at once as if she would have given worlds to be outside that locked door, away from the deadly peril that menaced her in the beastly eyes of half-drunken granny. She was not a coward. Yesterday she had faced death bravely for Mrs. Clarke's sake, and would have given her life freely for another's; but this was different. To be murdered by the old hag who had blasted all her young life, just as her hopes of happiness seemed about to be realized, oh, it was horrible! Unrelenting fate seemed to pursue her to the last. She drew back with a gasping cry, for the old woman was upon her with the growl of a wild beast and the well-remembered spring of many a former combat, when the weak went down before the strong. Liane, who had always been too gentle to strike back before, now realized that she must fight for her life. Granny intended to kill her this time, she felt instinctively, and silently prayed Heaven's aid. She opened her lips to shriek and alarm the household, but granny's skinny claw closed over her mouth before she could utter a sound, and then a most unequal struggle ensued. Liane was no match for the old tigress, who scratched, and bit, and tore with fury, finally snatching up a club that she had provided for the occasion, and striking the girl on her head, so that she went down like a log to the floor. Granny Jenks snarled like a hyena, and stooped down over her mutilated victim. She lay white and breathless on the floor, her pallid face marked with blood stains, not a breath stirring her young bosom, and the fiend growled viciously: "Dead as a doornail, and out of my pretty Roma's way forever!" Suddenly there came the loud shuffling of feet in the hall, and the pounding of eager fists on the locked door. Granny Jenks started in wild alarm. She realized that the sounds of her struggle had been heard, and regretted her precipitate onslaught on Liane. "I should have waited till they were all asleep; but that whisky fired my blood too soon!" she muttered, as, paying no heed to the outside clamor, she dragged the limp body of her lovely victim to the inner room, throwing it on the bed and drawing the covers over it, leaving a part of her face exposed in a natural way, as if she were asleep. She was running a terrible risk of detection but nothing but bravado could save her now. She dimmed the light, and returned to the other room, demanding: "Who is there? What do you want?" Several angry voices vociferated: "Let us in! You are beating Liane!" At that she snarled in rage and threw wide the door, confronting Mrs. Brinkley and her sister, with the two new boarders. "You must be crazy!" she exclaimed. "I was pounding a nail into the wall to hang my petticoat on, and Liane is asleep in the bedroom. If you don't believe me, go and look!" They did not believe her, so they tiptoed to the door and peeped inside, and there, indeed, lay the girl, seeming in the dim half light to be sleeping sweetly and naturally. "You can wake her if you choose, but she said she was very tired, and hoped I would not disturb her to-night," said artful granny coolly, though in a terrible fright lest she be taken at her word. They retreated in something like shamefaced confusion, leaving granny mistress of the situation. "What made you so sure she was beating the girl?" asked Carlos Cisneros of Sophie Nutter, who had raised the alarm. "I used to know them at Stonecliff, where they lived, and she beat her there, poor thing, so when I heard the noise I thought she was at her old tricks again!" replied Sophie, going back downstairs to the parlor, where she had been looking at Mrs. Brinkley's photographs. The language teacher followed her, and as he was rather handsome, and knew how to be fascinating with women, he soon gained her confidence, and found out everything she knew about Stonecliff, even to the cause of her leaving Roma Clarke's service. His eyes gleamed with interest as she added earnestly: "Although I have seen Mr. Devereaux alive since, and they tell me I was raving crazy that night, still I can never be persuaded that I did not see Miss Clarke push a man over the bluff to his death." She was astounded when he answered coolly: "You were not mistaken, but the man was not Devereaux. It was another, who held a dangerous secret of hers, so that she wanted him dead." Sophie looked at him suspiciously. "Did you see her push him over the bluff as I did? Ugh! That horrible scene! It comes before me now, as plain as if it was that night!" she shuddered. She was amazed when he answered: "I was the man she tried to drown!" He was secretly delighted that there had been a witness to Roma's crime. It made his hold upon her that much firmer. He added, in reply to Sophie's gasp of wonder: "I was saved by a passing yacht, and put in a hospital, where I nearly died from a wound on my head." Sophie gasped out: "And--and aren't you going to punish the hussy?" His eyes flashed, but he answered carelessly: "Well, not just yet!" "Shall you ever?" "Wait and see," he replied. "Can you imagine what brought her into this house to-day?" "I cannot. I suppose she knew Granny Jenks at Stonecliff; but I am sure she hated sweet Liane, because she carried off the beauty prize over her head." Carlos Cisneros gleaned all he could from Sophie, but he gave her no further information about himself, content with making a very good impression, indeed, on Sophie's rather susceptible heart. Meanwhile, upstairs, granny, having locked the door with a stifled oath, dropped down on the rug, and lay for long hours in a drunken stupor, while the dreary night wore on. Suddenly, as the bells hoarsely clanged four in the morning, granny started broad awake, shivering with cold in the fireless room, and sat up and looked about her, whimpering like a startled child: "Liane! Liane!" A sudden comprehension seemed to dawn upon her, and, getting up heavily, she stalked into the inner room. The dim lamp was burning low, casting eerie shadows about the room, and she walked over to the bed, where she had thrown something the evening before. The ghastly thing lay there still, just as she had placed it with the coverlid drawn up to the chin, the silent lips fallen apart, the eyes a little open and staring dully, as granny placed her skinny claw over the heart, feeling for a pulsation. There was none. She had done her work well. Her victim--the victim of eighteen years of most barbarous cruelty--lay pale and motionless before her, the mute lips uttering no reproach for her crime. The old woman gazed and gazed, as if she could never get done looking, and then her face changed, her lips twitched, she blinked her eyelids nervously, and sank down by the bed, overcome by a sudden and terrible remorse. "My God! What have I done?" she groaned self-reproachfully. Far back in granny's life was a time when she had been a better woman. It seemed to return upon her now. She groped beneath the coverlid for Liane's cold, stiff hand. "Liane, little angel, I am sorry," she muttered. "I would bring you back if I could! Oh, why did the foul fiend send her here to tempt me to the damnation of this deed? But she is safe now! Roma is safe now! And she has promised that I shall not miss Liane's labor." A new thought struck her. It would soon be day, and she must hasten to hide the evidence of her crime. She started up nervously, and busied herself searching Liane for the coveted money, but not finding it, she began other necessary preparations. It was that dismal hour that comes before the dawn, when she stole through Mrs. Brinkley's dark halls and passed like a shadow through the side door, escaping safely into the street with a shawled and hooded burden that must be safely hidden from the sight of men. Lightly and softly fell the cold December snow, covering up the footprints of the skulking woman; but they could not blot the dark stain of crime from her black soul. Dawn came slowly, and broadened into perfect day, and in the Brinkley house the household stirred and went about accustomed tasks. Soon granny's voice went snarling through the open door, calling shrilly downstairs: "Liane! Liane!" Lizzie White answered back from the kitchen: "She is not here!" Then granny tapped on Miss Nutter's door. "Is that lazy baggage in here?" "I have not seen her since last night," answered Sophie, and presently the house rang with granny's cries of anger and distress. All went in haste to her rooms, and she reported that Liane had certainly run away, as she had many times threatened to do. All her clothes and little trinkets, together with her little hand bag, were missing. Granny's blended anger and grief were so superbly acted that her simple listeners did not doubt her truth. Mrs. Brinkley, thinking of the fine presents Liane had received from some unknown admirer, secretly doubted the story the girl had told her, and confided to Lizzie her belief that she had indeed eloped, and would most likely come to a bad end. CHAPTER XXVIII. A SWORD THRUST IN HIS HEART. A hopeless love must always evoke pity in a generous mind. Devereaux could not help being touched when he found Roma installed as his sister's guest, and comprehended that it was love for himself that had brought her there. Men, even the bravest and strongest, are pitiably susceptible to woman's flattery. Roma's persistent love, faithful through all the repulses it had received, was a subtle flattery that touched Devereaux's heart, cruelly wounded by Liane's rejection, and made him think better of himself again. Roma brought all the batteries of her fascination to bear on her recreant lover that first evening, and he submitted to be amused with charming grace, that thrilled her with renewed hope. Mrs. Carrington, too, lent her womanly aid to further the little byplay she saw going on between the estranged lovers. She knew that propinquity is a great thing in such a case, and believed that a reconciliation was certain. Of course, she did not know that Devereaux's heart belonged to Liane, or she would not have been so confident. Roma telegraphed for her maid the next morning, fully resolved to make the most of her visit, and after breakfast, when she saw Devereaux preparing to go out, in spite of her blandishments, she asked him to call on her mother at the hotel, and tell her that she would be Mrs. Carrington's guest during her short stay. She was more than ever determined to marry the young millionaire now, and thus make her position in life secure, even if by any untoward accident she should be ousted from her place as the Clarkes' daughter and heiress. Devereaux promised to do as she asked, and sallied forth, in reality tired of Roma's company, though too polite to show it. About the middle of the day he called at Mrs. Clarke's hotel to convey Roma's message, and was surprised to find her father there also. They greeted him most cordially, and Mrs. Clarke exclaimed: "Is it not tedious, waiting by the hour for a caller who never comes?" "Do you mean your daughter?" he asked, hastening to deliver Roma's message. "Then she has not heard of my accident yet?" exclaimed the lady. "No!" he replied, and with unwonted animation she hastened to pour out the whole story of yesterday. She did not spare herself in the least, frankly describing her pride and hauteur. "I will not deny that I was vexed and jealous, and hated her because she had rivaled Roma for the beauty prize," she confessed. "I am ashamed of it now, and bitterly repented after learning her angelic sweetness and nobility of heart." Devereaux's heart thrilled with joy at these generous praises of lovely Liane, and he listened in eager silence to all Mrs. Clarke had to say, glad, indeed, that she proposed to adopt the girl, but wondering much if Roma would agree to the plan. "So, then, it is Miss Lester you are awaiting?" he said, with a quickened heart throb. "Yes; and I think it most strange that she has not kept her promise to come here early this morning. If I knew her address, I should have gone long ago to her house, but, unfortunately I forgot to ask it," sighed Mrs. Clarke, while her husband listened to everything with a glad, eager face. "I wrote you, Mr. Clarke, two days ago, sending you her address, which I had myself just discovered," said Devereaux, looking at him. "That is very strange. I did not receive it." "Perhaps it had not been delivered when you left home." "Perhaps so." "And," pursued Devereaux, with a crimson flush mounting up to his brow at thought of seeing the dearest of his heart again, "if I can serve you in doing so, I will go and bring Miss Lester here to see you. It may be her excessive modesty that keeps her away." They fairly jumped at his offer, and he hurried away, most eager, indeed, to do them this favor, glad in his heart of this grand opportunity for poor Liane. Mrs. Clarke looked at her husband, with a half sigh tempering her soft smile. She exclaimed: "He is in love with that charming girl! Could you not see it? Alas, for my poor Roma!" "Roma scarcely deserves our sympathy in the matter. She lost him by her own folly," Mr. Clarke replied impatiently, and the subject was dropped. He did not care to discuss Roma with his heart full of his own dear child. Meanwhile Devereaux took a carriage to Liane's humble abode, full of a joy he could not repress at thought of seeing Liane again. But he sighed to himself: "I shall feel guilty in her presence, because I was indirectly the means of her losing Malcolm Dean! Ah, had she but loved me instead, what happiness would be mine instead of this aching loneliness of heart." When he alighted at Mrs. Brinkley's door and rang the bell, the small family, excepting a servant, was out, and a neat maid answered the ring. "Miss Lester?" with a comprehensive grin. "Oh, sir, she beant here! She runned away last night with her beau!" she exclaimed. It was like a sword thrust quivering in his heart, those sudden words. He grew pale, and stared at her, muttering: "Impossible!" "But, sir, it's true as gospel! And her poor granny is in a fine taking over it, too. She says as how Liane was cruel to go off so, and leave her in poverty to end her days in the poorhouse!" "Where is the old woman? I should like to see her," he said dismally, hoping for some light. "She's out, sir, looking for the girl, swearing to kill the man as persuaded her off." "And the family?" "All out, sir. Mrs. Brinkley went to market, and her sister Lizzie to the store, where she and Liane worked." Devereaux pressed a dollar into the good-natured servant's hand, and stumbled back to the carriage, almost blind with pain from this sudden stroke of fate. The servant looked after him with mingled wonder, admiration, and gratitude, and describing him afterward to the family, exclaimed: "The prettiest man I ever saw in my life--coal-black eyes and hair, straight nose, dimple in his chin, slim, white hands, diamond ring, good clothes, fit to kill! He must 'ave been another of Liane's beaus, for, when I told him she had eloped, he turned white as a corpse, and kind of staggered, like I had hit him in the face. But he didn't forget his company manners, for he bowed like a prince and put a whole silver dollar in my hand as he went back to his carriage." "That sounds like Jesse Devereaux, Miss Clarke's lover!" cried Sophie Nutter, and Mrs. Brinkley said quickly: "Well, Liane knew that man, and was in love with him, but he snubbed her with the proudest bow I ever saw, one day when we passed by his grand home on Commonwealth Avenue." "So he lives on Commonwealth Avenue!" remarked Carlos Cisneros, with a flash of his somber, black eyes. He was thinking of the house he had followed Roma's carriage to yesterday--the palatial mansion on Commonwealth Avenue. "So she is there at my rival's house, and she dares to think I will let her marry him! And I have two scores to settle with the handsome Devereaux!" he thought. Devereaux could scarcely believe the terrible news. He hoped there might be some mistake, and he determined to go to the store and see if she might not be there. But there were no pansy-blue eyes smiling over the glove counter, but a pair of sparkling black ones, whose owner smiled. "Miss Lester? No; she is not here to-day. I cannot tell you anything about her; but there's her friend, Miss White, you can ask her--Lizzie!" Lizzie White hurried forward, but she could tell him no more than he had already heard. She wondered whom the handsome stranger could be, but she was too timid to ask his name, only she thought within herself that he must surely be in love with Liane, he was so pale and disturbed looking. It seemed to her that he was most loath to accept the theory that the girl had gone away with a lover. "Is there no possibility she has run away alone to escape her grandmother's cruelty?" he insisted. Lizzie said she could not tell, she had never heard Liane mention any man's name, but she had been more confidential with her mother. "Could you--would you--tell me her lover's name?" he pleaded; but Lizzie answered that it would not be right to betray her friend's confidence. "He was a rich young man, and not likely to marry my poor friend," she added sorrowfully, and after that admission he could extract no more from Lizzie. With a sad heart he returned to the Clarkes' with his ill news. Mr. Clarke was terribly excited: "I will not believe she has gone with any man! I should sooner believe that that old hag has made way with the girl! Give me the address, Devereaux, and I will go and wring the truth from her black heart, if you will stay and cheer my wife while I am gone!" he exclaimed, springing up in passionate excitement. CHAPTER XXIX. THE BRIDAL. Dolly Dorr arrived duly that afternoon at the Devereaux mansion, her little head full of fancies as vain as Roma's--both dreaming of winning the same man. But when Dolly saw her hero's magnificent home her hopes began to fall a little. She began to comprehend that there were heights she could not reach. Miss Roma would be sure to get him back now--of course, she had come there for that purpose. Dolly felt as angry and disappointed as was possible to one of her limited brain capacity, but she hid her feelings and tried to attend to her various duties as Roma's maid. She saw that her mistress was subtly changed since she had left Cliffdene. A harrowing anxiety gleamed in her eyes, and when they were alone Roma was more irritable than she had ever seen her before. The reason was not far to seek. Jesse Devereaux had returned a while ago with news that nearly drove her mad. It was the story of her mother's rescue yesterday by Liane Lester, and the consequent resolve to adopt Liane as a daughter. Roma listened to him with the most fixed attention; she did not move or speak, but sat dumbly with her great, shining eyes fixed on his face, drinking in every word with the most eager attention. Inwardly she was furious, outwardly calm and interested, and at the last she said, with marvelous sweetness: "You have almost taken my breath away with surprise. So I am to have a sister to dispute my reign over papa's and mamma's hearts! How shall I bear it?" He was astonished at the equanimity she displayed. She had a better heart than he had thought. "So you do not care?" he exclaimed curiously. "What does it matter whether I care or not? No one loves poor Roma now!" she sighed, with a glance of sad reproach. The conversation had taken a reproachful turn, and he adroitly changed it. "But I had not told you all. Your parents' good intentions must come to naught, for the reason that Miss Lester went away mysteriously last night, and the cause of her disappearance is supposed to be an elopement." "Oh! With whom?" Roma's attempt at surprise was not very successful. "No one knows," he replied, and she exclaimed: "How sorry poor mamma will be!" "And you?" he asked curiously. Roma had drawn so close to him that she could speak in an undertone. She locked her jeweled fingers nervously together now in her lap, and lifted her great eyes to his, full of piercing reproach, murmuring sadly: "It does not matter to me either way, Jesse. I have lost interest in everything, now that you have turned against me!" It was most embarrassing, her pathetic grief, and it touched his manly heart with deepest pity. "My dear girl, I am sorry you take our estrangement so hardly! Believe me, I have not turned against you, as you think. I am still sincerely your friend," he answered, most kindly. But the great red-brown eyes searched his face with passion. "Oh, Jesse, I do not want your friendship! I want your love--the love I threw away in the madness of a moment! Give it back to me!" she cried, with outstretched hands pleading to him. Impulsively he took one of the jeweled hands in his, holding it nervously yet kindly while he said: "It is cruel kindness to undeceive you, Roma, but I cannot let you go on hoping for what can never be! You never had my heart's love, Roma. It was only an ephemeral fancy that is long since dead. I thought you wished to flirt with me, and I entered into it with languid amusement. Somehow--I never can quite understand how--I drifted into a proposal. I regretted it directly afterward, and realized that my heart was not really interested. You broke our engagement, and I was glad of it. Forgive my frankness and let us be friends!" But her face dropped into her hands with a choking sob, her whole frame shaking with emotion, and he could only gaze upon her in silent sympathy, feeling himself a brute that he could not give the love she craved. Roma remained several moments in this attitude of hopeless grief, then, rising with her handkerchief to her eyes, glided slowly past him--so slowly that he might have clasped her in outstretched arms had he chosen. But he remained mute and motionless, sorrow and sympathy in his heart, but nothing more. Sobbing forlornly, Roma passed him by, and went to her own room. There Dolly had an exhibition of her imperious temper, culminating in a threat to slap her face. Dolly's quick temper flamed up, and she retorted fiercely: "Slap me if you dare, and I'll leave your service on the spot! Yes, and I'll go and tell Mr. Devereaux the fate of his letter to Liane Lester, too! I--I--wish I hadn't never had anything to do with you, either. I'm sorry I treated sweet Liane so mean! She was a heap nicer than you!" Roma turned around quickly, holding out a pretty ring with a little diamond in it. "Don't leave me, Dolly; at least, not yet," she sighed mournfully. "I'm sorry I was cross to you. Forgive me, and let's be friends again. Take this little ring to remember me, for I shall never need it after to-night!" "What do you mean, Miss Roma?" cried the girl, slipping the ring coquettishly over her finger, but Roma threw herself face downward on a sofa without replying. Dolly went into another room to arrange the clothes she had brought her mistress, and to admire herself occasionally in a long pier glass, and so the time slipped past, and in the gloaming Roma's voice called faintly: "Dolly!" "Yes, miss." Roma was standing up, very pale, very tragic-looking, by the couch, in her hands a letter and a tiny vial of colored liquid. "Dolly, you are to take this letter to Mr. Devereaux and ask his sister to come with him to my room. Tell them both I have swallowed poison, and shall be dead in a few minutes!" Dolly snatched the letter and ran shrieking from the room, while Roma sank back on the couch, her eyes half closed, her face death-white, the vial of poison, half drained, clasped in her fingers. Devereaux tore open the letter, and read the single line it contained: "I cannot live without your love! I have taken poison!" He and Mrs. Carrington almost flew upstairs after hurriedly telephoning for a physician. They knelt by her couch, reproaching her for her rashness, declaring that they had sent for a physician to save her life. "It is useless. I will not take an antidote. I am determined to die!" she replied stubbornly, and looked at Devereaux reproachfully, while Lyde caught her hands, exclaiming: "Oh, Jesse, why couldn't you love her and make up with her, so that she needn't have been driven to this?" Encouraged by this outburst of sympathy, Roma whispered audibly in her ear: "If he would only make me his wife, I could die happy!" "Do you hear?" nodded Lyde to her brother. "Yes." "I have dreamed of it so long. I have loved him so well, I cannot be happy even beyond the grave unless I can call him my husband once before I die!" sobbed Roma piteously, and by her labored breathing and spasms of pain it seemed as if each moment must be her last. "Give her her dying wish lest she haunt you!" whispered the nervous, frightened Lyde. Roma's sufferings grew so extreme that his reluctance yielded to pity. He bowed assent, and hurried from the room to summon a minister. The physician entered in haste, but Roma repulsed him. "Stand back! I will not take an antidote! I am already dying!" she screamed. He caught the vial from her fingers. "How much have you taken?" "The bottle was full--and you see what is left!" "Then God have mercy on your soul. I am powerless to save you from your own rash act, poor girl, even if you permitted me to try. Why have you done this dreadful thing?" "A quarrel with my lover!" "Yes, it is true," sobbed Lyde. "She and Jesse quarreled, and she rashly swallowed the poison." She added chokingly: "They--they--are going to be married presently. Please stay to the ceremony." Jesse Devereaux entered at that moment with a minister. Roma was moaning in pain, her eyes half closed. "Can you do nothing, doctor?" "Alas, no! She must be dead in a few minutes!" He bent down and took her hand. "Are you ready, Roma?" "Oh, yes, yes! Heaven bless you, dear!" The ceremony began in its simplest form, the minister standing close by the couch to catch the faint responses of the dying girl. They were uttered clearly and audibly, with a faint ring of joy in the accents, very different from Devereaux's low, reluctant tones: Then the minister said solemnly: "I pronounce you man and wife!" CHAPTER XXX. BEFORE THE DAWN. None could envy Edmund Clarke's feelings as he hastened on his way to find out the fate of the fair girl he believed to be his daughter! He could not credit the story of her elopement. Harrowing suspicion pointed to the probability that Roma, having found out the truth about herself, had hurried to Boston to have the real heiress put out of the way. What more likely than that the wicked girl had intercepted Jesse's letter containing Liane's address and made capital of it to further her own evil ends? The man shuddered as he realized what a fiend he had cherished as his daughter. He realized that it was the old fable of warming a viper in the bosom that stings and wounds the succoring hand. Roma could never come under his roof again. Her vile attempt on his life and Doctor Jay's precluded such a possibility. But he groaned aloud as he thought of having to break all the truth to his frail, delicate wife--unless he should be able to first find Liane and get the proofs of her real parentage. With a trembling hand he rang Mrs. Brinkley's bell, starting back in surprise when it was answered by no less a person than Sophie Nutter. "Mr. Clarke!" she faltered, in blended surprise and pleasure. "Sophie!" he exclaimed, following her into the little parlor, as she said: "Come in, sir. All the folks are out but me, and I must say I am as much surprised to see you here to-day as I was to see Miss Roma yesterday." Artful Sophie, she distrusted Roma, and took this method to find out if he knew of his proud daughter's goings-on. "Roma here yesterday!" he exclaimed, in a voice of agony, feeling all his suspicions confirmed. "Yes, sir, she was here to see old Mistress Jenks yesterday, and spent an hour with her!" returned Sophie quickly, scenting some sort of a sensation in the air. She saw him grow pale as death, and he almost groaned: "Liane? Where was she?" "At her work, sir, at the store." "Where is she now?" "It is thought she has run away with some rich young man, sir. She is missing this morning, and all her clothes gone!" "The old woman--where is she? I must see her at once!" "Lordy, sir, the poor old creature ain't here this afternoon. She went out to look for Liane, vowing to kill the fellow that persuaded her away!" Mr. Clarke had always liked Sophie when she was a member of his household. Her kind, intelligent face invited confidence. "Do you think that her distress was genuine, or was she playing a part?" he asked, adding: "To be frank with you, Sophie, I have a deep and friendly interest in Liane Lester, and I suspect foul play on the old woman's part." It needed but this to make Sophie pour out all that she knew of the old hag's cruelties to Liane up to last night, when the sounds of a supposed scuffle had penetrated to her ears, causing the family to intrude on the old woman en masse, to find that granny had only been driving a nail, and that Liane was asleep in bed. "You saw her asleep?" he asked. "Yes; we all tiptoed to the door, and she lay peacefully in bed, with the covers drawn up to her chin." "You are sure that she was breathing?" he asked hoarsely. "Why, no, sir--but--my God, do you think there could have been anything wrong?" cried Sophie, alarmed by his looks. He answered in a voice of anguish: "I suspect that you were looking at the corpse of sweet Liane; I suspect that the noise you heard was old granny beating her to death, and that she has hidden the dead away, and put out a hideous lie to account for her disappearance!" Sophie was so terrified that she burst into violent weeping. But Edmund Clarke's face wore the calmness of a terrible despair. He felt now that Liane had been foully murdered, and that nothing remained to him but to take the most complete vengeance on her murderers. He exclaimed hoarsely: "Do not weep so bitterly, my good girl; tears will not bring back the dead. All that remains to us now is to take vengeance on her enemies. To do this we must find proofs of their crime. Come with me, and let us search Granny Jenks' room." It was not hard to break open the locked door, and they went into the gloomy apartments, Sophie opening the window and letting in a flood of light. Then she saw what had escaped their eyes last night--stains of blood on the bare, uncarpeted floor. In the bedroom, the pillow where Liane's head had rested last night was also marked by red stains that told in their own mute language the story of a terrible crime. Their horrified eyes met, and he groaned: "It is as I told you! She was murdered, sweet Liane! Oh, I will take a terrible vengeance for the crime!" Sophie replied with heartbroken sobbing, and they remained thus several moments, shuddering with horror in the bare, fireless room. But not a tear dimmed the man's eyes. He was stricken with despair that lay too deep for tears. His heavy eyes wandered about the room, lighting on a small black trunk in a corner. "If I could only find the proofs!" he muttered, and unhesitatingly broke the lock, scattering the contents out upon the floor. It was filled with yellowing relics of a bygone day, and he turned them over rapidly, saying to Sophie: "I am searching for something to prove a suspicion of mine--a suspicion of a deadly wrong!" She dried her eyes and looked on with womanly curiosity, while he picked up and shook a little red box in the bottom of the trunk. A dozen or two trinkets and letters fell out on the floor, and he searched them eagerly over, lighting at last on a slender golden necklace belonging to an infant. He held it with a shaking hand, saying to Sophie: "See this little clasp forming in small diamonds the word 'Baby'? It belonged to my wife in infancy, and when our little Roma was born she clasped it on her neck." "And Granny Jenks has stolen it!" she cried indignantly. "Worse than that! She stole also the child that wore it!" he answered, with a burst of the bitterest despair. His heart was breaking with its burden of concealed misery, and Sophie's eager, respectful sympathy drew him on till he could not resist the temptation to tell her all, sure of her sympathy. It was like reading a novel to Sophie--the story of the lost babe, the spurious one substituted, and all that had happened since to the present moment. "Oh, my dear sir, I believe you are quite right! Sweet, beautiful Liane was surely your daughter, while as for the other, she never had the ways of a lady, for all her grand bringing up, and she had the same cruel spirit like granny, always wanting to beat any one who displeased her. She slapped my face several times when I was her maid, and maybe you know, sir, that I left her service because I saw her push a man over the cliff one night." "I have heard it whispered that you fancied something of the kind. My wife said you were crazy," returned Mr. Clarke. "Crazy--not a bit of it, sir! It was God's holy truth! I can show you the man! He escaped the death she doomed him to, and lives in this very house!" cried Sophie, glad that she could defend herself. "I should like to see the man!" cried Clarke, who was eager to get all the evidence possible against Roma. "He will be coming in directly from his school," cried Sophie; and, indeed, at that moment a step was heard in the hall, and the dark, bearded face of the new boarder appeared passing the door. "Come in!" called Sophie imperatively, and as he obeyed: "Mr. Clarke, this is Carlos Cisneros, the man Miss Roma pushed over the bluff." Cisneros bowed to the stranger and scowled at the informer. "Why did you betray my confidence?" he cried threateningly. "Because I knew you wanted to get your revenge on her, and this man will help you to it." The two men glared at each other, and Mr. Clarke asked: "Why did she thirst for your life?" "I held a dangerous secret of hers, and she believed me dead. When I hunted her down and threatened to betray her, she tried to kill me. She pushed me over the bluff, but I was picked up by a passing yacht, and my life was saved." "What was that secret?" "She has promised to pay me richly for keeping it," sullenly answered the man. "She cannot keep her promise, because she is not my daughter at all, but an adopted one, and, finding out that she has attempted many crimes, I shall cast her off penniless." "That alters the case. If she cannot pay me for holding my tongue, I'll take my revenge instead," answered Carlos Cisneros, with flashing eyes. "Sir, Roma is my wife. We were married secretly at boarding school. Then she tired of me and went home, while I was ill. When I hunted her down she attempted to murder me!" Suddenly they were startled by a tigerish snarl of rage. Granny, creeping catlike along the hall, came suddenly upon the open door, and the group within her room. She staggered over the threshold, and glared like a tiger in the act of springing. Mr. Clarke, still holding the shining necklace in his hand, cried bitterly: "Miserable murderess, you are detected in your crimes! Here is the proof in my hand that you are the fiend that stole my infant daughter from her mother's breast, and made her young life one long torture! Here upon the floor and the bed are the blood stains that prove you murdered my child last night. My God, I only keep my hands off your throat so that you may tell me what you have done with my precious dead!" his voice ending in a hollow groan. The detected wretch crept closer to Cisneros, whining: "Don't let him kill me! I know I deserve it, but don't let him kill me!" "Tell him the truth, then!" cried Cisneros, who, although not a very good man himself, was astonished at the story he had heard, and felt a keen disgust for the repulsive, whining old creature. "What is it you want to know?" she muttered, gazing fearfully at Clarke. "Was not Liane Lester my own child?" "Yes, I s'pose it's useless to deny it, now that you've found your baby's necklace in my trunk." "And the girl I adopted as my daughter is your grandchild?" "Yes--but you'll have to keep her now, and give her all your gold. You won't never find Liane no more!" she muttered, with a cunning leer, as of one demented. "Tell me why you stole my child!" "It won't do you any good to find out now. She won't never come back any more!" she muttered stubbornly. He groaned in anguish, but reiterated: "I insist on having the truth. Answer my question." "Tell him the truth, you she devil!" growled Cisneros, pinching her arm as she huddled closer to his side. She whined with pain, but she was mastered; she did not dare persist in her obstinacy. So she whimpered: "My daughter Cora stole the baby from your wife's breast, and she loved it so that I daren't take it away, lest she should die. So I let her keep it, and when her own child came she wouldn't never have naught to do with it, but clung to the other one, poor, crazy thing! So I thought I would raise them as twins, but when Doctor Jay sent me to get one from the foundling asylum in its place, the devil tempted me to keep your baby because Cora loved it so, and I put my own grandchild in your wife's arms, hoping you wouldn't find out the truth, and that Cora's child would be a great rich lady. My poor girl went stark mad, and they put her in the crazy asylum for life, but I was ashamed of the disgrace. I told every one she had run away again to be an actress. And I kept the baby to work for me till it grew a great girl, with a face like an angel, and a heart like an angel, too, but somehow I always hated her, because I had a bad heart!" "And then your grandchild found out the truth, and came and told you to kill Liane?" cried her accuser. "How did you know that?" she demanded, shrinking in deadly fear. "No matter how. You know it is true." The light of mingled madness and defiance glared out of the woman's eyes. She growled: "Well, I had to do it when she told me. Roma always would have her way, just like Cora, her mother! I said I hated to do it, the girl was such a lamb; so sweet, so gentle; but you cannot take Roma's place from her now, since Liane's dead: though I hated to do it, she was such a little angel." Sophie Nutter burst into violent sobbing, Mr. Clarke's lips twitched nervously so that he could not speak, but Cisneros, with flashing eyes, exclaimed: "So you killed the sweet angel, you fiend from Hades! Well, I hope you will swing for your diabolical crimes! A dozen lives like yours would not pay for one like hers! Come, now, we want to know where you hid her body." She glanced at him resentfully, answering, to his surprise: "They may hang me if they want to! I don't love my life since I killed Liane! I miss her so, sweet lamb, I miss her so! I thought I hated her, and I used her cruelly, but when she was dead, when I saw the blood on her white face, I loved her! I kissed her little cold hand. I told her I was sorry I had done it, and wished I could bring her back to life! She was good to me, little angel, and I hate Roma because she made me kill her! I told her it was not right to kill her, but she hounded me to it! Now she can keep Liane's place at Cliffdene, but I don't want to see her any more. Cruel, wicked Roma, that made me a murderess!" She rocked her body miserably to and fro, maundering hoarsely on, while Sophie's vehement sobbing filled the room as she recalled last night, when she had looked her last on Liane's still, white face, cruelly fooled by the old woman's lies. Mr. Clarke cried, with fierce, despairing anger: "No more of this paltering, woman! Tell us where to find Liane's body!" To his joy and amazement, the half-crazed woman answered: "Roma told me to throw her in the river or the sewer, but she was so sweet I could not do it! I hid her in an old cellar, very dark and cold, and when I begged her to speak to me, she opened her sweet eyes again! Come with me, and I will show you!" Almost afraid to hope that she spoke the truth, they followed the half-crazed woman to an old unoccupied house several blocks away, and there, indeed, they found Liane, faintly breathing and half frozen, lying on the floor of a cold, dark cellar, half covered with some scraps of carpet that granny had laid over her in her late repentance. Again Sophie's passionate sobs broke out, echoed dismally by granny, who muttered pleadingly: "Don't take her from me if she lives; don't give me Roma to live with! I hate her now, the wicked wretch, and I'd rather have my little angel, Liane! I'll never beat her again; no, never! Do you hear me promise, Liane?" But there was no recognition in the half-open eyes of the poor girl, as they searched their faces, and, pushing granny sharply aside, Edmund Clarke took up his daughter in his arms and bore her back to Mrs. Brinkley's, while Carlos Cisneros was sent in haste for a physician. Granny, seeming to have no fear of arrest for her dreadful crimes, hovered anxiously about, eager as any to aid in undoing her evil work. Liane was laid in Sophie's soft white bed, and the girl said tenderly: "I will nurse her myself, and no one knows better than I how to care for her, for I used to be a nurse in a hospital." "Keep the old woman out," said Mr. Clarke sternly, and she went back to her own rooms, sobbing like a beaten child. The doctor was soon on the scene, and he looked very grave, indeed, when he had made his examination. "It is a serious case," he said. "There has been a severe blow on the head that stunned her, and all her faculties are benumbed. How long this state will last I cannot tell, but I hope I shall bring her around all right." Mr. Clarke rejoiced exceedingly at even this small ray of hope, and, engaging the doctor to remain until his return, set out impatiently to Devereaux's house to tax Roma with her crimes. He was burning with impatience. He could not wait, he was so eager to tell wicked Roma the truth that all her schemes had failed, and that, by Heaven's good mercy, Liane would be restored to her parents' hearts, while she, the wicked usurper, would be driven out to live with the old hag who had helped her in her nefarious plot against his daughter's life. He took with him Carlos Cisneros, and, unknown to them both, Granny Jenks followed in their wake, cunningly curious to see how Roma took her downfall. At nightfall they reached the Devereaux mansion, just a few moments after the ceremony that had made Roma the wife of the young millionaire. Indeed, Lyde and the other two witnesses had just withdrawn from the apartment, on Roma's request to be left alone with her husband. She looked up at him with shining, love-filled eyes, murmuring: "Please kneel down by me, Jesse, so that I may put my arms around your neck and die with my head upon your breast." He pitied the rash girl so much that he could not refuse her anything in her dying hour. He obeyed her wish, and held his arm around her with her bright head on his bosom, expecting every moment to be her last. But the minutes flew, and Roma showed not a sign of dying. Instead, her breathing was very strong and regular, and she tightened her arms about him, exclaiming: "Oh, my husband, would you be glad if life could be granted to me now, that I might live, your happy bride?" "Do not let us dwell on the impossible, Roma," he answered kindly. "But why impossible, Jesse, dearest? I am not really certain of dying. I do not feel like it now, at all, and perhaps the dose I took was not really sufficient to kill me! Now that I am your wife, it seems as if a new elixir of life is coursing through my veins, and I long to live for your precious sake! Oh, surely you do not wish me to die!" Here was a dilemma, certainly. Jesse Devereaux, holding the warm, palpitating figure in his arms, did not know how to answer her piteous appeal, and he was saved the necessity, for at the moment the door opened, admitting Lyde, followed by Edmund Clarke, with granny, who had forced herself in, bringing up the rear. Lyde had told him hurriedly what had happened, and he had asked to see Roma; hence the intrusion. The bride still clung fondly to her husband, and when they entered, she exclaimed, in strong, natural accents: "Papa, dear, congratulate us. We are married." "So I have heard," he replied, with keen sarcasm, adding: "I was told that you were dying, but you do not look much like it. Your cheeks are red, your eyes bright and clear, and your voice does not falter." Roma actually laughed out softly and triumphantly, saying: "I have just told my dear husband that I do not feel like dying at all, and that love and happiness have given me a new elixir of life." Edmund Clarke would have spared exposing her if it had been really her dying hour, but he saw that she had grossly deceived Devereaux, so he returned, with bitter sarcasm: "As you feel so strong and happy, I have some exciting news to break to you." "News, papa?" sweetly. "Do not call me papa," he answered bitterly. "You know well that I am not related to you, and that your discovery of the truth has caused you to attempt the most heinous crimes to keep my real daughter from coming into her birthright. I am here to tell you that your plot to kill Doctor Jay and myself has been discovered. Your attempted murder of Liane Lester came near success, but, happily, she has revived, and Granny Jenks, your wicked grandmother, has confessed that you were substituted in her place, and that Liane is my own child!" "Heavens!" cried Devereaux, his arms falling from around Roma; but she clung to him, exclaiming passionately: "I am your wife! No matter what he charges, I am your wife; do not forget that, Jesse!" "And no doubt you pretended that you had swallowed poison, just to entrap him in your toils!" cried Edmund Clarke scornfully, while Devereaux, looking at her as she clung to him, exclaimed: "Is this true, Roma?" Her eyes flashed with defiance as she answered, rising, quickly: "Yes, it is true. I only swallowed some colored water to frighten you all, and to make you marry me, because I loved you so dearly! You must forgive me, my darling husband, for you cannot alter anything now!" He recoiled from her touch with loathing, and Mr. Clarke broke in: "Do not trouble yourself over her words, Jesse, for she has no claim upon you. She has already a living husband--one whom she tried to murder, to put him out of her way, but he is here to testify to the truth of my words." Through the open door stepped the wronged husband with a manly air, saying to startled Roma: "Every man's hand is against you but mine, Roma, and even my heart recoils at your wickedness; but I love you still, and if you will repent of your sins and promise to lead a better life, I will take you back, and our old dream of a dramatic life shall be fulfilled." It was a noble touch in the life of a man who had not been very good, but who was at least Roma's superior in everything, and she could not help but recognize it. Beaten, foiled, in everything, she turned to the man she had wronged, saying: "It is worth all the rest to find such a constant heart." She laughed mirthlessly, mockingly, and left the room, scowling as she passed at Granny Jenks, huddled against the door, holding back her skirts from contact with her granddaughter, while she muttered: "I don't love you any more, and I wish never to see you again. I am going back to Liane." CHAPTER XXXI. WHEN THE CLOUDS ROLLED BY. It was Christmas morning at Cliffdene, and snow lay deep upon the ground, while the boom of the sea, lashed into fury by howling winter winds, filled the air, but within all was light, and warmth, and joy. A few days ago the Clarkes had come home, with their daughter Liane restored to health after weary weeks of illness and nervous prostration from her terrible beating at Granny Jenks' hands and the subsequent exposure in the cold cellar. They called her Liane still, because the name of Roma was associated with so many unpleasant things that they had no wish for her to bear it. Mr. Clarke had spent a thrilling hour making clear to his wife all the happenings of the past eighteen years, but she had borne the shock better than he expected. Her love for Roma, never as strong as the maternal love, though carefully fostered, died an instant death when she heard the story of the girl's terrible crimes. Bitter tears she shed, indeed, but they were for her own daughter's sufferings in those cruel years while she had been kept back from her own. "We will make it up to her, my darling, by devotion now," cried her husband, kissing away her tears; then they hastened to the bedside of Liane, for she could not be moved yet from her humble abode. After several days of unconsciousness she began to improve, and in a week was able to have the truth carefully broken to her by her own mother, who with Sophie Nutter shared the task of nursing her back to health. Doctor Jay was sent for to assist with his medical skill, and great was his joy to find her restored to her own, and so beautiful and worthy, in spite of the rearing she had had from brutal granny, the miserable old hag, who was so crushed by the contempt and scorn of every one that she sought consolation in the bottle and drank herself to death in a week, expiring miserably in a hospital. As soon as Liane was well enough to see a visitor Mrs. Carrington called. "Do you remember me, my dear?" she asked, and Liane murmured: "I sold you gloves." "Yes, and fascinated me at the same time. I have been in love with you ever since." Lyde wondered at the sudden blush on the girl's cheek as Liane thought within herself that she would be glad if Lyde's brother only loved her also. As for him, of course, she did not see him till she left her room, but flowers came for her every day--great red roses, breathing the language of love--and on the day before they went to Cliffdene, her devoted mamma said: "Dear, if you feel well enough, I should like you to send a kind little note to Jesse Devereaux, thanking him for the flowers he has been sending every day." "I will write," Liane replied, with a blush and a quickened heartbeat, and her fond mother added: "Jesse is a fine young man, and admires you very much." When he received the note, so neatly and gracefully written, without a mistake in wording or spelling, Devereaux was puzzled. It was certainly not like the writing of the letter in which she had rejected him. He concluded that her mother or her maid Sophie had written it. "Poor girl, she will have to have private instructors to repair the defects in her education," he thought. A few days before Christmas the Clarkes bade a kind farewell to the good-natured Mrs. Brinkley and Lizzie White, and returned to Stonecliff, whither the news had preceded them in letters to friends. Devereaux was at the station to bid them farewell, and by the most open hinting he managed to secure from Mrs. Clarke an invitation to spend Christmas with them at Cliffdene. He arrived on Christmas morning, and was presently shown into the holly-wreathed library, where Liane was sitting alone, exquisitely gowned in dark-blue silk, from which her fair face arose like a beautiful lily. Devereaux's greeting was joyous, but Liane was cold and constrained. She could not forget how he had snubbed her in Boston when she was only a poor working girl. But they had not exchanged a dozen words before they were interrupted by the unexpected entrance of Dolly Dorr. Dolly had been staying at her own home ever since Roma's flight with her husband, and she had been having a hard battle with her conscience, which culminated in the triumph of the right; hence her presence here to-day. Dolly made her little curtsy, and began bashfully: "Miss Clarke, and Mr. Devereaux, I have wronged you both, and I have come now to try to make amends." They gazed at her in silent surprise, and she hurried on, eager to tell her story and escape their reproachful eyes: "Miss Liane, when you went away to Boston, I got a letter addressed to you from the post office, and Miss Roma opened it, and we read it together. Then she bribed me to answer it, and I guess Mr. Devereaux has the ugly letter she made me write. Here's yours, and--please forgive me. I am sorry I behaved so badly," tossing a letter into Liane's lap and flying precipitately from the apartment. Liane opened the letter bewilderedly, and read, with Devereaux's eager eyes upon her face, and her cheeks scarlet, his passionate love letter and proposal of marriage. As she finished, he said eagerly: "I received a rejection in answer to that letter, but, Liane, dearest, may I ask you to reconsider it?" Her lovely eyes met his in a happy, eloquent glance, and, springing to her side, he wound his arms about her, drawing her close to his breast, while their yearning lips met in a long, clinging kiss. THE END. _The Famous "Nick Carter"_ That is how folks speak of the detective whose adventures have interested and entertained two generations of readers. Nick Carter is truly famous. Stories about him have been translated into every modern language and his name has become a watchword throughout the entire civilized world. _The New Magnet Library_ contains his adventures exclusively in book form and it also contains a wealth of other detective literature. More worthier, moral, wholesome and refreshing stories were never offered to the reading public at any price. If you have never read the =New Magnet Library= there is a big treat in store for you. Ask your dealer for a catalogue of these books, or send to us for one, and you will be surprised at the amount of good reading matter published in this line that fifteen cents will buy. PRICE, FIFTEEN CENTS PER COPY "_The Right Books at the Right Price_" NOTICE--If these books are sent by mail, four cents must be added to the price of each copy to cover postage. Street & Smith, _Publishers_, New York _Big Books_ _Big Value_ The Select Library We want to call the attention of every novel reader to the fact that THE SELECT LIBRARY contains a splendid assortment of first-class stories by authors whose names are famous everywhere. Among those represented are Rudyard Kipling, A. Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, Alexandre Dumas, The Duchess, R. L. Stevenson, Augusta J. Evans and others too numerous to mention. Why waste a lot of time looking over your newsdealer's whole stock of paper-covered books, when by ordering the titles in THE SELECT LIBRARY you are sure to get novels that cannot fail to interest and please you? They represent a careful selection from over five hundred standard titles. Every book in the line is in great demand. Send for a complete catalogue. STREET & SMITH 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York City Transcriber's Notes: Added table of contents. Italics are represented with _underscores_, bold with =equal signs=. Page 8, Changed "ben" to "been" in "had been substituted." Page 31, Retained possible typo (or uncommon spelling) "torquoise." Page 84, corrected "cirrcumstances" to "circumstances" ("circumstances leave me"). Page 91, added missing quote after "bear good witness for us." Page 95, corrected "slipppd" to "slipped" ("slipped readily into her pocket"). Page 121, removed unnecessary quote after "no difference in the result." Page 134, changed ligature to "oe" in "manoeuvring" (ligature retained in HTML version). Page 135, removed unnecessary quote after "pretty, petted girl." Page 149, "dying down to Boston" seems like an error but is reproduced as printed. Page 174, added missing comma in "It was my own, granny." Page 180, corrected "presenty" to "presently" ("presently he realized"). Page 190, corrected "aristrocrat" to "aristocrat." Page 193, removed unnecessary quote after "pale and thin." Page 194, added missing quote after "her whereabouts!" Page 196, added missing quote after "confiding in you, Dean!" Page 211, removed unnecessary comma from "and whip her." Page 212, added missing quote after "fiendish Nurse Jenks." Page 224, changed ? to , after "door on retiring." Page 229, changed ? to . after "Wait till I question you on the subject." Page 234, added missing quote after "and sobbing all night." Page 263, corrected "clatttering" to "clattering" ("clattering of dishes"). Page 277, corrected "Leslie" to "Lester" in "Miss Lester you are awaiting." 
60683	----	Baker's Dozens By JIM HARMON _Catching him was no problem; they caught him everywhere--and practically all at once!_ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] "Mr. Street, you are the foremost xenologist on Earth," the director of Extraterrestrial Investigations said to the tall man. "I know," Street said. "What do you know about the infamous criminal, Baker, the so-called 'Robin Hood' who is actually a scarlet fiend?" "Everything." "Surely not how he died." "Everything but that." The director put his briefcase on his knees. "Mr. Street, my agency received numerous accounts of his death, or deaths, on various worlds. Can you tell me which, if any, of these stories is true by studying our intelligence reports?" "Easily," Street said. "We have had Baker under observation many times by our planted Orwells--our peepbugs--but you must understand that we need absolute _proof_ on him since he has supporters even on Earth, and in waiting for that proof, we lost contact often at vital moments." "I understand perfectly," Street assured him. I "Are there really space pirates?" Mrs. Fuljohn inquired of him, giggling furiously. "Yes, Virginia, there really are space pirates," Baker assured her. Mrs. Fuljohn lowered very long lashes over formidable eyes. "My first name is Christine. Will they come at us out of the void with all guns blasting?" "I doubt it. They would want to rob the liner, not disintegrate it." Baker excused himself and strolled toward the afterdeck of "A" class. He had lied to the lady. (The hyper-Orwell focused directly on him picked up the tiny whisper of his subvocalizations.) He was a pirate, but there was one part of the cargo he did want to destroy, not steal--the first-grade readers for the Mission Houses for Alien Natives on Ignatz XI. Men called him a traitor to the human race, but he seethed at the corruptive propaganda being fed to the swinoid youngsters of the planet. _This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home.... This little piggy had roast beef, this little piggy had none...._ It was insidious, evil. It said in effect that races who shared a common ancestor with the pig had better trade with Earthmen on their terms--on _any_ terms--if they hoped to go on being allowed to eat. Double-dealing Earthmen with their devious schemes were daily robbing literal-minded extraterrestrials like the Ignatz swinoids blind. Sometimes it made him ashamed to be an Earthman. Let some call him a renegade! He was going to help these sentient beings. He had a plan, even if he lacked the armed battle cruiser that the pirates had in the teletapes. There was a small corvet waiting for him on Ignatz XI. It lacked the restricted official light-drive of military and police craft, having only a civilian planetary-field booster, but if all went well, it would be sufficient for his escape. Baker glanced at the dial of his watch--it showed no tell-tale color of listening devices within his area. (The detector had been sold to him by an ETI agent and, of course, it lied.) Confident, he stepped over the chain separating him from the stairs to "B" Deck. Wurmong was waiting for him as planned. "_Si_," the fat, swarthy man said, "my brother, my nephews, my cousins--we will bring our extra luggage to the cargo hold tonight." "I'll predispose the guards. Come right into Hold 7. Understand?" "_Da_," Wurmong assured him. The man on watch collapsed soundlessly at a beam of nerve pressure on the neck, and Baker slipped inside, immediately beginning to eject the first-grade readers through the escape hatch by the gross. The mercenary, Wurmong, and his army of family arrived with experienced stealth and began dumping the new books from their privileged luggage. Baker replaced the contents of the opened crates with the variant readers. These volumes might be the tiny counterbalance needed to free a world of swinoids from domination by Earth. Who knew the full extent of the psychological effect of _The Three Little Pigs_ on young, formative minds? His work done, Baker sadly regarded the precious jewels and the negotiable bonds from the registered mail. There was no way around it. This had to look like a robbery. It was necessary that he take them. Quickly, he stuffed everything into his synthetic appendix.... * * * * * Baker was allowed to disembark on Ignatz XI so that he might be traced to his alien fellow-conspirators. The heavy-jowled biped who greeted him at the smoky tavern was joyous. "You have done the next best thing for us to enabling us to tell your busybody missionaries to go home. We look upon you as one of our own and are hungry for the sight of you. May you remain with us long." "Too much work," Baker said, gagging over the native beer. "But I must ask you a favor. You implied you'd give me your right arm." "Anything we have is yours. But would not a cadaver's limb suit you as well as mine?" "I must escape from this world. You can give a private citizen like me something only a sovereign government can. I want the jump drive." "Not that!" "Yes! I've earned it, haven't I?" The swinoid nodded wearily. "You have. The device will be put in your spacer. Use it only in deep space." He was now in orbit. That was far enough out. Earth patrols could still pick him up easily. The ETI spy pickup observed him as he reached out and put a finger to the button of the device given him by the Swinoids, as Earth ships closed rapidly. He pressed the button. _In a crisping flash of flame, he lit with incredible speed._ II "Naturally, we lost contact after the ship went up in flames. If that man was the true Baker, he was undoubtedly destroyed. Of course, we have a report from our spies on Klondike II of events running just about concurrently." "If you'll allow one interruption," Street interjected. "As a competent xenological ethnologist, I can assure you that Baker was, at least, not completely destroyed by the fire. His somewhat roasted remains would have been appropriated by the swinoids." "How so?" "These people are as similar to pigs as we are to apes. When one of their own wishes to die, as they thought Baker did, in their typical alien literal-mindedness, they dispose of his body in a special way. Remember how they said they thought of Baker as one of their own and were hungry even for the sight of him?" III Baker had been walking for two weeks across the primitive surface of the mining planet, Klondike II, to reach the shack in the gray shadow of the granite mountain. It wasn't gold he was after but escape. Unlike others seeking it, he had headed away from the saloons. But the peepbug's lens of air had followed him. Minutes later, he was knocking on the door. He _had_ to have a means of transportation at least as good as government ships to do his work of helping the aliens, and make his escapes. At least as good, and preferably better. The door was cracked by a kind-looking old man. "You got five seconds to get, before thirty thousand volts of electricity go through those floorboards you're standing on," the old man said kindly. "Professor Gentle," Baker said hastily, "I have many friends. One of them has told me you have established a major breakthrough in electronics, that you have in fact invented a machine to transmit matter as radio and television transmit sound and sight." "Some loose-lipped electronics jobber found that out, did he? Step right in." "Do you suppose _I_ might be teleported?" Baker asked tentatively. "Of course you can, my boy. But first perhaps you'd like to take a look at some of the things I have teleported so far." Baker looked at the animals--they _were_ animals?--in the cages lining the laboratory. He had been hungry a minute before. Now he had trouble just swallowing. "Like making the original adjustments on a video set," the old man explained. "Hard to get your focus, your horizontal and vertical interlineation just right. There's some distortion sometimes. Sort of--messy." "On soul-searching consideration--" Baker began. "Don't take another step toward that door. I've got the floor checkerboarded with electric grids where I can turn on the juice wherever you set your foot. Control's in my upper plate. Step in that coffin, boy. Just my little pet name for it; don't worry." * * * * * With some degree of reluctance, Baker stepped into the left of twin vertical boxes. The lid closed in his face and locked. Before he could have time to begin worrying about his air supply, the cover sprang open, and he stepped out. "Test over?" There was an echo. A man stood in front of the second coffin. Baker had entered the one on the left and he was still in front of the left box. But he was also now in front of the cabinet on the right. He had been completely duplicated. "That damned feedback again," Gentle grumbled. In the first shock of this duplication and therefore seeming negation of his individual ego, Baker almost went mad. "You did this to me!" said Baker and Baker to Gentle, each drawing a concealed weapon and shooting the old man in the heart. "You two fellers drop your guns and stand still," the voice behind them said. "The professor was always saying I was the most simple-minded assistant he ever had, but I've got brains enough to pull this trigger on this old shotgun if you move." (The ETI chief explained: "The rest is hearsay. Those miners spyproof their towns.") The trial was short with Jeb, the assistant's, testimony, but the jury deliberation was unaccountably long on the primitive world where justice ran fast for a blind woman. "We waited long enough," Jeb said to the other men in the saloon. "Let's break them out of the cellar and hang 'em." The miners didn't let the jury set a precedent. They hoisted a few inside the bar and went out of Lone Splyg Hill and hoisted two more. "What have you idiots done?" the sheriff yelled as they trooped back into Klondike City. "Anticipated the verdict a mite," Jeb admitted. "That's just it," the sheriff groaned. "It was ruled justifiable homicide. Temporary insanity. At the time of the crime, each of the defendants was beside himself!" IV "Obviously," Street said, "this is no more than a folk legend." "Are you sure?" the director of the ETI asked, fingering the report. "It can't be anything else. Granted that all the other events were true, I would know Baker was still alive--only one, because neither could stand the threat of the other, to his ego. You see, the case would never have come to trial. It would have been immediately dismissed." "Why?" "My dear fellow, both Bakers could not have been put on trial for the same murder, as any student of law would know. This would have violated the basic protection of double jeopardy." V A fast spaceship to put him well ahead of the law, and a place to hide out until things simmered down, that was all Baker wanted and it was what he had. He was too hot for more. ("This is how we reconstruct it from our informant's version," the ETI chief said.) For the hundredth time, he located Wister VI on the star map. It had been discovered by the Gordon-Poul expedition half a century before. Few people ever knew about it, and most of those had forgotten it. He would never have known about it himself if it hadn't been on the credentials of that bank official. With those papers he was set to spend several profitable years in the Great National Bank. He would be an alien, but somehow aliens always seemed to have more money than natives on any given planet. As blastdown time approached, he read the characteristics of Wister IV and found his greatest inconvenience would be the intense sunlight from the double suns, not bright enough to burn but brilliant enough to dazzle. He searched the ship for sunglasses, but all he could find were snow goggles--a visor of black plastic with twin slits to look through. He put them on, resolving never to steal an improperly equipped spaceship again.... "Howdy, pardner." The humanoid at the spaceport was bald and green. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, chaps, and a large gun. Nothing else at all. "Forgive my informal dress. Forgot my kerchief, boots and spurs this morning. Who might you be?" Baker gave the title of his position at the bank, explaining it would be his job to help arrange for loans to the local ranchers. "You'll find this a friendly place. Tumbleweed is an _adult_ Western town--we know the banker ain't always the head of the gang of rustlers." * * * * * As the weeks passed, Baker learned to live with the aliens' strange obsession with the things and persons of the Old West. They were even more fanatic than terrestrial Frenchmen over the American Frontier. It was not exaggerating to say that they regarded the men in the old films they got from Earth as gods. They had appropriated appropriate Western given and surnames, but while there were plenty of Wills and Davys, and Rogerses and Crocketts, it was always Will Crockett and Davy Rogers. Anything other than that would be sacrilege. Baker's biggest problem was getting a good mixed martini. Everybody on Wister VI drank their rotgut straight. But by becoming friendly with the bartender, Gene Gibson, at the Golden Slipper, he managed to get his mixed drinks. "Which do you think was faster on the draw, Matt Dillon or William S. Hart?" Tom asked Baker early one evening. "I don't give a hoot, Gibson," Baker snarled, reaching for his martini. Shocked faces along the bar turned toward him, and hands moved toward loaded guns. "I meant pictures," Baker said hastily. "I wouldn't give one of my pictures of Hoot Gibson for two each of Ken Maynard and Tim McCoy." "Everybody to his own taste," Gibson said agreeably. Baker exhaled and gulped his drink. It had been a close one. But as time wore on, the habits of the West-loving aliens grated more and more on Baker's soul. He was particularly irritated by the weekly ritual every male had of riding into the sunset. Since there were two sunsets in opposite directions, it was a long and involved and thoroughly annoying process. Tom Wayne had kept Baker waiting an hour at the Golden Slipper to discuss his loan. Baker was exasperated and dry. Local custom regarded it as friendly to not begin your drinking before your companion arrived. Gibson laid out the ingredients of the martini on the bar. "You going to wait any longer for Tom to finish riding into the sunset before I start mixing?" Baker whirled angrily. "Nuts to Tom! _Mix!_" Before the blasphemous words died on his lips, Baker saw death in the rising barrels of the vengeful six-shooters. VI "I doubt this story very much," Street said to the director. "The planet and its conditions have been verified," the director replied. "Even better reason to doubt that Baker died there. He probably was worshipped as one of the gods." "Why do you think that?" the director asked the xenologist. "Think it out for yourself. Imagine the reception that would be given to a man who stepped out of a spaceship, wearing what would appear to be a black mask, and who told these people he was the loan arranger." VII Baker jammed the accelerator of the groundcar down until his thumbnail turned white. The eye of the ETI peepbug observed the police car of the native authorities behind Baker's vehicle, closing fast. This is how it happens, he subvocalized. A great career in interplanetary crime ends with an arrest by hick cops for selling dirty books. Why had he ever sunk so low? That was easy--it took a stake to do anything big and he had to get a pile by selling books, after _that_ had happened to him on Wellington I. _The Decameron_, _Forever Amber_, _Pierre Louys_, all the old classics like that still went over with some of the humanoid and biped races. (He had none of the newer stuff, only titles in the public domain--he couldn't force himself to fall to the level of a _literary_ pirate.) But here on Lintz III he was slaying braces of fowl with a single stone. Lintzians were highly stimulated by intricate philosophy and mathematics. This allowed him to sell banned copies of Korzybski at outrageous prices, while at the same time introducing the native intellectuals to human semantics, a definite aid to the natives in throwing off the verbal domination by Earthmen. * * * * * The Humans First Lobby in the Galactic Legislature was willing to live with the difficulties caused by the absolute literal-mindedness of most extraterrestrials, so long as they could continue to make them believe in lifetime guarantees and unbreakable toys for inventive youngsters. True, many a human traveler had lived to regret a chance remark to the effect he could eat a horse, and nobody likes to think of what happened to people who exclaimed a preference for being damned within range of obliging natives, but all in all, those were minor liabilities in the path of the infernal machine of progress. The ETI was working double-shifts to find human renegades who were teaching the semantic variations in words of human speech to aliens. On a world where philosophy and higher math were themselves proscribed because of the limiting factor of narcotic colloidal reaction, he also had to reckon with native cops. He wasn't going to be able to outrun this squadcar. Baker let it pull alongside and dialed himself regretfully toward the embankment. Then as the police matched his maneuver, he switched on emergency power and sideswiped them with an ear-jarring crash. Thrown from the counterbalance of its gravitic suspension system, the squadcar sailed off as helplessly as a balloon.... * * * * * "Ryshid!" Baker yelled on entering his quarters. "Get my smoking jacket! Isn't dinner prepared yet?" The turbaned, green-skinned native did what might have been called a _salaam_ if he had been a Moslem instead of a Hindu. "Everything is in readiness, _Sahib_." Baker was sorry he had spoken so shortly, but somehow he always did. Ryshid understood. Baker was under a terrible strain, not knowing when the ETI might descend on him. There was also the matter of Malissa, his wife, whom he missed very much. But as a Hinduphile, a true convert, Ryshid was of a gentle and forgiving nature. As Baker settled back in his easy chair, someone started smashing in the back door. By the time the police of Lintz reached the living room, Baker was gone. "Alas," the sergeant-major intoned, "if only the sinner had repented his purchase of the forbidden book before instead of after he finished reading it." * * * * * As soon as he lifted the curtain of his own modest dwelling in the native quarter, Ryshid knew there was someone in the darkness, waiting for him. "I hope you don't mind, old boy," Baker said. "Didn't know where else to go to escape being hunted down." "I am overjoyed to find you well, _Sahib_. How did you escape?" Baker told him about his escape, but somehow his talk kept coming back to Malissa, his wife. "I tell you it would take Kathleen Windsor to describe her. She's--but I'm a bore, Ryshid." Ryshid drew the gun with a graceful movement. "As you say, _Sahib_. I have read of our traditional life in India, and as a Hindu I know what I must do when I find my home has been invaded by a hunted boar." Ryshid squeezed the trigger. VIII "The shot," the chief said to Street, "unfortunately destroyed our peepbug." "You were taken there," Street replied. "There is only one way to describe verbally Baker's attitude toward his man, proving this was all an act. A good Hindu would never harm Baker. His wife is built like a cow." IX Thorsen checked his gun inside his cummerbund. That was about the only place a man or woman had to hide a weapon in these times of relatively tight fashions on Earth. The gun was still there, safety off, as he firmly expected. He settled back in his chair and glanced across the restaurant at Hastings, the traitor. An infamous outlaw such as Baker could count on few friends--one less than even he expected. The reward on the criminal had grown sizable. Not that Thorsen was going to get any of it. All he had to do was kill the poor devil on sight. It would be foolish to say that he didn't like killing; it was his job in the ETI, but sometimes he wearied of his work. What did Baker look like? It was a good question and it would give him something to think about while he waited. On the face of the existing evidence, it was obvious that Baker had somewhere discovered some means of superlative disguise. He could so change himself with stretching, shrinking, fattening, and slenderizing that if a man knew _he_ wasn't Baker, he had to doubt everybody and anybody else. Orders were to kill the first man who came up to Hastings at his table. He would have to shoot if it were his own father, or the director of the ETI, and there wasn't too much difference, he reflected. * * * * * He was seated where he could see both the entrance and the door to the men's room. Other agents were covering the back way. Baker would have to come from the tiered front. Would Thorsen be able to kill Baker? If he got off the first shot, he would. Evening fashions were too tight for meteor shields. If he were wearing an electronic cuirass, he could tell it immediately by the twin spheres that gave that football-shoulder effect. Moreover, had anyone entered wearing such obvious armor, it would have been flashed to him. In that case, a hand bomb would have to be used, which would be unfortunate for Hastings, and possibly Thorsen. Hastings wasn't showing his fear--he had been doped to hide that--but he was growing more alert. Baker must be coming! Thorsen forced himself not to give things away by reaching for his weapon yet. He fastened his attention on the two doors into the cafe. The shot blew most of Thorsen's lungs away, but the electronic wiring in his muscles kept the shock from killing him outright. He turned and managed to get off one shot before death started climbing up his arms from his fingers, and the weapon fell. He should have kept in mind that no one had ever seen Baker and lived to tell it. Now he had seen Baker and he was not going to live either. But then Baker was dead even now, in spite of Thorsen's mistake. Before he died, Thorsen took one last look at the figure with the long golden hair lying on the threshold of the ladies' room. X "This story is absolutely authentic," the director said. "Several ETI agents saw the whole thing. But somehow in the confusion somebody stole Baker's body." "Really, Director!" Street said. "You don't actually believe Baker was a woman." "Are you suggesting a disguise?" "It _had_ to be. Baker's body disappeared by getting up and walking away. The only way it could do that was for it to be armored. The only way Baker could get into that building was for his armor to be hidden. There was only one way he could hide the two spheres of electronic equipment necessary to project the cuirass field, and he couldn't do it if he _really_ had been a woman." XI The director leveled his gun at Street. "I am at last convinced that there is only one way in which you could be so certain that Baker is not dead. You know he is alive, and you know it because you are Baker." "You are correct," Street said. "I am the celebrated Robin Hood of space. It is too great an honor to deny." "I will go into confinement for many years because of what I am about to do, but I must see the Galaxy rid of you." The director fired the lethal charge at point-blank range and the tall man tumbled to the floor. "I had to do it," the director said over the body. "It was well enough to frame you for Baker's crimes due to your suspicious knowledge of him, but I didn't know you were going to fail to protest, that you were going to go along with the lie. I couldn't stand another man living to take the honor for being Baker. There can be no living Baker but _me_." XII The tall man rolled over on the floor and sat up. "Then you admit that you are Baker? No, never mind firing again. I am wearing meteor armor under my clothes. It's sufficient to stop a gun blast." "You are a clever devil," the director snarled. "A man has to be clever to be Baker." "You are NOT Baker!" the director shrieked. "I am!" "Are you?" the tall man said superciliously. "Think why you came here. You've been working too hard, Director. You received too many stories about Baker. You began envying him his freedom of movement. Soon you began thinking you _were_ Baker. Your analyst sent you to me, to make you see through this legend of Baker. It was to my advantage to do so." The director wavered. "If I'm not Baker, who is?" "I told you," the tall man said, drawing a gun and shooting the director in the head. "I am." He smiled down at the body. "You weren't wearing armor, were you?" * * * * * Street reversed the dial on his gun and shot the director a second time. Quickly, he stirred from his paralysis. "Sorry I had to do that, Director," Street said, "but I could see you were about to strangle me with naked hands. The important thing was to fix the idea firmly in your mind that I was Baker. If you thought I was, you would have to realize that you couldn't be." "I do," the director said miserably as he climbed to his feet and dusted off his breeches. "But if I'm not Baker and you're not Baker, who is Baker?" "Director, just as telling your stories and hearing my answers to them cured you of believing you were Baker, the events of this story are designed to make someone remember the true identity of Baker--that very person who now believes in a different personality of his own." "Who is this person who is really Baker?" the director asked. "_The person who is now reading this story_," Street said. XIII "I'm afraid it won't do, Mr. Street," the editor of _Man's True Space_ said across his desk. "It's fiction. There can be only one Baker and tens of thousands would read the story in my magazine." "You are missing the point, Mr. Trent," Street said. "There is only one manuscript and it is in your hands. _You_ are Baker." "No," Trent said. "No." "Yes," Street said relentlessly. "Just as the director realized that _he_ was not Baker, you must realize _you_ are." Trent lay back in his swivel, gasping. "All right, all right, I admit it. I am Baker." "But you aren't really, Mr. Trent," Street said calmly. "I know you thought at one time you were Baker and then repressed the idea. But I knew at some future time the delusion might return and you would begin claiming to be Baker once more. As you said, there can only be one Baker. _I_ am Baker." "You lie," Trent snarled. "I know the truth now. I am Baker, and there _can_ only be one." The editor jerked the gun up from his desk drawer. The shots crashed at the same instant. Trent ran the letter spindle through his chest as he fell across the desk. Street settled back into his chair comfortably, death in his lungs from the gas bullet that had exploded against his armor. XIV The director of Extraterrestrial Investigations opened the closet door and stepped into the office. "The fools," Baker said to himself. He had no doubt that _he_ was the true, the original Baker. He remembered clearly that he had stepped out of the left cabinet of Gentle's transmatter, the one which he had first entered. (He did remember that, didn't he? Yes! Doubting himself was the first stride down the road these two had taken.) His act to shock "Street" into realizing they were _both_ Baker had been elaborate, but "Street" had gone schizoid. He was no copy, but there were copies of Baker, dozens of them, all helping the downtrodden aliens from terrestrial exploitation and making fortunes for themselves. There were fat ones, thin ones, tall ones, short ones, all kinds of Bakers, thanks to the refinement of Gentle's distortion factors in matter-duplicating to an exact science, a desired result, not an accident like the duplication itself. Unfortunately, in a few, physical distortion meant mental disorientation. These no longer had to merely pretend to be other people than Baker. It was too bad about them--and about all the other Bakers who had died. He really had died in all those ways on all those worlds in all those bodies, despite "Street's" clever excuses. Still it wasn't a bad life--helping the helpless and himself to all they could get. Yes, Baker decided, dying was a good way to make a living. 
57613	----	Internet Web Archive (The Library of Congress) Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: The Internet Web Archive https://archive.org/details/barrentitlenovel00spei (The Library of Congress) Harper's Handy Series Issued Weekly --------------------- Copyright by Harper & Brothers November 27, 1885 Subscription Price per Year, 52 Numbers, $15 --------------------- Entered the Post-Office at New York, as Second-class Mail Matter A BARREN TITLE A Novel BY T. W. SPEIGHT AUTHOR OF "THE MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE" ETC. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- _Books you may hold readily in your hand are the most useful, after all_ Dr. JOHNSON NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 1885 CONTENTS CHAP. I. SHABBY-GENTEEL. II. AT THE BROWN BEAR. III. NEGOTIATIONS. IV. TERMS PROPOSED. V. TERMS ACCEPTED. VI. MILD LUNACY. VII. "SWEET COZ." VIII. "GOOD-BYE." IX. TRANSFORMATION. X. INFATUATION. XI. CONFIDENTIAL. XII. CECILIA AND THE COUNTESS. XIII. "YOUNG PILLBOX." XIV. "TWELVE IT IS." XV. CECILIA PHILOSOPHIZES. XVI. PALLIDA MORS. XVII. GOLDEN DREAMS. XVIII. UP A LADDER. XIX. P. P. C. A BARREN TITLE. CHAPTER I. SHABBY-GENTEEL. It was about half-past two on a sunny February afternoon when Mr. John Fildew put his nose--aquiline and slightly purple as to its ridge--outside the door of his lodgings for the first time that day, and remarked to himself, with a shiver, that the weather was "beastly cold." After gazing up the street and down the street, and seeing nothing worth looking at, he shut the door behind him and strolled leisurely away. Hayfield Street, in which Mr. Fildew's lodgings were situate, was, despite its name, as far removed, both in appearance and associations, from anything suggestive of country or rural life as it well could be. It was of the town towny. Every house in it--and they were substantial, well-built domiciles, dating back some seventy or more years ago--was let out to three or four families, while in many cases the ground-floors had been converted into shops, in one or other of which anything might be bought, from a second-hand silk dress or sealskin jacket to a pennyworth of fried fish or a succulent cow-heel. In whatever part of the street you took your stand a couple of taverns were well within view, and, as a matter of course, there was a pawnbroker's emporium "just round the corner." It is needless to say that the street swarmed with children of all ages and all sizes, and that you might make sure of having the dulcet tones of a barrel-organ within earshot every ten minutes throughout the day. It was situate somewhat to the west of Tottenham-court Road, and ran at right angles with one of the main arteries that intersect that well-known thoroughfare. In this populous locality Mr. Fildew and his wife rented a drawing-room floor, consisting of three rooms, and including the use of a kitchen below stairs; and here they had lived for between six and seven years at the time we make Mr. Fildew's acquaintance. As we shall see a great deal of that gentleman before the word Finis is written to this history, it may perhaps be as well to introduce him with some particularity to the reader before setting out with him on his afternoon stroll. John Fildew at this time was about fifty-two years of age, but looked somewhat older. Thirty years previously he had been accounted a very handsome man, and there were still sufficient traces of bygone good looks to make credible such a tradition. But the once clear-cut aquiline nose was now growing more coarse and bibulous-looking with every year, and the once shapely waist was putting on a degree of convexity that troubled its possessor far more than any other change that time had seen fit to afflict him with. As yet he was by no means bald, and his iron-gray hair, however thin it might be at the crown, was still plentiful at the sides and back, and being seldom operated upon by the tonsorial scissors, its long, straggling ends mingled with the tangled growth of his whiskers and lay on the collar of his coat behind. Grizzled, too, were whiskers, beard, and mustache, but all unkempt and apparently uncared for, growing as they listed, and only impatiently snipped at now and again by Mr. Fildew himself, when his mustache had grown so long as to be inconvenient at meal-times. His eyes were his best feature. They were dark, piercing, and deep-set, and were overhung by thick, bushy brows, which showed as yet no signs of age. Their ordinary expression was one of cold, quiet watchfulness, but they were occasionally lighted up by gleams of a grim, sardonic humor, accompanied by a half-contemptuous smile and at such times it was possible to understand how it happened that many not over-observant people came to regard him as a genial, good-hearted, easy-tempered fellow, when, in truth, there was scarcely one touch of real geniality in his composition. Unshorn and unkempt as Mr. Fildew might appear as regards his hair and whiskers, shabby-genteel as he might be in point of attire, he still carried himself as one who holds himself superior in some measure to the ordinary run of his fellows. His boots might bear unmistakable traces of having been patched, but they were carefully polished and well-set up at the heels. His trousers might be old, and it is possible that they too might be patched on certain parts not visible to the public eye, but they were well ironed at the knees, and were strapped over his boots _à la militaire_. His frock-coat--always worn tightly buttoned--might be threadbare, inked here and there at the seams, and not after the latest fashion, but it had the merit of being an excellent fit. His hat, too, might be of ancient date, and suspiciously shiny in places, but it was always carefully brushed, and was worn with an air of assurance and _aplomb_ that made its defects seem superior to the virtues of many newer head-coverings. Mr. Fildew's linen might be old, possibly darned, but such portion of it as was visible to the world at large was at least spotlessly white: there was some one at home who took care of that. His attire was completed by a deep, military-looking stock, a pair of faded buckskin gloves, and a substantial Malacca cane with a silk tassel. Being naturally a little short-sighted, he always carried an eyeglass, but rarely made use of it in the streets. And yet Mr. Fildew's shabby attire was not altogether a matter of necessity with him. One day his son Clement ventured to say, "Father, I wish you would go to my tailor, and let him set you up with some new toggery." Clem was brushing the collar of his father's coat at the time, and the remark was made laughingly, but Mr. Fildew turned with a scowl and confronted his son. "Confound your tailor, sir!" he cried. "And you, too," he added next moment. "Do you think I'm a pauper, that you offer to pay for my clothes? If you are ashamed to be seen out with me, remember, sir, that there are always two sides to a street." And with that Mr. Fildew turned on his heel in high dudgeon. Clement and his mother exchanged glances of dismay. "You know how peculiar your father is, dear," said Mrs. Fildew afterwards, "and what little things sometimes touch his dignity. It was injudicious of you to say what you did." Clement shrugged his shoulders. "I have lived with my father all my life, and yet I confess that I only half understand him," said the young man. "At times he is a complete enigma to me." "I have lived with him more years than you have, and I think that I almost understand him: almost, but not quite," responded Mrs. Fildew, with a smile. "But then a woman always does understand a man better than another man can hope to do." Clement Fildew might well say that his father was an enigma to him. Although the latter refused so indignantly to allow his son to be at the expense of refurnishing his wardrobe, he was not too proud to accept from him his weekly supply of pocket-money. But then the money in question found its way from Clement's pocket to that of his father after such a delicate and diplomatic fashion that the susceptibilities of Mr. Fildew had never hitherto been wounded in the transaction. Every Friday Clement placed in his mother's hands the sum of one guinea. The sovereign and shilling in question were wrapped up by Mrs. Fildew in a piece of tissue-paper, and quietly deposited by her in a certain drawer in her husband's dressing-table. By Saturday morning the tiny packet would have disappeared. No questions were asked; neither Mrs. Fildew nor her husband ever spoke to each other on the matter but silence has often a meaning of its own, and it had in this case. Mr. Fildew having shut the door of his lodgings behind him, walked slowly down the street with the preoccupied air of a man who is busily communing with himself. "I must ask Clem to lend me half a sovereign," he muttered. "The necessity is an unpleasant one, but there's no help for it. I feel certain I could have given that fellow last night a drubbing at a carom game, but he was too many for me at the spot stroke. _Experientia docet_." Unfastening a couple of buttons of his frock-coat, Mr. Fildew inserted a thumb and finger into his waistcoat pocket, and drew therefrom a sixpence. "My last coin," he murmured. "I really must not touch a cue again for another month." Mr. Fildew was methodical in many of his habits. There was one tavern at which he made a point of calling within ten minutes of leaving home every afternoon. It had a little dark, private bar with cane-bottomed stools, where the gas was kept half turned on all day long. Here Punch and other comic papers were always to be found. Somehow, Mr. Fildew liked the place, but although he had called at it daily for years, no one behind the bar knew either his name or anything about him. He now pushed open the swing-doors and went in. In answer to his nod--there was no need for him to speak--the barman brought him fourpennyworth of brown brandy and cold water, together with a minute portion of cheese on the point of a knife. Mr. Fildew munched his cheese, glanced at the cartoon in Punch, sipped up his brandy-and-water, nodded a second time to the barman, and went. Mr. Fildew walked jauntily along, whistling under his breath. The brandy had imparted a glow to his feelings and a glow to his imagination: the flame would soon drop down again, he knew, but he was philosopher enough to enjoy it while it lasted. Elderly, shabby-genteel individuals are by no means scarce about the West End of London on sunny afternoons--inveterate _flâneurs_ whose "better days" are over forever. But Mr. Fildew was something more than merely shabby-genteel there was about him a style, a carriage, an air undefinable, but not to be mistaken, of broken-down distinction, which induced many passers-by to turn and glance at him a second time as he "took" the pavement with his slow military stride, his eyes fixed straight before him, and his nose held high in air. In a few minutes he found himself in Oxford Street. Crossing this as soon as there was a break in the string of vehicles, he took his way towards the mazes of Soho. Stopping at a certain door, he gave one loud rap with the knocker followed by two quick ones, and next moment the door opened, apparently of its own accord, and Mr. Fildew walked in, after which the door shut itself behind him. He had evidently been there before, for without a moment's hesitation he ascended the first flight of stairs, turned to the left down a short passage, and, opening a door at the end of it, found himself in a roomy and well-lighted studio. Its only occupant was a very little bandy-legged man with a luxuriant crop of curly hair, who was sitting on a low stool in front of a big canvas, palette and brush in hand and a brier-root pipe between his teeth. John Fildew looked round with an air of disappointment. "Clem not at home?" he asked of the little man. "Oh, Mr. Fildew, is that you?" said the latter, turning quickly. "I thought it was Clem come back. He's gone to see Pudgin, the dealer. Won't be long, I dare say." "This is the third time I've called and not found him at home." "All, just your luck, ain't it?" said the other, coolly. It would almost have seemed from the way he spoke as if he held Mr. Fildew in no particular regard. The latter made no reply, but strode across the room and came to a halt immediately behind the little painter. "I'm putting the finishing touches to the _pedes_ of my saint, Mr. Fildew. I wonder whether the holy men of olden time were ever troubled with corns or bunions. I suppose it wouldn't do to paint them with any. Rather too realistic, eh?" "Intended for the Academy, I suppose?" "If their high mightinesses will deign to find it hanging room--which is somewhat problematical." Mr. Fildew's cough plainly implied, "I should think it very problematical indeed." "Now, about Clem's picture I don't think there can be any doubt whatever," said the generous-hearted little man. "They must be dolts, indeed, if they reject that. It's far and away the best thing Clem's done yet. That boy, sir, has a great career before him." "From a painter's point of view, I presume you mean?" said Mr. Fildew, with a sneer. "Precisely so. From a painter's point of view. What other point of view could you expect me to take?" "No other, I suppose. _Chacun à son métier_. But the words, 'a great career,' hardly associate themselves in my mind with anything achieved by means of a brush and a paint-pot." "A paint-pot, indeed! Let me tell you, sir--but you are only chaffing me, Mr. Fildew--only trying to set my Welsh blood boiling that you may have a quiet laugh at me in your sleeve. But, joking apart, sir, you ought really to have a look at Clem's picture. It's there on the other easel. Shall I lift the cover for you?" "Not to-day, thank you, Macer. I'm not i' the vein. How is it possible for a man to have any proper appreciation of the fine arts who hasn't a sou in the world to bless himself with?" "If I might venture to offer, Mr. Fildew--" said Macer, doubtfully. He knew something of his visitor's queer moods and sudden spurts of temper, and shook in his shoes as he made the offer. "Just what I was coming to. You're a good fellow, Macer," responded Mr. Fildew, with much affability. Tony felt immensely relieved. "The truth is, I just looked in to see whether Clem had a spare half-sovereign about him; I've run rather short, as most of us do at odd times." "If you are in a hurry, Mr. Fildew, and you will allow me--" said Macer, as he opened his purse. "Thanks. Yes, I am in a hurry, and you can settle with Clem, you know;" and so the half-sovereign was quietly transferred to Mr. Fildew's pocket. "Any message for Clem, Mr. Fildew?" "No, I think not, Macer. You may just tell him that his mother seems a little more cheerful and in less pain yesterday and to-day. But, really, I don't wish you to burden your memory with such a trifle." "It won't seem a trifle to Clem. I could not tell him anything that would please him better." "Hum! Not even the news that the Academy had accepted his picture?" asked Mr. Fildew, dryly. "Not even to hear that would afford him the pleasure he would derive from knowing that his mother was really better." "Ah, yes, Clem's a good boy; a model son in every way." Macer looked up quickly, but Mr. Fildew, with his glass in his eye, was apparently contemplating a cobweb in a far corner of the room. "But I must go now," he added, as he turned on his heel. "Don't forget to ask Clem for the half-sovereign; and if neither of you should be so fortunate as to have your picture hung by the Academy, I hope you won't go and hang yourselves instead." And, with one of his peculiar smiles and a curt nod of the head, he left the room. "Poor Clem! What a pity Providence didn't provide him with a different kind of father," said Tony Macer, as he turned to his work again. "Egad! if the fellow were worth ten thousand a year, he could hardly give himself more airs." CHAPTER II. AT THE BROWN BEAR. The Brown Bear, the tavern usually patronized by Mr. Fildew of an evening, was situate in a quiet street no great distance from Bloomsbury Square. It was one of the few taverns dating from a bygone generation that had escaped the hands of the modern innovator. It could boast no plate-glass windows lighted up with a score of gas-jets. There was plenty of old mahogany, black with age, to be seen inside the bar, but there were no mirrors and no gilding; neither was there any lavish display of colored glass or artificial shrubs. You went down one step from the street into the bar, the floor of which was sprinkled with sand, as in the days when George the Third was king. A huge oaken beam supported the ceiling. On a topmost shelf stood a couple of immense punchbowls backed by some flagons of antique design, and below them were several bottles of Schiedam and other liquors that had been ripening for a dozen years. There was an air of sombre substantiality about the whole place. Behind the bar was the "coffee-room," so called. Straight-backed, rush-bottomed chairs occupied three sides of it, in front of which were ranged four or five oblong tables, black with age and much polishing. At the upper end of the room was an elaborately carved arm-chair, where the president or chairman for the evening took his seat, opposite which stood a brass box containing tobacco, the lid of which flew open as often as a halfpenny was dropped through an orifice at the opposite end. A few smoke-dried prints of coaching and sporting subjects, and three or four pipe-racks, decorated the walls. The general public were not allowed to invade this sanctum for them there was another room at the opposite end of the bar. The coffee-room was set apart and kept sacred for a certain set of regular customers, and such private friends as they might choose to bring with them from time to time, who, year in and year out, made a point of spending their evenings at the Brown Bear. Some there were who put in an appearance almost every night, some of them showed up only two or three times a week, but they were all known to each other and to the landlord, the freemasonry of good-fellowship, or what passed among them as such, being the one bond that kept them together. Several of them were small tradesmen of the neighborhood, two or three were connected with the law, a few of them were men whose work in this world was over, and who were ekeing out the remainder of their days on some small pension or private means of their own. At nine P.M. such of the company as might be present voted one of their number into the chair, a post which it was not considered etiquette to vacate till the clock struck twelve. At ten o'clock they were generally joined by the landlord, who, on such occasions, ordered and paid for what he drank like an ordinary customer. The last proceeding of each evening was for the chairman to treat such of the company as might be left to "goes" of grog at his own expense; one cannot expect to have the honors of this world thrust upon one without having to pay for them. It is quite possible that some of the frequenters of the Brown Bear were drawn thither by the love of hearing themselves talk, and of having others to listen to them, rather than by any more convivial motives. As a consequence, the affairs of the nation were discussed and settled, and the proceedings of the party in power impugned or approved of, as the case might be, to the satisfaction of everybody concerned; while such minor topics as the weather, the crops, the last murder, or the latest scandal in high life, did not fail to come in for their due share of attention. Some old fogies there were who scarcely opened their lips except to order their grog, or to interject an "exactly" or a "just so" at the proper moment, whenever any particular proposition was pointedly aimed at them, but who otherwise puffed placidly at their pipes in stolid silence. These non-talkers were by no means among the least popular of the company, for how can a man who feels called upon to enlighten his fellow-citizens do so with any satisfaction to himself unless he has appreciative listeners? That those others chose to be listeners rather than talkers was by no means put down to any obtuseness of intellect on their part, for are we not taught that a still tongue is a sign of a wise head? and a man may be brimful of wisdom, and yet be at pains to conceal that fact from his fellows. Among such a company as this it might almost have seemed as if a man like Mr. Fildew would hardly have felt himself at home; but such was by no means the case. The truth is, that the majority of the frequenters of the Brown Bear, that is to say, the small tradesmen portion of them, looked up to our friend and yet looked down upon him. They looked down upon him because they had a suspicion, which, in their case, was next to a certainty, that he was always in a chronic state of impecuniosity; because they themselves had their snug little investments in one form or other, and could have bought him up, root and branch, a hundred times over; and, finally, because it is one of the blessed privileges of those who have money to look down on those who have none. They looked up to Fildew because there was something about the man which told them he had at one time belonged to a sphere from which they were forever debarred. Through all his poverty and shabbiness, a faint aroma of fashion and high life seemed still to cling to him. The popular notion at the Brown Bear was that he had at one time been an officer in some crack regiment, who had ruined himself by gambling and been discarded by his friends. If he spoke of the aristocracy, which, to give him credit, was but rarely, he spoke as though he were one to the manner born. He seemed to know Eton and Oxford as well as he knew Tottenham-court Road, and to be familiar with most of the West End clubs. A nobleman's name could hardly be mentioned without his being able to tell something about him that the frequenters of the Brown Bear had never heard of before. In his very way of talking, in his mode of accentuating his words, there was an indefinable something which marked him out at once from the ordinary frequenters of the coffee-room of the B. B. They knew, these petty tradesmen, that "His Grace" looked down upon them from the height of some, to them, invisible pedestal; and they in turn looked down upon him from the serene height of their money-bags; and yet, as they argued among themselves when he was not by, he must, to a certain extent, have liked their company, else why did he seek it so persistently night after night the year round? It was about half-past eight this evening when John Fildew walked into the bar of the Brown Bear. He nodded to the landlord, and that worthy at once touched a spring inside the bar which communicated with the door of the coffee-room, after which the door opened to Fildew's hand, and he entered. With one man in the room he shook hands, to the rest of the company be vouchsafed a general and comprehensive nod. Then he took a vacant chair, and having called for a "go" of brandy cold, he proceeded to select a churchwarden pipe from a heap on the table before him and to charge it with tobacco. "How's the weather by this time, your grace?" asked Mr. Nutt, the shoemaker. "It was just wetting a bit when I came in." "The stars are out again," said Fildew, answering to the title as a matter of course. "Not much likelihood of any rain to-night." It was not often that he joined in the discussions, political or otherwise, that were pretty sure to crop up before the evening was at an end. He generally sat a silent if not an amused listener. If appealed to directly he would give his opinion, but not otherwise. That curious, sneering smile of his would now and then light up his features at the enunciation by one or other of his friends of some more wildly outrageous statement than common, but for the most part he and his pipe held silent session together and troubled no one with what they thought. It was quite understood in the room why Mr. Fildew should shake hands with Mr. Denzil and no one else. Mr. Fildew was a man who rarely shook hands with any one. His reasons for making an exception in favor of the young law-writer may be told in a few words. One evening, about a year anterior to the particular evening to which we have now come, Mr. Denzil had made his appearance at the Brown Bear considerably the worse for liquor. At the moment of his entrance Mr. Fildew was explaining to the company the ceremonial in connection with a royal levée at St. James's. "What can a shabby dog like you know about the interior of a palace?" hiccoughed Denzil. "If you have ever been inside St. James's it must have been when you were sent for to sweep the chimneys." "Silence, you drunken fool," said Mr. Fildew, in quietly contemptuous tones. But Denzil was not in a mood to be silenced, and would probably have insulted the company all round had not three or four of his more intimate friends removed him as quietly as possible. After that evening he and Mr. Fildew spoke to each other no more. Six or seven months had passed away when one evening somebody inquired what had become of Denzil, upwards of a week having gone by since his last appearance at the B. B. "My pot man told me to-day that he had heard he was queer," remarked the landlord. "What's the matter with him? Not d. t. again, eh?" "Some sort of fever, I'm afraid. Catching, too, I hear." "Poor Denzil! Let us hope he'll not want for good nursing." "How can he have good nursing," said another, "when, as I happen to know, he hasn't a single relation within a hundred miles of London? He rents a back bedroom on a third floor, and gets his meals out. That's the sort of home Denzil has." "Poor devil! They ought to have taken him to the hospital. He'd have been properly cared for there." "They say he's too ill to be moved," remarked the landlord, as he placidly puffed at his pipe. Had the health of his favorite terrier been in question, some show of feeling might naturally have been expected from him. Then Mr. Fildew spoke. "Gentlemen," he said, "my opinion is that a deputation of the present company ought without delay to inquire into the circumstances attendant on Mr. Denzil's illness, and make such arrangements as may be necessary for having him properly cared for." There was a dead silence in the room. Everybody puffed away with increased energy at their pipes. Mr. Pyecroft, the small-ware dealer, a thin man with a squeaky voice, was the first to speak. "Did you say the fever was a catching one, Mr. Landlord?" "So my potman was given to understand. A bad kind of fever--very." "Humph! Well, I for one, as a family man, must say," resumed Pyecroft, "that much as I respect our friend Denzil, and sincerely as I hope he'll soon be among us again as jovial as ever, I don't see my way to go and inquire personally after his health. My duty to my wife and children tells me that I ought to take the greatest possible care of my own health, for their sakes, if not for my own." "Hear, hear! my sentiments exactly," resounded from three or four parts of the room. "Number Two is all very well when Number One has been properly cared for." "Gentlemen," said Mr. Scoop, the tailor, with a doleful shake of the head, "I am afraid that this is one of those unfortunate cases in which friendship finds itself with its hands tied. I don't really see that we can do anything. James, another go of Scotch with an extra squeeze of lemon this time." Mr. Fildew rose to his feet and put his hat on. "Surely your grace is not going already?" said Mr. Nutt. "Why, the evening's quite a baby yet," remarked jovial-faced little Tubbins, the undertaker. "But perhaps there's a lady in the case, eh? Ah, sly dog, sly dog!" and he gave a comprehensive wink for the benefit of the company at large. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Fildew, gravely, "I am going to the lodgings of Mr. Denzil. If any one here chooses to accompany me, so much the better. If not, I shall go alone." He waited a moment, but no one spoke or moved. Then he turned on his heel and walked slowly out. He found Denzil in a raging fever, with no one to attend to him but a poor lad who slept in the next room. For ten days and as many nights he and this lad took it in turns to nurse the sick man, until the fever left him and he was on the high-road to recovery. Then an old aunt was telegraphed for out of Devonshire, and Mr. Fildew went his way. And that is the reason why ever afterwards he and Denzil shook hands when they met each other at the B. B. To-night the coffee-room was more lively than usual, for Mr. Wimbush, the funny man of the company, had advanced the humorous proposition that the moment a prime-minister failed to secure a majority in the House he ought to be decapitated, and was putting it to his friends generally which of them would like to take office under such circumstances. Lumbering witticisms and time-honored jokes were being bandied about; a joke was hardly looked upon as a joke at the B. B. till it had done duty some half-dozen times, and came to be recognized as an old friend. But John Fildew sat as grave as a judge, behind his pipe, and took no part in the merriment around him. By and by in came Mr. Nipper, the auctioneer, with the evening paper in his hand. He sat down next Mr. Fildew, rubbed up his hair, and selected a pipe. "Any news this evening worth reading?" asked Fildew, more for the sake of saying something than because he cared to know what the news might be. "No, everything seems very stale just now," said the auctioneer, as he blew down the stem of his pipe, and twisted his little finger appreciatively round the inside of the bowl. "There's an account of a fatal accident to one of our young swells; but the country could spare a lot like him without being any the worse off," added Nipper, who prided himself on his democratic principles. "There are swells and swells," responded Mr. Fildew, dryly. "What was the name of this particular one?" "The Earl of Loughton. Pitched off his hunter and broke his neck. Not quite one-and-twenty." Mr. Fildew, who had been in the act of lifting his glass to his lips, put it down untasted. Mr. Nipper turned and stared at him. "Hullo! I say, what's the matter? Was the young lord a friend of your grace?" This was asked with something of a grin. "By Jove! you are all of a shake." "The Earl of Loughton was no friend of mine. I never saw him in my life. But I happen to be acquainted with the man who will succeed him in the title." "Bully for you, my boy," responded Mr. Nipper, who could not forget that he had once spent six months in the States. "Here's the account. Perhaps you would like to read it." He pointed to a brief paragraph, which Fildew, with the newspaper held up within an inch or two of his nose, read carefully through more than once. "I must write to my friend to-night and congratulate him," he said, in his usual quiet, matter-of-fact tone, as he laid down the newspaper. "It will be a great surprise for him." "Let us hope that in the day of his prosperity the friends of his adversity will not be forgotten," said Nipper, who was one of the orators of the B. B. "It is but a barren honor that he will come into," answered Fildew. "The title will be his, but the estates go elsewhere;" and nodding a curt "goodnight" to the auctioneer, he emptied his glass and left the room. CHAPTER III. NEGOTIATIONS. Whether Mr. Fildew ever wrote that particular letter respecting which he spoke to Mr. Nipper is more than doubtful. Like many other men, he hated letter-writing, and it is possible that the incident in connection with Lord Loughton, to which he had seemed to attach so much importance when he first heard of it, may have assumed a different aspect when recalled to mind in the cool light of morning. In any case, there was no observable difference in his appearance or mode of life. He came and went, and smoked and drank, as heretofore only it might be that he was a little more particular in scanning the newspapers than he had previously been. At the end of a week his friend Nipper said to him, "I see that poor young fellow was buried yesterday." "You mean Lord Loughton? Yes, I saw the account in this morning's paper." "Written to your friend yet?" "No. On second thoughts it seemed to me that it would be better to wait a few weeks before troubling him. He'll have enough to do and plenty to think of for a little while." "Well, I wouldn't lose sight of him if I were you. It must be rather nice to be on nodding terms with an earl. Not that I should care about that sort of thing, you know," added Nipper, hastily. He had forgotten for the moment that he was in the habit of posing as a democrat. "And then"--with a glance at Fildew's threadbare coat and patched boots--"he might do something for you, you know: some snug little government sinecure, or something of that kind. There's lots of 'em knocking about." Mr. Fildew laughed a little bitterly. "It may be all very well for me not to forget him, but he may not choose to remember me." "Well, that's the way of the world and no mistake," said the auctioneer, with a shrug. "But, for all that, I shouldn't forget to jog his memory. Where's the use of having swell friends if you can't make use of 'em?" A few evenings later Mr. Fildew called for pen, ink, and paper, and, seating himself at a little table, apart from the rest of the company, he wrote the following letter, which George the potman afterwards took for him to the nearest post: "The Brown Bear Tavern, Chalcot Street, W. C. "_February 25th_, 18--. "Messrs. Flicker & Tapp, Bedford Row: "Gentlemen,--In common with a great number of other people, I have heard with extreme regret of the untimely demise of the late Earl of Loughton. That a life so abounding in promise should be thus suddenly nipped in the bud must be almost enough to cause those near and dear to him to arraign the decrees of Providence. "I know not whether it may be a matter of any moment either to the Dowager Countess of Loughton or to yourselves, as business agents for the family, to be made acquainted with the whereabouts of the present earl; but should it be so, I think I may safely say that I am the only person in England who can furnish you with his address. You may probably be aware that Mr. Lorrimore, as we may still call him, has resided abroad for several years but as I happen to have had a communication from him only a fortnight ago, I am fully competent to supply you with the information stated above. Should you think it worth your while to take any notice of this communication, I am to be found here any evening from 8.30 till 11.30 P.M. "I am, gentlemen, faithfully yours, "John Fildew." Two evenings passed away without any response, but on the third evening a dapper little man, with a very shiny hat and a pair of whiskers several sizes too large for him, walked into the bar of the Brown Bear, and asked for Mr. Fildew. Our friend, being called, came lounging out of the coffee-room, his glass in his eye and a thumb in each waistcoat pocket. "Are you Mr. John Fildew?" asked the little stranger, taking in the whole of John's shabby toggery at a glance. "I am--unfortunately. I often think it would be a good thing if I could be somebody else." "My name is Perkins. I have called respecting a certain letter addressed by you to Messrs. Flicker & Tapp. Our senior partner would like to know--" "Pardon me," interrupted Fildew, blandly, "but if I have not the pleasure of addressing either Mr. Flicker or Mr. Tapp, we need not proceed further with the matter." "Why, sir--how, sir--I don't understand you!" spluttered Mr. Perkins, becoming as red as a turkey-cock. "I am sorry for that. I will put my meaning as plainly as possible. I never transact business except with principals." "But I tell you, sir, I have been sent here specially to--to--" "I am sorry that you should have your trouble for nothing, but unless Mr. Flicker or Mr. Tapp choose to come and consult me in person the matter must end here. And, really, I shall not be sorry for it to do so." "Mr. Flicker or Mr. Tapp come to a place like this!" "Why not, my dear Mr. Perkins? If the place is good enough for me, surely it is good enough for them." "Why, you impertinent, shabby--" "Gently, my dear Mr. Perkins, gently. I've rather a partiality for little men, so long as they behave themselves; but when little men become impertinent I've a nasty trick of caning them (_verbum sap_.). But have a drop of something hot before you go. This house has a name for its old Jamaica, and I've an odd sixpence somewhere in a corner of my pocket." "To the devil with your Jamaica and your sixpence too!" ejaculated Mr. Perkins. "It's my opinion that you're nothing better than a common swindler;" and, jamming his hat over his brows, the little man turned abruptly on his heel and left the bar. Mr. Fildew, after a grim, silent laugh, went back to his pipe in the coffee-room. Three days later Mr. Fildew found a note awaiting his arrival at the Brown Bear. It ran as follows: "No. 429 Bedford Row. "Messrs. Flicker & Tapp will be at liberty to see Mr. John Fildew any morning between half-past ten and two, if he will favor them with a call as above." To this the following answer was sent: "The Brown Bear Tavern. "Mr. Fildew is sorry to say that his numerous engagements preclude him from having the pleasure of waiting on Messrs. Flicker & Tapp, as suggested in their note of yesterday. As previously stated, Mr. Fildew may be found at the above address any evening prior to 11.30 P.M." "They shall wait upon me, not I upon them," said Mr. Fildew to himself, with an emphatic bang of his fist upon the unoffending postage-stamp. And so it came to pass for one evening the great Mr. Flicker himself put in an appearance at the Brown Bear, having left his brougham at the corner of the street. He was a tall, thin, melancholy-looking man, like an attenuated life-guardsman who had turned mute for a livelihood. He stood among the bar-frequenters for a moment or two while Mr. Fildew was summoned, looking as grim, cold, and uncompromising as if he had been carved out of monumental marble. "I am Mr. Flicker." "I am Mr. Fildew." Then the latter said a few words to the landlord, and the two gentlemen were ushered up-stairs into a private room. As soon as the door was shut, said the lawyer: "We received rather a singular communication from you a few days ago, Mr. Fildew." "In what did the singularity of my communication consist, Mr. Flicker?" "I will be frank with you, and I trust you will be equally frank with me." Mr. Fildew bowed, but said nothing. "May I be permitted to ask by what reasons you were influenced in your assumption that a knowledge of the address of--of--" "Of the present Earl of Loughton," suggested Mr. Fildew, blandly. "That a knowledge of the address of the person named in your letter," said Mr. Flicker, loftily, "could be of any possible interest either to the Dowager Lady Loughton or to myself or partner?" "Were I so minded, I might content myself by replying that the fact of your presence here this evening is a proof that the information proffered by me has a certain measure of interest for you, and possibly for her ladyship also. But you have asked me to deal frankly with you, and I will endeavor to do so. Since writing my first letter to you, I have had a communication from his lordship containing certain instructions, and giving me full power to act in his behalf in this matter." Mr. Flicker's eyebrows went up perceptibly, but he simply bowed and waited to hear more. "Before proceeding further," resumed Mr. Fildew, "it may be as well if I give you our view of the case as it now stands. Of course we are all aware that the title, as it comes to the present earl, is what may be called a barren honor, there being no entail. Not one golden guinea, not one acre of moorland, comes with it. The father of the late earl, when he drew up his will, might have foreseen the contingency which the strange irony of events all unlikely as it then seemed--has now brought about. He took every possible precaution that his scapegrace cousin the man who on account of his evil doings, had been compelled to expatriate himself long years before, should not inherit a single rood of the property, and he would doubtless have willed the title away also had it been in his power to do so. The greater share of the property comes to Miss Collumpton, and a lesser share to Mr. Slingsby Boscombe, both of whom are half-cousins to the late earl, and I believe it has long been considered a desirable thing in the Lorrimore family that the two young people in question should unite their fortunes in wedlock. Should this consummation be brought about, one thing and one only would be needed to make such a union a matter for rejoicing among gods and men. The one thing needful would be that the title should accompany the estates." Mr. Fildew paused for a moment to relight the pipe he had brought with him from the coffee-room. "Which is your favorite tobacco, Mr. Flicker?" he asked, as he blew a cloud of smoke from his lips. "For my part, give me bird's-eye for choice." "I never use tobacco in any shape, sir," said Mr. Flicker, with a sort of lofty scorn. "Then let me tell you, sir, that you lose one of the pleasures of existence. But to return to our muttons. As you and I are well aware, Mr. Flicker, under present circumstances the title cannot go with the estates but it may follow them, and that at no distant date. The life of one elderly gentleman--of a gentleman who has been in infirm health for years--is all that now stands between Mr. Slingsby Boscombe and an earldom. But supposing this same elderly gentleman were to marry and have issue, where would Mr. Boscombe's chance be in that case?" Mr. Fildew put up his glass and stared across at his companion as if awaiting a reply but Mr. Flicker merely blew his nose with a melancholy air, and said nothing. "However, as I am instructed," resumed Mr. Fildew, "matrimony is the last thought in his lordship's mind. At the same time, he does not relish the idea of succeeding to the title without any income to support it with. What, therefore, I am empowered to suggest is a compromise. Provided his lordship will enter into an engagement not to contract a matrimonial alliance, the question is what amount per annum the dowager countess, or Miss Collumpton, or Mr. Slingsby Boscombe, or all three of them together, will be prepared, after due consideration, to allow him out of the estate." Mr. Fildew let his eyeglass drop and resumed smoking. Mr. Flicker sat and stared at him across the table. His respect for the strange, shabby, tobacco-flavored man before him had gone up thirty per cent. during the last few minutes. "Well, Mr. Fildew, really I am at a loss to know in what light to regard the strange proposition you have put before me. I have no instructions to--to--" "I can't quite understand that," broke in Fildew, "and I am not such an ass as to expect an answer from you off-hand. Take my proposition away with you, and you and the dowager can consider it at your leisure. You know by this time where I am to be found." Mr. Flicker rose. His sluggish blood was beginning to simmer. He felt that he had been quietly put down all through the interview. The strange being before him had actually had the presumption to address him in the same tone that he himself might have made use of when speaking to one of his clerks. "By-the-bye, there is one point that I must press specially on your attention," resumed Fildew, as he too rose. "His lordship informs me that the first step in the negotiations, should your side agree to negotiate at all, must be a distinct understanding that the debts, on account of which he left England so many years ago, shall be discharged in full. His lordship makes that a _sine quâ non_." "If his lordship may be judged by the tone of his mouthpiece," said Mr. Flicker, dryly, "it seems pretty evident that he looks upon himself as master of the situation." "It is quite possible that such may be the earl's own opinion. But, in any case, Mr. Flicker, I think that you and I understand each other by this time." Mr. Flicker muttered something that was inaudible and opened the door. "One moment, if you please," said Mr. Fildew. Then he rang the bell. "James, be good enough to light this gentleman downstairs and conduct him through the bar." Four days later the following letter was put into Mr. Fildew's hands: "If Mr. Fildew will call at No. 287 Harley Street, at noon to-morrow (Tuesday), the Dowager Countess of Loughton will be at home." Never had John Fildew looked more uncompromisingly and audaciously shabby than when he knocked at 287 Harley Street. His hat and coat might not have been brushed for days. His boots seemed to lack something of their usual polish. He wore a frayed black satin stock with long ends, which completely hid whatever portion of his shirt-front might otherwise have been visible, but which, at the same time, gave one the idea that perhaps there was nothing to hide. A faint, a very faint, aroma of stale tobacco floated round him as he moved. The bleak March winds had made the ridge of his nose look more purple than usual, and when he put a dingy piece of pasteboard into the hand of the tall footman who answered his knock, that functionary was evidently disposed to look upon him as a member of the great fraternity of shabby-genteel beggars. "Take that to the Countess of Loughton, and be quick about it," said Mr. Fildew, in the sharp military way he sometimes affected, for the man was turning the card over and hesitating. Three minutes later Mr. Fildew found himself in the presence of the countess and Mr. Flicker. The Dowager Lady Loughton was nearly eighty years old, but was still a wonderfully active and bright-eyed little woman. The tradition ran that she had been accounted a great beauty in her youth, but her nose and chin nearly touched each other now, and when she grew very earnest in conversation her head began to nod as if to add emphasis to her words, but that was simply because she could not keep it still at such times. All her life she had borne the reputation of being a good hater, and it was said that her tongue grew more venomous each year that she lived. The sudden death of her grandson had doubtless been a great blow to her, but she bore the loss with a stoicism which would not let any signs of grief be witnessed by those about her. Some of the countess's dearest friends averred that her grief at the fact of the title having to lapse into another branch of the family was quite as poignant as that which she felt for the loss of the young earl; but then we all know what strange things our dearest friends will say about us. The countess examined Mr. Fildew through her double eyeglass--even at seventy-eight she would not take to spectacles--as he crossed the room after the servant had shut the door behind him. Mr. Flicker's description of the man had made her slightly curious respecting him. In that elegantly furnished room John Fildew's shabbiness looked shabbier by contrast. Had he been dressed as an ordinary working man he would not have looked nearly so much out of place as he did in the worn and rusty garments of a broken-down man about town. The only change in his attire that he had made in honor of the occasion consisted of a pair of very ancient black-kid gloves, which had been stitched and restitched so often that nothing more could be done for them, and a narrow mourning band round his hat. "You are Mr. Fildew?" asked the countess, with a sort of sweet condescension in her tones. "And you are the Dowager Lady Loughton." Her ladyship looked at Mr. Flicker as much as to say, "You were quite right a strange being, truly." Then she said aloud, "Pray take a chair, Mr. Fildew." This Mr. Fildew did, planting himself close to the little table near which the countess and the lawyer were seated. Then he stared mildly through his glass at one and the other of them, as waiting to hear more. "Mr. Flicker has confided to me the purport of his interview with you a few evenings ago," began the countess. "And the decision which her ladyship has arrived at," croaked Mr. Flicker, "is that the suggestion then put forward by you is totally inadmissible, and cannot be entertained for a moment." "Then may I ask," said Mr. Fildew, with a sort of grave surprise, "why I have been summoned to Harley Street this morning? All this might surely have been told me under cover of a penny postage-stamp." "Although I cannot at present see my way to entertain the proposition which Mr. Lorrimore has thought fit to make through you," said the countess, "it may still be conceded that I am not without a little natural curiosity to learn some particulars concerning the man himself, and what he has been doing these many years since he left England." "I have no authority to gratify your ladyship's curiosity. I am here simply to negotiate a certain business transaction. As there seems no probability of our coming to terms I may as well take my leave at once. When Lord Loughton arrives in England he will no doubt be able to satisfy your ladyship's affectionate inquiries: whether he will care to do so is another matter." Mr. Fildew rose and pushed back his chair. "Sit down, sir," said her ladyship, with an imperious gesture. "If you were Lord Loughton himself you could not treat me more cavalierly." Her head began to nod portentously. "Suppose I am Lord Loughton?" said Mr. Fildew, quietly, as he resumed his seat. "Eh!" said her ladyship, with a sudden scared look. "I say--suppose I am Lord Loughton?" She stuck her double eyeglass across her nose and stared at him for a moment or two. "You Lord Loughton--you!" she said, with a little derisive cackle. "Tchut! tchut! that would be a farce indeed." "A farce that, like many others in real life, may involve a most serious meaning. But whether it be a farce or a masquerade, it is high time it were ended. Permit me, therefore, to introduce myself to your ladyship as John Marmaduke Lorrimore, ninth Earl of Loughton." CHAPTER IV. TERMS PROPOSED. "I don't believe one word you have said. You are nothing but a vile impostor," exclaimed Lady Loughton, with all the energy at her command, while her head continued to wag as if at any moment it might fall off. Mr. Flicker rose from his chair, and, with his hands resting on the table, stared across at the audacious being sitting opposite to him. His mouth opened and then shut. Finding no language forcible enough to express a tithe of what he felt, he sat down again without speaking, and blew his nose. It was a protest more eloquent than words. "Your ladyship always had a reputation for speaking your mind. I find that the old habit still clings to you," said Mr. Fildew, quietly, as he toyed carelessly with a paper-knife. "You are nothing but a charlatan, sir, and my servants shall turn you out of doors." Her ladyship laid a finger on the tiny silver gong at her elbow, but Mr. Fildew's next words arrested the movement. "I remember on one occasion when I was at Ringwood," he said, "and I could not have been more than eight or nine years old at the time, what a scrape Cousin Charley and I got into through bird-nesting in the woods when we ought to have been learning our lessons. We were stealing in through the back entrance, as black as two sweeps, when your ladyship caught us. What a setting down you gave us, to be sure! Charley being Earl of Loughton--he came into the title, you know, when he was seven years old--was simply scolded and forgiven, while I, being merely cousin to the Earl of Loughton, and nobody in particular, was not only scolded but sent with your ladyship's compliments to Mr. Pembroke, the tutor, and would he please cane me enough for two. The sight of you again, madam, brought this little reminiscence quite freshly to my mind." Snarling till she showed the whole of her false teeth, and shaking a withered finger at Mr. Fildew, the countess said, "I repeat, sir, that you are nothing but a charlatan. Don't for one moment imagine that you can bamboozle me with any made-up tales about Ringwood, and what happened there thirty or forty years ago. Any fool could work up evidence of that kind." "There used to be a good deal of company at the old place in those days," resumed Mr. Fildew, without heeding her ladyship's outburst in the least. "Where are the old faces by this time, I wonder? Scattered to the four quarters of the globe, I suppose, such of them as are still alive. Does your ladyship remember Captain Bristow? I wonder whether he is still among the living." It was strange to see the hot color mount to her ladyship's forehead. She blushed like any girl of eighteen. Then she took up her fan. "Mr. Flicker," she said, "will you oblige me by opening that window a couple of inches? I feel a little faint. Thank you. And now, sir," turning to Mr. Fildew, "pray what do you know about Captain Bristow?" "I have some very pleasant reminiscences in connection with the handsome captain. For one thing, he always tipped me liberally when he came to Ringwood. One day I happened to be the unseen witness of a little comedietta in which your ladyship and the captain enacted the chief--indeed, I may say, the only characters. I had been to the library to fetch a book for Mr. Pembroke, when, happening to hear voices in the blue boudoir, which, as you may remember, madam, is the room next the library, and perceiving that the door was ajar, I peeped in and saw--now, what does your ladyship think that I saw?" The countess coughed, and Mr. Flicker, in obedience to an almost imperceptible sign, rose softly from his chair and walked away to the farthest window, humming under his breath. "I saw," resumed Mr. Fildew, with hardly a break, "the captain on his knees before your ladyship--the earl had been dead at that time about two years--I saw him kiss your hand, and I saw that you, madam, did not repulse him. I was not near enough to hear the words which passed between you, but presently I saw the captain take a ring out of his waistcoat pocket and slip it on to your ladyship's finger. Then there came a knock at the other door, and the captain had barely time to rise before in came a servant with a letter for him. It was a message to say that his father was dying. He left Ringwood that night, and never, so far as I know, entered its doors again. But I notice that your ladyship still wears the ring which Captain Bristow slipped on your finger that sunny afternoon. That is the one on the third finger of your right hand." Lady Loughton sank back in her easy-chair, and turned as white as she had been red before. "Water," she said, faintly, pointing to a carafe that stood upon a side-table. Mr. Flicker was by her side in a moment. When she had drunk a little water, he said, "Shall I ring the bell for your maid?" "No. I shall be better presently. I hate having a fuss made about trifles." Then, after a moment or two of silent thought, she said suddenly, "Flicker, that man"--pointing to Mr. Fildew with her fan "is either John Marmaduke Lorrimore or Beelzebub!" Mr. Flicker rubbed his chilly hands together and bowed low--very low. Whether the bow was intended for the Earl of Loughton or for the Prince of Darkness was best known to himself. "I am sorry, my lord," he said, "that with a recent melancholy tragedy still fresh in my memory, I cannot congratulate your lordship as I should like to have done on your accession to so distinguished a title." "You are not a bit like a Lorrimore," broke in her ladyship, in the abrupt way which was habitual with her. "And yet you used to say that I had more of a Lorrimore look than even your own son had." "It seems impossible that you can ever have been that long-haired, fair-skinned boy whom I used to nurse and spoil." "And box and scold--don't forget that, madam. I have fought with wild beasts at Ephesus since those days, and there's little left of me but a wreck." "What are your means of living?" "I have a private income of one pound per week." "And you exist on that?" "On that I exist." This statement, if not strictly in accordance with fact, was still sufficiently near the truth. The countess and Mr. Flicker exchanged looks. "And now, sir, if you are prepared to state categorically to Mr. Flicker and myself what it is that you think we ought to do for you, we will listen to what you may have to say." The dowager was careful not to address him by his title, although she had virtually acknowledged his right to it. "What I think you ought to do is this," said the earl, with quiet deliberation. "In the first place, to pay my debts, amounting, with interest, to a trifle over six thousand pounds; and, in the second place, to allow me twelve hundred a year for life, to be paid quarterly in advance." "Tut-tut-tut!" said the countess. "The man must be mad--crazy. Six thousand pounds down and twelve hundred a year for life! Where do you imagine, sir, that any such outrageous sums are to be obtained from?" "When Charles came of age I remember that his income was set down as being a clear eighteen thousand a year, and I don't suppose the estate has depreciated in value since that time." "My life interest in the estate, let me tell you, sir, is only to the extent of three thousand per annum." "Of that, madam, I am quite aware. But there are other people interested in this question besides yourself. Your niece, Miss Collumpton, for instance, and Mr. Slingsby Boscombe, who hopes to be Earl of Loughton whenever Providence may be pleased to snuff me out of existence." "And pray what are the special advantages that might be supposed to accrue to the family in general, supposing, for the sake of argument merely, that they were disposed to entertain your ridiculous proposition?" "The advantages are self-evident. The family surely do not wish to see an honorable and ancient title dragged through the mire at the heels of a pauper, and what am I but a pauper? Then, again, I am not a marrying man. I don't want to marry. Miss Collumpton and Mr. Boscombe may become man and wife with the blissful certainty that the title will be theirs in ten or a dozen years at the most--it may be in ten or a dozen months." "Suppose, on the other hand, that we decline _in toto_ to have anything to say to your proposition?" "In that case, madam, my course lies clear before me. I cannot, as an earl, be expected to exist on a pound a week; that would be too absurd. I have the honor to rent an apartment over a milk-shop in one of our most populous suburbs. My landlady has one daughter a buxom, apple-cheeked, red-armed young woman of five-and-twenty, who serves in the shop. I should make this estimable young person Countess of Loughton. For I am growing old, madam, and feel to need the comforts of a home, and what is twenty shillings a week for a nobleman to live on? I have reason to believe that the milk business is a lucrative one, and, with an earl at the head of it, it would become ten times more lucrative than it is now. Of course, I should have my name in full over the door: 'John Marmaduke Lorrimore, Earl of Loughton.' And the same on our business cards, with the family escutcheon underneath, and the family motto _Je puis_. Then would follow the usual announcements: 'New milk twice a day. Pure Aylesbury butter. Our eggs, eight a shilling, are guaranteed by the Countess. References kindly permitted to the Dowager Lady Loughton, No. 287 Harley street, and to Mr. Flicker, of the eminent firm of Flicker & Tapp. The earl will be on view in the shop any day from ten till eleven A. M. engaged in the perusal of the _Morning Post_.' I should send out circulars and cards to every name enshrined in Debrett. Twelve hundred a year, madam, would not cover the profits of such a concern. And, by and by, I should hope to have a son and heir to inherit his father's title and his mother's business." His lordship, for so we must henceforth call him, stared gravely across the table at Lady Loughton. For a little time no sound was heard save the obtrusive ticking of Mr. Flicker's watch. "Do you think, sir, you are altogether in your right senses?" asked the countess at length, turning on him in her quick way. "Well, really, Aunt Barbara"--she winced at the appellation--"I have sometimes asked myself the same question. I have a theory that we are all more or less mad on some point or other, and probably I am neither better nor worse than the majority of my fellows." "You can go now, sir," said the countess, presently. "I have seen enough of you for one day--more than enough. Should I care to see you again I will send for you." "Flicker knows where a letter will always find me," said the earl, with easy condescension, as he pushed back his chair and possessed himself of his dilapidated hat. "You will think over what I have said, Aunt Barbara, will you not? As I remarked before, I am not a marrying man, and really, to go into the milk trade would be rather below the dignity of an earl, would it not?" He was rubbing his hat tenderly with the sleeve of his threadbare coat as he spoke. "Go! go!" was all that the countess could say, as she pointed with a skinny finger to the door. "I have the honor, madam, to wish you a very good morning," said the earl, bowing low over his hat. "Flicker, I shall, doubtless, see you again before long." Lord Loughton walked slowly down the broad staircase, under the eyes of the two tall footmen in the hall. But scarcely had he reached the lowest stair before Mr. Flicker called over the balusters in his most dulcet tones, "My lord--my lord--you have left your pocket-handkerchief behind you." Had some one fired off a gun close by the heads of the two footmen they could not have been more startled. "Did you not hear, sir?" said the earl, sharply, to one of them. "Fetch me my pocket-handkerchief, and be quick about it." The man had never climbed those stairs so quickly before. A minute had hardly elapsed before he came down again, carrying a silver salver on which lay his lordship's well-worn green-and-red bandana. The earl took his handkerchief off the salver with the gravest air in the world, and replaced it in his pocket. Then the massive door was flung wide open, and he marched slowly forth into the street. Stopping at the first tavern he came to, and pushing open the swing-doors, he went in and called for fourpennyworth of brandy-and-water and a mild cheroot. CHAPTER V. TERMS ACCEPTED. A fortnight passed after Lord Loughton's interview with the dowager countess before he received any further communication from her. During that time life went on with him in its ordinary humdrum fashion. No one either saw or suspected any difference in him. If the misfortunes and mishaps of his earlier life had taught him nothing else, they had at least taught him the virtue of patience. He was emphatically a man who could bide his time. But at the end of a fortnight there came a note addressed to Mr. Fildew, at the Brown Bear, in which he was informed that the countess would see him at the Charing Cross Hotel at eleven o'clock next morning. He smiled grimly to himself as he read. "We are ashamed of our shabby relation, it seems," he muttered. "We don't want him to call again in Harley Street till he is a little more presentable." But he was not one whit more presentable when he was ushered into her ladyship's room next morning. "A more deplorable object than ever," were her ladyship's words afterwards to Mr. Flicker. The ends of two fingers had burst completely through his gloves and refused to be hidden any longer, while the shiny patch on one side of his hat was certainly growing in circumference from day to day. It is quite possible that he had some ulterior object to serve in thus appearing at his shabbiest before the countess. He walked across the room rather more briskly than usual, and when he reached the countess he put out his hand. But her ladyship made believe not to see it, and motioned him to a chair. He took it, not in the slightest degree abashed by her refusal to shake hands with him. The inevitable Mr. Flicker was seated close by, as monumentally cold and as mutely observant as ever. Her ladyship's first remark was a somewhat singular one. "Mr. Flicker," she said, "will you oblige me by looking behind the left ear of--of the person opposite to me, just at the back of the lobe, and tell me whether you find a large mole there?" Mr. Flicker rose from his seat, coughed deferentially, adjusted his double eyeglass on his nose, and walked gingerly across the floor to where Lord Loughton was sitting. "Pardon me," he said in his blandest tones "it is at her ladyship's special request that I do this." The earl smiled, or it may be he only sneered--one could not always feel sure which was intended--but said nothing. Bending his head slightly forward, he lifted up the tangled masses of his iron-gray hair with one hand and pulled at the lobe of his ear with the other, so as to assist Mr. Flicker in his search for the birth-mark. That gentleman, with his hands behind his coattails, bent his head and peered through his glasses as though he were trying to decipher some half-illegible inscription. "Nothing to be seen, I suppose, is there?" asked the dowager at last, drumming impatiently on the table with her fingers meanwhile. "Pardon me, madam, but there is certainly a very large mole here, just behind the lobe of the left ear," replied Flicker, in his slow, precise way. "There is, eh? A mole. You are quite sure?" "Quite sure, Lady Loughton. There can be no mistake in the matter, I give you my word of honor. A very fine mole, indeed." Her ladyship sighed. "Ah, well, then," she said, after a moment's silence, "I suppose we must really put him down as being the Earl of Loughton." "I thought that point was finally settled when I saw your ladyship last," said the earl. "Then it shows, sir, how little you know about it. Nothing is finally settled in this world, except that there are a vast number of rogues and vagabonds in it." "It would not be half such a diverting place without them," said the earl, with a chuckle. Mr. Flicker shook his head in his slow, melancholy way, but did not speak. Such doctrines were dreadful to listen to, especially when enunciated by a peer of the realm. Her ladyship was staring intently at the fire. After a while she said, without turning round, "The strange proposition which you chose to lay before me when I saw you last has been received with more consideration than it deserved. It has been decided by my advisers, conjointly with the advisers of Miss Collumpton and Mr. Slingsby Boscombe, in the first place, to pay off the debts contracted by you some thirty years ago, after receiving from you a full and correct schedule of the same; and, in the second place, to allow you an income of six hundred pounds per annum so long as you continue to remain unmarried; and I must say that I consider the offer a most munificent one." "Oh, yes, most munificent!" sneered the earl. "Six hundred a year out of eighteen thousand; yes, certainly, most munificent." "Do you, or do you not, agree to the terms?" "Beggars cannot be choosers, madam; and, as I have said more than once already, I am not a marrying man." "Mr. Flicker will settle all details with you." Mr. Flicker rubbed his hands and bowed. "You will, of course, sign an undertaking not to marry so long as the income is continued to you." "Pardon me, madam, but I must decline to sign any such document. My word of honor must be taken as a sufficient guarantee of my intentions." "Your word of honor! Pray, how much would that article fetch if it were put up to auction?" Mr. Flicker crossed the floor and whispered a few words in the countess's ear. "If you really think so, let it be so," she said to him. Then she said to the earl, "As I said before, I will leave you and Flicker to settle details." "May I presume that your lordship has never been married?" asked the lawyer, in his most insinuating tones. He was looking down and fumbling with some papers on the table before him. The countess turned her head quickly. "Never, Flicker, never," replied the earl, impressively "on that word of honor which her ladyship believes would fetch so little if put up for sale. I have been very near it, though, once or twice--very near it indeed--but Providence has always intervened." Her ladyship turned away in a huff. There was an interval of silence. Mr. Flicker was engaged in tying up his documents, and the earl was watching him. "May I ask whether you have formed any plans for the future?" asked the dowager, presently. "No plans in particular. I think that I shall go and live at Brimley, at least for some time to come." "At Brimley! Why, that is only sixteen miles from Ringwood." "Precisely so. We shall be neighbors. A dozen miles, more or less, are not of much consequence in the country." The countess did not look over well pleased. "What is your object in choosing Brimley for a residence?" she asked. "I lived near there with my father when a lad, and I still retain some pleasant recollections of it, so that the place will not seem altogether strange to me. In addition to which, I see from an advertisement in today's _Times_ that 'Laurel Cottage' there is to be let on lease--the very place to suit an elderly bachelor of limited means and unambitious tastes. I shall run down there to-morrow and see about it." "Well, sir, I hope that when next I see you I shall find some improvement in your toilet and general appearance." "Possibly, madam, possibly. I admit that there is some slight room for alteration, perhaps for improvement. I have not followed the fashions very attentively of late. The state of my finances did not allow of my doing so." "Mr. Flicker will send you a check to-morrow." "I shall be greatly obliged to Mr. Flicker." "What a pity it is that you threw your chances to the dogs in the way you did when a young man." "What a pity it is that my cousin Charles, your good son, madam, could not see his way to advance me the three thousand pounds which was all I needed at that time to save me from destruction. But he buttoned his breeches pocket--saving your ladyship's presence--and allowed me to go headlong to the deuce." "You forget, sir, that you had had five hundred pounds from him only six months previously." "I forget nothing. Three thousand pounds would have been my salvation. I did not have the three thousand pounds, nor three thousand pence, and you see the result before you to-day." "Charles was building and planting at the time, as I well remember, and the sum was a much larger one than he could spare." "So the building and the planting went on, and Cousin Jack was obliged to fly like a thief in the night. It was the young fool's own fault, and it was only right that he should suffer. So ridiculous of him, wasn't it, to think that because he and Charley had been schoolfellows and like brothers for years, he could now ask Charley to pull him through his troubles? I've often laughed since to think what a young greenhorn he must have been. I'll warrant you he knows the world better by this time." The countess's head was beginning to shake worse than ever. Flicker made a sign to the earl, and the latter rose. "Good-morning, Aunt Barbara," he said; "shake hands with me for my mother's sake if you won't for my own." She stared very hard at him for about half a minute, and then she extended two claw-like fingers. "Get a decent coat to your back before you let me see you again. And--and I don't want to see those gloves any more." Next day "Mr. Fildew" received from Mr. Flicker a check for one hundred and fifty pounds, being the first quarterly instalment of his allowance at the rate of six hundred pounds a year. "Greedy old hag!" muttered the earl to himself as he pocketed the check. "She might just as easily have made it twelve hundred as six. I'll be even with her for this before I've done with her." CHAPTER VI. MILD LUNACY. "THIS must be the house, No. 105 Cadogan Place," said Clement Fildew to himself, as he stopped in front of an imposing-looking mansion. Taking the steps two at time, he gave a loud rat-tat-tat at the door. "Is Miss Collumpton at home?" he asked of the man who answered his knock. Miss Collumpton was at home. "Will you give her this card, and say that I have called at the request of Sir Percy Jones?" He was shown into a morning-room while the man took his message. After three or four minutes the door opened, and a young lady entered, dressed very plainly in black. As their eyes met they both started, and then, as if moved by a common impulse, they drew a step or two nearer each other, while Clem colored up to the roots of his hair. The young lady, who was by far the more self-possessed of the two, was the first to speak. "Unless I am much mistaken," she said, "you are the gentleman to whose kindness I was so greatly indebted when coming up to town the other day." "And you are the lady to whom I had the good-fortune to be of some slight service." "A slight service, do you call it? It seemed to me a very great service at the time. I missed you in the confusion at the terminus, so that my aunt was not able to thank you, as she would very much like to have done." "I certainly can't see that any thanks were needed. But, putting that aside, I am very pleased to have met you again." And as he said this there was a fire and earnestness in his eyes that in its turn brought a vivid blush to the young lady's cheeks. "I came here at the request of Sir Percy Jones," he added, "to see Miss Collumpton respecting a portrait. I never expected to have the pleasure of finding you under the same roof." "I have been living here for some time," she said. Then to herself she added, "I wonder whom he takes me for--a nursery governess or a companion, or what?" "I hope Miss Collumpton is not a very exacting young lady. If she is, I am afraid that I shall scarcely be able to please her. I have painted very few portraits as yet, but Sir Percy was so pleased with the one I did of him that he declared he must have one of his god-daughter to take with him when he goes abroad." "I don't think that you will find Miss Collumpton very exacting." "I am glad to hear that. I wish it was your portrait I was going to paint instead of hers." It was on the tip of her tongue to ask, "Why do you wish that?" but, happening to glance at his face, she saw the same look in his eyes that had troubled her before. She dropped her lids and looked another way. There was a moment's awkward silence. Then she said, "I think I had better go and fetch Miss Collumpton. She promised to follow me at once;" and with that she got out of the room. Left alone, Clem went back at once to his examination of the prints and sketches on the walls. But he saw them without seeing them, and could remember nothing of them afterwards. He had caught Love's fever, and the symptoms were declaring themselves already. He was standing before a little sketch by Stanfield and smiling fatuously, as though there was something comical about it, which there certainly was not. When the patient takes to smiling in this purposeless way it is looked upon by those learned in such matters as a very bad sign. About a week previously, as he was coming up to town, a young lady--the young lady who had just left the room--got into the same carriage, a second-class one, at Tring, in which he was already seated. He was not aware that she had been driven to take refuge in the second-class on account of the first-class seats being all occupied. They were presently joined by a cad of a fellow, who was evidently half-drunk, and just as evidently determined to talk to the pretty girl on the opposite seat, whether she liked it or not. At length the annoyance reached such a pitch, and the lady became so plainly distressed, that Clem, whose blood had been simmering for some time, felt called upon to interfere. Thereupon the cad turned on our friend like a young bear, and growled out something about wise people minding their own business, adding a certain epithet which had better have been left unspoken. The result was that before he knew what had happened he found himself lying in a heap in a corner of the carriage, with a discolored eye and a bruised nose, and a feeling as if a fifth of November cracker had exploded in his head. The train was slackening speed at the time, and as soon as it stopped the wounded knight scrambled out of the carriage, holding his handkerchief to his nose and muttering something about fetching the police. But he was seen no more. The rest of the journey came to an end far too soon for Clem. When he alighted at Euston the young lady was at once taken possession of by an elderly lady, while Clem rushed off in search of his portmanteau. But Clem had not forgotten the sweet face of his travelling companion. Being an artist, what more natural than that he should attempt to sketch it from memory as soon as he reached home, and not once but twenty times. "What do you mean by neglecting your Academy picture in this way?" Tony Macer had fiercely demanded three days later. "And what do you mean, sir, by drawing the same simpering face from morn till dewy eve, and grinning to yourself all the time like a jackass in a fit? You've not been idiot enough to go and fall in love, have you? By Apelles! if I thought you had, I would take you _vi et armis_, and hold you under the back-kitchen tap for half an hour, and see whether that wouldn't cool your foolish brain!" This threat of Tony must be taken _cum grano_, seeing that he was only about four feet eight inches high and had the arms of a girl of sixteen, whereas his friend Clem could easily have lifted him up with one hand and have thrown him across the room. But Tony's objurgations did Clem good, and he was fast regaining his interest in mutton-chops, bitter-beer, and the progress of his picture, when the deplorable meeting we have just recorded took place, and all hopes of his convalescence were at once scattered to the winds. The siren who was the cause of all this commotion in our young painter's heart, having shut the door behind her, ran quickly up-stairs and burst into a tiny boudoir, where another young lady, also dressed in black, was sitting calmly at work. "Mora! Mora! what do you think? This Mr. Clement Fildew, whom god-papa has sent here to paint my portrait, turns out to be the same gentleman who took my part in the train the other day when that man insulted me so dreadfully. Is it not strange that we should meet again in this way, and so soon afterwards?" "Very strange, indeed. But such coincidences happen oftener in real life than many people imagine." "But the strangest part is to come, dear. Mr. Fildew doesn't take me for myself, but for you." "How can he take you for me, Cecilia, when he and I have never seen each other?" "I mean that he doesn't take me for Miss Collumpton. He believes me to be somebody else living under the same roof with that paragon." "But why did you not undeceive him the moment you discovered his mistake?" "I don't intend to undeceive him just yet, it is such fun to be mistaken for somebody else." "But you cannot keep him in ignorance much longer. He has come here to take your portrait." "I'll tell you what I mean to do, Mora--it came into my head while I was talking to him: I mean to introduce you to Mr. Fildew as Cecilia Collumpton and myself as Mora Browne, your companion and friend. He can then take your portrait as well as mine." Miss Browne's large blue eyes opened wide with astonishment. "Good gracious! Cecilia, what madcap scheme will you take into your head next?" "I don't know what my next scheme will be, but I think this one will be immense fun, and I trust to your friendship to enable me to carry it out." "Of course you may trust me for anything; you know that quite well. But what will your aunt say, and what, in the name of goodness, will Lady Loughton say, should either of them hear of it? They would never forgive me for my share in the deception." "I don't mean either of them to know anything about it. Surely you and I can keep our little plot to ourselves." "Your scheme frightens me, I must confess. It seems so terribly audacious." "In its audacity lies our security. Besides, what is there to be afraid of? You certainly look the heiress more than I do. And for myself, it will be a fresh experience--something altogether novel and delightful--to be talked to and treated, not as a young woman with so many thousands a year, but--but--" "As her humble friend and companion," interposed Miss Browne, with the slightest tinge of bitterness in her tone. "As one who esteems herself passing rich on eighty pounds a year." "Forgive me, dear," said Cecilia, contritely. "I had no intention of hurting your feelings." "I know it, dear, I know it. Don't say another word. And now I am at your service, although I am afraid you have hardly considered how foolish we shall both look when we have to face the necessity of an explanation." "I don't at all see why we should look foolish. You may leave me to arrange all that." Miss Browne shook her head, but offered no further opposition in words. Cecilia Collumpton had stated no more than the truth when she said that Mora Browne looked far more like an heiress than she did--that is, taking the common idea of what an heiress ought to look like. For Mora was tall, fair, and stately, with large, limpid blue eyes and a wealth of yellow hair. Her figure had the ample proportions of a youthful Juno, but as all her movements seemed tuned to slow music, there was no perceptible lack of harmony. She had a cold, clear, incisive voice, and a slight hauteur of manner, which in her case was not affectation, seeing that it was natural to her and not put on. She was the daughter of a rector who had ruined himself and his family by some mad speculations in mining shares. Although she was Cecilia's dearest friend, and had known her since girlhood, she would not come to live with her except on the footing of a paid companion, to whom, and by whom, a month's notice could at any time be given. But none the less had Mora an intense detestation of poverty and all its surroundings, and years ago she had made up her mind that if she were ever to marry it should be only to some man of ample fortune, who could afford to keep her as she felt she ought to be kept. Cecilia Collumpton at this time was just twenty-two years old. She was a brunette, and rather petite in figure. She had a small, classically shaped head, a straight, clear-cut nose, and eyes of the darkest gray, with gleams of opaline light in them whenever she was at all excited. She was quick, vivacious, and emotional, and brimful of spirits and energy. She was easily imposed upon. A tale of distress brought tears to her eyes in a moment, and she never paused to inquire whether it was a reality or a sham before bringing out her purse. She was fond of riding, but loved a wild scamper across the downs far more than a regulation canter in the park. Her aunt called her "undisciplined," and Lady Loughton termed her "a hoyden," while Slingsby Boscombe, in some verses he once addressed to her--the feet of which, truth to tell, halted so wofully that Sir Percy Jones, who happened to come across them one day, gave it as his opinion that they must have been composed by a cripple--wrote of her as his "sweet wild rose," and yet Slingsby had never been in love with her. Miss Browne, followed by Cecilia, sailed slowly into the room where Clement was waiting. He broke his reverie with a start, and advanced a few steps to meet them. "You are Mr. Fildew?" said Mora. Clem bowed. "And you have called respecting a portrait which Sir Percy Jones has commissioned you to paint?" "Yes, Sir Percy asked me to call without delay, as his time in England was now getting very short. I am desirous of knowing on what days and at what hours it will be convenient for you to give me the requisite sittings." Mora put a finger to her lips, and considered for a moment. "To-day is Tuesday. Suppose we say Thursday next, at eleven, for the first sitting. We can arrange for future sittings afterwards. Will that suit you, Mr. Fildew?" "Any time will suit me, madam. On this card you will find the address of my studio." "I wish you to bear in mind, Mr. Fildew," said Mora, as she took the card, "that there will be two portraits for you to paint." "Two portraits, Miss Collumpton!" "Mine and that of my friend, Miss Browne. I have decided that we shall both be taken at the same time and in the same style." "Oh." It was a sort of ecstatic sigh drawn from the bottom of his heart--wherever that may have been. The two girls glanced at each other. "I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Browne a few days ago," stammered Clement. He felt that he was making a great idiot of himself. "I have told Miss Collumpton," said Cecilia, "how much I owed to your kindness on that occasion." "For Mora's sake, Mr. Fildew," said Miss Browne, "I am glad to be able to thank you in person for the service you rendered her. She was coming up to town to stay with me at the time you met her." "How well she acts her part," said Cecilia, to herself, with an admiring glance at her friend. "And how well she would carry out such a part in real life." Clem muttered something about the service he had rendered being a very slight one, after which he took a rather hurried leave. He was glad to get out into the cold, wintry afternoon. It seemed to him that he walked home that day as the gods of old are fabled to have walked--on ambient air. Surely those were not the cold, slushy streets of dreary, commonplace London. Everything seemed as if it had been touched by a necromancer's wand. "Mora." He whispered the word to himself again and again. What a sweet and romantic name it was! He did not venture to say, even to himself, that Mora's surname was either sweet or romantic. But that surname should be changed for another, by and by, or he would know the reason why. CHAP TER VII. "SWEET COZ." Clement Fildew had not left Cadogan Place more than half an hour when Mr. Slingsby Boscombe was announced. Slingsby had not seen Cecilia since the funeral of the young Earl of Loughton, which had taken place at Ringwood, the family seat, in Bedfordshire. Slingsby had attended as one of the mourners in chief. "I don't think that I was ever in poor Alexander's company more than five or six times in my life," said Mr. Boscombe, in answer to a question put by Cecilia. He was a round-faced, boyish-looking young fellow of two-and-twenty, with a tendency to become abnormally stout even at that early age. "The dowager never cared to cultivate our branch of the family over much, and I have often heard my father speak of her in no very friendly terms." "I believe that Lady Loughton was always noted for having a temper of her own," said Miss Collumpton. "I have been told that when her son's wife was alive--I mean, poor Alic's mother--she stood so much in awe of the dowager's temper that she never would see her when the latter called at Ringwood, but used to lock herself up in her own rooms till she was gone." "When Alic's mother died, of course the dowager went back to Ringwood." "Yes, and there she has lived ever since, and would, doubtless, have continued to live, but for this terrible accident, till Alic got married, in which case I suppose she would have had to find a home elsewhere." "And very proper, too. From what little I have seen of her I should hardly care to live under the same roof with her." "And yet she must be nearly eighty years old." "And looks likely to live to be a hundred. She is certainly a very wonderful old lady." "I used to like her very well when I went to Ringwood as a child, although, of course, I stood in great awe of her. But after that she and Aunt Percival had some words, and I have not seen her for several years. Fortunately I met poor Alic in the Park only three months ago: we had a long talk about old times. How little I thought that I should never see him again!" There were tears in Cecilia's eyes, and Slingsby forebore to speak for a minute or two. Then he said, "Do you know, Cis, my father never told me till a week ago what a very large slice of the Loughton property was left to me by Alic's father in case Alic should die without heirs! I was perfectly astounded. I suppose the governor's reason for not speaking to me about it before was because he thought the chance of its coming to me seemed so very remote that it was not worth while troubling me about it in any way. But what an absurd proviso is that which precludes me from touching a penny of it till I am twenty-five years old! You can do as you like with your share, although you are four months younger than I, while I shall have to wait another three years for mine. It is really too ridiculous!" "I suppose that when Uncle Charles drew up his will he had an idea that boys remain boys till they are five-and-twenty, which, indeed, quite a number of them seem to do." "And meanwhile I have to depend on my father for my income." "Instead of earning it for yourself, as so many other young men are obliged to do. How thankful you ought to be that you have such a father!" "As for that, the governor says that I shall have plenty to do by and by in looking after the estates and attending to the property. I am sure that he works as hard as any laborer." "Then why not take some of his work on to those broad shoulders of yours?" "Bless you, he won't let me have anything to do with the management of the property. He says it will be time enough for me to think about that when he is gone." "But you will no longer have to wait for any such mournful contingency. Three years will soon pass away, and then this Loughton property, which will be yours, will find you plenty to do." "And will make me my own master into the bargain, and that is by no means the most unimportant feature in the case. You will, perhaps, hardly credit it, Cis, but I never knew till after Alic's death that the estates were not entailed." "I believe the entail was cut off about eighty years ago." "And a good thing for you and me that it was cut off! By-the-bye, how is his new lordship supposed to be able to keep up the traditional state and dignity of an Earl of Loughton?" "I believe it is not at present known where his new lordship is to be found, or even whether he is alive or dead. If he be alive, it is quite possible that he may have means of his own. If it be proved that he is dead, I suppose we shall have to address you, sir, as my lord earl." "Provided the missing earl has not left a son and heir behind him." From this it will be seen that the conversation we are now recording took place before that first interview between "Mr. Fildew" and the dowager countess. Mr. Fildew, senior, was cousin to Charles, the seventh earl, who was father of the young lord recently killed. Mr. Slingsby Boscombe was grandson to the youngest brother of the sixth earl, while Miss Collumpton was granddaughter to the only sister of the same nobleman. "It seems rather strange, doesn't it, Cis," resumed Slingsby, "that Earl Charles should pass over his own cousin, the man who, if he lived, must come into the title in case of Alic dying without heirs, in favor of two such insignificant people as you and I?" "The missing earl is said to have been very wild and dissipated when young, and to have got at length into such dreadful difficulties that he was compelled to go abroad. I suppose there was a great scandal about it, and very probably the earl's will was made about the time he felt so much annoyed at his cousin's outrageous conduct." "And this disgrace to the family has never been heard of since?" "Not to my knowledge: most probably he is dead." "Even if he be, the difficulty will be to prove it." Slingsby, having contemplated this difficulty in silence for a minute or two, said: "Do you know, Cis, that my father has been badgering me again about that old family scheme for making you and me man and wife?" "And Lady Loughton has been stirring up my aunt about the same thing. They have become friends again since Alic's death." "I wish they would mind their own business." "So do I, with all my heart." "Do you think we care enough for each other, Cis, to marry." "I think it very doubtful, Slingsby, whether we do." "When you are told from youth upward that you must marry one person and no other, you naturally begin to rebel in your secret heart." "My own feelings exactly." "You know, Cis, I am very fond of you, and always have been." "And I of you, Slingsby--in a cousinly sort of way." "Just so in a cousinly sort of way. But that's hardly how a husband and wife ought to feel towards each other, is it?" "I've had no experience either one way or the other, but I should think not." "Now that we so thoroughly understand each other, may I tell you a secret, Cis?" "A hundred if you like, Slingsby. Being a woman, I am fond of secrets." "But, being a woman, can you keep one?" "I'll try. I daren't say more than that." "In any case I'll trust you. I'm in love." "Slingsby?" "Desperately, devotedly in love. I--I've actually taken to writing verses, and if that's not a sure sign of being in love, I should like to know what is." "Is the lady any one with whom I am acquainted?" "No. She's a doctor's daughter. She lives down in Hampshire, and her father's dead." "What is she like? Pretty, of course." "Not so pretty as you, Cis." "You have no right to say that, sir. If you love her, as you say you do, she ought to be perfection in your eyes." "She is perfection in my eyes, but for all that she's not so pretty as you are. I don't know," added Slingsby, musingly, "that I should care to have a very pretty woman for my wife. I might grow jealous, you know, and that must be a jolly uncomfortable sort of feeling." "Does your father know anything of this affair?" "No--there's the rub. I dare not tell him on any account. His heart is set on my marrying you, and as I'm altogether dependent on him, and shall be for three more years, it would never do to let him into the secret. But you can help me in my difficulty, Cis?" "In what way can I help you, Slingsby?" "By not letting any one know that there is nothing serious between you and me. You have not refused me yet, have you, because I have never made you an offer?" "No; you have certainly not made me an offer, and till you do that, of course I can't refuse you." "Then, of course, I can tell my father that you have not refused me; and if I were further to hint to him that you are hardly prepared to marry just yet, that you would prefer to wait, say, a year or eighteen months longer, would that be a very wide departure from the truth?" "It would be no departure from the truth so far as I am concerned. I certainly am not prepared to take to myself a husband for a long time to come." "You know I can continue to look in here once or twice a week as usual; and perhaps you wouldn't mind my being seen with you in the Row, now and then, or at the opera, or the theatre?" "Not at all. Come with me as often as you like. I have very few engagements." "And if your Aunt Percival or Lady Loughton should hint anything to you 'about our supposed engagement, could you not give them to understand that you and I are on excellent terms with each other, and that the less they interfere in the matter the better?" "I certainly could do all that, although the doing of it would involve a certain amount of deception on my part." "But deception that can harm nobody. If these worthy old souls would only leave you and me to look after our own happiness, there would be no occasion for subterfuge of any kind." "Then, under cover of all this, you intend to carry on your flirtation with the doctor's daughter?" "It's no flirtation, Cis, but a real downright serious case of spoons. I've promised to marry her, and I shall do so in spite of everything. If I can only keep my father in the dark till I'm five-and-twenty, then all will come right, and with your help, Cis, I shall be able to do that without much difficulty." CHAPTER VIII. "GOOD-BYE." "I am rather glad to have found you alone, Clem," said Lord Loughton, as he walked into his son's studio in the course of the day following that on which he had received Mr. Flicker's check for a hundred and fifty pounds. "I have something rather particular to say to you." Clem knew of old that his father's "something particular" generally took the shape of a request for a loan, so he merely said, "Macer won't be back for a couple of hours. Will you have a weed and some bottled ale?" "Thank you, no. I can't stay many minutes. How are you progressing with your Academy picture? That, of course, is the most important affair in the universe just now. I believe, if there were an earthquake to-morrow that swallowed up a thousand people, all that you painter fellows would do would be to cry, 'Save my pictures.' The egotism of art is something sublime." "We dignify it with another name," answered Clem, with a laugh. "With us it becomes 'devotion to art.'" He had had too much experience of his father's tirades to take much notice of them. "I shall get my picture done, I suppose, and send it in. Beyond that I know nothing. But as you don't care about modern paintings, I need not bore you by asking your opinion of it." "Well, no, it's hardly worth while. I never see anything later than Sir Joshua that I care about. English art is dead--defunct as a door-nail." "I am glad that the people with money don't all think as you do. But you had something particular to say to me." "Yes; I am going to leave London for a time." Clem suspended his brush in mid-air and stared at his father. "A friend of mine, a gentleman whom I knew many years ago, has just succeeded to a very large property. As he is obliged to reside abroad on account of his health, he has asked me to undertake the management of his affairs for a time. He has extensive estates in different parts of the country, all of which require to be carefully looked after, so that I shall have no fixed location for any length of time. For reasons which you will not ask me to explain, I cannot give the name of my friend, nor can I tell you with certainty where I may be found at any particular date; but that will not matter, as I shall run up to London for a day or two to see _la mère_ and you every month or six weeks. Should any occasion arise for you to communicate with me while I am away, a letter will always find me, addressed 'John Fildew, Esquire, Post-office, Shallowford, Northamptonshire.' You had better put the address down in your pocket-book so as to make sure of it." "Have you broken the news to my mother?" asked Clem, as he wrote down the address. "Yes; I mentioned it to her this morning, and though, of course, poor creature, she was rather cut up at first, she soon recovered her equanimity and agreed with me that it was all for the best. You see, Clem, this is just the sort of thing I have been looking out for for years--gentlemanly, dignified, not too much to do, and yet with an honorarium attached to it that, in the present state of our finances, we cannot afford to despise. For one thing, my dear boy, there will no longer be any necessity for my imposing on your good-nature, in addition to which I shall be in a position to make your mother an allowance of five guineas per month. I gave her the first five guineas this morning before leaving home." "You need not have done that, sir," interposed Clem. "My mother should not have wanted for anything during your absence." "I am quite sure of that, my boy. But in making this little arrangement I feel that I am simply doing my duty--and what a luxury for one's conscience that is!" His lordship's conscience had not been used to such luxuries for a long time, and probably appreciated them all the more by reason of their rarity. "In addition to my allowance of five guineas per mensem," continued the earl, "your mother will have her own private income of fifty pounds a year, and will no longer have me for an encumbrance; so that, all things considered, she ought to be, and doubtless will be, tolerably comfortable. There is one thing, however, Clem, that she wishes you to do. After I am gone she would like you to go back and sleep in your old room. She is rather timorous, poor thing, at the thought of being left alone." "Of course I shall do that, sir," said Clem. "Then I need not detain you longer. If you have half an hour to spare this evening before your mother's bedtime, look in and we will talk these matters over more in extenso." And extending a couple of fingers to his son and nodding a good-morning, the earl went, leaving Clem at a loss whether to be more pleased or sorry at what he had just heard. The private income of fifty pounds a year to which Lord Loughton had referred when speaking of his wife was all that was now left of the fortune he had received with her on her wedding-day. It would hardly be too much to say that it was on account of that fortune he had married her. She was an orphan, the daughter of English parents who had emigrated to America. Her father had been originally a poor man, but had made a fortune during the last three or four years of his life. She fell in love with the handsome English scapegrace at a boarding-house where they happened to meet, and being her own mistress and well-to-do, and divining that he was poor--how poor she did not know till afterwards--she was not long in letting him see the preference which she felt for him. He, on his side, when once satisfied that her fortune was not a myth, was an ardent lover enough, and at the end of a few weeks they were married. Not till the wedding morn did the bride know that her husband's name was not John Fildew, but John Marmaduke Lorrimore, and that same evening she was made to take a solemn oath never to divulge to living soul the secret of her husband's real name. So faithfully had the promise then given been kept that not even her own son had the remotest suspicion that the name he called himself by was not his own. As years slipped away Mrs. Fildew's fortune also slipped away, till nothing of it was left save the aforesaid fifty pounds per year, the principal of which neither she nor her husband could touch. With the struggling, poverty-stricken years that followed when the bulk of the fortune was gone we have nothing here to do. It was owing to Clem's persuasions that his father and mother had at length agreed to remove all the way from Long Island to London. The lad had developed a remarkable talent for painting, but had got the idea into his head that he could have better instruction and make more rapid progress in London than elsewhere. But, in addition to that, Mr. Fildew, senior, was heartily sick of the States. So to London they had come, and there they had lived ever since. Clem, what with painting and what with drawing on wood for the magazines, was slowly but surely making his way, and was not only able to keep himself--in very modest style, it is true--but could also spare his father a pound a week for pocket-money. What he did in the way of helping his mother at odd times was known to no one but him and her. He had lived at home till home was no longer comfortable for him; and even his mother had at length urged him to go into lodgings on his own account. That mother, whom he loved so well, was slowly but surely dying of an incurable complaint. She had been ill for years, and might be ill for years longer, before the end came; but that it was surely coming both she and those about her knew full well. And this knowledge it was that made the one great trouble of Clem's life. The earl felt that he had much to do before his departure from London. After again seeing his son in the evening, but without giving him many more details as to his future proceedings than he had given him in the morning, he set out for the Brown Bear. This would be his last evening at the old haunt for a long time to come, if not forever; and when he called to mind the many pleasant hours he had spent in the little coffee-room, he felt quite sentimental--far more sentimental than he had felt at the thought of parting from his wife and son. There was an extraordinary muster at the Brown Bear this evening, it having got noised about that it was Mr. Fildew's farewell visit. As a consequence, Mr. Fildew had to enter into particulars, which he detested doing, as to the why and the wherefore of his going away. He told them the same story that he had told to his son, with certain variations, the gist of it being that a very old friend of his had come into a large fortune and needed his, Mr. Fildew's, services as guide, philosopher, and friend. Mr. Nutt was unanimously voted into the chair, and a very pleasant and convivial evening followed. Mr. Fildew's health was drunk with musical honors, to which "His Grace" responded in a few well-chosen sentences, and wound up by ordering the landlord to bring in his biggest punch-bowl filled to the brim. On the heels of the first bowl came another; and when twelve o'clock struck several of the gentlemen present were hardly in a condition to find their way unaided to their homes, so that, as several of them afterwards averred, it was one of the pleasantest evenings they ever remembered to have spent. At dusk, next afternoon, Lord Loughton bade farewell to his humble lodgings. His last words to his wife were to the effect that she might expect to see him again in three weeks or a month. Clem's offer to accompany him to the station was firmly negatived. However, Clem saw him into the cab, and heard him give instructions to be driven to King's Cross. Then there was a last wave of the hand and he was gone. CHAPTER IX. TRANSFORMATION. When the Earl of Loughton left home in a four-wheeled cab it was by no means his intention to drive direct to the railway. His first stopping-place, as soon as he got clear of the neighborhood where he was known, was at a French hairdresser's. When he came out of the shop, half an hour later, the cabman did not recognize him till he spoke. He had gone into the shop with a wild tangle of hair, beard, and mustache about his face, neck, and throat. He came out with his hair cropped after the military style, and with his face close shaved except for an imperial, and a thick, drooping mustache with carefully waxed tips, both of which had been artistically dyed. From the hairdresser's he drove to a certain well-known outfitting emporium, and here the transformation previously begun was consummated. Again the cabman opened his eyes, this time very wide indeed. His exceedingly shabby fare, respecting whose ability to pay him his legal charge he might well have had some reasonable doubts, was transformed into a military-looking, middle-aged gentleman (most people would have taken him for an officer in mufti), in a suit of well-fitting dark tweed, and an ulster. The frayed black satin stock and the patched boots had disappeared with the rest, and when his fare with delicately gloved hand drew forth a snowy handkerchief, and a celestial odor of Frangipanni was wafted to his nostrils, the man could only touch his hat and say, in a sort of awed whisper, "Where to next, colonel?" Had he been bidden to drive to Hades he could hardly have wondered more. The earl slept that night at the Great Northern Hotel, and went down to Brimley next morning after a late breakfast. He took up his quarters for the time being at the Duke's Head, the only really good hotel in the little town. Everybody was anxious to see the new Lord Loughton, concerning whose early life and long disappearance from the world many romantic tales were afloat, and he was just as willing to let himself be seen. For the first week or two he derived an almost childlike pleasure from hearing himself addressed as "my lord" and "your lordship," and from being the recipient of that adulation, mingled with a mild sort of awe, with which a nobleman is almost always regarded in small provincial towns. Twenty times a day he would gaze admiringly at the reflection of himself in the cheval-glass in his bedroom. He could hardly believe it was John Fildew of Hayfield Street, that shabby, bepatched individual, who smiled back at him from the glass. "And yet I am just the same that I was before," he said to himself with a sneer. "The only change in me is that which the barber and the tailor have effected." He had several suits of clothes sent down after him, and he took a boyish pleasure in frequently changing them. He always dressed for dinner, although there was no one to dine with him. When a young man he had been noted for his white hands, and he was determined that they should be white again, to which end he smeared them every night with some sort of unguent and slept in kid gloves. Every morning he measured himself carefully round the waist, and when at the end of a fortnight he found that his convexity in that region was less by three quarters of an inch, he felt as if he could go out into the street and play leap-frog with the boys. He had made up his mind from the first to go in for popularity. With the change in his fortunes he had in a great measure dropped that curt, sneering, cynical manner which had not contributed to render him popular in days gone by. There was now an easy condescension, a sort of genial affability, about him which charmed every one with whom he came in contact; but then, how little is needed to make us feel charmed with a lord! Everybody knew that he was poor--how poor they did not know--but everybody knew also that he was an earl, and as earls, even when their antecedents are somewhat shady, are no more plentiful than green pease in December, we are bound to make much of such as we have. The news of Lord Loughton's sojourn at Brimley spread far and wide through the county, and he need never have lacked company had he been so minded. Nearly all the best families in the neighborhood left their cards, and he might have had a dozen visitors a day had he not given it out that he did not intend to see any one till he was safely housed in his new home. Laurel Cottage was not much of a place for a peer to take up his abode in, but even peers must live according to their means. It was a little, white, two-storied house, containing only eight or nine rooms in all. Its front windows looked on to a circular grass-plot and a tiny carriage drive that opened from the main road. From its back windows could be seen a lawn, bordered by a terrace, and interspersed with clumps of flowers, with meadow after meadow beyond. Stable and coach-house were hidden away behind a shrubbery to the left. Such as it was it was quite big enough for the needs of Lord Loughton, and he at once secured it. There was one stipulation connected with the letting of it which posed him for a moment, but for a moment only. It was a _sine quâ non_ that the substantial, old-fashioned furniture should be taken at a valuation by the incoming tenant. The valuation was fixed at two hundred pounds. To this the earl, when he had walked slowly through the rooms, made no demur. The same evening he wrote as under to the dowager countess: "My Dear Aunt,--I have taken Laurel Cottage, near this place, for a term of years, as I told you that I should do. It contains nine rooms. The rent is £60 a year, and it will suit me admirably. But I could not obtain possession till I agreed to take the furniture, which has been valued at £200. As it was an impossibility to live in a house without furniture, the opportunity seemed to me too good a one to be missed. Will you therefore kindly send me a check for the amount in question as early as possible, and oblige, "Your affectionate nephew, "Loughton." After three days came the following laconic reply: "Check for £200 enclosed, but don't do this sort of thing again. An agreement is an agreement, and no further demands beyond the usual allowance will receive attention." The letter was undated and unsigned, but it was evidently in the countess's own writing. A few days later the earl removed to his new home. He started his modest establishment with two women and one man servant. A gardener was engaged to come once a week to attend to the lawn and flowers. When the earl had paid his hotel bill and a few other expenses he found that upwards of two thirds of his 1150 had gone already, while more than two months of the quarter had yet to run. But this did not trouble him. He calculated, and rightly, that when once he was established in Laurel Cottage he might go on credit for everything he wanted for several months to come. As a matter of fact, he was inundated with offers from tradespeople of all kinds, so that his only difficulty lay in choosing which of them he should patronize. Even horses and carriages were pressed on him, but he decided that for the present both stable and coach-house should remain empty. He might, perhaps, have afforded to buy a cheap cob if an opportunity for doing so had offered itself however, there would be time enough to think about such luxuries by and by. But in this matter, as in most others, he was probably actuated by some motive other than appeared on the surface. Long before the earl had got quietly settled down one carriage after another came flashing up to the little green gate of Laurel Cottage. His lordship was at home to everybody that called. Everybody was charmed with his affability and the simple kindliness of his demeanor. "What delightful manners!" exclaimed the ladies, with one accord. "What ease and polished courtesy! A thorough man of the world, evidently." Could these fair dames have seen his lordship six weeks previously, as he sat behind a long pipe in the coffee-room of the B. B., with his brandy-and-water in front of him, what would their thoughts of him have been? Calls, as a matter of course, were succeeded by pressing invitations to dinner. But the earl frankly pleaded his poverty in fact, he almost made a parade of it before his newly found friends. "You say that you live three miles away. Pray tell me how I am to reach you when I have neither a hoof nor a wheel on the premises." Then, of course, came offers to send the brougham or other conveyance for him, which, equally as a matter of course, involved the sending of him home when the evening was at an end. For the earl had made up his mind that if people wanted him they must both send for him and send him back, and before long this necessity came to be accepted as a well-understood fact among those whom he honored with his company. The vicar of the parish was one of the first to call at Laurel Cottage. Before leaving he expressed a hope that he should occasionally see his lordship at church, and his lordship was good enough to promise that next Sunday morning should find him in the vicar's pew. It was quite a novel sensation for the earl to find himself inside a place of worship. The vicar's wife handed him an elegantly bound, large-print prayer-book, which he accepted with a smile and a little bow, but when he tried to follow the service and find the different places he got "terribly fogged," as he afterwards expressed it; and as he was afraid to let people see the dilemma he was in, he shut the prayer-book up altogether by and by, and tried to put on the air of a man who was so thoroughly familiar with the service that the book was rather an encumbrance to him than otherwise. "The places used to be easy enough to find when I was a lad," he muttered to himself; "but I suppose the Rubric has been altered since then, and evidently altered for the worse." He had been rather dubious on his arrival at Brimley whether some of the very big people of the neighborhood might not still bear in mind some of the escapades of his early years, and decline to acknowledge him. But his uneasiness on this score was quickly dispelled. A new generation had grown up since he was a young man, and whatever any of the older people might remember, they held their tongues in public, and welcomed him as warmly as if he were the most immaculate of men and peers. The nearest house to Laurel Cottage was a large redbrick mansion of modern erection and imposing appearance. It bore the dignified name of Bourbon House, from the fact of a certain French prince having at one time made it his home for a few months. As the earl was passing the lodge gates one day a basket-carriage containing two very pretty young ladies was coming out. It then struck him for the first time that he had never been at the trouble to inquire who lived at Bourbon House, neither could he call to mind that any one from there had ever left a card at the Cottage. As soon as he reached home he sent for his man and questioned him. It then came out that Bourbon House was the home of a certain Mr. Orlando Larkins and his two sisters--the pretty girls whom the earl had remarked. The youthful Orlando, it appeared, was the son of a celebrated father--Larkins _père_ having been none other than the inventor and vender of a certain world-famed pill. Everybody has heard of Larkins's pills, and hundreds of thousands of people have swallowed them. As the result, Mr. Larkins, senior, amassed a very comfortable fortune, which he more than doubled by certain lucky speculations. Having done this, there was nothing left him to do but to die; so die he did, and Orlando reigned in his stead. "He's said to be very rich, and he's nothing to do with the pill trade now, my lord," concluded the man. "He's a good-natured, sappy sort o' young gentleman; but somehow the swell people about here don't seem to take to him, and even the lads shout after him, 'How are you, young Pillbox?' when he goes riding into the town." "Very rich and very good-natured, and not received into society," said the earl to himself. "It might, perhaps, answer my purpose to cultivate the acquaintance of Mr. Orlando Larkins." CHAPTER X. INFATUATION. At a quarter-past eleven on the morning of the Thursday following Clement Fildew's visit to Cadogan Place, Mrs. Percival's brougham stopped at the corner of Elm Street, Soho, and from it alighted Miss Collumpton and Miss Browne. They were not long in finding No. 19, and when, in answer to their ring, the door opened apparently of its own accord, they might have been puzzled what to do next had not Clement come rushing downstairs and piloted them the way they were to go. Tony Macer had gone out in deep dudgeon. He was disgusted with Clem for having engaged himself to paint a couple of portraits when he ought to be devoting the whole of his attention to putting the finishing touches to his Academy picture. Indeed, Tony, who had a great opinion of Clem's abilities, did not like the idea of his friend taking to portrait-painting at all. "You will only spoil yourself for better work," he kept repeating. "Why should you fritter away your time in painting the commonplace features of a couple of nobodies? You had better set up as a photographer at once." "Only these two," Clem had pleaded. "When I have finished these I won't try my hand at another portrait for a whole year." Mr. Macer having ascertained at what hour the ladies were expected to arrive, set off growlingly for Hampstead in company with his sketch-book and his pipe. "And this is a studio!" exclaimed Cecilia, as she halted for a moment on the threshold and looked round. "What a very strange place!" "I hope you did not expect to find any halls of dazzling light," said Clem, with a laugh. "If so, it is a pity that you should be disenchanted. A poor painter's workshop is necessarily a poor sort of place." "I think it quite delightful, and I like it immensely. So thoroughly unconventional, is it not?" she added, turning to Miss Browne. "For my part, I'm tired of drawing-rooms and fine furniture. One can breathe here." Clem had nailed down a square of green baize on one part of the floor and had hired a couple of chairs and a few "properties" from Wardour Street. Miss Browne walked across the floor in her slow, stately way, and seated herself on one of the chairs. To her the studio was nothing but a dingy, commonplace room. How to arrange her draperies most effectively for the forthcoming sitting was the subject of paramount importance in her thoughts just now. She wore a pearl-gray satin robe this morning. She hoped that Mr. Fildew was clever at painting satin. "Are both these pictures yours, Mr. Fildew?" asked Cecilia, pointing to two covered-up canvases standing on easels in the middle of the room. "No. That one is my friend Macer's; this one is mine." "If I am very good and promise not to make a noise or ask too many questions, may I see them, Mr. Fildew--both of them?" "Certainly you may see them, Miss Browne, and that without making a promise of any kind. But I must warn you that neither of them is finished, and must therefore deprecate any severe criticism." "I don't want to criticise them, but simply to see them," said Cecilia, as Clem flung back the coverings. She looked at Tony's picture first. After contemplating it in silence for a little while, she said softly, and more as if talking to herself than to Clem, "I think that I should like to know Mr. Macer." Then she passed on to Clem's picture. But she had not looked at it more than half a minute before she discovered that one of the two faces depicted in it was an exact reproduction of her own. Sly Master Clem had painted her portrait from memory, and had stuck it into his picture. The warm color mounted to Cecilia's face, her eyes dropped, and she turned away without a word. Clem readjusted the coverings, and when he turned Cecilia was sitting in the chair next to Miss Browne's, apparently immersed in the pages of _Punch_. Clem got his colors, brushes, and palette, with the view of immediately setting to work. He had already planted his easel on the spot where he intended it to stand. The cause of Cecilia's blush had been patent to him in a moment, and, while sorry to think that his audacity might possibly have annoyed her, he yet could not help feeling flattered by the fact of her having so quickly recognized her own likeness. "I have scared her a little," he said to himself. So for the present he addressed himself exclusively to Miss Browne, of course under the mistaken belief that she was Miss Collumpton, posing her and arranging her so as to suit best with his ideas of artistic effect. Three quarters of an hour passed quickly, and then Miss Browne declared that she was tired. All this time Cecilia had scarcely spoken. "Now, Mora, dear, it's your turn," said Miss Browne to Cecilia. "I am ready any time." Then it was her turn to be posed and arranged. For a little while no one spoke. Then Cecilia said, "Are both those pictures destined for the Academy, Mr. Fildew?" "That is their destination if the Hanging Committee will deign to find room for them." "Then, of course, they are intended for sale?" "But whether they will find purchasers is another matter," answered Clement, with a shrug. Cecilia said no more, and Mora, seeing that she was disinclined for talking, exerted herself for once, and kept up a desultory conversation with Clem till the sitting came to an end: Then the ladies went. There was no sign of lingering vexation or annoyance in Cecilia's way of bidding Clem good-morning, but she took care not to lift her eyes to his while she did so. The next sitting was fixed for the following Monday. One, two, three sittings followed in rapid succession. Cecilia's brightness and gayety did not long desert her. She chattered with Clem as easily and lightly as at first, only she never alluded to the Academy pictures. When the third sitting was over, just as Cecilia was leaving the room, Clem slipped a brief note into her hand. Her fingers closed over it instinctively. She and Mora were to have called at several other places before going home, but Cecilia pleaded a headache, and they drove back direct to Cadogan Place. After two hours spent in her own room, Cecilia went downstairs. But she was restless and uneasy, and seemed unable to settle to anything for many minutes at a time. Sketching, reading, needlework were each tried in turn, and each in turn discarded. Several times Mora looked at her with inquiring eyes, but said nothing. Twice her aunt said, "Cecilia, I do wish you wouldn't fidget so you are as bad as any child of six." The ladies dined early when they had no company. After dinner Mrs. Percival went out. The two girls sat by themselves in the drawing-room. By and by Mora went to the piano and began to play. Cecilia sat and looked into the fire and listened, or, without listening, felt, half-unconsciously, the sweet influence of the music steal into her senses. Then the twilight deepened, and Binks came in and lighted the lamps. But still Mora went on playing, and still Cecilia sat and gazed dreamily into the fire. By and by Mora looked round and saw that she was alone. Cecilia had slipped through the curtains that shrouded one end of the room from the conservatory beyond. There was just enough light in the conservatory to enable Mora to see Cecilia as she sat among the orange-trees at the foot of a statue of Silence, that loomed white and ghost-like above her. Mora knelt by her friend and took one of Cecilia's hands in hers and pressed it to her lips. "What is it, darling?" she whispered. "Tell me what it is that is troubling you." Cold and calculating in many ways as Mora Browne might be, there was at least one sweet, unselfish impulse in her heart, and that was her love for Cecilia Collumpton. Cecilia responded to her friend's question by stooping and kissing her. Then she whispered--but it was a whisper so faint that if the statue bending over her with its white finger on its white lips had been endowed with life it could not have overheard what she said--"He has written to me and told me that he loves me!" Mora started, but Cecilia's arms held her fast and would not let her go. "Who has written to you? Not Mr. Fildew?" "Yes--Mr. Fildew." "How sorry I am to hear this!" "I am not sorry." "You don't mean to say that--" "Yes, I do. Why not?" Then Cecilia's arms were loosened, and Mora rose to her feet. "Oh, Cecilia, I cannot tell you how grieved I am that I ever was a party to this deception!" "Why should you be grieved, Mora?" "Because if Mr. Fildew had been told from the first who you were, this terrible business would never have happened." "I am not so sure of that. Men are sometimes very audacious. But it is no such terrible business after all." "To me it certainly seems so, and I shall never forgive myself for helping to bring it about." "And I can never be sufficiently grateful to you for the share you have had in it." "This is infatuation, Cecilia. But don't, pray don't, tell me that you have any thought of encouraging Mr. Fildew's attentions." "Encouraging his attentions! What phrases are these, Mora? Did I not tell you just now that--that Mr. Fildew has told me that he loves me, and did I not give you to understand that I care for him in return?" "How wretched you make me feel! But you have not told him that you return his love?" "Not one syllable has he heard from my lips." "Then it is not too late to undo all this." "I don't understand you, dear." "You have never spoken to him--you have given him no encouragement--he knows nothing of your infatuation. Such being the case, he need never know. We will go to his studio no more. Some other artist shall paint your portrait. Mr. Fildew shall be quietly dropped, and in few weeks you will have forgotten that any such person had an existence in your thoughts." Cecilia laughed, but there was a ring of bitterness in her mirth. "I might be listening to the maxims of Lady Loughton or my Aunt Percival," she said. "But you have never loved, therefore I cannot expect you to sympathize with me." "But you certainly would not marry this man, Cecilia?" "I have never thought of marrying either 'this man,' as you call him, or any other man. But I certainly should not marry any one unless I did love him." "I consider it a great impertinence on the part of Mr. Fildew to have addressed you at all." "In what way is it an impertinence, Mora? However much we poor women may care for a man we cannot write to him and tell him so. We must wait till it pleases him to write or speak. Mr. Fildew is an artist and a gentleman. Perhaps I should not be far wrong in calling him a man of genius. It is I who ought to feel honored by the love of such a man." "I cannot think where you contrive to pick up your strange ideas." "Strange ideas, indeed! Why, Mora, with all my love for you, I believe you are one of those women who would rather marry a dunderhead with ten thousand a year than a Milton in a ragged coat." "I certainly should not care for love in a garret, even with one of your so-called men of genius. And as for Milton, from what I have read of him, he was not one of the most agreeable of men to live with." "The author of Paradise Lost' agreeable! Oh, Mora, Mora! have you no sense of the incongruous?" With this Cecilia rose, and putting her arm in Miss Browne's, went back into the drawing-room. "Since papa died I have not felt so unhappy as I do to-night," said Mora, presently. "And I never so happy in my life." Then, turning to kiss her friend for goodnight, Cecilia added, "There is one thing to be said he is not making love to me because I am rich, and that, with me, goes for much. There is another thing to be said," she added, in a whisper; "he has asked me to meet him." "An appointment! Oh, Cecilia!" "Yes, an appointment. Why not?" "But--" "Not another word," said Cecilia, smilingly laying her hand on Mora's lips. "You have heard enough to fill your thoughts for a little while. Goodnight and happy dreams." Next morning Miss Browne was called away by a telegram. Her mother was seriously ill. There was no opportunity before she went for any more confidences between Cecilia and herself. CHAPTER XI. CONFIDENTIAL. _Letter from_ Miss Collumpton, _in London, to_ Miss Browne, _in the country_. "My Dearest Mora,--Your telegram of yesterday, followed by your letter, which came to hand this morning, was a great relief to our anxiety. Pray give our joint love (Aunt Percival's and mine) to your dear mother, and say how happy it has made us to hear of such a decided change for the better. "Had you not in your letter made a special point of asking me to furnish you with all particulars anent a certain affair, I should not have thought of troubling you at a time like the present. As, however, you want 'to know, you know,' I shall be glad to do my best to satisfy your curiosity. "If you remember, dear, you seemed terribly shocked at the idea of Mr. Fildew having asked me to meet him. And yet, what else could the poor man do? Pray bear in mind that in his eyes I am only an indigent young lady, who earns her living by filling the post of companion to a rich young lady. He could not come to Cadogan Place and ask for me. He knows nothing of my friends and connections. Having very foolishly fallen in love with me, how else was he to plead his cause, how else say all that he wanted to say? I have no expectation of making a convert of you, simply because this is one of those questions that you and I look at from totally different points of view. In the first place, you would never fall in love with an artist--at least, not with one who, like Mr. Fildew, had still his way to fight; in the second place, you would never give any man who had not an assured income the slightest encouragement to fall in love with you. Still, without hoping that anything I can say will induce you to modify your views, I must, in justice to myself, put down some of the reasons by which I have been influenced in doing as I have done. All through the affair I have argued with myself in this wise: Supposing I were really a poor girl who was earning her living in a shop or a warehouse, or it matters not how, and Clement had fallen in love with me, what form would our courtship have taken? how and where should we have seen each other? and so on. Thousands of such courtships are going on around us every day. It was only to imagine that Cis Collumpton had lost the whole of her fortune, or had never had any to lose. In short, I wanted to be loved for myself alone; I wanted to be courted as if I were a girl without a 'tocher.' "Well, I met him by appointment at seven o'clock one evening, in a quiet crescent not far from Sloane Street. He lifted his hat, shook hands, and said how pleased he was to see me. Then he put my hand under his arm, and so took possession of me. 'We can talk better thus,' he said; 'I have something particular to say to you; besides, I want to have you as close to me as possible.' "Would you believe it, Mora, I seemed to have altogether lost my tongue,' as we used to say when I was a little girl. For aught I had to say for myself, I might have been brought up in the farthest Hebrides. However, he did not seem to mind whether I answered him or not; he had taken me into custody, as it were, and I had no power to resist--nor any inclination either, for the matter of that. "He began by apologizing for the liberty he had taken in asking me to meet him; 'but as you are here,' he added, 'I may, perhaps, hope that I have not transgressed beyond forgiveness; although, indeed,' he went on, 'I knew of no other mode of obtaining an opportunity of saying all that I want to say.' Still I was tongue-tied, still the words refused to come. The next ten minutes were the most memorable of my life. How my heart beat! how his words thrilled me from head to foot! What he said you can perhaps faintly imagine; if you cannot, I cannot tell you. "He pressed me for an answer. Then my tongue was loosened. It would not be worth while to put down here what I said, even if I could do so, which I very much doubt. The result was that I promised to meet him again the following Friday evening at the same time and place, and give him an answer of some kind. "What that answer would be was a foregone conclusion from the first. I might just as well have said 'Yes' then and there, but that I would not have him think I was to be quite so easily won. He pressed my hand to his lips at parting. I left him at the corner at which I had met him, and ran nearly all the way home. Of course, dear, you may be sure that the first thing I did when I found myself alone was to have a good cry. But what happy tears they were! From all which you will understand that your poor Cecilia's case is a desperate one indeed. "How the time passed till Friday came round I hardly know. I wanted it to come and yet I didn't, if you can understand such a paradox. I longed and yet I trembled, and when Friday evening was really here I wished it were only Thursday. However, I met him as agreed, and was again taken possession of. 'I am afraid you are cold,' he said. 'You ought to have wrapped yourself up more warmly.' I was trembling a little, but not with cold. We walked slowly along, and for some minutes Clement said very little. I think he saw that I was put out, and he was giving me time to recover myself. At length my hand ceased to tremble, and then he spoke, asking me whether I had thought over his words--whether I felt that I could accept his love and give him mine in return? A church clock was beginning to strike eight as he finished speaking. Not till the last stroke had ceased to reverberate did I make any reply. Then for answer I laid one of my hands softly on one of his. 'God bless you, dear one!' he said. 'May you never regret the gift you have given me to-night.' Then, before I knew what had happened, a strong arm was passed round my waist and Clement's lips were pressed to mine. A lamp was no great distance off and a policeman was passing at the moment. The man turned his head and coughed discreetly behind his hand. I turned hot all over, but Clement only laughed, and said it would not have mattered if all the world had been there to see. "After that we had a long, delicious walk through quiet streets and squares where there were few passers-by. There was a sweet, new feeling at my heart of belonging to some one and of some one belonging to me. Clement asked whether he should write to or see my father. Then I told him that I was an orphan and my own mistress. 'In that case our marriage need not be long delayed,' he said. This frightened me. I had never contemplated such a contingency except as something very remote and far-off indeed. After that he began to talk to me about his position and prospects. He was far from rich at present, he said, and could not give me such a home as he would have liked; but he hoped to be better off by and by. He was getting higher prices for his pictures, and people were beginning to seek him out. If only his Academy picture found a purchaser there was no reason why we should not be married before midsummer. Knowing what I did, I could have clapped my hands for glee as I listened to him. I said I was afraid that I could not make arrangements to be married before Christmas at the very soonest. I could see that he was disappointed. 'I shall certainly hold you to midsummer,' he said, 'unless you can give some good and valid reason for delay.' "' You must come and see my mother before you are many days older,' he said, presently. 'I have spoken to her about you already.' Would you believe it, Mora, a little jealous pang shot through my heart when he said this? I felt as if I did not want even a mother to come between him and me. But next moment I put away the thought as utterly unworthy, and said how pleased I should be to see and know Mrs. Fildew. "Then he told me that his mother had been an invalid for years, and that there was no hope of her ever being any better. He told me, too, how cheerful she was---how bravely she bore up against the insidious disease that was slowly but surely eating away her life. I hated myself for allowing even a moment's jealous feeling to find room in my heart. I would try to love her as much as Clement loved her; but what if she should turn against me and say that her son's choice was a foolish one? "This evening Clement would insist on walking with me nearly to the door. I was in mortal fear lest my aunt should chance to be passing and should recognize me. But nothing happened except that, when the moment came for saying goodnight, Clement repeated the process which had frightened me so much before. But I don't think that even a policeman saw us this time: still I must admit that it was very dreadful. All that night I hardly slept a wink. I felt that I had taken the great, irrevocable step of my life. Did I regret it? you will perhaps ask. No; a thousand times no! "It was arranged that at our next meeting I should accompany Clement to his mother's to tea. Mrs. Fildew's hour for tea is six o'clock, from which you will at once infer that she belongs to the old school, and having grown up when people took their meals at more rational hours than they do now, she still keeps up the traditions of other days. I had hitherto had no difficulty in stealing out for an hour without my aunt knowing anything about it, but to leave home at half-past five and not get back till ten or eleven, without saying where I was going, or ordering the brougham to take me, was a matter that required a little diplomacy. I hit on a plan at last which I need not detail here, and that without having to tell my aunt any absolute fib about it. It is sufficient to say that I met Clement at the appointed time and place, and that three minutes later I found myself with him in a hansom cab and being whirled along Piccadilly at a tremendous pace. It was not nearly dark yet, and we passed several people whom I had seen only an hour previously in the Row. What their thoughts would have been had they seen Miss Collumpton flashing past them in a hansom, I leave you to imagine. "I am quite aware, Mora, that in confessing to all this I am shocking some of your most cherished prejudices. But where is the use of having prejudices unless you can have them pleasantly shocked now and again? Does not the process put you in mind of an electrical machine, and of the brass rods we used to touch so tremblingly when we were girls at school? "It is almost worth while being poor for the sake of riding about in a hansom. A ride in a brougham or a victoria is the tamest of tame affairs in comparison. I had never been in a hansom before that evening when I went to see Mrs. Fildew, but I have been in one several times since--of course, with Clement to keep me company. How 'jolly' it is when you happen to have a good horse and a skilful driver! (The adjective may sound objectionable, dear Mora, but I can't hit on another just now that expresses my meaning half so clearly.) How quickly you get over the ground! How you dash in and out among carriages, carts, and busses, leaving them behind one after another! Everybody and everything seem to get out of your way. The wind blows in cheerily perhaps a few drops of rain dash against your face now and then, but you don't mind them in the least. You experience a sense of freedom, of brisk open-air enjoyment, such as no other mode of conveyance that I know of can give you. And then how cosey inside! Just room for two, and none to spare. But that doesn't matter in the least if your companion is some one you like to sit close to. I wonder whether it would be wrong, Mora, for you and me to be driven out in a hansom some afternoon by our two selves. But you are such a slave to Mrs. Grundy that I almost despair of being able to persuade you to join me in such an expedition. "Here I am at the end of my paper and I have not introduced you to Mrs. Fildew. I must consequently defer that pleasure till I write to you again, which will be not later than the day after to-morrow. I have much to tell you yet. Pray let me hear from you by return, if only a word to say how your mother is progressing. I cannot tell you how lonely I feel while you are away. "Your affectionate friend, "Cecilia Collumpton." CHAPTER XII. CECILIA AND THE COUNTESS. _Second Letter From_ MISS COLLUMPTON _in London to_ Miss Browne _in the country_. "My Dearest Mora,-- . . . The close of my last letter left Clement and me in a hansom cab in the act of being driven to the lodgings of Mrs. Fildew. Clement told me that his mother had lately moved into fresh apartments no great distance from his studio. I cannot tell you how nervous I became as the moment of my introduction to Mrs. Fildew drew near. What if I should read in her eyes that she thought her son had chosen unwisely? It would not have mattered so much if Clement had not set such store by her opinion--if his love had been of that lukewarm kind which many grown-up sons have for their mother. But in this case it was different, and unless I were loved and liked by Clement's mother I should feel as if I possessed only half of Clement's heart. "At length the cab stopped and my pulses beat faster than ever. Three minutes later I found myself in Mrs. Fildew's presence--found myself on my knees by her side, while her hands, that trembled a little, rested for a few moments on my hair and her eyes gazed anxiously and inquiringly into mine. Then she bent forward a little and pressed her lips to my forehead. "'My boy has told me how much he loves you,' she said. 'But I welcome you here, not for his sake only, but for your own also. I often used to wish that Heaven had given me a daughter. At last my prayer has been answered.' Then she kissed me again, and after that I sat down close beside her, but she still kept possession of one of my hands and caressed it softly with hers. "Mrs. Fildew is a pale and delicate-looking elderly lady, with a thin, worn face and a profusion of snow-white hair. When young she must have been very beautiful. I think I told you in my last letter that she has been a confirmed invalid for years. She cannot walk more than a few yards without great pain and difficulty. From the time she rises till the time she goes to bed she sits in a large easy-chair that runs on noiseless wheels, which Clement has had specially made for her. She can work the wheels with her hands, and so propel herself to any part of the room at will. She keeps one servant, a strong, middle-aged woman, who has been with her several years. Sometimes, on sunny afternoons, Mrs. Fildew and her chair are carried downstairs, and Martha takes her mistress for an airing up and down some of the streets where there is not much traffic, or as far as a certain florist's where they have fresh flowers in the window every morning. "Once a week Clement comes with an open carriage and takes his mother for a drive into the country. The next time they go on one of these expeditions I am to go with them. "Presently Martha brought in tea, which we drank out of quaint old biscuit-china, the cups being without handles, and the saucers excessively shallow. We had thin bread-and-butter, watercresses, sardines, damson jam, and a cake from the confectioner's. The tea itself was simply delicious--far superior to any that we ever have at home. The truth is, I suppose, that our servants don't know how to make tea properly; or else, which is quite as likely, they keep the best of it for themselves and only send us up what they leave. I don't think that I ever tasted watercresses before that afternoon; you have no idea how nice they are. To eat them is to be put in mind of country streamlets and all the sights and sounds that go with them--of hidden waterways that betray themselves by their babbling, and--But I 'loiter round my cresses.' "This six-o'clock tea, with thin bread-and-butter and watercresses, is an 'institution' that I shall never despise again. "When tea was over Clement had to go out on business, and Mrs. Fildew and I were left alone. Why do women seem all at once to become so confidential towards each other the moment there is no longer a man in the room? I say 'seem,' because such confidences are generally more apparent than real. Mrs. Fildew and I followed the universal rule. Although Clement was so dear to us, and although we talked of nothing in his absence that we might not have said freely before his face, yet the moment he had left the room a spell seemed taken off our tongues, and we both felt that we were going to enjoy a good long talk. "I hope your situation is a comfortable one, my dear, and that you like it?' said Mrs. Fildew. "I had to think for a moment, and call to mind what my situation was supposed to be before answering her that I liked it exceedingly. "'Companion to a young lady, is it not? Yes. Well, I'm glad to hear that you are comfortable. Of course, you have nothing to do with cooking or the superintendence of housework?' "'Nothing whatever, Mrs. Fildew.' "'Do you know, my dear, I think that's rather a pity.' "Why so, Mrs. Fildew?' "'Because Clement is far from being a rich man, although, of course, there is no knowing what his talents may do for him in time to come, and it would be just as well that his wife should know how to manage and look after a small establishment without trusting too implicitly to her servants. But probably you had some training in such matters when you were a girl at home?' "'Very little training of that kind,' I said rather bitterly. My face burned, and I felt humiliated by my ignorance. "'Dear, dear! all young girls ought to be taught how to manage a house,' continued Mrs. Fildew, in that soft, low voice of hers, which seems as if it could never have spoken an unkind word to any one. "'One is never too old to learn if one has a mind to do so, Mrs. Fildew,' I said. "'Well spoken, my dear. The will to learn and a little perseverance will work wonders. I don't suppose that Clement will be able to afford more than one servant at first, and for twelve or fourteen pounds a year you can't expect to get a good cook, especially when she has to do the rest of the housework as well. Therefore it is all the more necessary that her mistress should be able to take an active part in all home matters. But I am afraid that you are underrating your knowledge. A woman who can roast a leg of mutton--or see it properly roasted--and who is not above beating up a pudding now and then, or turning out a little light pastry, need never be afraid of getting married.' "'But, dear Mrs. Fildew, I can't do any of the things you mention,' I cried, with consternation. 'I never made a pudding or a bit of pastry in my life; and as for cooking a joint, I am afraid it would not be fit to send to table by the time I had done with it.' "The dear old lady's busy fingers ceased their movements. She looked at me in silence for a moment, but I thought that her look seemed to say, 'Then, pray, young lady, what is there that you can do?' "'People are generally what, they are taught to be,' I said, between laughing and crying. 'I cannot bake, or boil, or make preserves, but I know how to do one or two useless things. I can read Dante or Goethe in the originals. I can sketch from nature. I can play on the piano and the harp. People tell me that I can sing tolerably. I can drive, I can ride, and I can swim.' "'Then, my dear, you are far too clever a young lady to enter a kitchen or look after the cooking of your husband's dinner. Clement ought to be, and no doubt is, very proud to think that he has won your heart; but you and he ought not to get married on less than a thousand a year.' "I looked at Mrs. Fildew, in doubt whether her last speech was not meant as a sarcasm. But one glance into her dear face was enough to satisfy my mind on that point. I don't believe that she ever gave utterance to a sarcastic speech in her life. I am not aware, Mrs. Fildew, that I have expressed any anxiety to get married for ever such a long time to come. I am quite willing to wait--for years.' "'Perhaps so, my dear, but Clement may not be possessed of your patience.' "'But surely I shall have a voice in a matter of so much importance?' "'Undoubtedly. But for all that, men generally contrive to get their own way in these things, as you will find.' "I confess, Mora, that the thought of this early marriage frightens me. I ought to have bargained at the outset that it should not take place for a couple of years at the soonest. I know that you, with your strong mind, would say that it is not too late even now to 'put my foot down' and vow that I won't be married till I'm ready to be. But then, dear, I neither possess your strength of mind nor have you ever been in love, so that, all things considered, I'm afraid my resistance would be a very futile one. Methinks I hear you say, 'How humiliating of Cecilia to make such a confession!' Even so, sweet one. _N'importe_. I would not exchange my fetters for your freedom. "'What a useless, good-for-nothing creature you must take me to be, Mrs. Fildew,' I said, glad to get away from the marriage question. "'Indeed, my dear, but there is no such thought in my head. You have been brought up as if you were a young lady of fortune--that is all. And, now I come to think of it, I doubt very much whether Clement would allow his wife to trouble herself about kitchen arrangements or the proper cooking of a dinner. Men nowadays seem to think their wives are only made to be ornamental, and I suppose my boy will be no exception to the rule. When I was young things were different.' "'I'll buy a cookery-book to-morrow,' I cried in desperation. 'It is never too late to learn.' "Mrs. Fildew smiled at me, a little compassionately, as I thought. "'It is never too late to make a good resolution,' she said. 'But if a young woman has not been trained up to housekeeping ways at home, it is not to be expected that she can take kindly to them when she grows up. I wouldn't bother about it if I were you, my dear. I dare say Clement will like you all the better for having been brought up as a fine lady.' "But I kept my word, and next day I made myself the happy possessor of a cookery-book. My aunt never suspected that it was anything but a novel when I brought it out after luncheon. I read page after page of it, dipping here and there, till I had got a jumble of recipes mixed higgledy-piggledy in my brain, and was in a pitiable state of imbecility. "Next morning I sought a private interview with Hannah, the cook, the result of which was that, in return for a certain consideration, she was to give me a lesson in the art of cookery of one hour's duration, each morning. I have had five lessons already; they are immense fun, and I can safely say that I never enjoyed my music-lessons half so much. You shall have a practical proof of the progress I have made as soon as you get back to Cadogan Place. We will have a little dinner 'all by our two selves,' as we used to say at school, every dish at which shall be cooked by your Cecilia. I have written out the _menu_ already. "Of course your comment on all this will be, 'Just like Cecilia--just like her, to waste time and money over some scheme that can never possibly be of any practical use either to herself or anybody else.' But don't you know, dear, that knowledge is power? Besides, one never can tell what may happen. Some day my husband may be a poor man, and then I shall be able to astonish him. By-the-bye, do you know what a roly-poly dumpling is? If you don't there is a treat in store for you. I made a monster one yesterday for the servants. I will make a little one for you and me when I get you back again. "I don't think I have told you yet how Mrs. Fildew occupies her time. She mends old lace for a large emporium at the West End. The way in which she does it, so as to all but defy detection, is marvellous. It seems to me a charming occupation for a poor gentlewoman, combining in itself the practical and the æsthetical. I could sit and watch her for hours as she deftly takes up stitch after stitch and loop after loop till ragged leaf and frayed flower look as good as new. "Clement had never talked to me much about his father, but from Mrs. Fildew I learned several particulars concerning him. That he was a gentleman born and a gentleman bred Mrs. Fildew was very particular in striving to impress on my mind. It appears that they were married in America, and there my Clement was born. Mr. Fildew, senior, it would seem, was so entirely a gentleman that it was never expected of him that he should do anything for a living. 'You know, dear, I am not a lady by birth,' said Mrs. Fildew, frankly; therefore, of course, it is only right and proper that I should work--in fact, I could not live without it. And then there is Clement; so that, altogether, we are very comfortable in our humble way.' "Not knowing what to say, I said nothing. "'My husband is from home just now,' continued Mrs. Fildew. 'If you had been here three days ago you would have seen him. Some old friend of his has come into a large property and has asked John to go down to his place and put it into something like order for him. Of course, this is not like any ordinary kind of work, or I should not have been willing for him to go. It is merely a little service rendered by one friend to another. My husband has been a gentleman all his life, and it would never do for him to lower himself to any commonplace drudgery now.' "'I should very much like to see Mr. Fildew,' I said--and so I should. I think I can understand now why Clement hardly ever mentions his name. "I don't expect him in town for two or three weeks, but when he does come Clement must bring you and introduce you to him. There is an aristocratic style, an air of distinction, about Mr. Fildew, which you will not fail to recognize at once. Clement has the same style, only in a lesser degree; but he will never be as handsome a man as his father.' "Presently Clement came in, and then we had some music. I find that my boy,' as his mother fondly calls him, plays the violin. With that and the piano, and your Cecilia's thin soprano, the evening was gone far too quickly. It was a happy time. Ten o'clock brought a cab, and half an hour later I was at home. Goodnight and God bless you. More another day. "Your affectionate friend, C. C." CHAPTER XIII. "YOUNG PILLBOX." One day, at a dinner at Sir Harry Yoxford's, among other people to whom Lord Loughton was introduced was a certain Mr. Wellclose, a lawyer, who had the charge of Sir Harry's legal business, together with that of various other great people of the neighborhood. Mr. Wellclose, a fussy, talkative, middle-aged man, who dearly loved a lord, contrived to seat himself next the earl in the smoking-room. He seemed to know everything about everybody and before the evening was over Lord Loughton had contrived to extract from him a considerable amount of information which might or might not be useful to him at some future time. "By-the-bye, Mr. Wellclose," said the earl, "are you at all acquainted with my next-door neighbor at Bourbon House?" "I have had occasion to meet Mr. Orlando Larkins several times on business," said the attorney, "and a very pleasant young gentleman I have found him to be." "I think I have heard somewhere that he doesn't get on very well with the county folk hereabouts? Probably his antecedents are against him." "That's just it, my lord. His father was a celebrated pill-maker; and his name being rather an uncommon one, people can't forget the fact." "What a pity it is that the world is not more good-natured! What on earth have a man's progenitors to do with the man himself?" "My own sentiments exactly, if I may make so bold as to say so," said Mr. Wellclose, who always made a point of agreeing with his superiors. "I'm sure I've not the remotest idea who or what my great-grandfather was, and I shouldn't be a bit better man if I had. But as regards young Larkins, I was talking with him the other day, and he seems quite down-hearted. Of course, there are plenty of people about here--such as they are--who would only be too happy to visit him, or to see his feet under their mahogany, simply because he is rich; but the tip-top people, among whom it is the ambition of his life to mix, give him the cold shoulder, and no mistake. His name seems to cling to him wherever he goes. The poor fellow was telling me about his tour on the Continent a little while ago. Wherever he went people looked at him--or he fancied they did--and whispered to each other; and on one or two occasions some low cads at the _table d'hôte_ ranged half a dozen pill-boxes in front of their plates, and made believe to swallow a bolus or two between every course, and so drove the poor fellow away." "He must be rather foolishly sensitive about such matters." "Well, he is. I don't think he can be said to possess a very strong mind at the best of times; but for all that he is a very generous-hearted, good-natured fellow, and I'm sorry for him." "I've been told that his father left him tolerably well off." "So he did, my lord--and all out of pills; or, rather, pills laid the foundation of his fortune, and lucky speculations did the rest. The son's income is as near twelve thousand a year as makes no matter. Then there are the two young ladies, his sisters, who will have twenty thousand apiece on their wedding-day." "Why didn't you and I go into the pill-trade, eh, Wellclose?" "Just the question I often put to Mrs. W., my lord." "The only way for Larkins to get out of his difficulty is for him to marry and change his name to that of his wife." "A capital idea, my lord, which I won't fail to suggest to him the next time I see him. Talking about matrimony reminds me that Mr. Larkins has an unmarried aunt--a younger sister of his mother--who also has twenty thousand pounds settled on her. Thirty-six years of age and twenty thousand pounds!" As he said these words with much unction the keen-eyed lawyer glanced up sharply in the earl's face. "I'm afraid the lady must be too fastidious or she would surely have been snapped up long ago," said the earl, as he knocked the ash off his cigar. "Perhaps so--perhaps an early disappointment or something of that kind. But, by Jove! what a prize, eh, my lord? What a galleon to capture and tow safely into the harbor of Matrimony!" Again he glanced up keenly into the earl's face. "I tell you what, Wellclose," said his lordship, presently, "I think I must get you to introduce me to young Larkins one of these days." "I shall be only too happy, my lord." It fell out, however, that Lord Loughton was enabled to make the acquaintance of Mr. Larkins without the assistance of Mr. Wellclose. Twice a week the earl took a return-ticket between Brimley and Shallowford. The two places were thirty miles apart. At the latter town the earl was quite unknown, and it was to the post-office there that he had requested Clem to write to him, if necessary, under his old name of Mr. Fildew. Twice a week he went over to see if any letters were waiting for him. As he was coming back one day, about a week after the dinner at Sir Harry's, he found a gentleman in the carriage into which he got at Shallowford. At the next station some one came up to the window and addressed the stranger as Mr. Larkins. As soon as the train was under way again the earl spoke. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Larkins of Bourbon House?" he said. Mr. Larkins blushed, and stammered out a reply to the effect that he was the individual in question. "I am the Earl of Loughton, and I am very glad to be able to make the acquaintance of my next-door neighbor. One can afford to be isolated in town, but that rule hardly holds good in the country." Then he held out his hand and wrung the young man's fingers very cordially. "Why did you not call upon me, Mr. Larkins, or at the very least send in your card?" "I--I was afraid of being considered an intruder. The difference in our social status and all that, my lord." "Pooh, pooh, my dear sir, I trust the age we live in is too enlightened to retain many antiquated prejudices of that kind. A gentleman is a gentleman all the world over, whether he be a duke or a ploughman." "I assure you, my lord, that I have been snubbed and slighted in a great many quarters, simply because my father was--well, simply because he made his money in business." "Can it be possible! Thank Heaven, there is no nonsense of that kind about me. If I like a man, I like him, and I never stop to ask him who was his grandfather." "Ah, my lord, if all the aristocracy were only like you!" "Oh, I don't want to set myself up as a pattern, but those are my sentiments. I think that you and I, being such near neighbors, ought to be good friends. What do you say to dropping in to-morrow morning about eleven, and having a bit of breakfast with me? I don't give dinner-parties, because I'm too poor. But I like to have somebody to breakfast with me." Mr. Larkins was overwhelmed by the earl's condescension. At last the golden portals were about to open to his touch. Would the Viponds and the Cossingtons dare to snub him in future when they found him hand-and-glove with an earl? Mr. Larkins's trap was waiting at the station. It was one of the happiest half-hours of that young man's life when he was seen by the good people of Brimley driving Lord Loughton home to Laurel Cottage. Mr. Larkins did not fail to put in an appearance next morning at the earl's breakfast-table. On the following day his lordship dined _en famille_ at Bourbon House, on which occasion Orlando's sisters were introduced to him. They were two really pretty and well-mannered girls of seventeen and nineteen. There was a vein of simplicity and effusive good-nature running through the young Man's character that the earl was not slow to note, and appraise at its proper value. From that time forward the pill-maker's son and Lord Loughton were very frequently to be seen in each other's company. They drove out together, they rode together (in Orlando's carriages and on Orlando's horses), they played billiards together, they dined together, and they smoked together. Hardly a week passed without a hamper of wine or a box of cigars finding its way to Laurel Cottage. Fruit was sent nearly every day. A saddle-horse and a brougham were specially retained for the earl's own use. The quidnuncs of Brimley found much food for gossip anent these proceedings; but as the earl was notoriously poor and Mr. Larkins as notoriously rich, they rather admired the arrangement than otherwise. It was, of course, patent to everybody why the earl so persistently patronized the pill-maker's son, but none the less on that account were several doors now thrown open to Orlando which had heretofore been inexorably shut in his face. People began to discover virtues and good qualities in the young man the existence of which they had never suspected before. The Honorable Mrs. Templemore and Lady Wildman, neither of whom were rich and both of whom had several unmarried daughters, began to angle for him openly. When, a little later on, and at the earl's suggestion, he ventured to send out invitations for a garden-party, to be followed by a carpet-dance, nearly everybody who was asked came, and it was universally admitted to have been one of the most successful things of the season. From that time forward Mr. Larkins was accepted without question as "one of us." All this suited well with the earl's grim and mordant humor. He laughed at Larkins and he laughed at those who, having at first tabooed him, were now willing to welcome him with open arms. He generally spent a solitary hour in his little smoking-room before going to bed, musing over the events of the day, and planning the morrow's campaign. At such times--his servants being all in bed, he indulged himself in a long clay pipe and a couple of glasses of hot brandy-and-water. The brandy and the pipe, together with a supply of the strong tobacco which he used to smoke during his evenings at the Brown Bear, were all kept under lock and key, in company with the worn and shabby pouch which had done him such good service in days gone by. It amused him at such times to think how people must talk about him, and he acknowledged to himself that he liked being talked about. His coming had caused quite a commotion among the stagnant circles of Brimley and its neighborhood. His sayings and doings, his habits and mode of life, supplied an unfailing topic of conversation at a hundred dinner-tables and twice as many tea-tables. He was already acquiring a reputation for eccentricity. It was a reputation that suited him, and he determined to cultivate it. It was not till the lapse of two months after his arrival at Brimley that he went up to London to see his wife and son. He dressed himself for the occasion in a suit of sober tweed, and left behind him the gold watch and chain which a Brimley tradesman had only been too happy to press upon him, and the diamond ring that Larkins had made him a present of. From the moment he got out of the train at King's-Cross till the moment he got into it on his return he was to be plain John Fildew again. He quite enjoyed the masquerade, and chuckled to himself several times in the cab before he was set down at the corner of Oxford Street. Clem had apprised him of the change in Mrs. Fildew's lodgings. When he walked into his wife's sitting-room without knocking, that lady stared at him for a moment in utter surprise, and then said, "Have you not mistaken the room, sir?" "Why, Kitty, dear, don't you know me?" he asked, and then he crossed the room and kissed his astonished wife. "How was it likely I should know you, John? You are not a bit like your dear old self," and with that she began to cry. Clement, when he came in, was almost as much surprised, but he showed it in a different way. The change in his father was so thorough and so striking that he could hardly believe him to be the same man who had left them only a few weeks previously and that evening he felt a degree of respect for him such as he had never experienced before. He had heard his mother insist a thousand times on the fact of his father being a gentleman bred and born, but for the first time in Clem's experience he looked the character. The earl dilated in a hazy but grandiloquent sort of way about his new prospects and his new mode of life. It was not to be expected that he should condescend to particulars; and as both his wife and son knew that he had a horror of being questioned, they listened to all he had to say, and troubled him with no inconvenient queries. Clement was well content that matters should remain as they were, but Mrs. Fildew, in addition to the grief she felt at her husband's absence, was somewhat fearful in her mind lest her "dear John" should have compromised his dignity by engaging in work that was derogatory to his status as a gentleman. Mr. Fildew's stay in London was only from the dusk of one afternoon till the evening of the next. His avocations were of such a pressing and important nature, he said, that it was impossible for him to make a longer stay just then. In the state of his wife's health--a subject respecting which he was anxious for more reasons than one--there was little apparent change since he left London. She was certainly no better, but neither did there seem any perceptible alteration for the worse. He longed to go and spend an evening with his old cronies at the Brown Bear, but after mature consideration he deemed it better not to do so. He looked and felt so changed that his old friends would hardly welcome him as being any longer one of themselves. Besides, for anything he knew to the contrary, some of them might some day find themselves at Brimley and encounter him there but if they were not made acquainted with the alteration in his appearance, he flattered himself that, even so, they would hardly recognize him. It was decidedly to his interest to give the Brown Bear as wide a berth as possible. Great, therefore, was the earl's surprise and chagrin when, as he was walking down the platform in search of a smoking-carriage on his return journey, he nearly stumbled over Mr. Cutts, the landlord of the Brown Bear. "I really beg your pardon," exclaimed the earl, before he had time to recognize the man. At the sound of the familiar voice Cutts stared, and then the earl saw that it was too late to retreat. Grasping the landlord by the hand, and making believe that he was delighted to see him, he hurried him off to the refreshment bar. In order to keep Cutts from questioning him, which might have been inconvenient, he kept on questioning Cutts. Everybody, it appeared, with one exception, was quite well, and going on much as usual. "Of course you remember Pilcher?" said Cutts. "Ah, well, he's come to grief, poor devil, and quite suddenly too. It seems that a scamp of a brother persuaded him to accept a bill for a big amount. The brother bolted, Pilcher couldn't meet the bill, some other creditors came down on him, and his stock was seized. Meanwhile his wife died, and the result of the blooming business was that poor Pilcher was turned adrift on the world without a penny to bless himself with, and with three young 'uns, all under eight, to call him father." "Poor Pilcher, indeed! But, of course, you did something for him at the Brown Bear?" "Yes--what we could. Couldn't do much, you know. Sent the hat round and got about six pounds--enough to bury his wife, I dare say. He shouldn't have been such a fool. I'd sooner trust a stranger than a relation any day." "And where's Pilcher now?" "Can't say. Somewhere about the old quarter, no doubt." "Ah, well, I am sorry for him, poor devil. Goodnight. Shall see you again before long." And with that the earl made a rush for his carriage. Next day he wrote to Clement, asking him to hunt up Pilcher's address. A week later "poor Pilcher" received by post a twenty-pound note simply endorsed, "From a friend." CHAPTER XIV. "TWELVE IT IS." We must now go back a little space in our history. When Lord Loughton, on the occasion of his first dinner at Bourbon House, was introduced to Miss Tebbuts, the aunt of Mr. Larkins, he did not forget what he had been told respecting that lady. "Wellclose said she was thirty-six, but she looks at least half a dozen years older than that," muttered the earl to himself. "But twenty thousand pounds can gild with youth and beauty a demoiselle of even that mature age." And his lordship became at once very attentive to Miss Tebbuts. Hannah Tebbuts was sister to Orlando's mother. In conjunction with another sister, also unmarried, she had for several years kept a select seminary for young ladies in a little town in one of the midland counties. When her sister married Mr. Larkins that gentleman had not risen to fame and fortune. He was still brooding over the Pill that was ultimately to make his name known to the ends of the earth. Even then Hannah Tebbuts saw but little of her married sister, and she saw still less of her when Mrs. Larkins went to live in a big mansion in the outskirts of London. By and by Mrs. Larkins died, and after that a dozen years passed away without Miss Hannah catching even a passing glimpse of her rich relations in London. But at the end of that time there came a message for her to go up to town with the least possible delay. Her famous brother-in-law was dangerously ill, and he had asked that she might be sent for to go and nurse him. Miss Hannah was less loath to go because she had lately lost the sister with whom she had lived for so many years, and had, in consequence, given up her school. Once in London, there she remained till Mr. Larkins died. His illness was a long and tedious one, but through it all Miss Hannah nursed her brother-in-law with the most devoted care and attention. As a reward for her services, and a token of the high esteem in which he held her, the sick man, by a codicil added to his will only a few days before his death, bequeathed to her the very handsome legacy of twenty thousand pounds. Never was a simple-minded woman more puzzled what to do with a legacy. Her tastes were so inexpensive, and her mode of life so quiet and sedate, that she could find no use for the money. All she could do was to place the amount in the hands of her nephew, begging him to allow her a hundred a year out of it, and invest the remainder for her in any way he might think best. Miss Tebbuts had never been handsome, but no one who studied her face could doubt her amiability and good-temper. There was nothing fashionable, nothing modish, about her. Her gown was after a style that had been in vogue some dozen years previously. She wore elaborate caps, and little sausage-like curls, now beginning to turn gray. She was of a retiring disposition, and her greatest trouble was having to fill the position of hostess at Bourbon House to the numerous strangers her nephew took there. Mr. Wellclose was wrong when he surmised that she might possibly be the victim of some early disappointment. Miss Tebbuts had never had an offer in her life, and if she had ever entertained any hopes in that direction she had trampled them under foot long ago, so that nothing was now left of them save a faint, sweet memory, like the sweetness of crushed flowers exhaled from a _pot pourri_. And this was the lady to whom John Marmaduke Lorrimore began to pay very marked attention. He sat next her at the dinner-table, he made his way to her side in the drawing-room, and he favored her with more of his conversation than any one else. After a little while he began to call two or three times a week and take her for drives in the basket-carriage, with little Mabel Larkins to play propriety. He was seen with her at the Brimley spring flower-show, and at the garden-party, of which mention has already been made, his attentions to her were the theme of public comment. In short, people began to talk in all directions, and before long everybody knew for a fact, or thought they did, that the earl and Miss Tebbuts were going to make a match of it. This notoriety was just what the earl wanted. On one point he was particularly careful: he never spoke a word of love to Miss Tebbuts, nor gave utterance to any sentiments that could possibly be construed into the faintest shadow of a declaration. One day Orlando said, smilingly, "If you play your cards properly, aunt, you may yet be Countess of Loughton." Miss Tebbuts colored up. "But I don't want to be Countess of Loughton," she said, "and you don't know what you are talking about. Make your mind easy on one point: Lord Loughton and I will never be more than friends." "Such attentions as his can have but one meaning." "You talk like a very young man, Orlando. According to your theory, no gentleman can pay a lady a few simple attentions without having certain designs imputed to him." "A few simple attentions, aunt! Pardon me, but they seem to me most marked attentions." "Well, whatever they may seem, they won't end in matrimony; on that point you may make yourself quite sure." Orlando was terribly disappointed, but did not dare to show it. What a splendid thing it would have been to have an aunt who was a countess and an uncle who was an earl! Such a dream was almost too blissful to contemplate. And yet he firmly believed it might become a glorious reality if only his aunt were not so foolishly weak-minded. If she did not care greatly for such a marriage on her own account, she ought to remember what was due to her nephew and nieces. Never could they hope that such an opportunity would offer itself again. One day the earl was surprised by a visit from the dowager countess, or, rather, he was not surprised. He had quite expected to see her before long. Certain rumors had reached her ears, and she had driven over from Ringwood to satisfy herself as to their truth or falsity. Mr. Flicker was with her, as monumentally severe as ever. The countess had not seen Lord Loughton since his transformation. She remembered him as a shabby, buttoned-up individual, with long straggling hair, and patched boots, and a generally mouldy and decayed appearance, who was known to the world as "Mr. Fildew." She saw before her a good-looking, well-preserved, elderly gentleman, clean shaved and carefully dressed, and of a spruce and military aspect. This personage called himself Lord Loughton, and the countess recognized at once his likeness to certain traditional types of the Lorrimore family. So far she was gratified. It was evident that the new earl was not likely to prove such a discredit to his connections as had at one time seemed but too probable. "Welcome to Laurel Cottage, aunt," said the earl, as he assisted her ladyship to alight. "I thought I should have had the pleasure of seeing you here long ago." The countess vouchsafed no word in reply, but glanced round at the house and the grounds, and then, turning to Flicker, she said, "Quite a little paradise." "But without a peri to do the honors of it," remarked the earl, with a chuckle and a tug at his mustache. "Ah, I'm coming to that part of the business presently," said the dowager, in her most acidulated tones. "And now, have you a place, where I can sit down?" The earl led the way into his little sitting-room. The countess followed him, and Mr. Flicker brought up the rear. The countess seated herself on an ottoman, and, putting up her glasses, took a quiet survey of the room. "Rather different from the sort of home you have been used to of late years--eh?" she said, sharply. "Yes, for an earl I can't say that I'm badly lodged," sneered her nephew. "You are lodged far beyond your deserts, sir, I do not doubt." "The Lorrimore family have generally been fortunate in that respect." "I did not come here to bandy personalities with you." The earl bowed. "I came in consequence of a certain rumor that has reached my ears." The dowager paused, but apparently the earl had nothing to say. He was stroking his chin, and gazing through his glass at a Parian Venus bracketed on the opposite wall. "A most absurd rumor," continued the countess, with added asperity, "but one, nevertheless, that I feel called upon to investigate. May I ask you, sir, whether it is true that you are going to be married to a creature of the name of--of--what is the creature's name, Mr. Flicker?" "Tebbuts, my lady. Hannah Tebbuts." "Just so. Tebbuts. I knew it was some horrid word. Pray, sir, is there any foundation for the rumor in question?" The earl withdrew his gaze from the Venus, and, producing his handkerchief, he began to polish his eyeglass with slow elaboration. "May I ask, madam, by whose authority I, a man fifty-three years old, am catechised as though I were a schoolboy caught _in delicto?_" The countess fairly gasped for breath. Mr. Flicker raised his hands and turned up his eyes till nothing but the dingy whites of them were visible. "Catechise you, indeed! I am here, sir, because I want to know the truth, and the truth I must have," said the ruffled countess. "If this rumor be correct, you have been obtaining money under false pretences, and acting as no honorable man would act." The earl had actually the audacity to lean back in his chair and laugh. "Really, aunt," he said, "you amuse me. A little more, and your language would be actionable. Nobody could tell you better than Mr. Flicker here that, even if I were to marry to-morrow, I should not be doing that which you assert I should be. The agreement between us was that I was to be paid a certain quarterly stipend as long as I remained unmarried. There was no absolute promise on my part that I would never marry. But the moment I do marry, if I ever do, the stipend will cease. Where are the false pretences that your ladyship accuses me of?" For a few moments the dowager could not speak. Then she said--and her head by this time was nodding portentously--"I always asserted from the first that you were nothing better than a--a--" "Common swindler, madam," remarked the earl, pleasantly. "You always did say so. I give you credit for that much. But I remember also that long ago your epithets were more remarkable for their vigor than for their accuracy. Consequently, I have learned to appraise them at their proper value." "This man is insufferable," exclaimed the countess. Mr. Flicker tried to look sympathetic, but only succeeded in looking a little more miserable than before. "May I ask you, sir, to give me a plain answer to a plain question? Is it, or is it not, your intention to marry?" "Now we are becoming business-like, which is much better than being personal," said the earl, placably. "A straightforward question deserves a straightforward answer. I have no present intention of getting married; but still, more remote contingencies than that have come to pass in the history of the world." "A--h! then it is true that this creature has designs on you." "If by 'this creature' your ladyship means Miss Tebbuts, I say emphatically no. Allow me to add that Miss Tebbuts is a lady, and incapable of forming designs against any man." "A lady, forsooth! Her father, or her brother, or somebody connected with her, was a common quack." "Her brother-in-law created a pill and made a fortune. Had he been a great captain, and killed ten thousand men, a grateful nation would have erected a statue to him; but seeing that he only invented a pill, and probably saved ten thousand lives, society votes him vulgar, and passes him by on the other side. What a strange, topsy-turvy state of things we have got to at the end of our nineteen centuries of practical religion!" The countess looked mutely at Flicker, but her look plainly said, "Surely this fellow must be crazy." Mr. Flicker responded by a melancholy shake of the head. "Are we to infer from this rigmarole, sir, that the report is nothing more than a foolish _canard_, and that you have no more intention of getting married than I have?" "Well, I will hardly venture to go as far as that. You see, aunt, Miss Tebbuts is a very charming lady, and her charms are enhanced by a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. At five per cent. that fortune would yield an annual income of one thousand pounds." "Yes, but there would be two of you to keep out of it. As the case stands now, you have six hundred a year, and only yourself to keep." "I assure your ladyship that Miss Tebbuts's tastes are of the most simple and inexpensive kind. She is one of those admirable women who would live on a hundred a year and save fifty of it." "Have you no more respect for your family, sir, than to marry a quack doctor's sister?" "Have my family no more respect for me than, out of an aggregate income of twenty thousand a year, to expect me to live on, and be satisfied with, a paltry six hundred? Are you aware, madam, that the Earl of Loughton's boots let water in, and that he hasn't enough money in his purse to pay for a pair of new ones?" "So, sir, we are getting sit your motives by degrees. You threaten us with this marriage unless we agree to buy you off." The earl laughed silently. "I threaten you with nothing I merely put before you a plain statement of facts, and leave you to draw what inference you please. Remember, pray, that it is you who have come to me and not I who have appealed to you. Take back your six hundred a year, madam, if it so please you; I shall not want for bread and cheese, I dare say." For the first time since the discussion began, Mr. Flicker now spoke. "If I remember rightly, my lord, the amount of income suggested by you at our first meeting was twelve hundred a year--just double the sum you are now in receipt of? If the family, taking into consideration all the circumstances of the case, could see their way to fall in with your first suggestion, is there not a possibility that these disquieting rumors respecting a presumptive matrimonial alliance might prove to be without the slightest foundation in fact?" "In other words, Flicker, would not a golden bullet bring down this _canard_ at once and forever?" The ghost of a smile flitted across the lawyer's hard-set face. "My meaning precisely, my lord." "Well, golden bullets are wonderful things, and really, now I come to think of it, I shouldn't be surprised if, in the present case, one of them, properly aimed, were to have the effect hinted at by you." The countess glowered at the lawyer as though she could scarcely believe the evidence of her ears. "Mr. Flicker," she said, in her most imperious way, "may I ask by whose authority you have dared even to hint at a course which, if carried out, would be a disgrace to everybody concerned?" "My lord," said Mr. Flicker, turning to the earl, "may I take the liberty of asking to be permitted to have five minutes' private conversation with her ladyship?" "Certainly, Flicker, certainly. I'll go and have a cigarette in the garden. Touch the bell and send the servant for me when you are ready." And with that the earl strolled leisurely out. As he was shutting the door he heard the countess say with much emphasis, "That man will be the death of me." At the end of ten minutes a servant came in search of him. He found the lawyer alone. "What has become of her ladyship?" he asked. "She has gone to her carriage. She is a great age, and the interview has somewhat tried her strength. I have, however, much pleasure in informing your lordship that--that, in fact--" "That our wild duck is to be shot with a golden bullet after all. Is not that so?" "It is so, my lord." "Twelve?" "Twelve it is, my lord. After this, I presume we need not disquiet ourselves in the least as to any matrimonial intentions on the part of your lordship?" "Not in the least, Flicker. I give you my word of honor on that score. As I said once before, I am not a marrying man, and am in no want of a wife." Mr. Flicker rose and pushed back his chair. "We are quite prepared to take your lordship's word in the matter. I shall have the honor of forwarding you a check as soon as I get back to town." The earl expressed his thanks, and was going with Flicker to the door when the latter said, "Pardon me, my lord, but I think it would be as well not to let the countess see you again to-day. There is a tendency to irritation of the nervous system, and I am afraid that your presence would hardly act as a sedative." The earl laughed. "Perhaps you are right," he said. "Anyhow, give my love to her, and tell her that I hope to visit her before long at Ringwood." Mr. Flicker shook his head, as implying that he knew better than to deliver any such message. Then the earl shook hands with him, and they parted. CHAPTER XV. CECILIA PHILOSOPHIZES. The courtship of Cecilia Collumpton and Clement Fildew progressed as such affairs generally do progress. Each of their meetings was looked forward to as an event of immense importance, for the time being quite dwarfing into insignificance all other occupations and engagements. Between times they seemed to think of little or nothing but what they had said to each other at their last meeting, and what might possibly be said at their next. They met twice a week, sometimes for an hour only, sometimes for a whole delicious evening. Oftener than that Cecilia could not have got away from home without exciting her aunt's suspicions. Miss Browne was now back at Cadogan Place. She usually accompanied her friend to the trysting-place, which was the corner of a quiet street leading out of a certain crescent, and then, after walking with the pair of lovers for a short distance, she would leave them and go back home. Clement, of course, still believed that Cecilia was Mora and Mora Cecilia. Miss Browne often implored her friend to undeceive Mr. Fildew, but Cecilia had gone too far to retreat. "Not till the very day he goes to Doctors' Commons will I tell him," she said; "it is too sweet to me to feel that I am loved for myself and not for my money to allow of my undeceiving him till the last moment. He believes that I have not twenty sovereigns in the world, and when I'm with him I try to fancy that I haven't. I make believe to myself that I am as poor as a church mouse." "Ah, it may be pleasant to play at being poor, just as children play at being soldiers," said Mora, "but there's nothing pleasant about the reality." The two portraits were finished by this time, as were also the two Academy pictures--Clem's and Tony Macer's--and the pair of them sent in. Then ensued a period of suspense before it was known what their fate would be. It was about this time that Lord Loughton's first visit to his wife took place. Clem forbore to say anything to his father about his love-affairs, and also begged his mother to keep her own counsel in the matter. He did not want to provoke any opposition from his father, which a knowledge of his engagement probably would have done. Silence was best till the wedding should be close at hand. Meanwhile Cecilia took tea with Mrs. Fildew once a week. Clem knew nothing about the long talks and discussions that took place in his absence, chiefly concerning housewifery and the best mode of making a small income go as far as possible. He did not know, and he would have blushed if he had known, how often he himself formed the topic of conversation on such occasions. To both these loving hearts, one young and one old, he was the dearest object on earth; why, then, should they not talk about him? All Clem knew was that they seemed to agree together remarkably well. His mother sometimes told him jokingly that Cecilia was far too good for him, far beyond his deserts; and Cecilia often asseverated that she only tolerated him for the sake of darling Mrs. Fildew. By and by came pleasant news. Both Mr. Macer's picture and Clem's were accepted at the Academy. As soon as Cecilia heard this she went to a dealer with whom she had had some previous transactions, and instructed him to go on the private-view day and buy the two pictures for her in his own name. Clem pressed her to go with him on the opening-day, but, knowing that her aunt would almost certainly be there, as well as a number of her acquaintances, she put her lover off till later in the week. Clem resolutely refused to go without her. He heard that his picture was sold, for news of that kind soon finds its way to the studios; but thinking to afford Cecilia a pleasant surprise, he said nothing to her about it. On the fourth day they went together. Cecilia, feeling sure there would be several people there whom she knew, was very plainly dressed and wore a veil. She would fain have hurried off to the picture the moment she entered the building, but Clem, catalogue in hand, persisted in going to work in the orthodox way. When, at length, they did reach it, they found quite a little crowd of people in front of it. Cecilia pressed her lover's arm. "Whether the critics appreciate your picture or not, it is quite evident that the general public do," she whispered. "It would be the general public who would appreciate me if I were to grin through a horse-collar at a fair," whispered Clem in return. "Is not _that_ the truest test of appreciation?" asked Cecilia, pointing with brightened eyes and glowing cheeks to the tiny ticket stuck in the frame. For the first time since entering the building she had now thrown back her veil. Clem thought he had never seen her look so lovely as at that moment. "You see, dear, there are still a few people in the world with more money than brains," he said, quietly. "What would become of us poor painters if Providence had not kindly arranged matters so?" "I wonder what your secret admirer would say if he could hear you giving utterance to such heresies." "Were my secret admirer here I would thank him for one thing, if for no other." "May I ask what the one thing is that you would thank him for?" "For enabling me, by the purchase of my picture, to get married at midsummer. Bless him for a good man!" As Cecilia said afterwards to Mora, "I was struck dumb. All that I could do was to let my veil drop and move on. When I instructed Checkly to buy the pictures for me, I never dreamed that from a cause so simple an event so dire would spring. Perhaps it is fortunate for us that we can so rarely foresee all the consequences of our actions." "Supposing for a moment," said Mora, slyly, "that the gift of foreknowledge had been yours in this case, would you or would you not have bought the picture?" Cecilia gazed silently out of the window for a few moments. "I don't know what I should have done," she said at last. "I certainly object to being married at midsummer, but, on the other hand, if Clem's picture had not been sold, what a disappointment it would have been to him." "But what a surprise when he finds out who the purchaser is!" "That he shall never find out till we are married, not if it's a dozen years first. Well, we went next and looked at Mr. Macer's picture. I verily believe that Clement was far better pleased that his friend's work should have found a purchaser than that his own had. Anyhow, he was in such high spirits that when we left the Academy he insisted on our having a hansom and going to look at two empty houses that he had seen advertised in one of the newspapers. One of the houses was at Haverstock Hill, the other at Camden Town suburbs of London, both of them, hitherto known to me only by name. "The rent of both houses was the same--sixty pounds a year. I told Clement that I thought we could do with a house at a much less rent than that, and begged of him not to go beyond his means." "Gracious me, Cecilia, how could you?" "Oh, it was great fun. After seeing the houses we drove to a furniture emporium, and there, after due deliberation, I chose a pattern for our drawing-room suite: a pale-blue figured silk, with a narrow black stripe running through it, my dear Mora, and the price twenty-five guineas." "How could you let Mr. Fildew go to such an expense?" "Shall I not make it up to him a thousandfold one of these days? The day before yesterday we bought a lot more things--carpets, china, what not. I can't tell you how delightful it is to go about in this way, and not finally fix on anything till you feel sure that you can really afford it. Poor people must value their homes far more than rich people can. They have had to work and think and contrive, and get their things together an article or two at a time, as they could spare the money. We well-to-do people give _carte blanche_ to a firm, and our mansion is fitted up from garret to basement almost without our having a voice in the matter. In many ways it is better to be poor than rich, and this is one of them." "What a pity it is, my dear Cis, that Providence did not make you a governess at sixty guineas a year, or a curate's wife at a hundred and fifty." "In either case I should have led a much more useful existence than I do now. Which reminds me that as I was parting from Clement last evening he put a sealed envelope into my hands, with a request that I would not open it till I was alone. You would never guess what was inside: a twenty-pound note towards my wedding outfit." "Oh, Cecilia!" "Of course there were a few words with it. He said he felt sure that out of my small income it was impossible for me to have saved more than a trifle, and, as I had no parents, to fall back upon, would I make him happy by accepting the enclosure to buy my wedding dress with. What a dear fellow he is! I hope to be able to keep that note unchanged as long as I live. Perhaps you think I ought not to have accepted it?" "I hardly know what to think," answered Miss Browne. "Certainly, to accept money, even from the gentleman to whom one is engaged, seems--" "Very shocking, does it not, to us, with our petty conventional notions? If the money were offered in the shape of a bracelet, that would make all the difference. But here am I, a poor girl about to be married, who cannot afford to buy her wedding-gown. My sweetheart offers me money to buy it with. Am I to be so nonsensical, so stuffed up with silly pride, as to refuse his offer, and say, 'If you can't marry me in my old dress, you sha'n't marry me at all'? I think I have acted as a sensible girl would act under such circumstances. Anyhow, I mean to keep that note." CHAPTER XVI. PALLIDA MORS. As Lord Loughton became more familiarized with his fresh mode of life, and as the novelty which waits upon all things new gradually wore itself away, there came times and seasons when he was at a loss how to get through the day with that degree of satisfaction to himself which, as an elderly man of the world, he thought he had a right to expect. He found the morning hours--say, from ten till four--hang the most heavily on his hands. Some men would have stayed in bed till noon, have lounged over breakfast till two o'clock, and have made their cigar and newspaper last them well on into the afternoon. But the earl had never been used to lying late in bed, and he felt no inclination to begin the practice now. Besides which, that ever-increasing tendency to corpulence had to be fought against in various ways. His medical adviser told him that, in addition to the riding exercise which he took, he ought to take more exercise on foot. But the earl detested walking along the dull country roads. To have them, and them alone, to ride and drive on was bad enough, while everybody else was enjoying the delights of town, but to be condemned to trudge along them on foot, as though he were a pedlar or a tramp, was more than he was prepared to endure. He would have given much to be able to go up to London for a few weeks during the season, and take up that position in society to which his rank entitled him. But he durst not venture on a step so hazardous. Too many people in London knew him as Mr. Fildew to allow of its being safe for him to appear there as Lord Loughton. Perhaps one of the first people whom he might chance to meet in the Row or in Piccadilly would be his own son. He knew well that if the faintest suspicion of his having a son, or even of his being married, were to reach the ears of the dowager countess, he might say farewell forever to his twelve hundred a year. Evidently the game was not worth the candle. Evidently the risk he would run by such a step was far too great to be rashly incurred. His periodical journeys to London to see his wife were another thing. They could be made without much risk of discovery. He arrived at dusk and departed at dusk, and hardly stirred out of doors during his stay. The earl was not a reading man. Sometimes on a Sunday he would skim through a few pages of _Blackwood_ or _The Quarterly_ (they were good, old-fashioned periodicals to have lying about when anybody called), till drowsiness crept over him, and the thread of what he had been reading became entangled in the webs of sleep. But on weekdays he rarely read anything except the _Times_. Of that he was a diligent student, his maxim being that a man may pick enough out of his newspaper to enable him to hold his own in almost any company. Most people said, "What a well-informed man the Earl of Loughton seems to be." It was simply that he had the knack of presenting other people's ideas from his own point of view, and thereby giving them a gloss of originality which only one person here or there was clever enough to see through. But he seldom originated ideas of his own. But even when the _Times_ had been conscientiously waded through, several hours were still left before dinner. He could not go out every day riding on Mr. Larkins's hack, or driving about the country with Miss Tebbuts and the young ladies. The attractions of Brimley were of a very limited character, and the nearest town of any consequence was a dozen miles away. Now and then there was a flower-show, or a picnic, or an archery meeting, to break the monotony of country life but such excitements were few and far between. Sometimes the earl, in dressing-gown and smoking-cap, would potter about his garden for an hour or two, and simulate an interest he was far from feeling in the prospects of his wall-fruit or the progress of his marrowfats. Oh, for the glories of Piccadilly or Regent Street, on a warm spring afternoon! The life, the brightness, the gay shops, the well-watered streets, the sunny pavement, the ever-changing panorama--with a sovereign in one's pocket, and no social obligations to deter one from slaking one's thirst as often as one might feel inclined to do so! When once the time to dress for dinner was reached the earl was himself again. He rarely dined at home more than once or twice a week. When such a contingency did happen, he generally walked into the town, and found his way in the course of the evening to the billiard-room at the George. It was a private subscription table, but his lordship was always made welcome. It was not every day that the small gentry of Brimley had the privilege of playing billiards with an earl, and such opportunities were made the most of. Indeed, they never thought of begrudging their half-crowns, of which his lordship generally took half a pocketful back home with him, for he was rather a fine player when he chose to put forth his strength, and none of the Brimley amateurs were a match for him. Still, life at Laurel Cottage sometimes grew rather monotonous, as, indeed, it well might do to a man who had been a confirmed _flâneur_ for years. Often of a night the earl longed for the jolly company of the Brown Bear. As a rule the Brimley magnates were intensely sedate and decorous, whereas the earl had Bohemian proclivities which not even the gray hairs of middle life had power to eradicate. A jorum of toddy and a long pipe, with a congenial companion, had far more attractions for him than the Clicquot and hot-house fruit of smug-faced respectability. Alas! in all Brimley he could find no companion who would say Bo to his goose--no one who would forget that there were such people as earls, who, if needs were, would contradict him to his face, and to whom such phrases as "Yes, my lord," and "No, my lord," were absolutely unknown. One morning, while Lord Loughton was dawdling over his breakfast, a brougham drove up to Laurel Cottage, from which three gentlemen alighted. Only one of the three proved to be known to the earl. He was a certain Mr. Wingfield, a retired merchant of ample means, whom he had met once or twice at dinner. Mr. Wingfield, after introducing his two companions, proceeded to state the object of his visit, which was neither more nor less than to solicit his lordship to become chairman of the new line of railway between Brimley and Highcliffe. The line was near completion, and the opening was to take place some time in July. "Our late chairman died last week," said Mr. Wingfield, "and we want a good name to fill up the vacancy." "But I know nothing whatever about rail management," urged the earl. "That's of no consequence whatever," answered Mr. Wingfield. "_We_ understand it, and I am the vice-chairman, so that your lordship will be well supported. At present we meet for two hours twice a week. After each meeting we have luncheon. The chairman's honorarium, as fixed at present, is two hundred guineas a year." "But before accepting such a position would it not be requisite that I should qualify myself by holding a certain number of shares in the company?" "If your lordship will leave that little matter to me and my colleagues, we will take steps to have you duly qualified." "In that case you may make use of my name in any way you think proper." The earl took to his new duties _con amore_. His two visits per week to the Brimley board-room enabled him to get through a couple of mornings very pleasantly without interfering with the after-part of the day. Then the luncheon with which each meeting broke up was by no means to be despised. More than all, the check for a hundred guineas, which was to come to him every half-year, would form a very welcome addition to his limited income. His position as chairman of the railway board brought Lord Loughton into contact with a number of well-to-do people, connected more or less with trade, who thought it a great thing to be hand-and-glove with an earl. His lordship was always affable to men who gave good dinners, and the consequence was that he was now less at home than ever. Mr. Wingfield had a brother in the City who was well known as a promoter and launcher of new companies. Before long an offer was made to the earl to become chairman to two new schemes that were on the eve of being floated. The duties were light--to meet the board twice a month for a couple of hours--the honorarium liberal, and the liability in case of disaster next to nothing. The earl closed with the offer at once. It is true that his visits to the City would involve a certain degree of risk, but he was quite prepared to face it. Even if some old acquaintances should chance to meet him as he was being whirled past them in a cab, it did not of necessity follow that they should know him as any other than Mr. Fildew. And then, as Wingfield had assured him more than once, his connection with the City was sure to bring under his notice some of the "good things" that were always going about on the quiet, to participate in which the leverage of a little capital was all that was needed. That capital he was determined by hook or by crook to obtain. Old as he was, there was still time for him to lay the foundation of an ample fortune before he died. Clem should be no pauper peer, dependent on the bounty of relatives for his daily bread. These golden dreams were interrupted for a time by the news of his wife's serious illness, and the necessity for his immediate presence in London. The letter conveying the news had been lying for three days at the Shallowford post-office when he called there. He hurried off at once, but when he reached Soho be found that had he stayed away another day he would probably have been too late. "Why, Kitty, my dear, what is this?" he said, as he stooped over the bed and kissed his wife's white face. There was a tremor in his voice that sounded as strange to himself as it could possibly have done to any one else. Now that the end was so near, old chords, the existence of which he had forgotten, began to vibrate again in his heart; countless memories burst through the crust of years, and bloomed again for a little while with the fragrance of long ago. Now that his treasure was about to be taken from him he began to realize its value as he had never realized it before. "This means, John, dear, that my summons to go has come at last--the summons I have waited for, oh! so wearily." She pressed his hand to her lips and then nestled it softly against her cheek. "It's these confounded east winds," said the earl, huskily. "They are enough to lay anybody by the heels. When the warm weather sets in you'll soon be all right again." "Not in this world, darling. Perhaps in the next. I began to be afraid that you would not be here in time for me to see you," she added, presently. "It would have seemed very hard to die and you not by my side." "I came as soon as the letter reached me. I--I had been from home, and the letter was waiting for me on my return." "I knew that you would come, dear, as soon as possible, and now that you are here I am quite happy. I told Moggy to put a steak on the fire the moment she heard you knock. I am sure you must be hungry after your long journey." Later on in the evening, when they were alone, the sick woman said to her husband--and by this time her voice was very weak and uncertain--"I have been thinking a great deal about our wedding-day this afternoon. Why, I cannot tell. When I was lying half asleep just now, every little incident came back to me as freshly as though they only dated from yesterday, even to the smell of the musk-roses on the breakfast-table. And then I remembered something that I have hardly thought of for years. I remembered that your name is not John Fildew, but John Marmaduke Lorrimore. You told me never to mention that name to any one, and I never have--not even to Clement. You told me never to ask you any questions about it, and I never have. But you told me also that some day, and of your own accord, you would reveal to me the reasons that had compelled you to change your name. A woman's curiosity is one of the last things to leave her. It is not too late, dear, to tell me now." The earl mused for a moment. The doctor had told him that it was quite impossible for his wife to live, consequently no valid reason existed why he should not tell her everything. "I changed my name," he said, "because when I was young and foolish I did something that disgraced both my friends and myself. Not a crime, mind you; in fact, nothing more heinous than incurring debts of honor which I was totally unable to meet. That was bad enough in all conscience, but I was young and sensitive in those days, and probably felt things more keenly than I should now. Anyhow, I thought that in a new country, and under a new name, I could bury the past, and perhaps do wonders in the future. Then I met you, dear, and you know the rest. Only I have never done the wonders I intended to do." "You have been the best and dearest husband in the world." The earl winced, and shook his head in mild dissent. "But what a pity that after all these years you are not able to resume your own proper name and station in the world." "I hope to be able to do so before long. Death has made strange havoc among the Lorrimores of late years, and your husband is now the head of the family." "I have always said that you were a gentleman bred and born." "And you are a lady, Kitty--if not by birth at least by merit and by rank. If the world knew you by your proper title it would call you Countess of Loughton." The sick woman stared at her husband as though unable to take in the meaning of his words. "I am the Earl of Loughton, Kitty, and you are my countess," he said. "The thing is simple enough." "You tell me this and I am dying!" she said, after a minute's silence. "It is of little use to tell me now." "The time was not ripe for you to be told before. Nor has the time yet come to tell it to the world." "And Clement?" "He knows nothing, and at present it would not be wise to tell him. It would only unsettle his mind and do him harm instead of good. When the proper time comes he will be told everything. At present I am working both for his interests and my own. A pretty thing it would be thought that Lord Shoreham, the son of the Earl of Loughton, should have to paint pictures for his bread and cheese! He had far better go on painting them as 'Clement Fildew' till he can afford to give up painting altogether." "My dear boy a lord! It seems all a strange, foolish dream." "It is a very simple reality. Clement is Lord Shoreham as surely as I am sitting by your side. But of this he must know nothing for some time to come." "And I am Countess of Loughton! How wonderful it seems! But I could not have loved you more than I have had I known this all along. Perhaps I should not have loved you so much. God is good, and he orders everything for the best. I have been very happy, and the queen on her throne can't be more than that." She closed her eyes and lay silent a little while, thinking over what she had just heard. "John, dear," she said after a time, "if you ever put a stone over my grave, will you say on it, 'Here lies Catharine, Countess of Loughton,' or will you say, 'Here lies Kitty, wife of John Fildew'?" "Why do you talk of such things? I hope and trust you will be with us for many a day to come." "You know better than that, dear. My time is very short how. But I think I should like to have my real name on my tombstone--if my real name is what you tell me." "It is your real name, and everything shall be as you wish." A smile of satisfaction crept over the dying woman's face. "I think I can sleep a little now," she said, "and you must be tired, sitting here so long. There's your Turkish pipe in the cupboard downstairs, and I told Moggy to have some of your favorite mixture in readiness for you." Mrs. Fildew died the following afternoon. She sank into a sleep as calm as that of an infant, and did not wake again. Her husband and son were with her at the last. Cecilia had seen her two days before the earl's arrival. "It is not half such a trouble to leave my boy as I thought it would be," Mrs. Fildew said to her. "I know that you and he love each other, and that I leave him in the best of hands. Don't worry your mind about the housekeeping, dear--you will have servants to do all that for you. Clement will like to see you nicely dressed when he comes home. Those pretty hands were never made to be spoiled by pickles and preserves." The earl buried his wife under the name she had so long been known by. To have made use of any other would have led to questions which as yet he was not prepared to meet. "By and by, when I put up the tombstone, the world shall know her by her proper name and title, but not now--not now." To his son's surprise he bought a private lot in one of the cemeteries, and had an expensive bricked grave made. The cost seemed to be no object to him. Clem wondered, but said nothing. On the evening of the day after the funeral the earl bade farewell to his son for a little while, and went back to Laurel Cottage. CHAPTER XVII. GOLDEN DREAMS. It was impossible for Lord Loughton to wear deep mourning for his wife without provoking sundry inconvenient inquiries, so he simply put a narrow band round his hat, and wore gloves stitched with black. "I've lost an old and very dear friend," he remarked, incidentally, here and there. "Some one I knew when I was abroad many years ago. Quite cut me up to hear that he was gone." Over the solitary pipe in which he indulged the last thing before going to bed he often found his thoughts wandering off in the direction of Miss Tebbuts. Here were twenty thousand pounds ready to drop into his hands for, without self-flattery, in which, to do him justice, he rarely indulged, he fully believed that if he were to ask the lady to become Countess of Loughton he need not fear a refusal. It was true, he had promised Flicker that in consideration of his augmented income all thoughts of matrimony should be banished from his mind. But circumstances when he made that promise were different with him from what they were now, and, in any case, such a promise could hardly be held to be finally binding. Should he decide to become a Benedick once more, he would give due notice to the countess. Everything should be fair and above-board. He often chuckled to himself when he tried to picture the dismay and rage with which the dowager would greet any notice of his impending marriage. And yet the real fun of the affair lay, not in the fact of his contracting a second marriage, but in the much more significant fact of his having a grown-up son and heir ready to his hand. What the dowager would say and do in case it ever came to her ears that there was already in existence a strapping young man of five feet eleven inches who was entitled to call himself Lord Shoreham if he only knew it, was more than even the earl could imagine. The news would almost be enough to kill her. He would be amply revenged on her for all her slights and insults one of these days. Then again, provided he made up his mind to go on with his matrimonial scheme, it would hardly do for either Miss Tebbuts or her friends to be made aware of the existence of Clement. Were that fact to come to their ears, the twenty thousand pounds might not so readily drop into his hands. After the marriage it would not matter how soon he introduced his son to them. They might then digest their disappointment as they best could. Their feelings in the matter would be nothing to him. His frequent conversations with money-making Mr. Wingfield tended more than anything else to direct his thoughts into the channel of matrimony. "With five thousand to start with, you ought to be worth fifty thousand at the end of five years," was one of the several maxims with which Mr. Wingfield was in the habit of making our impecunious peer's mouth water. As a sort of corollary to the doctrine he was in the habit of preaching, the merchant on one occasion lent the earl three hundred pounds in order that the latter might participate, to an infinitesimal extent, in one of the many "good things" that seemed as plentiful as blackberries in those halcyon days of unlimited confidence. At the end of two months the earl sold out, by the advice of his friend, realizing thereby, on his original investment of three hundred pounds, a clear profit of as much more. It was no wonder that the earl began to court his City friends more and more, and that he came to find his most interesting reading in the money articles of his favorite newspaper. One grain of justice we must do him. In all his dreams of wealth and prosperity to come he had Clement's future at heart almost as much as his own. It should not be his fault if Clement did not come into fortune as well as title. In so far he was unselfish, and no farther. If only Clem would supplement his father's efforts by making a rich marriage, then would all be well. The earldom of Loughton, in the hands of the junior branch of the family, might ultimately shine with a lustre equal to that which had emanated from it in days gone by. It was during the time these thoughts were fermenting in his mind that the earl was surprised by a visit from Miss Collumpton and Mr. Slingsby Boscombe. They had been summoned to Ringwood by the countess, who was anxious to see for herself how matters were progressing with the two young people. When the present detestable individual who held the title should die--and surely Providence would be considerate enough to remove him before long--then Slingsby would be Earl of Loughton, and, what with his own fortune and that of Cecilia, he would be in a position to make a very respectable figure as a nobleman. The marriage of these two was the last pet scheme of the dowager's life, but we know already what small likelihood there was of its fulfilment. Cecilia and Slingsby, knowing for what purpose they had been summoned to Ringwood, agreed between themselves, before their interview with the countess, what each of them should say. Keen-sighted as the old lady usually was, they contrived to hoodwink her most effectually. They walked and talked and sat together, and seemed full of private confidences with each other. When the countess spoke about Slingsby to Cecilia, the latter said, with a smile, "Yes, we are very good friends, are we not? I always did like Slingsby." "But it's a question of something more than liking. You know what I mean?" "Quite well, aunt." "You know how I have set my heart on this matter. I hope you are not going to disappoint me." "As I said before, aunt, Slingsby and I are the best of friends. We understand each other thoroughly; is not that enough?" "I suppose I must make it so. But young people nowadays do their courting so frigidly that one can never tell when they are in earnest and when they are not." It was not without certain qualms of conscience that Cecilia consented to deceive her aunt thus. It was only at Slingsby's earnest entreaty that she agreed to do so. He had committed the imprudence of a secret marriage, and was most anxious that his father should have no suspicion of the fact, otherwise his allowance would be stopped, and his wife and himself reduced for a couple of years to come to a condition of genteel pauperism. When Cecilia and Slingsby set out from Ringwood on the morning of their visit to Laurel Cottage they had no intention of adventuring so far. It was only when they had been riding for an hour that Slingsby said, "Now that we have come so far we may as well go on to Brimley and hunt up his lordship. What say you, Cis?" "I should like it of all things. Only, we have never been introduced to him." "I don't suppose he will mind that in the least. We are his relations, and it's only right that we should know each other." "Then let us go. But the dowager will be dreadfully annoyed if she hears of it." "Who's to tell her? Not you or I." The earl received them with much _empressement_, and made them stay to luncheon. Slingsby was greatly taken with him; the earl had always had a happy knack of making himself agreeable to young men. To Cecilia he was an enigma. There was about him a certain indefinable something which seemed familiar to her. It was not his features, nor his voice, nor his walk, nor anything on which she could definitely fix, that put her in mind of some other person whom she had at some time met. It seemed to her rather as if she must have known the earl when she was a very little girl--though that was an impossibility--or else that she must have met him in some previous state of existence, and have not quite forgotten him in this. "Surely these young people must abound with generous instincts," said the earl to himself. "It would be a pity not to develop and encourage them." So he showed them round the garden, which was really a charming little spot, and came to the stable and coach-house last of all. "I have no use for these," said the earl, with a doleful shake of his head. "I am thinking of advertising them as being to let." "But is not your lordship fond of riding and driving?" "Yes; no one more so. But then, I am a poor man. Even a hack for riding is a luxury beyond my reach." A meaning look passed between Cecilia and Slingsby, which the earl's quick eyes did not fail to note. About a fortnight later the railway people at Brimley advised the earl that a brougham and two horses had arrived at the station, and awaited his orders there. The next post brought a pretty little note from Cecilia, in which she requested, on the part of herself and Mr. Boscombe, the earl's acceptance of a brougham and horse, together with a cob for riding. The earl smiled grimly as he read the note. "Two good children--very," he muttered. "I suppose they intend to make a match of it. I hope they won't regret their generosity when they find out that there is such a person in existence as Clement Fildew Lorrimore, otherwise Lord Shoreham." CHAPTER XVIII. UP A LADDER. Now that his income had been doubled, now that he could afford to keep his brougham, now that his position as chairman of the Brimley Railroad Company, and his seats at the two other boards in London, enabled him to fill up his time with so much pleasure and profit to himself, it might reasonably have been expected that the Earl of Loughton would settle down into the comfortably padded groove in which he found himself, and tempt fortune no more. But such was not the case. There was about him a restlessness of disposition, an uneasy longing for something more than the present could give him, however sunny that present might be. And yet, strange to say, this restlessness and this longing had only developed themselves in him of late. In his old days of poverty all ambition had been crushed out of him by the hopelessness of his condition. The prospect of any change for the better had seemed so infinitesimal that he had long ago made up his mind, with a sort of dogged despair, to live and die, unknowing and unknown, as plain John Fildew, of Hayfield Street, W. C. But now, as if by a touch of a necromancer's wand, everything had been changed, and that change had called into existence hopes and wishes undreamed of before. A golden mirage glittered forever before his eyes. Now that he had come to mix among financial circles, he saw men on every side of him in the process of coining fortunes, and either founding families for themselves, or allying themselves by marriage--giving gold in exchange for position--to families already made. What was a paltry twelve hundred a year for a man of his rank to live on and keep up his station in the eyes of the world?--and even that would die with him. His son would have a barren title, indeed, unless he should be able to coax some heiress into becoming his wife. Instead of resting satisfied with twelve hundred a year, it seemed to the earl that he might just as well be in receipt of ten thousand a year. A few lucky speculations would do that for him. But in order to avail himself fully of such speculative opportunities he must have a certain leverage of capital to work with; and was there not a splendid lever ready to his hand in Miss Tebbuts's twenty thousand pounds? His friend Wingfield would turn twenty thousand pounds into a hundred thousand in a very short space of time. Why should not he, Lord Loughton, do the same--with Wingfield's help? Meanwhile the railway was rapidly approaching completion, and the opening-day was already fixed. Every morning brought the earl a number of applications for appointments of various kinds. The labor of adjudicating on the merits of the different candidates was one that suited him exactly. The power of patronage is sweet to all men, and the earl was no exception to the rule. His popularity grew daily. The new hotel that was being built near the station was to be called The Loughton Arms, and the new street was to be Lorrimore Road, while the joint names, John Marmaduke, became quite common sponsorial appellations among the infantile population of Brimley. When his lordship rode slowly through the town to his office at the railway-station, bows and smiles greeted him on every side. Everybody knew him even the lads in the streets used to shout to each other, as soon as they caught sight of him, "Here comes the earl." At length came the day appointed for the government inspector to go over the line. A week later brought the opening-day. The ceremony differed in nowise from that in vogue on various occasions of a similar kind. The directors and their friends, the latter consisting of several county magnates, with two or three M.P.'s, and their wives and daughters, travelled over the line by the first train--a special one--and after that the general public came with a rush. The stations at Brimley and Highcliffe were gayly decorated, and enlivened by the strains of two brass bands. There was a _déjeuner_ at Highcliffe, and a dinner at the George at Brimley later on. After dinner some of the gentlemen, of whom Lord Loughton was one, sat rather late over their wine, so that it was close upon midnight before they finally broke up. Their carriages were waiting for them at the door, the earl's brougham among the number. Just as they were lighting a last cigar on the steps of the hotel, and wishing each other goodnight, they were struck by a sudden ruddy glare in the sky no great distance away, and next minute a man rushed from a narrow turning close by, crying "Fire! fire!" at the top of his voice. "Let us go and see the fire," said Captain Van Loo, on whom the champagne had not been without its effect. The earl, who was probably the most sober of the party, and who had seen many big fires in London in his time, was far more inclined for going home to bed than for going anywhere else at that untimely hour; but Mr. Plume, the great contractor, had already taken one of his arms and Van Loo the other, and as the rest of the gentlemen seemed desirous of going, the earl gave way and went with them, their broughams being left in front of the hotel. The gentlemen made rather a noisy party, but were not so far gone as not to know what they were about. Following the flying feet of the ever-growing crowd, they found themselves in a few minutes in one of the lowest streets of the town, and close to the burning house. A number of police were already there--Brimley could only boast about a dozen men all told--together with the town engine, which was too small to be of any real service in an emergency like the present one. The sergeant on duty, recognizing the earl and his friends, made way for them to pass into the inner ring, volunteering at the same time the information that the burning house had been let out in floors to different families, that a woman who took in mangling had rented the ground floor, and that it was in one of her rooms that the fire had originated. That the whole house was doomed any one could see at a glance; indeed, the two lower floors were partly burned out already, and every minute the exultant flames were climbing higher. It was a house of four or five stories, and had evidently at one time been inhabited by well-to-do people. "Another half-hour and the roof will go," said Mr. Plume, regarding the affair from a contractor's point of view. "Every misfortune brings a blessing in its train. This place will have to be rebuilt by somebody, and just now trade is anything but lively." "I suppose there's no fear, constable, of any one having been left inside the house?" queried the earl. "Not much fear of that, my lord; the first thing we did after the alarm was to rouse the people and get them all out." Van Loo passed his cigar-case round. "Almost as good as a firework night at the Palace," he remarked. "Another bottle or two of Heidsieck would improve the occasion vastly." "What squirts the fire-engines are in these provincial towns," said Mr. Wingfield. "When once the flames get fairly hold they seem of no use whatever." Flames and smoke were now issuing from all the windows except those of the top story, which peered out, like two black and sullen eyes, heedless of everything that was happening below. Suddenly a woman, who had made her way through the crowd by main force, appeared on the scene. Haggard and wild-eyed, with streaming hair, torn shawl, and bedraggled gown, she fell on her knees before the constable, and, seizing him by the arm, cried, in a voice that was hoarse with agony: "My child--where's my child? Has anybody seen her? Has anybody got her out of the burning house? Oh, sir, tell me where is she!" "How old was your child, and in which room was she sleeping?" asked the policeman. "She's three years old, and she was in bed in the top back room. Oh, sir, do tell me where she is!" The constable called to another one, and the two held a brief conference in whispers. Then, turning to the woman, he said, "No such child as the one you speak of was found in the house. Are you sure she was there?" "Sure! Good heavens! didn't I put her to bed with my own hands at eight o'clock, and the darling never wakes till morning! As soon as my little one was in bed I set off for my sister's at the other end of the town, who's ill, and there I've been ever since. Oh, sir, I must have my child! God has taken them all from me but her. He can't intend that she should be burned to death!" The sergeant whispered to his companion again, who ran off to another group of policemen a little distance away, but only to return next minute, bringing word that no such child had been rescued from the burning tenement. Meanwhile word had run through the crowd that Dinah King's little girl was still in the house. The news thrilled all there as if they had one pulse and one heart. One sharp-witted fellow, calling to his friends, ran in search of a ladder. Fortunately he had not far to go. In a very few minutes the ladder, borne on a dozen stalwart shoulders, pierced the crowd, and was reared on end so that its top rested against the sill of one of the upper windows. From the windows in a line below that one came long, flickering tongues of flame which strove to lick the ladder and wrap round its rungs as if they would fain claim it also as their prey. The lower floor had fallen in by this time, and the interior was like a glowing furnace, but the strong beams of the upper stories still held their own, although the flooring here and there was burned through, and thin snakes of flame were coiling round the doors and window-sills. Now that the ladder was in position there was a moment's hesitation among the little crowd at the foot of it. In order to reach the topmost window it was necessary to pass the two lower ones, which were as open mouths to the furnace inside. "Let me have a try," said one of the firemen, and next moment he was climbing the ladder with nimble feet. Past the two windows he went without pause, although the heat must have been all but unbearable, and was quickly perched on the sill of the upper window and breaking away the framework with his axe. Then from the throbbing crowd came a wild cheer of encouragement. But the moment the framework was broken away dense volumes of black smoke came swirling out, and it was then seen how fallacious was the hope that the fire had not yet made its way as far as the upper rooms. Durham, the fireman, plunged into the thick smoke, but only to struggle back to the window next minute, blinded and half stifled. Another fireman sprang to the assistance of his mate, and climbed the ladder like a lamplighter. Again a ringing cheer burst from the crowd. As soon as the second man had joined the first they disappeared together inside the room. A brief, breathless interval, and then, as the smoke cleared away a little, the two men could again be seen standing at the window--but without the child. "The staircase is on fire and we can do nothing," one of them shouted. In the silence that followed the crackling of the burning rafters could plainly be heard. The mother had been on her knees all this time, her fingers pressed to her eyes, praying audibly to Heaven to give her back her little one. She now sprang to her feet and rushed to the foot of the ladder. "Let me go!" she cried. "The fire sha'n't keep me back! She's the only one I've left, and I can't lose her." It was evident that the woman was half distraught. Up the ladder she would have gone had not strong arms held her back. "It's no use, mistress, not a bit," said the kindly sergeant. "If they two can't reach the child nobody can. The poor thing's out of its suffering by this time." "No--no--no!" cried the woman, passionately. "The fire hasn't reached the little room at the back yet. My pretty one's waiting there--waiting for her mother to fetch her, and--O my God!--you won't let me go!" From the midst of the little crowd of gentlemen quietly smoking their cigars Lord Loughton stepped forth and walked to the foot of the ladder. "What-are you going to do, my lord?" asked Mr. Wingfield, anxiously. "I am going to see for myself whether the child cannot be got at," answered the earl, as he proceeded to turn up the collar of his overcoat and to fix his glass in his eye. "But it's madness--sheer madness!" urged Sir James Bence. "If anybody could save the child the firemen could," said Mr. Plume. "In any case I'll go and see for myself," persisted the earl. "Let me beg of you, my lord, to listen to reason," said Mr. Wingfield, laying a hand on the earl's arm. "Only a washerwoman's brat," said Captain Van Loo, with a shrug. "The world holds plenty more of the same breed." The earl said no word more, but began to mount the ladder. Up he went, slowly and carefully--being no longer so young as he once had been--past the first window, past the second, with their greedy tongues of fire that strained forth to sting him. An utter silence fell upon the crowd. They all knew by this time who the third man was. Nothing could be heard save the regular beat of the engine and the subdued roar of the flames. Men's hearts throbbed faster, women's eyes brimmed with tears. The poor despairing creature down on her knees gripped fast hold of the policeman's hand as though it were an anchor of hope, and prayed as she had never prayed before that the brave gentleman might find her one pet lamb and bring it back alive to its mother's arms. The top was reached at last, and the firemen held out their hands and helped the new-comer into the room. Of what passed among the three men those below knew nothing, but a minute after the earl joined the others they were all lost in the smoke that filled the room. It was a time of slow agony to the waiting mother below. A thousand eyes were fixed on the little window. First one dark figure and then another could be dimly discerned for a moment, as they came for a breath of air before plunging into the smoke again. All at once a great shout rent the sky, and the mother knew without looking up that her child was saved. "That's him in the middle--that's the earl with the child in his arms?" she heard those round her say. "Now he's given the young 'un to Jim Durham, and Jim's coming down with it first of all. That's the earl following him, and that's Frank Webber coming last." Down they came, one after another, the foremost fireman with the child in his arms. Nothing could now restrain the mob. They swept away the thin barrier of police and crowded round the ladder, every one pressing forward to shake hands with the earl. But the earl could not shake bands with any one. While he was still some five or six feet from the ground a veil seemed to drop suddenly over his eyes, the strength went out of his hands and knees, and he fell backward like one dead. A hundred arms were held out to catch him. Then, and then only, it was seen how terribly he was burned. "We must carry him to the George," said Mr. Wingfield, sadly "and let some one hurry for the best doctor that can be had for love or money." CHAPTER XIX. P. P. C. The Earl of Loughton lay dying at the George Hotel, Brimley. They had not ventured to move him to Laurel Cottage. For the first day or two some hopes had been entertained of his recovery, but before long certain symptoms developed themselves which left no room for doubt as to what the final issue must be. The dowager countess was in Scotland when she heard the news. Slingsby Boscombe read it out aloud to her at the breakfast-table. They were visiting among some family connections in the Lothians. "It was the deed of a hero!" said Slingsby, enthusiastically, as he laid down the paper. "It was the deed of a _ganache_ who would risk his life for the sake of a nine days' notoriety," snarled the countess. "Read the two last lines again." "The latest reports add that little or no hope seems to be entertained of the earl's recovery,'" repeated Slingsby, from the newspaper. "Then it is quite possible that the earldom may be yours before you are many days older." "Oh, Lady Loughton!" "Why profess a regret which I cannot feel? I tell you candidly that I hope the man won't recover. You and I must start for Brimley by the next train. Meanwhile, you had better telegraph to Mr. Flicker to meet us there." The countess and Mr. Boscombe reached Brimley Station next forenoon, where her ladyship's carriage was awaiting their arrival. Slingsby, never having met the earl but once, had a dread of being looked upon as an intruder at such a time, and would much rather have stayed away, but the countess altogether scouted his objections, and insisted upon taking him with her; and she was certainly too old to venture on such a journey alone. Slingsby wished most heartily that the fire had never happened. So far as he was concerned, if the earl were to die matters would be brought to a climax far sooner than was convenient for him, and his secret marriage be a secret no longer. The first thing the countess did, after reaching the hotel, was to seek a private interview with Doctor Ward. "A lamentable affair this, doctor," she said, extending a couple of frigid fingers, and motioning him to a chair. "Very lamentable, indeed, madam." "May I ask what the condition of your patient is by this time?" The doctor did not answer in words, but gave his eyebrows and shoulders a simultaneous shrug. "Dear me! as bad as that, eh?" The countess intended both her words and the tone in which they were spoken to be sympathetic, but the look of satisfaction on her crafty old face altogether belied her intentions. "I presume there will be no objection to my seeing your patient in the course of the day?" "If the earl himself has no objection, madam, I can have none. Indeed, I may add that any relatives or friends who may be desirous of seeing his lordship had better be summoned with as little delay as possible." "Except myself, his lordship has no near relatives," said the countess. "I will, of course, stay with him till all is over." Her ladyship having disposed of a cutlet and a glass and a half of old port, and having had a forty minutes' snooze in an easy-chair, sent word in to the earl that she should like to see him if he were at liberty to receive her. The earl gave orders that she should be admitted at once. But before this took place Lord Loughton had requested that a telegram might be despatched to Clement Fildew. It was sent in the name of the landlord of the hotel, and ran as follows: "You are wanted immediately at the George Hotel, Brimley, on a matter of life and death. Do not delay." Clement wondered greatly at receiving such a summons, but at once prepared to obey it. The most likely solution that presented itself to him was that he was wanted to paint the portrait of some one who was _in extremis_, so he went prepared accordingly. The countess and Mr. Boscombe had reached Brimley about one o'clock. The train Clement travelled by was timed to reach there about 4.30. As it happened, Mr. Flicker went down by the same train. The countess entered the dying man's room with hushed footsteps, and, going up to the side of the bed, she gazed down with steel-cold eyes at the white face upturned to meet her own. Suffering had already done much to refine and ennoble a face which at one time had lacked little on the score of manly beauty. The hard, worldly lines had been smoothed out, and with them had vanished a certain sensuous fulness of outline which of late years had developed itself more and more. But when the earl's eyes met those of the countess they lighted up with somewhat of their old gay, malicious twinkle. "I am grieved to find you in this condition," said her ladyship. "And I am grieved to be so found. _Mais c'est la fortune de la guerre_, and it were useless to repine. I regret that I am not in a condition to entertain your ladyship more becomingly." "You do not suffer much pain, I hope?" "None whatever now, and that's the deuce of it. While there was pain there was hope now there is neither, and here I am, left in the lurch." "While there's life one should never give up hoping." The earl made a slight grimace. "I know, and your ladyship, after your interview with Dr. Ward, doubtless knows, that there is but one thing now to look forward to. But I shall not be so ill-mannered as to be long a-dying." There was silence for a little while. The countess seated herself on a chair by the bedside. Presently the dying man said, in a musing sort of tone, "Perhaps I may fall across Cousin Charley when I get out yonder. Who knows? If we should meet, I wonder whether he will recognize me, and whether he will be sorry that he did not lend me that three thousand pounds which would have made my life such a different one. In any case I won't forget to give your ladyship's love to him." The countess moved uneasily on her chair. "It is possible that your ladyship and I may meet in the Elysian Fields before long," resumed the earl, speaking in a slow, calm way, very unusual with him. "Time flies, and none of us grow younger. I suppose they keep a list of the latest arrivals of persons of distinction. If they do, I shall not fail to consult it frequently, and look out for your ladyship's arrival." "This is terrible," muttered the countess to herself. "The man is a perfect heathen." After a little while the countess said, "If there is anything I can do for you--if there are any little wishes or commissions you would like to have attended to, I need hardly say that you may command me in any way." "You are very kind," said the earl, and then, after a moment's pause, he added, dryly--"as you have always been. But any little wants or wishes of mine will naturally receive attention at the hands of my son, Lord Shoreham." "Your son! Lord Shoreham!" gasped the countess, as she rose slowly to her feet, and drew herself up to her fullest height. "Precisely so. I am expecting him every minute. I shall be happy to introduce him to your ladyship." Words would be powerless to express a tithe of what the dowager felt. For a little while her wrath was speechless because it was too deep for utterance. Her face looked like that of some fabled witch, with its expression of concentrated venom and suppressed rage. Her head began to wag portentously, and in a little while her tongue recovered from its temporary paralysis. "A son, eh?" she cried, and her voice rose to a half-shriek. "So, then, you die as you have lived--a swindler to the last!" "No missiles from your tongue, madam, can reach me now," said the earl, with an easy smile. "I have got beyond their range. Your ladyship's cunning has overreached itself and fallen on the other side." At this moment there came a tap at the door, and the head of the nurse was intruded into the room. "Mr. Clement Fildew to see your lordship," she said, in appropriately subdued tones. "Show him in at once," said the earl, and next moment Clement entered the room. He gazed around for a moment, and then his eyes fell on the pallid, sunken face on the pillow. "Father! you here!" he cried, striding to the bedside. "They told me that I was wanted by the Earl of Loughton." "I am the Earl of Lough ton, and this"--turning to the countess--"is my son, Clement Fildew Lorrimore, otherwise Lord Shoreham." The countess stared for a moment or two into the young man's bright, handsome face, and then her hands grasped the bed as if to support herself. Turning to the earl with a grin of fiendish spite that showed the whole range of her artificial teeth, she shook a yellow claw in his face, and then, with many strange noises and gurglings under her breath, she tottered slowly from the room. Ten minutes later her horses' shoes struck fire from the pavement of the inn yard as they started on their journey to Ringwood, carrying with them the dowager, Mr. Boscombe, and Mr. Flicker, the latter of whom, for once, came in for a terrible wigging from her ladyship, for having omitted to find out that "that wretched creature" had a son in hiding. Father and son remained closeted together for upwards of an hour. Then Clement came out and summoned the nurse. The earl was tired and wanted to sleep. Clement took his hat and went for a long walk. Time and solitude were needed to enable him to familiarize his mind in some degree with the astounding news that had just been told him. Later in the day the earl sent for him again. "In a tin box," he said, "labelled with my name, and deposited at Mellish's bank, you will find all the documents necessary to enable you to prove your identity, which the other side will no doubt compel you to do before admitting your right to the title. Wellclose has instructions with respect to my will, and he will bring it in the morning to be signed and witnessed. It's not much that I have to leave you, my boy--more's the pity. Merely a few paltry hundreds, the result of one or two lucky speculations. Yours will be a barren title indeed. But if you are a wise man you will speedily alter that state of things. You will give up painting, of course. Who ever heard of an earl that painted pictures, except it were for amusement? Equally, of course, you will marry money. The exigencies of your position render that imperative. There are the two Miss Larkins--good, modest, ladylike girls, though their father was a pill doctor. Each of them will have fifteen thousand pounds when she comes of age, and, no doubt, Orlando would give another five to secure an earl for his brother-in-law. You might do worse. I'll speak to Wingfield about you to-morrow, and see whether you can't have the railway chairmanship as my successor. Marry Fanny Larkins, and stick to Wingfield there's your programme, and in a dozen years, if you play your cards well, you ought to be worth a hundred thousand pounds." To all this Clement yielded a tacit acquiescence. If his father's last hours would be rendered more easy by the thought that everything would be done in accordance with his wishes, why disturb him by urging anything to the contrary? Soon he would be where the sum of this world's troubles and anxieties is of less account than the lightest snowflake that drops through the midnight on the summit of Mont Blanc. The earl passed a restless night and was a little light-headed at times. He seemed better in the morning, and was able to see Mr. Wellclose for half an hour. During the rest of the day Clement never left him for more than a minute or two at a time. It was evident that he was growing weaker with every hour. He ceased to talk much as the afternoon advanced, but seemed content to lie with closed eyes, but not asleep, and with one of Clement's hands in his--thinking, who shall say of what? As the autumn daylight was deepening into dusk he fell asleep, and Dr. Ward, coming in about that time, pronounced it doubtful whether he would wake again. Nor, indeed, did he, to the extent of being conscious of where he was, or of recognizing those about him. By and by his mind began to wander again. At five minutes before twelve he died. His last faintly murmured words were, "Where's your hand, Kitty? I can't see you in the dark." When the earl's will came to be read it was found that he had left Clement all he had to leave, with the exception of fifty guineas to the child whose life he had saved at the expense of his own. As soon as the funeral was over--the earl being buried in the same grave with his wife--Clement went quietly back to his painting. Mr. Wingfield and Mr. Plume had proffered their services in various ways, but Clement loved his art too well to be tempted from it into the more glittering paths of financial speculation. He went back to his studio as he had left it, plain Clement Fildew. Not even to Tony Macer did he breathe a word concerning the strange things that had befallen him. He simply said that his father was dead, and that was all. Not from his lips should the world ever hear a word respecting that title which he was told he could now claim, but which he was determined utterly to abjure. Not even to Cecilia would he speak of it till they should be husband and wife. Of course, his marriage would now have to be delayed a little while. Cecilia had gained her point in this matter, but after a fashion she had never dreamed of. In those hours of trouble the white wings of her love seemed to fold Clement more closely round than they had ever done before. Mr. Slingsby Boscombe took an early opportunity of putting a number of questions to Mr. Flicker respecting the earl and his son. Of the latter individual the lawyer knew absolutely nothing. He had been as much astounded to hear of the existence of such a person as the countess had been, and he blamed himself severely for having allowed himself to be so thoroughly duped by the earl's plausible, off-handed assumption that he had never been anything but a bachelor. With regard to the earl he told Slingsby pretty nearly all that he knew. One morning, about three weeks after the funeral, Clement was surprised at his studio by a visit from Mr. Boscombe. The latter, acting on the information given him by Flicker, had gone in the first instance to the Brown Bear, and had there ascertained Mr. Fildew's late address. From Hayfield Street he had been directed to Clement's lodgings, and from there to the studio. "I was awfully sorry not to have met you at Brimley, but the dowager carried me off by main force," said Slingsby, after shaking hands heartily with Clem, and condoling with him on his loss. "I hope you won't for one moment think that I bear you the slightest ill-will on account of losing the title. I assure you that I care nothing for it. I take no interest in politics. I am not cut out for shining in society. All I ask for is a little den in the country, with a big garden, a horse or two, plenty of fishing, and a few friends whose tastes are something like my own." "I wish with all my heart that the title were yours," said Clem. "It is a useless acquisition, as far as I am concerned." "But you are not going to let it remain in abeyance, I hope?" "I certainly am. What has a poor painter to do with titles? My only ambition is to be known by my works." Then, little by little, and with considerable hesitation and stammering, the real object of Slingsby's visit was made apparent. He wanted Clement to share with him the income which, as soon as he should be twenty-five years old, would begin to accrue to him from the Loughton property, in accordance with the will of the last earl but one. "Such a will ought never to have been made," said Slingsby, "unless it had first been ascertained beyond doubt that there was no direct heir in existence. So, with your permission, we will divide the money between us, and even then I shall have more than I shall know what to do with." Clement, of course, would agree to no such proposition. The world should know him only as Clement Fildew, a painter of pictures for his daily bread. Slingsby was evidently much disappointed. Finding all his arguments of no avail, he rose to go but, before leaving, he took a glance round the room at the various canvases, finished and unfinished, some of them Clem's and some Tony Macer's, that were either stretched on the easels or hanging on the walls. Over the fireplace hung a little sketch in crayons of two female heads. "I ought to know those faces," said Slingsby, as soon as his eyes lighted on the sketch. "One of them is the likeness of my cousin Cecilia, and the other that of her friend, Miss Browne." "Yes. I had the honor of painting Miss Collumpton's portrait--and also that of Miss Browne." The tell-tale color rushed to Clement's face as he finished speaking. Slingsby, slow of apprehension in some things, did not fail to notice this. "Here's a romance!" he muttered to himself. "I verily believe our friend the earl has fallen in love with the stately Mora. Just the kind of girl to take a painter's eye." "If it would not be looked upon as an intrusion," said Slingsby, as he stood for a moment with Clement's hand in his, "I should like to bring a couple of friends of mine to-morrow morning to see one or two of the things you have here." "I shall be very pleased to see both you and your friends," said Clement, heartily. A little before noon next day Slingsby, Cecilia, and Mora alighted at the door of Clement's studio. Slingsby had got the girls to promise overnight that they would go with him next morning, to see some pictures, painted by a friend of his, which he was very anxious they should not miss. Absorbed in conversation, neither Cecilia nor Mora noticed in which direction they were being driven, and it was not till the brougham drew up that they discovered where they were. They interchanged looks of consternation which were not lost on Slingsby. "This is Mr. Fildew's studio," said Cecilia. "We have been here before." "I am quite aware of that," answered Slingsby. "But since you were here last Mr. Fildew has painted a really remarkable picture, which I am very anxious that you should see." After this there was nothing for it but to make their way to the studio, and leave the result to the chapter of accidents. As they entered the room Clement put down his brush and palette and came forward to greet them. But, before any one else had time to say a word, Slingsby burst in. "Permit me to have the honor of introducing you to the Earl of Loughton," he said. "Your lordship has met these ladies before. My cousin, Miss Collumpton: Miss Browne." "The Earl of Loughton!" exclaimed both ladies, in a breath. "Miss Collumpton! Miss Browne!" gasped Clement, as he gripped Slingsby by the arm. "You are mistaken. This is Miss Collumpton, and this"--taking Cecilia by the hand--"is Miss Browne, whom, now that you have told her something which I did not intend her to know for a long time to come, I beg to introduce to you as my promised wife." In speechless bewilderment Slingsby stared from one to the other. Twice he strove to speak, but words failed him. Cecilia and Mora, too, were like people lost in a maze, while on Clement's face there was a look of fatuity such as no one had ever seen there before. And so the curtain falls, and our little tragi-comedy comes to an end. Clement and Cecilia were married the following spring, when the woodland ways were all aglow with bursting buds and delicate blooms. After the wedding they set out for Italy, which Clement had long been desirous of visiting for artistic purposes. His brush and palette are still as dear to him as ever they were, and Cecilia does not wish it otherwise. He still paints under his old name of Clement Fildew, and in the Republic of Art he is known by no other. The Dowager Countess of Loughton shut her doors inexorably against the new earl and his wife. She vowed that she would never see Cecilia again, and she kept her word. She died in the winter following her niece's marriage, and bequeathed all she was possessed of to Mr. Boscombe. She died in ignorance of Slingsby's marriage, otherwise she would probably have altered her will at the last moment. Slingsby lives the life of a quiet country gentleman, and in it he finds his happiness. He is lord-lieutenant of his county, but beyond that he has no ambition, political or otherwise. He has a large family and a large estate. He is a pattern husband, an excellent father, and the best angler within twenty miles of his house. He has also some capital shooting, which his friends do not fail to appreciate. Miss Browne succeeded in the ambition of her life: slow, steady patience such as hers generally does succeed in the long run. A rich iron-master saw her, approved of her, proposed, and was accepted. Mora lives at a splendid place in Wales, and is happy in her cold, stately, unsympathetic way. It is to be hoped that her husband, who is said by some people to have married her for love, is equally satisfied. Tony Macer now writes A.R.A. after his name, and the dignity will lose nothing at his hands. He is still a bachelor, and likely to remain one. His house in St. John's Wood is presided over by a lame sister, and has a crowd of poor relations perpetually hovering round it but Tony is never so happy as when doing a kindness to some one. He and "Clement Fildew" are as great chums as ever they were, and smoke many a "short gun" together over their talk of days gone by, and the pictures they hope to paint in days to come. Mr. Macer's portrait of Lady Loughton in last year's Academy was one of the hits of the season. THE END. 
35393	----	THE REVELLERS BY LOUIS TRACY AUTHOR OF "THE WINGS OF THE MORNING," "THE POSTMASTER'S DAUGHTER," ETC., ETC. NEW YORK EDWARD J. CLODE Copyright, 1917, by EDWARD J. CLODE All rights reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA _By_ LOUIS TRACY THE WINGS OF THE MORNING THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS THE WHEEL O' FORTUNE A SON OF THE IMMORTALS CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR THE MESSAGE THE STOWAWAY THE PILLAR OF LIGHT THE SILENT BARRIER THE "MIND THE PAINT" GIRL ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT THE TERMS OF SURRENDER FLOWER OF THE GORSE THE RED YEAR THE GREAT MOGUL MIRABEL'S ISLAND THE DAY OF WRATH HIS UNKNOWN WIFE THE POSTMASTER'S DAUGHTER THE REVELLERS CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. QUESTIONINGS 1 II. STRANGERS, INDEED 13 III. THE SEEDS OF MISCHIEF 27 IV. THE FEAST 40 V. "IT IS THE FIRST STEP THAT COUNTS" 55 VI. WHEREIN THE RED BLOOD FLOWS 71 VII. GEORGE PICKERING PLAYS THE MAN 88 VIII. SHOWING HOW MARTIN'S HORIZON WIDENS 100 IX. THE WILDCAT 115 X. DEEPENING SHADOWS 128 XI. FOR ONE, THE NIGHT; FOR ANOTHER, THE DAWN 140 XII. A FRIENDLY ARGUMENT 153 XIII. A DYING DEPOSITION 172 XIV. THE STORM 190 XV. THE UNWRITTEN LAW 206 XVI. UNDERCURRENTS 225 XVII. TWO MOORLAND EPISODES 243 XVIII. THE SEVEN FULL YEARS 272 XIX. OUT OF THE MISTS 292 XX. THE RIGOR OF THE GAME 307 XXI. NEARING THE END 323 CHAPTER I QUESTIONINGS "And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" The voice of the reader was strident, his utterance uneven, his diction illiterate. Yet he concluded the 18th chapter of the second Book of Samuel with an unctuous force born of long familiarity with the text. His laborious drone revealed no consciousness of the humanism of the Jewish King. To suggest that the Bible contained a mine of literature, a series of stories of surpassing interest, portraying as truthfully the lives of the men and women of to-day as of the nomad race which a personal God led through the wilderness, would have provoked from this man's mouth a sluggish flood of protest. The slow-moving lips, set tight after each syllabic struggle, the shaggy eyebrows overhanging horn-rimmed spectacles, the beetling forehead and bull-like head sunk between massive shoulders, the very clutch of the big hands on the Bible held stiffly at a distance, bespoke a triumphant dogmatism that found as little actuality in the heartbroken cry of David as in a description of a seven-branched candlestick. The boy who listened wondered why people should "think such a lot about" high priests and kings who died so long ago. David was interesting enough as a youth. The slaying of Goliath, the charming of Saul with sweet music on a harp, appealed to the vivid, if unformed, imagination of fourteen. But the temptation of the man, the splendid efforts of the monarch to rule a peevish people--these were lost on him. Worse, they wearied him, because, as it happened, he had a reasoning brain. He refused to credit all that he heard. It was hard to believe that any man's hair could catch in an oak so that he should be lifted up between heaven and earth, merely because he rode beneath the tree on the back of a mule. This sounded like the language of exaggeration, and sturdy little Martin Court Bolland hated exaggeration. Again, he took the winged words literally, and the ease with which David saw, heard, spoke to the Lord was disturbing. Such things were manifestly impossible if David resembled other men, and that there were similarities between the ruler of Israel and certain male inhabitants of Elmsdale was suggested by numberless episodes of the very human history writ in the Book of Kings. "The Lord" was a terrific personality to Martin--a personality seated on thunder-cloud, of which the upper rim of gold and silver, shining gloriously against a cerulean sky, was Heaven, and the sullen blackness beneath, from which thunder bellowed and lightning flashed, was Hell. How could a mere man, one who pursued women like a too susceptible plowman, one who "smote" his fellows, and "kissed" them, and ate with them, hold instant communion with the tremendous Unseen, the ruler of sun and storm, the mover of worlds? "David inquired of the Lord"; "David said to the Lord"; "The Lord answered unto David"--these phrases tortured a busy intelligence, and caused the big brown eyes to flash restlessly toward the distant hills, while quick ears and retentive brain paid close heed to the text. For it was the word, not the spirit, that John Bolland insisted on. The boy knew too well the penalty of forgetfulness. During half an hour, from five o'clock each day, he was led drearily through the Sacred Book; if he failed to answer correctly the five minutes' questioning which followed, the lesson was repeated, verse for verse, again, and yet again, as a punishment. At half-past four o'clock the high tea of a north-country farmhouse was served. Then the huge Bible was produced solemnly, and no stress of circumstances, no temporary call of other business, was permitted to interfere with this daily task. At times, Bolland would be absent at fairs or detained in some distant portion of the farm. But Martin's "portion of the Scriptures" would be marked for careful reading, and severe corporal chastisement corrected any negligence. Such was the old farmer's mania in this regard that his portly, kind-hearted wife became as strict as John himself in supervising the boy's lesson, merely because she dreaded the scene that would follow the slightest lapse. So Martin could answer glibly that Ahimaaz was the son of Zadok and that Joab plunged three darts into Absalom's heart while the scapegrace dangled from the oak. Of the love that David bore his son, of the statecraft that impelled a servant of Israel to slay the disturber of the national peace, there was never a hint. Bolland's stark Gospel was harshly definite. There was no channel in his gnarled soul for the turbulent life-stream flowing through the ancient text. The cold-blooded murder of Absalom, it is true, induced in the boy's mind a certain degree of belief in the narrative, a belief somewhat strained by the manner of Absalom's capture. Through his brain danced a _tableau vivant_ of the scene in the wood. He saw the gayly caparisoned mule gallop madly away, leaving its rider struggling with desperate arms to free his hair from the rough grasp of the oak. Then, through the trees came a startled man-at-arms, who ran back and brought one other, a stately warrior in accouterments that shone like silver. A squabble arose between them as to the exact nature of the King's order concerning this same Absalom, but it was speedily determined by the leader, Joab, snatching three arrows from the soldier's quiver and plunging them viciously, one after the other, into the breast of the man hanging between the heaven and the earth. Martin wondered if Absalom spoke to Joab. Did he cry for mercy? Did his eyes glare awfully at his relentless foe? Did he squeal pitiful gibberish like Tom Chandler did when he chopped off his fingers in the hay-cutter? How beastly it must be to be suspended by your own hair, and see a man come forward with three barbed darts which he sticks into your palpitating bosom, probably cursing you the while! And then appeared from the depths of the wood ten young men, who behaved like cowardly savages, for they hacked the poor corpse with sword and spear, and made mock of a gallant if erring soldier who would have slain them all if he met them on equal terms. This was the picture that flitted before the boy's eyes, and for one instant his tongue forgot its habitual restraint. "Father," he said, "why didn't David ask God to save his son, if he wished him to live?" "Nay, lad, I doan't knoä. You mun listen te what's written i' t' Book--no more an' no less. I doan't ho'd wi' their commentaries an' explanations, an' what oor passon calls anilitical disquisitions. Tak' t' Word as it stands. That's all 'at any man wants." Now, be it observed that the boy used good English, whereas the man spoke in the broad dialect of the dales. Moreover, Bolland, an out-and-out Dissenter, was clannish enough to speak of "our" parson, meaning thereby the vicar of the parish, a gentleman whom he held at arm's length in politics and religion. The latter discrepancy was a mere village colloquialism; the other--the marked difference between father and son--was startling, not alone by reason of their varying speech, but by the queer contrast they offered in manners and appearance. Bolland was a typical yeoman of the moor edge, a tall, strong man, twisted and bent like the oak which betrayed Absalom, slow in his movements, heavy of foot, and clothed in brown corduroy which resembled curiously the weatherbeaten bark of a tree. There was a rugged dignity in his bearded face, and the huge spectacles he had now pushed high up on his forehead lent a semblance of greater age than he could lay claim to. Yet was he a lineal descendant of Gurth, the swineherd, Gurth, uncouth and unidealized. The boy, a sturdy, country-built youngster in figure and attire, had a face of much promise. His brow was lofty and open, his mouth firm and well formed, his eyes fearless, if a trifle dreamy at times. His hands, too, were not those of a farmer's son. Strong they were and scarred with much use, but the fingers tapered elegantly, and the thumbs were long and straight. Certainly, the heavy-browed farmer, with his drooping nether lip and clumsy spatulate digits, had not bequeathed these bucolic attributes to his son. As they sat there, in the cheerful kitchen where the sunbeams fell on sanded floor and danced on the burnished contents of a full "dresser," they presented a dissimilarity that was an outrage on heredity. Usually, the reading ended, Martin effaced himself by way of the back door. Thence, through a garden orchard that skirted the farmyard, he would run across a meadow, jump two hedges into the lane which led back to the village street, and so reach the green where the children played after school hours. He was forced early to practice a degree of dissimulation. Though he hated a lie, he at least acted a reverent appreciation of the chapter just perused. His boyish impulses lay with the cricketers, the minnow-catchers, the players of prisoner's base, the joyous patrons of well-worn "pitch" and gurgling brook. But he knew that the slightest indication of grudging this daily half-hour would mean the confiscation of the free romp until supper-time at half-past eight. So he paid heed to the lesson, and won high praise from his preceptor in the oft-expressed opinion: "Martin will make a rare man i' time." To-day he did not hurry away as usual. For one reason, he was going with a gamekeeper to see some ferreting at six o'clock, and there was plenty of time; for another, it thrilled him to find that there were episodes in the Bible quite as exciting as any in the pages of "The Scalp-Hunters," a forbidden work now hidden with others in the store of dried bracken at the back of the cow-byre. So he said rather carelessly: "I wonder if he kicked?" "You wunner if wheä kicked?" came the slow response. "Absalom, when Joab stabbed him. The other day, when the pigs were killed, they all kicked like mad." Bolland laid down the Bible and glanced at Martin with a puzzled air. He was not annoyed or even surprised at the unlooked-for deduction. It had simply never occurred to him that one might read the Bible and construct actualities from the plain-spoken text. "Hoo div' I knoä?" he said calmly; "it says nowt about it i' t' chapter." Then Martin awoke with a start. He saw how nearly he had betrayed himself a second time, how ready were the lips to utter ungoverned thoughts. He flushed slightly. "Is that all for to-day, father?" he said. Before Bolland could answer, there came a knock at the door. "See wheä that is," said the farmer, readjusting his spectacles. A big, hearty-looking young man entered. He wore clothes of a sporting cut and carried a hunting-crop, with the long lash gathered in his fingers. "Oah, it's you, is it, Mr. Pickerin'?" said Bolland, and Martin's quick ears caught a note of restraint, almost of hostility, in the question. "Yes, Mr. Bolland, an' how are ye?" was the more friendly greeting. "I just dropped in to have a settlement about that beast." "A sattlement! What soart o' sattlement?" The visitor sat down, uninvited, and produced some papers from his pocket. "Well, Mr. Bolland," he said quietly, "it's not more'n four months since I gave you sixty pounds for a thoroughbred shorthorn, supposed to be in calf to Bainesse Boy the Third." "Right enough, Mr. Pickerin'. You've gotten t' certificates and t' receipt for t' stud fee." Martin detected the latent animosity in both voices. The reiterated use of the prefix "Mr." was an exaggerated politeness that boded a dispute. "Receipts, certificates!" cried Pickering testily. "What good are they to me? She cannot carry a calf. For all the use I can make of her, I might as well have thrown the money in the fire." "Eh, but she's a well-bred 'un," said Bolland, with sapient head-shake. "She might be a first-prize winner at the Royal by her shape and markings; but, as matters stand, she'll bring only fifteen pounds from a butcher. I stand to lose forty-five pounds by the bargain." "You canna fly i' t' feäce o' Providence, Mr. Pickerin'." "Providence has little to do with it, I fancy. I can sell her to somebody else, if I like to work a swindle with her. I had my doubts at the time that she was too cheap." John Bolland rose. His red face was dusky with anger, and it sent a pang through Martin's heart to see something of fear there, too. "Noo, what are ye drivin' at?" he growled, speaking with ominous calmness. "You know well enough," came the straight answer. "The poor thing has something wrong with her, and she will never hold a calf. Look here, Bolland, meet me fairly in the matter. Either give me back twenty pounds, and we'll cry 'quits,' or sell me another next spring at the same price, and I'll take my luck." Perhaps this _via media_ might have been adopted had it presented itself earlier. But the word "swindle" stuck in the farmer's throat, and he sank back into his chair. "Nay, nay," he said. "A bargain's a bargain. You've gotten t' papers----" It was the buyer's turn to rise. "To the devil with you and your papers!" he shouted. "Do you think I came here without making sure of my facts? Twice has this cow been in calf in your byre, and each time she missed. You knew her failing, and sold her under false pretenses. Of course, I cannot prove it, or I would have the law of you; but I did think you would act squarely." For some reason the elder Bolland was in a towering rage. Martin had never before seen him so angry, and the boy was perplexed by the knowledge that what Pickering said was quite true. "I'll not be sworn at nor threatened wi' t' law in my own house," bellowed the farmer. "Get out! Look tiv' your own business an' leave me te follow mine." Pickering, too, was in a mighty temper. He took a half stride forward and shook out the thong of the whip. "You psalm-singing humbug!" he thundered. "If you were a younger man----" Martin jumped between them; his right hand clenched a heavy kitchen poker. Pickering half turned to the door with a bitter laugh. "All right, my young cub!" he shouted. "I'm not such a fool, thank goodness, as to make bad worse. It's lucky for you, boy, that you are not of the same kidney as that old ranter there. Catch me ever having more to do with any of his breed." "An' what affair is it of yours, Mr. Pickerin', who the boy belongs to? If all tales be true, _you_ can't afford to throw stones at other folks's glass houses!" Mrs. Bolland, stout, hooded, aproned, and fiery red in face, had come from the dairy, and now took a hand in the argument. Pickering, annoyed at the unlooked-for presence of a woman, said sternly: "Talk to your husband, not to me, ma'am. He wronged me by getting three times the value for a useless beast, and if you can convince him that he took an unfair advantage, I'm willing, even now----" But Mrs. Bolland had caught the flicker of amazement in Martin's eye and was not to be mollified. "Who are you, I'd like to know?" she shrilled, "coomin' te one's house an' scandalizin' us? A nice thing, to be sure, for a man like you to call John Bolland a wrongdoer. The cow won't calve, won't she? 'Tis a dispensation on you, George Pickerin'. You're payin' for yer own misdeeds. There's plenty i' Elmsdale wheä ken your char-ak-ter, let me tell you that. What's become o' Betsy Thwaites?" But Pickering had resigned the contest. He was striding toward the "Black Lion," where a dogcart awaited him, and he laughed to himself as the flood of vituperation swelled from the door of the farm. "Gad!" he muttered, "how these women must cackle in the market! One old cow is hardly worth so much fuss!" Still smiling at the storm he had raised, he gathered the reins, gave Fred, the ostler, a sixpence, and would have driven off had he not seen a pretty serving-maid gazing out through an upper window. Her face looked familiar. "Hello!" he cried. "You and I know each other, don't we?" "No, we doan't; an' we're not likely to," was the pert reply. "Eh, my! What have I done now?" "Nowt to me, but my sister is Betsy Thwaites." "The deuce she is! Betsy isn't half as nice-looking as you." "More shame on you that says it." "But, my dear girl, one should tell the truth and shame the devil." "Just listen to him!" Yet the window was raised a little higher, and the girl leaned out, for Pickering was a handsome man, with a tremendous reputation for gallantry of a somewhat pronounced type. Fred, the stable help, struck the cob smartly with his open hand. Pickering swore, and bade him leave the mare alone and be off. "I was sorry for Betsy," he said, when the prancing pony was quieted, "but she and I agreed to differ. I got her a place at Hereford, and hope she'll be married soon." "You'll get me no place at Hereford, Mr. Pickerin'"--this with a coquettish toss of the head. "Of course not. When is the feast here?" "Next Monday it starts." "Very well. Good-by. I'll see you on Monday." He blew her a kiss, and she laughed. As the smart turnout rattled through the village she looked after him. "Betsy always did say he was such a man," she murmured. "I'll smack his feäce, though, if he comes near me a-Monday." And Fred, leaning sulkily over the yard gate, spat viciously on Pickering's sixpence. "Coomin' here for t' feäst, is he?" he growled. "Happen he'd better bide i' Nottonby." CHAPTER II STRANGERS, INDEED Pickering left ruffled breasts behind him. The big farm in the center of the village was known as the White House, and had been owned by a Bolland since there were Bollands in the county. It was perched on a bank that rose steeply some twenty feet or more from the main road. Cartways of stiff gradient led down to the thoroughfare on either hand. A strong retaining wall, crowned with gooseberry bushes, marked the confines of the garden, which adjoined a row of cottages tenanted by laborers. Then came the White House itself, thatched, cleanly, comfortable-looking; beyond it, all fronting on the road, were stables and outbuildings. Behind lay the remainder of the kitchen garden and an orchard, backed by a strip of meadowland that climbed rapidly toward the free moor with its whins and heather--a far-flung range of mountain given over to grouse and hardy sheep, and cleft by tiny ravines of exceeding beauty. Across the village street stood some modern iron-roofed buildings, where Bolland kept his prize stock, and here was situated the real approach to the couple of hundred acres of rich arable land which he farmed. The house and rear pastures were his own; he rented the rest. Of late years he had ceased to grow grain, save for the limited purposes of his stock, and had gone in more and more for pedigree cattle. Pickering's words had hurt him sorely, since they held an element of truth. The actual facts were these: One of his best cows had injured herself by jumping a fence, and a calf was born prematurely. Oddly enough, a similar accident had occurred the following year. On the third occasion, when the animal was mated with Bainesse Boy III, Bolland thought it best not to tempt fortune again, but sold her for something less than the enhanced value which the circumstances warranted. From a similar dam and the same sire he bred a yearling bull which realized £250, or nearly the rent of his holding, so Pickering had really overstated his case, making no allowance for the lottery of stock-raising. The third calf might have been normal and of great value. It was not. Bolland suspected the probable outcome and had acted accordingly. It was the charge of premeditated unfairness that rankled and caused him such heart-burning. When Mrs. Bolland, turkey-red in face, and with eyes still glinting fire, came in and slammed the door, she told Martin, angrily, to be off, and not stand there with his ears cocked like a terrier's. The boy went out. He did not follow his accustomed track. He hesitated whether or not to go rabbiting. Although far too young to attach serious import to the innuendoes he had heard, he could not help wondering what Pickering meant by that ironical congratulation on the subject of his paternity. His mother, too, had not repelled the charge directly, but had gone out of her way to heap counter-abuse on the vilifier. It was odd, to say the least of it, and he found himself wishing heartily that either the unfortunate cow had not been sold or that his father had met Mr. Pickering's protests more reasonably. A whistle came from the lane that led up to the moor. Perched on a gate was a white-headed urchin. "Aren't ye coomin' te t' green?" was his cry, seeing that Martin heard him. "Not this evening, thanks." "Oah, coom on. They're playin' tig, an' none of 'em can ketch Jim Bates." That settled it. Jim Bates's pride must be lowered, and ferrets were forgotten. But Jim Bates had his revenge. If he could not run as fast as Martin, he made an excellent pawn in the hands of fortune. Had the boy gone to the rabbit warren, he would not have seen the village again until after eight o'clock, and, possibly, the current of his life might have entered a different runnel. In the event, however, he was sauntering up the village street, when he encountered a lady and a little girl, accompanied by a woman whose dress reminded him of nuns seen in pictures. The three were complete strangers, and although Martin was unusually well-mannered for one reared in a remote Yorkshire hamlet, he could not help staring at them fixedly. The Normandy nurse alone was enough to draw the eyes of the whole village, and Martin knew well it was owing to mere chance that a crowd of children was not following her already. The lady was tall and of stately carriage. She was dressed quietly, but in excellent taste. Her very full face looked remarkably pink, and her large blue eyes stared out of puffy sockets. Beyond these unfavorable details, she was a handsome woman, and the boy thought vaguely that she must have motored over from the castle midway between Elmsdale and the nearest market town of Nottonby. Yet it was on the child that his wondering gaze dwelt longest. She looked about ten years old. Her elfin face was enshrined in jet-black hair, and two big bright eyes glanced inquiringly at him from the depths of a wide-brimmed, flowered-covered hat. A broad blue sash girdled her white linen dress; the starched skirts stood out like the frills of a ballet dancer. Her shapely legs were bare from above the knees, and her tiny feet were encased in sandals. At Trouville she would be pronounced "sweet" by enthusiastic admirers of French fashion, but in a north-country village she was absurdly out of place. Nevertheless, being a remarkably self-possessed little maiden, she returned with interest Martin's covert scrutiny. He would have passed on, but the lady lifted a pair of mounted eyeglasses and spoke to him. "Boy," she said in a flute-like voice, "can you tell me which is the White House?" Martin's cap flew off. "Yes, ma'am," he said, pointing. "That is it. I live there." "Oh, indeed. And what is your name?" "Martin Court Bolland, ma'am." "What an odd name. Why were you christened Martin Court?" "I really don't know, ma'am. I didn't bother about it at the time, and since then have never troubled to inquire." Now, to be candid, Martin did not throw off this retort spontaneously. It was a little effusion built up through the years, the product of frequent necessity to answer the question. But the lady took it as a coruscation of rustic wit, and laughed. She turned to the nurse: "Il m'a rendu la monnaie de ma pièce, Françoise." "J'en suis bien sûr, madame, mais qu'est-ce qu'il a dit?" said the nurse. The other translated rapidly, and the nurse grinned. "Ah, il est naïf, le petit," she commented. "Et très gentil." "Oh, maman," chimed in the child, "je serais heureuse si vous vouliez me permettre de jouer avec ce joli garçon." "Attendez, ma belle. Pas si vite.... Now, Martin Court, take me to your mother." Not knowing exactly what to do with his cap, the boy had kept it in his hand. The foregoing conversation was, of course, so much Greek in his ears. He realized that they were talking about him, and was fully alive to the girl's demure admiration. The English words came with the more surprise, seeing that they followed so quickly on some remark in an unknown tongue. He led the way at once, hoping that his mother had regained her normal condition of busy cheerfulness. Silence reigned in the front kitchen when he pressed the latch. The room was empty, but the clank of pattens in the yard revealed that the farmer's thrifty wife was sparing her skirts from the dirt while she crossed to the pig tub with a pailful of garbage. "Will you take a seat, ma'am?" said Martin politely. "I'll tell mother you are here." With a slight awkwardness he pulled three oaken chairs from the serried rank they occupied along the wall beneath the high-silled windows. Feeling all eyes fixed on him quizzically, he blushed. "Ah, v'là le p'tit. Il rougit!" laughed the nurse. "Don't tease him, nurse!" cried the child in English. "He is a nice boy. I like him." Clearly this was for Martin's benefit. Already the young lady was a coquette. Mrs. Bolland, hearing there were "ladies" to visit her, entered with trepidation. She expected to meet the vicar's aunt and one of that lady's friends. In a moment of weakness she had consented to take charge of the refreshment stall at a forthcoming bazaar in aid of certain church funds. But Bolland was told that the incumbent was adopting ritualistic practices, so he sternly forbade his better half to render any assistance whatsoever. The Established Church was bad enough; it was a positive scandal to introduce into the service aught that savored of Rome. Poor Mrs. Bolland therefore racked her brain for a reasonable excuse as she crossed the yard, and it is not to be wondered at if she was struck almost dumb with surprise at sight of the strangers. "Are you Mrs. Bolland?" asked the lady, without rising, and surveying her through the eyeglasses with head tilted back. "Yes, ma'am." "Ah. Exactly. I--er--am staying at The Elms for some few weeks, and the people there recommended you as supplying excellent dairy produce. I am--er--exceedingly particular about butter and milk, as my little girl is so delicate. Have you any objection to allowing me to inspect your dairy? I may add that I will pay you well for all that I order." The lady's accent, no less than the even flow of her words, joined to unpreparedness for such fashionable visitors, temporarily bereft Mrs. Bolland of a quick, if limited, understanding. "Did ye say ye wanted soom bootermilk?" she cried vacantly. "No, mother," interrupted Martin anxiously. For the first time in his life he was aware of a hot and uncomfortable feeling that his mother was manifestly inferior to certain other people in the world. "The lady wishes to see the dairy." "Why?" "She wants to buy things from you, and--er--I suppose she would like to see what sort of place we keep them in." No manner of explanation could have restored Mrs. Bolland's normal senses so speedily as the slightest hint that uncleanliness could harbor its microbes in her house. "My goodness, ma'am," she cried, "wheä's bin tellin' you that my pleäce hez owt wrong wi't?" Now it was the stranger's turn to appeal to Martin, and the boy showed his mettle by telling his mother, in exact detail, the request made by the lady and her reference to the fragile-looking child. Mrs. Bolland's wrath subsided, and her lips widened in a smile. "Oah, if that's all," she said, "coom on, ma'am, an' welcome. Ye canna be too careful about sike things, an' yer little lass do look pukey, te be sure." The lady, gathering her skirts for the perilous passage of the yard, followed the farmer's wife. Martin and the girl sat and stared at each other. She it was who began the conversation. "Have you lived here long?" she said. "All my life," he answered. Pretty and well-dressed as she was, he had no dread of her. He regarded girls as spiteful creatures who scratched one another like cats when angry and shrieked hysterically when they played. "That's not very long," she cried. "No; but it's longer than you've lived anywhere else." "Me! I have lived everywhere--in London, Berlin, Paris, Nice, Montreux--O, je ne sais--I beg your pardon. Perhaps you don't speak French?" "No." "Would you like to learn?" "Yes, very much." "I'll teach you. It will be such fun. I know all sorts of naughty words. I learnt them in Monte Carlo, where I could hear the servants chattering when I was put to bed. Watch me wake up nurse. Françoise, mon chou! Cré nom d'un pipe, mais que vous êtes triste aujourd'hui!" The _bonne_ started. She shook the child angrily. "You wicked girl!" she cried in French. "If madame heard you, she would blame me." The imp cuddled her bare knees in a paroxysm of glee. "You see," she shrilled. "I told you so." "Was all that swearing?" demanded Martin gravely. "Some of it." "Then you shouldn't do it. If I were your brother, I'd hammer you." "Oh, would you, indeed! I'd like to see any boy lay a finger on me. I'd tear his hair out by the roots." Naturally, the talk languished for a while, until Martin thought he had perhaps been rude in speaking so brusquely. "I'm sorry if I offended you," he said. The saucy, wide-open eyes sparkled. "I forgive you," she said. "How old are you?" "Fourteen. And you?" "Twelve." He was surprised. "I thought you were younger," he said. "So does everybody. You see, I'm tiny, and mamma dresses me in this baby way. I don't mind. I know your name. You haven't asked me mine." "Tell me," he said with a smile. "Angèle. Angèle Saumarez." "I'll never be able to say that," he protested. "Oh, yes, you will. It's quite easy. It sounds Frenchy, but I am English, except in my ways, mother says. Now try. Say 'An'----" "Ang----" "Not so much through your nose. This way--'An-gèle.'" The next effort was better, but tuition halted abruptly when Martin discovered that Angèle's mother, instead of being "Mrs. Saumarez," was "the Baroness Irma von Edelstein." "Oh, crikey!" he blurted out. "How can that be?" Angèle laughed at his blank astonishment. "Mamma is a German baroness," she explained. "My papa was a colonel in the British army, but mamma did not lose her courtesy title when she married. Of course, she is Mrs. Saumarez, too." These subtleties of Burke and the Almanach de Gotha went over Martin's head. "It sounds a bit like an entry in a stock catalogue," he said. Angèle, in turn, was befogged, but saw instantly that the village youth was not sufficiently reverent to the claims of rank. "You can never be a gentleman unless you learn these things," she announced airily. "You don't say," retorted Martin with a smile. He was really far more intelligent than this pert monitress, and had detected a curious expression on the stolid face of Françoise when the Baroness von Edelstein's name cropped up in a talk which she could not understand. The truth was that the canny Norman woman, though willing enough to take a German mistress's gold, thoroughly disliked the lady's nationality. Martin could only guess vaguely at something of the sort, but the mere guess sufficed. Angèle, however, wanted no more bickering just then. She was about to resume the lesson when the Baroness and Mrs. Bolland re-entered the house. Evidently the inspection of the dairy had been satisfactory, and the lady had signified her approval in words that pleased the older woman greatly. The visitor was delighted, too, with the old-world appearance of the kitchen, the heavy rafters with their load of hams and sides of bacon, the oaken furniture, the spotless white of the well-scrubbed ash-topped table, the solemn grandfather's clock, and the rough stone floor, over which soft red sandstone had been rubbed when wet. By this time the tact of the woman of society had accommodated her words and utterance to the limited comprehension of her hearer, and she displayed such genuine interest in the farm and its belongings that Mrs. Bolland gave her a hearty invitation to come next morning, when the light would be stronger. Then "John" would let her see his prize stock and the extensive buildings on "t' other side o' t' road.... T' kye (the cows) were fastened up for t' neet" by this time. The baroness was puzzled, but managed to catch the speaker's drift. "I do not rise very early," she said. "I breakfast about eleven"--she could not imagine what a sensation this statement caused in a house where breakfast was served never later than seven o'clock--"and it takes me an hour to dress; but I can call about twelve, if that will suit." "Ay, do, ma'am," was the cheery agreement. "You'll be able te see t' farmhands havin' their dinner. It's a fair treat te watch them men an' lads puttin' away a beefsteak pie." "And this is your little boy?" said the other, evidently inclined for gossip. "Yes, ma'am." "He is a splendid little fellow. What a nice name you gave him--Martin Court Bolland--so unusual. How came you to select his Christian names?" The question caused the farmer's wife a good deal of unnoticed embarrassment. The baroness was looking idly at an old colored print of York Castle, and the boy himself was far too taken up with Angèle to listen to the chat of his elders. Mrs. Bolland laughed confusedly. "Martin," she said. "Tak t' young leddy an' t' nurse as far as t' brig, an' show 'em t' mill." The baroness was surprised at this order, but an explanation was soon forthcoming. In her labored speech and broad dialect, the farmer's wife revealed a startling romance. Thirteen years ago her husband's brother died suddenly while attending a show at Islington, and the funeral took John and herself to London. They found the place so vast and noisy that it overwhelmed them; but in the evening, after the ceremony at Abney Park, they strolled out from their hotel near King's Cross Station to see the sights. Not knowing whither they were drifting, they found themselves, an hour later, gazing at St. Paul's Cathedral from the foot of Ludgate Hill. They were walking toward the stately edifice, when a terrible thing happened. A young woman fell, or threw herself, from a fourth-floor window onto the pavement of St. Martin's Court. In her arms was an infant, a boy twelve months old. Providence saved him from the instant death met by his mother. A projecting signboard caught his clothing, tore him from the encircling arms, and held him a precarious second until the rent frock gave way. But John Bolland's sharp eyes had noted the child's momentary escape. He sprang forward and caught the tiny body as it dropped. At that hour, nearly nine o'clock, the court was deserted, and Ludgate Hill had lost much of its daily crowd. Of course, a number of passers-by gathered; and a policeman took the names and address of the farmer and his wife, they being the only actual witnesses of the tragedy. But what was to be done with the baby? Mrs. Bolland volunteered to take care of it for the night, and the policeman was glad enough to leave it with her when he ascertained that no one in the house from which the woman fell knew anything about her save that she was a "Mrs. Martineau," and rented a furnished room beneath the attic. The inquest detained the Bollands another day in town. Police inquiries showed that the unfortunate young woman had committed suicide. A letter, stuck to a dressing-table with a hatpin, stated her intention, and that her name was not Martineau. Would the lady like to see the letter? "Oh, dear, no!" said the baroness hastily. "Your story is awfully interesting, but I could not bear to read the poor creature's words." Well, the rest was obvious. Mrs. Bolland was childless after twenty years of married life. She begged for the bairn, and her husband allowed her to adopt it. They gave the boy their own name, but christened him after the scene of his mother's death and his own miraculous escape. And there he was now, coming up the village street, leading Angèle confidently by the hand--a fine, intelligent lad, and wholly different from every other boy in the village. Not even the squire's sons equaled him in any respect, and the teacher of the village school gave him special lessons. Perhaps the lady had noticed the way he spoke. The teacher was proud of Martin's abilities, and he tried to please her by not using the Yorkshire dialect. "Ah, I see," said the baroness quietly. "His history is quite romantic. But what will he become when he grows up--a farmer, like his adopted father?" "John thinks te mak' him a minister," said Mrs. Bolland with genial pride. "A minister! Do you mean a preacher, a Nonconformist person?" "Why, yes, ma'am. John wouldn't hear of his bein' a parson." "Grand Dieu! Quelle bêtise! I beg your pardon. Of course, you will do what is best for him.... Well, ma belle, have you enjoyed your little walk?" "Oh, so much, mamma. The miller has such lovely pigs, so fat, so tight that you can't pinch them. And there's a beautiful dog, with four puppy dogs. I'm so glad we came here. J'en suis bien aise." "She's a queer little girl," said Mrs. Bolland, as Martin and she watched the party walking back to The Elms. "I couldn't tell half what she said." "No, mother," he replied. "She goes off into French without thinking, and her mother's a German baroness, who married an English officer. The nurse doesn't speak any English. I wish I knew French and German. French, at any rate." CHAPTER III THE SEEDS OF MISCHIEF Preparations for the forthcoming "Feast" were varied by gossip concerning "the baroness," her daughter, and the Normandy _bonne_. Elmsdale had never before set eyes on any human beings quite so foreign to its environment. At first, the canny Yorkshire folk were much intrigued by the lady's title. A princess or a duchess they had read of; a marchioness and a countess they had seen, because the county of broad acres finds room for a great many noble houses; and baronets' wives, each a "Lady" by perspective right, were so plentiful as to arouse no special comment. But a "baroness" was rather un-English, while Elmsdale frankly refused to pronounce her name other than "Eedelsteen." The village was ready to allude to her as "her ladyship," but was still doubtful whether or not to grant her the prefix "Lady," when the question was settled in a wholly unexpected way by the announcement that the baroness preferred to be addressed as "Mrs. Saumarez." In fact, she was rather annoyed that Angèle should have flaunted the title at all. "I am English by marriage, and proud of my husband's name," she explained. "He was a gallant officer, who fell in the Boer War, and I have long since left the use of my German rank for purely official occasions. It is no secret, of course, but Angèle should not have mentioned it." Elmsdale liked this democratic utterance. It made these blunt Yorkshire folk far readier to address her as "your ladyship" than would have been the case otherwise, and, truth to tell, she never chided them for any lapse of the sort, though, in accordance with her wish, she became generally known as Mrs. Saumarez. She rented a suite at The Elms, a once pretentious country mansion owned by a family named Walker. The males had died, the revenues had dwindled, and two elderly maiden ladies, after taking counsel with the vicar, had advertised their house in a society newspaper. Mrs. Saumarez said she was an invalid. She required rest and good air. Françoise, since Angèle had outgrown the attentions of a nurse, was employed mainly as her mistress's confidential servant. Françoise either could not or would not speak English; Mrs. Saumarez gave excellent references and no information as to her past, while Angèle's volatile reminiscences of continental society had no meaning for Elmsdale. But it was abundantly clear that Mrs. Saumarez was rich. She swept aside the arrangements made by the Misses Walker for her comfort, chose her own set of apartments, ordered things wholly her own way, and paid double the terms originally demanded. The day following her visit to the White House she descended on the chief grocer, whose shop was an emporium of many articles outside his trade, but mostly of a cheap order. "Mr. Webster," she said in her grand manner, "few of the goods you stock will meet my requirements. I prefer to deal with local tradesmen, but they must meet my wants. Now, if you are prepared to cater for me, you will not only save me the trouble of ordering supplies from London, but make some extra profit. You have proper agents, no doubt, so you must obtain everything of the best quality. You understand. I shall never grumble at the prices; but the least inferiority will lead me to withdraw my custom." It was a sore point with Mr. Webster that "the squire" dealt with the Stores. He promised implicit obedience, and wrote such instructions to Leeds, his supply town, that the wholesale house there wondered who had come to live at Elmsdale. The proprietress of the "Black Lion," hearing the golden tales that circulated through the village, dressed in her best one afternoon and called at The Elms in the hope of obtaining patronage for wines, bottled beer, and mineral waters. Mrs. Saumarez was resting. The elder Miss Walker conveyed Mrs. Atkinson's name and business. Some conversation took place between Mrs. Saumarez and Françoise, with the result that Mrs. Atkinson was instructed to supply Schweppe's soda water, but "no intoxicants." So Mrs. Saumarez was a teetotaller. The secretary of the local branch of the Good Templars donned a faded black coat and a rusty tall hat and sent in a subscription list. It came out with a guinea. The vicar was at The Elms next day. Mrs. Saumarez received him graciously and gave him a five-pound note toward the funds of the bazaar which would be opened next week. Most decidedly the lady was an acquisition. When Miss Martha Walker was enjoined by her sister, Miss Emmy, to find out how long Mrs. Saumarez intended to remain at Elmsdale--on the plausible pretext that the terms would be lowered for a monthly tenancy--she was given a curt reply. "I am a creature of moods. I may be here a day, a year. At present the place suits me. And Angèle is brimming over with health. But it is fatal if I am told I must remain a precise period anywhere. That is why I never go to Carlsbad." Miss Martha did not understand the reference to Carlsbad; but the nature of the reply stopped effectually all further curiosity as to Mrs. Saumarez's plans. It also insured unflagging service. Hardly a day passed that the newcomer did not call at the White House. She astounded John Bolland by the accuracy of her knowledge concerning stock, and annoyed him, too, by remarking that some of his land required draining. "Your lower pastures are too rank," she said. "So long as there is a succession of fine seasons it does not matter, but a wet spring and summer will trouble you. You will have fifty acres of water-sodden meadows, and nothing breeds disease more quickly." "None o' my cattle hev had a day's illness, short o' bein' a trifle overfed wi' oil cake," he said testily. "Quite so. You told me that in former years you raised wheat and oats there. I'm talking about grass." Martin and Angèle became close friends. The only children of the girl's social rank in the neighborhood were the vicar's daughter, Elsie Herbert, and the squire's two sons, Frank and Ernest Beckett-Smythe. Mr. Beckett-Smythe was a widower. He lived at the Hall, three-quarters of a mile away, and had not as yet met Mrs. Saumarez. Angèle would have nothing to do with Elsie. "I don't like her," she confided to Martin. "She doesn't care for boys, and I adore them. She's trop reglée for me." "What is that?" "Well, she holds her nose--so." Angèle tilted her head and cast down her eyes. "Of course, I don't know her, but she seems to be a nice girl," said Martin. "Why do you say, 'Of course, I don't know her'? She lives here, doesn't she?" "Yes, but my father is a farmer. She has a governess, and goes to tea at the Hall. I've met her driving from the Castle. She's above me, you see." Angèle laughed maliciously. "O là là! c'est pour rire! I'm sorry. She is--what do you say--a little snob." "No, no," protested Martin. "I think she would be very nice, if I knew her. You'll like her fine when you play with her." "Me! Play with her, so prim, so pious. I prefer Jim Bates. He winked at me yesterday." "Did he? Next time I see him I'll make it hard for him to wink." Angèle clapped her hands and pirouetted. "What," she cried, "you will fight him, and for me! What joy! It's just like a story book. You must kick him, so, and he will fall down, and I will kiss you." "I will not kick him," said the indignant Martin. "Boys don't kick in England. And I don't want to be kissed." "Don't boys kiss in England?" "Well ... anyhow, I don't." "Then we are not sweethearts. I shan't kiss you, and you must just leave Jim Bates alone." Martin was humiliated. He remained silent and angry during the next minute. By a quick turn in the conversation Angèle had placed him in a position of rivalry with another boy, one with whom she had not exchanged a word. "Look here," he said, after taking thought, "if I kiss your cheek, may I lick Jim Bates?" This magnanimous offer was received with derision. "I forbid you to do either. If you do, I'll tell your father." The child had discovered already the fear with which Martin regarded the stern, uncompromising Methodist yeoman--a fear, almost a resentment, due to Bolland's injudicious attempts to guide a mere boy into the path of serious and precise religion. Never had Martin found the daily reading of Scripture such a burden as during the past few days. The preparations for the feast, the cricket-playing, running and jumping of the boys practicing for prizes--these disturbing influences interfered sadly with the record of David's declining years. Even now, with Angèle's sarcastic laughter ringing in his ears, he was compelled to leave her and hurry to the front kitchen, where the farmer was waiting with the Bible opened. At the back door he paused and looked at her. She blew him a kiss. "Good boy!" she cried. "Mind you learn your lesson." "And mind you keep away from those cowsheds. Your nurse ought to have been here. It's tea time." "I don't want any tea. I'm going to smell the milk. I love the smell of a farmyard. Don't you? But, there! You have never smelt anything else. Every place has its own smell. Paris smells like smoky wood. London smells of beer. Here there is always the smell of cows...." "Martin!" called a harsh voice from the interior, and the boy perforce brought his wandering wits to bear on the wrongdoing of David in taking a census of the people of Israel. He read steadily through the chapter which described how a pestilence swept from Dan to Beersheba and destroyed seventy thousand men, all because David wished to know how many troops he could muster. He could hear Angèle talking to the maids and making them laugh. A caravan lumbered through the street; he caught a glimpse of carved wooden horses' heads and gilded moldings. His quick and retentive brain mastered the words of the chapter, but to-day there was no mysterious and soul-awakening glimpse of its spirit. "What did David say te t' Lord when t' angel smote t' people?" said Bolland when the moment came to question his pupil. "He said, 'Lo, I have sinned; but what have these sheep done?'" "And what sin had he deän?" "I don't know. I think the whole thing was jolly unfair." "What!" John Bolland laid down the Bible and rested both hands on the arms of the chair to steady himself. Had he heard aright? Was the boy daring to criticize the written word? But Martin's brain raced ahead of the farmer's slow-rising wrath. He trembled at the abyss into which he had almost fallen. What horror if he lost an hour on this Saturday, the Saturday before the Feast, of all days in the year! "I didn't quite mean that," he said, "but it doesn't say why it was wrong for a census to be taken, and it does say that when the angel stretched his hand over Jerusalem the Lord repented of the evil." Bolland bent again over the book. Yes, Martin was right. He was letter perfect. "It says nowt about unfairness," growled the man slowly. "No. That was my mistake." "Ye mun tak' heed ageän misteäks o' that sort. On Monday we begin t' Third Book o' Kings." So, not even the Feast would be allowed to interfere with the daily lesson. Angèle had departed with the belated Françoise. Martin, running through the orchard like a hare, doubled to the main road along the lane. In two minutes he was watching the unloading of the roundabout in front of the "Black Lion." Jim Bates was there. "Here, I want you," said Martin. "You winked at Angèle Saumarez yesterday." "Winked at wheä?" demanded Jim. "At the young lady who lives at The Elms." "Not afore she pulled a feäce at me." "Well, if you wink at her again I'll lick you." "Mebbe." "There's no 'mebbe' about it. Come down to the other end of the green now, if you think I can't." Jim Bates was no coward, but he was faced with the alternative of yielding gracefully and watching the showmen at work or risking a defeat in a needless battle. He chose the better part of valor. "It's neän o' my business," he said. "I deän't want te wink at t' young leddy." At the inn door Mrs. Atkinson's three little girls were standing with Kitty Thwaites, the housemaid. The eldest, a bonnie child, whose fair skin was covered with freckles, ran toward Martin. "Where hae ye bin all t' week?" she inquired. "Are ye always wi' that Saumarez girl?" "No." "I heerd tell she was at your pleäce all hours. What beautiful frocks she has, but I should be asheämed te show me legs like her." "That's the way she dresses," said Martin curtly. "How funny. Is she fond of you?" "How do I know?" He tried to edge away. Evelyn tossed her head. "Oh, I don't care. Why should I?" "There's no reason that I can tell." "You soon forget yer friends. On'y last Whit Monday ye bowt me a packet of chocolates." There was truth in this. Martin quitted her sheepishly. He drew near some men, one of whom was Fred, the groom, and Fred had been drinking, as a preliminary to the deeper potations of the coming week. "Ay, there she is!" he muttered, with an angry leer at Kitty. "She thinks what's good eneuf fer t' sister is good eneuf fer her. We'll see. Oad John Bollan' sent 'im away wiv a flea i' t' lug a-Tuesday. I reckon he'll hev one i' t' other ear if 'e comes after Kitty." One of the men grinned contemptuously. "Gan away!" he said. "George Pickerin' 'ud chuck you ower t' top o' t' hotel if ye said 'Booh' to 'im." But Fred, too, grinned, blinking like an owl in daylight. "Them as lives t' longest sees t' meäst," he muttered, and walked toward the stables, passing close to Kitty, who looked through him without seeing him. Suddenly there was a stir among the loiterers. Mrs. Saumarez was walking through the village with Mr. Beckett-Smythe. Behind the pair came the squire's two sons and Angèle. The great man had called on the new visitor to Elmsdale, and together they strolled forth, while he explained the festivities of the coming week, and told the lady that these "feasts" were the creation of an act of Charles II. as a protest against the Puritanism of the Commonwealth. Martin stood at the side of the road. Mrs. Saumarez did not notice him, but Angèle did. She lifted her chin and dropped her eyelids in clever burlesque of Elsie Herbert, the vicar's daughter, but ignored him otherwise. Martin was hurt, though he hardly expected to be spoken to in the presence of distinguished company. But he could not help looking after the party. Angèle turned and caught his glance. She put out her tongue. He heard a mocking laugh and knew that Evelyn Atkinson was telling her sisters of the incident, whereupon he dug his hands in his pockets and whistled. A shooting gallery was in process of erection, and its glories soon dispelled the gloom of Angèle's snub. The long tube was supported on stays, the target put in place, the gaudy front pieced together, and half a dozen rifles unpacked. The proprietor meant to earn a few honest pennies that night, and some of the men were persuaded to try their prowess. Martin was a born sportsman. He watched the competitors so keenly that Angèle returned with her youthful cavaliers without attracting his attention. Worse than that, Evelyn Atkinson, scenting the possibility of rustic intrigue, caught Martin's elbow and asked quite innocently why a bell rang if the shooter hit the bull's-eye. Proud of his knowledge, he explained that there was a hole in the iron plate, and that no bell, but a sheet of copper, was suspended in the box at the back where the lamp was. Both Angèle and Evelyn appreciated the situation exactly. The boy alone was ignorant of their tacit rivalry. Angèle pointed out Martin to the Beckett-Smythes. "He is such a nice boy," she said sweetly. "I see him every day. He can fight any boy in the village." "Hum," said the heir. "How old is he?" "Fourteen." "I am fifteen." Angèle smiled like a seraph. "Regardez-vous donc!" she said. "He could twiddle you round--so," and she spun one hand over the other. "I'd like to see him try," snorted the aristocrat. The opportunity offered itself sooner than he expected, but the purring of a high-powered car coming through the village street caused the pedestrians to draw aside. The car, a new and expensive one, was driven by a chauffeur, but held no passengers. Mr. Beckett-Smythe gazed after it reflectively. "Well, I thought I knew every car in this district," he began. "It is mine, I expect," announced Mrs. Saumarez. "I've ordered one, and it should arrive to-day. I need an automobile for an occasional long run. For pottering about the village lanes, I may buy a pony cart." "What make is your car?" inquired the Squire. "A Mercedes. I'm told it is by far the best at the price." "It's the best German car, of course, but I can hardly admit that it equals the French, or even our own leading types." "Oh, I don't profess to understand these things. I only know that my banker advised me to buy none other. He explained the matter simply enough. The German manufacturers want to get into the trade and are content to lose money for a year or so. You know how pushful they are." Beckett-Smythe saw the point clearly. He was even then hesitating between a Panhard and an Austin. He decided to wait a little longer and ascertain the facts about the Mercedes. A month later he purchased one. Mrs. Saumarez's chauffeur, a smart young mechanic from Bremen, who spoke English fluently, demonstrated that the buyer was given more than his money's worth. The amiable Briton wondered how such things could be, but was content to benefit personally. He, in time, spread the story. German cars enjoyed a year's boomlet in that part of Yorkshire. With nearly every car came a smart young chauffeur mechanic. Surely, this was wisdom personified. They knew the engine, could effect nearly all road repairs, demanded less wages than English drivers, and were always civil and reliable. "Go-ahead people, these Germans!" was the general verdict. CHAPTER IV THE FEAST An Elmsdale Sunday was a day of rest for man and beast alike. There could be no manner of doubt that the horses and dogs were able to distinguish the Sabbath from the workaday week. Prince, six-year-old Cleveland bay, the strongest and tallest horse in the stable, when his headstall was taken off on Sunday morning, showed his canny Yorkshire sense by walking past the row of carts and pushing open a rickety gate that led to a tiny meadow kept expressly for odd grazing. After him, in Indian file, went five other horses; yet, on any other day in the week they would stand patiently in the big yard, waiting to be led away singly or in pairs. Curly and Jim, the two sheep-dogs--who never failed between Monday and Saturday to yawn and stretch expectantly by the side of John Bolland's sturdy nag in the small yard near the house--on the seventh day made their way to the foreman's cottage, there attending his leisure for a scamper over the breezy moorland. For, Sunday or weekday, sheep must be counted. If any are missing, the almost preternatural intelligence of the collie is invoked to discover the hollow in which the lost ones are reposing helplessly on their backs. They will die in a few hours if not placed on their legs again. Turn over unaided they cannot. Man or dog must help, or they choke. Even the cocks and hens, the waddling geese and ducks, the huge shorthorns, which are the pride of the village, seemed to grasp the subtle distinction between life on a quiet day and the well-filled existence of the six days that had gone before. At least, Martin thought so; but he did not know then that the windows of the soul let in imageries that depend more on mood than on reality. Personally he hated Sunday, or fancied he did. He had Sunday clothes, Sunday boots, Sunday food, a Sunday face, and a Sunday conscience. Things were wrong on Sunday that were right during the rest of the week. Though the sky was as bright, the grass as green, the birds as tuneful on that day as on others, he was supposed to undergo a metamorphosis throughout all the weary waking hours. His troubles often began the moment he quitted his bed. As his "best" clothes and boots were so little worn, they naturally maintained a spick-and-span appearance during many months. Hence, he was given a fresh assortment about once a year, and the outfit possessed three distinct periods of use, of which the first tortured his mind and the third his body. He being a growing lad, the coat was made too long in the sleeves, the trousers too long in the legs, and the boots too large. At the beginning of this epoch he looked and felt ridiculous. Gradually, the effect of roast beef and suet dumplings brought about a better fit, and during four months of the year he was fairly smart in appearance. Then there came an ominous shrinkage. His wrists dangled below the coat cuffs, there was an ever-widening rim of stocking between the tops of the boots and the trousers' ends, while Mrs. Bolland began to grumble each week about the amount of darning his stockings required. Moreover, there were certain quite insurmountable difficulties in the matter of buttons, and it was with a joy tempered only by fear of the grotesque that he beheld the "best" suit given away to an urchin several sizes smaller than himself. Happily for his peace of mind, the Feast occurred in the middle stage of the current supply of raiment, so he was as presentable as a peripatetic tailor who worked in the house a fortnight at Christmas could make him. But this Sunday dragged terribly. The routine of chapel from 10:30 A.M. to noon, Sunday-school from 3 P.M. to 4:30 P.M., and chapel again from 6:30 P.M. to 8 P.M., was inevitable, but there were compensations in the whispered confidences of Jim Bates and Tommy Beadlam, the latter nicknamed "White Head," as to the nature of some of the shows. The new conditions brought into his life by Angèle Saumarez troubled him far more than he could measure. Her mere presence in the secluded village carried a breath of the unknown. Her talk was of London and Paris, of parks, theatres, casinos, luxurious automobiles, deck-cabins, and Pullman cars. She seemed to have lived so long and seen so much. Yet she knew very little. Her ceaseless chatter in French and English, which sounded so smart at first, would not endure examination. She had read nothing. When Martin spoke of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Ivanhoe," of "Treasure Island" and "The Last of the Mohicans"--a literary medley devoured for incident and not for style--she had not even heard of them, but produced for inspection an astonishingly rude colored cartoon, the French comments on which she translated literally. He was a boy aglow with dim but fervent ideals; she, a girl who had evidently been allowed to grow up almost wild in the midst of fashionable life and flippant servants, all exigencies being fulfilled when she spoke nicely and cleverly and wore her clothes with the requisite chic. The two were as opposed in essentials as an honest English apple grown in a wholesome garden and a rare orchid, the product of some poisonous equatorial swamp. He tried to interest her in the sights and sounds of country life. She met him more than halfway by putting embarrassing questions as to the habits of animals. More than once he told her plainly that there were some things little girls ought not to know, whereat she laughed scornfully, but switched the conversation to a topic on which she could vex him, as was nearly always the case in her references to Elsie Herbert or John Bolland's Bible teaching. Yet he was restless and irritable because he did not see her on the Sunday. Mrs. Saumarez, it is true, sped swiftly through the village about three o'clock, and again at half-past seven. On each occasion the particular chapel affected by the Bollands was resounding with a loud-voiced hymn or echoing the vibrant tones of a preacher powerful beyond question in the matter of lungs and dogmatism. The whir of the Mercedes shut off these sounds; but Martin heard the passing of the car and knew that Angèle was in it. It was a novel experience for the Misses Walker to find that their lodgers recognized no difference between Sunday and the rest of the week. Mrs. Saumarez dined at 6:30 P.M., a concession of an hour and a half to rural habits, but she scouted the suggestion that a cold meal should be served to enable the "girls" to go to church. The old ladies dared not quarrel with one who paid so well. They remained at home and cooked and served the dinner. As Françoise, to a large extent, waited on her mistress, this development might not have been noticed had not Angèle's quick eyes seen Miss Emmy Walker carrying a chicken and a dish of French beans to a small table in the hall. She told her mother, and Mrs. Saumarez was annoyed. She had informed Miss Martha that if the servants required a "night out," the addition of another domestic to the household at her expense would give them a good deal more liberty, but this ridiculous "Sunday-evening" notion must stop forthwith. "It gets on my nerves, this British Sabbath," she exclaimed peevishly. "In London I entertain largely on a Sunday and have never had any trouble. Do you mean to say I cannot invite guests to dinner on Sunday merely to humor a cook or a housemaid? Absurd!" Miss Martha promised reform. "Let her have her way," she said to Miss Emmy. "Another servant will have nothing to do, and all the girls will grow lazy; but we must keep Mrs. Saumarez as long as we can. Oh, if she would only remain a year, we'd be out of debt, with the house practically recarpeted throughout!" Unfortunately, Mrs. Saumarez's nerves were upset. She was snappy all the evening. Françoise tried many expedients to soothe her mistress's ruffled feelings. She brought a bundle of illustrated papers, a parcel of books, the scores of a couple of operas, even a gorgeous assortment of patterns of the new autumn dress fabrics, but each and all failed to attract. For some reason the preternaturally acute Angèle avoided her mother. She seemed to be afraid of her when in this mood. The Misses Walker, seeing the anxiety of the maid and the unwonted retreat of the child to bed at an early hour, were miserable at the thought that such a trivial matter should have given their wealthy tenant cause for dire offense. So Sunday passed irksomely, and everyone was glad when the next morning dawned in bright cheerfulness. From an early hour there was evidence in plenty that the Elmsdale Feast would be an unqualified success, though shorn of many of its ancient glories. Time was when the village used to indulge in a week's saturnalia, but the march of progress had affected rural Yorkshire even so long ago as 1906. The younger people could visit Leeds, York, Scarborough, or Whitby by Saturday afternoon "trips"--special excursion trains run at cheap rates--while "week-ends" in London were not unknown luxuries, and these frequent opportunities for change of scene and recreation had lessened the scope of the annual revels. Still, the trading instinct kept alive the commercial side of the Feast; the splendid hospitality of the north country asserted itself; church and chapels seized the chance of reaching enlarged congregations, and a number of itinerant showmen regarded Elmsdale as a fixture in the yearly round. So, on the Monday, every neighboring village and moorland hamlet poured in its quota. The people came on foot from the railway station, distant nearly two miles, on horseback, in every sort of conveyance. The roads were alive with cattle, sheep, and pigs. The programme mapped out bore a general resemblance on each of the four days. The morning was devoted to business, the afternoon and evening to religion or pleasure. The proceedings opened with a horse fair. An agent of the German Government snapped up every Cleveland bay offered for sale. George Pickering, in sporting garb, and smoking a big cigar, was an early arrival. He bid vainly for a couple of mares which he needed to complete his stud. Germany wanted them more urgently. A splendid mare, the property of John Bolland, was put up for auction. The auctioneer read her pedigree, and proved its authenticity by reference to the Stud Book. "Is she in foal?" asked Pickering, and a laugh went around. Bolland scowled blackly. If a look could have slain the younger man he would assuredly have fallen dead. The bidding commenced at £40 and rose rapidly to £60. Then Pickering lost his temper. The agent for Germany was too pertinacious. "Seventy," he shouted, though the bids hitherto had mounted by single sovereigns. "Seventy-one," said the agent. "Eighty!" roared Pickering. "Eighty-one!" nodded the agent. "The reserve is off," interposed the auctioneer, and again the surrounding farmers guffawed, as the mare had already gone to twenty pounds beyond her value. Pickering swallowed his rage with an effort. He turned to Bolland. "That's an offset for my hard words the other day," he said. But the farmer thrust aside the proffered olive branch. "Once a fule, always a fule," he growled. Pickering, though anything but a fool in business, took the ungracious remark pleasantly enough. "He ought to sing a rare hymn this afternoon," he cried. "I've put a score of extra sovereigns in his pocket, and he doesn't even say 'Thank you.' Well, it's the way of the world. Who's dry?" This invitation caused an adjournment to the "Black Lion." The auctioneer knew his clients. Pickering's allusion to the hymn was not made without knowledge. At three o'clock, on a part of the green farthest removed from the thronged stalls and the blare of a steam-driven organ, Bolland and a few other earnest spirits surrounded the stentorian preacher and held an open-air service. They selected tunes which everybody knew and, as a result, soon attracted a crowd of older people, some of whom brought their children. Martin, of course, was in the gathering. Meanwhile, along the line of booths, a couple of leather-lunged men were singing old-time ballads, dealing for the most part with sporting incidents. They soon became the centers of two packed audiences, mainly young men and boys, but containing more than a sprinkling of girls. The ditties were couched in "broad Yorkshire"--sometimes too broad for modern taste. Whenever a particularly crude stanza was bawled forth a chuckle would run through the audience, and coppers in plenty were forthcoming for printed copies of the song, which, however, usually fell short of the blunt phraseology of the original. The raucous ballad singers took risks feared by the printer. Mrs. Saumarez, leading Angèle by the hand, thought she would like to hear one of these rustic melodies, and halted. Instantly the vendor changed his cue. The lady might be the wife of a magistrate. Once he got fourteen days as a rogue and a vagabond at the instance of just such another interested spectator, who put the police in action. Quickly surfeited by the only half-understood humor of a song describing the sale of a dead horse, she wandered on, and soon came across the preacher and his lay helpers. To her surprise she saw John Bolland standing bareheaded in the front rank, and with him Martin. She had never pictured the keen-eyed, crusty old farmer in this guise. It amused her. The minister began to offer up a prayer. The men hid their faces in their hats, the women bowed reverently, and fervent ejaculations punctuated each pause in the preacher's appeal. "I do believe!" "Amen! Amen!" "Spare us, O Lord!" Mrs. Saumarez stared at the gathering with real wonderment. "C'est incroyable!" she murmured. "What are they doing, mamma?" cried Angèle, trying to guess why Martin had buried his eyes in his cap. "They are praying, dearest. It reminds one of the Covenanters. It really is very touching." "Who were the Covenanters?" "When you are older, ma belle, you will read of them in history." That was Mrs. Saumarez's way. She treated her daughter's education as a matter for governesses whom she did not employ and masters to whose control Angèle would probably never be entrusted. The two entered the White House. There they found Mrs. Bolland, radiant in a black silk dress, a bonnet trimmed with huge roses, and a velvet dolman, the wings of which were thrown back over her portly shoulders to permit her the better to press all comers to partake of her hospitality. Several women and one or two men were seated at the big table, while people were coming and going constantly. It flustered and gratified Mrs. Bolland not a little to receive such a distinguished visitor. "Eh, my leddy," she cried, "I'm glad to see ye. Will ye tek a chair? And t' young leddy, too? Will ye hev a glass o' wine?" This was the recognized formula. There was a decanter of port wine on the sideboard, but most of the visitors partook of tea or beer. One of the men drew himself a foaming tankard from a barrel in the corner. Mrs. Saumarez smiled wistfully. "No wine, thank you," she said; "but that beer looks very nice. I'll have some, if I may." Not until that moment did Mrs. Bolland remember that her guest was a reputed teetotaller. So, then, Mrs. Atkinson, proprietress of the "Black Lion," was mistaken. "That ye may, an' welcome," she said in her hearty way. Angèle murmured something in French, but her mother gave a curt answer, and the child subsided, being, perhaps, interested by the evident amazement and admiration she evoked among the country people. To-day, Angèle was dressed in a painted muslin, with hat and sash of the same material, long black silk stockings, and patent-leather shoes. She looked elegantly old-fashioned, and might have walked bodily out of one of Caran d'Ache's sketches of French society. Suddenly she bounced up like an india-rubber ball. "Tra la!" she cried. "V'là mon cher Martin!" The prayer meeting had ended, and Martin was speeding home, well knowing who had arrived there. Angèle ran to meet him. "She's a rale fairy," whispered Mrs. Summersgill, mistress of the Dale End Farm. "She's rigged out like a pet doll." "Ay," agreed her neighbor. "D'ye ken wheer they coom frae?" "Frae Lunnon, I reckon. They're staying wi' t' Miss Walkers. That's t' muther, a Mrs. Saumarez, they call her, but they say she's a Jarman baroness." "Well, bless her heart, she hez a rare swallow for a gill o' ale." This was perfectly true. The lady had emptied her glass with real gusto. "I was so hot and tired," she said, with an apologetic smile at her hostess. "Now, I can admire your wonderful store of good things to eat," and she focussed the display through gold-rimmed eyeglasses. Truly, the broad kitchen table presented a spectacle that would kill a dyspeptic. A cold sirloin, a portly ham, two pairs of chickens, three brace of grouse--these solids were mere garnishings to dishes piled with currant cakes, currant loaves and plain bread cut and buttered, jam turnovers, open tarts of many varieties, "fat rascals," Queen cakes, sponge cakes--battalions and army corps of all the sweet and toothsome articles known to the culinary skill of the North. "I'm feared, my leddy, they won't suit your taste," began Mrs. Bolland, but the other broke in eagerly: "Oh, don't say that! They look so good, so wholesome, so different from the French cooking we weary of in town. If I were not afraid of spoiling my dinner and earning a scolding from Françoise I would certainly ask for some of that cold beef and a slice of bread and butter." "Tek my advice, ma'am, an' eat while ye're in t' humor," cried Mrs. Bolland, instantly helping her guest to the eatables named. Mrs. Saumarez laughed delightedly and peeled off a pair of white kid gloves. She ate a little of the meat and crumbled a slice of bread. Mrs. Bolland refilled the glass with beer. Then the lady made herself generally popular by asking questions. Did they use lard or butter in the pastry? How was the sponge cake made so light? What a curious custom it was to put currants into plain dough; she had never seen it done before. Were the servants able to do these things, or had they to be taught by the mistress of the house? She amused the women by telling of the airs and graces of London domestics, and evoked a feeling akin to horror by relating the items of the weekly bills in her town house. "Seven pund o' beäcan for breakfast i' t' kitchen!" exclaimed Mrs. Summersgill. "Wheä ivver heerd tell o' sike waste?" "Eh, ma'am," cried another, "but ye mun addle yer money aisy t' let 'em carry on that gait." Martin, who found Angèle in her most charming mood--unconsciously pleased, too, that her costume was not so _outré_ as to run any risk of caustic comment by strangers--came in and asked if he might take her along the row of stalls. Mrs. Bolland had given him a shilling that morning, and he resolved magnanimously to let the shooting gallery wait; Angèle should be treated to a shilling's worth of aught she fancied. But Mrs. Saumarez rose. "Your mother will kill me with kindness, Martin, if I remain longer," she said. "Take me, too, and we'll see if the fair contains any toys." She emptied the second glass of ale, drew on her gloves, bade the company farewell with as much courtesy as if they were so many countesses, and walked away with the youngsters. At one stall she bought Martin a pneumatic gun, a powerful toy which the dealer never expected to sell in that locality. At another she would have purchased a doll for Angèle, but the child shrugged her shoulders and declared that she would greatly prefer to ride on the roundabouts with Martin. Mrs. Saumarez agreed instantly, and the pair mounted the hobby-horses. Among the children who watched them enviously were Jim Bates and Evelyn Atkinson. When the steam organ was in full blast and the horses were flying round at a merry pace, Mrs. Saumarez bent over Jim Bates and placed half a sovereign in his hand. "Go to the 'Black Lion,'" she said, "and bring me a bottle of the best brandy. See that it is wrapped in paper. I do not care to go myself to a place where there are so many men." Jim darted off. The roundabout slackened speed and stopped, but Mrs. Saumarez ordered another ride. The whirl had begun again when Bates returned with a parcel. "It was four shillin's, ma'am," he said. "Thank you, very much. Keep the change." Even Evelyn Atkinson was so awed by the magnitude of the tip that she forgot for a moment to glue her eyes on Angèle and Martin. But Angèle, wildly elated though she was with the sensation of flight, and seated astride like a boy, until the tops of her stockings were exposed to view, did not fail to notice the conclusion of Jim Bates's errand. "Mamma will be ill to-night," she screamed in Martin's ear. "Françoise will be busy waiting on her. I'll come out again at eight o'clock." "You must not," shouted the boy. "It will be very rough here then." "C'la va--I mean, I know that quite well. It'll be all the more jolly. Meet me at the gate. I'll bring plenty of money." "I can't," protested Martin. "You must!" "But I'm supposed to be home myself at eight o'clock." "If you don't come, I'll find some other boy. Frank Beckett-Smythe said he would try and turn up every evening, in case I got a chance to sneak out." "All right. I'll be there." Martin intended to hurry her through the fair and take her home again. If he received a "hiding" for being late, he would put up with it. In any case, the squire's eldest son could not be allowed to steal his wilful playmate without a struggle. Probably Adam reasoned along similar lines when Eve first offered him an apple. Be that as it may, it never occurred to Martin that the third chapter of Genesis could have the remotest bearing on the night's frolic. CHAPTER V "IT IS THE FIRST STEP THAT COUNTS" Mrs. Saumarez and Angèle returned to The Elms, but Martin had to forego accompanying them. He knew that--with Bible opened at the Third Book of Kings--John Bolland was waiting in a bedroom, every downstairs apartment being crowded. He ran all the way along the village street and darted upstairs, striving desperately to avoid even the semblance of undue haste. Bolland was thumbing the book impatiently. He frowned over his spectacles. "Why are ye late?" he demanded. "Mrs. Saumarez asked me to walk with her through the village," answered Martin truthfully. "Ay. T' wife telt me she was here." The explanation served, and Martin breathed more freely. The reading commenced: "Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. "Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat." Martin, with his mind in a tumult on account of the threatened escapade, did not care a pin what method was adopted to restore the feeble circulation of the withered King so long as the lesson passed off satisfactorily. With rare self-control, he bent over the, to him, unmeaning page, and acquitted himself so well in the parrot repetition which he knew would be pleasing that he ventured to say: "May I stay out a little later to-night, sir?" "What for? You're better i' bed than gapin' at shows an' listenin' te drunken men." "I only ask because--because I'm told that Mrs. Saumarez's little girl means to see the fair by night, and she--er--would like me to be with her." John Bolland laughed dryly. "Mrs. Saumarez'll soon hev more'n eneuf on't," he said. "Ay, lad, ye can stay wi' her, if that's all." Martin never, under any circumstances, told a downright lie, but he feared that this was sailing rather too near the wind to be honest. The nature of Angèle's statement was so nebulous. He could hardly explain outright that Mrs. Saumarez was not coming--that Angèle alone would be the sightseer. So he flushed, and felt that he was obtaining the required permission by false pretense. He could have pulled Angèle's pretty ears for placing him in such a dilemma, but with a man so utterly unsympathetic as Bolland it was impossible to be quite candid. He had clear ideas of right and wrong. He knew it was wrong for Angèle to come out unattended and mix in the scene of rowdyism which the village would present until midnight. If she really could succeed in leaving The Elms unnoticed, the most effectual way to stop her was to go now to her mother or to one of the Misses Walker and report her intention. But this, according to the boy's code of honor, was to play the sneak, than which there is no worse crime in the calendar. No. He would look after her himself. There was a spice of adventure, too, in acting as the chosen squire of this sprightly damsel. Strong-minded as he was, and resolute beyond his years, Angèle's wilfulness, her quick tongue, the diablerie of her glance, the witchery of her elegant little person, captivated heart and brain, and benumbed the inchoate murmurings of conscience. Oddly enough, he often found himself comparing her with Elsie Herbert, a girl with whom he had never exchanged a word, and Angèle Saumarez invariably figured badly in the comparison. The boy did not know then that he must become a man, perhaps soured of life, bitter with experience, before he would understand the difference between respect and fascination. With housewife prudence, Mrs. Bolland hailed him as he was passing through the back kitchen. "Noo, then, Martin, don't ye go racketin' about too much in your best clothes. And mind your straw hat isn't blown off if ye go on one o' them whirligigs." "All right, mother," he said cheerfully, and was gone in a flash. Two hours must elapse before Angèle could appear. Jim Bates, who bore no malice, stood treat in gingerbread and lemonade out of the largesse bestowed by Mrs. Saumarez. Martin, carried away by sight of a champion boxer who offered a sovereign to any local man under twelve stone who stood up to him for three two-minute rounds, spent sixpence in securing seats for himself and Jim when the gage of combat was thrown down by his gamekeeper friend. There was a furious fight with four-ounce gloves. The showman discovered quickly that Velveteens "knew a bit." Repeated attempts to "out" him with "the right" on the "point" resulted in heavy "counters" on the ribs, and a terrific uppercut failed because of the keeper's quick sight. The proprietor of the booth, who acted as timekeeper, gave every favor to his henchman, but at the end of the third round the professional was more blown than the amateur. The sovereign was handed over with apparent good will, both showmen realizing that it might be money well spent. And it was, as the black eyes and swollen lips among the would-be pugilists of Elmsdale testified for many days thereafter. Martin, who had never before seen a real boxing match, was entranced. With a troop of boys he accompanied the two combatants to the door of the "Black Lion," where a fair proportion of the sovereign was soon converted into beer. George Pickering had witnessed the contest. Generous to a fault, he started a purse to be fought for in rounds inside the booth. Wanting a pencil and paper, he ran upstairs to his room--he had resolved to stay at the inn for a couple of nights--and encountered Kitty Thwaites on the stairs. She carried a laden tray, so he slipped an arm around her waist, and she was powerless to prevent him from kissing her unless she dropped the tray or risked upsetting its contents. She had no intention of doing either of these things. "Oh, go on, do!" she cried, not averting her face too much. He whispered something. "Not me!" she giggled. "Besides, I won't have a minnit to spare till closin' time." Pickering hugged her again. She descended the stairs, laughing and very red. The boys heard something of the details of the proposed Elmsdale championship boxing competition. Entries were pouring in, there being no fee. George Pickering was appointed referee, and the professional named as judge. The first round would be fought at 3 P.M. next day. The time passed more quickly than Martin expected; as for his money, it simply melted. Tenpence out of the shilling had vanished before he realized how precious little remained wherewith to entertain Angèle. She said she would have "plenty of money," but he imagined that a walk through the fair and a ride on the roundabout would satisfy her. Not even at fourteen does the male understand the female of twelve. A few minutes before eight he escaped from his companions and strolled toward The Elms. The house was not like the suburban villa which stands in the center of a row and proudly styles itself Oakdene. It was hidden in a cluster of lordly elms, and already the day was so far spent that the entrance gate was invisible save at a few yards' distance. The nearest railway station was situated two miles along this very road. A number of slow-moving country people were sauntering to the station, where the north train was due at 9:05 P.M. Another train, that from the south, arrived at 9:20, and would be the last that night. A full moon was rising, but her glories were hidden by the distant hills. There was no wind; the weather was fine and settled. The Elmsdale Feast was lucky in its dates. Martin waited near the gate and heard the church clock chime the hour. Two boys on bicycles came flying toward the village. They were the Beckett-Smythes. They slackened pace as they neared The Elms. "Wonder if she'll get out to-night?" said Ernest, the younger. "There's no use waiting here. She said she'd dodge out one evening for certain. If she's not in the village, we'd better skip back before we're missed," said the heir. "Oh, that's all right. Pater thinks we're in the grounds, and there won't be any bother if we show up at nine." They rode on. The quarter-hour chimed, and Martin became impatient. "She was humbugging me, as usual," he reflected. "Well, this time I'm pleased." An eager voice whispered: "Hold the gate! It'll rattle when I climb over. They've not heard me. I crept here on the grass." Angèle had changed her dress to a dark-blue serge and sailor hat. This was decidedly thoughtful. In her day attire she must have attracted a great deal of notice. Now, in the dark, neither the excellence of her clothing nor the elegance of her carriage would differentiate her too markedly from the village girls. She was breathless with haste, but her tongue rattled on rapidly. "Mamma _is_ ill. I knew she would be. I told Françoise I had a headache, and went to bed. Then I crept downstairs again. Miss Walker nearly caught me, but she's so upset that she never saw me. As for Fritz, if I meet him--poof!" "What's the matter with Mrs. Saumarez?" asked Martin. "Trop de cognac, mon chéri." "What's that?" "It means a 'bit wobbly, my dear.'" "Is her head bad?" "Yes. It will be for a week. But never mind mamma. She'll be all right, with Françoise to look after her. Here! You pay for everything. There's ten shillings in silver. I have a sovereign in my stocking, if we want it." They were hurrying toward the distant medley of sound. Flaring naptha lamps gave the village street a Rembrandt effect. Love-making couples, with arms entwined, were coming away from the glare of the booths. Their forms cast long shadows on the white road. "Ten shillings!" gasped Martin. "Whatever do we want with ten shillings?" "To enjoy ourselves, you silly. You can't have any fun without money. Why, when mamma dines at the Savoy and takes a party to the theater afterwards, it costs her as many pounds. I know, because I've seen the checks." "That has nothing to do with it. We can't spend ten shillings here." "Oh, can't we? You leave that to me. Mais, voyez-vous, imbécile, are you going to be nasty?" She halted and stamped an angry foot. "No, I'm not; but----" "Then come on, stupid. I'm late as it is." "The stalls remain open until eleven." "Magnifique! What a row there'll be if I have to knock to get in!" Martin held his tongue. He resolved privately that Angèle should be home at nine, at latest, if he dragged her thither by main force. The affair promised difficulties. She was so intractable that a serious quarrel would result. Well, he could not help it. Better a lasting break than the wild hubbub that would spring up if they both remained out till the heinous hour she contemplated. In the village they encountered Jim Bates and Evelyn Atkinson, surrounded by seven or eight boys and girls, for Jim was disposing rapidly of his six shillings, and Evelyn bestowed favor on him for the nonce. "Hello! here's Martin," whooped Bates. "I thowt ye'd gone yam (home). Where hev ye----" Jim's eloquence died away abruptly. He caught sight of Angèle and was abashed. Not so Evelyn. "Martin's been to fetch his sweetheart," she said maliciously. Angèle simpered sufficiently to annoy Evelyn. Then she laughed agreement. "Yes. And won't we have a time! Come on! Everybody have a ride." She sprang toward the horses. Martin alone followed. "Come on!" she screamed. "Martin will pay for the lot. He has heaps of money." No second invitation was needed. Several times the whole party swung round with lively yelling. From the roundabouts they went to the swings; from the swings to the cocoanut shies. Here they were joined by the Beckett-Smythes, who endeavored promptly to assume the leadership. Martin's blood was fired by the contest. He was essentially a boy foredoomed to dominate his fellows, whether for good or evil. He pitched restraint to the winds. He could throw better than either of the young aristocrats; he could shoot straighter at the galleries; he could describe the heroic combat between the boxer and Velveteens; he would swing Angèle higher than any, until they looked over the crossbar after each giddy swirl. The Beckett-Smythes kept pace with him only in expenditure, Jim Bates being quickly drained, and even they wondered how long the village lad could last. The ten shillings were soon dissipated. "I want that sovereign," he shouted, when Angèle and he were riding together again on the hobby-horses. "I told you so," she screamed. She turned up her dress to extricate the money from a fold of her stocking. The light flashed on her white skin, and Frank Beckett-Smythe, who rode behind with one of the Atkinson girls, wondered what she was doing. She bent over Martin and whispered: "There are _two_! Keep the fun going!" The young spark in the rear thought that she was kissing Martin; he was wild with jealousy. At the next show--that of a woman grossly fat, who allowed the gapers to pinch her leg at a penny a pinch--he paid with his last half-crown. When they went to refresh themselves on ginger-beer, Martin produced a sovereign. The woman who owned the stall bit it, surveyed him suspiciously, and tried to swindle him in the change. She failed badly. "Eleven bottles at twopence and eleven cakes at a penny make two-and-nine. I want two more shillings, please," he said coolly. "Be aff wid ye! I gev ye seventeen and thruppence. If ye thry anny uv yer tricks an me I'll be afther askin' where ye got the pound." "Give me two more shillings, or I'll call the police." Mrs. Maguire was beaten; she paid up. The crowd left her, with cries of "Irish Molly!" "Where's Mick?" and even coarser expressions. Angèle screamed at her: "Why don't you stick to ginger-beer? You're muzzy." The taunt stung, and the old Irishwoman cursed her tormentor as a black-eyed little witch. Angèle, seeing that Martin carried all before him, began straightway to flirt with the heir. At first the defection was not noted, but when she elected to sit by Frank while they watched the acrobats the new swain took heart once more and squeezed her arm. Evelyn Atkinson, who was in a smiling temper, felt that a crisis might be brought about now. There was not much time. It was nearly ten o'clock, and soon her mother would be storming at her for not having taken herself and her sisters to bed, though, in justice be it said, the girls could not possibly sleep until the house was cleared. Ernest Beckett-Smythe was her cavalier at the moment. "We've seen all there is te see," she whispered. "Let's go and have a dance in our yard. Jim Bates can play a mouth-organ." Ernest was a slow-witted youth. "Where's the good?" he said. "There's more fun here." "You try it, an' see," she murmured coyly. The suggestion caught on. It was discussed while Martin and Jim Bates were driving a weight up a pole by striking a lever with a heavy hammer. Anything in the shape of an athletic feat always attracted Martin. Angèle was delighted. She scented a row. These village urchins were imps after her own heart. "Oh, let's," she agreed. "It'll be a change. I'll show you the American two-step." Frank had his arm around her waist now. "Right-o!" he cried. "Evelyn, you and Ernest lead the way." The girl, flattered by being bracketed publicly with one of the squire's sons, enjoined caution. "Once we're past t' stables it's all right," she said. "I don't suppose Fred'll hear us, anyhow." Fred was at the front of the hotel watching the road, watching Kitty Thwaites as she flitted upstairs and down, watching George Pickering through the bar window, and grinning like a fiend when he saw that somewhat ardent wooer, hilarious now, but sober enough according to his standard, glancing occasionally at his watch. There was a gate on each side of the hotel. That on the left led to the yard, with its row of stables and cart-sheds, and thence to a spacious area occupied by hay-stacks, piles of firewood, hen-houses, and all the miscellaneous lumber of an establishment half inn, half farm. The gate on the right opened into a bowling-green and skittle-alley. Behind these lay the kitchen garden and orchard. A hedge separated one section from the other, and entrance could be obtained to either from the back door of the hotel. The radiance of a full moon now decked the earth in silver and black; in the shade the darkness was intense by contrast. The church clock struck ten. Half a dozen youngsters crept silently into the stable yard. Angèle kicked up a dainty foot in a preliminary _pas seul_, but Evelyn stopped her unceremoniously. The village girl's sharp ears had caught footsteps on the garden path beyond the hedge. It was George Pickering, with his arm around Kitty's shoulders. He was talking in a low tone, and she was giggling nervously. "They're sweetheartin'," whispered a girl. "So are we," declared Frank Beckett-Smythe. "Aren't we, Angèle?" "Sapristi! I should think so. Where's Martin?" "Never mind. We don't want him." "Oh, he will be furious. Let's hide. There will be such a row when he goes home, and he daren't go till he finds me." Master Beckett-Smythe experienced a second's twinge at thought of the greeting he and his brother would receive at the Hall. But here was Angèle pretending timidity and cowering in his arms. He would not leave her now were he to be flayed alive. The footsteps of Pickering and Kitty died away. They had gone into the orchard. Evelyn Atkinson breathed freely again. "Even if Kitty sees us now, I don't care," she said. "She daren't tell mother, when she knows that we saw her and Mr. Pickerin'. He ought to have married her sister." "Poof!" tittered Angèle. "Who heeds a domestic?" Someone came at a fast run into the yard, running in desperate haste, and making a fearful din. Two boys appeared. The leader shouted: "Angèle! Angèle! Are you there?" Martin had missed her. Jim Bates, who knew the chosen rendezvous of the Atkinson girls, suggested that they and their friends had probably gone to the haggarth. "Shut up, you fool!" hissed Frank. "Do you want the whole village to know where we are?" Martin ignored him. He darted forward and caught Angèle by the shoulder. He distinguished her readily by her outline, though she and the rest were hidden in the somber shadows of the outbuildings. "Why did you leave me?" he demanded angrily. "You must come home at once. It is past ten o'clock." "Don't be angry, Martin," she pouted. "I am just a little tired of the noise. I want to show you and the rest a new dance." The minx was playing her part well. She had read Evelyn Atkinson's soul. She felt every throb of young Beckett-Smythe's foolish heart. She was quite certain that Martin would find her and cause a scene. There was deeper intrigue afoot now than the mere folly of unlicensed frolic in the fair. Her vanity, too, was gratified by the leading rôle she filled among them all. The puppets bore themselves according to their temperaments. Evelyn bit her lip with rage and nearly yielded to a wild impulse to spring at Angèle and scratch her face. Martin was white with determination. As for Master Frank, he boiled over instantly. "You just leave her alone, young Bolland," he said thickly. "She came here to please herself, and can stay here, if she likes. I'll see to that." Martin did not answer. "Angèle," he said quietly, "come away." Seeing that he had lived in the village nearly all his life, it was passing strange that this boy should have dissociated himself so completely from its ways. But the early hours he kept, his love of horses, dogs, and books, his preference for the society of grooms and gamekeepers--above all, a keen, if unrecognized, love of nature in all her varying moods, an almost pagan worship of mountain, moor, and stream--had kept him aloof from village life. A boy of fourteen does not indulge in introspection. It simply came as a fearful shock to find the daughter of a lady like Mrs. Saumarez so ready to forget her social standing. Surely, she could not know what she was doing. He was undeceived, promptly and thoroughly. Angèle snatched her shoulder from his grasp. "Don't you dare hold me," she snapped. "I'm not coming. I won't come with you, anyhow. Ma foi, Frank is far nicer." "Then I'll drag you home," said Martin. "Oh, will you, indeed? I'll see to that." Beckett-Smythe deemed Angèle a girl worth fighting for. In any case, this clodhopper who spent money like a lord must be taught manners. Martin smiled. In his bemused brain the idea was gaining ground that Angèle would be flattered if he "licked" the squire's son for her sake. "Very well," he said, stepping back into the moonlight. "We'll settle it that way. If _you_ beat _me_, Angèle remains. If _I_ beat _you_, she goes home. Here, Jim. Hold my coat and hat. And, no matter what happens, mind you don't play for any dancing." Martin stated terms and issued orders like an emperor. In the hour of stress he felt himself immeasurably superior to this gang of urchins, whether their manners smacked of Elmsdale or of Eton. Angèle's acquaintance with popular fiction told her that at this stage of the game the heroine should cling in tears to the one she loved, and implore him to desist, to be calm for her sake. But the riot in her veins brought a new sensation. There were possibilities hitherto unsuspected in the darkness, the secrecy, the candid brutality of the fight. She almost feared lest Beckett-Smythe should be defeated. And how the other girls must envy her, to be fought for by the two boys pre-eminent among them, to be the acknowledged princess of this village carnival! So she clapped her hands. "O là là!" she cried. "Going to fight about poor little me! Well, I can't stop you, can I?" "Yes, you can," said one. "She won't, anyhow," scoffed the other. "Are you ready?" "Quite!" "Then 'go.'" And the battle began. CHAPTER VI WHEREIN THE RED BLOOD FLOWS They fought like a couple of young bulls. Frank intended to demolish his rival at the outset. He was a year older and slightly heavier, but Martin was more active, more sure-footed, sharper of vision. Above all, he had laid to heart the three-pennyworth of tuition obtained in the boxing booth a few hours earlier. He had noted then that a boxer dodged as many blows with his head as he warded with his arms. He grasped the necessity to keep moving, and thus disconcert an adversary's sudden rush. Again, he had seen the excellence of a forward spring without changing the relative positions of the feet. Assuming you were sparring with the left hand and foot advanced, a quick jump of eighteen inches enabled you to get the right home with all your force. You must keep the head well back and the eye fixed unflinchingly on your opponent's. Above all, meet offense with offense. Hit hard and quickly and as often as might be. These were sound principles, and he proceeded to put them into execution, to the growing distress and singular annoyance of Master Beckett-Smythe. Ernest acted as referee--in the language of the village, he "saw fair play"--but was wise enough to call "time" early in the first round, when his brother drew off after a fierce set-to. The forcing tactics had failed, but honors were divided. The taller boy's reach had told in his favor, while Martin's newly acquired science redressed the balance. Martin's lip was cut and there was a lump on his left cheek, but Frank felt an eye closing and had received a staggerer in the ribs. He was aware of an uneasy feeling that if Martin survived the next round he (Frank) would be beaten, so there was nothing for it but to summon all his reserves and deliver a Napoleonic attack. The enemy must be crushed by sheer force. He was a plucky lad and was stung to frenzy by seeing Angèle offer Martin the use of a lace handkerchief for the bleeding lip, a delicate tenderness quietly repulsed. So, when the rush came, Martin had to fight desperately to avoid annihilation. He was compelled to give way, and backed toward the hedge. Behind lay an unseen stackpole. At the instant when Beckett-Smythe lowered his head and endeavored to butt Martin violently in the stomach, the latter felt the obstruction with his heel. Had he lost his nerve then or flickered an eyelid, he would have taken a nasty fall and a severe shaking. As it was, he met the charge more than halfway, and delivered the same swinging upper stroke which had nearly proved fatal to his gamekeeper friend. It was wholly disastrous to Beckett-Smythe. It caught him fairly on the nose, and, as the blow was in accord with the correct theory of dynamics as applied to forces in motion, it knocked him silly. His head flew up, his knees bent, and he dropped to the ground with a horrible feeling that the sky had fallen and that stars were sparkling among the rough paving-stones. "That's a finisher. He's whopped!" exulted Jim Bates. "No, he's not. It was a chance blow," cried Ernest, who was strongly inclined to challenge the victor on his own account. "Get up, Frank. Have another go at him!" But Frank, who could neither see nor hear distinctly, was too groggy to rise, and the village girls drew together in an alarmed group. Such violent treatment of the squire's son savored of sacrilege. They were sure that Martin would receive some condign punishment by the law for pummeling a superior being so unmercifully. Angèle, somewhat frightened herself, tried to console her discomfited champion. "I'm so sorry," she said. "It was all my fault." "Oh, go away!" he protested. "Ernest, where's there a pump?" Assisted by his brother, he struggled to his feet. His nose was bleeding freely and his face was ghastly in the moonlight. But he was a spirited youngster. He held out a hand to Martin. "I've had enough just now," he said, with an attempt at a smile. "Some other day, when my eye is all right, I'd like to----" A woman's scream of terror, a man's cry of agony, startled the silent night and nearly scared the children out of their wits. Someone came running up the garden path. It was Kitty Thwaites. She swayed unsteadily as she ran; her arms were lifted in frantic supplication. "Oh, Betsy, Betsy, you've killed him!" she wailed. "Murder! Murder! Come, someone! For God's sake, come!" She stumbled and fell, shrieking frenziedly for help. Another woman--a woman whose extended right hand clutched a long, thin knife such as is used to carve game--appeared from the gloom of the orchard. Her wan face was raised to the sky, and a baleful light shone in her eyes. "Ay, I'll swing for him," she cried in a voice shrill with hysteria. "May the Lord deal wi' him as he dealt wi' me! And my own sister, too! Out on ye, ye strumpet! 'Twould sarve ye right if I stuck ye wi' t' same knife." With a clatter of ironshod boots, most of the frightened children stampeded out of the stable yard. Martin, to whom Angèle clung in speechless fear, and the two Beckett-Smythes alone were left. The din of steam organ and drums, the ceaseless turmoil of the fair, the constant fusillade at the shooting gallery, and the bawling of men in charge of the various sideshows, had kept the women's shrieks from other ears thus far. But Kitty Thwaites, though almost shocked out of her senses, gained strength from the imminence of peril. Springing up from the path just in time to avoid the vengeful oncoming of her sister, she staggered toward the hotel and created instant alarm by her cries of "Murder! Help! George Pickering has been stabbed!" A crowd of men poured out from bar and smoking-room. One, who took thought, rushed through the front door and snatched a naphtha lamp from a stall. Meanwhile, the three boys and the girl on the other side of the hedge, seeing and hearing everything, but unseen and unheard themselves, took counsel in some sort. "I say," Ernest Beckett-Smythe urged his brother, "let's get out of this. Father will thrash us to death if we're mixed up in this business." The advice was good. Frank forgot his dizziness for the moment, and the two raced to secure their bicycles from a stall-holder's care. They rode away to the Hall unnoticed. Martin remained curiously quiet. All the excitement had left him. If Elmsdale were rent by an earthquake just then, he would have watched the toppling houses with equanimity. "I suppose you don't wish to stop here now?" he said to Angèle. The girl was sobbing bitterly. Her small body shook as though each gulp were a racking cough. She could not answer. He placed his arm around her and led her to the gate. While they were crossing the yard the people from the hotel crowded into the garden. The man with the lamp had reached the back of the house across the bowling green, and a stalwart farmer had caught Betsy Thwaites by the wrist. The blood-stained knife fell from her fingers. She moaned helplessly in disjointed phrases. "It's all overed now. God help me! Why was I born?" Already a crowd was surging into the hotel through the front door. Martin guided his trembling companion to the right; in a few strides they were clear of the fair, only to run into Mrs. Saumarez's German chauffeur. He was not in uniform; in a well-fitting blue serge suit and straw hat, he looked more like a young officer in mufti than a mechanic. He was the first to recognize Angèle, and was so frankly astonished that he bowed to her without lifting his hat. "_You_, mees?" he cried, seemingly at a loss for other words. Angèle recovered her wits at once. She said something which Martin could not understand, though he was sure it was not in French, as the girl's frequent use of that language was familiarizing his ears with its sounds. As a matter of fact, she spoke German, telling the chauffeur to mind his own business, and she would mind hers; but if any talking were done her tongue might wag more than his. At any rate, the man did then raise his hat politely and walk on. The remainder of the road between Elmsdale and The Elms was deserted. Martin hardly realized the pace at which he was literally dragging his companion homeward until she protested. "Martin, you're hurting my arm! What's the hurry?... Did she really kill him?" "She said so. I don't know," he replied. "Who was she?" "Kitty Thwaites's sister, I suppose. I never saw her before. They were not bred in this village." "And why did she kill him?" "How can I tell?" "She had a knife in her hand." "Yes." "Perhaps she killed him because she was jealous." "Perhaps." "Martin, don't be angry with me. I didn't mean any harm. I was only having a lark. I did it just to tease you--and Evelyn Atkinson." "That's all very fine. What will your mother say?" The quietude, the sound of her own voice, were giving the girl courage. She tossed her head with something of contempt. "She can say nothing. You leave her to me. You saw how I shut Fritz's mouth. What was the name of the man who was killed?" "George Pickering." "Ah. He walked down the garden with Kitty Thwaites." "Indeed?" "Yes. When I get in I can tell Miss Walker and Françoise all about it. They will be so excited. There will be no fuss about me being out. V'là la bonne fortune!" "Speak English, please." "Well, it is good luck I was there. I can make up such a story." "Good luck that a poor fellow should be stabbed!" "That wasn't my fault, was it? Good-night, Martin. You fought beautifully. Kiss me!" "I won't kiss you. Run in, now. I'll wait till the door opens." "Then _I'll_ kiss _you_. There! I like you better than all the world--just now." She opened the gate, careless whether it clanged or not. Martin heard her quick footsteps on the gravel of the short drive. She rattled loudly on the door. "Good-night, Martin--dear!" she cried. He did not answer. There was some delay. Evidently she had not been missed. "Are you there?" She was impatient of his continued coldness. "Yes." "Then why don't you speak, silly?" The door opened with the clanking of a chain. There was a woman's startled cry as the inner light fell on Angèle. Then he turned. Not until he reached the "Black Lion" and its well-lighted area did he realize that he was coatless and hatless. Jim Bates had vanished with both of these necessary articles. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound! There would be a fearful row, and the thrashing would be the same in any case. He avoided the crowd, keeping to the darker side of the street. A policeman had just come out of the inn and was telling the people to go away. All the village seemed to have gathered during the few minutes which had elapsed since the tragedy took place. He felt strangely sorry for Betsy Thwaites. Would she be locked up, handcuffed, with chains on her ankles? What would they do with the knife? Why should she want to kill Mr. Pickering? Wouldn't he marry her? Even so, that was no reason he should be stabbed. Where did she stick him? Did he quiver like Absalom when Joab thrust the darts into his heart? At last he ran up the slight incline leading to the White House; there was a light in the front kitchen. For one awful moment he paused, with a finger on the sneck; then he pressed the latch and entered. John Bolland, grim as a stone gargoyle, wearing his Sunday coat and old-fashioned tall hat, was leaning against the massive chimneypiece. Mrs. Bolland, with bonnet awry, was seated. She had been crying. A frightened kitchenmaid peeped through the passage leading to the back of the house when the door opened to admit the truant. Then she vanished. There was a period of chill silence while Martin closed the door. He turned and faced the elderly couple, and John Bolland spoke: "So ye've coom yam, eh?" "Yes, sir." "An' at a nice time, too. Afther half-past ten! An hour sen yer muther an' me searched high and low for ye. Where hev ye bin? Tell t' truth, ye young scamp. Every lie'll mean more skin off your back." Mrs. Bolland, drying her eyes, now that Martin had returned, noticed his disheveled condition. His face was white as his shirt, and both were smeared with blood. A wave of new alarm paled her florid cheeks. She ran to him. "For mercy's sake, boy, what hev ye bin doin'? Are ye hurt?" "No, mother, not hurt. I fought Frank Beckett-Smythe. That is all." "T' squire's son. Why on earth----" "Go to bed, Martha," said John, picking up a riding whip. But Mrs. Bolland's sympathies discerned a deeper reason for Martin's escapade than a mere boyish frolic which deserved a thrashing. He was unnaturally calm. Something out of the common had happened. He did not flinch at the sight of the whip. "John," she said sternly, "ye shan't touch him t'-night." "Stand aside, Martha. If all my good teachin' is of no avail----" "Mebbe t' lad's fair sick o' yer good teachin'. You lay a hand on him at yer peril. If ye do, I don't bide i' t' house this night!" Never before, during thirty years of married life, had Martha Bolland defied her husband. He glowered with anger and amazement. "Would ye revile the Word te shield that spawn o' Satan?" he roared. "Get away, woman, lest I do thee an injury." But his wife's temper was fierce as his own when roused. She was a Meynell, and there have been Meynells in Yorkshire as long as any Bollands. "Tak' yer threats te those who heed 'em," she retorted bitterly. "D'ye think folk will stand by an' let ye raise yer hand te me?... David, William, Mary, coom here an' hold yer master. He's like te have a fit wi' passion." There was a shuffling in the passage. The men servants, such as happened to be in the house, came awkwardly at their mistress's cry. The farmer stood spellbound. What devil possessed the household that his authority should be set at naught thus openly? It was a thrilling moment, but Martin solved the difficulty. He wrenched himself free of Mrs. Bolland's protecting arms. "Father, mother!" he cried. "Don't quarrel on my account. If I must be beaten, I don't care. I'll take all I get. But it's only fair that I should say why I was not home earlier." Now, John Bolland, notwithstanding his dealing in the matter of the pedigree cow, prided himself on his sense of justice. Indeed, the man who does the gravest injury to his fellows is often cursed with a narrow-minded certainty of his own righteousness. Moreover, this matter had gone beyond instant adjustment by the unsparing use of a whip. His wife, his servants, were arrayed against him. By the Lord, they should rue it! "Aye," he said grimly. "Tell your muther why you've been actin' t' blackguard. Mebbe she'll understand." Mrs. Bolland had the sense to pass this taunt unheeded. Her heart was quailing already at her temerity. "Angèle Saumarez came out without her mother," said Martin. "Mrs. Saumarez is ill. I thought it best to remain with her and take her home again. Frank Beckett-Smythe joined us, and he--he--insulted her, in a way. So I fought him, and beat him, too. And then George Pickering was murdered----" "What?" Bolland dropped the whip on the table. His wife sank into a chair with a cry of alarm. The plowmen and maids ventured farther into the room. Even the farmer's relentless jaw fell at this terrific announcement. "Yes, it is quite true. Frank and I fought in the yard of the 'Black Lion.' George Pickering and Kitty Thwaites went down the garden--at least, so I was told. I didn't see them. But, suddenly, Kitty came screaming along the path, and after her a woman waving a long knife in the air. Kitty called her 'Betsy,' and said she had killed George Pickering. She said so herself. I heard her. Then some men came with a light and caught hold of Betsy. She was going to stab Kitty, too, I think; and Jim Bates ran away with my coat and hat, which he was holding." The effect of such a narration on a gathering of villagers, law-abiding folk who lived in a quiet nook like Elmsdale, was absolutely paralyzing. John Bolland was the first to recover himself. A man of few ideas, he could not adjust his mental balance with sufficient nicety to see that the tragedy itself in no wise condoned Martin's offense. "Are ye sure of what ye're sayin', lad?" he demanded, though indeed he felt it was absurd to imagine that such a tale would be invented as a mere excuse. "Quite sure, sir. If you walk down to the 'Black Lion,' you'll see all the people standing round the hotel and the police keeping them back." "Well, well, I'll gan this minit. George Pickerin' was no friend o' mine, but I'm grieved te hear o' sike deeds as these in oor village. I was maist angered wi' you on yer muther's account. She was grievin' so when we failed te find ye. She thowt sure you were runned over or drownded i' t' beck." This was meant as a graceful apology to his wife, and was taken in that spirit. Never before had he made such a concession. "Here's yer stick, John," she said. "Hurry and find out what's happened. Poor George! I wish my tongue hadn't run so fast t' last time I seed him." Bolland and the other men hastened away, and Martin was called on to recount the sensational episode, with every detail known to him, for the benefit of the household. No one paid heed to the boy's own adventures. All ears were for the vengeance taken by Betsy Thwaites on the man who jilted her. Even to minds blunted almost to callousness, the _crime passionel_ had a vivid, an entrancing interest. The women were quick to see its motive, a passive endurance stung to sudden frenzy by the knowledge that the faithless lover was pursuing the younger sister. But how did Betsy Thwaites, who lived in far-off Hereford, learn that George Pickering was "making up" to Kitty? The affair was of recent growth. Indeed, none of those present was aware that Pickering and the pretty maid at the "Black Lion" were so much as acquainted with each other. And where did Betsy spring from? She could not have been staying in the village, or someone aware of her history must have seen her. Did Kitty know she was there? If so, how foolish of the younger woman to be out gallivanting in the moonlight with Pickering. The whole story was fraught with deepest mystery. Martin could not answer one-tenth of the questions put to him. Boy-like, he felt himself somewhat of a hero, until he remembered Angèle's glee at the "good luck" of the occurrence--how she would save herself from blame by telling Miss Walker and Françoise "all about it." He flushed deeply. He wished now that Bolland had given him a hiding before he blurted out his news. "Bless the lad, he's fair tired te death!" said Mrs. Bolland. "Here, Martin, drink a glass o' port an' off te bed wi' ye." He sipped the wine, wondering dimly what Frank Beckett-Smythe was enduring and how he would explain that black eye. He was about to go upstairs, when hasty steps sounded without, and Bolland entered with a policeman. This was the village constable, and, of course, well known to all. During the feast other policemen came from neighboring villages, but the local officer was best fitted to conduct inquiries into a case requiring measures beyond a mere arrest. His appearance at this late hour created a fresh sensation. "Martin," said the farmer gravely, "did ye surely hear Kitty Thwaites say that Betsy had killed Mr. Pickering?" "Yes, sir; I did." "And ye heerd Betsy admit it?" "Oh, yes--that is, if Betsy is the woman with the knife." "There!" said Bolland, turning to the policeman. "I telt ye so. T' lad has his faults, but he's nae leear; I'll say that for him." The man took off his helmet and wiped his forehead, for the night was close and warm. "Well," he said, "I'll just leave it for the 'Super' te sattle. Mr. Pickerin' sweers that Betsy never struck him. She ran up tiv him wi' t' knife, an' they quarrelled desperately. That he don't deny. She threatened him, too, an' te get away frev her he was climin' inte t' stackyard when he slipped, an' a fork lyin' again' t' fence ran intiv his ribs." "Isn't he dead, then?" exclaimed Mrs. Bolland shrilly. "Not he, ma'am, and not likely te be. He kem to as soon as he swallowed some brandy, an' his first words was, 'Where's Betsy?' He was fair wild when they telt him she was arrested. He said it was all the fault of that flighty lass, Kitty, an' that a lot of fuss was bein' made about nowt. I didn't know what te deä. Beäth women were fair ravin', and said all soarts o' things, but t' upshot is that Betsy is nussin' Mr. Pickerin' now until t' doctor comes frae Nottonby." He still mopped his head, and his glance wandered to the goodly cask in the corner. "Will ye hev a pint?" inquired Bolland. "Ay, that I will, Mr. Bolland, an' welcome." "An' a bite o' bread an' meat?" added Mrs. Bolland. "I doan't min' if I do, ma'am." A glance at a maid produced eatables with lightning speed. Mary feared lest she should miss a syllable of the night's marvels. The policeman had many "bites," and talked while he ate. Gradually the story became lucid and consecutive. Fred, the groom, was jealous of Pickering's admiration for Kitty. Having overheard the arrangement for a meeting on Monday, he wrote to Betsy, sending her the information in the hope that she would come from Hereford and cause a commotion at the hotel. He expected her by an earlier train, but she did not arrive until 9:20 P.M., and there was a walk of over two miles from the station. Meanwhile, he had seen Kitty and Pickering steal off into the garden. He knew that any interference on his part would earn him a prompt beating, so, when Betsy put in a belated appearance, he met her in the passage and told her where she would find the couple. Instantly she ran through the kitchen, snatching a knife as she went. Before the drink-sodden meddler could realize the extent of the mischief he had wrought, Kitty was shrieking that Pickering was dead. All this he blurted out to the police before the injured man gave another version of the affair. "Martin bears out one side o' t' thing," commented the constable oracularly, "but t' chief witness says that summat else happened. There was blood on t' knife when it was picked up; but there, again, there's a doubt, as Betsy had cut her own arm wi't. Anyhow, Betsy an' Kitty were cryin' their hearts out when they kem out of Mr. Pickerin's room for towels; and he's bleedin' dreadful." This final gory touch provided an artistic curtain. The constable readjusted his belt and took his departure. After another half-hour's eager gossip among the elders, in which Fred suffered much damage to his character, Martin was hurried off to bed. Mrs. Bolland washed his bruised face and helped him to undress. She was folding his trousers, when a shower of money rattled to the floor. "Marcy on us!" she cried in real bewilderment, "here's a sovereign, a half-sovereign, an' silver, an' copper! Martin, my boy, whatever...." "Angèle gave it to me, mother. She gave me two pounds ten to spend." "Two pund ten!" "Yes. I suppose it was very wrong. I'll give back all that is left to Mrs. Saumarez in the morning." Martha Bolland was very serious now. She crept to the door of the bedroom and listened. "I do hope yer father kens nowt o' this," she whispered anxiously. Then she counted the money. "You've spent sixteen shillin's and fowerpence, not reckonin' t' shillin' I gev ye this mornin'. Seventeen an' fowerpence! Martin, Martin, whatever on?" Such extravagance was appalling. Her frugal mind could not assimilate it readily. This sum would maintain a large family for a week. "We stood treat to a lot of other boys and girls. But don't be vexed to-night, mother, dear. I'm so tired." "Vexed, indeed. What'll Mrs. Saumarez say? There'll be a bonny row i' t' mornin'. You tak' it back t' first thing. An', here. If she sez owt about t' balance, come an' tell me an' I'll make it up. You fond lad; if John knew this, he'd never forgive ye. There, honey, go te sleep." There were tears in her eyes as she bent and kissed him. But he was incapable of further emotion. He was half asleep ere she descended the stairs, and his last sentient thought was one of keen enjoyment, for his knuckles were sore when he closed his right hand, and he remembered the smashing force of that uppercut as it met the aristocratic nose of Master Beckett-Smythe. CHAPTER VII GEORGE PICKERING PLAYS THE MAN Martin was awakened by the rays of a bright autumn sun. He sprang out of bed in a jiffy, lest he should be late for breakfast, a heinous offense at the farm; but the sight of William feeding the pigs in the yard beneath told him that it was only half-past six. The first puzzle that presented itself was one of costume. Should he wear his commonplace corduroys, or don all that was left of his gray tweeds? During the Feast he was supposed to dress in his best each day; he decided to obey orders as far as was possible. He missed the money from his trousers pocket and knew that his mother had taken it. Also, he found that she had selected a clean shirt and collar from the drawer and placed them ready for use. By degrees his active brain recalled the startling events of the previous evening in their proper sequence, and he found himself speculating more on the reception Mrs. Saumarez might accord than on the attitude John Bolland would certainly adopt when the overnight proceedings arranged themselves in a slow-moving mind. He was downstairs long before seven. The farmer was out. Mrs. Bolland, immersed in the early cares of the household, showed no traces of the excitement of eight hours earlier. "Martin," she cried as soon as she caught sight of him, "I heerd a hen cluckin' a bit sen at t' bottom o' t' garth. Just look i' t' hedge an' see if she's nestin'?" This was a daily undertaking in a house where poultry were plentiful as sparrows in Piccadilly. Martin hailed the mission as a sign that normal times were come again. A gate led into the meadow from the garden, but to go that way meant walking twenty yards or more, so the boy took a running jump, caught a stout limb of a pear tree, swung himself onto a ten-foot pile of wood, and dropped over into the field beyond. Mrs. Bolland witnessed the feat with some degree of alarm. In the course of a few hours she had come to see her adopted son passing from childhood into vigorous adolescence. "Drat that lad!" she cried irately. "Does he want to break his neck?" "He larnt that trick t' other day, missus," commented William, standing all lopsided to balance a huge pail of pig's food. "He'll mek a rare chap, will your Martin." "He's larnin' a lot o' tricks that I ken nowt about," cried Mistress Martha. "Nice doin's there was last night. How comes it none o' you men saw him carryin' on i' t' fair wi' that little French la-di-dah?" "I dunno, ma'am." William grinned, though, for some of the men had noted the children's antics, and none would "split" to the farmer. "But I did hear as how Martin gev t' Squire's son a fair weltin'," he went on. "One o' t' grooms passed here an oor sen, exercisin' a young hoss, an' he said that beäth young gentlemen kem yam at half-past ten. Master Frank had an eye bunged up, an' a nose like a bad apple. He was that banged about that t' Squire let him off a bastin' an' gev t' other a double allowance." Mrs. Bolland smiled. "Gan on wi' yer wark," she said. "Here's it's seven o'clock, half t' day gone, an' nothin' done." Martin, searching for stray eggs, suddenly heard a familiar whistle. He looked around and saw Jim Bates's head over the top of the lane hedge. Jim held up a bundle. "Here's yer coat an' hat," he said. "I dursent bring 'em last neet." "Why did you run away?" inquired Martin, approaching to take his property. "I was skeert. Yon woman's yellin' was awful. I went straight off yam." "Did you catch it for being out late?" "Noa; but feyther gev me a clout this mornin' for not tellin' him about t' murder. He'd gone te bed." "Nobody was murdered," said Martin. "That wasn't Betsy's fault. It's all my eye about Mr. Pickerin' stickin' a fork into hisself. There was noa fork there." "How do you know?" "Coss I was pullin' carrots all Saturday mornin' for Mrs. Atkinson, an' if there'd bin any fork I should ha' seen it." "Martin," cried a shrill voice from the garth, "is that lookin' fer eggs?" Jim Bates's head and shoulders shot out of sight instantaneously. "All right, mother, I'm only getting back my lost clothes," explained Martin. He began a painstaking survey of the hedge bottom and was rewarded by the discovery of a nest of six hidden away by a hen anxious to undertake the cares of maternity. At breakfast John Bolland was silent and severe. He passed but one remark to Martin: "Happen you'll be wanted some time this mornin'. Stop within hail until Mr. Benson calls." Mr. Benson was the village constable. "What will he want wi' t' lad?" inquired Mrs. Bolland tartly. "Martin is t' main witness i' this case o' Pickerin's. Kitty Thwaites isn't likely te tell t' truth. Women are main leears when there's a man i' t' business." "More fools they." "Well, let be. I'm fair vexed that Martin's neäm should be mixed up i' this affair. Fancy the tale that'll be i' t' _Messenger_--John Bolland's son fightin' t' young squire at ten o'clock o' t' neet in t' 'Black Lion' yard--fightin' ower a lass. What ailed him I cannot tell. He must ha' gone clean daft." The farmer pushed back his chair angrily, and Mrs. Bolland wondered what he would say did he know of Martin's wild extravagance. Mother and son were glad when John picked up a riding-whip and lumbered out to mount Sam, the pony, for an hour's ride over the moor. Evidently, he had encountered Benson before breakfast, as that worthy officer arrived at half-past ten and asked Martin to accompany him. The two walked solemnly through the fair, in which there was already some stir. A crowd hanging around the precincts of the inn made way as they approached, and Martin saw, near the door, two saddled horses in charge of a policeman. He was escorted to an inner room, receiving a tremulous, but gracious, smile from Evelyn as he passed. To his very genuine astonishment and alarm, he was confronted not only by the district superintendent of police but also by Mr. Frank Reginald de Courcy Beckett-Smythe, the magnate of the Hall. "This is the boy, your wuship," said Benson. "Ah. What is his name?" "Martin Court Bolland, sir." "One of John Bolland's sons, eh?" "No, sir. Mr. Bolland has no son. He adopted this lad some thirteen years ago." Had a bolt from the blue struck Martin at that moment he could not have been more dumbfounded. Both John and Martha had thought fit to keep the secret of his parentage from his knowledge until he was older, as the fact might tend to weaken their authority during his boyhood. The adults in Elmsdale, of course, knew the circumstances thoroughly, and respected Mr. and Mrs. Bolland's wishes, while the children with whom he grew up regarded him as village-born like themselves. It took a good deal to bring tears to Martin's eyes, but they were perilously near at that instant. Though the words almost choked him, he faltered: "Is that true, Mr. Benson?" "True? It's true eneuf, lad. Didn't ye know?" "No, they never told me." A mist obscured his sight. The presence of the magistrate and superintendent ceased to have any awe-inspiring effect. What disgrace was this so suddenly blurted out by this stolid policeman? Whose child was he, then, if not theirs? Could he ever hold up his head again in face of the youthful host over which he lorded it by reason of his advanced intelligence and greater strength? There was comfort in the thought that no one had ever taunted him in this relation. The veiled hint in Pickering's words to the farmer was the only reference he could recall. Benson seemed to regard the facts as to his birth as matters of common knowledge. Perhaps there was some explanation which would lift him from the sea of ignominy into which he had been pitched so unexpectedly. He was aroused by Mr. Beckett-Smythe saying: "Now, my lad, was it you who fought my son last night?" "Yes--sir," stammered Martin. The question sharpened his wits to some purpose. A spice of dread helped the process. Was he going to be tried on some dire charge of malicious assault? "Hum," muttered the squire, surveying him with a smile. "A proper trouncing you gave him, too. I shall certainly thrash him now for permitting it. What was the cause of the quarrel?" "About a girl, sir." "You young rascals! A girl! What girl?" "Perhaps it was all my fault, sir." "That is not answering my question." "I would rather not tell, sir." Then Mr. Beckett-Smythe leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. "'Pon my honor," he said to the superintendent, "these young sparks are progressive. They don't care what happens, so long as the honor of the lady is safeguarded. My son refused point-blank to say even why he fought. Well, well, Martin, I see you did not come out of the fray scatheless; but you are not brought here because you decorated Frank's ingenuous countenance. I want you to tell me exactly what took place in the garden when Mr. Pickering was wounded." Somewhat reassured, Martin told all he knew, which was not a great deal. The magistrate, who, of course, was only assisting the police inquiry, was perplexed. "There were others present?" he commented. "Yes, sir. Master Frank and Master Ernest----" "Master Frank could not see much at the moment, eh?" Martin blushed. "But Ernest--surely, he might have noted something that you missed?" "I think not, sir. He was--er--looking after his brother." "And the other children?" "Several boys and girls of the village, but they were frightened by the screaming, sir, and ran away." "Including the young lady who caused the combat?" No answer. Martin thought it best to leave the point open. Again Mr. Beckett-Smythe laughed. "I suppose this village belle is one of Mrs. Atkinson's daughters. Gad! I never heard tell of such a thing. All right, Martin, you can go now, but let me give you a parting word of advice. Never again fight for a woman, unless to protect her from a blackguard, which, I presume, was hardly the cause of the dispute with Frank." "I don't think he was to blame at all, sir." "Thank you. Good-day, Martin. Here's a half-crown to plaster that damaged lip of yours." Left to themselves, the magistrate and superintendent discussed the advisability of taking proceedings against Betsy Thwaites. "I'm sure Pickering made up his story in order to screen the woman," said the police officer. "A rusty fork was found in the stackyard, but it was thirty feet away from the nearest point of the track made by the drops of blood, and separated from the garden by a stout hedge. Moreover, Pickering and Kitty were undoubtedly standing in the orchard, many yards farther on. Then, again, the girl was collared by Thomas Metcalfe, of the Leas Farm, and the knife, one of Mrs. Atkinson's, fell from her hand; while a dozen people will swear they heard her sister calling out that she had murdered George Pickering." Beckett-Smythe shook his head doubtfully. "It is a queer affair, looked at in any light. Do you think I ought to see Pickering himself? You can arrest Betsy Thwaites without a warrant, I believe, and, in any event, I'll not sit on the bench if the case comes before the court." The superintendent was only too glad to have the squire's counsel in dealing with a knotty problem. The social position of the wounded man required some degree of caution before proceedings were commenced, in view of his emphatic declaration that his wound was self-inflicted. If his state became dangerous, there was only one course open to the representatives of the law; but the doctor's verdict was that penetration of the lung had been averted by a hair's breadth, and Pickering would recover. Indeed, he might be taken home in a carriage at the end of the week. Meanwhile, the hayfork and the blood-stained knife were impounded. The two men went upstairs and were shown to the room occupied by the injured gallant. Kitty Thwaites, pale as a ghost, was flitting about attending to her work, the hotel being crowded with stock-breeders and graziers. Her unfortunate sister, even more woebegone in appearance, was nursing the invalid, at his special request. It was a puzzling situation, and Mr. Beckett-Smythe, who knew Pickering intimately, was inclined to act with the utmost leniency that the law allowed. Betsy Thwaites, who was sitting at the side of the bed, rose when they entered. Her white face became suffused with color, and she looked at the police officer with frightened eyes. The magistrate saw this, and he said quite kindly: "If Mr. Pickering is able to speak with us for a little while, you may leave us with him." "No, no," interrupted the invalid in an astonishingly strong and hearty voice. "There's nothing to be said that Betsy needn't hear. Is there, lass?" She began to tremble, and lifted a corner of her apron. Notwithstanding her faithless swain's statement to her sister, she was quite as good-looking as Kitty, and sorrow had given her face a pathetic dignity that in no wise diminished its charm. She knew not whether to stay or go. The superintendent took the hint given by the squire. "It would be best, under the circumstances, if we were left alone while we talk over last night's affair, Mr. Pickering." "Not a bit of it. Don't go, Betsy. What is there to talk over? I made a fool of myself--not for the first time where a woman was concerned--and Betsy here, brought from Hereford by a meddlesome scamp, lost her temper. No wonder! Poor girl, she had traveled all day in a hot train, without eatin' a bite, and found me squeezing her sister at the bottom of the garden. There's no denying that she meant to do me a mischief, and serve me right, too. I'll admit I was scared, and in running away I got into worse trouble, as, of course, I could easily have mastered her. Kitty, too, what between fear and shame, lost her senses, and poor Betsy cut her own arm. You see, a plain tale stops all the nonsense that has been talked since ten o'clock last night." "Not quite, George." Mr. Beckett-Smythe was serious and magisterial. "You forget, or perhaps do not know, that there were witnesses." Pickering looked alarmed. "Witnesses!" he cried. "What d'you mean?" "Well, no outsider saw the blow, or accident, whichever it was; but a number of children saw and heard incidents which, putting it mildly, tend to discredit your story." Betsy began to sob. "I told you you had better leave the room," went on the squire in a low tone. Pickering endeavored to raise himself in the bed, but sank back with a groan. The unfortunate girl forgot her own troubles at the sound, and rushed to arrange the pillow beneath his head. "It comes to this, then," he said huskily; "you want to arrest, on a charge of attempting to murder me, a woman whom I intend to marry long before she can be brought to trial!" Betsy broke down now in real earnest. Beckett-Smythe and the superintendent gazed at Pickering with blank incredulity. This development was wholly unlooked for. They both thought the man was light-headed. He smiled dryly. "Yes, I mean it," he continued, placing his hand on the brown hair of the girl, whose face was buried in the bedclothes. "I--I didn't sleep much last night, and I commenced to see things in a different light to that which presented itself before. I treated Betsy shamefully--not in a monied sense, but in every other way. She's not one of the general run of girls. I promised to marry her once, and now I'm going to keep my promise. That's all." He was desperately in earnest. Of that there could be no manner of doubt. The superintendent stroked his chin reflectively, and the magistrate could only murmur: "Gad, that changes the venue, as the lawyers say." One thought dominated the minds of both men; Pickering was behaving foolishly. He was a wealthy man, owner of a freehold farm of hundreds of acres; he might aspire to marry a woman of some position in the county and end his days in all the glory of J. P.-dom and County Aldermanship. Yet, here he was deliberately throwing himself away on a dairymaid who, not many hours since, had striven to kill him during a burst of jealous fury. The thing was absurd. Probably when he recovered he would see this for himself; but for the time it was best to humor him and give official sanction to his version of the overnight quarrel. "Don't keep us in suspense, squire," cried the wounded man, angered by his friend's silence. "What are you going to do?" "Nothing, George; nothing, I think. I only hope your accident with the pitchfork will not have serious results--in any shape." The policeman nodded a farewell. As they quitted the room they heard Pickering say faintly: "Now, Betsy, my dear, no more crying. I can't stand it. Damn it all, one doesn't get engaged to be married and yelp over it!" On the landing they saw Kitty, a white shadow, anxious, but afraid to speak. "Cheer up," said Beckett-Smythe pleasantly. "This affair looks like ending in smoke." Gaining courage from the magistrate's affability, the girl said brokenly: "Mr. Pickering and--my--sister--are quite friendly. You saw that for yourself, sir." "Gad, yes. They're going to be--well--er--I was going to say we have quite decided that an accident took place and there is no call for police interference--so long as Mr. Pickering shows progress toward recovery, you understand. There, there! You women always begin to cry, whether pleased or vexed. Bless my heart, let's get away, Mr. Superintendent." CHAPTER VIII SHOWING HOW MARTIN'S HORIZON WIDENS The sufferings of the young are strenuous as their joys. When Martin passed into the heart of the bustling fair its glamour had vanished. The notes of the organ were harsh, the gay canvas of the booths tawdry, the cleanly village itself awry. The policeman's surprise at his lack of knowledge on the subject of his parentage was disastrously convincing. The man treated the statement as indisputable. There was no question of hearsay; it was just so, a recognized fact, known to all the grown-up people in Elmsdale. Tommy Beadlam, he of the white head, ran after him to ask why the "bobby" brought him to the "Black Lion," but Martin averted eyes laden with misery, and motioned his little friend away. Tommy, who had seen the fight, and knew of the squire's presence this morning, drew his own conclusions. "Martin's goin' to be locked up," he told a knot of awe-stricken youngsters, and they thrilled with sympathy, for their champion's victory over the "young swell frae t' Hall" was highly popular. The front door of the White House stood hospitably open. Already a goodly number of visitors had gathered, and every man and woman talked of nothing but the dramatic events of the previous night. When Martin arrived, fresh from a private conversation with the squire and the chief of police, they were on the tip-toe of expectancy. Perhaps he might add to the store of gossip. Even Mrs. Bolland felt a certain pride that the boy should be the center of interest in this _cause célèbre_. But his glum face created alarm in her motherly breast. "Why, Martin," she cried, "what's gone wrong? Ye look as if ye'd seen a ghost wi' two heäds!" The all-absorbing topic to Martin just then was his own history and not the half-comprehended tragedy of the rural lovers. If his mother's friends knew that which was hidden from him, why should he compel his tongue to wag falsely? Somehow, the air seemed thick with deception just now, but his heart would have burst had he attempted to restrain the words that welled forth. "Mother," he said, and his lips quivered at the remembrance that the affectionate title was itself a lie, "Mr. Benson told the squire I was not your boy--that father and you adopted me thirteen years ago." Mrs. Bolland's face glowed with quick indignation. No one spoke. Martin's impetuous repudiation of his name was the last thing they looked for. "It is true, I suppose," he went on despairingly. "If I am not your son, then whose son am I?" Martha lifted her eyes to the ceiling. "Well, of all the deceitful scoundrels!" she gasped. "Te think of me fillin' his blue coat wi' meat an' beer last neet, an' all t' return he maks is te worry this poor lad's brains wi' that owd tale!" "Oh, he's sly, is Benson," chimed in stout Mrs. Summersgill. "A fortnight sen last Tuesday I caught him i' my dairy wi' one o' t' maids, lappin' up cream like a great tomcat." A laugh went round. None paid heed to Martin's agony. A dullness fell on his soul. Even the woman he called mother was angered more by the constable's blurting out of a household secret than by the destruction of an ideal. Such, in confused riot, was the thought that chilled him. But he was mistaken. Martha Bolland's denunciations of the policeman only covered the pain, sharp as the cut of a knife, caused by the boy's cry of mingled passion and sorrow. She was merely biding her time. When chance served, she called him into the larder, the nearest quiet place in the house, and closed the door. "Martin, my lad," she said, while big tears shone in her honest eyes, "ye are dear to me as my own. I trust I may be spared to be muther te ye until ye're a man. John an' me meant no unkindness te ye in not tellin' ye we found ye i' Lunnun streets, a poor, deserted little mite, wi' nather feyther nor muther, an' none te own ye. What matter was it that ye should know sooner? Hev we not done well by ye? When ye come to think over 't, ye're angered about nowt. Kiss me, honey, an' if anyone says owt cross te ye, tell 'em ye hev both a feyther an' a muther, which is more'n some of 'em can say." This display of feeling applied balm to Martin's wounds. Certainly Mrs. Bolland's was the common sense view to take of the situation. He forbore to question her further just then, and hugged her contentedly. The very smell of her lavender-scented clothes was grateful, and this embrace seemed to restore her to him. His brightened countenance, the vanishing of that unwonted expression of resentful humiliation, was even more comforting to Martha herself. "Here," she said, thrusting a small paper package into his hand, "I mayn't hev anuther chance. Ye'll find two pun ten i' that paper. Gie it te Mrs. Saumarez an' tell her I'll be rale pleased if there's no more talk about t' money. An' mebbe, later i' t' day, I'll find a shillin' fer yersen. But, fer goodness' sake, come an' tell t' folk all that t' squire said te ye. They're fair crazed te hear ye." "Mother, dear!" he cried eagerly, "I was so--so mixed up at first that I forgot to tell you. Mr. Beckett-Smythe gave me half a crown." "Ye doan't say! Well, I can't abide half a tale. Let's hae t' lot i' t' front kitchen." It was noon, and dinner-time, before Martin could satisfy the cackling dames as to all within his cognizance concerning Betsy Thwaites's escapade. Be it noted, they unanimously condemned Fred, the groom; commiserated with Betsy, and extolled George Pickering as a true gentleman. P. C. Benson, all unconscious of the rod in pickle for his broad back, strolled in about the eating hour. Mrs. Bolland, brindling with repressed fury, could scarce find words wherewith to scold him. "Well, of all the brazen-faced men I've ever met--" she began. "So you've heerd t' news?" he interrupted. "Heerd? I should think so, indeed! Martin kem yam----" "Martin! Did he know?" "Know!" she shrilled. "Wasn't it ye as said it?" "No, ma'am," he replied stolidly. "Mrs. Atkinson told me, and she said that Mr. Pickerin' had ta'en his solemn oath te do't in t' presence of t' super and t' squire!" "Do what?" was the chorus. "Why, marry Betsy, to be sure, as soon as he can be led te t' church. What else is there?" This stupendous addition to the flood of excitement carried away even Martha Bolland for the moment. In her surprise she set a plate for Benson with the others, and, after that, the paramount rite of hospitality prevented her from "having it out wi' him" until hunger was sated. Then, however, she let him "feel the edge of her tongue"; he was so flustered that John had to restore his mental poise with another pint of ale. Meanwhile, Martin managed to steal out unobserved, and made the best of his way to The Elms. Although in happier mood, he was not wholly pleased with his errand. He was not afraid of Mrs. Saumarez--far from it, but he did not know how to fulfill his mission and at the same time exonerate Angèle. His chivalrous nature shrank from blaming her, yet his unaided wits were not equal to the task of restoring so much money to her mother without answering truthfully the resultant deluge of questions. He was battling with this problem when, near The Elms, he encountered the Rev. Charles Herbert, M.A., vicar of Elmsdale, and his daughter Elsie. Martin doffed his straw hat readily, and would have passed, but the vicar hailed him. "Martin, is it correct that you were in the stableyard of the 'Black Lion' last night and saw something of this sad affair of Mr. Pickering's?" he inquired. "Yes, sir." Martin blushed. The girl's blue eyes were fixed on his with the innocent curiosity of a fawn. She knew him well by sight, but they had never exchanged a word. He found himself wondering what her voice was like. Would she chatter with the excited volubility of Angèle? Being better educated than he, would she pour forth a jargon of foreign words and slang? Angèle was quiet as a mouse under her mother's eye. Was Elsie aping this demure demeanor because her father was present? Certainly, she looked a very different girl. Every curve of her pretty face, each line in her graceful contour, suggested modesty and nice manners. Why, he couldn't tell, but he knew instinctively that Elsie Herbert would have drawn back horrified from the mad romp overnight, and he was humbled in spirit before her. The worthy vicar never dreamed that the farmer's sturdy son was capable of deep emotion. He interpreted Martin's quick coloring to knowledge of a discreditable episode. He said to the girl: "I'll follow you home in a few minutes, my dear." Martin thought that an expression of disappointment swept across the clear eyes, but Elsie quitted them instantly. The boy had endured too much to be thus humiliated before one of his own age. "I would have said nothing to offend the young lady," he cried hotly. Very much taken aback, Mr. Herbert's eyebrows arched themselves above his spectacles. "My good boy," he said, "I did not choose that my daughter should hear the--er--offensive details of this--er--stabbing affray, or worse, that took place at the inn." "But you didn't mind slighting me in her presence, sir," was the unexpected retort. "I am not slighting you. Had I met Mr. Beckett-Smythe and sought information as to this matter, I would still have asked her to go on to the Vicarage." This was a novel point of view for Martin. He reddened again. "I'm sorry, sir," he said. "Everything has gone wrong with me to-day. I didn't mean to be rude." The vicar deemed him a strange youth, but tacitly accepted the apology, and drew from Martin the story of the night's doings. It shocked him to hear that Martin and Frank Beckett-Smythe were fighting in the yard of the "Black Lion" at such an hour. "How came you to be there?" he said gently. "You do not attend my church, Martin, but I have always regarded Mr. Bolland as a God-fearing man, and your teacher has told me that you are gifted with intelligence and qualities beyond your years or station in life." "I was there quite by accident, sir, and I couldn't avoid the fight." "What caused it?" "We fought to settle that question, sir, and it's finished now." The vicar laughed. "Which means you will not tell me. Well, I am no disbeliever in a manly display of fisticuffs. It breaks no bones and saves many a boy from the growth of worse qualities. I suppose you are going to the fair this afternoon?" "No, sir. I'm not." "Would you mind telling me how you will pass the time between now and supper?" "I am taking a message from my mother to Mrs. Saumarez, and then I'll go straight to the Black Plantation"--a dense clump of firs situate at the head of the ghylls, or small valleys, leading from the cultivated land up to the moor. "Dear me! And what will you do there?" The boy smiled, somewhat sheepishly. "I have a nest in a tree there, sir, where I often sit and read." "What do you read?" "Just now, sir, I am reading Scott's poems." "Indeed. What books do you favor, as a rule?" Delighted to have a sympathetic listener, Martin forgot his troubles in pouring forth a catalogue of his favorite authors. The more Mr. Herbert questioned him the more eager and voluble he became. The boy had the rare faculty of absorbing the joys and sorrows, the noble sentiments, the very words of the heroes of romance, and in this scholarly gentleman he found an auditor who appreciated all that was hitherto dumb thought. Several people passing along the road wondered what "t' passon an' oad John Bolland's son were makkin' sike deed about," and the conversation must have lasted fifteen or twenty minutes, when the vicar heard the chimes of the church clock. He laughed genially. Although, on his part, there was an underlying motive in the conversation, Martin had fairly carried it far afield. "You have had your revenge on me for sending my daughter away," he cried. "My lunch will be cold. Now, will you do me a favor?" "Of course, sir; anything you ask." "Nay, Martin, make that promise to no man. But this lies within your scope. About four o'clock leave your crow's nest and drop over to Thor ghyll. I may be there." Overjoyed at the prospect of a renewed chat on topics dear to his heart, the boy ran off, light-heartedly, to The Elms. His task seemed easier now. The wholesome breeze of intercourse with a cultivated mind had momentarily swept into the background a host of unpleasing things. He found he could not see Mrs. Saumarez, so he asked for Miss Walker. The lady came. She was prim and severe. Instantly he detected a note of hostility which her first words put beyond doubt. "My mother sent me to return some money to Mrs. Saumarez," he explained. "Mrs. Saumarez is ill. Mrs. Bolland must wait until she recovers. As for you, you bad boy, I wonder you dare show your face here." Martin never flinched from a difficulty. "Why?" he demanded. "What have I done?" "Can you ask? To drag that poor little mite of a girl into such horrible scenes as those which took place in the village? Be off! You just wait until Mrs. Saumarez is better, and you will hear more of it." With that, she slammed the door on him. So Angèle had posed as a simpleton, and he was the villain. This phase of the medley amused him. He was retreating down the drive, when he heard his name called. He turned. A window on the ground floor opened, and Mrs. Saumarez appeared, leaning unsteadily on the sill. "Come here!" she cried imperiously. Somehow she puzzled, indeed flustered, him. For one thing, her attire was bizarre. Usually dressed with unexceptionable taste, to-day she wore a boudoir wrap--a costly robe, but adjusted without care, and all untidy about neck and breast. Her hair was coiled loosely, and stray wisps hung out in slovenly fashion. Her face, deathly white, save for dull red patches on the cheeks, served as a fit setting for unnaturally brilliant eyes which protruded from their sockets in a manner quite startling, while the veins on her forehead stood out like whipcord. Martin was utterly dismayed. He stood stock-still. "Come!" she said again, glaring at him with a curious fixity. "I want you. Françoise is not here, and I wish you to run an errand." Save for a strange thickness in her speech, she had never before reminded him so strongly of Angèle. She had completely lost her customary air of repose. She spoke and acted like a peevish child. Anyhow, she had summoned him, and he could now discharge his trust. In such conditions, Martin seldom lacked words. "I asked for you at the door, ma'am," he explained, drawing nearer, "but Miss Walker said you were ill. My mother sent me to give you this." He produced the little parcel of money and essayed to hand it to her. She surveyed it with lackluster eyes. "What is it?" she said. "I do not understand. Here is plenty of money. I want you to go to the village, to the 'Black Lion,' and bring me a sovereign's worth of brandy." She held out a coin. They stood thus, proffering each other gold. "But this is yours, ma'am. I came to return it. I--er--borrowed some money from Ang--from Miss Saumarez--and mother said----" "Cease, boy. I do not understand, I tell you. Keep the money and bring me what I ask." In her eagerness she leaned so far out of the window that she nearly overbalanced. The sovereign fell among some flowers. With an effort she recovered an unsteady poise. Martin stooped to find the money. A door opened inside the house. A hot whisper reached him. "Tell no one. I'll watch for you in half an hour--remember--a sovereign's worth." The boy, not visible from the far side of the room, heard the voice of Françoise. The window closed with a bang. He discovered the coin and straightened himself. The maid was seating her mistress in a chair and apparently remonstrating with her. She picked up from the floor a wicker-covered Eau de Cologne bottle and turned it upside down with an angry gesture. It was empty. Martin, whose experience of intoxicated people was confined to the infrequent sight of a village toper, heavy with beer, lurching homeward in maudlin glee or fury, imagined that Mrs. Saumarez must be in some sort of fever. Obviously, those in attendance on her should be consulted before he brought her brandy secretly. Back he marched to the front door and rang the bell. Lest Miss Walker should shut him out again, he was inside the hall before anyone could answer his summons, for the doors of country houses remain unlocked all day. The elder sister reappeared, very starchy at this unheard-of impertinence. "I was forced to return, ma'am," he said civilly. "Mrs. Saumarez saw me in the drive and asked me to buy her some brandy. She gave me a sovereign. She looked very ill, so I thought it best to come and tell you." The lady was thoroughly nonplussed by this plain statement. "Oh," she stammered, so confused that he did not know what to make of her agitation, "this is very nice of you. She must not have brandy. It is--quite unsuitable--for her illness. It is really very good of you to tell me. I--er--I'm sorry I spoke so harshly just now, but--er----" "That's all right, ma'am. It was all a mistake. Will you kindly take charge of this sovereign, and also of the two pounds ten which Miss Angèle lent me?" "Which Miss Angèle lent you! Two pounds ten! I thought you said your mother----" "It is mine, please," said a voice from the broad landing above their heads. Angèle skipped lightly down the stairs and held out her hand. Martin gave her the money. "I don't understand this, at all," said the mystified Miss Walker. "Does Mrs. Saumarez know----" "Mrs. Saumarez knows nothing. Neither does Martin." With wasp-like suddenness, the girl turned and faced a woman old enough to be her grandmother. Their eyes clashed. The child's look said plainly: "Dare to utter another word and I'll disgrace your house throughout the village." The woman yielded. She waved a protesting hand. "It is no business of mine. Thank you, Martin, for coming back." Angèle lashed out at him next. "Allez, donc! I'll never speak to you again." She ran up the stairs. He stood irresolute. "Anyhow, not now," she added. "I may be out in an hour's time." Miss Walker was holding the door open. He hurried away, and Françoise saw him, wondering why he had called. And for hours thereafter, until night fell, a white-faced woman paced restlessly to and fro in the sitting-room, ever and anon raising the window, and watching for Martin's return with a fierce intensity that rendered her almost maniacal in appearance. Happily, the boy was unaware of the pitiful tragedy in the life of the rich and highly placed Mrs. Saumarez. While she waited, with a rage steadily dwindling into a wearied despair, he was passing, all unconsciously, into the next great phase of his career. He took one forward step into the unknown before leaving the tree-lined drive. He met Fritz, the chauffeur, who was so absorbed in the study of a folding road-map that he did not see Martin until the latter hailed him. "Hello!" was the boy's cheery greeting. "That affair is ended. Please don't say anything to Mrs. Saumarez." The German closed the map. "Whad iss ented?" he inquired, surveying Martin with a cool hauteur rare in chauffeurs. "Why, last night's upset in the village." "Ah, yez. Id iss nod my beeznez." "I didn't quite mean that. But there's no use in getting Miss Angèle into a row, is there?" "Dat iss zo. Vere do you leeve?" "At the White House Farm." "Vere de brize caddle are?" Martin smiled. He had never before heard English spoken with a strong German accent. Somehow he associated these resonant syllables with a certain indefinite stress which Mrs. Saumarez laid on a few words. "Yes," he said. "My father's herd is well known." Fritz's manner became genial. "Zome tay you vill show me, yez?" he inquired. "I'll be very pleased. And will you explain your car to me--the engine, I mean?" "Komm now." "Sorry, but I have an engagement." There was plenty of time at Martin's disposal, but he did not want to loiter about The Elms that afternoon. This man was a paid servant who could hardly refuse to carry out any reasonable order, and it would have been awkward for Martin if Mrs. Saumarez asked him to give Fritz the sovereign she had intrusted to his keeping. "All aright," agreed the chauffeur, whose strong, intellectual face was now altogether amiable; in fact, a white scar on his left cheek creased so curiously when he grinned that his aspect was almost comical. "We vill meed when all dis noise sdops, yez?" and he waved a hand toward the distant drone of the fair. Thus began for Martin another strange friendship--a friendship destined to end so fantastically that if the manner of its close were foretold then and there by any prophet, the mere telling might have brought the seer to the madhouse. CHAPTER IX THE WILDCAT It was nearly three o'clock when Martin re-entered the village. Outside the boxing booth a huge placard announced, in sprawling characters, that the first round of the boxing competition would start punctually at 3 P.M. "Owing to the illness of Mr. George Pickering, deeply regretted," another referee would be appointed. It cost the boy a pang to stride on. He would have dearly liked to watch the display of pugilism. He might have gone inside the tent for an hour and still kept his tryst with Mr. Herbert, but John Bolland's dour teaching had scored grooves in his consciousness not readily effaced. The folly of last night must be atoned in some way, and he punished himself deliberately now by going straight home. The house was only a little less thronged than the "Black Lion," so he made his way unobserved to the great pile of dry bracken in which he hid books borrowed from the school library. Ten minutes later he was seated in the fork of a tree full thirty feet from the ground and consoling himself for loss of the reality by reading of a fight far more picturesque in detail--the Homeric combat between FitzJames and Roderick Dhu. From his perch he could see the church clock. Shortly before the appointed hour he climbed down and surmounted the ridge which divided the Black Plantation from Thor ghyll. It was a rough passage, naught save gray rock and flowering ling, or heather, growing so wild and bushy that in parts it overtopped his height. But Martin was sure-footed as a goat. Across the plateau and down the tree-clad slope on the other side he sped, until he reached a point whence he could obtain a comprehensive view of the winding glen. On a stretch of turf by the side of the silvery beck that rushed so frantically from the moorland to the river, he spied a small garden tent. In front was a table spread with china and cakes, while a copper kettle, burnished so brightly that it shone like gold in the sunlight, was suspended over a spirit lamp. Mr. Herbert was there, and an elderly lady, his aunt, who acted as his housekeeper--also Elsie and her governess and two young gentlemen who "read" with the vicar during the long vacation. Evidently a country picnic was toward; Martin was at a loss to know why he had been invited. Perhaps they wished him to guide them over the moor to some distant glen or to the early British camp two miles away. Sometimes a tourist wandering through Elmsdale called at the farm for information, and Martin would be dispatched with the inquirer to show the way. It was a pity that Mr. Herbert had not mentioned his desire, as the daily reading of the Bible was due in an hour, and most certainly, to-day of all days, Martin must be punctual. If his brain were busy, his eye was clear. He sprang from rock to rock like a chamois. Once he swung himself down a small precipice by the tough root of a whin. He knew the root was there, and had already tested its capabilities, but the gathering beneath watched him with dismay, for the feat looked hazardous in the extreme. In a couple of minutes he had descended two hundred feet of exceedingly rough going. He stopped at the beck to wash his hands and dry them on his handkerchief. Then he approached the group. "Do you always descend the ghyll in that fashion, Martin?" cried the vicar. "Yes, sir. It is the nearest way." "A man might say that who fell out of a balloon." "But I have been up and down there twenty times, sir." "Well, well; my imaginary balloonist could make no such answer. Sit down and have some tea. Elsie, this is young Martin Bolland, of whom I have been telling you." The girl smiled in a very friendly way and brought Martin a cup of tea and a plate of cakes. So he was a guest, and introduced by the vicar to his daughter! How kind this was of Mr. Herbert! How delighted Mrs. Bolland would be when she heard of it, for, however strict her Nonconformity, the vicar was still a social power in the village, and second only to the Beckett-Smythes in the estimation of the parish. At first poor Martin was tongue-tied. He answered in monosyllables when the vicar or Mrs. Johnson, the old lady, spoke to him; but to Elsie he said not a word. She, too, was at a loss how to interest him, until she noticed a book in his pocket. When told that it was Scott's poems she said pleasantly that a month ago she went with her father to a place called Greta Bridge and visited many of the scenes described in "Rokeby." Unhappily, Martin had not read "Rokeby." He resolved to devour it at the first opportunity, but for the nonce it offered no conversational handle. He remained dumb, yet all the while he was comparing Elsie with Angèle, and deciding privately that girls brought up as ladies in England were much nicer than those reared in the places which Angèle named so glibly. But his star was propitious that day. One of the young men happened to notice a spot where a large patch of heather had been sliced off the face of the moor. He asked Mr. Herbert what use the farmers made of it. "Nothing that I can recall," said the vicar, a man who, living in the country, knew little of its ways; "perhaps Martin can tell you." "We make besoms of it, sir," was the ready reply, "but that space has been cleared by the keepers so that the young grouse may have fresh green shoots to feed on." Here was a topic on which he was crammed with information. His face grew animated, his eyes sparkled, the words came fast and were well chosen. As he spoke, the purple moor, the black firs, the meadows, the corn land red with poppies, became peopled with fur and feather. On the hilltops the glorious black cock, in the woods the dandy pheasant and swift pigeon, among the meadows and crops the whirring partridge, became actualities, present, but unseen. There were plenty of hares on the arable land and the rising ground; as for rabbits, they swarmed everywhere. "This ghyll will be alive with them in little more than an hour," said Martin confidently. "I shouldn't be surprised, if we had a dog and put him among those whins, but half-a-dozen rabbits would bolt out in all directions." "Please, can I be a little bow-wow?" cried Elsie. She sprang to her feet and ran toward the clump of gorse and bracken he had pointed out, imitating a dog's bark as she went. "Take care of the thorns," shouted Martin, making after her more leisurely. She paused on the verge of the tangled mass of vegetation and said, "Shoo!" "That's no good," he laughed. "You must walk through and kick the thick clumps of grass--this way." He plunged into the midst of the gorse. She followed. Not a rabbit budged. "That's odd," he said, rustling the undergrowth vigorously. "There ought to be a lot here." "You know Angèle Saumarez?" said the girl suddenly. "Yes." He ceased beating the bushes and looked at her fixedly, the question was so unexpected. Yet Angèle had asked him the selfsame question concerning Elsie Herbert. One girl resembled another as two peas in a pod. "Do you like her?" "I think I do, sometimes." "Do you think she is pretty?" "Yes, often." "What do you mean by 'sometimes,' 'often?' How can a girl be pretty--'often'?" "Well, you see, I think she is nice in many ways, and that if--she knew you--and copied your manner--your voice, and style, and behavior--she would improve very greatly." Martin had recovered his wits. Elsie tittered and blushed slightly. "Really!" she said, and recommenced the kicking process with ardor. Suddenly, with a fierce snarl, an animal of some sort flew at her. She had a momentary vision of a pair of blazing eyes, bared teeth, and extended claws. She screamed and turned her head. In that instant a wildcat landed on her back and a vicious claw reached for her face. But Martin was at her side. Without a second's hesitation he seized the growling brute in both hands and tore it from off her shoulders. His right hand was around its neck, but he strove in vain to grasp the small of its back in the left. It wriggled and scratched with the ferocity of an undersized tiger. Martin's coat sleeves and shirt were slashed to shreds, his waistcoat was rent, and deep gashes were cut in his arms, but he held on gamely. Mr. Herbert and the others ran up, but came unarmed. They had not even a stick. The vicar, with some presence of mind, rushed back and wrenched a leg from the camp table, but by the time he returned the cat was moving its limbs in its final spasms, for Martin had choked it to death. The vicar danced about with his improvised weapon, imploring the boy to "throw it down and let me whack the life out of it," but Martin was enraged with the pain and the damage to his clothing. In his anger he felt that he could wrench the wretched beast limb from limb, and he might have endeavored to do that very thing were it not for the presence of Elsie Herbert. As it was, when the cat fell to the ground its struggles had ended, but Mr. Herbert gave it a couple of hearty blows to make sure. It was a tremendous brute, double the size of its domestic progenitors. At one period in its career it had been caught in a rabbit trap, for one of its forelegs was removed at the joint, and the calloused stump was hard as a bit of stone. A chorus of praise for Martin's promptitude and courage was cut short when he took the table leg and went back to the clump of gorse. "I thought it was curious that there were no rabbits here," he said. "Now I know why. This cat has a litter of kittens hidden among the whins." "Are you gug-gug-going to kuk-kuk-kill them?" sobbed Elsie. He paused in his murderous search. "It makes no matter now," he said, laughing. "I'll tell the keeper. Wildcats eat up an awful lot of game." His coolness, his absolute disregard of the really serious cuts he had received, were astounding to the town-bred men. The vicar was the first to recover some degree of composure. "Martin," he cried, "come this instant and have your wounds washed and bound up. You are losing a great deal of blood, and that brute's claws may have been venomous." The boy obeyed at once. He presented a sorry spectacle. His arms and hands were bathed in blood and his clothes were splashed with it. Elsie Herbert's eyes filled with tears. "This is nothing," he said to cheer her. "They're only scratches, but they look bad." As a matter of fact, he did not realize until long afterwards that were it not for the fortunate accident which deprived the cat of her off foreleg, some of the tendons of his right wrist might have been severed. From the manner in which he held her she could not get the effective claws to bear crosswise. The vicar looked grave when a first dip in the brook revealed the extent of the boy's injuries. "You are plucky enough to bear the application of a little brine, Martin?" he said. Suiting the action to the word, he emptied the contents of a paper of salt into a teacup and dissolved it in hot water. Then he washed the wounds again in the brook and bound them with handkerchiefs soaked in the mixture. It was a rough-and-ready cauterization, and the pain made Martin white, but later on it earned the commendation of the doctor. Mr. Herbert was pallid himself when Elsie handed him the last handkerchief they could muster, while Mrs. Johnson was already tearing the tablecloth into strips. "It is bad enough to have your wrists scored in this way, my lad," he murmured, "but it will be some consolation for you to know that otherwise these cuts would have been in my little girl's face, perhaps her eyes--great Heaven!--her eyes!" The vicar could have chosen no better words. Martin's heart throbbed with pride. At last the bandages were secured and the tattered sleeve turned down. All this consumed nearly half an hour, and then Martin remembered a forgotten duty. "What time is it?" he said anxiously. "A quarter past five." "Oh, bother!" he murmured. "I'll get into another row. I have missed my Bible lesson." "Your Bible lesson?" "Yes, sir. My father makes me read a portion of Scripture every day." The vicar passed unnoticed the boy's unconsciously resentful tone. He sighed, but straightway resumed his wonted cheeriness. "There will be no row to-day, Martin," he promised. "We shall escort you home in triumphal procession. We leave the things here for my man, who will bring a pony and cart in a few minutes. Now, you two, tie the hind legs of that beast with a piece of string and carry it on the stick. The cat is Martin's _spolia opima_. Here, Elsie, guide your warrior's faltering footsteps down the glen." They all laughed, but by the time they reached the White House the boy was ready to drop, for he had lost a quantity of blood, and the torment of the saline solution was becoming intolerable. John Bolland, after waiting with growing impatience long after the appointed time, closed the Bible with a bang and went downstairs. "What's wrang wi' ye now?" inquired his spouse as he dropped morosely into a chair and answered but sourly a hearty greeting from a visitor. "Where's that lad?" he growled. "Martin. Hasn't he come yam?" She trembled for her adopted son's remissness on this, the first day after the great rebellion. "Yam!"--with intense bitterness--"he's not likely te hearken te t' Word when he's encouraged in guile." "Eh, but there's some good cause this time," cried the old lady, more flustered than she cared to show. "Happen he's bin asked to see t' squire again." "T' squire left Elmsdale afore noon," was the gruff reply. Then the vicar entered, and Elsie, leading Martin, and the two pupils carrying the gigantic cat. Mrs. Johnson and the governess-companion had remained with the tent and would drive home in the dogcart. Mr. Herbert's glowing account of Martin's conduct, combined with a judicious reference to his anxiety when he discovered that the hour for his lesson had passed, placed even Bolland in a good humor. Once again the boy filled the mouths of the multitude, since nothing would serve the farmhands but they must carry off the cat to the fair for exhibition before they skinned it. The doctor came, waylaid on his return from the "Black Lion." He removed the salt-soaked bandages, washed the wounds in tepid water, examined them carefully, and applied some antiseptic dressing, of which he had a supply in his dogcart for the benefit of George Pickering. "An' how is Mr. Pickerin' te-night?" inquired Mrs. Bolland, who was horrified at first by the sight of Martin's damages, but reassured when the doctor said the boy would be all right in a day or two. "Not so well, Mrs. Bolland," was the answer. "Oh, ye don't say so. Poor chap! Is it wuss than ye feared for?" "No; the wound is progressing favorably, but he is feverish. I don't like that. Fever is weakening." No more would the doctor say, and Mrs. Bolland soon forgot the sufferings of another in her distress at Martin's condition. She particularly lamented that he should be laid up during the Feast. At that the patient laughed. "Surely I can go out, doctor!" he cried. "Go out, you imp! Of course, you can. But, remember, no larking about and causing these cuts to reopen. Better stay in the house until I see you in the morning." So Martin, fearless of consequences, hunted up "Rokeby," and read it with an interest hardly lessened by the fact that that particular poem is the least exciting of the magician's verse. At last the light failed and the table was laid for supper, so the boy's reading was disturbed. More than once he fancied he had heard at the back of the house a long, shrill whistle which sounded familiar. Curiosity led him to the meadow. He waited a little while, and again the whistle came from the lane. "Who is it?" he called. "Me. Is that you, Martin?" "Me" was Tommy Beadlam, but his white top did not shine in the dark. "What's up?" "Come nearer. I mustn't shout." Wondering what mystery was afoot, Martin approached the hedge. "Yon lass," whispered Tommy--"I can't say her name, but ye ken fine wheä 'tis--she's i' t' fair ageän." "What! Angèle?" "That's her. She gemme sixpence te coom an' tell yer. I've bin whistlin' till me lips is sore." "You tell her from me she is a bad girl and ought to go home at once." "Not me! She'd smack my feäce." "Well, I can't get out. I've had an accident and must go to bed soon." "There's a rare yarn about you an' a cat. I seed it. Honest truth--did you really kill it wi' your hands?" "Yes; but it gave me something first. Can you see? My arms and left hand are all bound up." "An' it jumped fust on Elsie Herbert?" "Yes." "An' yer grabbed it offen her?" "Yes." "Gosh! Yon lass is fair wild te hear all about it. She greeted when Evelyn Atkinson telt her yer were nearly dead, but yan o' t' farmhands kem along an' we axed him, an' he said ye were nowt worse." Martin's heart softened when he heard of Angèle's tears, but he was sorry she should have stolen out a second time to mix with the rabble of the village. "I can't come out to-night," he said firmly. "Happen ye'd be able to see her if I browt her here?" The white head evidently held brains, but Martin had sufficient strength of character to ask himself what his new friends, the Herbert family, would think if they knew he was only too willing to dance to any tune the temptress played. "No, no," he cried, retreating a pace or two. "You must not bring her. I'm going to supper and straight to bed. And, look here, Tommy. Try and persuade her to go home. If you and Jim Bates and the others take her round the fair to-night you'll all get into trouble. You ought to have heard the parson to-day, and Miss Walker, too. I wouldn't be in your shoes for more than sixpence." This was crafty counsel. Beadlam, after consulting Jim Bates, communicated it to Angèle. She stared with wide-open eyes at the doubting pair. "Misericorde!" she cried. "Were there ever such idiots! Because he cannot come himself, he doesn't want me to be with you." There was something in this. Their judgment wavered, and--and--Angèle had lots of money. But she laughed them to scorn. "Do you think I want you!" she screamed. "Bah! I spit at you. Evelyn, ma chérie, walk with me to The Elms. I want to hear all about the man who was stabbed and the woman who stabbed him." Thereupon, Evelyn and one of her sisters went off with a girl whom they hated. But she was clever, in their estimation, and pretty, and well dressed, and, oh, so rich! Above all, she was not "stuck up" like Elsie Herbert, but laughed at their simple wit, and was ready to sink to their level. Martin, taking thought before he slept, wondered why Angèle had not come openly to the farm. It did not occur to him that Angèle dared not face John Bolland. The child feared the dour old farmer. She dreaded a single look from the shrewd eyes which seemed to search her very soul. CHAPTER X DEEPENING SHADOWS The doctor came late next morning. He did not reach Elmsdale until after eleven o'clock. He called first at the White House and handed Mrs. Bolland a small package. "These are the handkerchiefs I took away yesterday," he said. "I suppose they belong to Mr. Herbert's household. My servant has washed them. Will you see that they are returned?" "Mercy o' me!" cried Martha. "I nivver knew ye took 'em. What did ye want 'em for, docthor?" "There might have been some malignant substance--some poisonous matter--in the cat's claws, and as the county analyst was engaged at my place on some other business I--Oh, come now, Mrs. Bolland, there's no need to be alarmed. Martin's wounds were cleansed, and the salt applied to the raw edges so promptly, that any danger which might have existed was stopped effectually." Yet the doctor's cheery face was grave that morning and his brow was wrinkled as he unfastened the bandages. Beyond a slight stiffness of certain sinews and the natural soreness of the cut flesh, Martin had never felt better in his life. After a disturbed slumber, when he dreamed that he was choking a wildcat--a cat with Angèle's face which changed suddenly in death to Elsie Herbert's smiling features--he lay awake for some hours. Then the pain in his wrists abated gradually, he fell sound asleep, and Mrs. Bolland took care that he was left alone until he awoke of his own accord at half-past eight, an unprecedented hour. So the boy laughed at his mother's fears. Her lips quivered, and she tried to choke back a sob. The doctor turned on her angrily. "Stop that!" he growled. "I suppose you think I'm hoodwinking you. It is not so. I am very much worried about another matter altogether, so please accept my assurance that Martin is all right. He can run about all day, if he likes. The only consequence of disturbing these cuts will be that they cannot heal rapidly. Otherwise, they will be closed completely by the end of the week." While he talked he worked. The dressings were changed and fresh lint applied. He handed Mrs. Bolland a store of materials. "There," he said, "I need not come again, but I'll call on Monday, just to satisfy you. Apply the lotion morning and night. Good-by, Martin. You did a brave thing, I hear. Good-by, Mrs. Bolland." He closed his bag hurriedly and rushed away. Mrs. Bolland, drying her eyes, and quite satisfied now, went to the door and gazed after him. "He's fair rattled wi' summat," she told another portly dame who labored up the incline at the moment. "He a'most snapped my head off. Did he think a body wouldn't be scared wi' his talk about malignous p'ison i' t' lad's bluid, I wonder?" The doctor did not pull up outside the "Black Lion." He drove to the Vicarage--a circumstance which would most certainly have given Mrs. Bolland renewed cause for alarm, were she aware of it--and asked Mr. Herbert to walk in the garden with him for a few minutes. The two conversed earnestly, and the vicar seemed to be greatly shocked at the outcome of their talk. At last they arrived at a decision. The doctor hastened back to the "Black Lion." He did not remain long in the sick room, but scribbled a note downstairs and gave it to his man. "Take that to Mr. Herbert," he said. "I'll make a few calls on foot and meet you at the bridge in a quarter of an hour." The note read: "There is no hope. Things are exactly as I feared." The vicar, looking most woebegone, murmured that there was no answer. He procured his hat and walked slowly to the inn, which was crowded, inside and out. Nearly every man knew him and spoke to him, and many noted that "t' passon looked varra down i' t' mooth this mornin'." He went upstairs. The conjecture flew around at once that Pickering was worse. Someone remembered that Kitty Thwaites said the patient had experienced a touch of fever overnight. Surely, his wound had not developed serious symptoms. The chief herd of his Nottonby estate had seen him during the preceding afternoon and found his master looking wonderfully well. Indeed, Pickering spoke of attending to some business matter in person on Saturday, or on Monday for certain. Why, then, the vicar's visit? What did it portend? People gathered in small groups and their voices softened. By contrast, the blare of lively music and the whistle of the roundabout were intolerably loud. In the quiet room at the back of the hotel, with its scent of iodoform mingling with the sweet breath of the garden wafted in through an open window, Pickering moved restlessly in bed. His face was flushed, his eyes singularly bright, with a glistening sheen that was abnormal. By his side sat the pallid Betsy, reading a newspaper aloud. She followed the printed text with difficulty. Her mind was troubled. The fatigue of nursing was nothing to one of her healthy frame, but her thoughts were terrifying. She lived in a waking nightmare. Had she dared to weep, she might have felt relief, but this sure solace of womankind was denied her. The vicar's entrance caused a sensation. Betsy, in a quick access of fear, dropped the paper, and Pickering's face blanched. Some secret doubt, some inner monitor, brought a premonition of what was to come. He flinched from the knowledge, but only for a moment. Mr. Herbert essayed most gallantly to adopt his customary cheerful mien. "Dr. MacGregor asked me to call and see you, George," he said. "I hope you are not suffering greatly." "Not at all, thanks, vicar. Just a trifle restless with fever, perhaps, but the wound is nothing, a mere cut. I've had as bad a scratch and much more painful when thrusting through a thorn hedge after hounds." "Ah. That is well." The reverend gentleman seemed to be strangely at a loss for words. He glanced at Betsy. "Would you mind leaving me alone with Mr. Pickering for a little while?" he said. The wounded man laughed, and there was a note in his voice that showed how greatly the tension had relaxed. "If that's what you're after, Mr. Herbert," he said promptly, "you may rest assured that the moment I'm able to stir we'll be married. I told Mr. Beckett-Smythe so yesterday." "Indeed; I am glad to hear it. Nevertheless, I want to talk with you alone." The vicar's insistence was a different thing to the wish expressed by a magistrate and a police superintendent. Betsy went out at once. For an appreciable time after the door had closed no word was spoken by either of the men. The vicar's eyes were fixed mournfully on the valley, through which a train was winding its way. The engine left in its track white wraiths of steam which vanished under the lusty rays of the sun. The drone of the showman's organ playing "Tommy Atkins" reached the hardly conscious listeners as through a telephone. From a distant cornfield came the busy rattle of a reaping machine. The harvest had commenced a fortnight earlier than usual. Once again was the bounteous earth giving to man a hundredfold what he had sown. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." Out there in the field were garnered the wages of honest endeavor; here in the room, with its hospital perfume, were being awarded the wages of sin, for George Pickering was condemned to death, and it was the vicar's most doleful mission to warn him of his doom. "Now, Mr. Herbert, pitch into me as much as you like," said the patient, breaking an uneasy silence. "I've been a bad lot, but I'll try to make amends. Betsy's case is a hard one. You're a man of the world and you know what the majority of these village lasses are like; but Betsy----" The vicar could bear the suspense no longer. He must perform his task, no matter what the cost. "George," he broke in tremulously, "my presence here to-day is due to a very sad and irrevocable fact. Dr. MacGregor tells me that your condition is serious, most serious. Indeed--indeed--there is no hope of your recovery." Pickering, who had raised himself on an elbow, gazed at the speaker for an instant with fiery eyes. Then, as though he grasped the purport of the words but gradually, he sank back on the pillow in the manner of one pressed down by overwhelming force. The vicar moved his chair nearer and grasped his friend's right hand. "George," he murmured, "bear up, and try to prepare your soul for that which is inevitable. What are you losing? A few years of joys and sorrows, to which the end must come. And the end is eternity, compared with which this life is but a passing shadow." Pickering did not answer immediately. He raised his body again. He moved his limbs freely. He looked at a square bony wrist and stretched out the free hand until he caught an iron rail, which he clenched fiercely. In his veins ran the blood of a race of yeomen. His hardy ancestors had exchanged blow for blow with Scottish raiders who sought to steal their cattle. They had cracked the iron rind of many a marauder, broken many a border skull in defense of their lives and property. Never had they feared death by flood or field, and their descendant scoffed at the grim vision now. "What nonsense is this MacGregor has been talking?" he shouted. "Die! A man like me! By gad, vicar, I'd laugh, if I wasn't too vexed!" "Be patient, George, and hear me. Things are worse than you can guess. Your wound alone is a small matter, but, unfortunately, the knife----" "There was no knife! It was a pitchfork!" "Bear with me, I pray you. You will need to conserve your energy, and your protest only makes my duty the harder. The knife has been submitted to analysis, as well as corpuscles of your blood. Alas, that it should fall to me to tell it! Alas, for the poor girl whom you have declared your intention to marry! The knife had been used to carve grouse, and some putrid matter from a shot wound had dried on the blade. This was communicated to your system. The wound was cleansed too late. Your blood was poisoned before the doctor saw you, and--and--there is no hope now." The vicar bowed his head. He dared not look in the eyes of the man to whom he was conveying this dire sentence. He felt Pickering subsiding gently to the pillow and straightening his limbs. "How long?" The words were uttered in a singularly calm voice--so calm that the pastor ventured to raise his sorrow-laden face. "Soon. Perhaps three days. Perhaps a week. But you will be delirious. You have little time in which to prepare." Again a silence. A faint shriek reached them from afar, the whistle of the train entering Nottonby, the pleasant little town which Pickering would never more see. "What a finish!" he muttered. "I'd have liked it better in the saddle. I wouldn't have cared a damn if I broke my neck after hounds." Another pause, and the vicar said gently: "Have you made your will?" "No." "Then it must be attended to at once." "Yes, of course. Then, there's Betsy. Oh, God, I've treated her badly. Now, help me, won't you? There's a hundred pounds in notes and some twenty-odd in gold in that drawer. Telegraph first to Stockwell, my lawyer in Nottonby. Bring him here. Then, spare no money in getting a license for my marriage. I can't die unless that is put right. Don't delay, there's a good chap. You have to apply to the Archbishop, don't you? You'll do everything, I know. Will you be a trustee under my will?" "Yes, if you wish it." "It'll please me more than anything. Of course, I'll make it worth your while. I insist, I tell you. Go, now! Don't lose a moment. Send Betsy. And, vicar, for Heaven's sake, not a word to her until we are married. I'll tell her the fever is serious; just that, and no more." "One other matter, George. Mr. Beckett-Smythe will come here to-day or to-morrow to take your sworn deposition. You must not die with a lie on your conscience, however good the motive." "I'll jump that fence when I reach it, Mr. Herbert. Meanwhile, the lawyer and the license. They're all-important." The vicar left it at that. He deemed it best to take the urgent measures of the hour off the man's mind before endeavoring to turn his thoughts toward a fitting preparation for the future state. With a reassuring handclasp, he left him. The two sisters waylaid him in the passage. "Ye had but ill news, I fear, sir," said Betsy despairingly, catching Mr. Herbert by the arm. The worried man stooped to deception. "Now, why should you jump to conclusions?" he cried. "Dr. MacGregor asked me to look up his patient. Am I a harbinger of disaster, like Mother Carey's chickens?" "Oh, parson," she wailed, "I read it i' yer face, an' in t' doctor's. Don't tell me all is well. I know better. Pray God I may die----" "Hush, my poor girl, you know not what you say. Go to Mr. Pickering. He wants you." He knew the appeal would be successful. She darted off. Before Kitty, in turn, could question him, he escaped. It was easier to run the gantlet of friendly inquirers outside. He telegraphed to the solicitor and sent a telegraphic remittance of the heavy fees demanded for the special license. Within two hours he had the satisfaction of knowing that the precious document was in the post and would reach him next morning. Mr. Stockwell's protests against Pickering's testamentary designs were cut short by his client. "Look here, Stockwell," was the irritated comment, "you are an old friend of mine and I'd like this matter to remain in your hands, but if you say another word I'll be forced to send for someone else." "If you put it that way----" began the lawyer. "I do, most emphatically. Now, what is it to be? Yes or no?" For answer the legal man squared some foolscap sheets on a small table and produced a stylographic pen. "Let me understand clearly," he said. "You intend to marry this--er--lady, and mean to settle four hundred a year on her for life?" "Yes." "Suppose she marries again?" "God in heaven, man, do you think I want to play dog-in-the-manger in my grave?" "Then it had better take the form of a marriage settlement. It is the strongest instrument known in the law and avoids the death duties." Pickering winced, but the lawyer went on remorselessly. He regarded the marriage as a wholly quixotic notion, and knew only too well that Betsy Thwaites would be tried for murder if Pickering died. "Have you no relatives?" he said. "I seem to recollect----" "My cousin Stanhope? He's quite well off, an M.P., and likely to be made a baronet." "He will not object to the chance of dropping in for £1,500 a year." "Do you think the estate will yield so much?" "More, I imagine. Did you ever know what you spent?" "No." "Well, is it to be this Mr. Stanhope?" "No. He never gave me a thought. Why should I endow him and his whelps? Let the lot go to the County Council in aid of the county orphanage. By Jove, that's a good idea! I like that." "Anything else?" demanded the lawyer. "Yes. You and Mr. Herbert are to be the trustees." "The deuce we are. Who said so?" "I say so. You are to receive £50 a year each from the estate for administering it." "Ah. That gilds the pill. Next?" "I have nearly a thousand in the bank. Keep half as working capital, give a hundred to my company in the Territorials, and divide the balance, according to salary, among all my servants who have more than five years' service. And--Betsy is to have the use of the house and furniture, if she wishes it." "Anything else?" Pickering was exhausted, but continued to laugh weakly. "Yes; I had almost forgotten. I bequeath to John Bolland the shorthorn cow he sold me, and to that lad of his--you must find out his proper name--my pair of hammerless guns and my sword. He frames to be a sportsman, and I think he'll make a soldier. He picked up a poker like a shot the other day when I quarreled with old John." "What was the quarrel about?" "When you send back the cow, you'll be told." Mr. Stockwell scanned his notes rapidly. "I'll put my clerks to work at this to-night," he said. "As I am a trustee, my partner will attend to-morrow to get your signature. Of course, you know you must be married before you make your will, or it will be invalid? Before I go, George, are you sure it is all over with you?" "MacGregor says so. I suppose he knows." "Yes, he knows, if any man does. Yet I can't believe it. It seems monstrous, incredible." They gazed fixedly at each other. Of the two, the man of law was the more affected. Before either could speak again they heard Betsy's agonized cry: "Oh, for God's sake, miss, don't tell me I may not be with him always! I've done my best; I have, indeed. I'll give neither him nor you any trouble. Don't keep me away from him now, or I'll go mad!" The lawyer, wondering what new frenzy possessed the woman who had struck down his friend, opened the door. He was confronted by a hospital nurse sent by Dr. MacGregor. She looked like a strong-minded person and was probably a stickler for the etiquette of the sick room. He took in the situation at a glance. "There need be no difficulty, nurse, where Miss Thwaites is concerned," he said. "She is to be married to Mr. Pickering to-morrow, and as he has only a few days to live they should see as much of each other as possible. Any other arrangement would irritate your patient greatly, and be quite contrary to Dr. MacGregor's wishes, I am sure." The nurse bowed, and Betsy sobbed as the secret that was no secret to her was revealed. None of the three realized that several men standing in the hall beneath, whose talk had been silenced by Betsy's frenzied exclamation, must have heard every word the lawyer uttered. CHAPTER XI FOR ONE, THE NIGHT; FOR ANOTHER, THE DAWN So Elmsdale was given another thrill, and a lasting one. The Feast was ruined. Not a man or a woman had heart for enjoyment. If a child sought a penny, it was chided sharply and asked what it meant by gadding about "when poor George Pickerin' an' that lass of his were in such trouble." Martin heard the news while standing outside the boxing booth, waiting for the sparring competition to commence. He went in, it is true, and saw some hard hitting, but the tent was nearly empty. When he and Jim Bates came out an hour later, Elmsdale was a place of mourning. A series of exciting events, each crowding on its predecessor's heels as though some diabolical agency had resolved to disturb the community, had roused the hamlet from its torpor. Five slow-moving years had passed since the village had been stirred so deeply. Then it endured a fortnight's epidemic of suicide. A traveling tinker began the uncanny cycle. On a fine summer's day he was repairing his kettles on a corner of the green, when he was observed to leave his little handcart and to go into a neighboring wood. He did not return. Search next day discovered him swaying from a branch of a tall tree, looking like some forlorn scarecrow suspended there by a practical joker. The following morning a soldier on furlough, one of the very men who helped to cut down the tinker's body, went into a cow-house at the back of his mother's cottage and suspended himself from a rafter. An odd feature of this man's exit was that the rope had yielded so much that his feet rested on the ground. Before the hanging he had actually cut letters out of his red-cloth tunic and formed the word, "Farewell" in a semicircle on the stable floor. A girl soon afterwards selected the mill-dam for a consoling plunge; and, to crown all, the vicar, Mr. Herbert's forerunner, having received a telegram announcing the failure of a company in which he had invested some money, opened his jugular vein with a sharp scissors. That these tragedies should happen within a fortnight in a community of less than three hundred people was enough to give a life-insurance actuary an attack of hysteria. But each lacked the dramatic flavor attached to the ill-governed passion of Betsy Thwaites and her fickle swain. Kitty was known to all in Elmsdale, Betsy to few, but George Pickering was a popular man throughout the whole countryside. It was sensation enough that one of his many amours should result in an episode more typical of Paris than of an English Sleepy Hollow. But the sequel--the marriage of this wealthy gentleman-farmer to a mere dairymaid, followed by his death from a wound inflicted by the bride-to-be--this was undiluted melodrama drawn from the repertoire of the Petit Guignol. That night the story spread over England. A reporter from the _Messenger_ came to Elmsdale to glean the exact facts as to Mr. Pickering's "accident." Owing to the peculiar circumstances, he, perforce, showed much discretion in compiling the story telegraphed to the Press Association. Not even the use of that magic word "alleged" would enable him to charge Betsy Thwaites with attempted murder, after the police had apparently withdrawn the accusation. But he contrived to retail the legend by throwing utter discredit on it, and the rest was plain sailing. Moreover, he was a smart young man. He pondered deeply after dispatching the message. He was employed on the staff of a local weekly newspaper, so his traveling allowance was limited to a third-class return ticket and a shilling for "tea." Yet he decided to remain in Elmsdale at his own expense. The departure of the German Government agent for another horse-fair left a vacant bedroom at the "Black Lion." This he secured. He foresaw a golden harvest. Luck favored him. Conversing with a village Solon in the bar, he caught a remark that "John Bolland's lad" would be an important witness at the inquest. Of course, he made inquiries and was favored with a full and accurate account of the wanderings of the farmer and his wife in London thirteen years earlier, together with their adoption of the baby which had literally fallen from the skies. To the country journalist, Fleet Street is the Mecca of his earthly pilgrimage, and St. Martin's Court, Ludgate Hill, was near enough to newspaperdom to be sacred ground. The very name of the boy smacked of "copy." John Bolland, lumbering out of the stockyard at tea-time, encountered Dr. MacGregor. The farmer had been thinking hard while striding through his diminished cornfields, and crumbling ears of wheat, oats, and barley in his strong hands to ascertain the exact date when they would be ripe. Already some of his neighbors were busy, but John was more anxious about the condition of the straw than the forwardness of the grain; moreover, men and women did not work so well during feast-time. Next week he would obtain full measure for his money. "I reckon Martin'll soon be fit?" he said. The doctor nodded. "He's a bright lad, yon?" went on the farmer. "Yes. What are you going to make of him?" Dr. MacGregor knew the ways of Elmsdale folk. They required leading up to a subject by judicious questioning. Rarely would they unburden their minds by direct statements. "That's what's worryin' me," said John slowly. "What d'ye think yersen, docthor?" "It is hard to say. It all hinges on what you intend doing for him, Bolland. He is not your son. If he has to depend on his own resources when he's a man, teach him a useful trade. No matter how able he may be, that will never come amiss." The farmer gazed around. As men counted in that locality, he was rich, not in hard cash, but in lands, stock, and tenements. His expenses did not grow proportionately with his earnings. He ate and dressed and economized now as on the day when Martha and he faced the world together, with the White House and its small meadows their only belongings. In a few years the produce of his shorthorn herd alone would bring in hundreds annually, and his Cleveland bays were noted throughout the county. He took the doctor's hint. "I've nayther chick nor child but Martin," he said. "When Martha an' me are gone te t' Lord, all that we hev'll be Martin's. That's settled lang syne. I med me will four years agone last Easter." There was something behind this, and MacGregor probed again. "Isn't he cut out for a farmer?" "I hae me doots," was the cautious answer. The doctor waited, so John continued. "I was sair set on t' lad being a minister. But I judge it's not t' Lord's will. He's of a rovin' stock, I fancy. When he's a man, Elmsdale won't be big eneuf te hold him. He cooms frae Lunnon, an' te Lunnon he'll gang. It's in his feäce. Lunnon's a bad pleäce for a youngster wheä kens nowt but t' ways o' moor folk, docthor." Then the other laughed. "In a word, Bolland, you have made up your mind, and want me to agree with you. Of course, if Martin succeeds you, and you have read his character aright, there is but one line open. Send him to a good school, leave the choice of a profession to his more cultivated mind, and tie up your property so that it cannot be sold and wasted in a young man's folly. When he is forty he may be glad to come back to Elmsdale and give thanks for your foresight on his bended knees. In any event, a little extra book lore will make him none the worse stock-raiser. Eh, is that what you think?" "You're a sound man, docthor. There's times I wunner hoo it happens ye cling te sike nonsense as that mad Dutchman----" MacGregor laughed again, and nudged his groom's arm as a signal to drive on. He favored neither church nor chapel, but claimed a devoted adherence to the doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg, thus forming a sect unto himself. There was not a Swedenborgian temple within a hundred miles. Mayhap the doctor's theological views had a geographical foundation. The farmer lumbered across the street and took a corner of the crowded tea-table. Mrs. Summersgill was entertaining the company with a description of George Pickering's estate. "It's a meracle, that's what it is!" she exclaimed. "Te think of Betsy Thwaites livin' i' style in yon fine hoos! There's a revenue o' trees quarther of a mile long, an' my husband sez t' high-lyin' land grows t' best wuts (oats) i' t' county. An' she's got it by a prod wi' a carving-knife, while a poor body like me hez te scrat sae hard for a livin' that me fingers are worn te t' bone!" Mrs. Summersgill weighed sixteen stone, but she was heedless of satire. Her eye fell on Martin, eating silently, but well. "Some folks git their bread easy, I'm sure," she went on. "Ivver sen I was a bit lass I've tewed and wrowt an' mead sike deed ower spendin' hawpenny, whiles uthers hev a silver spoon thrust i' their gob frae t' time they're born!" "T' Lord gives, an' t' Lord taks away. Ye munnot fly i' t' feäce o' t' Lord," said Bolland. "I'm not built for flyin' anywhere," cried the old lady. "I wish I was. 'Tis flighty 'uns as wins nowadays. Look at Betsy Thwaites! Look at Mrs. Saumarez! She mun hae gotten her money varra simple te fling it about as she does. My man telt me that her little gal, t' other neet----" "Yer cup's empty, Mrs. Summersgill," put in Martha quickly. "Bless my heart, ye talk an' eat nowt. Speakin' o' Mrs. Saumarez, hez anyone heerd if she's better? One o' Miss Walker's maids said she was poorly." Martin caught his mother's eye, and rose. He went upstairs; the farmer followed him. The two sat near the window; on the broad ledge reposed the Bible; but Bolland did not open the book. He laid his hand on it reverently and looked at the boy. "Martin," he began, "yer muther tells me that Benson med yer mind sair by grabbin' te t' squire aboot yer bringin' up. Nay, lad, ye needn't say owt. 'Tis no secret. We on'y kept it frae ye for yer good. Anyhow, 'tis kent noo, an' there's nae need te chew on 't. What troubled me maist was yer muther's defiance when I was minded te punish ye for bein' out late." "It won't occur again, sir," said Martin quietly. "Mebbe. T' spirit is willin', but t' flesh is wake. Noo, I want a straight answer te a straight question. Are these Bible lessons te yer likin'?" It was so rare for the farmer to speak in this downright fashion that the boy was alarmed. He knew not what lay behind; but he had not earned his reputation for honesty on insufficient grounds. "No, they're not," he said. Bolland groaned. "T' minister said so. Why not?" "I can hardly explain. For one thing, I don't understand what I read. And often I would like to be out in the fields or on the moor when I'm forced to be here. All the same, I do try hard, and if I thought it would please you and mother, I'd do much more than give up half an hour a day." "Ay, ay. 'Tis compulsion, not love. I telt t' minister that Paul urged insistence in season an' out o' season, but he held that the teachin' applied te doctrine, an' not te Bible lessons for t' young. Well, Martin, I've weighed this thing, an' not without prayer. I've seen many a field spoiled by bad farmin', an', when yer muther calls my own hired men te help her ageän me; when a lad like you goes fightin' young gentlemen aboot a lass; when yon Frenchified ninny eggs ye on te spend money like watter, an' yer muther gies ye t' brass next day te pay Mrs. Saumarez, lest it should reach my ears--why, I've coom te believe that my teachin' is mistakken." Martin was petrified at hearing his delinquencies laid bare in this manner. He had not realized that the extravagant display of Monday must evoke comment in a small village, and that Bolland could not fail to interpret correctly his wife's anxiety to hush up all reference to it. He blushed and held his tongue, for the farmer was speaking again. "T' upshot of all this is that I've sought counsel. Ye're an honest lad, I will say that fer ye, but ye're a lad differin' frae those of yer age i' Elmsdale. If all goes well wi' me, ye'll nivver want food nor lodgin', but an idle man is a wicked man, nine times out o' ten, an' I'd like te see ye sattled i' summat afore I go te my rest. You're not cut out fer t' ministry, ye're none for farmin', an' I'd sooner see ye dead than dancin' around t' countryside after women, like poor George Pickerin'. Soa ye mun gang te college an' sharpen yer wits, an' happen fower or five years o' delvin' i' books'll shape yer life i' different gait te owt I can see at this minnit. What think you on't?" "Oh, I should like it better than anything else in the world." The boy's eyes sparkled at this most unlooked-for announcement. Never before had his heart so gone out to the rugged old man whose stern glance was now searching him through the horn-rimmed spectacles. What magician had transformed John Bolland? Was it possible that beneath the patriarchial inflexibility of the rugged farmer's character there lay a spring of human tenderness, a clear fountain hidden by half a century of toil and narrow religion, but now unearthed forcibly by circumstances stronger than the man himself? The boy could not put these questions into words. He was too young to understand even the meaning of psychological analysis. He could only sit there mute, stunned by the glory of the unexpected promise. Of course, if a thinker like Dr. MacGregor were aware of all the facts, he would have seen that the rebellion of Martha had been a lightning stroke. The few winged words she shot at her husband on that memorable night had penetrated deeper than she thought. It chanced, too, that the revivalist preacher whom Bolland took into his confidence was a man of sound common sense, and much more acute in private life than anyone could imagine who witnessed his methods of hammering the Gospel into the dullards of the village. He it was who advised a timely diminution of devotional exercises which were likely to become distasteful to a spirited lad. He recommended the farmer to educate Martin beyond the common run, while the choice of a profession might be left to maturer consideration. Among the many influences conspiring in that hour to mold the boy's future life, none was more wholesome than that of the tub-thumping preacher. Bolland seemed to be gratified by Martin's tongue-tied enthusiasm. "Well," he said, rising. "Noo my hand's te t' plow I'll keep it there. Remember, Martin, when ye tak te study t' Word o' yer own accord, ye can start at t' second chapter o' t' Third Book o' Kings. I'll be throng wi' t' harvest until t' middle o' September, but I'll ax Mr. Herbert te recommend a good school. He's a fair man, if he does lean ower much te t' Romans. Soa, fer t' next few days, run wild an' enjoy yersen. Happen ye'll never hae as happy a time again." He patted the boy's head, a rare sign of sentiment, and walked heavily out of the room. Martin saw him cross the road and clout a stable-boy's ears because the yard was not swept clean. Then he called to his foreman, and the two went off to the low-lying meadows. Bolland had been turning over in his mind Mrs. Saumarez's remarks about draining; they were worthy of consideration and, perhaps, of experiment. Martin remained standing at the window. So he was to leave Elmsdale, go out into the wide world beyond the hills, mix with people who spoke and acted and moved like the great ones of whom he had read in books. He was glad of it; oh, so glad! He would learn Greek and Latin, French and German. No longer would the queer-looking words trouble his eyes. Their meaning would be made clear to his understanding. He would soon acquire that nameless manner of which the squire, the vicar, Mrs. Saumarez, the young university students he met yesterday, possessed the secret. Elsie Herbert had it, and Angèle was veneered with it, though in her case he knew quite well that the polish was only skin deep. It was what he had longed for with all his heart, yet now that the longing was to be appeased he had never felt more drawn to his parents; his only by adoption, it was true; but nevertheless father and mother by every tie known to him. By the way, whose child was he? No one had told him the literal manner in which he fell into the hands of the Bollands. Probably his real progenitors were dead long since. Were it not for the kindness of the farmer and his wife he might have been reared in that awful place, the "Union," of which the poverty-stricken old people in the parish spoke with such dread. His own folk must have been poor. Those who were well off were fond of their children and loth to part from them. Well, he must be a real son to John and Martha Bolland. They should have reason to be proud of him. He would do nothing to disgrace their honored name. What was it his father said just now? When he studied the Bible of his own accord he might begin at the second chapter of the Second Book of Kings. It would please the old man to know that he gave the first moment of liberty to reading the Word which was held so precious. He opened the book at the page where the long, narrow strip of black silk marked the close of the last lesson. For the first time in his life the boy brought to bear on the task an unaided and sympathetic intelligence, and this is what he read: "Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die; and he charged Solomon his son, saying, "I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man; "And keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself: "That the Lord may continue his word which he spake concerning me, saying, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail thee (said he) a man on the throne of Israel." Not even a boy of fourteen could peruse these words unmoved, coming, as they did, after the memorable interview with Bolland. The black letters seemed to Martin to have fiery edges. They burnt themselves into his brain. In years to come they were fated to stand out unbidden before the eyes of his soul many a time and oft. He read on, but soon experienced the old puzzled feeling when he encountered the legacy of revenge which David bequeathed to his son after delivering that inspired message. It reminded Martin of the farmer's dignified and quite noble-hearted renunciation of his own dreams in order to follow what he thought was the better way, to be succeeded by his passage to the farm buildings across the road in order to box the ears of a lazy hind. Ere he closed the book, Martin went over the opening verses of the chapter. He promised himself to obey the injunctions therein contained, and it was with a host of unformed ideals churning in his brain that he descended the stairs. Mrs. Bolland was gazing through the front door. "Mercy on us," she cried, "if there isn't Mrs. Saumarez coomin' doon t' road wi' t' nuss an' her little gell. An' don't she look ill, poor thing! I'll lay owt she hez eaten summat as disagreed wi' her, an' it gev her a bilious attack." "Dod, ay," said Mrs. Summersgill. "Some things are easy te swallow, but hard te digest. Ye could hev knocked me down wi' a feather when our Tommy bolted a glass ally last June twelve months." CHAPTER XII A FRIENDLY ARGUMENT Mrs. Saumarez did indeed look unwell. It was not that her pallor was marked or her gait feeble; obviously, she had applied cosmetics to her face, and her carriage was as imposing and self-possessed as ever. But her cheeks were swollen, her eyes bloodshot, her eyelids puffy and discolored. To a certain extent, too, she simulated the appearance of illness by wearing a veil of heliotrope tint, for it was part of her intent to-day to persuade Elmsdale that her complete seclusion from its society during the past forty-eight hours was due to a cause beyond her own control. In very truth this was so; she suffered from a malady far worse than any case of dyspepsia ever diagnosed by doctor. The unfortunate woman was an erratic dipsomaniac. She would exist for weeks without being troubled by a craving for drink; then, without the slightest warning or contributory error on her part, the demon of intoxication would possess her, and she yielded so utterly as to become a terror to her immediate associates. The Normandy nurse, Françoise, exercised a firmer control over her than any other maid she had ever employed; hence, Françoise's services were retained long after other servants had left their mistress in disgust or fright. This distressing form of lunacy seemed also to account for the roving life led by Mrs. Saumarez. She was proud, with the inbred arrogance of the Junker class from which she sprang. She would not endure the scorn, or, mayhap, the sympathy of her friends or dependants. Whenever she succumbed to her malady she usually left that place on the first day she was able to travel. But the Elmsdale attack, thanks to a limited supply of brandy and Eau de Cologne, was of brief duration. Françoise knew exactly what to do. Every drop of alcoholic liquor--even the methylated spirit used for heating curling-irons--must be kept out of her mistress's way during the ensuing twenty-four hours, and a deaf ear turned to frantic pleadings for the smallest quantity of any intoxicant. Threats, tears, pitiable requests, physical violence at times, must be disregarded callously; then would come reaction, followed by extreme exhaustion. Françoise, despising her German mistress, nevertheless had the avaricious soul of a French peasant, and was amassing a small fortune by attending to her. The Misses Walker were so eager to retain their wealthy guest that they pretended absolute ignorance of her condition. They succeeded so well--their own dyspeptic symptoms were described with such ingenuous zeal--that the lady believed her secret was unknown to the household at The Elms. Oddly enough, certain faculties remained clear during these attacks. She took care that the chauffeur should not see her, and remembered also that young Martin Bolland had conversed with her while she was in the worst paroxysm of drink-craving. He was a quick boy, observant beyond his age. What did he know? What wondrous tale had he spread through the village? A visit to his mother, a meeting with the gossip-loving women sure to be gathered beneath the farmer's hospitable roof, would tell her all. She nerved herself for the ordeal, and approached slowly, fearfully, but outwardly dignified as ever. Mrs. Bolland's hearty greeting was reassuring. "Eh, my lady, but ye do look poorly, te be sure. I've bin worritin' te think ye've mebbe bin upset by all this racket i' t' place, when ye kem here for rest an' quiet." Mrs. Saumarez smiled. "Oh, no, thank you, Mrs. Bolland," she said. "I cannot blame Elmsdale, except, perhaps, that your wonderful air braced up my appetite too greatly, and I had to pay the penalty for so many good things to eat." "Ay, I said so," chimed in Mrs. Summersgill, in the accents of deep conviction. "Ower much grub an' nowt te do is bad for man or beast." Mrs. Saumarez laughed frankly at that. "In which category do you place me, Mrs. Summersgill?" she inquired. Meanwhile, her eyes wandered to where Martin stood. She was asking herself why the boy should gaze so fixedly at Angèle. The stout party did not know what a category was. She thought it was some species of malady. "Well, ma'am," she cried, "if I was you, I'd try rabbit meat for a few days. Eat plenty o' green stuff an' shun t' teapot. It's slow p'ison." She stretched out a huge arm and poured out a cup of tea. There was a general laugh at this forgetfulness. Mrs. Summersgill waved aside criticism. "Ay, ay!" she went on, "it's easier te preach than te practice, as t' man said when he fell off a haystack efther another man shooted tiv him te ho'd fast." Mrs. Saumarez took a seat. Thus far, matters had gone well. But why did Martin avoid her? "Martin, my little friend," she said, "why did you not come in and see me yesterday when you called at The Elms?" "Miss Walker did not wish it," was the candid answer. "I suppose she thought I might be in the way when you were so ill." "There nivver was sike a bairn," protested Martha Bolland. "He's close as wax sometimes. Not a wud did he say, whether ye were ill or well, Mrs. Saumarez." The lady's glance rested more graciously on the boy. She noticed his bandaged arms and hands. "What is the matter?" she asked. "Have you been scalding yourself?" Martin reddened. It was Angèle who answered quickly: "You were too indisposed last night to hear the story, chère maman. It was all over the village. Il y a tout le monde qui sait. Martin saved Elsie Herbert from a wildcat. It almost tore him into little pieces." And so the conversation glided safely away from the delicate topic of Mrs. Saumarez's sudden ailment. She praised Martin's bravery in her polished way. She expressed proper horror when the wildcat's skin was brought in for her edification, and became so lively, so animated, that she actually asked Mrs. Bolland for some tea, notwithstanding Mrs. Summersgill's earnest warnings. She made a hearty meal. Françoise, too, joined in the feast, her homely Norman face perceptibly relaxing its grim vigilance. Her mistress was safe now, for a month, two months, perchance six. The desire for food was the ultimate sign of complete recovery--for the time. Had Mrs. Saumarez dared ask for a glass of beer from the majestic cask in the corner, Françoise would have prevented her from taking it, using force if necessary. The sturdy peasant from Tinchebrai was of stronger moral fiber than the born aristocrat, and her mistress knew it. Martin stood somewhat shyly near the broad ingle. Angèle approached. She caressed his lint-wrapped arms, saying sweetly: "Do they pain you a great deal?" "Of course not. They're just a bit sore to the touch--that's all." His manner was politely repellant. He wished she would not pat him with her nervous fingers. She pawed him like a playful cat. To-day she wore the beautiful muslin frock he had admired so greatly on the first day of the fair. The deep brim of her hat concealed her eyes from all but his. "I am quite jealous of Elsie," she murmured. "It must be simply lovely to be rescued in that way. Poor little me! At home nursing mamma, while you were fighting for another girl!" "The thing was not worth so much talk. I did nothing that any other boy would not have done." "My wud," cried Mrs. Summersgill suddenly, "it'd do your little lass a power o' good te git some o' that fat beäcan intiv her, Mrs. Saumarez." From the smoke-blackened rafters over the spacious fireplace were hanging a dozen sides of home-cured bacon, huge toothsome slabs suggesting mounds of luscious rashers. The sturdy boy beneath gave proof that there was good nutriment in such ample store, but the girl was so fragile, so fairy-like in her gossamer wings, that she might have been reared on the scent of flowers. The attention thus drawn to the two caused Martin to flush again, but Angèle wheeled round. "Do all pigs grow fat when they are old?" she asked. "Nay, lass, that they don't. We feed 'em te mak' 'em fat while they're young, but some pigs are skinny 'uns always." Mrs. Saumarez smiled indulgently at this passage between two such sharp-tongued combatants. Angèle's eyes blazed. Françoise, eating steadily, wondered what had been said to make the women laugh, the child angry. Angèle caught the astonished expression on the nurse's face. Quickly her mood changed. Françoise sat near. She bent over and whispered: "Tiens, nanna! Voici une vieille truie qui parle comme nous autres!" Françoise nearly choked under a combination of protest and bread crumbs. Before she could recover her breath at hearing Mrs. Summersgill described "an old sow who talks like one of us!" Angèle cried airily to Martin: "Take me to the stables. I haven't seen the pony and the dogs for days and days." He was glad to escape. He dreaded Mrs. Summersgill's mordant humor if a war of wits broke out between her and the girl. "All right," he said. "I'll whistle for Curly and Jim at the back and join you at the gate." But Angèle skipped lightly toward her hostess. "Please, Mrs. Bolland," she said coaxingly, "may I not go through the back kitchen, too?" "Sure-ly, honey," cried Martha. "One way's as good as another. Martin, tak t' young leddy anywheres she wants te go, an' dinnat be so gawky. She won't bite ye." The two passed into the farmyard. "You see, Martin," explained Angèle coolly, "I must find out how Jim Bates and Tommy Beadlam always get hold of you without other people being the wiser. Show me the lane and the paddock they tell me of." "I don't see why it should interest you," was the ungracious reply. "You dear boy! Are you angry yet because I wouldn't let you kiss me the other night?" He was compelled to laugh at the outrageous untruth. "I'm afraid I spoke very crossly then," he admitted, thinking it best to avoid argument. "Oh, yes. I wept for hours. My poor little eyes were sore yesterday. Look and see if they are red now." They were standing behind the woodpile. She thrust her face temptingly near. Her beautiful eyes, clear and limpid in their dark depths, blinked saucily. Her parted lips revealed two rows of white, even teeth, and her sweet breath mingled with the fragrance that always clung to her garments. He experienced a new timidity now; he was afraid of her in this mood, though secretly flattered by the homage she was paying. "Martin," she whispered, "I like you better than any of the other boys, oh, a great deal better, even though Evelyn Atkinson does say you are a milksop." What a hateful word to apply to one whose flesh was scarred by the claws of an infuriated wildcat conquered in fair fight. Milksop, indeed! He knew Angèle's ways well enough by this time to give convincing proof that he was no milksop. He placed his bandaged right arm around her waist, boldly drew her toward him, and kissed her three times--on the lips. "That is more than I ever did to Evelyn Atkinson," he said. She returned the embrace with ardor. "Oh, Martin, I do love you," she sighed. "And you fought for me as well as for Elsie, didn't you?" If the thought were grateful to Angèle, it stung the boy's conscience. Under what different circumstances had he defended the two girls! He grew scarlet with confusion and sought to unclasp those twining arms. "Someone may see us," he protested. "I don't care," she cooed. "Tommy Beadlam is watching us now over the hedge. Tell him to go away." He wrenched himself free. True enough, "White Head" was gazing at them, eyes and mouth wide open. "Hello, Tommy!" shouted Martin. "By gum!" gasped Tommy. But the spell was broken, and the three joined company to make a tour of the farm. Angèle was quite unembarrassed and promptly rescued both boys from sheepishness. She knew that the observant "White Head" would harrow Evelyn Atkinson's soul with a full description of the tender episode behind the big pile of wood. This pleased her more than Martin's gruff "spooning." Inside the farmhouse conversation progressed vigorously. Mrs. Saumarez joined in the talk with zest. The quaint gossip of the women interested her. She learnt, seemingly with surprise, that these, her humble sisters, were swayed by emotions near akin to her own. Some quiet chronicle of a mother's loss by the death of a soldier son in far-off South Africa touched a dormant chord in her heart. "My husband was killed in that foolish war," she said. "I never think of it without a shudder." "I reckon he'd be an officer, ma'am," said Martha. "Yes; he was shot while leading his regiment in a cavalry charge at the Modder River." "It's a dreadful thing, is war," observed the bereaved mother. "My lad wouldn't hurt a fly, yet his capt'in wrote such a nice letter, sayin' as how Willie had killed four Boers afore he was struck down. T' capt'in meant it kindly, no doot, but it gev me small consolation." "It is the wives and mothers who suffer most. Men like the army. I suppose if my child were a boy he would enter the service." "Thank the Lord, Martin won't be a sojer!" cried Martha fervently. "You're going to make him a minister, are you not?" "Noa," said John Bolland's deep voice from the door. "He's goin' to college. I've settled it to-day." None present appreciated the force of this statement like Martha, and she resented such a momentous decision being arrived at without her knowledge. Her head bent, and twitching fingers sought the ends of her apron. John strode ponderously forward and placed a huge hand on her shoulder. "Dinnat be vexed, Martha," he said gently. "I hadn't a chance te speak wi' ye sen Dr. MacGregor an' me had a bit crack about t' lad. I didn't need te coom te you for counsel. Who knew better'n me that yer heart was set on Martin bein' browt up a gentleman?" This recognition of motherly rights somewhat mollified his wife. "Eh, but I'm main pleased, John," she said. "Yet I'll be sorry to lose him." "Ye'll wear yer knuckles te t' bone makkin' him fine shirts an' fallals, all t' same," laughed her husband. Mrs. Saumarez had seen the glint of tears in Mrs. Bolland's eyes, and came to the rescue with a request for a second cup of tea. "England is fortunate in being an island," she said. "Now, in my native land every man has to serve in the army. It cannot be avoided, you know. Germany has France on the one hand and Russia on the other, each ready to spring if she relaxes her vigilance for a moment." "Is that so?" inquired Bolland. "I wunner why?" The lady smiled. "That is a wide political question," she replied. "To give one reason out of many, look at our--at Germany's thousand miles of open frontier." "Right enough, ma'am. But why is Jarmany buildin' such a big fleet?" Mrs. Saumarez raised her lorgnette. She had not expected so apt a retort. "She is gathering colonies, and already owns a huge mercantile marine. Surely, these interests call for adequate protection?" "Nobody's threatenin' 'em, so far as I can see," persisted Bolland. "Not at present. But a wise government looks ahead of the hour. Germany's aim is to educate the world by her culture. She is doing it already, as any of your own well-informed leading men will tell you; but the time may come when, in her zeal for advancement, she may tread on somebody's toes, so she must be prepared, both on land and sea. Fortunately, this is the one country she will never attack." John shook his head. "I'm none so sure," he said slowly. "I hevn't much time fer readin', but I did happen t' other day on a speech by Lord Roberts which med me scrat me head. Beg pardon, ma'am. I mean it med me think." "Lord Roberts!" began the lady scornfully. Then she sipped her tea, and the pause gave time to collect her wits. "You must remember that he is a professional soldier, and his views are tainted by militarism." "Isn't that the trouble i' Jarmany?" Mrs. Saumarez drank more tea. "Circumstances alter cases," she said. "The broad fact remains that Germany harbors no evil designs against Great Britain. She believes the world holds plenty of room for both powers. And, when all is said and done, why should the two nations quarrel? They are kith and kin. They look at life from the same viewpoints. Even their languages are alike. Hardly a word in your quaint Yorkshire dialect puzzles me now, because I recognize its source in the older German and in the current speech of our Baltic provinces. Germany and England should be friends, not enemies. It will be a happy day for England when she ceases worrying about German measures of self-defense, but tries, rather, to imitate her wonderful achievements in every field of science. Any woman who uses fabrics need not be told how Germany has taught the whole world how to make aniline dyes, while her chemists are now modernizing the old-time theories of agriculture. You, Mr. Bolland, as a practical farmer, can surely bear out that contention?" "Steady on, ma'am," said Bolland, leaning forward, with hands on knees, and with eyes fixed on the speaker in an almost disconcerting intensity. "T' Jarmans hev med all t' wo'ld _buy_ their dyes, but there hezn't been much _teachin'_, as I've heerd tell of. As for farmin', they coom here year after year an' snap up our best stock i' horses an' cattle te improve their own breeds. _I_ can't grummel at that. They compete wi' t' Argentine an' t' United States, an' up go my prices. Still, I do think our government is te blame for lettin' our finest stallions an' brood mares leave t' country. They differ frae cattle. They're bowt for use i' t' army, an' we're bein' drained dhry. That's bad for us. An' why are they doin' it?" Mrs. Saumarez pushed away her cup and saucer. She laughed nervously, with the air of one who had gone a little further than was intended. "There, there!" she cried pleasantly. "I am only trying to show you Germany's open aims, but some Englishmen persist in attributing a hostile motive to her every act. You see, I know Germany, and few people here trouble either to learn the language or visit the country." "Likely not, ma'am," was the ironical answer. "Mr. Pickerin' went te some pleäce--Bremen, I think they call it--two year sen this July, te see a man who'd buy every Cleveland bay he could offer. George had just been med an officer i' t' Territorials--which meant a week's swankin' aboot i' uniform at a camp, an' givin' his men free beer an' pork pies te attend a few drills--an' he was fule enough te carry a valise wi' his rank an' regiment painted on it. Why, they watched him like a cat watchin' a mouse. He couldn't eat a bite or tak a pint o' their light beer that a 'tec wasn't sittin' at t' next table. They fairly chased him away. Even his friend, the hoss-buyer, got skeered at last, an' advised him te quit te avoid arrest." "That must have been a wholly exceptional case," said Mrs. Saumarez, speaking in a tone of utter indifference. "Had _I_ known him, for instance, and given him a letter of introduction, he would have been welcomed, not suspected. By the way, how is he? I hear----" The conversation was steered into a safer channel. They were discussing the wounded man's condition when Mrs. Saumarez's car passed. The door stood open, so they all noted that the vehicle was white with dust, but the chauffeur was the sole occupant. "Her ladyship" was pleased to explain. "It is a new car, so Fritz took it for a long spin to-day," she said. "You will understand, Mr. Bolland, that the engine has to find itself, as the phrase goes." "Expensive work, ma'am," smiled John, rising. "An' now, good folk," he continued, "wheä's coomin' te t' love feast?" There was a general movement. The assembly dear to old-time Methodism appealed to the majority of the company. Mrs. Saumarez raised her lorgnette once more. "What is a love feast?" she asked. "It's a gathering o' members o' our communion, ma'am," was Bolland's ready answer. "May I come, too?" Instantly a rustle of surprise swept through her hearers. Even John Bolland was so taken aback that he hesitated to reply. But the lady seemed to be in earnest. "I really mean it," she went on. "I have a spare hour, and, as I don't care for dinner to-night, I'll be most pleased to attend--that is, if I may?" The farmer came nearer. He looked at the bulbous eyelids, the too-evenly tinted skin, the turgid veins in the brilliant eyes, and perhaps saw more than Mrs. Saumarez dreamed. "Happen it'll be an hour well spent, ma'am," he said quietly. "Admission is by membership ticket, but t' minister gev' me a few 'permits' for outside friends, an' I'll fill yan in for ye wi' pleasure." He produced some slips of paper bearing the written words, "Admit Brother" or "Sister ----," and signed, "Eli Todd." With a stubby pencil he scrawled "Saumarez" in a blank space. The lady thanked him, and gave some instructions in French to Françoise. Five minutes later "Sister Saumarez," escorted by "Brother" and "Sister" Bolland, entered the village meetinghouse. The appearance of a fashionable dame in their midst created a mild sensation among the small congregation already collected. They were mostly old or middle-aged people; youngsters were conspicuous by their absence. There was a dance that night in a tent erected in a field close to the chapel; in the boxing booth the semi-final round would be fought for the Elmsdale championship. Against these rival attractions the Gospel was not a "draw." Gradually the spacious but bare room--so unlike all that Mrs. Saumarez knew of churches--became fairly well filled. As the church clock chimed the half-hour after six the Rev. Eli Todd came in from a neighboring classroom. This was the preacher with the powerful voice, but his bell-like tones were subdued and reverent enough in the opening prayer. He uttered a few earnest sentences and quickly evoked responses from the people. The first time John Bolland cried "Amen!" Mrs. Saumarez started. She thought her friend had made a mistake, and her nerves were on edge. But the next period produced a hearty "Hallelujah!" and others joined in with "Glory be!" "Thy will, O Lord!" and kindred ejaculations. One incident absolutely amazed her. The minister was reciting the Lord's Prayer. "Give us this day our daily bread," he said. "And no baccy, Lord!" growled a voice from the rear of the chapel. The minister had a momentary difficulty in concluding the petition, and a broad grin ran through the congregation. Mrs. Saumarez learned subsequently that the interrupter was a converted poacher, who abandoned his pipe, together with gun and beer jug, "when he found Christ." Eli Todd was a confirmed smoker, and the two were ever at variance on the point. All stood up when their pastor gave out the opening verses of a hymn: _O what a joyful meeting there, In robes of white arrayed; Palms in our hands we all shall bear And crowns upon our heads._ The joyous energy of his declamation, the no less eager volume of sound that arose from the congregation, atoned for any deficiencies of meter or rhyme. The village worshipers lost themselves in the influence of the moment. With spiritual vision they saw the last great meeting, and thundered vociferously the closing lines of the chorus: _And then we shall in Heaven reign, And never, never part again._ "Grace before meat" was sung, and, to Mrs. Saumarez's great discomfiture, bread and water were passed round. Each one partook save herself; Bolland, with real tact, missed her in handing the tray and pitcher to the other occupants of their pew. "Grace after meat" followed, and forthwith Eli Todd began to deliver an address. His discourse was simple and well reasoned, dealing wholly with the sustenance derived from God's saving spirit. It may be that the unexpected presence of a stranger like Mrs. Saumarez exercised a slightly unnerving influence, as he spoke more seriously and with less dramatic intensity than was his wont. Suddenly he rebelled against this sensation of restraint. Changing, with the skill of a born revivalist, from the rounded periods of ordinary English to the homely vernacular of the district, he thundered out: "There's noa cittidell o' sin 'at God cannot destroy. Ay, friends, t' sword o' t' Spirit s'all oppen a way through walls o' brass an' iron yats (gates). Weän't ye jine His conquerin' army? He's willin' te list ye noo. There's none o' yer short service whilst ye deä t' Lord's work--it's for ivver an' ivver, an' yer pension is life ivverlastin'." And so the curious service went to its end, which came not until various members of the congregation made public confession of faith, personal statements which often consisted of question and answer between pastor and penitent. It was a strange interrogatory. Eli Todd had a ready quip, a quick appreciation, an emphatic or amusing disclaimer, for each and every avowal of broad-minded Christianity or intolerant views. For these dalesfolk did not all think alike. Some were inclined to damn others who did not see through the myopic lenses of their own spiritual spectacles. The preacher would have none of this exclusive righteousness. As he said, in his own strenuous way: "The Lord is ivverywhere. He isn't a prisoner i' this little room te-night. He's yonder i' t' street amang t' organs an' shows. He's yonder i' t' tent where foolish youths an' maidens cannot see Him. If ye seek Him ye'll find Him, ay, in the abodes of sin and the palaces of wantonness. No door can be closed to His saving mercy, no heart too hardened to resist His love." As it happened, his glance fell on Mrs. Saumarez as he uttered the concluding words, and his voice unconsciously tuned itself to suit her understanding. She dropped her eyes, and the observant minister thought that she was reading a personal meaning into his address. At once he began the "Doxology," which was sung with great fervor, and the love feast broke up after a brief prayer. Mr. Todd overtook Mrs. Saumarez on the green. Bolland and his wife were escorting her to The Elms. "I hope you liked the service, madam," he said politely. "I thought it most interesting," she answered slowly. "I think I shall come again." He took off his hat and assured her that she would always be welcome at Bethel Chapel. He, worthy man, no less than the Bollands, could little guess this woman's motives in thus currying favor with the villagers. Had an angel from Heaven laid bare her intent, they would scarce have believed, or, if conviction came, they would only have deemed her mad. A breathless Françoise met her mistress at the gate. Angèle was not to be found anywhere, and it was so late, nearly eight o'clock. Nor was Martin to be seen. Madam would remember, they had gone off together. Mrs. Saumarez explained what all the gesticulation was about. "If she's wi' Martin, she'll be all right," said Bolland. "He'll bring her yam afore ye git yer things off, ma'am." He was right. Angèle had discovered that Elsie Herbert would be at the church bazaar that evening, and planned the ramble with Martin so that the vicar's daughter might meet them together on the high road. It delighted her to see the only rival she feared flash a quick side glance as she bowed smilingly and passed on, for Mr. Herbert did not wholly approve of Angèle, so Elsie thought it best not to stop for a chat. Martin, too, was annoyed as he doffed his cap. He thought Elsie would surely ask how he was. Moreover, those hot kisses were burning yet on his lips; the memory made him profoundly uncomfortable. That was all. When he left Angèle at the gate she did not suggest a rendezvous at a later hour. Not only would it be useless, but she had seen Frank Beckett-Smythe earlier in the day, and he said there was a dinner party at the Hall. Perhaps he might be able to slip away unnoticed about nine. CHAPTER XIII A DYING DEPOSITION Before Mr. Beckett-Smythe sat down to dinner that evening a very unpleasant duty had been thrust on him. The superintendent of police drove over from Nottonby to show him the county analyst's report. Divested of technicalities, this document proved that George Pickering's dangerous condition arose from blood poisoning caused by a stab from a contaminated knife. It was admitted that a wound inflicted by a rusty pitchfork might have had equally serious results, but the analysis of matter obtained from both instruments proved conclusively that the knife alone was impregnated with the putrid germs found in the blood corpuscles, which also contained an undue proportion of alcohol. Moreover, Dr. MacGregor's statement on the one vital point was unanswerable. Pickering was suffering from an incised wound which could not have been inflicted by the rounded prongs of a fork. The doctor was equally emphatic in his belief that the injured man would succumb speedily. In the face of these documents it was necessary that George Pickering's depositions should be taken by a magistrate. Most unwillingly, Mr. Beckett-Smythe accompanied the superintendent to the "Black Lion Hotel" for the purpose. They entered the sick room about the time that Mrs. Saumarez was crossing the green on her way to the Methodist Chapel. A glance at Pickering's face showed that the doctor had not exaggerated the gravity of the affair. He was deathly pale, save for a number of vivid red spots on his skin. His eyes shone with fever. Were not his malady identified, the unskilled observer might conclude that he was suffering from a severe attack of German measles. Betsy was there, and the prim nurse. The contrast between the two women was almost as startling as the change for the worse in Pickering's appearance. The nurse, strictly professional in deportment, paid heed to naught save the rules of treatment. The word "hospital," "certificate," "method," shrieked silently from her flowing coif and list slippers, from the clinical thermometer on the table, and the temperature chart on the mantelpiece. Poor Betsy was sitting by the bedside, holding her lover's hand. She was smiling wistfully, striving to chatter in cheerful strain, yet all the time she wanted to wail her despair, to petition on her knees that her crime might be avenged on herself, not on its victim. When the magistrate stepped gingerly forward, Pickering turned querulously to see who the visitor was, for the nurse had nodded permission to enter when the two men looked through the half-open door. "Oh, it's you, squire," he said in a low voice. "I thought it might be MacGregor." "How are you feeling now, George?" "Pretty sick. I suppose you've heard the verdict?" "The doctor says you are in a bad state." "Booked, squire, booked! And no return ticket. I don't care. I've made all arrangements--that is, I'll have a free mind this time to-morrow--and then, well, I'll face the music." He caught sight of the police officer. "Hello, Jonas! You there? Come for my last dying depositions, eh? All right. Fire away! Betsy, my lass, leave us for a bit. The nurse can stay. The more witnesses the merrier." Betsy arose. There was no fear in her eyes now--only dumb agony. She walked steadily from the room. While Mr. Beckett-Smythe was thanking Providence under his breath that a most distressing task was thus being made easy for him, they all heard a dreadful sob from the exterior landing, followed by a heavy thud. The nurse hurried out. Betsy had fainted. With a painful effort Pickering raised himself on one arm. His forced gayety gave place to loud-voiced violence. "Confound you all!" he roared. "Why come here to frighten the poor girl's life out of her?" He cursed both the magistrate and Superintendent Jonas by name; were he able to rise he would break their necks down the stairs. The policeman crept out on tip-toe; Mr. Beckett-Smythe sat down. Pickering stormed away until the nurse returned. "Miss Thwaites is better," she said. "She was overcome by the long strain, but she is with her sister now, and quite recovered." Betsy was crying her heart out in Kitty's arms: fortunately, the sounds of her grief were shut out from their ears. Jonas came back and closed the door. The doomed man sank to the pillow and growled sullenly: "Now, get on with your business, and be quick over it. I'll not have Betsy worried again while I have breath left to protest." "I am, indeed, very sorry to disturb you, George," said the magistrate quietly. "It is a thankless office for an old friend. Try and calm yourself. I do not ask your forbearance toward myself and Mr. Jonas, but there are tremendous issues at stake. For your own sake you must help us to face this ordeal." "Oh, go ahead, squire. My bark is worse than my bite--not that I have much of either in me now. If I spoke roughly, forgive me. I couldn't bear to hear yon lass suffering." Thinking it best to avoid further delay, Mr. Beckett-Smythe nodded to the police officer, who drew forward a small table, which, with writing materials, he placed before the magistrate. A foolscap sheet bore already some written words. The magistrate bent over it, and said, in a voice shaken with emotion: "Listen, George. I have written here: 'I, George Pickering, being of sound mind, but believing myself to be in danger of death, solemnly take oath and depose as follows': Now, I want you to tell me, in your own words, what took place last Monday night. You are going to the awful presence of your Creator. You must tell the truth, fully and fearlessly, not striving to determine the course of justice by your own judgment, but leaving matters wholly in the hands of God. You are conscious of what you are doing, fully sensible that you will soon be called on to meet One who knoweth all things. I hope, I venture to pray, that you will give testimony in all sincerity and righteousness.... I am ready." Pickering heard this solemn injunction with due gravity. His features were composed, his eyes fixed on the distant landscape through the open window. No disturbing noise reached him save the lowing of cattle and the far-off rattle of a reaping machine, for the police had ordered the removal of the shooting gallery and roundabout to the other end of the green. He remained silent so long that the two men glanced at him anxiously, but were reassured by the belief that he was only collecting his thoughts. Indeed, it was not so. He was striving to bridge that dark chasm on whose perilous verge he tottered--striving to frame an excuse that would not be uttered by his mortal lips. At last he spoke. "On Monday night, about five minutes past ten, I met Kitty Thwaites, by appointment, at the wicket gate which opens into the garden from the bowling green of the 'Black Lion Hotel,' Elmsdale. We walked down the garden together. We were talking and laughing about the antics of a groom in this hotel, a fellow named Fred--I do not know his surname--who was jealous of me because I was in the habit of chaffing Kitty and placing my arm around her waist if I encountered her on the stairs. This man Fred, I believe, endeavored to pay attentions to Kitty, which she always refused to encourage. Kitty and I stopped at the foot of the garden beneath a pear tree which stands in the boundary fence of the paddock. "I had my arm around her neck, but was only playing the fool, which Kitty knew as well as I. There was a bright moon, and, although almost invisible ourselves in the shadow of the hedge and tree, we could see clearly into both paddock and garden. My back was toward the hotel. Suddenly, we heard someone running down the gravel path. I turned and saw that it was Betsy Thwaites, Kitty's sister, a girl whom I believed to be then in a situation at Hereford. I had promised to marry Betsy, and was naturally vexed at being caught in an apparently compromising attitude with her sister. Betsy had a knife in her hand. I could see it glittering in the moonlight." He paused. He was corpse-like in color. The red spots on his face were darker than before by contrast with the wan cheeks. He motioned to the nurse, who gave him a glass of barley water. He emptied it at a gulp. Catching Mr. Beckett-Smythe's mournful glance, he smiled with ghastly pleasantry. "It sounds like a coroner's inquest, doesn't it?" he said. Then, while his eyes roved incessantly from the face of the policeman to that of the magistrate, he continued: "I imagined that Betsy meant to do her sister some harm, so sprang forward to meet her. Then I saw that she was minded to attack me, for she screamed out: 'You have ruined my life. I'll take care you do not ruin Kitty's.'" The words, of course, were spoken very slowly. They alternated with the steady scratching of the pen. Others in the room were pallid now. Even the rigid nurse yielded to the excitement of the moment. Her linen bands fluttered and her bosom rose and fell with the restraint she imposed on her breathing. George Pickering suddenly became the most composed person present. His hearers were face to face with a tragedy. After all, did he mean to tell the truth? Ah, it was well that his affianced wife was weeping in an adjoining room, that her soul was not pierced by the calm recital which would condemn her to prison, perchance to the scaffold. "Her cry warned me," he went on. "I knew she could not hurt me. I was a strong and active man, she a weak, excited woman. She was very near, advancing down the path which runs close to the dividing hedge of the garden and the stackyard. To draw her away from Kitty, I ran toward this hedge and jumped over. It was dark there. I missed my footing and stumbled. I felt something run into my left breast. It was the prong of a pitchfork." The pen ceased. A low gasp of relief came from the nurse, for she was a woman. The superintendent looked gravely at the floor. But the magistrate faltered: "George--remember--you are a dying man!" Pickering again lifted his body. His face was convulsed with a spasm of pain, but the strong voice cried fearlessly: "Write what I have said. I'll swear it with my last breath. I'll tell the same story to either God or devil. Write, I say, or shall I finish it with my own hand?" They thought that by some superhuman effort he would rise forthwith to reach the table. The nurse, the policeman, leaped to restrain him. Mr. Beckett-Smythe was greatly agitated. "If I cannot persuade you--" he began. "Persuade me to do what? To bolster up a lying charge against the woman I am going to marry? By the Lord, do you think I'm mad?" They released him. The set intensity of his face was terrible. It is hard to say what awful power could have changed George Pickering's purpose in that supreme moment. Yet he clenched his hands in the bedclothes, as if he would choke some mocking fiend that grinned at him, and his voice was hoarse as he murmured: "Oh, man, if you have a heart, end your inquisition, or I'll die too soon!" Again the pen resumed its monotonous scrape. It paused at last. The fateful words were on record. "And then what happened?" The magistrate's question was judicially cold. He held strong convictions regarding the deeper mysteries of life; his faculties were benumbed by this utter defiance of all that he believed most firmly. "I said something, swore very likely, and staggered into the moonlight, at the same time tearing the fork from my breast. Betsy saw what I was doing, and screamed. I managed to get over the hedge again, and she ran away in mortal fright, for I had pulled open my waistcoat, and she could see the blood on my shirt. She fell as she ran, and cut herself with the knife. By that time Kitty had reached the hotel, screaming wildly that Betsy was trying to murder me. That is all. Betsy never touched me. The wound I am suffering from was inflicted by myself, accidentally. It was not caused by the knife, as is shown by the fact that I am dying of blood poisoning, while Betsy's cuts are healing and have left her unharmed otherwise." His hearers were greatly perturbed, but they knew that further protest would be unavailing. And there was an even greater shock in store. Pickering turned in the bed and poised his pain-racked frame so as to reach the manuscript placed before him for signature. With unwavering hand he added the words: "So help me God!" Then he wrote his name. "Now, sign that, all of you, as witnesses," he commanded, and they did not gainsay him. It was useless. Why prolong his torture and their own? Mr. Beckett-Smythe handed the sheets of paper to Jonas. He seemed inclined to leave the room without another spoken word, but humane impulse was stronger than dogma; he held out his hand. "Good-by, George," he said brokenly. "'Judge not,' it is written. Let my farewell be a prayer that you may die peacefully and painlessly, if, indeed, God in His mercy does not grant your recovery." "Good-by, squire. You've got two sons. Find 'em plenty of work; they'll have less time for mischief. Damn it all, hark to that reaper! It'll soon be time to rouse the cubs. I'll miss the next hunt breakfast, eh? Well, good luck to you all! I've had my last gallop. Good-by, Jonas! Do you remember the fight we had that morning with the poachers? Look here! When you meet Rabbit Jack, tell him to go to Stockwell for a sovereign and swim in beer for a week. Nurse, where's Betsy? I want her before it is dark." And in a few minutes Betsy, the forlorn, was bending over him and whispering: "I'll do it for your sake, George! But, oh, it will be hard to face everybody with a lie in my mouth. The hand that struck you should wither. Indeed, indeed, I shall suffer worse than death. If the Lord took pity on me, He would let me be the first to go." He stroked her hair gently, and there were tears in his eyes. "Never cry about spilt milk, dearie. At best, or worst, the whole thing was an accident. Come, now, no more weeping. Sit down there and write what I tell you. I can remember every word, and Kitty and you must just fit in your stories to suit mine. Stockwell will defend you. He's a smart chap, and you need have no fear. Bless your heart, you'll be twice married before you know where you are!" She obeyed him. With careful accuracy he repeated the deposition. He rehearsed the evidence she would give. When the nurse came in, he bade her angrily to leave them alone, but recalled her in the next breath. He wanted Kitty. She, too, must be coached. At his command she had placed the fork where it was found. But she must learn her story with parrot-like accuracy. There must be no contradiction in the sisters' evidence. Martin was eating his supper when Mrs. Bolland, bustling about the kitchen, made a discovery. "I must be fair wool-gatherin'," she said crossly. "Here's a little pile o' handkerchiefs browt by Dr. MacGregor, an' I clean forgot all about 'em. Martin, it's none ower leät, an' ye can bide i' bed i' t' mornin'. Just run along te t' vicarage wi' these, there's a good lad. They'll mebbe be wantin' 'em." He hailed the errand not the less joyfully that it led him through the fair. But he did not loiter. Perhaps he gazed with longing eyes at its vanishing glories, for some of the showmen were packing up in disgust, but he reached the vicarage quickly. It lay nearer the farm than The Elms, and, like that pretentious mansion, was shrouded from the highroad by leafy trees and clusters of laurels. A broad drive led to the front door. The night was drawing in rapidly, and the moon would not rise until eleven o'clock. In the curving avenue it was pitch-dark, but a cheerful light shone from the drawing-room, and through an open French window he could see Elsie bending over a book. She was not deeply interested, judging by the listless manner in which she turned the leaves. She was leaning with her elbows on the table, resting one knee on a chair, and the attitude revealed a foot and ankle quite as gracefully proportioned as Angèle's elegant limbs, though Elsie was more robust. Hearing the boy's firm tread on the graveled approach, she straightened herself and ran to the window. "Who is there?" she said. Martin stepped into the light. "Oh, it's you!" "Yes, Miss Herbert. Mother sent me with these." He held out the parcel of linen. "What is it?" she asked, extending a hesitating hand. "It is perfectly harmless, if you stroke it gently." She could see the mischief dancing in his eyes, and grabbed the package. Then she laughed. "Our handkerchiefs! It was very kind of Mrs. Bolland----" "I think Dr. MacGregor had them washed." This puzzled her, but a more personal topic was present in her mind. "I saw you a little while ago," she said. "You were engaged, or I would have asked you if you were recovering all right. Your hands and arms are yet bound up, I see. Do they hurt you much?" "No. Not a bit." He felt absurdly tongue-tied, but bravely continued: "I was told to take Miss Saumarez home. That is how you happened to meet us together." "Indeed," she said, drawing back a little. Her tone conveyed that any explanation of Miss Saumarez's companionship was unnecessary. No other attitude could have set Martin's wits at work more effectually. He, too, retreated a pace. "I'm very sorry if I disturbed you," he said. "I was going to ring for one of the servants." She tittered. "Then I am glad you didn't. They are both out, and auntie would have wondered who our late visitor was. She has just gone to bed." "But isn't your--isn't Mr. Herbert at home?" "No; he is at the bazaar. He asked me to sit up until one of the maids returns." Again she approached the window. One foot rested on the threshold. "I've been reading 'Rokeby,'" ventured Martin. "Do you like it?" "It must be very interesting when you know the place. Just imagine how nice it would be if Sir Walter had seen Elmsdale and written about the moor, and the river, and the ghylls." "Do you think he would have found a wildcat in Thor ghyll?" "I hope not. It might have spoiled the verse; and Thor ghyll is beautiful." "I'll never forget that cat. I can see it yet. How its eyes blazed when it sprang at me! Oh, I don't know how you dared seize it in your hands." She was outside the window now, standing on a strip of turf that ran between house and drive. "I didn't give a second thought to it," said Martin in his offhand way. "I can never thank you enough for saving me," she murmured. "Then I'll tell you what," he cried. "To make quite sure you won't forget, I'll try and persuade mother to have the skin made into a muff for you. One of the men is curing it, with spirits of ammonia and saltpeter." "Do you think I may need to have my memory jogged?" "People forget things," he said airily. "Besides, I'm going away to school. When I come back you'll be a grown-up young lady." "I'm nearly as tall as you." "Indeed you are not." "Well, I'm much taller than Angèle Saumarez, at any rate." "There's no comparison between you in any respect." And this young spark three short hours ago, behind the woodpile, had gazed into Angèle's eyes! "Do you remember--we were talking about her when that creature flew at me?" He laughed. It was odd how Angèle's name kept cropping up. The church clock struck nine. They listened to the chimes. Neither spoke until the tremulous booming of the bell ceased. "I'm afraid I must be going," said Martin, without budging an inch. "Did you--did you--find any difficulty--in opening the gate? It is rather stiff. And your poor hands must be so sore." From excessive politeness, or shyness, Elsie's tongue tripped somewhat. "It was a bit stiff," he admitted. "I had to reach up, you know." "Then I think I ought to come and open it for you." "But you will be afraid to return alone." "Afraid! Of what?" "I really don't know," he said, "but I thought girls were always scared in the dark." "Then I am an exception." She cast a backward glance into the room. "The lamp is quite safe. It will not take me a minute." They walked together down the short avenue. The gate was standing open. "Really," laughed Martin, "I had quite forgotten." "So boys have weak memories, too?" "Of gates, perhaps." "Well, now, I must be off. Good-night, and thank you so much." She held out her hand. He took it in both of his. "I do hope Mr. Herbert will ask me to another picnic," he said. A boy on a bicycle rode past slowly. Instinctively, they shrank into the shadow of a tree. "Wasn't that Frank Beckett-Smythe?" whispered Elsie, forgetting to withdraw her imprisoned hand, and turning a startled face to Martin. "Yes." "Where can he be going at this time?" Martin guessed accurately, but sheer chivalry prevented him from saying more than: "To the fair, I suppose." "At this hour; after nine o'clock?" "S-s-h. He's coming back." She drew closer. There was an air of mystery in this nocturnal bicycle ride that induced bewilderment. Martin's right hand still inclosed the girl's. What more natural than that his left arm should go around her waist, merely to emphasize the need for caution, concealment, secrecy? Most certainly his knowledge of womankind was striding onward in seven-leagued boots. The trot of a horse sounded sharply on the hard road. It was being ridden by someone in a hurry. The young scion of the Hall, who appeared to be killing time, inclined his machine to the opposite hedge. But the rider pulled up with the skill of a practiced horseman. Even in the dim light the boy and girl recognized one of Mr. Beckett-Smythe's grooms. "Is that you, Master Frank?" they heard him say. "Hello, Williams! What's up?" "What's up, indeed! T' Squire has missed ye. A bonny row there'll be. Ye mun skip back lively, let me tell ye." "Oh, the deuce!" "Better lose nae mair time, Master Frank. I'll say I found ye yon side o' T' Elms." "What has The Elms got to do with it?" The man grinned. "Noo, Master Frank, just mount an' be off in front. T' Squire thinks ye're efther that black-eyed lass o' Mrs. Saumarez's. Don't try an' humbug him. He telt me te lay my huntin'-crop across yer shoulders, but that's none o' my business. Off ye go!" The heir, sulky and in deep tribulation, obeyed. They heard the horse's hoofbeats dying away rapidly. Elsie, an exceedingly nice-mannered girl, was essentially feminine. The episode thrilled her, and pleased her, too, in some indefinable way, for her companion was holding her tightly. "Just fancy that!" she whispered. "Oh, he will only get a hiding." "But, surely, he could not expect to meet Angèle?" "It looks like it. But why should we trouble about it?" "I think it is horrid. But I must be going. Good-night--Martin." He felt a gentle effort to loosen his clasp. "Good-night, Elsie." Their faces were very close. Assuredly, the boy must have been a trifle light-headed that day, for he bent and kissed her. She tore herself from the encircling arm. Her cheeks were burning. At a little distance--a few feet--she halted. "How dare you?" she cried. He came to her with hands extended. "Forgive me, Elsie; I couldn't help it." "You must never, never do such a thing again." He had nothing to say. "Promise!" she cried, but her voice was less emphatic than she imagined. "I won't," he said, and caught her arm. "You--won't! How can you say such a thing?" "Because I like you. I have known you for years, though we never spoke to each other until yesterday." "Oh, dear! This is terrible! You frightened me so! I hope I didn't hurt your poor arms?" "The pain was awful," he laughed. The girl's heart was beating so frantically that she could almost hear its pulsations. The white bandages on Martin's wrists and hands aroused a tumult of emotion. The scene in the ghyll flashed before her eyes; she saw again the wild struggles of the snarling, tearing, biting animal, the boy's cool daring and endurance until he crushed the raging thing's life out of it and flung it away contemptuously. An impulse came to her, and it was not to be repelled. She placed both hands on his shoulders and kissed him, quite fearlessly, on the lips. "I think I owed you that," she said, with a little sob, and then ran away in good earnest, never turning her head until she was safe within the drawing-room. Martin, his brain in a whirl and his blood on fire, closed the gate for himself. When the vicar came, half an hour later, his daughter was busy over the same book. "What, Elsie! None of the maids home yet?" he cried. "No, father, dear. But Martin Bolland brought these." "Oh, our handkerchiefs. What did he say?" "Nothing--of any importance. I understood that Dr. MacGregor caused the linen to be washed, but forgot to ask him why." "Is that all?" "Practically all, except that his arms and hands are all bound up, so I went with him as far as the gate. It is stiff, you know. And--yes--he has been reading 'Rokeby.' He likes it." The vicar filled his pipe. He had had a trying day. "Martin is a fine lad," he said. "I hope John Bolland will see fit to educate him. Such a youngster should not be allowed to vegetate in a village like this." "Ah!" said Elsie, "that reminds me. He told me he was going away to school." "Capital!" agreed the vicar. "Out of evil comes good. It required an earthquake to move a man like Bolland!" CHAPTER XIV THE STORM On the morrow rain fell. At first the village regarded the break in the weather as a thunderstorm, and harvesters looked to an early resumption of work. "A sup o' wet'll do nowt any harm," they said. But a steadily declining "glass" and a continuous downpour that lost nothing in volume as the day wore caused increasing headshakes, anxious frowns, revilings not a few of the fickle elements. The moorland becks became raging torrents. The gorged river rose until all the low-lying land was flooded, hundreds of pounds' worth of corn in stook swept away, and all standing crops were damaged to an enormous extent. Cattle, sheep, poultry, even a horse or two, were caught by the rushing waters and drowned. A bridge became blocked by floating debris and crumbled before the flood. Three men were standing on the structure, idly watching the articles whirling past in the eddies; one, given a second's firm footing, jumped for dear life and saved himself; the bodies of the others were found, many days afterwards, jammed against stakes placed in the stream a mile lower down to prevent fish poachers from netting an open reach. This deluge, if indeed aught else were needed, wrecked the Feast. Every booth was dismantled, each wagon and caravan packed. The van dwellers only ceased their labors when all was in readiness for a move to the next fair ground; the Elmsdale week, usually a bright spot in their migratory calendar, was marked this year with absolute loss. At the best, and in few instances, it yielded a bare payment of expenses. Farmers, of course, toiled early and late to avert further disaster. Stock were driven from pastures where danger threatened; cut corn was rescued in the hope that the next day's sun might dry it; choked ditches were raked with long hoes to permit the water to flow off. At last, when night fell, and the rain diminished to a thin drizzle, though the barometer gave no promise of improvement, men gathered in the village street and began comparing notes. Everyone had suffered in some degree; even the shopkeepers and private residents complained of ruined goods, gardens rooted up, houses invaded by the all-pervading floods. But the farmers endured the greatest damage. Some had lost their half-year's rent, many would be faced with privation and bankruptcy. Thrice fortunate now were the men with capital--those who could look forward with equanimity to another season when the wanton havoc inflicted by this wild raging of the waters should be recouped. John Bolland, protected by an oilskin coat, crossed the road between the stockyard and the White House about eight o'clock. "Eh, Mr. Bollan', but this is a sad day's wark," said a friend who encountered him. "Ah, it's bad, very bad, an' likely te be worse," replied John, lifting his bent head and casting a weather-wise glance over the northerly moor. "I've lost t' best part o' six acres o' wuts," (oats) growled his neighbor. "It's hard to know what spite there was in t' clouds te burst i' that way." "Times an' seasons aren't i' man's hands," was the quiet answer. "There'd be ill deed if sunshine an' storm were settled by voates, like a county-council election." "Mebbe, and mebbe nut," cried the other testily. "'Tis easy to leave ivvrything te Providence when yer money's mostly i' stock. Mine happens te be i' crops." "An' if mine were i' crops, Mr. Pattison, I sud still thry te desarve well o' Providence." This shrewd thrust evoked no wrath from Pattison, who was not a chapel-goer. "Gosh!" he laughed, "some folks are lucky. They pile up riches both i' this wulld an' t' wulld te come. Hooivver, we won't argy. Hev ye heerd t' news fra' te t' 'Black Lion'?" "Aboot poor George Pickerin'? Noa. I've bin ower thrang i' t' cow-byre." "He's married, an' med his will. Betsy is Mrs. Pickerin' noo. But she'll be a widdy afore t' mornin'." "Is he as bad as all that?" "Sinkin' fast, they tell me. He kep' up, like the game 'un he allus was, until Mr. Croft left him alone wi' his wife. Then he fell away te nowt. He's ravin', I hear." "Croft! I thowt Stockwell looked efther his affairs." "Right enough! But Stockwell's ya (one) trustee, Mr. Herbert's t' other. So Croft had te act." "Well, I'm rale sorry for t' poor chap. He's coom tiv a bad end." "Ye'll be t' foreman o' t' jury, most like?" "Noa. I'll be spared that job. Martin is a witness, more's t' pity. Good-night, Mr. Pattison. It'll hu't none if y' are minded te offer up a prayer for betther weather." But the prayers of many just men did not avail to save Elmsdale that night. After a brief respite, the storm came on again with gusty malevolence. Black despair sat by many a fireside, and in no place was its grim visage seen more plainly than in the bedroom where George Pickering died. Dr. MacGregor watched the fitful flickering of the strong man's life, until, at last, he led the afflicted wife from the room and consigned her to the care of her weeping sister and the hardly less sorrowful landlady. At the foot of the stairs were waiting P. C. Benson and the reporter of the _Messenger_. "It is all over," said the doctor. "He died at a quarter past ten." "The same hour that he was--wounded," commented the reporter. "What was the precise cause of death?" "Failure of the heart's action. It was a merciful release. Otherwise, he might have survived for days and suffered greatly." The policeman adjusted his cape and lowered his chin-strap. "I mun start for Nottonby," he said. "T' inquest'll likely be oppenned o' Satherday at two o'clock, doctor." "Yes. By the way, Benson, you can tell Mr. Jonas that the county analyst and I are ready with our evidence. There is no need for an adjournment, unless the police require it." The constable saluted and set off on a lonely tramp through the rain. He crossed the footbridge over the beck--the water was nearly level with the stout planks. "I haven't seen a wilder night for monny a year," he muttered. "There'll be a nice how-d'ye-do if t' brig is gone afore daylight." He trudged the four miles to Nottonby. Nearing the outskirts of the small market town, he was startled by finding the body of a man lying face down in the roadway. The pelting gale had extinguished his lamp. He managed to turn the prostrate form and raise the man's head. Then, after several failures, he induced a match to flare for a second. One glance sufficed. "Rabbit Jack!" he growled. "And blind as a bat! Get up, ye drunken swine. 'Twould be sarvin' ye right te lave ye i' the road until ye were runned over or caught yer death o' cold." From the manner of P. C. Benson's language it may be inferred that his actions were not characterized by extreme gentleness. He managed to shake the poacher into semi-consciousness. Rabbit Jack, wobbling on his feet, lurched against the policeman. "Hello, ole fell', coom along wi' me," he mumbled amiably. "Nivver mind t' brass. I've got plenty. Good soart, George Pickerin'. Gimme me a sov', 'e did. Fo-or, 'e's a jolly good feller----" A further shaking was disastrous. He collapsed again. The perplexed policeman noted a haymew behind a neighboring gate. He dragged the nondescript thither by the scruff of his neck and threw him on the lee side of the shelter. "He'll be sober by mornin'," he thought. "I hev overmuch thrubble aboot te tew mysen wi' this varmint." And so ended the first of the dead man's bequests. The gathering of a jury in a country village for an important inquest like that occasioned by George Pickering's death is a solemn function. Care is exercised in empaneling men of repute, and, in the present instance, several prominent farmers were debarred from service because their children would be called as witnesses. The inquest was held, by permission, in the National schoolhouse. No room in the inn would accommodate a tithe of the people who wished to attend. Many journalists put in an appearance, the _Messenger_ reporter's paragraphs having attracted widespread attention. It was noteworthy, too, that Superintendent Jonas did not conduct the case for the police. He obtained the aid of a solicitor, Mr. Dane, with whom the coroner, Dr. Magnus, drove from Nottonby in a closed carriage, for the rain had not ceased, save during very brief intervals, since the outbreak on Thursday morning. The jury, having been sworn, elected Mr. Webster, grocer, as their foreman, and proceeded to view the body. When they reassembled in the schoolroom it was seen that Betsy, now Mrs. Pickering, was seated next her sister. With them were two old people whom a few persons present recognized as the girls' parents, and by Betsy's side was Mr. Stockwell. Among the crowd of witnesses were Martin, Frank and Ernest Beckett-Smythe, and Angèle. The mortification, the angry dismay of Mrs. Saumarez when her daughter was warned to attend the inquest may well be imagined. The police are no respecters of persons, and P. C. Benson, of course, ascertained easily the name of the girl concerning whom Martin and young Beckett-Smythe fought on the eventful night. She might be an important witness, so her mother was told to send her to the court. Mrs. Saumarez disdained to accompany the girl in person, and Françoise was deputed to act as convoy. The Normandy nurse's white linen bands offered a quaint contrast to the black robes worn by the other women and gave material for a descriptive sentence to every journalist in the room. Mr. Beckett-Smythe, the vicar, Dr. MacGregor, and the county analyst occupied chairs beside the Coroner. The latter gentleman described the nature of the inquiry with businesslike brevity, committing himself to no statements save those that were obvious. When he concluded, Mr. Dane rose. "I appear for the police," he said. "And I," said Mr. Stockwell, "am here to watch the interests of Mrs. Pickering, having received her husband's written instructions to that effect." A deep hush fell on the packed assembly. The curious nature of the announcement was a surprise in itself. The reporters' pencils were busy, and the Coroner adjusted his spectacles. "The written instructions of the dead man?" he exclaimed. "Yes, sir. My friend, my lifelong friend, Mr. George Pickering, was but too well aware of the fate that threatened him. I have here a letter, written and signed by him on Thursday morning. With your permission, I will read it." "I object," cried Mr. Dane. "On what grounds?" asked the Coroner. "Such a letter may have a prejudicial effect on the minds of the jury. They are here to determine, with your direction, a verdict to be arrived at on certain evidence. This letter cannot be regarded as evidence." Mr. Stockwell shrugged his shoulders. "I do not press the point," he said. "I fail to see any harm in showing a husband's anxiety that his wife should be cleared of absurd imputations." Mr. Dane reddened. "I consider that a highly improper remark," he cried. The other only smiled. He had won the first round. The jury knew what the letter contained, and he had placed the case for the police in an unfavorable light. The first witness, Pickering's farm bailiff, gave formal evidence of identity. Then the Coroner read the dead man's deposition, which was attested by the local justice of the peace. Dr. Magnus rendered the document impressively. Its concluding appeal to the Deity turned all eyes on Betsy. She was pale, but composed. Since her husband's death she had cried but little. Her mute grief rendered her beautiful. Sorrow had given dignity to a pretty face. She was so white, so unmoved outwardly, that she resembled a clothed statue. Kitty wept quietly all the time, but Betsy sat like one in a dream. "Catherine Thwaites," said the Coroner's officer, and Kitty was led by Mr. Jones to the witness stand. The girl's evidence, punctuated by sobs, was practically a résumé of Pickering's sworn statement. From Mr. Dane's attitude it was apparent that he regarded this witness as untruthful. "Of course," he said, with quiet satire in word and look, "as Mr. Pickering impaled himself on a fork, you did not see your sister plunge a knife into his breast?" "No, sir." "Nor did you run down the garden shrieking: 'Oh, Betsy, Betsy, you've killed him.' You did not cry 'Murder, murder! Come, someone, for God's sake'?" "Yes, sir; I did." This unexpected admission puzzled the solicitor. He darted a sharp side glance at Stockwell, but the latter was busy scribbling notes. Every pulse in court quickened. "Oh, you did, eh? But why charge your sister with a crime you did not see her commit?" "Because she had a knife in her hand, and I saw Mr. Pickering stagger across the garden and fall." "In what direction did he stagger?" "Away from the stackyard hedge." "This is a serious matter. You are on your oath, and there is such a thing as being an accessory after----" Up sprang Stockwell. "I protest most strongly against this witness being threatened," he shouted. "I think Mr. Dane is entitled to warn the witness against false testimony," said the Coroner. "Of course, he knows the grave responsibility attached to such insinuations." Mr. Dane waved an emphatic hand. "I require no threats," he said. "I have evidence in plenty. Do you swear that Mr. Pickering did not lurch forward from beneath the pear tree at the foot of the garden after being stabbed by your sister, who surprised him in your arms, or you in his arms? It is the same thing." "I do," was the prompt answer. The lawyer sat down, shrugging his shoulders. "Any questions to put to the witness, Mr. Stockwell?" said the Coroner. "No, sir. I regard her evidence as quite clear." "Will you--er--does your client Mrs. Pickering wish to give evidence?" "My client--she is not my client of her own volition, but by the definite instructions of her dead husband--will certainly give evidence. May I express the hope that my learned friend will not deal with her too harshly? She is hardly in a fit state to appear here to-day." Mr. Dane smiled cynically, but made no reply. He declined to help his adversary's adroit maneuvers by fiery opposition, though again had Mr. Stockwell succeeded in playing a trump card. Betsy was duly warned by the Coroner that she might be charged with the wilful murder of George Pickering, notwithstanding the sworn deposition read in court. She could exercise her own judgment as to whether or not she would offer testimony, but anything she said would be taken down in writing, and might be used as evidence against her. She never raised her eyes. Not even those terrible words, "wilful murder," had power to move her. She stood like an automaton, and seemed to await permission to speak. "Now, Mrs. Pickering," said Dr. Magnus, "tell us, in your own words, what happened." She began her story. No one could fail to perceive that she was reciting a narrative learnt by heart. She used no words in the vernacular. All was good English, coherent, simple, straightforward. On the Monday morning, she said, she received a letter at Hereford from Fred Marshall, ostler at the "Black Lion Hotel." "Have you that letter?" asked the Coroner. "Yes," interposed Mr. Stockwell. "Here it is." He handed forward a document. A buzz of whispered comment arose. In compliance with Dr. Magnus's request, Betsy identified it listlessly. Then it was read aloud. Apart from mistakes in spelling, it ran as follows: "Dear Miss Thwaites.--This is to let you know that George Pickering is carrying on with your sister Kitty. He has promised to meet her here on Monday. He has engaged a bedroom here. You ought to come and stop it. I inclose P.O. for one pound toward your fare.--Yours truly, Fred Marshall, groom, 'Black Lion,' Elmsdale." The fact that this meddlesome personage had sent Betsy her railway fare became known now for the first time. A hiss writhed through the court. "Silence!" yelled a police sergeant, glaring around with steely eyes. "There must be no demonstrations of any sort here," said the Coroner sternly. "Well, Mrs. Pickering, you traveled to Elmsdale?" "Yes." "With what purpose in view?" "George had promised to marry me. Kitty knew this quite well. I thought that my presence would put an end to any courtship that was going on. It was very wrong." "None will dispute that. But I prefer not to question you. Tell us your own story." "I traveled all day," she recommenced, "and reached Elmsdale station by the last train. I was very tired. At the door of the inn I met Fred Marshall. He was waiting, I suppose. He told me George and Kitty were at the bottom of the garden." A quiver ran through the audience, but the police sergeant was watching, and they feared expulsion. "He said they had been there ten minutes. I ran through the hotel kitchen. On a table was lying a long knife near a dish of grouse. I picked it up, hardly knowing what I was doing, and went into the garden. When I was halfway down Kitty saw me and screamed. George turned round and backed away toward the middle hedge. I remember crying out--some--things--but I do not--know--what I said." She swayed slightly, and everyone thought she was about to faint. But she clutched the back of a chair and steadied herself. Mr. Jones offered her a glass of water, but she refused it. "I can go on," she said bravely. And she persevered to the end, substantially repeating her sister's evidence. When Mr. Dane rose to cross-examine, the silence in court was appalling. The girl's parents were pallid with fear. Kitty sat spellbound. Mr. Stockwell pushed his papers away and gazed fixedly at his client. "Why did you pick up the knife, Mrs. Pickering?" was the first question. "I think--I am almost sure--I intended to strike my sister with it." This was another bombshell. Mr. Dane moved uneasily on his feet. "Your sister!" he repeated in amazement. "Yes. She was aware of my circumstances. What right had she to be flirting with my promised husband?" "Hum! You have forgiven her since, no doubt?" "I forgave her then, when I regained my senses. She was acting thoughtlessly. I believe that George and she went into the garden only to spite Fred Marshall." Mr. Dane shook his head. "So, if we accept your statement, Mrs. Pickering, you harmed no one with the knife except yourself?" "That is so." He seemed to hesitate a moment, but seemingly made up his mind to leave the evidence where it stood. "I shall not detain you long," said Mr. Stockwell when his legal opponent desisted from further cross-examination. "You were married to Mr. Pickering on Thursday morning by special license?" "Yes." "He had executed a marriage settlement securing you £400 a year for life?" "Yes." "And, after the accident, you remained with him until he died?" "Yes--God help me!" "Thank you. That is all." "Just one moment," interposed the Coroner. "Were you previously acquainted with this man, Marshall, the groom?" "No, sir. I saw him for the first time in my life when he met me at the hotel door and asked me if I was Miss Thwaites." "How did he obtain your Hereford address? It appears to be given in full on the envelope." "I don't know, sir." Fred Marshall was the next witness. He was sober and exceedingly nervous. He had been made aware during the past week that public opinion condemned him utterly. His old cronies refused to drink with him. Mrs. Atkinson had dismissed him; he was a pariah, an outcast, in the village. His evidence consisted of a disconnected series of insinuations against Kitty's character, interlarded with protests that he meant no harm. Mr. Stockwell showed him scant mercy. "You say you saw Mrs. Pickering, or Betsy Thwaites, as she was at that time, seize a knife from the table?" "I did." "What did you think she meant to do with it?" "What she did do--stick George Pickerin'. I heerd her bawlin' that oot both afore an' efther." The man was desperate. In his own parlance, he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and he would spare no one. "Oh, indeed! You knew she intended to commit murder?" "I thowt so." "Then why did you not follow her?" "I was skeered." "What! Afraid of a weak woman?" "Well, I didn't give a damn if she did stab him! There, ye hev it straight!" Mr. Stockwell turned to Mr. Dane. "If you are looking for accessories in this trumped-up case, you have one ready to hand," he exclaimed. "You must be careful what you are saying, Marshall," observed the Coroner severely. "And moderate your language, too. This court is not a stable." "He shouldn't badger me," cried the witness in sullen anger. "I'll treat you with great tenderness," said Mr. Stockwell suavely, and a general smile relieved the tension. "How did you obtain Miss Thwaites's address at Hereford?" No answer. "Come, now. Where are your wits? Will you accuse me of badgering you, if I suggest that you stole a letter from Kitty Thwaites's pocket?" "I didn't steal it. It was in a frock of hers, hangin' in her bedroom." "You are most obliging. And the sovereign you sent her? Did you, by any chance, borrow it from Mrs. Atkinson?" "Frae Mrs. Atkinson? Wheä said that?" "Oh, I mean without her knowledge, of course. From Mrs. Atkinson's till, I should have said." The chance shot went home. The miserable groom growled a denial, but no one believed him. Quite satisfied that he had destroyed the man's credibility, Mr. Stockwell sat down. "Martin Court Bolland!" said the Coroner's officer, and a wave of renewed interest galvanized the court. Mr. Dane arranged his papers and looked around with the air of one who says: "Now we shall hear the truth of this business." Martin came forward. It chanced that the first pair of eyes he encountered were Angèle's. The girl was gazing at him with a spiteful intensity he could not understand. He did not know then of the painful exposé which took place at The Elms when Mrs. Saumarez learnt on the preceding day that her daughter was a leading figure among the children in the "Black Lion" yard on the night of the tragedy. Angèle blamed Martin for having betrayed her to the authorities. She did not know how resolutely he had declined to mention her name; he loomed large in her mind, to the exclusion of the others. She regarded him now with a venomous malice all the more bitter because of the ultra-friendly relations she had forced on him. He looked at her with genuine astonishment. She reminded him of the wildcat he choked to death in Thor ghyll. But he had to collect his wandering faculties, for the Coroner was speaking. CHAPTER XV THE UNWRITTEN LAW Martin's evidence was concise. He happened to be in the "Black Lion" yard with other children at a quarter past ten on Monday night. He heard a woman's scream, followed by a man's loud cry of pain, and both sounds seemed to come from the extreme end of the garden. Kitty Thwaites ran toward the hotel shrieking, "Oh, Betsy, Betsy, you've killed him!" She screamed "Murder" and called for someone to come, "for God's sake!" She fell exactly opposite the place where he was standing. Then he saw Betsy Thwaites--he identified her now as Mrs. Pickering--running after her sister and brandishing a knife. She appeared to be very excited, and cried out, "I'll swing for him. May the Lord deal wi' him as he dealt wi' me!" She called her sister a "strumpet," and said it would "serve her right to stick her with the same knife." He was quite sure those were the exact words. He was not alarmed in any way, only surprised by the sudden uproar, and he saw the two women and the knife as plainly as if it were broad daylight. Mr. Dane concluded the examination-in-chief, which he punctuated with expressive glances at the jury, by touching on a point which he expected his acute rival to raise. "What were you doing in the 'Black Lion' yard at that hour, Bolland?" "I was having a dispute with Master Frank Beckett-Smythe." "What sort of a dispute?" "Well, we were fighting." A grin ran through the court. "He is an intelligent boy and older than you. Can you suggest any reason why he should have failed to see and hear all that you saw and heard?" Martin paused. He disliked to pose as a vainglorious pugilist, but there was no help for it. "I got the better of him," he said quietly. "One, at least, of his eyes were closed, and I had just given him an uppercut on the nose." "But his brother was there, too?" "Master Ernest was looking after him." "How about the other children?" "They ran away." "All of them?" "Well, nearly all. I can only speak for myself, sir. No doubt the others will tell you what they saw." Obviously, Mr. Dane was unprepared for the cool self-possession displayed by this farmer's son. He nodded acquiescence with Martin's views and sat down. Mr. Stockwell, watching the boy narrowly, had caught the momentary gleam of surprise when his look encountered that of the pretty dark-eyed child whose fashionable attire distinguished her from the village urchins among whom she was sitting. "By the way," he began, "why do you call yourself Bolland?" "That is my name, sir." "Are you John Bolland's son?" "No, sir." "Then whose son are you?" "I do not know. My father and mother adopted me thirteen years ago." The lawyer gathered by the expression on the stolid faces of the jury that this line of inquiry would be fruitless. "What was the cause of the fight between you and young Beckett-Smythe?" This was the signal for an interruption from the jury. Mr. Webster, the foreman, did not wish any slight to be placed on Mrs. Saumarez. The upshot might be that he would lose a good customer. The Squire dealt at the Stores. Let him protect his own children. But Mrs. Saumarez needed a champion. "May I ask, sir," he said to the Coroner, "what a bit of a row atween youngsters hez te do wi' t' case?" "Nothing that I can see," was the answer. "It has a highly important bearing," put in Mr. Stockwell. "If my information is correct, this witness is the only one whose evidence connects Mrs. Pickering even remotely with the injuries received by her husband. I assume, of course, that Marshall's testimony is not worth a straw. I shall endeavor to elicit facts that may tend to prove the boy's statements unreliable." "I cannot interfere with your discretion, Mr. Stockwell," was the ruling. "Now, answer my question," cried the lawyer. Martin's brown eyes flashed back indignantly. "We fought because I wished to take a young lady home, and he tried to prevent me." "A young lady! What young lady?" "I refuse to mention her name. You asked why we fought, and I've told you." "Why this squeamishness, my young squire of dames? Was it not Angèle Saumarez?" Martin turned to the Coroner. "Must I reply, sir?" "Yes.... I fail still to see the drift of the cross-examination, Mr. Stockwell." "It will become apparent quickly. Yes, or no, Bolland?" "Yes; it was." "Was she committed to your care by her mother?" "No. She came out to see the fair. I promised to look after her." "Were you better fitted to protect this child than the two sons of Mr. Beckett-Smythe?" "I thought so." "From what evil influences, then, was it necessary to rescue her?" "That's not a fair way to put it. It was too late for her to be out." "When did you discover this undeniable fact?" "Just then." "Not when you were taking her through the fair in lordly style?" "No. There was no harm in the shows, and I realized the time only when the clock struck ten." Every adult listener nodded approval. The adroit lawyer saw that he was merely strengthening the jury's good opinion of the boy. He must strike hard and unmercifully if he would shake their belief in Martin's good faith. "There were several other children there--a boy named Bates, another named Beadlam, Mrs. Atkinson's three girls, and others?" "Bates was with me. The others were in the yard." "Ah, yes; they had left you a few minutes earlier. Now, is it not a fact that these children, and you with them, had gone to this hiding-place to escape being caught by your seniors?" "No; it is a lie." "Is that your honest belief? Do you swear it?" "I shirked nothing. Neither did the others. Hundreds of people saw us. As for Miss Saumarez, I think she went there for a lark more than anything else." "A questionable sort of lark. It is amazing to hear of respectable children being out at such an hour. Did your parents--did the parents of any of the others realize what was going on?" "I think not. The whole thing was an accident." "But, surely, there must be some adequate explanation of this fight between you and Beckett-Smythe. It was no mere scuffle, but a severe set-to. He bears even yet the marks of the encounter." Master Frank was supremely uncomfortable when the united gaze of the court was thus directed to him. His right eye was discolored, as all might see, but his nose was normal. "I have told you the exact truth. I wished her to go home----" "Did she wish it?" "She meant to tease me, and said she would remain. Frank Beckett-Smythe and I agreed to fight, and settle whether she should go or stay." "So you ask us to believe that not only did you engage in a bout of fisticuffs in order to convoy to her home a girl already hours too late abroad, but that you alone, of all these children, can give us a correct version of occurrences on the other side of the hedge?" "I don't remember asking you that, sir," said Martin seriously, and the court laughed. Mr. Stockwell betrayed a little heat. "You know well what I mean," he said. "You are a clever boy. Are you not depending on your imagination for some of your facts?" "I wish I were, sir," was the sorrowful answer. Quite unconsciously, Martin looked at Betsy. Some magnetic influence caused her to raise her eyes for the first time, and each gazed into the soul of the other. Mr. Stockwell covered his retreat by an assumption of indifference. "Fortunately, there is a host of witnesses to be heard in regard to these particular events," he exclaimed, and Martin's inquisition ceased. The superintendent whispered something to Mr. Dane, who rose. "A great deal has been made out of this quarrel about a little girl," he said to the boy. "Is it not the fact that you have endeavored consistently to keep her name out of the affair altogether?" "Yes." "Why?" "Because Mrs. Saumarez is only a visitor here, and her daughter could not know anything of village ways. I was mostly to blame for allowing her to be there at all, so I tried to take it onto my shoulders." It was interesting to note how Angèle received this statement. Her black eyes became tearful. Her hero was rehabilitated. She worshiped him again passionately. Someone else had peached. She brushed away the tears and darted a quick look at the Squire's eldest son. He was the next witness. He saw George Pickering and Kitty go down the garden, the man's arm being around Kitty's neck. Then he fought with Martin. Afterwards he heard some screaming, but could not tell a word that was said--he was too dazed. "Is it not possible the hubbub was too confused that you should gain any intelligible idea of it?" asked Mr. Stockwell. "Yes, that might be so." "You are a bigger boy than young Bolland. Surely he could not pummel the wits out of you?" "I don't think he will next time. He caught me a stinger by chance." A roar of laughter greeted this candid confession of future intentions. Even Mr. Beckett-Smythe and the vicar joined in. "Why did you wish to keep this girl, Angèle Saumarez, away from her residence?" "She's a jolly sort of girl, and I think we were all a bit off our heads," said Frank ruefully. "But you had some motive, some design. Remember, you fought to retain her." "I wish I hadn't," said the boy, glancing at his father. His most active memory was of a certain painful interview on Wednesday night. "_You_ were not groggy on your legs," was Mr. Stockwell's first remark to Ernest. "What did you hear or see beyond the garden hedge?" "There was a lot of yelling, and two women ran toward the hotel. The woman with a knife was threatening to stick it into somebody, but I couldn't tell who." "Ah. She was running after the other woman. Don't you think she might have been threatening her only?" "It certainly looked like it." "Can't you help us by being more definite?" "No. Frank was asking for a pump. I was thinking of that more than of the beastly row in the garden." He was dismissed. "Angèle Saumarez." The strangers present surveyed the girl with expectant interest. She looked a delightfully innocent child. She was attired in the dark dress she wore on the Monday evening. Her hat, gloves, and shoes were in perfect taste. No personality could be more oddly at variance with a village brawl than this delicate, gossamer, fairy-like little mortal. She gave her evidence without constraint or shyness. Her pretty continental accent enhanced the charm of her manners. In no sense forward, she won instant approbation, and the general view was that she had drifted into an unpleasant predicament by sheer force of circumstances. The mere love of fun brought her out to see the fair, and her presence in the stackyard was accounted for by a girlish delight in setting boys at loggerheads. But she helped the police contention by declaring that she heard Betsy say: "I'll swing for him." "I remember," she said sweetly, "wondering what she meant. To swing for anybody! That is odd." "Might it not have been 'for her' and not 'for him'?" suggested Mr. Stockwell. "Oh, yes," agreed Angèle. "I wouldn't be sure about that. They talk queerly, these people. I am certain about the 'swing'." Really, there never was a more simple little maid. "You must never again go out at night to such places," remarked the Coroner paternally. She cast down her eyes. "Mamma was very angry," she simpered. "I have been kept at home for days and days on account of it." She glanced at Martin. That explanation was intended for him. As a matter of fact, Mr. Beckett-Smythe called at The Elms on Thursday morning and told Mrs. Saumarez that her child needed more control. He had thrashed Frank soundly the previous evening for riding off to a rendezvous fixed with Angèle for nine o'clock. He whispered this information to Mr. Herbert, and the vicar's eyes opened wide. The other non-professional witnesses, children and adults, did not advance the inquiry materially. Many heard Kitty shrieking that her sister had murdered George Pickering, but Kitty herself had admitted saying so under a misapprehension. P. C. Benson raised an important point. The pitchfork was first mentioned about eleven o'clock, when Mr. Pickering was able to talk coherently, after being laid on a bed and drinking some brandy. Neither of the two women had spoken of it. And there were footprints that did not bear out the movements described in the dead man's deposition. "But Mr. Pickering's first lucid thought referred to this implement?" said Mr. Stockwell. "Neäbody was holdin' him, sir." The policeman imagined the lawyer had said "loosened." "I mean that the first account he ever gave of this accident referred to the pitchfork, and his subsequent statements were to the same effect." "Oah, yes. There's no denyin' that." "And you found the fork lying exactly where he described its position?" "Why, yes; but he was a desp'rate lang time i' studdyin' t' matter oot afore he's speak." "Do you suggest that someone placed the fork there by his instructions?" "Noa, sir. Most like he'd seen it there hissen." "Then why do you refuse to accept his statement that an accident took place?" "Because I f'und his footprints where he ran across t' garden te t' spot where he was picked up." "Footprints! After a month of fine weather!" "It was soft mold, sir, an' they were plain enough." "Were not a dozen men running about this garden at twenty minutes past ten?" "Ay--quite that." "And you tell us coolly that you could distinguish those of one man?" "There was on'y one man's track i' that pleäce, sir." Benson was not to be flurried. Mr. Jonas and a police sergeant corroborated his opinion. Dr. MacGregor followed. He described Pickering's wound, the nature of his illness, and the cause of death. The stab itself was not of a fatal character. Had it diverged slightly it must have reached the lung. As it was, the poison, not the knife, had done the mischief. The county analyst was scientifically dogmatic. His analyses had been conducted with the utmost care. The knife was contaminated, the pitchfork was only rusty. The latter was a dangerous implement, but in no way responsible for the state of Pickering's blood corpuscles. Mr. Dane, of course, made the most of these witnesses, but Mr. Stockwell wisely forbore from pressing them, and thus hammering the main items again into the heads of the jury. The Coroner glanced at his watch. It was six o'clock. Neither of the solicitors was permitted to address the court, and he made up his mind to conclude the inquiry forthwith. "There is one matter which might be cleared up," he said. "Where is Marshall, the groom?" It was discovered that the man had left the court half an hour ago. He had not returned. P.C. Benson was sent to find him. The two came back in five minutes. Their arrival was heralded by loud shouts and laughter outside. When they entered the schoolroom Marshall presented a ludicrous spectacle. He was dripping wet, and not from rain, for his clothes were covered with slime and mud. It transpired that he had gone to a public house for a pint of beer. Several men and youths who could not gain admittance to the court took advantage of the absence of the police and amused themselves by ducking him in a convenient horse pond. The Coroner, having expressed his official annoyance at the incident, asked the shivering man if he followed Betsy into the garden. No; he saw her go out through the back door. "Then the threats you heard were uttered while she was in the passage of the hotel or in the kitchen?" Yes; that was so. "It is noteworthy," said the Coroner, "that none of the children heard this young woman going toward the couple. She must have run swiftly and silently down the path, and the witnesses were so absorbed in the fight that she passed them unheard and unseen." Mr. Stockwell frowned. If this gave any indication of the Coroner's summing-up, it was not favorable to his client. Dr. Magnus showed at once that he meant to cast aside all sentimental considerations and adhere solely to the judicial elements. He treated George Pickering's deposition with all respect, but pointed out that the dying man might be actuated by the desire to make atonement to the woman he had wronged. The human mind was capable of strange vagaries. A man who would slight, or, at any rate, be indifferent, to one of the opposite sex, when far removed from personal contact, was often swayed by latent ties of affection when brought face to face with the woman herself. In a word, the Coroner threw all his weight on the side of the police and against Betsy. He regarded Fred Marshall and young Bolland as truthful witnesses, though inspired by different motives, and deemed the medical evidence conclusive. Betsy sat sphinx-like through this ordeal. Her unhappy parents, and even more unhappy sister, were profoundly distressed, and Stockwell watched the jury keenly as each damning point against his client was emphasized. "The law is quite clear in affairs of this kind," concluded Dr. Magnus gravely. "Either this unfortunate man was murdered, in which event your verdict can only take one form, or he met with an accident. Most fortunately, the last word does not rest with this court, or it would be impossible to close the inquiry to-day. The deceased himself raised a pertinent question: Why did his wife escape blood-poisoning, although he became infected? But the solicitors present apparently concur with me that this is a matter which must be determined elsewhere----" "No, no," broke in Mr. Stockwell. "I admit nothing of the sort." The Coroner bowed. "You have the benefit of my opinion, gentlemen," he said to the jury. "You must retire now and consider your verdict." The jury filed out into a classroom, an unusual proceeding, but highly expedient in an inquiry of such importance. Tongues were loosened instantly, and a hum of talk arose, while the witnesses signed their recorded statements. Kitty endeavored to arouse her sister from the condition of stupor in which she remained, and the girl's mother placed an arm around her shoulders. But Betsy paid little heed. Her mind dwelt on one object only--a sheet-covered form, lying cold and inanimate in a room of the neighboring hotel. Angèle sidled toward Martin when a movement in court permitted. Françoise would have restrained her, but the child slid along a bench so quickly that the nurse's protest came too late. "Martin," she whispered, "you behaved beautifully. I was so angry with you at first. But it was not you. I know now. Evelyn Atkinson told." "I wish it had never happened," said the boy bitterly. He hated the notion that his evidence was the strongest link in the chain encircling the hapless Betsy. "Oh, I don't find it bad, this court. One is all pins and needles at first. But the men are nice." "I am not thinking of ourselves," he growled. "Tiens! Of whom, then?" "Angèle, you're awfully selfish. What have we to endure, compared with poor Mrs. Pickering?" "Oh, pouf! That is her affair. Mamma beat me on Thursday. Beat me, look you! But I made her stop, oh, so quickly. Miss Walker pretends that mamma was ill. I know better, and so do you. I said if she hit me again----" He caught her wrist. "Shut up!" he said in a firm whisper. "Don't. You are hurting me. Why are you so horrid? Do you want me to be beaten?" "No; but how can you dare threaten your mother?" "I would dare anything rather than be kept in the house--away from you." Frank Beckett-Smythe, sitting near his father, was wondering dully why he had been such a fool as to incur severe penalties for the sake of this "silly kid," who was now ogling his rival and whispering coyly in that rival's ear. Martin was welcome to her, for all he cared. No girl was worth the uneasiness of the chair he occupied, for his father's hunting-crop had fallen with such emphasis that he felt the bruises yet. The jury returned. They had been absent half an hour. Mr. Webster was flustered--that was perceptible instantly. He, as foreman, had to deliver the finding. "Have you agreed as to your verdict?" said the Coroner. "We have." "And it is?" "Not guilty!" "What are you talking about? This is not a criminal court. You are asked to determine how George Pickering met his death." "I beg pardon," stammered Mr. Webster. He turned anxiously to his colleagues. Some of them prompted him. "I mean," he went on, "that our verdict is 'Accidental death.' That's it, sir. 'Accidental death,' I should hev said. Mr. Pickerin's own words----" The Coroner frowned. "It is an amazing verdict," he said. "I feel it my bounden duty----" Mr. Stockwell, pale but determined, sprang to his feet. "Do hear me for one moment!" he cried. The Coroner did not answer, so the solicitor took advantage of the tacit permission. "I well recognize that the police cannot let the matter rest here," he pleaded. "On your warrant they will arrest my client. Such a proceeding is unnecessary. In her present state of health it might be fatal. Surely it will suffice if you record your dissent and the inquiry is left to other authorities. I am sure that you, that Mr. Dane, will forgive the informality of my request. It arises solely from motives of humanity." The Coroner shook his head. "I am sorry, Mr. Stockwell, but I must discharge my duty conscientiously. The verdict is against the weight of evidence, and the ultimate decision rests with me, not with the jury. They have chosen deliberately to ignore my directions, and I have no option but to set aside their finding. I am compelled to issue a warrant charging your client with 'wilful murder.' Protests only render the task more painful, and I may point out that, under any circumstances, the date of arrest cannot be long deferred." A howl of vehement indignation came from the packed court. Nearly everyone present sympathized with Betsy. They accepted George Pickering's dying declaration as final; they regarded the Coroner's attitude as outrageous. For an instant the situation was threatening. It looked as though the people would wrest the girl from the hands of the police by main force. Old Mrs. Thwaites fainted, Kitty screamed dreadful words at the Coroner, and the girl's father sprawled across the table with his face in his hands and crying pitifully. Mr. Beckett-Smythe rose, but none would listen. There was a scene of tense excitement. Already men were crowding to the center of the room, while an irresistible rush from outside drove a policeman headlong from the door. Mr. Herbert strove to make himself heard, but an overwrought member of the jury bellowed: "Mak' him record oor vardict, parson. What right hez he te go ageän t' opinion o' twelve honest men?" Solicitors and reporters gathered their papers hastily, fearing an instant onslaught on the Coroner, and someone chanced to step on Angèle's foot as she clung in fright to Martin. The child squealed loudly; her toes had been squeezed under a heavy boot. Françoise, whose broad Norman face depicted every sort of bewilderment at the tumult which had sprung up for some cause she in no way understood, rose at the child's cry of anguish, and incontinently flung two pressmen out of her path. She reached Angèle and faced the crowd with splendid courage. The voluble harangue she poured forth in French, her uncommon costume, and fierce gesticulations gained her a hearing which would have been denied any other person in the room, save, perhaps, Betsy. And Betsy was striving to bring her mother back to consciousness, without, however, departing in the least particular from her own attitude of stoic despair. The Coroner availed himself of the momentary lull. Françoise paused for sheer lack of breath, and Dr. Magnus made his voice heard far out into the village street. "Why all this excitement?" he shouted. "The jury's verdict will be recorded, but you cannot force me to agree with it. The police need not arrest Mrs. Pickering on my warrant at once. I hope they will not do so. Surely, as men of sense, you will not endeavor to defy the law? You are injuring this poor woman's cause by an unseemly turmoil. Make way, there, at the door, and allow Mrs. Pickering to escort her mother to the hotel. You are frightening women and children by your bluster." Mr. Stockwell joined the superintendent in appealing to the crowd to disperse, and the crisis passed. In a few minutes the members of the Thwaites family were safe within the portals of the inn, and the schoolroom was empty of all save a few officials and busy reporters. Françoise held fast to Angèle, but the girl appealed to Martin to accompany her a little way. He yielded, though he turned back before reaching the vicarage. "Mother and I are coming to tea to-morrow," she cried as they parted. "All right," he replied. "Mind you don't vex her again." "Not I. She will want to hear all about the inquest. It was as good as a play. Wasn't Françoise funny? Oh, I do wish you had understood her. She called the men 'sacrés cochons d'Anglais!' It is so naughty in English." On the green, and dotted about the roadway, excited groups discussed the lively episode in the schoolroom. They were rancorous against the Coroner, and not a few boohed as he entered his carriage with Mr. Dane. "Ay, they'd hang t' poor lass, t' pair of 'em, if they could," shouted a buxom woman. "Sheäm on ye!" screamed another. "I'll lay owt ye won't sleep soond i' yer beds te-night." But these vaporings broke no bones, and the Coroner drove away, glad enough that so far as he was concerned a distasteful experience had ended. The persistent rain soon cleared loiterers from the center of the village. John Bolland came to the farm while Martin was eating a belated meal. "A nice deed there was at t' inquest, I hear," he said. "I don't know what's come te Elmsdale. It's fair smitten wi' a moral pestilence. One reads o' sike doin's i' foreign lands, but I nivver thowt te see 'em i' this law-abidin' counthry." Then Martha flared up. "Wheä's i' t' fault?" she cried. "Can ye bleäm t' folk for lossin' their tempers when a daft Crowner cooms here an' puts hissen up ageän t' jury? If he had a bit o' my tongue, I'd teng (sting) him!" So Elmsdale declared itself unhesitatingly on Betsy's side. A dead man's word carried more weight than all the law in the land. CHAPTER XVI UNDERCURRENTS Undoubtedly the Coroner's expedient had prevented a riot in the village. The police deferred execution of the warrant, and Mr. Stockwell, recognizing the hopelessness of the situation, co-operated with them in making arrangements which would serve to allay public excitement. The dead man was removed unobtrusively to his Nottonby residence on Sunday evening. Accompanying the hearse was a closed carriage in which rode Mrs. Pickering and Kitty. At the door of Wetherby Lodge, Mr. Stockwell met the cortège, and when the coffin was installed in the spacious library the solicitor introduced the weeping servants to their temporary mistress, since he and Mr. Herbert had decided that she ought to reside in the house for a time. Such a fact, when it became known, would help to mold public opinion. An elderly housekeeper was minded to greet Betsy with bitter words. Her young master had been dear to her, and she had not scrupled earlier to denounce in scathing terms the woman who had encompassed his death. But the sight of the wan, white face, the sorrow-laden eyes, the graceful, shrinking figure of the girl-widow, restrained an imminent outburst, and the inevitable reaction carried the housekeeper to the other extreme. "How d'ye do, ma'am," she said brokenly. "'Tis a weary homecomin' ye've had. Mebbe ye'll be likin' a cup o' tea." Betsy murmured that she had no wants, but Yorkshire regards food as a panacea for most evils, and the housekeeper bade one of the maids "put a kettle on." So the ice was broken, and Mr. Stockwell breathed freely again, for he had feared difficulty in this quarter. On Monday Pickering was buried, and the whole countryside attended the funeral, which was made impressive by the drumming and marching of the dead man's company of Territorials. On Tuesday morning a special sitting of the county magistrates was held in the local police court. Betsy attended with her solicitor, the Coroner's warrant was enforced, she was charged by the police with the murder of George Pickering, and remanded for a week in custody. The whole affair was carried out so unostentatiously that Betsy was in jail before the public knew that she had appeared at the police court. In one short week the unhappy dairymaid had experienced sharp transitions. She had become a wife, a widow. She was raised from the condition of a wage-earner to the status of an independent lady, and taken from a mansion to a prison. Bereft of her husband by her own act and separated from friends and relatives by the inexorable decree of the law, she was faced by the uncertain issue of a trial by an impartial judge and a strange jury. Surely, the Furies were exhausting their spite on one frail creature. On Sunday evening Mrs. Saumarez drove in her car through the rain to tea at the White House. She was alone. Her manner was more reserved than usual, though she shook hands with Mrs. Bolland with a quiet friendliness that more than atoned for the perceptible change in her demeanor. Her wonted air of affable condescension had gone. Her face held a new seriousness which the other woman was quick to perceive. "I have come to have a little chat with you," she said. "I am going away soon." The farmer's wife thought she understood. "I'm rale sorry te hear that, yer leddyship." "Indeed, I regret the necessity myself. But recent events have opened my eyes to the danger of allowing my child to grow up in the untrammeled freedom which I have permitted--encouraged, I may say. It breaks my heart to be stern toward her. I must send her to the South, where there are good schools, where others will fulfil obligations in which I have failed." And, behold! Mrs. Saumarez choked back a sob. "Eh, ma'am," cried the perturbed Martha, "there's nowt to greet aboot. T' lass is young eneuf yet, an' she's a bonny bairn, bless her heart. We all hae te part wi' 'em. It'll trouble me sore when Martin goes away, but 'twill be for t' lad's good." "You dear woman, you have nothing to reproach yourself with. I have. Your fine boy would never dream of rending your soul as Angèle has rent mine to-day--all because I wished her to read an instructive book instead of a French novel." "Mebbe you were a bit hard wi' her," said the older woman. "To be sure, ye wouldn't be suited by this nasty inquest; but is it wise to change all at once? Slow an' sure, ma'am, is better'n fast an' feckless. Where is t' little 'un now?" "At home, crying her eyes out because I insisted that she should remain there." "Ay, I reckon she'd be wantin' te see Martin." "Do you think I may have been too severe with her?" "It's not for t' likes o' me to advise a leddy like you, but yon bairn needs to be treated gently, for all t' wulld like a bit o' delicate chiney. Noo, when Martin was younger, I'd gie him a slap ower t' head, an' he'd grin t' minnit me back was turned. Your little gell is different." "In my place, would you go back for her now?" "No, ma'am, I wouldn't. That'd show weak. But I'd mek up for't te-morrow. Then she'll think all t' more o' yer kindness." So the regeneration of Angèle commenced. Was it too late? She was only a child in years. Surely there was yet time to mold her character in better shape. Mrs. Saumarez hoped so. She dried her tears, and, with Bolland's appearance, the conversation turned on the lamentable weather. She was surprised to hear that August was often an unsettled month, though this storm was not only belated but almost unprecedented in its severity. Mr. Herbert went to Nottonby early next day. He attended the funeral, heard the will read at Wetherby Grange in the presence of some disappointed cousins of the dead man, visited Betsy to say a few consoling words, and drove back to the vicarage through the unceasing rain. Tea awaited him in the drawing-room, but his first glance at Elsie alarmed him. Her face was flushed, her eyes red. She was a most woebegone little maid. "My dear child," he cried, "what is the matter?" "I want you--to forgive me--first," she stammered brokenly. "Forgive you, my darling! Forgive you for what?" "I've been--reading the paper." He drew her to his knee. "What crime is there in reading the paper, sweet one?" "I mean that horrid inquest, father dear." "Oh!" The smiling wonder left his face. Elsie looked up timidly. "I ought to have asked your permission," she said, "but you were away, and auntie has a headache, and Miss Holland (her governess) has gone on her holidays, and I was so curious to know what all the bother was about." Yet he did not answer. Hitherto his daughter, his one cherished possession, had been kept sedulously from knowledge of the external world. But she was shooting up, slender and straight, the image of her dead mother. Soon she would be a woman, and it was no part of his theory of life that a girl should be plunged into the jungle of adult existence without a reasonable consciousness of its snares and pitfalls. So ideal were the relations of father and daughter that the vicar had deferred the day of enlightenment. It had come sooner than he counted on. Elsie was frightened now. Her tears ceased and the flush left her cheeks. "Are you very angry?" she whispered. He kissed her. "No, darling, not angry, but just a little pained. It was an unpleasing record for your eyes. There, now. Give me some tea, and we'll talk about it. You may have formed some mistaken notions. Tell me what you thought of it all. In any case, Elsie, why were you crying?" "I was so sorry for that poor woman. And why did the Coroner believe she killed her husband, when Mr. Pickering said she had not touched him?" The vicar saw instantly that the girl had missed the more unpleasing phases of the tragedy. He smiled again. "Bring me the paper," he said. "I was present at the inquest. Perhaps the story is somewhat garbled." She obeyed. He cast a critical glance over the leaded columns, for the weekly newspaper had given practically a verbatim report of the evidence, and there was a vivid description of the scene in the schoolroom, with its dramatic close. "It is by no means certain, from the evidence tendered, that the Coroner is right," said Mr. Herbert slowly. "In these matters, however, the police are compelled to sift all statements thoroughly, and the only legal way is to frame a charge. Although Mrs. Pickering may be tried for murder, it does not follow that she will be convicted." "But," questioned Elsie, "Martin Bolland said he heard her crying out that she had killed Mr. Pickering?" "He may have misunderstood." "Just imagine him fighting with Frank, and about Angèle Saumarez, too." "You may take it from me that Martin behaved very well indeed. Angèle is a little vixen, a badly behaved, spoilt child, I fear. Young Beckett-Smythe is a booby who encouraged her wilfulness. Martin thrashed him. It would have been far better had Martin not been there at all; but if he were my son I should still be proud of him." The girl's face brightened visibly. There was manifest relief in her voice. "I am so glad we've had this talk," she cried. "I--like Martin, and it did seem so odd that he should have been fighting about Angèle." "He knew she ought to be at home, and told her so. Frank interfered, and got punched for his pains. It served him right." She helped herself to a large slice of tea-cake. "I don't know why I was so silly as to cry--but--I really did think Mrs. Pickering was in awful trouble." The vicar laid the paper aside. His innocent-minded daughter had not even given a thought to the vital issues of the affair. He breathed freely, and told her of the funeral. Nevertheless, he had failed to fathom the cause of those red eyes. A servant clearing the tea-table bethought her of a note which came for Mr. Herbert some two hours earlier. She brought it from the study. It was from Mrs. Saumarez, inviting him and Elsie to luncheon next day. "Angèle will be delighted," she wrote, "if Elsie will remain longer than usual. It is dull for children to be cooped within doors during this miserable weather. I am asking Martin Bolland to join us for tea." Mr. Herbert was a kind-hearted man, yet he wished most emphatically that Mrs. Saumarez had not proffered this request. To make an excuse for his daughter's non-attendance would convey a distinct slight which could only be interpreted in one way, after the publicity given to Angèle's appearance at the inquest. He shirked the ordeal. Bother Angèle! He glanced covertly at Elsie. All unconscious of the letter's contents, the girl was looking out ruefully at the leaden sky. There might be no more picnics for weeks. "Mrs. Saumarez has invited us to luncheon," he said. "When?" she asked unconcernedly. "To-morrow. She wishes you to spend the afternoon with Angèle." Elsie turned, with quick animation. "I don't care to go," she said. "Why not? You know very little about her." "She seems to me--curious." "Well, I personally don't regard her as a desirable companion for you. But there is no need to give offense, and it will not hurt you to meet her for an hour or so. Your friend Martin is coming, too." "Oh," she cried, "that makes a great difference." Her father laughed. "Between you, you will surely manage to keep Angèle out of mischief. And, now, my pet, what do you say to an hour with La Fontaine, while I attend to some correspondence? Where are my pupils?" "They went for a long walk. Mr. Gregory said they would not be home until dinner-time." Next morning, for a wonder, the clouds broke, and an autumn sun strove to cheer the scarred and drowned earth. Mrs. Saumarez met her guests with the unobtrusive charm of a skilled hostess. Angèle, demure and shrinking, extended her hand to Elsie with a shy civility that was an exact copy of Elsie's own attitude. During luncheon she behaved so charmingly and spoke with such sweet naturalness when any question was addressed to her that Mr. Herbert found himself steadily recasting his unfavorable opinion. The conversation steered clear of any reference to the inquest. Mrs. Saumarez was a widely read and traveled woman, and versed in the art of agreeable small talk. Once, in referring to Angèle, she said smilingly: "I have been somewhat selfish in keeping her with me always. But, now, I have decided that she must go to school. I'll winter in Brighton, with that object in view." "Will you like that?" said the vicar to the child. "I'll not like leaving mamma; but school, yes. I feel I want to learn a lot. I suppose Elsie is, oh, so clever?" She peeped at the other girl under her long eyelashes, and made pretense of being awe-stricken by such eminent scholastic attainments in one of her own age. "Elsie has learnt a good deal from books, but you have seen much more of the world. If you work hard, you will soon make up the lost ground." "I'll try. I have been trying--all day yesterday! Eh, mamma?" Mrs. Saumarez sighed. "I ought to have engaged a governess," she said. "I cannot teach. I have no patience." Mr. Herbert did not know that Angèle's educational efforts of the preceding day consisted in a smug decorum that irritated her mother exceedingly. This luncheon party had been devised as a relief from Angèle's burlesque. She termed it "jouer le bon enfant." After the meal they strolled into the garden. The storm had played havoc with shrubs and flowers, but the graveled paths were dry, and the lawn was firm, if somewhat damp. Mrs. Saumarez had caused a fine swing to be erected beneath a spreading oak. It held two cushioned seats, and two propelling ropes were attached to a crossbar. It made swinging a luxury, not an exercise. "By the way," cried Mrs. Saumarez to the vicar, "do you smoke?" He pleaded guilty to a pipe. "Then you can smoke a cigar. Françoise packed a box among my belongings--the remnants of some forgotten festivity in the Savoy. Do try one. If you like it, may I send you the others?" The vicar discovered that the gift would be costly--nearly forty Villar y Villars, of exquisite flavor. "Do you know that you are giving me five pounds?" he laughed. "I never learn the price of these things. I am so glad they are good. You will enjoy them." "It tickles a poor country vicar to hear you talk so easily of Lucullian feasts, Mrs. Saumarez. What must the banquet have been, when the cigars cost a half-crown each!" "Oh, I am not hard up. Colonel Saumarez had only his army pay, but my estates lie near Hamburg, and you know how that port has grown of recent years." "Do you never reside there?" Mrs. Saumarez inclined a pink-lined parasol so that its reflected tint mingled with the rush of color which suffused her face. Had the worthy vicar given a moment's thought to the matter, he would have known that his companion wished she had bitten her tongue before it wagged so freely. "I prefer English society to German," she answered, after a slight pause. Oddly enough, this statement was literally true, but she dared not qualify it by the explanation that an autocratic government exacted heavy terms for permitting her to draw a large revenue from her Hamburg property. Blissfully unaware of treading on anyone's toes, Mr. Herbert pursued the theme. "In my spare hours I take an interest in law," he said. "Your marriage made you a British subject. Does German law raise no difficulty as to alien ownership of land and houses?" "My family, the von Edelsteins, have great influence." This time the vicar awoke to the fact that he might be deemed unduly inquisitive. He knew better than to apologize, or even change the subject abruptly. "Land tenure is a complex business in old-established countries," he went on. "Take this village, for example. You may have noticed how every garth runs up the hillside in a long, narrow strip. Ownership of land bordering the moor carries the right of free grazing for a certain number of sheep, so every freeholder contrives to touch the heather at some point." "Ah!" said Mrs. Saumarez, promptly interested, "that explains the peculiar shape of the Bolland land at the back of the White House. An admirable couple, are they not? And so medieval in their notions. I attended what they call a 'love feast' the other evening. John Bolland introduced me as 'Sister Saumarez.' When he became wrapped up in the service he reminded me, or, rather, filled my ideal, of a high priest in Israel." "Was Eli Todd there?" "The preacher? Yes." "He is a fine fellow. Given to use a spiritual sledge-hammer, perhaps, but the implements of the Lord are many and varied. Far be it from me to gainsay the good work done by the dissenting congregations. If there were more chapels, there would be more churches in the land, Mrs. Saumarez." They had strolled away from the girls, and little did the vicar dream what deeps they had skirted in their talk. Angèle led Elsie to the swing. "Try this," she said. "It's just lovely to feel the air sizzing past your ears." "I have a swing," said Elsie, "but not like this one. It is a single rope, with a little crossbar, which I hold in my hands and propel with my feet. It is hard work, I assure you." "Grand Dieu! So I should think." "Oh!" cried Elsie, "you shouldn't say that." "Vous me faites rire! You speak French?" "Yes--a little." "How stupid of me not to guess. I can say what I like before Martin Bolland. He is a nice boy--Martin." "Yes," agreed Elsie shortly. She blushed. They were in the swing now, and swooping to and fro in long rushes. Angèle's black eyes were searching Elsie's blue ones. She tittered unpleasantly. "What makes you so red when I speak of Martin?" she demanded. "I am not red--that is, I have no reason to be." "You know him well?" "Do you mean Martin?" "Sapristi!--I beg your pardon--who else?" "I--I have only met him twice, to speak to. I have known him by sight for years." "Twice? The first time when he killed that thing--the cat. When was the second?" Angèle was tugging her rope with greater energy than might be credited to one of her slight frame. The swing was traveling at a great pace. Her fierce gaze disquieted Elsie, to whom this inquisition was irksome. "Let us stop now," she said. "No, no. Tell me when next you saw Martin. I _must_ know." "But why?" "Because he became different in his manner all at once. One day he kissed me----" "Oh, you _are_ horrid." "I swear it. He kissed me last Wednesday afternoon. I did not see him again until Saturday. Then he was cold. He saw you after Wednesday." By this time Elsie's blood was boiling. "Yes," she said, and the blue in her eyes held a hard glint. "He saw me on Wednesday night. We happened to be standing at our gate. Frank Beckett-Smythe passed on his bicycle. He was chased by a groom--sent home to be horsewhipped--because he was coming to meet you." "O là là!" shrilled Angèle. "That was nine o'clock. Does papa know?" Poor Elsie crimsoned to the nape of her neck. She wanted to cry--to slap this tormentor's face. Yet she returned Angèle's fiery scrutiny with interest. "Yes," she said with real heat. "I told him Martin came to our house, but I said nothing about Frank--and you. It was too disgraceful." She jerked viciously at her rope to counteract the pull given by Angèle. The opposing strains snapped the crossbar. Both ropes fell, and with them the two pieces of wood. One piece tapped Angèle somewhat sharply on the shoulder, and she uttered an involuntary cry. The vicar and Mrs. Saumarez hurried up, but the swing stopped gradually. Obviously, neither of the girls was injured. "You must have been using great force to break that stout bar," said Mr. Herbert, helping Angèle to alight. "Yes. Elsie and I were pulling against each other. But we had a lovely time, didn't we, Elsie?" "I think I enjoyed it even more than you," retorted Elsie. The elders attributed her excited demeanor to the accident. "If the ropes were tied to the crossbeam, they would be safer, and almost as effective," said the vicar. "Ah! Here comes Martin. Perhaps he can put matters right." "I don't want to swing any more," vowed Elsie. "But Martin will," laughed Angèle. "We can swop partners. That will be jolly, won't it?" Blissfully unaware of the thorns awaiting him, the boy advanced. To be candid, he was somewhat awkward in manner. He did not know whether to shake hands all round or simply doff his cap to the entire company. Moreover, he noted Elsie's presence with mixed feelings, for Mrs. Saumarez's note had merely invited him to tea. There was no mention of other visitors. He was delighted, yet suspicious. Elsie and Angèle were flint and steel. There might be sparks. Mrs. Saumarez rescued him from one horn of the dilemma. She extended a hand and asked if Mr. Bolland were not pleased that the rain had ceased. "Now, Martin," said the vicar briskly, "shin up the pole and tie the ropes to the center-piece. These strong-armed giantesses have smashed a chunk of timber as thick as your wrist. Don't allow either of them to hit you. They'll pulverize you at a stroke." "I fear it was I who broke it," admitted Elsie. "Then it is you he must beware of." The vicar, in the midst of this chaff, gave Martin a "leg-up" the pole, and repairs were effected. When the swing was in order he slid to the ground. Mr. Herbert resumed the stroll with Mrs. Saumarez. There was an awkward pause before Martin said: "You girls get in. I'll start you." He spoke collectively, but addressed Elsie. He wondered why her air was so distant. "No, thank you," she said. "I've done damage enough already." "Martin," murmured Angèle, "she is furious because I said you kissed me." This direct attack was a crude blunder. Mischievous and utterly unscrupulous though the girl was, she could not measure this boy's real strength of character. The great man is not daunted by great difficulties--he grapples with them; and Martin had in him the material of greatness. He felt at once that he must now choose irrevocably between the two girls, with a most unpromising chance of ever again recovering lost ground with one of them. He did not hesitate an instant. "Did you say that?" he demanded sternly. "Ma foi! Isn't it true?" "The truth may be an insult. You had no right to thrust your schemes into Elsie's knowledge." "My schemes, you--you pig. I spit at you. Isn't it true?" "Yes--unfortunately. I shall regret it always." Angèle nearly flew at him with her nails. But she contrived to laugh airily. "Eh bien, mon cher Martin! There will come another time. I shall remember." "There will come no other time. You dared me to it. I was stupid enough to forget--for a moment." "Forget what?" "That there was a girl in Elmsdale worth fifty of you--an English girl, not a mongrel!" It was a boyish retort, feeble, unfair, but the most cutting thing he could think of. The words were spoken in heat; he would have recalled them at once if that were possible, but Angèle seized the opening with glee. "That's you!" she cried, stabbing her rival with a finger. "Parbleu! I'm a mixture, half English, half German, but really bad French!" "Please don't drag me into your interesting conversation," said Elsie with bitter politeness. "I am sorry I said that," put in the boy. "I might have had two friends. Now I have lost both." He turned. His intent was to quit the place forthwith. Elsie caught his arm with an alarmed cry. "Martin," she almost screamed, "look at your left hand. It is covered with blood!" Surprised as she, he raised his hand. Blood was streaming down the fingers. "It's nothing," he said coolly. "I must have opened a deep cut by climbing the swing." "Quelle horreur!" exclaimed Angèle. "I hate blood!" "I'm awfully sorry--" began Martin. "Nonsense! Come at once to the kitchen and have it bound up," said Elsie. They hurried off together. Angèle did not offer to accompany them. Martin glanced at Elsie through the corner of his eye. Her set mouth had relaxed somewhat. Anger was yielding to sympathy. "I was fighting another wildcat, so was sure to get scratched," he whispered. "You needn't have kissed it, anyhow," she snapped. "That, certainly, was a mistake," he admitted. She made no reply. Once within the house she removed the stained bandage without flinching from the ugly sight of half-healed scars, one of which was bleeding profusely. Cold water soon stopped the outflow, and one of the maids procured some strips of linen, with which Elsie bound the wound tightly. They had a moment to themselves in recrossing the hall. Martin ventured to touch the girl's shoulder. "Look here, Elsie," he said boldly, "do you forgive me?" Something in his voice told her that mere verbal fencing would be useless. "Yes," she murmured with a wistful smile. "I'll forgive, but I can't forget--for a long time." On the lawn they encountered Mrs. Saumarez. Learning from Angèle why the trio had dispersed so suddenly, she was coming to attend to Martin herself. The vicar joined them. "Really," he said, "some sort of ill luck is attached to that swing to-day." And then Françoise appeared, to tell them that tea was ready. "What curious French she talks," commented the smiling Elsie. "Yes," cried Angèle tartly. "Bad French, eh? And I know heaps and heaps of it." She caught Mr. Herbert's eye, and added an excuse: "I'm going to change all that. People think I'm naughty when I speak like a domestic. And I really don't mean anything wrong." "We all use too much slang," said the tolerant-minded vicar. "It is sheer indolence. We refuse to bother our brains for the right word." CHAPTER XVII TWO MOORLAND EPISODES Though all hands were needed on the farm in strenuous endeavor to repair the storm's havoc, Dr. MacGregor forbade Martin to work when he examined the reopened cut. Thus, the boy was free to guide Fritz, the chauffeur, on the morning the man came to look at Bolland's herd. Fritz Bauer--that was the name he gave--had improved his English pronunciation marvelously within a fortnight. He no longer confused "d's" and "t's." He had conquered the sibilant sound of the "s." He was even wrestling with the elusive "th," substituting "d" for "z." "I learnt from a book," he explained, when Martin complimented him on his mastery of English. "Dat is goot--no, good--but one trains de ear only in de country where de people spik--speak--de language all de time." The sharp-witted boy soon came to the conclusion that his German friend was more interested in the money value of the cattle as pedigreed stock than in the "points"--such as weight, color, bone, level back, and milking qualities--which commended them to the experienced eye. Bauer asked where he could obtain a show catalogue, and jotted down the printer's address. When they happened on a team of Cleveland bays, however, Fritz was thoroughly at home, and gratified his hearer by displaying a horseman's knowledge of a truly superb animal. "Dey are light, yet strong," he said, his eyes roving from high-set withers to shapely hocks and clean-cut fetlocks. "Each could pull a ton on a bad road--yes?" Martin laughed. He was blind to the cynical smile called forth by his amusement. "A ton? Two tons. Why, one day last winter, when a pair of Belgians couldn't move a loaded lorry in the deep snow, my father had the man take out both of 'em, and Prince walked away with the lot." "So?" cried the German admiringly. "But you understand horses," went on Martin. "Yet I've read that men who drive motors don't care for anything else, as a rule." "Ah, dat reminds me," said the other. "It is a fine day. Come wid me in de machine." "That'll be grand," said Martin elatedly. "Can you take it out?" "Oh, yes. Any time I--dat is, I'll ask Mrs. Saumarez, and she will permit--yes." Quarter of an hour later the chauffeur was explaining, in German, that he was going into the country for a long spin, and Mrs. Saumarez was listening, not consenting. "Going alone?" she inquired languidly. "No, madam," he answered. "Martin Bolland will come with me." "Why not take Miss Angèle?" The man smiled. "I want the boy to talk," he explained. Mrs. Saumarez nodded. She treated the matter with indifference. Not so Angèle, who heard the car purring down the drive, and inquired Fritz's errand. She was furious when her mother blurted out the news that Martin would accompany Bauer. "Ce cochon d'Allemand!" she stormed, her long lashes wet with vexed tears. "He has done that purposely. He knew I wanted to go. But I'll get even with him! See if I don't." "Angèle!" and Mrs. Saumarez reddened with annoyance; "if ever you say a word about such matters to Fritz I'll pack you off to school within the hour. I mean it, so believe me." Angèle stamped a rebellious foot, but curbed her tongue and vanished. She ran all the way to the village and was just in time to see the Mercedes bowling smoothly out of sight, with Martin seated beside the chauffeur. She was so angry that she stamped again in rage, and Evelyn Atkinson came from the inn to inquire the cause. But Angèle snubbed her, bought some chocolates from Mr. Webster, and never offered the other girl a taste. It happened that Martin, for his part, had suggested a call at the vicarage. Fritz vetoed the motion promptly. "Impossible!" he grinned. "I had to dodge de odder one, yes." Evidently Fritz had kept both eyes and ears open. They headed for the moors. Wise Martin had counseled a slow speed in the village to allay Mrs. Bolland's dread of a new-fangled device which she "couldn't abide"; but once on the open road the car breasted a steep hill at a rate which the boy thought neck-breaking. "Dat is nodding," said Fritz nonchalantly. "Twenty--twenty-five. Wait till we are on de level. Den I show you fifty." Within six minutes Martin flew past Mrs. Summersgill's moor-edge farm. Never before had he reached that point in less than half an hour. The stout party was in the porch, peeling potatoes for the midday meal. She lifted her hands in astonishment as her young friend sped by. Martin waved a greeting. He could almost hear her say: "That lad o' Bolland's must ha' gone clean daft. I'm surprised at Martha te let him ride i' such a conthraption." On the hedgeless road of the undulating moor, even after the ravages of the gale, fifty miles an hour was practicable for long stretches. Fritz was a skilled driver. He seemed to have a sixth sense which warned him of rain-gullies, and slowed up to avoid straining the car. He began explaining the mechanism, and halted on the highest point of a far-flung tableland to lift the bonnet and show the delighted boy the operations of the Otto cycle. In those days the self-starter was unknown, but Martin found he could start the heated engine without any difficulty. Fritz permitted him to drive slowly, and taught him the use of the brakes. Finally, this most agreeable Teuton produced a packet of sandwiches. He was in no hurry to return. "Dese farms," he said, pointing to a low-built house with tiled roof, and a cluster of stables and haymows, "dey do not raise stock, eh? Only little sheep?" "They all keep milk-cows, and bring butter to the market, so they often have calves and yearlings," was the ready answer. "And horses?" "Always a couple, and a nag for counting the sheep." "How many sheep?" "Never less than a hundred. Some flocks run to three or four hundred." "Ah. Where are dey?" Martin, proud of his knowledge, indicated the position and approximate distance of the hollows, invisible for the most part, in which lay the larger holdings. "Do you understand a map?" inquired Fritz. "Yes. I love maps. They tell you everything, when you can read them properly." "Not everyding," and the man smiled. "Some day I want to visit one of dose big farms. Can you mark a few?" He spread an Ordnance map--a clean sheet--and gave his guide a pencil. Soon Martin had dotted the paper with accurate information, such as none but one reared in that wild country could have supplied. He was eager to prove his familiarity with a map, and followed each bend and twist of the prehistoric glacier beds, where the lowland becks had their origin. He was not "showing off" before a foreigner. He loved this brown moor and was only too pleased to have found a sympathetic listener. "The heather is losing its color now," he said, pausing for a moment in his task. "You ought to see it early in August, when it is all one mass of purple flowers, with here and there a bunch of golden gorse--'whin,' we call it. Our moor is almost free from bog-holes, so you can walk or ride anywhere with safety. I have often thought what a fine place it would be for an army." "Wass ist das?" cried Fritz sharply. He corrected the slip with a laugh. "An army?" he went on, though his newly acquired accent escaped him. "Vot woot an army pe toing here?" "Oh, just a camp, you know. We hold maneuvers every year in England." "Yez. You coot pud all your leedle army on dis grount. Bud dere iss von grade tefecd. Dere iss no water. A vell, in eej farm, yez; bud nod enough for a hundret dousand men, und de horses of four divisions." This point of view was novel to the boy. He knit his brows. "I hadn't thought of that," he confessed. "But, wait a bit. There's far more water here than you would imagine. Stocks have to be watered, you know. Some of the farmers dam the becks. Why, in the Dickenson place over there," and out went a hand, "they have quite a large reservoir, with trout in it. You'd never guess it existed, if you weren't told." Fritz nodded. He had turned against the breeze to shield a match for a cigarette, and his face was hidden. "You surprise me," he murmured, speaking slowly and with care again. "And dere are odders, you say?" "Five that I know of. Mrs. Walker, at the Broad Ings, rears hundreds of ducks on her pond." Fritz took the map and pencil. "You show me," he chuckled. "I write an essay on Yorkshire moor farms, and perhaps earn a new suit of clo'es, yes? Our Cherman magazines print dose tings." * * * * * That same afternoon a party of guns on a Scottish moor had been shooting driven grouse flying low and fast over the butts before a strong wind. The sportsmen, five in number, were all experts. Around each shelter, with its solitary marksman and his attendant loader, lay a deep crescent of game, every bird shot cleanly. The last drive of the day was the most successful. One man, whose bronzed skin and military bearing told his profession, handed the empty 12-bore to the gillie when the line of beaters came over the crest of the hill, and betook himself, filling his pipe the while, to a group of ponies waiting on the moorland road in the valley beneath. He joined another, the earliest arrival. "Capital ground, this," he said. "I don't know whose lot is the more enviable, Heronsdale--yours, who have the pains as well as the pleasure of ownership, or that of wandering vagabonds like myself whom you make your guests." Lord Heronsdale smiled. "You may call yourself a wandering vagabond, Grant--the envy rests with me," he said. "It's all very well to have large estates, but I feel like degenerating into a sort of head gamekeeper and farm bailiff combined. Of course, I'm proud of Cairn-corrie, yet I pine sometimes for the excitement of a life that does not travel in grooves." The other shook his head. "Don't tempt fate," he said. "My life has been spent among the outer beasts. It isn't worth it. For a few years of a man's youth, yes--perhaps. But I am forty, and I live in a club. There, you have my career in a nutshell." "There is a fine kernel within. By Gad! Grant, why don't you pretend I meant that pun? I didn't, but I'll claim it at dinner. Gad, it's fine!" Colonel Grant laughed. His mirth had a pleasant, wholesome ring. "If you bribe me with as good a berth to-morrow," he said, "I'll give you the chance of throwing it off spontaneously during the first lull in the conversation. The best impromptus are always prepared beforehand, you know." Others came up. The shooters mounted, and the wise ponies picked their way with cautious celerity over an uneven track. Colonel Grant again found himself riding beside his host. "Tell you what," said Lord Heronsdale suddenly, "you're a bit of an enigma, Grant." "I have often been told that." "Gad, I don't doubt it. A chap like you, with five thousand a year, to chuck the Guards for the Indian Staff Corps, exchange town for the Northwest frontier, go in for potting Afghans instead of running a drag to Sandown; and, to crown all, remain a bachelor. I don't understand it." "Yet, ten minutes ago you were growling about the monotony of existence at Cairn-corrie and half a dozen other places." "Not even a _tu quoque_ like that explains the mystery." "Some day I'll tell you all about it. When the time comes I must ask Lady Heronsdale to find me a nice wife, with a warranty." "Gad, that's the job for Mollie. _She'll_ put the future Mrs. Grant through her paces. You're not flying off to India again, then?" "No. I heard last week that a post is to be found for me in the Intelligence Department." "Capital! You'll soon have a K. before the C. B." "Possibly. Some fellows wear themselves to the bone in trying for those things. My scheming for years has been to avoid the humdrum of cantonment life. And, behold! I am spotted for promotion. I don't know how the deuce they ever heard of me in Pall Mall." "Gad! Don't you read the papers?" "Never." "My dear fellow, they were full of you last year. That march through the snow, pulling those guns through the pass, the final relief of the fort--Gad, Molly has the cuttings. She'll show 'em to you after dinner." "I sincerely hope Lady Heronsdale will do no such thing. Why on earth does she keep such screeds?" His lordship dropped his bantering air. "Do you really imagine, Grant," he said seriously, "that either she or I will ever forget what you did for Arthur at Peshawar?" The other man reddened. "A mere schoolboy episode," he growled. "Yes, in a sense. Yet Arthur told me that he had a revolver in his pocket when you met him that night at the mess and persuaded him to leave the business in your hands. You saved our boy, Grant. Gad, ask Mollie what she thinks!" "Has he been steady since?" "A rock, my dear chap--adamant where women are concerned. His mother is beginning to worry about him; he wouldn't look at Helen Forbes, and Madge Bolingbrooke does her skirt-dances in vain. Both deuced nice girls, too." Colonel Grant had navigated the talk into a safe channel, and kept it there. He never spoke of the past. At dinner a man asked him if he was reading the Elmsdale sensation. He had not even heard of it, so the tale of Betsy and George Pickering, of Martin Bolland and Angèle Saumarez was poured into his ears. "I am interested," said his neighbor, "because I knew poor Pickering. He hunted regularly with the York and Ainsty." "Saumarez!" murmured Colonel Grant. "I once met a man of that name. He was shot on the Modder River." "This girl may be his daughter. The paper describes her mother as a lady of independent means, visiting the moors for her health." "Poor Saumarez! From what I remember of his character, the child must be a chip of the same block--he was an irresponsible daredevil, a terror among women. But he died gallantly." "There's a lot about her in the local paper, which reached me this morning. Would you care to see it?" "Newspapers are so inaccurate. They never know the facts." Yet the colonel, not caring to play bridge, asked later for the loan of the journal named by his informant, and read therein the story of the village tragedy. As fate willed it, the writer was the reporter of the _Messenger_, and his account was replete with local knowledge. Yes, Mrs. Saumarez was the widow of Colonel Saumarez, late of the Hussars. But--what was this? "Martin Court Bolland, a bright-faced boy, of an intelligence far greater than one looks for in rustic youth, has himself a somewhat romantic history. He is the adopted son of the sturdy yeoman whose name he bears. Mr. and Mrs. Bolland were called to London thirteen years ago to attend the funeral of the farmer's brother. One evening while seeing the sights of the great metropolis they found themselves in Ludgate Hill. They were passing the end of St. Martin's Court, when a young woman named Martineau----" The colonel laid aside his cigar and twisted his body sideways, so that the light of the billiard-room lamps should fall clearly on the paper yet leave his face in the shade. "--a young woman named Martineau threw herself, with a baby in her arms, from the fourth story of a house in the court, and was killed by the fall. The baby's frock was caught by a projecting sign, and the child hung perilously in air. John Bolland, whose strong, stern face reveals a character difficult to surprise, impossible to daunt, jumped forward and caught the tiny mite as it dropped a second time. Mrs. Bolland still treasures a letter written by the infant's unhappy mother, and prizes to the utmost the fine boy whom she and her husband adopted from that hour. The old couple are childless, though with Martin calling them 'father' and 'mother,' they would scoff at the statement. This, then, is the well-knit, fearless youngster who fought the squire's son on that eventful night, and whose evidence is of the utmost importance in the police theory of crime, as opposed to accident." Colonel Grant went steadily through the neat sentences on which the _Messenger_ correspondent prided himself. He was a man of bronze; he showed no more emotion than a statue, though the facts staring from the printed page might well have produced external signs of the tempest which sprang into instant being in his soul. He read each line of descriptive matter and report. For the sorrows of Betsy, the final daring of George Pickering, he had no eyes. It was the boy he sought in the living record: the boy who fought young Beckett-Smythe to rescue the thoughtless child--for so Angèle figured in the text; the boy who repudiated with scorn the solicitor's suggestion that he formed part and parcel of the crowd of urchins gathered in the hotel yard; the farmer's adopted son, who spoke so fearlessly and bore himself so well that the newspaper noted his intelligence, his bright looks. At last Colonel Grant laid down the sheet and lighted a fresh cigar. He smoked for a few minutes, watching the pool players, and declining an invitation to join in the game. He seemed to be planning some line of action; soon he went to the library and unrolled a large scale map of England. He found Nottonby--Elmsdale was too small a place to be denoted--and, after consulting a railway timetable, wrote a long telegram. These things accomplished, he seized an opportunity to tell Lord Heronsdale that business of the utmost importance would take him away by the first train next morning. Of course, his host was voluble in protestations, so the soldier explained matters. "You asked me to-day," he said, "why I turned my back on town thirteen years ago. I meant telling you at a more convenient season. Will it suffice now to say that a kindred reason tears me away from your moor?" "Gad, I hope there is nothing wrong. Can I help?" "Yes; by letting me go. You will be here until October. May I return?" "My dear Grant----" So they settled it that way. About three o'clock on the second day after the colonel's departure from Cairn-corrie he and an elderly man of unmistakably legal appearance walked from Elmsdale station to the village. The station master, forewarned, had procured a dogcart from the "Black Lion," but the visitors preferred dispatching their portmanteaux in the vehicle, and they followed on foot. Thus it happened--as odd things do happen in life--that the two men met a boy walking rapidly from the village, and some trick of expression in his face caused the colonel to halt him with a question: "Can you tell me where the 'Black Lion' inn is?" "Yes, sir. On the left, just beyond the bend in the road." "And the White House Farm?" The village youth looked at the speaker with interest. "On the right, sir; after you cross the green." "Ah!" The two men stood and stared at Martin, who was dressed in a neat blue serge suit, obtained by post from York, the wildcat having ruined its predecessor. The older man, who reminded the boy of Mr. Stockwell, owing to the searching clearness of his gaze, said not a word; but the tall, sparsely-built soldier continued--for Martin civilly awaited his pleasure-- "Is your name, by any chance, Martin Court Bolland?" The boy smiled. "It is, sir," he said. "Are you--can you--that is, if you are not busy, you might show us the inn--and the farm?" The gentleman seemed to have a slight difficulty in speaking, and his eyes dwelt on Martin with a queer look in them: but the answer came instantly: "I'm sorry, sir; but I am going to the vicarage to tea, and you cannot possibly miss either place. The inn has a signpost by the side of the road, and the White House stands by itself on a small bank about a hundred and fifty yards farther down the village." The older gentleman broke in: "That will be our best course, Colonel. We can easily find our way--alone." The hint in the words was intended for the ears that understood. Colonel Grant nodded, yet was loath to go. "Is the vicar a friend of yours?" he said to Martin. "Yes, sir. I like him very much." "Does a Mrs. Saumarez live here?" "Oh, yes. She is at the vicarage now, I expect." "Indeed. You might tell her you met a Colonel Grant, who knew her husband in South Africa. You will not forget the name, eh--Grant?" "Of course not, sir." Martin surveyed the stranger with redoubled attention. A live colonel is a rare sight in a secluded village. The man, seizing any pretext to prolong the conversation, drew out a pocketbook. "Here is my card," he said. "You need not give it to Mrs. Saumarez. She will probably recognize my name." The boy glanced at the pasteboard. It read: Lieut.-Col. Reginald Grant, "Indian Staff Corps." Now, it chanced that among Martin's most valued belongings was a certain monthly publication entitled "Recent British Battles," and he had read that identical name in the July number. As was his way, he remembered exactly the heroic deeds with which a gallant officer was credited, so he asked somewhat shyly: "Are you Colonel Grant of Aliwal, sir?" He pronounced the Indian word wrongly, with a short "a" instead of a long one, but never did misplaced accent convey sweeter sound to man's ears. The soldier was positively startled. "My dear boy," he cried, "how can you possibly know me?" "Everyone knows your name, sir. No fear of me forgetting it now." The honest admiration in those brown eyes was a new form of flattery; for the first time in his life Colonel Grant hungered for more. "You have astonished me more than I can tell," he said. "What have you read of the Aliwal campaign? All right, Dobson. We are in no hurry." This to his companion, who ventured on a mild remonstrance. "I have a book, sir, which tells you all about Aliwal"--this time Martin pronounced the word correctly; no wonder the newspaper commented on his intelligence--"and it has pictures, too. There is a grand picture of you, riding through the gate of the fort, sword in hand. Do you mind me saying, sir, that I am very pleased to have met you?" The man averted his eyes. He dared not look at Martin. He made pretense to bite the end off a cigar. He was compelled to do something to keep his lips from trembling. "I hope we shall meet often again, Martin," he said slowly. "I'll tell you more than the book does, though I have not read it. Run off to your friends at the vicarage. Good-by!" He held out his hand, which the boy shook diffidently. There was no doubt whatever in Martin's mind that Colonel Grant was an extraordinarily nice gentleman. "My God, Dobson!" cried the soldier, turning again to look after the alert figure of the boy; "I have seen him, spoken to him--my own son! I would know him among a million." "He certainly bears a marked resemblance to your own photograph at the same age," admitted the cautious solicitor. "And what a fine youngster! By Jove, did you twig the way he caught on to the pronunciation of Aliwal? Bless that book! It shall be bound in the rarest leather, though I never rode through that gate--I ran, for dear life! I--I tell you what, Dobson, I'd sooner do it now than face these people, the Bollands, and explain my errand. I suppose they worship him." "The position differs from my expectations," said the solicitor. "The boy does not talk like a farmer's son. And he is going to tea at the vicarage with a lady of good social position. Can the Bollands be of higher grade than we are led to believe?" "The newspaper is my only authority. Ah, here is the 'Black Lion.'" Mrs. Atkinson bustled forward to assure the gentlemen that she could accommodate them. Colonel Grant was allotted the room in which George Pickering died! It was the best in the hotel. He glanced for a moment through the window and took in the scene of the tragedy. "That must be where the two young imps fought," he murmured, with a smile, as he looked into the yard. "Gad! as Heronsdale says, I'd like to have seen the battle. And my boy whipped the other chap, who was bigger and older, the paper said." Soon the two men were climbing the slight acclivity on which stood the White House. The door stood hospitably open, as was ever the case about tea-time in fine weather. In the front kitchen was Martha, alone. The colonel advanced. "Is Mr. Bolland at home?" he asked, raising his hat. "Noa, sir; he isn't. But he's on'y i' t' cow-byre. If it's owt important----" He followed her meaning sufficiently. "Will you oblige me by sending for him? And--er--is Mrs. Bolland here?" "I'm Mrs. Bolland, sir." "Oh, I beg your pardon. Of course, I did not know you." He thought he would find a much younger woman. Martha, in the close-fitting sunbonnet, with its wide flaps, her sleeves rolled up, and her outer skirt pinned behind to keep it clear of the dirt during unceasing visits to dairy and hen-roosts, looked even older than she was, her real age being fifty-five. "Will you kindly be seated, gentlemen?" she said. She was sure they were county folk come about the stock. Her husband's growing reputation as a breeder of prize cattle brought such visitors occasionally. She wondered why the taller stranger asked for her, but he said no more, taking a chair in silence. She dispatched a maid to summon the master. "Hev ye coom far?" she asked bluntly. Colonel Grant looked around. His eyes were searching the roomy kitchen for tokens of its occupants' ways. "We traveled from Darlington to Elmsdale," he said, "and walked here from the station." "My goodness, ye'll be fair famished. Hev summat te eat. There's plenty o' tea an' cakes; an' if ye'd fancy some ham an' eggs----" "Pray do not trouble, Mrs. Bolland," said the colonel when he had grasped the full extent of the invitation. "We wish to have a brief talk with you and your husband. Afterwards, if you ask us, we shall be most pleased to accept your hospitality." He spoke so genially, with such utter absence of affectation, that Martha rather liked him. Yet, what could she have to do with the business in hand? Anyhow, here came John, crossing the road with heavy strides. The farmer paused just within the threshold. His huge frame filled the doorway. He wore spectacles for reading only, and his deep-sunken eyes rested steadily, first on Colonel Grant, then on the solicitor. Then they went back to the colonel and did not leave him again. "Good day, gentlemen," he said. "What can I deä for ye?" The man who stormed forts on horseback--in pictures--quailed at the task before him. He nodded to the solicitor. "Dobson," he said, "you know all the circumstances. Oblige me by stating them fully." The solicitor, who seemed to expect this request, produced a bulky packet of papers and photographs. He prefaced his explanation by giving his companion's name and rank, and introduced himself as a member of the firm of Dobson, Son and Smith, Solicitors, of Lincoln's Inn Fields. "Fifteen years ago," he went on, "Colonel Grant was a subaltern, a junior officer, in the Guards, stationed in London. A slight accident one day outside a railway station led him to make the acquaintance of a young lady. She was hurrying to catch a train, when she was knocked down by a frightened horse, and might have been injured seriously were it not for Lieutenant Grant's prompt assistance. He escorted her to her lodgings, and discovered that she was what is known in London as a daily governess--in other words, a poor, well-educated woman striving to earn a respectable living. The horse had trampled on her foot, and she required proper attention and rest; a brief interview with her landlady enabled Mr. Grant to make the requisite arrangements, unknown to the young lady herself. He called a week later and found that she was quite recovered. She was a very beautiful girl, of a lively disposition, only twenty years of age, and working hard in her spare time to perfect herself as a musician. She had no idea of the social rank of her new friend, or perhaps matters might have turned out differently. As it was, they met frequently, became engaged, and were married. I have here a copy of the marriage certificate." He selected a long, narrow strip of blue paper from the documents he had placed before him on the kitchen table. He opened it and offered it to Bolland, as though he wished the farmer to examine it. John did not move. He was still looking intently at Colonel Grant. Martha, all a-flutter, with an indefinite anxiety wrinkling the corners of her eyes, said quickly: "What might t' young leddy's neäm be, sir?" "Margaret Ingram. She was of a Gloucestershire family, but her parents were dead, and she had no near relatives." Martha cried, somewhat tartly: "An' what hez all this te deä wi' us, sir?" "Let be, wife. Bide i' patience. T' gentleman will tell us, neä doot." John's voice was hard, almost dissonant. The solicitor gave him a rapid glance. That harsh tone boded ill for the smooth accomplishment of his mission. Martha wondered why her husband gazed so fixedly at the other man who spoke not. But she toyed nervously with her apron and held her peace. Mr. Dobson resumed: "The young couple could not start housekeeping openly. Lieutenant Grant depended solely on the allowance made to him by his father, whose ideas of family pride were so extreme that such a marriage must unquestionably have led to a rupture. Moreover, a campaign in northern India was then threatening. It broke out exactly a year and two months after the marriage. Mr. Grant's regiment was ordered to the front, and when he sailed from Southampton he left his young wife and an infant, a boy, four months old, installed in a comfortable flat in Clarges Street, Piccadilly. It is important that the exact position of family affairs at this moment should be realized. General Grant, father of the young officer, had suffered from an apopletic stroke soon after his son's marriage, and to acquaint him with it now meant risking his life. Young Grant's action was known to and approved by several trustworthy friends. He and his wife were very happy, and Mrs. Grant was correspondingly depressed when the exigencies of the national service took her husband away from her. The parting between the young couple was a bitter trial, rendered all the more heartrending by reason of the concealment they had practiced. However, as matters had been allowed to drift thus far, no one will pretend that there was any special need to worry General Grant at the moment of his son's departure for a campaign. Lieutenant Grant hoped to return with a step in rank. Then, whatever the consequences, there must be a full explanation. He had not a great deal of money, but sufficient for his wife's needs. He left her two hundred pounds in notes and gold, and his bankers were empowered to pay her fifty pounds monthly. His own allowance from General Grant was seventy-five pounds a month, and it was with great difficulty that he maintained his position in such an expensive regiment as the Guards. The campaign eased the pressure, or he could not have kept it up for long." "Are all these details quite necessary, Dobson?" said the colonel, for the steady glare of the farmer, the growing pallor of poor Martha, around whose heart an icy hand was taking sure grip, were exceedingly irksome. "They are if I am to do you justice," replied the lawyer. "Never mind me. Tell them of Margaret--and the boy." "I will pass over the verification of my statement," went on Mr. Dobson, bending over the folded papers. "Seven months passed. Mrs. Grant expected soon to be delivered of another child. She heard regularly from her husband. His regiment was in the Khyber Pass, when one evening she was robbed of her small store of jewelry and a considerable sum of money by a trusted servant. The theft was reported in the papers, and General Grant read of his son's wife being a resident in Clarges Street. He went to the flat next day, saw the poor girl, behaved in a way that can only be ascribed to the folly of an old man broken by disease, and cut off supplies at once. Within a week Mrs. Grant found herself in poverty, and her husband at least a month's post distant. She did not lose her wits. She sold her furniture and raised money enough to support herself and her baby boy for some time. Of course, she was very much distressed, as General Grant wrote to her, called her an adventuress, and stated that he had disinherited his son on her account. This was only partly true. He tore up one will, but made no other, and forgot that there was a second copy in possession of my firm. Mrs. Grant then did a foolish thing. She concealed her troubles from her husband's friends, who would have helped her. She took cheap lodgings in another part of London, and changed her name. This seems to be accounted for by the fact that General Grant, in his insane suspicions, set private detectives to watch her. Moreover, the bankers wrote her a curt letter which added to her miseries. She rented rooms in St. Martin's Court, Ludgate Hill, and gave her name as Mrs. Martineau." Martha sprang at the solicitor with an eerie screech: "Hev ye coom to steal oor bairn, the bonny lad we've reared i' infancy an' childhood? Leave this house! John--husband--will ye let 'em drive me mad?" John took her in his arms. "Martha," he said, with a break in his voice that shook his hearers and stilled his wife's cries; "dinnat mak' oor burthen harder te bear. A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps!" Servants, men and women, came running at their mistress's scream of terror. They stood, abashed, in the kitchen passage. None paid heed to them. Colonel Grant rose and approached the trembling woman cowering at her husband's side. Her old eyes were streaming now; she gazed at him with the pitiful anguish of a stricken animal. He took her wrinkled hand and bent low before her. "Madam," he said, "God forbid that my son should lose his mother a second time!" He could say no other word. Even in her agony, Martha felt hot tears falling on her bare arm, and they were not her own. "Eh, but it's a sad errand ye're on," she sobbed. "Wife, wife!" cried John huskily, "if thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small. Colonel Grant is a true man. It's in his feäce. He weän't rive Martin frae yer arms, an' no man can tak' him frae yer heart." Colonel Grant drew himself up. He caught Bolland's shoulder. "Bear with me," he said. "I have suffered much. I lost my wife and two children, one unborn. They were torn from me as though by a destroying tempest. One is given back, after thirteen long years of mourning. Can you not spare me a place in his affections?" "Ay, ay," growled John. "We're nobbut owd folk at t' best, an' t' lad was leavin' oor roof for school in a little while. We can sattle things like sensible people, if on'y Martha here will gie ower greetin'. It troubles me sair to hear her lamentin'. We've had no sike deed i' thirty-fower years o' married life." The man was covering his own distress by solicitude in his wife's behalf. She knew it. She wiped her eyes defiantly with her apron and made pretense to smile, though she had received a shock she would remember to her dying day. Some outlet was necessary for her surcharged feelings. She whisked around on the crowd of amazed domestics, dairymaids and farmhands, pressing on each other's heels in the passage. "What are ye gapin' at?" she cried shrilly. "Is there nowt te deä? If tea's overed, git on wi' yer work, an' be sharp aboot it, or I'll side ye quick!" The stampede that followed relieved the situation. The servants faded away under her fiery glance. Colonel Grant smiled. "I am glad to see," he said, "that you maintain discipline in your regiment." "They're all ears an' neä brains," she said. "My, but I'm that upset I hardly ken what I'm sayin'. Mebbe ye'll finish yer tale, sir. I'm grieved I med sike a dash at ye, but I couldn't bide----" "There, there," said John, with his gruff soothing, "sit ye doon an' listen quietly. I guessed their business t' first minnit I set eyes on t' colonel. Why, Martha, look at him. He hez Martin's eyes and Martin's mouth. Noo, ye'd hev dark-brown hair, I reckon, when ye were a lad, sir?" For answer, Colonel Grant stooped to the lawyer's papers and took from them a framed miniature. "That is my portrait at the age of twelve," he said, placing it before them. "Eh, but that caps owt!" cried Martha. "It's Martin hissel! Oh, my honey, how little did I think what was coomin' when I set yer shirt an' collar ready, an' med ye tidy te gan te tea wi' t' fine folk at t' vicarage. An' noo ye're a better bred 'un than ony of 'em. The Lord love ye! Here ye are, smilin' at me. They may mak' ye a colonel or a gin'ral, for owt I care: ye'll nivver forgit yer poor old muther, will ye, my bairn!" She kissed the miniature as if it were Martin's own presentment. The men left her to sob again in silence. Soon she calmed herself sufficiently to ask: "But why i' t' wulld did that poor lass throw herself an' her little 'un inte t' street?" Mr. Dobson took up his story once more: "She explained her action in a pathetic letter to her husband. She was ill, lonely, and poverty-stricken. She brooded for days on General Grant's cruel words and still more cruel letter. They led her to believe that she was the unwitting cause of her husband's ruin. She resolved to free him absolutely and at the same time preserve his name from notoriety. Therefore she wrote him a full account of her change of name, and told him that her children would die with her." "That was a mad thing te deä." "Exactly. The doctor who knew her best told her husband six months later that Mrs. Grant was, in his opinion, suffering from an unrecognized attack of puerperal fever. It was latent in her system, and developed with the trouble so suddenly brought upon her." "Yon was a wicked owd man----" "The general was called to account by a higher power. Mrs. Grant wrote him also a statement of her intentions. Next morning he read of her death, and a second attack of apoplexy proved fatal. Her letter did not reach her husband until after a battle in which he was wounded. He cabled to us, and we made every inquiry, but it was remarkable how chance baffled our efforts. In the first instance, the policeman whom you encountered in Ludgate Hill and who knew you had adopted the child, had left the force and emigrated, owing to some unfortunate love affair. In the second, several newspapers reported the child as dead, though the records of the inquest soon corrected that error. Thirdly, someone named Bolland died in the hotel where you stayed and was buried at Highgate----" "My brother," put in John. "Yes; we know now. But conceive the barrier thus placed in our path when the dates of the two events were compared long afterwards." The farmer looked puzzled. The solicitor went on: "Of course, you wonder why there should have been any delay, but the Coroner's notes were lost in a fire. Nevertheless, we advertised in dozens of newspapers." "We hardly ever see a paper, sir," said Martha. "Yet, the wonder is that some of your friends did not see it and tell you. Finally, a sharp-witted clerk of ours solved the Highgate Cemetery mystery, and the advertisements were repeated. Colonel Grant was back in India by that time trying hard to leave his bones there, by all accounts, and perhaps we did not spend as much money on this second quest as if he were at home to authorize the expenditure." "When was that, sir--t' second lot o' advertisements, I mean?" asked John. "Quite a year after Mrs. Grant's death." Bolland stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I remember," he said, "a man at Malton fair sayin' summat aboot an inquiry for me. But yan o' t' hands rode twenty miles across counthry te tell me that Martin had gotten t' measles, an' I kem yam that neet." "Naturally, I can give you every proof of my statements," said Mr. Dobson. "They are all here----" "Mebbe ye'll know this writin'," interrupted Martha, laying down the miniature for the first time. She unlocked a drawer, took out a small tin box, and from its depths produced, among other articles, a crumbling sheet of note paper. On it was written: "My name is not Martineau. I have killed myself and my boy. If he dies with his unhappy mother he will never know the miseries of this life." It was unsigned, undated, a hurried scrawl in faded ink. "Margaret's handwriting," said Colonel Grant, looking at the pathetic message with sorrow-laden eyes. "It was found on t' poor leddy's dressin'-table, fastened wi' a hatpin. An' these are t' clothes Martin wore when he fell into John's arms. Nay, sir," she added, as Colonel Grant began examining the little frock, "she took good care, poor thing, that neäbody should find oot wheä she was. Ivvery mark hez bin picked off." "Martin is his feyther's son, or I ken nowt aboot stock," cried John Bolland, making a fine effort to dispel the depression which again possessed the little gathering at sight of these mournful mementoes of the dead past. "Coom, gentlemen, sit ye doon an' hev some tea. Ye'll not be for takkin' Martin away by t' next train. Martha, what's t' matter wi' ye? I've nivver known folk be so lang i' t' hoose afore an' not be asked if they had a mooth." "Ye're on t' wrang gait this time, John," she retorted. "I axed 'em afore ye kem in. By this time, sure-ly, ye'll be wantin' soom ham an' eggs?" she added to the visitors. "By Jove! I believe I could eat some," laughed the colonel. Martha smiled once more. She liked Martin's father. Each moment the first favorable impression was deepening. She was on the point of bustling away to the back kitchen, when they all heard the patter of feet, in desperate haste, approaching the front door. Elsie Herbert dashed in. She was hatless. Her long brown hair was floating in confusion over her shoulders and down her back. She was crying in great gulps and gasping for breath. "Oh, Mr. Bolland!" she wailed. "Oh, Mrs. Bolland!--what shall I say? Martin is hurt. He fell off the swing. Angèle did it! I'll kill her! I'll tear her face with my hands! Oh, come, someone, and help father. He is trying to bring back Martin's senses. What shall I do?--it was all on my account. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" And she sank fainting to the floor. CHAPTER XVIII THE SEVEN FULL YEARS But Martin was not dead, nor even seriously injured. At first, the affair looked so ugly--its main features were so incomprehensible--that Mr. Herbert was startled into somewhat panic-stricken action. Here was Martin lying unconscious on the ground, with Elsie kneeling by his side, passionately beseeching him in one breath to speak to her, and in the next accusing Angèle Saumarez of murder. The vicar was not blameworthy, in that he failed to grasp either the nature of the accusation or its seeming unreasonableness. The single rope of the gymnastic swing erected in the garden for Elsie's benefit had been cut deliberately with a sharp knife a few inches above the small bar on which the user's weight was supported by both hands. Of the cutting there could be no manner of doubt. The jagged edges of the few strands left by a devilish ingenuity--so that the swing must need be in violent motion before the rope snapped--were clearly visible at the point of severance. But who had done this thing, and with what deadly object in view? And why did Elsie pitch on Angèle Saumarez so readily, glaring at her with such eyes of vengeance that the vicar was constrained to order, with the utmost sternness of which he was capable, that the torrent of words should cease. Indeed, he dispatched her to acquaint the Bollands with tidings of the disaster as a haphazard pretext to get her out of the way. Apart from sensing the accident's inexplicable motive, its history was simple enough. Before tea was served, Martin and Elsie were using the swing alternately, vying with each other in the effort to touch with their toes the leaves of a tree nearly twenty feet distant from the vertical line of the rope. Angèle, of course, took no part in this contest; she contented herself with a sarcastic incredulity when Elsie vowed that she had accomplished the feat twice already. Martin, stronger, but less skilled in the trick of the swing than the girl, strove hard to excel her. Yet he, too, fell short by a few inches time after time. At last, Elsie vowed that when she was rested after tea she would prove her words, and threw a pebble at the branch which she claimed to have reached a week ago. Neither Mrs. Saumarez nor the vicar attached any weight to the somewhat emphatic argument between the two girls. It was a splendid contest between Martin and Elsie. It interested the elders for conflicting reasons. To see the graceful girl propelling herself through the air in a curve of nearly forty feet at each pendulum stroke of the swing was a pleasing sight to her father, but it caused Mrs. Saumarez to regret again that her daughter had not been taught to think more of athletic exercises and less of dress. While the young people were following their seniors to the drawing-room, Angèle said to Elsie: "I think I could do that myself with a little practice." "You are not tall enough," was the uncompromising answer, for Elsie's temper was ruffled by the simpering unbelief with which the other treated her assurances. "Not so tall, no; but I can bend back like this, and you cannot." Without a second's hesitation Angèle twisted her head and shoulders around until her chin was in a line with her heels. Then she dropped lightly so that her hands rested on the grass of the lawn, straightening herself with equal ease. The contortion was performed so quickly that neither Mr. Herbert nor Mrs. Saumarez was aware of it. It was a display not suited to the conditions of ordinary costume, and it necessarily exhibited portions of the attire not usually in evidence. Martin had eyes only for the girl's acrobatic agility, but Elsie blushed. "I don't like that," she said. "I can stand on my head and walk on my hands," cried Angèle instantly. "Martin, some day I'll show you." Conscious though she was that these things were said to annoy her, Elsie remembered that Angèle was a guest. "How did you learn?" she asked. "Were you taught in school?" "School! Me! I have never been to school. Education is the curse of children's lives. I never leave mamma. One day in Nice I saw a circus girl doing tricks of that sort. I practiced in my bedroom." "Does your mother wish that?" "She doesn't know." "I wonder you haven't broken your neck," said the practical Martin, who felt his bones creaking at the mere notion of such twisting. Angèle laughed. "It is quite easy, when you are slim and elegant." Her vanity amused the boy. "You speak as though Elsie were as stiff as a board," he said. "If you had watched her carefully, Angèle, you would have seen that she is quite as supple as you, only in a different way. And she is strong, too. I dare say she could swing with one hand and carry you in the other, if she had a mind to try." This ready advocacy of a new-found divinity angered Angèle beyond measure. Possibly she meant no greater harm than the disconcerting of a rival; but she slipped out of the room when Mr. Herbert sent Elsie to the library to bring a portfolio of old prints which he wished to show Mrs. Saumarez. Although it was never definitely proved against Angèle, someone tampered with the rope before a move was made to the garden after tea. The cause, the effect, were equally clear; the human agent remained unknown. "Now, I'll prove my words," cried Elsie, darting across the lawn in front of the others. "Here, it's my turn," shouted the boy gleefully. "I'll race you." "Martin! Martin! I want you!" shrieked Angèle, running after him. He paid no heed to her cries. Outstripping both girls in the race, he sprang at the swing, and was carried almost to the debated limit of the tree by the impetus of the rush. When he felt himself stopping he threw up his feet in a wild effort to touch the leaves so tantalizingly out of reach, and in that instant the rope broke. He turned completely over and fell with a heavy thud on the back of his bent head. The screaming of the girls brought the vicar from his prints in great alarm, and his agitation increased when he discovered that the boy could neither move nor speak. Elsie was halfway to the White House before Martin regained his breath. Once vitality returned, however, he was quickly on his feet again. "What happened?" he asked, craning his head awkwardly. "I thought someone fired a gun!" "You frightened us nearly out of our wits," cried the vicar. "And I was stupid enough to send Elsie flying to your people. Goodness knows what she will have said to them!" Promptly the boy shook himself and tried to break into a run. "I must--follow her," he gasped. But not yet was the masterful spirit able to control relaxed muscles; he collapsed again. Mrs. Saumarez cried aloud in a new fear, but the vicar, accustomed to the minor accidents of the cricket field and gymnasium, was cooler now. "He's all right--only needs a drink of water and a few minutes' rest," he explained. He bade one of the maids go as quickly as possible to the Bollands' farm and say that the mischief to Martin was a mere nothing, and then busied himself in more scientific fashion with restoring his patient's animation. Unfastening the boy's collar and the neckband of his shirt, Mr. Herbert satisfied himself that the clavicle was uninjured. There was a slight abrasion of the scalp, which was sore to the touch. In a minute, or less, Martin was again protesting that there was little the matter with him. He would not be satisfied until the vicar allowed him to start once more for the village, though at a more sedate pace. Then Mrs. Saumarez, in a voice of deep distress, asked Mr. Herbert if the rope had really been cut. "Yes," he said. "You can see yourself that there is no doubt about it." "But your daughter charged Angèle with this--this crime. My child denies it. She has no knife or implement of any sort in her pocket. I assure you I have satisfied myself on that point." "The affair is a mystery, Mrs. Saumarez. It must be cleared up. Thank God, Martin escaped! He might be lying here dead at this moment." "Are you sure it was not an accident?" "What am I to say? Here is a stout hempen cord with nearly all its strands severed as if with a razor, and the other torn asunder. And, from what I can gather, it was Elsie, and not Martin, for whose benefit this diabolical outrage was planned." The vicar spoke warmly, but the significance of the incident was dawning slowly on his perplexed mind. Providence alone had ordained that neither the boy nor the girl had been gravely, perhaps fatally, injured. Mrs. Saumarez was haggard. She seemed to have aged in those few minutes. "Angèle!" she cried. The girl, who was sobbing, came to her. "Can it be possible," said the distracted mother, "that you interfered with the swing? Why did you leave the drawing-room during tea?" "I only went to stroke a cat, mamma. Indeed, I never touched the swing. Why should I? And I could not cut it with my fingers." "On second thoughts," said the vicar coldly, "I think that the matter may be allowed to rest where it is. Of course, one of my servants may be the culprit, or a mischievous village youth who had been watching the children at play. But the two girls do not seem to get on well together, Mrs. Saumarez. I fear they are endowed with widely different temperaments." The hint could not be ignored. The lady smiled bitterly. "It is well that I should have decided already to leave Elmsdale," she said. "It is a charming place, but my visit has not been altogether fortunate." Mr. Herbert remembered the curious phrase in after years. He understood it then. At the moment he was candidly relieved when Mrs. Saumarez and Angèle took their departure. He jammed on a hat and hastened to the White House to learn what sort of sensation Elsie had created. A week later he made a discovery. He had a curious hobby--he was his own bootmaker, and Elsie's, having taught himself to be a craftsman in an art which might well claim higher rank than it holds. When next he rummaged among his implements for a shoemaker's knife it was missing. It was found in the garden next spring, jammed to the top of the hilt into the soft mold beneath a rhododendron. The tools were kept on a bench in the conservatory; so Angèle might have accomplished her impish desire in a few seconds. On reaching the White House he was mildly surprised at finding Martin propped against the knee of a tall, soldierly stranger, who was consoling the boy with a reminiscence of a far worse toss at polo, by which a hard _sola topi_ was flattened on the iron surface of an Indian _maidan_. Elsie, white, but much interested, was sipping a glass of milk. "Eh, Vicar," cried Mrs. Bolland, in whose face Mr. Herbert saw signs of recent excitement, "your lass gev us a rare start. She landed here like a mad thing, screamed oot that Martin was dead, an' dropped te t' flure half dead herself." "The fault was mine, Mrs. Bolland. There was an accident. At first I thought Martin was badly hurt. I am, indeed, very sorry if Elsie alarmed you." His words were meant to reassure the others, but his eyes were fixed on the girl's pallid face. John Bolland laughed in his dry way. "Nay, Passon, dinnat fret aboot Elsie. She's none t' warse for a sudden stop. She was ower-excited. Where's yon lass o' Mrs. Saumarez's?" "Gone home with her mother. I hear they are leaving Elmsdale." "A good riddance!" said John heartily. He turned to Martin. "Ye'll be winded again, I reckon?" "Yes, sir." "Well, I left my ash stick i' t' low yard. Mebbe you an' t' young leddy will fetch it. There's noa need te hurry." This was an oblique instruction to the boy to make himself scarce for half an hour. With Elsie as a companion he needed no urging. They set off, happy as grigs. "Noo, afore ye start te fill t' vicar wi' wunnerment," cried Martha, "I want te ax t' colonel a question." "What is it, Mrs. Bolland?" Colonel Grant was smiling at the vicar's puzzled air. These good people knew naught of formal introductions. "How old is t' lad?" "He was fourteen years old on the sixth of last June." "Eh, but that's grand." She clapped her hands delightedly. "I guessed him tiv a week or two. We reckoned his birthday as a twel'month afore we found him, and that was June the eighteenth. And what's his right neäm?" "He was christened after me and after his mother's family. His name is Reginald Ingram Grant." "May I ask who in the world you are talking about?" interposed the perplexed vicar. "Wheä? Why, oor Martin!" cried Martha. "He's a gentleman born, God bless him!" "And, what is much more important, Mrs. Bolland, he is a gentleman bred," said the colonel. * * * * * The scene in the kitchen of the White House had been too dramatic that some hint of it should not reach the village that night. Soon all Elmsdale knew that the mystery of Martin's parentage had been solved, and great was the awe of the boy's playmates when they heard that his father was a "real live colonel i' t' army." A garbled version of the story came to Mr. Beckett-Smythe's ears, and he called on Colonel Grant at the "Black Lion" next day. He arrived in state, in a new Mercedes car, handled by a chauffeur replica of Fritz Bauer. Beckett-Smythe had hardly mastered his surprise at the colonel's confirmation of that which he had regarded as "an incredible yarn" when Mrs. Saumarez drove up. She, too, recalling the message brought by Martin from her husband's comrade-in-arms, came to verify the strange tale told by the Misses Walker. Angèle accompanied her, and the girl's eyes shot lightning at Martin, who was on the point of guiding his father to the moor when Mr. Beckett-Smythe put in an appearance. The lawyer had departed for London by the morning train; the three older people and the two youngsters gathered in the room thus set at liberty, Mrs. Atkinson having remodeled it into a sitting-room for the colonel's use. Mrs. Saumarez hailed the stranger effusively. "It is delightful to run across anyone who knew my husband," she said. "In this remote part of Yorkshire none seems to have ever heard of him. Believe me, Colonel Grant, it is positively a relief to meet a man who recognizes my name." She may have intended this for an oblique thrust at Beckett-Smythe, relations between the Hall and The Elms having been somewhat strained since the inquest. The Squire, a good fellow, who had no inkling of Angèle's latest escapade, hastened to make amends. "You two must want to chat over old times," he said breezily. "Why not come and dine with me to-night? I have only one other guest--an Admiralty man. He's prowling about the coast trying to select a suitable site for a wireless station." Now, Mrs. Saumarez would have declined the invitation had Beckett-Smythe stopped short at the first sentence. As it was, she accepted instantly. "Do come, Colonel Grant," she urged. "What between the Navy and the Intelligence Department it should be an interesting evening.... Oh, don't look so surprised," she went on, with an engaging smile. "I still read the _Gazette_, you know." "And what of the kiddies?" said Beckett-Smythe. "They know my boys. Your chauffeur can bring them home at nine. By the way, the meal will be quite informal--come as you are." "What do you say, Martin?" said the colonel. "I shall be very pleased, sir; but may I--ask--my mother first?" The boy reddened. His new place in the world was only twenty-four hours old, and his ideas were not yet adjusted to an order of things so astounding that he thought every minute he would wake up and find he had been dreaming. "Oh, certainly," and a kindly hand fell on his shoulder. "I am glad you spoke of it. Mrs. Bolland is worthy of all the respect due to the best of mothers." "I'll go with you, Martin," announced Angèle suddenly. Martin hesitated. He was doubtful of the reception Mrs. Bolland might give the minx who had nearly caused him to break his neck, and, for his own part, he wanted to avoid Angèle altogether. She was a disturbing influence. He feared her not at all as a spitfire. It was when she displayed her most engaging qualities that she was really dangerous, and he knew from experience that her mood had changed within the past five minutes. On alighting from the car she would like to have scratched his face. Now he would not be surprised if she elected to walk with him hand in hand through the village street. His father came to the rescue. "Let us all go and see Mrs. Bolland," he said. "It is only a few yards." They went out into the roadway. Then Beckett-Smythe was struck by an afterthought. "If you'll excuse me, I'll run along to the vicarage and ask Herbert and his daughter to join us," he said. Mrs. Saumarez bit her lip. "I think I'll leave Angèle at home," she said in a low tone. "The child is delicate. During the past week I have insisted that she goes to bed at eight every evening." Colonel Grant understood why the lady did not want the two girls to meet, but it was borne in on him that she herself was determined not to miss that impromptu dinner party. In a vague way he wondered what her motive could be. "Ah, that's a pity," he heard Beckett-Smythe say. "She can be well wrapped up, and the weather is mild." He moved a little ahead of the two. Martin, determined not to be left alone with Angèle, hastened to greet his friend, Fritz. The two chauffeurs were conversing in German. Apparently, they were examining the engine of the new car. "Martin," murmured Angèle, "don't bother about Fritz. He'll snap your head off. He's furious because he lost a map the other day." But Martin pressed on. No longer could Angèle deceive him--"twiddle him around her little finger," as she would put it. "Hello, Fritz!" he cried. "What map did you lose? Not the one I marked for you?" Fritz turned. The new chauffeur closed the bonnet of the engine. "No," he said, speaking slowly, and looking at Angèle. "It was a small road map. You haf not seen it, I dink." "Was it made of linen, with a red cover?" "Yez," and the man's face became curiously stern. "Oh, I saw you studying it one day at The Elms, but you didn't have it on the moor." Fritz's scowl changed to an expression of disappointment. "I haf mislaid it," he grunted, and again his glance dwelt on Angèle, who met his gaze with a bland indifference that seemed to gall him. Colonel Grant drew near. He had been eyeing the two spick-and-span chauffeurs. "Who is your friend, Martin?" he said. He was interested in everything the boy did and in everyone whom he knew. "Oh, this is Fritz Bauer, Mrs. Saumarez's chauffeur.... Fritz, this is Colonel Grant, of the Indian Army." Instantly the two young Germans straightened as though some mechanism had stiffened their spines and thrown back their heads. The newcomer's heels clicked and his right hand was raised in a salute. Fritz, better schooled than his comrade by longer residence in England, barely prevented his heels from clicking, and managed to convert the salute into a raising of his cap. There could be no doubt that he was flustered, because he said not a word, and the open-air tan of his cheeks assumed a deeper tint. Apparently, Colonel Grant saw nothing of this, or, if he noticed the man's confusion, attributed it to nervousness. "Two Mercedes cars in one small village!" he exclaimed laughingly. "You Germans are certainly conquering England by peaceful penetration." Mrs. Saumarez elected, after all, not to visit the White House that afternoon, so Angèle, having said good-by to the colonel and Martin in her prettiest manner, was whisked off in the car. "By the way, Martin," said his father as the two walked to the farm. "Mrs. Saumarez is German by birth. Have you ever heard anything about her family?" Martin had a good memory. "Yes, sir," he said. "She is a baroness--the Baroness Irma von Edelstein." The colonel was surprised at this glib answer. "Who told you?" he inquired. "Angèle, sir. But Mrs. Saumarez did not wish people to use her title. She was vexed with Angèle for even mentioning it." Mrs. Saumarez sent her car to bring Colonel Grant and his son to the Hall. She was slightly ruffled when Fritz told her that they had gone already, Mr. Beckett-Smythe having collected his guests from both the inn and the vicarage. She might have been positively indignant if she had overheard Grant's comments to the Admiralty official while the two strolled on the lawn before dinner. "A couple of Prussian officers, if ever I saw the genuine article," said the colonel. "Real junkers--smart-looking fellows, too. Mrs. Saumarez is the widow of a British officer--a fine chap, but poor as a church mouse--and she belongs to a wealthy German family. _Verbum sap._" "Nuff said," grinned the sailor. "But what is one to do? No sooner is this outfit erected but it'll be added to the display of local picture postcards, and the next German bigwig who visits this part of the country will be invited to amuse himself by ringing up Bremen." At any rate, Mrs. Saumarez was told that night that the Yorkshire coast was too highly magnetized to suit a wireless station. The sailor thought an inland town like York would provide an ideal site. "You see," he explained politely, "when the German High Seas Fleet defeats the British Navy it can shell our coast towns all to smithereens." She smiled. "You fighting men invariably talk of war with Germany as an assured thing," she said. "Yet I, who know Germany, and have relatives there, am convinced that the notion is absurd." "The Emperor has been twenty years on the throne and has never drawn sword except on parade," put in the vicar. "There may have been danger once or twice in his hot youth, but he has grown to like England, and I cannot conceive him plunging a great and thriving country into the morass of a doubtful campaign." "Ninety-nine per cent of Englishmen like to think that way," said the Admiralty man. "In a multitude of counselors there is wisdom, so let's hope they're right." When the young folk got together on the terrace, Frank Beckett-Smythe asked Martin why his neck was stiff. "I took a toss off Elsie's swing yesterday," was the airy answer. Not a word did he or Elsie say as to Angèle, and the Beckett-Smythes knew better than to introduce her name. * * * * * Mrs. Saumarez left for the South rather hurriedly. She paid no farewell visits. She and Angèle traveled in the car; Françoise followed with the baggage. The Misses Walker were consoled for the loss of a valued lodger by receiving a less exacting one in the person of Martin's father. The boy himself, when his mental poise was adjusted to the phenomenal change in his life, soon grew accustomed to a new environment. Mr. Herbert undertook to direct his studies in preparation for a public school, and Martha Bolland became reconciled gradually to seeing him once or twice daily, instead of all day, for he, too, lived at The Elms. Officially, as it were, he adopted his new name, but to the small world of Elmsdale he would ever be "Martin." Even his father fell into the habit. The colonel drove him to the adjourned petty sessions at Nottonby when Betsy's case came on for hearing. Mr. Stockwell abandoned his critical attitude and concurred with the police that there was no need to bring Angèle Saumarez from London to attend the trial. Mrs. Saumarez gave no thought to the fact that the girl might be needed to give evidence, but the authorities decided that there were witnesses in plenty as to the outcry raised in the garden after Pickering was wounded. It was November before Betsy appeared at the county assizes. When she entered the dock, those who knew her were astonished by the improvement in her appearance. It was probable that the enforced rest, the regular exercise, the judicious diet of the prison had exercised a beneficial effect on her health. Her demeanor was calm as ever, and the able barrister who defended her did not scruple to suggest that it would create a better effect with the jury if she adopted a less unemotional attitude. Her reply silenced him. "Do you think," she said, "that I will be permitted to atone for my wrongdoing by punishment? No. I live because my husband wished me to live. I will be called to account, but not by an earthly judge or jury." She was right. The assize judge held the scales of justice impartially between the sworn testimony of George Pickering and Betsy's witnesses, on the one hand, and the evidence of Martin and the groom, backed by the scientists, on the other. The jury gave her the benefit of the doubt and acquitted her, but it was noticed by many that his lordship contented himself with ordering her discharge from custody. He passed no opinion on the verdict. So Betsy was installed as mistress of Wetherby Lodge, the trustees having decided that she was well fitted to manage the estate. Tongues wagged in Elmsdale when Mr. Stockwell drove thither one day and solemnly handed over to Martin the sword and the double-barreled gun, and to John Bolland the pedigree cow bequeathed by George Pickering. The farmer eyed the animal grimly. "'Tis an unfortunate beast," he said. "Mebbe if I hadn't sold her te poor George he might nivver hae coom te Elmsdale just then." "Do not think that," the solicitor assured him. "Pickering would most certainly have visited the fair. I know, as a matter of fact, that he wished to purchase one of your brood mares." "Ay, ay. She went te Jarmany. Well, if I'm spared, I'll send a good calf to Wetherby." The lawyer and he shook hands on the compact. Yet Pickering's odd bequest was destined to work out in a way that would have amazed the donor, could he but know it. Martin was at Winchester--his father's old school--when he received a letter in Bolland's laborious handwriting. It read: "MY DEAR LAD--Yours to hand, and this leaves your mother and self in good health. We were glad to hear that the box arrived all right and that your mates think well of Yorkshire cakes. You may learn a lot of useful things at school, but you will not often meet with a better cook than your mother. She is sore upset just now about a mishap we have had on the farm. I turned out nearly all my shorthorns to graze on the low pastures. The ground was a bit damp, and a strange cow broke in at night to join them. I don't rightly know what to blame, but next day they showed signs of rinderpest. I sent for the vet, and they had to be slaughtered--all but one two-year-old bull, Bainesse Boy IV., and Mr. Pickering's cow, which were not with them in the meadow. It is a great loss, but I don't repine, now that you are provided for, and it is not quite like starting all over again, as I have my land and my Cleveland bays, and I am in no debt. In such matters I turn to the Lord for consolation. I have just read this verse to Martha: 'I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.' If you are minded to look it up, you will find it in the Thirty-seventh Psalm. "I don't want to pretend that the blow has not been a hard one, but, God willing, there will be a hamper for you at Christmas, if Colonel Grant is too busy to bring you North. Your mother joins in much love. "Your affect., "JOHN BOLLAND." "P. S.--Maybe you will not have forgotten that Mrs. Saumarez said the land needed draining. She was a clever woman in some ways." The boy's eyes filled with tears. He understood only too well the far-reaching misfortune which had befallen the farmer. The total value of the herd was £5,000, and he remembered that experts valued the young surviving bull at £300 as a yearling. In all, twenty-three animals had been slaughtered by the law's decree, and the compensation payable to Bolland would not cover a twentieth part of the actual loss. Martin not only wrote a letter of warm sympathy to his adopted parents but sent Bolland's letter to his father, with an added commentary of his own. Colonel Grant obtained short leave and traveled to Elmsdale next day. It took some trouble to bring John round to his point of view, but the argument that the farm should be restocked in Martin's interests prevailed, and negotiations were opened with prominent breeders elsewhere which resulted in the purchase of a notable bull and eight heifers, for which Bolland and the colonel each found half the money. The farmer would listen to no other arrangement, though he promised that if he experienced any tightness for money he would not hesitate to apply for further help. The need never made itself felt. The first animal to produce successful progeny was George Pickering's cow! No man in the North Riding was more pleased than John that day. Throughout the whole of his life the only person who ever brought a charge of unfair dealing against him was Pickering. The memory rankled, and its sting was none the less bitter because of a secret dread that he had perhaps been guilty of a piece of sharp practice. Now his character was cleared. Pattison, his old crony, asked him, by way of a joke, how much "he'd tak' for t' cauf." John blazed into unexpected anger. "At what figger de you reckon yer own good neäm, Mr. Pattison?" "I don't knoä as I'd care te sell it at onny price, Mr. Bollan'." "Then ye'll think as I do aboot yon cauf. Neyther it nor any other of its dam's produce will ivver leave my farm if I can help it." CHAPTER XIX OUT OF THE MISTS This record of a Yorkshire village--a true chronicle of life among the canny folk who dwell on the "moor edge"--might well be left at the point it reached when one of its chief characters saw before him the smooth and sunlit road of a notable career. But history, though romantic, is not writ as romance, and the story of Elmsdale is fact, not fiction. After eight years of somnolence the village awoke again. It was roused from sleep by the tumult of a world at war; mayhap the present generation shall pass away before the hamlet relapses into its humdrum ways. Martin was twenty-two when his father and he journeyed north to attend the annual sale of the Elmsdale herd, which was fixed for the two opening days of July, 1914. Each year Colonel Grant brought his son to the village for six weeks prior to the twelfth of August; this year there was a well-founded rumor in the little community that the colonel meant to buy The Elms. The announcement of Bolland's sale brought foreign agents from abroad and well-known stock-raisers from all parts of the Kingdom. No less than forty animals entered the auction ring. One bull, Bainesse Boy IV., realized £800. Bainesse Boy IV. held a species of levee in a special stall. He had grown into a wonder. On a table, over which Sergeant Benson mounted guard, were displayed five championship cups he had carried off, while fifteen cards, arranged in horseshoe pattern on the wall, each bore the magic words, "First Prize," awarded at Islington, Birmingham, the Royal, and wherever else in Britain shorthorns and their admirers most do congregate. The village hummed with life; around the sale ring gathered a multitude of men arrayed in Melton cloth and leather leggings, whose general appearance betokened the wisdom of Dr. Johnson's sarcastic dictum: "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat." Martha and a cohort of maids boiled hams by the dozen and baked cakes in fabulous quantities. John graced the occasion by donning a new suit and new boots, in which the crooked giant was singularly ill at ease. Mrs. Pickering drove over from Nottonby--Kitty was married two years before to a well-to-do farmer at Northallerton--and someone rallied her on "bein' ower good-lookin' te remain a widow all her days." She laughed pleasantly. "I'm far too busy at Wetherby to think of adding a husband to my cares," she said; but those who knew her best could have told that she had refused at least two excellent offers of matrimony and meant to remain Mrs. Pickering during the rest of her days. At the close of the second day's sale, when the crowd was thinned by the departure of a fleet of cars and a local train at five o'clock, the White House was thronged by its habitués, who came to make a meal of the "high tea." Colonel Grant and John had just concluded an amicable wrangle whereby it was decided that they should jointly provide the considerable sum needed to acquire The Elms and some adjoining land. The house and grounds were to be remodeled and the property would be deeded to Martin forthwith. The young gentleman himself, as tall as his father now, and wearing riding breeches and boots, was standing at the front door, turning impatient eyes from a smart cob, held by a groom, to the bend in the road where it curved beyond the "Black Lion." A smartly-dressed young lady passed, and although Martin lifted his hat with a ready smile his glance wandered from her along the road again. Evelyn Atkinson wondered who it was that thus distracted his attention. A few yards farther on, Elsie Herbert, mounted on a steady old hunter, passed at a sharp trot. Evelyn's pretty face frowned slightly. "If _she_ is home again, of course, he has eyes for nobody else," she said to herself. And, indeed, it was true. Elsie had been to Dresden for two years. She had returned to Elmsdale the previous day, and a scribbled note told Martin to look for her after tea. The two set off together through the village, bound for the moor. Many a critical look followed them. "Eh, but they're a bonny pair," cried Mrs. Summersgill, who became stouter each year. "Martin allus framed to be a fine man, but I nivver thowt yon gawky lass o' t' vicar's 'ud grow into a beauty." "This moor air is wonderful. Look at the effect it has on you, Mrs. Summersgill," said Colonel Grant with a twinkle in his eye. "Oh, go on wi' ye, Colonel, pokin' fun at a poor owd body like me. But I deän't ho'd wi' skinny 'uns. Martha, what's become o' Mrs. Saumarez an' that flighty gell o' hers. What did they call her--Angel? My word!--a nice angel--not that she wasn't as thin as a sperrit." "Miss Walker told me, last Christmas twel'month, they were i' France," said Martha. "France? Ay, maist like; it's a God-forsaken place, I'll be boun'." "Nay," interposed Bolland, "that's an unchristian description of onny counthry, ma'am. Ye'll find t' Lord ivverywhere i' t' wide wulld, if ye seek Him. There's bin times when He might easy be i' France, for He seemed, iv His wisdom, to be far away frae Elmsdale." Mrs. Summersgill snorted contempt for all "furriners," but Martha created a diversion. "Goodness me!" she cried, "yer cup's empty. I nivver did see sike a woman. Ye talk an' eat nowt." Martin, now in his third year at Oxford, was somewhat mystified by the change brought about in Elsie by two years of "languages and music" passed in the most attractive of German cities. Though not flippant, her manner nonplussed him. She was distinctly "smart," both in speech and style. She treated a young gentleman who had already taken his degree and was reading for honors in history with an easy nonchalance that was highly disconcerting. The last time they parted they had kissed each other, she with tears, and he with a lump in his throat. Now he dared no more offer a cousinly, or brotherly, or any other sort of salute in which kissing was essential, than if she were a royal princess. "You've altered, old girl," he said by way of a conversational opening when their horses were content to walk, after a sharp canter along a moorland track. "I should hope so, indeed," came the airy retort. "Surely, you didn't expect to find the Elmsdale label on me after two years of _kultur_?" "Whatever the label, the vintage looks good," he said. "You mean that as a compliment," she laughed. "And, now that I look at you carefully, I see signs of improvement. Of course, the Oxford swank is an abomination, but you'll lose it in time. Father told me last night that you were going in for the law and politics. Is that correct?" Martin, masterful as ever, was not minded to endure such supercilious treatment at Elsie's hands. He had looked forward to this meeting with a longing that had almost interfered with his work; it was more than irritating to find his divinity modeling her behavior on the lines of the Girton "set" at the University. They had reached a point of the high moor which overlooked Thor ghyll. Martin pulled up his cob and dismounted. "Let's give the nags a breather here," he said. "Shall I help you?" "No, thanks." Elsie was out of the saddle promptly. She rode astride. In a well-fitting habit, with divided skirt and patent-leather boots, she looked wonderfully alluring, but her air of aloofness was carried almost to the verge of indifference. She showed some surprise when Martin took her horse's reins and threw them over his left arm. "Are you going to lecture me?" she said, arching her eyebrows. "It would be just like a fledgling B. A., who is doubtless a member of the Officers' Training Corps, to tell me that my German riding-master taught me to sit too stiffly." "He did," said Martin, meeting the sarcastic blue eyes without flinching. "But a few days with the York and Ainsty and Lord Middleton's pack will put that right. You'll come a purler at your first stone wall if you ride with such long stirrup leathers. However, I want you to jump another variety of obstacle to-day. You asked me just now, Elsie, if I was going in for the law. Yes. But I'm going in for you first. You know I love you, dear. You know I have been your very humble but loyal knight ever since I won your recognition down there in the valley, when I was only a farmer's son and you were a girl of a higher social order. I have never forgotten that you didn't seem to heed class distinctions then, Elsie, and it hurts now to have you treat me with coldness." Elsie, trying valiantly to appear partly indignant and even more amused at this direct attack, failed most lamentably. First she flushed; then she paled. She faced Martin's gaze confidently enough at the outset, but her eyes dropped and her lips quivered when she heard the words which no woman can hear without a thrill. Still, she made a brave attempt to rally her forces. "I didn't--quite mean--what you say," she faltered, which was a schoolgirl form of protest for one who had achieved distinction in a course of English literature. Martin took her by the shoulders. The two horses nosed each other. They, perforce, were dumb, but their wise eye's seemed to exchange the caustic comment: "What fools these mortals be! Why don't they hug, and settle the business?" "I must know what you do mean," said Martin, almost fiercely. "I love you, Elsie. Will you marry me?" She lifted her face. The blue eyes were dim with tears, but the adorable mouth trembled in a smile. "Yes, dear," she murmured. "But what did you expect? Did you--think I would--throw my arms around you--in the village street?" After that Martin had no reason to accuse Elsie of being either stiff or cold. When the vicar heard the news that night--for Martin and the colonel dined at the Vicarage--he stormed into mock dissent. "God bless my soul," he cried, "my little girl has been away two whole years, and you come and steal her away from me before she has been home twenty-four hours!" Then he produced a handkerchief and yielded, apparently, to a violent attack of hay fever. Yet it was a joyous company which gathered around the dinner table, for Elsie herself, casting off the veneer of Dresden, drove posthaste to summon the Bollands to the feast. John was specially deputed by Colonel Grant to make a significant announcement. "We're all main pleased you two hev sattled matters so soon," he said, peering alternately at Martin's attentive face and Elsie's blushing one. "Yer father an' me hev bowt The Elms, an' a tidy bit o' land besides, so ye'll hev a stake i' t' county if ivver ye're minded te run for Parlyment. The Miss Walkers (John pronounced the name "Wahker") are goin' te live in a small hoos i' Nottonby. They've gotten a fine lot o' Spanish mahogany an' owd oak which they're willin' te sell by vallyation; so the pair of ye can gan there i' t' mornin' an' pick an' choose what ye want." Elsie looked at her father, but neither could utter a word. Martha Bolland put an arm around the girl's neck. "Lord luv' ye, honey!" she said brokenly, "it'll be just like crossin' the road. May I be spared te see you happy and comfortable in yer new home, for you'll surely be one of the finest ladies i' Yorkshire." No shadow darkened their joy in that cheerful hour. Even next day, when a grim specter flitted through Elmsdale, the ominous vision evoked only a passing notice. Colonel Grant and the vicar, each an expert in old furniture, accompanied the young people to The Elms and examined its antique dressers, sideboards, tables, and the rest. Many of the bedroom chests were of solid mahogany. The Misses Walker had cleared the drawers of the lumber of years, so that the prospective purchasers could note the interior finish. Miss Emmy, not so tactful as her elder sister, brought in a name which the others present wished to forget. "Mrs. Saumarez used this room as a dressing-room," she said, "and while turning out rubbish from a set of drawers I came across this." She displayed a small red-covered folding road-map, such as cyclists and motorists use. Martin thought he recognized it. "I believe that is the very map lost by Fritz Bauer, Mrs. Saumarez's chauffeur," he said. "Probably, sir. He made a rare row with Miss Angèle about it. I was half afraid he meant to shake her. No one knew what had become of it, but either Miss Angèle or her mother must have hidden it. Why, I can't guess." Elsie helped to smooth over an awkward incident. She took the map and began to open it. "It couldn't have been such an important matter," she said. Then she shook apart the folded sheet, and they all saw that it bore a number of entries and signs in faded ink, black and red. The written words were in German, and Elsie scanned a few lines hurriedly. She looked puzzled, even a trifle perturbed, but recovered her smiling self-possession instantly. "The poor man, being a foreigner, jotted down some notes for his guidance," she said. "May I have it?" "With pleasure, miss," said the old lady. It was not until the party had returned to the vicarage that Elsie explained her request. She spread the map on a table, and her smooth forehead wrinkled in doubt. "This is serious," she said. "I have lived in Germany long enough to understand that one cannot mix with German girls in the intimacy of school and at their homes without knowing that an attack on England is simply an obsession of their menfolk, and even of the women. They regard it as a certainty in the near future, pretending that if they don't strike first England will crush them." "I wish to Heaven she would!" broke in Colonel Grant emphatically. "In existing conditions this country resembles an unarmed policeman waiting for a burglar to fire at him out of the darkness." Mr. Herbert, man of peace that he was, might have voiced a mild disclaimer, had not Elsie stayed him. "Listen, father," she said seriously. "Here is proof positive. That chauffeur was a military spy. See what is written across the top of the map: 'Gutes Wasser; Futter in Fülle; Überfluss von Vieh, Schafen und Pferden. Einzelheiten auf genauen Ortlichkeiten angegeben.' That means 'Good water; abundance of fodder; plenty of cattle, sheep, and horses. Details given on exact localities.' And, just look at the details! Could a child fail to interpret their meaning?" Elsie's simile was not far-fetched, yet gray-headed statesmen, though they may have both known and understood, refused to believe. That little road-map, on a scale of one mile to an inch, contained all the information needed by the staff of an invading army. The moor bore the legend: "Platz für Lager, leicht verschanzt; beherrscht Hauptstrassen von Whitby und Pickering nach York. Rote Kreise kennzeichnen reichlichen Wasservorrat für Kavallerie und Artillerie." (Site for camp, easily entrenched. Commands main roads from Whitby and Pickering to York. Red circles show ample water supply for cavalry and artillery.) Every road bore its classification for the use of troops, showing the width, quality of surface, and gradients. Each bridge was described as "stone" or "iron." Even cross-country trails were indicated when fordable streams rendered such passage not too difficult. The little group gazed spellbound at the extraordinarily accurate synopsis of the facilities offered by the placid country of Yorkshire for the devilish purposes of war. Martin, in particular, devoured the entries relating to the moor. On Metcalf's farm he saw: "Six hundred sheep here," and at the Broad Ings, "Four hundred sheep, three horses, four cows." Well he knew who had given the spy those facts. His glowing eyes wandered to the village. A long entry distinguished the White House, and though he knew a good deal of German he was beaten by the opening technical word. "What is that, Elsie?" he said, and even his father wondered at the hot anger in his utterance. The girl read: "Stammbaum Vieh hier; drei Stiere, achtzehn Kühe und Färsen, nicht zum Schlachten, sehr wertvoll. Neben bei sechs Stuten, besten Types zur Zucht." Then she translated: "Pedigree cattle here; three bulls, eighteen cows and heifers, not to be slaughtered; very valuable. Also six brood mares of best type for stud." "The infernal scoundrel!" blazed out Martin. "So the Bolland stock must be taken to the Fatherland, and not eaten or drafted into service! And to think that I gave him nearly all that information!" "You, Martin?" cried Elsie. "Yes. He pumped me dry. I even showed him the site of every pond on the moor." "Don't blame the man," put in Colonel Grant. "I knew him as a Prussian officer at the first glance. But he was simply doing his duty. Blame our criminal carelessness. We cannot stop foreigners from prowling about the country, but we can and should make it impossible for any enemy to utilize such data as are contained in this map." "But, consider," put in the perturbed vicar. "This evil work was done eight years ago, and what has all the talk of German preparation come to? Isn't it the bombast of militarism gone mad?" "It comes to this," said the colonel. "We are just eight years nearer war. I am convinced that the break must occur before 1916--and for two reasons: Germany's financial state is dangerous, and in 1916 Russia will have completed on her western frontier certain strategic lines which will expedite mobilization. Germany won't wait till her prospective foes are ready. France knows it. That is why she has adopted the three years' service scheme." "Then why won't you let me join the army, dad?" demanded Martin bluntly. Colonel Grant spread his hands with the weary gesture of a man who would willingly shirk a vital decision. "In peace the army is a poor career," he said. "The law and politics offer you a wider field. But not you only--every young man in the country should be trained to arms. As matters stand, we have neither the men nor the rifles. Our artillery, excellent of its type, is about sufficient for an army corps, and we have a fortnight's supply of ammunition. I am not an alarmist. We have enough regiments to repel a raid, supposing the enemy's transports dodged the fleet; but Heaven help us if we dream of sending an expeditionary force to France or Egypt, or any single one of a score of vulnerable points outside the British Isles!" "Beckett-Smythe retained one of those German chauffeurs in his service for a whole year," said the vicar, on whom a new light had dawned with the discovery of the telltale map. "Are there many of the brood in the district now?" inquired the colonel. "I fancy not." "There is no need, they have done their work," said Elsie. "Last winter I met a young officer in Dresden, and he told me he had taken a walking tour through this part of Yorkshire during the summer. He knew Elmsdale quite well. He remembered the vicarage, The Elms, and the White House. Yet he said he was here only a day!" "Fritz Bauer's maps are the best of guides," commented Colonel Grant bitterly. The vicar was literally awe-stricken. He stooped over the map. "Is this sort of thing going on all over the country?" he gasped. "More or less. Naturally, the east coast has been the chief hunting ground, as that must provide the terrain of any attack. Of course, so long as the political sky remains fairly clear, as it is at this moment, there is always a chance that humanity will escape Armageddon for another generation. The world is growing more rational and its interests are becoming ever more identical. Even the Junkers are feeling the pressure of public opinion, and the great masses of the people demand peace. That is why I want Martin to learn the power of voice and pen rather than of the sword. I have been a soldier all my life, and I hate war!" The man who had so often faced death in his country's cause spoke with real feeling. He longed to make war impossible by making victory impossible for an aggressor. He claimed no rights for Britain that he would deny Germany or any other country in the comity of nations. Suddenly he took the map off the table and folded it. "I'll send this curio to Whitehall," he said with a smile. "It will form part of a queer collection. Now, let's talk of something else.... Martin, after the valuer has inspected that furniture, you might see to it that the whole lot is stored in the east bedrooms. The architect will not disturb that part of the house." "Oh, when can we look at the plans?" chimed in Elsie. These four people, who in their way fairly represented the forty millions of Great Britain, discussed the spy's map in the drawing-room of Elmsdale vicarage on July 6th, 1914. On the sixth of August, exactly one month later, two German army corps, with full artillery and commissariat trains, were loaded into transports and brought to the mouth of the Elbe. They hoped to avoid the British fleet, and their objective was the Yorkshire coast between Whitby and Filey. Once ashore, they meant entrenching a camp on the Elmsdale moor. Obviously, they did not dream of conquering England by one daring foray. Their purpose was to keep the small army of Britain fully occupied until France was humbled to the dust. They would lose the whole hundred thousand men. But what of that? German soldiers are regarded as cannon fodder by their rulers, and the price in human lives would not be too costly if it retained British troops at home. It was an audacious scheme, and audacity is the first principle of successful war. Its very spine and marrow was the knowledge of the North and East Ridings gained in time of peace by the officers who would lead the invading host. That it failed was due to England's sailors, the men who broke Napoleon, and were destined, by God's good grace, to break the robber empire of Germany. CHAPTER XX THE RIGOR OF THE GAME Elmsdale at war is very like Elmsdale in peace. At least, that was Martin's first impression when he and General Grant motored to the village from York on a day in September, 1915. Father and son had passed unscathed through the hellfire of Loos, General Grant in command of a brigade, and Martin a captain in a Kitchener battalion. They were in England on leave now, the middle-aged general for five days, and the youthful captain for ten, and the purpose of this joint home-coming was Martin's marriage. When it became evident that the world struggle would last years rather than months, General Grant and the vicar put their heads together, metaphorically speaking, since the connecting link was the field post-office, and arranged a war wedding. Why should the young people wait? they argued. Every consideration pointed the other way. With Martin wedded to Elsie, legal formalities as to Bolland's and the general's estate could be completed, and if Heaven blessed the union with children the continuity of two old families would be assured. So, to Martin's intense surprise, he was called to the telephone one Saturday morning in the trenches and told that he had better hand over his company to the senior subaltern as speedily as might be, since his ten days' leave began on the Monday, such being the amiable device by which commanding officers permit juniors to reach Blighty before an all-too-brief respite from the business of killing Germans begins officially. He met his father at Boulogne, and there learnt that which he had only suspected hitherto: he and Elsie were booked for an immediate honeymoon on a Scottish moor--at Cairn-corrie, to be exact. By chance the two travelers ran into Frank Beckett-Smythe, a gunner lieutenant in London, and he undertook to rush north that night to act as "best man." Father and son caught a train early on Sunday and hired a car at York, Elmsdale having no railway facilities on the day of rest. They arrived in time to attend the evening service at the parish church, to which, _mirabile dictu_, John and Martha Bolland accompanied them. The war has broken down many barriers, but few things have crumbled to ruin more speedily than the walls of prejudice and sectarian futilities which separated the many phases of religious thought in Britain. The church, with its small graveyard, stood in the center of the village, and the Grants had to wring scores of friendly hands before they and the others walked to the vicarage for supper. Martin and Elsie contrived to extricate themselves from the crowd slightly in advance of the older people. They felt absurdly shy. They were wandering in dreamland. Early next morning Martin strolled into the village. He wanted to stir the sluggish current of enlistment, for England was then making a final effort to maintain her army on a voluntary basis. Elmsdale was so unchanged outwardly that he marveled. He hardly realized that it could not well be otherwise. He had seen so many French hamlets torn by war that the snug content of this sheltered nook in rural Yorkshire was almost uncanny by contrast. The very familiarity of the scene formed its strangest element. Its sights, its sounds, its homely voices, were novel to the senses of one whose normal surroundings were the abominations of war. Here were trim houses and well-filled stockyards, smiling orchards and cattle grazing in green pastures. Everywhere was peace. He was the only man in uniform, until Sergeant Benson appeared in the doorway of a cottage and saluted. The village had its own liveries--the corduroys of the carpenter, redolent of oil and turpentine, the tied-up trouser legs of the laborer, the blacksmith's leather apron, ragged and burnt, a true Vulcan's robe, the shoemaker's, shiny with the stropping of knives and seamed with cobbler's wax. The panoply of Mars looked singularly out of place in this Sleepy Hollow. But, by degrees, he began to miss things. There were no young men in the fields. All the horses had gone, save the yearlings and those too old for the hard work of artillery and transport. He questioned Benson and found that little Elmsdale had not escaped the levy laid on the rest of Europe. Jim Bates was in the Yorkshire Regiment. Tommy Beadlam's white head was resting forever in a destroyed trench at Ypres. Tom Chandler had fallen at Gallipoli. Evelyn Atkinson was a nurse, and her two sisters were "in munitions" at Leeds. Yes, there were some shirkers, but not many. For the most part, they were hidden in the moorland farms. "T' captain" would remember Georgie Jackson? Well, he was one of the stand-backs--wouldn't go till he was fetched. The village girls made his life a misery, so he "hired" at the Broad Ings, miles away in the depths of the moor. One night about a month ago one of those "d--d Zeppelines" dropped a bomb on the heather, which caught fire. A second, following a murder trail to Newcastle, saw the resultant blaze and dropped twelve bombs. A third, believing that real damage was being done, flung out its whole cargo of twenty-nine bombs. "So, now, sir," grinned Benson, "there's a fine lot o' pot-holes i' t' moor. Georgie was badly scairt. He saw the three Zepps, an' t' bombs fell all over t' farm. Next mornin' he f'und three sheep banged te bits. An' what d'ye think? He went straight te Whitby an' 'listed. He hez a bunch o' singed wool in his pocket, an' sweers he'll mak' some Jarman eat it." So Martin only recruited a wife that day, and evidently secured a sensible one, for Elsie, taking thought, on hearing certain vivid descriptions of trench life on the Sunday evening, vetoed the wedding trip to Scotland, and persuaded her husband to "go the limit" in London, where plenty of society and a round of theaters acted as a wholesome tonic after the monotony of high-explosive existence in a dugout. * * * * * In February, 1917, Martin was "in billets" at Armentières. He had been promoted to the staff, and had fairly earned this coveted recognition by a series of daring excursions into "No Man's Land" every night for a week, which enabled him to plan an attack on the German lines at Chapelle d'Armentières. Never thinking of any personal gain, he drew up a memorandum, which he submitted to his colonel. The latter sent the document to Divisional Headquarters; the scheme was approved. Fritz was pushed forcibly half a mile nearer Lille, and "Captain Reginald Ingram Grant" was informed, in the dry language of the _Gazette_, that in future he would wear a red band around his field service cap and little red tabs on the shoulders of his tunic. That was a great day for him, but his elation was as nothing compared with the joy of Elmsdale when the _Messenger_ reprinted the announcement. Elsie, of course, imagined that her husband was now comparatively safe for the rest of the war, and he has never undeceived her. As a matter of fact, his first real "job" was to carry out a fresh series of observations at a point south of Armentières along the road to Arras. This might involve another six days of lurking in dugouts at the front and six nights of crawling through and under German barbed wire. His companion was a sapper sergeant named Mason. They suspected that the German position was heavily mined in anticipation of an attack at that very point, and it was part of their business at the outset to ascertain whether or not this was the case. The enemy's lines were about one hundred and fifty yards away, and all observers agree that the chief difficulty experienced in the pitch-black darkness of a cloudy, moonless night is to estimate the distance covered. Crawling over shell-torn ground, slow work at the best, is rendered slower by the frequent waits necessary while rockets flare overhead and Verrey lights describe brilliant parabolas in unexpected directions. Martin, up to every trick and dodge of the "listening post," surveyed the field of operations through a periscope, and noticed that one of the ditches which mark boundaries in northern France ran almost in a straight line from the British trenches to the German, and had at one time been reinforced by posts and rails. The fence was destroyed, but many of the posts remained, some intact, others mere jagged stumps. He estimated that the nineteenth was not more than a couple of yards from the enemy's wire, and knew of old that it was in just such an irregular hollow he might expect to find a weak place in the entanglement. Mason agreed with him. "We can save a lot of time by following that trail, sir," he said. "There's only one drawback----" "That Fritz may have hit on the same scheme," laughed Martin. "Possible; but we must chance it." Mason and he were old associates. They had perfected a code of signals, by touch, that enabled them to work in absolute silence. Thus, a slight hold meant "Halt"; a slight push, "Advance"; a slight pull, "Retire." Each carried a trench knife and a revolver, the latter for use as a last resource only. They were not going out for fighting but for observation. If enemy patrols were encountered, they must be avoided. Germans are not phlegmatic, but, on the contrary, highly nervous. Continuous raids by British bombing parties had put sentries "on the jump," and the least noise which was not explained by a whispered password attracted a heavy spray of machine-gun fire. Especially was this the case during the hour before dawn. By hurrying out immediately after darkness set in, the two counted on nearing the German front-line trench at a time when reliefs were being posted and fatigue parties were plodding to the "dump" for the next day's rations. "What time will you be back?" inquired the subaltern in charge of the platoon holding that part of the British trench. It was his duty to warn sentries to be on the lookout for the return of scouting parties. Martin glanced at the luminous watch on his wrist. It was then seven o'clock, and the night promised to be dark and quiet. The evening "strafe" had just ended, and the German guns would reopen fire on the trenches about five in the morning. During the intervening hours the artillery would indulge in groups of long shots, hoping to catch the commissariat or a regiment marching on the _pavé_ in column of fours. "About twelve," said Martin. "Well, so long, sir! I'll have some coffee ready." "So long!" And Martin led the way up a trench ladder. No man wishes another "Good luck!" in these enterprises. By a curious inversion of meaning, "Good luck!" implies a ninety per cent chance of getting killed! The two advanced rapidly for the first hundred yards. Then they separated, each crawling out into the open for about twenty yards to right and left. Snuggling into a convenient shell hole, they would listen intently, with an ear to the ground, their object being to detect the rhythmic beat of a pick, if a mining party was busy. Each remained exactly ten minutes. Then they met and compared notes, always by signal. If necessary, they would visit a suspected locality together and endeavor to locate the line of the tunnel. It was essential that the British side of "No Man's Land" should not be too quiet. Every few minutes a rocket or a Verrey light would soar over that torn Golgotha. But there was method in the seeming madness. The first and second glare would illuminate an area well removed from Martin's territory. The third might be right over him or Mason, but they were then so well hidden that the sharpest eye could not discern their presence. By nine o'clock they had covered more than a hundred yards of the enemy's front, skirting his trip-wire throughout the whole distance. They had heard no fewer than six mining parties. Each had advanced some thirty yards. In effect, if the German trench was to be taken at all, the attack must be made next day, and the artillery preparation should commence at dawn. Instead of returning to the subaltern's dugout at midnight, Martin wanted to reach the telephone not later than ten, and hurry back to headquarters. The staff would have another sleepless night, but a British battalion would not be blown up while its successive "waves" were crossing "No Man's Land." Mason and he crept like lizards to the sunk fence. All they needed now was a close scrutiny of the German parapet in that section. It was a likely site for a machine-gun emplacement and, in that case, would receive special attention from a battery of 4.7's. They reached the ditch shortly before a rocket was due overhead. Making assurance doubly sure, they flattened against the outer slope of a shell hole, took off their caps, and each sought a tuft of grass through which to peer. Simultaneously, by two short taps, both conveyed a warning. They had heard a slight rustling directly in front. A Verrey light, and not a rocket, flamed through the darkness. Its brilliancy was intense. But the Verrey light has a peculiar property: far more effective than the rocket when it reveals troops in motion, it is rendered practically useless if men remain still. Working parties and scouts counteract its vivid beams by absolute rigidity. The uplifted pick or hammer, the advanced foot, the raised arm, must be kept in statuesque repose, and the reward is complete safety. A rocket, on the other hand, though not half so deadly in exposing an attack, demands that every man within its periphery shall endeavor forthwith to blend with the earth, or he will surely be seen and shot at. The two Britons, looking through stalks of withered herbage, found themselves gazing into the eyes of a couple of Germans crouching on the level barely six feet away. It seemed literally impossible that the enemy observers should not see them. But strange things happen in war. The Germans were scanning all the visible ground; the Englishmen happened to be on the alert for a recognized danger in that identical spot. So the one party, watching space, saw nothing; the other, prepared for a specific discovery, made it. What was more, when the light failed, the Germans were assured of comparative safety, while their opponents had measured the extent of an instant peril and got ready to face it. They knew, too, that the Germans must be killed or captured. One was a major, the other a noncommissioned officer, and men of such rank were seldom deputed by the enemy to roam at large through the strip of debated land which British endeavor, drawn by its sporting uncertainties, had rendered most unhealthy for human "game" of the Hun species. A dark night in that part of French Flanders becomes palpably black during a few seconds after a flare. The Englishmen squatted back on their heels. Neither drew his revolver, but each right hand clutched a trench knife, a peculiarly murderous-looking implement with an oval handle, and shaped like a corkscrew, except that the screw is replaced by a short, flat, dagger-pointed blade. No signal was needed. Each knew exactly what to do. The accident of position allotted the major to Martin. The Germans came on stealthily. They had noted the shell-hole, and sat on its crumbling edge, meaning to slide down and creep out on the other side. Martin's left hand gripped a stout boot by the ankle. In the fifth of a second he had a heavy body twisted violently and flung face down in the loose earth at the bottom of the hole. A knee was planted in the small of the prisoner's back, the point of the knife was under his right ear, and Martin was saying, in quite understandable German: "If you move or speak, I'll cut your throat!" The words have a brutal sound, but it does not pay to be squeamish on such occasions, and the German language adapts itself naturally to phrases of the kind. Sergeant Mason had to solve his own problem by a different method. The quarry chanced to be leaning forward at the moment a vicious tug accelerated his progress. As a result, he fell on top of the hunter, and there was nothing for it but the knife. A ghastly squeal was barely stifled by the Englishman's hand over the victim's mouth. At thirty yards, or thereabouts, and coming from a deep hole, the noise might have been a grunt. Nevertheless, it reached the German trench. "Wer da?" hissed a voice, and Martin heard the click of a machine-gun as it swung on its tripod. He did not fear the gun, which only meant a period of waiting while its bullets cracked overhead. What he did dread was a search party, as German majors are valuable birds, and must be safeguarded. The situation called for the desperate measure he took. The point of the knife entered his captive's neck, and he whispered: "Tell your men they must keep quiet, or you die now!" He allowed the almost choking man to raise his head. The German knew that his life was forfeit if he did not obey the order. A certain gurgling, ever growing weaker, showed that his companion would soon be a corpse. "Shut up, sheep's head!" he growled. It sufficed. That is the way German majors talk to their inferiors. The engineer sergeant wriggled nearer. "Couldn't help it, sir," he breathed. "I had to give him one!" "Go through him for papers and bring me his belt." Within a minute the officer's hands were fastened behind his back. Then he was permitted to rise and, after being duly warned, told to accompany Mason. Martin followed, and the three began the return journey. A German rocket bothered them once, but the German was quick as they to fall flat. Evidently he was not minded to offer a target for marksmen on either side. Soon Mason was sent forward to warn the sentries. Quarter of an hour after the episode in the shell hole Martin, having come from the telephone, was examining his prisoner by the light of an electric torch in a dugout. "What is your name?" he inquired. "Freiherr Georg von Struben, major of artillery," was the somewhat grandiloquent answer. "Do you speak English?" "Nod mooch." Some long dormant chord of memory vibrated in Martin's brain. He held the torch closer. Von Struben was a tall, well-built Prussian. He smiled, meaning probably to make the best of a bad business. His face was soiled with clay and perspiration. A streak of blood had run from a slight cut over an eyebrow. But the white scar of an old saber wound, the outcome of a duelling bout in some university _burschenschaft_, creased down its center when he smiled. Then Martin knew. "Fritz Bauer!" he cried. The German started, though he recovered his self-control promptly. "You haf nod unterstant," he said. "I dell you my nem----" "That's all right, Fritz," laughed Martin. "You spoke good English when you were in Elmsdale. You could fool me then into giving you valuable information for your precious scheme of invading England. Now it's my turn! Have you forgotten Martin Bolland?" Blank incredulity yielded to evident fear in the other man's eyes. With obvious effort, he stiffened. "I was acting under orders, Captain Bolland," he said. "Not Bolland, but Grant," laughed Martin. "I, too, have changed my name, but for a more honorable reason." The words seemed to irritate von Struben. "I did noding dishonorable," he protested. "I was dere by command. If it wasn't for your d--d fleet, I would have lodged once more in de Elms eighdeen monds ago." "I know," said Martin. "We found your map, the map which Angèle stole because you wouldn't take her in the car the day we went on the moor." In all likelihood the prisoner's nerves were on edge. He had gone through a good deal since being hauled into the shell hole, and was by no means prepared for this display of intimate knowledge of his past career by the youthful looking Briton who had manhandled him so effectually. Be that as it may, he was so disconcerted by the mere allusion to Angèle that a fantastic notion gripped Martin. He pursued it at once. "We English are not quite such idiots as you like to imagine us, major," he went on, and so ready was his speech that the pause was hardly perceptible. "Mrs. Saumarez--or, describing her by her other name, the Baroness von Edelstein--was a far more dangerous person than you. It took time to run her to earth--you know what that means? when a fox is chased to a burrow by hounds--but our Intelligence Department sized her up correctly at last." Now this was nothing more than the wildest guessing, a product of many a long talk with Elsie, the vicar, and General Grant during the early days of the war. But von Struben was manifestly so ill at ease that he had to cover his discomfiture under a frown. "I have not seen de lady for ten years," he said. This disclaimer was needless. He had been wiser to have cursed Angèle for purloining his map. "Perhaps not. She avoided Berlin. But you have heard of her." Again was the former spy guilty of stupidity. He set his lips like a steel trap. Doubtful what to say, he said nothing. Martin nodded to Sergeant Mason. "Just go through the major's pockets," he said. "You know what we want." Mason's knowledge was precise. He left the prisoner his money, watch, pipe, and handkerchief. The remainder of his belongings were made up into a bundle. Highly valuable treasure-trove was contained therein, the major having in his possession a detailed list of all arms in the Fifty-seventh Brandenburg Division and a sketch of the trench system which it occupied. A glance showed Martin that the Fifty-seventh Division lay directly in front. He turned to the subaltern whose dugout he was using and who had witnessed the foregoing scene in silence. "Can you send a corporal's guard to D.H.Q. in charge of the prisoner?" he asked. "Certainly," said the other. "By the way, come outside and have a cigarette." Cigarettes are not lighted in front-line communication trenches after nightfall--not by officers, at any rate--nor do second lieutenants address staff captains so flippantly. Martin read something more into the invitation than appeared on the surface. He was right. "About this Mrs. Saumarez you spoke of just now," said the subaltern when they were beyond the closed door of the dugout. "Is she the widow of one of our fellows, a Hussar colonel?" "Yes." "Do you know she is living in Paris?" "Well, I heard some few years since that she was residing there." "She's there now. She runs a sort of hostel for youngsters on short leave. She's supposed to charge a small fee, but doesn't. And there's drinks galore for all comers. She's extraordinarily popular, of course, but I--er--well, one hates saying it. Still, you made me sit up and take notice when you mentioned the Intelligence Department. Mrs. Saumarez has a wonderful acquaintance with the British front. She tells you things--don't you know--and one is led on to talk--sort of reciprocity, eh?" Martin drew a deep breath. He almost dreaded putting the inevitable question. "Is her daughter with her--a girl of twenty-one, named Angèle?" "No. Never heard Mrs. Saumarez so much as mention her." "Thanks. We've done a good night's work, I fancy. And--this for yourself only--there may be a scrap to-morrow afternoon." "Fine! I want to stretch my legs. Been in this bally hole nine days. Well, here's your corporal. Good-night, sir." "Good-night!" And Martin trudged through the mud with Sergeant Mason behind von Struben and the escort. CHAPTER XXI NEARING THE END Sixty hours elapsed before Martin was able to unwrap the puttees from off his stiff legs and cut the laces of boots so caked with mud that he was too weary to untie them. In that time, as the official report put it, "enemy trenches extending from Rue du Bois to Houplines, over a front of nearly three miles, were occupied to an average depth of one thousand yards, and our troops are now consolidating the new territory." A bald announcement, indeed! Martin was one of the few who knew what it really meant. He had helped to organize the victory; he could sum up its costs. But this record is not a history of the war, nor even of one young soldier's share in it. Martin himself has developed a literary style noteworthy for its simple directness. Some day, if he survives, he may tell his own story. When the last of twelve hundred prisoners had been mustered in the Grande Place of Armentières, when the attacking battalions had been relieved and the reserve artillery was shelling Fritz's hastily formed gun positions, when the last ambulance wagon of the "special" division had sped over the _pavé_ to the base hospital at Bailleul, Martin thought he was free to go to bed. As a matter of fact, he was not. Utterly spent, he had thrown himself on a cot and had slept the sleep of complete exhaustion for half an hour, when a brigade major discovered that "Captain Grant" was at liberty, and detailed him for an immediate inquiry. The facts were set forth on Army Form 122: "On the night of the 10th inst. a barrel of rum, delivered at Brigade Dump No. 35, was stolen or mislaid. It was last seen in trench 77. For investigation and report to D.A.Q.M.G. 50th Div." That barrel of rum will never be seen again, though it was destined to roll through reams of variously numbered army forms during many a week. But it did not disturb Martin's slumbers. A brigadier general happened to hear his name given to an orderly. "Who's that?" he inquired sharply. "Grant, did you say?" "Yes, sir," answered the brigade major. "Don't be such a Heaven-condemned idiot!" said the general, or, rather, he used words to that effect. "Grant was all through that push. Find some other fellow." Brigade majors are necessarily inhuman. It is nothing to them what a man may have done--they think only of the next job. They are steeled alike to pity and reproach. This one was no exception among the tribe. He merely thumbed a list and said to the orderly: "Give that chit to Mr. Fortescue." So a subaltern began the chase. He smelt the rum through a whole company of Gordons, but the barrel lies hid a fathom deep in the mud of Flanders. That same afternoon Martin woke up, refreshed in mind and body. He secured a hot bath, "dolled up" in clean clothes, and strolled out to buy some socks from "Madame," the famous Frenchwoman who has kept her shop open in Armentières throughout three years of shell fire. A Yorkshire battalion was "standing at ease" in the street while their officers and color sergeants engaged in a wrangle about billets. The regiment had taken part in the "push" and bore the outward and visible signs of that inward grace which had carried them beyond the third line German trench. A lance corporal was playing "Tipperary" on a mouth-organ. Someone shouted: "Give us 'Home Fires,' Jim"--and "Jim" ran a preliminary flourish before Martin recognized the musician. "Why, if it isn't Jim Bates!" he cried, advancing with outstretched hand. The lance corporal drew himself up and saluted. His brown skin reddened as he shook hands, for it is not every day that a staff captain greets one of the rank and file in such democratic fashion. "I'm main glad te see you, sir," he said. "I read of your promotion in t' _Messenger_, an' we boys of t' owd spot were real pleased. We were, an' all." "You're keeping fit, I see," and Martin's eye fell to a _pickelhaube_ tied to the sling of Bates's rifle. "Pretty well, sir," grinned Bates. "I nearly had a relapse yesterday when that mine went up. Did ye hear of it?" "If you mean the one they touched off at L'Epinette Farm, I saw it," said Martin. "I was at the crossroads at the moment." "Well, fancy that, sir! I couldn't ha' bin twenty yards from you." "Queer things happen in war. Do you remember Mrs. Saumarez's German chauffeur, a man named Fritz Bauer?" "Quite well, sir." "We caught him in 'No Man's Land' three nights ago. He is a major now." Jim was so astonished that his mouth opened, just as it would have done ten years earlier. "By gum!" he cried. "That takes it! An' it's hardly a month since I saw Miss Angèle in Amiens." Martin's pulse quickened. The mouth-organ in Bates's hand brought him back at a bound to the night when he had forbidden Jim to play for Angèle's dancing. And with that memory came another thought. Mrs. Saumarez in Paris--her daughter in Amiens--why this devotion to such nerve centers of the war? "Are you sure?" he said. "You would hardly recognize her. She is ten years older--a woman, not a child." Bates laughed. He dropped his voice. "She was always a bit owd-fashioned, sir. I'm not mistakken. It kem about this way. It was her, right enough. Our colonel's shover fell sick, so I took on the car for a week. One day I was waitin' outside the Hotel dew Nord at Amiens when a French Red Cross auto drove up, an' out stepped Miss Angèle. I twigged her at once. I'd know them eyes of hers anywheres. She hopped into the hotel, walkin' like a ballet-dancer. Hooiver, I goes up to her shover an' sez: 'Pardonnay moy, but ain't that Mees Angèle Saumarez?' He talked a lot--these Frenchies always do--but I med out he didn't understand. So I parlay-vooed some more, and soon I got the hang of things. She's married now, an' I have her new name an' address in my kit-bag. But I remember 'em, all right. I can't pronounce 'em, but I can spell 'em." And Lance Corporal Bates spelled: "La Comtesse Barthélemi de Saint-Ivoy, 2 bis, Impasse Fautet, Rue Blanche, Paris." "It looks funny," went on Jim anxiously, "but it's just as her shover wrote it." Martin affected to treat this information lightly. "I'm exceedingly glad I came across you," he said. "How would you like to be a sergeant, Jim?" Bates grinned widely. "It's a lot more work, but it does mean better grub, sir," he confided. "Very well. Don't mention it to anyone, and I'll see what can be done. It shouldn't be difficult, since you've earned the first stripe already." Martin found his brigadier at the mess. A few minutes' conversation with the great man led him to a greater in the person of the divisional general. Yet a few more minutes of earnest talk, and he was in a car, bound for General Grant's headquarters, which he reached late that night. It was long after midnight when the two retired, and the son's face was almost as worn and care-lined as the father's ere the discussion ended. Few problems have been so baffling and none more dangerous to the Allied armies in France than the German spy system. It was so perfect before the war, every possible combination of circumstances had been foreseen and provided against so fully, that the most thorough hunting out and ruthless punishment of enemy agents has failed to crush the organization. The snake has been scotched, but not killed. Its venom is still potent. Every officer on the staff and many senior regimental officers have been astounded time and again by the completeness and up-to-date nature of the information possessed by the Germans. Surprise attacks planned with the utmost secrecy have found enemy trenches held by packed reserves and swarming with additional machine-guns. Newly established ammunition dépôts, carefully screened, have been bombed next day by aeroplanes and subjected to high-angle fire. Troop movements by rail over long distances have become known, and their effect discounted. Flanders, in particular, is a plague-spot of espionage which has cost Britain an untold sacrifice of life and an almost immeasurable waste of effort. Small wonder, then, that Martin's forehead should be seamed with foreboding. If his suspicions, which his father shared, were justified, the French Intelligence Department would quickly determine the truth, and no power on earth could save Angèle and her mother from a firing party. France knows her peril and stamps it out unflinchingly. Of late, too, the British authorities adopt the same rigorous measures. The spy, man or woman, is shown no mercy. And now the whirligig of events had placed in Martin's hands the question of life or death for Mrs. Saumarez and Angèle. It was a loathsome burden. He rebelled against it. During the long run to Paris his very soul writhed at the thought that fate was making him their executioner. He tried to steel his resolution by dwelling on the mischief they might have caused by thinking rather of the gallant comrades laid forever in the soil of France because of their murderous duplicity than of the woman who was once his friend, of the girl whose kisses had once thrilled him to the core. Worst of all, both General Grant and he himself felt some measure of responsibility for their failure to institute a searching inquiry as to Mrs. Saumarez's whereabouts when war broke out. But he was distraught and miserable. He had a notion--a well-founded one, as it transpired--that an approving general had recommended him for the Military Cross; but from all appearance he might have expected a letter from the War Office announcing his dismissal from the service. At last, after a struggle which left him so broken that at a cordon near Paris he was detained several minutes while a _sous-officier_ who did not like his looks communicated with a superior potentate, he made up his mind. Whate'er befell, he would give Angèle and her mother one chance. If they decided to take it, well and good. If not, they must face the cold-eyed inquisition of the Quai d'Orsay. Luckily, as matters turned out, he elected to call on Mrs. Saumarez first. For one thing, her house in the Rue Henri was not far from a hotel on the Champs Elysées where he was known to the management; for another, he wished to run no risk of being outwitted by Angèle. If she and her mother were guilty of the ineffable infamy of betraying both the country of their nationality and that which sheltered them they must be trapped so effectually as to leave no room for doubt. He was also fortunate in the fact that his soldier chauffeur, when given the choice, decided to wait and drive him to the Rue Henri. The man was candid as to his own plans for the evening. "When I put the car up I'll have a hot bath and go to bed, sir," he said. "I've not had five hours' sleep straight on end during the past three weeks, an' I know wot'll happen if I start hittin' it up around these bullyvards. Me for the feathers at nine o'clock! So, if you don't mind, sir----" Martin knew what the man meant. He wanted to be kept busy. One hour of enforced liberty implied the risk of meeting some hilarious comrades. Even in Paris, strict as the police regulations may be, Britons from the front are able to sit up late, and the parties are seldom "dry." So officer and man removed some of the marks of a long journey, ate a good meal, and about eight o'clock arrived at Mrs. Saumarez's house. Life might be convivial enough inside, but the place looked deserted, almost forbidding, externally. Indeed, Martin hesitated before pressing an electric bell and consulted a notebook to verify the street and number given him by the subaltern on the night von Struben was captured. But he had not erred. His memory never failed. There could be no doubt but that his special gift in this direction had been responsible for a rapid promotion, since military training, on the mental side, depends largely on a letter-perfect accuracy of recollection. When he rang, however, the door opened at once. A bareheaded man in civilian attire, but looking most unlike a domestic, held aside a pair of heavy curtains which shut out the least ray of light from the hall. "_Entrez, monsieur_," he said in reply to Martin, after a sharp glance at the car and its driver. Martin heard a latch click behind him. He passed on, to find himself before a sergeant of police seated at a table. Three policemen stood near. "Your name and rank, monsieur?" said this official. Martin, though surprised, almost startled, by these preliminaries, answered promptly. The sergeant nodded to one of his aides. "Take this gentleman upstairs," he said. "Is there any mistake?" inquired Martin. "I have come here to visit Mrs. Saumarez." "No mistake," said the sergeant. "Follow that man, monsieur." Assured now that some dramatic and wholly unexpected development had taken place, Martin tried to gather his wits as he mounted to the first floor. There, in a shuttered drawing-room, he confronted a shrewd-looking man in mufti, to whom his guide handed a written slip sent by the sergeant. Evidently, this was an official of some importance. "Shall I speak English, Captain Grant?" he said, thrusting aside a pile of documents and clearing a space on the table at which he was busy. "Well," said Martin, smiling, "I imagine that your English is better than my French." He sat on a chair indicated by the Frenchman. He put no questions. He guessed he was in the presence of a tragedy. "Is Mrs. Saumarez a friend of yours?" began the stranger. "Yes, in a sense." "Have you seen her recently?" "Not for ten years." Obviously, this answer was disconcerting. It was evident, too, that Martin's name was not on a typed list which the other man had scanned with a quick eye. Martin determined to clear up an involved situation. "I take it that you are connected with the police department?" he said. "Well, I have come from the British front at Armentières to inquire into the uses to which this house has been put. A number of British officers have been entertained here. Our people want to know why." He left it at that for the time being, but the Frenchman's manner became perceptibly more friendly. "May I examine your papers?" he said. Martin handed over the bundle of "permis de voyage," which everyone without exception must possess in order to move about the roads of western France in wartime. "Ah!" said the official, his air changing now to one of marked relief, "this helps matters greatly. My name is Duchesne, Captain Grant--Gustave Duchesne. I belong to the Bureau de l'Intérieur. So you people also have had your suspicions? There can be no doubt about it--the Baroness von Edelstein was a spy of the worst kind. The mischief that woman did was incalculable. Of course, it was hopeless to look for any real preventive work in England before the war; but we were caught napping here. You see, the widow of a British officer, a lady who had the best of credentials, and whose means were ample, hardly came under review. She kept open house, and had lived in Paris so long that her German origin was completely forgotten. In fact, the merest accident brought about her downfall." One of the policemen came in with a written memorandum, which M. Duchesne read. "Your chauffeur does not give information willingly," smiled the latter. "The sergeant had to threaten him with arrest before he would describe your journey to-day." It was clear that the authorities were taking nothing for granted where Mrs. Saumarez and her visitors were concerned. Martin felt that he had stumbled to the lip of an abyss. At any rate, events were out of his hands now, and for that dispensation he was profoundly thankful. "I think I ought to tell you what I know of Mrs. Saumarez," he said. "I don't wish to do the unfortunate woman an injustice, and my facts are so nebulous----" "One moment, Captain Grant," interposed the Frenchman. "You may feel less constraint if you hear that the Baroness died this morning." "Good Heavens!" was Martin's involuntary cry. "Was she executed?" "No," said the other. "She forestalled justice by a couple of hours. The cause of death was heart failure. She was--intemperate. Her daughter was with her at the end." "Madame Barthélemi de Saint-Ivoy!" "You know her, then?" "I met her in a Yorkshire village at the same time as her mother. The other day, by chance, I ascertained her name and address from one of our village lads who recognized her in Amiens about a month ago." "Well, you were about to say----" Martin had to put forth a physical effort to regain self-control. He plunged at once into the story of those early years. There was little to tell with regard to Mrs. Saumarez and Angèle. "Fritz Bauer" was the chief personage, and he was now well on his way to a prison camp in England. Monsieur Duchesne was amused by the map episode in its latest phase. "And you were so blind that you took no action?" he commented dryly. "No. We saw, but were invincibly confident. My father sent the map to the Intelligence Department, with which he was connected until 1912, when he was given a command in the North. He and I believe now that someone in Whitehall overlooked the connection between Mrs. Saumarez and an admitted spy. She had left England, and there was so much to do when war broke out." "Ah! If only those people in London had written us!" "Is the affair really so bad?" "Bad! This wretched creature showed an ingenuity that was devilish. She deceived her own daughter. That is perfectly clear. The girl married a French officer after the Battle of the Marne, and, as we have every reason to believe, thought she had persuaded her mother to break off relations with her German friends. We know now that the baroness, left to her own devices, adopted a method of conveying information to the Boches which almost defied detection. Owing to her knowledge of the British army she was able to chat with your men on a plane of intimacy which no ordinary woman could command. She found out where certain brigades were stationed and what regiments composed them. She heard to what extent battalions were decimated. She knew what types of guns were in use and what improvements were coming along in caliber and range. She was told when men were suddenly recalled from leave, and where they were going. Need I say what deductions the German Staff could make from such facts?" "But how on earth could she convey the information in time to be of value?" "Quite easily. There is one weak spot on our frontier--south of the German line. She wrote to an agent in Pontarlier, and this man transmitted her notes across the Swiss frontier. The rest was simple. She was caught by fate, not by us. Years ago she employed a woman from Tinchebrai as a nurse----" "Françoise!" broke in Martin. "Exactly--Françoise Dupont. Well, Madame Dupont died in 1913. But she had spoken of her former mistress to a nephew, and this man, a cripple, is now a Paris postman. He is a sharp-witted peasant, and, as he grew in experience, was promoted gradually to more important districts. Just a week ago he took on this very street, and when he saw the name recalled her aunt's statements about Mrs. Saumarez. He informed the Sûreté at once. Even then she gave us some trouble. Her letters were printed, not written, and she could post them in out-of-the-way places. However, we trapped her within forty-eight hours. Have you a battery of four 9.2's hidden in a wood three hundred meters north-west of Pont Ballot?" Martin was so flabbergasted that he stammered. "That--is the sort of thing--we don't discuss--anywhere," he said. "Naturally. It happens to be also the sort of thing which Mrs. Saumarez drew out of some too-talkative lieutenant of artillery. Luckily, the fact has not crossed the border. We have the lady's notepaper and her secret signs, so are taking the liberty to supply the Boches with intelligence more useful to us." "Then you haven't grabbed the Pontarlier man?" "Not yet. We give him ten days. He has six left. When his time is up, the Germans will have discovered that the wire has been tapped." Martin forced the next question. "What of Madame de Saint-Ivoy?" "Her case is under consideration. She is working for the Croix Rouge. That is why she was in Amiens. Her husband has been recalled from Verdun. He, by the way, is devoted to her, and she professes to hate all Germans. Thus far her record is clean." Martin was glad to get out into the night air, though he had a strange notion that the quietude of the darkened Paris streets was unreal--that the only reality lay yonder where the shells crashed and men burrowed like moles in the earth. His chauffeur saluted. "Glad to see you, sir," said the man. "Those blighters wanted to run me in." "No. It's all right. The police are doing good work. Take me to the hotel. I'll follow your example and go to bed." Martin's voice was weary. He was grateful to Providence that he had been spared the ordeal which faced him when he entered the city. But the strain was heavier than he counted on, and he craved rest, even from tumultuous memories. Before retiring, however, he wrote to Elsie--guardedly, of course--but in sufficient detail that she should understand. Next morning, making an early start, he guided the car up the Rue Blanche, as the north road could be reached by a slight detour. He saw the Impasse Fautet, and glanced at the drawn blinds of Numéro 2 bis. In one of those rooms, he supposed, Angèle was lying. He had resolved not to seek her out. When the war was over, and he and his wife visited Paris, they could inquire for her. Was she wholly innocent? He hoped so. Somehow, he could not picture her as a spy. She was a disturbing influence, but her nature was not mean. At any rate, her mother's death would scare her effectually. It was a fine morning, clear, and not too cold. His spirits rose as the car sped along a good road, after the suburban traffic was left behind. The day's news was cheering. Verdun was safe, the Armentières "push" was an admitted gain, and the United States had reached the breaking point with Germany. Thank God, all would yet be well, and humanity would arise, blood-stained but triumphant, from the rack of torment on which it had been stretched by Teuton oppression! "Hit her up!" he said when the car had passed through Crueil, and the next cordon was twenty miles ahead. The chauffeur stepped on the gas, and the pleasant panorama of France flew by like a land glimpsed in dreams. * * * * * Every day in far-off Elmsdale Elsie would walk to the White House, or John and Martha would visit the vicarage. If there was no letter, some crumb of comfort could be drawn from its absence. Each morning, in both households, the first haunted glance was at the casualty lists in the newspapers. But none ever spoke of that, and Elsie knew what she never told the old couple--that the thing really to be dreaded was a long white envelope from the War Office, with "O.H.M.S." stamped across it, for the relatives of fallen officers are warned before the last sad item is printed. Elsie lived at the vicarage. The Elms was too roomy for herself and her baby boy, another Martin Bolland--such were the names given him at the christening font. So it came to pass that she and the vicar, accompanied by a nurse wheeling a perambulator, came to the White House with Martin's letter. And, heinous as were Mrs. Saumarez's faults, unforgivable though her crime, they grieved for her, since her memory in the village had been, for the most part, one of a gracious and dignified woman. Martha wiped her spectacles after reading the letter. The word "hotel" had a comforting sound. "It must ha' bin nice for t' lad te find hisself in a decent bed for a night," she said. Then Elsie's eyes filled with tears. "I only wish I had known he was there," she murmured. "Why, honey?" "Because, God help me, on one night, at least, I could have fallen asleep with the consciousness that he was safe!" She averted her face, and her slight, graceful body shook with an uncontrollable emotion. The vicar was so taken aback by this unlooked-for distress on Elsie's part that his lips quivered and he dared not speak. But John Bolland's huge hand rested lightly on the young wife's shoulder. "Dinnat fret, lass," he said. "I feel it i' me bones that Martin will come back te us. England needs such men, the whole wulld needs 'em, an' the Lord, in His goodness, will see to it that they're spared. Sometimes, when things are blackest, I liken mesen unto Job; for Job was a farmer an' bred stock, an' he was afflicted more than most. An' then I remember that the Lord blessed the latter end of Job, who died old and full of days; yet I shall die a broken man if Martin is taken. O Lord, my God, in Thee do I put my trust!" THE END TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent. 
53819	----	Web Archive (University of Alberta) Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source the Web Archive: https://archive.org/details/cihm_75374 (University of Alberta) THE COIL OF CARNE BY JOHN OXENHAM AUTHOR OF "THE LONG ROAD" TORONTO THE COPP, CLARK CO. LIMITED 1911 TO RODERIC DUNKERLEY, B.A., B.D. "_And what are you eager for, Mr. Eager?_" "_Men, women, and children--bodies and souls_." _Intra, page_ 53. "_By God's help we will make men of them, the rest we must trust to Providence_." _Intra, page_ 66. "_Catch them young!_" _Intra, page_ 67. "_No man is past mending till he's dead, perhaps not then_." _Intra, page_ 82. CONTENTS BOOK I CHAP. I. THE HOUSE OF CARNE II. THE STAR IN THE DUST III. THE FIRST OF THE COIL IV. THE COIL COMPLETE V. IN THE COIL BOOK II VI. FREEMEN OF THE FLATS VII. EAGER HEART VIII. SIR DENZIL'S VIEWS IX. MORE OF SIR DENZIL'S VIEWS X. GROWING FREEMEN XI. THE LITTLE LADY XII. MANY MEANS XIII. MOUNTING XIV. WIDENING WAYS XV. DIVERGING LINES XVI. A CUT AT THE COIL XVII. ALMOST SOLVED XVIII. ALMOST SOLVED AGAIN XIX. WHERE'S JIM? XX. A NARROW SQUEAK XXI. A WARM WELCOME XXII. WHERE'S JACK? BOOK III XXIII. BREAKING IN XXIV. AN UNEXPECTED GUEST XXV. REVELATION AND SPECULATION XXVI. JIM'S TIGHT PLACE XXVII. TWO TO ONE XXVIII. THE LINE OF CLEAVAGE XXIX. GRACIE'S DILEMMA XXX. NEVER THE SAME AGAIN XXXI. DESERET XXXII. THE LADY WITH THE FAN XXXIII. A STIRRING OF MUD XXXIV. THE BOYS IN THE MUD XXXV. EXPLANATIONS XXXVI. JIM'S WAY XXXVII. A HOPELESS QUEST XXXVIII. LORD DESERET HELPS XXXIX. OLD SETH GOES HOME XL. OUT OF THE NIGHT XLI. HORSE AND FOOT XLII. DUE EAST XLIII. JIM TO THE FORE XLIV. JIM'S LUCK XLV. MORE REVELATIONS XLVI. THE BLACK LANDING XLVII. ALMA XLVIII. JIM'S RIDE XLIX. AMONG THE BULL-PUPS L. RED-TAPE LI. THE VALLEY OF DEATH LII. PATCHING UP LIII. THE FIGHT IN THE FOG LIV. AN ALLY OF PROVIDENCE LV. RETRIBUTION LVI. DULL DAYS LVII. HOT OVENS LVIII. CHILL NEWS LIX. TOUCH AND GO FOR THE COIL LX. INSIDE THE FIERY RING LXI. WEARY WAITING LXII. FROM ONE TO MANY LXIII. EAGER ON THE SCENT LXIV. THE LONG SLOW SIEGE LXV. THE CUTTING OF THE COIL LXVI. PURGATORY LXVII. THE BEGINNING OF THE END LXVIII. HOME AGAIN LXIX. "THE RIGHT ONE" LXX. ALL'S WELL THE COIL OF CARNE BOOK I CHAPTER I THE HOUSE OF CARNE If by any chance you should ever sail on a low ebb-tide along a certain western coast, you will, if you are of a receptive humour and new to the district, receive a somewhat startling impression of the dignity of the absolutely flat. Your ideas of militant and resistant grandeur may have been associated hitherto with the iron frontlets and crashing thunders of Finisterre or Sark, of Cornwall or the Western Isle. Here you are faced with a repressive curbing of the waters, equal in every respect to theirs, but so quietly displayed as to be somewhat awesome, as mighty power in restraint must always be. As far as eye can reach--sand, nothing but sand, overpowering by reason of its immensity, a very Sahara of the coast. Mighty levels stretching landward and seaward--for you are only threading a capricious channel among the banks which the equinoctials will twist at their pleasure, and away to the west the great grim sea lies growling in his sandy chains until his time comes. Then, indeed, he will swell and boil and seethe in his channels till he is full ready, and come creeping silently over his barriers, and then--up and away over the flats with the speed of a racehorse, and death to the unwary. You may see the humping back of him among the outer banks if you climb a few feet up your mast. Then, if you turn towards the land, you will see, far away across the brown ribbed flats, a long rim of yellow sand backed by bewildering ranges of low white hummocks, and farther away still a filmy blue line of distant hills. Here and there a fisherman's cottage accentuates the loneliness of it all. At one point, as the sun dips in the west, a blaze of light flashes out as though a hidden battery had suddenly unmasked itself; and if you ask your skipper what it is, he will tell you that is Carne. Then, if he is a wise man, he will upsail and away, to make Wytham or Wynsloe before it is dark, for the shifting banks off Carne are as hungry as Death, and as tricky as the devil. For over three hundred years the grim gray house of Carne has stood there and watched the surface of all things round about it change with the seasons and the years and yet remain in all essential things the same. When the wild equinoctials swept the flats till they hummed like a harp, the sand-hills stirred and changed their aspects as though the sleeping giants below turned uneasily in their beds. For, under the whip of the wind, grain by grain the sand-hills creep hither and thither and accommodate themselves to circumstances in strange and ghostly fashions. So that, after the fury of the night, the peace of the morning looked in vain for the landmarks of the previous day. And the cold seabanks out beyond were twisted and tortured this way and that by the winds and waves, and within them lay many an honest seaman, and some maybe who might have found it difficult to prove their right to so honourable a title. But the banks were always there, silent and deadly even when they shimmered in the sunshine. And generations of Carrons had held Carne, and had even occupied it at times, and had passed away and given place to others. But Carne was always there, grim and gray, and mostly silent. The outward aspects of things might change, indeed, but at bottom they remained very much the same, and human nature changed as little as the rest, though its outward aspects varied with the times. What strange twist of brain or heart set its owner to the building of Carne has puzzled many a wayfarer coming upon it in its wide sandy solitudes for the first time. And the answer to that question answers several others, and accounts for much. It was Denzil Carron who built the house in the year Queen Mary died. He was of the old faith, a Romanist of the Romanists, narrow in his creed, fanatical in his exercise of it, at once hot- and cold-blooded in pursuit of his aims. When Elizabeth came to the throne he looked to be done by as he had done, and had very reasonable doubts as to the quality of the mercy which might be strained towards him. So he quietly withdrew from London, sold his houses and lands in other counties, and sought out the remotest and quietest spot he could find in the most Romanist county in England. And there he built the great house of Carne, as a quiet harbourage for himself and such victims of the coming persecutions as might need his assistance. But no retributive hand was stretched after him. He was Englishman first and Romanist afterwards. Calais, and the other national crumblings and disasters of Mary's short reign, had been bitter pills to him, and he hated a Spaniard like the devil. He saw a brighter outlook for his country, though possibly a darker one for his Church, in Elizabeth's firm grip than any her opponents could offer. So he shut his face stonily against the intriguers, who came from time to time and endeavoured to wile him into schemes for the subversion of the Crown and the advancement of the true Church, and would have none of them. And so he was left in peace and quietness by the powers that were, and found himself free to indulge to the full in those religious exercises on the strict observance of which his future state depended. His wife died before the migration, leaving him one son, Denzil, to bring up according to his own ideas. And a dismal time the lad had of it. Surrounded by black jowls and gloomy-faced priests, tied hand and foot by ordinances which his growing spirit loathed, all the brightness and joy of life crushed out by the weight of a religion which had neither time nor place for such things, he lived a narrow monastic life till his father died. Then, being of age, and able at last to speak for himself, he quietly informed his quondam governors that he had had enough of religion to satisfy all reasonable requirements of this life and the next, and that now he intended to enjoy himself. Carne he would maintain as his father had maintained it, for the benefit of those whom his father had loved, or at all events had materially cared for. And so, good-bye, Black-Jowls! and Ho for Life and the joy of it! He went up to London, bought an estate in Kent, ruffled it with the best of them, married and had sons and daughters, kept his head out of all political nooses, fought the Spaniards under Admiral John Hawkins and Francis Drake, and died wholesomely in his bed in his house in Kent, a very different man from what Carne would have made him. And that is how the grim gray house of Carne came to be planted in the wilderness. Now and again, in the years that followed, the Carron of the day, if he fell on dolorous times through extravagance of living--as happened--or suffered sudden access of religious fervour--as also happened, though less frequently--would take himself to Carne and there mortify flesh and spirit till things, financial and spiritual, came round again, either for himself or the next on the rota. And so some kind of connection was always maintained between Carne and its owners, though years might pass without their coming face to face. The Master of Carne in the year 1833 was that Denzil Carron who came to notoriety in more ways than one during the Regency. His father had been of the quieter strain, with a miserly twist in him which commended the wide, sweet solitude and simple, inexpensive life of Carne as exactly suited to his close humour. He could feel rich there on very little; and after the death of his wife, who brought him a very ample fortune, he devoted himself to the education of his boy and the enjoyment, by accumulation, of his wealth. But a short annual visit to London on business affairs afforded the boy a glimpse of what he was missing, and his father's body was not twelve hours underground before he had shaken off the sands of Carne and was posting to London in a yellow chariot with four horses and two very elevated post-boys, like a silly moth to its candle. There, in due course, by processes of rapid assimilation and lavish dispersion, he climbed to high altitudes, and breathed the atmosphere of royal rascality refined by the gracious presence of George, Prince of Wales. For the replenishment of his depleted exchequer he married Miss Betty Carmichael, only daughter and sole heiress of the great Calcutta nabob. She died in child-birth, leaving him a boy whose education his own diversions left him little time or disposition to attend to. He won the esteem, such as it was, of the Prince Regent by running through the heart the Duke of Astrolabe, who had, in his cups, made certain remarks of a quite unnecessarily truthful character concerning Mrs. Fitzherbert, whom he persisted in calling Madame Bellois; and lost it for ever by the injudicious insertion of a slice of skinned orange inside the royal neckcloth in a moment of undue elevation, producing thereby so great a shock to the royal system and dignity as to bring it within an ace of an apoplexy and the end of its great and glorious career. Under the shadow of this exploit Carron found it judicious to retire for a time to the wilderness, and carried his boy with him. He had had a racketing time, and a period of rest and recuperation would be good both for himself and his fortunes. He had hoped and believed that his trifling indiscretion would in time be forgotten and forgiven by his royal comrade. But it never was. The royal cuticle crinkled at the very mention of the name of Carron, and Sir Denzil remained in retirement, embittered somewhat at the price he had had to pay for so trivial a jest, and solacing himself as best he could. Once only he emerged, and then solely on business bent. In the panic year, when thousands were rushing to ruin, he gathered together his accumulated savings, girded his loins, and stepped quietly and with wide-open eyes into the wild mêlée. He played a cautious, far-sighted game, and emerged triumphant over the dry-sucked bodies of the less wary, with overflowing coffers and many gray hairs. He was prepared to greet the royal beck with showers of gold once more. But the royal neck, though it now wore the ermine in its own right, could not forget the clammy kiss of the orange, and Carron went sulkily back to Carne. When the Sailor Prince stepped up from quarter-deck to throne, he returned to London and took his place in society once more. But ten years in the desert had placed him out of touch with things; and with reluctance he had to admit to himself that if the star of Carron was to blaze once more, it must be in the person of the next on the roll. And so, characteristically enough, he set himself to the dispersal of the flimsy cloudlet of disgrace which attached to his name by seeking to win for his boy what the royal disfavour had denied to himself. Now, indeed, that the royal sufferer was dead, the rising generation, when they recalled it, rather enjoyed the crinkling of the royal skin. They would even have welcomed the crinkler among them as a reminder of the hilarities of former days. But the fashion of things had changed. He did not feel at home with them as he had done with their fathers, and he who had shone as a star, though he had indeed disappeared like a rocket, had no mind to figure at their feasts as a lively old stick. Young Denzil's education had been of the most haphazard during the years his father was starring it in London. On the retirement to Carne, however, Sir Denzil took the boy in hand himself and inculcated in him philosophies and views of life, based upon his own experiences, which, while they might tend to the production of a gentleman, as then considered, left much to be desired from some other points of view. He bought him a cornetcy in the Hussars, supplied him freely with money, and required only that his acquaintance should be confined to those circles of which he himself had once been so bright an ornament. The young man was a success. He was well-built and well-featured, and his manners had been his father's care. He had all the family faults, and succeeded admirably in veiling such virtues as he possessed, with the exception of one or two which happened to be fashionable. He was hot-headed, free-handed, jovial, heedless of consequences in pursuit of his own satisfactions, incapable of petty meanness, but quite capable of those graver lapses which the fashion of the times condoned. With a different upbringing, and flung on his own resources, Denzil Carron might have gone far and on a very much higher plane than he chose. As it was, his career also ended somewhat abruptly. At eight-and-twenty he had his captaincy in the 8th Hussars, and was in the exuberant enjoyment of health, wealth, and everything that makes for happiness--except only those things through which alone happiness may ever hope to be attained. He had been in and out of love a score of times, with results depressing enough in several cases to the objects of his ardent but short-lived affections. It was the fashion of the times, and earned him no word of censure. He loved and hated, gambled and fought, danced and drank, with the rest, and was no whit better or worse than they. At Shole House, down in Hampshire, he met Lady Susan Sandys, sister of the Earl of Quixande--fell in love with her through pity, maybe, at the forlornness of her state, which might indeed have moved the heart of a harder man. For Quixande was a warm man, even in a warm age, and Shole was ante-room to Hades. Carron pitied her, liked her--she was not lacking in good looks--persuaded himself, indeed, that he loved her. For her sake he summarily cut himself free from his other current feminine entanglements, carried her hotfoot to Gretna--a labour of love surely, but quite unnecessary, since her brother was delighted to be rid of her, and Sir Denzil had no fault to find either with the lady or her portion--and returned to London a married, but very doubtfully a wiser, man. Lady Susan did her best, no doubt. She was full of gratitude and affection for the gallant warrior who had picked her out of the shades, and set her life in the sunshine. But Denzil was no Bayard, and it needed a stronger nature than Lady Susan's to lift him to the higher level. For quite a month--for thirty whole days and nights, counting those spent on the road to and from Gretna--Lady Susan kept her hold on her husband. Then his regimental duties could no longer be neglected. They grew more and more exigent as time passed, and the young wife was left more and more to the society of her father-in-law. Sir Denzil accepted the position with the grace of an old courtier, and did his duty by her, palliated Captain Denzil's defections with cynical kindness, and softened her lot as best he might. And the gallant captain, exhausted somewhat with the strain of his thirty days' conservatism, resumed his liberal progression through the more exhilarating circles of fashionable folly, and went the pace the faster for his temporary withdrawal. The end came abruptly, and eight months after that quite unnecessary ride to Gretna Lady Susan was again speeding up the North Road, but this time with her father-in-law, their destination Carne. Captain Denzil was hiding for his life, with a man's blood on his hands; and his father's hopes for the blazing star of Carron were in the dust. CHAPTER II THE STAR IN THE DUST And the cause of it all?--Madame Damaris, of Covent Garden Theatre, the most bewitching woman and the most exquisite dancer of her time. Perhaps Captain Denzil's handsome face and gallant bearing carried him farther into her good graces than the others. Perhaps their jealous tongues wagged more freely than circumstances actually justified. Anyway, the rumours which, as usual, came last of all to Lady Susan's ears caused her very great distress. She was in that state of health in which depression of spirits may have lasting and ulterior consequences. There were rumours too of a return of the cholera, and she was nervous about it; and Sir Denzil was already considering the advisability of a quiet journey to that quietest of retreats: the great house of Carne, when that happened which left him no time for consideration, but sent him speeding thither with the forlorn young wife as fast as horses could carry them. There was in London at this time a certain Count d'Aumont attached to the French Embassy. He was a man of some note, and was understood to be related in some roundabout way to that branch of the Orleans family which force of circumstance had just succeeded in seating on the precarious throne of France. He cut a considerable figure in society, and had most remarkable luck at play. He possessed also a quick tongue and a flexibility of wrist which so far had served to guard his reputation from open assault. He had known Madame Damaris prior to her triumphant descent on London, and was much piqued when he found himself ousted from her good graces by men whom he could have run through with his left hand, but who could squander on her caprices thousands to his hundreds. Head and front of the offenders, by reason of the lady's partiality, was Denzil Carron, and the two men hated one another like poison. Denzil was playing at Black's one night, when a vacancy was occasioned in the party by the unexpected call to some official duty of one of the players. D'Aumont was standing by, and to Denzil's disgust was invited by one of the others to take the vacant chair. He had watched the Frenchman's play more than once, and had found it extremely interesting. In fact, on one occasion he had been restrained with difficulty from creating a disturbance which must inevitably have led to an inquiry and endless unpleasantness. Then, too, but a short time before, hearing of some remarks D'Aumont had made concerning Madame Damaris and himself, Denzil, in his hot-headed way, had sworn that he would break the Frenchman's neck the very first time they met. It is possible that these matters were within the recollection of Captain O'Halloran when he boisterously invited D'Aumont to his partnership at the whist-table that night. For O'Halloran delighted in rows, and was ready for a "jule," either as principal or second, at any hour of the day or night. He was also very friendly with D'Aumont, and it is possible that the latter desired a collision with Carron as a pretext for his summary dismissal at the point of the sword. However it came about, the meeting ended in disaster. The play ran smoothly for a time, and the onlookers had begun to believe the sitting would end without any explosion, when Carron rose suddenly to his feet, saying: "At your old tricks, M. le Comte. You cheated!" "Liar!" said the Count. Then Carron laid hold of the card-table, swung it up in his powerful arms, and brought it down with a crash on the Frenchman's head. The remnants of it were hanging round his neck like a new kind of clown's ruffle before the guineas had ceased spinning in the corners of the room. "He knows where to find me," said Denzil, and marched out and went thoughtfully home to his quarters to await the Frenchman's challenge, which for most men had proved equivalent to a death-warrant. Instead, there came to him in the gray of the dawn one of his friends, in haste, and with a face like the morning's. "Ha, Pole! I hardly expected you to carry for a damned Frenchman. Where do we meet, and when?" said Carron brusquely, for he had been waiting all night, and he hated waiting. "God knows," said young Pole, with a grim humour which none would have looked to find in him. "He's gone to find out. He's dead!" "Dead!--Of a crack on the head!" "A splinter ran through his throat, and he bled out before they could stop it. You had better get away, Carron. There'll be a deuce of a row, because of his connections, you see." "I'll stay and see it through. I'd no intent to kill the man--not that way, at any rate." "You'll see it through from the outside a sight easier than from the inside," said young Pole. "You get away. We'll see to the rest. It's easier to keep out of the jug than to get out of it." Carron pondered the question. "I'll see my father," he said, with an accession of wisdom. "That's right," said young Pole. "He'll know. Go at once. I'm off." It was a week since Denzil had been to the house in Grosvenor Square, and when he got there he was surprised to find, early as it was, a travelling-chariot at the door, with trunks strapped on, all ready for the road. He met his father's man coming down the stairs with an armful of shawls. "Sir Denzil, Kennet. At once, please." "Just in time, sir. Another ten minutes and we'd been gone. He's all dressed, Mr. Denzil. Will you come up, sir?" "Ah, Denzil, you got my note," said Sir Denzil at sight of him. "We settled it somewhat hurriedly. But Lady Susan is nervous over this cholera business. What's wrong?" he asked quickly, as Kennet quitted the room. Denzil quietly told him the whole matter, and his father took snuff very gravely. He saw all his hopes ruined at a blow; but he gave no sign, except the tightening of the bones under the clear white skin of his face, and a deepening of the furrows in his brow and at the sides of his mouth. "The man's death is a misfortune--as was his birth, I believe," he said, as he snuffed gravely again. "Had you any quarrel with him previously?" "I had threatened, in a general way, to break his head for wagging his tongue about me." "They may twist that to your hurt," said his father, nodding gravely. "In any case it means much unpleasantness. I am inclined to think you would be better out of the way for a time." "I will do as you think best, sir. I am quite ready to wait and see it through." "You never can tell how things may go," said his father thoughtfully. "It all depends on the judge's humour at the time, and that is beyond any man's calculation. . . . Yes, you will be more comfortable away, and I will hasten back and see how things go here. . . . And if you are to go, the sooner the better. . . . You can start with us. We will drop you at St. Albans, and you will make your way across to Antwerp. You had better take Kennet," he continued, with the first visible twinge of regret, as his plans evolved bit by bit. "He is safe, and I don't trust that man of yours--he has a foxy face. If they follow us to Carne, you will be at Antwerp by that time. Send us your address, and I will send you funds there. Here is enough for the time being. Oblige me by ringing the bell. And, by the way, Denzil, say a kind word or two to Susan. You have been neglecting her somewhat of late, and she has felt it. . . . Kennet, tell Lady Susan I am ready, and inform her ladyship that Mr. Denzil is here, and will accompany us." And ten minutes later the travelling-chariot was bowling away along the Edgware Road; and the hope which had shone in Lady Susan's eyes at sight of her husband was dying out with every beat of the horses' hoofs and every word that passed between the two men. For the matter had to be told, and the time was short. Sir Denzil had intended to stop for a time at Carne. Now he must get back at the earliest possible moment. And, though they made light of the matter, and described Denzil's hurried journey as a simple measure of precaution, and a means of escaping unnecessary annoyance, Lady Susan's jangled nerves adopted gloomier views, and naturally went farther even than the truth. Denzil did his best to follow his father's suggestion. His conscience smote him at sight of his wife's pinched face and the shadows under her eyes--shadows which told of days of sorrow and nights of lonely weeping, shadows for which he knew he was as responsible as if his fists had placed them there. "I am sorry, dear, to bring this trouble on you," he said, pressing her hand. "Let me go with you, Denzil," she cried, with a catch of hope in her voice. "Let me go with you, and the trouble will be as nothing." How she would have welcomed any trouble that drove him to her arms again! But she knew, even as she said it, that it was not possible. That lay before her, looming large in the vagueness of its mystery, which sickened her, body and soul, with apprehension. But it was a path which she must travel alone, and already, almost before they were fairly started, she was longing for the end of the journey and for rest. The jolting of the carriage was dreadful to her. The trees and hedges tumbled over one another in a hazy rout which set her brain whirling and made her eyes close wearily. She longed for the end of the journey and for rest--peace and quiet and rest, and the end of the journey. "We will hope the trouble will soon blow over," said Sir Denzil. "But we lose nothing by taking precautions. I shall return to town at once and keep an eye on matters, and as soon as things smooth down Denzil will join you at Carne." At which Denzil's jaw tightened lugubriously. He had his own reasons for not desiring to visit Carne. "Old Mrs. Lee," continued Sir Denzil--for the sake of making talk, since it seemed to him that silence would surely lead to hysterics on the part of Lady Susan--"will make you very comfortable. She is a motherly old soul, though you may find her a trifle uncouth at first; and Carne is very restful at this time of year. That woman of yours always struck me as a fool, my dear. I think it is just as well she decided not to come, but she might have had the grace to give you a little longer warning. That class of person is compounded of selfishness and duplicity. They are worse, I think, than the men, and God knows the men are bad enough. Your man is another of the same pattern, Denzil. They ought to marry. The result might be interesting, but I should prefer not having any of it in my service." At St. Albans they parted company. Denzil pressed his wife's hand for the last time in this world, hired a post-chaise, and started across country in company with the discomfited Kennet, who regarded the matter with extreme disfavour both on his own account and his master's, and Sir Denzil and Lady Susan went bumping along on the way to Carne. CHAPTER III THE FIRST OF THE COIL A woman trudged heavily along the firm damp sand just below the bristling tangle of high-water mark, in the direction of Carne. She wore a long cloak, and bent her head and humped her shoulders over a small bundle which she hugged tight to her breast. She had hoped to reach the big house before it was dark. But a north-east gale was blowing, and it caught up the loose tops of the sand-hills and carried them in streaming clouds along the flats and made walking difficult. The drift rose no higher than her waist; but if she stood for a moment to rest, the flying particles immediately set to work to transform her into a pillar of sand. If she had stumbled and been unable to rise, the sweeping sand would have covered her out of sight in five minutes. The flats stretched out before her like an empty desert that had no end. The black sky above seemed very close by reason of the wrack of clouds boiling down into the west. Where the sun had set there was still a wan gleam of yellow light. It seemed to the woman, when she glanced round now and again through her narrowed lids to make sure of her whereabouts, as if the sky was slowly closing down on her like the lid of a great black box. On her right hand the sand-hills loomed white and ghostly, and were filled with the whistle of the gale in the wire-grass and the hiss of the flying sand. Far away on her left, the sea chafed and growled behind its banks. Her progress was very slow, but she bent doggedly to the gale, stopped now and again and leaned bodily against it, then drew her feet out of the clogs the sand had piled round them and pushed slowly on again. At last she became aware, by instinct or by the instant's break in the roar of the wind on her right, that she had reached her journey's end. She turned up over the crackling tangle, crossed the ankle-deep dry sand of the upper beach, and stopped for breath under the lee of the great house of Carne. It was all as dark as the grave, but she knew her way, and after a moment's rest she passed round the house to the back. Here in a room on the ground floor a light shone through a window. The window had neither curtain nor shutter, but was protected by stout iron bars. The sill was piled high with drifted sand. The sight of the light dissipated a fear which had been in the woman's heart, but which she had crushed resolutely out of sight. At the same time it set her heart beating tumultuously, partly in the rebound from its fear and partly in anticipation of the ungracious welcome she looked for. She stood for a moment in the storm outside and looked at the tranquil gleam. Then she slipped under a stone porch, which opened towards the south-west, and knocked on the door. The door opened cautiously on the chain at last, six inches or so, and a section of an old woman's head appeared in the slit and asked gruffly: "Who's it?" "It's me, mother--Nance!" The door slammed suddenly to, as though to deny her admittance. But she heard the trembling fingers inside fumbling with the chain. They got it unsnecked at last, and the door swung open again. The woman with the burden stepped inside and shut out the drifting sand. The room was a stone-flagged kitchen; but the light of the candle, and the cheery glow of a coal fire, and the homeliness of the white-scrubbed table and dresser, and the great oak linen-press, mellowed its asperities. After the cold north-easter, and the sweeping sand and the darkness, it was like heaven to the traveller, and she sank down on a rush-bottomed chair with a sigh of relief. "So tha's come whoam at last," was the welcome that greeted her, in a voice that was over-harsh lest it should tremble and break. The old woman's eyes shone like black beads under her white mutch. She sniffed angrily, and dashed her hand across her face as though to assist her sight. She spoke the patois of the district. Beyond the understanding of any but natives even now, it was still more difficult then. It would be a sorry task to attempt to reproduce it. "Aye, I've come home." "And brought thy shame with thee!" "Shame?" said the other quickly. "What shame? He married me, and this is his boy." And as she straightened up, the cloak fell apart and disclosed the child. She spoke boldly, but her eyes and her face were not so brave as her speech. "Married ye?" said the old woman, with a grim laugh that was half sob and half anger. "I know better. The likes o' him doesna marry the likes o' you." Holding the sleeping child in her one arm, the girl fumbled in her bodice and plucked out a paper. "There's my lines," she said angrily. The old woman made no attempt to read it, but shook her head again, and said bitterly: "The likes o' him doesna marry the likes o' you, my lass." "He married me as soon as we got to London." But the old woman only shook her head, and asked, in the tone of one using an irrefutable argument: "Where is he?" At that the girl shook her head also; but she was saved further reply by the baby yawning and stretching and opening his eyes, which fastened vacantly on the old woman's as she bent over to look at him in spite of herself. "You might ha' killed him and yoreself coming on so soon," she said gruffly. "I wanted to get here before he came," said the girl, with a choke, "but I couldna manage it. I were took at Runcorn, seven days ago." "An' yo' walked from there! It's a wonner yo're alive. Well, well, it's a bad job, but I suppose we mun mak' best o' it. Yo're clemmed!" "Ay, I am, and so is he. I've not had much to give him, and he makes a rare noise when he doesn't get what he wants." The baby screwed up his face and proved his powers. His mother rocked him to and fro, and the old woman set herself to getting them food. She set on the fire a pannikin of goats' milk diluted with water to her own ideas, and placed bread and cheese and butter on the table. The girl reached for the food and began to eat ravenously. The old woman dipped her finger into the pannikin and put it into the child's mouth. It sucked vigorously and stopped crying. She drew it out of the girl's arms and began to feed it slowly with a spoon. "If he married yo', why did he leave yo' like this?" she asked presently, as she dropped tiny drops of food into the baby's mouth and watched it swallow and strain up after the spoon for more. "He was ordered away with his regiment. He left me money and said he'd send more. But he never did. I made it last as long's I could, but it runs away in London. I couldna bear the idea of--of it up there, an' I got wild at him not coming. I tried to find him, and then I set off to walk here. I got a lift on a wagon now and again. But when I got to Runcorn I could go no further. There a a woman there was good to me. Maybe I'd ha' died but for her. Maybe it'd ha' been best if I had. But,"--she said doggedly--"he married me all the same." The old woman shook her head hopelessly, but said nothing. The baby was falling asleep on her knee. Presently she carried him carefully into the next room and left him on the bed there. "I nursed him on my knee," she said when she came back, "before you came. If I'd known he'd take you from me I'd ha' choked him where he lay." The girl felt and looked the better for her meal. She nodded her head slowly, and said again, "All the same he married me." Her persistent harping on that one string--which to her mother was a broken string--angered the old woman. "Tchah!" she said, like the snapping of a dog, and was about to say a great deal more when a peremptory knocking on the door choked the words in her throat. Her startled eyes turned accusingly on the girl; what faint touch of colour her face had held fled from it, and her lips parted twice in questioning which found no voice. Her whole attitude implied the fear that there was something more behind the girl's story than had been told and that now it was upon them. The knocking continued, louder and still more peremptory. The girl strode to the door, loosed the chain and drew back the bolts, and flung it open. A tall man, muffled in a travelling-cloak, strode in with an imprecation, and dusted the sand out of his eyes with a silk handkerchief. "Nice doings when a man cannot get into his own house," he began. Then, as his blinking eyes fell on the girl's face, he stopped short and said, "The deuce!" and pinched his chin between his thumb and forefinger. He stood regarding her in momentary perplexity, and then went on dusting himself, with his eyes still on her. He was a man past middle age, but straight and vigorous still. His clean-shaven face, in spite of the stubble of three days' rapid travel on it, and the deep lines of hard living, was undeniably handsome--keen dark eyes, straight nose, level brows, firm hard mouth. An upright furrow in the forehead, and a sloping groove at each corner of the mouth, gave a look of rigid intensity to the face and the impression that its owner was engaged in a business distasteful to him. "Ah, Mrs. Lee," he said, as his eyes passed from the girl at last and rested on the old woman. "Yes, Sir Denzil." And Mrs. Lee attempted a curtsey. "A word in your ear, mistress." And he spoke rapidly to her in low tones, his eyes roving over to the girl now and again, and the old woman's face stiffening as he spoke. "And now bustle, both of you," he concluded. "Fires first, then something to eat, the other things afterwards. I will bring her ladyship in." He went to the door, and the old woman turned to her daughter and said grimly: "There's a lady with him. Yo' mun help wi' the fires." She closed the door leading to the bedroom where the baby lay sleeping soundly, and then set doggedly about her duties. The two women had left the room carrying armfuls of firing when Sir Denzil came back leading Lady Susan by the hand, muffled like himself in a big travelling-cloak. He drew a chair to the fire, and she sank into it. He left her there and went out again, and as the door opened the rattle of harness on chilling horses came through. Lady Susan bent shivering over the fire and spread her hands towards it, groping for its cheer like a blind woman. Her face was white and drawn. Her eyes were sunk in dark wells of hopelessness, her lips were pinched in tight repression. Any beauty that might have been hers had left her; only her misery and weariness remained. Her whole attitude expressed extremest suffering both of mind and body. A piping cry came from the next room, and she straightened up suddenly and looked about her like a startled deer. Then she rose quickly and picked up the candle and answered the call. The child had cried out in his sleep, and as she stood over him, with the candle uplifted, a strange softening came over her face. Her left hand stole up to her side and pressed it as though to still a pain. A spasmodic smile crumpled the little face as she watched. Then it smoothed out and the child settled to sleep again. Lady Susan went slowly back to her seat before the fire, and almost immediately Sir Denzil came in again, dusting himself from the sand more vigorously than ever. "How do you feel now, my dear?" he asked. "Sick to death," she said quietly. "You will feel better after a night's rest. The journey has been a trying one. Old Mrs. Lee will make you comfortable here, and I will return the moment I am sure of Denzil's safety. You agree with the necessity for my going?" "Quite." "Every moment may be of importance. But the moment he is safe I will hurry back to see to your welfare here. I shall lie at Warrington to-night, and I will tell the doctor at Wynsloe to come over first thing in the morning to see how you are going on. Ah, Mrs. Lee, you are ready for us?" "Ay. The oak parlour is ready, sir. I'll get you what I con to eat, but you'll have to put up wi' short farin' to-night, sin' you didna let me know you were coming. To-morrow----" "What you can to-night as quickly as possible. Lady Susan is tired out, and I return as soon as I have eaten. See that the post-boy gets something too." "Yo're non stopping?" asked the old woman in surprise. "No, no, I told you so," he said, with the irritation of a tired man. "Come, my dear!" and he offered his arm to Lady Susan, and led her slowly away down the stone passage to a small room in the west front, where the rush of the storm was barely heard. An hour later Sir Denzil was whirling back before the gale on his way to London, as fast as two tired horses and a none too amiable post-boy could carry him. His usual serene self-complacency was disturbed by many anxieties, and he carried not a little bitterness, on his own account, at the untowardness of the circumstances which had dragged him from the ordered courses of his life and sent him posting down into the wilderness, without even the assistance of his man, upon whom he depended for the minutest details of his bodily comfort. "A most damnable misfortune!" he allowed himself, now that he was alone, and he added some further unprofitable moments to an already tolerably heavy account in cursing every separate person connected with the matter, including a dead man and the man who killed him, and an unborn babe and the mother who lay shivering at thought of its coming. CHAPTER IV THE COIL COMPLETE In the great house of Carne there was a stillness in strange contrast with the roaring of the gale outside. But the stillness was big with life's vitalities--love and hate and fear; and, compared with them, the powers without were nothing more than whistling winds that played with shifting sands, and senseless waves that sported with men's lives. It was not till the new-comer was lying in her warm bed in the room above the oak parlour, shivering spasmodically at times in spite of blankets and warming-pans and a roaring fire, that she spoke to the old woman who had assisted her in grim silence. The silence and the grimness had not troubled her. They suited her state of mind and body better than speech would have done. Life had lost its savour for her. Of what might lie beyond she knew little and feared much at times, and at times cared naught, craving only rest from all the ills of life and the poignant pains that racked her. It was only when Mrs. Lee had carefully straightened out her discarded robes, and looked round to see what else was to be done, and came to the bedside to ask tersely if there was anything more my lady wanted, that my lady spoke. "You'll come back and sit with me?" she asked. "Ay--I'll come." "Whose baby is that downstairs?" "It's my girl's," said the old woman, startled somewhat at my lady's knowledge. "Did she live through it?" "Ay, she lived." And there was that in her tone which implied that it might have been better if she had not. But my lady's perceptions were blunted by her own sufferings. "Is she here?" "Ay, she's here." "Would she come to me too?" But the old woman shook her head. "She's not over strong yet," she said grimly. "I'll come back and sit wi' yo'." "How old is it?" "Seven days." "Seven days! Seven days!" She was wondering vaguely where she would be in seven days. "It looked very happy," she said presently. "Its father was surely a good man." "They're none too many," said the old woman, as she turned to go. "I'll get my supper and come back t' yo'." "Who is she?" asked her daughter, with the vehemence of an aching question, as she entered the kitchen. Mrs. Lee closed the passage door and looked at her steadily and said, "She's Denzil Carron's wife." And the younger woman sprang to her feet with blazing face and the clatter of a falling chair. "Denzil's wife! I am Denzil Carron's wife." "So's she. And I reckon she's the one they'll call his wife," said her mother dourly. "I'll go to her. I'll tell her----" And she sprang to the door. "Nay, you wun't," said her mother, leaning back against it. "T' blame's not hers, an' hoo's low enough already." "And where is he? Where is Denzil?" "He's in trouble of some kind, but what it is I dunnot know. Sir Denzil's gone back to get him out of it, and he brought her here to be out of it too." "And he'll come here?" "Mebbe. Sir Denzil didna say. He said he'd hold me responsible for her. She's near her time, poor thing! An' I doubt if she comes through it." "Near----!" And the girl blazed out again. "Ay. I shouldna be surprised if it killed her. There's the look o' it in her face." "Kill her? Why should it kill her? It didn't kill me," said the girl fiercely. "Mebbe it would but for yon woman you told me of. Think of your own time, girl, and bate your anger. Fault's not hers if Denzil served you badly." "He connot have two wives." "Worse for him if he has. One's enough for most men. But--well-a-day, it's no good talking! I'll take a bite, and back to her. She begged me come. Yo' can sleep i' my bed. There's more milk on th' hob there if th' child's hungry." And carrying her bread-and-cheese she went off down the passage, and the young mother sat bending over the fire with her elbows on her knees. She had no thought of sleep. Her limbs were still weary from her long tramp, but the food and rest had given her strength, and the coming of this other woman, who called herself Denzil Carron's wife, had fired her with a sense of revolt. The blood was boiling through her veins at thought of it all--at thought of Denzil, at thought of the boy in the next room, and this other woman upstairs. Her heart felt like molten lead kicking in a cauldron. She got up and began to pace the floor with the savage grace born of a life of unrestricted freedom. Once she stopped and flung up her hands as though demanding--what?--a blessing--a curse--the righting of a wrong? The quivering hands looked capable at the moment of righting their own wrongs, or of wreaking vengeance on the wrongdoer if they closed upon him. Then, as the movement of her body quieted in some measure the turmoil of her brain, her pace grew slower, and she began to think connectedly. And at last she dropped into the chair again, leaned her elbows on her kneel and sat gazing into the fire. When it burned low she piled on wood mechanically, and sat there thinking, thinking. Outside, the storm raged furiously, and the flying sand hit the window like hailstones. And inside, the woman sat gazing into the fire and thinking. She sat long into the night, thinking, thinking--unconscious of the passage of time;--thinking, thinking. Twice her child woke crying to be fed, and each time she fed him from the pannikin as mechanically almost as she had fed the fire with wood. For her thoughts were strange long thoughts, and she could not see the end of them. They were all sent flying by the sudden entrance of her mother in a state of extreme agitation, her face all crumpled, her hands shaking. "She's took," she said, with a break in her voice. "Yo' mun go for th' doctor quick. I connot leave her. Nay!"--as the other sat bolt upright and stared back at her--"yo' _mun_ go. We connot have her die on our hands. Think o' yore own time, lass, and go quick for sake o' Heaven." "I'll go." And she snatched up her cloak. "See to the child." And she was out in the night, drifting before the gale like an autumn leaf. The old woman went in to look at the child, filled the kettle and put it on the fire, and hurried back to the chamber of sorrows. The gale broke at sunrise, and the flats lay shimmering like sheets of burnished gold, when Dr. Yool turned at last from the bedside and looked out of the window upon the freshness of the morning. He was in a bitter humour. When Nance Lee thumped on his door at midnight he was engaged in the congenial occupation of mixing a final and unusually stiff glass of rum and water. It was in the nature of a soporific--a nightcap. It was to be the very last glass for that night, and he had compounded it with the tenderest care and the most businesslike intention. "If that won't give me a night's rest," he said to himself, "nothing will." But there was no rest for him that night. He had been on the go since daybreak, and was fairly fagged out. He greeted Nance's imperative knock with bad language. But when he heard her errand he swallowed his nightcap without a wink, though it nearly made his hair curl, ran round with her to the stable, harnessed his second cob to the little black gig with the yellow wheels, threw Nance into it, and in less than five minutes was wrestling with the north-easter once more, and spitting out the sand as he had been doing off and on all day long. "There's one advantage in being an old bachelor, Miss Nancy," he had growled, as he flung the harness on the disgusted little mare; "your worries are your own. Take my advice and never you get married----" And then he felt like biting his tongue off when he remembered the rumours he had heard concerning the girl. She was too busy with her own long thoughts to be troubled by his words, however, and once they were on the road speech was impossible by reason of the gale. When they arrived at Carne she scrambled down and led the mare into the great empty coach-house, where the post-horses had previously found shelter that night. She flung the knee-rug over the shaking beast, still snorting with disgust and eyeing her askance as the cause of all the trouble. Then she followed the doctor into the house. He was already upstairs, however, and, after a look at her sleeping boy, she sat down in her chair before the fire again to await the event, and fell again to her long, long thoughts. And once more her thoughts were sent flying by the entrance of her mother. She carried a tiny bundle carefully wrapped in flannel and a shawl, and on her sour old face there was an expression of relief and exultation--the exultation of one who has won in a close fight with death. "He were but just in time," she said, as she sat down before the fire. "I'm all of a shake yet. But th' child's safe anyway." And she began to unfold the bundle tenderly. "Git me t' basin and some warm water. Now, my mannie, we'll soon have you comfortable. . . . So . . . Poor little chap! . . . I doubt if she'll pull through. . . . T' doctor's cursing high and low below his breath at state she's in . . . travelling in that condition . . . 'nough to have killed a stronger one than ever she was. . . . I knew as soon as ivver I set eyes on her . . . A fine little lad!"--as she turned the new-comer carefully over on her knee--"and nothing a-wanting 's far as I can see, though he's come a month before he should." She rambled on in the rebound from her fears, but the girl uttered no word in reply. She stood watching abstractedly, and handing whatever the old woman called for. Her thoughts were in that other room, where the grim fight was still waging. Her heart was sick to know how it was going. Her thoughts were very shadowy still, but the sight of the boy on the old woman's knee showed her her possible way, like a signpost on a dark night. She would see things clearer when she knew how things had gone upstairs. She must know. She could not wait. She turned towards the passage. "I will go and see," she said. "Ay, go," said the old woman. "But go soft." The doctor was sitting at the bedside. He raised his hand when she entered the room, but did not turn. She stood and watched, and suddenly all her weariness came on her and she felt like falling. She leaned against the wall and waited. Once and again the doctor spoke to the woman on the bed. But there was no answer. He sat with furrowed face watching her, and the girl leaned against the wall and watched them both. And at last the one on the bed answered--not the doctor, but a greater healer still. One long sigh, just as the sun began to touch the rippled flats with gold, and it was over. The stormy night was over and peace had come with the morning. The doctor gat up with something very like a scowl on his face and went to the window. Even in the Presence he had to close his mouth firmly lest the lava should break out. He hated to be beaten in the fight--the endless fight to which his whole life was given, year in, year out. But this had been no fair fight. The battle was lost before he came on the field, and his resentment was hot against whoever was to blame. He opened the casement and leaned out to cool his head. The sweet morning air was like a kiss. He drank in a big breath or two, and, after another pained look at the white face on the pillow, he turned and left the room. The girl had already gone, and as she went down the passage there was a gleam in her eyes. Her mother saw it as soon as she entered the kitchen. "Well?" asked the old woman. "She's gone." "And yo're glad of it. Shame on yo', girl! And yo' but just safe through it yoreself!" The girl made no reply, and a moment later the doctor came in. "Now, Mrs. Lee, explain things to me. Whose infernal folly brought that poor thing rattling over the country in that condition? And get me a cup of coffee, will you? Child all right?" "He's all right, doctor. He's sleeping quiet there"--pointing to a heap of shawls on the hearth. "It were Sir Denzil himself brought her last night." "And why didn't he stop to see the result of his damned stupidity? It's sheer murder, nothing less. Make it as strong as you can,"--referring to the coffee--"my head's buzzing. I haven't had a minute's rest for twenty-four hours. Where is Sir Denzil? He left word at my house to come over here first thing this morning. I expected to find him here." "He went back wi the carriage that brought 'em. There's trouble afoot about Mr. Denzil as I understond. He said it were life and death, and he were off again inside an hour." "Ah!" said the doctor, nodding his head knowingly. "That's it, is it? And you don't know what the trouble was?" "'Life and death,' he said. That's all I know." "Well, if he bungles the other business as he has done this it'll not need much telling which it'll be." And he blew on his coffee to cool it. "I must send him word at once," he said presently, "and I'll tell him what I think about it. I've got his town address. You can see to the child all right, I suppose? Another piece of that bread, if you please. Any more coffee there? This kind of thing makes me feel empty." "I'll see to t' child aw reet." "Send me word if you need me, not otherwise. There's typhus down Wyvveloe way, and I'm run off my legs. A dog's life, dame--little thanks and less pay!" And he buttoned up his coat fiercely and strode out to his gig. "I'll send John Braddle out," he called back over his shoulder. "But I doubt if we can wait to hear from Sir Denzil. However----" And he drove away, through the slanting morning sunshine. The white sand-hills smiled happily, the wide flats blazed like a rippled mirror, the sky was brightest blue, and very far away the sea slept quietly behind its banks of yellow sand. CHAPTER V IN THE COIL The days passed and brought no word from Sir Denzil in reply to Dr. Yool's post letter. And, having waited as long as they could, they buried Lady Susan in the little green churchyard at Wyvveloe, where half a dozen Carrons, who happened to have died at Carne, already rested. Dr. Yool and Braddle had had to arrange everything between them, and, as might have been expected under the circumstances, the funeral was as simple as funeral well could be, and as regards attendance--well, the doctor was the only mourner, and he still boiled over when he thought of the useless way in which this poor life had been sacrificed. Braddle was there with his men, of course, but the doctor only just managed it between two visits, and his manner showed that he grudged the time given to the dead which was all too short for the requirements of the living. Yet it went against the grain to think of that poor lady going to her last resting-place unattended, and he made a point of being there. But his gig stood waiting outside the churchyard gate, and he was whirling down the lane while the first spadefuls were drumming on the coffin. He thought momentarily of the child as he drove along. But, since no call for his services had come from Mrs. Lee, he supposed it was going on all right, and he had enough sick people on his hands to leave him little time for any who could get along without him. The days ran into weeks, and still no word from Sir Denzil. It looked as though the little stranger at Carne might remain a stranger for the rest of his days. And yet it was past thinking that those specially interested should make no inquiry concerning the welfare of so important a member of the family. "Summat's happened," was old Mrs. Lee's terse summing-up, with a gloomy shake of the head whenever she and Nance discussed the matter, which was many times a day. Other matters too they discussed, and to more purpose, since the forwarding of them was entirely in their own hands. And when they spoke of these other matters, sitting over the fire in the long evenings, each with a child on her knee, hushing it or feeding it, their talk was broken, interjectional even at times, and so low that the very walls could have made little of it. It was fierce-eyed Nance who started that strain of talk, and at first her mother received it open-mouthed. But by degrees, and as time played for them, she came round to it, and ended by being the more determined of the two. So they were of one mind on the matter, and the matter was of moment, and all that happened afterwards grew out of it. Both the children throve exceedingly. No care was lacking them, and no distinction was made between them. What one had the other had, and Nance, with recovered strength, played foster-mother to them both. Just two months after Lady Susan's death the two women were sitting talking over the fire one night, the children being asleep side by side in the cot in the adjacent bedroom, when the sound of hoofs and wheels outside brought them to their feet together. "It's him," said Mrs. Lee; and they looked for a moment into one another's faces as though each sought sign of flinching in the other. Then both their faces tightened, and they seemed to brace themselves for the event. An impatient knock on the kitchen door, the old woman hastened to answer it, and Sir Denzil limped in. He was thinner and whiter than the last time he came. He leaned heavily on a stick and looked frail and worn. "Well, Mrs. Lee," he said, as he came over to the fire and bent over it and chafed his hands, "you'd given up all fears of ever seeing me again, I suppose?" "Ay, a'most we had," said the old woman, as she lifted the kettle off the bob and set it in the blaze. "Well, it wasn't far off it. I had a bad smash returning to London that last time. That fool of a post-boy drove into a tree that had fallen across the road, and killed himself and did his best to kill me. Now light the biggest fire you can make in the oak room, and another in my bedroom, and get me something to eat. Kennet"--as his man came in dragging a travelling-trunk--"get out a bottle of brandy, and, as soon as you've got the things in, brew me the stiffest glass of grog you ever made. My bones are frozen." He dragged up a chair and sat down before the fire, thumping the coals with his stick to quicken the blaze. The rest sped to his bidding. Kennet, when he had got in the trunks, brewed the grog in a big jug, with the air of one who knew what he was about. "Shall I give the boy some, sir?" he asked, when Sir Denzil had swallowed a glass and was wiping his eyes from the effects of it. "Yes, yes. Give him a glass, but tone it down, or he'll be breaking his neck like the last one." So Kennet watered a glass to what he considered reasonable encouragement for a frozen post-boy, and presently the jingling of harness died away in the distance, and Kennet came in and fastened the door. Sir Denzil had filled and emptied his glass twice more before Mrs. Lee came to tell him the room was ready. Then he went slowly off down the passage, steadying himself with his stick, for a superfluity of hot grog on an empty stomach on a cold night is not unapt to mount to the head of even a seasoned toper. Kennet, when he came back to the room, after seeing his master comfortably installed before the fire, brewed a fresh supply of grog, placed on one side what he considered would satisfy his own requirements, and carried the rest to the oak room. It was when the girl Nance carried in the hastily prepared meal that Sir Denzil, after peering heavily at her from under his bushy brows, asked suddenly, "And the child? It's alive?" "Alive and well, sir." "Bring it to me in the morning." The girl looked at him once or twice as if she wanted to ask him a question. He caught her at it, and asked abruptly, "What the devil are you staring at, and what the deuce keeps you hanging round here?" Upon which she quitted the room. There was much talk, intense and murmurous, between the two women that night, when they had made up a bed for Kennet and induced him at last to go to it. From Kennet and the grog, after Sir Denzil had retired for the night, Nance learned all Kennet could tell her about Mr. Denzil. According to that veracious historian it was only through Mr. Kennet's supreme discretion and steadfastness of purpose that the young man got safely across to Brussels, and, when he tired of Brussels, which he very soon did, to Paris. "Ah!" said Mr. Kennet. "Now, that _is_ a place. Gay?--I believe you! Lively?--I believe you! Heels in the air kind of place?--I believe you! And Mr. Denzil he took to it like a duck to the water. London ain't in it with Paris, I tell you." And so on and so on, until, through close attention to the grog, his words began to tumble over one another. Then he bade them good night, with solemn and insistent emphasis, as though it was doubtful if they would ever meet again, and cautiously followed Nance and his candle to his room. The flats were gleaming like silver under a frosty sun next morning, and there was a crackling sharpness in the air, when Sir Denzil, having breakfasted, stood at the window of the oak room awaiting his grandson. "Tell Mrs. Lee to bring in the child," he had said to Kennet, and now a tap on the door told him that the child was there. "Come in," he said sharply, and turned and stood amazed at sight of the two women each with a child on her arm. "The deuce!" he said, and fumbled for his snuff-box. He found it at last, a very elegant little gold box, bearing a miniature set with diamonds--a present from his friend George, in the days before the slice of orange, and most probably never paid for. He slowly extracted a pinch without removing his eyes from the women and children. He snuffed, still staring at them, and then said quietly, "What the deuce is the meaning of this?" "Yo' asked to see t' child, sir," said Mrs. Lee. "Well?" "Here 'tis, sir." "Which?" "Both!" "Ah!"--with a pregnant nod. Then, with a wave of the hand. "Take them away." And the women withdrew. Sir Denzil remained standing exactly as he was for many minutes. Then he began to pace the room slowly with his stick, to and fro, to and fro, with his eyes on the polished floor, and his thoughts hard at work. He saw the game, and recognized at a glance that no cards had been dealt him. The two women held the whole pack, and he was out of it. He thought keenly and savagely, but saw no way out. The more he thought, the tighter seemed the cleft of the stick in which the women held him. The law? The law was powerless in the matter. Not all the law in the land could make a woman speak when all her interests bade her keep silence, any more than it could make her keep silence if she wanted to speak. Besides, even if these women swore till they were blue in the face as to the identity of either child, he would never believe one word of their swearing. Their own interests would guide them, and no other earthly consideration. He could turn them out. To what purpose? One of those two children was Denzil Carron of Carne. Which? The other--ah yes! The other was equally of his blood. He did not doubt that for one moment. He had known of Denzil's entanglement with Nance Lee, and it had not troubled him for a moment. But who, in the name of Heaven, could have foreseen so perplexing a result? When he glanced out of the window, the crystalline morning, the white sunshine, the clear blue sky, the hard yellow flats, the distant blue sea with its crisp white fringe, all seemed to mock him with the brightness of their beauty. How to solve the puzzle? Already, in his own mind, he doubted if it ever would be solved. And he cursed the brightness of the morning, and the women--which was more to the point, but equally futile,--and Denzil, and poor Lady Susan, who lay past curses in Wyvveloe churchyard. And his face, while that fit was on him, was not pleasant to look upon. Presently, with a twitching of the corners of the mouth, like a dog about to bare his fangs, he rang the bell very gently, and Kennet came in. "Kennet," he said, as quietly as if he were ordering his boots, "put on your hat and go for Dr. Yool. Bring him with you without fail. If he is out, go after him. If he says he'll see me further first, say I apologise, and I want him here at once. Tell him I've burst a blood-vessel." He had had words with the doctor the night before. He had stopped his post-chaise at his house and gone in for a minute to explain his long absence, and the doctor, who feared no man, had rated him soundly for the thoughtlessness which had caused Lady Susan's death. He did not for a moment believe that the doctor or any one else could help him in this blind alley. But discuss the matter with some one he must, or burst, and he did not care to discuss it with Kennet. Kennet knew very much better than to disagree with his master on any subject whatever, and discussion with him never advanced matters one iota. Discussion of the matter with Dr. Yool would probably have the same result, but it could do no harm, and it offered possibilities of a disputation for which he felt a distinct craving. Whether doctors could reasonably be expected to identify infants at whose births they had officiated, after a lapse of two months, he did not know. But he was quite prepared to uphold that view of the case with all the venom that was in him, and he awaited the doctor's arrival with impatience. Dr. Yool drove up at last with Kennet beside him, and presently stood in the room with Sir Denzil. "Hello!" cried the doctor, with disappointment in his face. "Where's that blood-vessel?" "Listen to me, Yool. You were present at the birth of Lady Susan's children----" "Eh? What? Lady Susan's child? Yes!" "Children!" "What the deuce! Children? A boy, sir--one!" "You'd know him again, I suppose?" "Well, in a general kind of way possibly. What's amiss with him?" "According to these women here, there are two of him now." "Good Lord, Sir Denzil! What do you mean? Two? How can there be two?" "Ah, now you have me. I thought that you, as a doctor--as the doctor, in fact--could probably explain the matter." The doctor's red face reddened still more. "Send for the women here--and the children," he said angrily. Sir Denzil rang the bell, gave his instructions to the impassive Kennet, who had not yet fathomed the full intention of the matter, and in a few minutes Mrs. Lee and Nance, each with a child on her arm, stood before them. "Now then, what's the meaning of all this?" asked Dr. Yool. "Which of these babies is Lady Susan's child?" "We don't know, sir," said Mrs. Lee, with a curtsey. "Don't know! Don't know! What the deuce do you mean by that, Mrs. Lee? Whose is the other child?" "My daughter's, sir. It were born a day or two before the other, and we got 'em mixed and don't know which is which." "Nonsense! Bring them both to me." He flung down some cushions in front of the fire, rapidly undressed the children, and laid them wriggling and squirming in the blaze among their wraps. He bent and examined them with minutest care. He turned them over and over, noticed all their points with a keenly critical eye, but could make nothing of it. They were as like as two peas. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, plump, clear-skinned, healthy youngsters both. The seven days between them, which in the very beginning might have been apparent, was now, after the lapse of two months, absolutely undiscoverable. Sir Denzil came across and looked down on the jerking little arms and legs and twisting faces, and snuffed again as though he thought they might be infectious. For all the expression that showed in his face, they might have been a litter of pups. "Well, I am ----!" said Dr. Yool, at last, straightening up from the inspection with his hands on his hips. "Now"--fixing the two women with a blazing eye--"what's the meaning of it all? Who is the father of this other child?" "Denzil Carron," said Nance boldly, speaking for the first time. "He married me before he married her, and here are my lines," and she plucked them out of her bosom. Dr. Yool's eyebrows went up half an inch. Sir Denzil took snuff very deliberately. The doctor held out his hand for the paper, and after a moment's hesitation Nance handed it to him. He read it carefully, and his good-humoured mouth twisted doubtfully. The matter looked serious. "Dress the children and take them away," he said at last. When they were dressed, however, Nance stood waiting for her lines. Dr. Yool understood. "I will be answerable for them," he said; and she turned and went. "A troublesome business, Sir Denzil," he said, when they were alone. "A troublesome business, whichever way you look at it. This"--and he flicked Nance's cherished lines--"may, of course, be make-believe, though it looks genuine enough on the face of it. That must be carefully looked into. But as to the children--you are in these women's hands absolutely and completely, and they know it." "It looks deucedly like it." "They know which is which well enough; but nothing on earth will make them speak--except their own interests, and that," he said thoughtfully, "won't be for another twenty years." "It's too late to make away with them both, I suppose," said Sir Denzil cynically. "Tchutt! It's bad enough as it is, but there's no noose in it at present. Besides, they are both undoubtedly your grandsons----" "And which succeeds?" asked the baronet grimly. "There's the rub. Deucedly awkward, if they both live--most deucedly awkward! There's always the chance, of course, that one may die." "Not a chance," said Sir Denzil. "They'll both live to be a hundred. They can toss for the title when the time comes. I'd sooner trust a coin than those women's oaths." The doctor nodded. He felt the same. "What about this?" he asked, reading Nance's lines again. "Will you look into it?" He pulled out a pencil and noted places and dates in his pocket-book. "What good? It alters nothing." "As regards your son?" Sir Denzil shrugged lightly. "He has shown himself a fool, but he is hardly such a fool as that. If he comes to the title, and she claims on him, he must fight his own battle. As to the whelps----" Another shrug shelved them for future consideration. Nevertheless, when Dr. Yool had driven away in the gig with the yellow wheels, Sir Denzil paced his room by the hour in deep thought, and none of it pleasant, if his face was anything to go by. He travelled along every possible avenue, and found each a blind alley. He could send the girl about her business, and the old woman too. But to what purpose? If they took one of the children with them, which would it be? Most likely Lady Susan's. But he would never be certain of it. That would be so obviously the thing to do that they would probably do the opposite. If they left both children, he would have to get some one else to attend to them, and no one in the world had the interest in their welfare that these two had. If both children died, then Denzil might marry again, and have an heir about whom there was no possible doubt. That is, if this other alleged marriage of his was, as he suspected, only a sham one. He would have to look into that matter, after all. If, by any mischance, the marriage, however intended, proved legal, then that hope was barred, and it would be better to have the children, or at all events one of them, live. Otherwise the succession would vest in the Solway Carrons, whom he detested. Better even Nance Lee's boy than a Solway Carron. The conclusion of the matter was, that he could not better matters at the moment by lifting a finger. Not lightly nor readily did he bring his mind to this. He spent bitter days and nights brooding over it all, and at the end he found himself where he was at the beginning. Time might possibly develop, in one or other of the boys, characteristics which might tell their own tale. But that chance, he recognised, was a small one. Both boys took after their father, and were as like Denzil, when he was a baby, as they possibly could be. In the spring he would look into that marriage matter. Till then, things must go on as they were. Not a word did he say to the women. Not the slightest interest did he show in the children. He rarely saw them, and then only by chance. And in the women's care the children throve and prospered, since it was entirely to their interest that they should do so. BOOK II CHAPTER VI FREEMEN OF THE FLATS Now we take ten years at a leap. So small a span of time has made no difference in the great house of Carne, or in its surroundings. Many times have the sand-hills sifted and shifted hither and thither. Many times have the great yellow banks out beyond lazily uncoiled themselves like shining serpents, and coiled themselves afresh into new entanglements for unwary mariners. In the narrow channels the bones of the unwary roll to and fro, and some have sunk down among the quicksands. Times without number have the mighty flats gleamed and gloomed. And the great house has watched it all stonily, and it all looks just the same. But ten years work mighty changes in men and women, and still greater ones in small boys. A tall straight-limbed young man strode swiftly among the sand-hummocks and came out on the flats, and stood gazing round him, with a great light in his eyes, and a towel round his neck. He had a lean, clean-shaven face, to which the hair brushed back behind his ears lent a pleasant eagerness. But the face was leaner and whiter than it should have been, and the eyes seemed unnaturally deep in their hollows. "Whew!" he whistled, as the wonder of the flats struck home. "A change, changes, and half a change, and no mistake! And all very much for the better--in most respects. The bishop said I'd find it rather different from Whitechapel, and he was right! Very much so! Dear old chap!" It was ten o'clock of a sweet spring morning. The brown ribbed flats gleamed and sparkled and laughed back at the sun with a thousand rippling lips. The cloudless blue sky was ringing with the songs of many larks. The young man stood with his braces slipped off his shoulders, and looked up at the larks. Then he characteristically, flung up a hand towards them, and cried them a greeting in the famous words of that rising young poet, Mr. Robert Browning, "God's in His heaven! All's well with the world!--Well! Well! Ay--very, very well!" And then, with a higher flight, in the words of the old sweet singer which had formed part of the morning lesson--"Praise Him, all His host!" And then, as his eye caught the gleam of the distant water, he resumed his peeling in haste. "Ten thousand souls--and bodies, which are very much worse--to the square mile there, and here it looks like ten thousand square miles to this single fortunate body. . . . That sea must be a good mile away. . . . The run alone will be worth coming for. . . ." He had girt himself with a towel by this time, and fastened it with a scientific twist. . . . "Now for a dance on the Doctor's nose," and he sped off on the long stretch to the water. The kiss of the salt air cleansed him of the travail of the slums as no inland bathing had ever done. The sun which shone down on him, and the myriad broken suns which flashed up at him from every furrow of the rippled sand, sent new life chasing through his veins. He shouted aloud in his gladness, and splashed the waters of the larger pools into rainbows, and was on and away before they reached the ground. And so, to the sandy scum of the tide, and through it to deep water, and a manful breasting of the slow calm heave of the great sea; with restful pauses when he lay floating on his back gazing up into the infinite blue; and deep sighs of content for this mighty gift of the freedom of the shore and the waves. And a deeper sigh at thought of the weary toilers among whom he had lived so long, to whom such things were unknown, and must remain so. But there!--he had done his duty among them to the point almost of final sacrifice. There was duty no less exigent here, though under more God-given conditions. So--one more ploughing through deep waters, arm over arm, side stroke with a great forward reach and answering lunge. Then up and away, all rosy-red and beaded with diamonds, to the clothing and duty of the work-a-day world. "Grim old place," he chittered as he ran, and his eye fell on Carne for the first time. "Grand place to live . . . if she lived there too. . . . Great saving in towels that run home. . . . Now where the dickens . . . ?" He looked about perplexedly, then began casting round, hither and thither, like a dog on a lost scent. "Hang it! I'm sure this was the place. . . . I remember that sand-hill with its hair all a-bristle." He poked and searched. He scraped up the sand with his hands in case they should have got buried, but not a rag of his clothes could he find. Stay! Not a rag? What's that? Away down a gully between two hummocks, as if it had attempted escape on its own account--a blue sock which he recognised as his own. He pounced on it with a whoop, dusted one foot free of the dry, soft sand, and put the sock on. "It's a beginning," he said, quaintly enough, "but----!" But obviously more was necessary before he could return home. He searched carefully all round, but could not find another thread. He climbed the sliding side of the nearest sand-hill, and looked cautiously about him. But the whole place was a honeycomb of gullies, and the clothing of a thousand men might have hidden in them and never been seen again. He sat down in the warm sand and cogitated. He looked at his single towel, and at the wire-grass bristling sparsely through the sand, and wondered if it might be possible to construct a primitive raiment out of such slight materials. But his deep-set eyes never ceased their vigilant outlook. Something moved behind the rounded shoulder of a hill in front. It might be only the loping brown body of a rabbit, but he was after it like a shot. When he topped the hill he saw a naked white foot slipping out of sight into a dark hole like a big burrow. He leaped down the hill, and stretched a groping arm into the hole. It lighted on squirming flesh. His hand gripped tightly that which it had caught, and a furious assault of blows, scratches, bites, and the frantic tearings of small fingers strove to loosen it. But he held tight, and inch by inch drew his prisoner out--a small boy with dark hair thick with sand, and dark eyes blazing furiously. He was stark naked, and held in his hand a small weapon consisting of a round stone with a hole in the centre, into which a wooden handle had been thrust and bound with string. With this, as he lay on his back, now that he had space to use it, he proceeded to lash out vigorously at his captor, who still held on to his ankle in spite of the punishment his wrist and arm were receiving. "Well, I'll be hanged!" said the young man in the towel, dodging the blows as well as he could. "What in Heaven's name are you? Ancient Briton? Bit of the Stone Age?" "Le' me go or I'll kill you," howled the prisoner. "No, don't! You're strong: be merciful. Hello!" as a fresh attack took him in the rear, and his bare back resounded to the blows of a weapon similar to the one that was pounding his arm. "You young savages! Two to one, and an unarmed man!" He loosed the ankle and made a quick dive at the brown thrashing arm, and, having secured it, lifted the wriggling youngster and tucked him under his arm like a parcel. Then, in spite of the struggles of his prisoner, he turned on the new-comer and presently held him captive in similar fashion. They bit and tore and wriggled like a pair of little tiger-cats, but the arms that held them were strong ones if the face above was thin and worn and gentle. "Stop it!" He knocked their heads together, and squeezed the slippery little bodies under his arms till the breath was nearly out of them, and took advantage of the moment of gasping quiescence to ask, "Will you be quiet if I let you down?" They intimated in jerks that they would be quiet. "Drop those drumsticks, then." First one, then the other weapon dropped into the sand. He put his foot on them and stood the boys on their feet. "Drumsticks!" snorted one, his sandy little nose all a-quiver. "Well, neither am I a drum," said their captor good-humouredly. "Now what's the meaning of all this? Who are you? Or what are you?" They were fine sturdy little fellows, of ten or eleven, he judged, their skins tanned brown and coated with dry sand, quick dark eyes and dark flushed faces all aglow still with the light of battle. They stood panting before him, no whit abashed either by their defeat or their lack of clothing. He saw their eyes settle longingly on the clubs under his feet. He stooped and picked them up, and the dark eyes followed them anxiously. "Promise not to use them on me and I'll give them back to you." The brown hands reached out eagerly, and he handed the weapons over. "Now sit down and tell me all about it." And he sat down himself in the sand. He saw them glance towards the mouth of their retreat, and shook his head. "You can't manage it. I'd have you out before you were half way in. You're prisoners of war on parole. Now then, who are you?" "Carr'ns." "Carr'ns, are you? Well, you look it, whatever it means. Do you live in that hole?" "Sometimes." "Never wear any clothes?" "Sometimes." "I see. Much jollier without, isn't it? But, you see, I can't go home like this. So perhaps you won't mind telling me why you stole my things and where they are?" "Carr'ns don't steal," jerked one. "Carr'ns only take things," jerked the other. "I see. It's a fine point, but it comes to much the same thing unless you return what you take. So perhaps you'll be so good as to turn up my things. Where are they?" One of the boys nodded towards the burrow. "That's the stronghold, is it? Not much room to turn about in, I should say." They declined to express an opinion. "May I go in and have a look?" But that was not in the terms of their parole, and they sprang instantly to the defence of their hold. The young man of the towel was beginning to wonder if another pitched battle would be necessary before he could recover his missing property, when a diversion was suddenly created by an innocent outsider. A foolish young rabbit hopped over the shoulder of a neighbouring sand-hill to see what all the disturbance was about. In a moment the round stone clubs flew and the sense was out of him before he had time to twinkle an eye or form any opinion on the subject. With a whoop the boys sprang at him and resolved themselves instantly into a pyrotechnic whirl of arms and legs and red-hot faces and flying sand, as they fought for their prey. "Little savages!" said the young man, and did his best to separate them. But he might as well have attempted argument with a Catherine wheel in the full tide of its short life. And so he took to indiscriminate spanking wherever bare slabs of tumbling flesh gave him a chance, and presently, under the influence of his gentle suasion the combatants separated and stood panting and tingling. The _causus belli_ had disappeared beneath the turmoil of the encounter, but suddenly it came to light again under the workings of twenty restless little toes. They both instantly dived for it, and the fight looked like beginning all over again, when the long white arm shot in and secured it and held it up above their reach. "I say! Are you boys or tiger-cats?" he asked, as he examined them again curiously. "Carr'ns," panted one, while both gazed at the rabbit like hounds at the kill. "Yes, you said that before, but I'm none the wiser. Where do you live when you're clothed and in your right minds?--if you ever are," he added doubtfully. One of them jerked his head sharply in the direction of the great gray house away along the shore. "There?" Another curt nod. He had rarely met such unnatural reserve, even in Whitechapel, where pointed questions from a stranger are received with a very natural suspicion. Here, as there, it only made him the more determined to get to the bottom of it. But Whitechapel had taught him, among other things, that round-about is sometimes the only way home. "Why do you want to fight over a dead rabbit?" "I killed it." "Didn't. 'Twas me." "Well now, if you ask me, I should say you both killed it. How did you become such capital shots?" But to tell that would have needed much talk, so they only stared up at him. He saw he must go slowly. "Those are first-rate clubs. Did you make them?" Nods from both. "Do you know?"--he picked one up and examined it carefully--"these are exactly what the wild men used to make when they lived here a couple of thousand years ago and used to go about naked just as you do." They listened eagerly, with wide unwinking eyes, which asked for more. "They used to stain themselves all blue"--the idea so evidently commended itself to them that he hastened to add--"but you'd better not try that or you'll be killing yourselves. They used the juice of a plant which you can't get and it did them no harm. Can you swim?" Both heads shook a reluctant negative. "Can't? Oh, you ought to swim. You can fight, I know, and you are splendid shots--and good runners, I'll be bound. Why haven't you learnt to swim?" "Won't let us." "Who won't let you?" "HIM." "Who's 'him'?" "Sir Denzil." "Is that your father?" "Gran'ther "I see. I wonder if he'd let me teach you. Every boy ought to learn to swim. You'd like to?" The black heads left no possible doubt on that point. "Well, I'll call on him and ask his permission. Now, what are your names?" "Denzil Carr'n." "And you?" "Denzil Carr'n." "But you can't both be Denzil Carr'n." "I'm Jack." "I'm Jim." "And how am I to tell who from which? You're as like as two peas." They looked at one another as if it had never struck them. "Stand up and let me see who's the biggest. No"--with a shake of the head, as they stood side by side--"that doesn't help. You're both of a tires Now, let me see. Jack's got a big bump on the forehead,"--at which Jim grinned with reminiscent enjoyment. "That will identify him for a few days, anyhow, and by that time I shall have got to know you. Why hasn't your grandfather let you learn to swim?" "Devil of a coast," said Jack, loosing his tongue at last. "Damned quicksands," said Jim in emulation. "Suck and suck and never let go." "We must be careful, then. You must tell me all about them. My name's Eager--Charles Eager. I've come to take Mr. Smythe's place at Wyvveloe. Do you two go to school?" Emphatically No from both shaggy heads, and undisguised aversion to the very thought of such a thing. "But you can't go on like this, you know. What will you do when you grow up?" "Go fighting," said Jack of the bumped forehead. "Quite so. But you don't want to go as privates, I suppose. And to be officers you must learn many things." This was a new view of the matter. It seemed to make a somewhat unfavourable impression. It provided food for thought to Eager himself also, and he sat looking at them musingly with new and congenial vistas opening before him. He had in him a great passion for humanity--for the uplifting and upbuilding of his fellows. Here apparently was virgin soil ready to his hand, and he wanted to set to work on it at once. "You know how to read and write, I suppose?" "We can read _Robinson Crusoe_--round the pictures." "Of course. Good old Robinson Crusoe! He's taught many a boy to read." "He's in there," said Jim, nodding vaguely in the direction of their burrow. "That's a good ides. Let us have a look at him." And Jim started off to fetch Robinson out. "And you might bring my things out too, Jim. My back's getting raw with the sun." Jim grinned and crept into the hole, and reappeared presently with an armful of clothing and a richly bound volume. Eager put on his other sock and his shirt and trousers, and then sat down again and picked up the book. It was an unusually fine edition of the old story, with large coloured plates, and had not been improved by its sojourn in the land. "Does your grandfather know you have this out here?" Most decidedly not. "I should take it back if I were you, or keep it wrapped in paper. It's spoiling with the sand and damp. It always hurts me to see a good book spoiled. Are there many more like this at the house?" "Heaps,"--which opened out further pleasant prospects if the mine proved workable. "Have you gone right through it?" "Only 'bout the pictures." "Well, if you're here to-morrow I'll begin reading it to you from the beginning. There must be quite three-quarters of it that you know nothing about. And as soon as I can, I'll call on your grandfather and have a talk with him about, the swimming and the rest. Can you write?" "Not much," said Jack. "Sums?" Nothing of the kind and no slightest inclination that way. "Now I must get back to my work," said Eager, as he finished dressing. "This is my first morning, and it's been holiday. I've been living for the last five years in the East End of London, where the people are all crowded into dirty rooms in dirty streets, and I came to have a took at the sea and the sands. It's like a new life. Now, good-bye," and he shook hands politely with each in turn. "I shall be on the look-out for you to-morrow." He strode away through the sand-hills towards Wyvveloe, and the boys stood watching till he disappeared. "My rabbit!" cried Jim, as his eye lighted on the old gage of battle lying on the sand, and he dashed at it. "Mine!" and in a moment they were at it hammer and tongs. And the Rev. Charles went on his way, not a little elated at thoughts of this new field that lay open before him. CHAPTER VII EAGER HEART "Mrs. Jex," said Eager, to the old woman in whose cottage he had taken his predecessor's rooms, "who lives in yon big house on the shore?" Mrs. Jex straightened her big white cap nervously. She had hardly got used yet to this new "passon," who was so very different from the last, and who had already in half a day asked her more questions than the last one did in a year. "Will it be Carne yo' mean, sir?" "That's it,--Carne. Who lives there, and what kind of folks are they?" "There's Sir Denzil an' there's Mr. Kennet----" "Who's Mr. Kennet?" "Sir Denzil's man, sir. An' there's the boys----' "Ah, then, it's the boys I met on the shore, running wild and free, without a shirt between them." "Like enough, sir. They do say 'at----" "Yes?"---as she came to a sudden stop. "'Tain't for the likes o' me, sir, to talk about my betters," said Mrs. Jex, with a doubtful shake of the head. "Oh, the parson hears everything, you know, and he never repeats what he hears. What do they say about the boys? Are they twins? They're as like as can be, and just of an age, as far as I could see." "Well, sir," said Mrs. Jex, with another shake, "there's more to that than I can say, an' I'm not that sure but what it's more'n anybody can say." "Why, what do you mean? That sounds odd." "Ay, 'tis odd. Carne's seen some queer things, and this is one of 'em, so they do say." "I'd like to hear. I rather took to those boys. They seem to be growing up perfect little savages, learning nothing and----" "Like enough, sir." "And I thought of calling on their grandfather and seeing if he'd let me take them in hand." "Yo'd have yore hands full, from all accounts." "That's how I like them. They've been a bit overfull for a good many years, but this offers the prospect of a change anyway." "Well, yo'd best see Dr. Yool. If yo' con get him talking he con tell yo' more'n onybody else. He were there when they were born--one of 'em onyway." "Worse and worse? You're a most mysterious old lady. What's it all about?" "Yo'd better ask t' doctor. He knows. I only knows what folks say, and that's mostly lies as often as not. Yore dinner's all ready. Yo' go and see t' doctor after supper and ax him all about it." After dinner he took a ramble round his new parish. He had arrived a couple of days sooner than expected and the head shepherd was away from home, so he had had to find his way about alone and make the acquaintance of his sheep as best he could. Mrs. Jex, who had also acted as landlady for the departed Smythe, had already thanked God for the change. For Smythe, a lank, boneless creature, who cloaked a woeful lack of zeal for humanity under cover of an unwrinkling robe of high observance, had found the atmosphere of Wyvveloe uncongenial. It lacked the feminine palliatives to which he had been accustomed. He had grown fretful and irritable--"a perfec' whimsy!" as Mrs. Jex put it. The sturdy fisher-farmer folk laughed him and his ways to scorn, and the whole parish was beginning to run to seed when, to the relief of all concerned, he succeeded in obtaining his transfer to a sphere better suited to his peculiar requirements. Mrs. Jex had had experience of Mr. Eager for one night and half a day, and she already breathed peacefully, and had thanked God for the change. And it was the same in every cottage into which the Rev. Charles put his lean, smiling face that day. Those simple folk, who looked death in the face as a necessary part of their daily life, knew a man when they saw one, and there was that in Charles Eager's face which would never be in Mr. Smythe's if he lived to be a hundred--that keen hunger for the hearts and souls and lives of men which makes one man a pastor, and the lack of which leaves another but a priest. And if the cottagers instinctively recognised the difference, how much more that bluff guardian--beyond their inclinations at times--of their outer husks, Dr. Yool! When Jane Tod, his housekeeper, ushered the stranger into his room Dr. Yool was mixing himself a stiff glass of grog and compounding new fulminations, objurgative and expletive, tending towards the cleansing of Wynsloe streets and backyards. Miss Tod was a woman in ten thousand, and had been specially created for the post of housekeeper to Dr. Yool. She was blessed with an imperturbable placidity which the irascible doctor had striven in vain to ruffle for over twenty years. When he came in of a night, tired and hungry and bursting with anger at the bovine stupidity of his patients, she let him rave to his heart's relief without changing a hair, and set food and drink before him, and agreed with all he said, even when he grew personal, and she never talked back. When she showed in Mr. Eager she simply opened the sitting-room door, said "New passon," and closed it behind him. "Will you let me introduce myself, Dr. Yool, seeing that the vicar is not here to do it? I am Charles Eager, vice Smythe, translated. You aid I are partners, you see, so I thought the sooner we became acquainted the better." "H'mph!" grunted Dr. Yool, eyeing his visitor keenly over the top of the glass as he sipped his red-hot grog. "Charles Eager, eh? And what are you eager for, Mr. Eager?" "Men, women, children--bodies and souls." "You leave their bodies to me," growled Dr. Yool in his brusquest manner. "Their souls '11 be quite as much as you can tackle." But Eager saw through his brusquerie. A very beautiful smile played over the keen, earnest face as he said: "When you separate them it's too late for either of us to do them any good." "Separate them! Takes me all my time to keep 'em together." "Exactly! So we'll make better headway if we work together and overlap." "Right! We'll work together, Mr. Eager." And the doctor's big brown hand met the other's in a friendly grip. "You've got more bone in you than the late invertebrate. He was a sickener. Hand like a fish. Have some grog? "I don't permit myself grog. It wouldn't do, you know. But I'll have a pipe. I see you don't object to smoke." "Smoke and grog are the only things a man can look forward to with certainty after a stiff day's work. The sooner you can get your flock to cleanse out the sheepfolds the better, Mr. Shepherd. We had typhus here ten years ago, and it gave them such a scare that for one year the place was fairly sweet. Now it stinks as bad as ever, and I'll be hanged if I can stir them." "I'll stir them, or I'll know the reason why!" Dr. Yool studied the deep-set eyes and firm mouth before him for a good minute, and then said: "Gad! I believe you will if any man can." "Do you know East London?" "Not intimately. I've seen enough of it to strengthen my preference for clean sand." "This is heaven compared with it. I'm going to open these people's eyes to their advantages." "You'll be a godsend if you can." "I want you to tell me all you think fit about two naked boys I came across on the shore this morning. Carr'ns, they called themselves. Fine little lads, and next door to savages, as far as I could judge. I tried to pump Mrs. Jex, and she referred me to you." Dr. Yool puffed contemplatively, and looked at him through the smoke. "That's the problem of Carne," he said slowly at last--"the insoluble problem." "What's the problem? And why insoluble?" "One of them is heir to Caine; the other is baseborn. No man on earth knows which is which." "Any woman?" "Ah--there you have it! Can you make a woman speak against her will--and her interest?" he added, as a hopeful look shot through Eager's eyes. "It's a strong combination against one. All the same, there is no reason why those boys should grow up naked of mind as well as of body. They are surely close in age? They're as like as two peas--splendid little savages, both." "There may be a week between them, not more." He puffed thoughtfully for several minutes again, and then said slowly: "If you can clothe them, body and mind, it will be a good work and a tough one. It's virgin soil and a big handful, and one of them's got a place in the world. I'll tell you the story for your guidance. I can trust it in your keeping. The old man would curse me, no doubt, but his time is past and the boys' is only coming. They are of more consequence." And bit by bit he told him what he knew of the strange happenings which had led to the problem of Carne. Eager followed him with keen interest. "And was that first marriage genuine?" he asked. "Very doubtful. I worried the old man till he went off to look into it, but when he came back he would say nothing. It makes no difference, however, for we don't know one boy from the other." "And the mother--the one who lived?" asked Eager, following out his own line of thought. "She stayed on at Carne with her mother for about a year. Then she disappeared, and, as far as I know, nothing has been heard of her since. She could solve the problem doubtless, but if she swore to it no one would believe her." "She believed in her own marriage, of course?" "Doubtless. And the time may come when she will put in her claim, if she is alive." "That's what I was thinking. And the father of the boys?" "The man he killed--unintentionally, no doubt, still after threats--had powerful friends. They would have exacted every penalty the law permitted. Denzil no doubt considered he could enjoy life better in other ways. If he is alive he is abroad. He has never shown face here since." "A complicated matter," said Eager thoughtfully, "and likely to become more so. Where would the old man's death land things?" "God knows. I've puzzled over it many a day and night." "And meanwhile Sir Denzil allows the youngsters to run to seed?" "Exactly. He takes absolutely no interest in them. If one of them died it would be all right for the other. He would be Carron of Carne in due course and no questions asked. But the complication of the two has made him look askance at both." "And the old woman--Mrs. Lee?" "She lives on at Carne, biding her time. I have no doubt she knows which is her grandson, but she won't speak till the time comes." "And how does Sir Denzil treat her?" "They say he has never spoken to her for the last ten years--never a word since that day she and her daughter brought the two children in to him and started the game. She tends the house and does the cooking, and so on. Sir Denzil lives in his own rooms, and his man Kennet looks after him. It's a very long time since I saw him. We never got on well together. He killed that poor girl, dragging her here as he did, and I told him so. And he chose to say that I ought to have been able to recognise t'other baby from which. Much he knows about it," snorted the doctor. "And what does he do with himself? Is he a student?" "Drinks, I imagine. I meet his man about now and again, and if it's like master like man there's not much doubt about it." "Poor little fellows! I must get hold of them, doctor. I must have them. Now, how shall I set about it?" "Better call on the old man and see what he says. His soul's in your charge, you know. I have my own opinion as to its probable ultimate destination, in spite of you. It'll be an experience, anyway." "For me or for him?" "Well, I was thinking of you at the moment." "And not an over-pleasant one, you suggest? "Oh, he's a gentleman, is the old man, if he is an old heathen. Gad! I'd like to go along with you, only it would upset your apple-cart and set you in the ditch." "I'll see him in the morning," said Eager. CHAPTER VIII SIR DENZIL'S VIEWS The struggle between the boys, which began before Mr. Eager was well out of sight, resulted in a bump on Jim's forehead similar to the one which already decorated Jack's, in a few additional scratches and bruises to both brown little bodies, and in Jim's temporary possession of the rabbit. That point decided for the time being, they sat down in the hot sand to recover their wind, Jim holding his prey tightly by the ears on his off side, since a moment's lack of caution would result in its instant transfer to another owner. "I'm going to learn to swim," said Jack. "HE won't let us," said Jim. Then, intent silence as a sand-piper came hopping along a ridge. It stopped at sight of them, and fixed them first with one inquiring eye and then with the other. Their hands felt for their little clubs. The sand-piper decided against them, and flew away with a cheep of derision. Jim had dropped the rabbit for his club. Jack leaned over behind him and had it in a second. Jim hurled himself on him, and they were at it again hammer and tongs, and presently they were sitting panting again, and this time the rabbit was on Jack's off side, and, for additional security, wedged half under his sandy leg. "We could tell him we'd asked HIM and HE said Yes," said Jim, resuming the conversation as if there had been no break. "He'll go and ask HIM himself, and HE'LL say No," said Jack, with perfect understanding, in spite of the mixture of third persons. "H'mph!" grunted Jim sulkily. "Wish HE was dead." "There'd be somebody else." From which remark you may gather that, where abstruse thinking met with little encouragement, Master Jack was the more thoughtful of the two. "We'll go in and watch him when he goes in to-morrow," suggested Jim presently. "They'd see us." "Drat 'em! Let 'em. Who cares?" "Means lickings. . . . And that Kennet he lays on a sight harder than he used to." "Ever since we caught him in the rat-trap. He remembers it whenever he's licking us. . . . Soon as I'm a man I'm going to kill Kennet. It's the very first thing I shall do." "I don't know," said Jack doubtfully. "He only licks us when HE tells him to." "I should think so," snorted Jim, with scorn at the idea of anything else. "HE always looks at us as if we were toads. Why does he?" "Damned if I know," said Jack quietly. It sounded odd from his childish lips, but it had absolutely no meaning for him. It was simply one of the accomplishments they had picked up from Mr. Kennet. An upward glance at the sun at the same moment suddenly accentuated a growing want inside him. He sprang up with a whoop, swinging his rabbit by the ears, and made for the hole in the sand-hill. Jim followed close on his heels, and presently, clad only in short blue knee-breeches of homely cut, and blue sailor jerseys, they were trotting purposefully through the shallows towards Carne and dinner, chattering brokenly as they went. A grim old man watched them from an upper window till they padded silently round the corner out of sight. They ran in through the back porch, and so into the comfortable kitchen with its red-tiled floor and shining pans, and dark wood linen-presses round the walls. Old Mrs. Lee, grandmother to one of them, turned from the fire to greet them. "Ready for yore dinner, lads? And which on yo' killed to-day?"--as she caught sight of the rabbit. "I did," from Jack. "No--me," from Jim. "Well, both of us, then," said Jack. "Clivver lads! Now fall to." And they needed no bidding to the food she set before them. They were always hungry, and never criticised her provisioning. Ten years had made very little change in Mrs. Lee. Indeed, if there was any change at all it was for the better. For, whereas in the previous times she had had grievous troubles and anxieties, during these last ten years she had had an object in life, not to say two, and lively subjects both of them. The grim old man upstairs would have viewed the death of either of the boys with more than equanimity. At the first sudden upspringing of the trouble he had, indeed, fervently wished both out of the way. But consideration of the subject and much snuff brought him to just that much better a frame of mind that he ended by desiring short shrift for only one of them, and which one he did not care a snap. Either would be preferable to a Solway Carron, but the two together produced a complication which time would only intensify, unless Death stepped in and cut the knot. In the beginning he watched Nance's and Mrs. Lee's treatment of them as closely as he could, without betraying his keen interest in the matter. His man, Kennet, had instructions to surprise, entrap, or coerce the secret out of the women in any way he could devise. But the women laughed to scorn their clumsy attempts at espionage, and meted out equal justice and mercy to both boys alike. Never by one single word or look of special favour bestowed on either did master or man come one step nearer to the knowledge they sought. Mr. Kennet, indeed, undertook, for a consideration, to make Nance his lawful, wedded wife, with a view to getting at the truth. But when he deviously approached Nance herself he received so hot a repulse, which was not by any means confined to mere verbal broadsides, that he beat a hasty retreat, with marks of the encounter on his face which took longer to heal than did his ardour to cool. She was a handsome, strapping girl, with a temper like hot lava, and she honestly believed herself Denzil Carron's lawful wife, though her mother still cast doubts upon it. "You!" Nance labelled Mr. Kennet after this episode, and concentrated in that single word all the scorn of her outraged feelings; and thereafter, till she took herself off to parts unknown, made Mr. Kennet's life a burden to him, yet caused him to thank his stars that the matter had gone no farther. And the grim old man upstairs? From the women's treatment of the boys--and he spied upon them in ways, and at times, and by means, of which they had no slightest idea--he had learned nothing. And so he waited and waited, with infinite patience, and hoped that time might bring some solution of the problem, even though it came by the hand of Death. And then, as Death stood aloof, and the boys grew and waxed strong, and developed budding personalities, he watched them still more keenly, in the hope of finding in their dispositions and tempers some indications which might help him in his quest. Plain living was the order of those days at Caine; and he who had hobnobbed with princes, and had been notorious for his prodigality in time when excess rioted through the land, lived now as simply as the simplest yeoman of the shire. And that not of necessity, for his income was large, and, since he spent nothing, the accumulations were rollicking up into high figures. The candle had simply burnt itself out. He had not a desire left in life, unless it was to get the better of these women who had dusted his latter days with ashes. Of his son, the origin of this culminating and enduring trouble, he had heard nothing for many years. He did not even know whether he was alive or dead, and, save for the confusion which lack of definite knowledge on that head might cause in the table of descent, he did not much care. He had looked to the gallant captain to raise the house of Carne to its old standing in the world--a poor enough ambition indeed, but still all that was left him. By his hot-headed folly Captain Denzil had struck himself out of the running, and by degrees, as this became more and more certain, his father's interest in life transferred itself from the impossible to the remotely possible, even though the possibility was all of a tangle. For a time he supplied the prodigal freely with money, and the prodigal dispensed it in riotous living. The fact that by rights he ought to have been cooling his heels in prison gave a zest to his enjoyments, and he denied himself none. His father buoyed his hopes, as long as hope was possible, on his son's return in course of time to his native land, and to those aristocratic circles of which he had previously been so bright an ornament. But time passed and brought no amelioration of his prospects. Louis Philippe still occupied the French throne. The death of d'Aumont was not forgotten. Sir Denzil's quiet soundings of the authorities were always met with the invariable, and perfectly obvious, reply, that Captain Carron was at liberty to return at any time--at his own risk; a reply which only strengthened Captain Carron's determination to remain strictly where he was. He lived for a time, as Kennet told us, in Paris, under an assumed name of course, but under the very noses of the men whose implacable memories debarred him from returning home. It was added spice to his already highly spiced life. But high living demands high paying, and Captain Denzil's demands grew and grew till at last his father--who would have withheld nothing for a definite object, but saw no sense in aimless prodigality--flatly refused anything beyond a moderate allowance. From that time communications ceased, and whether and how his son lived Sir Denzil knew, not, and, from all appearance; cared little. He had ceased to be a piece of value in the old man's game. Pending direction, from above or below or from the inside, Sir Denzil left the boys to develop as they might. A magnanimous, even a reasonably balanced nature would have assumed the burden and done its best for both alike, and trusted to Time and Providence for a solution of the problem. But no one ever miscalled Sir Denzil Carron to the extent of imputing to him any faintest trace of magnanimity. Time he had some hopes of. Providence he had no belief in. He was simply the product of his age: an unmitigated old heathen, with but one aim in life--the resuscitation of the house of Carne, and to that end ready to sacrifice himself, or any other, body, soul, and spirit. That both boys were of his blood he was satisfied, but the unsolvable doubt as to which was the rightful heir cancelled all his feelings for them and set them both outside the pale of his doubtful favours. At times, in pursuance of his search for leading signs, he had sent for the boys, talked to them, tried to get below the surface. But in his presence they crept into their innermost shells and became dull and dumb, and impervious even to his biting sarcasms on their appearances, tastes, and habits. They feared and hated the grim old tyrant, with his peaked white face and thin scornful lips and gold snuff-box. There was no kindliness for them in the keen dark eyes, and they felt it without understanding why. They would slink out of his presence like whipped puppies, but once out of it he would hear their natural spirits rising as they raced for the kitchen, and their merry shouts as they sped across the flats to their own devices. When that was possible he watched them unawares, on the look-out always for what he sought. But such chances were few, for natural instinct caused the boys to remove themselves as far away from him as possible, and the sand-hills offered an inviting field and unlimited scope for their abilities. CHAPTER IX MORE OF SIR DENZIL'S VIEWS All the next morning the boys lay in the wire-grass on top of their special sand-hill, on the look-out for their new friend. But he did not come. Instead, he walked over to Carne, and coming first on the back door, rapped on it, and was confronted by Mrs. Lee. It seemed to him that she eyed him with something more than native caution, and after what he had heard from Dr. Yool he was not surprised at it. "Can I see Sir Denzil?" he asked cheerily. "I'm the new curate." The old woman's mouth wrinkled in a dry smile, as though the thought of Sir Denzil and the curate compassed incongruity. "Yo' can try," she said. "Knock on front door and maybe Kennet'll hear yo'." And Eager went round to the front. Continuous knocking at last produced some result. The great front door looked as if it had not been opened for years. It opened at last, however, and Mr. Kennet stood regarding him with disfavour and surprise and a touch of relief on his hairless red face. Carne had few callers, and Kennet's first idea, when summoned to that door, was that Captain Denzil had come home, a return which could hardly make for peace and happiness. "Can I see Sir Denzil?" asked Eager once more. "Tell him, please, that Mr. Eager, the new curate, begs the favour of an interview with him." Kennet looked doubtful, but finally, remembering that he was a gentleman's gentleman, asked him to step inside while he inquired if Sir Denzil could see him. The hall was a large and desolate apartment, flagged with stone and destitute of decoration or clothing of any kind, and was evidently little used. There was a huge fireplace at one side, but the bare hearth gave a chill even to the summer day. A wide oak staircase led up to a gallery off which the upper rooms opened, and from which Sir Denzil at times in the winter quietly overlooked the boys at their play down below, and sought in them unconscious indications of character. And presently, Kennet came silently down the staircase and intimated that the visitor was to follow him. He ushered him into a room looking out over the sea, and Sir Denzil turned from the window, snuff-box in hand, to meet him. There was an intimation of surprised inquiry in the very way he held his snuff-box. He bowed politely, however, and his eyebrows emphasised his desire to learn the reasons for so unexpected a visit. "I trust you will pardon my introducing myself, Sir Denzil," said Eager. "I am taking Mr. Smythe's place, and the vicar is away." "Ah!" said Sir Denzil, taking a pinch very elegantly, "I had not the pleasure of Mr. Smythe's acquaintance,"--and his manner politely intimated that he equally had not sought that of Mr. Smythe's successor. "I have come with a very definite object," said Eager, cheerfully oblivious to the old man's frostiness, and going straight to his mark, as was his way. "I want you to let me take those two boys in hand. I met them on the sands yesterday. In fact, they amused themselves by hiding my clothes while I was in bathing, and I looked like having to go home clad only in a towel." And he laughed again at the recollection. "They shall be punished----" "My dear sir! You don't suppose I came for any such purpose as that! It broke the ice between us. I got my things and made two friends. I want to improve the acquaintance--with your sanction." "To what end?" "To the end of making men of them, Sir Denzil. There are great possibilities there. You must not neglect them, or the responsibility will be yours." "That, I presume, is my affair." "No--excuse me! In the natural course of things those boys will be here when you and I are gone. As their feet are set now, so will they walk then. If you leave them untrained the responsibility for their deeds will be yours. It is no light matter." Sir Denzil extracted a pinch very deliberately and closed the box with a tap on the First Gentleman's snub nose. "And suppose I prefer to let them run wild for the present?" "Then you are not doing your duty by them, and sooner or later it will recoil upon your own head--or house." "Yes; but, as you say, I shall probably not be here, and so I shall not suffer." "Your name--the name of your house will suffer----" Sir Denzil shedded the prospect with a shrug. "Who set you on this business, Mr. Eager?" he asked, with a touch of acidity. "God." "Ah!"--snuffing with extreme deliberation. "Now we approach debatable ground." "No, sir. We stand on the only ground that offers sound footing." "Well, well! I suppose some people still believe such things." "Fortunately, yes. Now about the boys. May I take them in hand?" Sir Denzil regarded him thoughtfully while he shook his snuff box gently and prepared another pinch. "On conditions, possibly yes," he said at last. "And the conditions?" "What have you heard about those boys, Mr. Eager?" "I think I may say everything." "Egad! Then you know more than I do. You have wasted no time. Who told you the story?" "Perhaps you will not press that question, Sir Denzil. Having got interested in the boys I naturally desired to learn what I could about them. It was from no idle curiosity, I assure you." "So you went to Dr. Yool, I suppose. I felt sure he would be at the root of the matter." "I assure you he is not. The root of the matter is simply my desire for those boys. I would like to try my hand at making men of them." "Very welt. You shall try--on this condition. As you are aware, one of them comes of high stock on both sides, the other of low stock on one side. The signs may crop out, must crop out in time. You will have opportunities, such as I have not, of observing them. What I ask of you is to bring all your intelligence and acumen to bear on the solution of my problem--which is which?" "I understand, and I will willingly do my best. But you must remember, Sir Denzil, that there is no infallibility in such indications. The crossing of blue blood with red sometimes produces a richer strain than the blending of two thin blues." "That is so. Still I hope there may be indications we cannot mistake, and then I shall know what to do. It is, as you can understand, a matter that has caused me no little concern." "Naturally. By God's help we will make men of both of them. The rest we must trust to Providence." Sir Denzil's pinch of snuff cast libellous doubts on Providence. "You design them for the army, I presume?" asked Eager. "Unless one should show an inclination for the Church," said the old cynic suavely. "Which I should be inclined to look upon as a clear indication of his origin." "I'm not so sure of that," said Eager, with a smile. "The Church has its heroes no less than the army." "You will find them difficult to handle." "We shall soon be good friends. I'm going to begin by teaching them to swim." Sir Denzil looked at him thoughtfully and said: "That might undoubtedly relieve the situation. It is a dangerous coast. If you could drown one of them for me----" "I am going to make men of them. I can't make a man out of a drowned boy. I will take every care of them, and some time you will be proud of them." "Of one of them possibly. The question is, which?" CHAPTER X GROWING FREEMEN The Rev. Charles was greatly uplifted as he tramped through the sand to keep his appointment with the boys. He had succeeded beyond his hopes, and a most congenial field of work and study lay open to his hand. "Catch them young," had been hammered into his heart and brain by his five years' work in East London. With heart and brain he had fought against the stolid indifference and active evil-mindedness of the grown-ups, till heart and brain grew sick at times. His greatest hopes had settled on the children, and here were two, of a different caste indeed, but as ignorant of the essentials as any he had met with--and they were given into his hand for the moulding. By God's help he would make men of them, high-born or baseborn. The side-issue was nothing to him, but it would add zest to the work. When he got, as he believed, into the neighbourhood of his previous day's adventure, he examined the ridge of sand-hills with care. But they were all so much alike that he could not be sure. He had hoped to find the boys on the look-out for him, but he saw no signs of them. He struggled up the yielding side of the nearest hill and looked round. If he could find their hole he would probably find them inside it or not far away. It was close on midday, baking hot, and the sand-hills seemed as deserted as Sahara. The sea lay fast asleep behind its banks, which reached to the horizon. When he looked back across the flats to Carne, he rubbed his eyes at sight of its stout walls bending and bowing and jigging spasmodically in an uncouth dance. The very wire-grass drooped listlessly. The only sound was the cheerful creak of a cricket. The width, length, and height of it, the gracious spaciousness of it all filled him with fresh delight. It was all so very different from the heart-crushing straitness of the slums and alleys in which his last years had been spent. He stood drinking it all in, and then, seeing no signs of the boys, he turned his back to the shore and strode inland. But within a few steps he caught sight of recent traces of them in fresh-turned yellow sand which the sun had not had time to whiten. He whistled shrilly, if perchance the sound might penetrate to their hold. And then, to his astonishment, the ground in front of him cracked and heaved, and first one and then another dark sanded head and laughing face came out, and the boys sprang up from the shallow holes in which they had buried themselves and stood before him. "You young rabbits," he laughed. "I had just about given you up. Thought I wasn't coming, I suppose." Decisive nods from both black heads. "Well, we'll make a start on that. Remember that I never break a promise, and I want you to do the same. The boy who makes up his mind that he'll never break his word is half a brave man." They stared up at him with wide eyes, and whether they understood it he did not know. But he knew better than to say more just then. "Now--why----?" And he looked from one to the other and then began to laugh. "Which of you is Jack and which is Jim? I was to remember Jack by a bump on the forehead, and now you've both got bumps. Been fighting again?" Gleaming nods from both boys. "We must find you something better to do. I've been seeing your grandfather, and he says I may teach you to swim." Squirms of anticipation in the active brown bodies, and glances past him at the distant sea. "No, not to-day. It's too late now, but it was worth spending the morning on. We'll make a start to-morrow. Can you be here at eight o'clock?" Their energetic heads intimated that they could be there very much before eight if desired. "Right! I'll be here. In the meantime you can be practising a bit on dry land. Here's the stroke"--and he laid himself flat on a convenient hummock and kicked out energetically, while the black eyes watched intently. "Now try it. You first, Jack. That's right. Keep your hands a bit more sloped, and your toes more down. Thrust back with the flat of your feet as though you were trying to kick some one. First rate! Now, Jim!" But Jim was already hard at work on his own account. "That's right. Hands sloped, toes down. Draw your knees well up under your body. You'll find it easier in the water. Oh, you'll do. You'll be swimmers in no time. That'll do for just now. Now--Jack," he looked at them both, but his eyes finally settled on Jim--"if you'll fetch Robinson out well make a start on him." Jim turned to dive down the hill-side, and was instantly tripped by Jack, who flung himself on top of him. They rolled down together, fighting like cats, amid a cloud of flying sand. Eager sprang after them, found it useless, as before, to attempt to separate them by any ordinary means, so spanked them indiscriminately till they fell apart and stood up panting. And the odd thing about it all was that no slightest ill-will seemed born of their strife. The moment it was over they were friends again. "He told me," panted Jack in self-justification. "He looked at me," panted Jim. "My fault, boys. I must tie a string round one of your arms till I get to know you. Now trot along one of you--no, you "--grabbing one by the shoulder as both started off again. "We haven't much time to-day. If I'm not home by one Mrs. Jex will be eating all my dinner." So they sat in the soft sand, and he read, and explained what he read, till Robinson Crusoe came alive and began to be as real to them as one of themselves, and they knew him as they had never known him before. When Eager was dodging about his sheepfold that afternoon he came upon Dr. Yool in the yellow-wheeled gig. "Well, I've got 'em," said the curate. "Got what? Measles, jumps----?" "Those boys. I bearded the old man in his den this morning, and he has given me a free hand with them." "You'll do," said Dr. Yool. "They'll keep you busy. Don't forget I want your help with these stinks"--pointing with his whip to the heaps of refuse lying about. "I'm tackling stinks now. Tiger-pups in the morning, stinks in the afternoon, Dr. Yool in the evening. That's the order of service at present." And they parted the better for the meeting. Eager had a chat with some of the wise men of Wynsloe, and got points from them as to shifting sands, and the tucking sands, and the other dangers of that treacherous coast, and in return incidentally dropped into their minds some seeds of wisdom respecting stinks and their consequences. Five minutes to eight next morning found him a-perch of the highest sand-hill in the neighbourhood, on the look-out for his pupils. Five minutes past eight found him somewhat disappointed at their non-appearance. They had seemed eager enough too, the day before. Perhaps the old man had thought better of it. Then he remembered his cynical hope that the swimming might prove of service in the solution of his great problem. And then a couple of war-whoops at each of his ears jerked him off his perch with so sudden a leap that the whoopers squirmed in the sand with delight. "Thought we weren't coming?" grinned Jack. "Well, I began to fear you'd been stopped----" "We promised," grinned Jim; and Eager rejoiced to think that that seed at all events had taken root. In two minutes they were trotting across the flats, and presently they were in the tide-way, and the little savages were revelling in a fresh acquirement and a new sense of motion. There was little teaching needed. Eager took them out, one after the other, neck-deep, and turned their faces to the shore, and they swam home like rats, and yelled hilariously from pure enjoyment as soon as they found their breath. Then he carried them out of their depths, and loosed them, and they paddled away back without a sign of fear. Fear, in fact, seemed absolutely lacking in them. The only thing on earth of which they stood in any fear, as far as he could make out, was the grim old man in the upper room at Carne, and even in his case it seemed to be as much distrust and dislike as actual fear. But even fearlessness has its dangers, and, mindful of his trust, Eager exacted from each of them a solemn promise not to go into the sea except when he was with them, for he had no mind to solve the old man's riddle for him in the way he had so hopefully suggested. Those mornings on the sands and in the water proved the foundation on which he slowly and surely built the boys' characters. A very few days of so close an intimacy stamped their individualities on his mind. After the third day he never again mistook one for the other. Time and again they tried to mislead him, but he saw deeper than they knew and never failed to detect them. They were, at this time, remarkably alike in every way, and though, later on, each developed marked characteristics of his own, there all along remained between them resemblance enough to put strangers to confusion, a matter in which they at all times found extreme enjoyment. But even now, like as they were, in face and body and the wild naturalness of their primeval ways, their respective personalities began to disclose themselves, as Eager broke them, bit by bit, to the harness of civilisation. And if their harnessing was no easy matter, either for themselves or their teacher, they came to realise very quickly that, though it might mean less of freedom in some ways, it meant also an immensely wider reach and outlook. Whereas their life had hitherto revolved in narrow grooves--with which indeed no man had taken the trouble to meddle, now it ran in courses that were ordered, but which also were spacious and lofty and filled with novelty and enterprise. And as their natural characteristics began to develop in these more reasonable ways, Eager watched and studied them with intensest interest. But little savages they remained in certain respects for a considerable time, and it was only by slow degrees that he managed to lead them out of darkness into something approaching twilight. Jim, for instance, had a rooted detestation of every living thing he came across on the shore, and promptly proceeded to squash it with his bare foot or to pound it into jelly with his prehistoric club. From tiny delicate crab to senseless jelly-fish or screaming gull, if Jim came across it it must die if he could manage it. To counteract, if he might, this innate lust for slaughter Eager took to explaining to them some of the more simple wonders and beauties of seashore life. He brought down a small pocket microscope and showed them things they had never dreamed of. This appealed to Jack immensely. He became a devoted slave of the wonderful glasses, and never tired of poring over and peering into things. Jim, however, drew a double satisfaction from them. He smashed things first and then delighted in the examination of the pieces, and many a pitched battle they fought over the destruction and defence of flotsam and jetsam which formerly they would both have destroyed with equal zest. It was all education, however, and Eager rejoiced in them greatly. He found them, in varying degrees and with notable exceptions, fairly easy to lead, but almost impossible to drive. He led them step by step from darkness towards the light, and meanwhile studied them with as microscopic a care as that with which he endeavoured to get them to study the tiny things of the shore. Their wild free life about the sand-hills had trained their powers of observation to an unusual degree. True, the observation had generally tended to destruction, but the faculty was good, and the end and aim of it was a matter to be slowly brought within control. They could tell him many strange things about the manners and customs of rabbits, and gulls, and peewits, and sandpipers, and bull-frogs, and tadpoles, and so on. They could forecast the weather from the look of the sky and the smell of the wind, with the accuracy of a barometer. They could run as fast and farther than he could, for they had been breathing God's sweetest air all their lives, while he had been travelling alley-ways, with tightened lips and compressed nostrils. And they could fling their little stone clubs with an aim that was deadly. Jim indeed vaunted himself on having once brought down a seagull on the wing, but the actual fact rested on his sole testimony and Jack cast doubts on it, and thereupon they fought each time it was mentioned, but proved nothing thereby. Eager told them of the wonders of the black man's boomerang; and they laboured long and practised much, but could not compass it. It was their ideal weapon, a thing to dream of and strive after, but it always lay beyond them. One day he brought home under his arm, from the shop in Wyvveloe, a small parcel which he took up into his own room. He borrowed Mrs. Jex's scissors, and spent a very much longer time planning and cutting than the result seemed to warrant. Then he got Mrs. Jex, who would have shaved her scanty locks to please him, to do some hemming and stitching and to sew on some bits of tape, and next day he astonished his little savages by attiring himself and them in bright-red loin-cloths, before they started for their mile sprint to the water. The boys were inclined to resist this innovation as an unnecessary cramping of their freedom. Jim averred that he couldn't stretch his legs, and that his garment burnt him, though when it was on it looked no bigger than his hand. Jack demanded reasons, and was told to wait and he would see. However, the brilliancy of the little garments somewhat condoned their offence, and once in the water they were soon forgotten, and as they flashed back and forth across the sands the startling effects they produced in the sunny pools by degrees reconciled their wearers to their use. About a week after this, the boys were sitting one morning in the hollow Mr. Eager used as a dressing-room, wondering why he was later than usual, "Gone to see HIM, maybe, 'bout yon books we brought out," growled Jack gloomily. "Hmph!" grunted Jim. "I don't care--'sides, he wouldn't." And then Eager strode in with a brighter face even than usual. "Afraid I wasn't coming, were you?" he laughed. "Thought maybe you'd gone to see HIM again," said Jack. "Your grandfather? No; I've been seeing some one very much nicer. Jim, did you say your verse this morning?" This was a gigantic innovation, and still much of a mere ritual. But it was a beginning, and the rest would follow. It was the first upward step towards those higher things which Charles Eager kept ever steadily in view. "Forgot," grunted Jim. This again was mighty gain. A month ago--if such a contingency had been possible--he would never have owned up. To his grandfather it is doubtful if he would have owned up even now. "Well, oblige me by going behind that sand-hill and saying it now, and think what you're saying as well as you can. And you, Jack?" "Said um," said Jack dutifully. "Never saw you," said Jim, on his knees. Whereupon Jack dashed at him and rolled him over prayer and all, and they had a regular former-state set-to. The Rev. Charles, grave of face, but internally convulsed, got them separated at last, and as soon as Jim had performed his devotions they turned their faces towards the sea. Before the two boys could start out, as they usually did, like bolts from a cross-bow, however, he laid a detaining hand on each brown shoulder, and to their surprise whistled shrilly across the hills. In reply, a tiny figure in brilliant scarlet sped out from an adjacent nook, and shot, with flowing hair, and little white feet going like drumsticks, across the flats towards the sea. The boys caught their breath and gaped in amazement. "What is it?" gasped Jim. "Whow! Who?" from Jack. "My little sister. She only arrived last night. Now let's see if we can catch her! Off you go!" And they tore away across the long ribbed sands after the flying streak of scarlet in front. They caught her long before she reached the tide-lip, and her eyes flashed merriment as they raced alongside. She had rare beauty even as a child--and no beauty of after-life ever quite equals that of a lovely child--and the two boys had never in their lives seen anything like her. They stumbled alongside, careless of holes and lumps, with sidelong glances for nothing but that radiant vision--scarlet-wrapped, streaming nut-brown hair, dancing blue eyes, white skin flushed with the run like a hedge-rose, little teeth gleaming pearls between panting, laughing lips, a little rainbow of beauty. "Well run, Gracie! Keep it up, old girl!" panted Eager, almost pumped himself. And then they were in the water. Grace, it appeared, could not swim yet. The boys fell to at once and fought for the honour of helping her, though neither would have dared to touch her. She screamed at sight of their brown bodies thrashing to and fro in the foam, but was comforted at sight of her brother's laughing face. "Come along, Gracie. Never mind the boys. They enjoy a fight more than anything. Now kick away, and strike out as I showed you how on the footstool. I'll hold your chin up. That's it! Bravo, little one! You'll be a swimmer in a week." CHAPTER XI THE LITTLE LADY And so another element entered into the tiger-cubs' education, and one that, for so small a creature, exercised a mighty influence on them, both then and thereafter. She was the Joy of Charles Eager's heart and the light of his eyes. Other sisters and brothers there had been, but all were gone save this little fairy, and they two were alone in the world. While he wrought in the dark corners of the great city he had boarded her with some maiden aunts in the suburbs, and the weekly sight of her, growing like a flower, had helped to keep his heart fresh and sweet. Not the least of the joys of his translation to this wide new sphere was the fact that he could have her always with him. Mrs. Jex wept with joy at sight of her, vowed she was the very image of her own little Sally, who died when she was eight, and proceeded to squander on her the pent-up affections of thirty childless years. And the Little Lady, as Mrs. Jex styled her, lorded it over them all, then and thereafter, and was a factor of no small consequence in all their lives. Over the slowly regenerating tiger-cubs she exercised a peculiarly softening and elevating influence. It was exactly what they needed, and all unconsciously it wrought upon the simple savageries of their boy-natures as powerfully as did the Rev. Charles's more direct and strenuous endeavours. Both boys, in moments of excitement, which were many in the course of each day, had a habit of expression, picked up from Sir Denzil and Mr. Kennet, which was not a little startling on their juvenile lips. Eager promptly suppressed these whenever they slipped out. He knew well enough that they conveyed no special meaning to the boys beyond an idea of extra forcefulness, but, besides being unseemly, they grated horribly on his sensitive ear. As for the Little Lady, Master Jim Carron did not soon forget the effect produced on her by one of his unconscious expletives. When Dan Fell of Wynsloe got to the end of his bottle of Hollands gin sooner than he expected one dark night at the fishing, and hurled it overboard with a curse, his only feeling was one of disgust at the shortcomings of a friend in time of need. If any one had told him that he was thereby assisting in the education of little Jim Carron of Carne he would have cursed more volubly still, under the impression that he was being made game of, which was a thing he could not stand. The bottle floated ashore, tried conclusions with a log of Norway pine thrown up by the last equinoctials, distributed itself in razor-like spicules about the soft sand, and lay in wait for unwary feet. Jim, racing home one day from the bathing alongside the Little Lady, and dazzled somewhat, perhaps, by the gleam of the little crimson robe and the damp little mane of flowing hair, set incautious foot on one of the razor spicules, jerked out an energetic and utterly unconscious "Damn!" and bit the sand. The Little Lady heard the word, but missed the cause. "Oh!" cried she, in a shocked voice, and sped away to her own apartment, and began to dress with trembling sodden pink fingers in extreme haste, as though clothing might possibly afford a certain amount of protection against the ill effects of flying curses. By the time she had got on her tiny pink petticoat, a peep round the corner showed her her brother and Jack kneeling by the fallen utterer of oaths and curses, and she began to fear something had happened. She had little doubt that punishment had promptly overtaken the sinner. But she liked the sinner in spite of his sin, and she stole back to see what was the matter. That it was something serious was evident by Charles's knitted brows as he bent over the foot which Jim held tightly between his hands. His lips were pinched very close, and his brown face was mottled with putty colour, and the sand below was red. The indurated little pad, hard as leather almost with much running on the sands--for the boys scoffed at shoes--was badly sliced and bleeding freely, but the worst of it was that the treacherous spicule had broken off short and stopped inside and they had no means of getting it out. "Rags, Gracie," said Eager, at sight of the tearful face and clasped hands and pink petticoat, and she turned and sped, over sands that rocked like waves beneath her feet, to her dressing-room, and back with an armful of garments and a handkerchief the size of his hand. He folded the handkerchief into a square pad, and ripped something white into strips and bound the foot tightly, issuing his orders as he did so. "Jack, get into your things and run for Dr. Yool, and tell him to go to the house. Tell him there's glass inside that must come out. Gracie, put on your frock and sit here with Jim. I'll get some things on, and then I'll carry him home!" And the Little Lady struggled mistily into her things behind Jim's back, and then sat down alongside him without speaking. "Doesn't hurt a bit," said Jim, through clenched teeth and whitened lips. The Little Lady sniffed and looked at the distant sea. "Tell you it doesn't hurt," said Jim again. The Little Lady made no response. And presently--"Whew!" said Jim, with a frightful twist of the face, trying by instinct the other tack, "ah!--o-o-oh!"--but all to no purpose. The Little Lady's soft heart might be wrung, but at present she could not bring herself to speak to this dreadful sinner. "Now," said Eager, running up. "Stand up, Jim. Put your arms round my neck. Now your feet up, so, and off we go. I must get old Bent to make sandals for you youngsters. We can't have this kind of thing, you know. It'll be ten days before you can use that foot, old man." "Damn!" "Jim!" And the Little Lady fell solemnly into the rear. She would not speak to him for two whole days, though she did not mind sitting within sight of him in the side of a sand-hill, and she silently allowed him to instruct her in the art of making sand waterfalls. But the current of her usual merry chatter was frozen at the fount, and the unconscious Jim could make nothing of it. On the third day, tiring of an abstinence that was quite as irksome to herself as to her victim, she broke the ice by informing him of the painful fact that he was doomed to everlasting punishment. She put it very shortly and concisely. "Jim," she said, "you'll go to hell." "Um?" chirped Jim cheerfully, glad to hear her voice once more, even at such a price. "An' why?" "'Cause you swear." "Ho! Very well! So will HE"--the emphatic use of the third person singular in the boys' vernacular was always understood to stand for Sir Denzil Carron of Carne--"and so will Kennet, and so will Dr. Yool." "I don't care about any of them," said Grace impartially, "unless, perhaps, Dr. Yool. I do rather like him. But it will be such a pity for you." The prospect did not seem to trouble him greatly, perhaps because his views on the subject were not nearly so clearly defined as hers. "Oh, well, I won't if you don't like," he answered cheerfully. "Thank you," said the Little Lady; and from that time, simply to oblige her, and from no great fear of direr consequences, he really did seem to do his best to avoid the use of any words which might offend her. He even went so far as to assume an oversight of his brother's rhetorical flights, and many a pitched battle they had in consequence. These encounters were so much a part of their nature that Eager found it impossible to stop them entirely. They had fought continually since ever they could crawl within arm's length of one another. Where other boys might have argued to ill-temper, these two simply closed without wasting a word, and having settled the momentary dispute, _vi et armis_, were as friendly as ever. They both possessed fiery tempers, and had never seen or dreamt of the necessity of controlling them. But on the other hand, they never bore malice, and the cause of dispute, and the blows that settled it, were forgotten the moment the god of battle had awarded the palm. They were very closely matched, and no great bodily harm came of it, though to the spectators it looked fearsome enough. Bit by bit, utilising and turning to best account their natural powers and proclivities, Eager got hold of them, to the point at all events of inducing their feet into more reasonable upward paths. But as to coming one step nearer to the reading of Sir Denzil's puzzle, he had to acknowledge completest failure. He studied the boys, from his own intense interest in them, as no other had ever had the opportunity of studying them. And he discussed his observation of them with Sir Denzil time and again. But, so far, there were no ultra indications of disposition in either of them so marked as to offer any reasonable basis for deduction. For men without a single common view of life, he and Sir Denzil had become quite friendly. A verbal tussle with the old heathen, in which each spoke his mind without reserve, always braced him up, just as the boys' more primitive method of argument seemed to do them good. The old gentleman always greeted him, over a pinch of snuff, with an expression of regret that he had not yet succeeded in settling the matter out of hand by drowning one of his pupils. "Well, Mr. Eager," he would say, "no progress yet?" "Oh, plenty. We're improving every day." "H'mph If you'd only drown one of them for me----" "I've a better use for them than that." "I doubt it. Ill stock on either side, though I say it." "As the twig is bent----" "Break one off and I'd thank you. Here is possibly a further complication,"--tapping with his snuff-box a small news-sheet he had been reading when Eager came in. "What is that, sir?" "That fool Quixande has got into a mess in Paris--got a sword through his ribs." "Quixande?" queried Eager, not perceiving the relevancy of the matter. "He has no issue--none that can inherit, that is. One of those whelps is his only sister's son and so comes in for the title. Which?" "H'm, yes. It's mighty awkward. I suppose you couldn't make one of them Earl of Quixande and the other Carron of Carne?" "It would be a solution. But which? Which? Such matters are not settled by guesswork." "We can only wait and see." "If Quixande dies we cannot wait--the succession cannot." "For his own sake we'll hope he'll pull through. He may repent of his sins." "Quixande?"--with raised brows, and a shake of the head. "You don't know him." "If I did, I'd try to bring him to his senses." "Waste of time. With these cubs you may be able to do something, though I doubt it. Quixande's past mending." "No man is past mending till he's dead. Perhaps not then----" "Ah!"--with a pinch of snuff and a wave of the hand, "A hopeful creed, but with no more foundation than most others. It would, however, undoubtedly commend itself to Quixande on his death-bed." "A hopeful creed is better than a hopeless one," said Eager, with emphasis. "Undoubtedly, if you admit the necessity of such things." "Thank God, I do." "Well, well! However--what you are doing for those boys should benefit one of them, though it's thrown away upon the other." "And if you never solve the puzzle?" "If one of them dies I accept the other in full. That's the solution." There were times when all Eager's knocking on the great front door was productive of no result whatever. Then he would go round to the back and interview Mrs. Lee, but never with any satisfaction. "Ay?" she would say to his statement, straightening up from her work, arms akimbo, and gazing steadily at him with her dark eyes. "Maybe they're out." But he had never met Sir Denzil out, nor had any of the villagers ever encountered him, and Dr. Yool said brusquely that both the old gentleman and his gentleman were probably lying dead drunk in the upper rooms. Eager never mentioned these abortive visits to Sir Denzil, and there was never anything in his appearance to justify Dr. Yool's assertions. CHAPTER XII MANY MEANS Eager spread his nets very wide for the capture for higher things of these two callow souls cast so carelessly into his hands. Carelessly, that is, on the part of Sir Denzil. For his own part he believed devoutly in the Higher Hand in the great game of life, and never for a moment doubted that here was a work specially designed for him by Providence. He put his whole heart into the matter, as he did into all matters. He felt himself very much in the position of a missionary breaking up new ground, except, indeed, that here were no old beliefs to get rid of. It was absolutely virgin soil, and he felt and rejoiced in the responsibility. Perfect little savages they were in many respects, and their training had to begin at the very beginning. Manners they lacked entirely, and their customs were simply such as they had evolved for themselves in their free-and-easy life on the flats, Their beliefs were summed up in a wholesome fear of Sir Denzil and his representative Mr. Kennet. These two were to them as the gods of the heathen; powers of evil, to be avoided if possible, and if not, then to be propitiated by the assumption of graces--such as unobtrusiveness, and if observed, then of meekness and conformability--which were no more than instantly assumed little masks concealing the true natures within, which true natures found their full vent and expression in the wilds of the sand-hills and the untrammelled freedom of the shore. Old Mrs. Lee was a power of another kind, on the whole benevolent; provident, at all events, and not given to such incomprehensible outbreaks of anger and punishment as were the others at times. They had known no coddling, had run wild with as little on as possible--and in their own haunts with nothing on at all--since the day they could crawl out of the courtyard down to the ribbed sand below. They were hard as nails, and feared nothing, except Sir Denzil and Mr. Kennet. Eager's first and most difficult work was to break them off their evil habits--their natural lust for slaughter and destruction, the perpetual resort to fisticuffs for the settlement of the most trifling dispute, the use of language which conveyed no meaning beyond that of emphasis to their own minds, but which to other ears was terribly revolting. Just as, if he had had a couple of wild colts to take to stable, he would have found it better to lead them than to drive, so he strove to win these two from the miry ways and pitfalls among which a shameful lack of oversight had left them to stray. He forced no bits into their mouths, laid no halters on their touchy heads. He just won their confidence and liking, till they looked up to him, trusted him, finally worshipped him, and followed, unquestioning, where he chose to lead them. And--Providence or no Providence--they could not have fallen into better hands. Charles Eager was one of the newer school, a muscular Christian if ever there was one, rejoicing greatly in his muscularity, and as wise as he was thorough in his Master's work. He had pulled stroke in his boat at Cambridge, and when he went there had looked forward to the sword as his oyster-opener. And so he had given much time to fitting himself adequately for an army career. He would have backed himself to ride, or box, or fence with any man of his time; and he had so unmistakable a bent for mechanics, and was so skilful a hand with lathe and tools, that there could not be a moment's doubt as to which branch nature designed him for. And then, when he had perfected himself for the way he had chosen, a better way opened suddenly before him. Without a sign of the cost, he renounced all he had been looking forward to all his life, and dedicated himself wholeheartedly to the greater work. All that he had acquired, however, with so different an end in view, remained with him, and helped to make him the man he was; and it was into such hands that, by the grace of God, these two wild Carron colts had fallen. A missionary, when he sets out to turn his unruly flock from their old savageries, must, if he understands human nature and his work, provide other and less harmful outlets for the energies resulting from generations of tumult and slaughter. Eager taught his young savages boxing on the most scientific principles, and made the gloves himself. He taught them fencing with basket-hilted sticks, constructed under his own eyes by the old basket-weaver in the village. Prompt appeal to arms was still permitted in settlement of their endless disputes; but the business was regularised, and tended, all unconsciously on the part of the combatants, to education. For their inexhaustible energies he found new and much-appreciated vent in games on the sands. And if these were crude enough performances, compared with their later developments familiar to ourselves, they still had in them those elements of saving grace which all such games teach in the playing--self-control, fair-play, honour And these be mighty things to learn. In the summer they played cricket. The bat and ball Eager provided; the stumps he made himself. He also instructed them in the mysteries of hare-and-hounds, which chimed mightily with their humour, especially when he supplemented it with a course of Fenimore Cooper. They became mighty hunters and notable trackers, their natural instincts and previous training standing them in excellent stead. In the winter the flats rang to their shouts at football and hockey, crudely played, but mightily relished. And always, in and alongside their play and in between, but so deftly administered that it seemed to them but a natural part of the whole, their education proceeded by leaps and bounds. They drank in knowledge unawares, and learned intuitively things that mere teaching is powerless to teach. When he found them they were simply self-centred and selfish little savages--each for himself, and heedless of anything outside his own skin; and their manners and customs were such as naturally fitted their state. As their minds opened to the larger things outside, and they began to be drawn away from themselves, their natural proclivities came into play. Like hardy wild-flowers, their rough outer sheaths began to open to the sun, revealing glimpses of the better things within. And, all unconsciously to herself or to them, little Grace Eager was the sun to whom, in the beginning, their expansion was due. Eager, watching them all with keenest interest, used to say to himself that she was doing as much for them as he, if not more. She was so novel to them, so altogether sweet and charming. She supplied something that had hitherto been a-wanting in their lives, and of whose lack they had not even been aware, until she came into them, and made them conscious of the want by filling it. Now and again at first, and presently almost as a matter of course, the tiger-cubs were invited up to Mrs. Jex's cottage for a homely meal, after some hotly contested game on the sands or some long chase after the tricky two legged hare or astute and elusive Redskin. And, in the beginning, Indian brave who knew no fear, but knew almost everything else that was to be known in his own special line, and cunning hare and vociferous hound, and tireless champion of the bat and hockey-stick, and valiant fighters on all possible occasions, would sit mumchance and awkward, watching the Little Lady, with wide, observant eyes, as she dispensed her simple hospitalities with a grace and sweetness that set her above and apart from anything they had ever known. And then she was so extraordinarily different indoors from what she was on the sands. There, at cricket or hockey, or football, she danced and shrieked with excitement, and was never still for a moment. Here, at the table, she suddenly became many years older, knew just what to do, and did it charmingly,--ordering even the Rev. Charles about, and beaming condescendingly on them all, from the lofty heights of her experience and knowledge of the world as learned from her aunts in London. Painfully aware of deficiency, they began to strive to fit themselves for such occasions, repressed themselves into still greater awkwardness and silence, fought one another afterwards on account of too obvious lapses from what they considered proper behaviour and unkind brotherly comment thereupon, but all the time unconsciously absorbed the new atmosphere and by degrees became able to enjoy it without discomfort. "Jim, my dear boy," she would say, on occasion, "are you comfortable on that chair?" A quick nod from the conscious and obviously uncomfortable Jim. "You shouldn't just nod your head, my dear. You should say, 'Yes, thank you,' or 'Not entirely,'--as the case may be. It's rude just to nod." "Not entirely, then," blurted Jim, with a very red face, and many times less comfortable than before. "I'm sorry, but they're all the same, and if you sit on the sofa you can't reach the table. And if you sit on the floor I can't see you." "I can do, thank you." "Who lives in that cottage we passed to-day, down along the shore by the Mere?" asked Eager, by way of diversion. "Old Seth," from both boys at once, much relieved at being put into a position to answer a question that had nothing to do with themselves. "Old Seth? I've not come across him yet. Old Seth what?" "Old Seth Rimmer. He's a Methody," said Jack. "It's a lonely place to live, away out there. Has he a wife,--any children?" "Mrs. Rimmer's always in bed." "An invalid. I must call and see her, Methody or no Methody." "And there's young Seth and Kattie." "I saw the girl peeping out after you'd passed. She's a nice-looking girl. I shall call and get to know her," said the Little Lady decisively. "We'll go and make their acquaintance to-morrow," said her brother. "What does Mr. Rimmer do? Fishing?" A nod from Jim. "Keeps his boat up in the river, two miles further on." "And the Mere? Any fish there?" "Ducks in winter. We got one once." "Had to lie in the rushes all day," said Jack, with a reminiscent shiver. "It was a good duck," said Jim. And the next afternoon the Rev. Charles set out for the cottage, with Grace skipping about him in search of treasure-trove of beach and sand-hill. It was a stoutly-built little wooden house, standing back in a hollow of the sand-hummocks, and its solitariness was enhanced by reason of the vast and lonely expanse of Wyn Mere, which lay just behind it. The shore of the Mere was thick with reeds and rushes. The long unbroken stretch of water silently mirroring the blue sky, with its margin of rustling reeds, possessed a beauty all its own, but something of sadness and solemnity too. Grace, standing on top of a sand-hill, with a high tide dancing merrily up the flats on the one side and the long silent Mere on the other, put it into words. "How unhappy it looks, Charlie! I like the sea best. It laughs." "It laughs just now, my dear, but sometimes it roars and thunders." "All the same, I like it best. This other looks as if it drowned people." "I don't suppose it ever drowned as many people as the sea, Gracie." "Then it seems as if it thought more of those it has drowned. I wouldn't live here for anything. I'd cut a hole through the sand-hills and let the sea wash it all away." "Better see what Mr. Rimmer thinks of it before you do that." And he laid a restraining hand on her arm as the door of the wooden house opened quietly, and a man came out backwards and stood for a moment with his head bent towards the door as if he were listening. His hair was long and of scanty grizzled gray. He wore a blue jersey and high sea-boots, and carried his sou'wester in his hand. Then he straightened up, clapped on his hat, and strode away round the house towards the Mere. Eager jumped down the sand-hill and ran after him, and caught him before he reached a flat-bottomed skiff drawn up on to the sedgy shore. "Is this Mr. Rimmer?" he asked. "Seth Rimmer, at yore service, sir." And there turned on them a fine old gray face, laced and seamed with weather-lines that told of bitter black nights on the sea, when the spume flew and the salt bit deep. The blue eyes, very deep under the bushy gray brows, were shrewd and kindly; the mouth, half hidden in gray moustache and beard, was set very firmly. "He looked good but hard. But I liked him," was Gracie's comment afterwards. "Yo' be the new curate," he said at once, taking in Eager in a large comprehensive gaze. "Charles Eager, the new curate, Mr. Rimmer. How is your wife to-day? I understand----" "Ay, hoo's bed-rid. We're Wesleyans, but hoo'll be glad to see yo' and th' little lady." And he turned back to the house. "An' what's yore name?"--to Gracie. "Grace Eager." "Yore sister?" "All I have left. There have been many between, but we are the last, and so we're very good friends." "An' so ye should. A fine name yon, Grace Eager. An' what are yore graces, an' what are yo' eager for, missie?" "She's full of all graces and eager for all good, like her big brother. Isn't that it, Gracie?" laughed Charles, to cover her confusion at so pointed a questioning. She nodded and squeezed his hand and skipped by his side, and so they came back to the house. "Someun to see yo', Kattrin," he said, as he opened the door and ushered them in. It was but a small room and the furnishings were of the simplest, but everything was spick-and-span in its ordered brightness. There was a small fire with a kettle on the hob, and in one corner was a bed with a sweet-faced woman in it, propped up with pillows so that she could look out of the window. "Yo're welcome, whoever yo' are," she said. "It's new curate, Mr. Eager, an' 's li'll sister." "Ech, a'm glad to see yo', sir, though we don't trouble church much here. Nivver set eyes on last curate, nivver once." "I apologise for him, Mrs. Rimmer; perhaps he found the long walk through the sand too much for him." "Ay; he wasn't much of a man," said Rimmer quietly. "Yo're a different breed, I'm thinking. Yo're tackling them Carron lads, an' that's a good job. I seen yo' about the sands with 'em." "Yes; they're worth tackling, aren't they?" "Surely; and yo're the man for the job! Now I mun get along or I'll miss tide. Yo'll excuse me, an' if yo'll talk a while with the missus she'll be glad. She dunnot get too many visitors. Good-bye, wife!" And he went out quietly and tramped sturdily away to his work. "He's a right good mon," said his wife fervently. "And he aye bids me good-bye in case he nivver comes back, and he aye says a prayer for me outside the door. It's a bad, bad coast this," she said, with a sigh. "It took his feyther, an' his grandfeyther, and it's aye on his mind that sometime it'll take him too. An' it may be onytime." "He's in better hands than his own, Mrs. Rimmer," said Eager. "Aye, I. know, and so was they, an' it's no good thinking o' death and drownin's till you see 'em. But I seen so many it's not easy to get away from 'em, lying here all alone." "Where's your little girl?" asked Gracie suddenly. "Kattie? She should be in by this. She stops chattin' wi' th' neebors now an' then. It's lonesome here for childer, yo' see. I sometimes wish we was nearer folk, but we've lived here all our lives an' I wouldna like to move now." "And who are your nearest neighbours, Mrs. Rimmer?" asked Eager. "Oh, there's plenty across Mere--Bill o' Jack's, an' Tom o' Bob's o' Jim's, an'----" She stopped and lay listening. "That's her now." And presently a girl's voice lilting a song drew near from the direction of the Mere. The door opened and she came in carrying a pail of milk. "'Ello!" she jerked in her astonishment, and then lapsed into silence. "Where's your manners, Kattie?" from her mother, as she stood staring at the strangers, especially at Gracie. "How are you, Kattie?" said Eager. "I'm the new curate. This is my sister, Gracie. She saw you the other day and wanted to see you again." Kattie put out the tip of a red tongue and smiled in rich confusion. She was a remarkably pretty child, with large, dark-blue eyes, a mane of brown hair tumbling over her shoulders, and the healthy red-brown skin of the dwellers on the flats. Like the boys of Carne, she obviously wore only what she had to wear of necessity. In her shy grace she was like a startled fawn, looking her first on man, and ready to bound away at smallest sign of advance. "Where's yore manners, lass?" said her mother again; and Kattie drew in the tip of her tongue and twisted her little red mouth and stared at Gracie harder than ever. "Suppose you two run away out and make one another's acquaintance," said Eager to Gracie, "and I'll have a chat with Mrs. Rimmer." And the girls slipped out contentedly. "Ech, but you do wear a lot o' clothes!" jerked Kattie, the moment they got outside. "It must be jolly to wear so few," said Gracie enviously. "When I've lived here a bit perhaps I can too. You see I've always been used to wearing a lot." "They're gey pratty, but I'd liever not carry 'em." "Is that your boat? Do you row it all by yourself?" "O' course! I'll show you." And she sped down to the long-prowed shallop from which she had just landed, shoved it off, tumbled in, regardless of wet feet and display of bare leg, and sent the little craft bounding over the smooth dark mirror, her vivid little face sparkling with delight at this opportunity for the display of superior accomplishment. Grade meanwhile danced with desire on the sedgy shore. "Me too, Kattie! Come back and take me too! What a love of a little boat! And you row like a man." "I can scull too," cried Kattie vauntingly, and drew in one oar and slipped the other over the stern and came wobbling back with a manly swing that seemed to Gracie to court disaster. "I like the rowing best," she gasped, as she crawled cautiously in over the projecting prow. "Let me try one." And thereafter they were friends. "I like Kattie," said Grade exuberantly, as she danced along home holding Charlie's hand. "She's a pretty little thing, but she seems very shy." "She's not a bit shy when you know her. And she can row and swim, and once she shot a duck on the Mere. And she knows where they lay their eggs, and . . ." And so, for better or worse, Kattie Rimmer came into the story. CHAPTER XIII MOUNTING For the polishing of gems the dust of gems is necessary. And for the training of boys other boys are essential. Eager cast about for other boys against whom his colts might wear off some of their angles. Some men have a wonderful power of attracting and drawing out all that is best in their fellows. Personal magnetism, we call it, and it is a mighty gift of the gods. Charles Eager had that gift in a very remarkable degree, and with it many others that appealed to the most difficult of all sections of the community. Boys hate being made good. The man who can lift them to higher planes without any unpleasant consciousness thereof on their part is a genius, and more than a genius. We have, some of us, met such in our lives, and we think of them with most affectionate reverence and crown them with glory and honour, though, all too often, the world passes them by with but scant acknowledgment. But diamond-dust alone will polish diamonds. Softer stuff is useless, and the supply of boy-diamond-dust in that neighbourhood was small. So he laid masterful hands on what there was. Just outside Wyvveloe, between that and Wynsloe, lay Knoyle, the residence of Sir George Herapath, the great army contractor. He was a man of sixty-five, tall, gray-bearded, genial, enjoying a well-earned rest from a life of many activities. He had married late, and had one son, George, aged fifteen, and one daughter, Margaret, a year younger. His wife was dead. The firm of Herapath & Handyside, and its trade-mark of interlocked H.'s, was as well known in army circles as the War Department's own private mark. During the Napoleonic wars its business dealings were on a gigantic scale. It fed and clothed and sheltered armies in many lands, and carried out its every undertaking to the letter, cost what it might. The first consideration with the firm of H. and H. was perfect fulfilment of its obligations. None knew better how much depended on its exertions--how helpless the most skilful commander was unless he could count absolutely on his supplies. H. and H. never failed in their duty, and the firm reaped its reward, both in honours and in cash. But to both Herapath and his partner Handyside the honour they cherished most of all was the fact that their name and mark stood everywhere as a guarantee of reliability and fair dealing. Handyside died five years after his partner's baronetcy, and left the bulk of his money to Herapath, having no near relatives of his own. And Sir George, desirous of rest before he grew past the enjoyment of it, took into partnership his right-hand man, Ralph Harben, who had grown up with the firm, strung another H on to the bar of the first big one, which represented himself--so that the mark of the firm came to look something like a badly made hurdle--and left the direction of affairs chiefly in his hands. Eager, in the course of his duties, had called at Knoyle and had met with a congenial welcome. George and Margaret Herapath would be useful to his cubs now that they were licking into shape. His thoughts turned to them at once. There had been another boy with them at church the previous Sunday, he noticed. The more the merrier. He would rope them all in, for games good enough with four are many times as good with eight or more. "Yes, I heard you'd tackled the Carron colts," smiled Sir George. "Bit of a handful, I should say, from all accounts." "I like bits of handfuls," said Eager. "I've got good material to work on. I shall make men of those two." "You'll have done a good work. And how can Knoyle be of service to you, Mr. Eager?" "In heaps of ways. I want your two in our games. Four are really not enough for proper work. Who's the new youngster I saw with you on Sunday?" "That's young Harben, my partner's son. His father is in Spain just now, and his mother's dead, so I've taken him in for a time." "The more the merrier! I wish you had another half-dozen." "H'm! I don't. My two keep me quite lively enough." "I want you to let me break my two in on some of your horses, too. You've got more than you can keep in proper condition, and the old curmudgeon at Carrie flatly refuses to buy them ponies. I've done my best with him, and riding's about due with my two. They can fence and swim and box. They beat me at running. Boating's no good here, and wouldn't be much use to them later, anyway. They're for the army, of course. Your boy, too, I suppose?" "Yes, George is for the army, and young Harben too, I judge, from his talk. Suppose you bring your two up, say, to-morrow, and they can have a fling at the ponies, and----" "And you can form your own judgment of them," said Eager, with a quiet chuckle. "That's all right. They're presentable, or I should not have proposed it, and yours will help to polish them, and that's what I want." "I see. To-morrow morning, then, and they can tumble off the ponies in the paddock to their hearts' content." So--three very excited faces, and three pairs of very eager eyes, as they pressed up the avenue to Knoyle next morning, and keen little noses sniffing anxiously for ponies, for Gracie was not going to miss such a chance, and as for the boys, wild mustangs of the prairies would not have daunted them. Life--what with swimming and fencing and boxing and cricket and hockey and football--had suddenly widened its bounds beyond belief almost, and now, the crowning glory of horses loomed large in front. Picture them in their scanty blue knee-breeches and blue jerseys, no hats, but fine crops of black hair, their eager, handsome faces the colour of the sand, with the hot blood close under the tan, bare legs and homely leather sandals, black eyes with sparks in them; Gracie in a little blue jersey also and a short blue frock, bare-legged and in sandals too, for life on the sands had proved altogether too destructive of stockings; on her streaming hair, and generally hanging by its strings, a sunbonnet originally blue, but now washing out towards white. "There they are!" gasped Gracie, dancing with excitement as usual. "In that field over there----" "And here are Sir George and the others. Remember to salute him, boys; and look him straight in the eye when he speaks to you. He's a jolly old boy." "And, for goodness' sake, don't fight if you can possibly help it!" said Gracie impressively. "I congratulate you on your colts, Mr. Eager," said Sir George, as they followed the youngsters to the paddock. "They're miles ahead of what I expected. I had my misgivings, I confess, but now they are gone. You've done wonders with them already." "Good material, Sir George. But there's plenty still to do. You can't cure the neglect of years in a few months." "If any man could, you could. They're a well-set-up pair, and look as fit as fiddles." "Their free life on the sands has done that for them at all events. If they've missed much, they have also gained much, and, by God's help, I'm going to supply the rest. There are the makings of two fine men there." "You'll do it. Why! What are they up to now?" "Only fighting," laughed Eager. "They rarely dispute in words, always _vi et armis_. Jack! Jim! Stop that! What's the matter now?" as the boys got up off the ground with flushed faces and dancing eyes. "A mighty good-looking pair!" thought Sir George to himself. "And which is which and which is t'other, I couldn't tell to save my life." "I was going to help Gracie over, and he cut in," said Jack. "I wanted to help her over too," grinned Jim. "Sillies!" said Gracie. "I didn't need you. I got through. Oh, what beauties!" as a bay pony and a grey came trotting up to their master and mistress for customary gifts and caresses. "This is mine," said Margaret, kissing the soft dark muzzle. "Dear old Graylock! Want a bit of sugar? There then, old wheedler!" And Graylock tossed his head and savoured his morsel appreciatively, with a mouth that watered visibly for more. "Lend me a bit, Meg," begged her brother. "I forgot the greedy little beggars. You spoil 'em. Here you are, Whitefoot." "Bridles only, at present, Bob," said Sir George, to a stable-boy who had come down laden with gear. "Let the youngsters begin at the beginning. Now you, Jack and Jim--I don't know which of you's which--have a go at them barebacked, and let's see what you're made of." And the boys flung themselves over the ponies with such vehemence that Jim came down headlong on the other side while Graylock danced with dismay; and Jack hung over Whitefoot like a sack, but got his leg over at last, with such a yell of triumph that his startled steed shot from under him and left him in a heap on the grass. But they were both up in a moment and at it again. "Twist yer hand in his mane," instructed Bob, "an' hang on like the divvle. There y'are! Now clip him tight wi' yer knees an' shins. You're aw reet!" And Jim and Graylock went off down the paddock in a series of wild leaps and bounds, while Bob ran after them administering counsel. "Loose yer reins a bit! Don't tickle him wi' yer toes! . . . Stiddy then! Go easy, my lad! Don't fret 'im!"--as Jack and Whitefoot bore down upon him in like fashion. "They'll ride aw reet," he said, as he came back crab-fashion to the lookers-on, with his eyes fixed on the riders. "Stick like cats, they do. And them ponies is enjoying theirselves." "Promising, are they, Bob?" asked Sir George. "They're aw reet. They'll ride," said Bob emphatically. When the horsemen wore round towards the group they were in boastful humour. "I was up first," from Jack. "I was off first," from Jim. "Ay--on ground!" "Nay, on pony! You were sitting on grass." "You fell over t'other side." "I'll fight you!" And in a moment they were off their steeds and locked in fight, to the great scandal of Gracie. "Oh you dreadful boys!" And she danced wildly about them. "Didn't I tell you----" "Stop it, boys!" And Eager laughingly shook them apart. "The old Adam will out," he said to Sir George, who was enjoying them mightily. "They've no lack of pluck. Keep 'em on right lines, Mr. Eager, and you'll make men of them. Now then, who's for next mount? Rafe, my lad, what do you say to a bareback?" "Sooner have a saddle, sir," said young Harben, and sat tight on the paling. "You, missie?" as Gracie danced imploringly before him. "Saddle up, Bob. . . . Well, I'm----!" as the ponies went off down the field again with the boys struggling up into position. "Oh, they'll do all right. I like their spirit." When the ponies were captured, Gracie had her ride under Margaret's care, and expressed herself very plainly on the subject of side-saddles and the advantages of being a boy. And the boys took to saddle and stirrups as they had to the swimming. "They'll ride," was Bob's final and emphatic verdict again. Sir George insisted on their waiting for midday dinner, an experience which some of them enjoyed not at all and would gladly have escaped. Gracie sat between Jack and Jim, and got very little dinner because of her maternal anxieties on their account. By incessant watchfulness on both sides at once she managed to keep them from any very dreadful exhibition of inexperience, but she got very red in the face over it, and rather short in the temper, which perhaps was not to be wondered at considering the state of her appetite and the many tempting dishes she had no time to do justice to. The boys scuffled through somehow, with very wide eyes--to say nothing of mouths--for hitherto untasted delicacies. Mrs. Lee's commissariat tended to the solidly essential, and disdained luxuries for growing lads. Muter Harben made the Little Lady's ears tingle more than once with an Appreciative guffaw at her protégés' solecisms, and if quick indignant glances could have pierced him he would have suffered sorely. As it was, Margaret frowned him back to decency, and George intimated in unmistakable gesture that punishment awaited him in the privacy of the immediate future. But Jack and Jim, the prime causes of all this disturbance, ate on imperturbably, and followed the directions, conveyed by their monitress in brief fierce whispers and energetic side-kicks, to the best of their powers, so long as these imposed no undue restraint on the reduction of two healthy appetites. And more than once Eager caught Sir George's eye resting thoughtfully on the pair, and knew what he was thinking. "I suppose you know them apart?" he asked quietly, one time when Eager caught him watching them. "Oh yes, I know them, but it took me a few days." "A deuced troublesome business! No wonder the old man's gone sour over it. I don't see what he can do." "He can do nothing but wait." "And it's bitter waiting when the sands are running out." On the way home the Little Lady blew away some of the froth of their exultation at their own prowess, by her biting comments on their shortcomings at table. But this new and grand addition to their lengthening list of acquirements overtopped everything else, and they exulted in spite of her. "We stuck on barebacked, anyway," said Jim; "and what does it matter how you eat?" "It matters a great deal if you want to be gentlemen," said Gracie vehemently. "We're going to be soldiers," said Jack. CHAPTER XIV WIDENING WAYS Next day, when the Rev. Charles was putting all his skill into underhand twisters for the overthrow of Jack, who, to Jim's great exasperation, had got the hang of them and was driving them all over the shore, and Gracie was dancing with wild exhortation to her brother to get him out, as it was her innings next--she stopped suddenly with a shout and started off towards the sand-hills. And the others, turning to see what had taken her, found the Knoyle party threading its way among the devious gullies, and presently they all came cantering through the loose sand to the flats. "Morning, Mr. Eager; we've come for a game. Will you have us?" cried Sir George exuberantly. "Rather! It's just what we wanted. You'll play, sir?" "That's what I came for. Renew my youth, and all that kind of thing! See to the horses, Bob. Eh, what?"--at sight of the lad's eager face--"Like to take a hand too? Well, see If you can tether 'em--away from those bents. Bents won't do them any good. Now then, how shall we play?" "Oh, Carne versus Knoyle," said Eager. "All to field, and Margaret goes in for both sides." Knoyle beat Carne that time, thanks to George and Bob. Sir George "renewed his youth, and all that kind of thing." And young Ralph Harben entered vigorous protest every time he was put out, and argued the points till George punched his head for him. After the game the boys were allowed to take the stiffness out of the ponies' legs. And altogether--as the first of many similar ones--that was a memorable day. Eager rejoiced greatly in the success of his planning, for the close contact with these other bright and restless spirits had a wonderful effect on his boys. They toned down and they toned up, and it seemed to him that he could trace improvement in them each day. He had his doubts now and again of the effects of young Harben on his own two. The lad was difficult and had evidently been much spoiled at home. Eager quietly did his best to remedy his more visible defects, and George Herapath seconded him with bodily chastisement whenever occasion offered. Eager and Sir George were sitting resting in the side of a sand-hill one day, and watching the younger folk at a game in which Ralph was perpetually disputatious odd-man-out. It seemed impossible for him to get through any game without some wrangle. Eager made some quiet comment on the matter and Sir George said: "Yes, he's difficult. He's the only child, and his mother spoiled him sadly. When she died his father sent him to a second-rate school, and this is the result. But I hope he'll pull round. We must do what we can for him. Harben is in treaty for the Scarsdale place just beyond Wynsloe, so you'll be able to keep an eye on the boy. Your two are marvels. I never see them squabbling." "Oh, they never squabble. They just fight it out, and no temper in it. They're really capital boxers, and they're coming on in their fencing." "You'll make men of those two yet." "I'll do my best." "And if the old man dies? What will happen then?" "God knows. It's as hard a nut as I ever came across." "That infernal old woman up at Carrie could crack it if she would, I suppose?" "I have no doubt; but she won't speak. And I'm afraid no one would believe her if she did." "Deuced rough on the old man!" And Sir George lapsed into musing, and watched the riddles of Carne as they sped to and fro, as active as panthers and as careless as monkeys of the trouble they represented. One day when they were all hard at it, Gracie suddenly sped from her post, as her manner was, heedless of the shouts of the rest, darted in among the hummocks, and came back dragging the not very reluctant Kettle Rimmer and insisted on her joining the game. And Kattie, nothing loth, succeeded in cloaking her lack of knowledge with such untiring energy that she proved a welcome recruit and was forthwith pressed into the company. For where numbers are few and more are needed, trifling distinctions of class lose their value. She was very quick and bright, too, and soon picked up the rules of the games; and when she was not flying after balls she was watching Margaret and Gracie with worshipful observant eyes, and assimilating from them a new code of manners for her own private use. Gracie's usual behaviour in games, indeed, was that of a pea on a hot shovel. But Margaret, no whit behind her in her zeal for the business on hand, bore herself with something more of the dignity and decorum of a young lady in her fifteenth year--except just on occasion, when, at a tight pinch, everything went overboard and she flung herself into things with the abandon of Gracie and Kattie combined. Eager watched her with great appreciation. He could divine the coming woman in the occasional sweet seriousness of the charming face, and rejoiced in her as he did in all beautiful things. And George Herapath, with much of his father in him, was always a tower of good-humoured common sense and abounding energy. He backed up Eager's efforts in every direction, licked Harben or the tiger-cubs conscientiously, as often as occasion arose, and brought to their play the experience and tone of the public schoolboy up to date. He was at Harrow, and his house was closed on account of an outbreak of scarlet fever, which all except the higher powers counted mighty luck and all to the good. They soon dropped into the way of all bathing together of a morning, before starting their game--all except Sir George, whose sea-bathing days were over, and who preferred cantering over the sands with them, all racing alongside like a pack of many-coloured hounds, shouting aloud in the wild glee of the moment, splashing through the shimmering pools in rainbow showers, tumbling headlong into the tideway, and then in dogged silence breasting fearlessly out to sea, while Sir George rode his big bay into the water after them as far as his discretion would permit. And at times they sped far afield over the countryside, when, if Jack and Jim were hares, they were never caught, and if they were hounds they picked up an almost invisible scent in a way that did credit to their powers and to Mr. Fenimore Cooper. They might be beaten at cricket or hockey, whose finer rules they were always transgressing, but in this wider play none could come near them. It took the new-comers a very long time to distinguish between them; and even when they thought they had got them fixed at last, they were as often wrong as right, for the boys delighted to puzzle them, and even went the length of refusing to answer to their right names and assuming one another's with that sole end in view. "They beat me," laughed Sir George, more than once. "I never know t'other from which, and when I'm quite sure of 'em I'm always wrong." "They do it on purpose," said Gracie. "They're little rascals, but they're as different as different to me. I can't see any likeness in them, except that they're both rather bad at times--but nothing to what they used to be, I assure you, Sir George." "Well, well I Perhaps I'll get to know them in time, my dear; and meanwhile you just wink at me when they're making game of the old man." "I will," said Gracie solemnly. "But they don't really mean any harm, you know. It's just their fun." From his upper windows in the house of Carne that other old man watched them also, with scowling face and twisted heart. The sands were running--running--running, and he was no nearer the solution of his life's puzzle than he had been ten years ago. Farther away if anything, for babies die more easily than lusty, tight-knit, sun-tanned boys who never knew an ailment, and grew stronger every day. But there were keener eyes still, sharpened by a vast craving love for the wakening souls committed to his care, watching them all the time, and eager for every sign of growth and development. Love blinds, they say, and so it may to that which it does not wish to see. But Love is a mighty revealer, too, and Doubt and Dislike attain no revelations but the shadows of themselves. Charles Eager studied those boys with many times the eagerness and acumen that he had ever brought to his books. Here was a living enigma, and he found it fascinating. But the weeks grew into months, and he found himself not one step nearer its solution. In all their moods and humours, in their outstanding virtues and their no less prominent defects, they were one. They had grown up in the equal practice of qualities drawn, on the one side at all events, from the same source. Bodily fear seemed quite outside their ken. They lacked the imagination which pictures possible consequences behind the deed. If they wanted to do a thing, they did not stop to consider what might come of it, but just did it. The consequences when they came were accepted as matters of course. They were generous to a fault. They would, indeed, fight between themselves for the most trifling possessions, but it was from sheer love of fighting. They never kept for the mere sake of having, and most of their belongings they held in common--jointly against the world as they had known it. And this feeling of being two against outsiders had undoubtedly fostered the communal feeling. As their circle widened and others were admitted into it, the feeling extended to them. They possessed little, but what they had all were welcome to. And they were by nature eminently truthful. To their grandfather or Mr. Kennet they might on occasion assume masks which belied their feelings, but that was in the nature of a ruse to mislead an enemy who by gross injustice had forced them into unnatural ways. To them it was no more acting a lie than is the broken fluttering of a bird which thereby draws the trespasser from its nest. They were in a state of perpetual war with the higher powers, and to them all things were fair. Their faults were the natural complements of these better things. They were headstrong, reckless, careless, hot-tempered--defects, after all, which as a rule entail more trouble on their owners than on others, and are therefore regarded by the world with a lenient eye. For many months Eager found no shade of difference in their development. They had started level, and they progressed in equal degree, and progressed marvellously. The virgin soil brought forth an abundant harvest. But then, in spite of all, it was good soil, and ready for the seed. The grim old man at Carne sent now and again for Eager, and received him always, snuff-box in hand, with a cynical, "Well, Mr. Eager, no progress?" "Progress, Sir Denzil? Heaps! We are advancing by leaps and bounds. We are doing splendidly." "You've still got the two of them, I see,"--as though they were puppies Eager was trying to dispose of. "Still got the two, sir, and I couldn't tell you which is the better of them. There are the makings of fine men in both." "Then you're just where you were as to which is which?" "Just where you have been these ten years, sir." "You have seen more of them in ten weeks than I've seen in ten years." "They are developing every day, but so far they run neck to neck. But, candidly, Sir Denzil, I scarcely know what signs one could take as any decisive indication of their descent. Heredity is a ticklish thing to draw any certain inference from. It plays odd tricks, as you know." "I had hoped somewhat from those swimming lessons----" and he snuffed regretfully. Eager laughed joyously at his disappointment. "Why, they swam like ducks the very first day. You really have no idea what fine lads they are, sir. They are lads to be proud of." "Ay--if there was but one." "It's a thousand pities we can't find the right way out of the muddle without thinking of such things." "We cannot," said the old man grimly. CHAPTER XV DIVERGING LINES As time went on, however, Eager's careful oversight of the boys began to note slight points of divergence in the lines of their characteristics, which had so far run absolutely side by side. Jack, for instance, began to develop a somewhat tentative kind of self-control. His brain seemed to become more active. At times he even attempted to subject Jim to discipline for lapses from his own view of the right way of things. And Jim took him on right joyously; and the pitched battles, which Eager had been striving to relegate to the background, were renewed with vehemence, within the strict limits of the new rules thereto ordained. Gracie was distressed at this falling away. But Eager bade her be of good cheer, and watched developments with interest. Meanwhile, the boys muscles and skill in self-defence grew mightily. There was no doubt about it, Jack was harvesting his grain the quicker of the two--so far as could be seen, at all events. The difference between them when instruction was to the fore was somewhat marked. Jack gave his mind to it and took it in, evinced a desire to get to the bottom of things, even asked questions at times on points that were not clear to him. Jim, on the other hand, would sit gazing at the fount of wisdom with wide black eyes which presently wandered off after a seagull or a shadow, with a very visible inclination towards such things--or towards anything actively alive--rather than towards the passivity entailed by the pursuit of abstract knowledge. Then again, Jack succeeded at times in forcing himself to sit quite still for whole minutes on end, while Jim, after a certain limited number of seconds, was on the wriggle to be up and doing. And the moment he was loosed, the quiescence of seconds had to be atoned for by many minutes of joyous activity. They were, in fact, beginning to take the lines of the good scholar and the bad. And yet Eager confessed to himself a very warm heart for careless, happy-go-lucky Jim. "The other looks like making the deeper mark," he said to himself. "But I can't help loving old Jim. He's all one could wish except in the brain. Maybe it will come!" As to any deductions to be based upon these growing differences between the boys, he could find no sound footing. "Jack seems undoubtedly the more able," he would reason it out, "but what does that point to? Is it the high result of two blue-blooded strains, or the enriching of a blue blood with a dash of stronger red? Which would the stronger blend run to--activity of mind or activity of body?" The latter, he was inclined to think, but found it impossible to pronounce upon with anything like certainty, and realised that every other indication would inevitably lead to the same result. The riddle of Carne would never be read thus. Time and Providence might cut the knot and give to Carne its rightful heir. Pure reason, or the questionable affirmation of interested parties, never would. From that point of view he saw his commission from Sir Denzil doomed to failure. But that, after all, he said to himself, with a bracing shake, was, from his own point of view, of minor consequence. The great thing was to make men of his boys and fit them for the battle of life to the best of his powers and theirs. CHAPTER XVI A CUT AT THE COIL Twice, during the autumn, it seemed as though the riddle would be solved, or at all events the knot cut. George Hempath and young Harben had gone off to school, but the reduced company still took its fill of the freedom of the sands. Sir George and Margaret rarely failed, and play and work progressed apace. Boating on that coast was all toil and little pleasure. With a tide that ran out a full mile, the care of a boat, unless for strictly business purposes, would have been a burden. Old Seth Rimmer and his fellows kept their craft in the estuaries up Wytham way and at Wynsloe, where, with knowledge of the ever-shifting banks and much labour, it was possible to get out to sea in most states of the tide. But Eager, desirous of an all-round education for his cubs, managed to teach them rowing in Kattie Rimmer's shallop on the Mere, to Kattie's great delight, since there she shone at first alone. And it was there they made the acquaintance of Kattie's brother, young Seth, a great loose-limbed giant of nineteen or so, who helped his father at the fishing at times, and at times went ventures of his own on less respectable lines. A good-humoured giant, however, who would lie asprawl on a sand-hummock by the Mere-side, and laugh loud and long at new-beginners' first clumsy attempts at rowing, and more than once waded waist-deep into the water to set right-side-up some unfortunate whose ill-applied vigour had capsized the crank little craft. Some of young Seth's doings were a sore discomfort and mortification to the older folk in the little wooden house. But he took his own way outside with dogged nonchalance, bore himself well towards them except on these sore points of his own private concerns, and worshipped Kattie. Old Seth, you see, had always ordered his little household on the strictest--not to say straitest--lines of right and wrong. Young Seth, when he grew too big for bodily coercion, kicked over the lines and took his own way, in spite of all his father and mother could do to prevent him. And his way led at times through strange waters and in strange company. He was away sometimes for days on end, and then, whether the little house lay basking in the sunshine or shaking in the gale, his mother would lie full of fears and prayers, and his father was quieter than ever in the boat, and Kattie, but half-comprehending the matter, would feel the gloom his absences cast and would question him volubly when he returned, but never got anything for her pains. He would do anything for her or for any of them--except give up the ways he had chosen. When the south-wester screamed over the flats for days at a time it set the ribbed sands humming with its steady persistence. Games were impossible then, and Eager's ready wit devised a means of turning the screamer to account. He turned into Bob Ratchett's shed one day and said: "Bob, I want some wheels--two big ones four feet across, and two about a foot smaller, and the tires of all must be a foot wide." "My gosh, them's wheels! What'n yo' want 'em for?" grinned Bob admiringly. "I'm going to make a boat--" "Aw then, passon!--a boat now!" "To run on the sands." "Aw!" gasped Bob, and eyed "passon" doubtfully. "You can make them?" "Aw! I can mek 'em aw reet, but----" "All right, Bob. You set to work, and I'll see to the rest." "Passon's" boat became a great joke in the village. But bit by bit he worked it out, got his materials into shape, and with his own hands and the assistance, in their various degrees, of the boys and the excited oversight of Gracie, fitted it together into a somewhat nightmare resemblance to the skeleton of a boat. Jack stuck pretty steadily to the novel work. Jim and Gracie fluttered about it, questioning, suggesting, doubting, went off for a game, came back, danced about, hindering more than helping, but always convinced in their own minds that but for them that boat would never have been built. The two large wheels, rather wide apart, supported it abeam forward, and between them he stepped a stout little mast carrying jib and mainsail. The smaller wheels astern moved on a stout pin and acted as rudder, actuated by a. long wooden tiller. A rough wooden frame abaft the mast offered precarious accommodation for passengers. And when at last, after many days, it was finished, the villagers crowded round it, and joked and laughed themselves purple in the face over the oddest and most unlikely craft that coast had ever seen. Then willing hands took the ropes, and dragged it out of the village and through the gullies of the sand-hills with mighty labours, and so, at last, to the edge of the flats not far from Carne. And there Eager climbed in by himself, with not a few fears that the doubts and laughter of the village might find their justification in him. There was a strong wind blowing with a steady hum right on to the flats from the south-west. Eager hauled up his sails, lay down in the meagre cockpit, tiller in hand, and the scoffers started him off with a run. They looked for him to come to a stop when they did; but instead, to their never-dying amazement, the wind gripped the sails, the clumsy-looking boat sped on, faster and faster, bumping over the hard-ribbed sands, rushing through the wind-rippled pools, and they stood gaping. In less than five minutes it was at the bend of the coast where it turns to the north-east, a good three miles away, and then, marvel of marvels for such a craft, just as they expected it to disappear round the corner, it ran up into the wind, came round on the other tack with a fine sweep and without a pause, and was rushing back towards them before their gaping mouths had closed. "Passon's" boat was a huge success, it raised him mightily in their opinions and inclined them to give ear even to his suggestions for the abolition of stinks, and to the boys and the rest it gave a new zest to life. Day after day, whenever the wind served, they were at it, and looked forward to the gray windy days as they had never done before. Sir George had been away when the boat was launched, but he rode over the first morning after he got home, and after watching it for a time ventured on board himself, with Eager at the helm. "Man!" he said, as he tumbled out after the run--blown and breathless and considerably shaken up--"that's wonderful! You ought to have been an engineer." "So I am," laughed Eager, "and on a larger scale than most." From the windows of Carne, Sir Denzil watched the novel craft careering wildly over the flats, and snuffed more hopefully. "A sufficiently dangerous-looking toy, Kennet. It seems to ate that it might quite well kill one or more of them if it upset at that speed. Let us hope for the best!" And he and Kennet watched the new goings-on with interest. Incidentally, the sand-boat one day came very near to solving the riddle of Carne on the lines of Sir Denzil's highest hopes. There was something in the wild headlong motion that appealed with irresistible power to Jim's half-tamed nature. The mad bumping rush, with now one huge wheel barely skimming the ground, now the other; the hoarse dash through the pools, when, if the sun shone, you sat for a moment in a whirling rainbow of flying drops the keen zest and delicious risks of the turn; the novel sense of power in the lordship of the helm; these things thrilled him through and through, and he could not get too much of them. He made himself the devoted slave of the sand-boat--spent his spare time in anointing its axles with all the fat he could coax, or otherwise procure, from Mrs. Lee, till the great wheels almost ran of their own accord, scraped the long tiller till it was as smooth as a sceptre--handled the ropes till they were as flexible almost as silk. It was he who insisted on naming the boat _Gracie_--"because it jumped about so," but in reality, of course, because the word Gracie represented to him the brightest and best that life had yet brought him. They had all tried their hands at names. Sir George--_The Flying Dutchman_, because it certainly flew and was undoubtedly broad in the beam; Margaret--_The Sylph_, because it was so tubby; Gracie--_The Sand-fly_, because it flew over the sand; Jack, for abstruse reasons of his own--_Chingachgook_; Eager was quite content to leave it to them. But no matter what the others decided on, Jim always called it _Gracie_--to the real Gracie's immense satisfaction; and as he talked Gracie ten times as much as all the rest put together, _Gracie_ it finally became. When wind and weather put the Gracie out of action she lay under the walls of Carne, with folded wings and docked tail--for Jim always carried away the tiller into the house, for love of the very feel of it, and partly perhaps in token of proprietorship. It stood in a corner where he could always see it, and slept by his bedside. No one, however, ever thought of meddling with the sand-boat. In the first place, she belonged to Mr. Eager, and they held "passon" in highest esteem. And, in the second place, Carne was a dangerous place to wander round at night. Mr. Kennet had a gun, with which he was no great shot, indeed, but even the wildest bullet may find unexpected billet in the dark. It happened, one afternoon in the late autumn, that Eager was away on the confines of his wide sheepfold, about his Master's business. It had been wet and blusterous all day, and the boys were desultorily employed on their books in a corner of the kitchen; Jim with the _Gracie's_ polished tiller twisting fondly in his hand, as a devoted lover toys with a ribbon from his mistress's dress; Jack somewhat absorbed in the doings of Themistocles and Xerxes at Salamis, in a great volume which he had abstracted from the library the day before. The polished tiller wriggled more and more restlessly in Jim's hand, as though it longed to be up and doing. He got up at last and strolled out just to have a look at the rest of the _Gracie_. Jack was too busy sinking Persian galleys in Salamis Bay to pay any heed to anything nearer home. Jim found the wind blowing half a gale. It swept round the house with a scream, and seemed to meet again full on the _Gracie_, who quivered and throbbed as though longing to be off. The jib had been wrapped round the forestay, and the wind, working at it as though of one mind with him, had loosened the clew, and it was thrashing to and fro in desperate excitement. He climbed aboard, fitted the tiller, and sat in vast enjoyment. Why, it would only need a pull at a rope here and there, and he believed she would be off. The rain had hardened the soft sand, and there was a good slope down to the ribbed flats below. He had always longed for a run all by himself, and he knew the ropes and how to steer her as well as Mr. Eager did. In sheer self-defence he captured the thrashing sheet and twisted it round a cleat. The jib untoggled itself from the stay, bellied out full, and the boat began to move slowly down the slope. The joy of it sent the blood up into Jim's head and set it spinning. He would have a run--just a little run--all by himself, just to prove to himself that he could do it. The boat went rocking down the slope. He hauled at the halyard in a frenzy, and the mainsail went jumping up. He made it fast, grabbed his beloved tiller, and the _Gracie_, with a roll and a shake, bounded away up the flats. Faster and faster she went, the ribbed sands and the wind-whipped pools seemed to sweep along to meet her and fly beneath her all-devouring wheels, till Jim's head was spinning faster even than they. He yelled and waved his arms above his head, till the tiller banging him in the ribs nearly knocked him overboard and recalled him to his duties. He was at the bend in the coast before he knew It. He threw his weight on to the tiller to bring her round on the curve which would allow her head to fall off on the other tack, but fooled it somehow, and instead she flew off at a tangent straight for the sea. "Ecod!" said a watcher--for other purposes--in the sand-hills. "'Oo's gooin' reet to stick-sands!"--and started at a run after the _Gracie_. Jim always stoutly maintained that if he had only had room enough he would have got her round all right. But space and time were wanting. All in a moment the solid ground seemed to vanish from below the whirling wheels. One wheel sank down into comparative space, the other spun on horizontally; the _Gracie's_ nose went down out of sight into a squirming mass of slimy sand, and Jim was flung head over heels into the midst of it. He got his head up with his mouth full of watery sand which half choked him. Before he had coughed it out, fear and the clammy sand gripped him together. It clung to him like thick treacle. His feet and legs were bound and weighted--he could not move them. And when his arms got into it the deadly sand clasped them tightly. It was up to his chest, like cold dead giant arms folding him tighter and tighter in a last embrace, or the merciless coils of a boa-constrictor. Presently it would have him by the throat, and the stuff would run into his mouth and choke him, and he would die and they would never find him. He tried to shout, with little hope of any one hearing; but it was all he could do. The clammy death was at his throat, and the pressure on his chest was so great that his shout was of the feeblest. Another minute and the riddle of Carne would have been solved. But feeble as was his shout, it was answered. The runner on the sands came panting up, and the sight of his anxious face was to Jim as the face of an angel out of heaven--and a great deal more, for Jim had never troubled much about angels. "Help--Seth!"--he bubbled, through the sandy scum. "Ay, ay, sir!" panted young Seth, and jumped on to the half-submerged _Gracie_, whipped out his knife from its sheath at his back, and sliced the stays of the mast and had it out in a twinkling. "Lay holt!"--and he shoved it towards the disappearing Jim. "And hang on tight, if it teks yore skin off! That's it. Twist rope round yo'!" And he dug his heels deep into the firm sand beyond, and laid himself almost flat as he hauled at his end of the mast. The sweat broke in beads on his forehead, and rolled down his red face like tears, before the sands would let go their prey. But, inch by inch, he gained on them, while Jim gave up his legs for lost, so tightly did the sands hold on to them. Inch by inch he was drawn back to life, joints cracking, sinews straining. It seemed impossible to him that he should come out whole. But there--his neck was clear, his chest, his body, his knees, and then, with a "swook" from the "stick-sands" that sounded like a disappointed curse, the rest of him came out and he lay spent on the solid earth beyond. He remembered no more of the matter, but learned afterwards how young Seth, after thriftily staking the mast in the sand and lashing the _Gracie_ to it with a length of rope to prevent her sinking out of sight--had taken him over his shoulder, not quite sure whether he was dead or alive, but face downwards, so that if he were alive some of the sand and water might run out of him, and had set off with him so, for Carne. CHAPTER XVII ALMOST SOLVED Jack, when presently he had seen the little affair at Salamis to a satisfactory conclusion, missed Jim and went out in search of him. He poked about the courtyard without finding him, and only when he got outside, and saw that the _Gracie_ was gone, did it occur to him that Jim had gone with her. Then in the distance he saw young Seth Rimmer coming heavily over the sands with something over his shoulder, and he ran to meet him. From his windows Sir Denzil had watched the sand-boat go racing wildly up the flats, and had wondered at its solitary occupant. He could see by the size of him that it was one of the boys, but could not tell which. No matter which: if the thing would only come to grief and make an end of either of them, what an ending of trouble! What a mighty relief! Then his way would be clear. And as he mused upon it, he saw the distant boat go over, and his bitter old heart quickened a beat or two with grim hope. Then he saw the runner on the sands, and knew that something serious was amiss, and his hopes grew. And when, after what seemed a long, long time, one came running heavily towards Carne, with a load upon his shoulder, he believed his wish was realised. He went down the stairs and into the kitchen, and spoke to old Mrs. Lee for the first time in ten years. "One of the boys is drowned. Young Rimmer is bringing home his body." And he eyed the old woman like a hawk, with an evil light of hope in his eye. "Naay!" said she, not to be trapped. "Old fool!" he said to himself, but kept an unmoved face and opened his snuff-box. Young Seth came labouring into the courtyard, with Jim on his shoulder and Jack at his heels. Sir Denzil never looked at them. He had eyes for nothing but old Mrs. Lee's face, which was hard-set and the colour of gray stone. "What's happen't, Seth Rimmer?" she croaked as he came, peering through half-closed eyes at him and his burden. "Sand-boat ran i' stick-sand. Nigh got 'im." "Is hoo gone?"--as Seth laid the limp body on the table. "Nay, I dunno' think hoo con be dead; but it wur sore wark getting' 'im out--nigh pooed 'im i' two--an' hoo swallowed a lot o' stuff." "Hoo'll do," she said, after a quick examination. "Yo' leave 'im to me." And she "shooed" them all out of the kitchen and proceeded to maltreat Jim tenderly back to life. "H'm!" said Sir Denzil disappointedly, as he climbed the stairs again--"a good chance missed! D--d fools all! . . . I wonder if Lady Susan's mother would have kept as quiet a face! . . . Well . . . The deuce take one of them! . . . Which doesn't matter." Young Seth waited till the tide washed up over the quicksand, and then with assistance from the village dragged the _Gracie_ back to life and trundled her forlornly home. And Sir Denzil sent him out a guinea by Mr. Kennet--not for saving Jim's life, but for bringing back the means whereby one or other of his grandsons might still possibly come to a sudden end. Jim, for the first time since he began to remember things, lay in bed for three whole days, but, thanks to Mrs. Lee's anointings and rubbings, suffered no further ill-effects from his adventure--except, indeed, many a horrible nightmare, in which he was perpetually sinking down into the clinging sands, with his hands and feet fast bound and the scum running into his mouth; from which he would awake with a howl which always woke Jack with a start, and the ensuing scrimmage had in it all the joy of new life. Eager, when he hurried up to see Jim and hear all about it, exacted a promise from them both never to sail the _Gracie_ single-handed again, and was satisfied the promise would be kept. Sir Denzil, hearing he was there, sent for him, and received him as usual. "Well, Mr. Eager, you came near to solving the puzzle for us." "I can't tell you how sorry I am, sir----" "Yes, 'twas a good chance missed. If that fool Rimmer had only let Providence work out its own ends----" "Thank God, he was on the spot, or I'd never have forgiven myself. Providence will see to the matter in its own time and in its own way, Sir Denzil, and neither you nor I can help or thwart it." "I'm not so sure of that. If I had my way now----" "Providence always wins," said Eager, with a shake of the head and a cheerful smile. "If we blind bats had our own way, what a muddle we would make of things. You would surely regret it in the end, sir." CHAPTER XVIII ALMOST SOLVED AGAIN During that winter two events happened, much alike in their general features, apparently quite disconnected, and yet not at all improbably resulting the one from the other. Either happening might well have solved the problem of Carne. Jack, as we have seen, had developed a certain taste for information. He could lose himself completely in the doings of Hannibal or Alexander, and found the mighty realities of history--or what were accounted as such--more to his taste than the most thrilling imaginings of the story-tellers. Jim found them good also--as retailed to him by Jack--and would sit by the hour, with open mouth and eyes and ears, taking them all in at second-hand. But sit down to one of the big books, and worry them all out for himself, he would not. And so it came that more than once when Jack was over head and ears in some delightfully bloody action of long ago, Jim would ramble off by himself in search of amusement more to his taste, until such time as the sponge, having filled itself full, should be ready to be squeezed. That was how he came to be strolling along the beach one lowering windy afternoon, seeking desultorily in the lip of the tide for anything the waves might have thrown up. It was always an interesting pursuit, for you never knew what you might light on. In former times Jack had been as keen a treasure-hunter as himself, but now he was digging it out elsewhere and otherwise. They had never found anything of value, though many a thing of mighty interest was brought ashore by the waves. A girl's wooden doll, and a boy's wooden horse, for instance, had nothing very remarkable about them; but found within a dozen yards of each other on the beach after a storm, they set even boys not used to very deep thinking, thinking deeply. Coco-nuts and oranges, and a dead sheep, and an oar, and a ship's grating--that was about as much as they ever came across, except once, when it was the awful body of a dead black man, and then they ran home, with their heads twisting fearfully over their shoulders, as fast as their legs could carry them; and saw the hideous thick white lips of him for many a night afterwards. But though you sought in vain for years, there was always the chance of coming upon a casket of jewels sooner or later; and if you never actually found it, the possibility of it was delightfully attractive. Jim ambled on, kicking asunder lumps of seaweed which might conceal treasure, stooping now and again to pick up and examine some find more closely, and so came to the bend in the coast out of sight of Carne. And there he stopped suddenly, like a pointing dog. Away along the shore, and as close in as the long shoal of the sands would permit, was a large fishing-smack. Between her and the beach a boat was plying, and when it grounded a string of men was rapidly passing its contents up into the sand-hills. Jim guessed what that might mean. His ephemeral reading in books of adventure told him these must be smugglers, and he had unconsciously gathered from unknown sources the fact that out beyond there lay the isle of Man, a place given up to freebooters and such-like gentry, though he had never happened to come across any so near home before. A matter therefore to be cautiously inquired into on the most approved Fenimore Cooper lines. So he slipped in among the sand-hills and threaded a devious path parallel with the sea, now and again crawling like a snake up a hummock, and peering through the wire-grass to ascertain his position and make sure that the boat had not gone off.. That was his only anxiety, that she would get away before he had the chance of a nearer view. He was delighted with his adventure. Here was treasure-trove better than all the tantalising possibilities of the beach. Here was something real and new to set against Jack's musty, but still exciting, stories of old Greeks and Romans. He felt rich. The short day was drawing in. The gray of the dusk was in his favour. He wriggled up a soft bank on his stomach, and found himself with a fair view of what was going on. He sank flat among the wire-grass and watched, and was Robinson Crusoe, and Deerslayer; and Chingachgook, and many others, all in one. A growl of rough voices down below, the "slaithe" of spades in the soft sand, and he saw little barrels and neat little corded packages being rapidly buried, each in a little hole by itself, and evidently according to some recognised plan. The boat had probably made another trip to the smack, for barrels and packages came pouring in and were deftly put out of sight. The light was so dim that he could not recognise any of the busy workers, and their occasional growls gave him no clue. He was wondering vaguely who they might be, when a heavy hand descended on the back of his neck and lifted him up like a kicking rabbit. "Dom yo' I What d' yo' want a-spyin' here for?" His captor dragged him down into the centre of operations, and Jim found himself inside a wall of scowling, hairy faces. "Now then, who are yo', and what'n yo' want here?" The long rough fingers reached well round his throat, and he was almost black in the face, and sparks and things were beginning to dance before his eyes. He clutched at the big hand and tried to pull it away. "I'm Jim Carron," he gasped. "Yo' wunnot be Jim Carron long, then. Dig a hole there big enow to take him," he ordered--and Jim saw himself lying in it, alongside the little barrels and packages. "I meant no harm. I only wanted to see," he urged sturdily. "Yo' seen too much. I' th' sand yo'll see nowt an' yo'll talk none." "I won't in any case. I promise you." "We'se see to that, my lad. Yo'll be safest i' th' sand, and so 'ill we." And Jim, glancing scare-eyed up at the wall of rough face; would have been mightily glad to be back in the warm kitchen at Carne with Jack and his old Greeks and Romans. He looked very small and helpless among them. Some of them had little lads at home, no doubt; but there was much at stake, and it would never do to leave him free to talk. On the other hand, running goods free of duty was one thing, and killing a boy was another, and there arose a growling controversy among them as to what they should do with him. It was ended suddenly by one wresting him masterfully from his original captor, and dragging him by the scruff of the neck towards the boat. It was emptied of its last load and ready to return for another. His new keeper tossed him in, tumbled in after him with three others, and pulled out to the smack. CHAPTER XIX WHERE'S JIM? Jack, having lived through an unusually exciting time in the neighbourhood of Carthage, came back to himself in the kitchen at Carne and the first thought of Jim he had had for over an hour. "Hello! Where's old Jim?" he asked. "I d'n know. Yo'd better seek him or he'll be into some mischief. I nivver did see sich lads." And Jack strolled out to look for Jim. He was in none of his usual places, and Jack stood gazing vaguely along the shore, wondering where he could have got to. He might have gone to Mr. Eager's. It was not usual with them of an afternoon, for then Mr. Eager was busy with his parish affairs. But Gracie was always an attraction--the warmest bit of colour in their lives--and she made them welcome no matter when they came. As he turned to trot away inland, with a last look along the shore, a fishing-smack beat out from behind the distant bend and went thrashing out to sea with the waves flying white over her bows. "Glad I'm not there, anyway," said Jack, and galloped away among the hummocks towards Wyvveloe. "Oh, Jack, I _am_ so glad to see you. I've got so tired of myself. Mrs. Jex has been showing me how to make crumpets, and you shall have one as soon as Charles comes in. If they're not very good you mustn't say so, because they're the first I've made, you see. What? Jim? No, he's not been here. What a troublesome boy he is!--always getting himself drowned or lost. Dear, dear, dear! What with you two, and Charles, and the vicar falling ill again--my hair will go quite white, I expect! And there's that Margaret never been near me all day, and if it hadn't been for Mrs. Jex and the crumpets I don't know what I would have done. . . . Thank you, Mrs. Jex, I'll come at once; but we must keep them hot for Charles, they do lie so heavy on your stomach when they're cold. He can't be long, Jack. You sit down there and look at that book." And the Little Lady went off to butter her crumpets, while Jack, at the end of his tether as regards Jim and his possible whereabouts, lay down contentedly on the hearthrug and lost himself in the book. When Eager came in at last, tired with a long round among outlying parishioners, he was surprised to find the boy there and still more surprised to learn why he had come. "Jim's a jimsa! He's always getting himself lost," was Gracie's contribution to the discussion, but it did not help much. "Where can he have got to, Jack?" asked Eager, with a touch of anxiety. "When did you see him last?" "I was reading in the kitchen, and when I looked up he'd gone. I looked in all the places I could think of, and then I came here." And that did not help much, either. "Well, I must have a bite. I'm famished. And then we'll have another look. Maybe he's at home by this time. He wouldn't be likely to go to Knoyle, would he?" Jack shook his head very decidedly. "He wouldn't go alone." "Seth Rimmer's?" "I d'n know. He might." "We'll call at Carne and then go along to Rimmer's. Oh-ho! hot buttered crumpets and coffee! And the crumpets made by a master-hand, unless I'm very much mistaken!" For Gracie had dumped them down before him herself with an air of triumphant achievement, and now stood waiting his first bite with visible anxiety. "Excellent!" said the Rev. Charles, smacking his lips. "If there's one thing Mrs. Jex does better than another, where all is well done, it's hot buttered crumpets." "They're not at all a bit heavy?" "Heavy? Light as snowflakes--hot buttered snowflakes! That's what they are. How do you find them, Jack?" "Fine!" "I _am_ glad. I was afraid they'd turn out a bit----" "You don't mean to tell me you made them!" "Yes, I did. All myself--with Mrs. Jex just looking on, you know!" "Well! Two more, please, just like the last! Best crumpets I ever tasted in my life!" And so they were--because Gracie made them; and the Rev. Charles would have pledged himself to that though they had choked him and given him indigestion for life. He had a pretty bad night of it--but that might have been the coffee,--but most likely it was Jim. For presently they all set off in the riotous wind, Gracie skipping joyfully in the pride of accomplishment, and went first to Carne, hopeful of finding Jim there. But Mrs. Lee greeted their inquiry with a tart: "'Oo's none here. Havena set eyes on him sin'---- Didn' yo' go out tegither?"--to Jack. "No, I d'n know when he went." "Where can th' lad ha' gotten to now? 'Oo's aye gett'n' i' mischief o' some kind." "We'll go along to Seth Rimmer's, Mrs. Lee. He may have gone down there," said Eager. "'Oo mowt," she admitted unhopefully. And they set off in the windy darkness, with the roar of the sea and the long white gleam of the surf on one side, and on the other the fantastic hummocks of the sand-hills, which looked strangely desolate by night and capable of holding any mystery or worse. Eager had wanted the children to wait at Carne till he returned, but they would not hear of it. Gracie was enjoying the spice of adventure. Jack wanted to find Jim. Eager himself was beginning to feel anxious, though he would not let the others see it. "If he is not here--where?" he asked himself, as they ploughed through the sand and the crackling seaweed. And he had to confess that he did not know where to look next. The grim desolation of the sand-hills made him shiver to think of. Suppose the boy had damaged himself in some way and was lying there waiting for help. A thousand boys might lie there unfound till help was useless. A glimmer in the distant darkness, and presently they were at Rimmer's cottage. Kattie opened to them--both the door and her big blue eyes--and stood staring. "Hello, Kattie! Is Jim here?" asked Eager cheerfully. "Jim? No, Mr. Eager." "Who's it, 'Kattie?" asked her mother anxiously, from her bed; for over the lonely cottage hung the perpetual fear of ill-tidings. "It's only us, Mrs. Rimmer." And they stepped inside. "Ech! Mr. Eager, and the little lady, and----" "We're looking for Jim, and were hoping he might have come along here." "Jim?" said Mrs. Rimmer, looking steadfastly at Jack. "I nivver con tell one from t'other; but none o' them's been here to-day." "No? I wonder where the boy can have got to. Is Seth about? Maybe he could help us." "Seth's away," said Mrs. Rimmer briefly; and Eager did not ask her where. For "Seth's away" was an understood formula, and meant that young Seth was off on one of his expeditions, and the less said about it the better. "I don't quite know where to look next," said Eager anxiously. "Can you suggest anything, Kattie?" But Kattie shook her mane of hair and stared back at them nonplussed, and presently said: "Jim knows his way; he couldn' get lost." "I'm just afraid he may have got hurt somewhere--twisted his ankle, or something of that kind, and be lying out in the sand-hills; and it's as black as pitch outside, and going to be a bad night." "Puir lad, I hope not," said Mrs. Rimmer, with added concern in her face. "'Twill be a bad night for them that's on th' sea." Her face, in its setting of puckered white nightcap, looked very frail and anxious. "But they're aw in His hands, passon." "And they couldn't be in better, Mrs. Rimmer," he said, more cheerfully than he felt. "Ay, I know; but I wish my man were home. Whene'er th' wind howls like that, I aye think of them that's gone and them that has yet to go." "Not one of them goes without His knowing. Your thoughts are prayers, and the prayers of a good woman avail much." And he pressed the thin white hand, and Gracie kissed her and Kattie, and they went out into the night. The wind hummed across the flats till their heads hummed in unison. More than once the drive of it carried them off their course, and brought them up against the ghostly hummocks, where the long, thin wire-grass swirled and swished with the sound of scythes. The grim desolation beyond struck a chill to Eager's heart, as he imagined Jim lying out there, calling in vain for help against the strident howl of the gale. There was just the possibility that he had got home during their absence, however; so, in anxious silence, they made for Carne. "No, I hanna seen nowt of him," said Mrs. Lee, and stood glowering at them with set, pinched face. "I had better see Sir Denzil. Shall I go up? You wait here with Jack, Gracie." And he went off along the stone-flagged passage, and climbed the big staircase, and knocked on the door leading to Sir Denzil's rooms. Mr. Kennet opened to him at last, with so much surprise that he was, for the moment, unable to recognise the unexpected visitor, and stood staring blankly at him. "I want to see Sir Denzil, Kennet--Mr. Eager. One of the boys is missing----" "Eh?--Ah!--Missing?--Tell him. Will you wait a moment, sir?" And Eager concluded from his manner that Mr. Kennet had been enjoying himself, and hoped that it might not be, in this case, like man like master. Sir Denzil, however, received him with most formal politeness. "You bring me good news, Mr. Eager?" he asked, snuffing very elegantly. "Who is it is a-missing?" "We can't find Jim, Sir Denzil." "Ah--Jim! Let me see--Jim! Now, which is Jim?" "Jim is the hero of the sand-boat----" "Ah--and is the boat gone again?" "No, sir. They both pledged themselves not to go out in her alone again." "Ah--pity! Great pity! I rather counted upon that monstrosity to solve our difficulty. However, Jim is missing!" And he tapped his snuff-box thoughtfully. "And what do you infer from that, Mr. Eager?" "I'm afraid he may have gone off into the sand-hills and possibly got hurt. We've been down to Seth Rimmer's----" "Ah--Rimmer! That was, if I remember rightly, the young dolt who bungled the matter so sadly last time. Well?" "He has not been there. Jack was reading in the kitchen----" "Jack? Ah--yes. That's the other one." "And Jim was with him. Jim wandered out, and we cannot find any trace of him." "Hm! . . . Ah! . . ." And the grim old head nodded thoughtfully over another pinch of snuff. "Well, I don't really see what we can do to-night, Mr. Eager. If, as you suggest, he is lying hurt somewhere in the sand-hills, it would take an army to find him, even in the daytime. We must wait and see. If we don't find him"--hopefully--"if he is gone for good, I shall feel myself under deepest obligation to him or to whoever is concerned in the matter. It leaves us only one boy to deal with--the wrong one, of course--but still, only one." "Why the wrong one, sir?" "If the other has been purposely removed, as is possible, it is, of course, in order to foist upon us the one who has no right to the position. There could be no other reason. You follow me?" "I follow your reasoning, of course; but at present we have not the slightest reason to suppose he has been purposely removed. He may be lying in the sand-hills unable to get home." "In which case he will have a very bad night," said Sir Denzil, as a fury of wind and rain broke against the windowpanes--"a very bad night." "Is there nothing we can do?" "There's only one thing I can think of." "Yes?" "Keep an eye on that old witch's face downstairs. You may learn something from it if you catch her unawares." Eager slept little that night for thinking of the missing boy. His anxious mind travelled many roads, but never touched the right one. Soon after daybreak he was on his way to Knoyle, but returned disappointed, and went on to Carne with a faint hope in him still that Jim might have returned during the night. "Any news of him, Mrs. Lee?" he asked anxiously, through the kitchen door. "Noa," said the old lady stolidly. "We none seen nowt on him." And her face was as unmoved as a gargoyle, and the gleam of her little dark eyes struck on his like the first touch of an opponent's foil. "What on earth can have taken the boy? I've been up to Knoyle, but they know nothing of him there." "Ay!" "I'll turn out all the men I can get, and we'll rake over the sand-hills." "Ay!" As he turned to go, Jack came trotting in. "I d'n know what's come of him," he said; "I've been everywhere I can think of." "I'm going to get all the help I can, and we'll search through the sand-hills, Jack." "I'll come too," said Jack. And they went away together. CHAPTER XX A NARROW SQUEAK Once aboard the smack, Jim was shoved into a small black dog-hole of a cabin forward and the door slid to and bolted. And there, all alone in the dark, he presently passed a very evil time. In due course he heard the rest of the crew come aboard. Then the anchor was pulled up, and then his head began to swim in sympathy with the heaving boat. Like most boys he had at times had visions of a seafaring life, swinging impartially between that and a military as the only two lives worth living. But the night he spent on that smack cured him for ever of the sea. It was a black night, with a stiff west wind working round into a south-west gale. They had hoped to get under the lee of the Island before the full of it caught them, but it meant strenuous beating close-hauled, and progress was slow. Before they were half-way across, about midnight, the gale was on them, and they turned tail and ran for their lives, with the great seas roaring past them and like to come in over the stern every moment. Jim knew nothing of it all. He was sick to death, and bruised almost to a jelly with bumping to and fro in that dirty black hole. While they beat up against the wind, the crashing of the seas against the bows, with less than an inch of wood between him and them, deafened and terrified him. It seemed impossible that any mere timber could long withstand so terrific a pounding. Each moment he feared to see the strakes rive open and let the ocean in. But very soon he was past caring what happened. He had never been so utterly miserable in all his life. When they turned and ran, the crash of the waves against the outside of his dog-hole lessened somewhat, but the up-and-down motion increased so that the roof and the floor alternately seemed bent on banging him to pieces. And at times they plunged down, down, down, with the water bubbling and hissing all about them till he believed they were going down for good, and felt no regret about it. How long he spent in that awful hole he did not know. Ages of uttermost misery it seemed to him. But, of a sudden, there came an end. The boat, racing over the great rollers with a scrap of foresail to give her steerage way, brought up abruptly on a bank. The mast snapped like a carrot, the roaring white waves leaped over her, dragged her back, flung her up again, worried her as vicious dogs a wounded rat. The men in her clung for their lives against the thrashing of the mighty waves, and then, not knowing at all where the storm had carried them, but sure of land of some kind from the bumping of the boat, they scrambled one by one over the bows and fought their way through the tear of the surf to the shore. All but one. He hung tight to the stump of the mast till the others had gone, each for himself and intent only on saving each his own life. Then the last man, swinging by one arm from the stump of the mast, caught at the bolt of the dog-hole and worked it back, and reached in a groping arm and dragged out Jim, limp and senseless from his final bruising when the boat struck. "My sakes! Be yo' dead, Mester Jim?" he asked hoarsely, holding the lad firmly with one arm and the mast with the other. But the sharp flavour of the gale acted like a tonic. The limp body stretched and wriggled and gripped the arm that held it. "Aw reet?" shouted the hoarse voice in his ear, and when Jim tried to reply the gale drove the words back into his throat. The boat was still tumbling heavily in the surf. All about them was howling darkness, faintly lightened by the rushing sheets of foam. Jim felt himself dragged to the side, and then they were wrestling, waist deep, with the terrible backward rush of the surf. His feet were swept from under him, but an iron hand gripped his arm and anchored him till he felt the sand again. Then a thundering wave swirled them on, and they were able to crawl up a steep, hard bank of sand on their hands and knees. They lay there panting, while the gale howled and the white waves gnashed at them like wild beasts ravening for their prey. And Jim felt cleaner and better than he had done since he boarded the smack. He turned to his rescuer and laid hold of his arm. "Who is it?" he shouted. "Me--Seth," came the hoarse reply into his ear, and he had never in his life felt so glad of a friendly voice, though he would not have known it was young Seth's voice if he had not said so. For their position was terrifying enough. It was still too dark to see where they were, except that they were on a bank, with the roar and shriek of the gale all about them. Young Seth stood up to see, if he could, what had become of the others. But he was down flat again in a moment. "I connot see nowt," he shouted. "Are we safe here, Seth?"--as a vicious white arm came reaching up the slope at them. "Tide's goin' down." So they lay and waited, and it was good for Jim that night that his life on the flats had hardened him somewhat to the weather. He was soaked to the bones, and the spindrift stung like a whip. But he was so utterly spent with his previous sickness that his heavy eyes closed, and he dozed into horrible nightmares and woke each time with a start and a sob. And then he found himself warmer, and thought the gale had slackened; but it was young Seth's burly body lying between him and the wind, and he was drawn up close into young Seth's arms, and there he went fast asleep. He woke at last into a sober gray light and a great stillness. The wind had dropped and the sea had fallen back behind its distant barriers. When he stretched and sat up he could see nothing but sand--endless stretches of brown sea-sand, with the dull gleam of water here and there. He got on to his feet and felt his bones creak as if they wanted oiling, and young Seth stood up too and kicked his legs and arms about to take the kinks out. "Where are we, Seth?" asked Jim, with a gasp. "I dunnot know. We ran like the divvle last neet. Mebbe when th' sun comes out we'll see." "Land's over yonder, anyway," he said presently. "But it's a divvle of a way and mos'ly stick-sands, I reck'n." The clouded eastern sky thinned and lightened somewhat, the sands began to glimmer, and the streaks of water gleamed like bands of steel. "We mun go," said Seth. "Sun's sick yet wi' last neet's storm. Yo' keep close to me." And they set off on the perilous journey. For a moment, as they crossed the ridge of their own sand-bank, which stood higher than its neighbours, they caught distant glimpse of yellow sand-hills very far away. Then they were threading cautiously across a wide lower level, seamed with pools and runlets, and could see nothing but the brown sea-sand. And Seth's eyes were everywhere on the look-out for "stick-sands," of which he went in mortal terror. Where the banks humped up with long rounded limbs as though giants were buried below, he would run at speed; but in the hollows between their progress was slow, because "You nivver knows," said Seth, and tried each foot before he trusted it. In one wide hollow they came on a mast sticking straight up out of the sand--like a gravestone, Jim thought--and gave it wide berth. And twice they came on swiftly flowing channels which rose to Jim's waist, and it was in the neighbourhood of these that Seth exercised the greatest caution. "They works under t' sand, here and there, you nivver knows where, an' it's that makes the stick-sands," he said, and breathed freely only when they got on to solid brown ridges again. So, step by step, they drew nearer to the yellow sand-hills, which looked so like those he was accustomed to that Jim's spirits rose. "Is that home, Seth?" he asked. "Ech, lad, no. We're many a mile from home, but we'll git there sometime." It was when that toilsome journey was over, and the sun had come out, and they were lying spent in a hollow of the yellow sand-hills, that Seth turned to Jim and said weightily: "Yo' mun promise me, Mester Jim, to forget aw that happened last neet. I dun my best for yo'; an' yo' mun promise that." "I'm afraid I can't ever forget it, Seth," said Jim solemnly, "and some of it I don't ever want to forget. But I'll promise you I'll never tell about the little barrels and things, or about you, never, as long as I live." "Well," said Seth, after ruminating on this. "That'll do if yo'll stick to it." "I'll bite my tongue out before I'll say a word." "Aw reet. Yo' see, I wur on the boat when they brought yo' aboard, but I couldn' ha' done owt with aw that lot about. 'Twere foolish to fall into their honds." About midday they came on a fisherman's hut, back among the sand-hills, and got some bread and fish, freely given when Seth explained matters--so far as he deemed necessary; and they lay on a pile of strong-smelling nets and slept longer than Seth had intended. Then, with vague directions towards a distant high-road, they set out again. "'Twere Morecambe Bay we ran aground in," said Seth, "an' they wouldn' hardly believe as we'd come across th' flats. Reg'lar suckers, they say, an' swallowed a moight o' men in their time." "And when shall we get home, Seth?" "It's a long road, but we'll git there's soon as we can," said Seth, with the weight of the journey upon him. CHAPTER XXI A WARM WELCOME For two days Eager raked over the sand-hills, from morning till night, with all the men he could press into the service, and all the ardour he could rouse in them. In long, undulating lines, rising and falling over the hummocks like the long sea-rollers, they scoured the wastes till they were satisfied that no Jim was there. Each night Sir Denzil met him, when he came upstairs to report, with a repressed eagerness which gave way to cynical satisfaction the moment he saw his face. "So!" he would say, with a gratified nod, as he helped himself to snuff with studied elegance. "No result, Mr. Eager. I really begin to think we must give him up. You are simply wasting your time and that of all your--er--friends." "Supposing, after all, the poor lad should be lying, unable to move, in some hollow----" "Let us hope that his sufferings would be over long before this!" "It is too horrible to think of. I cannot sleep at night for the thought of it." "Ah, I am sorry. You should cultivate a spirit of equanimity--as I do. If he is found--well! If he is not found, I am bound to say--better! The problem that has puzzled us these ten years is then solved--in a way, of course, though, as I think I have explained myself to you before, not in the right way. Still we have got only one boy to deal with, and we must make the best of him. I have been considering the idea of a public school. You would endorse that, I presume?" "Undoubtedly--for both of them, if we can only find Jim." "We are considering the one we have. Now, which school would you advise--Rugby, Harrow, Eton? There's a new place just opened at Marlborough. I see----" "Harrow," said Eager decisively. "They are both meant for the army, of course?" "You will speak in the plural still," said Sir Denzil, with a smile. "I cannot bring myself to think of Jim as dead and gone." "Well, well! Let us hope you have more foundation for your higher beliefs, Mr. Eager. Meanwhile, and to lose no time, I will write to my lawyer in London to have this boy entered at Harrow. What delay will it entail?" "None, I should say. The numbers are low there just now, but Vaughan will soon pull things round, and meanwhile they will stand the better chance." "They--they--they!" said Sir Denzil, eyeing him quizzically. "You really still hope, then?" "I shall hope until it is impossible to hope any longer. Have you considered the idea of his having been kidnapped, Sir Denzil?" "It has occurred to me, of course. But why should any one kidnap him?" "If it should be so--to leave the other in full possession, of course. But we have no grounds to go upon. I have made inquiries as to all the gipsies who have been within ten miles of us lately. They are all here yet, and know nothing of the boy." "H'm!" said Sir Denzil thoughtfully. "If it should be that--as you say, it would prove beyond doubt that the boy we have is the wrong one. Gad!" he said presently, "I'm beginning to have a hankering after the other. However----" Sir George Herapath had seconded all Eager's efforts to discover the missing boy. He and Margaret had ridden with the other searchers each day, and in addition had sought out every gipsy camp in the neighbourhood and made rigorous inquisition as to its doings and membership. Sir George was favourably known to the nomads as a strict but clement justice of the peace so long as they kept within the law, and they satisfied him that they had had no hand in this matter. He and Margaret were to and fro constantly between Knoyle and Wyvveloe, eager for news, or downcastly bringing none, and when Eager himself was not there it was a very crushed and sober little lady who received them with a sadness greater even than their own. "It is quite beyond me, Sir George," you would have heard her say, with a gloomy shake of the head. "What can have become of him I can't think. And we do miss him so dreadfully. I always liked old Jim, but I never liked him so much as I do now. It's just breaking Charles's heart." "It's beyond me too, Gracie," said Sir George, with a worried pinch of the brows. "Where _can_ the boy be? I'm really beginning to be afraid we've seen the last of him." "Charles says we must go on hoping for the best," said the Little Lady forlornly. "But it is not easy when you've nothing to go on." And to them, talking so, on the afternoon of the fourth day of the search, came in Eager, very weary both of mind and body, and anything but an embodiment of the hope he enjoined on others. "Nothing," he said dejectedly. "And I do not know what to do next. I'm beginning----" And then the Little Lady's eyes, which had wandered past him from sheer dread of looking on his hopelessness, opened wider than ever they had done before. "Charles! Charles!" she shrieked, pointing past him down the path. "Jim!" And she began to dance and scream in a very allowable fit of hysterics. Eager thought it was that--that her overwrought feelings had broken down, and it was to her that he sprang. But the others had turned at her words, and had run out of the cottage, and now they came in dragging--as though having got him they would never let him go again--a very lean and dirty and draggled, but decidedly happy, Jim. Gracie broke from her brother and rushed at him with a whole-hearted "Oh, Jim! Jim!" and flung her arms round his neck and kissed him many times. And Jim, grinning joyously through his dirt, seemed to find it good, but presently wiped off the kisses with the back of his grimy hand. "Dear lad, where have you been?" cried Eager, all his weariness gone in the joy of recovery. "We have been near breaking all our hearts over you. Thank God, you are back again! . . . Now, tell us!" And Jim summed up his adventures in very few words. "I was on the shore. Some men carried me off in a ship. We were wrecked at a place called Morecambe, and I've come home as quick as I could." "Who were the men? Did you know them?" asked Sir George sternly. "I can't tell you, sir." And then, looking at Eager, as though he would understand. "It was a promise, a very solemn promise"--and Eager nodded. "You see I was locked up in a little cabin when the ship was wrecked, and I should have been drowned in there----" "And they let you out on your promising not to tell on them," said Eager. Jim nodded. "A promise extorted under such conditions is not binding," said Sir George brusquely. "I want those men. Come, my boy, you must tell us all you know." And Eager watched him anxiously. "I cannot tell, sir. I promised." And nothing would move him from this. Sir George, with much warmth, explained to him that no one was safe if such things were permitted to pass unpunished, said that it was his bounden duty to tell all he knew. But to all he simply shook his head and said, "I promised, sir." And Eager, much as he would have liked to lay hands on the rascals, could not but rejoice in the boy's staunchness. And Sir George gave it up at last, and rode away with Margaret, baffled and outwardly very angry. But as they rode up the avenue at Knoyle, he said: "Eager has done well with those boys. They'll turn out men." Jim was very hungry. They fed him, and then Eager went off with him to break the news to Sir Denzil, and the villagers flocked out and cheered them as they went. "Well, yo're back!" was Mrs. Lee's greeting when they came into the kitchen at Carne. And Jim, in the joy of his return, ran up and kissed her, but her face was like that of a graven image. Jack jumped up with a glad shout, and "Hello, Jim! Where you been?" and circled round and round the wanderer with endless questions. Sir Denzil's reception of him was characteristic. "Well, I'm ----! So you've turned up again." And he eyed his grandson, over a pinch of snuff, as though he were some new and offensive reptile. "What is the meaning of this, sir?" And his hankering after the boy whom, in his innermost mind, he had come to think of as his legitimate heir, and his thwarted satisfaction at what he had hoped was in any case the cutting of his Gordian knot, and a certain anxiety in the matter, which he had very successfully concealed from every one else--all these in combination resulted in an explosion. He listened blackly to such explanation as Jim vouchsafed, peremptorily demanded more, and the boy refused. "You will tell me all you know," said the old man sternly--hoping through fuller knowledge to arrive, perchance, at some clue to the great problem behind. "I promised, sir!" said Jim. "Hang your promise, sir! I absolve you from any such promise. You will tell me all you know." But Jim set his lips stolidly and would not say another word. "You won't? Then, by----, I'll teach you to do what you're told." And laying hold of the boy by the neck of his blue guernsey, he caught up his ebony stick and rained savage blows on the quivering little back before Eager could attempt rescue. "Stop, sir! Stop!" cried Eager, in great distress at this outbreak, and caught at the flailing arm. "---- you, sir! Keep off, or I'll thrash you too!" shouted the furious old man, and turned and threatened the interrupter with the heavy silver knob. "You are forgetting yourself, Sir Denzil," said Eager hotly. "The boy has given his solemn promise in return for his life. Would you have him break it?" And he caught the descending stick with a hand that ached for days afterwards, twisted it deftly out of the trembling old hand, and held it in safe keeping. "Kennet!" shouted Sir Denzil, "throw this ---- parson out!" And Kennet came from an adjoining room and looked doubtfully at Eager. "Kennet will think several times before he tries it," said Eager quietly, swinging the stick in his hand. And then Eager, eyeing the old man keenly, saw that the fit had passed and reason had resumed her sway. "Your stick, sir!" and he handed it to him with a bow. "Your servant, sir!" and the stick was flung into a corner, and a shaking hand dived down into a deep-flapped pocket after its necessary snuff-box. "Kennet, leave us! You've been drinking. And you, boy--damme, but you're a good plucked one! Of the right stock, surely. Go down and get something to eat--and here's a guinea for you." And Jim, who had never seen a guinea in his life, gripped it tight in his dirty paw as a remarkable curiosity, and went out agape, with squirming shoulders. The old white hand shook so much that the snuff went all awry, and brown-powdered the waxen face in quite a humorous fashion. "Mr. Eager, I apologise--and that is not my habit. But you must acknowledge that the provocation was great." "Not if you had considered the matter. Would you have a Carron break his pledged word?" "Ay!" said the old man, following his own train of thought, "a true Carron! Surely that is our man! . . . Well, what do you advise next?" "Send them both to Harrow, and trust the rest to Providence." And after a brooding silence, punctuated with more than one thoughtful pinch, "We will try Harrow, anyway," said the oracle, and Eager shook hands with him and went downstairs well satisfied. CHAPTER XXII WHERE'S JACK? With all diffidence I mention a fact. Whether it had any bearing on a later happening I do not know. Mr. Kennet, as we know, indulged occasionally in strong waters. The result, as a rule, was only an increased surliness of demeanour of which no one took much notice. On one such occasion, however, shortly after Jim's return, Kennet, trespassing on Mrs. Lee's domain on some message of his master's, got to words with the old lady, and, rankling perhaps under some sharper reproof than usual from above, snarled at her like a toothless old dog: "Old witch! foisting your ill-gotten brat on us by kidnapping t'other!" At which Mrs. Lee snatched at her broom, and Mr. Kennet beat a retreat more hasty than dignified. Mr. Eager did his utmost during these last months of the year to prepare the boys for their approaching translation. "It's my old school, boys. See you do me credit there," he would urge on them. "In the games you'll do all right. Just pick up their ways, and never lose your tempers. You'll find the lessons tough at first, but I shall trust to you to do your best. You'll miss the flats and the sand-hills, of course, but you'll soon find compensations in the playing-fields." They came to look forward with something like eagerness to the new prospect. It would be a tremendous change in their lives, and the call of the unknown works in the blood of the young like the spring. But they could only stand a certain amount of book-grinding; and the flats and sand-hills, once the autumn gales were past, were full of enticement, and they ranged them, in the company of Eager and Gracie, with all the relish of approaching separation. When George Herapath and Ralph Harben came home for the holidays, hare-and-hounds became the order of the day, and many a tough chase they had, and went far afield. And so it came to pass that one fatal day, Jack, being the hare, led them away through the sedgy lands round Wyn Mere, and played the game so well that he disappeared completely. The course of events that followed was so similar to those in Jim's case that repetition would be wearisome. Sir Denzil and Sir George Herapath were equally furious and disturbed, but showed it in different ways. Eager, as before, was sadly upset and strained himself to breaking-point in his efforts to discover the missing one. Once more the sand-hills were scoured, and this time, since the boy had gone in that direction, the Mere was dragged as far as it was possible to do so, but its vast extent precluded any certainty as to results. And the days passed, and Jack was gone as completely as if he had been carried up into heaven. "Well, Mr. Eager, what do you make of it this time!" asked Sir Denzil, one night when Eager called at Carne with the usual report. "I don't know what to make of it," said Eager dejectedly. "I have thought about it till my head spins." "Your ideas would interest me." "When Jim was kidnapped you felt sure that that pointed to him as what you call the 'right one.' Is it possible that has become known to those interested, and this has been done to point you back to Jack?" "You mean that old witch downstairs. . . . She is capable of anything, of course, and you don't need to look at her twice to see the gipsy blood in her. . . . On the other hand, she may have been cunning enough to anticipate the view you have just expressed. She may have had this boy Jack carried off for the sole purpose of prejudicing the other in our eyes. Do you follow me?" "You mean as I put it just now--that one would expect them to kidnap our man to leave theirs in possession." "Go a step farther, Mr. Eager. Suppose they have in some way learned that, in consequence of Jim's carrying-off, I am inclined to think him the rightful heir. They may, as you say, have carried off the other simply to point me away from Jim and so confuse the issue. But it is just possible they are not so simple as all that, and have reasoned thus--'When Jim disappeared Sir Denzil considered that as proof that he was the rightful heir. If we now carry off Jack, that is just what Sir Denzil would expect us to do, and he will probably stick the tighter to Jim in consequence.' If that is their reasoning, then Jack is our man and not Jim. You follow me?" "It's a terrible tangle," said Eager wearily, with his head in his hands. "It seems to me you can argue any way from anything that happens, and only make matters worse." "Exactly!" said Sir Denzil, over a pinch of snuff. "And so we come back to my point. You must treat both exactly alike and leave the issue to Providence." "It looks like it," said Sir Denzil, and forbore to argue the matter theologically. "If the other comes back we shall have two strings to our bow, which is one too many for practical purposes. If he doesn't, we'll stick to the one we have, right man or wrong, and be hanged to them!" Seth Rimmer, and young Seth, who had only lately returned home after an unusually long absence, were tireless in their search for the missing boy in their own neighbourhood, in or about the Mere. After a day's hard work dragging the great hooks to and fro across the bottom of the Mere, old Seth would shake his head gravely as he looked back over the silent black water. "Naught less than draining it dry will ever tell us all it holds," he would say. "From the look of it there's a moight of wickedness hid down there." Katie too was indefatigable, and she and Jim and George Herapath and Harben hunted high and low round the Mere, but found no smallest trace of Jack. They had all been planning an unusually festive Christmas, but it passed in anxiety and gloom, and the time came round for Jim to go away to school. But going along with Jack was one thing, and going all alone a very different thing indeed, and he jibbed at it strongly. Sir Denzil, however, having made up his mind, was not the man to stand any nonsense. He prevailed on Eager, as being more conversant with such matters, to see to the boy's outfit, and finally to take him up to Harrow himself. And so, in due course, Jim, still very downcast at his parting with Gracie and Mrs. Lee and Carne and the flats and sand-hills, found himself sitting with wide, startled eyes and firmly shut mouth, opposite Mr. Eager, in one of the new railway carriages, whirling across incredible ranges of country at a Providence-tempting speed which seemed to him like to end in catastrophe at any moment. They went from Liverpool to Birmingham, both of which towns paralysed the little ranger of flats and sand-hills; from Birmingham to London, the enormity of which crushed him completely: spent two days showing him the greater sights, which his overburdened brain could in no wise appreciate; and finally landed him, fairly stodged with wonders, in his master's house at Harrow, which seemed to him, after his recent experiences, a haven of peace and restfulness. Eager was an old school and college chum of the housemaster, and spent a day of reminiscent enjoyment with him. He imparted to his friend enough of the boy's curious history to secure his lasting interest in him, and next day said good-bye to Jim and carried the memory of his melancholy dazed black eyes all the way back to Wyvveloe with him. And Gracie's first words as she rushed at him and flung her arms round his neck were, "Jack's back!" And the Rev. Charles sat down with a gasp. "Really and truly, Gracie?" "Really and truly! Yesterday--all rags and bruises and as dirty as a pig." "And wherever has he been all this time?" "Dear knows! He doesn't, except that it was with some men--gipsies--who carried him away and beat him most of the time. He's all black and blue, except his face, and that was dirty brown, and one of his eyes was blackened; one of the men nearly knocked it out." "Well, well, well! It's an uncommonly strange world, child! "Yes. How's old Jim?" "He was all right when I left him, but anything may happen to those boys, apparently, without the slightest warning. Now, if you'll give me something to eat I'll go along and hear what Jack has got to say for himself." Jack, however, had very little information to give that could be turned to any account. It was at the far side of the Mere that he had come upon a couple of men crouching under a sand-hill, as though they were on the look out for somebody. They had collared him, tied a stick in his mouth, and carried him away--where, he had no idea--a very long way, till they came up with a party on the road. There he was placed in one of the travelling caravans, fed from time to time, and not allowed out for many days. He had tried to escape more than once and been soundly thrashed for it. His back--well, there it was, and it made Eager almost ill to think of what those terrible weals must have meant to the boy. Then, after a long lime, another chance came, when all the men were lying drunk one night and some of the women too. He had crept out, and ran and ran straight on till his legs wouldn't carry him another step. A farmer's wife had taken pity on him at sight of his back and helped him on his road. And through her, others. He knew where he wanted to get to, and so, bit by bit, mostly on his own feet, but with an occasional lift in a friendly cart, he had reached home. "And what do you say to all that, Mr. Eager?" asked Sir Denzil. "I say, first, that I am most devoutly thankful that he has come back to us. What may be behind it all is altogether beyond me. If he is their boy would they treat him so cruelly?" "To gain their ends they would stick at nothing. I see no daylight in the matter." "You had no chance of seeing how the old woman received him, I suppose, sir?" "All we know is that when Kennet went downstairs he found the boy sitting in the kitchen, eating as though he had not seen food for a week. Not a word beyond that and what he tells us. The problem is precisely where it was when those damned women came in that first morning each with a child on her arm." BOOK III CHAPTER XXIII BREAKING IN Smaller matters must give way to greater. You have seen how that great problem of Carne came about, and how it perpetuated itself in the persons of Jack and Jim Carron, without any apparent likelihood of satisfactory solution, unless by the final intervention of the Great Solver of all doubts and difficulties. To arrive at the end of our story within anything like reasonable limits, we must again take flying leaps across the years, and touch with no more than the tip of a toe such outstanding points as call for special notice. Harrow was the most tremendous change their lives had so far experienced. Mr. Eager had indeed prepared them for it to the best of his power. But the change, when they plunged into it--first Jim and then Jack--went far beyond their widest imaginings. With their fellows they shook down, in time, into satisfactory fellowship. But the rules of the school, written and unwritten, from above and from below, were for a long time terribly irksome and almost past bearing. They were something like tiger-cubs transferred suddenly from their native freedom to the strict rounds of the circus-ring. They were expected to understand and conform to matters which were so taken for granted that explanations were deemed superfluous. And they suffered many things that first term in stubborn silence, mask and cloak for the shy pride which would sooner bite its tongue through than ask the question which would make its ignorance manifest. The milling-ground between the school and the racquet-courts knew them well, and drank of their blood, and proved the rough nursery of many a lasting friendship. Jim used laughingly to say at home that he had seen the colour of the blood of every fellow he cared a twopenny snap for, on that trampled plot of grass by the old courts. If the colour was good, and the manner of its display in accordance with his ideas, good feeling invariably followed, and he soon had heaps of friends. That was doubtless because he had nothing whatever of the swot in him. He delivered himself over, heart and soul, to the active enjoyments of life, and found no lack of like temper and much to his mind. Jack developed along somewhat wider and deeper lines. He had no great craving for knowledge simply as knowledge. But concerning things that interested him he was insatiable, and slogged away at them with as great a gusto as Jim did at his games. Jack's ideas of a correct school curriculum, being based entirely on his own leanings, necessarily clashed at times with those of the higher powers, and both he and Jim passed under the birch of the genial Vaughan with the utmost regularity and decorum. Neither, of course, ever uttered a word under these inflictions. Jack went tingling back to his own private preoccupation of the moment; and Jim went raging off to the playing-fields. "It's not what he does," he would fume to his chums, "but the way he does it. If he'd get mad I wouldn't mind, but he's always as nice and smooth as a hairdresser, and talks as if it was a favour he was doing you." "Oily old beast!" would be the return comment, and then to the game with extra vim to make up for time lost in the swishing. Jim's greatest fight was an epic in the school for many a year after he had left. "Ah!" said the privileged ones--whether they had actually been present in the body on that historic occasion or not--"but you should have seen the slog between Carron and Chissleton! That _was_ a fight!" It was the usual episode of the big bully, whom most public-schoolboys run up against sooner or later, and Chissleton was three years older and a good head taller than Jim. But Jim had the long years of the flats, and all the benefit of Mr. Eager's scientific fisticuffs, behind him. They fought ten rounds, each of which left Jim on the grass, his face a jelly daubed with blood, and his eyes so nearly closed up that it was only when the bulky Chissleton was clear against the sky that he could see him at all. But bulk tells both ways, and loses its wind chasing a small boy about even a circumscribed ring, and knocking him flat ten times only to find him dancing about next round, as gamely as ever, though somewhat dilapidated and unpleasant to look upon. So Jim wore the big one down by degrees, and in the eleventh round his time came. He hurled himself on the dim bulk between him and the sky with such headlong fury that both went down with a crash. But Jim was up in a moment daubing more blood over his face with the backs of his fists, and the big one lay still till long after the pæans of the small boys had died away into an interested silence. "But didn't it hurt dreadfully, Jim?" asked Gracie, long afterwards, with pitifully twisted face. "Sho! I d'n know. It was the very best fight I ever had." The Little Lady found the days without the boys long and slow, in spite of her close friendship with Margaret Herapath. Meg was everything a girl could possibly be. She was sweet, she was lovely, she was clever, she was a darling dear, she was splendid. She was an angel, she was a duck. She was Lady Margaret, she was dear old Meggums. And never a day passed but she was at the cottage or Gracie was over at Knoyle. They rode and walked and bathed and read together. They slept together at times, and talked half through the night because the days were not long enough for the innumerable confidences that had to pass between them. And Eager rejoiced in their close communion, for he had never met any girl whose friendship he would have so desired for Gracie. And he went about his duties, storming and persuading, fighting and tending, with new fires in his heart which shone out of his eyes, and his people all acknowledged that he was "a rare good un," even when he was scarifying them about manure-heaps and stinks, which they suffered as tolerantly as they did his vehemence, and as though such a thing as typhus had never been known in the land. And what times they all had when the holidays came round! A little shyness, of course, at first, while the various parties took stock of the changes in one another. For Gracie was growing so tall--"quite the young lady," as Mrs. Jex said; and such a change from the fellows at school, as Jack and Jim acknowledged to themselves. Girls--as girls--were somewhat looked down upon at school, you know. But this was Gracie, and quite a different thing altogether. When the first shyness of these meetings wore off she was apt to be somewhat overwhelmed by their effusive worship. They were her slaves, hers most absolutely, and their only difficulty was to find adequate means for the expression of their devotion. For their first home-coming, each of them, unknown to the other, had saved from the wiles of the tuck-shop such meagre portion of pocket-money as strength of will insisted on, and brought her a present; Jack, a small volume of Plutarch's Lives, the reading of which gave himself great satisfaction; and Jim, a pocket-handkerchief with red and blue spots, which seemed to him the very height of fashion, and almost too good for ordinary use by any one but a princess--or Gracie. "You _dear_ boys!" said the Little Lady, and opened Plutarch and sparkled--although for Plutarch, simply as Plutarch, she had no overpowering admiration; and put the red and blue spots to her little brown nose in the most delicate and ladylike manner imaginable. "But you really shouldn't, you know!" And they both vowed internally that they would do it again next time and every time, and each time still better. And, so far, the fact that they were two, and that there was only one Gracie, occasioned them no trouble whatever. Each time they came home Sir Denzil and Eager looked cautiously for any new developments pointing to the solution of the puzzle, and found none. Developments there were in plenty, but not one from which they could deduce any inference of weight. Was Jim more dashing and heedless and headstrong than ever?--all these came to him from his father. Was Jack developing a taste for study, of a kind, and along certain very definite lines of his own choosing?--could that be cast up at him as an un-Carronlike weakness due to the Sandys strain, or should it not rather be credited to the strengthening admixture of red Lee blood? Those were the broader lines of divergence between the two, and the most striking to the outward observer, but it must not be supposed therefrom that Jack had foresworn his birthright of the active life. He revelled in the freedom of the flats as fully as ever, rode and bathed and ran, and held his own in cricket and hockey; but, at the same time, the habit of thought had visibly grown upon him, and it made him seem the older of the two. Time wrought its personal changes in them all, but brought no great variation from these earlier characteristics. Gracie grew more beautiful in every way each time the boys came home; Jack more deliberative; Jim remained light-hearted and joyously careless as ever, enjoying each day to its fullest, and troubling not at all about the morrow. His devotion to the playing-fields gave him by degrees somewhat of an advantage over Jack in the matter of physique and general good looks. His healthy, browned face, sparkling black eyes, and the fine supple grace of his strong and well-knit body were at all times good to look upon. Charles Eager, who had a searchingly appreciative eye for the beauties of God's handiwork in all its expressions, when he sped across the sands behind the corded muscles playing so exquisitely beneath the firm white flesh, or lay in the warm sand and watched the rise and fall of the wide, deep chest on which the salt drops from the tumbled mop of black hair rolled like diamonds, while up above the clean-cut nostrils went in and out like those of a hunted stag, said to himself that here was the making of en unusually fine man. He doubted if Jim's brain would carry him as far as Jack's, but all the same he could not but rejoice in him exceedingly. "Here," he mused, "is heart and body. And there is heart and brain,"--for at heart these two were very much alike still, open-handed, generous, and, by nature and Eager's own good training, clean and wholesome,--"which will go farthest?" And, following his train of thought to the point of speech, one day when he and Jim were alone, he said: "God has blessed you with a wonderfully fine body, lad. Where is it going to take you?" "Into the thick of the fighting, I hope, if ever there is any more fighting," said Jim, with a hopeful laugh. "One fights with brains as well as with brawn"--with an intentional touch of the spur to see what would come of it. "Oh, Jack's got the brains--and the brawn too," he added quickly, lest he should seem to imply any pre-eminence on his own part in that respect. "He'll die a general. I'll maybe kick out captain--if I'm not a sergeant-major,"--with another merry laugh. "I'd sooner fight in the front line any day than order them from the rear." "God save us from the horrors of another war," said Eager fervently. "I can just remember Waterloo. Every friend we had was in mourning, and sorrow was over the land." "And there is another Napoleon in the saddle," said Jim. "Ay; a menace to the world at large! An ambitious man, and somewhat unscrupulous, I fear. To keep himself in the saddle he may set the war-horse prancing." "I'm for the cavalry myself," said Jim, and Eager smiled at the characteristic irrelevancy. "I shall try for Sandhurst. Jack's for Woolwich." "Even Sandhurst will need some grinding up." "Oh, I'll grind when the time comes "--somewhat dolefully. "You can get crammers who know the game and are up to all the twists and turns. If I can only crawl through and get the chance of some fighting, I'll show them!" CHAPTER XXIV AN UNEXPECTED GUEST One afternoon, in one of their winter holidays, Gracie and the two boys had been down along the shore to visit Mrs. Rimmer and Kattie, especially Kattie. They were tramping home along the crackling causeway of dried seaweed and the jetsam in which of old they had sought for treasure, and chattering merrily as they went. "Kattie's getting as pretty as a--as a----" stumbled Jim after a comparison equal to the subject. "Wild-rose," suggested Gracie. "Sweet-pea," said Jack. "I was thinking of something with wings," said Jim, "but I don't quite know----" "Peacock," said Jack. "No, nor a seagull. Their eyes are cold, and Kattie's aren't." "You think she'll fly away?" laughed Gracie. "You think she looks flighty? That was the red ribbons in her hair. She must have expected you, Jim." "They were very pretty, but I liked her best with it all flying loose as it used to be." "She's getting too big for that, but she certainly has a taste for colours." "Well, why shouldn't she, if they make her look pretty?" "Oh, she can have all the ribbons she wants, as far as I am concerned. I only hope----" And then they were aware suddenly of the rapid beat of horses' feet on the firm brown sand below, and turned, supposing it might be Sir George or Margaret Herapath. But it was a stranger, a tall and imposing figure of a man on a great brown horse, and behind him rode another, evidently a servant, for he carried a valise strapped on to the crupper of his saddle. Both wore long military cloaks and foreign-looking caps. In the half-light of the waning afternoon, and the rarity of strangers in that part of the world, there was something of the sinister about the new-comer, something which evoked a feeling of discomfort in the chatterers and reduced them to silent staring, as the riders went by at a hand-gallop. "Who can they be?" said Gracie, as they stood gazing after them. "Foreigners," said Jack decisively. "French, I should say, from the cut of their jibs. A French officer and his servant." "What are they wanting here, I'd like to know," said Jim, still staring absorbedly. "He's a fine-looking man anyway, and he knows how to ride." "His eyes were like gimlets," said Gracie. "They went right through me. I thought he was going to speak to us." "Wish he had," said Jim. "That's just the kind of man I'd like to have a talk with." They were to drink tea with Gracie, and she had made a great provision of special cakes for them with her own hands. So they turned off into the sand-hills and made their way to Wyvveloe. Eager came out of a cottage as they passed down the street, and they all went on together. "Oh, Charles," burst out the Little Lady, as she filled the cups, "we saw two such curious men on the shore as we were coming home----" "Ah!"--for he always enjoyed her exuberance in the telling of her news. "Two heads each?--or was it smugglers now, or real bold buccaneers?" "Jack thinks, by the cut of their jibs, they were Frenchmen, one an officer and the other his servant." "Oh?"--with a sudden startled interest. "Frenchmen, eh? And what made you think they were Frenchmen, Jack, my boy?" "They looked like it to me. They had long soldiers' cloaks on, and their caps were not English----" "And they had rattling good horses, both of them," struck in the future cavalryman. "And where were they going?" "We didn't ask. We only stared, and they stared back. They were galloping along the shore towards Carne," said Jack. "I We don't often see Frenchmen up this way nowadays." And thereafter he was not quite so briskly merry as usual, as though the Frenchmen were weighing on him. And truly an odd and discomforting idea had flashed unreasonably across his mind as they spoke, and it stuck there and worried him. They were gathered round the fire, and Jim was gleefully picturing to the shuddering Gracie, in fullest red detail, the great fight with Chissleton. And Gracie had just gasped, "But didn't it hurt dreadfully, Jim?" And Jim had just replied, with the carelessness of the hardened warrior, "Sho! I din know. It was the very best fight I ever had";--when a knock came on the cottage door, and Eager jumped up, almost as though he had been expecting it, and went out. It was Mr. Kennet stood there, and when the light of the lamp in the passage fell on his face it seemed longer and more portentous even than usual. It was Kennet whom Eager's foreboding thought had feared to see. And his words occasioned him no surprise. "Sir Denzil wants the boys, Mr. Eager, and he says will you please to come too." "Very well, Kennet." And if Mr. Kennet had expected to be questioned on the matter he was disappointed. "Will you wait for us?" "I've a message into the village, sir. I'll come on as soon as I've done it." And in the darkness beyond, a horse jerked its head and rattled its gear. "Come along, boys. Your grandfather has sent for you. I'll go along with you." And they were threading their way--with eyes a little less capable than of old of seeing in the dark, by reason of disuse and study--through the sand-hills towards Carne. The boys speculated briskly as to the reason for this unusual summons. A couple of years earlier they would have been racking their brains as to which of their numerous peccadilloes had come to light, and bracing their hearts and backs to the punishment. But they were getting too big now for anything of that kind--except of course at school, where flogging was a part of the curriculum. Eager guessed what was toward, but offered them no light on the subject. "Yo're to go up," said Mrs. Lee to the boys, as they entered the kitchen. "Will yo' please stop here, sir till he wants yo'." And It seemed to Eager that the grim old face was pinched tighter than ever in repression of some overpowering emotion. The boys stumbled wonderingly upstairs, knocked on Sir Denzil's door, and were bidden to enter. Their grandfather was sitting half turned away from the table, on which were the remains of a meal and several bottles of wine. Before the fire, with his back against the mantelpiece, stood a tall, dark man in a very becoming undress uniform, his hands in his trousers' pockets, a large cigar in his mouth. Sparks shot into his keen black eyes as they leaped eagerly at the boys, devouring them wholesale in one hungry gaze, then travelling rapidly back and forth in assimilation of details. A foreigner without doubt, said the boys to themselves, as they stared back with interest at the dark, handsome face with its sweeping black moustache and pointed beard. Sir Denzil tapped his snuff-box and snuffed aloofly. "Gad, sir, but I think they do me credit!" said the stranger at last, In a voice that sounded somewhat harsh and nasal to ears accustomed to the soft, round tones of the north. "That's as it may be," said Sir Denzil drily. "Credit where credit is due." "_Sang-d'-Dieu!_ you will allow me a finger in the pie, at all events, sir!" "That much, perhaps!"--with a shrug. "That proverbial finger as a rule points more to marring than to making." "And you've no idea which is which?" And he eyed the boys so keenly that they grew uncomfortable. "Not the slightest! Have you?" "I like them both. I'm proud of them both. But it certainly complicates matters having two of them. Suppose you keep one and I take one? How would that do? I'll wager mine goes higher than yours." "Suppose you put it to them!" The boys had been following this curious discussion with certainly more intelligence than might have been displayed by two puppies whose future was in question, but with only a very dim idea of what some of it might mean. They had at times, of late, come to discuss themselves and their immediate concerns--as to which was the elder, and as to what their father and mother had been like, when they had died, and so on. In the earlier days they had never troubled their heads about such matters. But the exigencies of school life had awakened a desire for more definite information towards the settlement of vexed questions. And so their holidays had been punctuated with attempts at the solution of these weighty problems, and the piercing of the cloud of ignorance in which they had been perfectly happy. And the unsatisfactory results of their inquiries had only served to quicken their thirst for knowledge. Old Mrs. Lee gave them nothing for their pains, and her manner was eminently discouraging. "Which was the elder? She'd have thought any fool could tell they were twins! Their mother?--dead, years ago. Their father?--dead too, she hoped, and best thing for him!" Their only other possible source of information was Mr. Eager. Sir Denzil and Kennet were of course out of the question. And Mr. Eager had so far only told them that of his own actual knowledge he knew as little as they did, and advised them to wait and trouble themselves as little as possible about the matter. He could not even say definitely if their father was dead. He had lived abroad for many years, and had not been heard of for a very long time. Eager, of course, foresaw that, sooner or later, the whole puzzling matter would have to be explained to them, unless the solution came otherwise, in which case it might never need to be explained at all. But in the meantime no good could come of unprofitable discussion, and there were parts of it best left alone. And so, when this handsome stranger dawned suddenly upon them, in such familiar discussion of themselves with their grandfather, their first "Who is it?" speedily gave place to "Can it be?" and then to "Is it?"--on Jack's part, at all events, and he stared at the dark man in the foreign uniform with keenest interest and a glimmering of understanding. Jim stared quite as hard, but with smaller perception. "Well?" said the stranger, his white teeth gleaming through the heavy black moustache. "What do you make of it? Who am I?" "Can you be our father?" jerked Jack; and Jim jumped at the unaccustomed word. "Clever boy that knows his own father--or thinks he does--especially when he's never set eyes on him! How would you like to come back to France with me, youngster?" "To France?" gasped Jack. "Into the army. I have influence. I can push you on." "The French army?" And Jack shook his head doubtfully. "I don't think--I--quite understand. Are you an Englishman, sir? "A Carron of Carne." "And in the French army?" "As it happens. You don't approve of that?" Jack shook his head. Jim, with his wide, excited eyes and parted lips, was a study in emotions--amazement, excitement, puzzlement, admiration mixed with disapproval--all these and more worked ingenuously in his open boyish face and made it look younger than Jack's, which was knitted thoughtfully. "If it came to that I should probably claim exemption from serving against England, though, _mon Dieu!_ it's little enough I have to thank her for, and it would be to my hurt. Sometime you will understand it all. And you?" he asked Jim, so unexpectedly that he jumped again. "You feel the same? A couple of years at St. Cyr, and then say, a sub-lieutenancy in my own cuirassiers, and all my influence behind you. As a personal friend of the Emperor, Colonel Caron de Carne is not by any means powerless, I can assure you." But Jim wagged his head decisively. He did not understand how this mysterious, but undoubtedly fine-looking father came to be apparently both a Frenchman and an Englishman, but he himself was an Englishman, and an Englishman he would remain. "So! Then I go back the richer than I came only in the knowledge of you, but I would gladly have had one of you back with me." "Go now, boys," said Sir Denzil, "and tell Mr. Eager I would be glad of a word with him." And wrenching their eyes from this phenomenal father, whose advances evoked no slightest response within them, they got out of the door somehow and ran down to the kitchen. "Sir Denzil wants you to go up, Mr. Eager," began Jack. "Our father's up there," broke in Jim. But Mr. Eager had already heard the strange news from Mrs. Lee, and went up at once, full anxious on his own account to see what manner of man this unexpectedly-returned father might be, and rigorously endeavouring to preserve an open mind concerning him until he had something more to go upon than Mrs. Lee's curt but emphatic, "He's a divvle if ever there was one." "Ah, Mr. Eager, this is my son Denzil, father of your boys," said the old man briefly, and helped himself to snuff and leaned back in his chair and watched them. "I am glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Eager,"--and a strong brown hand shot out to meet him. "Sir Denzil tells me that whatever good is in those boys is of your implanting. I thank you. You have done a good work there." "They are fine lads," said Eager quietly. "It would have been an eternal pity if they had run to seed. We are making men of them." "I have been trying to induce one of them to go back to France with me----" "Which one?" "Either. I don't know one from t'other yet. I could make much of either, and it would solve the difficulty you are in here." "And they?" "They won't hear of it." "I should have been surprised if they had." "I suppose so. And yet I could promise one or both a very much greater career than they are ever likely to realise here." Eager shook his head. "They have been brought up as English lads; you could hardly expect them to change sides like that, even for possibilities which I don't suppose they understand or appreciate." "It's a pity, all the same. There will be many opportunities over there----" "The Empire is peace----" interjected Eager, with a smile. "The Empire"--with a shrug--"is my very good friend Louis Napoleon, and peace just so long as it is to his interest to keep it. But"--with a knowing nod--"he has studied his people and he knows how to handle them. I'll wager you I'm a general inside five years--unless he or I come to an end before that." "I would sooner they died English subalterns than lived to be French generals." "It's throwing away a mighty chance for one of them." "Their own country will offer them all the chances they need." "How?" asked the Colonel quickly. "You think England will join us in case of necessity?" "I know nothing about that. I mean simply that our boys will do their duty whatever call is made upon them; and no man can do more than that." "Peace offers few opportunities of advancement,"--with a regretful shake of the head. "But your minds all seem made up. It is a great chance thrown away, but I judge it is no use urging the matter----" "Not the very slightest. To put the matter plainly, Captain Carron----" "Colonel, with your permission!" "You have forfeited all right to dictate as to those boys' future. Legally, perhaps----" "_Merci!_ I shall not invoke the aid of the law, Mr. Eager." "It would clear the way here if you took one of them off our hands," said Sir Denzil; "but I agree with Mr. Eager, one Frenchman in the family is quite enough. You will have to go back empty-handed, Denzil." "I am glad to have seen those boys, anyway. We may meet again, some time, Mr. Eager. In the meantime, my grateful thanks for all you have done for them!" And next morning he took leave of his sons, and galloped off along the sands the way he had come, and the boys stood looking after him with very mixed feelings, and when he was out of sight looked down at the guineas he had left in their hands and thought kindly of him. CHAPTER XXV REVELATION AND SPECULATION Charles Eager pondered the matter deeply, and was ready for the boys when they tackled him the next morning. He knew, as soon as he saw them, that they had been discussing matters during the night and were intent on information. "Mr. Eager," said Jack, "Will you tell us about our father? Why is he in the French army?" Eager told them briefly that part of the story. "And do you consider he did right to go away like that?" was the next question. "Under the circumstances I should say he did. At all events it was Sir Denzil's wish that he should go, and he could judge better then than we can now." "And we two were born after he'd left?" "So I am told." "Well now, even in twins isn't one generally the older of the two. Which of us is the elder?" "That I don't know. I believe there is some doubt about it, and so we look upon you both as on exactly the same level." "Suppose Sir Denzil should die, and our father should die--we don't want them to, you understand, but one can't help wondering--which of us would be Sir Denzil?" "That is a matter that has exercised your grandfather's mind since ever you were born, my boy, and I'm afraid we can arrive no nearer to the answer. We can only wait." "It'll be jolly awkward," protested Jim. "Very awkward. Some arrangement will have to be come to, of course; but exactly what, is not for me to say. Your grandfather can divide his estate between you, and as to the title----" "We could take it turn about," suggested Jim. "Or you may both win such new honours for yourselves that it will be of small account." "Yes, that's an idea," said Jack thoughtfully. And after a pause, "And you can tell us nothing about our mother, Mr. Eager?" "No. You were ten years old, you know, when we met for the first time and you stole all my clothes. What a couple of absolute little savages you were!" "We had jolly good times----" "We've had better since," said Jack. "If you hadn't come to live here we might have been savages all our lives." "You must do me all the credit you can. At one time I had hoped to become a soldier myself." "Jolly good thing for us you didn't," said Jim. "But haven't you been sorry for it ever since, Mr. Eager?" "There are higher things even than soldiering," smiled Eager. "If I can help to make two good soldiers instead of one, then England is the gainer." "We'll jolly well do our best," said Jim. And so they had arrived at a portion of the problem of their house, and bore it lightly. And as to the grim remainder--"It would only uselessly darken both their lives," said Eager to himself. "We must leave it to time, and that is only another name for God's providence." CHAPTER XXVI JIM'S TIGHT PLACE Jack had set his heart on Woolwich. In due course he took the entrance examinations without difficulty, and passed into the Royal Military School with flying colours. Woolwich, however, was quite beyond Jim, and, besides, his heart was set on horses. He would be a cavalryman or nothing. But even for Sandhurst there was an examination to pass--an examination of a kind, but quite enough to give him the tremors, and sink his heart into his boots whenever he thought of it. Examinations always had been abomination to Jim and always got the better of him. He argued eloquently that pluck, and a firm seat, and a long reach would make a better cavalryman than all the decimal fractions and French and Latin that could be rammed into him. But the authorities had their own ideas on the subject. So to an army-tutor he went in due course, a notable crammer in the Midlands, who knew every likely twist and turn of the ordinary run of examiners, and had got more incapables into the service than any man of his time, and charged accordingly. And there, for six solid months, Jim was fed up like a prize turkey, on the absolutely necessary minimum of knowledge required for a pass, and grew mentally dyspeptic with the indigestible chunks of learning which he got off by heart, till his brain reeled and went on rolling them ponderously over and over even in his sleep. Fortunately he started with a good constitution, and there was hunting three days a week, or such a surfeit of knowledge might have proved too much for him. There were half a dozen more in the same condition; and the sight of those seven gallant hard-riders, poring with woebegone faces and tangled brains over tasks which in these days any fifth-form secondary-schoolboy would laugh at, tickled the soul of their tutor, Mr. Dodsley, almost out of its usual expression of benign and earnest sympathy at times. They represented, however, a very handsome living with comparatively easy work, and he did his whole duty by them according to his lights. The shadow of the coming death-struggle cast a gloom over the little community for weeks before the fatal day, and all seven decided, in case of the failure they anticipated, to enlist in the ranks, where their brains could have well-merited rest. Jim never said very much about that exam., but he did disclose the facts to Mr. Eager, and chuckled himself almost into convulsions; whenever he thought over it and the awful months of preparation that had preceded it. "There was a jolly decent-looking old cock of a colonel at the table when I went in," he said. "And my throat was dry, and my knees were knocking together so that I was afraid he'd see 'em. He looked at my name on the paper and then at me. "'James Denzil Carron?' he said. 'Any relation of my old friend Denzil Carron of--what-the-deuce-and-all was it now?' "'Carne," I chittered. "'That's it! Carron of Carne, of course. What are you to him, boy?' "'Son, sir.' "Denzil Carron's son! God bless my soul, you don't say so! And is your father alive still?' "'Yes, sir.' "'You don't say so! God bless my soul! Denzil Carrell alive! Why, it must be twenty years since I set eyes on him! Will you tell him, when you see him, that his old friend, Jack Pole, was asking after him?' And then," said Jim, "I suppose he saw me going white at prospect of the exam., for he just said, 'Oh, hang the exam.! You can ride?' "'Anything, sir.' "'And fence?' "'Yes, sir. And box and swim, and I can run the mile in four minutes and fifteen seconds.' "'God God bless my soul, I wish I could! You'll do, my boy! Pass on, and prove yourself as brave a man as your father!' And I just wished I'd known it was going to be like that. It would have saved me a good few headaches and a mighty lot of trouble. However, perhaps it'll all come in useful, some day--that is, if I remember any of it." Jack did well at Woolwich. He passed out third of his batch, and in due course received his commission as second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers. Jim made but a poor show in head-work, but showed himself such an excellent comrade, and such a master of all the brawnier parts of the profession, that it would have needed harder hearts than the ruling powers possessed to set any undue stumbling-blocks in his way. To his mighty satisfaction, he was gazetted cornet to the 8th Regiment of Hussars, just a year after Jack got through. CHAPTER XXVII TWO TO ONE None of them ever forgot the last holiday they all spent together before the great dispersal. Some of them looked back upon it in the after-days with most poignant feelings--of longing and regret. For nothing was ever to be again as it had been--and not with them only, but throughout the land. It was as though all the circumstances and forces of life had been quietly working up to a point through all these years--as though all that had gone before had been but preparation for what was to come--as though the time had come for the Higher Powers to say, as sensible parents sooner or later say to their children, "We have done our best for you--we have fitted you for the fight; now you are become men and women, work out your own destinies!" It was amazing to Charles Eager--feeling himself as young as ever--to find all his youngsters suddenly grown up, suddenly become, if not capable of managing their own affairs, at all events filled with that conviction, and fully intent on doing so. And, so far, the strange story of their actual relationship had not been made known to the boys. Eager had discussed the matter with Sir Denzil many times, but the old man, not unreasonably, maintained the position that, unless and until events forced the disclosure, there was no need to trouble their minds with it. And Eager, knowing them so well, could not but agree that it would be a mighty upsetting for them. While they were working hard, in their various degrees, for their examinations, It was, of course, out of the question. And when the matter was mooted again, Sir Denzil said quietly: "Let it lie, Eager. If it has to come out, it will come out; but if anything should deprive us of one of them before it does come out, there is no need for the other to carry a millstone round his neck all his life." The old man had mellowed somewhat with the years. The problem as to which was his legitimate heir, and the possibility of unconsciously perpetuating the line through the bar sinister, still troubled him at times; but the boys themselves, in their ripening and development, had done more than anything else to alter his feelings towards them. Well-born or ill-born, they were fine bits of humanity. He had come to tolerate them with a degree of appreciation, to regard them with something almost akin to a form of affection, atrophied, indeed, by long disuse, and disguised still behind a certain cynicism of speech and manner and the very elegant handling of his jewelled snuff-box, whenever they met. When they were at Carne for holidays, they had their own apartments, and, for a sitting-room, the long, oak-panelled parlour, looking north and west over the flats and the sea; and here they were at last enabled to entertain their friends, and repay some of the hospitalities of the earlier years. At times Sir Denzil would send for them to his own rooms, and they came almost to enjoy his acid questionings and pungent comments on life as they saw it. Behind his cynical aloofness they were not slow to perceive a keen interest in the newer order of things, and they talked freely of all and sundry--their friends, and their friends' friends, and all the doings of the day. It was very many years since the old man had been in London. He felt himself completely out of things, and had no desire to return; but still he liked to hear about them. And at times, by way of return, when the boys had their friends in, he would, with the punctilious courtesy of his day, send Mr. Kennet to request their permission to join them, and then march in, almost on Kennet's heels, looking, in his wig and long-skirted coat and ruffles and snuff-box, a veritable relic of past days. Jack, in the plenitude of his present-day knowledge, and the power it gave him of affording interesting information to the recluse, discoursed with him almost on terms of equality. Jim, on the other hand, though he could rattle along in the jolliest and most amusing way imaginable with his chosen ones, still found the old gentleman's rapier-like little speeches and veiled allusions somewhat beyond him, and so, as a rule, left most of the talking to him and Jack. But the first time the boys both came down in their uniforms, modestly veiling their pride under a large assumption of nonchalance, but in reality swelling internally like a pair of young peacocks, they carried all before them. They looked so big, so grand, so masterful, that it took some time even for the Little Lady to fit them into their proper places in their own estimation and in hers. And as for their grandfather, it took an immense amount both of time and snuff and sapient head-nodding before he could get accustomed to them, and then he was quite as proud of them as they were of themselves. "By gad, sir!" he said to Eager, in an unusual outburst of suppressed vehemence, "you were right and I was wrong. We can't afford to lose either of them, though what you're going to do about it all, when the time comes, is beyond me. Jack, there, talks like a book, like all the books that ever were, and knows everything there is to know in the world"--Jack had been delivering himself of some of his newest ideas on fortification--"but what can you make of that? It may only be the higher product of a coarser strain. I'm not sure that the other isn't more in the line. I'm inclined to think he'll make his mark if he gets the chance that suits him." "They both will, sir. Take my word for it. We shall all, I hope, live to be proud of them both. And as to the other matter, maybe they'll cut so deep, and go so far, that after all it will become of secondary importance." "That," said Sir Denzil, with a steady look at him over an elegantly delayed pinch of snuff, "is quite impossible. They can attain to no position comparable with the succession to Carne." And Gracie? With what feelings did she regard these brilliantly-arrayed young warriors? She had for them a most wholesome, whole-hearted, and comprehensive affection, and she bestowed it in absolutely equal measure upon them both. She had grown up in closest companionship with them. She could not imagine life without them or either of them: it would have been life without its core and colour. And, so far, they stood together in her heart, and no occasion had arisen for discrimination between them. When, indeed, Jim had disappeared for a time, and seemed lost to them, life had seemed black and blank for lack of him, and Jack could not by any means make up for him. But when Jack in turn disappeared life was equally shadowed for her, and Jim was no comfort whatever. She, rejoicing in them equally, had no thought or wish but that things should go on just as they were. But in the boys other feelings began unconsciously to push up through the crumbling crust of youth. They were nearing manhood. The Little Lady was no longer a child. She had grown--tall and wonderfully beautiful in face and figure. They had met other girls, but never had either of them met any one to compare with Grace Eager. And they met her afresh, each time they came home, with new wonder and vague new hopes and wishes. It was the party which Sir George Herapath gave in the autumn that brought matters to a head. Neither of the boys had seen Grace in evening dress before. Indeed, it was her first, and the result of much deep consideration and planning on the part of herself and Margaret Herapath. When it was finished and tried on in full for the first time, old Mrs. Jex, admitted to a private view, clasped her hands and the tears ran down her face as she murmured, "An angel from heaven! Never in all my born days have I set eyes on anything half so pretty!"--though really it was only white muslin with pale-blue ribbons here and there. But it showed a good deal of her soft white arms and neck, and they dazzled even Mrs. Jex. As for the boys--it was as though the most marvellous bud the world had ever seen had suddenly burst its sheath and blossomed into a splendid white flower. When she came into the big drawing-room at Knoyle that night, with Eager close behind, his intent face all alight with pride in her, and perhaps with anticipation for himself, she created quite a sensation, and found it delightful. She came in like a lily and a rose and Eve's fairest daughter all in one; and our boys gazed at her spell-bound, startled, electrified as though by a galvanic shock. And deep down in the consciousness of each was a strange, wonderful, peaceful joy, a sudden endowment, and an almost overpowering yearning. In the self-same moment each knew that in all the world there was no other woman for him than Grace Eager. And, vaguely, behind that, was the fear that the other was feeling the same. And she? She enjoyed to the full the novel sensation of the effect she produced upon them, and was just the same Gracie as of old--almost. She sailed up to them and dropped a most becoming curtsey, and rose from it all agleam and aglow with merry laughter at their visible undoing. "Well, boys, what's the matter with you?" she rippled merrily. "You!" gasped Jim. "Me? What's the matter with me? I'm all right. Don't you like me like this? Meg and I made it between us." Didn't they like her like that? Why----! "You see," said Jack, "we've never seen you like this before, and you've taken us by surprise." "Oh, well, get over it as quickly as you can, and then you may ask me to dance with you." "I don't think I'll ever get over it, but I'll ask you now," said Jim. Which was not bad for him. And Jack felt the first little stab of jealousy he had ever experienced towards Jim, at his having got in first. "I'd like every dance," laughed Jim happily, "but----" "Quite right, old Jim Crow! Mustn't be greedy! You first, because you spoke first, then Jack----" "Then me again," persisted Jim. "We'll see. Is that Ralph Harben? How he's grown! His whiskers and moustache make him look quite a man." And Jim decided instantly on the speedy cultivation of facial adornments. "Oh, he's coming! And there's Meg." And she flitted away to Margaret, who was talking to Charles Eager, and so for the moment upset Master Harben's plans for her capture. With no little distaste the boys had suffered instruction in the art of dancing, as a necessary part of the education of a gentleman. Now they fervently thanked God for it. To have to stand with their backs to the wall while every Tom, Dick, or Ralph whirled past in the dance with Gracie, would have been quite past the bearing. They felt new sensations under their waistcoats even when George Herapath had her in charge, though there was not a fellow on earth they liked better, or had more confidence in, than old George, now a dashing lieutenant in the Royal Dragoons, and quite a man of the world. As for Ralph Harben--well, if either of them could have picked a reasonable quarrel with him, and had it out in the garden, unbeknown to any but themselves, Master Ralph would have undergone much tribulation. They danced with Gracie many times that night, and grew more and more intoxicated with happiness such as neither had ever tasted before or even dreamed of. And yet, below and behind it all, pushed down and hustled into dark corners of the heart and mind, was that other new feeling which, though it was foreign to them, they instinctively strove to keep out of sight. Over the incidents of that party we need not linger. There were many fair girls and fine boys there, but they do not come into our story. They all enjoyed themselves immensely, and Sir George, beaming genially, enjoyed them all as much as they enjoyed, themselves. Margaret moved among them like a queen lily, and the boys were somewhat overpowered by her stately beauty. But Charles Eager seemed to find his satisfaction in it, and his eyes followed her with vast enjoyment whenever he was not dancing with her, for he danced as well as he jumped or boxed. When Mr. Harben--Sir George's active partner in the business, and Ralph's father--chaffed him jovially on the matter, he replied cheerfully that David danced before the ark, and he didn't see why he shouldn't do likewise. And when Harben would have tackled him further as to the ark, he averred that arks were as various as the men who danced before them, and had no limitations whatever in the matter of size, shape, or material--that some men were arks of God and more women--that when he came across such he bowed before them, or, as the case might be, danced with them, and he sped off to claim Margaret for the next round, leaving his adversary submerged under the avalanche of his eloquence. That night was, for the younger folk, all enjoyment, tinged indeed with those other vague feelings I have named, but quickened and intensified, before they separated, by news from the outer world which strung all their nerves as tight as fiddlestrings and swept them with many emotions. For, coming upon Sir George and his partner conversing earnestly in a quiet corner one time, Eager, with his eyes on Margaret and Ralph Harben circling round the room, asked--casually, and by way of exhibiting detachment from any special interest in that other particular matter--"Well, Mr. Harben, what's the news from the East?" And the two older men stopped talking and looked at him. It was Sir George who answered him, soberly: "Grave news, Mr. Eager. Harben was just telling me that the fleet is to enter the Black Sea, and that at headquarters they entertain no doubt as to the result." "You mean war?" asked Eager, with a start. "War without a doubt, Mr. Eager," said Harben, involuntarily rubbing his hands together. For he was a contractor, you must remember; and whatever of misery and loss war entails upon others, for contractors it means business and profit. "We are to fight Russia on behalf of Turkey?" "Russian aggression must be checked," said Harben. "Her ambition knows no bounds. We go hand-in-hand with France, of course." "H'm! My own feeling would be that it is more for the aggrandisement of Louis Napoleon than for the checking of Russia that we are going to fight." "Who's going to fight?" asked Lieutenant George, catching the word. And then of course it was out. For, once more, whatever of misery and loss war entails upon others, to the fighting man in embryo it means only glory and the chances of promotion. It was the following day that the disturbances nearer home began. Jack lay awake most of the morning after he got to bed, thinking soberly, with rapturous intervals when Gracie's laughing face floated in the smaller darkness of his tired eyes, and envying Jim, who slept at intervals like a sheep-dog after a day on the hills. But at times even Jim's heavy breathing stopped and he lay quite still, and then he too was thinking--which was an unusual thing for him to do in the night--though not perhaps so deeply as Jack. They both felt like boiled owls in the morning, and lay late. It was close on midday when Jack, after several pipes and a splitting yawn, said, "Let's go up along,"--which always meant north along the flats--"my blood's thickening." And they went off together along the hard-ribbed sand, with the sea and the sky like bars of lead on one side and the stark corpses of the sand-hills, with the wire-grass sticking up out of them like the quills of porcupines, on the other. They walked a good two miles without a word, both thinking the same things and both fearing to start the ball rolling. "We've got to talk it out, Jim," said Jack at last. Jim grunted gloomily. "What are you thinking of it?" "Same as you, I s'pose." "It mustn't part us, old Jim." Jim snorted. Under extreme urgency he was at times slow of expression in words. "Gracie has become a woman, the most beautiful woman in all the world"--with rapture, as though the mere proclamation of the fact afforded him mighty joy, which it did. "And we are men . . . and--and we've got to face it like men." And Jim grunted again. He was surging with emotions, but he couldn't put them into words like Jack. "I would give my life for her," said Jack. "I'd give ten lives if I had 'em." "She can only have one of us, and only one of us can have her." Which was obvious enough. "And it all lies with her. We only want what she wants." "I only want her," groaned Jim. "Of course. So do I. But we neither of us want her unless she wants us," reasoned Jack. "I do. She's made me feel sillier than ever I felt in all my life before. All I know is that I want her." Jack nodded. "I know. I've been thinking of it all night." "So've I," growled Jim. And Jack refrained from telling him how he had envied him his powers of sleep. "It seems to me the best thing we can do is to write and tell her what we're feeling." Jim snorted dissentingly. Letter-writing was not his strong point, and Jack understood. "Well, you see, we can't very well go together and tell her. But if we write she can have both our letters at the same time, and then she can decide. I'm sure it's the only way to settle it. Can you think of anything better?" But Jim had no suggestions to offer. All he knew was that his whole nature craved Gracie, and he could not imagine life without her. In the earlier times, when, as generally happened, they both wanted a thing which only one of them could have, they always fought for it, and to the victor remained the spoils. But in those days the spoils were of no great account, and the pleasure of the fight was all in all. This was a very different matter. The prize was life's highest crown and happiness for one of them, and no personal strife could win it. It was a matter beyond the power of either to influence now. It was outside them. They could ask, but they could not take. Forcefulness could do much in the bending and shaping of life, but here force was powerless. And it was then, as he brooded over the whole matter, that one of life's great lessons was borne in upon Jim Carron--that the dead hand of the past still works in the moulding of the present and the future, that what has gone is still a mighty factor in what is and what is to come. He groaned in the spirit over his own deficiencies, the lost opportunities, the times wasted, which, turned to fuller account, might now have served him so well. If only he could have known that all the past was making towards this mighty issue, how differently he would have utilised it. For, submitting himself to most unusual self-examination, and searching into things with eyes sharpened by unusual stress, he could not but acknowledge that, compared with Jack, he made but a poor show. Jack was clever. He had a head and knew how to use it. He would go far and make a great name for himself. Whereas he himself had nothing to offer but a true heart and a lusty arm, and Jack had these also in addition to his greater qualifications. How could any girl hesitate for a moment between them? His chances, he feared, were small, and he felt very downcast and broken as he sat, that same afternoon, chewing the end of his pen and thoughtfully spitting out the bits, in an agonising effort after unusual expression such as should be worthy of the occasion. His window gave on to the northern flats, and, as he savoured the penholder, in his mind's eye he saw again the wonderful little figure of Gracie in her scarlet bathing-gown, with her hair astream, and her face agleam, and her little white feet going like drumsticks, as they had seen her that very first morning long ago. And, since then, how she had become a part of their very lives! And then his thoughts leaped on to the previous night, and his pulses quickened at the marvel of her beauty: her face--little Gracie's face, and yet so different; her lovely white neck and arms. He had seen them so often before in little Gracie. But this was different, all quite different. She was no longer a child, and he was no longer a boy. She was a woman, a beautiful woman, _the_ woman, and he was a man, and every good thing in him craved her as its very highest good. God! How could he let any other man take her from him? Even Jack---- He spat out his penholder, and kicked over his chair, as he got up and began to pace the room, with clenched hands and pinched face. CHAPTER XXVIII THE LINE OF CLEAVAGE "Dearest Grace, "We two are in trouble, and you are the unconscious cause of it. We have suddenly discovered that we have all grown up, and things can never be quite the same between us all as they have been. Jim is writing to you also, and you will get both our letters at the same time. We both love you, Gracie, with our whole hearts. If you can care enough for either of us it is for you to say which. For myself I cannot begin to tell you all you are to me. You are everything to me--everything. I cannot, dare not imagine life without you in it, Gracie. Can you care enough for me to make me the happiest man in all the world? "Ever yours devotedly, "John Denzil Carron." "Gracie Dear, "It is horrid to have to ask if you care for me more than you do for old Jack. But it has come to that, and we cannot help ourselves. I want you more than I ever wanted anything in all my life. You are more to me than life itself or anything it can ever give me. I know I am not half good enough for you, and I wish I had made more of myself now. But I do not think any one could ever care for you as I do. "God bless you, dear, whatever you decide. "Please excuse the writing, etc., and believe me, "Yours ever, "Jim," When Mrs. Jex brought in these two letters, as they lingered lazily over the tea-table, Grace laughed merrily. "What are those boys up to now? It must be some unusually good joke to set old Jim writing letters." But her brother's face lacked its usual quick response. He had been very thoughtful all day, sombre almost; and when Grace had chaffed him lightly as to his exertions of the previous night, instead of tackling her in kind, he had said quietly: "Yes, you see, we old people don't take things so lightly as you youngsters." "You are thinking of this war?" "Yes--partly." "And----?" "Oh--lots of things." "Margaret?"--with a twinkle. "Oh, Margaret of course. I thought I had never seen her look more charming." "She is always charming. Charlie, I wish----" and she hung fire lest in the mere touching she might damage. "And what do you wish, child?" "I wish you'd marry her. She's the sweetest thing that ever was." "You have a most excellent taste, my child." "It's in the family. Meg's taste is equally good"--with a meaning glance at him, but he was looking thoughtfully into his teacup. "And you really think we shall be dragged into war, Charlie?" "Mr. Harben seemed to think it certain." "I don't think I like Mr. Harben very much. I caught sight of his face while you were all talking in the corner, and I thought he must have heard some good news." "He was probably thinking at the moment only of his own particular aspect of the matter. War means business for contractors, you know." "Sir George didn't look that way." "He hasn't very much to do with the firm now, I believe. Besides, one would expect him to take wider views than Harben. He is a bigger man in every way." Then Mrs. Jex came in with the letters, and Gracie wondered merrily what joke the boys were up to. But Eager, who had not failed to notice their unconcealed enthralment the night before, pursed his lips for a moment as though he doubted if the contents of those letters would prove altogether humorous. "I thought they'd have been round, but I expect they've been in bed all day." And she ripped open Jim's letter, which happened to be uppermost, with an anticipatory smile. Eager saw the smile fade, as the sunshine fails off the side of a hill on an April day, and give place to a look of perplexity and a slight knitting of the placid brow. She picked up Jack's letter, and tore it open, and read it quickly. Then, with a catch in her breath and a startled look in her eyes, she jerked: "Charlie--what do they mean? Are they in fun----" "Shall I read them, dear?" She threw the letters over to him, and sat, with parted lips and wondering--and rather scared--face, looking into the fire, with her hands clasped tightly in her lap. "This is not fun, Grace dear," her brother said gravely at last. It had taken him a terrible long time to read those very short letters, but he read so much more in them than was actually written. "It is sober earnest, and a very grave matter." "But I don't want---- Oh!--I wish they hadn't"--with passionate fervour. "Why can't they let things go on as they are? We have been so happy----" "Yes. . . . But time works its changes. They are no longer boys----" A wriggle of dissent from Grace. "----Although they may seem so to us. And you are no longer a little girl----" "Oh! I feel like a speck of dust, Charlie; and I don't, don't, don't want----" "I know, dear; but it is too late. You may feel a little girl to-day. Last night you were an exquisitely beautiful woman--and this is the result." Grace put her hands up to her face and began to cry softly. For there, in the dancing flames, she had seen in a flash what it all must mean--severances, heart-aches, trouble generally. And they had all been so happy. Eager wisely let her have her cry out. When, at last, she mopped up her eyes, and sat looking pensively into the fire again, he said quietly: "Let us face the matter, dear! They are dear, good lads, and they are doing you the greatest honour in their power. There being two of them, of course"--and it came home to him that here were he and Gracie up against the problem of Carne also--"makes things very trying, both for them and for you. You like them both, I know----" "I've always liked them both, and I don't like either of them one bit better than the other." "Is there any one else you like as well as either of them?" "No, of course not. I've never cared for any one as I have for Jack and Jim--except you, of course. Oh! what am I to do, Charlie?" "As far as I can see, there is only one thing to be done at present, and that is--wait." "Can you make them wait? Oh, do! Some time, perhaps----" "If this war comes, they will have to go into it. They may neither of them come back." "Oh, Charlie! . . . That is too terrible to think of----" "War is terrible without a doubt, dear. It cuts the knot of many a life." "My poor boys! But how can I possibly tell them?" "I think, perhaps, you had better leave it all to me, dear. I will just explain to each of them quietly how this has taken you by surprise, and that you feel towards the one just as you do towards the other, and that, for the time being, they must let matters rest there." "Things will never be the same among us again." "Not quite the same, perhaps; but there is no reason why your friendship should suffer." "If they will see it that way----" "They will have to see it that way. They ought, by rights, to have spoken to me first. And if they had I could have saved you all this. I must scold them well for that." "The dear boys!" And presently, since he could imagine from their letters the state of the boys' feelings, and such were better got on to reasonable lines as soon as possible, he set off in the chill twilight for Carne. And Gracie sat looking into the fire, her mind ranging freely in these new pastures--troubled not a little at this sudden break in the brotherly-sisterly ties which had hitherto bound them, with quick mental side-glances now and then at the strange new possibilities, and not entirely without a touch of that exaltation with which every girl learns that to one man she is the whole end and aim of life. The trouble was that here were two men holding her in that supreme estimation, and that, so far, in her very heart of hearts, she found it impossible to say that she loved one better than the other. And at times the white brow knitted perplexedly at the absurdity of it, while the sweet, mobile mouth below twisted to keep from actual smiles as she thought of it all. But, naturally, the first result of the whole matter was that her mind dwelt incessantly and penetratingly on her boyfriends who had suddenly become her lovers, and she regarded them from quite new points of view. And she knew that she was right, and that they never could be all quite the same to one another as they had been hitherto. Long before Charles got back she was feeling quite aged and worn with overmuch thinking. CHAPTER XXIX GRACIE'S DILEMMA "One on 'em's up in his room, but I dunnot know which," grunted old Mrs. Lee, in answer to Eager's request for the boys, either or both, and he went up at once. A tap on Jim's door received no answer. Jack's opened to him at once. "Mr. Eager!" And there was a hungry look in the boy's eyes. "Hard at work, old chap?"--at sight of a number of books spread out on the table. "I thought this was holidays with you." "I tried, but I couldn't get down to it." "Where's Jim?" "He's off down along--couldn't it still. Have you brought us any word from Gracie?"--very anxiously. "Well, I've come to have a talk with you about that." And the Rev. Charles pulled out his pipe and began to fill it. "You ought to have spoken to me first, you know----" "Oh?--didn't know--not used to that kind of thing, you know." "I suppose not. Still, that is the proper way to go about it." "What does Gracie say?" asked Jack impatiently. "I've come to ask you both, Jack, to let the matter lie for a time." And Jack's foot beat an impatient tattoo. "You see, Gracie had no idea whatever of this, and it has knocked the wind out of her. You can't imagine how upset she is. First, she thought you were joking. Then she had a good cry, and now I've left her staring into the fire, fearing you can never all be friends again as you always have been." "Why, of course we can!" "I told her so, but she says things can never be the same." "We don't want them the same." "No, I know. But you see, Jack, Gracie has not been thinking of you two in that way; and in the way she has always thought of you, as her dearest friends, she likes the one of you just as much as the other." Jack grunted. "After this it will be impossible for her to regard you simply as friends. But you must give her time----" "Is there any one else?" growled Jack. "There is no one else. I asked her." "And--how--long----" "To name a time, I should say a year." "A great deal may happen in a year. We may all be dead." "The chances are that this will be a year of great happenings," said Eager gravely. "The issues are in God's hands. May He grant us all a safe deliverance!" "You really think it will be war?" asked the boy quickly. "I fear so!" Jack sat gazing steadily into the fire and limned coming glories in the dancing flames. "A year's a terrible long time to wait when you feel like a starving dog. But if there's a war . . . yes--that would make it pass quicker." "Have you said anything to your grandfather about this matter?" "How could we till we knew which----" Eager nodded. "Best leave it so at present. How soon will Jim be back? I'd like to have a word with him too." "I don't know. He's a good deal worked up." "I'll go along and meet him." "I'll come too?" "No. Better let me see him by himself. You can talk it over together afterwards. I hope this won't make any difference between you two, Jack." "One of us has got to put up with disappointment some time," said Jack steadily. "But we'll just have to stand it." Eager tramped away along the rim of the tidal sand, well pleased with Jack's reasonable acceptance of the situation. Jim, he felt sure, would be no less sensible, and matters would run on smoothly; and so Time, the great Solver of Problems, would be given the opportunity of working out this one also. Deeply pondering the whole matter, and letting his thoughts wander back along the years, he tramped on almost forgetful of the actual reason for his coming. It was not till a gleam of light amid the sand-hills on his left told him he had got to Seth Rimmer's cottage, that he knew how far he had come. Jim might have called there, so he rapped on the door and went in. "Ech, Mr. Eager! It's good o' you to come and see an owd woman like this," said Mrs. Rimmer from the bed. "It's always a pleasure to see you, Mrs. Rimmer. You're one of the ones that it does one good to see." "It's very good o' yo'." "But I came really to look for Jim Carron. They told me he had come down this way, and I thought he might have called in to see you." "No. I havena seen owt of him." "And you're all alone? Where's everybody?" "Th' mester's at his work--God keep him; it's a bad, black night!--and Seth--he's away." "And where's my friend Kattie? She ought not to leave you all alone like this." "Ech, I'm used to it. 'Oo's always slipping out. I dunnot know who----" she began, with a quite unusual fretfulness, which showed him she had been worrying over it. And then the door opened and Kattie came in, ruffled somewhat with the south-west wind, which had whipped the colour into her face. With a bit of cherry ribbon at her throat, and another bit in her hair, and her eyes sparkling in the lamplight, she looked uncommonly pretty. "How they all grow up!" thought Eager to himself. "Here's another who will set the village boys by the ears; and it seems no time since she was a child running about with scarce a rag to her back!" "Mr. Eager?" said Kattie in surprise. "I came to find Jim Carron, Kattie. I suppose you haven't seen him about anywhere?" "I saw some one walking up along," said Kattie, "but it was too dark to see who it was." "Jim, I'll be bound. Good night, Mrs. Rimmer! Good night, Kattie! I'll be in again in a day or two." And he set off in haste the way he had come. A few minutes' quick walking showed him a dim figure strolling along the higher causeway of dried seaweed and drift, and kicking it up disconsolately at times, just as he used to do as a boy when seeking treasure. "That you, Jim?" And the figure stopped. "Hello!--what--you, Mr. Eager?" "Just me. I came to look for you. Kattie told me you'd come on----" "Kattie?" "Well, she said she'd seen some one pass, and I guessed it was you. I've been in having a talk with Jack, my boy, and I wanted to see you too." And he linked arms and went on. "Yes?" "About your letter to Gracie." And Eager felt the boy's arm jump inside his own. "It was a tremendous surprise to her, you know. She had never thought of either of you in that way, and it knocked her all of a heap. Now I want you all to let matters rest as they are for a year, Jim----" "A year! Good Lord!" "I know how you feel, lad, but it is absolutely the only thing to be done. You've been like brothers to her, you know. You are both very dear to her; but when you ask her suddenly to choose between you, she cannot. I couldn't myself. You are both dearer to me than any one in the world . . . almost . . . after Gracie, . . . but if you put me in a comer and bade me, at risk of my life, say which of you I liked best--well, I couldn't do it. And that's just her position." "I'm afraid . . . I don't suppose I stand much chance . . . against old Jack. . . . He's a much finer fellow. . . . But, oh, Mr. Eager . . . I can't tell you how I feel about her. . . . If it could make her happy I'd be ready to lie right down here and die this minute." And Eager pressed the jerking arm inside his own understandingly. "I believe you would, my boy. But it wouldn't make for Gracie's happiness at all to have you lie down and die. You must both live to do good work in the world and make us all proud of you. And the work looks like coming, Jim, and quickly." "You mean this war they're talking about?" "Yes. I'm afraid there's no doubt it's coming, and war is a terrible thing." "It'll give one the chance of showing what's in one, anyway." "Some one has to pay for such chances." "I suppose so . . . . unless one pays oneself. . . . I don't know that I particularly want to kill any one, but I suppose one forgets all that in the thick of it. . . . Anyway, if it comes to fighting I think I can do that . . . if I haven't got much of a head for books and things." "I believe you will do your duty, whatever it is, my boy, and no man can do more." "Well?" asked Gracie eagerly, when Eager got home again. "Did you see them? Quick, Charlie! Tell me!" "Yes, I saw them. Jack at home--trying to work. Jim down along--couldn't sit still." "The poor boys!" "They are very much in earnest, but I have got them to see the reasonableness of waiting--for a year at least." "I'm glad. I don't know how I can ever choose between them, Charlie." "Don't trouble about it, dear. Things have a way of working themselves out if you leave them to themselves." "I wonder!" she said wearily. CHAPTER XXX NEVER THE SAME AGAIN "Things can never be the same again," was the doleful refrain of all Gracie's thoughts as she tossed and tumbled that night, very weary but far too troubled to sleep. And at Carne there were two more in like case. "Seen Mr. Eager?" asked Jack when Jim came in. "Yes," nodded Jim, and nothing more passed between them on the subject. But here too things could never be quite the same again, for, good friends as ever though they might remain in all outward seeming, neither could rid his mind of the fact that the other desired beyond every other thing in life the prize on which his own heart was set. And that ever-recurring thought tended, no matter how they might try to withstand it, to division. Similarity of aim, when there is but one prize, inevitably produces rivalry, and rivalry scission. They strove against it. "Jim, old boy, this mustn't divide us," said Jack next day, when both were feeling somewhat mouldy. "Course not," growled Jim, but all the same the cloud was over them. Eager had asked them to come in to tea that afternoon, so that he might be with them all at this first meeting and help to round awkward corners. But they all three felt somewhat gauche and ill at ease at first, as was only natural. For Gracie's face, swept by conscious blushes, was lovelier than ever, and set both their hearts jumping the moment she came into the room. And it is no easy matter for a girl to appear at her ease in the company of two love-sick young men who know all about each other's feelings and hers. They were both inclined to gaze furtively at her with melancholy in their eyes, and for the time being the old gay camaraderie was gone; and at times, when she caught them at it, it was all she could do to keep from hysterical laughter, while all the time she felt like crying to think that they would never all be the same again. But Eager exerted himself to the utmost to charm away the shadows, gave them some of the humours of his sharp-witted parishioners, and finally got them on to the outlook in the East, which set them talking and left Grace in comparative comfort as a listener. Jack gave them eye-openers in the matter of new guns and projectiles. Jim asserted with knowledge that if the cavalry got their chance they would give a mighty good account of themselves. Eager expressed the hope that the Government would awake to the fact that the whole matter was obviously promoted by the French Emperor for his own personal aggrandisement, and would not allow England to be made his willing instrument. The boys knew little of the political aspect of the case, but hoped, if it came to fighting, that they would be in it. And Grace sat quietly and listened, and wondered what the coming year would hold for them all. So by degrees the stiffness of their new estate wore off, and before the boys left they were all talking together almost as of old, but not quite. Still she went to bed that night somewhat comforted, and slept so soundly as almost to make up for the night before. "What's the matter with those boys?" asked Sir Denzil of Eager next day, when they met for the discussion of certain arrangements respecting the boys' allowances. "Are they sick? Any typhus about?" And there was actually a touch of anxiety in his voice. "No, sir, they are not sick bodily. They're in love." "The deuce! With whom?" "Gracie." "What--both of them?"--suspending his pinch of snuff in mid-air to gaze in astonishment at Eager. "Yes, both of them." "So!"--snuffing very deliberately, and then nodding thoughtfully. "So the puzzle of Carne hits you too. And what does Miss Gracie say about it?" "She is very much upset. They had all been such good friends, you see, that she had never regarded them in that light." "And you?" "I have persuaded them to let matters remain on the old footing, as far as that is possible, for at least a year. By that time----" "Yes, this next year may bring many changes," said the old gentleman musingly; and presently, "Well, I'm glad they have shown so much sense, Mr. Eager--and you too. I have the highest possible opinion of Miss Gracie. Now as to the money. They cannot live on their pay, of course. What do you suggest?" "Not too much. Jim will be at somewhat more expense than Jack, but it would not do to discriminate. I should say a couple of hundred each in addition to their pay. It won't leave them much of a margin for frivolities, and that is just as well." "Very well. I will instruct my lawyers to that effect. Three hundred and fifty or four hundred a year would not have gone far with us in my day, but no doubt things have changed. Do your best to keep them from high play. It generally ends one way, as you know." "I have no reason to believe they are, either of them, given to it. Of course----" "They've not tasted their freedom yet. It's bound to be in their blood. Put them on their guard, Mr. Eager. We don't want them milksops, but put them on their guard. It will come with more weight from you than from me." "There is no fear of them turning out milksops, Sir Denzil. They are as fine a pair of lads as Carne has ever seen, I'll be bound, and they'll do us all credit yet. I'll talk to them about the gaming. Jack is too keen on his work, I think. Jim----" "Ay, Jim's a Carron, right side or wrong. You'll find he'll run to the green cloth like a mole to the water." "I'll see that he goes with his eyes open, anyway. I don't think he'll put us to shame. Jim's no great hand at his books, but he's got heaps of common sense, and he's true as steel." "All that no doubt," said the old gentleman, with a dry smile. "But you'll find that boys will be boys to the length of their tether. When they've exhausted the possibilities of foolishness they become men--sometimes," with a touch of the old bitterness. CHAPTER XXXI DESERET New men--and women--new manners and customs, to say nothing of costumes. The accession of the young Queen cut a deep cleft between the old times and the new. But human nature at the root is very much the same in all ages, no matter what its outward appearance and behaviour. The wild excesses of the Regency days had given place to the ordered decorum of a Maiden Court. The young Queen's happy choice of a consort confirmed it in its new and healthy courses. But, placid to the point of dullness though the surface of the stream appeared, down below there were still the old rocks and shoals, and now and again resultant eddies and bubbles reminded the older folk of the doings of other days. Now--as at all times, but undoubtedly more so than during the two preceding reigns--to those who believed in study and hard work as a means of personal advancement, the way was open. And now still, as at all times, but especially in those latter times, to those who craved the pleasures of the table, whether covered with a white cloth or a green, or simply bare mahogany, the way was no less open to those who knew. Jack, down at Chatham, was much too busy with his books, and such practical application of them as could be had there, to give a thought to the more frivolous side of things. Jim, cast into what was to him the whirl of London--though his grandfather would have viewed it scornfully over a depreciatory pinch of snuff, with something of the feelings of an old lion turned out to amuse himself in a kitchen garden--Jim found this new free life of the metropolis very delightful and somewhat intoxicating. Harrow had been a vast enlargement on Carne. London was a mightier enfranchisement than Harrow. But first of all he was a soldier, very proud of his particular branch of the service, and bent on fitting himself for it to the best of his limited powers. In the first flush of his boyish enthusiasm he worked hard. His horsemanship was above the average; his swordsmanship, by dint of application and constant practice, excellent; and he slogged away at his drill and a knowledge of the handling of men as he had never slogged at anything before. He bade fair to become a very efficient cavalryman, and meanwhile found life good and enjoyed himself exceedingly. His wide-eyed appreciation of this expansive new life appealed to his fellows as does the unbounded delight of a pretty country cousin to a dweller in the metropolis. They found fresh flavour in things through his enjoyment of them, and laid themselves out to open his eyes still wider. His enthusiasm for their common profession was in itself a novelty. They decided that all work and no play would, in his case, result in but a dull boy, as it would have done in their own if they had given it the chance; and so, whenever opportunity offered--and they made it their business to see that it was not lacking--they carried him off among the eddies and whirlpools of society and insisted on his enjoying himself. But, indeed, no great insistence was necessary. Jim found life supremely delightful, and savoured it with all the headlong vehemence of his nature. He had never dreamed there were so many good fellows in the world, such multitudes of pretty girls, such endless excitements of so many different kinds. Life was good; and Jack, deep in his studies at Chatham, And Charles Eager, busy among his simple folk up north, alike wagged their heads doubtfully over the hasty scrawls which reached them from time to time with exuberant but sketchy accounts of his doings, always winding up with promises of fuller details which never arrived. Gracie enjoyed his enjoyment of life to the full, and wept with amusement over his attempts at description of the people he met, and never suffered any slightest feeling of loss in him, for he wound up every letter to her with the statement that, on his honour, he had not yet met a girl who could hold a candle to her, and that he did not believe there was one in the whole world, and that if there was he had no wish to meet her, and so he remained--hers most devotedly, hers most gratefully, hers only, hers till death, and so on, and so on--Jim. As to Sir Denzil, who received a dutiful letter now and again and got all Eager's news in addition, he only smiled over all these carryings-on, and said the lad must have his fling, and it sounded all very tame and flat compared with the doings of his young days. And If the boy came a cropper in money matters he would be inclined to look upon it as the clearest indication they had yet had as to his birth, for there never had been a genuine Carron who had not made the money fly when he got the chance. None of which subversive doctrine did Eager transmit to the exuberant one in London, lest it should but serve to grease the wheels and quicken the pace towards catastrophe; and he earnestly begged, and solemnly warned, Sir Denzil to keep his deplorable sentiments to himself, lest worse should come of it. And to Charles Eager, deeply as he detested the thought of war, it seemed that, from the purely personal point of view, as regarded Jim and his fellows in like case, a taste of the strenuous life of camp and field would be more wholesome than this frivolous whirl of London. Jim, in his joyous flights, met many a strange adventure. He had gone one night with some of his fellows--Charlie Denham, second lieutenant in his own regiment, and some others--to a house in St. James's Street, where Chance still flourished vigorously in spite of Act 8 & 9 Vict. c. 109, and stood watching the play, with his eyes nearly falling out of his head at the magnitude and apparent recklessness of it all. It was a curious room--the walls hung with heavy draperies, no sign of a window anywhere about it; and it had a feeling and atmosphere of its own, one to which fresh air and sweetness and the light of day were entirely foreign. It was furnished with many easy chairs and couches, and softly illuminated by shaded gas pendants which threw a brilliant light on to the tables, but left all beyond in tempered twilight. The entrance too had struck Jim as still more remarkable. A small, mean door in a narrow side-street yielded silently to the Open Sesame of certain signal-taps and revealed a very narrow circular staircase, apparently in the wall of the house. At every fifteen or twenty steps upwards was another stout door, which opened only to the prearranged signal, and there were three such doors before they arrived at first a cloak-room, then a richly appointed buffet, and finally the gaming-room. If the descent to hell is proverbially easy, the ascent to this particular antechamber was rendered as difficult as possible, to any except the initiated, and he was presently to learn the reason why. There was a solid group round each of the tables, and some of the players occasionally gave vent to their feelings in an exultant exclamation--more frequently in a muttered objurgation; but for the most part gain or loss was accepted with equal equanimity, and Jim wondered vaguely as to the depths of the purses that could lose hundreds of guineas on the chance of the moment, and could go on losing, and still show no sign. His wonder and attention settled presently on the most prominent player at the table, an outstanding figure by reason of his striking personal appearance and the size and steady persistence of his stakes. He might have been any age from sixty to eighty; looking at him again, Jim was not sure but what he might be a hundred. His hair was quite white, but being trimmed rather short carried with it no impression of venerableness. The face below was equally colourless, without seam or wrinkle, perfectly shaped, like a beautiful white cameo and almost as immobile. His eyes were dark and still keen. At the moment they were intent upon the game and Jim watched him fascinated. He was playing evidently on some system of his own and following it out with deepest interest, though nothing but his eyes betrayed it. His slim white hand quietly placed note after note on certain numbers, and replaced them with ever-increasing amounts as time after time the croupier raked them away. Now and again a few came fluttering back, but for the most part they tumbled into the bank with the rest. But, whether they came or went, not a muscle moved in the beautiful white face, and the stakes went on increasing with mathematical precision. Many of the others had stopped their spasmodic punting in order to give their whole attention to his play. Their occasional guineas had come to savour of impudence alongside this formidable campaign. Jim watched breathlessly, with a tightening of the chest, though the outcome was nothing to him, and wondered how long it could go on. The man must be made of money. He knew too little of the game to follow it with understanding, but he watched the calm white face with intensest interest, and out of the corners of his eyes saw the slim white hand quietly dropping small fortunes up and down the table and replacing them with larger ones as they disappeared. Then a murmur from the onlookers told him of some change in the tun of luck, but the white face showed no sign. And suddenly the group round the table began to disintegrate. "What is it?" jerked Jim to his neighbour. "He's broken the bank. Wish I had half his nerve and luck and about a quarter of his money." "Who is he?" "Don't you know? Lord Deseret. Gad, he must have taken ten thousand pounds to-night!" "Come along, Carron," said one of his friends. "All the fun's over, but it was jolly well worth seeing." And as Jim turned he found himself face to face with Lord Deseret, who stood quietly tapping one hand with a bundle of bank-notes, folded lengthwise as though they were so many pipe-spills. "Carron?" he said gently. "Which of you is Carron?" "I am Jim Carron, sir--at your service." And the keen kindly eyes dwelt pleasantly on him and seemed to go right through him. "_Jim_ Carron?" said the old man, and tapped him on the arm with the wedge of bank-notes, and indicated an adjacent sofa and his desire for his company there. "And why not Denzil? It always has been Denzil, hasn't it?" "Well, you see, there are two of us, sir, and we are both Denzil, so we are also Jack and Jim to prevent mistakes." "Two of you, are there?"--with a slight knitting of the smooth white brow, on which all the wildest fluctuations of the tables had not produced the faintest ripple of emotion. "Two of you, eh? And which of you is Lady Susan Sandys's boy? Which is to be Carron of Carne when the time comes?" "Ah, now! that is more that I can tell you, sir. We are a pair of unfortunate twins, and no one knows which is the elder." "Twins, eh?" And even to Jim's unpractised eye there was a look of surprise on the calm white face. "That is somewhat awkward for the succession, isn't it? Which is the better man?" "Oh--Jack, miles away. He's got a head on him. He's at Chatham in the Engineers. I'm in the Hussars." "There may be work even for the Hussars before long. There certainly will be for the Engineers. You're all looking forward to it, I suppose?" "Very much so, sir. You think there's no doubt about it?" "None, I fear, my boy. It will bring loss to many, gain to a few, but the gain rarely equals the loss. Do you play?" he asked abruptly. "Very little. It's all quite new to me. I've hardly found my feet yet." "This kind of thing," he said, flipping the bank-notes, "is all very well if you can afford it. Take my advice and keep clear of it." Jim laughed, as much as to say, "Your example and your good fortune belie your words, sir." "I can afford it, you see," said Lord Deseret, in reply to the boy's unspoken thought. "When you are as old as I am, and if you have wasted your life as I have," he said impressively, "you may come to play as the only excitement left to you. But I hope you will have more sense and make better use of your time. Will you come and see me?" "I would very much like to, sir, if I may." "You are occupied in the mornings, of course." And he pulled out a gold pencil-case and scribbled an address on the back of the outermost bank-note, and handed it to Jim. "Any afternoon about five, you will find me at home." "But----" stammered Jim, much embarrassed by the bank-note. "Put it in your pocket, my boy. You will find some use for it, unless things are very much changed since my young days. Your father's son--and your grandfather's grandson for the matter of that--need feel no compunction about accepting a trifling present from so old a friend of theirs. You cannot in any case put it to a worse use than I would. I shall look for you, then, within a day or two." And with a final admonitory tap of the sheaf of notes and a kindly nod, he left Jim standing in a vast amazement. Lord Deseret had gone out by the door leading to the buffet and staircase. He was back on the instant with his hat and cloak on, just as a sharp whistle from some concealed tube behind the hangings cleft the air, and, in the sudden silence that befell, Jim heard the sound of thunderous blows from the lower regions. Lord Deseret looked quickly round and beckoned to him. "The police," he said quietly. "Get your things and keep close to me. It would never do for you to be caught here. There is plenty of time. Those doors will keep them busy for a good quarter of an hour or more. Now, Stepan!" And a burly man, who had suddenly appeared, pulled back the heavy curtains from a corner and opened a narrow slit of a door, and they passed through to another staircase, which led up and up until, through a trap-door, they came out on to the roof. They passed on over many roofs, with little ladders leading up and down over the party-walls, and finally down through another trap, and so through a public-house into a distant street. "A thing we are always subject to," said Lord Deseret gently, "and so we provide for it. Don't forget to come and see me. Good night!" "You're in luck's way, old man," said his friend Denham. "Deseret is a man worth knowing. Let's go and have something to eat." And they all went over to Merlin's and had a tremendous supper, for which they allowed Jim to pay because he was in luck's way and had made the acquaintance of Lord Deseret. And many such supper-bills would have made but a very trifling hole in Lord Deseret's bank-note. CHAPTER XXXII THE LADY WITH THE FAN Perhaps it was that heavy supper, and its concomitants, that tended to fog Jim's recollection of something in his talk with Lord Deseret which had struck a jarring note in his brain at the time, and had suggested itself to him as odd and a thing to be most decidedly looked into when opportunity offered. The feeling of it was with him next day, but he could not get back to the fact or the words which had given rise to it. Something the old man had said had caused him a momentary surprise and discomfort, and then had come the abiding surprise, from which the momentary discomfort had worn off, of that enormous bank-note, and after that the hasty exit over the roofs and the tumultuous supper at Merlin's, with much merriment and wine and smoke. It was not easy to get back through all that fog to the actual words of a casual conversation. But there certainly was something. What, in Heaven's name, was it, that it should haunt him in this fashion? And then, as he did his best for the tenth time, in his thick-headed, blundering way, to cover the ground again step by step, it suddenly flashed upon him. "And which of you is Lady Susan Sandys's boy?" That was it! "Which of you is Lady Susan Sandys's boy?" the old man had asked quite casually, as though expecting a perfectly commonplace answer. Were they not, then, both Lady Susan Sandys's boys? To be suddenly confronted with a question such as that--to come upon even the suggestion of a flaw in the fundamental facts of one's life, is a facer indeed. What _could_ the old boy mean? There was no sign of decrepitude about him. That he was in fullest possession of very unusual powers of brain and nerve, his prowess at the tables had shown. What could he mean? Twin brothers must surely have the same mother. And yet from Lord Deseret's question, and the way he put it, and the searching look of the kindly keen eyes, one might have supposed that he knew, and every one else knew, something to the contrary. To one of Jim's simple nature, there was only one thing to be done, and that was to go to Lord Deseret and ask him plainly what he meant. He had already written to Jack, conveying to him his half of the unexpected windfall, before he had succeeded in getting back to the root of the trouble. And he had simply told him how he had met Lord Deseret, an old friend of their father's, and how he had broken the bank at roulette and had insisted on making him a present, which was obviously given to them both, and so he had the pleasure of enclosing his half herewith; and Lord Deseret was an exceedingly jolly old cock, and the finest-looking old boy he had ever seen, and the way he followed up that bank till it broke was a sight, and he, Jim, was half inclined to buy himself another horse, as the mare he had was a bit shy and skittish in the traffic, though no doubt she would get used to it in time. It was after five before he found out what he wanted to ask Lord Deseret, and so the matter had to stand over till next day, rankling meanwhile in his mind in most unaccustomed fashion, and exercising that somewhat lethargic member much beyond its wont. That night Denham and the rest were bound for Covent Garden to see Madame Beteta in her Spanish dances. Vittoria Beteta had burst upon the town a month or two before and taken it by storm. She claimed to be Spanish, but her dances were undoubtedly more so than her speech. She had a smattering of her alleged native language, and of French and Italian, and, for a foreigner, a quite unusual command of the difficult English tongue. Whatever her actual nationality, however, she danced superbly and was extraordinarily good-looking, and knew how to make the most of herself in every way. Her age was uncertain, like all the rest. She looked eighteen, but, as she had been dancing for years in most of the capitals of Europe, she was probably more. What was certain was that she had witching black eyes, and raven black hair, and a superb figure, and danced divinely, and drew all the world to watch her. Jim was charmed, like all the others. He had never seen anything so exquisitely, so seductively graceful. He gazed, with wide eyes and parted lips, till the others smiled at his absorption. "There's your new catch beckoning to you, Carron," said Denham suddenly, but he had to dig him lustily in the ribs before he could distract his attention from the dancer. "Here, I say! Stop it!" jerked Jim, unconsciously fending the assault with his elbow, while he still hung on to the Beteta's twinkling feet with all the zest that was in him. "There's Lord Deseret waving to you--in the stage-box, man." And Jim, following his indication, saw Lord Deseret, in a box abutting right on to the stage, waving his hand and beckoning to him. "You have the luck," sighed Denham. "He wants you in his box. Wonder if he has room for two little ones." "Come on and try." And Jim jumped up. "Wait till the dance is over or you'll get howled at, man." And Denham dragged him down again, until the outburst of applause announced the end of the figure and they were able to get round to Lord Deseret's box. He received them cordially, and as he had the box all to himself Charlie had no reason to feel himself superfluous. "Yes, she is very 'harming and dances remarkably well," said Lord Deseret. "It was I induced her to come over here. I saw her in Vienna two years ago, and advised her then to add London to her laurels. Would you like to meet her? We could go round after the next dance. She will have a short rest then." "Oh, I would," jerked Jim. And so presently he found himself, with Lord Deseret and Charlie Denham, who could hardly stand for inflation, in Mme Beteta's dressing-room. She was lying on a couch, swathed in a crimson silk wrap and fanning herself gently with a huge feather fan, over which the great black eyes shone like lamps. "Señora," said Lord Deseret in Spanish, with the suspicion of a smile in the corners of his eyes, "may I be allowed the pleasure of introducing to you some young friends of mine?" And she struck at him playfully with the plume of feathers, disclosing for a moment a laughing mouth and a set of fine white teeth. And Jim thought she looked hardly as young as her eyes and her feet would have led one to suppose. "Do you understand Spanish?" she asked of Jim, in English. "No, I'm sorry to say----" "Then you see, milord, it is not _comme il faut_ to speak it where it is not understood." And she laughed again. "I stand corrected, madame. We will not speak our native tongue. This is my young friend, James Carron." And Jim, gazing with all his heart at the wonderful dancer, got a vivid impression of a rich dark Southern face, and a pair of great liquid black eyes glowing upon him through the tantalising undulations of the great dusky fan, which wafted to and fro with the methodic regularity of a metronome. "And this is Lord Charles Denham. Both gallant Hussars, and both aching to show the colour of their blood against your friends of St. Petersburg." "Ah, the horror!" she said gently. "But you do not look bloodthirsty, Mr. Carron." And the great black eyes seemed to look Jim through and through. "I don't think I am really, you know. But if there is to be fighting one looks for chances, of course." "And the chance always of death," she said gravely. "One takes that, of course." "But it is always the next man who is going to be killed, madame," struck in Charlie. "Oneself is always immune. Lord Deseret was at Waterloo, yet here he is, very much alive and as sound as a bell." "He had the good fortune. May you both have as good!" "They were anxious to express to you their admiration of your dancing, madame," said Lord Deseret. "But we seem to have fallen upon more solemn subjects." "I have never seen anything like it," said Jim. "It is exquisite beyond words, a veritable dream," said the more gifted Charlie. "Ah, well, it seems to please people, and so it is a pleasure to me also. You are from--where, Mr. Carron?" "From the north--from Carne,--the Carrons of Carrie, you know." The dusky plume wafted noiselessly to and fro in front of her face, and its pace did not vary by the fraction of a hair's breadth. Over it, and through it, the great black eyes rested on his face in curiously thoughtful inquisition. Suddenly, with an almost invisible jerk of the head, she beckoned him to closer converse, and holding the fan as a screen invited him inside it, so to speak. "Do you play?" she asked gently. "Very little," he said in surprise. "I have only my pay and an allowance, you see." "That is right. He"--nodding towards Lord Deseret--"is not a good example for young men in that respect." "He has been very kind to me. And he warns me strongly against it." "All the same he does not set a good example. Will you come and see me?" "I would be delighted if I may." "Come and breakfast with me to-morrow at twelve. I shall be alone." She gave him an address in South Audley Street, and then dismissed them all with, "Now you must go. Here is my dresser, and I have but ten minutes more." And they made their adieux and bowed themselves out. "Is Madame English?" asked Denham, as they seated themselves in the box again. "Originally, I think so. But she has lived much abroad and has become to some extent cosmopolitan. She certainly is not Spanish, or if she is she has most unaccountably forgotten her native tongue," said Lord Deseret, with his hovering smile. "She dances in Spanish, anyway," said Charlie exuberantly. "And that is all that concerns us at the moment." CHAPTER XXXIII A STIRRING OF MUD It is an old saying, founded on very correct observation, that long-continued calm breaks up in storm. And the same holds good of life, individual and national. Too long a calm leads at times to somewhat of deterioration--at all events to a laxing of the fibres and an indolent reliance on the continuance of things as they are; and that, in a world whose essence is growth and change, is not without its dangers. And--proverbially again--a storm always clears the air. It seemed to Jim Carron that, of a sudden, the accumulated storms of all the long quiet years burst upon him. He had intended seeing Lord Deseret at the first possible moment and questioning him as to that very curious remark of his. But he could not broach such a matter at the theatre and in company, and his lordship had driven off to some other appointment the moment the curtain fell. So, at twelve next day, having scrambled through his morning's duties with a quite unusually preoccupied mind, he presented himself at Mme Beteta's lodgings and was taken upstairs to her apartments. She welcomed him graciously, and they sat down at once to the table. He thought she looked decidedly older in the daylight, but it was only in the texture of her face, devoid now of any artificial assistance, and slightly lined in places. The two great plaits of black hair showed no silver threads. The luminous black eyes were still bright. The sinewy form the dancer was full of exquisite grace. "Now tell me about yourself," demanded madame, as they sipped their final coffee, and the maid retired. "I don't think there's anything to tell," said Jim, with his open boyish smile. "We have lived all our lives at Carne--Jack and I--until we went to Harrow, and then he went to Woolwich and I came to London." "Jack is your brother?" "Yes; we're twins. He's the clever one. That's why he's at Chatham now--in the Engineers. It was all I could do to scramble into the Hussars." And he laughed reminiscently at the scramble, and then told her about it. "And which of you is the elder? Even in twins one of you must come first." "That's funny now. Lord Deseret was asking me that the first time we met, and I couldn't tell him. We've really never troubled about it, you see, or thought about it at all until a very short time ago. I suppose it was the fellows at school wanting to know which was the elder that set us thinking about it. We asked old Mrs. Lee--she keeps house for us at Carne, you know--and Mr. Eager----" "Who is Mr. Eager?" "Oh, he's a splendid fellow. He's curate at Wyvveloe, and he's done everything for us, he and Gracie "--and madame noted the softened inflection as he said the word. "And who is Gracie?" "Mr. Eager's sister. They call her 'the Little Lady' in Wyvveloe." "Is she pretty?" "Oh, she's lovely, and as good and sweet as can be." "You're in love with her, I suppose." "Yes, I am," said Jim, colouring up, "and I'm not ashamed of it." "And what about Jack?" "He's in love with her, too." "That's rather awkward, isn't it? What does Miss Gracie say to it all?" "Oh, she was terribly upset. You see she had never thought of us like that. It was after the dance at Sir George Herapath's that we found it out----" "She had a low dress on, I suppose--bare arms and shoulders, and you had never seen her so before." "Yes," he said, surprised at such acumen, "I suppose that was it. We all used to bathe together and run about the sands. But that night she seemed to grow up all of a sudden--and so did we." "And what does her brother say to it--and your grandfather?" "We're to say nothing more about it for a year. You see, this war is coming on and you never can tell----" "War is horror," she said, with a shudder. "I have seen fighting in Spain and in the streets of Paris. It is terrible. You may neither of you come back alive. If only one comes, then, I suppose----" "Yes, that would settle it all." "And you do not remember your mother?" she asked, after a pause. "We never knew her," he said thoughtfully, bethinking him suddenly of Lord Deseret and that curious saying of his. "She died when we were born, and nobody has told us about her. Old Mrs. Lee must remember her, but she would never tell us, and Sir Denzil--well, you can't ask him about anything--at least, not to get any good from it." "He has been good to you both?" "Oh yes, in his way. But if it hadn't been for Mr. Eager----. We were growing up just little savages, running wild In the sand-hills, you know. And then he came, and it has made all the difference in the world to us." "You owe him much, then?" "Everything! Him and Gracie." In his boyish Impulsiveness, having been led on to talk about himself, he was half tempted to consult her about the matter that was troubling his mind in connection with Lord Deseret. But how should this half-foreign woman know anything about such matters. It was not likely that she had ever heard tell of Lady Susan Sandys. How should she? And so he lapsed into a brown study, thinking over it all. He was aroused from it by another leading question from madame. "And your father? Is he alive? Can he not help to solve your difficulty?" "Well--you must think us a queer lot--we never saw our father till a short time ago. He has been living in France. We thought he was dead. He killed a man in a gaming quarrel long ago and had to live abroad, and he's been there ever since."? "Truly, as you say, you are an odd family. Will you bring your brother to see me sometime?" "I'm sure he would like it, but he's not often in town. You see, he has the brains and he's putting them to use. I'll bring him, though, the first time he's up." It was not till afterwards that her interest in him and his struck him as somewhat unusual, and then he had other things to think about. That same afternoon he went to Park Lane, and found Deseret House and asked for Lord Deseret. "Now, this is good of you," was his lordship's greeting--"to look up an old man when all the world is young and calling to you." "I wanted to ask you something, sir, if I may." "Say on, my boy. Anything I can tell you is very much at your service." "When you were speaking about Jack and me the other night, you said something which has been puzzling me ever since. You asked, 'Which of you is Lady Susan Sandys's boy?'" "Yes--well?" asked the old man, with a glint of surprise in the keen dark eyes, which rested on the boy's ingenuous face. "Was Lady Susan Sandys our mother, sir?" "Good heavens, boy, do you mean to say you don't know who your own mother was?" "We don't know anything sir. That was the first time I had ever heard her name." "Good God!" And there was no doubt about the vast surprise in the calm white face now, as its owner stood for a moment staring at Jim and then began to pace the room in very deep thought. "Your grandfather? Has he never discussed these things with you?" "Never, sir. We have never had very much to do with him, you see. Until quite lately we supposed our father was dead too. Then, one day, he came to Carne--from France, where he lives, and it was a great surprise to us." "And you know nothing about your mother?" "Nothing whatever, sir. But since you said that, I have been thinking of very little else. You said, 'Which of you is Lady Susan Sandys's boy?' Does that mean that we are not both Lady Susan Sandys's boys? That would mean that we had different mothers. But how could that be when we are both the same age? I wish you would tell me what it all means, for I've thought and thought till my brain is getting all twisted up with thinking." Lord Deseret paced the long room with bent head and his thin white hands clasped behind him. It seemed to him shameful that these boys should have been kept in such ignorance of matters so vital. He was not aware, of course, of their strange upbringing in the wilds of Carne. On the other hand, if their father and grandfather had not thought fit to enlighten them it would hardly become him to do so. Moreover, as he turned it all over in his mind, he perceived that there might be something to be said on the other side. The boys had obviously been brought up in perfect equality. Any revelation of the mystery of their births could only make for upsetting--must introduce elements of doubt into their minds, might work disastrously upon their fellowship. Quite unconsciously, supposing they knew all about it, he had stirred up the muddy waters that had lain quiescent for twenty years. "This is a great surprise to me, my boy," he said quietly at length--"a very great surprise. I should never have said what I did had I not supposed you knew all about it. As matters lie . . . I'm afraid you must absolve me from my promise. If your grandfather and your father have deemed it wise to keep silence in regard to certain family matters, it would hardly be seemly in me to discuss them without their permission. You see that, don't you?" "I see it from your point of view, sir, but not at all from my own," said Jim stubbornly. "There is something we do not know and we certainly ought to know it. If you won't tell me I must go elsewhere. I wish I had Jack's head. I think I'll go down to Chatham and talk it over with him." The mischief was done. Lord Deseret saw that the only thing left to him was to direct the boy's quite legitimate curiosity into right channels. "If I were you I would go straight to Sir Denzil. Tell him just what has happened, and that you will know no peace of mind till you understand the whole matter." "Thank you, sir. I will do that, but I think I will see Jack first and perhaps we could go down together. It's right he should know, and he's got a better head than I have." "It concerns you both, of course. Perhaps it would be as well you should go together," said Lord Deseret, and long after Jim had gone he pondered the matter and wondered what would come of it, and yet took no blame to himself. For who could have imagined that any boys could have grown to such an age in such complete ignorance of their father and mother and all their family concerns? CHAPTER XXXIV THE BOYS IN THE MUD Jim spent a troubled night, tossing to and fro and trying in vain to make head or tail of the tangle. He was in Chatham soon after midday and made his way at once to Jack's quarters. He found him hard at work at a table strewn with books and drawings. "Hello, Jim boy? Why, what's up? You look---- What is it, old boy? Not money, when you sent me that gold-mine, day before yesterday. It was mighty good of you, old chap. Now--what's wrong?" "I don't know. Everything, it seems to me. I told you about Lord Deseret----" "Rather! Good old cock! His money comes easily, I should say." "When he was talking to me, asking about you and Carne and all the rest, he said, quite as though I knew all about it---- 'And which of you is Lady Susan Sandys's boy?'" "Who the deuce is Lady Susan Sandys?" "Your mother--or mine." Jack's knitted brows and concentrated gaze settled on Jim in vastest amazement. "Your mother--or mine, Jim? What on earth do you mean?" "That's just it. I don't know what it means. There is something behind that we don't understand, Jack." "And this Lord Deseret?" "I went to him and begged him to explain. He was very much surprised that I didn't know all about it, whatever it is. But he said that since our grandfather or our father had seen fit not to tell us, it would hardly be right for him to do so." Jack nodded. "He advised me to go to Sir Denzil and tell him how the matter had come up, and give him the chance to explain. And I suppose that's the only thing to do, but I wanted your advice. We've always been together in everything." Jack nodded again, and then shook his head over his own bewilderment. "I don't understand at all, Jim. Do you mean that we are not brothers, you and I? That's nonsense, and d----d nonsense too, I should say." "I've thought and thought till I'm all in a muddle. But, if words mean anything at all, it means that you and I are not children of the same mother, and Lord Deseret knows all about it." "You're sure he won't speak?" "Certain. He's a splendid old fellow. He'll only do what he thinks proper, and the fact that he was so much put out at having started the matter, without understanding that we knew nothing about it, shows the kind of man he is and what there is in it." "I can't imagine what it all means. Everybody knows we're twins, and to come now and tell us--oh, it's all d----d nonsense!" "I know. I felt that way too. But all the same we've got to know all about it now. How are you for leave? When can you come down to Carne?" "Leave's all right. Come now if you like," growled Jack, very much upset in his mind and temper, as was natural enough. "Meet me at ten o'clock, at Euston, to-morrow morning and we'll go down and get to the bottom of it all; unless you think it would be better still to go across to Paris and see our father and ask him. I have thought of that." "If the old man won't speak, we may have to do that," said Jack, in gloomy consideration. "But if there's something queer behind it all, he's the last man to tell us, for he must be mixed up in it, and it can't be to his credit." "I wish we'd never heard anything about it," said Jim. "I don't know. If there's anything wrong it's sure to come out sooner or later, and we ought to know. I'd like a proper foundation for my life." "Seems to me to cut all the foundations away." "Feels like that. Any one who says we're not brothers is simply a fool. Besides, why on earth should our grandfather bring us up as brothers if we aren't? He's no fool, and he's not the man to play at things all these years. I wonder if Mr. Eager knows." "I shouldn't think so. We were ten when he came." "Well, we'll see him first, at all events, and get his advice." And on that understanding they parted, to meet at Euston the following morning. Jack would have had Jim stop for a while to see round Chatham and make the acquaintance of some of his friends, but he begged off. "I can think of nothing but this thing at present. It's turned me upside down. I hope nothing will turn up to separate us, Jack." "We won't let it, Jim boy. That's in our hands at all events, and we'll see to it." CHAPTER XXXV EXPLANATIONS It was after ten o'clock the next night when they drove into Wyvveloe and knocked on Mrs. Jex's door. Mrs. Jex had gone to bed and so had Gracie. Eager himself answered their knock, and jumped with surprise at sight of them. "Why--Jack--Jim! What on earth----" "We'll tell you if you'll let us in," said Jack. "Now what mischief have you been getting into?" said Eager, as they sat down before the fire, and he knocked the wood into life. "It's not us this time. We've come to ask you something, Mr. Eager; and if you can't tell us we are going on to see Sir Denzil." And Charles Eager knew, without more telling, that the boys had somehow fallen on the mystery of their birth. "Go on," he nodded. "You know what we want to know?" "I think so; but if you'll tell me I shall be sure." And Jack, as the better speaker, laid the matter before him, and both eyed him anxiously the while. "I am glad you came to me first," he said. "I can probably tell you all you wish to know; and you must take it from me, boys, that if it was never told to you before, it was for good reason. Better still if it had never needed to be told at all. Best of all if there had been nothing to tell. The trouble is none of our making. All we can do is to face it like men, and that, I know, you will do." And he told them, as clearly and briefly as possible, all that he had learned concerning their births. "To sum it all up," he said in conclusion, "you are sons of the same father, and so are half-brothers. But which of you is the son of Lady Susan and which the son of Mrs. Lee's daughter, no man on earth knows. And again--whether your father was really married to Mrs. Lee's daughter I doubt if any one but himself knows. And so you see the tangle the whole matter is in, and you can understand why it was kept from you. We could only present you with a puzzle of which we did not know the solution. It could only have upset your lives as it has done now. We have gained twenty years by keeping silence." "Old Mrs. Lee knows which of us is which, I suppose," said Jack. And Jim jumped at the thought. "I have very little doubt that she does, Jack; but she has never shown any indication of it whatever." "And is her daughter still alive?" "I doubt if even she knows that. She has not heard of her for a great many years." "Does Gracie know anything about it all?" asked Jim. "Not a word; and I see no reason why she should. You two have given her quite enough to think about without troubling her with this matter." They quite agreed with that, and Jack, who had been pondering gloomily, summed up with: "It's all an awful tangle, and I see no way out. It seems to me that it doesn't matter in the least who is who; for even if we learned who our mothers were, we don't know if they were legally married. I'm afraid there is only one thing to be said--and that is, that the one parent we are both certain about was a dishonourable rascal, and we have got to suffer for his sins." "Morals were very much looser then than they are now," said Eager gently. "He was the product of his age. We may at all events be thankful that things have improved, and you two are the proofs thereof." "We'd probably have been no better if you'd never come here," said Jim, with very genuine feeling. "We owe everything to you--and Gracie." "That is so," said Jack heartily; and wished he had said it first, but he had been too fully occupied with the other aspect of the case. "One cannot help wondering," he said presently, "what is going to happen if our father and our grandfather should die. What are we going to do then, Mr. Eager?" "That is a question Sir Denzil and I have often debated, but we never arrived at any conclusion. One of you must be Carron of Carne. There is also another possibility. Lady Susan Sandys was the only sister of the Earl of Quixande. He is unmarried, so far as the world knows, but he also comes of the bad old times and--well, you know his reputation. But if he leaves no legitimate heir the title comes to his sister's son----" "If he should happen to be legitimate," growled Jack. "As you say, my boy--if he can be proved legitimate?" "In which case he is both Carron of Carne and Earl of Quixande." "And, having no need for the two titles, it might be possible to hand one over to his half-brother." "Could he?" asked Jack doubtfully. "Under the circumstances it might possibly be sanctioned." "Failing that, who comes in?" "Some Solway Canons. I know nothing of them except that your grandfather detests them. But there is still further possibility for you both." "What?" And they eyed him anxiously. "That in your military careers you may both rise to such heights as to cast even the title of Carron of Carne into the shade." Jack nodded. Jim did not seem to regard it as a very hopeful prospect. "Well," said Jack, as he got up, "we've got quite enough to think over for one night. We're going to the inn. We told them to make up beds for us there. They'll all have turned in at Carne. We'll go along and see Sir Denzil in the morning." "Come in to breakfast, and I'll go with you. I shall have to explain to him how it comes that I have had to disclose the whole matter to you." "The boys came down last night, Gracie," was the surprising news that met the Little Lady when she came down next morning. "The boys? Whatever for, Charlie? There isn't anything wrong with them, is there?" And the startled colour flooded her face and then left it white. "Nothing of the kind, dear. They wanted to see Sir Denzil on some family matters, and they arrived too late to go there last night, so they went to the inn." "You're sure they haven't been getting into trouble?" "Quite sure. They're coming in to breakfast. You'd better go and talk to Mrs. Jex about supplies. Hungry soldiers, you know." And Gracie flew to the commissariat department. "You dear boys!" was her greeting, when they came striding in, very tall and large in their undress uniforms. "What _have_ you been doing? Over-studying?--softening of the brain?"--to Jack. "Gambling?--and frivolling generally?"--to Jim. "Quite out," laughed Jack. "My brain was never better in its life, and Jim's pocket never so full. Mayn't a pair of hungry men come all the way from London to see you without being accused of such iniquities?" "It is nice to get such good reports from yourselves," laughed Gracie. "I wonder how long you can keep it up." "It depends upon circumstances," said Jack. "And what are the circumstances?" asked Gracie incautiously. "You're one," said Jack boldly. "Here's breakfast. Charlie gave me to understand you had had nothing to eat for a week." "Nothing half so good as this," said Jack, with an appreciative look at the cottage loaves and golden butter, and the great dish of ham and eggs Mrs. Jex had just brought in. "My! but yo' do look rare and big and bonny," said that estimable woman. "I do think I'll cook ye some more eggs." "Yes, do, Mrs. Jex," said Eager. "They don't get eggs like these in London." And so they got through breakfast; but Jim was the quietest of the party, and Gracie got it into her head that he was in some dreadful mess, in spite of what Charlie had said. And just before they started for Carne she got hold of him for a minute, and asked: "Jim, what's the trouble? Is it anything very bad?" "It's nothing we've done, Grace," he said, with so frank a look in his own anxious eyes that she could not doubt him. "Just some old family matters that have cropped up." And though she could not doubt his word, he was so unlike himself that she watched them go in a state of extreme puzzlement as to what could have sapped Jim's spirits to such an unusual extent. As a matter of fact, the strange disclosures of the previous night were weighing heavily upon him. With a vague, dull discomfort he was saying to himself that, as between himself and Jack, there could be no possible doubt as to which was the better man; and therefore--as he argued with himself--of the true stock. And, if that was so, he was simply superfluous and in everybody's way. He was not much good in the world, anyway. He felt as if he would be better out of it. If he were gone, Jack would take his proper place--and marry Gracie---- All the same, it was deucedly hard that one's life should be broken up like this through absolutely no fault of one's own. And to surrender all thought of Gracie---- Yes, that was the hardest thing of all. But she would go to Jack by rights, along with all the rest. "Thank God for this war that is coming!" he said to himself. "There will be my chance of getting out of the tangle and leaving the field clear to them." So no wonder our poor old Jim was feeling in the dumps, and was quite unable to keep them out of his face. "Hillo? What's brought yo' home?" asked old Mrs. Lee, as they came into her kitchen. "Business," said Jack curtly, and she was surprised at the dourness of them all. But Jack was saying to himself--"That old witch may be my grandmother." And Jim--"She is most likely my grandmother." And Eager--"If the old wretch would only speak she could tell us all we want to know." Under which conditions a certain lack of cordiality was really not very surprising. "Well, well! How much is it?" asked Sir Denzil, eyeing them quizzically over his arrested pinch of snuff as they came into his room. "And how did you manage to get here at this time of day?" "We slept at the Pig and Whistle, sir," said Jack. "We got to Wyvveloe too late last night to come on here." "Most considerate, I'm sure. What have you been up to, to make you so thoughtful of the old man? "They have run up against the Great Puzzle, sir, as we knew they must sooner or later," said Eager. "They came in to me at ten o'clock last night to ask if I could enlighten them, and I have told them all we know." "So!" And he absorbed his snuff and stared intently at the boys. . . . "And how do you feel about it?" "We feel bad, sir," said Jack. "But apparently there is no way out of the tangle." "We've been trying to find one for the last twenty years," said the old man grimly. "How did it come to you?" "Ah! I'm surprised at Deseret," he said, when he had heard the story. "He's old enough to know how to hold his tongue." "How are things shaping? Have they made up their minds to fight?" he asked. And Eager, at all events, knew how that great question bore upon the smaller. "I think there is no doubt about it, sir," said Jack. "There is talk of some of our men going out almost at once." "And you are both set on going?" "Yes, sir"--very heartily from both of them. "Well," said the old man weightily, "war is a great clearer of the air. Don't trouble your heads any more about this matter till you come home again. If you both come, we must consider what is best to be done. If only one of you comes, it will need no discussion. If neither,"--he snuffed very deliberately, looking at them as if he saw them for the first, or was looking at them for the last, time--"then, as far as you are concerned, the matter is ended. When do you return?" "To-morrow morning, sir. We could only get short leave." "Then perhaps you will favour me with your company at dinner to-night. And Mr. Eager will perhaps bring Miss Gracie." They would very much have preferred the simpler hospitality of Mrs. Jex's cottage, but could not well refuse. With Sir Denzil's words in their minds they could not but recognise that, for some of them, it might well be the last time they would all meet there. They picked up Gracie by arrangement, and all went off down along for a quick walk round some of their old haunts. "How well I remember my first sight of these flats!" said Eager, looking with great enjoyment at the tall, clean-made, upstanding figures striding by his side. Jim, he noticed, was rather the taller and certainly the more boyish-looking. Jack had a maturer air, which doubtless came of study. But both looked eminently soldierly and likely to give a good account of themselves. "You two were just little naked savages, and you stole all my clothes but one sock, and I thought I would have to go home clad only in a towel." "They were good old times," said Jack. "But I'm mightily glad you came. What would we have grown up into if you hadn't?" "Wild sand-boys," suggested Gracie. "And what a sight you were, the first time we saw you!" laughed Jack: "in your little red bathing things, with your hair all flying, and your little arms and legs going like drumsticks--a perfect vision of delight." "What a pity we can't always remain children!" "You can--in all good ways," said her brother. "One grows and one grows," she said, shaking her head knowingly, "and things are never the same again." "They may be better," said Jack, valiantly doing his best to allow no sinking of spirits. "It would be a pretty bad look out if one could only look backwards." Jim was unusually sober. As a rule, on such an occasion, nonsense was his vogue, and he and Gracie carried on like the children of those earlier days. "If you ask _me_," said Gracie, venturing a flight towards olden times, "I believe old Jim here has got himself into the most awful scrape of his life, in spite of all your assertions to the contrary. _I_ believe he's been and gone and lost one hundred thousand pounds at cards, and grandpa has quietly cut him off with a shilling over the usual pinch of snuff." "No, I haven't. I've lost hardly anything, and I've got heaps of money, more than I ever had in my life before. I'll buy you a pony, if you like." "All right! I don't mind. Sir George has a jolly one for sale; you know--Meg's Paddy. She's got too big for him, and he's just up to my feather-weight." "We'll go along and see about him when we've been to the Mere and seen Mrs. Rimmer and Kattie. How's Kattie getting on?" "She's a wild thing and as pretty as a rose. I'm afraid her mother worries about her. But it must be dreadfully lonely living here all the year round. Just look how grim and gray it all is. How would you like it yourself?" "I'd Like it better than London," said Jim stoutly. "If I hadn't plenty to do I'd get sick of it all--streets and houses and houses and streets, and no end to them." "But the people! You meet lots of nice people." "Some are nice, but there are too many of them for me. I can't remember them all, and I get muddled and feel like a fool. I'd swap them all for----" "For what?" "Oh--nothing!" "You flatter them. But you'll get used to it, Jim. It takes time, of course." "Don't know that I particularly want to get used to it. However, this war will make a change." "You are certain to go?" "If we don't, I'll exchange. I want to see some fighting, and to get some." "Bloodthirsty wretch!" "No, I don't think I really am. But if there has to be fighting I wouldn't miss it for the world. It's the only thing I'm good for. I'm no good at books, like Jack. But I believe I can fight." Mrs. Rimmer gave them very hearty welcome, in her surprised spasmodic fashion. "Ech, but it's good on yo' all to come an' see an old woman," she said, gazing round at them from her bed, with bright restless eyes and a curious anxious scrutiny. "Yo' grow so I connot hardly keep pace wi' yo'. It seems nobbut a year or two sin' yo' lads were running naked on the flats." "We were just recalling it all as we came along, Mrs. Rimmer, and regretting that we couldn't remain children all our lives," said Gracie. "Ah--yo' connot do that"--with a wistful shake of the head. "And how's Mr. Rimmer?" asked Eager. "Hoo's a' reet. Hoo's at his work." "And Seth?" "Seth's away." "And where's Kattie?" asked Jim. "Hoo went across to village, but hoo'd ought to be home by now. But once the lasses git togither they mun clack, and they nivver know when to stop." "Girls will be girls, Mrs. Rimmer," said Eager soothingly, "and Kattie's a girl to be proud of. She's blossomed out like a rose." "A'm feart she's a bit flighty, an' who she gets it from I dunnot know. Not fro' me, I'm sure, nor from her feyther neither." "Here she is," said Jim. "I hear the oars." And he jumped up and went to the door, and in another minute Kattie came in, all rosy with her exertions in the nipping air, and prettier than ever. They chatted together for a while, Kattie's sparkling eyes roving appreciatively over the wonderful changes in her former playmates, and a great wish in her heart that the girls up at Wyvveloe could see her on such friendly terms with two such stalwart warriors. When they got up to go she went out with them, and offered to put them across the Mere in the boat. "Yo're going back to London?" asked Kattie of Jim, as they threaded their way through the sand-hills. "We go back to-morrow. They don't give us long holidays, you see." "London's a grand place, they say." "In some ways, Kattie, but in most ways I'd sooner live at Carne." "Ech, I'd give a moight to see London," she sighed. "You'd soon have enough of it and want to get home again." "It's main dull here, year in, year out. I'm sick o' sand and sea," And then they were scrambling into the boat and trimming it to the requirements of so large a party. They said good-bye to Kattie at the other side of the Mere; and when they waved their hands to her for the last time, she was still standing watching them and wishing for the wider life beyond the sand-hills and the sea. Sir George and Margaret Herapath gave them the warmest of welcomes, and Jim tackled the master at once on the subject of Paddy. "But, Grace, where on earth can you keep him?" remonstrated the Rev. Charles. "I supposed it was all a joke when I heard you discussing it before." "Paddy is no joke, as you will know when you've seen him in one of his tantrums. I shall keep him in my bedroom. He will occupy the sofa," said Miss Grace didactically. "Was ever inoffensive parson burdened with such a baggage before?" "You silly old dear, I'll find a dozen places to keep him in the village, and a score of willing hands to rub him down whenever he needs it." "Of course you will," echoed Jim. "And if you can't I'll come and do it myself. Let's go and look at the dear old boy." And they sauntered off to the stables. "See here, my boy," said Sir George, slipping his arm through Jim's, "if I'd had the slightest idea Gracie would have taken him I'd have offered him to her long since." "You'll spoil one of the greatest enjoyments of my life if you do that, sir. Please don't!" "But----" "I've got heaps of money. If you've anything that would make a good charger knocking about too, I'm your man." "Ah--you're sure of going, then?" "If any one goes, I'm going, sir--if I have to exchange for it." "You're all alike. George writes just in the same strain. God grant some of you may come back!" "Some of us wouldn't be much missed if we didn't." And Sir George wondered what was wrong now. They had no difficulty in coming to terms about Paddy, and Jim's pocket did not suffer greatly, but Sir George would not part with any of his horses to be food for powder. Jack, feeling just a trifle left out in the matter of Paddy, obtained Gracie's permission to send her from London a new saddle and accompanying gear, and vowed they should all be the very best he could procure. CHAPTER XXXVI JIM'S WAY THE boys were back in London the following night, and Jack expressed a wish to go to Covent Garden to see Mme Beteta, whose fame as a dancer had penetrated even to his den at Chatham, and of whose expressed desire to see him Jim had told him, among the many other novel experiences of his life in the metropolis. "Why on earth should she want to see _me?_" asked Jack. "No idea. She might not mean it, but she certainly said it. There's a lot of humbug about." "I'd like to be able to say I've seen her dancing, anyway, though I don't care overmuch for that kind of thing. But every one's talking about her, and most of the fellows have been up to see her." So they went, and madame's keen eyes spied them out, for, during the first interval, an attendant came round, and asking Jim, "Are you Mr. Carron?" brought him a request from madame that he would pay her a visit in her room and would bring his friend with him. "I knew it must be your brother," she said, as she greeted them. "Yes, you are much alike." "We used to be," said Jack, "but we're growing out of it now." "To your friends perhaps, but a stranger could not mistake you for anything but twin-brothers," she smiled through the dusky plumes of her big fan. "You, also, are hoping to go to the war?" she asked Jack. "Oh, we're all hoping to go. It will be the greatest disappointment of their lives to those who have to stop behind." "You are all terribly bloodthirsty. And yet there are very nice boys among the Russians, too." "You have been in Russia, madame?" "Oh yes. I have even met the Tsar Nicholas and spoken with him; though, truly, it was he did most of the talking." "What is he like?" asked Jack eagerly. "He is good-looking, very tall, very grand; but--well, that is about all--though, indeed, he was good enough to approve of my dancing. Stay--Manuela!"--to her old attendant--"give me the Russian bracelet out of that little box. I am going out to supper to-night or it would not be here. Yes, that is it. The Tsar gave me that himself, and he tried to smile as he did it. But smiles do not become him. He is an iceberg, and I think he is also a little bit mad. He is very strange at times. Indeed, I was glad when he went away." "That is very interesting," said Jack; "and this is surely a very valuable present." "An Imperial present. But I have many such, and some that I value more, though they may not be so valuable." "You have travelled much, then, madame?" "I have been a wanderer most of my life----" Then there came a tap at the door, and an attendant brought in a card. Madame glanced at it and said, "Certainly. Please ask Lord Deseret to come round." And my lord followed his card so quickly that he could not have been very far away. "Madame is kindness itself," he smiled, as he greeted her. "I saw my young friend here answering a summons, and guessed where I should find him. This"--to Jim--"must be your brother." "Yes, sir; this is Jack." And the keen dark eyes looked Jack all through and over. "I am very glad to make your acquaintance, my boy," he said. "I knew your father very well some twenty years ago. You have both of you a good deal of him in you." "I have to thank you, sir," said Jack, "for my share in your kindness to Jim." "Oh----?" And my lord looked mystified and awaited enlightenment. "He sent on to me the half of your very generous gift----" "Ah! he never told me that. Are you up on leave? You are at Chatham, I think." "We got three days' leave, sir. We wanted to go down to Carne." "Ah! I hope you had a good journey. How is Sir Denzil?" "He is just exactly the same as ever. He has not changed a hair since ever we can remember him." "I suppose he sticks to the old customs--shaves clean and wears a wig." "I suppose that is it, sir. He certainly never seems to get any older." Then madame's warning came, and Lord Deseret carried them off to his box and afterwards to supper. And he and Jack had much interesting conversation concerning the coming war, and armaments, and so on, to all of which Jim played the part of interested listener, though in truth his mind was busy, in its slow, heavy way, on quite other matters. "Clever boy, that," said Lord Deseret to himself, as he thought over Jack while his man was putting him to bed that night. "He will probably find his chances in this war and go far. But I'm not sure but what--yes, Jim is a right good fellow. And to think of him sending half that money to the other! I should say that was very like him, though. Now I wonder which, after all, _is_ Lady Susan's boy, and how it's all going to work out. If Jack's the man, I wouldn't at all mind providing for Jim. In fact, I rather think I'd like to provide for him. Not a patch on the other in the matter of brains, of course, but something very taking about him. A look in his eyes, I think----" CHAPTER XXXVII A HOPELESS QUEST It was about a fortnight after their visit to Carne, and Jim, after several hours' hard work outside, was bolting a hasty breakfast in his quarters one morning, when his orderly came up to say that a man was wanting to see him. "What kind of a man, Joyce?" "An elderly man, sir; looks to me like a sailor." "A sailor? And he wants me?" "Yes, sir; very important, he says, and private." "Oh well, bring him up, and, Joyce--see to my things, will you? We have an inspection at twelve. The Duke's coming down to see if we're all in order." "Right, sir!" And Joyce disappeared with a salute, and reappeared in a moment with the fag end of it, as he ushered in--old Seth Rimmer. "Why--Mr. Rimmer!" And Jim jumped up with outstretched hand. "Whatever brings you so far away from home? Nothing wrong, is there?"--for the old man's face was very grim and gray and hard-set, and he did not take Jim's hand, but stood holding his hat in both his own. "Yes, Mester Jim, there's wrong, great wrong, an' I cum to see if yo'--if yo'--if---- Where's Kattie?" "Kattie?" echoed Jim in vast astonishment. "Ay--our Kattie! Where is she, I ask yo'. If yo'----" And he raised one knotted, trembling hand in commination. "But--Seth--I don't understand. Sit down and tell me quietly. I know nothing of Kattie. You don't mean that she's gone away? You can't mean that. Kattie!" "Ay--gone away--day after you wur with her." "Good God! Kattie! And you have thought---- Oh, Seth! you couldn't think that of me?" And he sprang up and stood fronting him. And the woeful soul, looking despairingly out of the weather-worn gray eyes into the frank boyish face, saw the black eyes blur suddenly and then blaze, and knew that its wild suspicions were unfounded. "Ah dunnot know what to think," said the old man wearily. "Hoo's gone an' nivver a track of her. An' yo' wur there last, and yo' wur aye fond of her. An' so----" "I would no more harm a hair of Kattie's head than I would Grace Eager's, Seth. And you ought to have known that--you who have known us all our lives." "Ay--ah know! But hoo's gone, an' ah connot get a word of her, an'----" And the tired old arms dropped on to the table, and the weary old head dropped into them, and he sobbed with great heaves that seemed like to burst the sturdy old chest. Jim was terribly distressed. With the wisdom that comes of deepest sympathy he rose quietly and left the old man to his grief. He found Joyce down below, busily polishing and brushing, and sent him off to procure some more breakfast, and, returning presently to his room, found old Seth as he had left him, with his head in his arms, but fallen fast asleep, and he knew that the outbreak and the rest would do him good. He sat over against him for close on an hour, cudgelling his brains for some ray of light in this new cloud of darkness. And then, as his time was getting short, he went quietly out again, and Joyce togged him up in all his war-paint, and made him fully fit to meet the critical eyes of all the royal dukes under the sun. Old Seth was still sound asleep when he went into the room, but he went quietly up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder, and the old man lifted his head and looked vaguely at the splendid apparition, and then began to struggle to his feet. "It's only me, Seth. Listen now! I've got to go out for an inspection, and it may take a couple of hours or more, You are to stop here till I come back, and then we'll see what is best to be done. Here is food. Eat all you can, and then lie down on that sofa. You're done up. And don't go out of this room till I come back. You understand?" "Ay--yo're verra good. Ah con do wi' a rest, for ah walked aw the way fro' Wynsloe." "You must be nearly dead. Help yourself now, and I'll be back as soon as I can." And he went clanking down the stairs and swung on to his horse and away, with a dull sick feeling at the heart at thought of Kattie. Who could have done this thing? He remembered her expressed wish to get to London, when they were walking down to the Mere that other day. It was, perhaps, not quite so bad--as yet--as old Seth feared. The girl's longing for what seemed to her the wider, brighter life might have led her to risk her poor little fortune in the metropolis. Or it might be that she had not come to London at all, but had gone away with some village lover. But--on the whole--he was inclined to think London her more likely aim. And as to whether she had come alone he had nothing whatever to go upon. It was long after midday before he got back to his quarters, but old Seth had not found the time any too long, having been fast asleep ever since he had eaten. Jim got out of his trappings and lit a pipe, which he had taken to of late as at once a promoter of thought and a soother of undue exertion in that direction. And after a time old Seth stretched himself and opened his eyes, and then sat up. "Ah've slep'," he said quietly. "But yo' towd me to." "You'll feel all the better for it. Now, tell me all you can about this matter, Seth, and we'll see if we can see through it. Where is young Seth?" "Hoo's away." "And who have you left with Mrs. Rimmer?" "Hoo's dead and buried." And the strong old voice came near to breaking again. "Dead!" "Ay! It killed her. She wur not strong, as yo' know, and thought of it wur too much for her. Hoo just fretted and died." "Oh, Seth, I am sorry--sorrier than I can tell you. That's dreadful for you." "Ah dun' know. Mebbe it's best she's gone. Hoo'll fret no more, and hoo suffered much." "I am very, very sorry. What could have made you think I could do such a thing, Seth? You know how we've always liked Kattie, all of us, and how good Mrs. Rimmer always was to us. How could you think any of us could do such a thing?" "One gets moithered wi' grief, yo' know. An' that night after yo'd gone she were talking o' nowt but Lunnon, Lunnon, Lunnon, till I got sick on't. An' I towd her to shut up, and what was it had started her o' that tack? An' she said it was seet o' yo', an' yo'd bin talking o' it to her." "As we went down to the boat she was saying how she would like to see London, and I told her she was far better off where she was. I think that was all I said, Seth." "Ah believe yo'. She wur flighty at times, an' she got stowed o' th' sand-hills an' th' sea. It wur a dull life for a young thing, I know, but ah couldna mend it, wi' th' missus bad like that." "It's a sad business, Seth," said Jim despondently. "And I don't know what we can do about it. If she really did come to London you might look for her here for the rest of your life and never find her." "Ay, it's a mortal big place. The clatter an' the bustle mazes me till my head spins round. But I conna go whoam till I've looked for her." "I'll find you a room. My man Joyce is sure to know where to get one. Have you enough money with you?" "Ah havena much, but it mun do. When it's done ah'll go whoam." "You must let me see to your board and lodging, at the very least, Seth----" "Ah con pay my way--for a time. It doan't cost me much to live." "Whatever you say, I shall see to your board and lodging, Seth, so don't make any trouble about it. I wonder now"--as a sudden idea struck him. "Han yo' thowt o' something?"--with a gleam of hope. "There's an old friend of my father who has been very kind to me. I was just wondering if he could help us at all." The hope died out of Seth's eyes. From all he had ever heard of Captain Denzil he did not place much faith in any friend of his rendering any very reliable help in such a matter. Nevertheless, it was a good thought on Jim's part. CHAPTER XXXVIII LORD DESERET HELPS Joyce solved the lodging difficulty off-hand, and old Seth, assured of bed and board, gave himself up to the impossible task of finding a lost girl who had no desire to be found. Jim made him promise to report himself each day, so that he could keep some track of his doings. He wrote down his address on a card and put it in his pocket, and watched him go forth the first day with many misgivings. He saw him go out into the crowded street, bent as he had never been before, peering intently into the bewildering maze of hurrying faces, with a look of dogged perplexity as to where to go first on his own sad gray face. The throng bumped into him, and jostled him to and fro, and passed on, unheeding or vituperative, and at last he turned and went slowly out of sight, and Jim wondered if he would ever see him again. He was dining that night with Lord Deseret, and determined to ask his advice on the matter. The very look of that calm white face gave one the impression of incomprehensibly vast experience and unusual insight into the depths of human nature. He might be able to suggest something. My lord's immediate object, apart from his liking for the boy, was to learn the result of their visit to Carne. He had blamed himself, but not unduly, for the incautious words that had set the ball rolling. But who on earth would ever have imagined boys of that age in such ignorance of matters so vital? He chatted pleasantly throughout the dinner, drawing from the ingenuous Jim many a little self-revelation, which all tended to the confirmation of the good opinion he had formed of him. And he found the modesty which acknowledged many lacks, and was not ashamed to ask for explanations of things it did not understand, distinctly refreshing in an age when self-assertion was much to the fore. He noticed too a lessening of the previous boyish gaiety and carelessness, and traces of the clouds which had suddenly obscured his sun. "And how did you fare at Carne?" he asked, as soon as they were alone. "I feel somewhat guilty in that matter, you see. From what I know of it I can imagine you heard upsetting and discomforting things. Perhaps now I can be of some assistance to you." "You are very kind to me, sir, and I wanted to ask your advice. But in that matter"--he shook his head despondently--"I don't see how any one can help. It's all a tangle, but in my own mind I'm sure Jack must be Lady Susan Sandys's boy, and that means that I--that I am----" "You are yourself, my dear lad, and, unless I am very much mistaken, you will render a very good account of yourself when your chance comes." "I will do my best, sir, but that does not alter the fact that I am out of it as far as Carne is concerned. And that means a great deal to me. Not that I want it for itself, but--well, there are other things----" And he stuck, with a choking in the throat. "Don't tell me anything you don't want to, but if I can help I would very much like to." "It's this way, sir. Jack and I are both in love with Gracie----" "And who is Gracie, now?" "Grace Eager--she is the sister of Mr. Eager, our curate at Wynsloe. It is he who has done everything for us----" "He's a very fine fellow, then, and has done good work." "Oh, he's the finest man in the world. We were growing up little savages, running wild on the flats, when he came, and he has made us into men--he and Gracie between them. And Gracie is wonderful and lovely and all that is good. And now----" "Has she chosen Jack?" "We are to say nothing more about it for a year--just to wait and see. You see we all grew up together, and she had never thought of us in that way, and it upset everything----" "I think I understand. Now, my dear boy, will you take it from an old man, who has seen more of the world than perhaps has been good for him, that there is not the slightest ground for your feeling as you do. I knew your father very intimately. We had many failings in common. He behaved as we most of us behaved in those days--according to our lights, or shadows, and in accord with the times in which we lived. I cannot exonerate him any more than the rest of you. Still, do not think too harshly of him! He was the product of his age. Now, what valid grounds have you for believing your brother to be in any way better circumstanced than yourself?" "He's so much the better man, sir. Jack's got a head on him and will----" "If you applied that to the peerage generally, I'm afraid you would bar many escutcheons," said the old man, with a smile. "Brains by no means always follow the direct lines of descent. In fact, as you ought to know, a cross strain frequently produces a finer result. From that point of view you may set your mind at ease. As to how the matter is to be settled eventually, that is beyond me. Time works out his own strange solutions of difficulties. I'm afraid you'll have to leave it to him. Then, again, you are both going into this war. If only one of you should come back----" "Yes, that would settle it. I have been looking to that as the only settlement," said Jim solemnly. "Meaning that Jack would most likely come back, and that you would most likely not." "I think that would be the best settlement, sir. The better man should get the prizes, and there can be no question which is the better of us two." "Jim, my boy,"--and the long thin white hand came down gently on the boy's strong brown one, and rested on it impressively--"there are better things in this world even than brains. Clean hearts, clean consciences, clean lives----" "Jack has all those, sir." "And so have you, and they are worth more than all the brains in the world in some people's eyes. Did brains ever win a girl's heart?--or any one else's?" "I'm afraid I don't know much about them; sir," said a touch of the old Jim. "And as to the tangle," continued the old man, very well satisfied with his work, "it may be considerably more involved than you imagine. Supposing, for instance, that your father was actually married to the other girl before he married Lady Susan! Where do you find yourselves then? It is by no means impossible--such very strange things were done in those times. I could tell you of infinitely stranger things than that." "I have hardly thought of it in that light," said Jim. "Take my advice and think no more of your tangle. Just go ahead with the work you have in hand, and when your chance comes, as it will, make the most of it." "You have done me good, sir. May I ask you about another matter?" "Surely, my boy. Another tangle?" And Jim told him briefly about Kattie, and old Seth's visit and impossible quest. "He's a fine old fellow, and young Seth saved my life twice. I'd like to help him if I could, but I don't know what I can do. Besides, Kattie was a nice girl. She used to play with us all on the sands, you know." "You don't know, for certain, that she has come to London?" "Old Seth seems sure of it." "Who else was there when you all used to play together on the sands?" "Oh, Gracie, and Margaret and George Hempath, and Ralph Harben----" "Who is Ralph Harben?" "Son of Mr. Harben, Sir George's partner. They're the big army contractors, you know." "And where is he now?" "Up here in London. He's in the Dragoons--lieutenant. So is George." "Any one else?" "Mr. Eager and Sir George, and Bob Lethem, their groom. They all used to ride over, you see, and we needed all hands, so we used to press Bob into the service." "And you don't think there is any entanglement there?" "What--Kattie and Bob? No, I'm sure there isn't. You see, Kattie got rather large ideas, and she was certainly very pretty. She would never have looked at Bob, I'm certain." "I will see if I can learn anything. There are ways if you know how to use them." "Thank you, sir. I thought if any one could help us it would be you." "How are you mounted? You ought to have a second horse if you're going out. They will allow you two, I suppose." "I believe so. I was thinking of buying one out of that money you gave me." "Keep it, my boy. You may need it all. You never know what may happen when you get abroad. If you'll take my advice you'll always carry a good supply in a belt next your skin when you're campaigning. I'll find you a horse up to all your requirements. You want height and bone and muscle for a charger on campaign. Beauty Is a fifth consideration. Your life may depend upon your horse." "There is no doubt about our going, then, sir?" asked the boy, with a sparkle in his eyes. "No doubt, I'm afraid, my boy; but their plans are very undecided. I was speaking with Clarendon only last night, and, as far as I can make out, what our Government would like would be to coerce Russia by making a demonstration in force, and the Tsar is much too pig-headed for that--as they would know if they knew him as well as I do." "You know him, sir? "I was ambassador there for nearly ten years, and in ten years one learns a man fairly well. He is an unusually strong-willed and determined man, bigoted too, and believes absolutely in his mission----" "What is that, sir?" "Oh--briefly--to conquer the world on the lines laid down by his ancestor, Peter the Great. But the man who sets out to conquer the world always finds his Waterloo sooner or later." And Jim went home that night feeling very much less under a cloud on his own account, and not unhopeful on Seth's. For this new old friend of his impressed him deeply as one who knew a great deal more than most people, and as the kind of man who, if he took a matter up, would not rest till he attained his end. But as for Kattie, if she had indeed come to London, he had nothing but fears. CHAPTER XXXIX OLD SETH GOES HOME Old Seth had a heart-breaking time of it. To all intents and purposes he found himself in a foreign country. He wandered bewilderedly here and there, thinking that where the crowds were thickest there would be most chance of finding her he sought. But, to his amazement, the crowds seemed equally thick wherever he went, and every single person seemed to him to be hurrying for his or her life on business that did not admit of a moment's delay. He lost himself regularly every day. From the moment he loosed from his quiet little harbour of refuge in the morning, till, by means of the address on his card, he found himself eventually and miraculously piloted back there by a 'series of top-hatted policemen, he was simply tossing to and fro on the swirling waves of the mighty whirlpool, without the slightest knowledge of where he was, except that he was in London, and Kattie was somewhere in London too. He tried to talk to people, policemen and cabmen on the stands, who were the only ones who seemed not to be spending themselves in aimless rushings to and fro. But his uncouth speech was Hebrew to them. At first they grinned and shook their heads. Then, catching what sounded like a rough attempt at English, they tried to understand, but soon gave it up in spite of his woeful face and evident distress, and it was only when at last he wanted to get home, and produced his card, that they were able to assist him. Fortunately the weather was cold and damp--conditions to which he was accustomed. Hot summer days and the airless, evil-smelling streets would have knocked him over in a week. It seemed to Jim that the sad old face grew grayer and gaunter each day when he came in to give his monotonous report, which was comprehended in a dismal shake of the head and the simple word, "Nowt!" And Jim, hopeless himself of anything coming of the disheartening quest, still did his best each day to cheer him. And Seth was glad of the chance of speaking a word or two with some one who understood his talk and sympathised with his woes. "A most 'mazing place," he said, one time, "an' thicker wi' folk than ah could ha' believed. An' ah connot understand them an' they connot understand me. Ah wish----" But the poor old fellow's wishes were never to be realised--not the obvious ones at all events. He was neither to find Kattie, nor to find himself safe home again in the spoiled cottage by the Mere. Perhaps it was best so. The inevitable happened--that which Jim had feared for him from the time he saw him drift helplessly away into the crowd that first day. He had written all about the matter to Jack, and Jack's reply, while it lacked nothing in sympathy for old Seth in his bereavement; yet expressed in unmistakable language the writer's astonishment and indignation that he could for one moment have thought any of them guilty of such a deed. Jim had also waited hopefully on Lord Deseret, to see if his efforts had met with any success. But, so far, they had not. "I confess I had certain ideas on the subject," said his lordship, "and I have had them followed up, but quite without result. My people are entirely at fault. Is it possible we are all on a false scent and she is nearer home all the time? The indications pointing to her having come to London are, after all, exceedingly slight and vague." "I've no idea," said Jim despondently. "I wish the old chap would go home. He can do no good here and he's on my mind day and night. I'm certain he'll get run over one of these days." And, sure enough, there came a day when no Seth put in an appearance, and Jim's fears felt themselves justified. He sent Joyce round to his lodgings. The old man had never turned up the night before. It came at a bad time too, for they were working might and main at their preparations for the coming campaign. The Guards had left for Southampton the day before. They themselves were down for service and the call might come any day. War, indeed, had not yet been formally declared, but that was a minor matter. There was no doubt about what was going to happen. So Jim packed off Joyce in a hansom, with orders to make the round of the hospitals and report at once if he got any news. He was back at midday. The old man was lying at Guy's, broken to pieces and not expected to last the day out. Jim jumped into the cab with a very heavy heart. It was just what he had feared, and it was terribly sad. And yet, as his cab wormed its slow course through the traffic about London Bridge, there came to him a dim apprehension that what seemed to them so sorrowful a happening might, after all, in some inscrutable way, be the better way for old Seth. For his life, if he had lived, must have been a sad and broken affair, and now---- He found the old man lying quietly in his bed, with the screens already drawn round it. He was only just in time. The gaunt gray face brightened at sight of him, as Jim took his hand gently and sat down beside him. "Ah'm fain to see yo'," he said, with difficulty. "'Twur a waggin . . . aw my fault. . . . Tell her. . . . Tell her . . ."--the crushed chest laboured in agony,--"tell her to come whoam. . . ." And presently, without having spoken again, the dim light failed suddenly in the weather-worn gray eyes, and the life faded out of the gnarled brown hand, and Jim, boy still, put down his head and sobbed at the grim sadness of it all. A nurse peeped round the screen and was surprised at the sight, for the eagerness of the splendid young officer to get to the uncouth old wreck, of whom, beyond his mortal injuries, they had been able to make so little, had impressed them all. It was not till Jim had mopped himself up at last, and stood taking a last sad look at the tired old face, that she came in again. "You knew the old man, sir?" she said sympathetically, behind which lay considerable curiosity. "I've known him all my life. He's one of our people from Carne. It's terribly sad, you know. His daughter left home, and he came up to look for her. Think of it--to look for her in London! And I was afraid, all the time, how it would end. And it has. Poor old Seth!" He told them all they wanted to know, and arranged with them to have the old man decently buried, and gave them money for the purpose and something for the hospital, and his own name and address. "Then you're going to the war," said the nurse, with an animated face. "Oh yes; we may go any day now." "You ought to take some of us with you. You'll need us, you'll see." He had promised to call on Mme Beteta that afternoon, and would have put off the visit but that he knew she would be disappointed, and she had shown herself so very kindly disposed towards him. So he went, but madame's shrewd eyes fathomed his state of mind at once. "Now you have some trouble, and perhaps it is my chance to be of use," she said, and bit by bit drew from him all the story of Kattie's disappearance and old Seth's death. "If any one can find her, Lord Deseret will. He is a very, very clever old man, and in some things very young. She is pretty, you say?" "We always thought her very pretty, even as a wild girl about the sands, and she has grown prettier still." "London is a bad place for a pretty girl such as she. Even if you find her----" And she broke off and looked at him musingly. "What could you do if you did find her?" "Get her to go home." "And if she would not?" "Then--I don't know. It is horrible to think of Kattie running loose in London." "When Lord Deseret finds her, bring her to me and I will see what I can do," said madame thoughtfully; and there the matter rested. CHAPTER XL OUT OF THE NIGHT Jim reaped--and duly passed along to Jack--the benefit of Lord Deseret's long and wide experience of life under many conditions. As a young man he had served with Wellington in the Peninsula, and he had also been with him at Waterloo, where he had, as fellow aide-de-camp, Fitzroy Somerset, now Lord Raglan, who was to command the present expedition to the East. So Jim and my lord between them evolved, by process of continuous elimination, a campaigning kit, which, if to Jim's inexperienced eyes it lacked much, comprehended, according to his lordship, everything that was absolutely necessary, and probably even yet some things which he would hasten to throw away under pressure of circumstance. "How long it will last it is hard to say," said Lord Deseret. "If you should by any chance be kept there till the winter I will send you out all you will need." "Oh, surely we and the Frenchmen between us can clean it all up before then," said innocent Jim. "We shall know better when we learn where you're bound for, and what you've got to do. At present no one seems to know. They are all very mysterious about it, which is all right if it's policy, but if it's ignorance----" Jack was first to go, and Jim was mightily put out that engineers should get ahead of cavalry. They had hoped to be able to run down to Carne to say good-bye, but that was quite out of the question. The army had been rusting, more or less, for forty years, and, now that the call had come, every man on the roll was hard at work scraping the accumulated deposit off his bit of the machine, and oiling the parts. The days were all too short for what had to be done, and leave was out of the question. Jim was here, there, and everywhere, helping to buy horses for the coming wastage, for if he had no head for business he certainly knew horses from tail to muzzle, from hoof to shoulder, and all in between. He was kept hard at work till the call came for the cavalry, and then every minute of every day was over-full, and his head spun with the calls upon his forethought and ingenuity. He made long lists of the things he had to see to, on scraps of paper with a pencil that was always blunt and often missing, and as each item was attended to he duly scored it off, and so kept fairly straight. His men had taken to him, and consulted him now as an oracle, and within his capacity he enjoyed it all immensely. Lord Deseret's munificence knew no bounds. In addition to a great brown charger, whose peculiar delights were military music and the roar of artillery--the first of which enjoyments the campaign was unfortunately to offer him few opportunities of indulging in, though he had his fill of the other--his lordship presented Jim with a pair of unusually fine silver mounted revolvers, of a calibre calculated to make short work of the biggest Russian born, and one of these he was to hand over to Jack as soon as they met out East. And for Jim himself, as a very special mark of his goodwill, he bought a sword, selected out of many and suiting his grip and reach as if it had been made for him. "A most gentlemanly weapon," said the old man, as he poised it with knowledge in his thin white hands. "May it help you to carve your way to much honour! But war is not a gentlemanly business nowadays. That other brutal little thing will probably serve you better." And so we come to the very last night. The 8th were to leave at six the next morning for Southampton, and Jim was making his way back to his quarters, dead tired, but vaguely hopeful that he had failed in none of the multifarious calls on these last short hours. His list had been an unusually long one that day. But he had ploughed doggedly through it, and reduced it item by item, till it was cleared off. After his actual military duties had come final letters to Gracie and Mr. Eager and his grandfather--he might never see any of them again. All the same he wrote in the best of spirits, though in grievous regret at not being able to run down and say good-bye. Then he had made a round of farewell calls among the friends he had made in London, and had even made time to drop in on Mme Beteta for a cup of tea. He had finished up with a quiet dinner with Lord Deseret in Park Lane, and now, in the spirit, England lay behind him, and his compass pointed due east. Out of the depths of his very large experience, Lord Deseret had given him many a useful hint and much wise advice over their cigars and coffee, and had finally shaken his hand and bidden him "God-speed!" with more emotion than Jim had believed it possible for that calm white face to show. And Mme Beteta, too, had held his band as he said "Good-bye," and said, with much feeling, "I would have been glad if you had got into some mischief so that I might have had the pleasure of helping you. I will hope all the time to see you come back alive and whole." "You are all too good to me," laughed Jim, overcome by the kindness he was everywhere meeting with. "I feel as if I was getting more than my proper share. If Jack had been here now, you'd have thought ever so much more of him." "Perhaps!" smiled madame. "We will see when you both come back," He was hurrying back to his quarters, bent on getting a good night's sleep if possible, since the coming nights on board ship might be less conducive thereto, when, as he swung round a corner where a gas lamp hung, deep in his own thoughts and with his head bent down, a timid hand fell on his arm, and as he hastily shook it off, a soft voice jerked: "Jim!" He whirled round in vast amazement, and got a shock. "Kattie! . . . oh, _Kattie!_" "I did so want to see you before you went. I only heard to-day----" She looked so pretty in the fluttering light of the lamp, so touchingly soft and sweet, like some beautiful wild bird drawn to a possibly hostile hand by stress of need and prepared for instant flight. She was very nicely dressed too, better than he had ever seen her before, in well-fitting dark clothes and a little fur pork-pie hat, like the one Gracie used to wear in the winter. And under it her eyes shone brightly and her face glowed and quivered with many emotions. The passers-by were beginning to notice and look back at them. He led her into a quieter side-street where there was almost no traffic. "But what are you doing here, Kattie? We have been searching for you for a month past, and now----" "I couldn't help it, Jim. I had to come----" "But why, Kattie? Why? Do you know what you've done by running away like that?" And he could not keep the feeling out of his voice, as he thought of poor old Seth, and her mother, and the broken home. "Your mother is dead. It killed her." Kattie's hands were over her face and she was sobbing. "And your father came to London to look for you, and got run over. His hand was in mine as he died, and his last words were for you, 'Tell her to come home!' he said, and then he died." The slender figure shook with sobs. Perhaps he had been too brutal to blurt it out like that. He ought to have broken it to her by degrees. "Oh, why did you do it, Kattie?" he said, more gently. And Kattie, shaken out of herself by his news and his manner, sobbed out her secret. "Jim, Jim, don't be so hard to me! It was for you, you, you----" "_Kattie_," he cried, aghast. "Yes," she choked on in a passion of surrender and self-revelation. "It was you I wanted--you--always. And I thought if I could only get to London where you were----" "Oh, Kattie!" And he could say no more for the feeling that was in him, and Kattie hung on to his arm and he did not shake her off. "Kattie," he said at last, in a deep hoarse voice, "has it been my fault? I did not know----" "No no, no! It was not your fault. But I could not help it." "I am very sorry, dear. If I had known--but I never dreamt of it. How did you get here?" She hesitated, and then said, briefly: "I got some one to bring me." "Who?" "I cannot tell you." "It was an evil thing to do, whoever it was, and I hope some of the sorrow will fall upon him," he said hotly. "But you must not stop here, Kattie. You must go home." "Home!" she said wildly. "I have no home. I will wait here till you come back from the war, Jim----" "Kattie! . . . For God's sake, don't talk like that! You don't know what you are saying, child. I may never come back at all . . . And if I do----" "Oh, Jim! _Jim!_" She hardly knew what she was saying. She only knew that for months she had been longing for Jim, and now he was here, and he was going, and she might never see him again. The pretty, quivering, wild-rose face was turned up to his. Her eager arms stole round his neck. "_Jim!_" Now, thanks be to thee, Charles Eager, muscular Christian and strenuous apostle of clean living and the higher things!--sitting by your dying fire in Mrs. Jex's cottage at Wyvveloe, thinking much of your boys and praying for them, perchance,--nay, of a certainty, for thoughts such as yours are prayers and resolve themselves into familiar phrases--"that they fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger"--"from battle and murder and from sudden death,"--at which the thinker by the fire fell into deeper musing. And thanks be to all your teaching of the Christian virtues and truest manhood, both by precept and example! For Jim Carron was only a man like other men, and young blood is hot. And Kattie, in her fervour, was more than pretty. Jim's big chest rose and fell as if he had been running a race--say with the devil, or as if he had been engaged in mortal combat. Perhaps he had--both. He broke her hands apart with a firm, gentle grip. "Kattie dear! You don't know what you are saying. You know it can't be. God help us! What am I to do with you?" And then he bethought him of Mme Beteta and saw his way. "Come with me!" he said, and drew her arm tightly through his and led her down the street, and on and on till they came to a thoroughfare where there were cabs. He hailed one, handed her in, gave the driver the address, and sat down beside her. Kattie asked no questions. She was with Jim. That was enough. Her arm stole inside his again and nestled and throbbed there. She would have asked no more--not very much more--than to ride by his side like that in the joggling cab for ever. The cab stopped at last before the house in South Audley Street. Jim jumped out and rang the bell, paid the man, and led her up the steps. "Is madame in?" he asked of the maid who opened the door. "Just come in, sir." "Will you beg her to see me for a moment?" And she showed them into a small sitting-room and went noiselessly away. "Will you please to come to madame's room, sir?" And they were ushered into the cosy room where Mme Beteta had just sat down to supper before a blazing fire. Her wraps lay on the sofa where she had flung them on entering. She looked lazed and tired, all except her face, and her great dark eyes opened wide at sight of Kattie. Jim had indeed told her that the girl they were searching for was pretty, but this girl, with all that was working in her still in her face and her eyes, was very much more than pretty. "Mme Beteta, will you do something for me?" began Jim impulsively. "I have only been waiting the opportunity, my boy, as I told you this afternoon. What is it now--and who is your friend? Won't you sit down, my dear?" to Kattie. "You look very tired." Kattie sank into the proffered chair, and Jim stood behind it. "This is Kattie Rimmer, a friend of ours from Carne. She finds herself suddenly alone in London. If you will take care of her I would be so grateful to you." "Indeed I will, if she will stop with me for a time. You are much too good-looking, my dear, to be alone in this big place. I shall be glad to have something young and pretty about me. My dear old Manuela is worth her weight in gold, but, truly, she is no beauty. And when I go abroad, presently, you shall come with me there also, if you feel so inclined." Madame understood--partly, at all events, and possibly guessed wrongly at the rest. But there was no mistaking her kindliness. She saw that the girl was under the influence of some overpowering emotion, and she talked on for the sake of talking and to give her time. "Kattie dear, will you promise me to stop with madame?" asked Jim anxiously. For it was one thing to have got her there--and a great thing; but it might be quite another thing to get her to stop. "Must I, Jim?" And the great eyes, swimming with tears, snatched a hasty glance at him. "Yea, Kattie, you must. And, madame, I cannot thank you enough. Sometime, perhaps--if I come back alive----" And at that Kattie sprang up and flung her arms round his neck again, crying, "Oh, Jim! Jim!" And he kissed her gently and put her away, and she sank down into the chair, a convulsive heap of sobs. He mutely begged madame to follow him, and left the room. "It is terribly sad," he said to her, In the other room. "I met her near my quarters to-night. She had been waiting for me, and she says--she says"--he stumbled--"well, she says she came to London after me. And, you know, I never had a thought of her--poor little Kattie! And I didn't know what to do with her, and so I brought her to you." "You did quite right, my boy. For your sake--and, yes--for her own--I will do my best for her. She is a pretty little thing--much too pretty to go to waste in London." "You are very good, madame, and I am very grateful. Perhaps you would consult Lord Deseret about her too, if you think well. He has been very kind in the matter." "And you have no feeling for her at all?" "There is only one girl in all the world for me, and that is Gracie Eager. You'll understand when you see her." Then he wrung her hand very warmly, and said a final good-bye, and went away,--very tired, but with something of a load off his heart as regarded Kattie at all events. CHAPTER XLI HORSE AND FOOT The dullest pages in history are those which record the long, slow years of peace and progress, when everything goes well and nothing lively happens. Jack's term of service at Chatham had been such. His record was one of simple hard work, considerable acquirement, and a methodic, level life. His work appealed to him, and he gave himself up heart and soul, and might have given his health as well if the authorities had not seen to it. Brains in an officer were very acceptable, and the concentrated application of them still more so--to say nothing of the comparative rarity of the combination. But brains without body would obviously be of small service to the country, and so Jack was kept fairly fit in spite of himself. He won the golden opinions of his instructors and examiners, and was looked upon as a reliable officer and a coming man. "Give us a good tough bit of siege work," he had said, with hot enthusiasm, as they tramped the frozen sands at Carne that last time, "and we'll show them what we are made of." "A good open country and plenty of room for cavalry to man[oe]uvre, that's what _we_ want," said Jim, with relish, "and we'll show the world what British squadrons can do." "Tough sieges somehow seem a bit out of date," said Mr. Eager. "I should say Jim's horses are more likely to be in it." "I'd sooner have the siege," said Gracie; and they all clamoured to know why, and Jim felt humpy. "Oh, just because you're all farther away from one another and not so likely to get hurt," said she. "When you fight on horses you're bound to get close to one another." "That's what we want," growled Jim. "The closer the better." "And then the poor horses!" said. Gracie, with a shiver. "To say nothing of the poor men!" growled Jim once more. "It's all horrid and hateful and wicked. I don't mean you two," she added hastily, "but the people who bring it about. If they all had to fight themselves, instead of sending other people to do it for them, they wouldn't be so ready to begin." "They'd make a pretty poor show, some of them," laughed Jack. "Think of little Johnny Russell facing up to the Tsar." "David and Goliath," suggested the Rev. Charles. "Goliath got the stone in his eye--well, in his head, it's all the same--and so he will this time," said Jim. "Artillery!" said Jack triumphantly. "David cut off his head," said Gracie. "Infantry assault after we--I mean the artillery--had made the breach." Involved military operations, and especially the complicated strategy of the siege, had fascinated Jack from the time he could read. He absorbed the elements of his profession with keenest delight; and driest details, which to some of his fellows were but dull drudgery, were to him like the necessary part of a puzzle of which he held the clue, and their essentiality was clear to him. What would be the course of the coming war none could tell, for the simple reason that no one seemed to know exactly where they were going or what they were going to do. All arms were to be represented, however, and each separate branch hoped ardently that the tide would run its way. Jack and Jim, at parting, had undertaken to correspond regularly. They had also mutually pledged themselves to write not more than one letter a week to Gracie. If Jim's scrawl had hitherto been the more interesting to their recipients, it was certainly not by reason of their penmanship, or their spelling, or their literary qualities, but simply that, living in London and somewhat in the whirl of things, and with more time and mind for outside matters than Jack had, he had always something to tell about, and that, after all, is what people want. Very sympathetic--and certainly very charming--little smiles used to lurk in the corners of Gracie's flexible little mouth as she read Jim's epistles. And she would murmur, "The dear boy!" as she thought of the time and labour he had given to their production. For to Jim the sword was very much mightier than the pen and infinitely more to his liking. He told Gracie, in his letters, most of what befell him in London, much about Lord Deseret, and much about Mme Beteta, but concerning Kattie and old Seth Rimmer, after much ponderous consideration, he had thought it best to keep silence. Jack had waxed mightily indignant over old Seth's half-blown suspicions, and on the whole it was perhaps just as well that the old man fell into Jim's hands. Of the final episode Jim told none of them. In the first place, he felt bound to keep Kattie's secret. In the second, he went straight home to his bed that night as tired as a dog, and was _en route_ for the East soon after six o'clock next morning. And in the third place, as to telling Jack, Jack was on the high seas nearing Gallipoli, and they did not see one another again for months to come. CHAPTER XLII DUE EAST Jack, to his immense delight, found himself detailed for duty with a large number of his men to assist General Canrobert in the fortification of the long narrow peninsula on which, Gallipoli is situated. No matter that the fortifications were little likely to be of any actual benefit, it was active service and turning to practical account the theoretical knowledge of which he was full. The men, who had left England ablaze with warlike fervour amid the cheers of the populace, had found their long detention at Malta very trying and relaxing. Warlike fervour cannot keep at boiling-point unless it has something to expend itself upon. And so they welcomed this diversion, and planned, and built earthen ramparts, and bastions, and barbettes, and ravelins, and redoubts, to their hearts' content, and felt very much better both in mind and body than when they were kicking their heels and frizzling in the tawny dust of Malta. There were many discomforts, however, chiefly in regard to the provisioning. Even at this very first stage in the proceedings the men had little to eat and less to drink; and if curses could have assisted the commissariat, or blighted it off the face of the earth, its movements would have been mightily quickened. But forty years of peace do not make for efficiency in the fighting machine. It had grown rusty through disuse, as all machines will, and the ominous creakings which began at Gallipoli never ceased till--too late for the hosts of gallant souls who died of want before Sebastopol--England awoke at last to the shame of her relapse, and set her house in order with a roar of righteous, but belated, indignation. Jack and his men fared better than most, through their intimacy with the Frenchmen, who had the knack of living in plenty where others starved. Jack brushed up his French, and found welcome, and still more welcome hospitality, among the officers, and his men learned how tasty dinners could be made out of the scantiest of rations if only you knew how to do it. But the slow weeks dragged on; there was no sign of an enemy, and the fighting for which they had come out seemed as far off as ever. And the little advance army growled and grizzled and cursed things in general, and began to get a trifle mouldy. And meanwhile the Turks, under Omar, were valiantly holding the Danube against the Russians, and the allied generals were in communication with the allied ambassadors at Constantinople, and the ambassadors were in communication with the un-allied diplomatists at Vienna, and the diplomatists were seeking instructions from London, Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, and futile talk blocked the way of warlike deeds. It was the middle of May before the welcome order came to move on, and their spirits rose at the prospect. They had come out to fight, and anything was better than moulting at Gallipoli. But the diplomats were still chopping words at Vienna, so they were all dumped down again at Scutari, till the wise men should see which way the cat was really going to jump. More weary weeks followed, though, since they gave Jack the chance of seeing a great deal of Constantinople, he at all events had no cause for complaint. The neat little steamer, which the Sultan had placed at the disposal of the British officers, ran across in a quarter of an hour and plied to and fro constantly; and having no duties to perform, Jack missed none of his opportunities and saw all he could, and that included many strange sights. He made many new acquaintances, and began to lose somewhat of the studious concentration which had hitherto stood in the way of his making any very close friendships even at Woolwich and Chatham. He had given heart and brain to his work, and now only craved the opportunity of applying his knowledge and climbing the ladder. While frivolous Jim, with a modicum of the brains and still less of the application, somehow possessed the knack of making friends wherever he went. And having mastered his drill and won the hearts of his men, he also considered his military education completed, and longed only to get the chance of showing what was in him and them. Jim would have had a delightful time in Constantinople, and, with all his desire for glory, would still have enjoyed himself thoroughly; but Jack, with most of his fellows, felt keenly that all this was not what they had come out for; and when, in June, orders came to embark for Varna, up along the coast of the Black Sea towards the Danube, he was heartily glad. For there had been heavy fighting on the Danube, and if they could only get there in time there might still be a chance of showing what they were made of. It was four months since they left England, and so far they had practically done nothing more than mark time, and there is a certain monotony about that necessary but fruitless operation which has a depressing effect on spirits and bodies alike. However, they were getting on by degrees at last, though what their ultimate objective really was no one seemed to know, unless, perhaps, Lord Raglan and Marshal St. Arnaud, and they kept their own counsel. Jack had been a fortnight at Varna, and was beginning to get sick of it as he had of Malta and Gallipoli, when one day the stately _Himalaya_ steamed quietly in among the mob of smaller craft which crowded Varna Bay, and began to discharge the first of the cavalry that had put in an appearance. This looked like business, and Jack joined the crowd watching the disembarkation. "Hello, Jim, old boy!" "Hello, Jack! That you?" And the boys of Carne had met again. "Hardly knew you in those togs. Took you for a tramp," grinned Jim. "You loaf here for half a dozen weeks, my boy, and you'll come to it. Have you any news? Are we going on? We're all sick to death of the whole business." "_I_ dunno. We've come straight through. We began to be afraid we'd be too late and miss all the fun." "You've not missed much so far. We've been frizzling and grizzling all this time. Never seen the ghost of a Russian so far." "Waiting for us, I expect. Can't get on without cavalry." "If that's what we've been waiting for we're all mighty glad to see you. All this hanging about is the hardest work I've ever done yet." "Where are you living?" "Up on the hill there. You'll be going on to Devna, I expect. That's twenty miles further up." "I've got to look after the horses. They've done splendidly so far. Not lost a leg. We'll have a talk when we knock off." And Jim turned to the congenial work of seeing his equine friends safely ashore. When he had seen them all picketed on the stretch of turf near the beach, and enjoyed for a time their rollings and stretchings and kickings of cramped heels, he walked away up the shore, had his first delicious swim in the Black Sea, and then made his way into the dirty little town and struggled slowly through its narrow streets, packed with such a heterogeneous assortment of nationalities as his wondering eyes had never looked upon before. Guardsmen, Fusiliers, Riflemen, Highlanders, Dragoons, and Hussars, Lancers, Chasseurs, Zouaves, Artillerymen, and Cantinières; Greeks, Turks, Italians, Smyrniotes, Bashi-Bazouks, and nondescripts of all shapes and sizes; dark, windowless little shops with streaming calico signs in many languages, offering for sale every possible requirement from pickles to saddlery, but especially drinks; a slow-moving, chattering, chaffering, and occasionally quarrelling, mob of shakos, turbans, fezes, Highland bonnets, _képis_, and wide-awakes, with bearded faces under them in every possible shade of brown and mud-colour,--no wonder it took Jim a long time to get through. But he got out into the open country at last, and breathed clean air again, and climbed the hill and found his way to Jack's tent, and demanded something to drink. "What a place!" he gasped. "Never saw such a sight in my life!" "Beastly hole!" growled Jack. "I wish to Heaven they'd get us on and give us some work to do." "Why don't they?" "Ah--why don't they? Some one may know, but I'm beginning to doubt it. When we came up here we had hopes again, but now they say the Russians have had enough on the Danube and are bolting, so that's off. What's the news from home? I've hardly had a letter since we left." Jim gave him of his latest, and handed him Lord Deseret's present, which Jack found greatly to his taste. "No more news of Kattie?" he asked presently, when other subjects seemed exhausted, and in a tone that anticipated a negative reply. "Yes. I found her--the very last night," said Jim quietly. "You did? How was it?" "I had been dining with Lord Deseret, and saying good-bye all round, and was dead tired. We were to start at six next morning and I was hurrying home to get some sleep, when suddenly Kattie stepped up and spoke to me." "Good God! Did she know it was you?" "Oh yes. She hadn't got so low as all that. But it gave me a shock, I can tell you, Jack, to meet her like that, though we had been doing all we could to find her." "And how did she seem? And what had she to say for herself?" "She looked prettier than I'd ever seen her--better dressed, you know, and all that." "And what did she say?" "She flatly refused to tell me who had brought her to London. She had heard we were leaving in the morning and she wanted to say good-bye--so she said." "Deuced odd! What did you do?" "Well--I was knocked all of a heap and didn't know what to do. Then I suddenly bethought me of Mine Beteta. She had been very kind to me, and only that afternoon, when I was saying good-bye, she had laughed and said her only regret was that I hadn't got into any scrape that she could help me out of. It was jolly nice of her, you know. So I bundled Kattie into a cab, and took her straight to madame, and left her with her." "Poor little Kattie! She was too good for that kind of thing. And you got no hint as to who---- "Not a word. I asked her straight, and she said she would not tell." "I'd like to wring his neck for him, whoever he was." "She probably knew we would feel that way, and that's why she wouldn't speak. And how have you been keeping, Jack? Seems to me you look thinner. Perhaps it's the way you dress--or don't dress. I never saw such a seedy, weedy-looking set. You'd certainly be taken for tramps in England." "Just you wait, my boy. If you get four months of this infernal loafing in dust and dirt and blazing sun, you'll come to it. And I may well be thin. I'd hang every commissary in the service. They starve us half the time and give us rubbish the rest." "That sounds bad. What's got them?" "Everything's at sixes and sevens. All the food and drink in one place and all the hungry and thirsty souls in another, some hundreds of miles away. If I was the Chief I'd hang a commissary every time the men go short. And the amount of red-tape! Oh, Lord! But you'll know all about it before you're through, my boy. Some of the fellows have chucked it and gone home." "Rotters!" "I don't know. It's been almost beyond endurance at times, and all so senseless, and nothing comes of it. Starving for a good cause is one thing, but starving simply because the men who ought to feed you are fools is quite another." "Overworked, I expect." "Underbrained, I should say. I'll ask you three months hence what you think about it all." Jim was very busy the next few days getting his men and horses on to Devna. His chiefs had found out that he could get more out of men and horses than most, and that when he took a thing in hand he did it. So work was heaped upon him and he was as happy as could be. He messed with Charlie Denham in a little tent on the shore, bathed morning and night, and Joyce and Denham's man saw that their masters--and incidentally themselves--were properly fed. CHAPTER XLIII JIM TO THE FORE Cavalry transports were coming in every day now; the Varna beach looked like a country horse-fair, and to Jim was given the task of superintending the debarkation of the horses and their dispatch to their appointed places. One day, when the great raft on which the horses were floated to the shore bumped up against the little pier, a nervous brown mare broke loose and jumped overboard. There happened to be no small boats close at hand, and the poor beast, white-eyed with terror at the shouts of the onlookers, struck out valiantly for the open sea. To Jim, in the thinnest and oldest garments he possessed, and sweating heartily from his labours, an extra bath was but an additional enjoyment. He leaped aboard, ran nimbly along outside the horses, and launched himself after the snorting evader. His long swift side-stroke soon carried him alongside. He soothed her with comforting words, turned her head shorewards, and presently rode her up the beach amid the bravos of the onlookers. It was little things like that that won the hearts of his men. They knew he would do as much and more for any one of them. As he slipped off, with a final pat to the trembling beast, a hearty hand clapped his wet shoulder. "Well done, old Jim! It was Carne taught you that, old man." And the voice of the gigantic dragoon, whose clap was still tingling in his shoulder, was the voice of George Herapath, though Jim had to look twice at his face to make sure of him. "Why, you hairy man, I'd never have known you. Just got here?" "This minute, my boy, and glad to see you old stagers still alive and kicking. Here's Harben. I say, Ralph, this dirty wet boy is our old Jim." "Hanged if I'd have jumped into the sea after an old troop-horse," said Harben, looking somewhat distastefully at the dishevelled Jim. "A horse is always a horse," said Jim, "and an extra bath's neither here nor there. Can't have too many this weather, if you work as I've been doing lately." "Deucedly dirty work, it seems to me. Why don't you let your men do it? That's what they're here for." "They are doing it," said Jim, waving a benedictory wet hand towards the horse-fair along the beach. "I'm only keeping an eye on them." And before they could say more, a very splendidly accoutred horseman rode down to them, with a still more gorgeous one behind him. "Very smartly done, my boy," said the first in English, though he wore the uniform of a colonel of Cuirassiers. "An officer that looks after his horses will certainly look after his men." "Hello, sir!" jerked Jim. "Glad to see you again! Sorry I'm so dirty." "It's the men who get dirty who do the work." And then he turned to the magnificent personage behind, who sat looking on with a suave smile on his clean-shaven face, and said in French, "This is one of my cubs, Your Highness, though I'll be crucified if I know which." And turning to Jim--"me see, now you're----" "I'm Jim, sir. Jack's in the Engineers." "Ah, yes--Jim. It was the Prince who bade me come down and thank you for saving that mare, and it was only when I heard your friend mention Carne that I recognised you. Monsieur----?" to the Prince, who addressed some remark to him in French, to which he laughingly replied, and then turned again to Jim. "His Highness says he would like to see you cleaned up, and invites you to his table to-night--both of you, if you can come. I suppose you can fig out all right?" Jim saluted Prince Napoleon and bowed. "It is a great honour," he said. "I'll find Jack, sir, and we'll fig out all right." "Eight o'clock, then. We're camped over there for the night. Any one will show you the Prince's quarters." And the two horsemen saluted generally and galloped away. "You're in luck, old boy," said George. "Dining with princes and big-pots. Who's the other? He talks uncommonly good English for a Frenchman." "My father," said Jim quietly. "Your---- Good Lord! Well, I---- Yes, of course, now I remember." "All the same," said Jim, "princes are not much in my line, and I'd just as soon he hadn't asked me." "Man alive!" said Ralph, with exuberance. "Why, I'd give my little finger for the chance." "And where's old Jack?" asked George. "Up on the hill there behind the town." "And where do we go?" "You stop the night here and get on to Devna to-morrow. It's about twenty miles up-country." Jack was mightily astonished when Jim gave him his news, and showed no modest reluctance in accepting the invitation. "It's always interesting to meet people like that," he said. "Is he like the Emperor?" "He's not like his pictures. More like the first Emperor, I should say. But he seemed pleasant enough." "And our paternal?" "He was all right. They seemed on very good terms with one another." "And he really is as big a man as he led us to believe that night?" "Why, yes, he seemed so. Did you doubt it?" And so, all in their best, they duly presented themselves at the Prince's quarters a few minutes before eight, Jack, in his modest Engineer uniform, feeling somewhat overshadowed by Jim's gorgeous Hussar trappings. "By Jove! but don't they know how to make themselves at home!" said Jack, as they came in sight of the handsome tent, with a great green bower made of leafy branches in front and an enclosure of the same all round it. The sentries passed them in at once, and their father came out from the tent and met them with cordial, outstretched hands. He held both their hands for a moment, and looked from one to the other. "Jack is the Engineer, and Jim is the Hussar, and both of you very creditable Carrons. We must get to know one another better, my boys. The coming campaign should afford us plenty of opportunities." "Is there to be a campaign, then, sir?" asked Jack. "We'd about given up all hopes of it." "Oh, we're not through yet by any means," smiled the Colonel. "I don't know how it is with your men, sir, but all this dawdling about is doing ours no good." "It is good for nobody, my boy, but we've got to obey orders, and those who pull the strings are far away. However, you need have no fear. The Tsar is far too stiff-necked to give way till he's had a good thrashing, and we have not only to fight him, but distance and climate to boot. Here is His Highness." And when he introduced them, the Prince, with a smile at Jim, and a pat on the shoulder, told him he would certainly have had difficulty in recognising him again, and he was a "brave boy," which set the brave boy blushing furiously under his tan. "They are grumbling at getting no fighting, Your Highness," said the Colonel. "Young blood! Young blood!" said the Prince, with a smile. "Let us hope they will have plenty left when the fighting is over." A number of other bravely dressed officers came in, and in the long green bower they sat down to a dinner such as they had not tasted for months, and of which they many times thought enviously in the lean months that followed. CHAPTER XLIV JIM'S LUCK Jim, by force of circumstance, acquired a very wholesome reputation as the best-mounted man in the Light Brigade, as a tireless rider, and as an officer who doggedly carried out his instructions. The result was much hard work, which he enjoyed, and much commendation, which he thoroughly deserved. When the Russians retired from the Danube and disappeared into the wilds of Wallachia, Lord Cardigan was ordered to follow them with a party of gallopers and learn what route they had taken. The first man picked for his troop was Jim Carron, and Jim was wild with delight. Here, at last, was something out of the common to be done, something with more than a spice of danger in it, and altogether to his liking. They were away for seventeen days, camping as best they could without tents, and they rode through three hundred miles of the wildest and most desolate country Jim had ever set eyes on. For one hundred miles at a stretch they never saw a human being, but finally got on the track of the Russians and found they had gone by way of Babadagh. Then they rode up the Danube to Silistria and returned to camp by way of Shumla, somewhat way-worn as to the horses, but the men fit and hard as nails. But they were the fortunate ones, and their satisfaction with their lot could not leaven the seething mass of growling discontent represented by the remaining fifty thousand would-be warriors, who had come out all aflame with martial ardour, but had so far never set eyes on an enemy, who were ready to die cheerfully for a cause which not one in a hundred properly understood, but found themselves like to moulder with ennui and lack of proper provisioning. Their hopes had been constantly raised only to be dashed. They were to go up to the Danube to help the Turks against the Russians. They were aching to go. But fifty thousand men need feeding, and the commissariat was in a state of confusion, and transport non-existent and unprocurable. So they stayed where they were, and mouldered and cursed, and began to look askance at the whole business and to doubt the good faith of every one concerned. Many officers fell sick, some threw up their commissions in disgust and went home. The men would have liked to follow. In July came the inevitable consequences of ill-feeding, ill-temper, enforced idleness, and mismanagement--the men became as sick in body as they had long been at heart. The heats and rains of August turned the camps into steaming stew-pans, and the men, who would have faced death by shot and steel with cheers, died miserably of cholera and typhus, and dying, struck a chill to the hearts of those who were left. The officers did their best--got up games for them and races. But the more intimate companionship between officers and men which obtained in the French army was lacking in the British, and could not be called into spasmodic existence on the spur of the moment. The races alone excited a certain amount of enthusiasm, and whenever Jim happened to be in camp he carried all before him. With quite mistaken grandmotherly solicitude, too, the bands were all silenced, lest their lively music should jar on the ears of the SICK and dying. The men tried sing-songs of their own, but sorely missed their music, and those near any of the French camps would walk any distance to share with them the cheery strains they could not get at home. The camps were moved from place to place in vain attempt at dodging death. But death went with them and the men died in hundreds. And those who were sent to the hospitals at Varna wished they had died before they got there. Through all that dreadful time, when the doctors were next to powerless and burying-parties the order of the day, our two boys kept wonderfully well. And for that they were not a little indebted to Lord Deseret, to a certain amount of fatherly oversight on the part of Colonel Carron, and perhaps most of all to the fact that they were kept busy. Jack and his fellows beat the country-sides for game until they had swept them bare. Jim, still in luck, was sent out to buy horses, and travelled far and wide, and still farther and wider as the nearer provinces became depleted. And when Jack's game was finished he got permission to go with him, and in those long, venturesome rides they two renewed their youth together, and rejoiced in one another, and found life good. Many a lively adventure they had as they scoured the long Bulgarian plains in search of their four-legged prizes, for which they paid a trifle over a pound a leg in cash, whereby they beat their French opponents, who only paid in paper which had to be cashed at French Head-quarters, one hundred or more miles away. To the boys it was all a delightful game; and getting the horses home, when they had found and bought them, was by no means the least exciting part of it. But the chief thing was that it took them out of the deadly camps, kept them fully occupied, and in soundest health when so many sickened and died. The risks of the road were comparatively small, and they always went well armed and with an escort. Danger, indeed, lurked nearer home. For the twenty miles of road between Varna and the camps at Aladyn and Devna began to be infested with the baser spirits from among the great gathering of the off-scourings of the Levant which had flocked after the army. Outrages were of daily occurrence, and every man who went that way alone rode warily, with his hand on his revolver and his eyes on the look out. One day Jack had ridden up to the plateau by the sea, where the Dragoons were, to visit George Herapath and Harben, who were both down with dysentery, and Jim had been delayed at the commissary's office by the only part of the business in which he took no delight--the settlement of his accounts, which never by any chance came out right. They were cantering home in the cool of the evening, when cries of distress at a short distance from the road turned their horses' heads that way, and galloping up in haste they came on a band of Bashi-Bazouks--cut-throat ruffians whom General Yusuf was trying to lick into shape--dragging away a young country girl, whose terrified eyes had caught sight of the British uniforms. Already that uniform carried with it greater guarantee of right and justice than any of the many others with which the country was overrun. So as soon as she saw them she shrieked for help, and they answered. "Let her go, you beasts!" shouted Jack, as he dragged out his sword. And then, as dirty hands fumbled in waist-shawls full of pistols, Jim's revolver cracked out, and two of the rascals went down. Curses and bullets flew promiscuously for a second or two, and then the remaining Bashis bolted, leaving four on the ground and the girl on their hands. "What the deuce are we to do with her?" said Jack, as the spoils of war clung tearfully to his leg. "Where?" asked Jim, in one of the few native words he had picked up in the course of business. "Pravadi," panted the girl. "That's over yonder, past Aladyn," said Jim. "We'd better take her home, or those brutes will get her again. I'll take her up--my horse is fresher than yours. Come along, my beauty!" And he stuck out his boot for a foot-rest, and held out his hand to the girl. The uniform was her sufficient guarantee, and she climbed up and straddled the horse, and locked her arms tightly round Jim's waist. "All right?" he asked. And they turned to the road. Two minutes later they fell in with a Turkish patrol galloping up at sound of the firing, and had some difficulty in making them understand that they were not carrying off the girl on their own account. They were only convinced by being led back to the place where the wounded Bashis lay. Then they offered to take care of the girl and see her safely home. But she knew them too well and would have none of them. She clung like a leech to Jim, and at last they were permitted to go on their way. They had many little adventures of the kind, and they tended to keep their blood in circulation, and the blues, which afflicted their fellows, at a distance. Lord Deseret had laid down the law for Jim as regards eating and drinking. "I have lived in Turkey," he said. "Drink no water unless it has been boiled, and then dash it with rum. Tea or coffee are better still. And eat as little fruit as possible; it's tempting, but dangerous." And Jim used to get wildly angry with his men, when he saw them devouring cucumbers by the half-dozen, and apricots and plums by the basketful, under the impression that these things were good for their health. They laughed at his remonstrances at first, but remembered them later; and those who did not die foreswore cucumbers for the rest of their lives. CHAPTER XLV MORE REVELATIONS Colonel Carron was constantly looking the boys up, and carrying them off to the best meals they ever got in that country. His Chief, Prince Napoleon, had gone down to Therapia with a touch of fever, and the Colonel was in charge of his quarters and saw to it that His Highness's cooks did not get rusty in his absence. Over these delightful dinners in the leafy arbours which always marked the Prince's quarters, they all came to know one another very much better than they might have done under any ordinary circumstances. And the burden of the Colonel's talk was chiefly regret that one or both of them had not taken his offer and joined him in the French service. "Sorry I am to say it," he said one night, as they sat sipping coffee such as they got nowhere else, and smoking cigars such as their own pockets did not run to, "but your army is only a fancy toy--in the way it's run, I mean. Your men are the finest in the world, what there are of them; but England is not a soldierly nation, say what you like about it." "What about the Peninsula, sir?--to say nothing of Waterloo!" murmured Jack, after a discreet took round. "Oh, you can fight and win battles, just as you can do pretty nearly anything else you make up your minds to do--regardless of cost. But with us the army is a science--an exact science almost--and every single detail is worked out on the most scientific lines. You only need to look round you to see the difference. England is never ready because she is not by nature a fighting nation. Her army rusts along, and then when the sudden call comes you have got to brace up and win through--or muddle through--at any cost, and the cost is generally frightful. The men and money you have wasted--absolutely wasted--in your wars do not bear thinking of." "I'm afraid it's true, sir. And we don't seem to learn much by experience. I suppose it comes from having sea-frontiers instead of land. You have to _be_ ready. We always have to _get_ ready." "And how about the horses, Jim?" he asked. "I'm told you manage to get more than we do. That's one for you, my boy." "We pay cash, sir. You pay in paper promises, and a man a hundred miles away will sooner part for gold than for paper." "Truly; I would myself. Do you lose many _en route?_" "Not two per cent, sir. Some of them are pretty wild, and they make a bolt at times, but it adds to the fun, and we nearly always get them back. Did you see Nolan's Arabs?" "I saw them--beauties. The Prince wanted to buy two or three, but I dissuaded him. They're too delicate for a winter campaign. That big brown of yours, that Deseret gave you, is worth four of them--as far as work is concerned." "You think we're in for a winter campaign, sir?" asked Jack eagerly. "No doubt about it, I think. We've got to do something before we go home--some of us. Our coming up here has cleared the Russians off the Danube, but our dawdling here has given them every chance of strengthening themselves in the Crimea. The biggest thing they have there is Sebastopol, on which they have squandered money. Therefore I think it will be Sebastopol, and anything but an easy job." "We shall get our chance, then," sparkled Jack. "We did a bit at Gallipoli, but a real big siege would be grand." "I hope your commissariat will play up better then, or we shall have to feed you," said the Colonel, with a smile. He liked to draw them out and get their views on men and things, and watched them keenly the while, but all his watching brought him not one whit nearer a solution of the problem of Carne than had Charles Eager's and Sir Denzil's. In the course of one such talk, however, they made a discovery and received a shock which knocked the wind out of them. Their father was delightfully open and frank with them as regards the past, and it drew their liking. "I have behaved shamefully to you both," he said one time, "and still worse to one of you. And I have nothing to plead in extenuation except that I did as my fellows in those days did--which is a very poor excuse, I confess. I must make such compensation as I can. One of you will have to become Carron of Carrie, and the other M. le Compte de Carne--maybe M. le Duc by that time. There's no knowing." "There's the Quixande matter too," said Jack thoughtfully. "An empty title, I fear, by this time. And the Carrons were of note ages before the Quixandes were heard of. You seem to have got on very good terms with Deseret"--to Jim. "He was very good to me, sir. I don't know why, unless it was because of his old friendship with you. He always spoke very handsomely of you." "He was always a good fellow, but a terrible gambler. And yet I don't think he suffered on the whole. He was so confoundedly rich that it made no difference to him in any way. I have seen him win and lose £10,000 in a night at Crockford's, without turning a hair." "I saw him win somewhere about that at a house in St. James's Street and----" "And how much did you lose?" "Nothing, sir; I was only looking on. Charlie Denham took me there--just to see it, you know. When Lord Deseret heard my name he came up and spoke to me. He asked me to call on him, and scribbled his address on the back of a bank-note, and gave it to me, and insisted on my keeping it." "Just like him!" "Then the police came and we had to get out over the roofs----" "I would dearly have liked to see Deseret getting out over the roofs," laughed the Colonel. "He seemed quite used to it, sir." "I haven't a doubt of it. And he never suggested you should play?" "On the contrary, he never ceased to warn me against it. So did Mme Beteta----" "Mme Beteta!" And the Colonel's cigar hung fire in midair, and he sat staring at Jim as if he had called up a ghost. "The dancer, you know. She has been awfully kind to me. Did you know her too, sir?" asked innocent Jim. "How did you come to make _her_ acquaintance?" asked his father, with quite a change of tone, and an intentness that struck even Jim. "We had gone to see her dance----" "Both of you?" "Charlie Denham and I. And Lord Deseret saw us and sent for us to his box, and at the interval he offered to take us round." "Deseret?" And he said something under his breath in French which they did not catch. "Well--and how did she receive you?" "She was very pleasant. She asked me to call and see her, and I've been several times." The Colonel resumed his cigar and smoked in silence for some time, with his eyes fixed meditatively on a distant corner. Then, he seemed to make up his mind. He blew out a great cloud of smoke and said very deliberately: "In view of what is coming it is perhaps as well you should know, though it will not help you to a solution of your puzzle--at least--I don't know. . . . It might--yes--probably it might, if one could be sure of her telling the truth for its own sake and apart from all other considerations. Mme Beteta is your mother"--and he nodded at Jim, who jumped in his chair; "or yours"--and he nodded at Jack, who sat staring fixedly at him. "She may know which of you is her own boy. I cannot tell. But she will only tell what she chooses--if I know anything of women." "Yes," he said presently, while the boys still sat speechless, "Beteta is old Mrs. Lee's daughter. The old woman knows also, I expect, but she certainly will only tell what suits her, and you could put very little reliance on anything she said. Has madame met you both?" "Yes, sir. She asked me to bring Jack to see her the first chance I got, and I did so." "Well?" "She was just the same to him, as nice as could be, anxious we should get into some scrape so that she could be of some use to us, and that kind of thing--very nice." "Ay--well! It is just possible--it is very probable," he said weightily, "that some of us three may never get home again. We don't know for certain what we're going to attempt, so it is impossible to forecast the chances. But, in view of what may be, it is only right that you should know. Is there anything else you wish to ask? I have had great cause to regret many things in my life, but nothing, perhaps, more than this. Though, _mon Dieu!_" he said very heartily, "even this has its compensations in you two boys. However, I have no desire to refer to it again. So, if there is anything more----" And he waited for their questioning. "There is one thing, sir," said Jack, unwillingly enough, and yet it seemed to him necessary. "You will pardon me, I hope, but it might be of importance. Did you--were you--was your marriage with madame all in order?" The Colonel nodded as though he had been expecting the question. "In justice to her, I must say that she believed so at the time, but there were irregularities in it which would probably invalidate it if brought to the test, and I think she is now aware of it." "You have met her since?" "Oh yes. We have been on friendly terms for some years past." "And you believe she could solve the question that is troubling us all, if she would?" "I think it likely, but--you must see," and he addressed himself more particularly to Jack--"that most women, in such a case, would lie through thick and thin to establish their own cause." "I don't know," said Jack doubtfully. "I suppose it is possible." "It is certain. However, the solution to the puzzle may come otherwise,"--they knew what he meant--"so now we will drop the matter, and you must think of me as little unkindly as you can. Jean-Marie," to an orderly outside, "bring us fresh coffee and more cognac." "Do you know that Canrobert lost three thousand of his men up in the Dobrudscha?" "Three thousand!" gasped Jim. "They got into some swamp full of rotting horses and dead Russians and consequent pestilence, and the men died like flies." "It is hard to go like that," said Jim. "I'd sooner die ten times over in fair fight than of the cholera. That's what's knocking the heart out of the men, that and having nothing to do but watch the other fellows die." "Ay--well, we'll give them something to do at last. Every Tom, Dick, and François is to set to work making fascines and gabions." "That means a siege, then," said Jack, with delight. "And our time's coming after all." CHAPTER XLVI THE BLACK LANDING From that time on there was no lack of work. The spirits of the me, went up fifty per cent, and the general health improved in like ratio. Hard work proved the best of tonics. And, of a truth, a tonic was needed. It took the Guards--the flower of the British army--two days march from Aladyn to the sea at Varna, a distance of ten miles. So reduced were they by sickness, that five miles a day was all they could manage, and even then their packs were carried for them. For those in charge there was no rest, by day or Light, until the embarkation was complete. When Jim Carron followed his last horse on board the _Himalaya_, he tumbled into a bath and then into a bunk, and slept for twenty-four hours without moving a finger. But he had ample time, when he woke up, fresh and hungry, to admire that most wonderful sight of close on seven hundred ships, of all shapes and sizes--from the stately _Agamemnon_, flying the Admiral's flag, to the steam-tug _Pigmy_, wrestling valiantly with a transport twenty times her size--as they crept slowly across the Black Sea, with 80,000 men on board for the chastisement of the Russian Bear. A sight for a lifetime, indeed, but one which no man who remembers or thinks of would ever wish to set eyes on again. Jim and his fellows, however, rejoiced in it, for without doubt it meant business at last, and they had almost begun to despair. So, in due time, they came in sight of the tented mountains and the coast; and after what seemed to the ardent ones still more vacillation and delays, the launches and flat-boats got to work, and the long strip of shingle which lay between the sea and a great lake behind became black with men. All was eagerness and anticipation. The voyage had had a good effect on bodies sorely weakened by disease, and the prospect of active employment at last a still better effect on hearts that had grown heavy with disappointment. But ten days of life-giving sea cannot entirely undo the mischief of the sickly months ashore. Numbers died on the voyage. Of those who landed, few indeed were the men they had been when they left England six months before, but hearts ran high if bodies were worn and weak. That was the busiest day those regions had seen since time began. To the few bewildered inhabitants it seemed as though the whole unknown world was emptying itself on their shores. Before sunset over 60,000 men were landed, and still there were more to come. All that coast, from Eupatoria to Old Fort, was like an ant-hill dropped suddenly on to a strange place, over which its tiny occupants swarmed tumultuously in the endeavour to accommodate themselves to the new conditions. The weather, which had held up during the day, broke towards evening. The surf reared viciously up the shingle beach, and the rain came down in torrents. The tents were still aboard ship; men and officers alike sat and soaked throughout the dreary night in extremest misery. Jack among them. He had been sent on in advance of his corps to make observations and dispositions for the accommodation of the ordnance, and carried--according to instructions--nothing but his great-coat rolled up lengthwise and slung over his shoulder, a canteen of water, and three days' provision of cooked salt meat and biscuit in a haversack. The men had their blankets in addition, and their rifles and bayonets and ammunition. When the deluge broke on them, and the spray came flying up the beach in sheets, drenching them alike above and below, the men huddled together and tried to improvise shelters with their great-coats and blankets. But Nature was pitiless and seemed to bend her direst energies to the task of damping their spirits. With their bodies she had her will, but their spirits were beyond her, for they were on Russian territory at last, and that meant business. Jack sat on the wet shingle, back to back with one of his fellows, and the rain soaked through him, till his very marrow felt cold. Some of the men near him, crouching under their sopping blankets, started singing, and "God save the Queen" and "Rule Britannia" rolled brokenly along the lines for a time. But by degrees the singing died away, the wet blankets exerted their proverbial influence, and silent misery prevailed. The weather had broken before the cavalry got ashore, so Jim spent that night very gratefully in the comfort of his bunk on the _Himalaya_, and wondered how they were faring on land. He was up before sunrise, however, and hard at work, though the waves were still high, and landing horses would be no easy matter. And worse [end of line is blank] He came on Jack prowling anxiously among the black masses just wakening into life again. "Hello, Jim!" he said hoarsely. "Where were you? Did you get damp?" "We're not landed yet. Too rough for the horses." "Lucky beggars! I never had such a night in my life. It was ghastly. Why the deuce couldn't they let us have some tents? Those French beggars had theirs, and the beastly Turks too. We're the worst-managed lot I ever heard of." "What's this?" asked Jim, staring open-mouthed at a muffled figure at his feet--stiff and stark, though all around were stirring. "Why doesn't he get up?" "He's got up," said Jack through his teeth. "He's dead, and there's a score or more like him. Dead of the cold and want of everything. Hang it! why aren't we Frenchmen or Turks!" A sore speech, born of great bitterness. And Jim felt it almost an insult be so warm and hearty and well-fed, with that dumb witness of the dreadful misery of the night lying silent at his feet. And the thought of it all bore sorely on him and brought the lump into his throat. To pull through the bad times at Varna; to come all that way across the sea, indomitable spirit overcoming all the weaknesses of the flesh; to land at last in the high flush of hope,--and then to die like dogs of cold and misery, on the wet shingle, before their hope had smallest chance of realisation! Oh, it was hard! It was bitter hard! When he reported on board it was decided to make for Eupatoria, where there was a pier, but before they got under way the weather showed signs of improvement, and presently the landing began, and for the next two days both the boys had so much on their hands that they had no time to think of anything but the contrarinesses of horses and guns, and the disconcerting effects of high seas on things unused to them. In spite of all they lacked, however, the men's spirits rose as soon as the sun shone out and warmed them. They were on Russian soil at last, and that made up for everything. All they wanted now was Russians to come to grips with--Russians in quantity and of a fighting stomach. Sebastopol was thirty miles to the south, and between them and it lay rivers, and almost certainly armies; and on the third day they set off resolutely to find them. And that day Jim had his first trying experience of playing target to a distant enemy in deadly sober earnest. He had wondered much what it would feel like, and how his inner man would take it. As for the outer, he had promised himself that that should show no sign, no matter what happened. The Hussars were feeling the way in advance, when a bunch of Cossacks appeared on the hills in front, and representatives of Britain and Russia took eager stock of one another. They were rough-looking fellows on sturdy horses, and carried long lances. They rode down the hill as though to offer battle, and the Englishmen were keen to try conclusions with them. But behind them, in the hollows, were discovered dense masses of cavalry waiting for the game to walk into the net. And when the wary game declined, the cavalry opened out and disclosed hidden guns, and the game of long bowls began. The first shots went wide, and Jim watched them go hopping along the plain with much curiosity. Then came the vicious spurt of white smoke again, and the man and horse alongside him collapsed in a heap; the horse with a most dolorous groan, the man--Saxelby, a fine young fellow of his own troop--with a gasping cry, his leg shorn clean off at the knee. Jim's heart went right down into his stomach for a moment as the blood spirted over him, and he felt deadly sick. His first impulse was to jump down and help poor Saxelby, but he feared for himself if he did so--feared he would fall in a heap alongside him and perhaps not be able to get up, for he felt as weak as water. He clenched his teeth till they ached. He dropped his bridle hand on to his holster to keep it from shaking, and clasped his horse so tightly with his knees that he resented it and began to fret and curvet. Jim bent over and patted him on the neck, and two troopers got down and carried Saxelby away. The horse stopped jerking its legs and lay still, with its eyes wide and white, and its nostrils all bloody, and its teeth clenched and its lips drawn back in a horrid grin. The guns had found their range and were spitting venomously now. Half a dozen more of his men were down. He was quite sure he would be next. He thought in a whirl for a moment,--of Gracie; she would marry Jack, and all that matter would be smoothed out;--and of Mr. Eager, the dear fellow!--and his father, and he wished they had seen more of one another;--and Sir Denzil, he was not such a bad old chap after all. He thought they would be sorry for him. And Mme Beteta, he wondered---- Well, maybe he would know all about it in a minute or two. Then his heart rose suddenly right up into his head, and he was filled with a vast blazing anger at this being shot at with never a chance of a stroke in reply. If they would only let them go for those d----d Russians he would not feel so bad about it! But to be shot down like pheasants! It was not business! It was all d----d nonsense! He began to get very angry indeed. His quickened ear had caught the rattle of artillery coming up behind. But it had stopped. Why the deuce had it stopped? Why couldn't someone do something before they were all bowled over? Then at last there came a roar on their flank, and some of the newer horses kicked and danced, and Jim, staring hard at the Russians, saw a lane cleft through them where the shot had gone. He clenched his teeth now to keep in a wild hurrah. It was an odd feeling. He knew nothing about those fellows under the hill, but he hated them like sin and rejoiced in their destruction. He would have liked to slaughter every man of them with his own hand. If he had been able to get at them he would have hacked and slashed till there wasn't one left. No more balls came their way now. The guns turned on one another, and presently the Russians limbered up and retired--and it was over, and he was still alive. And then he was thankful. Jim went off in search of Saxelby and the other half-dozen wounded men, as soon as he came in, and found them trimmed up and bandaged, just starting in litters for the ships, and all very angry at being knocked out before they had had a chance. Then they crossed the Bulganak and bivouacked for the night, in grievous discomfort still from lack of tents and shortage of provisions, but strung to cheerfulness by the fact that they were really in touch with the enemy at last--triumph surely of mind over matter. Notwithstanding which, the morning disclosed another pitiful tale of deaths from cold and exposure--brave fellows who would not knock under in spite of pains and weakness, and had dragged themselves along lest they should be "out of the fun," and died silently where they lay for lack of the simple necessities of life. Rightly or wrongly the blame fell on the commissaries, and the dead men's comrades flung them curses hot enough to fire a ship. For meeting the Russians in fair fight was one thing, and altogether to their liking; but this lack of foresight and provision took them below the belt in every sense of the word, and was like an unexpected blow from the fist of one's backer. CHAPTER XLVII ALMA At noon next day they came to a shallow river winding between red clay banks, a somewhat undignified stream whose name they were to blazon in letters of blood on the rolls of fame--the Alma. The Russians were strongly entrenched on the hills on the other side and in great force, and every man knew that here was a giant struggle and glory galore for the winners. It was a great fight, but it was mostly rifle and bayonet and the grim reaction from those deadly slow months at Varna. And the Engineers had little to do but watch the others, as they dashed through the muddy stream, and climbed the roaring heights in the face of death, and captured the great redoubt at dreadful cost. And the cavalry were miles away on the left, covering the attack on that side from five times their own weight of Russian cavalry, who never came on, and so they had nothing to do and were disgusted at being out of it. So neither Jack nor Jim were in that fight, but afterwards they climbed the hill with separate searching parties and met by chance in the redoubt on top, and looked on sights unforgettable, which made a deep and grim impression on them both. It was the first battlefield they had ever set eyes on, and they spoke very little. "God! Isn't it awful?" said Jack through his teeth, as they stood looking down the hill towards the river flowing unconcernedly to the sea, just as it had done when they came to it at noon, just as it had done all through the dreadful uproar when men were falling in their thousands. The ground between was strewn and heaped and piled with dead bodies. But Jim had no words for it. He could only shake his head. While they were still gazing awe-stricken at the ghastly piles of broken men, among which the litter-men were prowling in anxious search for wounded, a group of brilliantly clad officers came up from the French camp, where the rows of comfortable white tents set English teeth grinding with envy and chagrin. And among them they saw Prince Napoleon and Colonel Carron. Their father saw them in the redoubt and came up at once. "Glad to see you still alive, boys," he said cheerfully. "Hot work, wasn't it?" "Awful, sir. Were you in it?" asked Jack. "Oh yes. We came across there"--pointing to a burnt-out village on the river-bank--"and then up here. Here's where we got the guns up to relieve Bosquet. We've paid pretty heavily, but it's shown them what we're made of. You weren't in it, I suppose, Jim?" "No sir; we were waiting over yonder for some cavalry to come on, but they wouldn't. Worse luck!" "Your chances will come, my boy. And you, Jack?" "We had very little to do, sir. We were away in the rear there." "Your men did splendidly. Canrobert was just saying that he doubted if our men would have managed that frontal business as yours did." "They paid," said Jim. "And are still paying," said the Colonel, as they stood watching the French ambulances, with their trim little mules, trotting off towards the coast, carrying a dozen wounded men in quick comfort, while the English litter-men crept slowly along on their jogging four-mile tramp, which proved the death of many a sorely wounded man and purgatory to the rest. "Truly, your arrangements are not up to the mark." said Colonel Carron. "How have you stood the nights? Somebody was saying you had no tents." "Last night was the first time we've had any, and they've all been sent on board again," said Jack gloomily. "That's too bad. It's hard on the men." "We lose a number every night with the cold." "Bad management---- The Prince is off. I must go. Good luck to you, boys! I shall come over and look you up from time to time. Keep out of mischief!" And he waved a cheery hand and was gone, and the boys went down among the ghastly piles to do what they could. But it was heart-breaking work; the total of misery was so immense, and the means of alleviation so feeble in comparison. The French wounded were safe on board ship within an hour after they were picked up. It was two days before all the English were disposed of, though every man who could be spared set his hand to the work. In the afternoon of the second day after the fight, Jim was going wearily down the hill, after such a time among the dead and wounded as had made him almost physically sick. All the French, and he thought almost all the English, wounded had been seen to. The Russians had necessarily been left to the last. As he passed a grisly pile he thought he caught a faint groan from inside it, and set to work at once hauling the dead men apart, with tightened face and repressed breath. The job was neither pleasant nor wholesome, but there was no one else near at hand and he must see to it. Right at the bottom of the pile, soaked with the blood of those who had fallen on top of him, he came upon a young fellow, an officer, just about his own age. And as he dragged the last body off him, he opened his eyes wearily and groaned. Jim put his pocket-flask to the white lips, and the other sucked eagerly and a touch of colour came into his face. He lay looking up into the face bending over him, and then his chest filled and he sighed. "Where are you hurt?" asked Jim, expecting no answer, but full of sympathy. "Leg and side," said the wounded one, in English with an accent. "I'll fetch a litter." "Stay moment. Only dead men--two days. Good to see a live one. . . . Did you win?" "Yes, we won, but at very heavy cost." "Glad you won." "That doesn't sound good," said honest Jim, with disfavour. "You would feel same. Hate Russians. . . . Pole." "I see," said Jim, whose history was nebulous, but equal to the occasion. "Forced to fight," said the wounded man. "Done with it now." "Take some more rum--it'll warm you up; and I'll find a litter for you." "Have you bread? I starve. . . ." "I'll see if I can get you something." "Open his roll." And the wounded man turned his eyes hungrily on the nearest dead body. And Jim, opening the linen roll which each Russian carried, found a lump of hard black bread and placed it in his hand. "I thank. You will come again?" asked the young Pole anxiously. "I'll come back all right, as soon as I've found a litter." And he left the wounded man feebly gnawing his chunk of black bread like a starving dog. He found a litter in time, and the weary eyes brightened a trifle at sight of him. "You are good," he murmured. "You save me." And Jim, thinking what he would like himself in similar case, went along by his side till they found a doctor resting for a moment, and begged him to examine the new-comer. "His leg must go. The body wound will heal," said the medico. "Seems to have had a bad time. Where did you find him?" "I found him under fifteen dead men." "Then he owes you his life." "Yes, yes," said the wounded one "I am grateful. Take the leg off." "He's a Pole, forced to fight against his will," said Jim, at the doctor's astonishment. "I see"--as he screwed a tourniquet on the shattered limb. "We're sending all their wounded to Odessa." At which the young man groaned. "Hold his hand," said the doctor. "He's pretty low." And Jim held the twitching hand while the knife and the saw did their work, and was not sure whether it was his hand that jumped so or the other's. The other hand suddenly lay limp in his, and he thought the man was dead. "Fainted," said the doctor. "He's been bleeding away for two days." He came round, however, and tried to smile when he saw Jim still there. And presently he murmured: "I thank." And then he looked down at his hand all caked with blood, and tried feebly to get a ring off his finger. "Take!" he said. But Jim shook his head. "Yes, yes." And he wrestled feebly again with the ring. "Better humour him," said the doctor. "It'll do him more good than to refuse." So Jim worked the ring off for him, and slipped it on his own finger, and the wounded man said "I thank!" and lay back satisfied. Jim saw him carried down to the boat and wished him luck, and then strode away to his own quarters, which consisted of a seat on the side of a dry ditch--dry at present, but which would be soaking with dew before morning--with his brown horse picketed alongside, as hungry and low-spirited as his master. Jim looked at his ring and thought of its late owner, and hoped he would get over it, and wondered how soon his own turn would come. For the thing that amazed him was that any single man could come alive out of a fight like that at the Alma. His horse nuzzled hungrily at him, and he suddenly bethought him of the black bread in the Russians' linen rolls. He jumped up, tired as he was, and trode away to the battlefield again, and came back with chunks of hard tack and black bread enough to make his brown and some of his neighbours happy for the night. Marshal St. Arnaud, sore sick as he was, was eager to press on at once after the discomfited Russians. But "an army marches on its stomach," and it was two full days before Lord Raglan could make a move. Those two lost days might have changed the whole course of the campaign, and saved many thousands of lives. The defective organisation of the British transport and commissariat slew more than all the Russian bullets. On the third morning, as the sun rose all the trumpets, bugles, and drums in the French army pealed out from the summit of the captured hill, and presently the allied armies were _en route_ again for Sebastopol. The next day, however, saw a sudden change of plans and a most remarkable happening. The allied chiefs gave up the idea of attacking the town from the north, on which side all preparations had been made for their reception, and decided, instead, to march right round and take it on its undefended south side. And so began that famous flank march to Balaclava which was to turn all the defences of the fortress. And on that selfsame day the Russian chief, Menchikoff, decided to march out of Sebastopol into the open, and so turn the flank of the allies. And the two lines of march crossed at Mackenzie's farm. The Russians had got out first, however, and it was only their rear-guard upon whom the English chanced, and immediately fell, and put to rout. They chased them for several miles and took their military chest and great booty of baggage which, being left to the men as lawful prize, cheered them greatly. When Jim got back from the chase the new owners were offering for sale dazzling uniforms, and decorations, and handsome fur coats, at remarkable prices. He had no yearning for Russian uniforms or decorations, but as he suffered much from the cold of a night he bought two of the wonderful coats for five pounds each, and, when they halted, he sought out Jack and made him happy with one of them. CHAPTER XLVIII JIM'S RIDE Next day the allied forces crossed the Tchernaya by the Traktir Bridge and marched on Balaclava. And here Jim's threefold reputation as a hard rider, the best-mounted man in his regiment, and a man who did, brought him a chance of fresh distinction. In abandoning the coast and marching inland, the army had cut itself off from its base of supply--the fleet. It was urgently necessary that word should be sent to the admirals to move on round the coast past Sebastopol and meet the army in its new quarters. Just as they were crowding over Traktir Bridge a rider came galloping up with dispatches for Lord Raglan--Lieutenant Maxse of the _Agamemnon_. He had left Katcha Bay that morning, and offered at once to ride back with orders for the fleet to move on. A brave offer, for the country was all wild forest and lonely plain and valley, infested with prowling bands of Cossacks, and the night was falling. An hour later Maxse, on a fresh horse, was galloping back to the coast. "If anything should happen to him," said the Chief, "we shall be in a hole." And he sent for Lord Lucan. "I want your best horseman and your best horse, Lucan, and a man who will put a thing through." "That's young Carron of the Hussars, sir." And Jim, paraded for inspection on his big brown horse--quite filled out and frolicsome with its load of black bread the day but one before--seemed likely in the Chief's eyes. "Mr. Carron," he said. "I have a dangerous task for you. I am told you are the man for it. Lieutenant Maxse left here an hour ago for the ships. They must get round at once and meet us at Balaclava. Here is a copy of the order. If Maxse has not got through you will deliver it to Admiral Dundas in Katcha Bay. Don't lose a moment. The welfare of the army depends on you." Jim saluted. "How will you go?" "Mackenzie's farm and the post-road, sir." "You are armed? You may meet Cossacks." "Sword and revolver. I shall manage all right." "Come round with the ships and report to me at Balaclava." Jim saluted once more, and spurred away. The distance was only some twenty miles, an easy two hours' ride. The dangers lay in the hostile country and the prowling Cossacks, for in the long defile from the farm to the Belbec, and then again in the broken country between the Belbec and the Katcha, there were a thousand places where a rider might be picked off from the hill-sides and never catch a glimpse of his adversary. However, it was no good thinking of all that, and Jim was not one to cross bridges before he came to them, or to meet trouble half-way. His big brown had a long, easy stride which was almost restful to his rider, and Jim had a seat that gave his horse the least possible inconvenience, and between them was completest sympathy and friendship. And as to the dark, unless he absolutely ran into Cossacks he reckoned it all in his favour. It kept down his pace indeed, but at the same time it hid him from the watchful eyes on the hill-sides and the leaden messages they might have sent him. He received warm commendation for that night's ride, but, as simple matter of fact, he enjoyed it greatly, and had no difficulties beyond keeping the road in the dark and making sure it was the right one. Plain common-sense, however, bade him always trend to the left when cross-roads offered alternatives, and after leaving Mackenzie's he never set eyes on a soul till he found the Belbec an hour before midnight, and rode up through the wreathing mists of the river-bed to the highlands beyond. The dew was drenching wet and the night cold, but he got into his big fur coat, which had been rolled up behind his saddle, and suffered not at all. His thoughts ran leisurely back to them all at home,--Gracie, and Mr. Eager, and his grandfather, and Lord Deseret, and Mme Beteta, and his father's amazing revelation concerning her. He wondered whether they would ever learn the truth, and if not, how the tangle would be straightened out. He thought dimly, but with no great fear now, that they would probably both be killed if there was much fighting such as that at the Alma, so there was no need to trouble about the future. Charlie Denham, indeed, never ceased to philosophise that it was always the other fellow who was going to be killed; but if every one thought that, it was evident, even to Jim's unphilosophic mind, that there must be a flaw somewhere. Anyway, when a man's time came he died, and there was no good worrying oneself into the blues beforehand. A hoarse challenge broke suddenly on his musings, and a darker blur on the road just in front resolved itself into half a dozen horsemen. They had heard his horse's hoofs, and waited in silence to see who came. He had pulled the hood of his fur coat right up over his busby, and the heavy folds covered him almost down to the feet. He decided in a moment that safety lay in silence, so he rode straight on, waved a hand to the doubtful Cossacks, and was past Telegraph Hill before they had done discussing him. He wondered if Maxse had met them and how he had fared. An hour later he forded the Katcha and turned down the valley towards the sea. Boats were still plying between the sandy beach and the ships. The Jacks eyed him for a moment with suspicion, but gave him jovial welcome when they found that only his outer covering was Russian. Lieutenant Maxse had just been put aboard the _Agamemnon_, he found, and a minute or two later he was following him. So Jim had the pleasure of steaming past the sea-front of Sebastopol to Balaclava Bay, where they found the ancient little fort on the heights bombarding the British army with for tiny guns. They brought it to reason with half a dozen round shot, and presently steamed cautiously in round the awkward corners, and dropped anchor opposite the house where Lord Raglan had taken up his quarters. CHAPTER XLIX AMONG THE BULL-PUPS And now force of circumstances left the cavalry stranded high and dry, with nothing to do but range the valley now and again in quest of enemies who never showed face, and growl continually at the untowardness of their lot. They had indeed had little enough to do so far, but always in front of them had been the hope of active employment and its concomitant rewards. But what use could cavalry be in a siege? And had they lived through all those hideous months at Varna, and come across the sea only to repeat them outside Sebastopol? They grizzled and growled, and expressed their opinions on things in general with cavalier vehemence. And the worst of it was that the other more actively employed arms were inclined to twit them with their--so far--showy uselessness. What had they done since they landed, except prance about and look pretty? Why hadn't they been out all over the country bringing in supplies? Where were they at the Alma, when hard knocks were the order of the day?--asked these others. And, indeed, among themselves they asked bitterly why they had been chained up like that and allowed to do nothing. They had held all the Russian cavalry in check, it is true; but that was but a negative kind of thing, and what they thirsted for was an active campaign and glory. But now it was Jack's turn, and the Engineers were in their element. Not a man among them but devoutly hoped the place would hold out to the utmost and give them their chance. It was almost too good to be true--an actual siege on the latest and most approved principles! And they tackled it with gusto, and were planning lines and trenches in their minds' eyes before their tents were up. As a matter of fact, tents were still things to be looked forward to with such small faith in commissaries and transport as still lingered in their sorely tried bodies, for it had long since left their hearts; food was so scarce that for a couple of days one whole division of the army had tasted no meat; and every morning the first sorrowful duty of the living was to gather up those who had died in the night of cold and cholera, with bitter commination of those whom they considered to blame. However, all things come in time to those who live long enough, and the tents came up from the ships at last, and rations began to be served out with something like regularity. The busy Engineers traced their lines, and, as soon as it was dark each night, the digging parties went out and set to work on the trenches, and the siege was fairly begun, and Jack and his fellows were as busy and happy as bees. But Jim, if officially relegated a comparative inaction, found no lack of employment. He was intensely interested in all that was going on. He rode here and there with messages to this chief and that. For when he reported himself to Lord Raglan at Balaclava, according to instructions, his lordship was pleased to compliment him in his quiet way. "You did well, Mr. Carron," he said. "I am glad you both got through safely. Much depended on you. By the way, you know my old friend Deseret, I think." "Lord Deseret was very kind to me in London, sir." "I remembered, after you left last night, that he had spoken to me of you. And surely," said his lordship musingly, "I must have known your father. Is he still alive?" Jim hesitated for half a second, and then said simply: "Yes, sir; he is on the staff of Prince Napoleon." "With Prince Napoleon?" said his lordship, and stared at him in surprise. And then the old story came back to his mind. "Ah, yes! I remember. Well, well! . . . And I suppose you're growling like the rest at having nothing to do?" "We would be glad to have more, sir." "I'm afraid it won't be a very lively time for the cavalry. But you seem to like knocking about. I must see what I can do to keep you from getting rusty." "I shall be very grateful, sir." And thereafter many an odd job came his way, for the allied lines, from the extreme French left at Kamiesch Bay in the west, to the British right above the Inkerman Aqueduct on the north-east, covered close upon twenty miles, and within that space there was enough going on to keep a man busy in simply acting as travelling eye to the Commander-in-Chief--in carrying his orders and bringing him reports. And this was business that suited Jim to the full. He saw everything and was constantly meeting everybody he knew, and many besides. He was galloping home from the French lines one evening, through the sailors' camp by Kadikoi, just above the gorge that runs down to Balaclava. The jolly jacks were revelling in their lark ashore, and showed it in the labelling of their tents with fanciful names. Jim had already seen "Albion's Pets," "Rule Britannia," and "Windsor Castle," and every time he passed he looked for the latest ebullitions of sailorly humour. This time, to his great joy, he found "Britain's Bull-Pups," and "The Bear-Baiters," and "The Bully Cockytoos." The Bull-Pups and the Bear-Baiters and the Bully Cockytoos, and all the rest, fifty in a line, were hauling along a Lancaster gun, with a fiddler on top fiddling away for dear life, and they all bellowing a chantie that made him draw rein to listen to it. The bands in the French camp were playing merrily as he left it, but in the British lines there was not so much as a bugle or a drum, and the men were feeling it keenly. So the rough chorus struck him pleasantly, and he stopped to hear it out. When the gun was up to their camp, the men cast loose and began to foot it merrily to the music, just to show what a trifle a Lancaster gun was to British sailormen. And Jim, as he sat laughing at their antics and enjoying them hugely, suddenly caught sight of a familiar face. Not one of the dancers, but one who stood looking on soberly--it might even he sombrely, Jim could not be sure. He jumped off his horse and led him round. "Why, Seth, old man!" he said, clapping the broad shoulder in friendly delight. "What brings you here?" And young Seth turned and faced him, and had to look twice before he knew him. "Ech--why, it's Mester Jim!" he said slowly. "Of course it is. And but for you he wouldn't be here, and he never forgets it. But how do you come to be here, Seth?" "I come with the rest to fight the Roosians, Mester Jim." "I wish they'd give us a chance, but it's going to be all long bowls, I'm afraid." But there was that to be said between them which was not for other ears. The tars had watched the meeting with much favour, for greetings so friendly between officer and man were not often seen among them in those days, though more possible between sailormen than in the army. When they saw Jim slip his arm through Seth's and draw him along with him, they started a lusty cheer. "Three cheers for young Fuzzy-cap! Hip--hip!" And Jim grinned jovially and waved his hand in reply. And Seth Rimmer, in spite of the taciturnity which they could not understand, was a man of note among them from that day. "Did you hear all about your poor old dad, Seth?" asked Jim quietly. "Yes, Mester Jim. Th' passon told me all about it." "It was a grievous thing. But I don't think I was to blame, Seth. He would go out and ramble about. I did all I could for him." "I know. I know." "And Kattie, Seth! _You_ surely never thought I had anything to do with that matter?" "No, Mester Jim. I knowed it wasn't you." "Do you know who it was, Seth? I would hold him to account if ever I got the chance. But she would not tell me." "You found her?" asked Seth, with a start that brought them both to a stand. "She came to me in the street the very last night before we left----" Seth gave out something mixed up of groan and curse. "She said she had heard we were going in the morning, and she wanted to say good-bye." "Th' poor little wench! . . . What did you say to her Mester Jim?" "I was knocked all of a heap at meeting her like that, Seth. But when I got my wits back I did the only thing I could. I took her to a lady friend who had been very kind to me, and she promised to look after her. And I am quite sure she will. If Kattie only stops with her I think she may be very comfortable there." "It were good o' yo'. . . ." And then, reverting to Jim's former question, "I know him," he said hoarsely, "an' when th' chance comes----" And the big brown hands clenched as though a man's throat were between them. And Jim thought he would not like to be that man. "I'm afraid I feel like that too, Seth, though I suppose--I don't know. Poor little Kattie!" And presently he wrung the big brown hands, that were meant for better work than wringing evil throats, and swung up on to his horse. "I must get along, Seth. But I'm often through here, and we'll be meeting again. We're about two miles out over yonder, you know. Good-bye!" And he galloped off to his quarters. He frequently rode across of a night for a chat with Jack, but Jack was a mighty busy man these days, and nights too. He had an inordinate craving for trenches and gabions and facines and parallels and approaches, and could talk of little else, and confessed that he dreamed of them too. And if he could have accomplished as much by day as he did by night, when he was fast asleep--though as a matter of fact it ought to be the other way, for most of the actual work had to be done under cover of darkness and he slept when he could--Sebastopol would have been taken in a week. As the trenches began to develop, he would take Jim through them for a treat, and explain all that was going on with the greatest gusto. And at times Jim found it no easy matter to conceal the fact that it was all exceedingly raw and dirty, though he supposed it was the only way of getting at them. And at times shot and shell would come plunging in over the sand-bags and gabions, and then every man would fling himself on his face in the dirt till the flying splinters had gone, and Jim would go home and try to brush himself clean--for Joyce had died of cholera two days out from Varna--and would thank his stars that he belonged to a cleaner branch of the service. Still, it was fine to watch the shells come curving out from the town with a flash like summer lightning, and hear them singing through the darkness, and see the fainter glare of their explosion; and when he had nothing else on hand he went along to the trenches almost every night to watch the fireworks. CHAPTER L RED-TAPE The siege of Sebastopol was quite out of the ordinary run, and about as curious a business as ever was. For one usually thinks of a besieged town as surrounded by the enemy and cut off from the rest of the world. And, that was never the case with Sebastopol. The allied forces drew a ring round the south and east sides of the town, and the sea guarded it on the west, but by way of the north and north-east the Russians had free passage at all times, and could introduce fresh troops and provisions and all the material of war at will, and so the defence was in a state of continuous renewal, and fresh blood was always pouring in to replace the terrible waste inside. By those open ways also they sent out army after army to creep round behind the besiegers, to harry and annoy them, and this it was that led to some of the fiercest battles of the campaign. The knowledge also that great bodies of Russians were at large in their rear, and only waiting, opportunity to attack them, kept the Allies perpetually on the strain, and hurried musters in the dark to repel, at times imaginary, assaults were of almost nightly occurrence. Failing complete investment--when starvation, added to perpetual and irretrievable wastage, must in time have brought about a surrender--the Allies could only pound away with their big guns, and hope to wear down the heart and pride of Russia by the sheer dogged determination to pound away till there was nothing left to pound at. The later attempts to breach and storm, to which all these gigantic efforts were directed, were but a part of the same policy. Russia was to be crushed by the combined weight of England and France and Turkey, and, later on, Sardinia. It was very British, very bull-doggy, but it was also terribly wasteful and costly all round. The Russians had expected the attack on the north side, and had made it almost impregnable. When, by their flank march, the Allies came round to the south, the town was absolutely open and unprotected, the streets running up into the open country. Before the Allies could gird up their loins for a spring, earthworks and forts had sprung up in front of them as though by magic, and the only means of approach was by the slow, hard way of parallels, trenches, and zigzags. And all this it was that made up the Crimean War. But our boys were busy, and so kept happy in spite of discomforts without end. Every single thing the army heeded, either for fighting or for sheer and simplest living, had to be brought to it by sea, and the one door of entrance was tiny Balaclava Bay--with the natural consequence that Balaclava Bay became inextricably blocked with shipping discharging on to its narrow shores, and its shores became inextricably piled with masses of war material and stores, with no means of transport to the camps six and eight and ten miles away. And so confusion became ten times confounded, and brave men languished and died for want of the stores that lay rotting down below. Add to this the fact that every British official's hands were bound round and round, and knotted and thrice knotted, with coils of stiffest red tape, and no man dared to lift a finger unless a dozen superiors in a dozen different departments had authorised him to do so, in writing, on official forms, with every "t" crossed and every "i" carefully dotted, and you have the simple explanation of the horrors of the Crimea. Our own red-tape and sheer stupidity wrought far more evil on our men than all the efforts of Menchikoff and Gortschakoff with all the might of Russia at their backs. The trenches wormed their zigzags slowly down the slope, towards the Russian lines, and never was there more zealous zigzager than Jack. The Russians poured shot and shell on him and his fellow moles; but they dug on, mounted their heavy guns, and dosed him with pointed Lancaster shells, which were new to him, and impressed him most unpleasantly. And Jim galloped to and fro and worried more over his horse's feeding than his own, and kept very fit and well. He went over now and again to the Heavies, to see how George Herapath and Ralph Ruben were standing it, and found them generally on the growl at having so little to do and none too much to eat, and they all condoled with one another, and expressed themselves freely on such congenial subjects as the Transport and Commissariat Departments, and felt the better for getting it out. Letters from home came with fair regularity now, and they swapped their news and had time to write long letters back--except Jack, whose whole soul was in his trenches, and who was too tired and dirty for correspondence when he came out of them. So upon Jim devolved the duty of keeping Carne and Wyvveloe posted as to the course of the war, and his painfully produced scrawls were valued beyond their apparent merits by the anxious ones at home, and treasured as things of price. For Gracie, at all events, said to herself, when each one came, "It may be the last we shall ever get from him"; and, "They may both be lying dead at this moment. This horrible, horrible war!" But she wrote continually to both of them; and if the dreadful feeling that she might only too possibly be writing to dead men was with her as she wrote, she took good care that no sign of It appeared in her letters. They were brave and cheery letters, telling of the little happenings of the neighbourhood, and always full of the hope of seeing them again soon. And if she cried a bit at times, as she wrote and thought of it all, be sure no tear-spots were allowed to show. They had quite enough to stand without being worried with her fears. And she prayed for them every night and every morning with the utmost devotion, though, indeed, at times she remained long on her knees, pondering vaguely. For she knew that what must be, must be, and that her most fervent prayers could not turn Russian bullets from their destined billets--that if God saw it well to take her boys, they would go, in spite of all her asking. And so she came to commending them simply to God's good care, and to asking for herself the strength to bear whatever might come to her. When the Alma lists came out, she and the Rev. Charles scanned them with feverish anxiety, and with eyes that got the names all blurred and mixed, and hearts that beat muffled dead marches, and only let them breathe freely again when they had got through without finding what they had feared. And both of them, grateful at their own escape, thought pitifully of those whose trembling fingers, stopping suddenly on beloved names, had been the signal for broken hearts and shattered hopes and desolated lives. And, any day, that might be their own lot too; and so, like many others in those times, they went heavily, and feared what each new day might bring. Margaret Herapath spent much of her time with them, and Sir George was able to bring them news in advance of the ordinary channels. And the grim old man up at Carne read the news-sheets and the lists, which smelt of snuff when he had done with them, and was vastly polite and unconcerned about it all when Gracie and Eager went to visit him; but Kennet led somewhat of a dog's life at this time, and had to find consolation for a ruffled spirit where he could. CHAPTER LI THE VALLEY OF DEATH The Cavalry, Light and Heavy, but more especially the Light, were, as we have seen, rankling bitterly under quite uncalled-for imputation of showy uselessness, and chafing sorely at their enforced inaction during the siege operations. The campaign, so far, had offered them no opening, nor did it seem likely to do so. Moreover, forage was scarce, their horses were on short rations, and before long, unless those infernal transport people woke up, they would be padding it afoot like the toilers on the heights, who were having all the fun--such as it was--and would reap all the glory. But Fortune was kind, and sore, on them. For some days past they had, from time to time, caught the sound of distant bugles among the hills to the north and east of the valley in which their camp lay, and their hopes had been briefly stirred. It might mean nothing more, however, than the passage of reinforcements into Sebastopol, for those northern ways by Inkerman gorge were always open and impossible of closing. In front of them on the plain was a line of small redoubts occupied by Turks. Behind them on the way to Balaclava lay the 93rd Highlanders under Sir Colin Campbell. Jim Carron was awakened from a very sound sleep one morning by a lusty kick from Charlie Denham, and the information that "Lucan wanted him." Five minutes later he was pressing his horse to its utmost, with the word to Head-quarters that the Russians were pouring down the valley towards Balaclava, that they had already captured Redoubt No. 1, that the Turks could not possibly hold the others against them, and that unless our base at Balaclava was to go, the sooner the army turned out to stop them the better. Lord Raglan sped Jim on at once to French Head-quarters with the news; and as he galloped back in headlong haste lest they should be starting without him, all the camps were a-bristle and troops hurrying from all quarters to the scene of action. As he came over the hill leading down to the Balaclava road, he could see the vast bodies of, Russians pouring out of the hills, the Turks from the redoubts were running across the plain towards the long thin line of Highlanders, and the Cossacks and Lancers were in among them cutting them down as fast as they could chop. All this he saw at a glance, as he sped on to join his own men, drawn up on the left of the Heavies. And as he took his place, panting, both he and his big brown, like steam-engines, he heard the roll of the Highlanders' Miniés on the right as they broke the rush of the Russian cavalry. The next minute a great body of horsemen, brilliant in light blue and silver, topped the slope in front of the Heavies, and looked down on their Insignificant numbers as Goliath did on David. He saw old Scarlett haranguing his men, and then with a roar--he knew just how they felt!--like starving tigers loosed at last on long-desired prey--the Greys and Enniskillens dashed at them and through them, and wheeled, and through again, first line, second line, and out at the rear. And then, as the broken first line gathered itself again to swallow the tigers, the rest of the Heavies, the Royals, and Dragoons shot out like a bolt and scattered them to the winds. And Jim and all about him yelled and cheered in a frenzy--but down below it all was a bitter sense of regret at being out of it. Truly it seemed as though malignant fate had the Light Brigade on her black books and was bent on defrauding them of their rightful chances. By this time the allied troops were coming up from their distant camps, and the rout of the Russian horse enabled them to take up their positions in the valley. It looked like being a pitched battle. All hearts beat high, and none higher than those of the Hussars and Light Dragoons. Their chance might come after all. They twitched in their saddles. Give them only half a chance and they would show the world what was in them. And it came. Messengers sped in haste to and from the Chief, on the heights above, to the various commanders down below. And then came young Nolan of the 15th, Lord Raglan's own aide, his horse in a white sweat, himself aflame. He spoke hurriedly to Lord Lucan, and Jim saw his lordship's eyebrows lift in astonishment. He seemed to question the order given. Nolan waved a vehement arm towards the Russians. Lord Lucan spoke to Lord Cardigan, and his brows too went up. Every tense soul among them, whose eyes could see what was passing, watched as if his life depended on the outcome. Then in a moment the word rang out, and they were off. Where? He had not the remotest idea nor the slightest care. Enough for him that they were off and that they meant business. And away in front of them, where he had no earthly right to be, since he did not belong to them and had only brought a message, went young Nolan, waving them on with insistent arm. They swept along at a gallop in two long lines, and the rush and the rattle got into Jim's blood, and the blood boiled up into his head, and he thought of nothing--nothing, but the fact that their chance had come at last--least of all of fear for himself. Fear? There were Russians ahead there!----them all!--and every faculty in him, every nerve and muscle, every drop of boiling blood, every desire of his mind and heart and soul rushed on ahead to meet them. He wanted at them, he wanted to hew and thrust and kill. He wanted blood. Head down, forward a bit, sword-hilt fitting itself to his hand as it had never done before, knees so lightly tight to the saddle that he could feel the great brown shoulders working like machinery inside them, a glance forward from under his busby and an impression of a vast multitude of men--and the roar and crash of numberless guns in front and on both flanks--a scream just ahead, and young Nolan's horse came galloping round at the side, with young Nolan still in the saddle--but dead--his chest ripped open by a shell. Men were falling all round now, men and horses hurling forward and down in rattling lumbering heaps. Jim's face was cast-iron, his jaw a vice. Not the Jim we have known--this! His dæmon--nay, his demon, for he had but one thought, and that was to kill. No man who knew him would have known him. Belching guns in front. Shot and bullets coming like hail. Men falling fast. Lines all shattered and anyhow. But the thick white smoke and the venomous yellow-red spits of flame were close now, and so far it had not struck him as wonderful that he still rode while so many had gone down. He had felt hot whips across his face, something had tipped his busby to the back of his head, several other somethings had plugged through the flying jacket which covered his bridle arm. Then he had to swerve suddenly from the smoking black muzzle of a gun, and he was among flat-caps and gray-coats, and his sword was going in hot quick blows, and every blow bit home. A big gunner struck heavily at him with a smoking mop. He had an honest brown hairy face and blue eyes. The sweep of Jim's sword took him in the neck, and . . . . An infantryman behind had his gun-stock at his chest to fire. Jim drove the big brown at him, the man went down in a heap, arms up, and the gun went off as he fell. Then it was all wild fury and confusion. Deseret's sword was wonderful, as light as a lath and as sure as death. He was through the smoke, fighting the myriads behind--singlehanded it seemed to him. --!--!--!--!--he could not tackle the whole Russian army! He whirled the big brown round and plunged back through the smoke, saw the others riding home, and bent and dashed away after them. He was almost the last. A thunder of hoofs on his flank, and a vicious lance-head came thrusting in between his right arm and his body. His sword swept round backwards--and the Lancer's empty horse raced neck-and-neck with his own, its ears flat to its head, its eyes white with fear. Then the guns behind opened on them again, and bullets came raining in on each side as well--on Russian Lancers and British Hussars and Dragoons alike. Jim was swaying in his saddle, he did not know why, But dashing at those guns was one thing, and retiring was another, and the hell-fire had burnt out of him and left him spent. He saw the long unbroken lines of the Heavies sweeping up to meet and cover them, and wondered dizzily if he could hold on till they came. There were Lancers ahead of him, thrusting at his men as they rode. A whole bunch of them went down in a heap just in front of him, riddled by the murderous fire of their comrades behind, and he lifted the brown horse over them as if they had been a quick-set. The Heavies parted to let them through, and the splendid fellow on the thundering big horse at the side there, who stood high in his stirrups cheering on his men, was good old George. There was no mistaking him, he was such a size and weight. A couple of Lancers, who had been making for Jim, swerved to face the new attack and made for George instead, bold in the advantage of their longer reach. And Jim would have been after them to equalise matters but that it was all he could do to keep his seat. He saw George rise in his saddle, with his great sabre swinging to the blow. Then a whirling blast of canister shore them all down, and they lay in a heap, men and horses riddled like colanders. And Jim, with a sob, clung to the pommel of his saddle and let the brown horse carry him home. Jack had just got up to camp from night duty in the trenches when the alarm sounded in the valley, and he made his way with the rest to the edge of the plateau to see what was going on. When he saw the cavalry drawn up for action he hurried down the hill as fast as he could go, hung spell-bound halfway at the terrible and amazing sight below, and then tumbled on with a lump in his throat to learn the worst, as the broken riders came reeling back in twos and threes. It was he lifted Jim out of his saddle, and found it all sticky with blood from the lance-thrust in his side. His face was streaming from a graze along the scalp, and he had a bullet through the left shoulder--small things indeed considering where he had been. The miracle of that awful ride was, not that so many fell, but that any single man came back alive. CHAPTER LII PATCHING UP As soon as matters settled down, Colonel Carron rode over at once for news of his boy, He knew he must have been in that brilliant madness, about which every tongue in the camps was wagging, and he feared he had seen the last of him. He had some difficulty in finding what was left of the Light Brigade, for the Russians still held the lowlands in force. They had, in fact, drawn a cordon round the allied forces and were, to an extent, besieging the besiegers, and the cavalry camps had to be moved up on to the plateau. But he came at last on the handful of laxed and weary men, lying about their new quarter's, some fast asleep with their faces in their arms, while willing hands did all their necessary work for them, and every man of them still bore in him the very visible effects of that most dreadful experience. He almost feared to ask for Jim, lest it should kill his last spark of hope. "You had a terrible time," he said, to one on his knees by a big brown horse, which stood there with an occasional shiver as he applied healing ointment to its many wounds. "The whole world will ring with it." "Alt blamed foolishness, sir," growled the man--who had lost his own horse and most of his chums in the foolishness, and so was in a mighty bad humour--and lifted a casual sticky finger in recognition of the Colonel's brilliant uniform. "I'm afraid it was, but you did it nobly. Can you tell me anything of Cornet Carron? Was he in it?" "In it and out of it, sir, thanks be! He's too good a sort to lose. He's inside there. This is his horse I'm patching up, 'cos he wouldn't lie quiet till I done it." And the Colonel dived into the tent with a grateful heart, and found Jim fast asleep on a hastily made couch. His wounds had been bound up, and there were even mottled white streaks on his face where a hasty sponge had made an attempt to clean it. But he was sleeping soundly, and it was the very best medicine he could have. The Colonel went quietly out again to wait. He gave the horse-mender a very fine cigar, and lit it for him along with his own. "Bully!" said the man. "Best thing I've tasted since I left Chelsea." "Your losses must be very heavy." "Under two hundred at roll-call, sir, and we went in over six." "Awful!" "Set of ---- fools we were, sir; but we showed 'em what was in us, an' now mebbe they won't talk about us any more as they have bin doen." "They'll talk about you to the end of time," said the Colonel heartily. "That's all right, sir. That's a different kind of talk." "We knowed it was all a mistake," he went on, with his head on one side, as he laid on artistic patches of ointment; "but we'd bin aching for a slap at the beggars, just to put a stopper on the mouth-wagglers nearer home. And we _did_ slap 'em too, by----!"--and he lost himself for a moment in admiring contemplation of their prowess. "But they're vermin, them Roosians! Shot down their own men when we got all mixed up with 'em coming home, so they say." "Yes, they did that. We saw it all from the heights." "Well, that's not what I call right, sir." "It was barbarous and damnable. No civilised nation would do such a thing." "That's it, sir--barbarous and damnable and no civilised nation would do such a thing." And he said it over and over to himself, and gained considerable éclat by the use of it in discussion with his fellows later on. "Jackson!" said a drowsy voice inside the tent. "How's Bob? And what the deuce are you preaching about?" And the brown horse gave a whuffle at sound of the voice. "That's it. Thinks more of his hoss than he does of himself," said Jackson, with a wink at the Colonel. "Bob's patching up fine, sir. He's a good bit ripped up, but no balls gone in, s'far as I can see. He'll be ready for you, sir, by time you're ready for him, I should say. Gentleman called to see you, sir." "My dear lad," said the Colonel, sitting down by his side on a stained-red saddle. "I am grateful for the sight of you. We doubted if one of you would come back alive." "I don't know that we expected to, sir. But we hadn't time to think about it." "Whose mistake was it? Lucan's?" "I don't think so, sir," he said thoughtfully, as he strove to recall it all. "I remember the look that came on his face when Nolan brought him the order. . . . I think both he and Cardigan knew there was something wrong. But Nolan was hot to have us go----" "Is it true that he and Lucan were not on good terms?" "I don't know anything about that, sir. There's so much talk. He's dead, anyway. His horse came galloping back with him still in the saddle and all his chest ripped open. It was horrid." "He had no earthly right to go with you. There was some strong talk about it up there. A brave fellow, from all accounts, but hot-headed. . . . I'm going to take you to my quarters, my boy. We want you on your legs again as soon as possible." "All right, sir. I don't think it's much. A rip or two here and there and some bullet-grazes. And the doctor's patched me up nicely." "It's a wonder there's anything left to patch." "You'll bring old Bob along too?" "Oh yes, we'll take you both together. I'm glad it's in life you're not to be divided, not in death." "He went like a bird," said Jim. And then, as the recollection of it all came back on him--the belching guns, the hairy brown gunner, the venomous Lancers, George Herapath,--"My God!" he said softly; "I wonder we ever got back at all." CHAPTER LIII THE FIGHT IN THE FOG In the comparative luxury of Colonel Carron's quarters, which were far beyond anything he could have got in the English camps, Jim pulled round rapidly. He was in the best of health, his wounds showed every intention of healing readily, and the Colonel saw to it that he lacked nothing. He found himself, somewhat to his confusion, something of a lion there, and never lacked company anxious to discuss with him the details of that mad ride up the Valley of Death and back again. His French visitors were unanimous in their grave disapproval and admiration; and Jack, whenever he could get away from his trenches for a chat with the invalid, reported the same feeling everywhere. Jack himself had had a hand in the tussle with the enemy, the day after Jim's affair. But he came out of it untouched, and made light of it. He reported Harben severely wounded, in the second charge when George Herapath was killed, and the body of the latter had been recovered and buried. It was sad to think of old George gone right out like that. He had died bravely, hastening to the rescue of his fellows, and the boys hardly dared to think of the bitter sorrow at Knoyle and Wyvveloe when the news should get there. It would, they knew, bring right home to them all the dreadful possibilities of the war, as nothing else could have done. George gone, Ralph sorely wounded. Who would be the next to go? Here, in the camps, with sudden death hurtling through the air night and day, and sickness still claiming more victims than all the whistling shells, they were getting somewhat case-hardened, and accustomed to sudden disappearances and vacant places. But, to the anxious scanners of the lists at home, each death in each small circle made all the other deaths seem more imminent, and weighted every heart with fresh fears. The zigzags and trenches in which Jack held a proprietary interest were creeping nearer and nearer to the town, and he was well satisfied with the progress made. But on one other point he and his fellow Engineers were anything but content. The right flank of their position, opposite the Inkerman cliffs and caves and very close to the road by which the Russian forces got in and out of the town, seemed to their experienced eyes but ill-defended and not incapable of assault from the lower ground. And such assault, if successful, must of necessity entail the most serious consequences on the Allies. They spoke of the matter, harped on it, but nothing was done, save the erection of a small sand-bag battery on the slope of the hill, and no guns were mounted on it lest the sight of them should tempt the Russians to come up and take them; and so--that grim and deadly hand-to-hand struggle in the early morning fog, known as the Battle of Inkerman--which, for all who were in it, for ever stripped the fifth of November of its traditional glamour, and left in its place a blind, black horror--a nightmare struggle against overwhelming odds, which seemed as if it would never come to an end. Oh, we won; we won of course--but, as we do win, at most dreadful cost which foresight might have saved. Jack was in the midst of it. He had just come up from the front, soaked with rain and caked with mud, and was making a forlorn attempt at cold breakfast before lying down, when heavy firing, in the very place where they had all feared sooner or later to hear it, took him that way in haste to see what was up. He could see nothing for the fog and rain, but a hail of shot and shell was coming from the heights across the valley and he bent and ran for the shelter of the sand-bag battery. And for many hours--and every hour an age--the sandbag battery was "absolute hell," as he told Jim that night, with a very sober face and no enthusiasm. Endless hosts of gray-coats came surging up out of the fog, yelling like demons, and fighting with their bayonets as they had never fought before. They were slaughtered in heaps, but there always seemed just as many coming on, yelling and stabbing, and our men yelled and stabbed, and the piles of dead grew high. But Jack saw very little. It was all a wild pandemonium of clashing steel and yells and groans and curses, with streaming rain above, swirling fog all round, and what felt like a ploughed field heaped with dead bodies below. He picked up a rifle and bayonet, and jabbed and smashed at the gray-coats with the rest. Through the fog he could hear the same deadly sounds all round, but whether they were winning or losing, or indeed what was going on, he had not the slightest idea. All he knew was that hosts of Russians kept on coming up in front out of the fog, that they had to be stopped at any cost, and that, from the time it was lasting, the cost must be awful. He stumbled inside the battery one time, after a bang on the head from a clubbed musket which made him sick and dizzy; and as he sat panting in a corner for a moment till his wits came back, he told Jim afterwards that he remembered wondering if he had died and this was hell; He had a flask in his pocket somewhere, and he tried to get it out, and found his left arm would not act, though he had felt nothing wrong with it till he sat down. He was drenched with rain and sweat--and blood, though he did not know it at the time. He got out his flask with his right hand at last, and took a long pull at it and felt better. Blood out, and brandy in, made his bruised head feel light and airy. He picked up his heavy rifle and bayonet and staggered out to join the wild mêlée again--one hand was better than none where every hand was needed. But he tumbled blindly down the slope and fell, and men trampled to and fro over his body till he felt all one big bruise. Then the grim dim struggle swayed off to one side for a moment, and he tried to crawl away. A tall Russian--an officer by his sword--lunged down at him as he leaped past in the fog, but the point struck on his flask and the blow only rolled him over again, and the other had not time to repeat it. And presently he crawled away up the hill, and got out of it all, and down the other side towards his own camp. It was there his father found him, late in the afternoon, spent and bruised, and weak from loss of blood, and he went off at once and got a litter, and took him away to his own tent and set him down beside Jim. For the English doctors had their hands very much more than full, and Colonel Carron, rightly or wrongly, had much greater faith in the nursing arrangements of his adopted service than in those of the British camps and field hospitals. When he came in at night, Jack was all bandaged up and as comfortable as could be expected, with bayonet wounds in his arm and shoulder, a badly bruised head, and a bodyful of contusions. "I was just thanking my stars and you, sir, that I was here, and not shivering to pieces over yonder," he said gratefully. And with reason. For the Colonel's tent was as cosy a little habitation as even the French camps could show. He had taken advantage of a slight hollow, and had had it deepened and the earth piled high like a rampart all round it, so that only its top showed above ground-level, and the keen night winds whistled over it with small effect. And inside was a cheerful little stove, and Tartar rugs, of small value perhaps, and of crude and glaring colour and design without doubt, but very homely to look at to boys who had grown accustomed to bare trodden earth. And for couches, instead of waterproof cloth and a couple of blankets spread on the ground, they had clever little bedsteads, consisting of a springy network of string inside an oblong wooden frame which rested on folding legs like a campstool. "We certainly know how to do for ourselves better than you do. Have you had anything to eat?" asked the Colonel. "Just had the best dinner we've had since--well, since we dined with you last, sir," said Jim, with great satisfaction. "I don't know what it was, but it was uncommonly good." And Jack asked anxiously: "Have you any news for us, sir? We heard they were driven back. Are any of our people left?" "A few; but your loss is very heavy. Ours also; but you bore the brunt of it over there where the work was hottest. They came up out of the town at us, just below here, while you were busy there, and they made a feint also just above Balaclava. It has been a hot day all round. I hope they'll give us time to breathe now." "I wonder what lies that fellow Menchikoff will stuff into the Tsar this time," said Jim. "He can hardly claim a victory, anyway," said his father, with a smile. "I bet he will, sir." "Did you hear anything as to casualties, sir?" asked Jack, whose mind could not get far away from that grim struggle in the fog. "Only outstanding ones. Your loss in big men is terrible. Cathcart is dead, and Strangways----" "Poor old Strangways!" "A dear old chap!" echoed Jim. ----"and Goldie,--all killed. George Brown and Codrington and Bentinck wounded, and I believe Torrens and Buller and Adams also. Some of your regiments are almost without officers. Our most serious loss is de Lourmel, down in front here, repulsing the sortie. They estimate 15,000 Russians killed and wounded----" "There seemed millions of them lying round that battery," said Jack. "They reckon there were 8,000 English and 6,000 of our men in the fight, and between 50,000 and 60,000 Russians. So that every one of our men put at least one of theirs _hors de combat_--a remarkable performance indeed." "I've been thinking, Jim," he said presently, "that a few days on the sea would set you up again quicker than anything else. What do you say?" "I'd like it immensely, sir, if it could be managed. It's awfully good of you." "You're creditable boys, you see, and I'm anxious not to lose either of you. I wonder how soon the medico would let you go, too, Jack?" And he looked at him with a practised eye. "Not for a week anyway, I expect." "I feel as if I could sleep for a week, sir. It's so mighty comfortable here," he said drowsily. "They've had such a stomachful to-day that I think they'll keep quiet for a time now. It was a great scheme and they did their best. It'll take them a little time to work up a new one. Well, we'll see about it to-morrow. You think you'll be able to sleep, Jack?" "Sure, sir, when I get the chance. Jim's been talking ever since the doctor went." CHAPTER LIV AN ALLY OF PROVIDENCE The Colonel was away on business soon after sunrise, long before the boys were awake. The Russians had had enough for the moment and gave them a quiet night. He came in while they were breakfasting, with a satisfied look on his face. "Well, Jack, how goes it? You were both sleeping like tops when I left you." "I feel like a jelly-fish on Carne beach, sir," said Jack. "I have a very great disinclination to move." "Cuts twingy?" "When I think of them, sir. At present I can think of nothing but this coffee. They give us ours green, you know, and nothing to roast or grind it with." "So I heard. I would like to see what would happen if they sent ours like that; but, _mon Dieu!_ I wouldn't like to be in their shoes! The good old fashion of hanging a commissary whenever anything went wrong was certainly effective. Jim, my boy, I've got your matter arranged all right. You are to get away to-morrow with a fortnight's leave. That should pull you round." "It's awfully good of you, sir. It's just what I'm needing." "Talking of hanging commissaries," said the Colonel, with a whimsical smile on his dark face, "it was all I could do to keep my hands off one of your pig-heads down at Balaclava yonder." And he switched his long mud-caked riding-boot with his whip as if it were the gentleman in question. "I called on Lord Raglan to ask his permission to my plan, and at first he was a bit stiff and stand-offish. But he came round and spoke very nicely of you, my boy. He wouldn't discuss that foolish charge of yours, and I did not press It. He granted you leave at once, and gave me a written order for your passage to and from Constantinople by first ship that was leaving." "But that's only the beginning of the story," he said, as Jim's mouth opened with thanks again. "I thought I'd make sure of the whole business, so I waded down to Balaclava. _Mon Dieu!_ what a travesty of a road! My poor beast was up to his knees in the filth at times. And the place itself when I got there! The harbour is a cesspool, an inferno of evil smells and pestilence, And I think the evil vapours have got into the heads of your people there, I never saw such disorder and confusion in all my life. I found the harbour master at last, and asked him for information as to sailings. But he was only the Inner Harbour Master, it seems, and he referred me to the Head of the Transport. The transport people referred me to the Naval Authorities, and a naval officer, whom I caught on the wing, told me I would have to apply to the Outer Harbour Master, who was somewhere outside among the fleet. I was consigning them all to warmer quarters than Balaclava, when I spied a man I knew--Captain Jolly of the _Carnbrea_, who had brought some of our troops over to Kamiesch Bay. He was bursting with complaints and nearly mad, said he'd like to tie the heads of all the departments in one big bag and sink them in the cesspool. He said he was sailing to-morrow with a load of sick and wounded, and he'd been up trying to get a few stoves from the official who had charge of them, as the sick men were dying of the cold. 'He'd got hundreds of them lying there,' said old Jolly, almost black in the face, 'and he wouldn't let me have one. Said I must get a requisition and fill it up and get it signed at Head-quarters. I told him the men were dying meanwhile. He could do nothing without a requisition signed at Head-quarters. I asked him to lend me some stoves. He couldn't. I asked him to sell me some. He wouldn't. I told him those men's deaths would lie at his door. He said if I would get a requisition, etc., etc. So then I--well, I told him what I thought of him and all the rest, in good hot sailor-talk, and came away.'" "I asked him if he could find room for one more on his ship, and told him about you, and, like a good fellow, he said, 'Send 'em both along and I'll make room for 'em.' So you're all right, Jim, and Jolly will make you comfortable, I know." "It's awfully good of you, sir," said Jim once more. "I'm sorry we're such a bother to you." "It's not every man can boast of two such young warriors, you see. On the whole I'm inclined to think Providence served us well in making me an ally, eh?" "Your people are very much better off than ours, sir," said Jack. "Our camp is like London on a foggy day." "And ours is like Paris," laughed the Colonel. "You see we understand the art of war better than you do, and, candidly, I think your officers are much to blame for the little interest they take in their men. Here we are all _bons camarades_, whereas your men are left entirely to themselves." "We mix in the trenches," said Jack in defence. "Of necessity, I suppose, since the space is limited. But even there you don't mix as we do." "Your music alone is worth coming for," said Jim. "It did me as much good as the doctor almost." "Yes; I notice a lot of your men come across to hear it whenever they get the chance. Great mistake shutting up your bands. The men always like music, and expect it." "You don't think I'll miss anything by going, sir?" asked Jim anxiously. "You'll gain a great deal more than you'll miss, my boy. I shouldn't wonder if we have a fairly quiet time here now." "And you'll see to my horse?" "He shall have every attention, I promise you." CHAPTER LV RETRIBUTION The following day saw Jim joggling down the miry way to Balaclava Harbour on a French mule-cacolet. He had said good-bye to the others in camp, and begged his father not to venture down into the inferno again. So the Colonel sent his own servant in charge of him, with full instructions where to find the boat Captain Jolly had promised to have waiting. The hopeless confusion in the little harbour appalled Jim, and the dank misery of the rows of wounded men awaiting shipment, with ill-bound wounds, cold blue faces, and heavy hopeless eyes, chilled him to the heart. And suddenly a familiar face caught his eye, and he stopped the mule and sat up. "Why, Seth, old chap! I'm sorry to see you like this"--for Seth's left leg was gone, and the roughly bandaged stump stuck out forlornly along the ground. "My fightin's done, Mester Jim. 'Twere a shell took it off in the battery." "When are you going over?" "God knows, We bin waiting over a week." "An' dyin' as quick as we could, just to save 'em trouble," said his neighbour. "I wish I could take you all," said Jim, and the bleached leather faces turned wistfully on him. "But I can take one, and I must take you, Seth. You understand, boys: he's from my own part, and twice he's saved my life." "That's right, sir. You take 'im home, and God bless you! Wish there was more like you! We'll die off as quick as we can, just to save 'em trouble," said the jocular one, who had lost both an arm and a leg. "If they ask where 'e is we'll tell 'em 'e's gone on in front to engage us quarters." "Lift him in," said Jim, and with the assistance of the bystanders Seth was lifted into the other side of the cacolet. An official came hurrying up with a brusque, "Now then, what's all this?" "Oh, go and hang yourself!" said Jim, sinking back wearily. "Can't you see I'm saving you trouble by taking him off your hands?" "Yes--but----" "Go ahead!" said Jim, and left the other staring after them. Captain jolly's boat was waiting for them, and presently they were swung up on to the deck of the _Carnbrea_. "So you've both come, after all?" said the hearty old fellow to Jim, who came up first. Jim explained, and the captain said he had done quite right, and they would find a corner for Seth between decks, though they were pretty full already; and then he helped him across to a seat by the wheel, and the _Carnbrea_ crept away out of the noisome harbour at once, and Jim counted no less than six dead horses, washing about in the water or cast up on the rocks, before the sweet salt air outside gave him something better to think about. They passed the warships, and a multitude of vessels hanging about outside, and the monastery perched up on the cliff, and the white lighthouse at the point, and presently, through a rift in the dull November sky, the sun shone red on Sebastopol, and set it all aglow. Here and there, on its outer edge, there were little cotton-woolly puffs of white smoke, and the plateau behind was dotted with similar ones. Captain Jolly was as good as his name and Colonel Carron's opinion of him. He made Jim very much at home, got him to tell him all he could about the great charge, and in return gave his own free and unrestrained opinions on men and things in general, with a special excursus on harbour masters and transport officials. "Too many head cooks--that's what's the matter, and not a man below 'em dare lift his little finger unless he's got permission in writing. Why, sirs, there's things rotting there in that harbour that'd be worth their weight in gold up above, but it's nobody's business to send 'em up, and there they stop. It's a crying shame and--and an infernal sin! What do you say to it all, doctor?" This was a grave, thin-faced young fellow who had joined them in the cabin for a cup of tea, and Captain Jolly had simply introduced him with a wink as Dr. Subrosa. "It's heartbreaking," he said, with deepest feeling. "We have lost thousands of good men from sheer want of the simplest necessaries, and almost every one of them might have been saved. For weeks I had not a single drug except alum! Think of it! And to see those poor fellows in torture, and dying like flies, when you knew you could save them if you could only lay your hands on the proper remedies!" "I'll be bound there's piles of all you wanted stowed away in Balaclava somewhere," said the captain. "I fear so. I came down, day after day--and it was no easy matter, I can assure you--and begged them to give me any mortal thing they had for my fevers and rheumatisms and diarrh[oe]as; and the reply was always just a parrot-like 'Haven't any--Haven't any--Haven't any,'--till I would willingly have poisoned every man who said it. They're getting calloused to it all, and, as Captain Jolly says, not a man among them dare lift his finger without a written order." "Take my own case," he said, turning to Jim. "The continuous wear and tear, and the constant sight of nothing but sickness and death and broken men, were beginning to tell on me----"' "My God, I don't wonder!" jerked Jim. "My chief on the medical staff told me I must get away for fourteen days or so or I'd break down, and he signed me the proper form for the purpose. I found it had to be countersigned by the quartermaster-general, then by the colonel of the regiment to which I was attached, then by the general of the division, and finally by the adjutant-general. It is probably still going round among them, if it hasn't got lost. I waited six days and could get no word of it, and my chief advised me to take French leave and bring back some drugs if they're to be had. I'm told there is a _Times_ man come out with money, to help make good some of the shortcomings in the official providence, and I'm hoping he'll help me. I'm actually a deserter, you see. That's why this dear old chap calls me Subrosa. My name is McLean, and I'm attached to the 63rd." "And a rare good sort he is," said Captain Jolly. "Did I tell you about my load of boots?" "No; what was it about the boots?" "Last voyage I came out with nothing but boots--more boots than you ever dreamt of, thousands and thousands of pairs. The whole ship stank of 'em--smelt like a tannery. Well, when they let us into Balaclava Harbour at last, and we were hoping to get rid of the boots----" "They're going barefoot yet, many of them," said McLean. "I know. Well, before we could begin to break cargo there came a couple of dandy fine gentlemen, with a peremptory order to take them to Constantinople as fast as we could go, and we were hustled away before you could say 'boots.' We were less than a day's sail from Constantinople, when one of the dandy men mentioned in confidence to me that the men up there were barefoot and they were going to buy boots for them." "What did you say?" asked Jim expectantly. "Well, I said more'n I should perhaps. Dandy men or no dandy men, I said, 'Why, you ---- fool, I'm loaded to the hatches with boots and nothing but boots! Why in thunder couldn't you open your mouth sooner?' 'Our instructions,' says he, 'were to buy boots, captain, not to go talking about it, and I'll thank you not to use language unbecoming a gentleman when talking to me.' And he walked away to talk to the other, who was sick in his bunk." "And what did you do?" asked Jim. "I shut off steam," said the captain, with a meaning wink, "and presently he came up again and said they'd decided we'd better turn back again and take the boots to the feet that were waiting for them. And I've no doubt they're rotting on Balaclava Quay now with all the other things. Why, if my owners did their business as the Government does its they'd be bankrupt in a year." After his cup of tea Jim went below to see that Seth was comfortably stowed. He found him, with a couple of hundred others, lying in long rows in the 'tween decks, which had been adapted to their use as far as it was possible to do so. They lay pretty close, and each man had a couple of blankets to soften the wood and keep out the cold. At one end were half a dozen wounded officers. Between them and the men had been left a space of a few feet, and that was the only distinction between them. To make room for Seth this space had been encroached upon, and he lay next the officers. As Jim rose from his knees after a short chat with him, in which he had done his best to put a little heart into the poor fellow, by assuring him that he should be properly provided for when he got home to Carne, he heard his name called weakly from the officers' quarters, and, bidding Seth good night, and promising to see him first thing in the morning, he turned that way. "Why, Harben!" he said. "I'm sorry to see you here. What is it?" "Nothing. I'm sick--very sick. Who is that they've put there?" asked Ralph, in a low eager whisper. "That? Why, it's Seth Rimmer--young Seth, you know, from down along." "He's a dangerous man that, Jim. Put him somewhere else! Take him away!" "Nonsense, old man. Seth's as true as they make 'em. Besides, he's lost a leg. And anyway I couldn't ask them to move him now. There's no room anywhere else." "He's dangerous, I tell you," said Harben, with a shiver. "He thinks . . . he thinks . . . but I haven't, Jim. I swear I haven't. I'd nothing to do with it. I swear I hadn't." "Don't you worry, old man," said Jim soothingly, for it all sounded to him like the ravings of a disturbed brain. "Can I get you anything, or make you more comfortable?" "Only take him away," whispered the other insistently. But that Jim could not do. He and Seth were only there on sufferance, as it were, and he wanted to give as little trouble as possible. Captain Jolly had insisted on giving up his own bunk to him, but had only prevailed on him to take it by asserting that he would be on deck most of the night. And the clean cold sheets were so delightful, after the threadbare amenities of the camp, that he felt as if he could sleep on for a week. Very early next morning Jim was wakened by a hand on his shoulder. He jumped up so vehemently--forgetful of the narrowness of his quarters, and with a mazy impression that the Russians were upon them--that his head was sore for days after it. "Mr. Carron," said a grave quiet voice, "there is trouble on board." And he saw that it was Dr. McLean. "Trouble? What trouble, doctor?" "We want you to explain it if you can. Slip on some things and come along." And Jim tumbled wonderingly into his jacket and trousers and followed the doctor--to the 'tween decks--to the officers' quarters. And there lay the end of a tragedy. Seth's pallet was empty. Seth himself--what had been Seth--lay partly on the body of Ralph Harben. His rough brown fingers still gripped Harben's throat, with a grip that had started the dead man's eyes almost out of his head and had prevented him uttering a sound. And Seth lay in a pool of his own blood, for his vehemence had burst his hastily bandaged amputation, and he had bled to death in the act of wreaking his vengeance. "Good God!" gasped Jim, and felt sick and ill at the sight. "Are they dead?" he whispered, as though he feared to wake them. "Both quite dead. Been dead several hours," said McLean, and led him back to the captain's cabin, where the steward brought them hot coffee. "DO you know what it all means, Mr. Carron?" asked the captain. "I'm afraid I do, captain, but I'd no idea of it, and it's a terrible shock to me." And he briefly explained as far as was necessary. "Ay, ay," said the old man soberly; "I can see it all. He came out on purpose to find the other, to pay him out for the wrong he'd done him, and when his chance came he took it . . . I don't hold with murder myself, but . . . well, I'm bound to say I can feel for this poor lad." There were eight others who had died in the night, and they buried them all at the same time, and Captain Jolly read the service over them, and entered in his log the simple fact that ten died and were buried. And Jim said no word of it in his letters home, and only told Jack about it when he got back to camp. CHAPTER LVI DULL DAYS The ten days' voyage there and back, in Captain Jolly's bunk and cheerful company, did Jim a world of good. They lay off Scutari six days, and were back in the Cesspool, as Jolly persisted in calling Balaclava Bay, on the twenty-second of November, having just missed the great gale, which tore the camps to pieces and piled the wild Crimean coast with the wreckage of over forty ships and millions of pounds' worth of the goods that were so badly needed on shore. Nearly every ship they passed, as they drew in, was dismasted and looked half a wreck, and Jim, when he had said good-Lye to the genial Jolly, and had waded through the muddy gorge and climbed the heights, found everything and everybody in the camps in very similar condition. In spite of his own fitness, and the healthy frame of mind induced by sixteen days of clean salt air and the companionship of Captain Jolly, his spirits sank with every step he took. It was like climbing through a charnel-house--dead horses and mules stuck up out of the mud on every side, just as they had fallen under their loads and been left to die; and Jim's love for every dumb thing that went on four legs was sorely bruised before he got to the plateau. And when he did get there the sights were more painful still--mud everywhere, and dirty pools and trickling streams, sodden tents, and gaunt, hungry-looking men in rags, trudging to and fro, with bare feet or with boots that only added to the dilapidated looks of their wearers. Truly, he thought, though not perhaps in so many words, this was the seamy side of war, and the glory and glamour were remarkable only by their absence. He reported himself at Head-quarters, but saw only an aide-de-camp, who was the only clean and wholesome and fairly-fed person he had met since he landed. He learned that his chief, Lord Cardigan, was sick, and that his brigade was to go down to Balaclava as soon as possible, as the horses could not stand the miseries of the heights. Then he went across to the French camps, and found things in very much better condition there, and Jack getting on famously and eager for all his experiences. Jim told him of Seth and Ralph Harben, and he was profoundly surprised and saddened by it all. "And you really think it was Ralph took Kattie away, Jim?" he asked, after a long stare of amazement. "Seth wouldn't have done a thing like that unless he had good reason," said Jim simply. "I can't imagine Kattie caring for a fellow like Ralph, you know," said Jack thoughtfully. "He was always such a--well, he's dead, so it's no good saying it, but you know yourself what he was. . . . But it's horrible to think of--four lives gone by reason of it." And Jim said no more, except that he had thought it best to say nothing about it in his letters home. There were two letters from Gracie to read, one to himself and one to Jack, both so bright and cheerful and full of hope that they could not by any possibility have imagined what it cost her to write like that, when her heart was so full of fears for them. She told Jim of Paddy's admirable behaviour, and of long delightful rides with Meg and Sir George on the flats. And she told Jack of visits to Sir Denzil, and how the Rimmer cottage was still shut up and empty. But from neither letter could the most discriminating judge have drawn any clue as to the writer's heart tending more to the one of them than to the other. There were also letters from Charles Eager, with comments on the course of the war and the feeling at home, and fervent hopes for their safety and that of George Herapath--who lay out there in the cemetery on the cold hill-side. And there was also one from Lord Deseret to Jim, which contained, among other things, the somewhat surprising news that Mme Beteta had gone to St. Petersburg to fill an engagement there. Then Colonel Carron came in and gave him hearty welcome, and wanted all his experiences over again. "And how's my horse?" asked Jim, as soon as he got the chance. "I was thinking of him all the way up from the harbour. The road is thick with the poor beasts who have died there." "He's first-rate. I've been riding him myself to keep him in condition, I shall be quite sorry to part with him. Deseret knew what he was about, my boy, when he chose him for you." He was very pleased with Jim's eulogiums on Captain Jolly, and forthwith decided that Jack must make the next trip with him. So they had a very pleasant time in the banked-up tent, in spite of the dreariness of things outside. But all too soon it came to an end, and Jim had to go off to his own Spartan quarters, where the heartiness of his greeting almost made up for the lack of everything else. He settled down into the rut of camp life again, but found it all very slow and dull and dirty. There was little doing. It was as much as they could do simply to live. The dull routine of the trenches went on. The batteries spat shot and shell at the town at intervals, and Russian shot and shell came singing back in reply, and sometimes did a little damage. And at times the camps would be wakened by furious fusillades in the advanced French lines, when the Russians enlivened matters with a sortie. But these alarms were spared the English, on account of the bad ground in their front, which did not lend itself to such matters. More than once, too, they all turned out _en masse_ in the middle of the night--and always on the bitterest nights--to repel attacks in the rear which never came off. And every day there went down to Balaclava the long slow procession of sick men, and to the cemetery another procession of those who had died in the night. Jack duly got his leave and went away with Captain Jolly, and Jim busied himself, as well as the authorities would let him, in providing for the reception of the men and horses of the Light Brigade on the hill-side above Balaclava Bay. A slow, dull time, wearing on body, mind, and spirit--and yet, not the worst time possible. CHAPTER LVII HOT OVENS Jack was back, in the best of health and spirits. "I'm almost sorry I didn't join the navy," he said, as he trudged with Jim through the mud to the Picket House, to see how things had gone on in his absence. "They do keep things clean, anyway." "That's the only place where they have any fun nowadays," he said, as they stood looking down on the lines and zigzags, creeping nearer and nearer to the town, and pointed to a deep gully which ran up from the head of the Admiralty Harbour and separated the British position from the French. "The Ovens," said Jim. "Couldn't we go down some night and see some of it?" "Any night you like when I'm not on duty." "Why not to-night? You won't start work till to-morrow, I suppose." "All right! To-night! The 50th are down there, and there are some capital fellows among them." And that was how it happened that, for the sake of a little fun, or, in other, words, the chance of a brush with the enemy, the boys found themselves that night stumbling along the deep trench which zigzaged down from Chapman's Battery towards the Green Hills and so into the deep gully which ran up into the plateau from the head of Admiralty Harbour in Sebastopol. The sides of the gully contained numerous caves formed by the decay of the softer strata in the rocks, and these caves had for some time past been the stakes for which small parties on each side played sharp little war-games, and paid at times with their lives. First they were Russian, then they were British, then again Russian, till the 50th had ousted them and remained in possession. It was a bitterly cold night, but the boys, In the great fur coats Jim had bought out of the loot at Mackenzie's Farm, had nothing to complain of. They found a strong picket of the 50th making themselves very much at home in the Ovens, and received a warm welcome from the officers in charge. "Any chance of any fun to-night?" asked Jack. "We can never tell what's going to happen. Keeps us on the jig the whole time, but it's better than doing nothing upstairs." "And it comes off sometimes," said another. "And when it does, the Ovens get hot," laughed a third, and they squatted on the floor and discussed zigzags and such matters. "Almost took you for Russians in those big coats," said one enviously. "Did you steal 'em?" "Somebody else 'stole 'em," laughed Jack. "We're only receivers. Jim bought them that day at Mackenzie's, when Menchikoff bolted and left us his baggage." "Talking of spies," said another, sliding off on an inference, "did you hear of the one who walked about our lines for half a day as cool as a cucumber? He was dressed in full French uniform, asked heaps of questions in very bad English, and said we were doing wonders, and made himself quite pleasant all round. And then he caught sight of some more Frenchmen, coming down with the Colonel towards the battery to have a look at the Lancasters. As soon as he saw them he began to edge off down the hill, and when he saw his chance he just made a clean bolt of it, with our men blazing away at him as hard as they could, but he got clear away under the Redan there. And now we're a bit suspicious' of men in big fur coats. If you'll take my advice you'll leave 'em behind you here. Save you a heap of trouble maybe." "Any sentry would be justified in shooting any man he saw in a coat like that," said another. "All right, my boys! We'll keep our coats and take our chances. What's that?" And they all pricked up their ears to listen. An order in French came to them from the opposite side of the gully. "Their sentries and pickets are just over there. This is Tommy Tiddler's Ground, between England, France, and----" A hoarse shout outside, and shots and yells, and they were all out in a moment and found the gully packed with Russians, and their own men, taken by surprise, falling back in some confusion. "Brace up there, men!" shouted the officer in charge. "They're only a handful and only Russians." It was very dark, except where the fires inside the caves sent out a dull glow here and there on the bare space between the combatants. Then the whole place blazed with a Russian volley, and again with the reply to it. "Bayonets, men! And down with them!" And with a yell the Englishmen plunged down past the dull-glowing Ovens, and Jack and Jim raced with them, revolver in hand, blazing away into the darkness in front as they ran. But the Russian plans for that night had been well laid. It was a miniature Balaclava charge over again. A ripping volley met them, not from the front, but from both sides, and then masses of men closed in behind them and swallowed them up, and every man was fighting for his life against unnumbered odds. Jim, elbow to elbow with Jack, and yelling with excitement, felt him suddenly trip and fall. He stooped to help him up again. But Jack lay still. He straddled across him to keep him from being trampled on, and men lunged into him and tumbled over Jack, and he hurled them aside. Hand-to-hand fights were going on all round, and the place was full of the clash of steel on steel and pantings and groanings and hearty British curses. But they were outnumbered twenty to one, and the last dozen were borne to the ground by sheer weight of Russians on their backs. The Ovens changed tenants and were occupied in force, and their late occupants were dragged away down the sloping valley towards the Harbour. Jim found himself the centre of a raging mob. He had snatched up a rifle, and, swinging it by the muzzle, kept a rough circle clear of Jack's body. But vicious bayonets were jabbing at him all round, and a bullet went singing past his head. "Cowards Murderers! Do you call this fighting fair?" he shouted savagely. And of a sudden the mob parted, and an officer was belabouring his men with the flat of his sword and strong words. "Vous vous rendez?" he cried to Jim. "Suppose I must," he growled. "All right!" said the Russian. "Go there! Allez!" and pushed him towards the gorge. Jim stooped and endeavoured to lift Jack. "Quoi donc? What?" "My brother. I must take him." "Dead?" "My God!" gasped Jim at the word, as all that would mean to them all flashed upon him. "No, no! I hope not--only wounded." "We cannot take him," "We must." The Russian used language, then called to one of his men, who sulkily took Jack's limp legs while Jim took him under the arms, and they stumbled away downhill, leaving a strong force in possession of the Ovens. Skirting a dark sheet of water, they came on a road where some rough carts were waiting. The wounded were bundled into them, and a place found for Jack, and Jim trudged behind with his hand on the tail of the cart, and his heart full of bitterness. Their fun had become, of a sudden, grimmest earnest. They turned to the right over a bridge, where many lights gleamed on the water in front, and so came at last to a great building which proved to be the hospital. CHAPTER LVIII CHILL NEWS The first news of trouble reached Carne in a brief letter from Colonel Carron to Sir Denzil. Gracie and the Rev. Charles were sitting over their tea one afternoon in the quiet, hopeful despondency--if the expression may be permitted--which had become the natural state of all who had dear ones at the war. They were full of fears; they cherished hope; they waited with quiet resignation what each day might bring forth. When Kennet rapped on the door of the cottage, Gracie's heart jumped and sank, and Eager incongruously thought of the old Latin Grammar tag: _Mors æquo pede_ . . . ("Death with equal foot knocks at the door of rich and poor"). "Sir Denzil begs you will come and see him at once, sir." "Bad news, Kennet?" asked Eager, as he reached down his hat. "He didn't say, sir; but he's in a bad-enough humour. Not that that's much to go by, though, these days "--from which one gathers that even Sir Denzil's equanimity was not entirely unaffected by the disturbances of the times. Gracie had slipped on her cloak and little fur turban. He looked at her doubtfully. But she shook her head with decision. "I could not possibly wait here, fearing everything," she said; and they went along together. Sir Denzil expressed no surprise at sight of her. "I have just received a letter from my son, Colonel Carron," he said, in a voice perhaps a trifle too unnaturally even and unmoved. "The boys, I am sorry to say, have met with a misfortune." Gracie's heart sank, and braced itself as best it could for the worst. "It is not, however, as bad as it might be." Her heart gave a hopeful kick. "They are both prisoners in the hands of the Russians, and one of them is wounded again; but, so far, he has not been able to ascertain which. That is all; but I thought it better to let you know the full extent of the matter. The newspaper accounts are so garbled at times that one is apt to get wrong impressions. When you come across their names among the missing, you will understand. It does not necessarily mean anything more than I have told you. In fact"--with an appreciative pinch of snuff--"it may well be that they are safer inside Sebastopol than outside." "Prisoners!" jerked Gracie. "Will they be well treated?" "Oh yes; I should say so. The rank and file of the Russian army are doubtless somewhat boorish, but their officers are civilised--gentlemanly, indeed, I believe, if you don't go too far down. I do not think you need fear any ill-treatment for them, Miss Gracie. It is annoying, of course, not to know which of them is wounded, and to what extent. But the authorities will, no doubt, do their best to ascertain, and we may hear shortly." "I am inclined to think with you, sir, that they will probably be safer inside than outside," said Eager thoughtfully. "From all accounts, the state of things in the camps is awful." "Extremely British," said Sir Denzil. "Matters will improve in time. When the Many-headed One awakes to the fact that all this waste and misery are quite unnecessary, it will roar loud enough, I warrant you. Then our men will be properly looked after--that is, if there are any of them left to look after, which seems somewhat doubtful." "It is shameful!" broke out Gracie, with vehemence. "I wish I could have gone with Miss Nightingale to help them." "You would have died of atrophy and paralysis, my dear, if you had come in contact with the red-tape of the services. If Miss Nightingale succeeds in her mission she will be the one woman in ten million, and will deserve well of her country." And so they were left in doubt and much distress of mind as to the welfare of the boys. Margaret Herapath, in her deep mourning and her own bitter sorrow, came over to share their anxiety and distress. Her father had suddenly become an old and broken man. Charles Eager was much with him, and he was the only person, outside his own household, whom Sir George cared to see. And Eager, with the wisdom of deepest love and sympathy, let the old man's grief run its course, and then strove to build him up anew by diverting his grief from the one to the many. Bitter sad times were those in the happy homes of England. Sorrow lay on the land like a chill black frost; but below it were simmering all those forces of passionate indignation which presently rose into that inextinguishable roar which swept men from their high positions, and in time carried somewhat of relief to the remnant of the army before Sebastopol. CHAPTER LIX TOUCH AND GO FOR THE COIL Jim followed Jack's body with the single-minded persistency of a faithful dog whose master has come to grief. His original captor would have taken him elsewhere, but he flatly declined to go anywhere but where Jack went. He thrust aside all interfering hands, and to all attempts at coercion in any other direction simply pointed to Jack and himself and said, "My brother!"--but with so grim and determined and dejected a face that at last the other gave way and followed them into the hospital. It was very full--crammed with broken and dying men--but Jim had no thought save for Jack. Whether he was alive or dead he did not know, but he must stick to him and do what he could. There was difficulty in finding room for him. A harassed surgeon, to whom the officer spoke, shook red hands at them and poured out a spate of hot words, but, arrested by something the other said, looked worriedly round and at last pointed to a corner; and Jim's captor explained to him, in his peculiar English, that the man who lay there would be dead in a minute or two, and then they could put Jack in his place. And presently the attendants came along and carried the dead man away, and Jim and the officer lifted Jack on to the pallet, and the worried surgeon came round and knelt down and opened up his things, and examined him with quick, practised hands and a keen eye for causes and effects. Jim's heart ran slow at sight of a bullet-hole in the white breast, and he watched the surgeon hypnotically as he carefully turned the body over and pointed to the place where it had come out at the back, just under the shoulder, and then spoke hurriedly to the officer. "He says," said the other, in his broken English, helped out with very good French--which it would be but a hindrance to attempt to reproduce in detail--"he cannot tell. It has gone right through. He may live, he may die. It will take time to tell. Now you come." "May I come again to see him?" "I will try. You will give your parole?" "Yes," said Jim; for Jack was more to him than all the chances of escape. "Then we will see. Now come!" "Beg him to do everything he can for him. Couldn't we take him somewhere else?" "He is better here, for the present. Later we will see. Now come!" And since he could do no more at the moment, Jim went with him. "For to-night you will come to the guard-room. To-morrow you will go to Head-quarters and be properly paroled, Then we will see." And Jim spent the rest of the night on three chairs in the guard-room, brooding gloomily most of the time on the disastrous results of "seeing the fun" of the Ovens, and full of fears as to the end of it all. In the morning his keeper came for him, and Jim, for the first time, took the opportunity of looking at him. He had been too busy with other matters the night before. He was a young fellow of about his own age, dark-haired, and of a thin sallow face, bright-eyed, pleasant-looking. Under other circumstances Jim thought they might have become friendly. He had certainly, treated him well. "How is my brother?" asked Jim anxiously. "We will see as we go. Have you eaten? No?" And he took him away to a mess-room just alongside, where a number of officers were drinking coffee from bowls, and smoking and talking. They saluted Jim politely, and stared at him without restraint while he ate a chunk of very good white bread and drank his coffee, which was excellent, and meanwhile they plied his friend with questions. And one, after much observation of Jim's uniform, suddenly made some remark which carried all eyes to him and made him extremely uncomfortable at so much observation. "He is saying that your regiment was in that mad charge outside Balaclava," said his particular officer. "Yes; I was in it," said Jim quietly. And at that, to his immense surprise, every man in the room sprang to his feet and gravely saluted him again. "And you got through whole?" was the next question. "No. I had a lance wound and three bullets into me, but I've been a voyage to Constantinople since then, to brace up, you know." And they crowded round him, and pressed cigars on him, and showed themselves right good fellows. Then his new friend took him along to the hospital, and they learned that Jack had come to himself and was sleeping, and so they went on across the bridge of boats, and through the public gardens, and past the cathedral, to Head-quarters. After waiting some time, they were conducted down many long passages to a room where a tall fair man, of high face and autocratic bearing, sat at a table piled with papers and plans. Another stood looking out of the window, with his back turned to them, and a white English terrier, standing by his side on its hind legs, was trying hard to make out what he was looking at. Jim's keeper saluted deferentially and made his statement to the tall man at the table. "I understand you are prepared to give your parole not to attempt to escape, or to hold any communication with the outside?" said he, somewhat brusquely, first in French and then in understandable English. "I am," bowed Jim. And at the sound of his voice the white dog came dancing across to him as though he were an old friend, and accepted his caresses with delight. "And your brother is also a prisoner, in hospital, and you wish to attend on him." "I do." "What is your name and standing?" "James Denzil Carron--cornet, 8th Hussars!" And at that the man at the window turned suddenly and looked at him, and came and stood by the table. "You were, then, in the mad charge at Balaclava, perhaps?" "I was." "It was a foolish business." "It was." "Ah--you agree? How was it?" "Some mistake. But no one quite knows." "What are your total forces up there now?" At which Jim's lip curled in a smile. "You can hardly expect me to tell you that," he said quietly. The tall young man who had been standing by the window said a word or two to the other, who seemed surprised, and turning to Jim, said: "Very well, Monsieur Carron. I accept your parole, and Lieutenant Greski will be personally answerable for you." The lieutenant bowed, and plucked Jim backward by the sleeve, and Jim bowed, and gave the white dog's ear a final friendly pull, and they went out. "Who is he?" he asked, as soon as they were in the corridor. "Menchikoff, the one at the table. The other is the Grand Duke Michael. How does he know you?" And he looked at Jim with new curiosity. "Who--Menchikoff? "No--the Grand Duke." "Know me?" jerked Jim. "Some mistake. I never set eyes on him before." "He told Menchikoff to do what you wanted, and said he knew you, or something about you, or something of the kind. He dropped his voice so that I couldn't catch it all." "That's odd. I certainly know nothing of him." "He thinks he knows you, anyway, and so much the better for you. You shall come with me and stop at my house. It is not far." "You are very good. I shall have a better opinion of Russians in future." "Russians! I am no Russian. I am a Pole. I hate the Russians, and would love the English if I might." "I see. But why do you fight for them, then?" "Because I didn't my kin in Poland would have to pay for it." "That's jolly hard, to have to risk your life, and maybe give it, for people you hate." "There are many more like me. But what can we do? If we go against them they visit it on the innocent ones at home. If I could destroy the whole of Russia, Tsar and Grand Dukes and all, at one blow, I would strike it so"--and he dashed his fist into the palm of his other hand--"and then I would die with a glad heart. . . . But one does not talk of these things, you understand, except among one's friends." He stopped at a house which stood about midway down the slope overlooking the harbour, and led Jim into a room on the ground floor. From the window he could see Fort Constantine, shining white in the sun on the other side of the water, and the bristling line of the masts of the sunken ships, and the harbour itself dotted all over with plying boats. "One moment," said Greski, and left him there, but came back in an instant with a very beautiful white-haired old lady, whom he must have met in the passage. Her dark eyes were shining like stars at the joy of seeing her boy again. "My mother," said Greski, and explained matters to her in a torrent of Polish. She assented without any demur to all her son's proposals, and shook hands very heartily with Jim, giving him what was evidently warm welcome, in a tongue he did not understand. Then the door opened again, and a girl rushed in and flung her arms round the lieutenant's neck, and kissed him, between broken ejaculations of joy, as one come back from the dead, while two long plaits of black hair gyrated wildly at her back. When the tails had settled down, Greski laughingly swung her round facing Jim, and introduced her as his sister Tatia, and Tatia blushed charmingly, and said, in very passable English: "You must excuse us, sir. You see, when he goes out we are never quite certain that we shall ever see him again. And when he does return our hearts are joyful. Those terrible pointed shells you send us--ah, _mon Dieu!_ one came through the side of the cathedral this morning when I was there praying for Louis, and we all ran and ran." "They are not supposed to fire at the cathedral," said Jim. "Ah, when one plays with monsters you never know what may happen." Then they all three spoke together for a minute or two in Polish, since madame knew no tongue but that and Russian, and a little French, and then the ladies went off on household duties. "I hope I shall not put you to any trouble," said Jim, "and--and"--he stumbled--"you will please let me pay my way. I have heaps of money----" "We can discuss that later. We shall be glad to be of service to you. Our hearts go out to Englishmen." But it was a little later, when they sat down to breakfast, that a new and very surprising development took place. Madame Greski's eye suddenly lighted on Jim's ring--the one pressed upon him by the young officer whose life he had saved on the heights of Alma. She stared hard at it, and then said a quick word to the others, and, to Jim's surprise, Greski caught hold of his hand, held it for the others to see, and they all stood up in great excitement, and all spoke at once as they stared down at the ring. "Where did you get it?" asked Greski quickly. "It was given me by a Russian officer at the Alma. He was wounded and I gave him a hand, and he made me take this in return." And madame came round and put her trembling white hands on his shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks, and her eyes were full of tears. Tatia looked as if she would have liked to do the same, and Jim would not have minded very much if she had. "It was my brother John," said Greski. "He wrote to us from Odessa telling us all about it. You saved his life." "I am very glad I was able to be of service to him." "And now we will repay you as far as we can," said Tatia joyously. "Oh, I am glad! But the marvel that you should fall into Louis's hands!" Madame spoke quickly to her son, and he translated. "My mother says your brother must come here too and they will nurse him." "I am very grateful. Can we go and see him after breakfast? Are you on duty?" "Not again all this week, _Dieu merci!_ There are many more of us than are needed for the batteries, you see. If there were any signs of a general assault we should all be called, of course. But that is not likely yet." So Jim had fallen more than comfortably, and, for Jack's sake especially, he was glad. For if the hospitals inside were anything like those outside, it might make all the difference between life and death to a sick man, to be in such good hands. They set off at once for the hospital. It was a cold raw day, and up on the hillsides, as they crossed the bridge of boats, the dull boom of the guns sounded now and again at long intervals. In that quarter, however, there were but few results of the bombardment visible, and when Jim remarked on it, Greski said, "So far you are kind to us: you keep your fire for the forts and batteries and Government buildings. But in time you will lose patience, and then we shall suffer. Why didn't you come straight in when you landed? After Alma you might have done it, I think." "I don't know why," said Jim. "But I wish we had. It would have saved much loss on both sides. You must have suffered terribly in the last fight--Inkerman." "Horribly, horribly!" said Greski, with an expressive gesture. At the hospital they found Jack looking very white and washed out, and visibly in great pain. His face brightened at sight of Jim, but a bad spasm twisted it as he tried to smile, and the smile faded like a winter sunbeam and left his face hard and set. "Dear old boy," said Jim, kneeling down by his side and holding his hand, "I've got good news for you. We've found friends, and you're to come to their house and get the best of nursing and attention." Jack brightened again at the prospect, and Jim told him how it all came about, and introduced Greski, who nodded and smiled encouragingly. When the doctor came round he made no difficulty about Jack's removal. He was only too glad to get another bed. He talked with Greski for a few seconds, and then hurried away to his work. "I will get an ambulance," said Greski, "and we will take him at once. He will be happier there." And Jim had no chance to ask him what the doctor had said, until they were walking slowly behind the litter, which, on second thoughts, Greski had brought as entailing less discomfort. "He says it is a very bad wound. The bullet went right through the lungs, but we will do everything that is possible for him." And Jim went heavily, and his heart was full fears. "But you must not look like that," said Tetia reprovingly to him, when they had got Jack stowed away in bed, in such outward comfort as soft clean sheets and a warm pleasant room could afford. "That is not the face of a good nurse, no indeed! I shall not let you in to see him till you look more cheerful." But Jim found a cheerful face no easy matter. They had, however, still another surprise during the afternoon, which raised his spirits somewhat if it did not at the moment kindle his hopes. The special doctor attached to the Grand Duke Michael came in, and informed them that the Grand Duke himself had ordered him to take the English officer in hand. He had been to the hospital and had been sent on to Mme Greski's house. So, between them all, no possible chance for Jack would be missed. He examined his patient most carefully, and when Jim followed him anxiously out of the room he told him plainly, and in excellent English, that the hospital doctor was right--it was a very serious case, and they could only do their best and trust in Providence. If he did pull through it would probably leave him weakly all his days; but ---- and the great man pursed his lips and shook his head doubtfully. CHAPTER LX INSIDE THE FIERY RING Nothing could exceed the kindness of their new friends to the strangers cast so curiously on their care. Brother John's ring had been an Open Sesame to their hearts, and they vied with one another in the repayment in kind for all that the absent one had received at Jim's hands. Madame Greski and Tatia devoted themselves to Jack as if he had been brother John himself. No single thing that could make for his comfort and well-being was lacking on their part. Never was wounded man tended with more loving and unremitting attention. And when Jim thought of the bleak miseries of the camps up there on the hill-sides, and the long-drawn horrors of the passages on the hospital ships, he thanked God in his heart that Jack was where he was. For himself, although the rôle of prisoner of war was little to his taste, it was still mighty interesting to be inside Sebastopol after gazing at it so long from the outside. There was so little doing outside that it seemed to him that he was not missing much; in due course they would probably be exchanged; and meanwhile the difference between the mud-and-canvas life of the camps and this warm and cheerful home in the town was somewhat in the ratio of hell and heaven. In view of the abounding comforts with which they were surrounded, it was indeed difficult at times to realise the actual and astounding fact that they were undergoing a siege that would rank as one of the great sieges of the world's history; that this comfortable town was an almost impregnable fortress; and that England and France, outside there, were bending all their energies to its reduction. For they lacked nothing. Supplies were abundant. They were warm and well-fed, and, beyond the dull boom of the distant guns, they heard nothing of the siege. Through that unclosable northern door, by night and by day, long strings of carts brought in to them everything that was necessary, and much besides. Contrary to custom, it was the besiegers who suffered, not the besieged. And Jim, when Tatia drove him away from Jack's bedside, to seek exercise and fresh air lest she should have another patient on their hands, quietly observing everything--the rude strength of the defences, the unlimited, even wastefully profuse stores of guns and ammunition, the teeming barracks full of men, and that ever-open door though which the limitless supplies could still be drawn upon--said to himself that the siege might go on for ever. Jack, however, was in most distressing condition. The slightest exertion, any movement almost, brought on painful fits of coughing which seemed to shake his wounded chest to pieces. Speaking was out of the question, for even breathing was difficult to him; and all Jim could do, to show him what he felt about it all, was to sit by his bedside, holding his hand at times, and at times forcing himself to unnaturally cheerful talk lest the dreadful silence should bring him to foolishness in other ways. For he felt certain, from Jack's appearance and the doctor's manner, that his case was hopeless and the end not far off, and the thought of it was terrible to him. Of the consequences--of the results to himself, at Carne and Wyvveloe--not one thought. The fluttering of the shadowy wings put all other considerations to rout. This that lay so still on the bed was dear old Jack, and the fear that he was going filled all his heart and mind. But Tatia, pretty as she was, and of a most vivacious disposition, possessed so much common-sense. Again and again she insisted on Jim quitting the room and the house, and threatened him with penalties if he came back under a couple of hours. And when her brother was available she would send them off together, begging them only to beware above all things of pointed shells and to turn up again in due course whole and undamaged. "I would nurse you with enjoyment," she said, her soft dark eyes dwelling appreciatively on Jim's sorrowful long face, in which they seemed to find something that appealed to her strongly. "But, for yourself, you will be better to keep well. If you come back in less than two hours you shall have only half a dinner. Louis, you will see to it." And Greski would march him away to the harbour front where walking was safe, since the shells rarely topped the hill, and they would discuss matters from both sides as they went. On that side of the town there was little sign of the siege beyond the activities of the quays, and an occasional roar from the man-of-war moored under Fort Nicholas. But when they strolled along the front, and came round the hill, and up by St. Michael's church and the tower whose clock bore on its face the name of "Barraud, London," then all the grim actualities met them full face. Up there, across the Admiralty Harbour--whose head ran up into the gorge wherein lay the fatal Ovens out of which they had come into captivity--beyond the great barracks and the hospital, up there on the hill-side lay the huge works which Jim knew as the Malakof and the Redan, but which Greski spoke of as the Korniloff and No. 3--very different in the rear from what they were in front, grim and forbidding, but crude and rough and unfinished-looking. And those little zigzag piles of earth just beyond them were the British trenches, and up on the plateau beyond were the tents, which shone so white in the morning sun, but were so horribly thin and cold of a night, and so dirty when you got close to them. He could see the Picket House, and knew just what the usual crowd about it would look like; and he could see the gunners moving about the platforms inside the Russian works, and now and again white clouds of smoke rolled over them and the angry roar came bellowing across the quiet waters of the harbour, and the mole-heaps on the hill-side spurtled out in reply. Now and again a shell came hurtling into the town from the Lancasters or the French batteries, but did little damage on that side, since there was little damage left to be done. Up there to the right, as they went on past the Admiralty buildings and the cathedral, the houses were mostly in ruins, the streets were already barricaded in anticipation of assault, and the whole scene was one of dismal desolation. And at times they would meet stretchers carrying broken men, and again, strings of carts carrying rough red coffins up to the cemetery. But Jim deemed it wise, from every point of view, to keep, as a rule, away from the actual scene of operations. It was slow work watching at a distance the very leisurely operations, and it gave him little to report. But he had an idea that if he showed too great an interest in their concerns the authorities might perhaps tighten his tether, and that might mean separation from Jack. Now and again, however, the desire to see for himself how things were going on got the better of him, and he would creep into some deserted corner of the hot side of the town and endeavour to estimate the possibilities. And from such observations he always came away downcast and disheartened, for, as far as he could see, the besiegers made no progress whatever, while the besieged toiled unremittingly at the strengthening of their defences, and blocked every possibility of entrance with their mighty earthworks. Up that side of the town went an unceasing stream of men and carts carrying fascines and gabions and shot and shell, and strings of straining horses dragging big guns from the arsenal; and new works, fully equipped, sprang up like mushrooms in a night. But there were dark days also, when Greski was on duty in the bastions, or nominated for a sortie. And then madame and Tatia went about very quietly and nervously, and started at any unusual sound, and showed their fears in their faces. But he was very fortunate, and came home each time to their joyful welcome with his tale of catastrophe to others whom they knew, but himself escaped unhurt, and they all breathed freely till his turn came round again. Christmas slipped by almost unnoticed. When he did, by accident, awake to the fact that it really was Christmas Day, the difference between this and other Christmas Days gave Jim an unusual fit of the blues. He thought of them all at Wyvveloe, and wondered if Gracie had decked the church with holly. He knew they would all be thinking about them, probably in great distress of mind. What news concerning them had reached home he could not tell. After much discussion with Greski, who assured him it would be useless, he had requested permission from the authorities to write home, subject to their inspection. But his request was returned to him with a brief inscription in Russian, which Greski translated as "out of the question." So he could only hope that Colonel Carron would have been able to make inquiries under one of the occasional flags of truce, and had sent word home. But operations were slow at the moment; there had been neither assaults nor sorties of any consequence, and so flags of truce and opportunities of communication were of rare occurrence. Yes, he knew it must be a bitter, sad Christmas for them all at home--for the many who had already got their fatal news, and for the more who awaited theirs in fear and trembling. And he knew too well what a shockingly thin and sore one it must be for the gaunt, shoeless, half-starved and ill-clad men in the thin white tents on the heights over there. And when, through the weight of their colouring, his dismal thoughts plumbed deeper depths than was his wont, the grim irony of this most unchristian Christmas sat heavily on him. Christmas!--bristling with raw yellow earthworks, shattered with bursting shells, ghastly with crawling processions of broken men and more peaceful red coffins! Christmas!--peace on earth and goodwill----! And yet, after eighteen hundred years, here were so-called Christian nations at one another's throats, tearing and rending the image of God into raw red fragments, and with no thought but for destruction. They were, many of them, very good fellows, these Russians. They would stop him in the street--those whom he had met that first morning, those who were left--and greet him cordially, and ask after his brother, and express their regrets, and he had no more desire to kill them than he had to kill Lord Raglan himself. And yet, set him on the hill-side up there, and all his thought would be towards their destruction. Truly it was a queer world, and there must be something wrong somewhere! But it was all beyond him, and he could only brood and wonder. Their New Year was ushered in on the night of the twelfth with great illuminations, much ringing of church bells, and a solemn service in the cathedral--by a terrific bombardment of their fellow Christians on the hill-side, and two furious sorties, which effected nothing beyond an increase in the tally of broken men and in the cart-loads of red coffins creaking away to the cemetery. "Absolutely useless," acknowledged Greski, when his mother and Tatia released him from their warm embraces on his return. "But the Chief thinks it does the men good to go out occasionally after all their dirty work on the new bastions." CHAPTER LXI WEARY WAITING "Nothing yet," said Sir Denzil to Eager, on his twentieth anxious call after further news of the boys. "I am surprised Denzil has not written. But so many things may happen out there. His letter may have gone astray. There may be difficulty in communicating with Sebastopol. He may be wounded himself. He may be dead. We can do nothing but wait. I will send you word the moment I have any news. Miss Gracie well?" "Quite well, sir, but sorely troubled about the boys." "Ay, ay! That is the woman's part--to sit at home and nurse her fears." "No news, Charlie?" asked the Little Lady hopelessly, from her chair by the fire. "No news yet, dear. Sir Denzil promises to send round the moment he gets anything." "I'm beginning to fear they're all lying dead in that horrible Crimea. This waiting, waiting, waiting, is terrible." "Yes, it's hard work, the hardest work in the world. But we can only wait and hope, dear. Whatever is is best, and we cannot alter it." It was a weary time for all of them, and all over Britain and France and Russia the same black cloud lay heavily. The only ones who were happy were those whose warriors had come home maimed, so long as the maiming was not absolute and irretrievable. For such were at all events safe from further harm. So the slow dark days dragged on until at length one night, when Eager had just got in from his rounds and the usual fruitless call at Carne, there came the long-expected knock on the door, and Gracie ran to answer it. "Is it you, Kennet?" "Me, miss. Sir Denzil would like to see Mr. Eager." "He has got some news at last?" "Ay, some papers just come in. But I don't know what it is. Bad, I should say, from the looks of him--he was so mortal quiet." "We will come at once. Let me go alone, Charlie. You're tired out." "Not a bit of it, my dear. I feel like a hound on the scent at the word 'news.' Don't you think you'd better wait here till I bring you word?" "I can't wait," she said breathlessly. And they went along together. Sir Denzil met them with ominous impassivity. "I trust Kennet did not raise your hopes," he said, with the corners of his mouth drawn down somewhat more even than usual, and a glance that never wavered for a moment. "This arrived just after you left, Mr. Eager. It explains, of course, to some extent----" It was a letter from General Canrobert, informing Sir Denzil, with many complimentary phrases as palliatives to the blow, that Colonel Carron had met his death while gallantly repelling a sortie on the night of the 12th January. He had left instructions, in case of need, for word to be sent to Sir Denzil and it was in pursuance thereat etc. etc. "That, of course, explains why he has been unable to pursue his inquiries after the boys," said Sir Denzil, in an absolutely unmoved voice. "I need not say our deepest sympathies are yours, sir----" "It is the boys I am concerned for," said Sir Denzil, with an impatient double wave of the hand, whose finger and thumb held his pinch of snuff. "Denzil put himself out of the running twenty years ago. This is only an incident. But"--and he snuffed very deliberately--"it may not be without its consequences in the other matter. There is no one out there now who has any special interest in them, you see. And, under present circumstances, they may quite easily be overlooked and lost track of. Personally, I should not be in the least surprised to learn that they are both dead. This war seems to me to be carried on in quite unusually wasteful fashion." Gracie never said a word. The callousness of the old heathen chilled her heart, though it was boiling with many emotions. If she opened her mouth she feared it' would all come out in a torrent that would astonish him for the rest of his life. "We can only go on hoping for the best," said Eager quietly. "Sir George is making inquiries for us----" "He is quite outside things," said Sir Denzil brusquely, and gazed at Eager with thoughtful intensity for a moment, as though on the point of offering some other suggestion. "However," he said abruptly, at last, "at the moment, as you say, we can only wait, and see what comes of it all. If I hear anything I will send you word at once." And they left him and went soberly home, feeling death still a little nearer their dear ones in this new loss. "What a terrible old man he is!" said Gracie. "I think he must have been born without a heart." "It is mostly assumed, I think. Inside, I have no doubt he is feeling his loss bitterly, but he prides himself on not letting it be seen. It is the old fashion. Thank God, we have come to recognise the fact that a man may be a strong man and yet have a heart! It makes for a better world." And as the slow weeks dragged on, and still brought them no news of the missing ones, their hearts were heavy with fears. CHAPTER LXII FROM ONE TO MANY The great heart of the nation at home had been wrung with pity and indignation at the altogether unnecessary sufferings of the men who had gone out to fight her battles in the East, and who, through miscalculation, muddle, and incapacity, had died like flies, of sickness and want. The roar of anger with which the news was greeted shook the mighty in their seats and hurled Ministers and Cabinets into the dust. Still more to the purpose, the sympathy aroused set itself promptly to the cure of official abuses by the administration of private charity; which word is used in its high apostolic sense, for private munificence and public subscription provided the miserable, gallant remnant of our army only with those things which were theirs by right, and of which they had been defrauded by sheerest stupidity and the inexorcisabie demon of Red-tape. The _Times_ fund was a mighty help; Florence Nightingale a still mightier, in that noblest attribute of personal service and sacrifice which touches all hearts to higher things. But there were also many private benefactors, who set to work at once on their own account to do what they could, and among them was Sir George Herapath. When the dreadful disclosures of the camps and hospitals came home, he was still bending, almost broken, under the weight of his own loss. His son's death had beaten him to the ground and shortened his span by years. But the thought of the miseries of those other brave fellows, out on the bleak hill-sides above Sebastopol, stirred him out of the depths of his sorrow. He sent for Charles Eager. "Eager," he said, "I can't get any sleep for thinking of it all." "He died as a gallant man should die, Sir George." "It's the others I'm thinking of--the poor fellows who are mouldering away out there for want of everything that has been forgotten or sent astray." And a spark came into Eager's eye, for here was sign of grace and hope after his own mind--a sorely stricken heart rising superior to its own loss in helpful thought for others. "Yes, they're having dreadful times. What were you thinking of?" "Helping, if you'll take a hand." "I'm your man, sir, and God be thanked for your good thought! I'll thank you in my own way." "Help me to make a list of the most necessary things, and I'll charter a ship to take them straight out. Will you go with her and see to it all?" "Will I?" blazed Eager. "Will I not? It's almost too good to be true. I want to find out what's become of those boys too." "I wouldn't like it all to go astray like the rest, you see." "I'll see to that. It may be the saving of hundreds. God bless you, sir! George's death will be a blessing to many through you. It is just what he would have done himself." Sir George shook his head sadly. The wound was too raw yet. "Let's get to work!" he said; for in work, and especially in such work, there was something of healing. So they formed themselves into a committee of four, and Sir George insisted on Eager and Gracie coming to stay with them at Knoyle so that the work might go on without interruption. He went down to Liverpool, and with difficulty secured a steamship--the _Bakclutha_, 1,000 tons burden, James Leale, master, at a very high price, for Government charters had made a tight market. He went over all their lists carefully, knew just where to lay his hand on everything, and the work went forward rapidly. Eager had secured a locum and was keen to be off, for every day's delay meant so many wasted lives. Gracie was to stay on at Knoyle with Margaret. And so the very last night came, and found them sitting round the fire in Sir George's study after dinner. "You must all give an eye to my people while I'm away," said Eager. "Breton is a good sort, I think, but it'll take some time for him to get to know them; and the vicar----" "The vicar is resigning as soon as you come back," said Sir George quietly. "The South of France is the only place where he can live, Yool says. I want you to take it when you get home." "That is very good of you, sir. I want you to give me something else too"--and he slipped his hand inside Margaret's arm. "I know," said Sir George. "Meg has told me, and I could not wish her better." Gracie flung her arms round Margaret and kissed her heartily. "Oh, I am so glad!" she cried. "That is what I have been wanting all the time." "So have I," laughed Eager. And then more soberly, as he lifted Margaret's hand to his lips--"And truly I am grateful. My cup is full--almost to the brim----" "I wish I could go with you," said Margaret. "So do I," said Gracie eagerly. "Yes, I know, but----" And they knew too that the "but" must keep them at home. "You'll find out all about the boys, Charlie," ordered Gracie. "I'll do my best, dear, you may be sure. It all depends on what there is to find out and what an outsider can do. The possibilities are so tremendous. All we can do is to hope for the best and keep our hearts up. I have letters from Lord Deseret to Lord Raglan and several others, and I have no doubt they will give me all the help they can." And next day he sailed, very happy in his mission, happier still in what lay behind and before him; troubled only on account of the boys who had disappeared into the smoke-cloud, and of whom for many weeks they had been able to obtain no tidings whatever. The master, the supercargo, and the crew of the _Balclutha_ were all of one mind in the matter, and so she made a record passage, was through the Straits fourteen days after she hauled out of the Mersey, and two days later lay off Balaclava Bay awaiting official permit to enter. The Bay was crowded, but a corner was found at last, and Eager's wondering eyes travelled over the amazing activities and manifold nastinesses of that historic port, though these last were nothing now to what they had been. He landed at once, introduced himself and his business to Admiral Boxer and Captain Powell, found favour in their sight, and made arrangements for the unloading and forwarding of his cargo. Sir George had furnished him with ample funds and the best of advice. He organised his own transport, saw to it himself; with the hearty assistance of Leale and his two mates and some picked men of the crew, and drove things forward at such astonishing speed that the harbour-master broke out one time. "Man! Was it a parson you said you were, Mr. Eager? It's head of the Transport you ought to have been. You get more out of those lazy scamps than any man we've had here yet." It was the same wherever he went. His strenuous cheerfulness, his masterful energy, his unfailing good-humour--in a word, his Eagerness infused itself into all with whom he came in contact and carried him royally through all difficulties. He was an object-lesson in what might be done when Officialism and Red-tape had no fingers in the pie. To tell all he did, and saw, and thought, during those days, would take a volume. He cheered and comforted, and lifted from misery and death many a stricken soul, both in the hospitals and in the camps. He came across old Harrow and Oxford friends, who welcomed him with open arms and tendered him advice enough to sink a ship. And when he had finished his distributions, and so eased the ways of all the needy ones within the range of his powers, he turned with keen anxiety to that other quest which lay so near his heart. He paid a visit to British Head-quarters, in the low white houses on the road leading from Balaclava to Sebastopol, delivered Lord Deseret's letter to an aide-de-camp, and intimated his intention of waiting there till he could see Lord Raglan in person. When at last he was admitted, he found the Chief sitting at a huge table heaped with papers, and two secretaries writing for dear life at tables alongside. Lord Raglan had already seen him about the camps and hospitals, and had heard of his good works, and received him with courteous kindness. Eager was struck with his thin, worn face--the face of a brave man wrestling with unwonted problems and innumerable difficulties. "I don't know what we can do to help you in your quest, Mr. Eager," said his lordship, with Lord Deseret's letter in his hand, "but anything we can do we will. I am sure you will understand that it has been through no intentional neglect that these young friends of yours have slipped out of our sight. The demands upon one's time from the people at home"--with an expressive glance at the mountainous heaps of forms and papers before him--"have afforded one small chance of attending to individual cases. The last we know was that they were prisoners in Sebastopol." "I thank your lordship, and I am very loth to trouble you," said Eager; "but there is so much dependent on these two boys that I must do all I possibly can to learn what has become of them. One could not ask by letter, I suppose?" "Did I not write to Menchikoff, Calverly, soon after they were taken? I seem to remember----" "You did, sir," replied one of the overwrought secretaries, without stopping his work for a moment. "And we got no answer." "Would it be possible for me to get in under a flag of truce?" asked Eager. "Quite possible," said his lordship, with a faint smile; "but decidedly risky, and you certainly would not come out again." "There are occasional truces for picking up the wounded, are there not?" "We have never asked for one, As a rule the Russians request it after one of their big sorties. If you wait a while--one never knows what night they will come out. What was your idea?" "Simply to inquire among the Russian officers. There could be no objection to that, I presume?" "Not the slightest. You might learn something. It is just a chance." "Then I will wait for that chance, with your lordship's permission." "By all means, Mr. Eager, and I wish you all success; also please convey to Sir George Herapath our thanks for all he has done for the men here, and accept the same yourself. They have suffered grievously. His son's death was a great loss to us. He was a fine young fellow." And Eager bowed himself out. CHAPTER LXIII EAGER ON THE SCENT Eager's lean and lively face became well known in the camps and trenches. He was keen to see all he could, and was everywhere welcomed with acclaim, but perhaps the greetings he most enjoyed were the rough grateful words of men whom he had helped and heartened in the field hospitals, and who had recovered sufficiently to get back to their work. These would do anything for him, and from morning till night he was all over the place, seeing everything, mightily interested in it all, and leaving, wherever he went, a trail of uplifting cheerfulness which was a moral tonic. He watched the perpetual fierce little fights over the rifle-pits, and went down into them and tended the wounded when chance offered. He mingled with the frequenters of the Picket House, and watched the effect of the somewhat desultory pounding of the batteries by the big guns. He crept cautiously through untold miles of muddy trenches, both French and British, and viewed with wonder the gigantic tasks which prepared the way for the second bombardment. And in the hospitals he soothed many a sufferer's passage to more peaceful quarters, and put fresh heart into those whose lot it was to go back to the front. In the officers' tents and huts he was hail-fellow-well-met everywhere, and the only fault found with him was that he could not be in many places at the same time. He heard matters discussed there with an outspoken freedom which would have set ears tingling at home; and when he asked how soon it was going to end, was told, "Never, my boy. It's going on for ever and ever." And an irreverent one added, "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen!" "End, my dear fellow? Why should it end?" said still another, waving an old briar at him, with the smoke curling like a flag of truce from the stem. "They've got unlimited supplies to draw upon, and an open road to get 'em in. As fast as we kill 'em they bring in fresh ones. As fast as we knock down their earthworks they build 'em up again----" "Faster!" growled another. "Yes, faster. I don't see why it should not go on till the year 2000--going on as we are. It's not a siege; it's a discipline--a chastisement for our sins: I only wish----" "Hear, hear!" grunted another, who had heard that wish many times before. "What do you wish?" asked Eager. "I wish all the Red-tape and Routine people at home could be driven into the trenches here and kept there for a month. They'd learn a thing or two." "Die . . . never learn," growled the other. "If we'd gone right in when first we got here, it would have been a most enormous saving, even if the cost had been heavy. For some reason we lost the chance, and it's never going to come back. We're like a prize-fighter pummelling away at the other fellow's leg and hoping to break him in time that way. We may tire him out, of course, but its a deuced slow business." "Do they never exchange prisoners?" asked Eager. "We never take any worth exchanging. It's only the ruck we get, and they're mostly dead." "Their boots are the best part of 'em," said the other. "Our men are always better shod after a sortie. Gad! sir, it would have made you blaze to see our fellows--Guardsmen and all--tramping about in mud and snow with no soles to their rotten boots! I hope the man who made 'em will spend his eternity in a snowy hell with raw bare feet!" But one night they were all out in haste, at the sound of heavy and continuous musketry down in the trenches on the left attack; and Eager, tumbling out and rushing on with the rest, found himself where a noncombatant had no right to be. He had gone plunging downwards with the others, in order to see all he could, till he fell bodily into a trench. He picked himself up and joined the stream of men hastening towards the firing, and found himself suddenly in the thick of things--bullets humming venomously past his head, men falling with groans and curses by his side, and a big man, standing just above him on the rough parapet of the trench, shouting to his men to "give it 'em hot with the steel," and meanwhile picking up the biggest stones he could find and hurling them at the oncoming Russians in front. The men clambered up and swept away into the darkness with shouts and cheers and clash of steel, and Eager was left alone in the trench with the fallen ones. Up from below rose an awful turmoil, lit now and again by receding flashes, then a final British cheer, and one more sortie was repulsed. It was only next morning that he learned the size of it. "They say there were about fifteen thousand of them out last night," said one of his friends. "One lot went for the French over by the Mamelon, and the rest came up here." "Gordon's men say he was on top of the trench chucking stones at the beggars as they came up----" "I saw him," said Eager. "He was standing just above me, shouting to his men and flinging stones as hard as he could. Then they fixed bayonets and went downhill like an avalanche." "You'd no right to be there, my boy." "I suppose not. I went to see what was up, and fell into a trench, and ran on with the rest. Was the Colonel hit?" "Couple of bullets in him, but not deadly." "It's amazing to me that any one comes through alive." "Yes, it feels like that at first, but you get used to it." "Did we lose many?" "Pretty heavy; but there are four or five Russkis to each of ours. Ground's thick with 'em. They'll want an armistice to clean up, I expect--generally do." And, sure enough, the Russians presently requested a truce to pick up their men; and before long the white flags were flying on the batteries, and the men of both sides streamed out into the open, picked up their dead and wounded, and took stock of one another. This was the chance Eager had been waiting for, and he went down to the debatable ground between the lines with the rest. It was a horrible enough sight--a couple of thousand dead and wounded men strewn thick in that narrow space; but the stretchers were busily at work, and he had his own inquiries to make. A number of Russian officers were strolling about, dressed in their best and smoking their best cigars, and quite ready for a talk. He approached one, lifted his hat, and asked in French: "I wonder if monsieur could afford me some information?" At which the Russian smiled, and his blue eyes twinkled. "With pleasure, monsieur. We have at this moment one hundred thousand men in there and five thousand guns, and provisions for fifteen years, and when they are used up we have five times as many more to come." "If you could give me a satisfactory word about two young officers, prisoners in your hands, you would ease some very sore hearts at home, monsieur. That is all I ask. I have come all the way from England to get news of them." "If I can, monsieur. What are their names?" "Carron; two brothers--one in the Engineers, the other in the Hussars." "_Tiens!_ Yes--Carron! I know them. Some of our guns have the same name. They are well, monsieur. I saw them only yesterday." "Thank God for that! And I thank you, monsieur, most gratefully." "It is nothing. One of them was sorely wounded, but the Grand Duke sent his own doctor, and he is recovered. They were walking together yesterday, and we spoke. I shall tell them of your inquiry. What name, monsieur?" "Eager--Charles Eager. Will you tell them all are well at home and very desirous of seeing them. If only this terrible war would come to an end!" "Yes, indeed; _le Malheur!_ But I assure you, monsieur, we will stop fighting at once if only you will all go home." "I wish I could make them," said Eager. "It is terrible work." And he looked round at the broken men lying so thickly all about. "It is rough play. Whether the omelets are worth all the broken eggs, I cannot say. Have you any idea what we're fighting about, monsieur?" "General principles, I suppose." "Ah, he is a costly leader, this General Principles," said the other, with a twinkle. "Permit me to offer you a cigar." "We will exchange," said Eager, producing some of Sir George's extra specials. "Let us smoke to a speedy peace." "With all my heart." And they parted friends, and both went their ways wondering why such things must be. And if the Russian never delivered Eager's message it was not his fault, for he was killed by a shell that same afternoon in Bastion No. 4. The ground was cleared at last. There was a moment's pause. Then the white flags came fluttering down, and a gun from the Redan sent a shot hurling up the trenches, to show that playtime was over. Eager was much comforted in mind by his interview with the Russian. He had seemed a good fellow, and could have no object in deceiving him. He wrote long letters home, and resolved to wait on and see if the great bombardment, to which all efforts were now directed, would bring the end any nearer. And so it came about that he stood with the rest on Cathcart's Hill, in the misty drizzle of that bleak Easter Monday morning, and watched the opening of the second bombardment of Sebastopol. They could hear enough up there. All round the vast semicircle more guns were crashing than had ever roared in concert before. But they could see very little. The gunners themselves could not see. They knew Sebastopol lay over there and they were bound to hit something. And Eager strained his eyes into the chill white mist to see all he could, and felt sick at heart at thought of the destruction any one of those wildly flying shot and shell might wreak. CHAPTER LXIV THE LONG SLOW SIEGE It was the most trying time Jim had ever spent. He had had no experience whatever of sick-beds, beyond his own short spell after Balaclava, and even that was as different from this deadly monotony as well could be. But he stuck to it valiantly, and was only saved from physical and mental collapse himself by Tatia's arbitrary oversight. If there had been anything going on outside he might have found the change from the sick-room bracing, but both besieged and besiegers were too busy girding their loins for another struggle to waste time or powder on useless display. The Allies had found the nut too hard to crack, and were working hard on preparation for the next blow; and those inside, fully informed of everything that went on in the camps, were straining every nerve to resist it. So big guns and mortars went toiling up to the heights from Balaclava Bay, and mountains of gabions and fascines and more big guns went toiling up the heights inside to face them, and for days hardly a shot would be fired on either side. It was towards the end of February that Greski said to Jim, one day when Tatia had turned them out-of-doors--"Come, and I will show you something new." And they went round to the eastern slope, looking out towards the Karabelnaia suburb and the Malakoff and Redan--all of which Jim knew by heart. And at the first glance Jim saw a change in the look of things. A new fort had sprung up in the night between the Malakoff, which till now had been the foremost Russian work on that side, and the French trenches--a fort of size too, all a-bristle with gabions and fascines round the crown of the flat hill. The thousands of men still working at it made it look like a great ant-heap. "French!" said Jim, after his first quick glance, with a feeling of exultation, for the new work must seriously menace, if not command, the Malakoff. "French?--no, my friend!--Russian! Truly your people are not very wideawake. Todleben has been expecting them to seize that hill ever since they crept so close, and it would have been bad for the Korniloff Bastion, you see. So, as they did not, and it seemed a pity no one should use it, he occupied it last night, and ten thousand men have been busy on it ever since." "Hang it! What fools we were to let it slip!" "Undoubtedly! And without doubt you will now try to recover it, and it will cost you many men, and us also, and so the game goes on." And that very same night, when Jack had at last fallen asleep, Greski said to Jim, as though he were inviting him to a theatre party: "At midnight we will take a little walk, and you will see your friends attempt to recover the new fort, the Mamelon. "You seem to know all about it," said Jim incredulously. "Of course. That again is where we beat you. We know all your plans. We have plans of every trench you cut with every gun you place in it." "Not from any of our men," said Jim, with heat, for underhand work such as that struck him offensively. "Oh no. But your men talk too much among themselves, and our spies are through your camps night and day. They all speak French, you see, and uniforms are easy to get, whereas none of your people speak Russian well enough to pass muster for a moment. I can even tell you that the attack will be all French--Zouaves, Marines, and Chasseurs, under three thousand in all, and the General Monet will be in command. They will walk right up into the trap and will all be killed or captured." "It is sheer murder." "What would you? It is war; and after all, though I hate Russia, one cannot help remembering that she did not invite you to come here. We will wait here. It is not yet time." "Why aren't you up there yourself?" "I was in the last sortie and it is not my turn, _Dieu merci!_ for it will be hot up there to-night. There are plenty of us, you see, and we take fair turns." All was dark and still up along the distant hill-side, so void of offence that Jim began to wonder if Greski had not made a mistake. But after several impatient glances at his watch by the glow of his cigar, he said at last: "Now--it is time! Watch!--over there!" But the minutes passed--long, long minutes, almost the longest Jim had ever lived through. "Doesn't seem coming off," he jerked. "Wait!" jerked Greski, at tension also. "They were to start at midnight. They have a quarter-mile to cover, and they will go cautiously because the ground behind there is bad. We are to let them come right up and--ah--_voilà!_" as the darkness behind the new fort blazed and roared and became an inferno of deadly strife; terrific volleys of musketry and the hoarse shouting of men--no big guns, and presently even the firing became desultory, but the turmoil waxed louder and louder. Greski danced with excitement. "_Mon Dieu!_ but they are fighting!--hand to hand! They are devils to fight, those Zouaves. I wish--I wish--but it is not safe here to wish." The turmoil came rolling round this side of the hill; the Russians were falling back. Then flaming volleys broke out on each side of the turmoil. "Ah--ah--ah! Supports from Korniloff," jerked Greski. And then suddenly the Malakoff and Redan big guns blazed out, and poured an avalanche of shot and shell and rockets on the gallant attack, and it withered and melted away. "Two--three thousand men in pieces, and as you were!" was Greski's summing up. "Infernal butchery," growled Jim, much worked up. "What would you, my friend? It is war." And they went soberly home, thinking of the horrors of the red hill-side and all the broken men who lay there, while all the church bells in the town clashed pæans of victory overhead as they went. The one bright ray to Jim, in this time of gloom, was the fact that Jack was without doubt slowly improving, to the great satisfaction and greater surprise of his wearied but unwearying nurses and the Grand Duke's doctor. "He has no right to live," said the latter, "and yet he lives, and may live. It is marvellous." But then he had not known how the open-air life on the flats prepared a man for contingencies such as this. It was long before Jack could speak above a whisper without suffering, and then at last he was able to sit propped up with pillows and to take an interest in things in general, But the gardens were full of hyacinths and crocuses, and there were even patches of them on the troubled hill-sides, among the white tents and muddy trenches, before he tasted fresh air again. Then Jim would lead him on his strong arm, very slowly and with many a rest, to a sheltered place whence he could see what was going on, and so keen was his interest that it was no easy matter to get him home again. And the officers they met on the road would stop them, and politely inquire after Jack's health, and express their pleasure at his recovery, and discuss matters with them, and gallantly express their conviction that the siege would go on for ever, but admit all the same that if it could honourably end they would not be sorry. They had another ray of hope when the news came of the death of the Tsar. Would it mean an end of the terrible struggle, and release, and home? Their hearts--and not theirs only--beat high with hope, and fell the lower when the word came that the fight was to go on to the bitter end. CHAPTER LXV THE CUTTING OF THE COIL With the better weather things quickened somewhat--the things of Nature, to life; the things of Man, to death. Man strove with all his might to end his fellow man, and drenched the earth with blood: and the spring flowers pushed valiantly through the blood-soaked sods and seemed to wonder what it was all about. The boys learned from Greski that the chief bones of contention now were the rifle-pits. The lines and burrows of attack and defence had by this time run so close to one another that in places you could almost throw a stone from one to the other. No smallest chance of harassing the enemy was lost on either side. Both sides had learnt by experience what damage and annoyance to the working parties could be effected by small bodies of picked marksmen hidden in sunken pits in advance of the lines, and the struggles over and round and in these tiny strongholds were endless, and furious beyond description. He told them how sixty Russians had held their pits near what he called the Korniloff Bastion, but which Jack and Jim knew more familiarly as the Malakoff, against five thousand Frenchmen, until reserves came up and the Frenchmen had to retire. And how some crack shot in one of the English pits was potting their men even in the streets of the town, twelve hundred yards away, so that passage that way was no longer permitted. He told them that the Allies were mounting more and more big guns, and prophesied hot work again before long, and feared that this time "he"--by which simple comprehensive pronoun the Russian soldiers always referred to the hundred thousand men out there on the hill-side--the enemy--just as Jack and Jim had always used the term to designate Sir Denzil in their early days--Greski feared that "he," out of patience with the long delay and the sufferings it had entailed, would no longer confine his efforts to battering the forts, but would probably try to make an end of the town itself. "In which case," he said, "we may have to move over to the other side of the water. He can knock down the bastions to his heart's content; we can build them again faster than he can knock them down. But the town--that would be another matter." All the streets leading in from the hill-sides were barricaded, and a new line of huge entrenchments sprang up among the houses inside the town, half-way up the slope on which it was built. From their chosen look-out on that eastward slope the boy watched all that went on, inside and outside, with hungry anxious eyes. They noted the immense activities on both sides, and it seemed to them, as it had done before to Jim that things might go on like this for ever. "If we are really going to try another bombardment," said Jack slowly--he always spoke slowly and quietly now, a way he had got into through fear of straining his chest--"and if they keep it to the earthworks, it is all wasted time. The only way to end it is to smash the town and rush it over the pieces. It is doubtful kindness to spare it. Far better end the matter for all concerned. Then we could all go home and become human beings again. I've no fight left in me, Jim." "A couple of months on the flats will make you as sound as a bell," said Jim cheerfully. "The air here is full of gunpowder and dead men. What you want is Carne." "I've thought a good deal about it all while I lay there and couldn't talk," said Jack. "You'll have to take it all on, Jim. I shall be a broken man all my life--I feel it inside me; and Carron of Carne must be a whole man. You must take it on, Jim." "Don't let's talk about it, old man. We're not home yet. Time enough to go into all that when we get there. I wish to goodness Raglan would come right in and make an end of it." "It would be an awful business. But I don't see how we're going to end it any other way. And truly I wish it were ended, for I long to get home. All I want is to get home." Their friend Greski had so far escaped the dangers of his unpalatable duties in a manner little short of marvellous. He shirked nothing, and took his fair turns with the rest. And, though he hated Russia with all his heart, he laughingly confessed that when he was in the thick of things he forgot it all in his eagerness to win the fight. But such phenomenal luck was too good to last. He went out one night to join in a sortie, and the morning came without him, and found his mother and Tatia in woeful depths, certain he was dead. Jim went off at once for news, and found him at last in the hospital, with a bullet in the thigh and a bayonet wound in the shoulder. "It is nothing, it is nothing," said the hurrying surgeon. At which Greski made a grimace at Jim, and said: "All the same, if it was only himself now! And the way he hacked that bullet out! We are getting callous to other folk's sufferings." "Why, you hardly felt it," said the surgeon. "You said so." "When one's helpless under another man's knife one says what he wants. It hurt like the deuce." "When can I take him home?" asked Jim, in stumbling French. "After two days, if he behaves and goes on well." So Jim went home and comforted madame and Tatia; and two days later they were happier in their minds than they had been since the siege began, in that they had him there all the time and safe from further harm. He grizzled somewhat at being shelved "just when the fun was going to begin," for he felt assured in his own mind that "he," outside, was preparing for a general assault, and he would have liked to see it. And so the boys did their best to keep him posted in all that went on. They were wakened at daybreak one morning by an uproar altogether out of the common--one vast, unbroken, terrific roll of thunder, so deep, so ominous, so far beyond anything they had ever heard in their lives before that it sounded as though the whole of heaven's artillery had been mounted on the hill-sides, and brought to bear on the devoted town, and was bent on battering it to pieces. Greski called them from his room, and they went in. "Hurry, hurry, or you'll miss it all! We knew it must be soon, but could not learn the day. They will come in on top of this, I think. Keep under cover, and come back and tell me all about it. Oh, ---- this leg!" It was a bad morning for any conscious possessor of a chest--heavy with mist and thick with drizzling rain; a black funereal day, sobbing gustily, and drenching the earth with showers of bitter tears. The chill discomfort of it told even on Jim. "Jack, old man, I wish you'd go back," he said, before they had gone a hundred yards. "I'll bring you word as soon as I can. They're not likely to come in at once, and you'll have plenty of time to see all that's going on. They'll probably hang away at the forts for the whole day. Do go back." "Get on!--get on!" coughed Jack. "I want to see." And they pushed on through the gloomy twilight. The streets were alive with all the others who wanted to see, and long compact lines of gray-coats were pressing stolidly towards the front, to strengthen the lines against the expected onslaught. Jim was doubtful how far they should venture, but Jack was intent on seeing. This was history. This was the consummation of all the hopes, and the weary days and nights, that had gone into those mighty zigzags up on the hill there. This was his own arm striking as it had never struck before since time began, and he must see it at its best. But, though they could hear enough, they could not see much, because of the mist and the rain and the dense clouds of smoke rolling down the hill-sides. The Russian batteries were only beginning to reply, by the time the boys reached their usual look-out on the eastern slope near the cathedral, and then the uproar doubled, and the very ground beneath them seemed to shudder under it. Jim helped his brother to his usual seat in a niche in the broken wall of a garden, and tucked his cloak carefully about him, for between his boiling excitement and the rawness of the morning, he was all ashake and his teeth were chattering. "Every gun we have," gasped Jack . . . "hard at it!" "If they can't see more than we can, they're going it blind," growled Jim, as he strode about to get warm. And then, like a bolt from the sky, without an instant's warning, out of the chill white mist in front came a great round black ball, which dropped with a thud into the ground almost at Jack's feet. It lay there, hissing and spitting like a venomous devil gloating over its anticipated villainy, and Jim rushed at it with an unaccustomed oath of dismay. It was sheer instinct. He had no time for thought. The devilish thing was close to Jack, and Jack could not move. He got his right hand under it to hurl it down the slope. His feet slipped from under him as he heaved. Then with a splintering crash the thing burst. . . . And the Coil of Carne, cut by a stray British shell, lay shattered about the eastern slope of Sebastopol. CHAPTER LXVI PURGATORY Jim came to himself in purgatory. It seemed to him that he came slowly out of a dead black sleep into a horrible wakening dream. He was in a vast room, low-roofed, with massive arches which obstructed his view and lay like weights on his brain. Small, heavy windows let in a murky light. All about him were dismal groanings, and mutterings, and curses, and a most evil atmosphere, which turned his stomach. He tried to move, and was seized with grinding pains up his right side and arm and shoulder. He tried to grope back into the meaning of it all, and suddenly he remembered the shell. It must have burst and wounded him. His right hand shot suddenly with burning pangs. He wondered how Jack had fared. He could not remember whether he had succeeded in pitching it down the slope or not. He had done his best; but he remembered that the fuse was very short. . . . Was he really alive? . . . or was he dead, and this hell? . . . The groans and curses . . . that awful smell of blood and dead men! . . . He came to himself again, and it was all black about him--thick, heavy, chill darkness, full of groans and curses and the smell of blood and dead men. The heavy little windows came slowly out of the black void first, then the massive pillars, and after a long, long time he saw dim figures moving slowly about in the twilight. One passed close to him, and he wanted to call to him to ask him about Jack, but when he tried to speak he found he could not. Then two more men came and dragged away the bodies of the two who lay in the straw on each side of him. Their clothes rubbed his as they went. He had not thought about them because they had lain so quiet. The men came back with another man, who groaned as they laid him down, and then with another on the other side who groaned also, and Jim wished they had left him the quieter ones. It was a very long time before a surgeon came round to look at the new-comers, and Jim had had plenty of time to think as well as he was able to. If he lay there much longer he would die. He must get them to take him away. How? His dulled wits, roaming for possibilities, came on thought of the Grand Duke's doctor who had pulled Jack through. If he could get them to send for him. . . . Though why he should come was quite beyond him. . . . Still it was a chance. The surgeon took off his right-hand neighbour's leg where he lay, by the light of a lamp. The man gave a sudden gasp and a choke, the surgeon said "Ach!" and they carried the body away. He took off the left-hand man's arm and strapped it up. Jim with a mighty effort said, "Monsieur!" And the rumpled surgeon looked down at him and wiped his fingers on a piece of dirty rag. "I beg you," said Jim, and the surgeon bent down to him. "Well?" he said brusquely, for loads of broken men lay waiting for him, and he had cut and carved till his hands and arms were tired and his back stiff with bending. "I want . . . the Grand Duke's doctor," murmured Jim. "The deuce you do? Anything else?" And he was going. "The Grand Duke's own orders. . . He will tell you." And then he went out into the darkness again. But the feeble words had caused the surgeon to look more closely, and then to make inquiries, and when Jim came back to life he was in bed at Mme Greski's, and Tatia was sitting by the bedside. And to Jim it was like a sudden leap from hell to heaven. Tatia nodded cheerfully to him. "Where's Jack?" he asked in a whisper. "They've not found him yet. They're searching for him," said Tatia, after a moment's hesitation. "You're not to talk, or to think, or do anything but what I tell you. Drink this." And he drank, and fell asleep again. It was not until many days afterwards, when he had grown accustomed to the fact that he would have to go through life with one sleeve looped up to a button--though he still complained at times of pains in that hand--that Tatia gently broke the news to him that Jack was gone. The shell had killed him on the spot, had literally blown him to pieces. And she broke down at sight of his face; and when he turned it over to the pillow and sobbed silently, she crept quietly out of the room and left him to his sorrow. Jack gone! _Jack!_ He felt stupid and newly broken. Dear old Jack! . . . smashed by that cursed shell! A British shell, too, unless he was very much mistaken. That was hard lines, after coming through so much. Hard lines! Hard lines! He was very weak yet, and the tears welled out again and again, as he lay thinking dreamily of all the old times on the flats, and how close they had been to one another all through their lives. And Jack was gone . . . killed by a British shell! And he was so much the better man of the two. And now, if he himself lived, he would have to go home--some time--if this wretched war ever came to an end--and break all their hearts with the news. In his weakness and sorrow he wished that cursed shell had made an end of them both. It was early summer before he was about again, for the bursting shell had ripped open his side and shoulder, in addition to shattering his arm beyond repair, and had given a shock to his system from which it recovered but slowly. And still the siege dragged on. Early in June came the third bombardment. All the southern portion of the town had long been a heap of grass-grown ruins. Now, even the northern slopes became almost untenable. The theatre was shattered out of all knowledge; in every barricaded street the roadway was furrowed like a ploughed field by the shot and shell which came raining in, and these were collected each day and piled into pyramids ten feet high. Not a house but was damaged, many were in ruins; the vertical shells from the mortars came down like bolts from heaven and spread destruction where they fell. It was death to walk the streets, and no safer to stop indoors. Many crossed the harbour to the northern heights. The Greskis and Jim fitted up their cellars and lived there as in a bomb-proof. Greski himself had made but a slow recovery. The bullet-wound in his thigh took long to heal, and left him limping still and quite unfit for service--at which nis mother and Tatia rejoiced greatly, and he did not greatly repine. "As a soldier," he said, "I would shirk nothing; but all the same Russia is not my country, but my oppressor, and it makes a difference. For Poland I would die ten deaths. For Russia I grudge a finger." When the bombardment slackened again, he limped out on Jim's sound arm to gather news, and managed to keep a portentously long face as his fellows in the café told them of the taking of the Mamelon and Sapoune by the French, and the closing of the harbour road leading out to Inkerman. But alone with Jim and his own people, he let his feelings have play. "Now we're getting on a bit. I mean you are. The Mamelon is one of the keys to the door. I see the end in sight But your people are strangely, dilatory or overcareful. From what they were saying down there you could have got in more than once if you'd only come on." "I wish they had come on," said Jim heartily. "Maybe there are too many cooks at the pie." Ten days later came the fourth bombardment, and in the comparative safety of their cellars they heard the neighbours' houses crumbling and falling, and the upper part of their own came down with a crash which blanched the women's faces, till the ruins settled into position and left them still alive. Then one day, in an appalling cessation of the thunders to which their ears were accustomed, Jim and Greski, stealing out to the south slope, heard on the hill-side the solemn wail of the Dead March, and presently a great salute of unshotted guns, and learned later that Lord Raglan was dead, and, according to Greski, was succeeded by one Sampson, whom Jim failed to recognise under so large a name. Sebastopol was becoming one great hospital, one might almost say charnel-house, for the wounded were beyond their capacity for tending, and the dead lay for days in the streets unburied. And over it all the summer sun shone brightly, and flowers bloomed gaily among the shattered columns and fallen walls of houses which had once made this one of the fairest cities of the East. The siege lapsed again into dullness, in spite of Greski's prophecy. The thinned ranks behind the bastions were replenished from the northern camps. All day long the harbour was alive with the boats that brought them across. And the bastions themselves grew stronger and stronger, with the myriads of men working on them and the tons of shot rained into them from the outside. Working parties streamed up to the front all day long, carrying great stakes and poles for the abattis, and fascines and gabions for the ramparts, and in this work every English and French prisoner they had taken was employed. Jim found it refreshing to hear the hearty British oaths which rattled about such fatigue parties, and he generally hailed the speakers and got a hearty word in reply. "God bless you, sir, but this ain't no work for British sailormen, an' it does one a sight o' good to cuss 'em high an' low, even if they doesn't understand it." "Perhaps just as well," said Jim. "Can you use any money?" "Try me, sor! God bless your honour! This night I'll be as drunk as a lord, an' so will all me mates. 'Twill lighten the day an' the weight of these ---- stakes. ----- ----- all Rooshians! They don't know how to treat a sailorman." CHAPTER LXVII THE BEGINNING OF THE END And so, at last, we come to the end of that titanic struggle in the East--so far, that is, as we are directly concerned in it. It was in the first days of September, just twelve months after the Modern Armada sailed from Varna in hopes of settling matters out of hand, that the great bombardment opened; the earth shook and the heavens shuddered, and men grown used to the sound of big guns were amazed at the hideous uproar. Fifteen hundred of the heaviest guns in existence thundered back and forth in concert, and the hot hail of more than half of them rained ceaselessly on the stricken town. The sky was hidden by the smoke, and through the smoke, along with the bursting shells, shot flights of fiery rockets to add to the inferno inside. Within that fiery pale no soul ventured forth. Jim and Greski paced their gloomy quarters like restless animals--hopeful of the end, doubtful what it might entail. The women sat in corners in momentary expectation of death. All who could go had crossed the harbour to the safety of the northern heights. Greski, as the result of many discussions with Jim, had resolved to stay where he was and trust to luck and the Allies. For four days and nights the doomed city suffered that most awful scourging, and then there came a lull, and the taut-strung men in the cellar looked meaningly at one another. And presently they crept cautiously out into the sulphurous upper air, just as day was breaking. "It is ended," said Greski, for the low thick clouds of smoke rolling over the town were all aglow with the flames of burning buildings. Wherever they turned, fresh fires were bursting out. And as they stood looking, a mighty explosion shook the earth and half a dozen shattered houses near at hand came crashing into the street. Another tremendous explosion, and another and another. "It is all over," said Greski quietly again. "They are blowing up the bastions and burning the town. That, I know, was decided on long since, if it came to the point. Moscow over again." From where they were they could not see the explosions and they did not dare to venture far. But presently all the harbour was red with the blaze of burning ships, and they could see the new bridge of boats, leading across to the north side, black with crowds of hurrying fugitives. Then Fort Nicholas below them burst into flame, and the smoke from Fort Paul, just across from it, rolled along the roadstead. It was a most amazing scene, beyond description, almost beyond imagination. The firing had ceased with the blowing up of the bastions. Up on the heights the besiegers clustered thick as bees, watching with awe the results of their long and arduous labours. Below them a thin trickle of creeping looters was already making its way through the ruined suburbs into the burning city. Jim and Greski returned to their cellar; Jim to fig himself out in the remains of his uniform, Greski to collect such of the family valuables as could be easily carried; and then, with madame and Tatia on their arms, they set off, by devious ways which avoided burning and tottering buildings, crossed the black desolation of the southern suburbs, and came out on this side of the Quarantine Ravine, nearly opposite the cemetery. The looters, mostly red-trousered Zouaves, looked askant at Jim's uniform and slipped past quietly. All they wanted was plunder, and they feared to be stopped. How this young English Hussar officer had managed to get in so quickly puzzled them, but he had evidently got all he wanted. So--_allons, mes enfants!_ and let us lay hands on all we can, before the rest of our brave allies arrive! Jim knew his way as soon as they had been passed through the lower trenches, and made straight for his father's tent. The camps were almost empty. Everyone was down at the front staring at the burning town. Outside the well-known tent in the hollow, however, an orderly was hard at work scraping the mud off his master's overcoat. "Where is Colonel Carron?" asked Jim expectantly. But the man looked back at him stolidly and said, "I do not know, monsieur." "But this is his tent." "Monsieur is mistaken. This is the tent of M. the Colonel Gerome--if he is still alive, _man Dieu!_ He went into Malakoff yesterday and we have not seen him since." "And where is Colonel Carron, then?" "I do not know, monsieur. It is only three months since I came out. Is it all over, as they say?" "We have Sebastopol," said Jim, "or part of it." And he quickly pushed on along the road to French Head-quarters. A squadron of lancers came down the road at a fast trot, gleaming in the sun and jingling bravely. Their leader looked curiously at the odd little company, for ladies were refreshingly rare in camp. Then he suddenly drew rein and saluted, and Jim knew him. They had met many times in the tent in the hollow. "You, M. Carron? Why, we gave you up for dead long ago!" "Where is my father, du Bourg? I've been to his tent----" "_Mon Dieu!_--and you have not heard? I am sorry to have to tell it, but you would have to hear. Colonel Carron was killed six months ago, repulsing a sortie." And, as he saw Jim's face fall, he added: "If you have had no news for six months, _mon ami_, be prepared for the worst. You will find very few of your friends left. Where have you been?" "Prisoner inside since December." "_Mon Dieu!_ you've had hard luck! Weil, I must get on or our lively red-legs won't leave a stick in Sebastopol. We've been doing all we could to get in, and now my orders are to let no one in on any account. Adieu!" And they went off at a clanking gallop to make up for lost time. Jim set off again in gloomy spirits for British Head-quarters on the other side of the Balaclava road. Jack gone! His father gone! George Herapath and Ralph Harben gone. His little world seemed devastated. He wondered if any of the home folk were left. Gracie--Good God!--suppose Gracie were dead! And Charles Eager, and Sir Denzil! In six months anything might have happened to any or all of them. Tatia was the only fairly cheerful member of the party. To her it was like heaven to be out of that dreadful prison-house below. She had grown so used to the smell of gunpowder that the keen sweet air intoxicated her with delight. Her mother was very weary with the long walk; and as for Greski, his thigh was giving him pain, and the only thing he wanted now was to sit down and rest it. Except for the sentries and a few underlings, British Head-quarters was deserted like the rest of the camp. All the world was down at the front, watching the end of Sebastopol. So they sat on a bench in the sunshine, and waited for some one to turn up. The first to come was McLean, the young doctor with whom Jim had crossed to Constantinople on the _Carnbrea_. He was looking older, but well and cheerful. "Hello!" he cried, as soon as his eyes lighted on Jim. "It's good to set eyes on some one alive that one knew six months ago. Where have you been all this time? I see you've suffered too"--with a glance at the empty sleeve. "Been in Sebastopol for last nine months. Glad to get out." "About as glad as we are to get in. Going home, I suppose?" "Just as quick as I can. Come to report myself, but there's no one to report to." "All at the front, I suppose. It's a great day this. We're shipping off loads of sick men as fast as we can fit them for the voyage. Our old friend Jolly's in Balaclava Bay. He'd be delighted to take you, I know, if you can fix matters up quickly here." "Things any better than they used to be?" "Oh, we're all learning by experience. Even the red-tape isn't as red as it used to be; it's not much more than pink now. We've got everything we need for the sick, anyway, and that's something. By the way, there was a man here inquiring for you a short time ago--came out on purpose, I believe, and brought a shipload of just the things we were needing most." "Oh? Who was that?" "A lean-faced chap--a parson, and better than most. What was his name now?--Earnest--Eager? that was it--Charles Eager." "Eager? The dear old chap! Just like him! How long since?" "Oh, months--four or five at least. Here's the Chief!"--as a thin, quiet-looking man with a tired face rode up with a couple of aides, saluted the little party, and went inside. "Sick men first," said Jim; and McLean nodded, and went in. He was back again in five minutes. "Come down to me at Balaclava as soon as you're ready," he said, "and I'll help you on. I'll have a word with Jolly too." And he sped away. General Simpson greeted Jim, when at last he was admitted, with simple kindliness but evident preoccupation. His hands and mind were very full at the moment, and Jim's only desire was to get on towards home. All his requests were granted without hesitation, the necessary papers were promised him before night, and they set off again, first to the cavalry camp, whose location he had learned from one of the aides, and then to the railway which lay a little beyond. At the camp he came across his own orderly, who greeted him with a mixture of jovial delight at meeting again an openhanded friend and master, and of deferential awe at encountering one returned from the dead. "Quite thought you was dead, sir," said he, with a big shy smile. "I've been next door to it once or twice, Jones. Where's my horse?" "Ah, then! Dear knows, sir! The French gentleman took him to's own quarters an' I never set eyes on him since." "Ah! Anybody left here that I know? Denham?" "Lord Charles Denham, he died six, seven months ago the fever, sir." "Mr. Kingsnorth? "Invalided home in the winter, sir." "Captain Warren?" "Killed in the rifle-pits while he was potting the Russians. There's hardly anybody left that was here when you was here sir, 'cept some of us men. You going home, sir?" "As quick as I can, Jones. Here's a guinea for old times' sake. Good-bye!" And he went soberly on, feeling himself a stranger in a strange place and as one risen from the dead. They got a lift on the railway, and Jim hardly knew Balaclava, so little of the old was left--just as in the camp up above. But he tumbled up against Captain Jolly almost at once, and then his difficulties were over. "Take you?" cried the jovial master. "Take you all the way home if you like. My charter's up and I'm to get back as quick as the weather'll let me. Taking a cargo of broken pieces to Scutari, and then straight for Liverpool. Right! We'll find room for you all if we have to sleep in the bilge. Your servant, madam, and yours, miss! Glad to get away from all the noise and nastiness, I'll be bound. Come on board any time you like, Mr. Carron. Shipboard's a sight cleaner and more comfortable than any place you'll find ashore." And Jim felt happier than he had done for very many months back. CHAPTER LXVIII HOME AGAIN D. McLean snatched half an hour to say good-bye as they were weighing anchor. And among other things he happened to ask Jim: "Have you sent word home that you're coming? I don't believe in surprises." "No, I haven't. I'm only learning to write, you see." "Tell me what you want to say and I'll telegraph it from here." "Can you?" said Jim, with a look of surprise, for this too was all new since he went into captivity. "I wish you would. Just say 'Coming home--Jim,' and send it to Sir Denzil Carron, Carne, Sandshire." "Right! I'll see to it." And he duly saw to it, but in the mighty pressure on the wires, consequent on the great events of those latter days, the private dispatch got mislaid, or was lost on the road--somewhere under the Black Sea, maybe, or in the wilds of Turkey; anyway, it never reached its destination. And so it came about that Jim, satisfied that they knew of his coming, walked up to the door of Mrs. Jex's cottage, three weeks later, and found it occupied by young John Braddle, the carpenter's son, and his newly married wife. "My gosh!" said young John at sight of him. "But yo' did give me a turn, Mester Jim! An' yo've lost an arm! Was that i' th' big charge?" "No; I left it inside Sebastopol, John. But where's everybody? Mr. Eager and----" "They're all up at Vicarage, Mester Jim. He's vicar now, and Mrs. Jex she keeps house for him. An' so Molly and me----" But Jim was off, with a wave of the workable arm. He had not come home to hear about John and Molly Braddle. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Eager had just got back from their honeymoon. Mrs. Jex had been in residence for a month past, getting things into shape for them, with Gracie's very active assistance. And--"Bless her 'art! She couldn' do no more if 'twas her own house she was a-fittin' up. And may I live to see that day!" said Mrs. Jex with fervour. Gracie had been living at Knoyle, for the comfort and consolation of Sir George, who found his great house very lonely, and talked of selling it and coming to live with them at the cosy old ivy-covered Vicarage. They were all sitting round the dinner-table still; Meg--Mrs. Charles--and Gracie cracking a surreptitious walnut now and again, Sir George sipping his own excellent port, and smoking one of his own extra-specials with a relish he had not experienced for months past; while the Rev. Charles--the vicar, if you please--recalled some of the delightful humours of their travel. For never since the world began had there been a month so packed with wonder and delight. The drift-logs on the hearth crackled and spurted, and the many-coloured flames laughed merrily at their own reflections in the Jex-polished mahogany and old walnut panelling. And Rosa, the little maid, had tapped three times on the door and peeped in, and gone back to Mrs. Jex with word that he was a-talking and a-talking as if he'd go on all night, and they all looked so happy that she hadn't the heart to disturb them. To which Mrs. Jex had replied, "All the same, my gel, we've got to wash up, and so we'll begin on these." "I'm so glad," said Gracie, during a brief pause, and she knitted her fingers in front of her on the table and gazed happily on them all. "You two make me happy just to look at you----" "Then is the object of our wedding attained," said Charles, with a smile and a bow. "Almost quite happy," continued the Little Lady. "If only the boys were here, now----" "We ought to hear something soon," said Sir George. "I was hoping the dispatches might bring some news of them. You don't suppose the Russians would carry them across with them?" "I wouldn't like to say what the Russians might or might not do," said Eager thoughtfully. "They're a queer lot, from all accounts. I didn't tell you we called on Lord Deseret as we came through London. He was very friendly and as nice as could be. Among other things he told us that, as the result of all his inquiries, he learned from St. Petersburg that the boys were being kept in Sebastopol of set purpose." "That's odd! Why?" asked Sir George. "For the still odder reason, as it was reported to him, that they were safer inside than outside." "And who was it was playing Providence to them like that?" "He could only surmise, but I am not at all sure that he told us all he knew. He is an old diplomat, you know." "And to whom did his surmises point?" "I gathered it was towards Mme Beteta, the Spanish dancer. You remember she made something of a furore in London when she was over here." "But what on earth has she got to do with our boys?" asked Gracie, kindling. "She seemed to take a fancy to them. You remember how Jim used to write about her." "But how could a woman such as that exercise any influence in such a matter?" asked Sir George. "Ah!----" Then there came a knock on the front door, and they heard Rosa trip along to answer it. And the next moment Rosa's white face appeared at the dining-room door, and Rosa's pale lips gasped: "Oh mum, miss, 't's 'is ghost--Master Jim!" And Jim pushed past her into the room, and they all sprang up to meet him. Gracie was nearest, and she just flung her arms round his neck crying, "Oh Jim! _Jim!_"; And he put his left arm round her and kissed her, and put her back into her chair. It was many minutes before they could settle to rational talk, for Mrs. Jex must come hurrying in, and Jim kissed her too, and seemed inclined to go round the whole company. But then they came to soberness with the inevitable question: "And Jack?" And an expressive gesture of Jim's left hand prepared them for the worst. "The shell that took this," he said, glancing down at his empty sleeve, "took Jack too. I did my best"--and he looked anxiously at Gracie and Eager--"I tried to fling it away, but it burst, and--and-- that was the end. It was days before I knew." By degrees he told them all the story; and saddened as they were by the loss of one, they could not but soberly rejoice that one at all events had been spared to them. He told them of the Greskis and all their kindnesses, and how he had brought them hone with him, since Greski was set on ending his servitude with Russia, and now it would be supposed that they had perished in the bombardment, and so no consequences could be visited on their friends in Poland because of his desertion. He had settled them for the time being in a quiet hotel in Liverpool, and later on they would decide further as to their future. Eager had been very thoughtful while Jim talked. Now he said: "Do you feel able to come along with me to Caine, my boy? Mrs. Jex was telling me that old Mrs. Lee is lying at the point of death. It is just possible--But I don't know," he said musingly, with a tumult of thoughts behind his fixed gaze at Jim "It does not matter now. . . . Still, I imagine your grandfather. . . . Yes, I think we must go." "I'm ready," said Jim, and they two set off at once for Carne, and the others gathered round the fire and talked by snatches of it all, and Gracie mopped her eyes at thought of all those two boys had suffered, and of Jack, and of Jim's poor arm--and everything. "He has become a very fine man," said Sir George. "A man to be proud of, my dear." And Meg kissed her warmly and whispered, "Make him happy, dear!" CHAPTER LXIX "THE RIGHT ONE" A woman from the village opened the door, and stared at Eager and Jim in vast surprise. "How is Mrs. Lee to-night, Mrs. Kenyon?" asked Eager. "'Oo's varry low. 'Oo just lies an' nivver spakes a word." "Well now"--very emphatically--"I want you not to go in, or speak to her, till we come down again. You understand?" "I understand, and I dunnot want to spake to her." They went quietly along the stone passage, past the door of the room where the sick woman lay, and tapped on the door of Sir Denzil's apartments. Kennet opened it with a wide stare, and they went in. Sir Denzil was lingering over his dinner. "So you've got home, Mr. Eager----" he lifted his glass of wine to his health. Then catching sight of Jim behind--"Ah, Jim, my boy, so you've come home at last!" "All that's left of me, sir." "Ah--I see. Well, well! Better half a loaf than no bread." And he stood up and got out his snuff-box, tapped it into good order inside, and extracted a pinch. "I've been expecting you ever since we got news of the fall of Sebastopol. And Jack----? "Jack is dead, sir." "So!" And the grizzled brows went up in inquiry for more. "He was killed by the same shell that took my arm. Why it did not take us both I do not know." "Dear, dear! The ways of Providence are past our finding out. Let us accept her gifts without questioning. I am delighted to see you, my dear boy--delighted. Now that we have got you safe home we must make the most of you." And for the first time in his life Eager got glimpse of a Sir Denzil he had never known before, and could hardly have imagined, had it not been his custom to credit every man with more possibilities of grace than outside appearances might seem to warrant. "And now," continued Sir Denzil, with anxious warmth, "I hope you've had enough of war, and are ready to settle down here and make the most of what is left to you." "It has been a trying time, sir. I shall be glad of a rest." But Sir Denzil was gazing at him with something of the fixity of Charles Eager's look before they left the Rectory. He took a thoughtful pinch of snuff, with a sudden relapse into his old manner. Then he nodded his head slowly several times, and said, "No . . . I think not . . . No need--now. . . ." And he looked across at Eager and said: "It occurred to me that if he went down and saw that old woman . . . but it is not necessary now. Nothing she could say----" "I would like to see her, by your leave, sir," said Jim. "After all, she was good to us boys, in her own way, you know." "Very well," said Sir Denzil, after a moment's hesitation, as though he shrunk from subjecting his new-found satisfaction to any test whatever. "Only--remember! Her whole life has been a lie, and we cannot trust a word she says." And they went downstairs, and along the stone passage, to the side-room in which Nance Lee's baby had slept his first sleep at Carne, that black night one-and-twenty years before. "Yon other woman will have told her," said Sir Denzil, stopping short of the door as the thought struck him. "No; I told her not to," said Eager. "Ah!"--with a quick look at him--"then you had the same idea." And they went quietly in. Mrs. Lee was lying motionless on her back, and her thin gray face in its frilled white nightcap looked so set and rigid that at first they thought her dead. Sir Denzil nodded to Eager to speak to her, and stepped back out of sight. "Mrs. Lee," said Eager, bending over her, "here is one of our boys come back from death. He wished to see you." The dim old eyes opened and stared wildly at them all for a moment, then settled on Jim in a long, thin, piercing gaze. "Don't you know me, Mrs. Lee?" he asked. "Ay--shore! . . . Yo're----" and she struggled up to her bony elbow to look closer, and caught a glimpse of Sir Denzil behind--"yo're Jack!" and fell back on to her pillow. They thought she was gone; but she suddenly opened her eyes again and laughed a thin, shrill little laugh, and said: "So t'reet un's come back, after aw!" And then her meagre body straightened itself in the bed, and she lay still. "I knew we'd get nothing out of her," said Sir Denzil, when they had got back to his room. "But whatever she said would have made no difference. You are Carron of Caine, my boy; and, thanks to our friend here, Carne will have a better master than it has had for many a day." CHAPTER LXX ALL'S WELL! "Gracie, dear!" said Jim, "will you make me the happiest man in all the world? I've hungered and thirsted for you all these months, and I believe old Jack would wish it so if he knew." "Oh, Jim"--and she put up her arms and drew down his head, and kissed him with a little sob--"if you had both come back, it would have killed me to part you; but truly, truly, my love, I love you with all my heart." "God bless you, dear! I will do my best to make you happy." "I'm as happy as I can be, Jim; but perhaps if you gave me another kiss----" So that great matter settled itself in the great settlement, an there is little more to tell. Sir George insisted on the Greskis coming out to Knoyle for a time, until he should find some suitable opening for Louis. Nothing was too good for such friends-in-need [t?] their recovered Jim, and they all delighted in Mme Greski's fine foreign manners and the lively Tatia's exuberant joy after their deliverance from Russia. Lord Deseret came down from London to the wedding, and brought with him two magnificent presents--diamonds from himself, which must have represented an unusually good night's winnings at the green board, and a wonderful rope of pearls from Mme Beteta, at which Gracie was inclined at first to look askance, though her eyes could not help shining at sight of them. "You may take them without any qualms, my dear," said Lord Deseret. "It is possible that you owe your husband to madame"--and he may have added, to himself, "in more senses than one." "Why? How is that?" asked Gracie quickly. "Madame is now the morganatic wife of one of the Russian Grand Dukes, and I have every reason to believe that it was due to urgent representations on her part, some time before she consented to marry him, that our two boys were not allowed out of Sebastopol. She thought they would be safer inside, and I have no doubt she was right. The chance inside were about ten to one in their favour, I should say." "Then, indeed, I thank her," said Gracie heartily; "though old Jim does look so glum at having been cotton-woolled like that. But I don't quite understand why the lady put herself about so much on their account." And that was one of the things she never did understand. Lord Deseret waived the question lightly with: "Woman's whims are past all understanding, my dear. Perhaps she fell in love with Jim, as the rest of us did." "Why, she was old enough to be his mother," said Gracie, with little idea how near she may have come to the truth. "You understand, I suppose?" he said to Jim that night, as they sat smoking together. And Jim nodded soberly. "When did she marry?" he asked presently. "Last March. Your father was kilted in January." "And Kattie is still with her?" "Still with her, and going to make as fine a dancer as she is pretty a girl. You did well for her when you placed her in the Beteta's hands, my boy." "Poor little Kattie!" said Jim. "I'm glad she came to me that night." And here this chronicle may end. The more one ponders this strange and complex coil of life, with its broken hopes and unexplained mysteries, its short-cut strands and long-spun ropes, the more one draws to simple hope and trust in the Higher Powers. The knots and tangles twisted by man's ill doing defy at times all human efforts at their straightening. In face of such, the utmost that a man may do is to bear himself bravely, to do his duty to God and his neighbour, and leave the issue in the hands of a higher understanding than his own. PRINTED BY HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY. 
56230	----	Trobe University, Australia Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: http:// arrow.latrobe.edu.au/store/3/4/6/3/1/public/B14644101.pdf (La Trobe University, Australia) [Illustration: Front cover] THE AMETHYST CROSS ------------------------------------- _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ ------------------------------------- THE MYSTERY OF A SHADOW ------------------------------------- CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD. LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE ------------------------------------- [Frontispiece: "'Father!' she shrieked!" (_see page 194_.)] THE AMETHYST CROSS BY FERGUS HUME AUTHOR OF "THE MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB," "FLIES IN THE WEB," "THE PURPLE FERN," "THE MYSTERY OF A SHADOW," ETC. WITH COLOURED FRONTISPIECE BY C. DUDLEY TENNANT CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE 1908 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNING OF A MYSTERY II. THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS III. ANOTHER MYSTERY IV. A FAMILY HISTORY V. MRS. WALKER'S OPINION VI. PURPLE AND FINE LINEN VII. AFTER MIDNIGHT VIII. UNDER A CLOUD IX. TWO GIRLS X. THE _DEUS EX MACHINA_ XI. THE SEAMY SIDE XII. A COUNTERPLOT XIII. MRS. WALKER'S VISIT XIV. THE FAMILY LAWYER XV. A STARTLING LETTER XVI. RECOGNITION XVII. DISGRACE XVIII. LADY CHARVINGTON'S ACCUSATIONS XIX. MR. HALE EXPLAINS XX. JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS' MEETING XXI. TWO INTERVIEWS XXII. THE PLOT XXIII. ONE PART OF THE TRUTH XXIV. ANOTHER PART OF THE TRUTH XXV. REVENGE XXVI. THE END OF IT ALL THE AMETHYST CROSS CHAPTER I THE BEGINNING OF A MYSTERY THE blackbird knew. He had paired for the fifth time in as many years, and esteemed himself wise in the matters, of love. Therefore, from the budding chestnut wherein his nest was built, did he sympathetically watch the bachelor and maid who sat below. They were lovers as he knew very well, for only lovers could have gazed so persistently into one another's eyes, and therein did they behold each other as each wished to be. Which sentence is cryptic to those who are not lovers as these were. They might have looked at the smoothly-flowing river, singing quietly to itself not a stone-cast away, or round a tangled garden, delicately beautiful with the young greenery of May, or up into the azure depths of a sky, flecked with silvery clouds. But they preferred--wisely it may be--to look into each other's eyes, to clasp hands and to remain silent with that eloquent muteness, which is the speech of true love. Oh! the blackbird knew the meaning of these things very thoroughly, and chuckled with such glee that he finally broke into glorious song concerning the new love, the true love, the old love, the bold love, which comes evermore with the blossoms of spring. But these inhabitants of Paradise did not require the bird to reveal the obvious. Their hearts were also singing the song of the early year. "It can't last for ever," murmured the maid dreamily, "it is too beautiful to last, since we are but mortal." "It shall last for ever; it must," corrected the bachelor, wise in that wisdom of the gods, which comes to wooers, "for we love with our souls, dearest, and these cannot die." She knew that he was right, for her heart told her so. Therefore did they again look into one another's eyes and again become silent, while the fluting blackbird explained more than mere human speech could render. And he, perched on a swaying bough, was only too willing to interpret. He knew: he was wise. And listening Nature heard complacently. To such ends had she shaped her children; for such a reason had she provided their Arcadia. As Arcadia, like Marlowe's hell, is not circumscribed, it chanced that this especial one was by Thames-side, and those who dwelt therein were up-to-date in looks and dress and manners. Only their feelings were those of classic times, and as he told her the old, old story, which is ever new, she listened with the instinctive knowledge that the tale was wonderfully familiar. She had read it in his eyes, after the manner of maids, long before he dared to speak. And this river Paradise was not wholly unworthy at so comely an Adam and Eve, although limited in extent and untrimmed in looks. Lord Beaconsfield declared that the most perfect garden is that cultivated to excess by man and then handed over to the caprice of Nature. The owner of this demesne apparently subscribed to this dictum, for the garden, well-filled with expensive flowers and shrubs, had long since relapsed into wildness. On either side of the narrow strip of land, sloping gradually to the stream, extended low walls of mellow red brick overgrown with dark-green ivy. The flowerbeds were luxuriant with docks and nettles and charlock and divers weeds: the pathways were untidy with lush grass, and the tiny lawn at the water's edge was shaggy and untrimmed. A wooden landing-stage floated near shore at the garden's foot, and to this was attached the young man's boat. At the far end of this neglected domain could be seen a thatched cottage with whitewashed walls and oblong lattices quaintly diamond-paned. So rustic and pretty and old-world did it look that it might well have been the fairy-dwelling of a nursery tale. And the lovers themselves were young and handsome enough to deserve the care of the fairies. He was tall, slim, well-formed, and Saxon in his fairness. His curly hair--so much of it as the barber's shears had spared--was golden in the sunlight, as was his small moustache, and his eyes were bravely blue, as a hero's should be. The white boating-flannels accentuated the bronze of his skin, and revealed the easy strength of an athlete. He looked what the girl took him to be--a splendid young lover of romance. Yet he was but a City clerk of prosaic environment, and his youth alone improved him into Don Juan o' Dreams. The girl resembled Hebe, maidenly, dainty, and infinitely charming; or it might be Titania, since her appearance was almost too fragile for the work-a-day world. With a milky skin; brown-haired and brown-eyed; with a tempting mouth and a well-rounded chin, she looked worthy of any man's wooing. She was sweet and twenty; he but five years older, so both were ripe for love. And then the spring, joyous and fresh, had much to do with the proposal just made. Her answer to his question had been tunefully commented upon by the irrepressible blackbird, who expressed no surprise when the echo of a kiss interrupted his song. "But my father will never agree, George," sighed the girl, after this outward and visible sound of acceptance. "Dearest Lesbia"--he folded her manfully in his arms--"I don't see why your father should object. I am not rich certainly, as a stockbroker's clerk doesn't earn large wages. But for your dear sake I shall work and work and work until I become a millionaire." Lesbia smiled at this large promise. "We may have to wait for years." "What does it matter so long as our hearts are true?" "They may grow sick with waiting," said Lesbia, sighing. Then she proceeded to look on the practical side of their idyll, as the most romantic of women will do at the most romantic of moments. "You earn only two hundred a year, darling, and my father--so far as I know--can give me nothing. He has his pension from Lord Charvington, and makes a small income by his work in the City, but"--here came a depressing pause. "What does Mr. Hale do in the City?" asked George abruptly. Lesbia opened her brown eyes. "I don't know, dear. He goes there two or three times a week, and always seems to be busy. I have asked him what his occupation is, but he only laughs, and declares that dry business details would not interest me. I am sure no girl ever knew so little of her father as I do. It's not fair." "Strange!" murmured the young man meditatively. "I never see Mr. Hale in the City, and although I have asked several people, no one appears to know the name. Of course, darling, the City is a big place, and your father may do business in a quiet way. Still it is odd that no one should know. I wish I did. I might help him." "In what way?" "Well, Lesbia, the wages I receive at Tait's office are small, and--and--and"--here George flushed for no apparent reason--"and there are other things to be considered. If I could only get something else to do I should leave Tait's. Your father might be willing to let me enter his office, you know, and then I could work up his business, whatever it might be." The girl nodded. She was a matter-of-fact young woman. Since Hale's income was limited she was compelled, as housekeeper, very often to consider ways and means. "You might speak to my father." "And may I mention our engagement?" he supplemented. "No-o!" Lesbia looked doubtful. "I had better announce that. Father has a temper, and if he grew angry, you might grow angry also." "Oh no." George was entirely in earnest when he said this. "I should always remember that he was your father and that you love him." Lesbia again looked doubtful. "Do I love him?" she mused. "One is supposed to love one's father," suggested George. She stared at the river. "Yes! I suppose so. Honour your parents, and so forth. I don't honour my father, though--his temper is too bad. I am not quite sure if I love him." "Oh, my dear." George looked nervous. "Don't make any mistake, dear boy. I like my father, since we are good friends, and usually he is kind--that is, when he is not in a rage. But then, you see, sweetest," she sighed, "he is nearly always in a rage about some trifle. Look at the garden," she waved her hand vaguely, "I wanted to hire a gardener to make it look more respectable, and father was furious. He declared that he did not want people to come spying round the cottage. Spying! Such an odd word to use." "Your father is an odd man," said George ruefully, "and he certainly has not been over-hospitable to me. Perhaps he guesses that I have come to steal his jewel, and one can't be hospitable to a robber." Lesbia pinched his chin. "You silly boy, my father doesn't think so much of me as you do. I sometimes wonder," she went on sadly, "if he loves me at all. I am very much alone." "He doesn't treat you badly?" demanded George with sudden heat. "No, dear, no. I shouldn't allow anyone to treat me badly, not even my father. But I fancy he regards me as a necessary trouble, for sometimes he looks at me in a disagreeable way as though he fancied I was spying." "Why do you use so disagreeable a word?" asked the straightforward clerk. "My father used it himself in the first instance," she rejoined promptly; "perhaps because he doesn't want anyone else to meet the queer people who come to see him,--generally after dark. Men who smell of drink, who use slang and dress like grooms,--certainly not gentlemen. Of course I never talk to them, for when they appear, my father always sends me to my room. I'm sure," sighed the girl dolefully, "that if it wasn't for old Tim, the servant, I should be quite alone." George hugged her. "You shall never be alone again!" he whispered, and Lesbia threw her arms round his neck with great contentment. "Oh, darling, you don't know how good that sounds to me. If it were only true. You see, my father may object." "He can object until he is tired," cried the ardent lover. "If he does not make you happy I must. And when he sees this----" "Oh!" Lesbia clasped her hand in delight at the sight of a cheap turquoise ring, "how lovely!" George frowned at the mean gift. "It was all I could afford," said he. "It is all I want," she said, as he slipped it on her engagement finger, "it's not the cost, or even the thing. It's what it means. Love and joy to you and me, dearest boy." But George, having a generous heart, still lamented. "If I hadn't to keep my mother," he said ruefully. "I would save up and give you diamonds. But two hundred a year goes a very little way with my mother, even when her own small income is added. You see, dear, she never forgets that my father was the Honourable Aylmer Walker, and she will insist upon having everything of the best. This is a beastly cheap ring, but--but----" "But you denied yourself all manner of nice things to buy it for ME," finished Lesbia, pressing a kiss on his willing cheek. "No, dear, no," he said valiantly, "only a few pipes of tobacco." "You dearest donkey," cooed the girl, more touched than she chose to confess, "doesn't that show me how you love me. As to the ring," she surveyed the cheap trinket critically, "it is exactly what I wanted. The stones are the colour of your dear eyes." George, man-like, was delighted. "You know the colour of my eyes?" Lesbia boxed his ears delicately. "I knew the colour exactly one minute after our very first meeting." "Did you love me then?" "No. Certainly not: how conceited you are." "Then why did you notice my----" "Oh, a woman always notices these things, when a man is nice." "And you thought me nice?" Lesbia fenced. "Good-looking, at all events. You wore a dark flannel suit striped with pale green." "So I did," cried George, delighted, "it was at Mrs. Riordan's picnic near Bisham Abbey a year ago. And you were there." Lesbia laughed and nursed her knees. "I must have been, since I can describe you so exactly. What did I wear, dear?" "I don't know," said George promptly. "Oh!" she was quite disappointed, "and you call yourself a lover?" "I do," he rejoined stoutly, "for, as I fell in love with you the moment we met, I saw only your eyes and your angel face. How could you expect me to remember a mere dress when----" "Oh, what nonsense--very nice nonsense; still nonsense." "I like talking nonsense to you." "And I like to hear it from you. But it isn't bread and butter." "You're thinking of afternoon tea," said George Walker audaciously. "No. I'm thinking of how we are to live when we marry." The mere mention of that delicious word made George forget the warning conveyed by the sentence. "Marry! Marry you! Oh, heaven!" "A pauper heaven, I fear," said Lesbia; then fished in her pocket, "see, the only valuable thing I possess, besides your love. It is for you." "Oh, my dear, it's not a man's ornament." "As if that matters, since I give it to you," she said, laughing. "I must give you something, and this is all I have to give." She held out her hand, on the palm of which rested an amethyst cross formed of four deeply purple stones, set lightly in gold filigree, with a loop at the top for the necessary chain to pass through. Not a very uncommon ornament at the first glance, George decided, although very beautiful. But on looking more closely he became aware that there was something bizarre about the thing. In the centre where the four stones met was a tiny cube of malachite, graven with a golden crown and inscribed with minute letters. The pansy-blossom hue of the stones contrasting with the vivid green of the cube gave the ornament rather an uncanny look. "What a queer thing," said George, transferring the cross to his broad palm. "Yes! isn't it?" said Lesbia eagerly, and then brought out a magnifying glass. "And the inscription is still queerer." George poised the powerful glass over the slab of malachite, and with some difficulty deciphered the golden Gothic letters. "'Refuse and Lose,'" he read slowly. "Now what does that mean?" "You stupid darling," cried Lesbia, pinching his ear, "can't you see? If you refuse the cross--which is married life; you lose the crown--which is me." Walker thrust the cross into his pocket, handed back the magnifying glass and solemnly embraced the girl, "I'll take the cross and the crown and you, and everything I can get," he whispered in her ear. "I don't exactly see the meaning, of course, but----" "Was there ever such a dense man?" Lesbia demanded of the blackbird in despair. "It's a religious symbol, of course. If you refuse to bear life's cross in the way you should, you lose the crown which ought to be yours in heaven." George took out the ornament again and looked at it seriously. He had a considerable strain of the Puritan in his nature, to which the idea appealed strongly. "I shall certainly not refuse life's cross," he declared soberly, "and may we both some day wear a crown in a better world." "My darling, my dearest, my best," she murmured, embracing him fondly. The touch of seriousness in George's gay disposition enhanced his value in her eyes. She approved of so sterling a character. "Where did you get the cross?" asked Walker, while the jewels winked in the sunshine. "From your father?" "No!" she replied unexpectedly. "He doesn't know that I possess such a thing. But my nurse, old Bridget Burke--Tim's mother, you know--who died last summer, gave it to me on her death-bed and warned me not to tell my father about it. She said that it came from my dead mother, and was to be given by me to the man I loved. So you see, my darling, that even though it is a woman's ornament, you must take it." "I'll wear it round my neck," declared George. "It will bring me good luck, I am sure." "So Bridget said," observed the girl promptly. "She had the 'sight,' you know, George, and declared that the cross would bring me luck and money and love and position. I don't know how, unless it is by marrying you." "Ah, my love," said George somewhat sadly. "I can only give you my heart. Money and position must come later. But if we both obey the inscription and bear the cross we shall win the crown of success in the end. Look how the gems flash, Lesbia--an earnest of the future." While they were both admiring the cross, a tall, lean man, perfectly dressed in a Bond Street kit, came softly down the grassy path. He looked like a gentleman, and also like a hawk, and his pale eyes wandered from one bent head to the other until they dropped to the flash of the jewelled cross, which glittered on Walker's palm. Then the newcomer started nervously, and took a step nearer to observe. Lesbia and her lover looked up as the shadow of the man fell across them, and in the movement they made, the cross fell on the grass. "Oh, father, how you startled us," cried the girl, springing to her feet. Mr. Walter Hale did not reply. His eyes were still on the purple stones of the cross, and when his daughter stooped to pick it up, he twitched his fingers as though anxious to take it from her. "Where did you get that?" he demanded abruptly and harshly. "Bridget gave it to me, and I have given it to George," she said, handing the ornament to her lover. "It belonged to my mother." "It did," said Hale sharply, "and therefore must not pass out of the family." "It won't," said Lesbia cheerfully; "George is to be my husband." Mr. Hale frowned. "You have yet to gain my permission," he said in dry tones. "Meanwhile, Mr. Walker, give me back the cross." "No!" said George, who did not like the tone of his future father-in-law and could be obstinate when necessary. "Lesbia gave it to me, and I intend to keep it." "Lesbia had no right to give it to you," cried Hale, his voice rising, and he extended his hand to take his desire. But Walker was too quick for him and dexterously swerving, shot the cross into his pocket. "It is Lesbia's first present to me," said he, excusing his obstinacy. "She has no right to make you presents," foamed the other, who had now entirely lost his temper. "She has the right of a lover," retorted George coolly. "There can be no question of love between you and my daughter." The girl moved to her lover's side, very pale and very defiant. "That is for me to decide," she said coldly, but with determination. "You go against your father, Lesbia?" "For the first time in my life. And why not, when the matter is so important?" Hale bit his lips and tried to stare her down: but as her eyes did not drop before his own he was the first to give way, and did so with inward rage. With an impatient shrug he wheeled to face young Walker. The two presented the striking contrast of untainted youth and artificial age too much versed in the evils of life. And youth had the advantage, for--as in the case of Lesbia--the older man tried to dominate without success. He was forced to take refuge in idle threats. "If you do not give me back that cross, it will be the worse for you," remarked Hale, very distinctly and with menace. George clenched his fists, then, with a glance towards Lesbia, ended the argument by stepping into his boat. As he rowed off, Hale, who had not attempted to stop him, turned bitterly to his daughter. "You have ruined me," he said between his teeth, and returned hastily to the cottage. CHAPTER II THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS To say that Lesbia was amazed conveys imperfectly her state of mind. The sudden arrival of her father, the hasty departure of her lover, the mysterious incident connected with the amethyst cross, and the still more mysterious remark which Mr. Hale had made--these things perplexed and, very naturally, alarmed her. At once, with the swiftness of an imaginative brain, she conjured up visions of disgrace and shame and criminal publicity, going too far in her surmises, after the fashion of such a brain. For after all, as a calmer reflection suggested, there was nothing in what had taken place that should induce such happenings, although there were several disquieting hints. For a few moments the girl remained where she was, too agitated to move; but when Hale disappeared into the cottage, and George's boat vanished round a bend of the shining river, she woke to the fact that for her own peace of mind it was necessary to ask questions. At once she ran up the grass-grown path, and speedily found herself in the narrow passage, which led right through the house from back to front. But she only entered to hear the street door bang, and flew to open it again in the hope of catching Mr. Hale before he could go far away. But the man must have made good use of his legs, for when she peered out into the quiet side street she noticed that it was empty. This vanishing of her father without an explanation dismayed her more than ever, and in the hope of gaining some sort of information she sought Tim in the tiny kitchen, calling on him loudly. A soft voice like a well-tuned lute answered her from the scullery. "Ah, Miss Lesbia, and what wud ye be after spoilin' yer pretty voice for now? Don't ye, me darlin', don't ye!" "Why has my father gone out, Tim?" asked Lesbia sharply. An odd little man emerged from the scullery and stood coolly rubbing his nose-tip with the toe of the boot he was polishing. "An' how should I know, miss? Didn't he come tearing through the passage, as if the divil wor after him, an' lape like a trout int' the street? Sure ye must have seen the masther rampagin' yersilf." "I know that father came and found me with George and----" "Ah, thin, 'tis Garge, is it?" muttered Tim, beginning to brush mechanically. "And rushed away in a temper because George would not give him my amethyst cross." Crash went the boot on the floor, and the blacking-brush followed, while Tim stared out of his melancholy grey eyes as though he saw a ghost. Decidedly the ornament was causing a considerable sensation, although Lesbia could not understand why her father should rage, any more than why Tim should stare. "Like a stuck pig," as she said, inelegantly. And the annoying thing was that he did more than stare. "Oh, blissid saints in glory!" groaned the Irishman, crossing himself. "What on earth do you mean?" asked the girl, tartly, for she was beginning to weary of these mysteries. "Oh, blissid saints in glory!" Tim moaned again, and, picking up the boot and the brush with the expression of a martyr, went into the scullery to peel potatoes. Lesbia, who was a determined young woman, followed, quite bent upon getting at the root of the disturbance. "Come and talk, Tim." "Sure an' I must git the dinner ready anyhow, Miss." "Come out, or I'll come in," cried Lesbia, standing at the door. "Sure ye wudn't dirthy th' clothes av ye," coaxed Tim, and very unwillingly scrambled back into the cleaner, drier kitchen with the tin basin of potatoes in his huge fist. He was certainly an ugly, under-sized man, and looked like the wicked dwarf of a fairy tale. But the similarity was all on the surface, for Tim Burke was as good and devoted a little Paddy as ever dipped his fingers into holy water. But his appearance was not prepossessing, for he was broader than he was long, and on a pair of hunched shoulders was set askew a gigantic head much too large for his squat body. His short legs were crooked, and he usually walked in a crab-like fashion in unexpected directions--that is, whither his brain did not direct his legs to go. He was barely five feet high, and his shaggy beard was as red as the untidy hair covering his poll. He was quite a monstrosity. Nevertheless, Tim had his good points, for Nature had given him beautiful grey eyes, pathetic as those of a dog, and a sweet sympathetic voice, which sounded like a mellow bell. To hear Tim sing Irish ditties of the heart-breaking sort was a treat not to be met with every day, but he rarely sang them, save to Lesbia, whom he adored. And small wonder, for she alone was kind to the odd, uncouth, little man. Mr. Hale, whose selfishness was phenomenal, treated Tim like a white slave and, indeed, he might be called one, seeing that he worked like a horse and received no wages. Yet he was an admirable housekeeper and a magnificent cook. With such qualifications he could have procured a well-paid situation. Yet, for Lesbia's sake, he remained at Rose Cottage, watching her like a cat a mouse, but with more amiable intentions. She was the legacy which his mother Bridget, the girl's nurse, had left him on her death-bed, when she died some twelve months before. Lesbia, looking like a fairy princess attended by her dwarf, perched herself on the kitchen table with a severe face. To lose no time while being questioned, Tim set to work peeling the potatoes, for Mr. Hale growled like a bear when his meals were not placed punctually on the table. As he peeled each potato, he dropped it with a splash into a bucket of clean water and rarely raised his sad eyes to the face of his young mistress during the conversation which ensued. Also--and this Lesbia noticed--he conversed very reluctantly, and every admission was wrung from unwilling lips. "Tim," said his mistress severely, and beginning at the beginning, "you are the only son of my nurse, Bridget Burke." "I am that, Miss, her only boy, Miss, and a good mother she was to me." "A good nurse also, Tim. She loved me." "An' who wudn't, ye pretty creature? Ain't I devoted to ye likewise, me darlin'? Answer me that now?" "I shall do so," said Miss Hale significantly, "when our conversation comes to an end." Tim groaned and winced. "Bad luck to the crass," he breathed, "an' may the Vargin forgive me for sayin that same." "Why, bad luck to the cross?" demanded Lesbia, coming to the point. "An' how shud I know, me dear?" "But you do know," she insisted. "Tim, your mother gave me that cross." "Did she now?--the owd fool." "How dare you, Tim, and Bridget dead? She was your mother." "Deed an' well she might be, Miss, for an uglier owd woman nivir could be found in County Clare, forby she left it for this blissid country whin I wor a gossoon." "Did my father bring her over from Ireland, Tim?" "Not he," Tim shook his Judas-coloured head. "Divil an eye did the pair av us clap on the gintleman for many a long day. Wasn't I a bare-futted brat runnin' wild about Whitechapel till my father--rest his sowl--wos tuck by the police for shop-liftin'--bad luck to thim? An' he died in gaol, poor man--ah, that he did, laving me mother an' me widout bread in the mouths av us." "What did Bridget do then, Tim?" "Sure she come to Wimbleton or a place hard by," admitted Tim reluctantly, "sellin' apples an' nuts, an' a mighty bad thing she made by the sale." "I want to know exactly how she came to be my nurse?" said Lesbia. Tim bent over the potatoes deeply interested in the peeling. "Why, Miss, your father--" here he swallowed something--"the masther, Miss, and a kind, good gintleman, tuck pity on her and give her the situation as your nurse, me dear." "But my mother?" "Oh, howly saints, an' how cud she say anything whin she wos dyin' an' you but a year old? But my mother nursed you like her own choild, Miss, till ye went to that school at Hampstead. But ye came back here just whin she was dyin', poor sowl." "I did, a year ago," said Lesbia significantly, "and in time to receive the cross, Tim." "May the father av lies fly away wid it!" groaned the dwarf. "An' may the saints forgive me for the wicked wish." "Whatever do you mean, Tim?" "Mane, ah, nivir ask me what I mane. But the crass isn't with ye now, an' ye'll be the betther widout it." "Oh!" Lesbia slipped off the table with a heightened colour, "does that mean it is unlucky? I gave it to George, you see, and----" "Ah, divil doubt but what you'd give the head av ye to Garge," grumbled Tim, taking up the tin of peeled potatoes. "Ah, well, 'tis betther he shud have it nor you, me dear." "But why, but why?" asked Lesbia, frantic with curiosity. "Ah, nivir ask me, Miss," replied Tim enigmatically, and departed to continue his culinary work; also--as she could see--to avoid further questioning. Failing Tim, the girl resolved to learn what her father would say, when at dinner. This was a meal which Mr. Hale never missed, as he was devoted to the pleasures of the table and appreciated Tim's excellent cooking. He always arrayed himself in purple and fine linen to do justice to the viands set before him, and it was the rule of the cottage that Lesbia should also dress appropriately. Her father prided himself upon being ultra-civilised, and would have eaten a red herring with sartorial ceremony. The table was admirably laid with crystal and silver and valuable china, and--decorated with flowers in graceful vases--looked extremely pretty. Tim, in a livery of his master's devising, acted as butler, and the wines were as good as the food, which is saying a lot. Mr. Hale might live in a humble cottage and might mix with queer people, but he was a sybarite, who enjoyed the good things of this life artistically prepared. The room was beautifully furnished, and Lesbia was more beautiful than the room. Therefore, on this especial night, Mr. Walter Hale had both his palate and his eye gratified. His ear was not ministered to quite so pleasantly, as, after dinner, and when Tim had left the room to prepare the coffee, he renewed the subject of the cross with his daughter. "Lesbia," said he, fixing his eyes on her somewhat flushed face, and looking extremely high-bred, "why did you give away that cross?" "Bridget, who presented it to me on her death-bed, said that I was to bestow it on the man I meant to marry. I have done so." This was a very defiant speech, and Hale frowned. "I shall not allow you to marry young Walker," he said distinctly. Lesbia shrugged her shoulders with indifference. This was not the way to manage her. "I am sorry, father, as I have decided to become his wife." "He has no money, you silly girl. I know for a fact that he is paid only a small salary by Michael Tait, who is a screw and a skinflint where his own pleasures are not concerned. Moreover, Walker has to support his widowed mother, and she is not likely to welcome a daughter-in-law who will curtail her comforts, such as they are. A hard woman, Lesbia, a very hard woman, my dear. I ought to know, as we have been acquainted for years." The prospect did not seem alluring, but love sustained the girl. "George might get a better situation," she ventured to remark, a trifle anxiously. "Why," she added, this as though the thought had just struck her, "he might help you, father." Hale spilt the port wine he was pouring into his glass. "What's that?" "You need not speak crossly, father," replied Lesbia, puzzled by the sharpness of his tone. "I merely suggested that George might enter your office, and then he----" The man rose suddenly and began to pace the room with the glass of wine in his hand. But the look he cast upon his daring child was so grim that the unfinished sentence died on her lips. "'George--might--enter--your--office!'" he repeated slowly, and ended with a cynical laugh. "Humph! I wonder now----" he laughed again and checked his speech. Then he finished his glass of wine and returned to the table. "When does Walker come to see you again?" he asked abruptly. "To-morrow night at six o'clock," said Lesbia, promptly. "He rows down the river from Medmenham, or walks along the towing-path, every evening." "A devoted lover truly," said Hale drily, "and how long has this pretty wooing been going on?" "For a few months," said Lesbia, rather alarmed by the stern expression of her father's face. "Don't be angry. After all, it was you who introduced me to George." "The more fool I, seeing his age and looks and poverty. Lesbia!" he placed his knuckles on the table and leaned across it. "You must marry my friend, Captain Sargent." "Ex-Captain Sargent," cried Lesbia scornfully, and rising unexpectedly. "I shall do nothing of the sort. I don't even like him." "Pooh! Pooh! Pooh! He is a gentleman----" "So is George." Hale rapped the table sharply. "Do not interrupt, you minx. Sargent has retired from the army, it is true. But he has a good income and a pretty bungalow at Cookham. We were in the same regiment until I left the service some fifteen years ago; so I know him well. He will make an excellent husband--a very excellent husband indeed." "But, father, he is nearly as old as you are." "What of that? Sargent is a handsome man and looks young." Lesbia bit her lip, and tapped her foot on the ground. "I shan't marry him." Hale scowled. "You shall. I am your father and you shall do as you are told, my dear. And if you don't marry Sargent you shall certainly not marry Walker, unless----" he stopped suddenly. "Unless what?" "Unless you get that cross back from him," stormed Hale angrily. Lesbia was nothing if not direct, and the mystery of the cross piqued her exceedingly. She ventured on a leading question. "Why do you want that cross so much, father?" "It belonged to your poor mother," said Mr. Hale sentimentally, "and means more to me than you can ever guess. I missed it from your mother's jewel-case when she died; but I never expected that Bridget Burke, who was supposed to be the soul of honesty, had stolen it." "No! no. I don't believe Bridget would have stolen anything." "Bridget would have done anything that suited her," retorted Hale grimly, "and if she came by the cross honestly--say by your mother giving it to her--why did she not let you show it to me?" "I can't guess: perhaps she thought you would take it from me." "I might and I might not," replied Hale hesitatingly, "but at all events I should not have allowed you to give it to young Walker. You must ask him to return it at once." "I shall not," said Lesbia determinedly. "You shall," cried Hale, and their eyes met like those of two duelists crossing swords. But the father's eyes fell first. "You dare to defy me." "Not exactly, but----" "I want no explanations, thank you; but I'll make a bargain with you. If Walker returns that cross he can have you as his wife. If not, I shall refuse to allow him to haunt the cottage or pay attentions to you. And remember, Lesbia, that I hold the purse-strings." "George can keep me," panted Lesbia, her colour rising. "George has to keep his mother. Marry him without a dowry and see what the Honourable Mrs. Aylmer Walker will say." "You cannot give me a fortune, father." "I can give you two thousand a year if you are obedient," said her father coolly, and walked towards the door. "Think it over, Lesbia," and he left her to meditate on the astounding news. Lesbia was naturally astonished, since she never dreamed that her father was so wealthy. Everything in the cottage was good of its kind, and even luxurious, and the living was excellent. But at times Hale appeared to lack ready money, and frequently impressed upon Tim that it was necessary to be economical. Why then should he act in this way when he appeared to be rich, and why should he offer so large an income on condition that the cross was returned? So far as Lesbia understood her father's hard nature, he was not a man to pay generously for a merely sentimental idea. However, the fact remained that if she could get the amethyst cross returned, she could marry George and bring him a substantial dowry. After much reflection, she determined to ask George for the ornament. After all, she could easily give him something else, and it was worth satisfying her father when so much was at stake. For half a moment Lesbia thought that she would put on her cloak and hat, and walk along the towing-path to Medmenham in the hope of meeting her lover. It was now half-past eight, as dinner had taken place at seven. Mr. Hale had gone out, and Tim, as was his custom on fine evenings, was paddling about in a boat on the river, sometimes rowing and sometimes fishing. She was alone and the solitude was becoming irksome. A great wave of desire for love and sympathy came over the girl, and she longed to see George Walker immediately, not only to tell him of her father's offer, but to be petted and kissed and comforted. But a few minutes' reflection showed her that it was not advisable that she should walk alone to Medmenham, especially as the chances were that she might not meet her lover. It was true that he would certainly be at home, but Lesbia did not know Mrs. Walker and, from the description given by her father, hesitated to meet that formidable lady. On the whole, then, she decided, it was better to wait until George came as usual on the ensuing evening. Being alone, it was difficult to find entertainment. Lesbia played the piano for a few minutes: then she read and afterwards enjoyed a game or two of Patience. Finally, feeling bored in the lonely house, she retired to bed about ten o'clock. There she speedily fell asleep, and dreamed that all obstacles were removed, and she was George Walker's wife. When she put out her light, neither Mr. Hale nor Tim had returned. Lesbia's sleep lasted for some considerable time. Then she suddenly sat up with her senses keenly alive to every sensation. It seemed to her that George had called her, and that she had awakened in answer to his cry. And it was a cry for help, too! With a sensation of alarm, she sprang from her bed, and opened the lattice to look down the garden and across the river. There it flowed silvery in the calm moonlight: but she heard no cry and saw nothing. Yet the call for help had been very distinct. Lesbia was not superstitious, and had it been broad daylight she would have laughed, at such midnight fancies. But in the mysterious moonlight--alone in the house so far as she knew--and at the hour of twelve o'clock, her heart beat rapidly, and a cold perspiration broke out on her forehead. George was in danger: she was sure of that. And George had called to her in a dream. What was she to do? In which direction was she to look? The first idea that came into her head was to see Tim, and explain. He would not laugh at her fancies, as he had many of his own. Lesbia threw on her dressing-gown, slipped her feet into shoes, and went down the narrow staircase, taking a lighted candle with her. In the hall all was quiet, and she paused here for a single moment, wondering if it was worth while to awaken Tim with such a fantastical story of midnight terrors. Just as she was deciding that it would be wiser to return to bed, she heard a groan, and in her fright nearly dropped the candle. But being a brave girl, she plucked up courage and listened. There came a second groan--from the parlour. Lesbia immediately opened the door and entered. There on the floor she saw a man bound and gagged and stiff, with nothing alive about him but his eyes. And those were the eyes of George Walker. CHAPTER III ANOTHER MYSTERY Lesbia Hale was small, fragile and, in a degree, romantic; but in sufficiently strange contrast, her frame was strong and her nature practical. An ordinary girl would have screamed and fainted, or perhaps would have run away. Lesbia did none of these things. She turned pale, it is true, and she trembled violently as she stared with dilated eyes at the bound form of her lover. Then it came upon her with a rush that immediate aid was required, and without even calling for Tim, she set down her candlestick on a convenient chair, and knelt beside the unfortunate young man. He was certainly in a very bad way; but how he came to be in such a plight, Lesbia, with characteristic commonsense, did not wait to inquire. The first thing was to loosen him, and revive him with wine: then she could ask questions. The answers promised to be interesting. First she dexterously removed the handkerchief from across his mouth, with which George had been gagged in a clumsy manner. This she threw aside with a passing thought that later she would learn to whom it belonged, and then proceeded to unloosen the knot of the rope with which her lover was bound. There was only one rope and only one knot, and when she had disentangled the somewhat complicated fastening, she unwound the cord which curled round him from his broad shoulders to his ankles. With his arms glued to his sides and his feet pressed closely together, George Walker had been tied up with yards of brand-new manila rope, so that he could not move, and was trussed as stiffly as any fowl prepared for the market. And the person or persons who had bound him thus, to make assurance doubly sure, had struck him a heavy blow on the back of his head. Lesbia discovered this by the half-dry blood which clotted his curly hair. "What does it all mean?" asked Lesbia, when George was free from his bonds, and lying almost as stiffly without them as he had when bound. But the young man did not reply, for the very good reason that he had fainted. At once Lesbia kissed him, and then went to the parlour door to summon Tim. She called loudly, quite heedless of the fact that she might waken her father, who did not approve of young Walker. And even if he did not, it was necessary that he should come to aid the unfortunate man. So while the French clock on the mantelpiece struck a silvery twelve, Lesbia shouted at the full pitch of her healthy young lungs. In a few minutes the alarmed voice of Tim was heard, and by the time she was again kneeling beside George, the dwarf shuffled hurriedly into the dimly-lighted room, half-dressed, a candle in one hand and the kitchen poker in the other. "The saints be betwixt us and harm, Miss Lesbia," cried Tim, who looked scared out of his senses, "what's come to you?" "What's come to George, you mean," said Lesbia, looking up. "See, Tim, I heard him call me and came downstairs a few minutes ago to find him bound and wounded. Don't stand there shaking, and don't chatter. Get the brandy and heat some water. He has fainted, and we must bring him to his senses." "But how the divil did Masther Garge come here?" demanded Tim, aghast. "How should I know?" retorted Lesbia impatiently. "We can ask him when he is able to speak. Go and do what I tell you while I waken my father." "Sure the masther isn't in, Miss," expostulated Tim, backing towards the door. "He wint out afther dinner to spind the night wid Captain Sargent at Cookham. An' that we shud have the bad luck av this, while he's away. Oh, Miss Lesbia, wasn't it burglars I was thinking av? But nivir murder, save the mark, an' sudden death at that." "It will be sudden death if you don't get that brandy. Stop!" Lesbia started to her feet. "I'll get it myself. Go and heat the water to bathe his wound." She ran into the dining-room and procured the spirit, while Tim went to stoke up the kitchen fire. Lesbia forced George's teeth apart and poured the brandy wholesale down his throat. The ardent liquor revived him, and he opened his eyes with a faint sigh. "Don't speak, darling," she whispered, with a second kiss, and then set to work chafing his limbs. By the time Tim appeared with a jug of boiling water, the young man had quite recovered his senses, and attempted to explain. "No," said Lesbia sharply, "you are too weak as yet. Bring a basin, Tim, and a sponge. We must bathe his head." Considering she had no practice Lesbia performed her Good Samaritan task very dexterously and, having sponged the wound--a nasty, jagged blow from some blunt instrument,--bound up her lover's head with that cleverness and tenderness which come from love. When he had quite recovered--save for a trifling weakness--she made him lie down on the sofa, and fed him with weak brandy and water. Tim meanwhile lighted the lamp, and exhausted himself in guessing the reason for the condition of young Walker. "It's that blissed crass," moaned Tim, moving round like an unquiet ghost, "bad luck to the same! Didn't I say it wud bring throuble?" "You did, Tim, you did," assented Lesbia, who was seated by the now recovered man, and looking somewhat weary after her exertions, "but as George is comparatively well, he can explain." "The cross is quite safe," said Walker faintly. "I left it at home. Oh, my head, how it aches. No wonder, when such a heavy blow was struck." "Who struck it, dear?" inquired Lesbia. "I don't know," George's voice was weary. "It's a long story." "Drink some more of this," said Lesbia, holding the glass to his pale lips, "and wait until you feel stronger." "Oh, I'm much better now," he replied, pushing the brandy and water away, "but I shan't be able to go to the office to-morrow morning." "Beg-ad, it's to-morrow morning already!" said Tim, glancing at the clock. "Half-past twilve as I'm a sinner, an' here's Miss Lesbia an' mesilf sittin' up like the quality. Oh, the sowl av me, what will the masther say?" "What can he say?" demanded Miss Hale tartly. "Father can't hold you and me accountable for the unexpected." "Unexpected, indeed," breathed George. "Who would have thought that I would have been struck down on the towing-path. I can't guess the reason, Lesbia, it's beyond me." "The crass! the crass!" muttered Tim, shaking his shaggy head. "What do you know about it?" demanded Lesbia. "Divil a thing, but that it brings bad luck," answered Tim sturdily. "It is not altogether bad luck that George has been brought here for me to attend to him," she retorted. "No, dear," Walker patted her hand, "this accident shows me what an angel you are. But how did I come here?" "Don't you know who brought you?" "I know nothing from the time I was struck down on the towing-path near Medmenham, until the moment I saw you standing in yonder doorway with a candle in your hand." Lesbia knitted her pretty brows. "I can't understand. Some enemy----" "I have no enemies," murmured George positively. "Then it's a mystery," declared the girl, still more perplexed. "Tell me exactly what took place." Walker passed his hand wearily across his forehead, for his head ached considerably. "After leaving you with your father, darling, I rowed back to Medmenham, and went home to the cottage. My mother was not within, as she had gone up to town early in the day and did not intend to return until to-morrow----" "That's to-day, begob!" interpolated Tim, again looking at the clock. "Then it is to-day she returns," said Walker, in a stronger voice, "about three in the afternoon. But to continue, Lesbia, I had my dinner and smoked a pipe. Then I grew restless, wondering if you were having a bad time with your father on my account. I thought he would make things unpleasant for you, and determined to come down and see what had happened. That was about ten o'clock." Lesbia patted his hand. "You need not have troubled, dear. My father and I got on very well together." "I did not know that, and so was anxious. I ferried over the river to the towing-path, and walked down towards Marlow, intending to cross the bridge and come here." "I was in bed at ten." "So soon. I thought you might be sitting up." "Well, I did not expect you, dear," explained the girl. "As Tim was out on the river, and my father had gone away, I found it dull. I went to bed because I could think of nothing else to do. Then I fancied I heard you calling for help, and came down to find you gagged and bound." "I did not call for help because I was gagged," said George, "and almost insensible. I expect you were dreaming." "A very serviceable dream," said Lesbia drily. "Go on, George, darling." "About half way between Medmenham and Marlow, while I was walking along in the moonlight, I heard a soft step behind me, and turned to see a man almost on top of me. I had not even time to see what he was like, so quickly did he attack me. Aiming a blow at my head with a bludgeon, he struck me hard, and I fell insensible on the path." "And then?" "Then I woke to find you looking at me in this room. That's all." Lesbia examined her lover searchingly. He wore white flannel trousers, a silk shirt, a white flannel coat, and brown shoes. His panama hat was missing. Then Lesbia uttered an exclamation, and pointed to his pockets. All these, both in coat and trousers, were turned inside out, and the buttons of his shirt were undone, as though he had been searched to the skin. "It's robbery," said Lesbia firmly. "Robbery! Impossible! Why should anyone rob a pauper like me? I have nothing." "You have the crass!" murmured Tim, who was squatting on the floor, and who looked like a goblin. "Tim." It was Lesbia who spoke. "Do you think that Mr. Walker was attacked to get the amethyst cross?" "Faith, an' I can't say, Miss. But me mother--rest her sowl--towld me that the crass brought bad luck, and it's come to Masther Garge here. Maybe it's only talk, but there you are," and he pointed to the young man. Walker reflected for a moment or so, while Lesbia turned over Tim's explanation in her mind. "I daresay he is right," said George pensively, "and you also, Lesbia. I was rendered insensible so that I might be robbed, as is proved by my pockets being turned inside out. As the only article of value I possessed was the cross, and I only acquired that yesterday evening, I expect it was the cross this man was after. If so, he must be very much disappointed, for I left your gift in the drawer of my dressing-table, before I came to see you at ten o'clock." "What was the man like?" "I told you that I only caught a glimpse of him," said Walker fretfully, for the conversation wearied him. "He seemed to be a tall man, and was roughly dressed. His soft hat was pulled over his eyes, and--and I know, nothing more about him." Seeing that he was still weak, Lesbia stood up. "You can lie here on the sofa and go to sleep," she said softly. "To-morrow morning we can talk." "But I have to get to London by the eight o'clock train--the office!" "Bother the office!" said Lesbia inelegantly. "You are not fit to go to the office. Try to sleep. Tim, give me that rug you brought. There, dear," she tucked him in. "I have left a glass of water beside you. Tim can come in every now and then to see how you are." "Augh," groaned Tim, yawning, "it's just as well, Miss. I cudn't slape forty winks, wid blue murther about. But the masther will come back after breakfast, an' what will we say at all, at all?" "Say," snapped Lesbia, who was at the door, looking extremely weary. "Tell the truth, of course. My father will quite approve of what we have done. George, don't talk to Tim, who is a chatterbox, but go to sleep. You need all you can get, poor boy." George, already nearly asleep, murmured an incoherent reply and, leaving Tim to watch over him, Lesbia returned to her room, but not to sleep for at least an hour. Lying on her bed, she tried to fathom the mystery of this assault upon her unoffending lover. Apparently the cross had to do with the matter, as George had never been attacked before. And then in a flash the girl remembered that her father was desirous of regaining the ornament, and apparently, from the way in which he had talked, was prepared to go to great lengths to get it. Could it be that he had struck down her lover? He had been absent all the evening, and would be absent all the night, at Sargent's Cookham cottage, according to the message he had left with Tim. He did not like Walker, and moreover was tall, as the assailant had been. It really seemed as though Mr. Walter Hale had taken the law into his own hands and, to get back his property, as he averred the cross to be, had committed something uncommonly like highway robbery. Lesbia worried over the problem half the night, as she could not believe that her father would act so basely. Finally, towards dawn she fell into an uneasy sleep. It was ten o'clock when she woke, and at once her thoughts reverted to the late exciting event. No such sensational happening had ever before disturbed the quietness of the riverside cottage, and the mystery which environed it was an added fascination. As Lesbia slowly dressed--and in her prettiest frock for the sake of George,--she again wondered if her father was connected with the assault and the attempted robbery. George could only have been attacked for the sake of the amethyst cross, and her father alone--so far as she knew--desired that cross. Yet if Mr. Hale was guilty, why had he brought his victim into his own house? No one else could have brought George, for no one else could have entered. Lesbia had no great love for her father, since he invariably repelled all her proffers of affection; but she now felt that she could actively hate him for his wickedness in so dealing with the man she loved. And yet, as she reflected when she descended the stairs, she could not be sure that her father was guilty, even in the face of such evidence. When Lesbia entered the dining-room she found George quite his old self. The night's rest had done him good, and a cold bath had refreshed him greatly. With Tim's willing assistance he had made himself presentable and, save for a linen bandage round his head, looked much the same as he had done on the previous day. He came forward swiftly with sparkling eyes, and took Lesbia in his arms, murmuring soft and foolish words, after the way of lovers, even less romantic. "Darling! Darling! Darling! How good you have been to me." "I could have done no less for anyone," replied Lesbia, leading him to a chair. "Sit down, dearest, you are still weak." "On the contrary I am quite strong, although my head still aches a trifle from that cowardly blow. Besides, I am hungry, and there is Tim bringing in a magnificent breakfast. Sweetest and best," he went on, leading her to the well-spread table, "this is just as if we were married. You at the top of the table and I at the bottom. Give me a cup of coffee, Lesbia, and I'll serve out the eggs and ham. Tim, you needn't wait." Tim grumbled a trifle, as he loved to wait on Lesbia, But he was an Irishman and appreciated a love affair. It did not need much cleverness to see that young Walker wished to be alone with his beloved, if only to enjoy the unique situation. Tim therefore departed and the couple had their breakfast in heavenly solitude. Lesbia wished to talk about the adventure on the towing-path, and to ask questions, but George positively refused to speak of anything save the most frivolous matters. "Your father will return soon," he explained, passing his cup for more coffee, "and then I shall have to tell my story all over again. Let us talk about ourselves and of our future." Lesbia, after a faint resistance, was only too pleased to obey, so they had an extremely pleasant meal. The room was cheerful with the summer sun, which poured in floods of light and warmth through the windows, and the feeling of spring was still in the air. Most prosaically they enjoyed their food and unromantically ate a large breakfast, but all the time they kept looking at one another and relishing the novel situation. It was brought to an end only too speedily by the sudden entrance of Mr. Hale. Tall, lean, cold and stern, he appeared on the threshold, and stared in surprise at the way in which young Walker was taking possession, not only of his house but of his daughter. "What the devil does this mean?" asked Hale, politely indignant. "Look at George's head," cried Lesbia with a shiver, for her doubts returned fortyfold at the sight of her aristocratic father. "That explains nothing," said Hale drily, "perhaps, Mr. Walker, you will undertake to tell me how it comes that I find you making yourself at home in my poor abode?" George, who was perfectly cool and collected, told his story. Hale listened, much more discomposed than he chose to appear, and at the conclusion of the narrative asked one question, which showed where his thoughts were. "The cross," he said eagerly, "have you been robbed of the cross?" "No," answered Walker positively, "although I believe that I was attacked for the sake of it. But luckily I left it in the drawer of my dressing-table. Can you guess who attacked me?" "No," said Hale coolly, "I cannot." "Still, if you know about the cross----" "I only know that it belonged to my wife and that I want to get it back as soon as possible. Lesbia should never have given it to you. As to your being attacked so that you might be robbed of it, I can't believe that story. The cross, as a jewel, is not so very valuable. Besides, no one but myself and Lesbia and Tim knew that you had it. I presume," ended Hale, in his most sarcastic manner, "that you do not suspect any one of us three." "Oh no," rejoined Walker promptly, and spoke as he believed in spite of the troubled look which Lesbia cast on him. "Still----" Hale threw up his hand to interrupt. "We can talk of your adventure later, Mr. Walker. After all, the cross may have something to do with the way in which you were assaulted, although--as I said--it appears unlikely. I want to recover it immediately, and am the more eager, now that I have heard of your adventure. Give me a note to your mother saying that the cross is to be given to me, and I shall consent to your marriage with Lesbia." George looked at the girl, who nodded. "Let my father have back the cross, since he so greatly desires it," she said. "I can give you something else, dear. I am willing to pay that price for my father's consent." George shrugged his shoulders. "It is immaterial to me," he said calmly, "so long as you are pleased, dear. I only wished to keep the ornament as your first love-gift to me. Have you a pencil, Mr. Hale. Thank you." He scribbled a note. "To Jenny, our maid-servant," he explained, when handing it to the tall, silent man, "she will admit you into my bedroom and you will find the cross in the right-hand drawer of my dressing-table." "But your mother----" "My mother went to London yesterday and will not be back until three o'clock to-day. If you like to wait I can go over with you later." "No," said Hale brusquely, "your mother might make objections. I know how difficult she is to deal with. I'll go myself: you stay here with Lesbia." George was nothing loth, and when Mr. Hale departed he walked with his beloved in the garden. They should have talked of the adventure, and Lesbia should have told George the thought that was uppermost in her mind--namely, that her father was cognisant of the assault. But she did not care to make such an accusation upon insufficient grounds, and moreover hesitated to accuse her father of such a crime. She therefore willingly agreed to postpone all talk of the adventure until Mr. Hale's return, and surrendered herself to the pleasure of the moment. The lovers spent a long morning in the garden of love, gathering the rosebuds which Herrick recommends should be culled in youth. Time flew by on golden wings, and Hale was no sooner gone all the way to Medmenham, than he seemed to come back. He could not have been away for more than five minutes, as it appeared to these two enthralled by Love. For them time had no existence. But their dream of love fled, when Hale came swiftly down the path looking both angry and alarmed, and, indeed, perplexed. "The cross has gone," he said. "Impossible," cried George, starting to his feet, astonished. "I left it----" "The cross has gone," repeated Hale decisively, "your cottage has been robbed, burgled. I repeat, the cross has gone." CHAPTER IV A FAMILY HISTORY After delivering his message of woe, Mr. Hale sat down on the garden seat under the chestnut tree, and mechanically flicked the dust from his neat brown shoes with a silk handkerchief. He was perfectly arrayed as usual, and on account of the heat of the day wore a suit of spotless drill, cool and clean-looking. But if his clothes were cool he certainly was not, for his usually colourless face was flushed a deep red and his eyes sparkled with anger. Lesbia, who had risen with George, looked at him with compunction in her heart. After all--so her thoughts ran--she had suspected her father wrongly. If he had attacked George to regain this unlucky cross, he assuredly would not now be lamenting its loss. And yet if he were innocent, who was guilty, considering the few people who knew that the ornament was in existence? Tim might--but it was impossible to suspect Tim Burke, who was the soul of honesty. "Well," said Hale crossly, "what is to be done?" He looked directly at George, who faced him standing, with a look of perplexity on his handsome face. "Are you sure that the house has been robbed?" he asked doubtfully. Mr. Hale shrugged his shoulders. "I usually say what I mean," he remarked acridly. "I took your note to Medmenham, and found the local policeman conversing with your mother's servant. From her I learned what had taken place, and, indeed, she was telling the constable when I came up." "Well?" "It seems," pursued Hale, producing a cigar, "that Jenny--as she is called----" "Yes, yes!" broke in Walker impatiently, "go on." "Well, then, Jenny rose this morning to find the window of the drawing-room wide open. Nothing was touched in that room. But your bedroom was ransacked thoroughly. Your clothes were strewn about, and apparently every pocket had been examined. The drawers were opened, and even the bed had been overhauled. There was no sign of the burglar, and Jenny swears that--sleeping at the back of the house--she heard nothing." "And what has been stolen?" asked Lesbia, hesitatingly. "Only the cross." "Are you sure?" "Absolutely! I gave Jenny the note and together with the policeman who, by the way, is a bucolic idiot, she took me to the bedroom. I examined the right-hand drawer which was open, as were all the other drawers, and found that the cross was missing. Jenny declared that nothing else had been taken. Of course the girl was in a great state of alarm, as she was the sole person in the house, and she feared lest she should be accused. Also, and very naturally, she was surprised at your being away, Walker." George nodded. "I daresay. It is rarely that I sleep away from home, and when I do I give notice. Humph!" he sat down on the grass opposite Mr. Hale and gripped his ankles. "What do you think, sir?" Hale made a vague motion of despair. "What can I think? I know as much as you do, and nothing more. Would you mind my putting you in the witness-box, Walker?" "By no means. Ask what questions you desire." "And I shall be counsel for the defence," said Lesbia, sitting down beside her lover with rather a wry smile. It appeared to her that Mr. Hale wished to recall his offer to let the marriage take place: also that he wished to get George into trouble if he could. But how he proposed to do so the girl could not tell. However she was anxious and listened with all her ears. Mr. Hale raised his eyebrows at her odd speech, but took no further notice of it. He was too much interested in his examination. "Lesbia," said Mr. Hale quietly, "gave you the cross yesterday evening in my presence, so to speak. What did you do with it?" "I slipped it into my breast-pocket," said Walker promptly, "and rowed back to Medmenham, as you saw. On arriving, I placed it for safety in the drawer of my dressing-table. Then, later, as I explained at breakfast, I came down to see Lesbia and was assaulted by an unknown man." "Did you show the cross to anyone, say to Jenny?" "No. And if I had shown it to Jenny, it would not have mattered. You do not suspect an honest girl like her, I presume." "Honest girls may yield to the temptation of stealing such a fine ornament as the cross," said Hale drily. "However, it may set your mind at rest if I say that I don't suspect Jenny. Had she stolen the cross, she would not have had the imagination to upset the room and leave the window open, so as to suggest burglary. But think again, Walker; did you show the cross to anyone after leaving this garden?" "No," said George positively, "I certainly did not, that is, not voluntarily." "Ah! then some one else did see it," said Hale, with satisfaction and with marked eagerness. "Come, man, speak up." "I had almost forgotten," said Walker slowly. "Perhaps the blow on my head made me forget; but I remember now." "Remember what?" asked Lesbia, as eager as her father. "That those gipsies saw the cross." "Gipsies?" Hale and his daughter glanced at one another. "Yes. I was walking up the lane to my home when I passed a gipsy encampment. While doing so I pulled out my handkerchief, and the cross--which I had placed in my breast-pocket--fell out. The handkerchief twitched it, I suppose. It flashed down on the grass, and the glitter caught the eye of a man lounging near the caravan. He came forward and pointed out where it had fallen, as I had not noticed its whereabouts for the moment. By the time I picked it up two or three of the gipsies had gathered round, and saw me restore it to my pocket. Then I thanked the man and went home." Lesbia clapped her hands. "Why it is perfectly plain," she cried, delighted. "That man must have assaulted you on the towing-path to steal the cross. Not finding it on you, he robbed the house. What do you think, father?" Hale nodded. "I think as you do. So the best thing to be done will be to come and see the constable, or the inspector here in Marlow. We must have those gipsies searched before they go away. The encampment was still there this morning; but I saw signs of removal." George leaped to his feet. "Yes, it must be so" he cried eagerly. "I daresay the man robbed me--the cross being flamboyant is just the thing which would attract him." "Then we must see the inspector. I must get the cross back. It is a pity I remained at Cookham last night with Sargent. Had I been here, I should have gone at once to Medmenham." "But it was midnight, father." "I don't care. The mere fact that Walker here was assaulted would have proved to me that the cross was wanted. Since he left it at home the thief would probably have burgled the house. I might have caught him red-handed. Oh, why didn't I come home last night?" Mr. Hale was genuinely moved over the loss of the ornament. And yet Lesbia could not think that it was mere sentimental attachment thereto, as having belonged to his dead wife, that made him so downcast. Also in itself the cross was of comparatively little value. Lesbia's suspicions returned, and again she dismissed them as unworthy. Moreover, if Hale had assaulted George and had committed a burglary he would not be so eager to set the police on the track. Whosoever was guilty he at least must be innocent. Cold as her father was to her, and little affection as she bore him, it was agreeable to find that he was honest--though, to be sure, every child expects to find its parents above reproach. Perhaps a sixth sense told Lesbia that her father was not all he should be. In no other way could she guess how she came to be so ready to think ill of him. But up to the present, she had suspected him wrongly, and so was pleased. Hale and young Walker went to the Marlow police-office and explained in concert what had occurred. The officer in charge of the station heard their tale unmoved, as it was nothing more exciting than a robbery by a vagabond. He went with them personally to Medmenham, and there met the village constable, who presented his report. This did not include any reference to gipsies. His superior--whose name was Parson--questioned him, and learned that the thief or thieves had left no trace behind, and--on the evidence of Jenny the maid--had stolen nothing save the cross. Parson then went to Mrs. Walker's house and questioned the girl. Jenny was naturally much agitated, but was reassured by George, who declared that no one suspected her. "I should think not, sir," she cried, firing up and growing red. "I didn't even know that the cross you speak of was in the house. You never showed it to me, sir." "No," acknowledged Walker truthfully, "I certainly did not." "Did you see any of those gipsies lurking about the house?" asked Parson. "No," said Jenny positively, "I did not. Mr. George went out for a walk at ten o'clock, and I lay down at half-past. I never knew anything, or heard anything, or guessed anything. When I got up at seven, as usual, and went to dust the drawing-room, I found the window open. And that didn't scare me, as I thought Mr. George might have opened it when he got up." "But you knew that he was not in the house?" said Hale alertly. "I never did, sir. I went to wake him after I found the drawing-room window open, and found that he hadn't been to bed. The room was upset too, just as you saw it. If I'd known that I was alone in the cottage I should have been scared out of my life; but I thought Mr. George came in late, and had gone to bed as usual. I nearly fainted, I can tell you," cried Jenny tearfully. "Fancy a weak girl like me being left alone with them horrid gipsies down the lane! But I slept through it all, and I never saw no gipsies about. When I saw the bedroom upset and that Mr. George wasn't there, I called in Quain the policeman. That's all I know, and if missus does give me notice when she comes back I'd have her know that I'm a respectable girl as doesn't rob anyone." Jenny had much more to say on the subject, but all to no purpose; so the three men went to the camp. They found the vagrants making preparations to leave, and shortly were in the middle of what promised to be a free fight. The gipsies were most indignant at being accused, and but for a certain awe of the police would certainly have come to blows with those who doubted their honesty. The man who had seen the cross accounted for his movements on the previous night. He was in the village public-house until eleven, so could not have assaulted Walker on the towing-path, and afterwards was in bed in one of the caravans, as was deposed to by his wife. In fact, every member of this particular tribe--they were mostly Lovels from the New Forest--proved that he or she had nothing to do with either the assault or burglary. Finally, Parson, entirely beaten, departed with the other two men, and the gipsies proceeded to move away in a high state of indignation. "Do you really think that they are innocent?" asked Hale, who surveyed the procession of outgoing caravans with a frown. "Yes, I do," said Parson, who was not going to be taught his business by any civilian. "So do I," struck in Walker. "All the men who saw the cross have accounted for their whereabouts last night. They were not near my mother's house, nor across the river on the towing-path." Hale smiled drily. He had no opinion of Walker's intelligence, or of that which Mr. Parson possessed. "Rogues and vagabonds--as these people are--stand by one another, and will swear to anything to keep one of their number out of gaol. I don't put much faith in the various alibis. You should have searched the caravans, officer." "And the men and women also, I suppose, sir," said Parson quietly. "I had no warrant to do so, let me remind you. Even gipsies have their privileges under the English law. Also, if anyone of these men were guilty, he could easily have passed the cross to one of the women, or buried it. I might have searched and found nothing, only to lay myself open to a lecture from my superiors." "Still," began Hale, unwilling to surrender his point of view, "let me remind you, Mr. Parson, that----" "And let me remind you, sir," broke in the officer stiffly, "that only this ornament you speak of was stolen. If a gipsy had broken into the house he would certainly have taken other things. And again, no gipsy could have carried Mr. Walker into your parlour, seeing that not one member of the tribe is aware of your existence, much less where your cottage is situated. I am ignorant on that score myself." Having thus delivered himself with some anger, for the supercilious demeanour of Hale irritated him, Parson strode away. He intimated curtly to the two men, as he turned on his heel, that if he heard of anything likely to elucidate the mystery he would communicate with them: also he advised them if they found a clue to see him. Hale laughed at this last request. "I fancy I see myself placing the case in the hands of such a numskull." George shook his head. "If you do not employ the police, who is to look into the matter?" he asked gravely. The answer was unexpected. "You are," said Hale, coldly and decisively. George stopped--they were walking back to Marlow when this conversation took place--and stared in amazement at his companion. "Why, I am the very worst person in the world to help you," he said, aghast. "To help yourself, you mean. Remember I promised to consent to your marriage to Lesbia only on condition that I got back the cross." "It is not my fault that the cross is lost." "I never said that it was," retorted Hale, tartly. "All the same you will have to find it and return it to me before I will agree to your marriage with my daughter. It would have been much better had you handed it over to me last night." "I daresay," said George, somewhat sulkily, "but I'm not the man to give up anything when the demand is made in such a tone as you used. Besides, I don't see how I can find the cross." "Please yourself, my boy. But unless you do, Lesbia marries Sargent." "Sargent!" The blood rushed to Walker's cheeks and his voice shook with indignation. "Do you mean to say that you would give your daughter to that broken rake, to that worn-out---- "Ta! Ta! Ta!" said Hale, in an airy French fashion, and glad to see the young man lose his temper. "Sargent is my very good friend and was my brother officer when I was in the army. He would make Lesbia an excellent husband, as he is handsome and well-off and amiable, and----" "And an idiot, a gambler, and a----" "You'd better not let him hear you talk like that." Walker laughed. "I fear no one, let me tell you, Mr. Hale. Mr. Sargent or Captain Sargent as he calls himself----" "He has every right to call himself so. He was a captain." "It is not usually thought good manners to continue the title after a man has left the army," said George drily, and recovering his temper, which he saw he should never have lost with a hardened man like Hale. "You, for instance, do not call yourself----" "There! There! that's enough, Walker," cried the elder man impatiently. "You know my terms. That cross and my consent: otherwise Lesbia marries Sargent." "She loves me: she will never obey you," cried the lover desperately. "I shall find means to compel her consent," said Hale coldly. "Surely, Mr. Walker, you have common sense at your age. Sargent has money and a certain position you have neither." "I can make a position." "Then go and do so. When you are rich and highly-placed we can talk." Hale was as hard as iron and as cold. There seemed to be no chance of getting what was wanted by appealing to his tender feelings, since he had none whatsoever. But after swift reflection Walker thought of something which might make the man change his mind. "Listen, Mr. Hale," he said, when Lesbia's father was on the point of moving away from a conversation which he found unprofitable and disagreeable. "I did not intend to tell you, but as my engagement with Lesbia is at stake I will make a clean breast of it." Hale wheeled round with a cold light in his eyes. "Are you going to confess that you stole the cross and got up a comedy to hide the theft?" George laughed. "I am not clever enough for that. But it is about a possible fortune that I wish to speak--one that may come to me through my mother." "A fortune." Hale flushed, for only the mention of money could touch his hard nature. "I never knew that your mother had money." "She has not now, but she may have." "Go on," said Hale, seeing that the young man hesitated, and watching him with glittering eyes. "I have known your mother for years, but she never told me either that she had money or expected any." "I should not tell you either," said Walker bluntly, "and so I hesitated. I have no business to interfere with my mother's affairs. However, I must speak since I want to marry Lesbia." "I am all attention." "My grandfather left his large fortune equally divided between his two daughters. One was my mother; and her husband, my father, ran through the lot, leaving her only a trifle to live on. I help to keep her." "This," said Hale coldly, "I already know." "But what you don't know is that my aunt--my mother's sister, that is, ran away with some unknown person during her father's lifetime. He was angry, but forgave her on his death-bed and left her a fair share of the money--that is half. As my mother inherited fifty thousand, there is an equal amount in the hands of Mr. Simon Jabez, a lawyer in Lincoln's Inn Fields, waiting for my aunt should she ever come back." "And if she does not?" asked Hale anxiously. "Then, if her death can be proved, the money comes to my mother." "Humph! But you say your aunt ran away with someone--to marry the man, I suppose. What if there is a child?" Walker's face fell. "The child inherits," he said softly. Hale laughed harshly. "You have found a mare's nest," he said coolly, "and I see no reason to change my decision with regard to your possible marriage with Lesbia. Your aunt may be alive and may appear to claim the money. If she is dead, her child or children may come forward. On the other hand, if your mother does come in for the fifty thousand pounds you speak of she is, as I know, a hard woman." "I agree with you," said the young man, moodily and sadly. "She is as hard as you are, Mr. Hale. But if she inherits my grandfather's money--that is, my aunt's share--she has no one to leave it to but me. I am an only child." "Your mother," said Hale deliberately, "is hard as you say; that is, she is as sensible as I am. If you marry against her will, she will not leave you one farthing of this money, which, after all, may never come into her possession." "But why should she object to Lesbia?" asked George, "when she meets her and sees how lovely she is----" "Bah!" Hale looked scornful, "you talk like a fool. As if any woman was ever moved by the beauty of another woman. Besides, your mother hates me; we are old enemies, and rather than see you marry my daughter she would go to your funeral with joy. If you married against her will--as you assuredly would in making Lesbia your wife--she would leave you nothing. And I also dislike the match on account of your mother." "But why are you her enemy, and she yours?" asked George, bewildered. "That is a long story and one which I do not intend to relate unless driven to speak. If Lesbia marries you she will lose two thousand a year which I can give her when I die. If you want to drag the girl you love down to poverty, Mr. Walker, then marry her secretly. I tell you that if you make Lesbia your wife neither I nor your mother will help you." "And yet you said----" "That you could make Lesbia your wife, if you found the cross. Yes, I did say that, and I still say it. If you get me the cross, you shall marry her and have the two thousand a year when I die. But it would be wiser for you to leave Lesbia alone and marry----" "Marry whom?" asked George, his cheeks flaming. "Maud Ellis," retorted Hale with a sneering laugh, and turned away. CHAPTER V MRS. WALKER'S OPINION After that one extraordinary adventure which broke so remarkably the monotony of George Walker's life, things went very smoothly for a time. That is, they progressed in their usual humdrum way, which was trying to the young man's ambitious spirits. He wanted to marry Lesbia, to make a home for her, to attain a position, which her beauty would adorn; and he saw no means of doing so. He went regularly to the office, earned his small salary, and dreamed dreams which could never be realised, at least, there appeared to be no chance of realisation. What could a man of moderate attainments, with no money and no friends, hope to do in the way of cutting a figure in the world? Mrs. Walker duly returned home, and Jenny gave her a highly-coloured account of the burglary, which she heard in stern silence. She was a tall, grim woman with a hard face and a stiff manner, and was invariably arrayed in plain black gowns devoid of any trimming whatever. Her hair, still dark in spite of her age, was smoothed over her temples in the plain early Victorian manner, and her pale countenance was as smooth as that of a young girl. That she was a gentlewoman could easily be seen, but her manner was repellent and suspicious. Also, her thin lips and hard grey eyes did not invite sympathy. How such a Puritanical person ever came to have a handsome, gracious son such as George, perplexed more than one person. The general opinion was that he inherited his looks and his charm of manner from his late father. Report credited the Honourable Aylmer Walker with more fascination than principle. And truth to tell, his posthumous reputation was better than that which he had enjoyed when living. Having ascertained the facts of the burglary and the loss of the amethyst cross, Mrs. Walker held her peace, and did not discuss the subject with her son. George, indeed, ventured upon a lame explanation, which she received in dead silence. After the hint given by Mr. Hale, the young man was not desirous of disclosing his engagement to Lesbia, and a discussion about the stolen cross would inevitably lead to the truth becoming known to Mrs. Walker. Sooner or later he knew that he would have to speak, but he postponed doing so until he could see his future more clearly. If he could only procure a better post in the City, he could then afford to keep Lesbia in comparative comfort, and pass a love-in-a-cottage existence. But until he was in a position to do so, he avoided confiding in his mother. Also, Mrs. Walker was not a sympathetic mother, and would certainly not have encouraged the young man's love-dream. But one evening Mrs. Walker unexpectedly broached the subject at dinner. This was seven days after the adventure of the cross, and during that time George had never set eyes on Lesbia. Several times he had rowed as usual to the garden's foot, but had waited in vain for the girl's appearance. An inquiry at the house provoked no response, as neither Tim nor Lesbia came to the fast-closed door. George in despair had written, but to his anxious letter had received no reply. Lesbia remained silent and the cottage barred and bolted, so George began to believe that Hale had smuggled away his daughter, lest she should elope with the lover of whom he so strongly disapproved. This state of uncertainty wore Walker's nerves thin, and he lost his appetite and his night's rest. Mechanically he went to Tait's office, did his daily work, and returned home again, fretting all the time after the girl who was beyond his reach. He even tried to see Mr. Hale, but that gentleman was conspicuous by his absence. Never was a lover in so dismal a situation. On this especial evening George, in evening dress, faced his silent mother at the dinner-table. Mrs. Walker wore a plain black silk gown, perfectly cut, but wholly unadorned. Like Mr. Hale, she always insisted upon a certain style being observed and dined, so to speak, in state. The tiny room was well furnished with the remnants of her former prosperity, and looked like the abode of a gentlewoman. Nothing could have been more perfect than the table appointments and, if the food was plain, the way in which it was served left nothing to be desired. Jenny, neatly dressed, waited deftly and, at the conclusion of the dinner, placed a decanter of port before George, along with a silver box of cigarettes and a dainty silver spirit lamp. As a rule, Mrs. Walker withdrew at this moment to enjoy her coffee in the drawing-room, while George sipped his wine and trifled with a cigarette, but on this occasion she remained. "You can bring my coffee here," she said to Jenny, in her unemotional voice. George wondered at this departure from the usual routine, for his mother had never broken the domestic rule she had instituted as far back as he could remember. However, he did not feel called upon to say anything but poured out a glass of port, and lighted a cigarette. When Mrs. Walker obtained her coffee, and Jenny had departed, she spoke to her son through the gathering twilight. "I have received a letter from Mr. Hale," said Mrs. Walker in her coldest voice, and sat bolt upright with her eyes on the comely blonde face of her son. "What!" George flushed and started, and laughed nervously. "That is very strange," he said after a pause, "Mr. Hale has never written to you before." "There are reasons why he should not have written to me before, as there are reasons why he writes to me now." "May I know those reasons?" asked George quietly, but inwardly anxious. "Certainly!" Mrs. Walker was disagreeable but excessively polite, as she never forgot her manners, whatever the provocation. "In fact, I have waited to explain them. But I think you had better tell me your story first." "What story?" "That of your engagement to Lesbia Hale, and of the cross which was stolen from this cottage." "What!" George rose restlessly and grew redder than ever. "You know----" "I know everything," said his mother imperiously. "Mr. Hale is annoyed by the way in which you are haunting his Marlow cottage, and has asked me to use my influence with you to stop the annoyance." "That is quite likely," rejoined George, fuming, "but I decline to give up Lesbia. Mr. Hale knows that." "He knows, apparently, that you are obstinate and foolish," said Mrs. Walker in a chilly manner. "And as your infatuation--for it is nothing else--can lead to nothing, I must ask you to stop these hopeless visits." "Mother, if you knew Lesbia----" "I know that Lesbia is the daughter of a man whom I despise and hate," said Mrs. Walker, moved to cold anger, "and my son shall never marry her." "You have not the power to stop the marriage," said George quietly. "That is quite true. I have no money to threaten disinheritance, and no legal power over a man who is of age. I might indeed appeal to your affection, but I fear that it would be useless." George flung his cigarette out of the window, and thrust his hands moodily into his pockets. "Affection is a strange word to use between us, mother," he remarked bitterly. "You have always been strict and straightforward, and painfully polite. You have given me a good education, and you have instructed me in good manners. My home," he looked round, "or rather your home, you permit me to share." "Pardon me, George, you forget that you contribute to the domestic economy of this home, such as it is. Go on." "I mean," cried George desperately, for her manner chilled him, "that you have never been a mother to me in the accepted sense of the word." "I have done my duty," said Mrs. Walker without flinching. "Duty! duty! what is duty when I wanted love? I have lived in a freezing atmosphere which has nearly changed me into a statue. Can you wonder that I sought out someone to love?" "Perhaps not, since you are young and foolish, but I regret that the someone should be a girl that I cannot possibly receive as my daughter-in-law." "What do you mean by that?" demanded George sharply. "Nothing detrimental to the girl," replied Mrs. Walker calmly. "She may have all the beauty in the world, and all the virtues, and probably has, in your eyes, but she is Walter Hale's daughter and so cannot be mine." "Why do you hate Mr. Hale, mother?" "That," said Mrs. Walker, sitting very upright, "is my private business." "But when it interferes with my happiness----" "I cannot help that," she said rigorously. "What is past is past, and what is dead is dead." "I don't understand you." "I do not mean that you should. But I would point out that your association with this girl, has already led you into danger. You have been assaulted and robbed, and have come into contact with the police, which is always undesirable. Renounce Lesbia, George, lest worse befall." "The robbery and the assault are mysteries." "None the less they are dangerous. I can explain no more than you can; but Mr. Hale is a dangerous person, to my knowledge, and----" "Tell me what you know," interpolated her son. "No," said Mrs. Walker, with iron determination. "It would do no good to break the silence of years. All I can say is that you shall never marry the girl with my consent." "And if I do without it," chafed George, irritably. "Then you will never set eyes on me again," returned Mrs. Walker quietly. "Mother!" The woman calmly finished her coffee and rose noiselessly. "The time may come when I can explain," she said in her precise voice. "Meanwhile I can only command you, or implore you--whichever you please--to leave this girl alone and go no more to the Marlow cottage." "I don't see why I should obey you blindly," cried George angrily. "At least give me a reason for your objection to Lesbia." "I have given it: she is the daughter of Walter Hale." "And are the sins of the father--whatever they may be--to be visited upon the child, mother?" "Quoting the Bible will not alter my determination," said Mrs. Walker, absolutely cold and impassive. "You must do as I request or be prepared to see me no more." "Mother, can you not explain about this mysterious cross----" "No." "You refuse to." "I mean that I cannot. I know nothing about the cross, or about the assault made on you, or indeed about the burglary. All I do know is that Mr. Hale is a dangerous man, and is connected with dangerous people--what has occurred proves it." "But surely you don't think that Mr. Hale is connected with these mysteries?" "I think nothing because I know nothing!" She moved swiftly forward and placed a slim hand on her son's broad shoulder. "Be wise and give up this girl. The wife who is waiting for you will suit you better." George grew crimson. "The wife!" he stammered. "Maud Ellis! Mr. Tait's niece. She loves you, and she has told me so. If you marry her she will bring you money, and her uncle will forward your interests. To-morrow you are stopping for the week-end at Mr. Tait's house. Before you return here on Monday ask Maud to be your wife." "I shall do nothing of the sort," said George fiercely. "How can I propose to one girl, when I love another?" "Maud Ellis adores you, George." "I know she does: it seems conceited to say so, but I am quite aware of her adoration. And I don't like it. She is rich and handsome and all the rest of it, and a marriage with her, means my getting on in the office. All the same, I--I--I--" he hesitated, then finished his sentence with a rush, "I love Lesbia, so there is no more to be said." Mrs. Walker removed her hand and glided to the door again, her cold self. "I quite agree with you," she said, exasperatingly cool. "However, you know my determination. Act as you please." "And affection?" called out George as she opened the door. "Must give way to commonsense." When alone, the young man dropped into a chair and looked moodily at the disordered dinner-table. He was very much to be pitied for having such a mother. Of a warm affectionate nature, George hungered for some object upon which to expend his love. Mrs. Walker had always been a granite image, unapproachable and chill. No doubt she was fond of her handsome son in her own cold way, but she had never given him the maternal love he craved for. It was small wonder that the boy had gone afield to find some satisfaction for his craving. Lesbia supplied the want, and on her side found the same joy as her lover in their mutual affection. Mr. Hale in his way was as cold and repellent to her as Mrs. Walker was to her son. Yet these two people, not giving the longed-for love themselves to their children, were trying to rob hungry hearts of spiritual sustenance--a dog-in-a-manger attitude which did not commend itself to George. He felt that he and Lesbia were severely alone, conscious only of each other and environed by mysteries, which neither could understand. Mr. Hale could explain, and so could Mrs. Walker, but no explanation was volunteered, and George did not know where to look for an elucidation of their several attitudes. Mrs. Walker certainly professed herself ignorant of the amethyst cross mystery, and apparently spoke truly, as her dislike to the match with Lesbia appeared to be wholly based upon her hatred of Walter Hale. And that hatred had to do with Hale's past, of which George knew as little as he did of the past of his mother. But Hale knew something about the cross, which accounted for his extraordinary behaviour, although he declared that he did not know who had stolen it. George was also greatly perplexed to know who had taken him to the Marlow cottage while he was insensible. Sitting in the chair with his eyes on the ground, he frowningly perplexed himself with these problems. It was all of no use, so he brushed aside the troubles and, after changing his evening dress for boating flannels, went to the river. He hoped by exercise to rid himself of these phantoms, so indistinct and yet so real. Having launched his boat and settled to work, George spun down the stream, the current and his own efforts carrying him along with what appeared to be lightning speed. The attention required in looking after the slight craft prevented his thinking of his mysterious troubles, and his spirits began to rise. At Henley lock his course was stayed, for as he swung into the gates he became aware that another boat was in the lock, and that Tim occupied that same strange shallop. The two men recognised one another at once, and a very natural question leaped to Walker's lips. "Lesbia?" he gasped. "Thrue for ye," grumbled Tim, who looked more misshapen that ever in the dim light. "It's from the young mistress I come. Whist now, sor, an' let me clear out av this divil of a place." George backed his boat out of the lock and Tim muttering under his breath, followed closely. Then the little man paddled his clumsy craft into the near bank, and beckoned George to come also. In a few minutes the two boats were amongst the rustling sedges side by side, and Walker waited breathlessly for Tim to speak. The sky was filling with shadows, but there was sufficient light for George to see that Tim looked both sorrowful and worried. The sight of the dwarfs sad face revived his terrors. "Lesbia," cried George again, and gripped Tim's arm fiercely. "She is well?" "Well in body but sick of heart," said Tim dismally. "Augh, the poor mistress, and how can she be well wid the divil's divarsions bein' played round her?" "I have tried to see her----" "Divil a doubt of it, sor. And ye've sint letthers likewise." "She never answered," breathed George sadly. "An' how cud she whin she nivir recaved thim same. Answer me that now, sor." George sat bolt upright in his boat. "Never got my letters! Then how----" "Ah, be aisy now, me dear young masther," pleaded Tim, and took a tiny note from his pocket. "This was all the mistress cud write, being watched like a mouse, an' by a cat too, divil take the slut." George scarcely heard what Tim was saying. He was devouring two or three lines of Lesbia's dear writing, which stated that she would always be true to him, and that Tim would reveal all. "Reveal what," cried the young man, kissing the letter before transferring it to his pocket. "The divil's divarsions," grumbled Tim. "Write an answer, sor." "I have no pencil, no paper," said George in dismay. "But tell me exactly what has occurred, Tim, and then I'll see what can be done." Tim nodded. "Sure, it's dying for you she is, me dear sor. The masther wants her to marry the Captain, bad luck to his sowl!" "I know that, but----" "Howld yer whist, sor," growled the little man, flinging up his long arm. "I have mighty little time to spake. The masther doesn't trust me, forby he knows I wish to see me dear mistress happy wid you, sor, so he's got a she-divil in the house, Mrs. Petty by name, who kapes a watch inside. Thin there's Captain Sargent's man. The Shadow they call him for his thin looks, though Canning is his name, bad luck to it. He watches outside, an' whin your boat comes in sight he passes the worrd to Mrs. Petty an' she--may the father av lies fly away wid her--shuts Miss Lesbia in her room." "But this is tyranny!" cried George, exasperated. "Do you mean to say that Mr. Hale has his daughter watched in this manner?" "Ay an' I do, and he'll have her watched till she goes to church wid Captain Sargent, or until ye git back that crass. But nivir fear, sor, Miss Lesbia has a fine spirit of her own, and she'll stick to ye through thick an' thin, like the brave young lady she is." "What's to be done?" asked George, in dismay. Tim leaned forward. "Write a bit av a letther and sind it to me, Mister Timothy Burke, Rose Cottage, Marlow. Thim two divils, Mrs. Petty an' The Shadow, to say nothin' av the masther, won't stop that. Thin I'll find means to pass it to the mistress." "Yes! Yes, Tim. I'll do that. But the tyranny----" "Whist now, for time passes, me dear sor. I heard the masther sayin' that Captain Sargent was goin' to stay wid Mr. Tait at Hinley. Spake to him, sor, to that same Captain." "But what can I say?" demanded George, more and more perplexed. "Sor," cried Tim gruffly, "as ye're a man ye can break the head of the divil." And with this advice Tim pushed his boat again into midstream. CHAPTER VI PURPLE AND FINE LINEN Mr. Michael Tait dealt principally in stocks and shares, but was not above any scheme, however wild or however shady, which promised to result in large profits. His motto was: "Make money honestly if you can, but make money!" and he consistently acted up to this advice throughout a long career of speculation. He was not so much a spider sitting in a web to lure unwary flies, as an octopus who stretched out tentacles in every direction to draw victims into his maw. He indulged in dozens of enterprises, both openly and secretly, but all with the aim of making as much cash as possible. That many of these schemes led to much misery, that is, the misery of other people, he never stopped to inquire. And even if he had done so he would have taken no note of the answer. The race was to the swift and the battle to the strong, in Mr. Tait's humble opinion, and those who failed either in fighting or running had to make the best of their plight. In appearance Michael Tait was a squat, burly, sturdy man, with sandy hair and whiskers, and a pair of cold blue eyes devoid of all sympathy. He dressed expensively, wore a profusion of jewellery, and was rarely without an excellent cigar sticking out of his mouth. For the sake of luring his victims he cultivated a jolly, free and easy manner, and exhibited an external good nature which deceived many. To quote Tennyson's cutting line, he "snake-like slimed his victim e'er he gorged," and acted the Pharisee by largely advertising his charities. He was looked upon generally as a good fellow, rough, but really kind-hearted, and possessed of a true Christian spirit. As a matter of fact, Mr. Tait knew very little of Christ and His teaching, and would not have subscribed to it, save by word of mouth, had he been aware of its spirit. But he passed as a good man, because he went to church and talked largely of helping the poor. This prop of British commerce, as he was wrongly described by a too ardent reporter, possessed a regal country house at Henley, where he entertained largely. Also he had chambers in town, but these he only used on rare occasions when business or pleasure prevented him seeking his true home. Mrs. Tait had mercifully passed away many years previously, under the delusion that Michael was a good man, and the Henley mansion was managed by Maud Ellis, who was the stockbroker's niece. Miss Ellis was a young lady of five-and-twenty, certainly not bad-looking, although she could not be described as beautiful. Like her respectable uncle, she was of the sandy type, but, unlike him, she possessed a tall, full figure, finely-shaped. As she always dressed in exquisite taste, and had a personality of the semi-hypnotic kind, she was regarded as a desirable woman. The fact that she was her uncle's heiress also may have had something to do with this opinion. Maud was extremely cunning, and as selfish in her way as Michael was in his. He sought money, she admiration, and they did very well in their efforts to attract both. And it was this clever young woman who had chosen to fall in love with George Walker. Of course she knew that he was a bad match, that he did not love her, and that as his wife she would hold no very exalted position. But the fact was that the girl, after playing with various suitors, like the princess of a fairy tale, with no serious intentions, had been snared herself. Whether it was Walker's good looks, or his kind heart, or his charm of manner, it is impossible to say; perhaps one of the three, perhaps the three together: but Miss Ellis assuredly was violently in love with the young man. Having arrived at the conclusion that life would be miserable without him, she set to work to make him propose, thinking that she would have small difficulty. To her surprise, however, George proved to be quite impervious to her sparkling conversation and clever display of her somewhat limited charms. He was polite to her and nothing more, although she made her uncle ask him again and again to the palace at Henley. This conduct piqued Miss Ellis, but did not altogether displease her, as it gave her an opportunity of exercising her talent for intrigue. From a mere fancy, her passion deepened to ardent love, and she swore mentally that by hook or by crook she would force the young fellow to make her Mrs. Walker. Rarely a week passed without George being asked to Henley, and Maud did her best to subjugate him. But George being in love with Lesbia had a very strong shield to oppose to her love darts, and managed to avoid the amorous pitfalls she spread for him. For six months the chase of this unwilling victim had been going on, and as the quarry always dodged just as the huntress was on the verge of capture, this middle-class Diana concluded that there was another woman in the case. With a view to learning the truth, she watched and made stealthy inquiries, so that she speedily learned of George's infatuation--so she called it--for Lesbia Hale. To detach him from Lesbia became the object of her life, and it was she who suggested to Mr. Hale that Lesbia might profitably marry Captain Alfred Sargent. As Hale approved of Maud's cleverness, and was frequently indebted to her for getting what he wanted from Tait, he did his best to fall in with her plans, the more so, as he did not care whom his daughter married, provided it was to his interest. Maud promised, if the marriage was brought about, to interest her uncle in a wild-cat scheme of Hale's contrivance. So the loving father did his best--as has been seen--to force his child into the arms of a man she loathed. George knew nothing of all this intrigue, and kept away from the Henley mansion as much as he could without openly offending his employer. But when he heard from Tim that Captain Sargent was to be a member of the Saturday to Monday house-party, he determined to accept this latest invitation. An interview with Sargent might clear the air of all these mysteries, and George--hating the ex-captain--was not averse from breaking his head as Tim had advised, if there was no other way of releasing Lesbia. Also George fancied that Mr. Hale--a frequent visitor--might be enjoying Mr. Tait's hospitality, in which case he could speak to him and remonstrate about this tyranny to which Lesbia was subjected. When George arrived in time for afternoon tea on Saturday, he found that his own hopes and those of Tim were realised--that is, both Walter Hale and Captain Sargent were present. Hale looked as lean and grim and smart as ever, while greeting the flushed young man with the air of a perfect stranger. Maud, who presided at a dainty tea-table, saw that flush, and from the juxtaposition of Hale guessed its reason. She was therefore none too pleased, but veiling her annoyance with a sweet smile, she called the new arrival over to her side, and poured him out a cup of tea. "You are quite a stranger, Mr. Walker," she said graciously, devouring him with her cold, grey eyes, which only lighted up when they rested on his face. "I was here three weeks ago," said George politely, and accepting cake. "It would rather bore Mr. Tait if I came here oftener." "It would never bore me," breathed Miss Ellis, "and my uncle is always very glad to see you. He looks upon you almost as his son." George flushed again and looked awkward. "It is very kind of Mr. Tait," he remarked coldly, "seeing that I am only a clerk in his office." "Uncle was only a clerk once," said Maud, smiling. "And look what he is now, Mr. Walker. Some day you will be like him." "I don't think so," said George, looking across to the stout, ungraceful form of the successful stockbroker, who was being waited upon hand and foot by two society ladies of the smart set, anxious to secure tips. Maud took his remark in its wrong sense. "Oh, you must hope," she declared playfully. "With influence," she spoke meaningly, "you will do much." "I have no influence," returned the young man coldly. "That is your own fault," retorted Miss Ellis. "The tide of fortune is flowing past your door, and you will not launch your boat." "I am waiting for a passenger," said Walker, thinking of Lesbia. Jealous and cunning as she was, Maud was quite taken in for the moment, and smiled graciously. She fancied that he referred to her. "You need not wait long," she hinted. George found the situation intolerable, and on the spur of the moment, although it was neither the time nor the place to be confidential, he spoke out. There should be no further misunderstandings if he could help it. "My waiting depends upon Mr. Hale," he said bluntly. Maud bit her thin lip, and leaned back, with an artificial laugh. Inwardly she was furious, as she now knew that his remark had referred to "that girl," as she contemptuously called Lesbia. But she was too much the woman of the world to reveal her feelings and, moreover, utilised his observation to learn as much of the truth as possible. "Ah," she said archly, "a little bird told me that Mr. Hale has a beautiful daughter. But I understood that she was engaged to Captain Sargent." "She is engaged to me," flashed out George, quite forgetting that he was speaking to a jealous woman. "Ah!" said Miss Ellis again, controlling her countenance with difficulty; "the course of true love is not running smoothly. Poor Mr. Walker, I must help you to gain your wife." "You!" blurted out George like a fool. Maud sat up and erected her crest like a snake. "Yes, I," she said haughtily, anxious only for the moment to save her womanly pride. "Why should I not help a friend? I look on you almost as a brother." Still like a fool, George believed her, and indeed her indignant manner would have deceived a much cleverer man. He was very young and very green, and in Maud's designing hands could be moulded like wax. She could have struck him in the face for the insult he had offered her, but hiding her rage under a friendly smile, she laid her plans to entrap him beyond hope of escape. "I shall get Mr. Hale to bring his daughter here," she said quietly, "and then you can talk to her at your leisure." "Oh, how good you are," cried George delightedly. "I am sure you will love Lesbia: she is so beautiful and charming--as you are," he added with an afterthought. Again the impulse came to Maud to strike him, and again her worldly training came to her aid. "Hush!" she said softly, "you will make Captain Sargent jealous. I believe he overheard." "I don't care if he did," said Walker defiantly. "Then I do," retorted Miss Ellis, who could not resist paying him out a trifle, much as she loved him. "I don't want you to quarrel here. Now go and talk to Captain Sargent while I receive these new people." Several ladies and two gentlemen entered at the moment, and she went forward to greet them, followed by her uncle. George left the chair he had occupied near the tea-table, and strolled across the room--not to Sargent, but to interview Mr. Hale. That gentleman saw him coming, and moved away from the person to whom he was speaking, in order to find a secluded corner. He saw that his would-be son-in-law was coming to converse with him, and guessing the subject of his conversation, wished to settle the matter without scandal. George, as he surmised, was too frank to be diplomatic, and if within the hearing of others, might say too much. But he need not have been afraid. George, having been schooled in social usages, by his mother, was perfectly capable of acting as a well-bred man. "I have called twice or thrice to see Lesbia," said George, sinking his voice to a judicious whisper, "but I have not been successful." "That is as it should be," rejoined Mr. Hale coldly. "I do not wish her to see you, and I have taken steps to prevent her from seeing you." It was on the point of George's tongue to say that he knew what precautions had been taken, but to speak openly would lead to the betrayal of Tim, which was not to be thought of. However, he was as blunt as he dared to be. "It is tyranny to keep a young girl shut up," he snapped angrily. "You are the cause of her seclusion," retorted the elder man, "and as her father I have a right to act as I please." "There are law and order in this country," said Walker heatedly, and would have continued to speak with vehemence, but that Hale prevented him. "You are right, and I take advantage of such law and order to prevent my daughter from marrying a man I disapprove of." "Why do you object to me?" "We discussed that before and I gave you my answer. Also, if you will remember, I gave you a chance of having things your own way. It is my desire that Lesbia should marry my friend Sargent, but if you will recover that lost cross for me, I will permit her marriage with you." "I can't find the cross," growled George sullenly. "Then you can't marry Lesbia," replied Hale, very distinctly, "and as you are forcing me to curtail Lesbia's liberty by haunting the house, I must ask you, in her interests if not in mine, to discontinue your persecution." George looked at the cold grim face before him, very straightly. "I love Lesbia, and I intend to marry Lesbia," he said quietly. "Therefore I shall do all in my power to see Lesbia. As to Captain Sargent----" "Hullo!" remarked that gentleman, who was strolling--perhaps purposely--within ear-shot. "What about Captain Sargent?" He was a slim, thin, delicate-looking man of the mutton-dressed-as-lamb type, that is, he did not look his age, and affected a pronouncedly juvenile fashion, a trifle over-done. His collars were too high, his ties were too brilliant, and his clothes were aggressively new. To look at his array he might have just left an army-crammer's, and had apparently stopped short at "the young lieutenant" epoch, which is the era of the male peacock. As to his looks, these were of the colourless faded type; his face was pale, his eyes were pale, and his hair--what there was of it--was also pale. In fact, Sargent looked like a sheet of paper prepared for sketching, and could have painted upon the background of himself any character he wished to represent, provided it was not a strong one. The contrast between his washed out personality and young Walker's vivid virility was most marked. "What about Captain Sargent?" repeated this product of civilisation, a trifle more aggressively since George hesitated to speak. "Finish what you have to say, Mr. Walker." "Certainly," replied the younger man coolly. "I am the more willing, as Mr. Hale is present. In a word, Captain Sargent, I love Miss Lesbia Hale, and I intend to marry her. You wish to make her your wife, and I do not intend to let you have your way." "All that in a word," sneered the captain, with a disagreeable look in his pale grey eyes. "Yes. In a word to the wise." "And suppose I am not wise?" "It matters very little to me if you are wise or not," retorted George, who was not to be put down by sneers. "Lesbia is to marry me, so that is all about it." Sargent glanced at Mr. Hale, who was quite unruffled. "I presume her father's wish counts for something?" "Not when it conflicts with her happiness." "What do you say, Hale?" "I have said all that I intend to say. Walker knows my views." "He does," broke in George, "and he does not subscribe to them. I give you warning that I intend to marry Lesbia. As to you, sir," he turned so fiercely on Sargent that the man gave back a step. "If you make Lesbia unhappy, or bother her in any way, I shall make myself very unpleasant." "Dear me!" sneered the captain in feigned alarm. "What a terrible Turk!" George stared coldly at his rival, and deliberately turned on his heel without speaking further. He had declared open war, and he was pleased that he had done so. Now--with a clear conscience--he could haunt the Marlow cottage and see Lesbia and woo Lesbia and carry off Lesbia, without feeling that he was acting otherwise than as a gentleman and an ardent lover. "Damn the fellow!" breathed Sargent, who had reddened under Walker's contemptuous gaze. "What's to be done, Hale?" "Nothing," rejoined that gentleman sternly. "If you find that cross, you can marry Lesbia; if Walker finds it, he can make her his wife." It was a pity that George did not overhear this speech. He would have been interested to hear that Sargent also was seeking for the mysterious ornament to which Hale appeared to attach such value. The captain looked at his friend curiously. "Why do you want this cross so much?" he asked. "That's my business. What you have to do is to find it;" and in his turn Mr. Hale went away, leaving Sargent caressing his moustache in some perplexity. Presently, everyone went to dinner, which was a banquet delicately cooked and splendidly served. Tait was quite devoted to the pleasures of the table, and paid his chef a large salary. The food was perfect and the wines flowed freely, so that by the time the guests repaired to the drawing-room, everyone was in the best of spirits. The house-party was a large one, as there were about twenty people present, and not one of these would have been acceptable in a Sunday school. There were ladies belonging to the smart set, perfectly respectable from a worldly point of view, but who cared for nothing save bridge and dress, flirtation and pleasure. There were also men, some with titles, and many with brains of the speculative money-making order. Tait was not entirely in society, but by reason of his wealth and public position as a philanthropist hovered on the fringe of it. He helped social butterflies to make money on the Stock Exchange, lent sums large and small to ladies who could advance him in Mayfair and Belgravian circles, and was always open to consider any scheme which promised to bring in cash. Thus his house-parties were composed of a heterogeneous mass of people, good or bad, titled and untitled, gay and grave. But a general air of restlessness prevailed, and in that splendid mansion one and all appeared to dance along a golden road, which doubtless led to the Pit, and were personally conducted by the cunning, self-indulgent, worldly old stockbroker, who might have passed as Mammon in the flesh. After dinner, the party split up into sections. Some ardent gamblers sat down to bridge; a few restless spirits went to dance, and a group gathered round a young man at the piano who sang the latest comic songs. There was plenty of champagne, together with cigars and cigarettes of the best, so the fun waxed fast and furious, and as the hours drew on to midnight everyone grew more or less excited. Within bounds, of course, as Maud Ellis was too clever to permit the Henley palace to earn a name for Neronian extravagance. The entertainment just paused on the verge of an orgy; but under Maud's skilful management did not over-step the mark. That young lady had been watching George all the night although she did not speak to him again. Towards twelve o'clock, she found herself near him, and rallied him on his pensive air. "Don Quixote in love," she said in an airy manner. Then she lowered her voice impressively. "Meet me in the picture-gallery at three o'clock," she said, "for Lesbia's sake." CHAPTER VII AFTER MIDNIGHT Had George been more of a man of the world he would have wholly mistrusted Maud, and would have declined her invitation to meet him in the picture-gallery in the small hours of Sunday morning. It would not have been credited by a judge of human nature that one woman would make such an appointment with the man she loved to plead the cause of her rival, or to give a helping hand to bring about a marriage which was dead against the feelings of her heart. But George, in spite of his years and virile looks, was an unsophisticated man, who could not guess what was below the surface. He was a kind of society tender-foot, and perhaps this in some measure constituted his charm in the eyes of Miss Ellis, who had experience enough to fit out a dozen men and at least two women. At all events, although he wondered that her liking for him--as he termed it--had lapsed so suddenly, yet he determined to keep the appointment and to listen to any scheme which she might propose, likely to accomplish the marriage with Lesbia. In this way are strong men twisted to feminine purposes by women, and from Samson downwards no man has been sufficiently cunning to get the better of his Delilah. There was therefore some excuse for George. His attention was drawn from his own thoughts by a lively discussion going on between Mr. Tait and three or four ladies, with a sprinkling of men. As it was now long after midnight some people had retired to bed, and others were preparing to follow. But Tait was a night bird who liked to stay up as long as possible--probably because, as a robber of widows and orphans, his pillow must have had its thorns. To entertain those guests who remained wakeful, and especially the feminine portion thereof, he mentioned that he had lately come into possession of some wonderful jewels which a famous, or rather infamous, _demi-mondaine_ of Paris had sold. Of course, the ladies were more than anxious to see these gems, both on account of their beauty and value and because of the celebrity of their former owner. They one and all clamoured for a sight of them, and as Mr. Tait had purposely stimulated their curiosity to keep them from retiring, he was not unwilling to gratify their wish. He therefore led the way to the picture-gallery, and pointed out a small narrow door at the end of it. "There is my safe," he said proudly, "or rather my strong-room." "Queer place for a safe," drawled Sargent, with a shrug. "And for that reason the safer. We are all friends here," Tait glanced round graciously, and looked more like a Silenus than ever, "so I do not mind revealing the whereabouts of twenty thousand pounds' worth of jewels. But no thief would dream that my safe was here. And even if he did," added the stockbroker, drawing out his watch-chain, "the safe cannot be opened save by this key." "But it might be broken open," George ventured to remark. Tait laughed in a jolly manner. "It would take the cleverest thief in London to break into my safe, and there are only two keys to open it. I have one on my watch-chain, and Maud, my niece, has the other." The guests looked at one another. Had not Tait been flushed with wine and excitement he would not have been thus free in his speech, and he was not a man who talked at large as a rule. But the lateness of the hour, the presence of many people, the lights, the music, the gambling, the wine, and the chatter had unloosened his usually cautious tongue. Maud frowned when her uncle spoke so rashly, as she thought that he was a fool to do so. Certainly there was no one present who would have broken open the safe, since everyone was respectable, even if--as the word goes--rackety! All the same the revelation of the whereabouts of the safe and the information so guilelessly supplied was risky, to say the least of it. Miss Ellis shook her head at her venturesome uncle. "Don't say too much," she remarked in a low voice, "even this safe may not be strong enough to withstand a burglar of the new school." "Well, I don't care," cried the stockbroker recklessly, inserting his key into the lock, "my jewels are insured. Come, ladies, you can all feast your eyes, and--as I have bought the gems to sell them again--I am open to an offer." He said this jokingly, yet meant to sell if he could. Some of the guests drew back rather annoyed, as they thought that Mr. Tait was going too far in importing City manners into his house-party. Maud, ever watchful, again whispered to her uncle, but he shook her off, and entered the strong-room--now open--to bring out the jewels. When the box which contained them was placed on a near table, and the contents were displayed, all thought of Tait's bad manners disappeared in amazement and delight at the sight of the precious stones. These were truly beautiful. Many were set in tiaras, bracelets, rings, chains, lockets and in various ornaments for the hair and corsage. But other stones lay loose and glittering, to be arranged and used as required. There were diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds and many inferior gems, the whole forming a dazzling heap, which made every mouth water with avarice. But for Tait's estimate, those present--and some were good judges of jewels--would have deemed the radiant pile worth twice the amount mentioned. "Try them on, ladies," said the genial stockbroker. "Try them on. We are all friends here!" and he placed a tiara on the head of his niece, who stood near with a frown on her face. She began to think that her uncle was crazy to display his wealth in this reckless manner. In a few moments some of the female guests were glittering with jewels, and surveying themselves delightedly in hand-mirrors which had been brought by Tait's order. The stockbroker himself, with a cynical smile, looked at their avaricious faces, and listened with sneering pleasure to the delighted little screams which they gave at intervals. Jewels have a much greater effect on women than on men, and there was not a woman present but would have gone great lengths for the sake of possessing even one of the ornaments. Gretchen was not the only woman who could be lured by the glitter of gems, which is so much superior to the mere gleam of gold. And Tait, amidst this splendour, looked more like Mammon than ever. But this early-hours-of-the-morning pleasure came to an end in fifteen minutes, and the ladies, taking off the jewels, restored them to their owner. Tait was really glad to get them back, and counted them carefully, for the look in the eyes of some of the ladies actually frightened him, and he half thought that they would run away with the treasures. However, he made sure that every one of the ornaments had been given back, and replaced them in the box, which he deposited in the safe. After that, the guests went to bed, and the gallery, with the strong-room carefully locked, was left in silence and darkness. But the sleep of many was disturbed by the thought of that Nibelung's treasure, so near at hand, and yet so impossible to obtain. George was indifferent to the gems, as he thought that Lesbia's eyes were brighter and much more beautiful. He left the gallery while Tait was displaying his hoard, and retired to the very comfortable bedroom which Maud's care had provided. As a mere clerk he should not have had such luxurious surroundings, or, indeed, have been in the splendid house at all; but she loved him, and could not do enough for him. Therefore, George was housed like a king, and, after the manner of youth, took his comforts easily. It never occurred to him that in his humble position he had no right to be pampered and petted. By right of good looks and delightful manners, he had hitherto gone through the world very much spoiled by the fair sex. He therefore took everything as his right. While waiting for three to strike from the stable clock--it was now two--he seated himself before the fire and, lighting a pipe, gave himself up to dreams of Lesbia. In one way or another he was determined to make her his wife, but it was difficult to see how he proposed to keep her on his small salary, particularly when much of that same salary was required to support his mother. But that George indulged in the rosy dreams of youth and had such a profound belief in the kindness of fortune, he would have dismissed his proposed marriage as an impossibility. Hale was against it, and so was Sargent: his mother did not approve of the marriage, and there was Maud Ellis to be considered. A more hopeful man may well have been despondent: but not George. He felt sure that everything would come right, and that life was a fairy-tale in which the fated prince--who was himself--carried off the lovely princess--who, of course, was Lesbia. And she was in an enchanted castle--so he glorified Rose Cottage--watched by two dragons, Canning and Mrs. Petty--but helped also by a faithful dwarf, by name Tim Burke. Finally, there was Mr. Hale as the wicked magician to be reckoned with, and perhaps Maud might act as the malignant fairy; but somehow the marriage would be brought about, and in some way sufficient money would be provided, so that the prince and princess could live happily ever afterwards. Lesbia would not have thought in this comfortable fashion in the face of such obstacles as barred the way to the altar: but then she was much more practical than her lover, in spite of the fact that she dwelt in seclusion, while he battled in the work-a-day world. And then, as George fondly imagined he had discovered a few hours previously, Maud Ellis was not the wicked fairy after all. Rather was she about to play the agreeable part of the fairy-godmother, and bring together two lovers parted by adverse circumstances. When Maud afterwards thought of the trust George placed in her she wondered at his folly, and had a contempt for his upright character that could estimate human nature so highly. But George never doubted for one moment but that the appointment was made in all good faith and for the express purpose of helping his suit with Lesbia. He therefore waited impatiently for the striking of the clock. Only once did it cross his mind as odd that Maud should choose that hour and that meeting-place to forward his interests, since she could easily have spoken to him in a convenient place and at a becoming hour in the morning. But he brushed this thought aside as unworthy of her kind heart, and when the hour of three chimed out, he opened his door softly and slipped out to keep his appointment. George had stayed so frequently at the Henley mansion that he knew his way to the picture-gallery exceedingly well. Also, it was Mr. Tait's hobby to have the corridors and many of the rooms lighted in a subdued manner all night. It prevented burglary, he declared, and certainly the sight of an illuminated house would daunt those who prefer to work in darkness or only by the light of a bull's-eye. George, therefore, found himself in a soft glow when he emerged from the bedroom and stole on tip-toe towards the head of the stairs. Here he descended and took his way towards the back of the house to the picture-gallery. This portion of the great mansion was not lighted, which seemed odd, remembering what Mr. Tait said about light scaring burglars, and seeing also that the safe was placed here. But whatever was the stockbroker's whim, George found the long gallery in darkness, and as he had entered by a door placed directly in the middle of it, he halted there doubtfully. He could see no light, save what filtered through the sky-lights, and did not know where Maud waited for him. At the far end of the gallery were double glass doors, leading down steps into the gardens. These were usually shuttered at night, but George noted with some surprise by the gleam of starlight which came through them that on this special night the shutters had not been put up. This was strange, considering the valuables which were concealed in the safe; but then, as the young man reflected, it was also strange that Tait should place his treasure-house at the other end of the gimcrack gallery, which could be so easily broken into. But, after all, on the authority of Poe's tale of the Purloined Letter, the more unlikely a place in which valuables are hidden the safer they are. Not one of the London fraternity of thieves would believe that the wary stockbroker would be so foolish as to place his safe or strong-room, or treasure-house, or whatever he liked to call it, in such a locality. Therefore, no creature of the night would come to rob. There was considerable method in Tait's apparent madness after all. But George had scanty time for such reflections, as the hours were swiftly moving towards dawn, and he yet had to converse with Maud. His eyes grew more accustomed to the semi-darkness of the gallery, and he glanced up and down to see if he could espy the darker form of the girl. At this moment he heard the clink of metal upon metal. The sound came from the direction of the strong-room, and, as he turned his gaze thereto, he suddenly saw a vivid stream of light, proceeding apparently from a bull's-eye. In a flash it struck him that the strong-room was being burgled, and almost without thinking he uttered a loud cry and sprang forward to lay hands on the thieves. The light disappeared as he raced up, and when within measurable distance of the safe he stumbled over a body, motionless on the floor. It was that of a woman, as Walker could tell by the draperies he mechanically clutched in his fall. Before he could pick himself up, two dark forms dashed past him towards the glass doors. George, anxious only to lay hands on the thieves, ran down the gallery at their heels and left the woman where she was. The intruders easily opened the double doors, which evidently had been left ajar. George followed, and saw two men race across the lawn and into the belt of trees which girdled Mr. Tait's mansion. As he increased his speed he shouted loudly for assistance. By and by, lights were seen moving in the upper windows of the great house, and into the corridors poured many guests and servants, all in various stages of undress, and all scared by the midnight alarm. Tait, with a dressing-gown thrown hastily over his burly form, pushed his way through the throng down the stairs, and the guests streamed after him. Everyone knew what was the matter, for a wakeful servant had heard the shout of "Thieves!" and the ominous word had hastily passed from lip to lip. "I expect my jewels are gone!" panted Tait, waddling towards the gallery at the head of a picturesque mob. In a second the electric lights were turned on and the gallery blazed with light. Tait uttered a cry of alarm, which was echoed by those behind him, and there was cause for surprise. The door of the strong-room stood wide open, and some distance away lay the insensible body of Maud Ellis, dressed in the attire she had worn during the previous evening. While some of the ladies attended to the girl, Tait with surprising agility plunged into the strong-room, and then they heard him bellow bull-like in mingled rage and astonishment. A moment later he emerged. "The jewels are gone! the jewels are gone!" he shouted, purple with wrath. "Here, some of you, go to Henley for the police; search the grounds, examine the house, and----" "The doors are open, sir," cried a footman. "The thieves must have escaped. After them! after them!" bellowed Tait, in a frenzy of rage. "Your niece, man, your niece," said a gentleman who was supporting the unconscious Miss Ellis; but Tait only swore the more. "Confound my niece. I have lost twenty thousand pounds' worth of jewels." Several people looked disgusted at this callousness. A young doctor, who was stopping in the house, and who was feeling Maud's pulse, looked up. "Miss Ellis has been chloroformed," he remarked quietly. Tait bent down and lightly touched the gold chain which was round the girl's neck. "The key of the strong-room is gone," he cried furiously. "No doubt," explained the medical man. "Miss Ellis has been rendered insensible and then was robbed of the key. But who----" "How did Maud come to be here at this hour?" demanded Tait savagely. "Go for the police, some of you," he shouted, stamping furiously. "I'm not going to lose a fortune in this way." "It's useless; the thieves have escaped," cried a voice at the end of the gallery, and George bounded in at the open door. "Walker," cried the stockbroker, recoiling. "What are you doing here? What do you know about this?" "I came downstairs and heard the thieves at work," explained George quickly. "I tried to lay hands on them, but tumbled over the body of a woman on the floor, and----" "It is Miss Ellis," said the young doctor, looking up. "Do you know how she came to be here?" George hesitated. He could not--for the sake of Maud's reputation--say that she had appointed a meeting with him, and did not know how to explain. Tait noted his momentary hesitation, and turned on him furiously. "How do you come to be here?" he demanded. "What makes you wander about my house when everyone is in bed?" "Ah," said Mr. Hale, pushing his way through the frightened crowd, "that is very suspicious. Speak out, Walker!" "I heard a noise and came down," cried George, making the first excuse which entered his head. "No one else heard a noise," remarked Sargent, who was at Tait's elbow. "I was wakeful," retorted Walker sharply; but on every hand he saw incredulous looks, and realised with a chill that he was suspected. Tait grunted, and looked at the young man with a lowering brow. "Who are the thieves?" he demanded. "How many of them are there?" "I saw two men, but could not catch a glimpse of their faces. I think they were masked," said George readily, and again saw disbelief written on the faces around him. "But may I suggest, Mr. Tait, that you send for the police at once. The thieves made for the wood round the house and may escape." "I daresay they have escaped," grunted Tait, savagely. "The servants are searching the gardens. Meanwhile let us revive Maud, and hear what she has to say." "She is coming round now," said the doctor, and even as he spoke, Maud opened her eyes in a vague, unseeing way. "Carry her up to bed," said Tait harshly. "I'll have an inquiry made into this as soon as dawn comes and the police arrive. Meanwhile you can all retire. Mr. Walker, remain here and explain." "I have explained," said George proudly. "I have nothing more to add." Tait shook his head doubtfully, and whispers went round, which indicated suspicion of the truth of Walker's explanation. By this time Maud, more or less sensible, was on her feet. Her eyes wandered here and there until they alighted on the young man. "You!" cried Miss Ellis, with a loud wail. "Oh, George, you!" CHAPTER VIII UNDER A CLOUD There was very little sleep for anyone during the remaining hours of darkness, and after breakfast--an unusually dismal meal--the guests one and all showed a desire to get away from their host. Mr. Tait certainly was not amiable, since he had suffered so great a loss, and growled like a bear with a sore head. Not being a gentleman, he could not control his temper, and made himself so openly disagreeable, that everyone wanted to leave forthwith. But until the police had made inquiries, it was impossible for either man or woman to depart without becoming suspected. Throughout that wretched Sunday, the men were miserable and the ladies hysterical. Tait, no longer the jolly Silenus, or even the gracious Mammon, moved amongst his friends with looks of suspicion for all. The police duly arrived, and searched the gardens and the house, but in no way could they trace the thieves. George stuck persistently to his story, which, of course, was true, save for the excuse which he gave for coming down the stairs. And it was this false portion--this weak subterfuge--which made Mr. Tait suspicious. He knew that George was hard up, and said as much to him in a quiet corner. "What has my being a pauper to do with your loss?" demanded Walker, firing up on the instant. Tait shook his bullet head and scowled with his little pig eyes. "My jewels are worth twenty thousand pounds," he retorted. "I don't care if they are worth twenty millions," said George, turning pale, for he realised his employer's meaning. "I know nothing about them." "You were in the gallery when----" "I came down to the gallery because I heard a noise," interrupted Walker furiously. "I told the police the story I told you. I did my best to catch the thieves, and now you have the audacity to accuse me." "I don't exactly accuse you----" "It looks very like it." "You must admit that your conduct is suspicious," protested the stockbroker. "I admit nothing of the sort." "People don't wander about a house after everyone is in bed, without a reason," snapped Tait, with a searching glance. George bore the scrutiny without flinching. "I have explained how I came to be wandering about," he declared proudly. "I was sitting by my fire, and on hearing a suspicious noise I came down, with what result you know. How dare you accuse me?" "I tell you again that I don't accuse you," vociferated Tait crossly. "But you have acted foolishly to say the least of it." "How else could I have acted?" "On hearing the noise you should have aroused me." "Had I done so I should not have been in time to see the thieves." "What good did you do by seeing them, since they have escaped? That is," added Tait slowly, "if there were two men. Stop!" he threw up his fat hand as the young man was about to speak angrily; "it is no use going round the bush. You may be innocent or you may not be. Your story may be true or it may be the reverse." "Mr. Tait"--George held his temper under by mere force of will--"why should I rob you?" The stockbroker opened his pig's eyes. "Why!" he demanded in amazement, "do I not know that you are desperately poor? Didn't Hale tell me only the other day that you wanted to marry his daughter, and could not do so for want of money? Oh, there are plenty of reasons why you should take twenty thousand pounds' worth of jewels. They can be unset and sold, in which case they will be difficult to trace. Had they been bank-notes, I don't believe that this burglary--so-called--would have taken place." George curled his lip. "You put things very clearly, sir," he said quietly, "and on the face of it, I admit that my conduct looks a trifle suspicious." "A trifle!" cried Tait scornfully. "Very good indeed. A trifle! Why not admit that you came down to steal the jewels, and went out to bury them in some safe place, returning, when the alarm was given, to tell us this cock-and-bull story of two thieves?" George winced and grew white at this very plain speaking. But he kept his temper, for to have lost it at the moment would have been dangerous. He saw very well that he was in a tight place. "I ask you only one question, Mr. Tait," he said calmly. "Who gave the alarm?" "I do not know," said the stockbroker sullenly. "I heard a cry of thieves, and help, and blue murder, and came down to find everyone else aroused." "Then I may tell you that I gave the alarm, sir." "_You_ say so," sneered the other. "I say so because it is true," rejoined Walker, throwing back his head indignantly. "I shouted in the gallery when I saw the light, and I cried out again when I followed the thieves. I lost them when they bolted into the wood girdling this place. Now, I ask you, sir, would I have given the alarm had I been guilty?" "No--_if_ you gave the alarm, that is. But I don't believe you did." "In other words you think that I am guilty?" "Upon my word, Walker, it looks very much like it." "Then why not hand me over to the police?" The stockbroker moved uneasily and wiped his damp, red face. "Your mother is an old friend of mine," he said hesitatingly; "I think of her." "That is very good of you," said the ungrateful George; "but I would rather you believed in my innocence. I have no wish to hide myself behind any woman's petticoats." "Not even behind Maud's?" "I don't know what you are talking about," said George stolidly, determined to hold his peace about the lady even to her uncle. "Miss Ellis and I are very good friends, nothing more." "You know that she loves you. I should never have asked a mere clerk from my office here, but that she loved you. I disapproved of her infatuation, but I gave in to her since I am your mother's friend." "You are slightly incoherent, sir, and entirely wrong. Miss Ellis and I are friends; nothing more. And to return to the subject of the burglary, may I remind you that the police have discovered that the safe was not broken into, but that the door was opened with a key? The key, I notice, is still on your watch-chain. How then could I have opened the safe?" "Perhaps you think that I stole the jewels myself?" sneered Tait coolly. "I may remind you, in my turn, that Maud also has a key." George sprang to his feet and clenched his hand. "You dare to insinuate that I got it from Miss Ellis, and----" The door opened as he spoke, and Tait, who was facing it, glanced over the young man's shoulder. "Here is Maud for herself. Perhaps she will explain." It was indeed Miss Ellis, looking very white and pinched. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her mouth was drooping, and she confessed to a headache, which was not to be wondered at, seeing what she had gone through. "That chloroform is horrible stuff," complained Maud, sinking into a chair. "Have you seen the inspector?" said Tait, giving his niece very little sympathy for her wan looks. "Yes; I have told him all I know." "Perhaps you will repeat what you have told him to your uncle, Miss Ellis," remarked Walker, still standing very stiff and very proudly. "He has accused me of getting the key from you to rob the strong-room, and swears that I have buried the jewels somewhere in the garden." "That is absurd," said Maud, looking at her uncle, while a red spot of colour burned on either pale cheek. "I don't believe that you have anything to do with the matter." "Then what did you mean by addressing Walker as you did, when you revived in the gallery?" demanded Mr. Tait sharply. "I simply said, 'Oh, George, you!'" said the girl quietly; "and that because I felt glad he was there to help me." "He didn't help you in the least," remarked Tait grimly. "He would have had I asked him," she retorted. "Would you not, Mr. Walker?" "Certainly." "It's not George this time, then," muttered the stockbroker. "Well, Maud, perhaps you will tell me what you were doing in the gallery." Maud's eyes sought those of the man she loved, but she replied without hesitation. "I'll tell you what I did not tell the police, uncle. The inspector believes that I came down because I heard a noise." "Like Walker here." "He did not come down for that reason." Tait looked at George with triumph in his eye. "I thought not," he said. "If he said that he did, he said so to shield me," pursued Miss Ellis, and looked gratefully at the confused young man. "What do you mean by that, Maud?" asked Tait tartly. "I made an appointment with George in the picture-gallery at three in the morning, as I wished to help him to marry Lesbia Hale." "Why, I thought you loved Walker yourself!" cried the astonished stockbroker. "So I did--so I do," breathed Miss Ellis, drooping her sandy head. "But, to my mind, love means sacrifice. George--for I have the right to call him so now--George would not have been happy with me, as he loved Lesbia Hale, so I arranged to give him up to her, and to make things right with her father. For that reason I waited for him in the gallery. There I was suddenly pounced upon, and a handkerchief soaked in chloroform was clapped over my mouth. I daresay the person who did it, stole the key from the chain round my neck, and opened the strong-room to steal the jewels. But I knew nothing from the moment I became insensible until I revived to find you all standing round me. That is the story I have told the inspector, save that I kept quiet my appointment with George." "Then you believe him to be innocent," said the stockbroker, confounded by the frankness of this story. Maud arose indignantly. "The man I love can never be guilty," she cried. George blushed a rosy red. He saw that he had not behaved over well to this brave girl, who had so cleverly exonerated him, although he really had no reason to accuse himself of duplicity towards her. But in a confused way he felt that she was heaping coals of fire on his head, and was more drawn to her than he had ever been before. Here, indeed, was a friend worth having. With Lesbia as his wife and Maud as his friend, life would indeed be joyous. In his innocence it never struck the young man that no male can drive, either in double harness or in tandem fashion, two women who both love him. He thought that Maud, having discovered that the true meaning of love was sacrifice, behaved thus because of her newly-acquired knowledge. "Thank you, Miss Ellis," he said simply, but his looks implied volumes more. Tait was displeased. He had no grudge against George, whom he liked well enough; but he did not like his solution of the mystery to be thus upset. "You mean well, Maud," he said at length, "and you have shielded Walker very cleverly. All the same, I cannot accept your explanation." Miss Ellis rose in alarm. "Uncle, do you mean that you will have Mr. Walker arrested when you know that he is innocent?" "For his mother's sake I shall not do that," said the elder man; "but if Mr. Walker will give back the jewels I will not dismiss him from my office." "I have no jewels to give," cried George recklessly, and his face flushed a deep red. "As to remaining in your office, do you think that I would continue to serve a man who suspects me of such a wicked crime? I shall never return to your office, Mr. Tait, nor shall I re-enter your house until my innocence is made clear. If the police arrest me----" "They will not do that," interrupted Maud quickly; "I promise you. There is no evidence against you. I don't know who chloroformed me, but you are innocent, I swear. My uncle will take no steps." "For Mrs. Walker's sake," interpolated the stockbroker unctuously. "So you can leave this house when you will," continued Maud, "knowing--" she seized his hand--"that I at least, believe you guiltless." "Thank you!" said George, and kissed her hand. "Mr. Tait, if you and the police want me you know where to find me." And he stalked out of the room with his head in the air. Maud Ellis looked after him with hungry looks, and heaved a deep sigh when the door closed. Within the hour George had asked permission of the inspector to leave the house, and obtained it. Whatever the guests believed, the police apparently--thanks to Maud's report--accepted him as a wholly guiltless person. He gave his address to the officer, so that he might be called as a witness in the event of the thieves being brought to book, and then shook the dust of that splendid Henley mansion from his feet. He was glad to get away, for several people looked at him askance, and evidently there was an uneasy feeling that he knew more than he would confess. But no one hinted openly that he was concerned in the robbery. It was merely thought that his presence in the gallery required a more reasonable explanation than the weak one of having heard a noise. Still, George could not help feeling that he was suspected by the guests and servants, and it was gall and wormwood to the proud young man that this should be the case. Walker carried his portmanteau down to the river, as he had rowed up to Henley from Medmenham. It was now late in the afternoon, and with a heavy heart he prepared to launch his boat and return. The news that he had to take to his mother was unwelcome, and he wondered how she would receive the information that he had left Tait's office. Mrs. Walker's circumstances were very desperate, as her income was so small, and she greatly depended upon her son's earnings. The present phase of things would be worse than ever, and George winced as he contemplated the coming interview. Just as he was about to step into the boat, Mr. Hale, cigar in mouth, sauntered up and addressed him. Walker was in no mood for conversation, and would have pushed off with a curt nod, but that the elder man uttered a sentence which made him pause indignantly. "So Tait didn't have you arrested, Walker," said Mr. Hale cruelly. George turned pale, and looked straight at the speaker. "If you were not Lesbia's father," he said quietly, "I should fling you into the river for those words." "I quite believe you would and could," rejoined Hale, looking admiringly at the splendid figure of the young man; "but that will not make you any the more innocent." "If I were guilty--if Mr. Tait believed me to be guilty, I should have been arrested long since," said Walker with an effort, "the mere fact that I am permitted to leave the house shows that I am considered guiltless." "Tait was always absurdly good-natured," said Hale coolly, again risking a plunge into the river. George looked at him again. "You believe that I stole those jewels?" he asked. "Of course I do. You made a lame excuse for being in the gallery at night, and evidently went out after two pretended thieves so as to hide your plunder. I didn't believe you had it in you. See what love will do." "Love?" "Yes. You are poor; you want to marry Lesbia, and so tried the short cut to wealth. Presently, when things have blown over, you will dig up the jewels and sell them to some fence. Then you will come to me with a cock-and-bull story about a legacy being left to you--perhaps you will inherit that fifty thousand pounds which is waiting for your mother's sister. Of course, knowing the source of your legacy I shall say no." "You have said no already," replied Walker quietly, although he longed to knock this sneering man of the world into the water. "Don't say any more, sir, else I may forget that you are Lesbia's father." And George took up his oars and pushed off into midstream. Hale lingered on the bank, still scoffing. "I shall tell Lesbia everything, Walker," called out Mr. Hale, clearly and slowly. "She will never marry you now, my dear burglar." The unhappy lover pulled swiftly down stream with those last words ringing in his ears. Could he indeed trust Lesbia to continue her engagement in the face of his being accused of a sordid crime? He knew that she loved him as dearly as he loved her, and would go through fire and water to prove that love. All the same, there was something so mean and contemptible about stealing from a friend's house, that even her great love might not be proof against her father's story. George clenched his teeth and pulled for dear life in order to control his emotion. He could do nothing in the face of all that had taken place, save wait patiently. Trusting in Tait's friendship for his mother and in Maud's loyalty, he knew that he would not be disgraced openly: but the idea that Lesbia might believe him guilty was desperately hard to bear. Still, she loved him, and he trusted in her love. That was all he could do, for a glance around showed him that he was helpless amidst the black circumstances which had so suddenly environed him. Mrs. Walker heard a bald, blunt tale from George and said very little in reply. Not even when he declared that he had thrown up his situation did she rebuke him. On the contrary she rather applauded. "As my son," said the stern, cold woman, "you could do nothing else." "Then you do not believe that I am guilty?" Mrs. Walker looked at him scornfully. "Our relations as mother and son have never been sentimental," she said quietly, "but you should know me better than to ask me that." "Thank you, mother," said George simply, for such a speech meant much from the Spartan woman, who was usually so reticent. "I want no thanks for being just," she remarked coldly. "What you have to do is to clear your name by searching for these thieves." "How am I to do that?" "I leave it to your own cleverness. Meanwhile I shall see Mr. Jabez, and get him to advance us sufficient to live on until your name is cleared and you have got another situation. As to this girl, Lesbia, give her up." "Never! Never! Never!" said George. His mother looked at him coldly and disapprovingly, and left him in silence. But matters turned out as she wished. Within three days a tearful note came from a distraught girl to her anxious lover--a note of a few words--"I believe you to be innocent but we can never marry, and we must never meet again," said the note, and it was signed stiffly "Lesbia Hale." CHAPTER IX TWO GIRLS If the course of true love did not run smoothly with George, the girl he loved found it speeding roughly also. Lesbia was as anxious to see her lover as he was to meet her; but parental displeasure and parental authority stood like a wall between this new Pyramus and Thisbe--a wall which could by no means be overleaped. As Tim had informed George, his master had engaged Mrs. Petty as a housekeeper, and so the domestic arrangements of Rose Cottage were temporarily removed from the hands of Lesbia. Also, in conjunction with The Shadow, Mrs. Petty acted both as a spy and a gaoler. It was infamous, as Lesbia felt, that she should be watched in this fashion; but as she had no money and no friends and no place whither she could go, there was nothing left for it but to wait, until such time as Mr. Hale became more reasonable. Mrs. Petty was a stout, plethoric woman, with an aggressive manner and a loud, common voice, who probably had been a Margate lodging-house keeper of the worst description. She was a born bully, and within ten minutes of her entry into the house Tim learned to loathe her with all the fervour of an Irishman, impatient of restraint in any form. Mrs. Petty tried similar tactics and treatment on Lesbia, but was met so firmly, and put in her place so quietly, that--being a coward at heart, as all bullies are--she left the girl as severely alone as was possible, while executing Mr. Hale's instructions. These were to keep a strict eye on his daughter, and to prevent the intrusion of George Walker. Mrs. Petty, after several rebuffs, contented herself by watching from afar, and managed by always being on the spot when Lesbia least expected her, to fulfil her contemptible duty. For the rest of the time she worried Tim and looked after the domestic economy of the cottage. The Shadow, as became his nickname, was a less aggressive personage. He was really called John Canning, and formerly had acted as valet to Captain Sargent. But that gentleman, being anxious to marry Lesbia whom he greatly admired, and hating George as a too-handsome and over-young rival, had suggested to his friend Hale that Canning should act as an inoffensive dragon to keep away the young man. Hale quite approved of this, as Canning could guard the garden, while Mrs. Petty kept watch on the girl in the house itself. Canning, therefore, glided unostentatiously into his position and, although Lesbia disliked the creature because he carefully kept George away, she had not the same hatred for him that she cherished for Mrs. Petty. At his worst Canning was a harmless individual, condemned to do the dirty work of others, because he had not sufficient brains to earn an honest wage in an honest manner. His nickname had been given him because of his marvellously thin looks, and these were certainly remarkably noticeable. At one time, as he confessed to Lesbia, he had exhibited himself in a travelling caravan as The Living Skeleton, but having slightly increased in weight he had been discharged. What his leanness must have been originally it is hard to say, as even now, he was but skin and bone and, being tall, looked like a line--that is, he was length without breadth. His hands resembled a bird's claws, his legs were like sticks, and his skull would have served for a death's head, so devoid was it of flesh. With his lean, clean-shaven face, with his straight, jet-black hair, which he wore rather long, and with his skinny, lengthy, narrow figure encased in shabby broad-cloth, he looked positively uncanny, and rude boys made remarks about him when he walked abroad. He glided about like a shadow, haunted shady corners like a shadow, and spoke in a whisper as a shadow should. The name fitted him exactly, and he looked a creature of the night, quite out of place in the cheerful sunshine. Lesbia did not approve of him at first, for obvious reasons, and even disliked him actively when she found how he dogged her footsteps. But it so happened that the gods chose to turn her heart to a friendless man, and the consequences of the change were more far-reaching than she guessed at the moment. The days went by very heavily, since her heart was with George and she could not see him. Certainly she contrived through the ever-faithful Tim to get a note transmitted to him--the same that George read on the river. And under cover of Tim's name he sent an answer which assured her that he was still faithful and still loving and ever hopeful of better days. Lesbia carried about that letter in her bosom day and night and read it when she felt particularly down-hearted, which happened not infrequently. She also waited and she also hoped. Then an event occurred, which in after-time showed how mysteriously things work out to their hidden ends. The Shadow fell ill in spite of the warm summer weather. Being of a sickly constitution, he unexpectedly caught influenza, and was forced to go to bed in the little room near Tim's sanctum. Hale, who had a horror of sickness, at once decided to turn him out; but Sargent, also afraid, refused to permit the valet to return to his Cookham house. There appeared to be no refuge for the miserable man but the hospital or the workhouse, until Lesbia suddenly asserted herself and insisted upon nursing him back to health. Mr. Hale objected, but his daughter, for the first time in her life remained firm and, having already sufficient troubles on his hand without creating more, he yielded in the end. Moreover, he thought that acting as a sick-nurse would give Lesbia something to do and take her thoughts away from George. So she was permitted to nurse Canning, while Mr. Hale betook himself to Tait's sumptuous mansion at Henley. Mrs. Petty declined to look after the sick man, so Lesbia took full charge of the case, and was assisted by Tim. Not that Tim approved of The Shadow: but, being tender-hearted, he considered him a poor creature, and so acted the part of the Good Samaritan. Canning grew delirious and seemed in danger of passing away: but Lesbia set herself to struggle with death, and in the end she conquered. When the man was sane again and rapidly regaining his strength, Tim told him all that the young mistress had done. It was then that the Irishman saw two big tears roll down the thin cheeks of the spy. When Lesbia entered to see how he was, he spoke weakly but to the point. "I have been kicked about all my life," said The Shadow brokenly, "and no one has ever said a kind word to me. Mr. Hale and Captain Sargent have treated me worse than a dog, and but for you, Miss Lesbia, I should have been thrown out to die in the street. You hate me because I was set to watch you----" "I don't hate you now, Canning," she interposed, hastily. "After all, you only performed the duty you were set to do by my father." "And by Captain Sargent," whispered The Shadow. "Don't forget Captain Sargent. I never shall," and his weak hand clenched under the coverlet. "But you have acted like an angel, Miss Lesbia, and some day I may be able to repay you for what you have done." "I only did my duty," said the girl, tucking him in. "You are the first woman or man who has ever done duty by me in this world," said Canning, the tears rolling down his face. "I know what I know, and some day you may want my help. You shall have it. Yes! you shall have it at whatever cost." "What do you know?" she asked wonderingly. "Never mind." He turned his face to the wall. "When the time comes, call upon me, and I will help you." Nothing more was said at the moment, as the man was not sufficiently recovered to talk much. Lesbia thought occasionally of what he had said, but could not entirely understand his meaning, unless it was that he would shut his eyes to the coming of George, should that young man choose to risk a visit. But the days went by and George did not come, for, as Canning was sick, Mrs. Petty kept a very strict watch on the girl. Gradually the words of the sick man were forgotten by Lesbia and, when he went away entirely recovered, she forgot him, having more important matters to think about. It was shortly after Canning's departure that Hale returned from Henley with a story which made Lesbia write--and write willingly--the letter of dismissal, which had broken Walker's heart. After she sent it away her father patted her shoulder, and spoke kindly to her. "You are now acting as a sensible girl," he said, with chill politeness; "and there is no longer any need for Mrs. Petty to remain. I know that you do not like her, so I shall send her away this evening. Canning has also gone and will not return. Things can revert to their original course, and you can manage the house along with Tim. But remember, Lesbia, that if your heart softens towards this scamp, I shall recall both The Shadow and Mrs. Petty to watch over you." Lesbia, with a white face and set lips, looked straight at her father. "I will neither write to George again, nor will I see him," she said, with a stifled sob. "But whatever you say about his guilt, remember that I do not believe it. He is innocent." "Then why not stick by him?" asked her father cruelly. "You know well enough why I do not: why I cannot. George and I are now entire strangers, and must remain so until the mystery of this burglary is cleared up." "It will never be cleared up, because there is nothing to clear up," said her father calmly. "George stole those jewels of Tait's for your sake, and it is only Tait's friendship for his mother and Maud's kind heart that prevented Walker being arrested and condemned as a thief." Lesbia's lip curled. "I mistrust Miss Ellis's kind heart," said she. Hale shrugged his thin shoulders. "You can do what you like about that," he remarked carelessly, "but remember that she holds George in the hollow of her hand. All you have to do is to forget him and marry Sargent." "No!" said Lesbia positively. "I shall never see George again, since circumstances are too strong for him and for me. But I will never marry Captain Sargent. Be sure of that." "He loves you, and----" "I don't love him. Say no more, father. What I say, I stand by." "You said much before which you have not held by," retorted Hale, his temper rising; "and circumstances may prove too much for you. However, Sargent can wait, and so can I. Meanwhile, since you have dismissed this young fool, you are free to come and go as you desire." "One moment," said Lesbia, as her father turned on his heel, "what about that amethyst cross?" Hale wheeled round with a colour in his parchment cheeks, and a suspicious look in his cold, grey eyes. "What do you mean?" "You declared that if George recovered the cross, he could marry me." "I hold to that, since I am not a man to go back on my word." "But how can I marry George when you say that you can prove he is guilty of this burglary?" "Maud Ellis can prove it, not I," returned Mr. Hale. He paused and bit his lip hard. "I believe in the face of Walker's new escapade that he knows who took that cross. His former behaviour may have been a sham, as was his acting in the gallery. Let him bring me the cross, and perhaps after all he may be able to marry you," "I shall never marry him until his character is cleared," said Lesbia firmly. Hale shrugged his shoulders again. "You will find it difficult to clear him, my dear," he sneered, and went away. Mr. Hale would have spoken rightly in connection with a less determined girl. But Lesbia, for all her fragile looks, was very determined and also very much in love with George Walker. Appearances were against him, and, judging by circumstantial evidence, he certainly was guilty. But Lesbia could not bring herself to believe that the man she loved had sunk to being a common thief. Now that she was free to leave the cottage and wander whither she would, it was an easy matter to seek out George at Medmenham, and ask direct questions. But this Lesbia did not do, because her father had detailed fully all that Walker had said and all that he had done, so there was no more to learn in that quarter. Moreover, Hale had stated with a sneer that Maud Ellis was desperately in love with the young man, and Lesbia recalled George's hesitation about speaking of his desire to leave Tait's office. "There are other things to be considered," Walker had said, and then had blushed. Now the girl knew intuitively that he referred to Maud Ellis. Lesbia's face grew flushed and angry as she thought of her rival. She trusted George, who was her very own, but instinctively she knew the wiles of women, and dreaded lest her letter of dismissal should throw the young man into the arms of the stockbroker's niece. Thus it came about that Lesbia's meditations led her, not to Mrs. Walker's cottage at Medmenham, but to the splendid mansion at Henley, where Maud Ellis was waiting for George to come to her. Maud had learned from Mr. Hale that George had received his letter of dismissal from Lesbia, and so waited to catch him on the recoil. He would certainly come back to her who had so boldly stood by him when he had been accused. But as the days went by George did not come, and Maud's heart grew sick, for she was honestly in love. Her uncle was absent in the City, still seeking for the lost jewels, and the local police together with a couple of detectives from Scotland Yard were doing their best to solve the mystery. But all efforts were in vain. No trace had been found of the thieves, and the jewels could not be recovered. Tait invited no more people to his Henley mansion, and remained a great deal in London grumbling over his loss. Maud would have gone up also, but that she waited vainly at home in the hope that George would come to her for consolation. One afternoon while she was thus waiting, and had arrayed herself in her prettiest frock on the chance of a visit, the footman intimated that a young lady wished to see her. She had no card, said the footman, and had simply stated that her name was Miss Lesbia Hale. Maud's eyes flashed when she heard the name of her rival, and she ordered the man to lead the guest at once to the long drawing-room. Miss Ellis was desperately anxious to see the face that had captured the heart of George Walker. Before repairing to the drawing-room, she altered a few things about her dress, for, being very much the woman, she knew that she was about to meet a dangerous foe. A man would not notice a dress overmuch, but a woman would, at the very first glance, and Maud was determined that there should be no flaw in her armour, so far as frocks and frills went. Lesbia, very pale, but quite calm, waited impatiently for the appearance of Miss Ellis. When that young lady sailed into the room with outstretched hands and a beaming smile, Lesbia rose with a stony face and a cold, distant manner. Maud's hands fell, when she saw that she was being kept at a distance, and she became formal also. In her heart she grew angry, when she saw Lesbia's beauty, for being very sensible, she knew that her own looks were much inferior. A shade passed over her face, but soon was replaced by a malicious smile. Maud knew that, beauty or no beauty, she held the trump card and could win the game at her leisure. Lesbia saw that smile. "I know why you look like that," she said abruptly. Maud straightened her neat figure, and raised her sandy eyebrows. "What a very strange speech to make at our first meeting, Miss Hale!" she said, coldly and superciliously. "Ah," retorted Lesbia. "You see that I am not used to society." "Is there any occasion to tell me that?" asked Maud, sweetly. But Lesbia was too desperately in earnest to be daunted by such feline talk. "There is no occasion to tell you many things," she said, "nor is there need for beating about the bush. My father has told me everything." "About what may I ask?" "About this burglary and about George." "George?" Miss Ellis raised her eyebrows again. "George?" she repeated. "I have the right to call him so," rejoined Lesbia hotly. "I am engaged to him, Miss Ellis." "Was engaged, I understand." "Yes." Lesbia suddenly looked fatigued and would have dearly liked to sit down, but pride prevented her. Maud saw this and scratched again. "Won't you sit down?" "No, thank you!" replied Lesbia, stiffening. "I am only here for a few minutes, and can say all that I have to say in that time." Miss Ellis flicked a scented handkerchief across her lips to hide a smile, and looked searchingly at her visitor's white face. "I really don't know why you talk to me like this." "Oh, yes you do. In the same way I knew why you smiled when you entered. You think that you can win the game. But you shan't!" "What game?" "The game we play for George. My father has told me all. I love George and you love him also." "Your father seems to be very well-informed," sneered Maud, flushing. "He usually is," Lesbia assured her, with great coolness. "It was only when my father told me about this burglary, that I learned you loved George." "I do love him!" cried Maud defiantly, "but I don't see that it matters to you--now." "It matters a great deal," said Lesbia coldly. "I am only an unsophisticated girl, Miss Ellis, but I don't intend to give up the man I love, without a struggle." "I understand that you have given him up." "For the time being, until I can force you to prove his innocence." "Force me!" Miss Ellis raised her eyebrows for the third time, but her face grew angry, for she did not like this very straight speaking. "What have I to do with the matter? I believe that George is innocent myself, and told my uncle so. Indeed, had I not stood up for George, he would now be in gaol." Lesbia smiled contemptuously. "It's all part of the game," she retorted. "I am a woman, not a man, Miss Hale, and I can see very plainly how George walked into the trap you set for him." "I set no trap. And if George says----" "George says nothing. I have not seen him for a long time. But my father told me how George was in the gallery and you also." "Did he tell you that George came to meet me?" asked Maud maliciously. "No, nor do I believe you." "Then he did." "It is a lie," said Lesbia, impolitely but very firmly. "I don't believe it." "Ask George himself," cried Maud. "He will tell you that we had a meeting at three in the morning and----" Lesbia, who was looking at her, gave an ironical laugh. "Oh, I believe you now," she said slowly, "I can see the truth in your eyes. Yes, George did meet you by appointment. Why, I don't know----" "Because he loved me." "He never loved you!" cried Lesbia furiously, and looked so angry that Maud hastily stepped back a pace, thinking she would be struck. "He loves me and me only. But you inveigled him into the gallery, into a trap, and made use of this burglary to force him to be your husband." "I told my uncle that George was innocent." "Yes, because it suited your book to do so. But you told my father, and he passed the message on to me, that if I did not dismiss George, you would prove his guilt." Maud tore her handkerchief to ribbons. "And I can too," she said, between her teeth. "You are quite right. To the world I should say nothing; but to you I can say what I please. We love the same man. I want him, and I am going to get him. I _did_ trap George into a meeting, but the burglary was unforeseen. I can make use of it, which, let me remind you, Miss Hale, I have not done yet. Remember I was chloroformed, and the key was taken from my neck to open the safe. What would be easier than for me to declare that George Walker asked me to meet him in the gallery and rendered me insensible and stole the jewels, after taking the key, and buried them in the garden, coming back to tell falsehoods? If I speak----" "You won't speak." "I shall speak, rather than let George marry you," flashed out Maud. Lesbia sneered. "You remind me of the motto of the French Revolution," she said. "'Be my brother or I'll kill you,' so George is to marry you----" "Or go to gaol. Exactly!" "Thank you!" Lesbia moved swiftly to the door. "Now that I know your intentions I can go." "What will you do?" Maud followed, aghast at this abrupt departure. "Prove George's innocence, and marry him." "Try!" said Maud, between her teeth, "try and fail." CHAPTER X THE _DEUS EX MACHINA_ If Lesbia had been a trifle more versed in the ways of the wicked world, she would have remained longer in conversation with Maud, if only to learn about that lady's plans. Maud declared that unless George became her husband she would have him put into gaol for the burglary. But it was difficult to know how she intended to proceed. Of course, she could declare that Walker had chloroformed her and had stolen the key of the strong-room to steal the jewels, but she had no one to prove the truth of her story, plausible as it was, in the face of Walker's known presence in the picture-gallery. It was George's word against Maud's and, therefore, the law would have no easy matter to prove the young man's supposed guilt. But Lesbia was so hot with indignation at the discovery of Maud's mean plot that she ended the interview abruptly, and walked quickly away trying to stifle her rage. For George's sake it was necessary that she should keep a clear head, and it was necessary also that she should learn the truth of this conspiracy--as she verily believed it to be. Come what might, Lesbia decided in her own mind that George should marry her. But to bring this about she had not only to clear his character, but to find the amethyst cross and restore it to her father. But where the cross might be she could not guess. The mystery of the robbery and of George's presence in the cottage on that fatal night had never been cleared up. Walking swiftly down to the river Lesbia thought over these things, and thought still more when she entered Tim's boat. The little man had rowed her up to Henley at her request, and took her back the same way. She had detailed her reasons for visiting Miss Ellis, but had received scanty comfort from Tim. He was disposed to take a gloomy view of the matter. "It's the crass, bad luck to it!" groaned Tim, when she told him how badly she had fared. "Sure there's nivir bin a moment's pace sinse it was lost." "That is very true," rejoined Lesbia, steering the boat towards the lock, and reviewing in her own mind the untoward circumstances which had disturbed her life since the proposal of George in the garden. From the time when the cross had been given to him, there had been nothing but incessant trouble. Her father had raged, her lover had been assaulted, her liberty had been curtailed, and George had lost his situation through being accused of a sordid crime. And to crown all, another woman, of whose existence she had scarcely heard, had stepped in to claim Walker as her future husband. "It's very true," sighed Lesbia dolefully, "the cross has brought nothing but trouble. If we could get it back again things might mend. But the question is, how to recover it?" Tim bent to his oars, and shook his head with another groan. "Let it bide, Miss, let it bide. Sure we don't want more kick-ups. Me mother, rist her sowl, towld me that the crass wud bring lashins av worry whin ye guv it off av yer hand. An' it's truth she spoke, me dear." "Do you know where she got the cross, Tim?" "Sure, Miss, an' didn't she tell ye whin she died? 'Twas yer mother's. I know no more nor that, me dear, 'twas your mother's. As for Masther Garge, cudn't ye forgit him, Miss?" "No!" cried Lesbia, indignantly. "I shall love George as long as I live. I can no more forget him than he can forget me. Would you have me marry Captain Sargent?" "Sure, an' I wudn't. He's a proud baste, an' if ye married him, me dear, he'd be afther bringing me to the gallows, for his treatmint av ye, Miss Lesbia." "Then don't let us talk any more about the matter," cried Lesbia, impetuously. "I shall keep my faith with George." "Wud ye like to see him, Miss?" "No," said the girl promptly. "I told him in my letter that we must never meet again. Nor will we until this mystery of the burglary is cleared up. I intend to clear it up." "But how, Miss? Ye've no wan to help ye." Lesbia reflected. "There's The Shadow," she said quietly. "An' what wud that poor cratur be afther doing, Miss?" "I don't know. But he offered to help me, so I shall put his professions of gratitude to the test. Tim, to-night you must go down to Cookham and bring him back with you." "Augh!" groaned Tim, annoyed that anyone but himself should do anything for his darling. "Sure he's out av the house, so let him bide, me dear." "If you don't go to Cookham, I will," said Lesbia firmly. "An' have trouble wid that baste av a Captain? Me dear, I'll go." And Tim was as good as his word. Lesbia reached the cottage to find that her father had left a note saying he had gone to London for a few days. Hale was always stealing off on mysterious errands, possibly connected with his equally mysterious business. Of late no odd characters had been coming to the cottage, but Hale was absent much more frequently. On this occasion his absence was welcome, as it gave Lesbia a chance of arranging her plans with Canning. What these might be she had, as yet, no very clear idea. All she intended to do was to explain the situation and ask The Shadow what was best to be done. When she received his opinion, she could then take a step forward into the veiling mists which surrounded her. While Tim rowed down to Cookham, which he did after landing Lesbia at the bottom of the garden, the girl ran into the cottage. She found that she had it all to herself as, true to his promise, Mr. Hale had dismissed Mrs. Petty. That good lady, liking the easy place, had retired in high dudgeon, and would have shown fight but that Hale quelled her with a glance of his cold, grey eye. Hale, indeed, possessed a great power--perhaps a hypnotic power--over those who came to the cottage. Had not Canning fallen sick, and thus had been removed from his influence, it is very questionable if he would have offered his services to Lesbia. However, he had done so, and the girl was about to accept them gratefully. Lesbia passed the time in dressing herself for dinner, and in partaking of it. It was a homely meal, consisting of cold meat and salad, bread and cheese and a glass of prime claret. Afterwards Lesbia made herself a cup of black coffee, and sat down in the tiny drawing-room with a book, pending the arrival of The Shadow. But her thoughts wandered from the printed page to George, and more than ever she longed for his coming. It had cost her much to write the letter of dismissal, but in the face of Maud's threat, as conveyed to her by Hale, she could do nothing else. And the worst of it was that she had not been permitted to assign a cause for what George must regard as her heartless behaviour. However, and very luckily, she had scanty time for sad reflections, for shortly she heard the hearty voice of Tim, as he entered the house by the back door, and later the sibilant whisper of The Shadow. In a few minutes Canning presented himself, looking more lean and more dismal than ever in his customary suit of black. But his haggard face was lighted up with an eager smile. The mere fact that Lesbia had decided to avail herself of his services made him as gay as such a sad personage well could be. Canning was desperately anxious to repay the kindness he had received. "I am glad to see you," said Lesbia cordially. "You lost no time." "No, Miss," whispered the grim man, who stood with long, hanging arms at the door. "Captain Sargent went to London to-day with your father, and I came back with Tim at once. I am so glad you want me to help you, Miss." "I need your help very badly," sighed Lesbia, passing her hand across her brow. "Will you not sit down, Canning." "In your presence, Miss? Please excuse me." "But you are yet weak after your illness. Sit down. I want you to." Thus urged, The Shadow sank softly on to the extreme edge of a convenient chair placed near the door. Here he fixed his sad eyes on the beautiful vision at the window, and adored in silence. Lesbia turned matters over in her mind. She knew that she would have to speak very plainly, and had a natural reluctance to doing so, since Canning was a servant and a stranger. Still, he was the sole person who could help her, as now that George was out of her life, temporarily, at all events, she felt very lonely. Her father neither gave her affection, nor desired any, and certainly would not put out a hand to save George, much less clear his character. Why should he, when he wanted Walker out of the way so that his daughter could marry Sargent? Lesbia thought of these things with her eyes on the floor, and finally determined to confess everything, as her plight and that of George was too desperate to permit of over-nice feelings. With some colour, therefore, she related the whole story from the time that Walker had proposed to the result of her visit to Maud. "I was forced to dismiss Mr. Walker," she said in addition, "because my father came back to tell me that Miss Ellis had threatened to have Mr. Walker arrested. I saw Miss Ellis also, as I have told you, and she declares that she can prove Mr. Walker's guilt, and will do so unless he marries her." Canning, with his sad eyes fixed upon her, heard the whole tale without comment. At the end he nodded. "What do you wish me to do, Miss?" "I want you to learn who committed this burglary at Mr. Tait's house, so that Mr. Walker can be cleared." "But how can I do that, Miss, when I am servant to Captain Sargent? I have my duties to consider." "I know that," Lesbia faltered, and became downcast, "and then you have no experience in looking into these things. I am sorry you cannot help me." "I did not say that, Miss." "Then you will?" The Shadow reflected, but did not take his eyes from her eager face. "Yes!" he said at length. "I will help you." "Oh, Canning, thank you so much. But how?" "I can't say yet, Miss. In the first place I must leave Captain Sargent." Lesbia rose impulsively. "I don't want you to lose your situation." "I had intended to give the Captain notice long ago," explained Canning, rising in his turn. "What you say decides me. I shall go to London, and in one way or another I may be able to learn who stole those jewels." "But why in London? They were stolen at Henley." "Quite so, but the two thieves--if Mr. Walker is to be believed, there were two--must have taken the jewels to dispose of them in London. Leave everything to me, Miss. I was in an inquiry office once, and know how to go about these matters. But," he hesitated, "it will require money." "Oh!" Lesbia uttered an ejaculation of dismay. "I have none." "Can't your father give you some, Miss?" Lesbia shook her head. "He wants me to marry Captain Sargent, and so will not allow me to help Mr. Walker. No, my father will give me nothing. What is to be done?" "I don't know, Miss. But I have no money and I must have at least fifty pounds to work on. I shall learn about the burglary first and then will discover who knocked down Mr. Walker and stole the cross." He paused. "Has Tim saved any money?" "No, poor soul," sighed Lesbia, "my father never pays him any wages. I am sure he would lend me the money if he had it. There is no one from whom I can borrow, and----" here a sudden idea came to the girl, and she flushed crimson with mingled hope and nervous fear. "Oh!" she cried, "he might, he might." "Who might, Miss?" asked the man sharply. Lesbia took no notice. "Fifty pounds," she murmured. "It's a large sum of money. Still he might. He----" she stopped again as she saw The Shadow looking at her curiously. "Go away, Canning, and return to-morrow evening. I hope to have the fifty pounds by then." "Miss," Canning spoke slowly and impressively, "you have honoured me with your confidence, and you will never regret doing so, as I am entirely devoted to you. Add to that confidence by telling me from whom you design to borrow this fifty pounds." "There is no reason why you should not know," said Lesbia quickly, "I am thinking of Lord Charvington." "Mr. Hale's cousin." "Oh, you know that," she cried, surprised. "Yes," The Shadow laughed in his whispering, silent way, rather oddly. "I know more than you give me credit for. You see," he added, slowly, and with a downcast face, "I was at school with your father and Charvington." "You," Lesbia gasped in astonishment, and stared at the lean, dusky, untidy figure before her. Then she remembered the scrupulous refinement of the man, noted anew his excellent diction, and suddenly saw in the weird face and figure evidences of good breeding. "Mr. Canning," she said suddenly, and gave him a new position at once, "you are a gentleman!" "I _was_ a gentleman," he replied bitterly, and dropping his use of the word "Miss." "Now I am Captain Sargent's valet and a wastrel. But I am also your very devoted servant, Miss Hale," he bowed. "Let it remain at that." "But how did you come to----" "Don't ask me--don't ask me," said Canning hurriedly. "Some day you will learn how I came to occupy this position. Meanwhile, get the fifty pounds from Charvington"--Lesbia noted that he spoke quite as an equal of the nobleman--"and give it to me. I shall save your lover and make your path straight for you." "Can you do this, Mr. Canning?" "Yes," he answered simply. "Good-night, Miss Hale. Please do not tell Tim what I have mentioned, and say nothing to Charvington. To-morrow night I shall come for the fifty, and the----" he paused, opened and closed his hand several times, and then vanished with a sigh. He might indeed have been a veritable shadow from the noiseless way in which he disappeared. Lesbia remained spell-bound. In a flash it occurred to her that she should long ago have guessed that The Shadow was other than he appeared to be. Many things which had puzzled her became plain, and she wondered how a gentleman had sunk so low as to be a spy, and to occupy the position of Sargent's valet. But she had too much delicacy to question Canning, until such time as he chose of his own free will to speak out. Besides, she had much to think about in connection with her proposed borrowing of fifty pounds from Lord Charvington. And unless she could procure that sum, there would be no chance of George being saved from the clutches of Maud Ellis. The nobleman in question was a cousin of Mr. Hale's and had once or twice been to the cottage. Indeed, Lesbia had reason to believe that Lord Charvington allowed her father a certain sum every quarter, although this seemed strange in the face of Hale's assertion that he could give her two thousand a year if she married to his liking. There was also the business in the City about which Lesbia knew nothing. Why should a man in business accept an annuity? It was all very strange, but then everything connected with Mr. Walter Hale was strange, and now that Lesbia began to think, she began to mistrust her father. Why did he keep his business secret? Why did he accept an annuity, and then declare that he could give her a large income? Why did he have such shady people at the cottage whom he scarcely permitted her to see? Altogether Lesbia became aware that there was something sinister about her father's position. She felt like a watcher of a black cloud waiting for it to discharge lightning. More than ever did she determine at least to have the mysteries of the burglary and of the cross cleared up. The old time of peace had passed away for the girl, and now she felt that she would have to go forth and do battle. With regard to Charvington, she knew him moderately well. He had always been kind to her, and she had heard her father state that the nobleman was her godfather. It seemed rather cool to apply to him for a loan of fifty pounds, but Lesbia was not only desperate but also very unsophisticated in worldly ways. Almost without considering what she was about, she wrote a hurried letter asking him to lend her fifty pounds for six months, and promised to explain later why she desired the loan. She proposed in her own mind to repay the money by selling the amethyst cross when Canning should get it back for her, as she believed he would. Of course the whole business was very naïve and very childish, and a girl more versed in worldly things would never have ventured to take such a step. But Lesbia, just like a trusting child, asked for the money, and posted her letter with a prayer that God would grant her request. Like a newly-fledged gambler, who wins every game through sheer ignorance, Lesbia's desperately-played card turned up trumps in four and twenty hours. Lord Charvington sent her a cheque by return of post and invited her to come and explain matters to him personally. Lesbia danced with joy. "Now!" she said to herself. "George is safe. Thank God!" CHAPTER XI THE SEAMY SIDE When Mr. Hale returned in three days from London, he was surprised to find Lesbia extremely cheerful. She had every right to be, since she had given the fifty-pound cheque to Canning, and he was now in town looking into the matter of the Henley burglary. How Canning managed to get away from his master so expeditiously, Lesbia could not tell, nor did she inquire. It was quite enough for her to know that The Shadow was searching into the case. To Lord Charvington she had sent a letter thanking him for the money, and promising to come over and tell him everything as soon as she could. These things made her hopeful and bright in spite of her enforced severance from George, and she managed, by looking towards a bright future, to possess her soul in patience. But Hale was ignorant of what she was doing, and her behaviour puzzled him. "I thought you loved Walker," he said abruptly, and with suspicion. "Of course I do," rejoined the girl cheerfully. "It does not seem like it." Lesbia shrugged her shoulders. "What is the use of crying over spilt milk?" she asked. "My going about with a long face will not make George's position any the more endurable. Some day when his character has been cleared things will change." "They will never change," said Mr. Hale coldly and severely. "Walker has committed a sordid crime, and can never marry you." "I don't believe that he is guilty," retorted Lesbia deliberately. "And even if I grant for the sake of argument that he is, Miss Ellis does not seem to think that his guilt is a bar to his marriage with her." "She's a love-sick fool." "So am I." "With this difference, that she can marry him and you can't. And talking of Miss Ellis," went on Hale, becoming more stern than ever; "I saw her in London and she told me that you had actually been to see her." "Why not?" asked Lesbia defiantly. "That is no crime." "It is an impertinence to see her and to talk to her as you did. Why did you go, Lesbia?" "I wished to find out how she proposed to force George to become her husband. I have learned that much. She intends to force him by telling a lie." "How do you know that what she says is a lie?" demanded Hale angrily. "Because I read it in her eyes. A man would not have done so, but I am a woman, and you can trust one woman to learn everything another woman leaves unsaid, especially when a man is the stake between them." "You should have more modesty," snapped her father uncomfortably. Lesbia coloured. "I have behaved properly in every way," she said, in a wounded voice; "and, as I love George, I had every right to learn how this woman proposed to take him from me." "Well, you know now that she can." "She _thinks_ she can," said Lesbia, with emphasis; "that is different." "Nonsense! She can prove that he took the key from her neck and stole the jewels," insisted Mr. Hale. "It is her word against his," rejoined Lesbia drily; "and until Miss Ellis proves the truth of her statement I believe in George's innocence." "Lesbia," cried her father, rising, "what has come to you? Formerly you used to be quiet and well-behaved and did as you were told; now----" "Now," said the girl, getting on her feet and looking very straight at her father; "now I am a woman, fighting for her happiness, and so will do my best to hold my own against your tyranny." Hale did not like the word, and said so. "I am your father and no tyrant." "You are both, and much more the latter than the former. I don't know how it is," said Lesbia, pondering, "but I have an idea that you are using me as a pawn in some game you are playing. Miss Ellis is in the game also, and so is Captain Sargent. What the game may be I don't know, and I decline to be pushed about a chess-board without knowing why I move." "You shall do as you are told," said Hale, livid with secret rage, but not daring to show it openly, lest he should lose more of his already waning influence. "I shall do as I think fit," retorted the girl, her spirit up in arms. "I don't care if you are fifty times my father, you shall not treat me in this way any longer. If I can clear George's character, I shall see him and marry him, and if you dare to bring in Mrs. Petty to spy on me, I shall appeal to my godfather." "Your godfather. And who may he be?" "You told me once and I have never forgotten. Lord Charvington is my----" "I spoke at random," broke in Hale hastily. "He is not your godfather. He is nothing more than my cousin and my friend." "And your benefactor," said Lesbia, unable to resist the shaft. "And being so, what will he say if he learns how unkindly you are behaving?" "Lesbia, you are mad!" "No! For years I have been your puppet. Lately I have discovered that I am a human being with a will of my own. So long as you leave me alone I am content to behave as your daughter. But I decline to endure tyranny, and I decline to be made use of in this mysterious game you are playing. I am very glad you spoke to me this morning, father, as it was time that we came to an understanding;" and Lesbia, with her head up, marched out of the room. But she would have been scared had she looked back and seen the expression on her father's face. It was little less than devilish with rage and baffled cunning. The worm had been obedient for so long that Hale had never expected the turning and it came upon him with a shock. He could not afford to let Lesbia appeal for protection to his noble relative, as he knew that Lord Charvington was the kindest of men and would, undoubtedly, interfere. Of course in an ordinary case, Hale could have prevented such interference between a father and daughter. But with Charvington, who allowed him an annuity, it was different. If Hale did not behave well to Lesbia, he felt very certain that Charvington would punish him by taking away the quarterly sum. And in spite of his business in the City, and his boast that he could give Lesbia two thousand a year, Hale could not afford to lose so certain an income. He therefore said no more to Lesbia on the subjects of George and Miss Ellis and the burglary. Nor did he bring back The Shadow and Mrs. Petty. Indeed, he could not bring back the former, as he had heard from Sargent that the man had thrown up his situation, and had gone to London. This being the case, if Lesbia chose to see George it was impossible to prevent her from having her own way. But Hale trusted that after the letter of dismissal George would refuse to have anything to do with the girl who had apparently thrown him over. Meanwhile he asked Sargent to the cottage frequently, and advised him to prosecute his wooing with all zeal. "If you don't secure the girl soon, you will lose her," said Hale emphatically. "I shall do so as soon as I can get a chance of seeing her alone," said Sargent, and strove to look the handsome, gallant lover. It was after dinner that he spoke thus; and in the light which came through the rosy shades of the candles he seemed wonderfully young, and not at all bad-looking. As usual, he was perfectly dressed in evening array, and yet had that ultra-fashionable air, which is such a mark of inferior breeding. Captain Alfred Sargent looked like a gentleman, and yet there was something lacking in manner to complete the dress and pretensions. The rosy lights made him look less colourless for the moment; but when in pursuance of his object he strolled into the garden to meet Lesbia, he became quite wan, white and worn-looking in the warm summer moonlight. Miss Hale, in a simple white dress, looking sweet and girlish and remarkably pretty, sat on the bench under the chestnut--in the very place where George had made his memorable proposal. Disliking Sargent as she did, and the more so since her father wished her to marry him, she had early left the dinner-table to take refuge in this love-haunted spot, and dream of George. With the inconsequence of a woman, she rather resented the fact that her lover had not replied to his letter of dismissal. She had not thought that he would accept her decision so readily, and in her heart she desired that he should come along to take her by storm. At times she fancied, indeed, that he would suddenly appear to carry her off to the nearest church, and so frequently sought the garden to afford him an opportunity to play "Young Lochinvar." There was also another reason. In the garden she hoped to meet The Shadow. Lately, he had sent her a line--through Tim--stating that he had discovered a clue to the robbery, and that he would come down to tell her about it. Lesbia appointed the bottom of the garden as the best place of meeting as her father rarely came there, and Canning could easily row up to the landing-stage in the twilight. Every evening she expected him, but as yet he had not appeared. Thus, she was much annoyed when she beheld the slender form of the ex-captain in the distance. With a cigarette in his mouth, which he was languidly smoking, Sargent strolled pensively down the path, and finally came to a halt before the pretty figure on the garden-seat. Lesbia looked at him blankly, and gave him no encouragement. "A penny for your thoughts, Miss Hale," said the gallant captain, forced by her silence to utter the first word. "They are worth the Bank of England," replied Lesbia, resolving to make the best of this bore, since to get rid of him by plain speaking only meant unnecessary trouble with her father. "In that case," said Sargent softly, and advancing nearer, "may I hope they were of me?" "If you are so very egotistic," said the girl bitingly, "you can think so." "You are cruel," muttered Sargent, somewhat disconcerted. He had not expected so cutting a speech from so apparently timid a girl. "Why are you so cruel to me, Lesbia--I may call you Lesbia, may I not?" "No," said Lesbia coldly, "I see no reason why you should. As to being cruel, Captain Sargent, I am not aware that I am." "Surely," fenced the captain, "you are aware that I love you." Lesbia laughed, and he was more disconcerted than ever. "I am aware that my father wishes me to marry you; but he said nothing of love." "He left it for me to say." "Well, then, say it," remarked Miss Hale cruelly. Sargent had met plenty of women and, with his good looks and reputation for wealth, had usually scored an easy victory. But this girl was so straightforward and so absolutely calm that he did not know how to proceed. With an uneasy laugh he strove to fall into her humour. "I love you," he stammered. "Why?" asked Lesbia, still calm and exasperating. "Look in the glass, and ask me why," he said ardently. "Can I behold such loveliness and----" "Captain Sargent," she broke in, smiling broadly, "you speak just like a lover of the mid-Victorian epoch. I have read such speeches in books, and I have always thought them exceedingly silly. Be more original!" Don Giovanni himself would have turned restive when advised to alter his style of love-making, and Captain Sargent's waxen face grew red with wrath. He was a bloodless person, so his anger was more like that of a fretful child than that of a man. Lesbia looked at him with a contempt which he found hard to bear. She wanted a man to master her as all women do, and she saw that this wooer could never dominate. "You are very unkind, Lesbia," was all that Sargent could find to say. "In that case, why not leave me and go back to my father?" "Because I came from your father. He wants you to marry me. I want it also. Come," he went on coaxingly, "be my wife, Lesbia, and you shall have everything that the world can give you." "I daresay. Everything but a husband." "I shall be your husband." "You!" she looked him up and down until he reddened to the roots of his straw-coloured hair. "I would rather be excused." "You won't marry me." "Certainly not." Sargent grew childish with rage. "If you do not there will be trouble. I can ruin that man you love--that bounder Walker!" "He is not a bounder; he is a man, and it will take a stronger man than you, Captain Sargent, to harm him." "But I _can_ harm him, and I shall do so," cried the captain, and his delicate face took on an expression of cunning. Weak as he was, Lesbia could see that wounded vanity might make him dangerous. "This burglary----" "What do you know about it?" demanded Lesbia imperiously. "Walker is guilty. Miss Ellis says so." "For her own ends she says so, and you act in the same way. She wants to marry George, and you want to marry me. It won't do, Captain Sargent. Things are not to be settled in that fashion. You had better," she laughed, "marry Miss Ellis yourself." "I love you; I want to marry you." "I am sorry," said Lesbia sedately, "but I decline." "For your father's sake," urged Sargent weakly, angry, and looking more dangerously cunning than ever. "I can harm him also. I can----" He saw from the startled expression on the girl's face that he was saying too much, and abruptly turned on his heel. "I shall come for my answer to-morrow, Lesbia," he called out, as he walked swiftly towards the house. The girl remained where she was, wondering what this new threat meant. She could understand how he could support her father and Maud in harming George, but it was difficult to understand how he could harm Mr. Hale. In a flash the old unrest came over Lesbia, and she again pondered her father's unaccountable secrecy, and recalled his shady acquaintances. Then again, there was Canning, who was a gentleman and had been to school with Mr. Hale, only to degenerate into Sargent's valet. It was all very singular and somewhat startling, and Lesbia puzzled over it hopelessly, until she was aroused from a somewhat painful brown study by a low whistle. She looked up and around, to see a boat by the landing-stage, and in the boat Mr. Canning, apparently more frail than ever. Sargent was also shadowy, and it dawned upon Lesbia that the two might be related. "Captain Sargent has just left me," she said, running down to the landing-stage. "He wanted to marry me and I refused." "You were quite right, Miss Hale. If you married Sargent, you would be ruined for ever." "He threatened to harm my father if I did not, and George also." Mr. Canning threw back his head and laughed silently. "He can do his best to harm Walker by supporting Miss Ellis in her lie, but it will take a much stronger man than Alfred to----" here he became aware that he had appeared unduly familiar with his late master's name. "I thought so," said Lesbia, recalling how like the two men were in looks and fragility; "you are related to Captain Sargent; you are his brother." "Yes," said Mr. Canning, looking very pale. "Since you have guessed so cleverly I may as well admit it. But I shall not tell you my story now. Later will be time enough. Meanwhile, say nothing to your father about having guessed that Alfred is my brother. How did you----" "Oh," said Lesbia smiling, "you are exactly alike. Both pale and both slender, with the same cast of face and the same colour of hair, and--oh, it's wonderful!--I believe you are twins." Mr. Canning shirked this question. He came ashore and passed with Lesbia under the chestnut tree, behind the trunk, in fact, so that they might not be seen from the cottage windows. "I have discovered the truth," he said, in his usual whisper, "but at present you must not ask me how I came to learn it. But George Walker is innocent. Mr. Tait had the jewels stolen so as to get the insurance money." Lesbia gasped with amazement. "Are you certain?" she demanded, and when he nodded, asked another question. "How did you learn so quickly?" "That is a secret just now," said Canning equably. "Remember that I warned you before, that you must not ask that question. It is sufficient to say that I found out how Mr. Tait insured these jewels for a large sum of money, and then employed two clever London thieves to steal them. Tait will get the insurance money, and he will also unset the jewels and sell them in India and America. Of course, the thieves will have to be paid for the risk they took, though it was not a great one, as Tait left the gallery doors open, and gave them the key which he had on his watch-chain to open the safe. If Miss Ellis had not come down; if Walker had not followed, there would have been no scandal." "Mr. Canning," said Lesbia, after a moment's thought, "did Miss Ellis know that this robbery was about to take place? From all that I have heard of her she is deep in her uncle's confidence." "I cannot be sure if she is an accessory before the fact," replied Canning, speaking in legal phraseology. "But I can," cried the girl, leaping to a conclusion with the intuitive certainty of a woman. "I see the whole scheme. Miss Ellis knew that the jewels would be stolen somewhere about three o'clock in the morning, and so appointed that hour to meet George, and implicate him in the crime. It was a carefully arranged trap into which he walked wholly unconsciously." "But her reason?" asked Canning, somewhat perplexed. Lesbia laughed. "You are a mere man, Mr. Canning, and cannot understand. It takes a woman to fathom the duplicity of another woman. Miss Ellis loved George, and as he would not marry her willingly, she lured him into this trap, so as to--oh!" Lesbia broke off, clenching her little fists and stamping with anger. "But she shall not! she shall not! I shall see her and defy her. And you, Mr. Canning--you?" "I am returning to London, to hide," said the man quietly; "but I can come down here when it is necessary. I shall send you my address as soon as I arrange where to conceal myself." "But why should you conceal yourself?" "That is too long a story to tell you at present. It is enough for you to know that what I have discovered about Tait--what I have told you--is dangerous to me. No, Miss Hale, do not ask me further questions, for I dare not answer. I have jeopardised my liberty, and perhaps my life, by what I have done for you." "I do not understand," said Lesbia, somewhat scared. "It is as well that you do not," said Canning, sombrely. "Bluebeard's chamber is a dangerous room to look into. When it is necessary--if it ever is--you shall know what I am concealing now. Meanwhile, I shall go into hiding in London." "What am I to do?" "See Miss Ellis," rejoined The Shadow promptly. "Tell her what I have discovered, and give my name as your authority--that is, say how Captain Sargent's servant looked into the matter. You can suppress the fact of my being a gentleman and Sargent's brother. Tell Miss Ellis also that when the time comes I can prove that her uncle had the jewels stolen so as to get the insurance money, in addition to the money from the sale of the jewels in order to tide over a financial crisis. Twenty thousand from the jewels and a like amount from Lloyd's," ended Canning cynically, "will give Mr. Tait ample funds with which to retrieve his position. He was in danger of bankruptcy, but this crime, engineered by himself, has saved his credit." "What wickedness!" murmured Lesbia, as Canning moved towards his boat. "Oh, such doings are classed under the head of business by people like Tait. But I must get away before my brother or your father sees me;" and Canning loosened the painter, slipped into the boat, and took the oars, not without an anxious glance at the cottage. "Thank you for what you have done," cried Lesbia softly, remaining, for obvious reasons, behind the tree-trunk. "Not at all. I have only repaid my debt--that is, if such a debt can ever be paid. Au revoir, Miss Hale!" and raising his shabby cap with all the good breeding of a gentleman, Canning pulled away with an easy, clean stroke, which could only have been learned at a public school. CHAPTER XII A COUNTERPLOT Captain Sargent was somewhat disheartened by Lesbia's steady opposition to his wooing. He was not virile enough to take her heart by storm, and his usual tactics did not seem to succeed with this cool, quiet, observant girl, who looked at him so straight. Also his threats of harming George Walker and Mr. Hale proved to be but blunt weapons and could not penetrate the shield of Lesbia's composure. Sargent retreated from the field of battle thoroughly beaten, and he must have confessed as much to Hale, for that gentleman took his daughter to task when she returned to the cottage after her secret interview with Canning. The unsuccessful lover had already departed, and Lesbia listened for ten minutes to her father's denunciations of what he was pleased to style her wickedness. "You ought to be flattered that so rich and handsome a man loves you," raged Mr. Hale, who for once in his life lost his self-control. "You seem to forget that if I died to-morrow--and I might as my heart is affected--you would be left penniless." Lesbia raised her eyebrows. "I understood you to say that you could leave me two thousand a year," she observed quietly. "If you marry as I wish," cried her father furiously, "not otherwise. Failing your becoming the wife of my dear friend, Sargent, I shall leave the money to Lord Charvington." "Well," said the girl cheerfully, "that would only be fair, since he has paid you a pension for so long." "What do you know about that?" snapped Hale, changing colour. "Very little. But you certainly told me in an expansive moment that Lord Charvington, as your cousin, allowed you a small income." "Precious small," muttered Hale, not contradicting. "But why does he allow you anything?" asked Lesbia, very directly, "with two thousand a year you cannot wish for his help." Hale took a turn up and down the room, then stopped opposite to his daughter and spoke in quieter tones, but none the less emphatic. "I am not enjoying two thousand a year at present," he declared slowly, "and so accept an annuity from Charvington, who, being my cousin, has every right to assist me." "I don't see that," murmured the girl, shrugging. "It doesn't matter what you see, or what you don't see," cried Hale, his temper again getting beyond control. "Do as you are told, or chance the consequences." "Be a pawn in fact," she rejoined ironically. "A pawn on your chess-board." Hale shrugged in his turn. "Put it how you like," he retorted, "but obey." "Certainly not. I am a human being and have the right to----" "You have the right to do nothing," broke in her father desperately. "See here, my girl, you are making a great mistake by not letting me guide you. Had you been open about that amethyst cross, I should never have allowed you to give it to George Walker. Its possession means more than you think. The two thousand a year depends upon its production." "Oh!" Lesbia opened her eyes widely. "I see. Then you are willing that I should marry George if you get this two thousand." "Yes," said Hale bluntly, "but for circumstances which do not concern you--I prefer that you should marry Sargent." "Marriage with anyone concerns me a great deal," said Lesbia coolly, "and I decline to marry a man I do not love. As to the cross: it was my own property left to me by my mother, and if its production will bring me two thousand a year I am very sorry it is lost." "I did not say that it meant two thousand a year to _you_," said Hale uneasily, and with a scowl. "Pardon me, father. I assume that, since I am the owner of the cross. However, it is lost and neither I nor you know where to find it. That being the case I refuse to marry Captain Sargent and shall marry George." "You have sent him away: you forget that." "I can bring him again to my feet." "Lesbia Lesbia! you are playing with fire." "Probably, but I shall continue to play until you tell me the meaning of all these things." "I have told you about the cross----" "Quite so," interrupted the girl drily, "and I now know why George was assaulted and his mother's cottage robbed." "You dare to say that I am the guilty person," demanded her father suspiciously. "Oh no. If you were, you would have the cross; and thus being able to get the two thousand a year, you would not oppose my marriage with George. You are innocent!" "Thank you for nothing," sneered Hale coolly, "but you can reckon on this, Lesbia, that if I could have knocked down George and have robbed him of the cross I should have done so." "That is candid, father." "You asked me to be candid. But, hold your tongue, or else talk sense. You must marry Sargent. I shall not allow you to throw yourself away on that thief, and----" "Stop!" cried Lesbia, rising indignantly, "you shall not call George names in my hearing. He is no thief." "Can you prove that?" It was on the tip of the girl's tongue to speak out and accuse Tait. But she first desired to see Maud Ellis in order to cut her claws, and therefore, with a self-restraint far beyond her years, she shook her head. Hale sneered again, "You are a silly romantic fool," he scoffed, "and sooner or later I shall force you to do my will." "Never! Never! Never!" "Oh, very well," replied Hale, baffled by her obstinacy, "then I shall go to London and leave you here. I shall not speak to you, or eat with you, or have anything to do with you, until you obey me as a daughter should," and turning on his heel, he departed in cold anger. Hale duly kept his promise and went away leaving the girl to her own devices. But so clever a man should have known that the punishment--as he deemed it--was no punishment at all. He had never been a father to Lesbia in the accepted sense of the word, and she had but small affection for him. Alone with Tim, she was much happier than when in Mr. Hale's chilling presence, and preferred his room to his company. Also, he was really playing into her hands, as she wished to be alone in order to see Maud and bring her to reason. It was not Lesbia's wish to call again at Henley, as she thought that she could deal better with Miss Ellis when she was on her native heath. Therefore, now that Hale was out of the way, and she was free to do what she desired, she set to work to concoct a plot, whereby to bring Maud Ellis to the cottage at Marlow. To this end she wrote a letter stating that she and George were to be married shortly, and that Miss Ellis's scheme had failed. This artful epistle she posted to Henley, hoping that if Miss Ellis was in London it would be forwarded to her there. She felt certain--since, being a woman, she knew woman's nature better than a man could know it--that Maud would seek an interview and come to Rose Cottage. Of course there was the chance that Maud might first interview Walker, and then learn the falsity of the statement. But in that case, George would come to learn the truth, and then she could tell him what Canning had discovered. In fact, owing to the skilful way in which Lesbia played her one trump card, she was certain to bring to the cottage either Maud Ellis or George Walker: and whichever came, she was prepared to deal with the situation. All the same, she hoped that Maud would be the one to put in an appearance, as if she could silence her, she could then call at the Medmenham cottage and explain to her lover the reason why she had dismissed him. Accordingly, when the letter setting the trap was posted, Lesbia sat down to think over the behaviour of Walker. It puzzled her that he should so tamely accept his dismissal. On the face of it she had treated him cruelly, and had given no reason for abruptly breaking off the engagement. All the same, she considered, woman-like, that he should not have acquiesced too readily to her proposal that they should never meet again. But she forgot that George was a proud man, and that the sole reason he could assign for her dismissing him, was the fact that he was suspected of robbery. If she believed him guilty--George, as she might have thought, would have argued in this way--and had not sufficient love to stand up for him, then she was not worthy of the worship he bestowed on her. But Lesbia did not think thus. She only knew that she had sent George to the right-about and that he had gone away without looking back for a single moment. This was not as it should be, said the woman within her, and therefore she secretly felt annoyed with Walker for his too ready obedience. It can therefore be seen that Lesbia Hale was intensely feminine. Perhaps on that account George loved her the more, since the unexpected in woman is always what lures the man. However, think what she would, and argue as she might, the fact remained that Walker kept away from Rose Cottage and that she had not sufficient courage to face her lover, when under the wing of his mother. Lesbia missed the golden days of wooing dreadfully, and in their absence was anxious to carry on her counterplot, if only to fill in the time. Besides, there would be a considerable amount of pleasure in beating Miss Ellis with her own weapons. It was therefore a happy day to Lesbia that brought the stockbroker's niece into the trap, as this time the biter was about to be bitten. And Lesbia, being a woman and dealing with a woman, determined to show no mercy since Maud had shown none. Besides, the two were fighting over a man, and so reverted to the ethics of cave life and pre-historic struggle. Within four days of the posting of the letter, Miss Ellis arrived and was shown by Tim into the tiny drawing-room. It was empty, as Lesbia had seen her rival coming, and therefore had departed to change her frock. Also she hoped to make Maud lose her temper by enforced waiting, knowing that if she did, there would be less difficulty in dealing with her. Unsophisticated as Lesbia was, she instinctively knew how to fight. Her tactics were correct, for when she entered spick and span and smiling into the drawing-room, she found Maud fuming restlessly, and quite ready to pick a quarrel on the score of uncivil treatment. "I have been kept waiting," said Miss Ellis in a Louis XIV tone, and putting up a lorgnette to glare at her much too beautiful rival. "I am so sorry," responded Lesbia politely. "But I was not dressed to receive anyone, and your visit is unexpected." Maud laughed contemptuously. "You knew that I would come," she declared with conviction. "You have been looking out for me every day." "_You_ say so," said Lesbia, still graciously, for since the last interview at Henley, she had changed her tactics with Miss Ellis. "Will you not be seated? This chair is most comfortable, it has its back to the light." "I don't need to sit with my back to the light," flashed Maud indignantly. "Oh, I beg pardon, but from that lorgnette I thought that your eyes might be weak. Sit here then, in the full warmth of the sunshine." But Miss Ellis knew better than to let the searching light reveal her age too clearly to her hostess. "I'll sit here," she declared abruptly, and came to rest on the sofa. "That's right," said Lesbia caressingly, "It's a nice shady corner." Maud bit her lip, knowing perfectly well that Lesbia was casting a reflection on her age. But having taken the seat she could scarcely leave it without laying herself open to further pointed remarks, so she remained where she was and came to the object of her visit at once. "What do you mean by writing me this letter?" she demanded, producing the epistle of her hostess. "I mean to show you that your plot to part George and myself has failed." Miss Ellis crushed up the letter savagely. "Has it," she inquired, "seeing that you have broken your engagement?" "How do you know that?" "Mrs. Walker told me. And very glad she is I can tell you. Mrs. Walker is an old friend of my uncle's and has known me for years. She wants George to marry me. She told me so only a few days ago." "As if it mattered what she said," retorted Lesbia contemptuously. "She is George's mother." "No one denies that." "And as he is her son, he should obey her." "Even when she wants him to marry a woman he cares nothing for." "George does care for me," cried Maud, a deep flush overspreading her face even to the roots of her sandy hair. "I admit that when he was engaged to you, he would not look at me. But now that you have thrown him over so cruelly, he has turned to me for consolation." "I don't believe it," said Lesbia quickly. "You must, you shall," snapped Miss Ellis very much in earnest. "Look here, this sort of thing won't do." "What sort of thing?" "This enmity you have towards me. I don't know why you are behaving so exasperatingly," wailed Maud plaintively. "When you came to Henley, it was the first time we met, and for your father's sake I was anxious to make a friend of you. But you were so rude and so silly that I could not. But I am willing to make every allowance for your want of training, and so I have come here to ask you to be friends." "Oh, I don't mind, provided you will leave George alone." "I shan't, so there. I love him." "So do I. And as he loves me I have the prior claim." "But you have broken your engagement and so have left the field open to me. Don't be a dog in the manger." "I am not. I love George and I have always loved him. I sent the letter I did because of what my father told me. You lured George into a trap, and--as you said yourself at Henley--you can get him arrested. Because of your attitude I was compelled to dismiss him, or see him ruined." Miss Ellis put up her lorgnette with an air of triumph. "You have stated the case accurately, save for one remark," she declared. "I _can_ ruin George Walker, and I shall do so unless he marries me. But I did not lure him into a trap. I merely took advantage of circumstances." "Which you knew existed." "What do you mean by that?" "What I say," retorted Lesbia, keeping her eyes on Maud's face. "You appointed that place and that hour of meeting in order to implicate George in a robbery which you knew was about to take place." Miss Ellis sprang to her feet with a white face and trembling hands. "You go too far," she said, in a suffocating voice. "Why should I?--Why should I?--Oh," she stamped, "your remarks are infamous." "They are true." "It's a lie! they are not true. I had no idea that my uncle's strong-room was to be robbed of those jewels on that night and at that hour. If I had known I should have prevented the robbery." "Mr. Tait would not have thanked you for doing so," replied Lesbia meaningly. "Are you mad?" gasped Maud, and her face became a dull brick-red. "No," answered Lesbia drily, "I am merely well-informed." "Informed of what?" Miss Ellis moistened her dry lips. "That Mr. Tait wanted money to tide over a financial crisis, and arranged to have the jewels stolen, so that he could sell them secretly." "It's a lie--a lie," cried Maud again, and the perspiration broke out on her quivering face; "my uncle is a wealthy man: everyone knows that. If he wanted money he could have sold the jewels openly--they were his own." "You forget the insurance at Lloyd's." Maud dropped on to the sofa as though she had been shot. "The insurance?" "Yes. Mr. Tait insured those jewels for something like twenty thousand pounds, and so had them stolen. Certainly he could have sold them openly, as you say, but then he would have got only half the money he requires." "Half the money?" Maud gasped again, and suddenly looked double her age. "Of course, twenty thousand pounds. By insuring the jewels and by having them stolen, he will gain the proceeds of the sale he has arranged with the thieves, besides the twenty thousand from the insurance." "You dare--to--accuse--my--oh," Maud jumped up fiercely and stamped angrily, "it is ridiculous; what proof have you of this absurd tale?" "I have absolute proof," said Lesbia quietly and rising in her turn. "Mr. Canning--The Shadow--who watched me here at my father's request, found out what I say and, if necessary, he can prove the truth of what he found out. And he will, at my request, if you do not promise to leave George alone and swear that you will not accuse him of a crime of which--as you knew all the time--he is innocent." But Maud heard only half this speech. "Canning, The Shadow," she muttered, "do you mean Captain Sargent's valet?" "Yes. I nursed him through an illness, and he has shown his gratitude to me by discovering your uncle's plot, and proving your knowledge of it. I can prove what I say with Canning's assistance, and I shall do so, unless you promise to do as I have asked you." Maud buttoned her jacket with trembling hands and moved towards the door hastily. "You are talking rubbish," she muttered in a thick voice. "I refuse to talk of the matter. It is too silly. But," she faced round, "I shall tell my uncle, and he shall have you put in gaol." "He will be in gaol himself," retorted Lesbia "As soon as you leave this house, I shall arrange with Mr. Canning to go to the police and state what he told me." "You would not dare." "Yes, I would, unless you swear not to accuse George and promise to leave him to me. I said that before: I say so again, and for the last time." "It's a----" Maud was about to say that it was a lie for the third time, but the word died away on her lips. Whether Maud was cognizant of the plot to steal the jewels Lesbia could not say, as she made no remark on this point: but her very silence showed that she was in the business. Lesbia's attitude left her no alternative but to make terms, since if she left the house, there was every danger that her uncle might be arrested. "If I do what you ask, will you hold your tongue?" Maud demanded faintly. "Then you admit that what I say is true?" countered Miss Hale. "No," almost shouted Miss Ellis, "I do not. Still, mud sticks however wrongly thrown, and I do not want my uncle to suffer through me. As to Canning, oh, my uncle will deal with him I promise you. Not a word. I agree to all you ask. I must. I shall not accuse George: I shall leave him to you and," she leaned forward with a snarl, "I shall bring misery on you at the eleventh hour." "I defy you," retorted Lesbia with scorn. "Very good." Maud smiled in an evil way. "We shall see who wins the dangerous game you are playing. I----" she broke off abruptly and left in haste. CHAPTER XIII MRS. WALKER'S VISIT The meeting of the two girls who loved George seemed destined to end abruptly. On the first occasion Lesbia had broken short the interview at Henley, and on the second Maud had hastened away from Rose Cottage. Lesbia wondered that she had not remained to talk further, and was rather anxious when she remembered that Maud had left with a threat on her lips. Miss Ellis was clever and cunning and reckless, and in one way or another might work mischief. Not that Lesbia saw any chance of her doing any, since she knew too much for Maud's peace of mind. Without doubt what Canning had discovered was true, else Maud would not have surrendered so easily. Lesbia thought until she was weary about the matter, and especially how Canning could have discovered the truth so speedily. She would have asked him point-blank in spite of his prohibition, but that he was in London. And as yet he had not written to tell where he was hiding. However, as things stood, there was no doubt that Maud would keep her promise, and that George was safe. On the day after the stockbroker's niece had paid her visit, Lesbia wrote a long letter to Walker, and detailed all that Canning had discovered and also narrated its effect on Maud Ellis. Further, she gave George to understand how she had been compelled to write the letter of dismissal, and ended up with a fond wish that her lover should come and see her at once. When this letter was posted Lesbia began to dream of Walker's speedy return, and haunted the garden in order to see his boat coming swiftly down the river. But the boat never came, nor did any letter from George. Day after day Lesbia watched the stream: watched also the postman, but in every case she was disappointed. Walker must have received the letter, else it would have been returned through the Dead Letter Office, so it was strange, seeing how she had explained matters, that he did not appear. Or at least he might have written. The girl wearying for love grew peaked and wan, much to the distress of Tim, who could not understand. Finally, Lesbia told him the whole story, and sent him over to the cottage at Medmenham to see if Walker had received the letter. Tim returned somewhat downcast. "Masther Garge has been in London these six days," said Tim, "and the misthress--his blissid mother, towld me she'd sint the letter to him. He's got it, me dear, but the divil knows why he doesn't write ye the scratch av a pen. Augh, me dear, nivir trouble him again. Sure there's more fish in the say nor ivir come out av that same." "George is the only man in the world for me," said Lesbia firmly, although the tears were in her eyes, "and I'll never give him up, until I hear him say that he loves another. This is Miss Ellis's work." "Och murder, me dear, it's a baste she is entoirely. But from what ye towld me, Miss, ye drew the teeth av her." "She went away with a threat," sighed Lesbia dismally. "She can't force my George to marry her now; but evidently she can prevent his returning to me as I want him to. Oh Tim, what am I to do now?" "See Masther Garge and ask him plain, Miss." "But I have not the money to go to London, and besides, I do not know where George is stopping," protested Lesbia, wringing her hands. "See his ould mother, the saints be good to her! for an iceberg she is," suggested Tim after a pause. "Sure she'll tell ye where he is, me dear." "No, Tim, no. Mrs. Walker hates my father, and would rather die than see her son become my husband." "Hates the masther, is ut?" muttered the crooked little man frowning. "And if so, me darlin' heart, why shud she come to see him?" "Come to see him," echoed Lesbia staring, "why Mrs. Walker has never been here to see my father in her life. I understood from George that she hated my father. In that case she will never come here. If she did come," sighed Lesbia, "I might soften her heart so that she might be on my side. I am sure I could win her over." "Well, Miss Lesbia, ye can but try, for the ould woman is coming here to-morrow afternoon to see the masther." "But he's away, Tim." "Sure, Miss, he sint me the scratch av a pin sayin' he was coming back this very day. I towld the ould woman, whin she axed me, so she's coming to have a talk wid him. An' the divil will make a third wid them two," muttered Tim crossing himself, "saints kape us from harm!" Lesbia was much astonished at this news, as Mrs. Walker had never been to Rose Cottage before, and moreover--on the word of her son--she both despised and hated Mr. Hale. The girl wondered if the visit had anything to do with the letter she had lately written to George. Perhaps Maud's threat had meant that she would enlist Mrs. Walker on her side to stop the marriage, since Maud herself, for obvious reasons, was powerless to do so. But then, in any case, Mrs. Walker disapproved of the marriage, so there was no need for Maud to interfere. Also, if the letter had been forwarded to George in London--and Lesbia saw no reason why it should not have been forwarded--he must have received the same. If so, why did he not reply, seeing that she had completely exonerated herself, and was anxious to renew the engagement which for George's own sake she had been forced to break? Poor Lesbia thought over these questions until she was weary and her head ached, but she could find no reply. The only thing to be done, was to wait until the formidable Mrs. Walker arrived: then a few minutes' conversation with her might reveal the reason of George's strange behaviour. Mr. Hale duly returned, and seemed even angrier and more sullen than he had been before he went away. He scarcely spoke to his daughter, and several times he looked at her with positive dread in his usually cold eyes. It appeared as though he considered Lesbia as a careless child with a box of matches, who might at any moment set the house on fire. Lesbia had a feeling that he was terribly angry with her, and yet that this anger was mixed with a certain amount of dread. However, he contented himself with looking daggers, and to avoid further disturbances, she did not ask him any questions. But the house was very uncomfortable. Then at breakfast next morning, on the day when Mrs. Walker was expected, Hale surprised the girl by announcing an invitation. "I saw Lord Charvington when I was in town," said Hale, keeping his pale eyes on his plate. "For some reason he chose to remember your existence." Lesbia gasped, and wondered if Charvington had told her father of the money she had borrowed. In that case Hale would question her as to the use she had made of it, and then her counterplot with Canning would come to light with disastrous results. But Hale's further conversation made it plain that Charvington had said nothing about the loan. "He asked how you were," pursued Hale softly, and still keeping his eyes on his plate, "and if you had grown up a pretty girl. He hasn't seen you for a long time, remember. Considering how badly you have behaved, Lesbia, I spoke better of you than you deserved, so Charvington--prepare yourself for a surprise--has asked you to stop at his country-house. He told me that his wife would send you the invitation." "It is very good of him," said Lesbia faintly. "But I really do not want to go, father." Hale looked up with a scowl. "Always opposition," he grumbled, "you _shall_ go, child. If you won't marry Sargent, there will be a chance of your making a good match when under Lady Charvington's wing. She has daughters of her own, too, so you will have a very good time." "Why should Lord Charvington ask me?" "I can't say. . . . He suddenly seems to have remembered your existence. Of course, as my daughter you are related to him. However, the chance of a visit at such a country house is a very good one for you, so get ready to start when the invitation comes. Do you want any frocks, or----" "No. I have everything," said Lesbia, rising; "after all perhaps the change will do me good, and I should like to see a little of the world." "You will see plenty of it with Charvington and his wife. They are a gay couple, and entertain largely. They are at their country seat near Maidenhead for a week; but if you play your cards well Lady Charvington may take you to London for the rest of the season." Lesbia nodded and went into the garden. Here she sat on the bench under the chestnut, and thought over the glittering prospect which was now open to her. She loved George and was contented with the quiet life, provided he shared it with her. But as he was absent and was behaving so very strangely, she thought that it would be best to plunge into society if only to forget her aching heart. And if George would not marry her, it might be that she would meet with some other man, who would take her away from the uncomfortable life with her father. In her own heart Lesbia knew that she could love no one but George Walker. Still she could not force him to marry her, and he appeared to have accepted her letter of dismissal as final in spite of the second epistle stating why she wrote the first. The poor girl felt very sad and very lonely, and her tears rained down, salt and bitter, as she sat a solitary figure under the glorious tree. The blackbird was piping again, as he had done when George proposed; but it seemed to her ears that the song was now sad. But that probably was mere fancy. At one o'clock Lesbia returned to the cottage, wondering why all these troubles had come upon her. It really seemed as though Tim's idea about the bad luck of the cross was true, for ever since she had bestowed it on her lover there had been nothing but sorrow and mystery. Even George had not escaped misfortune, since he had been assaulted and robbed, and had lost his situation through being accused unjustly of a crime he had never committed. But Lesbia was a reader of fairy tales, and remembered that the prince and princess always have much grief before peace and joy arrive, so she hoped that in some way--she could not see how--the bad luck which was upon her and George would pass away leaving them married and rich and happy. But, at present, it must be confessed that there did not appear to be much chance of such good fortune. "The ould woman has come this very minit," whispered Tim, meeting the girl at the back door. "I've put her in the parlour, but the masther is out." "My father is certain to come into luncheon," said Lesbia hurriedly. "Av coorse he is," muttered Tim, "a mighty dainty man he is fur the inside av him. But she's axing for you, Miss, and----" "I'll go to her," interrupted Lesbia, "meanwhile, Tim, lay another place at the table. I daresay Mrs. Walker is hungry." With these instructions Lesbia sought the small parlour, and entered to find it occupied by a modern Lady Macbeth. Mrs. Walker clothed in rich but funereal-looking garments of the deepest black was seated majestically on the sofa. Without rising she raised a pair of piercing eyes to look at the girl, and a brief expression of surprise flitted across her impassive face. She had scarcely expected to find the girl so beautiful, as she had always taken her son's enthusiastic descriptions with a grain of salt. However, she privately admitted that George was right for once and she greeted the girl with stiff kindness. And indeed it was hard even for a lady of Mrs. Walker's hard nature to be angry with Lesbia, who looked such a child, and who behaved so sweetly. "I am very glad to see you," said Mrs. Walker, looking anxiously into the girl's delicate face. "You remind me of someone who--no, I can't recall of whom you remind me. Still--" she searched anxiously--"you are very like someone I knew." "Perhaps my mother," Lesbia ventured to remark. "My late nurse, Bridget Burke, told me I closely resembled my mother." "I never met your mother," said Mrs. Walker, dropping Lesbia's hand quickly and becoming stiffer than ever. "Your father and I were never friends, my dear. I should not be here to-day, save that I have come to ask him about some business connected with money I expect to inherit. Also," added Mrs. Walker unexpectedly, "I wanted to see you. George had talked much of you, my child, and seems to have loved you greatly. I can't blame him, and the wonder is that he should give you up." Lesbia clasped her small hands and sank into a chair, her face white and her eyes widely open. "George has never given me up," she said faintly. "I wrote and told him why I was forced to send him the first letter, and----" "Yes, yes!" Mrs. Walker waved a beautifully-gloved hand. "I was in London the other day--in fact I took your letter to George. He showed it to me and told me everything." "And what did you say?" Mrs. Walker's deep, black brows drew together. "Of course the whole thing is rubbish," she said harshly, "and only a love-sick girl like Maud Ellis would act in that way. I suppose much must be forgiven her, as she really loves my son. But after her behaviour, I shall never consent to her marrying him. No! no! That would never do. Especially, now that we know her uncle is such a rogue. I wanted George to tell the police, but he refused." Lesbia cared very little for the fate of Tait. What she much desired to know was her own. "You said that George has ceased to care for me," she remarked with a pale smile. "I don't understand." Mrs. Walker gave her a pitying look. "Nor do I, now that I have seen you, my dear. I don't like your father--I never did, and I would rather have died than have seen George marrying his daughter. Your looks and nature have made me change my mind. There is nothing of your father about you. Had I seen you before----" Mrs. Walker broke off and shook her stately head, "but it is too late. George will not renew the engagement." "Oh, I can't believe that," cried the girl weeping and trembling. "Strange," muttered the elder woman, "you have been quite a heroine in clearing George's character, for which I am greatly obliged to you. Yet here you are crying like a schoolgirl." "I love him so much: I love him so deeply." "My poor child, it is the fate of women to have their hearts broken. I do not know why George still refuses to renew the engagement in the face of your letter, but he does. Here," Mrs. Walker took an envelope out of her bag and handed it to the shaking girl, "you can read his decision in his own handwriting. He asked me to give you this." With great delicacy she turned away her head, while Lesbia tore open the envelope with shaking hands. There were only a few lines, but these intimated plainly that George had accepted his dismissal, and would not seek to renew the engagement. "I love you still, my dearest," wrote Walker in conclusion, "but Fate wills that we must part for ever." Then there were a few tender words, and the epistle ended abruptly, as though the writer could not trust his emotions. Lesbia read the lines, folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope which she put into her pocket. Her eyes were dry now, and her white face was flushed with colour. With a deep sigh she touched the elder woman on the shoulder, "I understand," she said calmly. Mrs. Walker, whose sympathies--remarkably in so cold a woman--were now entirely with Lesbia, grew snappy to conceal her emotion. "I don't," she said acidly, "and when George returns to Medmenham I shall have an explanation with him. He's a fool." "No," said Lesbia, her face growing even a deeper red. "Can't you see that George is only acting in this way to save me?" "To save you from what?" asked Mrs. Walker shortly. "I don't know. I can't say," Lesbia spoke more to herself than to her visitor. "But I feel sure that George wrote this letter as I wrote my first one to him. I wrote to save him, and now he refuses to renew our engagement to save me. I don't understand, still--oh I am sure that everything will come right. I trust in God." "You do well to do so," said Mrs. Walker gravely, "for only He can help you, my child. I am thoroughly puzzled, and know not what to say." "Say nothing: do nothing," cried Lesbia eagerly. "Things will work out to a happy end in their due time." "You are sure of that?" "I am certain." "Then," said Mrs. Walker grimly, "you must have a sixth sense which I do not possess. However, I am glad that you have not given way to hysteria. You are a brave girl, and I would rather have you for my daughter-in-law than I would any one else, in spite of your father. There," Mrs. Walker bent forward and actually kissed the girl's lips. "That shows I mean what I say." "Oh!" Lesbia returned the kiss, blushing divinely, "George said that you hated me, and----" "How could I hate a girl I had never seen?" snapped Mrs. Walker, ashamed of her momentary humanity. "I hate your father, and--well there, say no more about the matter. I hope with all my heart that things will turn out well for you and George, as you appear to think they will. Meanwhile while we are waiting for your father, tell me about the amethyst cross." Lesbia started to her feet in astonishment. "The cross," she echoed. "I have lost it. You know that I gave it to----" "Yes! Yes!" Mrs. Walker waved her hand impatiently. "I know about the robbery and how no one can find the cross. It must be found, nevertheless. But I wish to learn exactly how it came into your possession. George told me something about the matter, but like a man he told it very badly. For this reason I have come to see you, as well as Mr. Hale, whom I detest," added Mrs. Walker severely. "Where did you get the cross?" "From my mother. That is, the cross belonged to her. She left it to my nurse Bridget Burke----" "Where is she?" "Dead. She died some time ago." "Unlucky," muttered Mrs. Walker with a dark look. "Well?" "My mother told Bridget to give it to me, and to tell me that I was never to part with it save to the man I loved. Then you know"--Lesbia blushed again--"I gave it to George." "Yes. I know of that and of the loss. I said so before. But how did the cross come into your mother's possession?" Lesbia shook her head. "I really cannot tell you." Mrs. Walker frowned again, and turned her steely eyes towards the door. Her quick ears had caught a soft foot-fall, and her quick eyes had seen the half-open door move. "Come in, Mr. Hale," she said loudly, "we are saying nothing which you cannot hear." Hale, who apparently had been listening, entered, looking perfectly cool and composed. "The cross did not belong to Lesbia's mother," he said quietly, but the look in his eyes as they rested on Mrs. Walker was not pleasant. CHAPTER XIV THE FAMILY LAWYER Lesbia uttered an exclamation when she heard the astonishing remark of her father, and started to her feet. But Mrs. Walker, grimly silent, kept her seat and glared, like Medusa, on the newcomer. If she could have turned him into stone she would willingly have done so, as could be seen from the expression of her hard eyes. Hale, perfectly cool, in spite of the insulting speech which she made, took a chair and looked at her with deliberate insolence. Also deliberately he reverted to her insult. "I was just passing along to the dining-room," he explained slowly, "when I heard voices and your last question. I entered at once and was not eavesdropping, as you are pleased to say." "There is no need to excuse yourself," said Mrs. Walker tartly, "for----" Hale crossed his legs and leaned back. "In my own house I think not." "For I don't believe a word you say," she finished harshly. "Naturally you would not," rejoined Mr. Hale smoothly; "you were always a hard and suspicious woman." Mrs. Walker moved her hands restlessly, and her eyes gleamed fiercer than ever. "You know better than that," she muttered. "Take your mind back thirty years." "Willingly," said Hale, with great promptness. "Do you wish us to speak of the past in Lesbia's presence?" This time he scored, for Mrs. Walker winced. "There is no need for the child to hear old stories," she remarked, with suppressed passion. "Let us discuss what I have come to see you about." "The cross?" "Oh," she flashed scornfully, "I thought you were not eavesdropping?" "I admitted that I heard your last question," said Hale, with a shrug, "but you never would listen." "I am listening now. Say what you have to say." "I have said all that I intend to say, Mrs. Walker. The amethyst cross did not belong to Lesbia's mother." The girl uttered another exclamation; she was lost in astonishment. "But, father," she remonstrated, "Bridget told me on her death-bed----" "What she told you was what I instructed her to say," interrupted Hale imperiously. "But your mother--my wife--never possessed such an ornament." Lesbia looked at him doubtfully. Of late, she had suspected that her father was not above telling a falsehood to serve his own private ends, and in the face of what she knew, it appeared as though he was telling one now--why, she could not conjecture. While she was trying to puzzle out the reason, Mrs. Walker rose and swept across to the window of the drawing-room which looked out into the road. "I don't see him yet," she muttered to herself, and consulted a bracelet-watch attached to her left wrist. "Are you expecting anyone?" asked Hale politely. "Mr. Jabez, my family lawyer," she replied curtly, and returned to her seat. Hale raised his eyebrows and looked more gentlemanly than ever; also a trifle dangerous. "You asked him to my house?" "Yes, because I want to hear all about the cross. Oh, I know well that you do not wish to see Mr. Jabez, Walter, but----" "You call me Walter," said Hale, and suddenly flushed. "A slip of the tongue," retorted Mrs. Walker, also growing red. "The time is long past when I could call you so. You are Mr. Hale to me." "Then why not call me so?" demanded the man coolly. "I will do so in future," said Mrs. Walker, and bit her lip in silent rage at having given him an opportunity of scoring. "But I know that Mr. Jabez is too well acquainted with the seamy side of your life for you to care about meeting him." Hale shrugged his shoulders. "He was my family lawyer as he is yours," he answered in icy tones, "and one confesses much to one's lawyer, which one would hesitate to say to others. I can depend upon the secrecy of Jabez as to my misfortunes." "Oh!" Mrs. Walker laughed scornfully, "you call them by that name." "It suits them best. As to Jabez, I have no hesitation in meeting him. But I prefer to choose my own visitors." "You certainly would not choose Mr. Jabez," said the elder woman insultingly. "However, I have taken advantage of your easy-going nature"--she was very sarcastic--"to invite Mr. Jabez to meet me here, so that we may discuss the whereabouts of the cross." "How can we discuss what we cannot and do not know?" asked Hale, with a contemptuous look. "You are still the same woman, Judith, headstrong and----" "Don't call me that name!" she said sharply. "A slip of the tongue merely, such as you made just now," sneered Hale; "but all this is very unpleasant for Lesbia. Don't you think that while we quarrel she had better leave the room?" Mrs. Walker drew Lesbia down on to the sofa beside her, and retained the girl's hand within her own. "No," she said sternly, "I am not going to quarrel with you, Mr. Hale. Besides, I wish Lesbia to be here, so that she may hear somewhat of the past." "Why should she?" asked Hale hastily. "I want her to marry George." "You--want--her--to--marry--George," repeated Hale astonished, "my daughter!" Mrs. Walker looked at him straight. "You may well be surprised," she said quietly, "especially as you know through my son that I was set against this marriage, and with good reason let me remind you, Mr. Hale. But now that I have seen Lesbia"--she drew the girl closer--"I see no reason why the sins of the father should be visited upon the child. Lesbia shall be my dear daughter, and I welcome her with joy." "I have something to say to that. She shall never be your daughter-in-law, since it is better to be explicit as to relationship." "We'll see about that." "Quite so. You are a clever woman, Judith, but I am also a clever man." "Oh!" Mrs. Walker winced again at his using her Christian name. "We had better not begin about your qualities. Lesbia would certainly have to leave the room then." "Don't shame me in the presence of my child, madam," said Hale thickly, and the veins on his forehead began to swell with anger. "I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Walker with a careless laugh, "I forgot how you have deceived her into thinking you an angel." Hale suddenly rose, and walked to the window. He was in a furious rage and was trying to keep himself cool, since he knew that any loss of temper would give Mrs. Walker an advantage which he did not intend her to gain. She sat quietly smoothing Lesbia's hand, with glittering eyes quite ready to continue hostilities as soon as her enemy recovered his breath. Lesbia herself remained passive, wondering what all the trouble was about. Neither the one nor the other of the disputants hinted sufficient to enlighten her as to the reasons why they were at enmity. Hale certainly might have said something more to the point, as he was rapidly losing control of his temper, but as he turned from the window, there came a ring at the front door of the cottage. "Here is Jabez," said Hale, coming back to his seat. "I am glad he has arrived, if only to stop your tongue." "Oh, Jabez knows all that I can say," remarked Mrs. Walker grimly, and became silent. With wide-open eyes, Lesbia sat waiting quietly to see what would happen next. This duel of three--as it appeared to be, was as fantastic as that in which Mr. Midshipman Easy fought. Moreover, the girl was so bewildered by the hints dropped of a disagreement between Mrs. Walker and her father, of which she knew nothing, that she was trying hard to collect her scattered senses in order to take in future events more clearly. Mr. Jabez announced his presence in the passage by a dry, hard cough before he was introduced to the company by Tim Burke. He was a meagre man of medium height with a bald head, a hatchet face, a pair of eyes the colour of which could not be seen because of blue spectacles, and a loose figure invested in well-fitting dark clothes. He looked somewhat like a certain type of American, but when he opened his mouth, he spoke very precise English. For the rest, he seemed unemotional and very much addicted to dry business details. No one could have called Mr. Jabez an interesting person, but he appeared to know his business and the value of his time, upon which he placed a high price. "Good-day! Good-day! Good-day!" he said severally to the three people in the room with a little nod to each. "Mr. Hale, I apologise for calling uninvited at your cottage, but Mrs. Walker, who wished for the meeting here, must make my excuses. This is your daughter: a very handsome young lady. I shall take this chair, with my back to the light, as my eyes are somewhat weak. For that reason I wear blue spectacles. Now," Mr. Jabez had gained possession of a comfortable chair by this time, "let us come to business, as I have to return to London within the hour, Mrs. Walker!" Thus addressed Mrs. Walker, as grim as Jabez himself, and as impatient of wasting time, spoke to the point. "I asked you here, Mr. Jabez, to meet Mr. Hale with whom," she added venomously, "we are both exceedingly well acquainted." "Quite so--quite so," interrupted the lawyer with his dry cough, "but it would be as well to avoid personal remarks. They do no good and take up valuable time. Go on, Mrs. Walker." "I want to hear what Mr. Hale has to say about the amethyst cross," said the widow with a dark look at her enemy. "I have nothing to say about it," retorted Hale, nursing his chin with his hand and leaning back with crossed legs, apparently indifferent. "Pardon me, but you have much to say," remarked Jabez precisely. "So far I merely know on the authority of Mrs. Walker--that the cross was given to this young lady," he nodded very curtly towards Lesbia, "and that in her turn she passed it to Mr. George Walker." "That is true," admitted Lesbia, seeing that she was called upon to speak. "I was told by Bridget----" "Who is Bridget?" interrupted Jabez keenly. "My late nurse. She is dead." Jabez shook his bald head. "T'cht! T'cht! T'cht! That is a pity. Go on." "Bridget told me that I was to give the cross only to the man I loved. I therefore gave it to George. He was assaulted for it on the towing-path and as it could not be found upon him, his room at Medmenham was robbed." Jabez nodded. "Mrs. Walker told me all this," he said quietly, "and the cross has never been found." "No," said Mrs. Walker. "No," said Mr. Hale. "No!" said Lesbia. "All are agreed," smiled the lawyer drily, "a most unanimous opinion. I understand," he addressed Lesbia again, "that your mother originally owned this cross and gave it to your nurse. Mrs. Walker, on the authority of her son, told me as much." "I understood that the cross had belonged to my mother," replied Lesbia, nervously glancing at her father. "Bridget told me so, when she gave it to me on her death-bed." "Then she told you wrongly," said Mr. Hale, "and at my request." "Why?" demanded Jabez, turning towards his unwilling host. "Because the cross belonged to another woman, and I did not want that known in case someone should claim it." "Ha!" said Mrs. Walker darkly. "And why did you wish to keep it?" "I--I--liked the ornament," confessed Hale hesitating, and quite forgetting the sentimental reason he had given to his daughter as to the desire to keep the cross because it had been the property of his late wife. Mrs. Walker laughed scornfully. "I believe you know the reason why the cross is so valuable," she snapped. "Yes, he does," chimed in Lesbia, who was determined to learn the reason of all this mystery. "He says that if produced it will bring him two thousand a year." "Lesbia!" Hale jumped to his feet and looked furious. "How dare you?" "How dare I?" she cried, rising in her turn. "Because you will not trust me, father, and I am in the dark. The cross is mine, and I have a right to know all that concerns it. Does the production of the cross mean gain to my father of two thousand a year?" she asked the lawyer. "It means that if a certain person produces the cross to me," explained Mr. Jabez, "fifty thousand pounds will----" "Let me explain," interrupted Mrs. Walker sharply. "Lesbia, the cross is needed to prove the identity of my sister Kate. My father left her the sum of fifty thousand pounds. She eloped with a man of whom he disapproved, and has not appeared to claim the money. We don't know if she is living or dead, and----" "Ah!" broke in Hale, "this is what George told me." "Yes," flashed out Mrs. Walker, turning towards him, "and for that reason you know the value of the cross." "Oh," Hale shrugged his shoulders, "I knew that long ago." "Then why did you not produce it?" "Because I thought it was lost. If the cross belonged to your sister Kate, Mrs. Walker, I knew her." "She was not your wife," cried Mrs. Walker savagely, "You were not the man she ran away with." "I never said that I was," rejoined Hale coolly. "No. Hear what I have to say. When I was living at Wimbledon with my wife--Lesbia's mother--we one day found a woman unconscious in the snow. My wife, who was a Good Samaritan, revived her and took her in. She died, but before drawing her last breath, she told me that she was Katherine Morse----" "That was my sister's maiden name. But she married the man she ran away with." "She never told me so," said Hale coolly. "She died in my wife's arms and is buried in Wimbledon cemetery. The cross--as I heard from my wife on her death-bed--she gave to my wife saying that if produced to Mr. Simon Jabez it would be worth fifty thousand pounds. My wife gave the cross to Bridget and did not tell me so. When she died I hunted for the cross and could not find it. But that old hag of an Irishwoman possessed it and held her peace. On her death-bed she gave it to Lesbia and told her not to tell me about it. I only became aware of its whereabouts when I saw it in your son's hand after he had proposed to Lesbia. Then it was lost again and I don't know who has it." "What a strange story!" said Lesbia, "why did you not tell me before, father?" Hale turned on her viciously. "You were secret with me about the cross, so what occasion was there to tell you? Had you been open I would have had that fifty thousand pounds long ago." "No," said Jabez, who had been listening attentively, "you were not married to Miss Katherine Morse, and so had no claim to the money." "I claim it," cried Mrs. Walker triumphantly, "all I wanted to know was whether my sister Kate was dead. Now you have sworn to that, and now that we know she is buried in Wimbledon cemetery, I get the money." "No," said Jabez again and very drily. Mrs. Walker rose and turned on him angrily. "You know my father's will," she cried angrily. "One hundred thousand pounds was left equally between myself and my sister. I had my share and my husband spent it. Kate never came to claim her half, so by the will it reverts to the survivor of Samuel Morse's daughters. I am the survivor so----" "You go too fast, my dear lady," said the lawyer, "and do not know the will so thoroughly as I do. Fifty thousand pounds, which I hold, was left to Katherine and her heirs. There may be a child or children." "Kate Morse had no child when she died in my house," said Hale sharply. "I can prove it." He went to the door and called out, "Tim." In a few minutes, and amidst a dead silence, the crooked little man appeared rubbing his red head. "What's your will, sor?" he asked softly. "You remember the woman who was taken in at Wimbledon years ago?" questioned Hale impatiently. "The woman with the amethyst cross." "Ay, sor, I mind that. I wor a bare-futted gossoon thin. Me mother--rist her sowl!--laid out the shroud av her." "Had this woman a child with her?" asked Jabez promptly. "No, sor," said Tim unhesitatingly, "she had not. The only child in the house wor Miss Lesbia here." "That will do," said Hale impatiently, waving his hand, and drawing a long breath, "you can go," and Tim took his departure. "Are you satisfied?" he asked turning to the lawyer. "No," said that gentleman quietly, "I must have a better proof that there was no child. From certain rumours, which I remember hearing years ago, I am inclined to believe that there is a child." "I believe there was a child," said Mrs. Walker, who had been sitting grim and silent. "Kate wrote to me two years after she eloped with that man, that she had a baby and that it was very ill. She did not expect it to live." "Did she mention the sex of the child?" "No. She did not, nor did I ever hear from her again. I daresay that man cast her off, or deserted her, and she crawled to Wimbledon to die. But the child must be dead also, so I inherit the money." "No! no! no. There is not sufficient proof of the child's death," said Jabez, "although it appears we can prove the death of your sister. Then again, I must have the amethyst cross placed in my hands before I can part with the money. It is well invested," added Jabez with a chuckle, "and brings in a trifle over two thousand a year. You are correct in your estimate, Mr. Hale, but I doubt if you can claim the money." "I could if I had the cross," muttered Hale savagely. "Not even then. If the child, whether male or female, appears with the cross and I can prove that it is the child of Mrs. Walker's sister then I'll hand over the money. If we can prove the death of the child, Mrs. Walker will get the money." "And I'll have it," cried Mrs. Walker rising indignantly. "I am certain that the child is dead. Kate wrote that it was dangerously ill." "But not dead," chuckled Jabez, glancing at his watch. "Well, there is nothing more to be said, so I shall take my leave. Good-day! good-day! good-day!" he nodded again to each in turn and vanished as unexpectedly as he had entered. Mrs. Walker looked remarkably angry. "The money is mine and I'll have it," she said determinedly. "You must first find the amethyst cross," sneered Hale. CHAPTER XV A STARTLING LETTER After Mrs. Walker's portentous visit to Rose Cottage with her lawyer, things went on quietly for some days. Mr. Hale at first positively refused to speak on the subject of the cross and the fortune attached thereto, as he maintained that it was useless to talk about impossibilities. Then he changed his mind and spoke with extraordinary freedom. "Nothing can be done until we find the amethyst cross," he said gloomily to his daughter, "when that is produced, the money will be forthcoming." "But you forget, father, that the cross has to be produced by Mrs. Walker's nephew or niece," said Lesbia doubtfully. "She hasn't got one," snapped Hale. "If there was a child, it is dead. I know that no child was brought to my house at Wimbledon by Kate Morse." "Mrs. Walker said that was her sister's maiden name. Do you know the name of the man she married?" "Yes." Hale cast a jealous side-glance at his daughter. "It's an old story and a long one." "Which has to do with Mrs. Walker's enmity against you?" persisted Lesbia. "Yes," said Hale again. "She thought that I had something to do with her sister's elopement. Such rubbish, as though I could have helped it." "Why did Miss Morse run away, then?" "Because of her father. He was a wealthy, old, psalm-singing idiot, who made the two girls wretched. Kate fell in love with a certain friend of mine--I am not going to mention his name--and old Morse told him that he was not to come near the house. Then Kate took the bit between her teeth and ran away with the man. She had a miserable life, I believe, but I saw nothing of her until she stumbled foot-sore and weary into my house at Wimbledon. The rest you know." "And the money?" asked Lesbia anxiously. "You heard all that is to be said on that subject when Mrs. Walker was here," growled Hale, who was more communicative than usual. "But I'll repeat the story, because I wish to make a suggestion." "What is the suggestion?" asked the girl, who mistrusted the uneasy looks of her father. "First the story and then the suggestion," he remarked grimly. "Well, it can scarcely be called a story. Samuel Morse, the psalm-singing old ass I told you of, had a hundred thousand pounds, two daughters, and no son. He made a will leaving the money equally divided between them, and after death the money if not used up was to go to their heirs. Judith--Mrs. Walker that is--married a scampish man-about-town, who soon got through all she had and then broke his neck in a steeplechase, leaving Judith with next to nothing upon which to bring up George. Kate, having eloped with the man whose name I don't wish to mention, did not claim her share of the cash." "If Mr. Morse was so angry I wonder he did not alter his will." "He would have done so. Of that I am absolutely certain," said Hale emphatically, "but he had no time to do so. Shortly after he made his will Kate eloped, and the old man died in a fit of rage, before he could give instructions to Jabez who was his lawyer. Jabez gave fifty thousand pounds to Judith, who by and by married Walker and lost it all through his spendthrift habits. The remaining fifty thousand he invested, and what with the principal and interest it must be a tidy sum by now. At all events it brings in over two thousand a year. Since Kate is dead the money passes to her child if she left any, which I do not believe. Failing a child, it reverts by the will to Mrs. Walker." "But why need she produce the amethyst cross?" asked Lesbia. "She need not, as her identity is fully established in Jabez's eyes. The cross--as I learned from him years ago--was an ornament which old Morse had made for Kate, a kind of religious symbol." "Who bears the cross will win the crown," said Lesbia, remembering the ornament; "or rather, as the motto goes, lose the crown by refusing the cross." Hale nodded with a smile of contempt. "Yes! That was old Morse's idea. He gave the cross to Kate, and then she ran away with it and the man who became her husband. Jabez, knowing that the ornament is peculiar, swears that he will need the cross to prove the identity of Kate or of her child, as no one else could possess so odd a trinket. As if it could not be imitated exactly," ended Hale with contempt. "The cross might be imitated," said Lesbia, doubtfully. "But as the poor woman is dead, it will not be so easy to produce a child as hers." Hale, with his head on one side, looked at her oddly. "I don't know so much about that," he said slowly. "What do you mean?" questioned Lesbia, seeing that her father had something on his mind. "Well," said Hale, pinching his chin and still looking at her as though to hypnotise her mind; "there was no child, as I said. But you were only a baby twenty years ago, born, in fact, only a week before Kate Morse came to my house. Could we not say that you are the child?" "What?" Lesbia looked indignantly at her father. "Don't be foolish," said Hale testily. "It is not a crime seeing that the money is there for the asking, Bridget Burke told you that the cross was given to you by your mother. Let it be so, and I can swear and, for your sake, I can get Tim to swear, that you are the long-lost child. The train has already been laid by Bridget's story--which by the way I told her to tell you--so old Jabez will be easy to convince." Lesbia drew a long breath. "I should not think of deceiving and robbing Mrs. Walker." "Oh, nonsense," said Hale earnestly. "When she dies the money goes to her son, so if you marry him you can hand over twenty-five thousand to him, or say one thousand a year. Thus you will be acting honestly towards the Walkers, my dear, and----" "And dishonestly towards myself," cried Lesbia indignantly. "And what of the remaining one thousand a year, father?" Hale drooped his eyes suavely. "I take that for arranging that you get the money. Come, Lesbia, what do you say?" "I decline," she retorted, quivering with indignation. "How dare you, who are my father, make such a proposal? Even if I were the true child, I should not give you one penny." "Ha!" said Hale bitterly. "I thought so, and thus suggested a wild scheme to try you. I might have known." "I believe that if I had fallen in with your scheme," cried Lesbia boldly, "that you would have arranged to carry it through. You have not the cross, however, and even if I consented----" "I remember the look of the cross, and so do you. It could have been duplicated, my dear." Lesbia looked at her father in pained astonishment, and then burst into bitter tears. "Oh, how I wish that I could respect you," she wailed. Hale lifted his eyebrows. "Don't you?" "No! How can I, when I find that you are so wicked?" "I was only trying you," he said hastily. "Though it is true that had you shown a disposition to give me my fair share I might have endeavoured to get you this fortune. But, as it is, I see well that all my pains would be thrown away. You would see me--your own father--starve rather than let me have one penny." Lesbia dried her tears. "I would have nothing to do with such a wicked scheme, and I only wish I could get away from you. You have never been a father to me, and every day we drift farther and farther apart. When I see Lord Charvington I shall ask him to help me to get a situation, as a companion or a nursery governess, and then----" "Lesbia, you surely would not disgrace me by talking to Charvington in that way," said Hale, his face growing dark. "Perhaps I have never been affectionate, but then I feel more than I say. And you have always had comfort and all that I could give." "I have had everything, save a father's love." "My nature is a reticent one," said her father sullenly. "So it is useless to ask for impossibilities. If you really are unhappy with me, marry George Walker and have done with it." "And what about Captain Sargent?" asked Lesbia sharply. Hale shrugged his shoulders. "I can't force you to marry a man against your will, bad father as you say that I am. I have done my best for you and you persistently regard me with suspicion." "What you proposed to do just now----" "Was merely an experiment. Think no more about it, and don't make yourself ridiculous with Charvington. Play your cards well with him and his wife, and you may make a good match." "I shall marry no one but George," said Lesbia obstinately. "He won't have anything to do with you," sneered Hale, and turned away. Things being strained in this way Lesbia was sufficiently unhappy, especially as George was absent and silent. She could not understand why, after her explanation, he refused to come back to her. But in the depths of her mind, she felt certain that he was acting against his heart's desire, and much in the same way as she had acted when she dismissed him. It was impossible to see him, as he was in London and she did not know his address, and it was equally impossible to write to him. Certainly, as Mrs. Walker was ready to receive her, she could have gone to Medmenham to converse with that formidable lady, but she hesitated to pour out her woes in that quarter. In spite of her sudden friendliness, Mrs. Walker was unsympathetic, and the poor girl longed for some kind breast whereon she could lie and weep and be comforted. Thus it can easily be guessed that Lesbia hailed with joy the arrival of a brisk little woman, who introduced herself as Lady Charvington. She came in a gorgeous motor car, with much noise and pomp, and was dressed like Solomon, in all his glory, so wonderful was her frock. Mr. Hale was within and received her with much deference, which was natural considering that Lord Charvington was his patron. Lesbia was sent for, and duly came down to the tiny drawing-room to be introduced. "So this is Lesbia," said Lady Charvington, putting up a tortoise-shell lorgnette, "quite a beauty I declare." She frowned a trifle when she said this, for her own daughters, in their 'teens at present, were not beautiful. She herself had no great pretension to good looks, although she made the best of herself in every way. She was as small as Lesbia, but did not possess such a complexion or such a figure, and there was an ill-tempered droop to her mouth which made the girl mistrust her. For Lord Charvington's sake, since he had been so kind to her, Lesbia was anxious to love his wife, and perhaps had she been a plain girl Lady Charvington might have given her an opportunity of exercising such affection. But the looks of Lesbia took her aback, as she saw in this delicately beautiful girl a formidable rival, not only to her plain daughters but to herself. For Lady Charvington, in spite of her age and of the fact that she was married, flirted a great deal. However, swiftly as these things passed through her mind, she did not permit them to be revealed by her face and welcomed Lesbia with well-affected enthusiasm. "You dear," she said, hopping up like a bird to peck the velvet cheek of her proposed guest; "why have you hidden yourself for so long?" "I have been stopping here with my father since I came from school," said Lesbia, trying to overcome a sudden dislike for this smiling vision of small talk and chiffon. Lady Charvington shook a dainty finger at Mr. Hale, who was looking on well-pleased at the scene. "You naughty, naughty man," she cried effusively and girlishly, "how dare you keep Beauty shut up in a castle no one ever heard of? But that Charvington spoke about this sweet thing the other day and proposed to have her over at the Court for a few days, I should never never have seen her." "I didn't wish to trouble you with my girl, Lady Charvington." "Oh," Lady Charvington uttered a little scream of delight, while taking in every detail of Lesbia's looks and costume, "there will be no trouble. We have always plenty of nice boys at the Court and they will lose their heads over this Sleeping Beauty. For you are that, you know," she added to Lesbia, "whatever the poor dear creature's name may have been. But I have come at my husband's express desire to wake you up, and to find a prince who will kiss you." "I have already got one," said Lesbia abruptly. "I am engaged!" Hale frowned, as he thought that she was too candid, but Lady Charvington felt more satisfied than she had been. An engaged girl would not be so dangerous. "Then we must ask your prince over to the Court also," she declared effusively and kissed Lesbia again. "I have brought over the car to take you back to dinner. Get your frocks and frills, dear, and we shall start while the afternoon is yet warm." "Are you ready to go, Lesbia?" asked Hale, smiling artificially, for, from the look on his daughter's face, he was not quite sure if she approved of the invitation. But he need not have troubled. Lesbia did not like Lady Charvington but, being anxious to see my lady's husband and tell him of her troubles--since the sending of the cheque proved him to be a kindly man,--made up her mind to overcome her mistrust and travel in the motor car. "Everything is ready," she said quietly. "I have only one box." "Oh, but, my dear, I wish you to stay for a week," protested the lady. "So I understood, and thank you very much," replied the girl with enforced cordiality. "And the one box of clothes will be sufficient." "Dear me!" said Lady Charvington with a gasp, "what a careful girl you must be. Why I take five boxes for a week's visit." "I am not rich enough to do that. Besides," added Lesbia smiling, "I should only cumber up your motor car." "Oh, that is all right. It's a big thing and holds heaps. Have you ever been in one, my dear girl?" "Lesbia has lived a very quiet life," interposed Hale quickly, "and knows nothing of modern luxury." "Poor thing," said Lady Charvington, with a pitying glance. "I hope your prince is wealthy," she added, turning to Lesbia. The girl smiled. "On the contrary, he is very poor." "Dear me! I seem to have found a paragon of virtue. But are you not rather foolish, my dear girl? With such a face and such a figure and with my influence you should make a better match." "So I tell her," cried Hale quickly; he was always on the watch to put in a word, "and she is not really engaged, Lady Charvington. There is some disagreement between Lesbia and Mr. Walker." "What a horrid name! So plebeian!" cried Lady Charvington. "George is not plebeian," said Lesbia, colouring hotly, "his father was the Honourable Aylmer Walker." "Lord Casterton's third son," said the visitor, nodding. "Yes, I have heard of him from my brothers. He was rather wild, was he not?" "Really I don't know." "There is no chance of his coming in for the title--your George, I mean," prattled on Lady Charvington, "as Aylmer Walker's two elder brothers have both heaps and heaps of children. I rather think that Aylmer was the black ba-ba of the family. Well, there, I'm talking scandal, a thing of which I highly disapprove. Go and get your things on, dear, and tell your man to put your box on the motor. Wilkins will help him. He's the chauffeur--not at all a bad driver, but oh, so dreadfully reckless. Be prepared to go like the wind, my dear." Lady Charvington babbled on in this fashion with bird-like glances here and there, taking in every detail of the room. She knew that Hale was a poor relation of her husband's, and indeed had received him twice or thrice at The Court near Maidenhead. But this was the first time she had seen his daughter and, but for the express command of Lord Charvington, she would not have asked her over. There was some comfort in the fact that the girl's affections were engaged, but all the same, such beauty, whether free or bound, would prove dangerous. "I trust she won't interfere with my men," thought Lady Charvington as she smiled sweetly on Lesbia leaving the tiny drawing-room. The girl summoned Tim to take her box to the motorcar which was panting violently at the door, and went to her room to put on her hat. She made a desperate attempt while doing so to overcome her dislike to Lady Charvington, as she felt sure that for some reason the little woman was hostile. Lesbia was too unsophisticated to put down the hostility to the fact that Lady Charvington found her exasperatingly beautiful, and was puzzled to think why any hostility should exist. But it certainly was there, and Lesbia detected it immediately. However, as she could see no reason for any such feeling existing between her and a woman who--on the face of it--was doing her a kindness, she fought desperately with her intuition. Still it seemed to her that she was but leaving one abode of trouble to go to another, wherein even more annoying things might happen. And the root of all the worry was the missing cross. Tim took down the box and then returned to Lesbia's bedroom as she was issuing therefrom. He drew her back mysteriously and produced a letter cautiously from his inner pocket. "This is for you, Miss," he declared in a whisper, "it came under cover to me by the mid-day post, with a scratch av a pin saying Mr. Canning sint it, and 'twas to be given ye at onct." "Mr. Canning!" Lesbia's face grew eager, and she hastily opened the thin envelope to skim five or six lines written on foreign notepaper. What she read surprised her, and she noted that the address given was in a quiet street in Whitechapel. "I have heard indirectly," wrote The Shadow, "that you are going some time to The Court, Lord Charvington's place near Maidenhead. If you do, keep a good watch, as two London thieves--the same who robbed Tait's strong-room by Tait's direction--are about to try to steal Lady Charvington's jewels when everyone is at dinner. The attempt will be made on Thursday evening. I advise you to warn Lord Charvington, but tell him not to bring in the police, as he will deeply regret doing so. Yours always, C." This mysterious letter, signed with Canning's initial, startled Lesbia, For the moment she felt inclined to go down and tell her father: but on second thoughts and with a discretion far beyond her years, she decided to say nothing until she met her host. It was now Tuesday, and the burglary was not arranged for until Thursday. There was ample time. "It's nothing, Tim," she said mendaciously, putting the letter away. "Good-bye for one whole week, you dear old thing," and she kissed him fondly. CHAPTER XVI RECOGNITION The Court, near Maidenhead, was Lord Charvington's chief country residence on account of its proximity to London. It was a modern mansion built in early Victorian days and, in accordance with the taste of that period, had no great pretensions to architectural beauty. In fact it might be called ugly, and was a huge, staring barrack of a place, quite out of keeping with the beauty of the surrounding grounds. These were of large extent, and so admirably laid out that they made up for the deficiencies of the building, which, after all, was comfortable enough within doors, if its external aspect was uninviting. Modern luxury had made the many rooms very habitable, and the barn--it looked like a barn--was furnished with the magnificence of Aladdin's palace. Lesbia arrived with her hostess in time for afternoon tea and was speedily introduced to Lord Charvington. There were at least ten guests of fashionable London stopping for a few days and, while Lady Charvington chatted with these, her husband made himself agreeable to Miss Hale. She was very glad to find Charvington so agreeable and sympathetic, for naturally her first plunge into society made her somewhat shy. And her host was particularly attentive, quite in a different way from Lady Charvington's careless hospitality. After a few minutes' conversation Lesbia felt as though she had known him for years, and was soon quite at her ease. In fact, Lady Charvington, at the other end of the room, cast a displeased look in Lesbia's direction, when she heard her laughing so gaily, and saw how her pretty face was wreathed in smiles. Charvington was making a fool of the girl, she thought, and indeed privately deemed it foolish that he had lifted the girl into a circle so alien to her ordinary life, since she had neither the money nor the experience to sustain her new position. However, Charvington had made a point of his cousin's daughter being asked, so Lady Charvington gave way, as she always did to her husband in small things. Charvington was a tall and somewhat stout man, with a fresh-coloured face and leonine masses of white hair worn somewhat long. He was clean-shaven, with merry blue eyes filled with vigorous life, and possessed a strong, calm voice, sympathetic and sweet. His manner was brisk and lively, and more suited to youth than to age. Not that he was so very old, for he certainly appeared as lively as the youngest man in the room. Everyone in the West End knew Lord Charvington, as he was rich and kind-hearted, two things which beget a very agreeable reputation. Many a young man had to thank Charvington for help and advice, and in an unostentatious way he did a great deal of good. When Lesbia talked with him and became acquainted with his personality, she no longer wondered that he had acceded so readily to her request for a loan. The purse of such a genial man was always open to the needy, and very often to the undeserving. "I am glad you have come over, Lesbia," he said admiringly, as they sat in a quiet corner of the room far from the chattering guests. "Hale did not tell me that you were so pretty. By the way, you must not mind my calling you by your Christian name. I knew you when you were but a baby, and it is my privilege, as your elderly cousin, to be familiar." "I am very glad you _are_ familiar," said the girl, lifting her eyes to the strong, kind face, "and I cannot forget that you sent me that fifty pounds so kindly, without asking what I wished to do with it." "Pooh! pooh! That is nothing, child. Who should help you but I? Whenever you are in want of money write to me, and you will receive a cheque by return of post. I am your cousin, you know. And a very bad cousin at that," added Charvington, with sudden energy. "I should have had you here long ago. You must have led a dull life in Marlow." "No," answered Lesbia quietly, "there was always George." "Who is George?" "The man I love." "Oh!" Charvington's eyes twinkled more than ever; "you are engaged." "Yes and no." The man looked puzzled. "What do you mean? I don't like riddles." Lesbia sighed. "It is a riddle, and a very painful one. For that reason I accepted your kind invitation and came over. I want to tell you what I did with the fifty pounds, and also I wish to ask your advice." "I shall be delighted to give it, but surely your father--" "My father"--Lesbia checked a scornful remark which was on the tip of her tongue--"my father would take no interest in what I wish to tell you." Charvington bent his brow and looked at her thoughtfully. "You shall come to the library in the morning, and there we can have a chat," he said. "Only one thing I ask you now: your father does not treat you badly?" "No," faltered the girl, looking down; she could not betray her father, although he had behaved so ill. "My father is--well enough," she ended lamely. "Humph!" muttered Charvington, with his eyes still on her face. "Well, well, we shall see! Meantime have some more tea," and he walked across the room to have her cup filled. No more was said for the time being, but Charvington's kind manner made Lesbia more determined than ever to confide in him. She believed that she had at length found a friend who would aid her to withstand the tyranny of her father, and who would assist to put things right with her lover. They were crooked enough now in all conscience. Moreover, in any case, she was forced to show him Canning's letter, so that he might provide against the projected burglary. If she told this much she would have to tell all, for only by making a clean breast of it could she be extricated from the mire into which she had sunk, through no fault of her own. All that evening she longed for the morning, so that she might tell her new friend the many difficulties which were making her miserable. Not that the evening was dull. On the contrary, as the mansion was filled with lively, well-bred people, it was quite a revelation to Lesbia in the way of enjoyment. Everyone seemed to be happy and untroubled by care, which contrasted strongly with the incessant worry which went on within the four walls of Rose Cottage. These society people--outwardly at all events--seemed as careless gods, happy, merry, and gloriously irresponsible. Later in life Lesbia learned what sadness lurked under this frivolous, laughing exterior, but at this time she was quite deceived, and thought to herself, "How happy are the rich and well-born!" Lady Charvington's two daughters--not yet old enough to be presented--were very nice girls, although they were decidedly plain-looking. But they appeared to have none of their mother's jealousy regarding Lesbia's beauty, and made much of her. She found herself laughing and talking and entering into their girlish lives, quite as if she had known them for many years. Lord Charvington seemed particularly pleased that this should be so, and presided over the trio like a benevolent wizard. For the most part Lesbia was with the two girls during her visit, in spite of the attentions paid to her by sundry youths smitten by her beauty. Seeing this, Lady Charvington became much more gracious, and inwardly decided that Lesbia Hale knew her place. All the same she was a trifle uneasy at the way in which Charvington hovered round the pretty visitor. Not that she cared over much for her husband, who was older than she was; nevertheless, she did not like to see him paying marked attentions to anyone else. On the first evening, there was a small dance after a very splendid dinner. Lesbia, in her simple white dress, attracted much notice, but she preferred to talk to Agatha and Lena, Lord Charvington's daughters, and to laugh at their father's mild witticisms. During a lull in the dance there was some singing, and towards the end of the evening an excellent supper. Lesbia retired at midnight, while yet the festivities were in full swing. This was at Lord Charvington's express wish, as he did not approve of youth losing any necessary beauty-sleep. When she laid her head on the pillow and was falling asleep, Lesbia confessed that she had enjoyed herself greatly. If George had only been present the evening would have been perfect. Next morning, Agatha and Lena woke her early and took her round the grounds. The girls exchanged confidences--chiefly about school life,--ran races on the dewy sward, and entered filled with the joy of life to eat a surprisingly good breakfast. Lady Charvington was rather astounded at Lesbia's appetite. So pretty a girl, she decided, should eat less and talk less. But Lesbia, although a fairy in looks, could not live on fairy food, and enjoyed to the full the excellent meal provided by the very capable chef of her host. "Horrid, greedy, pert girl," thought Lady Charvington, who was all smiles and attention. "I am sure I shan't like her!"--quite a needless thought, as she already heartily disliked her visitor for other reasons than because she was pretty. But these reasons Lesbia did not learn for some months. Then they did not matter, as life had changed by that time for the better. After breakfast, Lord Charvington carried off his pretty little guest to a noble room lined with books, and placing her in a most comfortable arm-chair, took his own seat at his desk. "Now, my child, what is it?" he asked. "It is rather difficult to begin," faltered Lesbia, feeling if she had the fatal letter in her pocket. "Not with me, my dear. You know that you can trust me implicitly." "Yes," said Lesbia, raising her clear eyes to the kind face. "Well then I shall begin from the time I gave George the amethyst cross." "What?" Charvington's ruddy face grew pale, and he pushed back his chair with considerable violence; "the amethyst cross!" "Do you know anything about it?" asked Lesbia, astonished by his change of colour and evident emotion. "It is lost you know--stolen." "Who stole it?" demanded the man mastering himself with an apparent effort. "Listen," said Lesbia, and related everything from the time George Walker had proposed to the moment of Lady Charvington's arrival at Rose Cottage. But for the moment she said nothing of the letter from Canning. That could keep until she heard what Charvington had to say to the first part of her story. And it may be mentioned that Lesbia spared her father as much as possible, while explaining her difficulties. After his first violent movement, Lord Charvington listened in dead silence, and his colour slowly returned. With his eyes averted, he heard the whole extraordinary tale, without interruption, and only when it was concluded did he speak. Then he gave but small comfort. "I cannot understand what it all means," he said slowly. "I shall see Hale, and doubtless he will be able to explain matters. But have no fear, child, if you love George Walker, you shall marry him. I know Mrs. Walker, and I knew her husband. A wild fellow was Aylmer Walker, but not without his good points." "And you won't let my father have me watched again," said Lesbia anxiously. "Certainly not," cried Charvington fiercely. "If I had known that, I would have--but that's neither here nor there. Your father owes me too much to disregard my wishes. I shall see that he leaves you your full liberty and that he consents to your marriage with George. I hope he is worthy of you, my dear--George I mean," he added wistfully. "Oh yes. He's the dearest, sweetest, best----" "There! There!" Charvington smiled a trifle drily. "I can see that your heart is set upon being Mrs. Walker. Very good. I shall see that George has an opportunity of earning money, so that you can marry him." "And the cross?" "Never mind the cross just now," said Charvington hastily. "I shall have to see your father about that. Later we can talk on the subject. But this Tait," he drummed anxiously with his fingers on the table; "I knew Tait many years ago. He always was a scoundrel, although I did not think he would go so far as to join himself with professional thieves----" "Oh," Lesbia drew the letter of Canning from her pocket, "I forgot. Read this, Lord Charvington. It's a warning--only don't tell the police." Her host mounted his pince-nez and read the missive in surprise. His face grew a dark red, and he muttered a word which Lesbia luckily did not overhear. Then he folded the letter and placed it in his pocket without remark. "You won't tell the police," said Lesbia again and still anxiously. "No," said Charvington, rising, "from what Canning found out before, I believe Tait is in this business also. I don't want for several reasons to make a scandal connected with the man, although he deserves to be gaoled for life. Still, I shall take precautions by having the house watched. Also I must get my wife to put away her jewel-casket in the safe. She is very careless about her jewels, and leaves the casket in her bedroom, sometimes in a drawer or wardrobe, but more often open on the dressing-table. The maid should put it away, of course, but she's a half-blind old creature who was my wife's nurse, and neglects things. But to-day is Wednesday and the burglary is arranged for to-morrow evening when we dine. I shall see that my wife puts away her jewels to-morrow evening. I shall go to her room and see that they are safe before I go to dinner." "But why not to-day also?" asked Lesbia anxiously. "The burglary is not until to-morrow evening, child," said Charvington kindly. "They are safe until then, as they have been safe for years in spite of my wife's gross carelessness and trust in her neglectful old nurse. No, my dear, you have given me a needed warning, so it is no use bothering your head further. To-morrow, I shall make all safe. When these two thieves find that the house is guarded, they will not attempt the robbery." "Will you warn Lady Charvington?" "What! and have her fall into hysterics? No. I shall merely see that the jewels are locked up nightly after to-morrow, and have the house watched for a week or so. My wife need know nothing, my dear." "I shall keep my own counsel," said Lesbia, rising to leave the room, "but I do wish you would have the jewels put away to-night, Lord Charvington." "Well," he smiled kindly, "perhaps, as you are so anxious I shall. But, as we know the time and date of the projected burglary, there is no need." Lesbia went away, comforted to think that Charvington now knew all her troubles, and would help her when it was necessary. Doubtless he would procure George a good situation, and then she could marry her lover. But the emotion of Charvington, when the amethyst cross was mentioned, puzzled Lesbia greatly, as there appeared to be no reason for it. However, she comforted herself with the reflection, that--as he had promised--he would explain everything when the appointed time arrived, and went to enjoy her holiday with the two girls. The enjoyment took the form of a picnic and a run down the river on Lord Charvington's fine steam launch. When the girls were out of the way, Charvington sought his wife and pointed out to her the folly of leaving a case full of rich jewels on her dressing-table. "They might be stolen," he remonstrated. Lady Charvington was not at all grateful. "You are always making a fuss over the jewels," she said impatiently. "I have left the case in my bedroom for years and I have never lost a single thing." "That doesn't say you might not lose the lot," snapped Charvington, who found his wife trying even to his kindly nature. "There's time enough to talk when I do lose them." "Then it will be too late. I ask you to put them away every night in the strong-room. Bertha can take the case there, when she has dressed you for dinner." "Very well," said Lady Charvington, who was impatient to return to a very interesting book she was reading. "I'll tell Bertha, though I'm sure if the case is in my bedroom she can look after it well enough." "Pooh. She's half blind. Why don't you get a better maid?" "Bertha's been with me all my life, and I shall keep her until she is past work. You have no heart, Charvington," she ended virtuously. "She's past work now," said her husband, as he stalked from the boudoir. Nothing more was said, but had Charvington been in the house on that Wednesday evening he would either have asked his wife if the jewels had been put away, or have attended to the matter himself. But during the day he suddenly decided to go up to London in order to see a private detective whom he had employed before on various delicate matters. It would be just as well, thought Charvington, to have this man in the house on Thursday evening. Then, if the two thieves alluded to by Canning did arrive, the man could lay hands on them. Not that Charvington wished to make a public case of the matter, since, as he had hinted to Lesbia, he was anxious to avoid scandal in connection with Tait, whom he shrewdly suspected of having a hand in this new piece of rascality. For this reason he went up to London to engage the private detective, and remained in town for the night. Next day he purposed coming back with his assistant and then the matter could be settled quietly. Lady Charvington would not lose her jewels, and there would be no trouble--publicly at all events--in connection with Mr. Michael Tait. All that Wednesday Lesbia enjoyed herself on the river with her host's daughters, in spite of the launch's breaking down temporarily on the way back, in consequence of some accident to the engines. Consequently it was not until seven o'clock at night that the three girls arrived in Maidenhead, and it was thirty minutes past when they came to The Court. Lady Charvington, who had been anxious about their non-arrival, expressed herself as annoyed at their failure to be in to dinner, which was at seven o'clock. She sent a message saying that Agatha and Lena were to dine in their school-room with the governess. Lesbia feeling herself a culprit--although on the face of it not one of the three was to blame--decided to dine with the girls and to make her apologies afterwards to Lady Charvington. And a very merry dinner they had, for the governess was a charming, middle-aged lady, who made everything very pleasant. And then the love of Agatha and Lena for their newly-found cousin grew with every hour. On the whole, Lesbia enjoyed that school-room meal more than the splendid dinner of the previous night. She was the more pleased that she had remained absent, as she was told by the governess that Lord Charvington was away in London. After that merry meal, Lesbia went to change her dress in order to go down to the drawing-room. Agatha and Lena followed to chatter and help, as they did not like to be separated from their visitor. Lesbia's room was on the first floor, near that of the girls, and on the way the three had to pass the door of Lady Charvington's bedroom. It was closed, but as they passed they heard a shriek of alarm, and opening it at once saw one man escaping by the window, and another struggling with Bertha, the ancient maid. Agatha and Lena ran away screaming for help, but Lesbia dashed forward to help the old woman. At that moment the man--who wore a mask--threw Bertha on the ground and ran towards the window. Lesbia caught him before he could fling his leg over the sill, and tore off the mask. Then she uttered a cry of dismay and terror. "Father!" she shrieked, and dropped down in a dead faint. CHAPTER XVII DISGRACE Next morning, Lesbia was sitting in her bedroom, thinking over the terrible event of the previous night. She had remained in a faint for a considerable time, and had recovered consciousness to find herself lying on her bed. At once she had desired to see Lady Charvington, but her hostess sent up a message asking that Lesbia should wait until the arrival of Lord Charvington, who had been wired for. From the somewhat pert behaviour of the maid who brought the message, the unfortunate girl felt that she was in disgrace, and did not dare to resent it. Having recognised her father in the man whose mask she had torn off, she fancied that the whole household knew of the matter. But in this she was wrong, as she learned, when Agatha, the elder of the girls, came by stealth to her room about eleven o'clock at night. "I don't know what is the matter with mother," said Agatha speaking in a whisper and keeping a watchful eye on the door, "she told Lena and I that we were not to see you, or speak to you." "Why?" stammered Lesbia, feeling sick with shame. "I don't know. I suppose mother is angry at the loss of her jewels. But my father always told her that she would lose them." "Have they caught the thieves?" "No. Lena and I screamed, and everyone came rushing, up. They found Bertha lying half stunned on the floor, and you in a faint. The two men had a motorcar at the gate and got away." Lesbia turned even whiter than she was. "Do they know who the men are?" "Of course they don't. They wore masks, you know," said Agatha, "but one mask was found on the floor. Bertha said that you pulled it off the man who was struggling with her. Did you know his face?" "No," muttered Lesbia. The lie choked her, but she could not denounce her own father, evil as he was. "I expect when I fainted he jumped from the window after his companion, and managed to reach the motorcar. Has your father returned, Agatha dear?" "No," answered the girl softly, "he is coming back in the morning. Mother has brought in the police from Maidenhead, but I heard her tell the chief man that you were too ill to be questioned until the morning. Mother seems to be very angry with you, Lesbia. I wonder why?" "I don't know, dear," said the girl, and indeed she did not. If the names of the thieves were unknown, Lady Charvington could have nothing against her. "But if your mother doesn't want you to speak to me, Agatha, you must go back to bed. When the morning comes I shall see your mother and ask what is the matter." "See father," said Agatha, pattering across the room with bare feet, "he is fond of you: he told me so. Mother is always jealous of anyone father likes and she will only be disagreeable. I waited till Lena was asleep, then came here. But I'll go now," she returned to kiss Lesbia, "good-night, dear, and don't worry. Everything will be right when father comes back." Lesbia thought so also. She had implicit faith in Lord Charvington as his daughter had, and knew that he would understand when he heard the truth. But could she tell him the truth? Could she say that the man to whom he allowed an annuity had crept into the house to steal the jewels? And then Canning had said particularly that the two thieves were the same that had robbed Tait's strong-room by Tait's direction. In that case, her father was doubly a villain, as he was not only a thief, but had tried to throw the blame of the first burglary on George Walker in order to bring about a separation between them. Now he had added a second crime to the first, and had robbed his benefactor and cousin at the very time that his own daughter was a guest in the house. Canning must have known of her father's guilt and so, in his letter--for Lesbia's sake no doubt--had advised that the police should not be brought in. But would Charvington keep the affair quiet when his wife had lost her jewels? And in any case would he not send from the house in anger the daughter of such a villain? It was all terrible, shameful, disgraceful, and poor Lesbia sobbed herself to sleep at the horror of it all. Next morning she could eat no breakfast, but after a cold bath to freshen her up, dressed and sat by the window waiting for Lord Charvington's arrival. At first she was inclined to see her hostess and ask why she behaved so oddly. But the fancy was strong within her, that Lady Charvington in some way must have learned the identity of at least one of the thieves, and so was visiting the shame of the father on the head of the innocent daughter. But then Lesbia could not conjecture if this was true. As Lady Charvington had not entered her bedroom until Hale escaped, she could not have recognised him, and as Hale had escaped the truth would never become known unless Lesbia spoke. This she did not intend to do, unless to Lord Charvington, whom she could trust. She therefore waited patiently. At all events, as she gathered from Agatha's report, whatever Lady Charvington suspected she certainly had not informed the household, in spite of the demeanour of the pert servant. Nevertheless, the very forbidding of the two girls to see Lesbia pointed to doubts and hatred and knowledge of the worst on Lady Charvington's part. As Lesbia sat there looking out on to the beautiful garden with tear-filled eyes, she recalled many circumstances in her father's life which brought home to her forcibly his wicked vocation. The sordid persons who came by stealth to Rose Cottage must have been thieves and fences who received stolen goods. Her father's mysterious actions and frequent absences were accounted for by the fact, for when away he probably had been robbing with his shameful associates. No wonder he had laughed when George had proposed to leave Tait's office and join him in business. And Tait also was a rogue and a scoundrel, belonging to the gang of which Walter Hale was a member. Sargent might be a thief also--but of this Lesbia could not be certain. Nevertheless, she began to suspect that Canning _alias_ The Shadow had something to do with the robberies. That would explain why a gentleman would descend to being a spy. Canning was under Hale's thumb and would have to do what he was told to do. Then she recollected how he had stated that for telling her about Tait's scheme he would have to go into hiding. There could be no doubt about it. Canning belonged to the gang and out of gratitude had betrayed his sordid associates. Thinking thus Lesbia grew sick and faint. The thought of the wickedness that surrounded her made her shiver. How could she expect George to marry her when she was the daughter of a thief? And she would be forced to tell him, since she could not marry him and keep silent upon such an important point. To marry George without telling him the truth would be to place herself in the power of her father. And now knowing what her father was, Lesbia felt certain that to put money into his pocket he would not stop short of blackmail. No, she would have to tell what she had discovered to George and to Lord Charvington, and thus in one moment she would lose the only two friends she possessed. Tim remained and Lesbia knew that, come what might, she could always depend upon the fidelity of the Irishman; she felt sure that Tim was as innocent as herself of this dreadful knowledge which had come to ruin her life. In all wide England there was no more miserable girl than the unfortunate Lesbia, as she sat weeping by the window and bidding farewell to happiness and respectability. Towards noon a message was brought that Lord Charvington wished to see her in the library, and Lesbia after washing away all traces of the bitter tears she had shed descended the stairs. She was pale and worn, but held herself proudly, for whatever might be known, she was determined to face the worst. Several people were in the hall, and she saw a policeman near the door. But no one looked at her in any way suggesting that the terrible truth was known, so Lesbia entered the noble library with a hope that her father had escaped recognition by all save herself. Only two people were in the library, Lord Charvington and his wife. The former was walking to and fro with a worried expression on his kind face, but the latter seated in an arm-chair near the window looked red with anger and apparently had been engaged in a furious argument: "If you don't tell, I shall," she was saying when Lesbia entered. "You shall say nothing," said Lord Charvington sternly. "Hold your tongue as you have done. Hitherto you have displayed sense in keeping silence and in silencing Bertha. Continue to behave and----" "Here's the girl," snapped Lady Charvington, interrupting as Lesbia came silently into the room and closed the door. "Why do you speak of me in that way?" asked Lesbia, up in arms at once. Knowing herself innocent, she did not intend to stand insult. "You will soon learn," retorted the other, curling her lip. "I wonder you are not ashamed of yourself. And after all my kindness too, and my----" "Silence, Helen," said Lord Charvington imperiously. "How dare you talk to Miss Hale so insolently?" "Miss Hale," sneered his wife. "Why not call her Lesbia, as you have done?" "I have every right to; she is my cousin." Lord Charvington made an angry gesture to impose silence on his indignant wife, and turned to the girl who stood pale and motionless. "My poor Lesbia, don't look so woe-begone. I will stand by you whatever my wife may say." "What does she say?" asked Lesbia quietly. "You had better hear her when she is more composed," said Lord Charvington with a glance at his wife, thereby arousing her to fresh fury. "She will probably say something in the heat of the moment for which she will be sorry. Helen, had you not better go and lie down?" Lady Charvington arose with a red spot burning on either cheek, and her eyes glittered like those of an angry cat. "How dare you speak to me like this in my own house, Charvington?" she cried in a shrill voice. "I don't leave this room until you turn that shameless girl out of doors." "What do you mean?" demanded Lesbia indignantly; but with a sinking heart. "Mean," screamed the infuriated woman; "I mean that Bertha heard you calling the masked man who attacked you, 'Father!' And you cannot deny it. See, Charvington," she pointed tauntingly to the agonised girl, "she dare not deny it. Oh you--you daughter of a thief; you accomplice of a thief." "Helen, Helen; be silent." "I shall not be silent. When Bertha told me the truth I ordered her to hold her tongue until you returned, Charvington. I have held my peace myself and neither the police nor the servants nor our friends know that this horrid girl is the daughter of a thief. Why you take such an interest in the minx I don't know, but surely after what we have discovered you will pack her off to gaol." "To gaol; to gaol," Lesbia drew herself up, pale, but fearless. As Lady Charvington hurled her accusations, the girl's spirit rose to defend herself. After all, guilty as her father might be, she at least was innocent. "How dare you speak to me in this way?" she said again. "And how dare you face me, you cat?" snarled Lady Charvington, looking much more like a cat herself. "You arrange with your abominable father to rob me of my jewels, you enter my house to----" Before Lord Charvington could put out his hand to stop her--for he was afraid to think what these two angry women might do--Lesbia glided past him, and stood face to face with her enemy. "You lie," she breathed in such a low, fierce voice that the other woman fell back into her chair with a gasp of fear. "I knew nothing of this. I had no wish to rob you of your jewels." "Yes, you had, and I know why!" "Explain then. I dare you to explain." Lady Charvington cast a swift glance at her husband. "I know what I know." "You know that I am innocent," said Lesbia, clenching her hands; "I dare you to say that I am not." "You are your father's accomplice." "That is untrue," broke in Lord Charvington smoothly, "Lesbia warned me that the jewels would be stolen." "Of course," scoffed his wife triumphantly, "she knew!" "If I had been in league with my father would I have given the warning?" "Yes," said Lady Charvington, rising to confront Lesbia, who had asked the question. "My husband showed me the letter purporting to come from some man in London. It said that the burglary was arranged for Thursday, and by telling my husband that, he thought he might safely leave the house and go to London to engage a detective, while your father robbed the house on Wednesday. It's a well-arranged business." "I don't know why the burglary took place on Wednesday," said Lesbia steadily; "the letter I gave Lord Charvington is perfectly true. I can't explain further than I have done." "Because you can't; because you can't," taunted Lady Charvington, "but you shall leave my house in disgrace." Lord Charvington caught his wife's wrist. "Lesbia shall return to her home this day," he said imperiously, "because I won't have her stopping here to be insulted by you. Bertha will say nothing of what she overheard, as I have forbidden her to speak on the pain of instant dismissal. You also, Helen, shall hold your tongue." "I will do nothing of the sort," breathed Lady Charvington vindictively. "You shall. I will not permit you to ruin an innocent girl. Knowing that Hale has stolen your jewels, I can get them back, and have already communicated with him." "The police----" "The police can do nothing. Hale and his accomplice got away cleverly in their motorcar and cannot be traced. If the jewels are returned intact--which they will be, as I can force Hale to return them--the police will not move further in the matter, as I can stop them. Then this painful episode will be a thing of the past." "I want that girl disgraced as an accomplice," said the elder woman, grinding her teeth and pointing towards Lesbia. Charvington put his arm round Lesbia's waist or she would have fallen. "I shall not allow it, Helen," he said quietly. "Lesbia is innocent. Woman, have you no pity for the poor thing; surely she is suffering enough already, in finding out that her father is a thief." "Her father," jeered Lady Charvington insultingly. "Oh, yes, her father," she moved swiftly towards the library door. "If you get back my jewels I shall hold my tongue, for reasons which you may guess, Charvington. But don't let that creature come near me, or I shall--I shall--oh." Lady Charvington could scarcely contain herself. "How I hate you; hate you. I wish you were dead with all my heart and soul, you--you----" What she was about to say in her furious anger Lesbia could not guess. But whatever it was she never uttered the epithet. Charvington suddenly moved towards his wife and towering above her glared into her eyes. "If you say another word I'll kill you." Lady Charvington quailed. "You are quite capable of doing so," she breathed undauntedly; "I'm not afraid of you. But clear my house of that," and with a jeering laugh, she pointed at the trembling girl and left the room. "What--what does she mean?" gasped Lesbia, sinking into a chair, her courage all gone. "What have I done? How can I help my father--my father--oh Lord Charvington!" and she broke down weeping bitterly. "Hush! hush!" He stood over her, patting her heaving shoulder. "She doesn't know what she is saying. I'll see that she holds her tongue and Bertha also. Nothing will ever be known of your father's complicity in this crime." "But what does it mean?" asked Lesbia, lifting a tear-stained face. "God knows," muttered Charvington moodily, "I have been mistaken in your father, my dear." "But--but you don't blame me?" "No," he declared emphatically, "a thousand times no. My dear, I love you as if you were my own child, and I shall never, never believe any harm of you in any way. I can keep my wife's tongue silent, but I can do no more. You must return to Marlow, until such time as I can arrange further about your marriage with George Walker." "Oh," Lesbia wailed and stretched her arms, "I cannot marry him now. Who would marry the daughter of a thief? Father was one of the thieves who robbed Mr. Tait's strong-room." "At Tait's request remember," interpolated Charvington quickly. Lesbia brushed away the speech. "Oh, what does it matter even if they are all thieves. But George must have known the dreadful truth and so he will not renew our engagement. I did not understand him before; I do now." "There! there!" Charvington patted her shoulder again, "don't worry. All will come right, I am sure, and in a way which you do not expect." Lesbia looked up with sudden hope. "You know of something." "Yes," said the man gloomily. "I know of something. Don't ask me any further questions just now, but go back to Marlow. The motorcar is already at the door with your box on it. As all our other guests have left the house, your departure will cause no surprise." "But the police. Will they not want to question me?" "I'll attend to that. I told the inspector that if necessary he could question you at Rose Cottage. But as I hope to make your father give back the jewels, the prosecution will be dropped. Remember, the police do not know that your father is guilty. Being thus ignorant, they can do nothing. Go away in peace, my dear, and leave everything to me." Lesbia rose shuddering. "How can I go back to my father, knowing what I now know?" she murmured, shivering. "You go back to the cottage," explained Charvington distinctly. "It is my cottage, as I pay the rent; the furniture also is mine. I have supported your father for years and this is the way he repays me. However, the cottage is yours. I promise you that your father will not come near you." "I trust not! I trust not. I could not face him. And you?" "I shall come over and see you shortly. But go away, contented to know that all is well. There will be no scandal, and not a word will be said about this burglary. Your father is safe and you are safe. Later, I shall see about getting your father to go to Australia, and then you can marry Walker." "If he will have me," sighed the unfortunate girl. "Lesbia," Charvington took her face between his two hands and looked into her eyes; "I swear that you shall marry him. There! Let the dead past alone and dream of future happiness," and he kissed her solemnly. CHAPTER XVIII LADY CHARVINGTON'S ACCUSATIONS While Lesbia was thus having so miserable a time, George Walker was living very quietly, sometimes in London, but more often in Medmenham. He carefully avoided all mention of Lesbia's name, and when his mother questioned him regarding his reason for refusing to renew the engagement he declined to explain. Mrs. Walker was much annoyed by what she termed his mule-headedness as, after her visit to Rose Cottage, she was quite willing that Lesbia should become her daughter-in-law. "I cannot understand you, George," said Mrs. Walker to her son during one of their frequent wrangles. "When I objected to this girl, nothing would do but that you must marry her. Now that I have taken a fancy to her, you refuse to have anything to do with her. I never thought a son of mine would blow hot and cold in this silly fashion." "I am not blowing hot or cold," returned George gloomily; he was very, very gloomy in those days and had lost all his light-heartedness. "Lesbia is the only girl in the world that I care to marry. But how can I make her my wife, when I haven't a penny to keep her with?" "That is mere evasion. Things are very little changed from the time you would have married her in the teeth of poverty." "There is this much change, that I have lost my situation with Tait and am now living on my mother, which is the meanest thing a man can do. How then can I renew my engagement with Lesbia?" "Because I wish you to," said Mrs. Walker promptly, and bent her black brows. "I understood you hated her." "Indeed, I never did," she rejoined sharply. "How could I hate anyone whom I had never seen? Don't be a fool, George. I certainly hated her father and I hate him still, for a very good reason, which it does not concern you to know. But after I saw the girl I repented that I had not been to see her before, since you loved her. She is an innocent darling, and I should like no one better for my daughter. It would be unfair to visit the sins of the father on so sweet a child." "Yet if the child wasn't sweet," said George drily, "you would not mind doing so. You are somewhat inconsistent." "I am not so inconsistent as you are," said his mother, skilfully avoiding a reply by carrying the war into hic camp. "What I wish to know is--why do you decline to renew your engagement?" "I have no money and no situation." "That isn't the true reason. "It is the sole reason which I choose to give." "There is no necessity to be rude, George," said Mrs. Walker with great dignity. "Cannot you get another situation?" "Not easily. Tait will give me no references, nor do I care to ask him for any. Situations are hard to get without references." Mrs. Walker clasped her strong, white hands together and frowned. "It is quite absurd that my son and the son of your father should be a mere clerk in the City," she burst out. "Can't you do something better?" "No," replied George gloomily. "I am not clever, and I have not been brought up to any trade." "Trade! Trade! My son in trade." George was sad enough at heart, yet could not forbear smiling at the horror expressed on her countenance. "There is nothing disgraceful in trade," he remarked quietly. "My grandfather Morse was a merchant." "And your grandfather Casterton was an earl," snapped Mrs. Walker. "There's your uncle, the present owner of the title. Why not go to him, and see if he cannot assist you?" "And when I ask him, what excuse can I make?" "He is your uncle: he has every right to assist you." "I fear he might not see things in the same light, mother. Besides I have no qualifications." George paused, then added gloomily: "An out-of-door colonial life would suit me. Give me enough to get to Canada or Australia, mother, and there I can carve my way." "What about me?" asked Mrs. Walker reproachfully. "I would make a home for you beyond the seas and you can come out later." Mrs. Walker shook her head. "I am too old to travel so far," she said grimly, "moreover, I intend to wait until I get the fortune of my sister. She is dead: I am sure from what Walter Hale says that there is no child, so in the end Jabez must give me the fifty thousand pounds. That money would put all things right: your marriage included." "Not with Lesbia," said the young man colouring. "There is no chance of our coming together. Besides, to get the money you must find that cross." "Nothing of the sort," said his mother quickly, "Jabez only requires its production by a possible child, as a means of identification, a very silly idea I call it. But he knows that I am Judith Morse, and so by my father's will inherit, now that my sister is dead." George shook his head doggedly. "I believe that you will never get the fortune until that cross is found." "Then find it." "I can't. I have tried my best to learn who assaulted me and robbed this cottage, but I am still in the dark." This ended the conversation for the time being. But as the days went by Mrs. Walker still continued to express her disgust at George's obstinacy regarding Lesbia. She knew that he still loved the girl, and could not think why he should refuse to renew the engagement in the face of Lesbia's letter. Of course the excuse of having no situation was rubbish, so Mrs. Walker decided, as Lesbia was willing to marry him without one penny. If he truly loved her, as she did him, poverty would be no bar. When was poverty ever a bar to the union of two young hearts? Even admitting that George wanted to provide a home before renewing the engagement, he surely could have seen Lesbia and explained his reasons for behaving as he was doing. But he never went near Marlow, and refused to mention her name. As Mrs. Walker, being as obstinate as her son, insisted on discussing his unfortunate love affair, and wrangling over the same, George took to remaining for days in London on the plea that he was looking for work. Time thus passed very miserably for the grim widow. One day George came down with the news that he had received a note from Lord Charvington, asking him to call at The Court, Maidenhead. Why he should wish to see him George could not guess, as he had never met him. But in the letter Charvington said that he had been a friend of Aylmer Walker, and so desired the interview. Mrs. Walker was also puzzled. She was well acquainted with Lord Charvington, but after her scampish husband's death she had kept away from the former society she frequented, on account of her poverty. All the same, she advised George to keep the appointment, which was made for the next day, if only to hear what Charvington had to talk about. It was strange, a coincidence in fact, that Lady Charvington's motor should stop on the afternoon of that very day at the gate of the Medmenham cottage. Never before to George's knowledge had his mother mentioned Lord Charvington's name, yet on the very day when it was on her lips, because of the letter, the wife of the nobleman arrived to pay a visit. Why she should do so was not quite clear, and Mrs. Walker entered the drawing-room with a frown. She and her sister Kate had been school-girls together, and she had never approved of the lady. Her greeting was very cold. "How are you, Helen?" she said, extending the tips of her fingers. "It is a surprise to see you in my humble abode." "I would have called before, only I knew that you did not wish to see me, Judith," said Lady Charvington, sinking gracefully into the nearest arm-chair; "but I have come on business." Mrs. Walker sat also, and folded her hands on the lap of her black dress with her usual grim smile. "Of course, I knew that you would not waste your valuable time in coming for nothing. But what business you can have with me I fail to see. We were never good friends, and you positively hated Kate because she was prettier than you." "She never was," said Lady Charvington hotly, and glanced in the silver-framed hand-mirror, which stood on the table at her elbow. "Kate had not my complexion, nor my hair." "Nor your nasty temper," snapped Mrs. Walker, who felt extremely nasty herself; "but I don't know why we should talk of good looks at our age." "I am not old, Judith: you are older than I am." "Quite so, and I wear ever so much better. You look twice your age." Lady Charvington made a face. "You were always a disagreeable girl," she pouted, "I daresay I am growing no younger, but you need not tell me so. As to my looks, if you were as worried as I am, you would not look your best either. So I--who is that?" she inquired as George, ignorant that his mother had a visitor, tapped at the French window of the drawing-room. "My son George," said Mrs. Walker, rising to admit him. "Oh!" cried Lady Charvington vivaciously. "Lesbia's George." "My son, Lady Charvington," said Mrs. Walker, introducing the pair. "George, this is an old friend of mine." Lady Charvington looked at the splendidly handsome young man and secretly envied her hostess. Neither of her children was so good-looking, and moreover, what she always regretted, she had provided no heir to the title. "So you are Lesbia's George," she said again, not offering her hand, but putting up her lorgnette. "Well, the girl has taste." George coloured under her impertinent gaze and at the sudden mention of Lesbia. He no more expected Lady Charvington to mention the girl than he had expected she would arrive on the very day when her name had first been mentioned in the cottage--that is, her husband's name. "What do you know of Lesbia, Lady Charvington?" he asked, taking a chair. She gave an artificial laugh. "Nothing very creditable." The young man started and grew an angry red. Mrs. Walker frowned, and making a sign that her son should be silent, spoke for him. "What do you mean by running down the girl, Helen? Let me tell you that Lesbia's name must be mentioned in this house only with respect." "Oh, I know that she loves your son, and that he loves her--unfortunately." "Why so?" asked George very directly, and still red with anger. He was beginning to dislike this pretty, perfumed, dainty woman, who looked as frivolous as his mother was stately. "Because she is, I shrewdly suspect, a--a----" Lady Charvington hesitated, for the young man looked so angry, and Mrs. Walker so grim, that she feared to bring out the hateful word. "Well, the fact is," she rattled on, "I have lost an amethyst cross, and I believe this Lesbia Hale has taken it." "An amethyst cross," repeated George, astonished, too much so in fact to repel the accusation against Lesbia with the promptitude he wished. "A cross consisting of four amethyst stones with a green cube of malachite in the centre bearing a crown, and inscribed 'Refuse and Lose'?" "Yes." Lady Charvington was astonished. "Do you know it?" "Of course I do. It belongs to me." "To you. Impossible. It is, as I believe the property of Lord Charvington, and was stolen with other jewels from The Court a few days ago." "But how did it get to The Court--how did it come into your possession?" "It came into my possession a few weeks ago. I entered the library during my husband's absence and found this cross on his table. Wondering why he had such a jewel, and thinking that he had bought it for me, I took it to my room. Charvington went away before I could speak to him about it and never made any inquiries--strange to say--as to its being taken away, I placed it in my jewel case, and forgot all about it. Then my case was stolen by two London thieves a few days ago, and the cross also." "You declared that Lesbia stole it," said Mrs. Walker grimly, "and now you say that two thieves----" "Lesbia was in league with them." George sprang to his feet. "That's wholly false, Lady Charvington. That is----" he became aware of his rudeness and stammered, "you--you must be mistaken." "I am never mistaken," said the visitor in icy tones. "Your son has not very good manners, Judith." "They are my manners," said Mrs. Walker fiercely, "and don't you find fault with them. He has only said what I intended to say, only more politely." Before Lady Charvington could snap out a reply, George, now very pale, intervened. "Perhaps, madam, you will explain upon what grounds you base this charge against Miss Hale." "Oh, certainly," rejoined Lady Charvington sharply, "the whole world might know what I have to say, and the whole world would," she added spitefully, "only my husband, who seems to have taken a fancy to this girl, has hushed up the matter." "He has more sense than you have," muttered Mrs. Walker, "badly as he treated----" she checked herself with a side glance at George, "but that is neither here nor there. Go on, Helen, and explain." Lady Charvington, in order to make George writhe--for she saw that he loved Lesbia deeply, and resented the fact--was only too ready to give details of the robbery at The Court with all the venom of which her very bitter tongue was capable. She related everything that had happened from the hour of Lesbia's arrival, to the moment of her departure. "And in disgrace," ended the lady exultingly, "certainly private disgrace, since for some silly reason Charvington made me hold my tongue, but disgrace nevertheless. Now what do you think?" "Think"--George, standing with a white face and clenched hands, took the words out of his mother's mouth--"I think that you are a very wicked woman, Lady Charvington. Lesbia is as innocent as a dove." "I know nothing of the morals of doves," retorted Lady Charvington coolly, "but you seem to forget that I stated how this girl's father was one of the thieves. Who the other one was I can't say, but Lesbia certainly recognised her father. Bertha, my maid, heard her exclamation, while she was lying half stunned on the floor." "I am not astonished," said Mrs. Walker bitterly. "Walter Hale is capable of all things, although I did not know that he would descend quite so low. I never liked him as you did, Helen." "Leave the past alone," said Lady Charvington with an angry gesture; "but you can see that this Lesbia creature was her father's accomplice." "Speak more respectfully of Lesbia if you please," said George in a cold white fury. "She is perfectly innocent, and knew no more of her father's wickedness than----" "Than you did, I suppose." "You are wrong. I knew some weeks ago, that Walter Hale had to do with a gang of thieves." "George," cried his mother aghast; "you never told me." "There was no need to," he said quickly, "I know that Hale, acting by Tait's orders, stole the jewels from----" "Was this why you broke your engagement with Lesbia, or rather why you would not renew it?" "That was the reason," said George awkwardly. Mrs. Walker stood up sternly. "Then you believe that Lesbia is an accomplice." "No, I don't. My reason is different." "You refuse to marry the daughter of a thief perhaps," said Lady Charvington mockingly. "I do not. My reason--never mind. I can explain my reason to Lesbia when I see her," said George, standing very straight and looking very determined. "You intend to see her, then?" asked his mother. "This very evening." "I shall come also," said Mrs. Walker quickly. "If that is so," drawled Lady Charvington, "perhaps you will ask her what she has done with the cross." "She has not got it," cried George. "How can she have it when you declared that her father stole it and----" "Oh," Lady Charvington laughed cruelly, "I daresay her father gave her the amethyst cross, as her share of the plunder." "Helen, hold your bitter tongue," cried Mrs. Walker wrathfully. "If you speak of Lesbia in that way, or dare to smirch her fair fame," said George very deliberately, "I shall make it my business to make things unpleasant all round." "As how?" asked Lady Charvington, putting up her lorgnette. "To-morrow I am to see Lord Charvington by appointment----" "I was not aware that you knew my husband." "I do not, but he wrote to me, and I am to see him." "Ah!" drawled Lady Charvington coolly, "perhaps knowing that you love this wretched girl my husband intends to arrange that you shall marry her and take her out of the country." The young man restrained his anger by a violent effort. "Perhaps you are correct, madam," he said in a thick voice and breathing hard. "But I shall also ask Lord Charvington how the cross came to be in his possession." "No!" Lady Charvington shrieked and seemed much perturbed. "You must not do that." "Madam," said George in a stately manner and following up his advantage, "I am the owner of that cross, which was given to me by Miss Hale. I was assaulted on the towing-path so that I might be robbed of it. As the thief did not find it on my person he burgled this cottage and took it from my room. I have every right to ask Lord Charvington how he became possessed of it." The visitor rose with rather a pale face but quite composed, and shook perfume from her costly draperies as she gathered up her belongings to depart. "Things are bad for Lesbia Hale as it is," she said composedly. "I advise you to ask no questions of my husband, or he may withdraw his protection from her. If he does, she is disgraced, publicly." "I don't believe it," said Mrs. Walker, crossing to the window and opening it. "You can leave my cottage by this way, Helen, and the sooner the better." Lady Charvington swept towards the French window with a careless laugh, obviously forced. "I am only too willing to go," she declared. "I only came over to ask you to question Lesbia Hale as to what she has done with my amethyst cross." "Mine, pardon me," said George firmly, as he held the window open, "and you may be sure that I shall marry Lesbia and protect Lesbia even against you who seem to hate her, Heaven only knows why." "Your mother knows," sneered Lady Charvington. "Well, do what you like, only remember that I have warned you!" and with these ominous words she took her welcome departure. "What is next to be done?" asked Mrs. Walker, when the motor hummed away. "We must see Lesbia," said George firmly. "What has been said brings us together at last." CHAPTER XIX MR. HALE EXPLAINS When Lesbia returned to Rose Cottage, after her unlucky visit to The Court, she found that her father had never been near the place. Tim, who was alone in the house when she arrived, explained that Hale had gone to London within an hour of Lesbia's departure with Lady Charvington in the motor car. There was nothing in this to surprise the little Irishman, as Hale's comings and goings were always more or less abrupt. But he was amazed and startled when he heard what Lesbia had to tell; the revelation being occasioned by Tim's distressed remark on the girl's pallor. "Ah now, Miss, an' what hey ye bin doin' wid yer purty silf at all, at all? Sure the face av ye's as white as a carpse." Lesbia burst into tears. "Oh Tim, I sometimes wish that I was one, for I feel so very miserable. George will have nothing to do with me; Lady Charvington hates me, and my father, my father----" "Phwat av him?" asked Tim anxiously. "Can't you guess?" asked Lesbia, drying her eyes, and wondering how much or how little the man knew of Hale's rascalities. Tim's face remained passive, but he could not keep a certain amount of anxiety out of his eyes. "Sure, the masther isn't a good man," he said in a hesitating manner, "he trates ye like a brute baste, Miss." "It's worse than that," sobbed Lesbia, breaking down again. The servant changed colour and raised his hands in mute despair. When he did find his voice, it was to ask a leading question. "An' how much do ye know, me dear?" "I know that my father is a thief." "Augh! the shame av it," muttered Tim, but did not contradict. Lesbia noticed that he was less surprised than he should have been. "You knew that." "Mary be good to us all!" said Tim sadly. "But I know a mighty lot I'd rather not know, me dear. But are ye sure, Miss?" Lesbia sat up, dried her eyes, and detailed all that had happened. Tim listened in dismayed silence with his sad eyes on her pale face, and she heard him grind his teeth when it came to an account of Lady Charvington's accusation. When she ended he still kept silence. "What do you think of it all, Tim?" asked his mistress, anxious to hear what he had to say. "It's black lies that woman spakes," cried Tim vehemently. "Ye nivir knew av the masther's wrongdoin'." "Did you, Tim?" "I knew a trifle, an' guessed a mighty lot. Nivir ask me, miss, phwat I know till his lardship--an' sure he's a good man--spakes the wurrd. But I know wan thing, me dear heart, that the blackest clouds have the blissid sun behint thim." "There is no sun behind these clouds," said Lesbia, sighing. "An' there yer wrong, Miss," said Tim briskly. "Sure, whin them clouds do let the blissid sun sind out th' light av him, ye'll foind pace an' happiness an' joy galore. Lave things to his lardship. The crass began the throuble, an' the crass will end that same." "Tim! Tim, what do you know about the cross?" "Ah, nivir ask me phwat I know," croaked Tim again. "There's whales within whales, me dear, an' me mouth's bin saled fur many a year. But whin his lardship spakes I spake, and thin ye'll be as happy as thim who dwell in Tirnanoge." "What's that, Tim?" "The land av youth where ye and Masther Garge shud be, an' will be, whin the blissid saints in glory let ye come into ye'r own." And after delivering himself of this agreeable prophecy, Tim shuffled away to prepare dinner. Lesbia was much astonished at the hints thus given, and also much perplexed. Tim seemed to know of the significance of the amethyst cross, of the rascality of her father, and also he appeared to know about Lord Charvington as a possible _deus ex machina_, who would make the crooked quite straight. Later in the evening she questioned the little man persistently, but Tim, as wily as an otter, evaded a direct reply, only insisting that everything would come right in a most unexpected way. With this Lesbia would scarcely have been content, but that her attention was taken away from the future to deal with the present. Urged by Tim, and now feeling more hopeful as she recalled Charvington's promise to stand by her, Lesbia made a moderately good dinner. While Tim was washing up in the kitchen, she sat near the window of the tiny parlour reading the first book that came to hand. But the pages did not interest her and, moreover, it soon grew too dark to read without lights. Lesbia did not call for these, as she liked the pensive twilight, and so dreamed of George and future happiness in the gloaming. There was just light enough to see across the room, so she started with surprise and indignation when she saw her father suddenly appear in the doorway. He looked much the same as usual, but then the light was not strong enough to permit her to see the shame which must certainly have appeared on his face. "Why have you come here?" asked Lesbia, rising indignantly. "I have assuredly a right to enter my own house," retorted her father. "It is not your house," she replied boldly. "Lord Charvington told me that it belonged to him, and declared that you would come here no more." "Ah!" Hale lounged into the room, and dropped with a sigh of fatigue into a chair. "Charvington proposed more than he could perform; he always did." "How did you come in?" "By the back door, which was open. I rowed up from Cookham." "You can't stop here," said Lesbia firmly. "You can't prevent me," said her father, with a sneer. "I can leave the house, and I will." "Where will you go?" "To Mrs. Walker; she will protect me. I will throw myself on her mercy. But I refuse to remain under the same roof as you." Hale winced at the scorn in her tones. "You seem to forget that you are speaking to your father," he said in an icy manner. "God help me!" cried the girl, with a gesture of despair; "I wish I could forget. You have brought shame upon me." "Oh, rubbish," said Hale crossly. "I received a letter from Charvington in London just before I came down to Cookham which stated that if I restored the jewels everything would be hushed up." "And you will do so?" "I have to," said Hale grudgingly. "It's an infernal nuisance after all my trouble, but Charvington says that he will set the police on my track if I don't act square. I shall return the jewels to-morrow, and then everything will be put right. There is no disgrace to you." "Isn't there?" said Lesbia, with a bitter laugh. "You appear to have forgotten that Bertha, the maid, heard my recognition of you, and told her mistress. Lady Charvington accused me of being your accomplice, and but that our cousin made her hold her tongue and silenced the maid, I should have been arrested as knowing your rogueries and sharing in them." Hale muttered an oath between his teeth. "Upon my word that's too bad," he said half apologetically. "The woman had no right to speak of you in that way, as you are as innocent as a babe. However, if Charvington has hushed that up also, there is no harm done." "Father," cried Lesbia, moving forward to confront him, "can you think that I will consent to live with you, now that I know of your wickedness?" "What do you know, other than that I took Lady Charvington's jewels?" asked her father, defiantly. "I know that you stole Mr. Tait's jewels by his direction." "Who dares to say that?" demanded Hale, starting fiercely to his feet. "Mr. Canning----" "Mister," sneered Hale, savagely, "since when has he earned such respect." "Mr. Canning is a gentleman and Captain Sargent's brother," said Lesbia in calm, easy tones. Now that she had come to close grips with her father she felt singularly cool. Hale muttered a second oath. "I knew that The Shadow had betrayed us," he said ominously; "well, he shall pay for his treachery. His silly gratitude to you for nursing him has made him dishonourable to us." "Dishonourable!" cried Lesbia, scornfully. "Why not?" scoffed her father, "There is honour amongst thieves." "And _you_ are a thief." "I am," said Hale, shamelessly. "I was driven to such courses because I wanted money. You may as well know the worst, for I----" "Oh!" Lesbia threw up her hand, feeling sick at heart. "Don't tell me any more. Leave this house and never see me again." Hale settled himself firmly in his chair. "I will do nothing of the sort," he declared; "this is my house, whatever Charvington may say. Here I am and here I rest. There's a French soldier's saying for you," he sneered. "Oh," Lesbia sighed as she looked up, "will nothing make this man ashamed?" "Nothing!" Hale put his legs up on another chair, "absolutely nothing." At this moment there came a sharp ring of the front door bell. Hale started to his feet with an ejaculation, and Lesbia could guess that his shameless face had turned white in the shadowy twilight. Apparently he expected the police, as she gathered from his broken mutterings. "But it is impossible," he breathed, clenching his hands; "Charvington said that he would say nothing if the jewels were sent back. I shall send them to-morrow, and if there is a--ah!" The two listening in the half-dark room heard Tim shuffle along the narrow passage and open the door. A moment later and Mrs. Walker's voice, cold and haughty, struck on their ears. Hale wiped his face and heaved a sigh of relief. "Don't betray me to that woman," he whispered. "I shall not," said Lesbia, quietly, "after all, bad as you are, I cannot forget that you are my father." Even as the last word dropped from her mouth, the door opened and Mrs. Walker was ushered into the room. Behind her came Tim bearing high a lamp to light her way. The radiance revealed Lesbia white and shrinking and the defiant face of Walter Hale. "The masther, howly saints!" muttered Tim, setting down the lamp; then he addressed Lesbia, quietly: "Will I bring more lights, Miss, av ye plase?" "No thank you, Tim, this lamp will be enough. Shut the door." Without a single glance at his master, Tim departed and left the trio together. Mrs. Walker, standing just within the room, had said nothing. Only when the door was closed did she speak. "I did not expect to find you here, Mr. Hale," she said with contempt and scarcely concealed surprise. "And where should I be, save in my own house?" he asked, lightly. "In gaol," she snapped, "and there you would be, had I my way." Hale raised his eyebrows. "I do not understand," he remarked, coolly. "Yes, you do, and you will understand completely when I tell you that Lady Charvington came to see me to-day." Hale uttered an exclamation of rage and vexation. "Yes, you may well swear, for she told both George and myself about the robbery at The Court. What do you say to that, you detected scoundrel?" she asked, sternly. "Hush!" he muttered, gruffly, "my daughter is present." "I am glad she is, I want her to know what you are." "I do know," faltered Lesbia, weakly, "and oh!"--she covered her face to sink in a passion of tears on the sofa--"it is shameful: shameful." Mrs. Walker looked at Hale, still defiant and hard-faced. "I would have spared you this for the girl's sake," she breathed, "but she caught you red-handed, so there is nothing to conceal." With a stern look at him, she glided to the sofa and took the shrinking, fragile form of the unhappy girl in her strong arms: "Lesbia, my love," she said tenderly, and the change in her voice was extraordinary, "I have come to stand by you. That man is not fit to have charge of you. Come with me, to-night, to Medmenham." "Oh no--no--George----" "George knows all that you know, that I know. He was present when Lady Charvington came to tell us of what had taken place." "And George despises me," wept Lesbia, burying her face in Mrs. Walker's bosom. "Don't be ridiculous, child, don't be foolish. How can he despise you when you are innocent and he loves you?" "Loves me--loves me," Lesbia looked up startled; "but he refused to renew our engagement although I abased myself to the dust to regain him." "I think George will be able to explain why he acted in that way," she whispered. "In a few minutes you will meet George under the chestnut tree where he proposed to you. It's an idea of his that he should explain himself there and there renew the engagement. We both arranged to come here to-night and were to drive over. But at the last moment George took to his boat and is now rowing down the river to meet you under the trysting-tree. I drove over." "Oh!" Lesbia sat up, smiles breaking through her tears. This was a gleam of sunshine indeed. "George is coming back." "He will hold you in his arms very shortly," said Mrs. Walker, her hard face becoming strangely tender. "You poor dear child, how cruelly you have been treated. But the worst is over: you shall marry my George and be happy." "Indeed," said Hale in an acrid, thin voice. "I am not to be consulted then?" Mrs. Walker placed Lesbia tenderly back on the sofa and arranged the cushion. Then she turned, hard and harsh once more to the delinquent. "You are not to be consulted about Lesbia," she said calmly, "as you are unfit to have anything to do with her. But I have come to consult you about the amethyst cross." "I know nothing about it," said Hale, starting and biting his nether lip. "That's a lie," said Mrs. Walker fiercely. "Lady Charvington found the cross in her husband's library, where he had left it, and thinking that he had bought it for her, placed it in her jewel-case. As you stole the case you must have the cross. Give it to me at once. I want it." "I know nothing about it," said Hale doggedly and raising his heavy eyes, "you are wrong--the cross was not with the jewels. I shall send them back to Lord Charvington to-morrow, as only by my restoring them will he agree not to prosecute. Charvington will show you the case, and you will see that there is no cross amongst them." "I quite believe that," said Mrs. Walker, scornfully, "because you intend to keep it back. What use it is to you I can't say, as in no way can you obtain my sister's money." Hale scowled and, stretching out his legs, slipped his hands into his pockets. He was perfectly dressed as usual in a cool tweed suit, and looked in the half light a very handsome and presentable man. No one would have taken him for a sordid thief. "I have not the cross," was all he could say, "it was not with the jewels. I don't know where it is." "Lord Charvington----" "If he had it in his library he must have robbed your cottage to get it, and also must have assaulted your son. I wonder you can stand that," said Hale with a sneer, "especially since you have a score against the man as it is. But then you are so forgiving." "You will not find me so," said Mrs. Walker caustically. "As to Charvington, I believe he was more sinned against than sinning. I shall speak of that when we meet. As it is, my feelings towards him have relented so far as to permit my son to see him to-morrow." "What!" asked Lesbia, who had sat quietly during this passage of arms, "is George going over to The Court?" "Yes. Lord Charvington sent him a message asking him to call. What he wishes to see him about I cannot guess." "I know: I know," cried the girl joyfully. "I told him about George and how George had lost his situation through a false accusation. Lord Charvington said that he would see George and get him something to do, so that we might marry." "Oh that's it, is it?" said Mrs. Walker, smiling and smoothing the girl's hair. "Will you let your son accept favours from Charvington?" asked Hale sneeringly, "from the man who----" "That is quite enough," said Mrs. Walker, imperiously. "I will have an explanation with Lord Charvington. I believe from the bottom of my heart that you were the cause of all the trouble between us. But it strikes me," Mrs. Walker gathered her mantle round her and sat with folded arms like a grim and pitiless Fate, "that you are nearing the end, Mr. Walter Hale. Destiny has been kind to you so far: she will be kind no longer. I see," Mrs. Walker stared at Hale's twitching face; "I see imprisonment: I see death: I see----" "Oh damn your Witch of Endor rubbish," shouted Hale, jumping to his feet with the perspiration beading his brow, for he was impressed by the absolute conviction with which she spoke. "You talk nonsense, infernal nonsense. And see here, you shall not interfere between my daughter and----" "I will do as I please and so shall Lesbia," said Mrs. Walker, interrupting the vehement speech. "You forget that you are only at large because of Lord Charvington's refusal to prosecute. If you meddle with this marriage as you have done, he will lay you by the heels. Yes, you and your gang." "My gang?" Hale swallowed something and laughed uneasily, "my gang?" "You and Tait and Maud Ellis and Sargent and that miserable opium-smoking brother of his. You are all rogues and thieves and----" "You can prove nothing of all this," interrupted Hale, now quite livid. "George can," said Mrs. Walker nodding significantly. "He has seen the man Canning, whom you call The Shadow, although his real name is Arthur Sargent." "Oh!" Lesbia rose quickly, "Has Mr. Canning seen George?" "Yes, and he has told much which your precious father would like to be hidden," said Mrs. Walker quietly. Hale laughed and wiped his brow. "All the same," he said, wetting his dry lips, "I am Lesbia's father after all. If you disgrace me, you disgrace her, so I am quite safe." "That is right, hide behind a woman's petticoats," said Mrs. Walker bitterly, "it was always your custom. Now you come with me," she rose. "I have something to say to you and it must be said out of doors. Lesbia, go into the garden and see George." "I'll come," said Hale promptly enough, "I am not afraid of arrest; I know too much. After you, madam," and he held the door open mockingly. CHAPTER XX JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS MEETING Ordinarily speaking Lesbia would have anxiously awaited the conclusion of Mrs. Walker's out-of-door interview with her father. But when she saw them stroll away in the moonlight, she suddenly remembered that George was waiting in the garden to explain. Probably the interview asked by Mrs. Walker had merely been an excuse to get Hale out of the way so that he might not interrupt the lovers' meeting, as he assuredly would do if left to his own marplot devices. Lesbia, therefore, saw that it was foolish to waste the golden hour, when it had been so propitiously brought about. Closing the front door, she ran rapidly along the passage into the garden and sped lightly down the grass-grown path. In another minute she was under the tree and in George's arms. The night was lovely with moonlight and radiant with stars. In the neglected garden roses red and white and yellow breathed fragrance into the still, warm air of summer. There was not a breath of wind and the ripples on the broad river were only formed by the smoothly-flowing current. It murmured softly between the green banks and was an accompaniment to the occasional song of the nightingales, which spoke one to the other in the garden and across the river. At the dawn of love, the blackbird had fluted his song of joy, when the sky was blue and the sunshine was glorious. Now the sleeping world was bathed mysteriously in silver under a starry dome, and the nightingale sang a diviner song. Through much sorrow had they come to a better understanding of love, and the liquid notes of the immortal bird alone could interpret the nobler feelings which trouble had begotten. In George's arms lay Lesbia, safe at last in the haven of love, and the night sent upon them a benediction in the song of the bird. "But you have been very, very cruel," said Lesbia softly. Woman-like she was the first to find her tongue. "I might say the same of you, dear," whispered George, sitting down and gathering her closer in his arms, "but neither of us was cruel. Circumstances are to blame." Lesbia, knowing that there was no period to the golden hour now that her father was out of the way, settled herself comfortably for a long talk. She had much to tell and much to ask, and before the rapture of love's silence could be renewed there was much to explain. "I know that I behaved very badly," she whispered penitently, "but I could not help it. Unless I had broken our engagement, my father told me that Maud Ellis would denounce you as a thief." "I understand, dearest; but you did not believe that I was guilty?" "No," Lesbia pressed her cheek against his, "of course I didn't: but if I had not been cruel I should not have been kind. I could not risk Maud's accusing you publicly. But perhaps," added the girl, hopefully, "she would not have done so, and I was weak to be so cajoled by her and by my father." "I think you acted wisely," said George, after a pause. "Maud led me into a trap and certainly would not have let me out again until I agreed to marry her, or at least until you gave me up. You did so and she was content for the time being. She could part us, my sweet, but she could not make me false to you." "I knew it, in spite of your cruel letter." "It was as cruel as yours, Lesbia, so we can cry quits on that score. I know that you learned the truth through Canning. He explained to me, and spoke very gratefully of your kindness to him in his illness." "How did you meet him, George?" "He met me. That is, he wrote to me at Medmenham asking me to see him in the City as he had something important to tell me. We met in a Mecca." "A Mecca?" "One of those underground coffee-rooms in London City, dear. There Canning, or rather Sargent as he really is, explained." "He told you who he was?" "Yes! And he told me also that Tait was connected with a gang of thieves, two members of which had robbed Tait's strong-room with his connivance. Tait thus got the insurance money in addition to the jewels which he sold on the Continent. He made about forty thousand pounds over the deal and, after paying his accomplices, had enough left to avert a financial crisis, which was the reason for the robbery." "Did you know then that my father was a thief?" asked Lesbia, shuddering. "Of course not." "I thought you did know, and for that reason had thrown me over." "Lesbia," George said vehemently, and pressed her so strongly to his breast that she almost cried out with the delicious pain; "how can you think so meanly of me? Were you the daughter of a murderer I should marry you. It is you whom I love, my dearest, and not all the fathers and crimes in the world will ever separate us." "Yet something parted us for a time." "Your letter." "That at first," acknowledged Lesbia, sighing at the memory of what she had been forced to write, "then yours. Oh, George, when I made it plain that Maud--the horrid girl--could do nothing, why didn't you come back to me?" "Because Maud was too clever. Finding out that she could not accuse me, since Canning could prove my innocence, Maud played a bold game and told me that your father had robbed Tait's strong-room. She swore that if I did not write to you, as you had written to me, she would denounce Mr. Hale and have him put in prison. Lesbia," George suddenly slipped from the seat and knelt at the girl's feet holding her hands tightly, "what could I do in the circumstances but write as Maud dictated? I did not dare to let her bring this shame on you." "But you could have explained your reason?" "No, dear, no. Maud was too smart for that. She insisted that I should give no explanation, hoping that out of pique you would throw me over and marry Sargent as your father desired. He was in the plot also. I had to let things stand, as I was helpless; but I trusted that your heart would guess the truth. I was always true to you; I have always been. But you no doubt thought me false from that letter, as I thought you heartless from the way in which you wrote. Now I can see, you can see, that neither one of us is to blame. We were the sport of circumstances." Lesbia bent and kissed his yellow hair. "I understand now," she said softly, "but, oh George, how could Maud Ellis or my father think that I would marry Captain Sargent, a mere apology for a man, and hardly that even?" "They hoped to work on your feelings; to wear you out, my dear. But had you become engaged to that dandy scoundrel I should have stopped any possible marriage by denouncing Sargent as a member of Tait's gang." "Is he, George?" asked Lesbia quickly, and she remembered what Mrs. Walker had said in the drawing-room. "Yes! Canning--his brother, you know--did not tell me everything, but he revealed a great deal. Sargent is in society and poses as a man of good family living on his fortune. He is well-born, but he has no money save what he obtains by theft." Lesbia shuddered, "How horrible; how sordid. And my father?" her voice sank. "He is in the swim also, so are Maud Ellis and Tait. Indeed, I believe that Tait is the head of the whole infernal business. But that I knew your father was in with the lot and that I wished to spare you, I would have gone to the police at once." "Oh!" Lesbia's tears dropped on her lover's hand, "how dreadful it all is." George knelt before her and drew her head down on his shoulder. "There, there, dear!" he said, gently drying her eyes, "don't worry; we'll be married soon, and then you will be taken away from this terrible life." "Tim also," murmured Lesbia tearfully, "I can't leave Tim behind." "Of course he'll come too," said George cheerily, "I don't believe that he knew anything of the rascality that was going on." "I think he did," said Lesbia doubtfully, "not that he is wicked himself. But he knew and, I believe, held his dear tongue for my sake." "Tim would do anything for you, darling, in the same way as Canning would." "Poor Mr. Canning--I mean Mr. Sargent." "No, don't call him by his real name; he wishes to be known simply as Canning--The Shadow. He belongs to the gang and so does that Mrs. Petty who was set to watch you." "A dreadful woman," said Lesbia, nestling, "how I disliked her. But I am sorry that Mr. Canning is wicked, George. He has been so kind." "Kindness begets kindness," said Walker sententiously, "and I don't think Canning is so very wicked. He has been unlucky all his life and drifted from bad to worse until he took to smoking opium. That finished him, and he was on the streets when his brother--who always kept his head, in spite of his silly looks--took him up, and made him his servant. Canning does a lot of the dirty work of the gang, and did not denounce them as he would only be thrown again on the world. Also the gang would certainly do him harm if the fact of his betraying them became known." "And it is known, George. I am sure of it; because Mr. Canning told me to mention his name to Maud Ellis. If she is a member of the gang, she must have told the rest about the betrayal." "I daresay that is why Canning went into hiding," said George thoughtfully; "however, all we can do is to leave him to deal with the matter. For your sake I can say nothing since your father----" "George," Lesbia sat up and placed her hands on his shoulders, as he knelt at her feet, "your mother told me that you were going to see Lord Charvington to-morrow." Walker nodded. "It is true, though I don't know what he wishes to see me about. I don't know him; I never met him." "I have met him, and I know him," said Lesbia eagerly, "and he is the kindest and best man in the world. He wants to help us, George, and to get you something to do so that we may marry. Now you must ask him to advance you money to go to Australia or Canada, and we can marry before we go. Then we can start a new life." "I suggested something of that sort to my mother, but she was averse from leaving England. Still, she may change her mind." "She must, and she can come also," said Lesbia vehemently. "Oh, George, don't you see that I cannot remain in England? Even if my father escapes this time, as he will, because Lord Charvington is so kind, he is sure to be found out some day. Then think of the disgrace. I should always be unhappy thinking of what might happen. No, George, if you love me, let us marry and place the ocean between this miserable old life and the happy new one which we are sure to have together. Say yes, dear George, say yes." "I do, I do. I think your idea is excellent, and you must persuade my mother to act in this way. To-morrow I shall suggest our plan to Lord Charvington. I daresay he will give us enough to go away with and then I shall soon earn enough to pay him back. Yes, dear," George rose, looking tall and stalwart in the moonlight, "we shall begin a new life together and leave all this wickedness behind us." Lesbia rose also and clung to her tall lover like an ivy to an oak. "I believe that everything will come right at last," she declared joyfully, "as Tim says it will. Only he added that the cross began it and the cross must end it, whatever that may mean." George shook his head. "I can't explain the cross," he said doubtfully, "it is all very mysterious. Lord Charvington had it in his possession according to his wife. And yet I cannot think that Charvington would commit a burglary. He," George smiled broadly, "cannot possibly belong to the gang. However, it was stolen with the jewels, so your father----" "He has not got it, George. He told your mother that he had not got it." "Then either your father or Lady Charvington is telling a lie. However, I shall learn the truth when I see him to-morrow. And now, dear, you must go in, as it grows late." "No," said Lesbia, petulantly. "I have to wait here until your mother comes to us. She went out to talk with my father. George," she added, after a pause, "I wonder what your mother knows about my father." "Nothing very good, you may be certain," said Walker grimly. "She must know him as a very clever rogue. By the way, Lesbia, do you know how your father and Sargent escaped discovery when they robbed Tait's strong-room." "Was Captain Sargent the other--thief?" said Lesbia, shivering at the horrible sound of the word. "Yes. He and your father arranged with Tait. Maud knew of the arrangement and used it to inveigle me into a trap. Her chloroform business was all a fake, if you will forgive the slang. Tait gave the key and the two simply opened the strong-room and cleared with the jewels. When I pursued them they dodged into the wood round the house, and then entered the house again by a door which they had left open. Then, after putting away the jewels in Tait's own private room, they came down and joined the other guests in the search. Very clever of them, wasn't it, dear?" "Oh, don't, don't!" cried Lesbia, catching his hand and looking white and wan. "It's so terrible to think that my own father should do this. Why have I such a father?" she asked, raising her eyes in despair to the moon. "What have I done to have such a father?" "Hush, hush, dear," George pressed her to him. "Think no more of him. He is not worthy of you." "He was never affectionate to me," sobbed Lesbia, whose nerves were quite unstrung, as might have been expected after what she had undergone. "We never understood each other. I was never drawn to him. Why, oh, why?" George caught the hands she was wringing, firmly in his warm, kind clasp. "My dearest, listen to me," he said softly. "You have been unhappy in the past, but you shall be happy in the future. Let your father fade out of your life, and come with me to the land of love. It is said that a woman shall forsake her parents and cling to her husband. So," said George, drawing himself up, "you are mine for ever, and when we are married it will be my delight to make you perfectly happy." "Ah, yes, but the shadow of the past will ever remain. After all, he is my father. I can't do away with that," and she continued to sob. The young man could only press her to his distressed heart and smooth her hair. After all, what could he say in the face of facts? Wicked and cold and hard and cruel as the man was, Hale undoubtedly was the girl's father, and nothing could do away with the painful fact. But for that relationship, George would have throttled Hale, or would have thrown him into the river; but as it was, he could do nothing. He could not even comfort his dear love who lay sobbing in his arms. The nightingale still sang on, the stars still twinkled like jewels and the moon still poured floods of white light down on the sleeping earth. But the magical glory of the scene was darkened to the lovers because of the evil of those around them. Yet--and Lesbia learned the lesson afterwards--out of sorrow comes joy and the way of love is the way of the cross. Something like this came into the young man's mind. "Remember the motto of the amethyst cross," he whispered. "'Refuse and lose'; we cannot understand why we are so afflicted, but we must bear the cross if we are to win the crown. And after all, dear, you should be sorry as I am for your father. He is reaping much grief and pain for his sowing." Lesbia sighed and placed her arms round George's neck. "Yes," she said in a weary manner, "the cross is heavy, but we must bear it. I am sure that in the end all will come right. Tim said so and so did Lord Charvington." Down the pathway came Mrs. Walker, looking tall and stately and stern in her dark robes. Her face was set and white, and--strange in so hard a woman--she looked as though she had been weeping. "Lesbia," she said softly, "come back to the cottage and go to bed." "But my father is there," sobbed the girl, "and you promised to take me to Medmenham." "Your father has left the cottage for a time at least," said Mrs. Walker, gently disengaging the girl from her son's arms. "You will be alone with Tim and he will look after you, until we see how things turn out." "How did you induce Mr. Hale to go, mother?" asked George, looking troubled. "That is not for you to know at present," she said sternly. "I had an interview with him--a private interview," she added with emphasis, "and he saw that it was best to leave for a time. Rest in peace, my child," she said, kissing Lesbia's brow. "You are safe now, and can come to no harm. Be brave as you have been, for a little time longer, and all will end well." "George," said Lesbia, stretching her arms like a a weary child. "Dearest!" the young man kissed her and gave her into his mother's charge. So the two women passed into the cottage, while he watched them sadly. Sorrow had not yet done her work. CHAPTER XXI TWO INTERVIEWS At the present moment, George Walker had plenty of time on his hands, and being naturally industrious, he did not enjoy the enforced idleness. Hitherto he had spent the bulk of his leisure hours in looking for a situation and in thinking of Lesbia. Now he made up his mind to act in order to bring about some sort of settlement of his very disorderly affairs. Lesbia could no longer remain with her father, as his character was so extremely bad. Hale had left the cottage, but would be certain to return again, therefore George wished to see if he could not marry Lesbia--say within a month--so as to rescue her from the troubles by which she was environed. To do this he required assistance and believed that he would receive it from Lord Charvington, who appeared to be particularly well-disposed towards the girl. The idea of emigrating to the Colonies--if Mrs. Walker could be persuaded to lend her approval to the suggestion--was by no means a bad one, as then the whole unhappy past could be set aside for ever. In another country with better prospects, and unaffected by the sordid life compulsorily spent with sordid people, George foresaw that he would be able to make a calm, bright and happy future for himself and his wife. He therefore crossed the river and walked to Maidenhead with the idea of explaining his scheme to Charvington, and asking him to advance the necessary funds. But before starting a new life George wished to round off the old. He saw very plainly that for some reason the amethyst cross had been the cause of the late troubles. Since its loss everything had gone wrong: and it was necessary that it should be found if things were to be put right. Jabez, the lawyer, insisted that it should be produced before he would part with the fifty thousand pounds trust money. If, then, the ornament could be found and given into Jabez's hands, Mrs. Walker would benefit. Certainly, there was a chance that her late sister had left a child, but in the absence of proof this difficulty might be overcome. At all events, the production of the cross appeared to be necessary to force Jabez into dealing with the trust money and its accumulations. Then again, George wished to do something for Canning. The man was a wastrel and a ne'er-do-weel and had no one to take an interest in him: but he had done Lesbia a service at considerable risk, and it was only fair that he should be rewarded. Undoubtedly he belonged to the gang of clever thieves, but he had repented sufficiently of his wickedness to help the lovers, whom the gang--or at least three members of it--had desired to destroy. This service should be recompensed, especially as Canning could not remain in England without being exposed to the vengeance of his former associates. George determined to lay the case before Lord Charvington, and ask him to help. Failing any aid being forthcoming in this quarter, George intended to take Canning to Australia or Canada with him, and there start the man on a new career. Canning was not an old man and there was ample time for him to redeem the shortcomings of his youth. He was not inherently wicked as were his brother and Hale, but merely weak. On arriving at The Court, George was at once shown into the library wherein Lord Charvington was waiting for him. The old man arose courteously and came forward with outstretched hand. He appeared to be pleased that George had kept his appointment so punctually, and expressed himself with great cordiality. "I am very glad to see you, Mr. Walker," he said, when the two were again seated. "I knew your father." "My mother also, I believe, sir," said George. Charvington's face changed. "I have not seen Mrs. Walker for many a long day," he remarked in a low voice, "perhaps we may meet again, but----" he paused to ask an abrupt and extraordinary question. "Does your mother ever speak ill of me?" he demanded, his eyes eagerly searching the young man's face. "No," answered George, much astonished. "She has scarcely mentioned your name. Why should she speak ill of you?" "I thought that Hale might have--but that is neither here nor there. It is enough for you to know, Mr. Walker, that I knew your mother and her sister over thirty years ago. We all three knew Hale also, and he caused trouble. He would cause trouble still if he could, but I think this last escapade of his will keep him quiet." "Did you know my aunt Miss Katherine Morse?" asked George, astonished. "Yes," Charvington rested his head on his hand and drew figures on the blotting-paper, "but why do you speak of her by her maiden name? She was married, you know." "I don't know her married name. My mother never mentions it. Perhaps," George hesitated, "perhaps she doesn't know it." "Yes, she does," answered Charvington, still drawing, "so does Hale. Your aunt died in his house at Wimbledon remember. I understood from Jabez that Hale had admitted as much." "I believe he did. You know Mr. Jabez?" "Yes." Charvington heaved heavy sigh. "But I have not seen him for years. We correspond occasionally--that is all," he paused, then dropping the pencil with which he was drawing, wheeled his chair and looked at his guest briskly. "But we have no time to talk of these old stories. Let us come to the point. Have you heard about Lesbia's stay here?" "Yes," said George very distinctly, "Lady Charvington told both my mother and myself about the matter." Lord Charvington's face grew a dull brick red. "When did you see my wife?" "Yesterday: she called on my mother at Medmenham." "What did she say?" asked the elder man, abruptly and anxiously. George gave details in a blunt cool way, exaggerating nothing and suppressing nothing. The effect on Lord Charvington was very marked. He jumped up from his chair and paced the room, holding his head in both his hands. "Good heavens: oh! good heavens," he muttered, "these women, these women. How dare Helen speak so? What does she guess? What does she know?" "About what?" asked George with keen curiosity, and his question recalled Lord Charvington to the fact, which he seemed to have forgotten in his agitation, that he was not alone. "Never mind," he said sharply, and returned to his seat more composed. "Do you mean to say that Lady Charvington stated that she had found the cross in this library?" "Yes, sir. And I thought that you might know----" "I know nothing," interrupted Charvington violently, and nervously shifting various articles on his writing-table. "I know that there is such a cross. I remember that Mr. Samuel Morse gave it to his daughter, and remarked on its oddity. But how did it get into this library?" "Did you not bring it here?" "No, sir, no." Charvington again rose and began to walk off his uncontrollable agitation. "I have not seen that cross for years. The last time I set eyes on it Miss Morse--I may as well call her Miss Morse, since your mother has not revealed her married name--wore it round her neck. My wife says that she found it here. I tell you, Mr. Walker, that I do not know how it came into this room. I never saw it." "How strange!" said George, believing this speech, but wondering nevertheless. "But how comes it," asked Charvington wheeling, "that _you_ know about the amethyst cross, Mr. Walker?" "I received it from Lesbia as a love-gift," explained George, and went on to relate the circumstances of the assault and robbery. Charvington walked up and down nodding, and muttering at intervals. When George ended he came to a halt before the young man. "Lesbia told me much of what you tell me," he said quietly, "but of course I was ignorant that my wife had taken the cross from this room. She did not tell me that. I cannot understand." "And I," said George in his turn, "cannot understand why Lady Charvington is so bitter against Lesbia." "Ah! Woman! Woman!" said Charvington, with a gesture of despair, "who can understand the nature of Woman! Let us leave that question for the time being, Mr. Walker. What we have to do is to get at the root of this matter. If the cross was in my wife's jewel-case, as she asserts, undoubtedly the burglary was committed to gain possession of it. Hale was the thief, as you know. He has sent me back the case intact. I received it this morning, as only on condition of its being restored, would I consent to hush the matter up. And I hushed it up for his daughter's sake, Mr. Walker. But," Charvington wrinkled his brow and threw back his white mass of hair, "the amethyst cross is not amongst the jewels." "Hale probably kept it back. He wants it, you know, as he has some idea of getting this money by producing it." "Yes! Yes! I heard something about that," muttered Charvington, "but of course that is impossible, unless--unless----" he paused, opening and shutting his hands feverishly. "Damn him," he burst out with a stamp of his foot, "I would like to throttle him as he nearly throttled you." George looked up in surprise. "Throttled me?" "Yes," said Charvington impatiently "can't you see? It must have been Hale who assaulted you on the towing-path to get back that cross, and he, as an expert thief, took the ornament from your cottage." "On the face of it, that appears probable," said George slowly, "all the same I don't think it was the case." "Why not? He wanted the amethyst cross." "Quite so. But if he had obtained it from my cottage so long ago, he would have taken it to Mr. Jabez to procure the money if possible. The mere fact, too, that he was willing I should marry Lesbia, if I found the missing ornament, shows that Hale did not commit the assault and robbery." "Then who could have done so?" George shrugged his shoulders. "I can't say. Probably the person who placed it in this room." "If it ever was in this room," muttered Charvington, darkly. "Your wife declares----" "Oh yes--oh yes. I know what she declares. Well, these things are not to be threshed out in five minutes. Mr. Walker," he stopped short before George, "do you wish to marry Lesbia?" "With all my heart and soul. We have come together again and last night we renewed our love-vows." "They should never have been broken," said Charvington impatiently. "They never were, save by circumstances," said George solemnly, "our hearts were always true," and he related the plotting of Maud and Walter Hale. "Devils! Devils!" muttered Charvington, with another stamp, "and it's all my fault--all my fault." "What!" George scarcely knew if he had heard aright. "All my fault I say." Charvington clutched his head with an expression of pain. "You do not know, you can't guess--you--you--never mind. I'll put an end to all this. You shall marry Lesbia and make her happy. I shall settle Hale once and for all. Come, what is your idea?" "My idea," said George deliberately, "was, when I entered this room, to ask you to give me enough, as a loan, to marry Lesbia, so that I could take her to Australia or Canada and begin a new life. But now I have changed my mind, as I can guess that in some way you can arrange matters without my having to adopt such an extreme course." "Yes," said Charvington quietly; "I believe that I can arrange matters and in a very surprising way. They should have been arranged long ago, only for the fact that I had not the courage. It is very hard to do right sometimes. But the time has come. Mr. Walker, in three days certain people must be brought together into this room." "What people, sir?" "Walter Hale and Lesbia; yourself and your mother; Mr. Jabez and my wife. When we are all assembled I shall be able to straighten things, crooked as they are at present. I ask you to see that these people--saving my wife, who will be invited by me to be present--are here on the third day from now at three o'clock in the afternoon." "And then?" "Then you shall marry Lesbia and be happy ever afterwards. Now go." George went without another word, wondering very much at the turn which events had taken. He had hoped that Charvington would arrange his destiny and that of Lesbia, but the old nobleman seemed able and ready to arrange the destiny of many other people. George could not entirely understand the meaning of Charvington's behaviour, and after a brief reflection did not attempt to. He decided to write a note telling Hale and Lesbia to be at The Court at the appointed time, and also to go personally to London to see Mr. Jabez and arrange for his presence. Having thus made up his mind what to do, George strode towards home whistling with a load off his mind. In one way or another things would surely be put right. Then came a surprise. While passing through Nightingale Thicket the young man saw Canning, looking more shadowy than ever, flitting down the road to meet him. But as the man drew nearer George saw that his usually pale face was flushed, that he was dressed spick and span as a gentleman, and that there was a general look of opulence about him. He glided up to Walker swiftly--for he appeared too unsubstantial to do anything save glide--and broke into a voluble explanation. "Walker," he cried, and in loud tones which contrasted markedly with his usual whispering speech, "I came down this morning especially to see you. They told me you had gone to Charvington's place, so I crossed the river and walked in this direction on the chance of meeting you." "What's your hurry?" asked George, surprised by this change of clothes and looks and manner. "I am leaving England, and have come to say good-bye. Let us sit down on the grass by the roadside, no one will come along. After I have explained, I shall push on to Maidenhead and take the train to London. From London I go to Italy. Yes, an old aunt of mine has remembered me in her will at the eleventh hour, and I have inherited two hundred a year, an annuity, the principal of which I cannot touch." "Luckily for you," said George, taking out his pipe; "you would waste it." "I daresay, I was always a wrong 'un. However, I go to Italy because there I can live like a fighting-cock on an income which means penury in England. I go also because Tait and Hale and the rest of them are making things too hot for me. But before departing I wanted to see you to confess." George lighted his pipe and looked sideways in surprise. "Confess what?" "That I assaulted you," said Canning, nervously. "You," George glanced in amazement at the frail figure. "Yes. Of course I took you by surprise, or you could have knocked me into a cocked-hat. You can punch me now, Walker." "I don't want to punch you as you put it," said George bluntly. "Of course you acted like a skunk in sneaking behind me and knocking me on the head, to say nothing of tying me up; all the same----" "I tied you up," said Canning, who had lain down and was smoking a cigarette, "because I did not wish you to recover and get back to your cottage at Medmenham until I had secured the cross." George turned indignantly. "Then you were the thief?" he declared. "Yes," admitted Canning, coughing. "Kick me. I'll take it lying down." "No," said George, after a pause; "you have done me a service through Lesbia, by preventing the success of Maud Ellis's plot. The evil you have done is counterbalanced by the good. But how did you get me into Rose Cottage?" Canning sat up and looked puzzled. "I didn't do that," he said earnestly. "I left you trussed on the towing-path like a fowl, and how the deuce you got into the cottage I know no more than you do. Have you never found out?" "No," said George promptly, "but I am beginning to find out many things, and it is just possible that I may solve that riddle also. By the way, why did you sneak the amethyst cross?" "My brother wanted it." "Sargent?" "Yes. Hale came to Cookham on the evening when you proposed to Miss Lesbia, and told Alfred that she had given you the cross. Alfred insisted that I should rob you, and primed me with champagne to do what he wanted. I started for the cottage with a sandbag and a rope to stun you and bind you, hoping to take you by surprise. I saw you coming along the towing-path in the twilight and then----" "Yes," George cut him short, "I know the rest. You crept up behind me and stunned me and bound me, and then sneaked back to rob the cottage. You are a pretty bad lot, I must say." "I am," said Canning languidly, "but now that I have enough to keep the wolf from the door I'll reform. Besides, you can kick me as I said." "I don't want to, you poor devil, since you have confessed and have done me a service. Why did you?" "Because Miss Hale was the only human being who was ever kind to me," said Canning, throwing away his cigarette. "Oh, Walker, you don't know the terrible life I have had. I never was wicked, really I wasn't: only weak, only easily led. I hated myself all the time I was working for Alfred and those accursed wretches he associated with. I hated all mankind because I was treated so badly: but Miss Hale changed my nature by her kindness, and I did what I could to repair my wrong towards her and towards you. Because she loved you I have confessed because I want her to know the truth. Then I pass out of her life and yours for ever. Take this address in London," Canning handed him a pencilled card, "it will find me for the next week. After that I go to Italy. Tell Miss Hale everything I have told you, and then ask her to write and say that she forgives me. I don't want her to think badly of me." George nodded and slipped the card into his pocket, feeling very sorry for the miserable man. "Only one question I should like to ask," he said, rising from the grass; "why did your brother want this cross?" "Lady Charvington--as I found out from overhearing a conversation between them--asked him to get it." George thought of the lie told by the lady as to the cross having been found by her in the library. "And why did she want it?" "I can't say," replied Canning, moving away; "ask her. Good-bye. And Walker, my dear fellow," he added, "one last word. Maud Ellis and Hale are plotting to get that money which should come to your mother. Good-bye," and he disappeared down the road--withdrawing swiftly like a receding mist. That was the last George saw of Arthur Sargent, _alias_ Canning, _alias_ The Shadow. CHAPTER XXII THE PLOT But that Canning fairly ran away, George would have stopped him to ask further questions. He had told much which was new and strange and explained a great deal: but his last remark hinted at further difficulties. Apparently, Hale had not yet given up all idea of procuring the money, although how he hoped to do so in the absence of the child, George could not understand. Of course, Walker felt very certain that Hale had kept back the amethyst cross when sending the jewels to Lord Charvington, but its production by Hale would have no effect on Mr. Jabez. The lawyer wanted the cross to be produced by the child of Katherine Morse--whatever her married name might be and, according to Hale himself, the dying woman had no child. Mrs. Walker, indeed, had stated that her sister had written about a sick child, but this had probably died. If not, surely during all these twenty years the child would have come forward to recover its inheritance. George was naturally puzzled with this new development, and decided that to learn the truth it would be best to go to the fountain head. That is, if Hale intended to use the cross to procure the money he would have to produce it to Mr. Jabez in his office in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was thus best to go at once to Mr. Jabez and inform him of what Canning had said about this new plot. What Maud Ellis had to do with the matter it was impossible to say; George could no more understand her connection with the matter than he could understand why Lady Charvington had employed Captain Sargent to get her the cross. What possible interest could she have in the amethyst cross? And why had she told a deliberate lie about its being in the library? George was quite bewildered with the complicated state of affairs. And Jabez, as he believed, alone could solve the mystery. George duly gave his mother Lord Charvington's message. She received it in silence, but with a change of colour, which did not escape his notice. "Mother," he asked abruptly, "what do you know about Lord Charvington?" "He was not Lord Charvington when I knew him," confessed Mrs. Walker, after a pause, "but Philip Hale. Hale, you know, is the family name and Lesbia's father bears it as a cousin. Charvington had not come into the title some twenty and more years ago. I knew him very well and liked him," she sighed, "but he was always weak." George looked incredulous. "Weak," he echoed, "he seems to me to be a very strong man and one who knows his own mind." "He has no doubt learned by experience," replied Mrs. Walker, "and heaven only knows how badly he needed to learn. So he is going to speak at last. He should have done so long ago." "About what, mother?" Mrs. Walker pursed up her mouth. "Never mind, George, I prefer that Lord Charvington should tell his own story. If he does, Walter Hale will find himself in trouble, and I shall be glad of that. I have waited long to see him punished: soon I shall be satisfied." "Why do you hate Hale so, mother?" "I have every cause to hate him," cried Mrs. Walker vindictively, and her eyes glittered. "Years ago I loved Walter Hale." "You--loved--that--man?" said her son slowly. "What is there strange in that?" snapped his mother, trying to keep her restless hands still. "He was handsome and clever and rich. I loved him and I thought that he loved me. I gave him my heart and found out only too late that he was playing with me. He was always cruel and wicked and hard, selfish to the core and thinking only of himself. We were engaged," added Mrs. Walker, drooping her head, and in a lower tone, "and he confessed then that he had very little money. He believed that I was an heiress, and so I was to the extent of fifty thousand pounds. My father did not like him and declared that if I married Walter he would cut me off with a shilling. I did not care, for I loved the man for himself: but he loved me for my money, and when he learned my father's decision he threw me over, and went after some other woman who was rich." "Lesbia's mother?" "I suppose so," said Mrs. Walker, pretending indifference; "but he vanished out of my life, and I heard that he was courting this heiress, in the hope of making a good marriage for his pocket. I was left alone, and I married your father Aylmer Walker, not because I loved him, but because he was kind and sympathetic. Aylmer was a spendthrift and wasted all my money; all the same he was kind-hearted and not a scoundrel like Walter Hale. Then you were born and shortly afterwards misfortunes came. I was only married four years when your father broke his neck leaving me penniless. Then Kate eloped with"--Mrs. Walker paused--"she eloped, that is all I can say. I saw Walter Hale again and learned, and learned--oh!" he rose and wrung out her hands, "what a villain the man is. But he shall be punished now. I swear if Charvington will not punish him, I shall punish him myself." "But mother----" "Not a word," cried Mrs. Walker passionately, "I can't bear to discuss the matter. When we meet at Charvington's place, the long-hidden truth will come to light. Until then----" she stopped, closed her mouth, shook her head, and left the room hastily. George wondered what could be the hidden truth she referred to, but could come to no conclusion. He wrote a letter to Lesbia saying that she was to come to Lord Charvington's place, and stating that he would call to take her over. Then he smoked a pipe and retired to bed, intending the next day to go to London and see Mr. Jabez in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Mrs. Walker did not put in an appearance again on that evening. Of course George, as a lover, lay awake and thought of Lesbia. He was sorely inclined to postpone his visit to Mr. Jabez, and go over to Marlow on the morrow, but it was necessary to execute business before indulging in pleasure, since, when everything was settled, he would have Lesbia beside him always as his dear wife. He therefore restrained his longing for a sight of her face, and gradually dropped off to sleep. Next morning Mrs. Walker had her breakfast in bed and did not see her son. George left a message that he would return in the evening, and went to Henley in his boat to catch the mid-day train. He soon arrived in London, and without wasting time went to see Mr. Jabez. The old lawyer had a large and expensive office in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and from the number of clerks was apparently much sought after as a solicitor. He received Walker as soon as the young man sent in his card, as it seemed that George had luckily arrived during the slack season. "A week ago," said Mr. Jabez, in his precise way, "I should have had to keep you waiting for some hours." The room in which Jabez received his client--as George was--was a large apartment with a painted ceiling and three long windows looking out on to the gardens of the square. Probably in Georgian days it had held brilliant company, but now, since the tide of fashion had rolled farther to the west, it was given over to the dry-as-dust details of the law. Jabez looked as hatchet-faced as ever, and still wore his large blue spectacles to aid his weak eyes. He welcomed George politely in his dry way, and waited to hear what the young man had to say. "Lord Charvington wants you to come down to The Court the day after to-morrow at three o'clock," said George abruptly. "Why?" demanded Jabez quietly, and more puzzled than he chose to admit. "I can only answer you by telling you all that has taken place," answered the young man, and forthwith related what he knew. Nursing his chin in the hollow of his hand, Jabez crossed his lean legs and listened quietly enough, nodding at intervals. "I thought it would come to this," he observed, when the young man ended. "Come to what?" "An explanation." "Of what?" "Of many things which will astonish you," said Jabez drily. "Of course I was acquainted with Lord Charvington when he was merely the Honourable Philip Hale. Then----" Jabez suspended further confidences. "It is best to allow Lord Charvington to speak for himself." "Do you know what he intends to say?" "Partly. And yet," mused the solicitor, looking at his neat shoes, "there may be something interesting which I do not know. However, the main point is that I shall arrange to be there at the stated time. The gathering promises to be interesting. The cross," Jabez stopped, "h'm! yes, the cross. I see now how Hale got it." "He stole it from Lady Charvington, who procured it from Sargent, who employed Canning to thieve it from me," explained George. "So you said before, and I am not so stupid as to require a double explanation," said Jabez crustily, "but I am wondering how Hale hopes to get the money by means of this cross. Certainly he declares that he has found the child, and----" "What!" cried George, starting to his feet in amazement. Jabez looked up and raised a hand. "Don't speak so loud, your voice goes through my head," he said in his testy manner. "Yes," he searched amongst some papers, "here is a letter from Walter Hale saying that he will call to-morrow at noon with the child of Katherine Morse----" "Doesn't he mention my aunt's married name?" "No," answered Jabez, sucking in his cheeks, "and that is what makes me suspicious of the affair. However, what you have told me to-day about Lady Charvington's share in the business, and her husband's attitude gives me an idea. Send a wire to Lord Charvington asking him to meet you here to-morrow. Then you can both see Mr. Hale and this child." "I should like to, but what use----" "There! There. I have no time to waste. Go and do what you are told," said Jabez, rising with an angry gesture. "I may be wrong and I may be right. But putting two and two together----" he stopped and walked to the window, musingly, "yes, I believe it may be so." "What may be so?" questioned George, picking up his hat. Jabez wheeled crossly. "Oh, you are there still. Go away and send that wire. At noon to-morrow, bring Lord Charvington here. Good-day," he rang the bell, "get out, young Walker, you are taking up my time." Wondering at the behaviour of the lawyer, George departed and forthwith sent a prepaid wire to Charvington, asking him to come to the Lincoln's Inn Fields office. He had half a mind to go down and explain personally, but as he could not explain very much he relied on the wire, hoping that Charvington's curiosity would be sufficiently aroused to make him obey the summons. Late in the afternoon an answer came intimating that Charvington would be at Jabez's office at the appointed time. George was greatly pleased, as he foresaw that Hale's little plot would in some way be frustrated, Charvington apparently knew of much to Hale's disadvantage; hence the wily old lawyer had induced him to be present. Having come to this conclusion Walker wired to his mother saying that he would remain in London, and employed his evening in going to a music hall. He positively had to do so, for if he had remained alone in his hotel brooding over riddles which he could by no means solve, he felt that his brain would not bear the strain. Still, in a vague way, he felt that all things were being shaped to a happy end and that light was coming out of the darkness which had enshrouded things for so long. At a quarter to twelve in the morning George met Charvington in the semi-courtyard in front of the mansion, wherein Jabez had his office. The elder man jumped out of the hansom, in which he had driven from the railway station, and walked towards the young one with an elastic step, after he had paid his fare. "What's all this, Walker?" he demanded abruptly. "Why did you wire for me to come up on this day, and at this hour, and to this place?" "Come upstairs to Mr. Jabez and he'll explain," said George, leading the way up the steps, "we cannot linger here. Hale may see us." "Hale," Charvington followed hurriedly and caught the young man's arm, "and why is Hale coming here?" "He has found--so he says--my cousin." "Your--cousin?" "My aunt's child--the heir to the property which Mr. Jabez has held for so long." Charvington stopped on the landing. "So Hale is going to anticipate me," he muttered, and without waiting to be announced he opened the door of Jabez's private room and strode in. The lawyer looked up irritably. "I'm engaged. You, Lord Charvington? Well, I might have guessed as much from your abrupt entry. You haven't changed much in your impulsive ways." Lord Charvington threw down his hat and stick and gloves and flung himself into a chair. "I have changed very much in looks," he retorted; "however there is no time for these personalities. Walker," he indicated the young man who had followed him closely, "tells me that Hale intends to produce the heiress to his aunt's property." Jabez looked inquisitively at Charvington through his blue spectacles. "I believe so," he said quietly and cautiously, with a glance at his watch. "Hale will bring the girl here in a few minutes." "It's a girl then," sneered Charvington. "You mentioned the word 'heiress' yourself," remarked Jabez, with emphasis. "A mere guess. And what of the cross?" "Hale says that the girl will produce it." "Humph! I don't believe that the girl will produce stolen property. You know that the cross was stolen from my house?" "So I believe," said Jabez politely. "Yes, Walker here told me, though how it got into my library----" "I can tell you that now, Lord Charvington," interposed George, "as I heard the truth from Canning the other day. Sargent employed Canning to steal the cross in order to pass it over to your wife." Charvington bounded from his chair. "What did she want with it?" "I can't say--I don't----" "Hush," said Jabez, who, at the sound of wheels in the courtyard, had gone to one of the tall windows; "here come Hale and his heiress. Go into the next room with Walker, Lord Charvington. When I require you I shall summon you." "But why do you bring me here at all?" demanded Charvington brusquely. Jabez looked straight at him and his long fingers played a tune on the table. "I have an idea," he said gravely; "you may be able to tell me if that idea is correct." "What is the idea?" "I cannot tell it to you, until I see this heiress." "Very good." Charvington sat down again. "Introduce her and Hale." "No! No!" said Jabez anxiously, "that would never do. Wait until I hear Hale's story and then----" "Hale will only tell you a pack of lies," interrupted Charvington violently. "And besides he stole the cross and----" Jabez put his hand against the breast of the angry speaker and pushed him gently towards a side door. "Go in there and wait," he said insistently. "You also, Walker." "No," cried Charvington, "I shan't." "If you don't," said the solicitor very quietly, "I shall wash my hands of this matter. Already Hale and his heiress are waiting in the ante-chamber, and if your voice is recognised, they will not come in." "Why not?" "Because I believe that this is another of Hale's wicked schemes. Let me hear the whole invention he has made up, and then I can call upon you to substantiate the story." "But I can't wait. I want to know who this girl is." "Can't you guess?" demanded Jabez, leading him deftly to the door of the inner room where he wished him to wait. "I can do more than guess, I know." "Humph," muttered Jabez, "I thought so." "You thought what?" "Never mind. If you know rightly, you will be able to help me." Charvington stamped. "I believe it's all lies. I want to see this girl." "Well," said Jabez resignedly. "I shall do a thing I have never done before since you will not be quiet otherwise. In the panel of this door there is a small knot-hole. Look in and see if----" Charvington rushed into the room, dragging Walker after him, and closed the door. Shortly afterwards they heard the entrance of two people. The old man applied an eye to the knot-hole. Then he laughed silently and made George apply his eye. "Look at the heiress," he said sneeringly. Walker looked eagerly and saw--Maud Ellis. CHAPTER XXIII ONE PART OF THE TRUTH It was indeed Maud Ellis who entered on the arm of Mr. Hale. She was carefully dressed and, as usual, had made the best of her looks, such as they were. But she appeared to be anxious--to be strung up to fighting-pitch--after the manner of a woman who anticipated that she was not going to get her own way without a battle. On her entrance, she measured the lean lawyer with the eye of an antagonist, and then sat down in the chair which he politely pushed forward. As to Walter Hale, he looked much the same as he always did, cool, polished, and composed. Of course, he was perfectly arrayed in Bond Street taste, and his manners were as irreproachable as was his costume. If Miss Ellis was nervous, Hale assuredly was not. To Jabez, he suggested a bowie-knife--an odd comparison, but one which came unexpectedly into the lawyer's unimaginative brain. "You know, of course, Mr. Jabez," said Hale when seated, "what I have come to see you about." The solicitor, who had taken his usual chair before the table, nodded and pointed to Hale's letter which lay on the blotting-paper before him. "To produce the amethyst cross," said he gravely. "And something more important than the cross. Allow me," Hale stood up to give his words due effect, "to present to you, Miss Katherine Morse----" "Oh," interrupted Jabez drily, "I understood from you that she died in your Wimbledon house years ago." "You are thinking of my mother," put in Maud boldly. "She, indeed, is dead; but I am her child and am called after her." "Even to the name of Morse?" "Later," said Hale, with dignity, "I can give you the married name of this young lady's mother. Meanwhile, the cross is----" "Is here," said Maud, and opening a little bag which was swinging on her wrist, she extracted therefrom a red morocco case and handed it to Jabez. He opened it gravely and beheld the long-lost ornament. "It was my dear mother's," added Miss Ellis with feigned pathos, as though the sight was too much for her tender heart. "My grandfather gave it to her, and----" "And your mother gave it to you," ended Jabez, seeing with his usual keen gaze that her eyes were dry behind the handkerchief she was holding to them. "No," she replied, unexpectedly and sadly. "I never set eyes upon it until Mr. Hale saw me a few days ago." "Permit me to explain," said Hale, as watchful as a cat. "As I told you, Miss Morse----" "Still no married name," muttered the solicitor ironically. "That will be told later," remarked Hale, provokingly self-possessed. "I have first to tell my story." "Go on," Jabez stretched his legs and put his hands in his pockets, "it is sure to be interesting." "I hope so," rejoined Hale, making a sign to Maud that she should not talk, "and already you know much of it." "Let me see. Yes, I remember. You told me at Rose Cottage, in the presence of Mrs. Walker, that Miss Morse died at your Wimbledon house in the arms of your wife. She gave the cross to your wife, who afterwards gave it to the nurse, Bridget Burke. She in her turn gave it to your daughter Lesbia, who presented it to young Walker from whom it was stolen. Am I right?" "Perfectly," said Hale gravely. "So you can see how Miss Morse here, never set eyes on it until I brought it to her." "And how did you become possessed of it?" "I shall explain that, when you have heard Miss Morse's story." Maud put up her veil and wiped her lips. "I am only too anxious to tell it," she declared eagerly, "and----" Jabez cut her short. "I am sure you are, but before hearing it I should like to remind Mr. Hale that he declared in my presence and in the presence of Mrs. Walker that there was no child." "Quite so," said Hale promptly. "I am not bound to tell you anything I desire to keep silent." "I think you will have to do so, if you wish this young lady to get fifty thousand pounds," said Jabez coolly. "Of course: that is why I am here. But I refer to the interview at my Marlow cottage. Then, I was not bound to speak. I speak now. There was not any child with Miss Morse when she died at my Wimbledon house. But with her last breath she told me where she had left the child--in a poor neighbourhood and with a poor woman." "Who was very good to me," said Maud, with tenderness very well acted. "Dear Mrs. Tait, shall I ever forget her kindness?" "Tait. Humph. So that's the name, is it?" "The name of my foster-mother who brought me up. For years I have been called Maud Ellis, but only when Mr. Hale came to see me bringing the cross did I learn my true name and parentage." "Why did your foster-mother call you Ellis?" asked Jabez. "She passed me off to the world as her sister's child," said Maud glibly. "Why? I cannot see the need." "Nor I," said Miss Ellis, with a swift glance at Hale. "But who knows the human heart, Mr. Jabez?" "No one so far as I know. But you were saying----" "If you will permit me to tell my story I can make everything clear." "I am quite certain that you can," said the lawyer, politely ironical. "Go on." "Mrs. Tait kept a lodging-house in Bloomsbury. My mother lived there after leaving her husband--my father, who treated her very badly. I am right," she added turning to Hale, "in saying this?" "He behaved like a brute," said Hale emphatically, "but then he always was a brute I am sorry to say." "Dear me," murmured Jabez, "proceed, please." "My mother left me with Mrs. Tait, as she had very little money and went to seek out my father at Wimbledon one bitterly cold, snowy day. He turned her from his door, and she nearly perished in the snow. Fortunately this good man," Maud glanced pathetically at Hale, who tried not to look too conscious, "took in the starving and chilled woman. My mother died, and I was left to Mrs. Tait's kind care." "What about the cross?" asked Jabez abruptly, stifling a yawn. "I can explain that," interposed Hale quickly, "indeed I have already done so. It was given to my wife and----" "Of course: of course, I remember now. Well," Jabez turned to Maud, "so you remained with Mrs. Tait." "Until she died. Then her husband adopted me as his niece and with him I lived, retaining my name of Maud Ellis." "There was a husband then?" "Yes," said Hale anxiously, "you may know of him, Mr. Michael Tait, the stockbroking philanthropist." "Oh," drawled the solicitor quietly, "the same man who lost his jewels the other day." "Yes," admitted Hale, quite ignorant of how much Jabez knew, "the same. He was poor when Miss Morse--or Miss Ellis if you like--came to his wife, and Mrs. Tait kept a boarding-house to help him. Then Tait made a lucky speculation--he was a clerk in the City--and began to grow rich. But before he could make a fortune Mrs. Tait died, and thus never benefited." "No, poor dear, and she was so very kind," said Maud sweetly, "however, when my uncle grew rich----" "Your uncle?" queried Jabez. Maud coloured to the roots of her sandy hair. "I have fallen into the habit of calling my friend Mr. Tait my uncle. And, indeed, until the other day I almost thought that he was my uncle until I knew the truth. But as I was saying, Mr. Jabez, my uncle--for I still call Mr. Tait so--placed a magnificent tombstone over her remains when he grew rich. That is my story." "A very interesting one," said Jabez politely. "Then I take it that you are the young lady entitled to fifty thousand pounds." "I am. I understood that when I came and presented that cross," Maud pointed to the ornament on the table, "that the money would be given to me." "You certainly said as much to me, Jabez," chimed in Hale anxiously. "Quite right. The cross," Jabez waved his hand, "was only a little attempt of mine to introduce romance into the dry details of the law. Of course it is a means of identification, but it will be necessary for Miss Ellis to produce her certificate of birth, her baptismal certificate and----" Hale bit his finger with vexation. "I anticipated that objection," he interrupted in hard tones, "and I knew you would make it." "In the interest of Mrs. Walker I must make it." "Yes! yes. But the fact is, that only Mrs. Tait, besides the mother, knew where the certificate of birth and that of baptism were to be found. They are both dead, as you have heard, so----" "So," ended Jabez rising to stand before the fireplace, "so there will be no chance of this young lady getting the money." "Don't you believe my story?" demanded Maud angrily. "Oh yes. One has only to look into your face, my dear madam, to be certain that you speak as you believe. But the law is not so tender-hearted as I am. The law requires proofs." "The amethyst cross----" "Is one proof, but others are required. Then, you see, the cross was stolen and has not been in your possession all these years. It is not a very strong proof of your identity." "I can make an affidavit," said Hale sharply, "swearing that the mother me told where the child was to be found." "Quite so, and doubtless Mr. Tait--then in the Bloomsbury lodging-house kept by his wife--can make another affidavit showing how the mother left the child in his wife's charge." "Of course," assented Hale readily. "Tait will do anything I ask him." "And my uncle," said Maud, "for I must call him uncle, will only be too glad to see me come into my kingdom." "Oh, I am certain of that," said Jabez, trimming his nails rapidly with a little knife, "and to show your gratitude, you will doubtless divide the money with him." "Oh no. My uncle is too rich to need help," said Maud virtuously. Jabez shut the knife and restored it to his pocket. "So he made enough by the double deal of the jewels and the insurance fraud to tide over the financial crisis which threatened him," he said deliberately. Maud turned pale and uttered an exclamation. "I don't understand." "Do you, Mr. Hale?" asked Jabez. "No," said the man coldly, "I know nothing of Tait's business." "Rubbish! rubbish! See here, Hale, and you, young woman, before you came here to try your games on me, you should have made certain that I knew nothing of your doings. As it is, from Mrs. Walker, from her son, and from various other people, I know all that has taken place in connection with that cross from the time Miss Lesbia Hale gave it to her lover, and----" "You insult Miss Morse," interrupted Hale furiously. "Miss Maud Ellis you mean," sneered the lawyer, "and--no you don't," he stretched out his long arm, and snatched the cross away, before Hale could lay a finger on it. "That belongs to Mrs. Walker's niece." "I am Mrs. Walker's niece," panted Maud, standing up with a red and furious face. Since Jabez appeared to know so much, she saw very well that the plotting of herself and Hale had come to an untimely end. Nevertheless, like a woman, she persisted in fighting, even when the game had been irretrievably lost. "She will acknowledge me." The lawyer slipped the case containing the cross into the pocket of his coat and faced round. "If Mrs. Walker will acknowledge you as her niece," he declared, "I will give you the money." "What's the use of talking in this way?" cried Hale angrily. "You know well enough that Mrs. Walker wants the money for herself. She will certainly not help this poor girl to gain her rights." "Girl," echoed Jabez cruelly, and with his eyes on Maud's plain face, which showed elderly lines. "I am no judge of a lady's age, but----" "Brute! brute," cried Miss Ellis, making for the door. "Hale, come away, I am not going to stand here and be insulted." "I am coming," said Hale sullenly: then turning to the lawyer: "as to these veiled accusations you bring against me----" "Oh, you want me to speak clearer. Very well, then. You, Mr. Hale, and you, Miss Maud Ellis, belong to a gang of clever thieves. The police have been trying to break up the gang for years: but hitherto have not succeeded. Now they will lay hands on one and all." "Oh!" gasped Maud, trembling. "What nonsense you talk." "The police do not think so. You and Hale had better make yourselves scarce, for one of your gang has given the rest away." "Canning, blast him!" shouted Hale fiercely. "Ah!" Jabez turned on him, "you admit then that I speak the truth." "I admit nothing," muttered Hale, wiping his face. "As you please," Jabez moved towards the door leading into the inner room where Lord Charvington and George were concealed, "but Canning is now in communication with the police. I learned yesterday that he knew all. I got his address from young Walker, and have seen him. To save his own skin he will turn king's evidence and you and Miss Ellis there, and her dear uncle and Sargent, and a few others, including Mrs. Petty, will be----" "Damn you," cried Hale, while Maud stood trembling at the outer door, which she had not strength enough to open, "I'll kill you." With outstretched hand he lunged forward to grip the lawyer. Jabez on the watch dexterously slipped aside and flung open the door. Hale unable to restrain his impetus plunged right through the entrance into the strong arms of George Walker. That young gentleman picked him up like a feather and carrying him into the outer room, flung him into Jabez's chair. Maud uttered a cry of alarm. She did not know Lord Charvington: but she knew George, and guessed that he had overheard the whole wicked plot. Overcome with shame she tore blindly at the door, opened it hurriedly and fled away, pulling down her veil to hide her shameful face. She could not meet the eye of the man, whom she had wronged so deeply, because she loved him too well. None of the three men followed her, as their attention was taken up with Hale. Over him stood George, righteously indignant. "You confounded blackguard," cried George between his teeth, "if you were not Lesbia's father I would murder you." "Set your mind at rest on that point, George," said Lord Charvington, who was strangely white, "I am Lesbia's father." "You!" George recoiled, dazed and startled. "Katherine Morse was my first wife and I am Lesbia's father." "Now," said George to Hale, "I can choke the wicked life out of you." But Charvington stopped him. "Leave him to God." CHAPTER XXIV ANOTHER PART OF THE TRUTH A day or so after the scene in the Lincoln's Inn Fields office, a party of those interested in the circumstances connected with the amethyst cross assembled in the library of The Court. George was present with Lesbia by his side--Lesbia, still ignorant of her true parentage. Mrs. Walker, looking less grim than usual, had a seat near Mr. Jabez, who had come down to hear Lord Charvington's story and to witness the righting of the wrong which had been done to Lesbia. But two people who should have been on the spot were absent--Walter Hale and Lady Charvington. On returning from London, where he had admitted the truth, Charvington had interviewed his wife. What took place between them was never known, for out of shame for the lady's behaviour Charvington said as little as he could, when explaining fully. But his wife must have been dissatisfied with the conversation, for she left The Court and returned to London. In spite of what her husband said, she absolutely refused to be present at the rehabilitation of Lesbia, and it must be confessed that Charvington felt relieved. He knew his wife's fiery temper and vindictive nature well, and therefore dreaded lest she should make a scene. Besides he was manifestly in the wrong, and when given an inch Lady Charvington immediately took an ell with all the zest of an ungenerous woman. Mrs. Walker having been the lady's schoolfellow had something to say on the subject: but she reserved her remarks until she heard Charvington's story. She, for one, was not astonished at Lady Charvington's failure to put in an appearance at the conference. She had never credited her with a kindly heart willing to forgive and forget. And time proved that her estimate was right. As to Hale, the interview in Jabez's office had more or less done away with the necessity for his presence. He admitted the truth of Charvington's statement to Jabez, and after confessing the whole of his wicked plots to gain possession of Mrs. Walker's money--or rather the money which now belonged to Lesbia as her mother's heiress,--he had been permitted to depart. This he did, knowing that the police were on his track, and that unless he could get out of the country he would be in danger of arrest. And if he were arrested he knew well enough that he would suffer a long term of imprisonment. Destiny, as Mrs. Walker had remarked, had been very kind to him, but the hour had arrived when she demanded the return of all the good fortune which she had lent. And Hale lurked in byways, trembling for the payment of the bill which the police--as Destiny's agents--were trying to present. He did his best to give the police no chance of presenting it, and longed--like David--for the wings of a dove that he might fly away and be at rest. But enough people were present to give Charvington an opportunity of confessing his weakness and folly and, to be plain, cowardice, or, to be generous, want of courage. Only George and Jabez knew what he was about to say, as they already had heard the confession in the office. But Mrs. Walker and Lesbia were ignorant, and although they guessed that they had been brought there to hear how things could be righted, they little suspected the way in which this would be accomplished. Lord Charvington glanced round at the attentive faces, and then abruptly plunged into the middle of his his story. It was not an easy one for him to tell, and only sincere repentance made him bold enough to open his mouth. "I have to right a great wrong," he said with considerable emotion, "a wrong done to you, Lesbia." "To me!" The girl looked surprised and clutched George's hand tighter. "Yes! Listen. For you to understand I must go back over twenty years. You remember that time, Judith?" "Yes," said Mrs. Walker quietly, "but you should go back nearly thirty years, Philip. George is now five-and-twenty and I married his father some seven years previous to the time you speak of." "I begin some twenty-three years ago," said Charvington, after a pause, "as it was then that I married your sister Katherine. Lesbia," he turned to the girl, "you are now twenty I believe?" "Yes, but what have I to do with----" "You have everything to do with it," interrupted Charvington, "for I am your father, Lesbia--your guilty, cowardly, cruel father." "What!" Mrs. Walker rose slowly with a pale face and indignant eyes, "do you mean to say that this girl is my sister's child?" "Yes, and as such inherits the money." "I don't want it," said Lesbia, who was as pale as a wintry moon, for she could scarcely grasp the significance of her father's statement. Mrs. Walker waved the objection aside. "I don't mind about the money," she said harshly, "and if George marries Lesbia the money is well bestowed. But to think that you, Philip, should know the truth and conceal it. I always thought that you were more sinned against than sinning, Philip, as Hale was your evil genius. But if you knew that Lesbia was your daughter why did you permit her to call that wretch father?' "I am about to explain," said Charvington, trying to speak quietly, "and I remember the time, Judith, when you would not have called Hale a wretch." "I remember it also," said Mrs. Walker, sitting down, "a time when I loved the man. But you know, Philip, how he deceived me and left me and threw me into the arms of George's father. I can neither forgive nor forget the cruelty with which he treated me. And you allowed your own child--my poor Kate's daughter--to call him father. How could you? how could you?" "I was wrong, Judith----" "Wrong," she repeated strongly, "you were wicked and cruel. What induced you to arrange matters so? Why was not Lesbia given into my charge? I was her aunt; I had the right to look after her. But I expect you and Mr. Jabez made up the matter between you and----" "Pardon me," said the lawyer politely, "but I knew nothing for ever so long, and if I had known, I should have given the money which I held in trust to Miss Lesbia Hale." "Is my name Lesbia Hale?" asked the girl, who looked pale and scared. "Yes," said her father, "Hale is my family name. You are Lesbia Hale, as your half-sisters are Agatha and Lena Hale." "My half-sisters?" muttered Lesbia bewildered. "Of course. Your mother was my first wife, and you are her child; Helen Harrowby is my second wife, the mother of Agatha and Lena." "Helen Harrowby," said Mrs. Walker with scorn. "Oh, I know her well, better than you know her, Charvington, or you would never have married her." "Heaven knows that I have learned to know her," said the man bitterly, "but allow me to explain myself, and----" "One moment," put in Jabez, "I wish to explain on my part to Mrs. Walker, that I knew nothing of the truth for years. It was only when you, madam," he addressed himself directly to Mrs. Walker, "told me of the theft of the amethyst cross, and how your son had obtained it from Miss Hale, that I got an idea. I fancied--on account of the cross--that Miss Hale might be your sister's child, but Hale swore, if you remember, that there was no child." "Yes," said George caustically, "and then tried to pass off Maud Ellis as the child so as to get the money." "That plot was doomed to fail from the first," said Jabez waving his hand, "as by then, I knew too much. I did not like to declare my belief that Miss Hale was the missing child, until I had further proof. In one way and another the proofs came to hand. When Lord Charvington appeared in my office at my request, immediately before Hale called with Miss Ellis, I was then pretty well convinced that he was Miss Hale's father. I was right." "But you knew for years that he had been my sister's husband," said Mrs. Walker, "and knowing that, you should have asked him about the child." "You knew also. Why did not _you_ ask?" "Because from Kate's letter to me saying that the child was dangerously ill, I believed that it had died." "You told me that," said Jabez, "and I thought so also. Perhaps I have been blind and have not done justice to my legal training. However, the case is a very peculiar one. Let us hear what Lord Charvington has to say, and then, if necessary, I can exonerate myself further." Mrs. Walker moved her chair and caught Lesbia's disengaged hand. "I am quite ready," she said calmly, "and before Charvington speaks, I must thank him for giving me back Kate's child." Lesbia was too overcome to speak coherently, but muttering something unintelligible, she sat between mother and son, her aunt and her cousin, allowing them to hold her hands, and feeling, poor child, that at last she had someone to love her, and cherish her, and take care of her. Lord Charvington cast a longing glance at the trio. He would have liked to take Lesbia in his arms, but it was part of his punishment to see her cling to others, while he detailed the folly that had led to his isolation. "When I was young," he said in a steady voice, and speaking slowly, "there were two people between myself and the title I hold. I was then merely Philip Hale." "The Honourable Philip Hale," said Mrs. Walker promptly. "No," he contradicted, "no, Judith, my father was only a younger son. I had no title whatsoever until the death of my cousins by drowning placed me here as head of the family. And I had no expectation then of becoming rich and titled. I was simply a briefless barrister." "And Walter's closest companion," muttered Mrs. Walker. "Yes. But Walter was not so wicked in those days as he has since proved to be." "He was always wicked," snapped the woman, "he was your evil genius." Charvington passed his hand through his white hair. "I fear he was. However, we can talk of that later. Walter and I were the best of friends, and it was Walter who introduced me to Mr. Samuel Morse, a City merchant. He had two daughters. Judith----" "That was me," murmured Mrs. Walker, "and the other daughter was my sister Kate. You loved Kate, and I thought that Walter loved me." "Walter behaved very badly," said Charvington promptly. "He was poor while pretending to be rich, and so, when your father, not approving of his scampish ways, learned that you loved him, Judith, he threatened to disinherit you." "Quite so, and learning that, Walter threw me over. Later, I married George's father, who was quite as scampish, but kind-hearted and honourable." "Yes!" Charvington nodded, "I always wondered why Mr. Morse permitted that marriage as he knew that Walker was quite as wild as Hale." "But he knew also that Aylmer was honourable, which Walter never was. Let that pass, I was jilted by Walter and married Aylmer. I lost my money and my husband, and was left with George to live on nothing. That's my story, I want to hear yours." "You know most of it," said Lord Charvington, now speaking rapidly as though anxious to end a disagreeable task. "I loved Kate; she was the only woman I ever loved, but your father, thinking me as dissipated as Walter, refused to permit the match. Kate eloped with me, and your father would have altered his will but that he died before he could send for his lawyer." "And that was me," said Jabez, "however, the will was very fair. You, Mrs. Walker, got your fifty thousand when you married your husband, and he soon got rid of it. The other fifty thousand pounds belonged to Kate, but she never appeared to get it. Why not?" he asked Charvington. "Walter Hale again," said that gentleman quickly. "Kate and I were married and went on the Continent. I was poor and we lived quietly, hoping that some day Mr. Morse would relent. Then we heard that he had died. Walter undertook to find out about the will, and told us that Kate inherited nothing, that all had been left to you, Judith." "And you believed him," said Jabez. "Why didn't you communicate with me?" "I had no reason then to doubt Walter," said Charvington stiffly. "Augh," groaned Mrs. Walker softly, "you were always an honourable fool." "I was, in believing Walter," said Charvington, "and not until lately have I learned how I was deceived. Walter was always plausible and clever. Besides, I kept the fact of my marriage secret from my father lest he should disinherit me. Walter made capital out of that also. Then there was Helen----" "Helen," cried Mrs. Walker, rising, much agitated. "She always hated me and hated Kate because Kate was pretty and you loved her. Helen and Walter caused all the trouble." "I know that now; I did not know it then," said Charvington sadly. "I was always foolish as you remarked just now. I was living in Paris with my wife. Lesbia was a baby then. We met Helen, who pretended to be our friend." "A friend such as Walter was," muttered Mrs. Walker. "I fear so, but let us say nothing since Helen is now my wife." "You let her off too easily." "She is now my wife," said Charvington determinedly, "so that puts an end to all discussion. Besides, Walter was to blame, as my wife informed me in a conversation we had when she refused to be present at this meeting. He worked on Kate's feelings and made her believe that I was in love with Helen. I was wrong also, for then I went about much with Helen, while my wife was ill, so that in the end Kate grew jealous." "You treated her worse than I thought," said Mrs. Walker darkly. Charvington threw out his hands. "I never was a hero," he said entreatingly, "but surely I have suffered for my weakness--the weakness of a pleasure-loving man. I was wrong; I here admit publicly that I was wrong. Surely you will believe that my repentance is sincere." Mrs. Walker looked at his drawn face and admitted that it was. After all, few men would have had the courage to stand up and speak as Charvington was now speaking--to lay bare the secrets of their weakness and strive, even at the eleventh hour, to make amends. Charvington had sinned through weakness; he confessed through strength gained from the lessons of a hard life, hard in spite of his outward show of prosperity. "I forgive you," said Mrs. Walker in softer tones, "go on." "I come to the cruellest part," said Charvington in a thick voice. "Kate was so jealous that she fled with the child. I searched for her but could not find her. It was in winter. Then Walter sent for me. I came to England and he told me that Kate had come to him weak and ill and almost starving. She had sold what jewels she possessed to feed herself and her child, and only retained the amethyst cross which her father had given her. Then she went to Walter at Wimbledon, and there died in the arms of Bridget Burke." "Was Mr. Hale married then?" asked George anxiously. "No. He never married in his life. But when I arrived my wife was buried and had left the child to the care of Bridget, and also had given her the cross saying it was to be handed to Lesbia when she grew up." "Bridget gave it to me on her death-bed," sighed Lesbia, who wept bitterly. "Yes, I learned that," said Charvington with a heavy sigh. "But to go back to my story. I repented deeply of the way in which I had behaved. I meant no harm, and would have explained to my wife had she not left me secretly. I never had an opportunity of explaining. Kate simply disappeared and died. Owing to my conduct I did not dare to go near you, Judith, or I might have placed the child in your care. As it was Hale proposed that Lesbia should be nursed by Bridget and that I should allow him money. I agreed to this, as at the time it seemed the best way out of the difficulty. Then my cousins were lost at sea in their yacht. I came in for a large income and for the title. My relatives urged me to marry again. Chance threw me once more into Helen's company----" "Chance!" snorted Mrs. Walker. "Chance! I know the minx." Charvington passed over this remark. "I married Helen and took up the station I now hold. I arranged to allow Walter an annuity if he looked after Lesbia. He did so, and gradually she began to look on him as her father." "And you permitted that--you permitted that," cried Mrs. Walker furiously. "Yes," said Charvington with an effort. "Weakness again. My wife knew the truth and I did not dare to bring my child into the house. I provided that Lesbia should have a good education, and saw that she had everything she desired. Walter was kind to her in his own way. Gradually I came to accept the situation. Then the cross passed into Walker's possession, and--" he threw out his hand--"you know the rest." George nodded. "But how did Lady Charvington learn the truth, and why did she want the cross?" Charvington sighed again and hung his head. "I do not wish to speak ill of my wife," he said in a low voice; "but in justice to Lesbia I must be frank. Hale learned about the money waiting for Lesbia, and knew that it could be obtained if the cross was shown to you, Jabez, But Hale could not find the cross." "I know why," said Lesbia quickly, "Bridget kept it secretly beside her, as my mother thought that Mr. Hale."--she did not say father--"might take it away. My mother told Bridget that the cross would prove that I was her child should any money be waiting for her. Bridget gave the cross to me and made me promise to say nothing to Mr. Hale, but to give it to the man I loved. While I was giving it to George, Mr. Hale came and then----" "Then," said Lord Charvington, "he went to Cookham and told Sargent that you, Walker, had the cross. My wife had already learned through Sargent, who obtained the information from Hale, that if Lesbia produced the cross she would inherit a fortune. Then--she--" he hesitated. Mrs. Walker took up the explanation. "I can see it all," she said scornfully, "Helen hated Kate so that she was determined that Lesbia should not get the money and hired Sargent to get the cross. He did through his brother. We know all about that. But did Helen know that Sargent was a thief?" "No," said Charvington sharply. "Helen is not altogether bad. She did not know of that, nor did she ever suspect that Walter was such a rascal. I was amazed myself when I heard the truth. I only learned it during the last few weeks. But you can see how the cross came into my wife's possession." "Yes," said George, "but why did she tell the lie about its being in the library?" "To conceal the fact of how she came to get it, as she knew perfectly well that Sargent had obtained it in some underhand way. She guessed that if she swore I had given her the cross, that no inquiry would be made and, of course," he added apologetically, "as my wife, I should have been obliged to support her." "Philip," cried Mrs. Walker, rising, "you are as weak as ever." "No," denied the man, "I am strong. Things being as they are, I must make the best of them. Helen is my wife, and to save the honour of my name all that I have told you must be kept silent." Mrs. Walker shrugged her stately shoulders. "I shall say nothing," she observed, "neither will anyone else. As to Walter, he can be left to the punishment of the law. But I am certain," she added, with emphasis, "that as he knows everything, he will speak if only out of revenge." Charvington winced. "As I have sown, so must I reap," he murmured. "Let us hope that out of shame Walter will be silent and not add to my burden, which is already sufficiently heavy. If I have sinned through weakness, I have repented and I have been punished." Mrs. Walker offered her hand. "You shall not be punished further by me," she said generously, "you were always good and kind, Philip, but very weak. I held my tongue about you, and I shall hold it still. As to Walter----" "Oh," said Jabez, rising, "I daresay I shall find some means to square him. In the interests of all parties, it will be best to give him a sum of money and assist him to escape. Once abroad he will say nothing, besides which he will not dare to venture back to England. You forget, Lord Charvington, that although he has a hold on you by knowing so much, you have a hold on him by what you know. Now if I----" "Do what you think best," said Charvington, whose hungry, bloodshot eyes were fixed on Lesbia, "I give you full permission. But my child--" he held out his arms to Lesbia, who rose pale and trembling--"will you not forgive me?" said the man in a thick voice. "I have done you wrong, but I have suffered and I will make amends and I--I----" Lesbia ran forward and threw her arms round his neck. "I forgive you," she whispered, "and I will learn to love you, and--and--father!" Her voice rose in a scream. Unable to bear the joy of this forgiveness, a long-threatened attack of apoplexy seized on the man's weakened frame. He tried to speak, choked, grew purple in the face and fell full length on the floor from the arms of the daughter he had not acknowledged for so many years. CHAPTER XXV REVENGE A week later and George was seated beside Lesbia on the well-known bench under the famous chestnut tree. Lord Charvington had recovered from his apoplectic fit, and was now progressing favourably. For two or three days Lesbia and Mrs. Walker had nursed him; but when Lady Charvington heard of her husband's illness she came down to The Court at once. A furious passage of arms took place between her and Mrs. Walker, which resulted in the defeat of the latter lady. Her enemy, being Charvington's wife and mistress of the house, had the power to send away those whom she regarded as interlopers, and she exercised this power forthwith. Lesbia departed under the wing of Mrs. Walker, and Charvington was too ill to prevent his wife from behaving in this despotic manner. Mrs. Walker desired the girl to come to Medmenham, there to remain until such time as she could be married. But Lesbia, thinking of Tim, insisted on returning to Rose Cottage. Jabez allowed her sufficient money to live on, pending his handing over to her the invested fifty thousand pounds, so there was no difficulty on the score of money. Then it was unlikely that Hale would come back to see Lesbia, now that she knew the truth; and under the charge of the devoted Tim, she could remain quietly until George found occasion to make her his wife. But there was another reason why Hale could not come. He was in hiding, for the information given to the police by Canning--forced, in order to save himself, to turn king's evidence--had resulted in the arrest of Tait and Mrs. Petty and several members of the infamous gang, whose names Canning had supplied. But Hale had managed to escape, likewise Captain Sargent, who had been warned by Maud. That clever young lady, having seen at Jabez's office that the game was up, did what she could to put the rest of the gang on the alert and then vanished like a bubble. Things were in this position when George sat hand in hand with Lesbia under the chestnut tree, discussing the future. "I saw Lord Charvington yesterday," explained the young man, "and he is now rapidly getting better. He proposes that we shall get married next month and accompany him to the south of France. He has a villa there which he will place at our disposal." "And Lady Charvington?" asked Lesbia timidly. "Your stepmother," said Walker, smiling. "No," said Lesbia shuddering, "don't call her that." "Why not? She has behaved exactly as a stepmother does--in fiction." Lesbia shook her head. "I think of her merely as Lady Charvington--a stranger, and when we are married I shall never set eyes on her again." "I don't think she wants to see you," said George drily. "She is still vindictive. It seems that she always loved your father and can never forgive your dead mother for having married him. Thus she visits her anger upon you, my dear. However, what she does or what she says matters little. And for her own sake she will say as little as possible." "She is a strange woman," sighed Lesbia, "and very unhappy." "Don't make any mistake, my dear. Lady Charvington is too hard-hearted to be unhappy. So long as she has her rank and her title and her crowds of adorers, she cares for no one. Whatever love she may have had for your father she has long since given entirely to herself." "Do Agatha and Lena know that I am their half-sister?" "No. I was talking about that yesterday to Lord Charvington. As you know he has not been able to do anything because of his illness, but he is only waiting to get on his feet again to put matters straight." "In what way?" asked the girl anxiously. "Well, you are his daughter, my dear, and he desires to acknowledge you as such in the most public manner." "No," said Lesbia firmly and sadly, "that would be useless and would do no good. Such an acknowledgment would only lead to a lot of questions being asked by my father's friends, and then the whole unhappy business would be raked up. I don't want my miserable story to be published in the papers, especially as Mr. Hale's name is so notorious. Let me marry you quietly, my dear, and then we can go away to France with my father for a few months. I have you, I have the money left to me by my mother, and I have found my real father--the rest matters very little." George kissed her. "You wise little darling," he said admiringly, "I think your decision is exactly what I should expect from your commonsense way of looking at things. I agree with you, that it is best to let sleeping dogs lie, and not to stir up muddy water, and not to--to--what other proverb shall I use, Lesbia?" "'Let the dead past bury its dead,'" she replied, seriously. "We have had much trouble, and we have been parted. Now the troubles appear to have come to an end and we are together. Let us marry and enjoy our good fortune and be happy in our own small way." "Amen! amen! amen!" said George, laughing, "and indeed I think we deserve the good fortune for we did not refuse to bear the cross." "And so have gained the crown of perfect love," said Lesbia contentedly as she nestled in her lover's arms. The garden was still brilliant with many-hued roses, and the river murmured a joyous song as it flowed tranquilly under the deeply blue summer sky. But the blackbird and his mate had gone away with their brood and the nest was deserted. Still other birds remained and other birds were singing lustily of summer joys. Basking in the warm sunshine, contented with each other's company, George and Lesbia passed into that hour of silence, which speaks of love so deep that no speech is needed. They listened to the birds, to the river, to the whispering of the breeze, and dreamed of a future that would always be happy. They were together, they understood each other, so nothing else mattered. But their golden hour was disturbed by Tim, who hobbled down the pathway with a distressed look on his ugly, kind face. The two expected him, so the arrival was not an intrusion. For several days Lesbia had insisted that Tim should explain how much he had known of the many disgraceful things lately found out. Hitherto Tim had evaded an explanation, but on that morning he had gravely promised to tell what he knew. Therefore, when he halted before the dreaming couple, George roused himself. "Here is Tim, my darling," he said with a laugh, "put him in the witness-box." "Ye might say the confessional, Masther Garge," replied Tim, squatting on the dry grass and looking like a good-tempered gnome. "What is it ye want to know, me darlin' heart?" "About my father--that is about Mr. Hale," said Lesbia, who had been addressed. "The bands av death on him," muttered Tim, using an ancient Irish oath. "Sure I knew he wasn't any kith or kin av yours, Miss, though by the same token I niver rightly knew as his lardship was yer father." "Tim," said his young mistress severely, "you told Mrs. Walker in my presence that there was no child with the poor lady who died at Wimbledon." "Is ut yer mother ye talk av, Miss?" asked Tim innocently. "Sure ut was lyin' I wor, an' if I hadn't lied, that divil--ut's the masther I mane--wud have brought throuble on ye." "In what way, Tim?" asked George, looking puzzled. "Augh, nivir ask me, sor. But wasn't I always listenin' and pokin' an' pryin' when that divil--ut's the masther I mane--had thim dirthy tatterdemalions here? Thaves they wor, an' spies, an' racavers av stolen goods, bad luck to thim! The masther caught me wan night an' larned as I knew av the divilments he wor indulgin' in. An' ses he, 'Tim,' ses he, if ye breathe wan wurrd I go to gaol, an' by the same token I'll see that Miss Lesbia goes wid me. Well ye know,' ses he, 'as she lies whin callin' me her father, but if ye tell her I am not,' ses he, 'it manes gaol fur us both.' Augh!" Tim rocked in much distress, "an' what cud I do, Miss dear, me not knowin' the true father av ye." "And if you had known, Tim?" asked Lesbia anxiously. "If I'd known as his lardship wor yer father," said Tim emphatically, "I wud have gone on me bare shinbones to ask him to take ye out av this divil's house. But me masther--bad luck to him!--lied like the father av lies, as he'll some day go to, an' being in the dark as it wor, I didn't dare to let a mouse's squeak av what I knew come to yer purty ears, Miss." "But you hinted that the cross would bring trouble, Tim." "I did that, Miss. Sure, whin the mother that bore ye died in the arrums av me own mother she guv the crass, 'an',' ses she, wid her last gasp, 'let me choild have it, whin she grows up to prove as she's me lawful choild. An' if there's money comin',' ses she, 'though be the same token, me sister has got it all, the crass may git it fur the choild. But nivir let her see her father,' ses she, 'for a bad man he's bin to me.'" "Not altogether bad, Tim," said Lesbia gently, "my mother was deceived. Did she tell Bridget my father's name?" "No, Miss," said Tim promptly, "had she towld, I'd have larned it whin me own mother died, and thin I'd have asked his lardship to take ye from this divil--ut's the masther I mane. But me mother sid nothin' for she knew nothin', save what she towld ye about the crass. 'And,' ses me mother to me whin she guv ye the crass, there'll be throuble over yon crass,' ses she, 'fur th' Sight's on me being near me latter end,' ses she. 'Throuble there'll be over the crass, an' sorrow an' tears an' sudden death. But thim who love will win clear and thim as is bad will come to the black grave.'" "There has been trouble certainly, Tim," said Lesbia sighing, "and the cross both began it and ended it, as your mother declared it would. But now, thank God," she turned to place her arms round George's neck, "it's all over and we shall have no more. Your mother prophesied rightly, Tim, save that there has been no sudden death or black grave, and there isn't likely to be." Tim rocked and shook his huge head. "Thim as is goin' to their long rest sees things as thim aloive can't get a squint at. Me mother foresaw th' sorrow an' tears av th' crass an' the joy which ye an' Masther Garge there have now, good luck to both ay ye! So the sudden death an' the black grave will come I doubt not. But here, me dears," said Tim, after a pause, "there's wan thing ye don't know as I'll tell ye." "And what is that?" asked George, smiling. "'Twas me, Masther Garge, as carried ye from the river bank to the room in yonder," Tim nodded towards the cottage. "I wor out fishin' an' I saw ye in the moonlight lying on the path, though be me sowl I nivir dreamed 'twas you. I rowed ashore an' found ye stunned an' bound, bad luck to the divil who did ut! I tuke ye into the cottage and called softly to the young misthress there. She thought 'twas a drame an' come down to see to you. An' now ye know, both av ye." Lesbia and George looked at one another in astonishment. "Why didn't you tell us this before?" asked Walker sharply. "And why did you bring me to the cottage?" "Sure now," said Tim in injured tones, "didn't I think as 'twas the masther had been up to some divilment, and didn't dare spake in case he'd get Miss Lesbia clapped into gaol 'longside him? But I knew as the masther wud nivir dare to harrum ye in his own house wid Miss Lesbia by the side av ye, an' so I brought ye here into his very jaws as it wor. An' wasn't I right, me dear sor?" "Yes," assented Walker promptly, "I think you were. It was very clever of you to have protected me in that way, even though it was Canning and not Hale who assaulted me. Well, Lesbia," he turned to the girl, "here is another thing made clear. Quite a surprise." "I hope it is the last surprise," said the girl, wearily, "I am very tired of being surprised." "In that case," said a smooth voice at her elbow, "you will be tired at seeing me." Lesbia started to her feet with a cry, and George with an exclamation of astonishment. As to Tim, he scrambled to his feet with an oath. "Augh, murther! murther!" cried the Irishman, "it's the black divil his own silf." "That's complimentary," said Hale, who was standing calm and composed near the lovers. "You were so busily engaged talking, Lesbia, that you did not hear me come down the path." "How dare you come here?" said the girl indignantly. "It's my own house. I had the key," retorted Hale coolly. "I opened the front door and entered. Finding no one within I came here and find that Tim is giving me away. But I am not so black as I am painted." "You are much worse, I daresay," said George bluntly. "Oh, you're there, you lucky young man," said Hale, raising his eyebrows. "I congratulate you on marrying Lesbia and on getting the money." "In spite of all your plotting," said Walker sharply. Hale sat down on the bench with a sudden look of fatigue. He was cool and smiling and bore himself both shamelessly and dauntlessly. But it was apparent that he behaved thus out of bravado. In spite of his boldness, and of the fact that he was dressed as carefully as ever, he was thoroughly ill and had his back to the wall. "You had better leave this place," said Lesbia, to her lover, "the police are hunting for you." "Someone else is hunting for me," said Hale gloomily, "Maud Ellis is on my track swearing vengeance." "Why should she?" "Because to get the money and induce her to play her part, I promised to marry her. I have no intention of doing so. Then again, for my own safety, I have sent a communication to the police offering to tell all I know about Tait and his gang on condition that I am let off. Maud, confound her, has found this out, and swears to have my life." "She would scarcely go so far as that," said George scornfully. "Oh, I think so," said Hale quietly, "she can't show herself, as she is in danger from the police also, and so will revenge herself as she best can. I don't think there's much she would stick at. I caught sight of her on the London platform as I came down this morning, so I expect she will follow me to this house. There will be trouble unless you can aid me to get away." "How can we compound a felony?" asked George, frowning. "It is better than to see a tragedy," retorted Hale. "I am not afraid of Maud unless she takes me by surprise; but that is just what she will do. I am not your father, Lesbia, as you know now, and perhaps I have not been kind in my treatment. All the same I ask you to exercise that kind nature which you always declared you possessed, and give me fifty pounds to get abroad with. Once across the Channel I can shift for myself." "I have not got fifty pounds," said Lesbia hesitating. Badly as Hale had treated her she yet wished to assist him, and truly he was in great need of the coals of fire which she could heap upon his head. "You can soon get it," said Hale eagerly. "Charvington will give you anything. Send Walker to ask him for the money and I can remain concealed in the cottage until he returns." The lovers looked at one another. Both were inclined to assist the miserable man, little as he deserved kindness at their hands. Tim, with a grim face, stood neutral, but being of a less forgiving nature, would gladly have pitched his old master into the river had Lesbia but lifted a finger. But she gave no sign, so Tim waited. It was hard to say what would have happened had not Fate decided the matter. The four people in the garden were so deeply engaged in conversation that they did not observe a boat crossing the river from the opposite shore, some distance above the garden. Tim, indeed, did catch a glimpse of a craft holding two people, but did not take much notice. The boat reached the near shore and then dropped down alongside the bank until it was directly abreast of the chestnut tree. Then for the first time, George and Lesbia looked round at the sound of dipping oars. Hale raised his head and looked also. The next moment there was the sharp report of a revolver and he rolled off the bench shot through the breast. Twice again the revolver spoke and twice Hale was wounded. Maud Ellis was a sure shot. "There," cried she, flinging the weapon ashore to Lesbia, "you can finish him off. He betrayed my uncle, he betrayed me, he betrayed us all. Only Sargent, who is rowing me, and I have escaped. Good-bye, Lesbia, you have your lover--my lover--the man I adore. I hope you'll be happy. I have done justice on that blackguard, so I am going to clear. You'll never see me again, and you can thank your stars that I did not kill you as well as that scoundrel there. George--good-bye--good-bye." She sat down quickly in the boat, which was already receding rapidly from the garden. Sargent apparently had not expected that Maud would have been so thorough in her vengeance and could be seen talking angrily to her. He rowed with all his might across the river, let the boat drift down-stream and leaped ashore. Maud followed alertly and the two set off running rapidly. Where they went, or how they escaped George never knew; but that was the last seen of them in England. Meanwhile Lesbia was on her knees beside the wretched man who had done her so much harm, striving to staunch his wounds with her handkerchief. Tim already had run up the path shouting for the police, and George was about to follow, as he wanted Maud to be arrested for her dastardly crime, when Hale opened his eyes. "Are you there, Lesbia?" he asked faintly. "It's no use my asking for your forgiveness, as I hate being a sneak at the last moment. I have lived bad and I have died bad. But I can say this, that you are the sole human being I regret having injured. You are a fool, as you have always been, like your father--but you are a sweet fool. And I--I----" he choked. "Hush! hush!" said Lesbia distractedly. "George, take him into the house, and fetch the doctor. We must save him----" "No," gasped Hale with a flash of energy, "don't save me to let me rot in gaol. Maud has done me a good turn after all. I die and--and--I cheat--I cheat the law," he opened his eyes again and stared at the two pale faces, then smiled. "God bless you," he gasped, "oh, to think that I should bless----" he laughed, but the effort was too great and he fell back dead. At the same moment Tim came running down with a policeman at his heels. "It's too late, Tim, he is dead," said Lesbia faintly. "Dead is ut?" muttered Tim, staring and crossing himself. "Then me mother wor right in all she said. Sudden death and the black grave. Augh! Sure 'twas the truth me mother spake afther all." CHAPTER XXVI THE END OF IT ALL THE villa owned by Lord Charvington at Nice was beautifully situated, beautifully furnished, and beautifully built. Endless money had been spent upon it to make it as perfect as any human habitation could be. Lady Charvington was particularly fond of it, and her extravagance was evident both in the house and in the lovely gardens. Great was her rage when she heard that her husband had invited George and his young wife and her arch-enemy Mrs. Walker to stay there with him. But she was even more angry when she learned that Charvington had made a free gift of the villa to his daughter. "His conduct has always been atrocious," said Lady Charvington to Jabez, who was the sole person to whom she could speak of such things, since for her own sake she was forced to hold her tongue to the world at large, "but this is the worst thing he has ever done. How dare he give my villa to that horrid girl?" "He has every right to," said Jabez drily, "as the villa is Lord Charvington's own property. And I beg leave to state that I do not consider young Mrs. Walker a horrid girl. She is very sweet, and is bearing her good fortune as modestly as she bore her bad luck bravely." "I hate her," said Lady Charvington fervently. "Why, may I ask?" "Because I hated her mother. I always loved Charvington, and she took him from me." "But you got him in the end," Jabez reminded her. "Got him. Yes, I got the rags and tatters of the passion he had for that detestable Kate Morse. I never forgave her while she lived, and I certainly shall not forgive her now she is dead." "Very good; but you needn't hate her daughter," expostulated Jabez earnestly; "consider how unhappy the poor girl has been, and through no fault of her own. Even now--in deference to her own wish, I admit--she is not acknowledged by her father, publicly at least." "I don't care," cried Lady Charvington, with all the venom of an angry woman. "I hate the girl, and I shall always hate her. But I didn't come here to listen to your views, Mr. Jabez. What I wish to know is if I can insist that my villa shall be given back to me." "No," said Jabez, and very glad he was to be able to reply in the negative, "the villa was never settled on you, and Lord Charvington has a perfect right to deal as he pleases with his own property." "It is my property, and Charvington's a brute. I wonder that I ever loved him--indeed I do," cried the lady vehemently, "and to think of that horrid girl getting the husband she wanted and the fifty thousand pounds, and my villa, and--oh!" she stamped, "it makes one doubt if there is a Providence." "I fear," said Jabez gravely, as she rose to depart, "that some day, if you bear such ill-will towards one who has never injured you, that you will find there _is_ a Providence." "Pooh! pooh! That's all goody-goody talk," said Lady Charvington contemptuously, "but that I have to think of Agatha and Lena I should get a separation from my husband. As it is, I shall spend as much money as I can, and enjoy myself in my own way. I don't want to see him." "I fancy you'll see very little of him," said Jabez drily, as he accompanied her to the door. "Lord Charvington is fond of a quiet life. All you have to do is to enjoy your position and the ample income which he allows you, and hold your tongue about these family troubles." "Oh, of course you are on his side," cried Lady Charvington in a rage. "I really believe that you suggested he should give that nasty girl my villa." "Pardon me," said the solicitor, skilfully dodging the question, "it never was your villa." "It was, and she has stolen it. I only hope she'll be as thoroughly unhappy as she well can be, with the fool she's married and her disagreeable mother-in-law. Judith was always horrid." "I fear you will be disappointed. Young Mrs. Walker adores her mother-in-law, and is adored in turn. They are, as you know, all at the villa with Lord Charvington and, as I gather, perfectly happy." "How disgusting," cried Lady Charvington vindictively, "but I shall wait for the interference of an overruling Providence. Some day the sins of the lot of them will come home to them, and they will be thoroughly miserable." "And your ladyship's sins?" inquired Jabez very gravely. "Sins," she stared, "I have none." After which speech, which completely silenced the lawyer, so taken aback was he by its amazing impudence, she took her departure. All the same she also took his advice and said nothing of what had happened in connection with the affairs of the amethyst cross. And in time--as she could not keep up a hostile attitude for ever--she found it politic to smooth over things with her worried husband. But she never forgave Lesbia to her dying day. Not that Lesbia cared. She was absolutely happy with her husband and mother-in-law and father at the villa. The income derived from her mother yielded over two thousand a year, and this had been supplemented by Lord Charvington, anxious to make amends. What with a large income and a lovely villa, and a handsome, affectionate husband, Lesbia was very fortunate indeed, and felt quite glad that she had gone through so much trouble, to get to such a goal. Something of this sort she said to her father one evening after dinner. The party were seated on the terrace which overlooked the deeply blue waters of the Mediterranean. At the moment, these were dyed with rosy hues from the setting sun. Mrs. Walker, looking much less stern and much more composed, was seated in a deep arm-chair near Lesbia, whom she could scarcely bear out of her sight. Lord Charvington, now looking wonderfully hale and hearty--for it was six months since his attack of apoplexy--sat near a small round table upon which stood coffee and liqueurs. George lounged about with a cigar, casting looks of affection on Lesbia. The quartette, arrayed in evening dress amidst beautiful surroundings, looked thoroughly happy and well-to-do. After the storm had come the calm, and when recalling the storm, as sometimes she could not help doing, Lesbia always spoke cheerfully. "The trouble was worth going through, to come to this," she said, smiling in a happy manner. "I think so too, dear," observed George, who was always hovering in her vicinity. "And I think we have learned the lesson which those very troubles were sent to teach." "What lesson?" asked Lord Charvington lazily. "To trust in God." "Yes," said Mrs. Walker, who was knitting, "you and Lesbia have learned that, and I have learned a lesson also. I have learned to be more sympathetic and more liberal-minded. We are all mortal, and no one has any right to judge another person not knowing that person's temptations." "Do you allude to Walter?" asked Charvington. "Yes. He behaved badly, I allow; but then his will was not strong enough to struggle against the evil that was in him. And after all," Mrs. Walker laid down her knitting, "he was terribly punished. He was snatched out of life unprepared. I hope he has found mercy. But the evil that he did lived after him. Alas! Alas!" "I think Tait and his gang found that was so," said George grimly. "From what was said at the trial, it seemed that Hale was the soul of the gang, even though Tait posed as the head. Canning, of course, escaped because he turned king's evidence and is now in Italy; but Tait got a long sentence." "Mrs. Petty and the rest of the gang also," observed Charvington, "but Maud Ellis and Alfred Sargent escaped." "They were very lucky," said George reflectively. "The police, advised by Tim, were on their track almost at once, but they never caught them. As they were not disguised I wonder that they ever escaped." "Hale was not disguised either, I heard you say," remarked Charvington. "It seems to me that audacity favoured the lot of them. Hale would have escaped also, I doubt not, had he not been shot by that wretched woman." "Why do you shudder, George?" asked Mrs. Walker, at this point. "I am thinking how easily she could have shot Lesbia," said George reluctantly. "She had two or three shots left after she polished off Hale. But she flung the revolver ashore and made a sentimental speech wishing myself and Lesbia good luck. I should have thought--but there," George sighed, "no man can understand a woman." "No woman can understand a man," said Lesbia, laughing. "But I am glad Maud did not shoot me. Where is she now?" Charvington removed his cigar. "I have reason to believe, from some facts which came to Jabez's ears, that she has married Alfred Sargent and is engaged in making trouble in a South American Republic." "Sargent is not strong enough to do much," objected George. Mrs. Walker shook her head. "I believe Alfred Sargent was a much cleverer man than his appearance warranted," she said sharply. "He looked like a fool, but he acted like a wise man. Not only did he escape, but he managed to carry off his thievish earnings. Then look how cleverly he behaved in society in never being suspected. Yet he stole--as we learned at the trial of Tait and the rest--at balls, at weddings, from private houses, and blackmailed any number of people. A dangerously clever man, I call him." "Well, don't let us talk any more about him," said Charvington impatiently, "Maud is clever if you like, and probably will end in imposing him on some second-rate republic, as its President, even though he is a foreigner. I believe that there is no end to that woman's ambition. But he and she are both out of our lives. Also Hale is dead, and as Lesbia has now changed her name, she will not be connected with the sordid past in any way. Let us talk of something more agreeable." "The amethyst cross for instance," said Lesbia pointedly. Charvington wriggled. "Why? That belongs to the disagreeable past." "It taught George and me a lesson," said Lesbia seriously, "and I am sorry that it has been lost sight of." "It has not been lost sight of," said Charvington, after a pause. "Jabez got it from Hale and restored it to me. But I did not show it to you, Lesbia child, because I thought that the sight of it would be painful." "Not now, that I have learned its lesson. Where is it, father?" "Call Tim." Lesbia rang a silver bell which was on the table and shortly Tim, looking more grotesque and more like a gnome than ever, appeared. He was with the young couple as the majordomo of their small household, and enjoyed himself hugely. "Tim," ordered Lord Charvington, giving him a key, "go to my study and open my dispatch box. Bring me the morocco case you will find in it. A red morocco case." "Yes, yer lardship," said the majordomo gravely, as he departed. "Are you sure you want the cross, Lesbia?" asked Mrs. Walker seriously. "Yes. Whenever I forget to be kind and thoughtful, whenever I am inclined to judge others harshly, the cross will remind me of my own shortcomings." "You have none, dear," said George fondly. "George," Mrs. Walker smiled, "you are spoiling her." "I know someone else who spoils me more," whispered Lesbia roguishly, and Mrs. Walker smoothed the girl's hair. At this moment Tim returned with the case. Lord Charvington opened it and took out the ornament which glittered in the rosy hues of sunset. "Presarve us!" whispered Tim crossing himself. "The unlucky crass!" "Lucky now, Tim," said Charvington, slipping a slender watch-chain he wore from his waistcoat. "It found me my daughter. Here, Lesbia," he threaded the loop at the top of the cross, "you can wear it now." Lesbia bent her head and her father threw the chain on her neck. The amethyst cross gleamed with purple fire on her white bosom, a symbol of all that had passed and a symbol also of a brighter future. "I shall always wear it," said Lesbia with serious lovely eyes. "'Refuse and lose,'" said George meditatively, "well we have not refused the cross although I daresay had it been in our powers to do so we should have shirked the burden." "Thank Heaven you were not allowed to, for the bearing of the burden has taught you much," said Mrs. Walker devoutly. "It has earned me the crown of perfect love," said George, drawing Lesbia to his breast. "And that is worth everything," Lesbia replied, kissing him. THE END COLSTON AND CO. LTD. PRINTERS, EDINBURGH, 
60253	----	(This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) Transcriber's Notes: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. Small uppercase have been replaced with regular uppercase. Blank pages have been eliminated. Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. BY BARONESS ORCZY "UNTO CAESAR" EL DORADO THE HEART OF A WOMAN MEADOWSWEET THE NOBLE ROGUE PETTICOAT RULE GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY NEW YORK THE POCKET BOOKS THE NOBLE ROGUE _By_ BARONESS ORCZY Author of "The Scarlet Pimpernel," "The Noble Rogue," "Petticoat Rule" GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY NEW YORK Copyright, 1912, By George H. Doran Company THE NOBLE ROGUE PART I CHAPTER I This act is an ancient tale new told. --SHAKESPEARE. M. Legros, tailor-in-chief to His Majesty Louis XIV and to the Court of Paris and Versailles, bowed himself out of the room; with back bent nearly double, and knees trembling in the effort, he receded towards the door even whilst Monseigneur the Archbishop spoke a final and encouraging benediction. "Have no fear, my good Monsieur Legros," pronounced Monseigneur with urbane kindness; "your affairs shall come under the special notice of the Holy Father. Be of good cheer, right and justice are on your side. Solemn vows cannot be flouted even in these days of godlessness. Go in peace, my son; you are dismissed." "And if the Holy Father--hem--I mean if Monseigneur would take cognizance of the fact--hem--that I will place--" stammered M. Legros with some confusion. "I mean, Monseigneur--that is--I am a man of substance--and if the sum of fifty thousand francs--or--or a hundred thousand--" "Nay, my son, what would you suggest?" quoth Monseigneur with a slight lifting of elegantly-arched brows. "The thought of money doth not enter into the decrees of the Holy Father." "I know--I know, Monseigneur," said M. Legros with ever-growing confusion. "I only thought--" "An you thought, my son, of pleasing God by the bestowal of alms in these days of licentiousness and of evil luxury, then by all means do so in accordance with your substance--I will see to the proper distribution of those alms, good Master Legros--the two hundred thousand francs you speak of shall be worthily bestowed, our promise thereon." M. Legros did not think of protesting. The sum mentioned by Monseigneur was a heavy one in these days, when the working and trading classes had but little left for their own pleasures once the tax collector had passed their way. But the worthy tailor had made no idle boast when he said that he was a man of substance; he was well able to pay a goodly sum for the gratification of his most cherished desire. He received his final congé almost on his knees, then he disappeared through the doorway. Lacqueys to the right of him, lacqueys to the left of him, lacqueys all the way along the carpeted stairs down to the massive front door, formed a living avenue through which M. Legros now passed with his back not yet fully straightened out after its many humble curvatures. Soon he reached the narrow, ill-ventilated street on which gave the great gates of Monseigneur the Archbishop's palace. Instinctively M. Legros gave a deep sigh of content and relief, inhaling the fresh autumnal air which could not altogether be excluded even from these close purlieus where roof almost met roof overhead, and evil-smelling gutters overflowed along the roughly-constructed pavements. The good master tailor had succeeded passing well in his momentous errand. Monseigneur had been overgracious, and two hundred thousand francs was after all only a small sum to come out of Rose Marie's ample marriage portion. M. Legros now walked with a brisk step along the right bank of the Seine, then crossing the Pont Neuf he found himself near the Châtelet prison, and thence by narrow by-paths at his own front door in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. Here he gave a sharp rap with the polished brass knocker, and within a very few seconds the door was opened and an anxious feminine voice hailed him from out the darkness of the narrow passage. "Eh bien?--Monseigneur?--What did he say?" M. Legros closed the door behind him with great deliberation, then he turned, stretched out both arms and, catching the speaker round the shoulders, imprinted two well-sounding kisses on a pair of fresh young cheeks. "He says," said the worthy bonhomme gaily, "that Rose Marie, the fairest maid in France, shall be called Countess of Stowmaries before the year is out, for right and justice and indissoluble marriage vows are all on her side." A little gasp--which sounded almost like a hysterical sob--broke from the woman's throat. It seemed as if the news--evidently very anxiously expected--was overwhelmingly good. There was silence in the little passage for a moment, then the fresh voice, now quite cheerful and steady, said lightly: "Let us go and tell maman!" Together father and daughter went up the steep, slightly-winding stair which led to an upper story. Rose Marie, silent once more, felt as if her young heart would presently burst through her corselet, so rapidly did it beat with excitement and anticipation. She followed her father into the large, cheerful-looking room which gave on the first landing. Here a bright fire blazed in an open hearth; blue cotton curtains hung on each side of the single, narrow window, through which the last rays of this October day struggled faintly. A large iron stewpot, from which escaped a jet of savoury-smelling steam, stood invitingly upon the hob, and beside the hearth, wooden spoon in hand, her ample proportions carefully draped in a thick brown linen apron, stood Mme. Legros herself, the wife of one of the wealthiest men in the whole of Paris. "Eh bien! Legros, 'tis good news then?" she asked with cheerful optimism, whilst a benevolent smile shone all over her round face, red as an Eydam cheese and quite as shiny and greasy, for Madame had been cooking and she was mightily hot. "The best, Maman," came in hilarious accents from her husband; "our daughter shall be installed in her English castle before many moons are over. The Holy Father himself will interfere, and this--this--milor Stowmaries will have to obey at once--failing which 'twill be excommunication and nothing less than that." M. Legros had thrown himself into the tall-backed chair, black with age and the smoke from many a previous stewpot, and had stretched out his legs before him, in order that his dutiful daughter Rose Marie might the more easily divest him of his high out-door boots. Kneeling before her father, she performed this little service for him with all the grace of loving girlhood, and he cocked his cropped head on one side and looked down at her with eyes in which merriment struggled with happy tears. She was so good to look at as she knelt thus on one knee, her fair hair--touched with the gold of the sun of her native Provence--falling in thick ringlets round her young face. She was so girlish and so pure, fresh as the hawthorn in May, and withal luscious to behold like a ripening fruit in June. "Nay! nay!" said M. Legros with mock gravity, as he put his now stockinged feet to the ground and rose with a great show of ceremony; "this is no place for Madame la Comtesse of Stowmaries. She must not kneel at any man's feet, not even at those of her fond old father. Come to my arms, my girl," he added, once more resuming his seat, his voice breaking in the vain endeavour to seem flippant; "sit here on my knee. Maman, for the Lord's sake put down that spoon, and sit down like a Christian and I'll tell you both all that Monseigneur said to me." With a happy little sigh Rose Marie jumped to her feet. Obviously her young heart was still too full for speech. She had said nothing, practically, since her first greeting to her father, since she had heard from him the good news--the confirmation of her hopes. Her cheeks were glowing until they quite ached with the throbbing of the veins beneath the delicate skin, and the palms of her hands felt cold and damp with suppressed nervousness and excitement. Obedient to her father's call, she came close to him and perched herself on his knee, whilst his arm sought her slender waist and clung to it with all the gentle firmness born of his fond paternal love, of his pride in the beauty and grace of his child. Mme. Legros--somewhat reluctantly--had pulled the stewpot further away from the fire, and put her wooden spoon aside. Then she sat down opposite her lord and her daughter and said blandly: "I am listening." "Monseigneur was most affable," now began M. Legros, speaking with some pride at the recollection of his late reception in the Archbishop's palace, "but from the first he bade me to be brief, so as I had rehearsed the whole scene in my mind over and over again, and knew exactly what I wished to say to His Greatness, I was able to put our case before him in the most direct, most straightforward way possible. Now if you will listen very attentively and not interrupt me I will tell you word for word just what passed between Monseigneur and myself." "Go on, Armand," said Madame; "I am burning with impatience and I'll promise not to interrupt." As for Rose Marie, she said nothing, but from the expression in her eyes, it was obvious that she would listen attentively. "Monseigneur sat at his desk and he was pleased to tell me to be seated. Then he said: 'Commence, my son; I am all attention.' He fixed his eyes upon me and I then began my narrative. 'My wife had a distant relative,' I said, 'married to an officer in the army of the English king. At a time of great pecuniary distress this fashionable lady bethought herself of her connection with the humble tailor of Paris and wrote to him an amiable letter suggesting a visit to his modest home.' That was so, was it not, Maman?" he asked, turning for confirmation to his buxom wife. "Exactly so, Armand," she replied in assent; "except that the fashionable lady was at pains not to tell us that her husband was in prison for debt over in England and that she herself was almost destitute--and to think that I was such a simpleton as not to guess at the truth when she arrived with her little boy, and he with his shoes all in holes and--" "Easy--easy, Mélanie," rejoined M. Legros tartly. "Am I telling you my adventures of this afternoon, or am I not?" "But of a truth thou art telling us, Armand," replied fat Mme. Legros blandly. "Then I pray you to remember that I said I would not be interrupted, else I shall lose the thread of my narration." "But thou didst ask me a question, Armand, and I did answer." "Then do not answer at such lengths, Mélanie," quoth the tailor sententiously, "or I shall be an hour getting through my tale, and that savoury stew yonder will be completely spoilt." Harmony being thus restored under threat of so terrible a contingency, M. Legros now resumed his narrative. "I did tell Monseigneur," he said with reproachful emphasis, "that at the time that Mistress Angélique Kestyon came on a visit to us in company with her small son, then aged six and a half years, but without nurse, serving or tiring woman of any kind, we were quite unaware of the distressful position in which she was, and in which she had left her lord and master over in England. I then explained to Monseigneur how Mistress Kestyon seemed over-pleased with the grace and beauty of our own child Rose Marie, who had just passed through her first birthday. She would insist on calling the wench Rosemary, pronouncing the name in an outlandish fashion, and saying that in England it stood for remembrance. A pretty conceit enough, seeing that our Rose Marie once seen would surely never be forgotten." And a vigorous pressure on Rose Marie's waist brought an additional glow to the girl's bright eyes. "At this point," continued M. Legros, "it pleased Monseigneur to show such marked interest in my story, that he appeared quite impatient and said with a show of irritation--which could but be flattering to me:--'Yes! yes! my son, but there is no need to give me all these trifling details. I understand that you are rich, are of somewhat humble calling, and have a daughter, and that the English lady was poor, if high-born, and had a son. Ergo! the children were betrothed.' Which, methinks showed vast penetration on the part of Monseigneur," added the worthy bonhomme naïvely, "and gracious interest in my affairs. Whereupon, warming to my narrative, I exclaimed: 'Not only betrothed, Monseigneur, but married with the full rites and ceremonials of our Holy Church as by law prescribed. My wife and I--so please Your Greatness--thought of the child's future. It has pleased God to bless my work and to endow me with vast wealth which in the course of time will all pass to our Rose Marie. But here in France, the great gentlemen would always look askance at the daughter of the man who made their coats and breeches; not so in England where trade, they say, is held in high esteem, and in order that our child should one day be as great a lady as any one in the land and as noble as she is beautiful, we wedded her to a high and mighty well-born English gentleman, who was own great nephew to one of the most illustrious noblemen in that fog-ridden country--the Earl of Stowmaries, so he is called over there, Monseigneur!' and you may be sure," continued M. Legros, "that I mentioned this fact with no small measure of pride." "Well, and what did His Greatness say to that?" queried Mme. Legros, who would not curb her impatience, even for those few seconds whilst her man paused in order to take breath. "Monseigneur did not seem over-pleased at seeing me display quite so much pride in empty titles and meaningless earthly dignities," rejoined M. Legros lightly. "His Greatness was pleased to rebuke me and to inform me that he himself was well acquainted with the distinguished English family who bears the name of Kestyon of Stowmaries. The Kestyons are all good Catholics and Monseigneur thought that this fact was of far greater importance than their worldly honours and their ancient lineage, and should have weighed much more heavily with us, Maman, when we chose a husband for our daughter." "We should not have given Rose Marie to a Protestant, Armand; you should have told that to Monseigneur. No, not if he had been the King of England himself," retorted Mme. Legros indignantly. "The King of England is as good a Catholic as any of us, so 'tis said," commented M. Legros, "but this is a digression, and I pray you, Mélanie, not to interrupt me again. I felt that His Greatness had lapsed into a somewhat irritable mood against me, which no doubt I fully deserved, more especially as Monseigneur did not then know--but 'tis I am digressing now," resumed the good man after a slight hesitation. "In less time than I can repeat it all, I had told Monseigneur how directly after the marriage ceremony had been performed, we found out how grossly we had been deceived, that le Capitaine Kestyon, the husband of Mistress Angélique, had been in a debtor's prison in London all the time that his wife was bragging to us about his high position and his aristocratic connections; we heard that the great Earl of Stowmaries not only refused to have anything to do with his nephew, who was a noted rogue and evil-doer, but that he had a son and three grandsons of his own, so that there were a goodly number of direct inheritors to his great title and vast estates. All this and more we heard after our darling child had been indissolubly tied to the son of the best-known scoundrel in the whole of England, and who moreover was penniless, deeply in debt, and spent the next ten years in extracting our hard-earned money from out our pockets." The recollection of those same ten years seemed to have even now a terrible effect on the temper of M. Legros. Indignation at the memories his own last words evoked seemed momentarily to choke him. He pulled a voluminous and highly-coloured handkerchief from the pocket of his surcoat and moped his perspiring forehead, for choler had made him warm. Mme. Legros--equally indignant in retrospect but impatient to hear Monseigneur's final pronouncement on the great subject--was nervously rapping a devil's tattoo on the table. Rose Marie's fair head had fallen forward on her breast. She had said nothing all along, but sat on her father's knee, listening with all her ears, for was not he talking about the people who would be her people henceforth, the land which would be her land, the man who of a truth was her lord and husband? But when Legros, with just indignation, recalled the deceits, the shifts, the mean, mercenary actions of those whose name she would bear through life, then the blush of excitement seemed to turn into one of shame, and two heavy tears fell from her eyes onto her tightly clasped hands. "Father, Father!" cried fat Mme. Legros in horror, "cannot you see that you have made the child cry?" "Then heaven punish me for a blundering ass," exclaimed Legros, with renewed cheerfulness. "Nay! nay! my little cabbage, there's naught to cry for now; have I not said that all is well? Those ten years are past and done with and eight more lie on the top of them--and if Monseigneur showed some impatience both at my pride and at my subsequent indignation, he was vastly interested, I can tell you that, when he heard that the son and three grandsons of the great English nobleman were by the will of God wrecked while pleasure-cruising together off the coast of Spain and all four of them drowned, and that the old lord himself did not long survive the terrible catastrophe, which had swept four direct inheritors of his vast wealth and ancient name off the face of the earth and into the sea. His Greatness became quite excited--and vastly amiable to me: 'Ah!' he said, 'then surely--you cannot mean--?' You see Monseigneur was so interested he scarce could find his words. 'Yes, so please Your Greatness,' quoth I with becoming dignity, 'the husband of our Rose Marie, the son of the capitaine who in life had been nought but a rogue, has inherited the title and the wealth of his great-uncle. He is now styled by the English the Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, Baron of Edbrooke and of Saumaresque, and he has many other titles besides, and one of the richest men in the whole of England!' 'Mais, comment donc!' exclaims Monseigneur, most affably, and you'll both believe me, an you will, but I give you my word that His Greatness took my hand and shook it, so pleased did he seem with what I had told him. 'We must see the lovely Comtesse of Stowmaries!--Eighteen years ago, did you say, my son? and she was a baby then! The decrees of God are marvellous, of a truth!--And your Rose Marie a great English lady now, eh?--with a quantity of money and a great love for the Church!--By the Mass, my son, we must arrange for a solemn Te Deum to be sung at St. Etienne, before the beautiful comtesse leaves the sunny shores of France for her fog-wrapped home across the sea!' Nay! but His Greatness said much more than that. He spoke of the various forms which our thank-offering might take, the donations which would be most acceptable to God on this occasion; he mentioned the amount of money which would most adequately express the full meed of our gratitude to Providence, by being given to the Church, and I most solemnly assure you that he simply laughed at the very thought of the Earl of Stowmaries contemplating the non-fulfilment of his marriage vows. I pointed out to His Greatness that the young man seemed inclined to repudiate the sacred bond. We had not seen him since the ceremony eighteen years ago, and after our final refusal to further help his parents with money or substance, we had even ceased to correspond. His parents had gone to live in some far, very far-off land across the ocean, where I believe cannibals and such like folk do dwell. They had taken the boy with them, of course. We thought the young man dead, or if alive then as great a rogue as his father, and mourned that our only child was either a girl-widow, or the wife of a reprobate. ''Tis eighteen years,' I said, 'since those marriage vows were spoken.' 'Were they fifty,' retorted His Greatness, 'they would still be sacred. The Catholic Church would scorn to tie a tie which caprice of man could tear asunder. Nay! nay!' he added with sublime eloquence, 'have no fear on this matter, my son. Unless the Earl of Stowmaries chooses to abjure the faith of his fathers, and thereby cause his own eternal damnation, he cannot undo the knot which by the will of his parents--he being a minor at the time--tied him indissolubly to your daughter.' Thus spoke His Greatness, Monseigneur the Archbishop of Paris," concluded M. Legros, with becoming solemnity, "and in such words will the message be conveyed to the man who by all laws human and divine is the husband of Rose Marie Dieudonnée Legros, our only and dearly loved child." There was silence in the small room now. The fast-gathering twilight had gradually softened all sharp outlines, covering every nook and cranny with a mantle of gloom and leaving the dying embers of the fire to throw a warm glow over the group of these homely folk: fat Mme. Legros in cooking apron of coarse linen, her round, moist face pale with excitement, the sleeves of her worsted gown rolled back over her shapely arms; the kindly tailor with rubicund face gleaming with pride and paternal love, one arm still encircling the cherished daughter whose future had been mapped out by him on such glorious lines, and she, the girl--a mere child, fair and slender, with great, innocent eyes which mirrored the pure, naïve soul within, eyes which still looked the outer world boldly in the face, which had learned neither to shrink in terror, nor yet to waver in deceit, a child with rosy, moist lips which had not yet tasted the sweet and bitter savour of a passionate kiss. The silence became almost oppressive, for Mme. Legros dared not speak again, lest she irritate the mightily clever man whom God had pleased to give her as husband, and Rose Marie was silent because, unknown even to herself, in the far-off land of Shadows, the Fates who sit and spin the threads of life had taken in their grim and relentless hands the first ravellings of her own. Vaguely now, for her ears were buzzing, she heard her father speak again, talking of Monseigneur's graciousness, of the intervention of the French ambassador at the Court of the King of England, of an appeal to the Holy Father who would command that the great English milor shall acknowledge as his sole and lawful wife, Rose Marie Legros, the daughter of the Court tailor of Paris. It was so strange--almost uncanny, this intervention of great and clever gentlemen, of Monseigneur the Archbishop of Paris, whom hitherto she had only seen at a great distance passing through the streets in his glass coach or celebrating High Mass at the great altar in Notre Dame, of the King of England, whom she had once seen at a pageant in Versailles, actually talking to young King Louis himself, the greatest man in the whole world and most wonderful of all, of the Holy Father, second only on earth to le bon Dieu Himself--all, all of these great and marvellous people troubling about her, Rose Marie. For the moment she could not bear to think of it all, and she supposed that she must outwardly have looked as strange as she felt herself to be from within, for maman suggested that the child was overwrought and must go to her room, where presently she should partake of fricassée of chicken and a glass of good red wine with a little clove and cinnamon in it, the panacea, in good Mme. Legros' estimation, for every ailment of body, mind or heart. CHAPTER II True hope is swift, and flies with swallows' wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. --RICHARD III. V. 2. Rose Marie hardly knew how she reached the tiny room up under the sloping roof, which room was her very own. She only realised that she longed to be alone to think matters out all by herself, and then to indulge in a long and happy cry. Oh, yes! she was quite, quite sure that she was very happy, and that it was because of this great happiness which filled her heart to bursting, that she felt so very much inclined to cry. Presently maman came in with the red wine and the fricassée and was horrified to find the child in tears. "My pigeon, my little cabbage, but what ails thee, my jewel?" ejaculated the good old soul, as she hastily put down the platter and bottle which she was carrying and went to kneel beside the narrow bed in the wall, from the depths of which came ominous sounds of a girl sobbing. "Nothing, Maman, nothing!" said Rose Marie, smiling at her mother's anxiety and hastily endeavouring to dry her tears. "Nothing--nothing--" grumbled Mme. Legros, "one does not cry for nothing, my child--" "And I am vastly silly, Maman, for doing it--but I assure you that it is nothing--and--and--" The young voice broke in renewed sobs, and two arms were stretched forth from out the bed and sought the mother's kindly shoulder, whereon a strangely overburdened childish heart could sob itself out in perfect peace. "There! there! my little cabbage," said Mme. Legros, trying with tender pattings of the soft fair hair to soothe this well-nigh hysterical outburst, "of a truth, thou hast been overwrought, and it was not right for father to speak of all this before thee. Thou didst not know that the young English lord had endeavoured to break his marriage vows, and that thy father and I have been working hard in order to bring influence to bear upon the rogue. Fortunately now we have succeeded, with the help of Monseigneur, so there is no need to cry, my cabbage, is there?" "No, no, Maman, it is not that," said the girl more quietly; "I cannot quite explain to you what it is that made me cry--for I have known all along that milor--now that he is a milor and passing rich--was anxious to forget us humble folk, who helped his parents in their need--I have felt the shame of that before now, and it never made me cry. But to-day--somehow--Maman, darling," she added, sitting up quite straight in bed and looking at her mother with enquiring eyes, whilst her fine brow was puckered in a deep frown of thought, "somehow I feel--I cannot quite explain how it is--I feel as if my old life was finished--quite, quite finished--as if nothing would ever be quite the same again--my little room here, the pink curtains, that chair over there--they do not seem the same--not quite, quite the same--Maman, cherie, I suppose you don't understand?" And the great childish eyes sought anxiously the mother's face, longing for comprehension, for the explanation of an unaccountable mystery. "No, my pigeon, I confess I do not understand," quoth worthy Mme. Legros drily, "for I do not see--nor would any sensible person admit--that a great English milor just because he is thy husband--can from all that distance, from the other side of the sea, change thy room and thy chair, nor yet thy curtains, though the latter, I will say, sorely need washing at the present moment," she added with sublime irrelevance. The girl sighed. Maman for once did not understand. Nor of a truth did she understand herself. She had tried to explain it all but had signally failed--had only succeeded in suggesting something which of course was supremely silly. "I'll tell thee how it is, Rose Marie," resumed Mme. Legros with firm decision, "thy stomach is in a disturbed condition, and a cup of cold camomile tea thou shalt drink to-morrow before rising. I'll see to the making of it at once,--for it must be brewed over-night to be truly efficacious,--and come back and give thee thy supper a little later on." Mme. Legros struggled back to her feet, happy to have found in a prospective cup of camomile tea a happy solution for Rose Marie's curious mood. She took up the platter again, for the fricassée must be kept hot, and the child must eat some supper a little later on. The good woman's heart was filled with that cheerful optimism which persistently seeks the good side of every eventuality and nearly always finds it. In this case Mme. Legros failed to see that anything but good could come out of the present position. That same wonderful optimism of hers had not been altogether proof against the events of the past years, when she first began to realise that the marriage which she--more so than her husband--had planned in conjunction with Mistress Angélique Kestyon, was destined to prove a bar to her daughter's happiness. In those far-off days eighteen years ago, Mme. Legros had still fostered in her homely bosom the--since then--aborted seeds of social ambition. Well-connected on her mother's side, with a good English family, she had wedded the Paris tailor for pecuniary rather than for sentimental reasons, and she had a sufficiency of sound common sense to understand that as a tradesman's wife she could not in these days of arbitrary class distinction aspire to remain within that same social circle to which her connections and parentage would otherwise have entitled her. But though the seeds of ambition lay dormant in the homely soil of her husband's back shop, they were not then altogether destroyed. Mélanie de Boutillier had been well past her youth when she married Armand Legros; when her baby girl was born, and the mother with justifiable pride realised that the child was passing fair, those same seeds once more began to germinate. The visit of the English relative--high-born, well-connected and accompanied by a boy not yet seven years of age, brought them to final perfection. What Mélanie de Boutillier had failed to obtain, Rose Marie Legros should possess in measureless plenty, and little Rupert Kestyon, great nephew of an English milor, should be the one to shower the golden gifts on her. All these schemes seemed at first so easy of accomplishment. It had been useless afterwards to cry over undue haste; at the time it seemed right, fitting and proper. Times then were troublous in England; Mistress Angélique Kestyon feared the democratic spirit there. It seems that the English were actually fighting against their king, and that the fate of the great noblemen in the country was in consequence somewhat uncertain; but only temporarily, of course, for King Charles Stuart would soon overcome his enemies and duly crush the rebellious traitors who had taken up arms against him. In the meanwhile the children would grow up, and anon when the Court of England had resumed its former splendour, Rupert Kestyon, the dearly-loved relative of the powerful Earl of Stowmaries, would introduce his beautiful bride to the charmed inner circle of English aristocracy. It all seemed so clear--so simple--as if, of a truth, the match and its glorious consequences had been specially designed by Providence for the glorification and social exaltation of Rose Marie Legros. Surely no one in those days would have thought that any blame could be attached to the parents for hurrying on the marriage ceremony between the two children, whose united ages fell short of a decade. The catastrophe came afterwards when the tale of deceit and of fraud was gradually unfolded. Then came the requests for money, the long voyage to America, the knowledge that milor Stowmaries not only had no love for these relatives of his, but had finally and irrevocably refused to help them in their distress, unless they took ship for a far distant colony and never troubled him with sight of their faces again. Good Armand Legros, who adored his daughter, was quite broken-hearted. Madame tried to remain hopeful against these overwhelming odds--always thinking that--though it had certainly pleased God to try the Legros family very severely for the moment--something would inevitably turn up which would be for the best. The immediate result of that unvarying optimism was that she continued Rose Marie's education on the same lines as she had originally intended, as if the girl-wife was indeed destined anon to grace the Court of the King of England. The child was taught the English language by one of the many impoverished English gentlemen who had settled in France after the murder of their king. She learned to write and to read, to spell and to dance. She was taught to play on the virginals and to sing whilst playing a thorough-bass on the harpsichord. Nay! her knowledge, so 'twas said, extended even as far as geography and the Copernican system. Her mother kept her apart from girls of her own age, unless these belonged to one of those few families where learning was esteemed. She was never allowed to forget that some day she would leave her father's shop and be a great lady in England. Whilst Mme. Legros and the kindly bonhomme Armand gradually drifted in their middle age to the bourgeois manners and customs of their time and station, they jealously fostered in their only child that sense of elegance and refinement which mayhap she had inherited from one of her remote ancestors, or mayhap had received as a special gift from the fairy godmother who presided at her birth. Mme. Legros cooked and scoured, Master Armand made surcoats and breeches, but Rose Marie was never allowed to spoil her hands with scrubbing, or to waste her time presiding over the stewpot. Her father had bought her a pair of gloves; these she always wore when she went out, and she always had stockings and leather shoes on her feet. As the girl grew up, she gradually assimilated to herself more and more this idea that she was to be a great lady. She never doubted her future for a moment. Her father from sheer fondness, her mother from positive conviction, kept the certitude alive within her. But it became quite impossible to keep from the girl's growing intelligence all knowledge of the Kestyon's misdeeds. The worthy tailor who was passing rich kept but a very small house, in which the one living room, situate just above the shop, was the family meeting ground. Rose Marie could not be kept out of the room every time her father and mother talked over the freshly-discovered deceits and frauds practised by their new relations. We must suppose that the subject thus became such a familiar one with the child-wife from the moment when she first began to comprehend it, that it never acquired any horror or even shame for her. Mistress Angélique Kestyon had grossly deceived papa and maman; they were not so rich or so grand just now as they had represented themselves to be, but it would all come right in the end--maman at least was quite sure of that. If--as time went on and Rose Marie from a child became a girl--that pleasing optimism somewhat gave way, this was no doubt due to too much book learning. Rose Marie was very fond of books, and books we all know have a tendency to destroy the innocent belief in the goodness of this world. This at least was Papa Legros' opinion. Mme. Legros spoke less and less on the subject. She hoped. She hoped resolutely and persistently, whilst the Kestyons from distant Virginia begged repeatedly for money. She went on hoping even whilst urging her husband to cut off further supplies, after ten years of this perpetual sponging. She still hoped whilst no news whatever came from the emigrants and when the rumour reached her that young Rupert Kestyon had died out there. At this point, however, her optimism took a fresh turn. She hoped that the rumour was true, and that Rose Marie was now free to wed some other equally high-born but more reliable gentleman. She continued to hope despite the difficulty of proving that the young man had really died, and Monseigneur the Archbishop's refusal to grant permission for a second marriage. Then when the news filtered through from England as far as the back shop in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie that Rupert Kestyon was not only alive but had--by a wonderful, almost miraculous series of events--inherited the title and estates of his deceased kinsman and was now of a truth by the will of God and the law of his country milor of Stowmaries, and one of the greatest gentleman in the whole of England, Mme. Legros' optimism found its crowning glory in its justification. That the young milor seemed disinclined to acknowledge the daughter of the Paris tailor as his wife and that he seemed to be taking serious steps to have the marriage annulled, were but trifling matters which never upset Mme. Legros' equanimity. She was quite sure that the marriage could not be annulled without special dispensation from the Holy Father himself, and equally sure that that dispensation would never be granted. She had perfect faith not only in the sacred indissolubility of the marriage tie, but in the happy future of Rose Marie. When Monseigneur the Archbishop of Paris granted her Armand a special audience, whereat the tailor had begged permission to lay the family case before His Greatness, Mme. Legros never for a moment doubted the happy issue of that interview: and when her man came home and told his satisfactory tale, maman was in no way astonished. Her optimism had been justified: that was all. But what did astonish the good soul was the fact that the child--Rose Marie--sat crying in her bed, whereas she should have been singing and laughing all about the place. Therefore, maman, with commendable forethought, prescribed cold camomile tea as a remedy against what was obviously but a sharp attack of megrims. CHAPTER III Come Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain And bring the fated Fairy Prince. --TENNYSON. And in the narrow bed built within the wall in the tiny room, wherein a tallow candle placed on a central table threw only very feeble rays, the girl Rose Marie lay dreaming. She--Rose Marie--the daughter of Papa Legros--as he was uniformly called in the neighbourhood--she was now a great lady, by the will of God and the decree of the Holy Father himself. She would have a glass coach like the ladies whom she had so often seen driving about in Versailles, and sit in it, dressed in the latest fashion and holding a fan in her hand, which would be encased in a lace mitten. At this point in her dreams Rose Marie sat up in bed, very straight and dignified, with her little hands folded over the cotton coverlet, and she bent her young head to right and to left, like one saluting a number of passers-by. A nod accompanied by an encouraging smile indicated the greeting to a supposed friend, whilst a condescending nod and a haughty stare suggested the presence of an acquaintance of somewhat low degree. Thus Rose Marie had seen the ladies behave in their coaches in Versailles. She had seen Maria Mancini bow serenely to her admirers, and the Queen Mother bestow the stony stare on her detractors. She had watched, wondered and admired, but never had she tried to imitate until now--now that her smile would be appreciated by many, her frown be of consequence to others. Up to now it had not mattered. Though her father was reputed to be wealthy, he was only a tailor, who had to bow and scrape and wallow before the great gentlemen of the Court. Aye! and had more than once been soundly thrashed because of the misfit of a pair of Court breeches. And Rose Marie had oft sighed for greatness, for the gilded coach and a seat at the opera, for silken dresses, flowers, patches and rouge. She was only a child with an acutely developed sense of sympathy for everything that was dainty and refined, everything that smelt sweetly and was soft and tender to the touch. Thus she went on dreaming her dream in content, never doubting for a moment that happiness lay closely linked with this sudden accession to grandeur. The fact that her lawful lord and husband had shown a desire to break his marriage vows, and to take unto himself some other wife more equal to him in rank and breeding than the humble tailor's daughter, troubled Rose Marie not at all. With sublime faith in the workings of Providence, she put her husband's reluctance to acknowledge her down to his ignorance of herself. He had never seen her since the day of the ceremony, eighteen years ago. She was a baby in arms then, whilst now-- Rose Marie drew in her breath and listened. Maman was evidently not yet coming up. All was still on this upper floor of the house. Rose Marie put her feet to the ground and rose from her bed. She picked up the candle from the table and tripped across the room to where--on the whitewashed wall opposite--there hung a small gilt-framed mirror. Into this she peeped, holding the candle well above her head. Her face wore neither the look of vanity, nor even that of satisfaction: rather was it a look of the closest possible scrutiny. Rose Marie turned her head to right and left again, but not--this time--in order to enact a private comedy, but in order to convince herself in her own mind that her cheeks had indeed that peach-like bloom, which her overfond father had so oft proclaimed, and that her hair was sufficiently brilliant in colour to be called golden, and yet not too vivid to be called "roux." We may take it that this scrutiny, which lasted nearly twenty minutes, was of a satisfactory character, for presently, with a happy little sigh, and heaving breast, Rose Marie tripped lightly back to her narrow bed in the wall, and squeezed herself well within the further dark angle, to which the flickering light of the tallow candle had no access. This she did because she had heard maman's step on the stairs, and because her own cheeks now were of a flaming red. PART II CHAPTER IV For what is wedlock forced but a hell. --1 HENRY VI. V. 5. "My Lord is sad." "Oh!--" "My Lord is weary!" "!!--" A pause. Mistress Julia Peyton, you understand, was waxing impatient. Can you wonder? She was not accustomed to moodiness on the part of her courtiers; to a certain becoming diffidence mayhap, to tongue-tiedness--if we may be allowed so to call it--on the part of her young adorers fresh from their country homes, fledglings scarce free from the gentle trammels of their mother's apron strings, to humility in the presence of so much beauty, grace and wit as she was wont to display when taken with the desire to please, to all that yes, yes and a thousand times yes, the adorable Julia was fully accustomed. But to silence on the part of the wittiest gentleman about town, to moodiness akin to ill-humour on the part of the most gallant young rake this side of Westminster--no! no! and a thousand times no! Mistress Julia would have none of it. Her daintily-shod foot beat a quick measure against the carpets, her fingers delicately tipped with rouge played a devil's tattoo on the polished top of the tiny marqueterie table beside her, and her small teeth, white and even as those of a kitten, tore impatiently at her under lip. Still Lord Stowmaries paid no heed to these obvious signs of a coming storm. He lolled in an armchair opposite the imperious beauty, his chin was resting in his hand, his brow was puckered, and oh! most portentous outward indication of troubles within! his cravat looked soiled and crumpled, as if an angry hand had fidgeted its immaculate whiteness away. At last Mistress Julia found herself quite unable to control her annoyance any longer. Granted that Lord Stowmaries was the richest, most promising "parti" that had ever come her way; that he was young, good-looking, owned half the county of Hertford, and one of the oldest names in England, and that, moreover, he was of sufficiently amiable disposition to be fashioned into a model husband by and by! granted all that, say I! Had not all these advantages, I pray you to admit, caused the fair Julia to hide her ill-humour for close on half an hour, whilst the young man frowned and sighed, gave curt answers to her most charming sallies, and had failed to notice that a filmy handkerchief, lace-edged and delicately perfumed, had been dropped on that veriest exact spot of the carpet which was most conveniently situated for sinking on one knee within a few inches of the most adorable foot in London? But now the irascible beauty was at the end of her tether. She rose--wrathfully kicking aside that same handkerchief which her surly visitor had failed to notice--and took three quick steps in the direction of the bell-pull. "And now, my lord," she said, "I pray you to excuse me." And she stretched out her hand in a gesture intended to express the full measure of her wrath. Lord Stowmaries roused himself from his unpleasant torpor. "To excuse you, fair one?" he murmured in the tone of a man who has just wakened from slumber, and is still unaware of what has been going on around him whilst he slept. "Ay, my good lord," she replied with a shrill note of sarcasm very apparent in the voice which so many men had compared to that of a nightingale. "I fain must tear myself away from the delights of your delectable company--though I confess 'twere passing easy to find more entertaining talk than yours has been this last half-hour." "Would you be cruel to me now, Mistress?" he said with a deep and mournful sigh, "now, when--" "Now, when what?" she retorted still pettishly, though a little mollified by his obvious distress. She turned back towards him, and presently placed a hand on his shoulder. "My lord," she said resolutely, "either you tell me now and at once what ails you this afternoon, or I pray you leave me, for in your present mood, by my faith, your room were more enjoyable than your company." He took that pretty hand which still lingered on his shoulder, and pressing it for a few lingering seconds between both his, he finally conveyed its perfumed whiteness to his lips. "Don't send me away," he pleaded pathetically; "I am the most miserable of mortals, and if you closed your doors against me now, you would be sending your most faithful adorer straight to perdition." "Tut, man!" she rejoined impatiently, "you talk like a gaby. In the name of Heaven, tell me what ails you, or I vow you'll send me into my grave with choler." "I have been trying to tell you, Mistress, this past half-hour." "Well?" "But Lud help me, I cannot." "Then it's about a woman," she concluded with firm decision. He gave no reply. The conclusion was obvious. The fair Julia frowned. This was threatening to become serious. It was no mere question of moodiness then, of ill-humour anon to be forgiven and dissipated with a smile. There was a woman at the bottom of my lord Stowmaries' ill-humour. A woman who had the power to obtrude her personality between his mental vision and the daintiest apparition that had ever turned a man's brain dizzy with delight. A woman in fact who might prove to be an obstacle to the realisation of Mistress Julia Peyton's most cherished dreams. All thoughts of anger, of petulance, of bell-pulls and peremptory congés fled from the beauty's mind. She sat down again opposite the young man; she rested her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands; she looked serious, sympathetic, interested, anything you like. A sufficiency of moisture rose to her eyes to render them soft and lustrous, appealing and irresistible. Her lips parted and quivered just sufficiently to express deep emotion held courageously in check, whilst from beneath the little lace cap one or two rebellious curls free from powder, golden in colour, and silky in texture, were unaccountably allowed to escape. Thus equipped for the coming struggle, she repeated her question, not peremptorily this time, but gently and in a voice that trembled slightly with the intensity of sympathy. "What ails my lord?" "Nothing short of despair," he replied, whilst his eyes rested with a kind of mournful abnegation on the enchanting picture so tantalisingly near to him. "Is it quite hopeless, then?" she asked. "Quite." "An entanglement?" "No. A marriage." Outwardly she made no sign. Mistress Julia was not one of those simpering women who faint, or scream, or gasp at moments of mental or moral crises. I will grant you that the colour left her cheek, and that her fingers for one brief instant were tightly clutched--no longer gracefully interlaced--under her chin. But this was in order to suppress emotion, not to make a show of it. There was only a very momentary pause, the while she now, with deliberate carelessness, brushed a rebellious curl back into its place. "A marriage, my good lord," she said lightly; "nay! you must be jesting--or else mayhap I have misunderstood.--A marriage to render you moody?--Whose marriage could that be?--" "Mine, Mistress--my marriage," exclaimed Lord Stowmaries, now in tones of truly tragical despair; "curse the fate that brought it about, the parents who willed it, the necessity which forced them to it, and which hath wrecked my life." Mistress Julia now made no further attempt to hide her fears. Obviously the young man was not jesting. The tone of true misery in his voice was quite unmistakable. It was the suddenness of the blow which hurt her so. This fall from the pinnacle of her golden dreams. For weeks and months now she had never thought of herself in the future as other than the Countess of Stowmaries, chatelaine of Maries Castle, the leader of society both in London and in Newmarket, by virtue of her husband's wealth and position, of her own beauty, tact and grace. She had even with meticulous care so reorganised her mind and memory, that she could now eliminate from them all recollections of the more humble past--the home at Norwich, the yeoman father, kindly but absorbed in the daily struggle for existence, the busy, somewhat vulgar mother, the sordid existence peculiar to impoverished smaller gentry; then the early marriage with Squire Peyton. It had seemed brilliant then, for the Squire, though past his youth, had a fine house, and quite a few serving men--but no position--he never came to London and Mistress Julia's knowledge of Court and society was akin to that which children possess of fairies or of sprites. But Squire Peyton it appears had more money than he had owned to in his lifetime. He had been something of a miser apparently, for even his young widow was surprised when at his death--which occurred if you remember some twenty-four months ago--she found herself possessed of quite a pleasing fortune. This was the beginning of Mistress Julia's golden dreams, of her longings towards a more brilliant future, which a lucky second marriage could easily now secure for her. The thousand pounds a year which she possessed enabled her to take a small house in Holborn Row, and to lay herself out to cut a passable figure in London society. Not among the Court set, of course, but there were all the young idlers about town, glad enough to be presented to a young and attractive widow, endowed with some wealth of her own, and an inordinate desire to please. The first few idlers soon attracted others, and gradually the pretty widow's circle of acquaintances widened. If that circle was chiefly composed of men, who shall blame the pretty widow? It was a husband she wanted, and not female companionship. Lord Swannes, if you remember, paid her his court, also Sir Jeremiah Harfleet, and it was well known that my lord of Craye--like the true poet that he was--was consumed with love of her. But as soon as Mistress Julia realised that richly-feathered birds were only too willing to fly into her snares, she aimed for higher game. A golden eagle was what she wanted to bring down. And was not the young Earl of Stowmaries the veritable prince of golden eagles? He came and saw and she conquered in a trice. Her beauty, which was unquestionable, and an inexhaustible fund of _verve_ and high-spirited chatter which easily passed for wit were attractive to most men, and Lord Stowmaries, somewhat blasé already by the more simpering advances of the Court damsels, found a certain freshness in this young widow who had not yet shaken off the breezy vulgarity of her East Anglian home, and whose artless conversation, wholly innocent of elegance, was more amusing than the stilted "Ohs!" and "Luds!" of the high-born ladies of his own rank. The golden eagle seemed overwilling to allow the matrimonial snare set by the fair Julia to close in around him: she was already over-sure of him, and though she did not frequent the assemblies and salons where congregated his lordship's many friends, she was fully aware that her name was being constantly coupled with that of the Earl of Stowmaries. But now she saw that she had missed her aim, that the glorious bird no longer flew within her reach, but was a prisoner in some one else's cage, fettered beyond her powers of liberation. But still Mistress Julia with persistence worthy a better cause refused to give up all hope. "Tell me all about it, my lord," she said as quietly as she could. "It had been better had you spoken before." "I have been a fool, Mistress," he replied dully, "yet more sinned against than sinning." "You'll not tell me that you are actually married?" she insisted. "Alas!" "And did not tell me so," she retorted hotly, "but came here, courting me, speaking of love to me--of marriage--God help you! when the very word was a sacrilege since you were not free--Oh! the perfidy of it all!--and you speak of being more sinned against than sinning. 'Tis the pillory you deserve, my lord, for thus shaming a woman first and then breaking her heart." She was quite sincere in her vehemence, for self-control had now quite deserted her, and the wrong and humiliation which she had been made to endure, rose up before her like cruel monsters that mocked and jeered at her annihilated hopes and her vanished dreams. Her voice rose in a crescendo of shrill tones, only to sink again under the strength of choking sobs. Despair, shame and bitter reproach rang through every word which she uttered. "As you rightly say, Mistress," murmured the young man, "God help me!" "But the details, man--the details--" she rejoined impatiently; "cannot you see that I am consumed with anxiety--the woman?--who is she?--" "Her name is Rose Marie," he replied in the same dull, even tones, like a schoolboy reciting a lesson which he hath learned, but does not understand; "she is the daughter of a certain M. Legros, who is tailor to His Majesty the King of France." "A tailor!" she gasped, incredulous now, hopeful once more that the young man was mayhap suffering from megrims and had seen unpleasant visions, which had no life or reality in them. "A tailor's daughter?" she repeated. "Impossible!" "Only too true," he rejoined. "I had no choice in the matter." "Who had?" "My parents." "Tush!" she retorted scornfully, "and you a man!" "Nay! I was not a man then." "Evidently." "I was in my seventh year!" he exclaimed pathetically. There was a slight pause, during which the swiftly-risen hope a few moments ago once more died away. Then she said drily: "And she?--this--this Rose or Mary--daughter of a tailor--how old was she when you married her?" "In her second year, I think," he replied meekly. "I just remember quite vaguely that after the ceremony she was carried screaming and kicking out of the church. That was the last I saw of my wife from that day to this--" "Bah!" "My great-uncle, the late Lord Stowmaries, shipped my father, mother and myself off to Virginia soon after that. My father had been something of a wastrel all his life and a thorn in the flesh of the old miser. The second time that he was locked up in a debtor's prison, Lord Stowmaries paid up for him on the condition that he went off to Virginia at once with my mother and myself, and never showed his face in England again." "Hm! I remember hearing something of this when you, my lord, came into your title. But these--these--tailor people--who were they?" "Madame Legros was a distant connection of my mother's who, I suppose, married the tailor for the same reason that I--an unfortunate lad without a will of my own--was made to marry the tailor's daughter." "She is rich--of course?" "Legros, the tailor, owns millions, I believe, and Rose Marie is his only child. It was the first time that my poor father, Captain Kestyon, found himself actually in prison and unable to pay his debts. The Earl of Stowmaries--a wicked old miser, if ever there was one--refused to come to his rescue. My mother was practically penniless then; she had no one to whom she could turn for succour except the cousin over in Paris, who had always been kind to her, who was passing rich, burning with social ambition, and glad enough to have the high-born English lady beneath her bourgeois roof." "And that same burning social ambition caused the worthy tailor to consent to a marriage between his baby daughter and the scion of one of the grandest families in England," commented Mistress Julia calmly. "It were all so simple--if only you had had the manhood to tell me all this ere now." "I thought that miserable marriage forever forgotten." "Pshaw!" she retorted, "was it likely?" "I had heard nothing of the Legros for many years," he said dejectedly. "My father had died out in the Colony: my mother and I continued to live there on a meagre pittance which that miserly old reprobate--my great-uncle--grudgingly bestowed upon us. This was scarce sufficient for our wants, let alone for enabling us to save enough money to pay our passage home. At first my mother was in the habit of asking for and obtaining help from the Legros!--you understand? she never would have consented to the connection," added the young man with naïve cynicism, "had she not intended to derive profit therefrom, so whenever an English or a French ship touched the coast my poor mother would contrive to send a pathetic letter to be delivered in Paris, at the house of the king's tailor. But after a while answers to these missives became more and more rare, soon they ceased altogether, and it is now eight years since the last remittance came--" "The worthy tailor and his wife were getting tired of the aristocratic connection," commented Mistress Julia drily; "no doubt they too had intended to derive profit therefrom and none came." "Was I not right, Mistress, in thinking that ill-considered marriage forgotten?" quoth Lord Stowmaries with more vehemence than he had displayed in the actual recital of the sordid tale; "was I not justified in thinking that the Legros had by now bitterly regretted the union of their only child to the penniless son of a spendthrift father? Tell me," he reiterated hotly, "was I not justified?--I thought that they had forgotten--that they had regretted--that Rose Marie had found a husband more fitted to her lowly station and to her upbringing--and that her parents would only be too glad to think that I too had forgotten--or that I was dead." There was a slight pause. Mistress Julia's white brow was puckered into a deep frown of thought. "Well, my lord," she said at last, "ye've told me the past--and though the history be not pretty, it is past and done with, and I take it that your concern now is rather with the present." "Alas!" "Nay! sigh me not such doleful sighs, man!" she exclaimed with angry impatience, "but in the name of all the saints get on with your tale. What has happened? The Legros have found out that little Rupert Kestyon hath now become Earl of Stowmaries and one of the richest peers in the kingdom--that's it--is it not?" "Briefly, that is it, Mistress. They demand that their daughter be instated in her position and the full dignities and rights to which her marriage entitle her." "Failing which?" she asked curtly. "Oh! scandal! disgrace! they will apply to the Holy Father--the orders would then come direct from Rome--I could not disobey under pain of excommunication--" "Such tyranny!" "The Kestyons have been Catholics for five hundred years," said the young man simply, whilst a touch of dignity--the first since he began to relate his miserable tale--now crept into his attitude. "We do not call the dictates of the Holy Father in question, nor do we name them tyranny. They are irrevocable in matters such as these--" "Surely--a sum of money--" she hazarded. "The Legros have more of that commodity than I have. But it is not a question of money. Believe me, fair Mistress," he said in tones which once more revealed the sorrow of his heart, "I have thought on the matter in all its bearings--I have even broached the subject to the Duke of York," he added after an imperceptible moment of hesitation. "Ah? and what said His Highness?" asked Mistress Julia with that quick inward catching of her breath which the mentioning of exalted personages was ever wont to call forth in her. "Oh! His Highness only spoke of the sanctity of the marriage tie--" "'Twas not likely he would talk otherwise. 'Tis said that his bigotry grows daily upon him--and that he only awaits a favourable moment to embrace openly the Catholic Faith--" "His Majesty was of the same opinion, too." "Ah? You spoke to His Majesty?" "Was it not my duty?" "Mayhap--mayhap--and what did His Majesty say?" "Oh! he was pleased to take the matter more lightly--but then there is the Queen Mother--and--" "Who else? I pray you, who else?" said Mistress Julia now with renewed acerbity. "His Majesty, His Royal Highness, the Queen--half London, to boot--to know of my discomfiture and shame--" Her voice again broke in a sob, she buried her face in her hands, and tears which mayhap had more affinity to anger than to sorrow escaped freely from between her fingers. In a moment the young man was at her feet. Gone was his apathy, his sullenness now. He was on one knee and his two arms encircled the quivering shoulders of the fair, enraged one. "Mistress, Mistress," he entreated, whilst his eager lips sought the close proximity of her shell-like ear; "Julia, my beloved, in the name of the Holy Virgin, I pray you dry your tears. You break my heart, fair one. You--O God!" he added vehemently, "am I not the most miserable of men? What sin have I committed that such a wretched fate should overwhelm me? I love you and I have made you cry--" "Nay, my lord," whispered Julia through her tears, "an you loved me--" She paused with well-calculated artfulness, whilst he murmured with pathetic and tender reproach: "An I loved you! Is not my heart bound to your dainty feet? my soul fettered by the glance of your eyes? Do you think, Mistress, that I can ever bear to contemplate the future now, when for days, nay! weeks and months, ever since I first beheld your exquisite loveliness, I have ever pictured myself only as your slave, ever thought of you only as my wife? That old castle over in Hertfordshire, once so inimical to me, I have learnt to love it of late because I thought you would be its mistress; I treasured every tree because your eyes would behold their beauty; I guarded with jealous care every footpath in the park because I hoped that some day soon your fairy feet would wander there." Mistress Julia seemed inclined to weep yet more copiously. No doubt the ardently-whispered words of my lord Stowmaries caused her to realise more vividly all that she had hoped for, all that was lost to her now. Oh! was it not maddening? Had ever woman been called upon to endure quite so bitter a disappointment? "It's the shame of it all, my lord," she said brokenly, "and--" she whispered with tenderness, "I too had thought of a future beside a man whom I had learned to--to love. I suffer as you do, my lord--and--besides that, the awful shame. Your favours to me, my lord, have caused much bitter gall in the hearts of the envious--my humiliation will enable them to exult--to jeer at my discomfiture--to throw scandalous aspersions at my conduct--I shall of a truth be disgraced, sneered at--ruined--" "Let any one dare--" muttered the young man fiercely. "Nay! how will you stop them? 'Tis the women who will dare the most. Oh! if you loved me, my lord, as you say you do, if your protestations are not mere empty words, you would not allow this unmerited disgrace to fall upon me thus." Who shall say what tortuous thoughts rose in Mistress Peyton's mind at this moment? Is there aught in the world quite so cruel as a woman baffled? Think on it, how she had been fooled. The very intensity of the young man's passion, which had been revealed to her in its fulness now that he knew that an insuperable barrier stood between him and the fulfilment of his desires, showed her but too plainly how near she had been to her goal. At times--ere this--she had dreaded and doubted. The brilliancy of his position, his wealth and high dignity had caused her sometimes a pang of fear lest he did not think her sufficiently his equal to raise her to his own high rank. At such moments she had redoubled her efforts, had schemed and had striven, despite the fact that her efforts in that direction had--as she well knew--not escaped the prying eyes of the malevolent. What cared she then for their sneers so long as she succeeded? And now with success fully in sight, she had failed--hopelessly, ridiculously--ignominiously failed. Oh! how she hated that unknown woman, that low-born bourgeoise, who had robbed her of her prize! She hated the woman, she hated the family, the Parisian tailor and his scheming wife. God help her, she even hated the unfortunate young deceiver who was clinging passionately to her knees. She pushed him roughly aside, springing to her feet, unable to sit still, and began pacing up and down the small room, the tiny dainty cage wherein she had hoped to complete the work of ensnaring the golden bird. "Julia!" He too jumped to his feet. Once more he tried to embrace the quivering shoulders, to imprison the nervous, restless fingers, to capture the trembling lips. But she would no longer yield. Of what use were yielding now? "Nay! nay! I pray you, leave me," she said petulantly. "Of what purpose are your protestations, my lord--they are but a further outrage. Indeed, I pray you, go." Once more she turned to the bell-pull, and took the heavy silken cord in her hand, the outward sign of his dismissal. Some chivalrous instinct in him made him loth to force his company on her any longer. But his glowering eyes, fierce and sullen, sought to read her face. "When may I come back?" he asked. "Never," she replied. But we may be allowed to suppose that something in her accent, in her attitude of hesitancy, gave the lie to the cruel word, for he rejoined immediately: "To-morrow?" "Never," she repeated. "To-morrow?" he insisted. "What were the use?" "I vow," he said with grim earnestness, "that if you dismiss me now, without the hope of seeing you again, I'll straight to the river, and seek oblivion in death." "'Twere the act of a coward!" she retorted. "Mayhap. But Fate has dealt overharshly with me. I cannot face life if you turn in bitterness from me. Heaven only knows how I can face it at all without you--but your forgiveness may help me to live; it would keep me back from the lasting disgrace of a suicide's grave, from eternal damnation. Will you let me come to-morrow? Will you give me your forgiveness then?" He tried to draw near her again, but she put out her hand and drew resolutely back. "Mayhap--mayhap," she said hurriedly. "I know not--but not now, my lord--I entreat you to go." She rang the bell quickly, as if half afraid of herself, lest she might yield, after all. Mistress Julia knew but little of love--perhaps until this moment she had never realised that she cared for this young man, quite apart from the position and wealth which he would be able to give her. But now, somehow, she felt intensely sorry for him, and there was quite a small measure of unselfishness in her grief at this irrevocable turn of events. The glance which she finally turned upon him softened the cruelty of his dismissal. "Come and say good-bye to-morrow," she murmured. Then she raised a finger to her lips. "Sh!--sh!--sh!" she whispered scarce above her breath; "say nothing more now--I could not bear it. But come and say good-bye to-morrow." The serving man's steps were heard the other side of the door. He was coming in answer to the bell. Lord Stowmaries dropped on one knee. He contrived to capture a feebly-resisting little hand and to impress a kiss upon the rouge-tipped fingers. Then after a final low bow, he turned and walked out of the room. CHAPTER V There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man. --I HENRY IV. II. 4. Mistress Julia Peyton waited for a few moments until the opening and shutting of the outer door proclaimed the fact that young Lord Stowmaries had really and definitely gone. Then she went to the little _secrétaire_ which stood in an angle of the room, drew forth a sheet of paper, took a heavy quill pen in her hand, and feverishly--though very laboriously--began to write. It was a difficult task which the fair lady had set herself to do, for neither writing nor spelling were among her accomplishments, being deemed unnecessary and not pertaining to the arts of pleasing. But still she worked away, with hand cramped round the rebellious quill, dainty fingers stained with the evil-smelling black liquid, and her brow puckered with the intensity of mental effort, until she had succeeded in putting on paper just what she wished to say: "_To siR john Ayloff at His resedence in lincoln's inn Filds._ "HONORD SIR COSIN: This to Tell yo That i wish to speke with yo This da and At ons opon a Matter of life and Deth. "yr obedt Servt "JULIA PEYTON." A goodly number of blots appeared upon this missive as well as upon Mistress Julia's brocaded kirtle, before she had finished. But once the letter duly signed, she folded and sealed it, then once more rang the bell. "Take this to the house of Sir John Ayloffe at once," she said peremptorily to her serving man who appeared at the door, "and if he be within bring him hither without delay. If he be from home, seek him at the Coffee Tavern in Holborn Bars, or at the sign of the Three Bears in the Strand. But do not come back until you've found Sir John." She gave the letter to the man, and, as the latter with a brief word indicative of obedience and understanding prepared to go, she added curtly: "And if you do not find Sir John and bring him hither within half an hour, you may leave my service without notice or character, but with twenty blows of the stick across your back. You understand? Now you may go." Then--as the man finally retired--Mistress Julia was left alone to face the problem as to how best she could curb her impatience until the arrival of Sir John. Her threat would lend wings to her messenger's feet, for her service was reckoned a good one, owing to the many lavish gifts and unconsidered trifles which fell from the liberal hands of Mistress Julia's courtiers, whilst her old henchman--a burly East Anglian relict of former days in Norfolk--loved to wield a heavy stick over the backs of his younger subordinates. If Sir John Ayloffe was at home, he could be here in ten minutes; if he had gone to the Coffee Tavern in Holborn Bars, then in twenty; but if the messenger had to push on as far as the Strand, then the full half-hour must elapse ere the arrival of Sir John. And if he came, what should she say to him? Of all her many adorers, Sir John was the only one who had never spoken of matrimony. A distant connection of the late Squire Peyton's, he it was who had launched the young widow on her social career in London and thus enabled her to enter on her great matrimonial venture. Sir John Ayloffe, who in his early youth had been vastly busy in dissipating the fortune left to him by a thrifty father, was chiefly occupied now that he had reached middle age in finding the means to live with outward decency, if not always with strict honesty. Among these means gambling and betting were of course in the forefront. These vices were not only avowable, they were thought gentlemanly and altogether elegant. But how to gamble and bet without cheating is a difficult problem which Sir John Ayloffe never really succeeded in solving. So far chance had favoured him. His various little transactions at the hazard tables or betting rings had gone off with a certain amount of luck and not too much publicity. He had managed to keep up his membership at Culpeper's and other fashionable clubs, and had not up to the present been threatened with expulsion from Newmarket. He was still a welcome guest at the Coffee Taverns where the young bloods congregated, and at the Three Bears in the Strand, the resort of the most fashionable young rakes of the day. But one or two dark, ugly-looking clouds began to hover on his financial horizon, and there was a time--some eighteen months ago--when Sir John Ayloffe had serious thoughts of a long voyage abroad for the benefit of his health. This was just before he received the intimation that his cousin--old Squire Peyton--had left a young and pretty widow, who was burning with the desire not to allow her many charms to be buried in oblivion in a tumble-down Norfolk manor. Although Mistress Julia Peyton knew little if anything of spelling and other book lore, her knowledge of human--or rather masculine--nature was vast and accurate. After half an hour's conversation with her newly-found kinsman, she had gauged the use which she could make of him and of his impecuniousness to a nicety. He was over-ready, on the other hand, to respond to her wishes. The bargain was quickly struck, with cards on the table, and the calling of a spade by its own proper appellation. Mistress Julia Peyton was calculated to do credit to any London kinsman who chose to introduce his most aristocratic friends into her house. And remember, Sir John Ayloffe had plenty of these, and was to receive a goodly sum from the young widow for every such introduction. Such matters were not difficult to arrange at a time when money was scarce and love of display great. The fair Julia lost nothing by the business. Her house, thanks to Sir John, was well frequented by the pleasure-loving set of London. Then there loomed ahead the final and great project: the marriage of Mistress Julia! and herein Sir John's cooperation was indeed to be well paid. From one thousand pounds, up to five, was to be his guerdon, according as his fair kinswoman's second husband was a wealthy baronet, a newly-created peer, or the bearer of one of those ancient names and high dignities or titles which gave him entrées at Court, privileges of every sort and kind, which his wife would naturally share with him. When the brigantine _Speedwell_ went down off the Spanish coast with all on board, the late Earl of Stowmaries lost at one fell swoop his only son and heir, and the latter's three young boys, who were all on a pleasure cruise on the ill-fated vessel. The old man did not survive the terrible shock of that appalling catastrophe. He died within six months of the memorable tragedy, and Rupert Kestyon--the son of the impecunious spendthrift who was lying forgotten in a far-off grave in a distant colony--became Earl of Stowmaries, one of the wealthiest peers in England. In a moment he became the most noted young buck of the Court of the Restoration, the cynosure of every feminine eye. He was young, well looking, and his romantic upbringing in the far-off colony founded by his co-religionists, made him a vastly interesting personality. Mistress Julia, as soon as she heard his name, his prestige, and his history, began to dream of him--and of herself as Countess of Stowmaries. Once more Cousin John was appealed to. "Six thousand pounds for you, Cousin, the day on which I become Countess of Stowmaries." Only the introduction was needed. Mistress Julia, past-mistress by now in the art of pleasing, would undertake to do the rest. Young Lord Stowmaries was a member of Culpeper's. Sir John Ayloffe contrived to attract his attention, and one day to bring him to the house of the fascinating widow. Sir John had done his work. So had the beautiful Julia. It was Chance who had played an uneven game, wherein the two gamblers, handicapped by their ignorance of past events, had lost the winning hand. And it was because she felt that Cousin John had almost as much at stake in the game as she had, that Mistress Julia Peyton sent for her partner, when Chance dealt what seemed a mortal blow to her dearest hope and scheme. CHAPTER VI 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell incenséd points of mighty opposites. --HAMLET V. 2. Less than twenty minutes after the despatch of her missive--twenty minutes which seemed to Julia more like twenty cycles of immeasurable time--Sir John Ayloffe was announced. He entered very composedly. Having been formally announced by the servant, he waited with easy patience that the man should close the doors and leave him alone with his fair cousin. He scarcely touched her fingers with his lips and she said quickly: "'Twas kind to come at once. You were at home?" "Waiting for this summons," he replied. "Then you knew?" she asked. "Since last evening!" he said simply. He was of a tall, somewhat fleshy build, the face--good-looking enough--rendered heavy by many dissipations and nights of vigil and pleasure. His eyes were very prominent, surrounded by thick lids, furtive and quick in expression like those of a fox on the alert. The heavy features--nose, chin and lips--were, so 'twas said, an inheritance from a Jewish ancestress, the daughter of a rich Levantine merchant, brought into England by one of the Ayloffes who graced this country in the days of Richard III. It was the money of this same ancestress which had enriched the impoverished family, and had at the same time sown the seeds of that love of luxury and display which had ruined the present bearer of the ancient name. From that same Oriental ancestress Sir John Ayloffe had no doubt inherited his cleverness at striking a bargain as well as his taste for showy apparel. He was always dressed in the latest fashion, and had already adopted the new modes lately imported from France, the long vest tied in with a gaily coloured sash, the shorter surcoat with its rows of gilded buttons, and oh! wonder of wonders, the huge French periwig, with its many curls which none knew better than did Sir John how to toss and to wallow when he bowed. His fat fingers were covered with rings, and the buckles on his shoes glittered with shiny stones. Julia, quivering with eagerness and excitement which she took no pains to conceal, now dragged Sir John down to a settee beside her. "You knew that my lord of Stowmaries was a married man, and that I have been fooled beyond the powers of belief!" she ejaculated, whilst her angry eyes searched his furtive ones, in a vain endeavour to read his thoughts. "I heard my lord's miserable story from his own lips last night," reiterated Sir John. "Ah! He told it then over the supper table, between two bumpers of wine, to a set of boon companions as drunken, as dissolute as himself? Man! man! why don't you speak?" she cried almost hysterically, for she had suffered a great deal to-day, her nerves were overwrought and threatening to give way in the face of this new and horrible vision conjured up by her own excited imagination. "Why don't you describe the whole scene to me--the laughter which the tale evoked, the sneers directed against the unfortunate woman who has been so hideously fooled?" Ayloffe listened to the tirade with the patience of a man who has had many dealings with the gentle if somewhat highly-strung sex. He patted her twitching fingers with his own soft, pulpy palm, and waited until her paroxysm of weeping had calmed down, then he said quietly: "Nay, dear coz, the scene as it occurred round the most exclusive table at the Three Bears, in no way bears resemblance to the horrible picture which your fevered fancy has conjured up. My lord of Stowmaries told his pitiable tale in the midst of awed and sympathetic silence, broken only by brief exclamations of friendship and pity." "And my name was not mentioned?" she asked, mollified but still incredulous. "Not save in the deepest respect," he replied, whilst a line of sarcasm quickly repressed rose to his fleshy lips. "How could you suppose the reverse?" "Ah, well, mayhap, since women were not present. But they will hear of it, too, to-day or to-morrow. The story is bound to leak out. My lord of Stowmaries' attentions to me were known all over the town--and to-day or to-morrow people will talk, will laugh and jeer. Oh! I cannot bear it," she added with renewed vehemence; "I cannot--I cannot--I verily believe 'twill drive me mad." She rose and resumed her agitated walk up and down the small room, her clenched fists beating one against the other, her trembling lips murmuring with irritating persistency. "I cannot bear it--I cannot bear it. The ridicule--the ridicule will kill me--" Suddenly she paused in her restlessness, stood in front of Sir John and let her tear-dimmed eyes rest on his thick-set face. "Cousin," she said deliberately, "you must find a way out of this impasse." "You must find a way out of it," she reiterated firmly. He shrugged his shoulders, and said drily: "Fair Mistress, you may as well ask me to reconcile the Pope of Rome and all the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to the idea of flouting the sacrament of marriage, by declaring that its bonds are no longer indissoluble. The past few centuries have taught us that in Rome they are none too ready to do that." "I was not thinking of such vast schemes," said Julia in tones as dry as his had been. "I was not thinking either of corrupting the Roman Church, or of persuading one of her adherents to rebel against her. My lord of Stowmaries has already explained to me," she continued with bitter sarcasm, "that against the Pope's decision there would be no appeal--he himself would not wish to appeal against it. His love for me is apparently not so boundless as I had fondly imagined, its limits meseems are traced in Rome. He has given me to understand that his wife's people--those--those tailors of Paris--actually hold a promise from the Pope that a command will be issued ordering that their daughter be installed and acknowledged as Countess of Stowmaries and that without any undue delay. Failing which, excommunication for my lord, scandal, disgrace. Bah! I know not!--these Romanists are servile under such tyranny--and we know that not only the Duke of York, but the king himself is at one with the Catholics just now. No--no--no--that sort of thing is not to be thought on, Cousin, but there are other ways--" Her eyes, restless, searching, half-fearful, tried to fix the glance of his own. But his shifted uneasily, now responding to her questioning look, anon trying to avoid it, as if dreading to comprehend. "Other ways, other ways!" he muttered; "of a truth there are many such--but none of which you, fair Cousin, would care to take the risk." "How do you know that?" she retorted. "There are no risks which I would not run, in order to free the man I love from the trammels of an undesired marriage." Cousin John said nothing in reply. His eyes, still furtive in expression, were no longer restless. They were fixed upon the beautiful face before him, the luminous eyes, the daintily-curved mouth, the rounded chin--a transparent and exquisite mask which scarcely concealed now the strange and tortuous thoughts which chased one another behind that white brow, smooth as that of a child. She held his gaze, willing that he should read those thoughts, wishing him to divine them; in fact, to save her the humiliation of framing them into words. But as he seemed disinclined to speak, she reiterated with slow and deliberate emphasis: "There are no risks, Cousin, which I would not run." "'Tis nobly said," he remarked, without attempting this time to conceal the sarcastic smile which played round his sensuous lips. "Odd's fish! the man whom you have honoured with such sublime devotion is lucky beyond compare." "A truce on your sneers, Sir John," she retorted imperiously; "you said that there were several ways whereby that hateful marriage could be annulled. What are they?" Sir John Ayloffe glanced down the length of his elegant surcoat; with careful hand he smoothed out a wrinkle which had appeared in the well-fitting breeches just above his knee, he readjusted the set of his fringed scarf, and of his lace-edged cravat. All this took time and kept Mistress Julia on tenter hooks, the while she felt as if her temples would burst from their throbbing. Then, at last, Cousin John looked up at her again. "Poison," he said drily; "an Italian stiletto an you prefer that method. An hired assassin in any event--" A shudder ran down her spine. Had she really harboured these thoughts herself, and had Cousin John merely put her wild imaginings into words? Thus crudely put they horrified her--for the moment--and she looked down almost with loathing on the man who accompanied each grim suggestion with a leer, which caused his thick lips to part and to disclose a row of large, uneven teeth stained with tobacco juice and giving his face a cruel expression like that of a hyena. "You see, there are always means, fair Cousin," continued Sir John with pleasing urbanity; "it is only a question of money--and of the risks which one is prepared to run. Beyond that, I believe, that the task, though difficult, can be accomplished in Paris. There are some amiable gentry there ever ready to do your bidding, whatever it may be, provided you are generous--" She passed the gossamer handkerchief over her dry lips. "I had not thought of crime," she murmured. "Had you not?" he said blandly. "Yet 'tis the most easy solution of the difficulty." "But there are others," she insisted. "I fear not." Again she paused, then continued, speaking very low, scarce above a whisper. "You would help me, of course?" "I could certainly go over to Paris," he said with marked hesitation, "always providing I were plentifully supplied with money--a voyage of reconnaissance, you understand--nothing more--" "Which means that you will not help me." "The risks are too great, Cousin--I--" "You would not care to run them, in order to be of service to me?" "Frankly--no!" "And suppose, Cousin John," she now said more quietly, once more sitting down beside him, "supposing, I say for the sake of argument, that I were to come to you and tell you that I will give half of my fortune to the man who will at this juncture so ordinate matters that my marriage with the Earl of Stowmaries once more becomes not only feasible, but inevitable. What then?" "Then--also for the sake of argument," he rejoined blandly, "I would ask you, fair Cousin, of what your fortune consists." "Squire Peyton left me £20,000 and the principal is still intact." "Deposited--where?" "The bulk of it with Mr. Brooke the goldsmith. He pays me six per cent. per year thereon. It hath sufficed for my needs. No one--except you, Cousin, now--knows the extent of this fortune. Half of it will suffice me for pin money, once I am Countess of Stowmaries. My lord would marry me--if he were free--an I had not a groat to my name, nor more than one gown to my back. Ten thousand pounds shall be yours, Cousin, if you can bring this about." "Call it £12,000, Mistress, and it shall be done," he said cynically. "How will you do it?" "Let that be my secret for the nonce." "I'll give you no advance, remember," she said quickly, for she had seen the swift glitter of joy in his eyes, at the first mention of money, and she knew full well that she could not count on the most elementary feelings of honesty on the part of this unscrupulous gambler. "Then I can do nothing," he concluded decisively. "What do you mean?" "Only this, fair Cousin, that putting aside the question--a somewhat humiliating one for me, you must admit--that your refusal to place certain funds in advance in my hands, implies a singular and--if I may say so--an ill-considered want of trust on your part; putting this question aside, I say, you must understand that nothing in this present world can be accomplished without money, and I am reduced to my last shilling." "Have I not said that £10,000 shall be yours the day that my marriage with Lord Stowmaries is irrevocably settled?" "£12,000," he corrected suavely. "Very well, then, £12,000. We'll have the bond duly writ out and signed." "And you, fair Cousin, will immediately place in my hands a first instalment of £2,000." "Failing which?" "As I have had the honour to tell you, I can do nothing. This is my last word, fair Cousin," he added, seeing that Mistress Julia still seemed inclined to hesitate. There was silence in the little room for a few seconds, a silence all complete save for the solemn ticking of a little French clock over the hearth. Sir John Ayloffe lounging on the settee with one firm leg clad in the new-fashioned tight breeches stretched out at full length, the other doubled inwards, so that the satin shimmered and crackled over his knee, his jewelled hands toying with the lace cravat, or with the dark curls of his periwig, looked now the picture of supreme indifference. It almost seemed as if £12,000 more or less in his vest pocket would affect him not at all. But the fleshy lids had half-closed over the prominent eyes, and from beneath their folds he was watching the fair young widow, who made no attempt to hide her hesitancy and her perturbation. He knew quite well that his personality, the weight of his whole individuality, would win against her prudence in the end. He was fully aware that among the crowd of her several adorers, she had no one to whom she could confide her present troubles, no one whose aid she could with so much surety invoke. Few were so resourceful, none quite so unscrupulous, as Sir John Ayloffe where his own interests were at stake. That £12,000 which was to be his price would mean the final ending of his shiftless career. He felt himself getting older every day, and the thought of what the morrow might bring--a morrow when he would no longer be active and alert, neither amusing nor interesting to those whose company was a necessity to his livelihood--that thought was embittering his present life, until at times he wondered whether a self-inflicted sword thrust to end a miserable existence were not the most desirable contingency after all. How he would earn that £12,000 he did not know as yet. His secret was that he did not know. But he had lived for the past twenty years in sublime ignorance of the various shifts which he might be put to from day to day, and he knew that he could trust to his imagination to find a means now, when the result would mean security in old age, peace from that eternal war against chance--almost a fortune in these days when money was scarce after the great turmoil of civil war. Therefore, though he said no more, though he assumed an indifference which he was very far from feeling, he not only watched Mistress Julia, but with every nerve within him, with all the magnetism of his powerful personality, he willed her to accede to his wishes. She, feeling this subtle influence in the same manner as in ages to come mediums were destined to feel the influence of hypnotic power, she gradually yielded to his unspoken desire--yielded to him whilst believing that she held the threads of her own destiny, and that the final decision only rested with her. Then she rose and went to that same little bureau in the angle of the room, at which just an hour ago she had penned so laboriously the missive which had summoned Sir John Ayloffe hither. This time, as she sat down to it, she took from beneath her kerchief a small key which was fastened round her neck by a silk ribbon. With this she opened one of the drawers of the bureau, and after another moment of final hesitation she deliberately took a packet from the drawer. The packet was tied up with green cord; this she untied with a hand that trembled somewhat with feverish excitement. Having selected a paper from among a number of others, she once more fastened the green cord, replaced the packet in the drawer, locked the latter and replaced the key in the folds of her gown. Then paper in hand she turned back to the settee whereon lolled Sir John Ayloffe, and holding the paper out to him, she said: "This is an order requesting Master Brooke, goldsmith, of Minchin Lane, to hand over to you on my behalf the sum of £2,000." Sir John roused himself from his well-studied apathy. He took the paper from Mistress Julia's hand, looked at it very carefully, then folded it and prepared to slip it in his breast pocket. "Remember, Cousin," she said calmly, "that if I find that you have deceived me in this, that you have deliberately robbed me of this £2,000 without having any intention or power to help me in my need, that, in such a case you will lose the only friend you have in the world. I will turn my back on you for ever; you shall never darken the threshold of my door, and if I saw you in want or in a debtor's prison, I would not pay one farthing to help you in your need. You believe that, do you not?" "I believe that a woman thwarted is capable of anything," he retorted with a sneer. "There I think you are right, Cousin," she assented, whilst a look of determination which assorted strangely with her otherwise impulsive ways marred for a moment the childlike prettiness of her face. "You would find me very hard and unforgiving, if you cheated me of my hopes." "Very hard, I doubt not," he said blandly. "Did I not see a while ago, fair Cousin, your gentle soul taking in with scarce a thought of horror my first suggestion of poison or hired assassin?" "Tush, man! prate not so lightly of these things. Bah!" she added with some of her former vehemence, "there are other things that kill besides poison or stilettos--things that hurt worse than death--things that no Countess of Stowmaries could endure and live. You have your £2,000, man--go--go and think--a fortune an you succeed." Sir John Ayloffe smiled. The lady had at last shown to him--mayhap without meaning to do so--the real desire of her heart. She had also set his active brain athinking. As she said, it would be a fortune if he succeeded. He had placed the valuable paper carefully away in his breast pocket; he tapped this pocket gently to feel that it was secure. Then--as obviously the interview must now come to an end--he rose to go. Vague thoughts were already floating in his mind, and when she too rose to bid him farewell, and her fevered eyes found his and held them, he responded with a look of distinct encouragement. Long after Cousin John's footsteps had ceased to echo along the short flagged corridor, Mistress Julia Peyton sat musing, whilst a sigh of content and of hope ever and anon escaped her lips. Her face was quite serene, her expression one of anticipation rather than of trouble. Never for a moment did a pang of conscience trouble her. Remember, that the unknown Countess of Stowmaries--the daughter of the Paris tailor--was but a shadowy personality to her. Less than two hours ago, Mistress Julia was not aware of her existence. Was it wrong then to wish her out of the way? With commendable satisfaction, the outraged beauty realised that she felt no direct wish for any bodily harm to come to her successful rival. And pray, how many women would have had such scruples? A certain feeling of self-righteousness eased Mistress Julia's soul at the thought. No. She wished the real and only Countess of Stowmaries no bodily harm. She had made Cousin John understand that, she hoped. Crime might mean remorse, which would be unpleasant, also fear of discovery. Mistress Julia hoped now that she had made Cousin John understand quite clearly that she wanted neither poison nor hired assassin for the end which she had in view--not at first at any rate--later on, mayhap--if other schemes had failed-- There are things which hurt worse than death--and Mistress Julia had placed in the hands of an unscrupulous gambler the means whereby such things could easily be brought about. If such things be crimes, they certainly were not of the kind which troubled Mistress Julia's conscience. Having settled these abstract points to her own satisfaction, she adjourned to her tiring-room and rang for her maid. She told the wench to prepare that new butter-coloured satin gown with the pink rosebuds broidered thereon--a vastly becoming gown for setting off the fair Julia's style of beauty--and also the colverteen pinner which had the advantage of making any woman look demure. She had her hair redressed in the newest fashion with immense taure and puffs which made her small head look wide and her tiny face more childlike and innocent than ever. She meant to finish the day at the King's Playhouse, there to witness a vastly diverting comedy by the late Master Shakespeare. She wished to see and to be seen by His Majesty, by the Duke of York, and all London society. Knowing that her name would be in everybody's mouth, she wished to appear radiant with beauty and good spirits, and in no way concerned with the ugly rumours anent the tailor's daughter over in Paris, and the ridiculous cock and bull story that my lord of Stowmaries was other than engaged to wed Mistress Julia Peyton ere the London season had fully run its course. CHAPTER VII Enquire at London 'mongst the taverns there. --RICHARD II. V. 3. You know the place well enough, or failing yourself--if so be that you are less than three-score years and ten--then your father would remember it well. It was situate in the Strand until that time, close to its junction with Fleet Street and within a pebble's throw from St. Clements. A tall narrow building, raftered and gabled, the timbers painted a dark chocolate colour, with alternate lines of a luscious creamy tint rendered mellow with the dirt and smoke of London. It stood on that selfsame spot two hundred and more years ago, when it was the favourite resort of that band of young rakes who adorned the Court of the Merry Monarch. It were somewhat difficult to say why my lord of Craye, or Sir Anthony Wykeham, or the Earl of Stowmaries had chosen this very unprepossessing tavern for their evening assemblies. The exterior, as your father could tell you, was certainly not inviting, for the gables were all askew, the stories low and widening one over another, all awry as if ready to fall, the front door, too, was cracked from corner to corner, nor were the public rooms much more alluring. In the coffee room the window with its small panes of bottle glass hardly allowed any daylight to filter in; the floor had once been neatly covered in bricks, but now most of these were broken in half, with pieces of them missing, showing little three-cornered holes which suggested dirt-grubbing insects and storehouses of dust. There were other disadvantages, too, about the place, which should have scared off any fastidious young man however bent on pleasure he might be, but we have it on M. Misson's own authority--and he was no great admirer of things English and speaks somewhat ill-naturedly of everything he saw during his voyage--that the cellars at the sign of the Three Bears were exceedingly well stocked with Spanish and Rhenish wines and even with French brandies which were heady and vastly pleasing to the palate first and to the temper afterwards. We are also told by that same highly-critical French traveller that Mistress Janet Foorde, wife of the landlord of the Three Bears, could turn out a better supper than any other cook in London, and fashioned a lamprey pie, or a _fricassée_ of rabbits and chickens, in such a delicious manner that once eaten it could never be forgotten. Be that as it may, we know it for a fact that in this year of grace 1678 the Tavern in the Strand at the sign of the Three Bears was, every evening after the hour of eight, frequented by the very élite of London society. Supper was served in one of the smaller rooms at a table around which sat those same gentlemen who in the earlier part of the day had graced His Majesty's levee, or the Court of the unhappy Queen, or that narrow circle which stood as a phalanx round the person of the unpopular Duke of York. The assembly purported to be political. There was more than a mere suggestion of Roman Catholic discontent freely expressed around that congenial board, and it was well known that on more than one occasion the King himself had been present at these gatherings--incognito, of course--his identity known only to his own intimate friends. But the discussion of the political and social position of Roman Catholics in England, was, we must admit, not the primary object of the nightly reunions in the private room at the Three Bears. Supper after the play in the King's House came first, then dice, hazard or the more fashionable game of Spanish ombre, all well interlarded with the chief gossip and scandals of the day. Reputations for beauty, wit or morals were made or marred around that table in the small room; the latest fashions were discussed, which to adopt and which to reject. The young fops fresh from the Grand Tour here recounted their impressions, displayed--for approval or disfavour--the latest modes from Paris, the new surcoats, the monstrous periwigs, the very latest notion in lace cravats. Here, too, the young rakes aired their--oft scandalous--literary efforts, bonsmots unfit for ladies' ears were invented and retailed, and we all know that my lord of Rochester never thought of publishing verse or prose without first submitting it to the censorship of the select party at the Three Bears. We may take it that Sir John Ayloffe--despite the vicissitudes of fortune which had brought him to the pass of empty pockets and of unavowable shifts--was still a _persona grata_ at the nightly assemblies of the distinguished tavern, for some few hours after his interview with his beautiful kinswoman on this memorable evening of February 8th, 1678, we see him turning his footsteps unhesitatingly in the direction of the "Three Bears" in the Strand. Closely wrapped in his cloak, for the wind blew bitter gusts, he bent his head against the driving rain as he walked. The rickety door of the tavern stood invitingly open and as one accustomed to the place Sir John with quickened steps entered the narrow passage. Immediately his nostrils were greeted with the pungent odour of onions and of boiling fat, and his ears with loud shouts of merriment, which raised a boisterous echo in the tumble-down building and seemed to make the walls totter on their insecure foundation. This hilarious noise, wherein songs, sung in hoarse voices very much out of tune, mingled with violent outbursts of prolonged laughter and with volleys of full-toned oaths, proceeded from behind a door on the cracked panels of which the ten letters of the word Coffee Room tumbled one against the other, like a row of drunken men. For a moment Sir John paused just outside that door, bending his ear to listen in an attitude of deep attention, like one trying to catch one special sound from out that confused babel which went on within. The passage in which he stood had been wholly dark but for the dim, uncertain light which came from a brass lanthorn suspended from the blackened ceiling just above his head. Sir John waited a second or two, until a loud and merry shout of laughter rose above the bibulous din. It was the laughter which comes from a young and lusty throat, the laughter of careless irresponsibility and of thoughtless debauchery. It seemed to be also the sound for which Sir John had been waiting in the ill-lighted passage outside, for now he threw up his head and flung his cloak back with a gesture of satisfaction, whilst a strange laugh, which had but little of merriment in it and a great deal of contempt, broke from his lips as an echo to the light-hearted gaiety beyond. Sir John now continued his way, past the Coffee Room to a door beyond the stairway at the extreme end of the passage. This he threw open without further ceremony and found himself in that small room of the tavern, wherein Master Foorde--the host--served his more distinguished guests. As a rule merriment and noise, equal at least to that which obtained in the public coffee room, reigned in this private sanctum: many would have said that the great and courtly gentlemen who foregathered here indulged usually in carouses and drunken orgies which would have put the more plebeian merrimakers to shame. But to-night, at the moment that Ayloffe entered the room, a kind of sullen silence reigned therein. Through the thick haze of tobacco smoke which hung like a grey pall above the feebly flickering light of some half dozen tallow candles, the newcomer could perceive four faces--flushed with wine and heavy meats, dimly outlined against the full greyness of drab-coloured walls, and dark oak wainscotting. The candles themselves guttering in their sockets threw forth fillets of thick grimy smoke which mingled with the fumes of tobacco, and helped to cast fantastic and trembling shadows on fine cloth surcoats and vests of broidered silk. From the coffee room immediately adjoining the parlour came--echoing faintly through the thick timbered walls--the shouts of laughter, the loudly-uttered oaths, the ribald songs of the merry company, and at intervals, against the tiny panes of the small casement window the dull patter of the rain or the occasional distant call of the watchman challenging an evening prowler. In the furthest angle of the room, my lord Rochester seated in the chair of honour had apparently been reading aloud to this moody company, the expressions of his latest poetic fancy. He was in the act of rolling up his manuscript and tying it up with a length of rose-coloured ribbon, but his face usually so self-satisfied and so gay bore an expression of keen discontent. As a rule his poems--highly prized by the king and the ladies--were listened to here among the circle of his intimates with the greatest delight and oft with noisy appreciation. But on this occasion he had been quite unable to hold the attention of his audience, and even whilst he read his most impassioned verses he could not help but notice that all eyes were fixed on the young Earl of Stowmaries, who sat with his head resting in his hand, leaning forward half across the table in an attitude of the deepest dejection. The young man had arrived late, only joining the convivial party when supper was already at an end, and Mistress Foorde had removed the remains of the finest venison pie which she had ever concocted. He had taken his place at the table after a curt and sullen nod to the company who had greeted him most sympathetically. He had declared himself unable to eat, but had ordered a bottle of strong sherry and also a bottle of brandy, which expensive liquid--so 'twas said afterwards by some of the company present--he freely mixed with sherry and drank very plentifully. The story of his unfortunate early marriage and of his hopeless passion for Mistress Julia Peyton had somehow or other leaked out, and before his arrival had been freely discussed in a facetious and irresponsible spirit. "Old Rowley liked the tale, and was vastly amused thereby," Lord Rochester had said, thus unceremoniously referring to the merry King of England. "I told it him in all its bearings, and he laughed immoderately at thought of a tailor's wench being actually married to my lord of Stowmaries, and expecting to be presented at Court. But after that first outburst of hilarity he looked very grave and said that the matter must presently be arranged to the satisfaction of all those concerned." "But how can that be done?" queried Sir Anthony Wykeham, who was a strict Catholic and liked not this light talk of breaking marriage vows. "Bah! money will do a great deal nowadays," sighed Sir Knaith Bullock, a young Irishman but scantily blessed with the commodity. "As for me," quoth my lord Rochester with easy bonhomme, "I am on the side of the angels. Mistress Julia Peyton is the most beautiful woman in London. She at any rate would be worthy to become chatelaine of Maries Castle and to be our hostess in the many feasts to be given there to my lord of Stowmaries' friends. As for a tailor's daughter!--Bah!--gentlemen, I ask you, can we see ourselves being entertained by a tailor's daughter? She would feed us on pottage and small beer--" A roar of laughter greeted this exposé of the situation. Lord Rochester had of a truth voiced the opinion of the majority. "But--" protested Sir Anthony Wykeham. "Tush man," interrupted my lord with scant ceremony. "I know what you would say. The marriage sacrament and all that--Odd's fish! we are none of us heathens, and ye Papists are not the only ones, by my faith! who know how to keep vows. But there are other ways of unravelling an undesired tangle--and old Rowley had no thought of suggesting irreligious measures--" "Hush!" said one of the others suddenly, "I hear Stowmaries' voice outside. I fancy he'll not be in a mood for jesting over the matter." It was at this point that Stowmaries had entered the room. There was no doubt that he looked excessively glum, and the first attempts at treating his disappointed love in a hilarious manner were met with such obvious moodiness, that gradually the subject was dropped, and the company, who at supper had been fairly numerous, soon began to dwindle away, each seeking in turn more cheerful society than that of this sober young man who seemed determined to look at his own future life in its very blackest aspect. Only Lord Rochester remained awhile longer for he wanted an audience for his latest poem, also Sir Anthony Wykeham--an intimate friend of my lord Stowmaries--and Sir Knaith Bullock, an irresponsible youth who seemed to scent an adventure in the romantic child-marriage, and vaguely hoped to find sport therein. These three gentlemen with Lord Stowmaries himself formed the little group around the table of the private parlour at the "Three Bears" at the moment that Sir John Ayloffe entered it. CHAPTER VIII I was a nameless man; you needed me: Why did I proffer you my aid? there stood A certain pretty cousin at your side. --BROWNING. With a quick glance thrown on each of the four faces, shrewd Sir John had quickly appraised the mood of this small clique. Stowmaries in sullen rage against the whole world because of this thwarting of his most cherished desire, Rochester and the Irishman, flippant and eager for sport, with Wykeham as the sobering influence, the self-constituted guardian of religious obligations. It was also obvious to this keen observer of other people's moods that there would be no need for circumlocution. Though silence reigned in the room, the subject of Stowmaries' marriage was uppermost in the minds of his friends. Sir John therefore, having thrown aside his hat and cloak, went boldly up to the table and greeting the others with easy familiarity, he placed one fleshy hand on Stowmaries' shoulder and said abruptly: "Tush man! be not so downhearted. My faith on it! have I not seen worse plights even than yours? Yet from which a man of daring and resource soon found a means of extricating himself." The interruption was a welcome one, for though Sir John Ayloffe was no longer very popular with the gilded clique of young and noble rakes, since he was known to be at his last resources and was oft in sore straits to pay his gaming debts, nevertheless at this moment his lusty, cheery voice helped to dissipate the gloom which was such an unusual atmosphere for these ribald pleasure-seekers to breathe, and one or two voices with obvious signs of relief cordially invited the newcomer to sit. "Then you, too, know our friend's melancholy story?" queried Lord Rochester as he pushed with hospitable intent a mug of wine in the direction of Ayloffe. "Yes," replied the latter. "Mistress Julia Peyton is my kinswoman. 'Tis from her I heard the tale." Stowmaries' frown grew even darker than before. He liked not the suggestion thus implied, the more than obvious hint of this second sentimental complication in his life. Sir John, in the meanwhile, had selected a chair, which was less rickety than most, and sat down deliberately in such a position that not one of the flickering and uncertain rays of candle light touched his face or illumined its expression. He took the cup of wine offered him by my lord Rochester and drank it down slowly and at one draught, the while a few ribald remarks flew across the table. Ayloffe's advent seemed certainly to have brought a new atmosphere into the room. Despite Stowmaries' frown and Wykeham's protests, Rochester and Sir Knaith took up the lighter side of the past events; they refused to appreciate the solemnity of the subject or the serious obligations resulting from that solemn sacrament of matrimony performed between children over eighteen years ago. Sir John waited patiently whilst a volley of somewhat coarse jests was fired at the gloomy hero of the romantic adventure, and until he saw that Stowmaries was on the verge of losing his temper, and Wykeham on the point of quarrelling with Bullock. Then he pushed the empty cup away from him and leaning forward across the table, he broke in quietly: "Nay Sir Anthony," he said with pleasing urbanity, "we all know what you would say. 'Sdeath! an I mistake not you have harped on that string passing often in the last hour or so, and we all know too that Lord Stowmaries is not desirous of seeing it snap. But I maintain that if a gentleman is placed in so terrible a predicament as is my lord, then it is the duty of all his friends to try and effect an honourable rescue." The earnestness with which he spoke had silenced the jocose as well as the moody tongues. But Sir Anthony Wykeham now protested hotly. "That is impossible," he said. "The sacrament of marriage cannot be set aside." "Only under certain conditions," corrected Sir John. "Methinks this is braggart's talk," muttered young Bullock who had no love for the older man. "How will you do it?" queried Stowmaries with moody hopelessness. "With his tongue chiefly," sneered the Irishman. But Ayloffe seemed in no way abashed by the hostility, which his statement had evoked; he returned the sarcastic or angry glances levelled at him with a stare of assurance. Leaning heavily upon the table, his prominent eyes fixed boldly on the over-excited faces before him, he looked a strange contrast to the small, chattering crowd which was grouped around him. Unlike the others, he had supped soberly at home and drunk little or no wine; his head was clear, his tongue glib, and the only uncertainty apparent in his demeanour was that with which from time to time he seemed to be listening to the noise in the next room; then a look of vague doubt would suddenly overshadow his steady gaze and cause a more furtive, more anxious look to creep into his eyes. "Nay, gentlemen," he resumed after a slight pause vaguely smiling in a condescending manner like one who tells an obvious fact to a child, "'tis no braggart's talk to speak of saving a friend from the most dire calamity that can befall any man. I repeat most emphatically that this can be done, effectually and easily and without interfering with any of those religious scruples which do my lord of Stowmaries and his friend here so much honour." He spoke so quietly, so confidently and with such an air of certitude that instinctively the sneering tongues ceased to aim their shafts at him and four pairs of eyes were now fixed upon the speaker, who with a calm gesture of indifference was readjusting the lace of his cravat. He waited thus for awhile like the true entertainer who husbands his effects; he waited until the circle round him drew closer and closer, until four pairs of elbows rested on the table and flagons and mugs were impatiently pushed aside. Sir Anthony Wykeham was the last to hold aloof, but even he said at last with a distinct ring of excitement in his voice: "Tell us more fully what you mean, man! Cannot you see that Stowmaries is devoured with impatience?" "An impatience which I am over-anxious to relieve," rejoined Ayloffe imperturbably, "but firstly let me ask Lord Stowmaries himself--who I assert is a wealthy man--whether he would not give a good tenth of his fortune to be conveniently rid of an unwelcome wife, without hindrance to his belief or conscience." "I would give half my fortune, good Sir John," sighed Stowmaries dolefully. "Half is too much, good my lord," responded Sir John blandly. "Popular rumour deems your lordship worth some four hundred thousand pounds in solid cash, besides the rent rolls of half Hertfordshire. Methinks one fourth of that should purchase the freedom which you seek." "Are you minded to earn that fortune, Sir John?" asked the other not without a sneer. "Nay, my lord, I am neither young enough, nor sufficiently well-favoured for that desirable task," retorted Sir John imperturbably. "What have looks or favours to do with it all? Odd's fish!" growled Stowmaries more vehemently, and bringing a clenched fist crashing down upon the table so that mugs and bottles rattled, "meseems that you, Sir John, are trying to fool me, God help me! are even trying to bring ridicule upon my sorrow! By the Mass, sir, if that be so, you'll not find me in a mood to be trifled with." "Good my lord, I pray you to calm your temper. Am I a man to trifle with your feelings? Have I not professed myself to be your friend? am I not the kinsman of the lady whom you have honoured with your addresses? On mine honour I have her welfare at heart even more so than yours. Can you wonder that I should wish to see you wed her?" Shrewd Sir John had played a trump card. There was no denying the logic of his statement. He had owned to having much at stake, yet had done so with no lack of dignity. With a certain graciousness not altogether free as yet from his original surliness, Lord Stowmaries owned himself in the wrong. "You must pardon my evil temper, Sir John," he said with a self-deprecating sigh, "for I am vastly troubled." This brief interlude had but whetted the curiosity of the others. From Sir John's manner and mode of speech it was fully evident now that his was no empty talk, but that he had assuredly come here this night, with some definite plan for what he termed the welfare of his kinswoman, which no doubt he had much at heart. The idea pleased these young pleasure-seekers more and more; they cared of a truth but little for the troubles of their friends, but there was now a twinkle in Ayloffe's eyes which vaguely suggested to them the thought of intrigue, mayhap of some adventure, quite unavowable, possibly highly scandalous, which would have that unknown tailor's daughter for its victim. Such adventures were the delight of the merry monarch who now sat upon the English throne, whose advent had been so earnestly desired, whose personality had been so ardently worshipped. He it was who set the fashion for those gallant episodes which were the boast and delectation of men and the shame and the sorrow of women. But for him and the example set by him I doubt if Sir John Ayloffe would ever have thought of formulating proposals which should have put his present companions to the blush, and which carried subsequently in their train agonies of remorse and of disgrace, wounded honour and more than one broken heart. CHAPTER IX Strictly, 'tis what good people style untruth But yet, so far, not quite the full-grown thing! --BROWNING. Sir John Ayloffe leaned back in his chair, and satisfied that he once more held the close attention of the company, he resumed pleasantly: "Will you, good my lord, and all of you gallant gentlemen grant me five minutes wherein to place before you the situation as it at present stands? Here is my lord of Stowmaries tied by so-called indissoluble marriage vows to a bride whom he doth not desire for wife, and whom he last saw borne away kicking and screaming in the arms of a waiting wench. And there over in Paris is the daughter of a worthy tailor, a girl born in a back shop, presumably ill-favoured and certainly vulgar, but who has pretensions of being Countess of Stowmaries _de facto_ as well as _de jure_. She it was who eighteen years ago was as aforesaid borne away kicking and screaming in the arms of a waiting wench. She was then not much more than twelve months of age, and has not since that moment seen my lord of Stowmaries here, our gracious, if--momentarily--somewhat troubled friend." A sneering grunt from Sir Knaith Bullock, a groan from Stowmaries and a murmur of assent from the others were audible whilst Sir John paused for breath. "The Catholic Church for which we all have deep respect," continued Ayloffe, "doth not allow that the bonds of matrimony thus contracted eighteen years ago shall be severed just because my lord of Stowmaries doth not happen for the moment to have a desire for the tailor's daughter; she having done naught to merit repudiation, since her being carried away kicking and screaming from the presence of her lord when her age had not reached fifteen months, doth not constitute a serious offence in the eyes of the law." "We know all that, man, we know all that," quoth Stowmaries moodily, "and by the Mass you repeat yourself like a country parson in the pulpit." "Gently, good my lord," rejoined Ayloffe imperturbably. "What I have to say is a somewhat delicate matter. I am dealing with a Countess of Stowmaries--and if you did not accept my scheme--" He paused and shrugged his shoulders in token of self-deprecation. "It may not after all meet with your favour." "Out with it, man--out with it," came, partly gaily, wholly impatiently from every side. "'Tis simple enough," said Sir John, "but were easier to say an you, gentlemen, would help me by guessing--My lord of Stowmaries hath not seen his bride, nor was he seen by her, since she was little more than a year old--that is so, my lord, is it not?" "It is," assented Stowmaries curtly. "Impressions at that age are not lasting. Infantile memory doth not hold an image. We may assume that if the tailor's daughter were placed in the presence of--er--of any gentleman of noble bearing, she would not know if he were her lord--or not." There was silence around the table now. Neither assent nor dissent followed Ayloffe's last words. On the face of the young Irishman curiosity still remained impressed. The suggestion so slightly hinted at had not yet reached his inner consciousness; on that of Lord Rochester comprehension had just begun to dawn, a sense of astonishment plainly struggled with one of doubt. But Sir Anthony Wykeham almost imperceptibly drew his chair somewhat away from the table. Lord Stowmaries in the meanwhile kept his eyes steadily fixed on those of Sir John. They expressed neither doubt nor astonishment, only intense excitement, an obvious desire to hear that hint more fully explained. It was his hoarse mutter "Go on! curse you--why don't you go on?" that first broke the momentary silence which had fallen over the small assembly. "Nay!" rejoined Ayloffe blandly, "I see that you, at least, my lord, have already taken me. Is not my scheme vastly simple? The tailor's daughter awaits her lord. He comes. She falls into his arms, and after the usual festivities in the back shop of her estimable parents, the bridegroom takes his bride home to far-off England. But mark what hath occurred--it was not my lord of Stowmaries who had gone to claim his bride, but some other man who prompted by his passion for the tailor's beautiful daughter, a passion--we might even suppose--encouraged by the lady herself, had impersonated the bridegroom and snatched the golden prize despite my lord of Stowmaries and the most solemn vows of matrimony contracted eighteen years ago. Imagine the result: the shame, the crying scandal! My lord of Stowmaries is of a surety no longer bound to acknowledge a wife whose very name will have become a byword for every gossip to peck at, and whose virtue hath already been the toy of an adventurer as unscrupulous as he was daring. Not the Catholic Church, not the law of England, nor the decree of the Pope would enforce the original marriage vows after that. I give you my word, gentlemen, that my lord of Stowmaries will be granted leave by every high tribunal, spiritual or temporal, to repudiate the wench who had thus disgraced his name." Sir John Ayloffe had long finished speaking and silence still reigned all around him. Even the noise in the next room seemed for the moment unaccountably to have ceased. Folk say that when such silences occur in merry company, angels fly across the room, and the flutter of their wings can distinctly be heard. What angels then were these who haunted the private room of the "Three Bears" now? What record of ignominy and dishonour did they mark upon the tablets of infinity when with gentle flutter of wings they passed silently by? To the credit of all these gentlemen here present be it said, that their first feeling was one of shame, when they fully understood the dastardly suggestion which Sir John was making to one of themselves; but the shame was not acute enough to produce horrified repudiation. Sir Anthony Wykeham certainly still held aloof, but Stowmaries had not winced. That he understood the suggestion to the full, there could be no doubt. His face had flushed to the roots of his hair, his fingers were fidgeting nervously against one another and excitement verging on intoxication caused his eyes to glow with an unnatural inward fire. His thoughts had flown straight back to the prettily furnished parlour in Holborn Row, to Mistress Julia Peyton's violet eyes and the exquisite scent of her white hands when he had pressed them to his lips. His love for her--call it passion or desire an you will--had grown in intensity as the obstacle which separated him from her had seemed more and more insurmountable. In the past few hours that same passion had reached a stage of fever heat, impatient at control, chafing at impotence and longing for satisfaction with all the strength of thwarted desire. Rupert Kestyon, Earl of Stowmaries and Riveaulx, had been brought up in the hard school of colonial life; in his boyhood he had been denied every kind of pleasure and luxury in which the sense of youth revels, through what he called an unjust Fate; then suddenly he had seen himself thrown in the very lap of Fortune, his every desire satisfied and his every whim made law. The change was sudden enough to throw off its balance a more firm character than that of the son of Captain Kestyon--spendthrift, profligate, a rogue from temperament. Like his father's, Rupert's was essentially a weak nature. He had never attempted to fight Fate, when Fate was against him. When Fortune smiled, he took everything she offered him without attempt at restraint;--and the jade had become very lavish with her gifts to the young outcast who awhile ago had often enough been obliged to tighten his belt against the gnawing pangs of hunger. He had found friends, followers, sycophants; had been favoured by royalty and smiled on by beauty, but Mistress Peyton was the first passion in his life. He had flirted with her for months, made easy love to her for weeks, but he had not realised that he loved her until twenty-four hours ago when he knew that she was lost to him. The knowledge that here was the chief desire of his heart, and that this desire he could not gratify, despite his position, his personality and his wealth, almost unhinged his mind. It was two years now since he had exercised any self-denial. He had lost all knowledge of that useful art, and was determined not to learn it again. The day on which he heard that through an appalling catastrophe, which had swept his kindred into the sea and broken the heart of an old man, he, Rupert Kestyon, the penniless son of a spendthrift father, had become rich, influential, one of the greatest gentlemen in the kingdom, he had said with a sigh of genuine satisfaction: "Now I mean to live!" and with him living meant solely the gratification of his every wish. Now he saw his greatest wish in all the world born only to be thwarted. It was monstrous, unthinkable! But from that wholesome fear of ecclesiastical authority peculiar in those days to men of his creed, he would have rebelled. Respect for the Church to which he belonged, dread of a scandal which might tarnish the great name he bore, and undermine his pleasant position alone caused him to be submissive. He was not clever enough to find out a means of freeing himself from irksome bonds, and had drained the cup of despair to its bitter dregs without thinking or even hoping for an issue out of his misery. But now a man spoke--a man whom in his saner moments he heartily despised, whom he knew to be shiftless, unscrupulous, a born gambler--but yet a man who showed him a way out of the quagmire of despair into a possible haven of hope. He had not been long in catching Ayloffe's meaning. Whilst the others doubted he had already seen the possibilities of success. His bride had never seen him since consciousness grew into her brain; her parents' only recollections of himself dated back eighteen years! Why indeed should not some other man impersonate the bridegroom, carry the bride away and thus forever after leave on her fair maiden name a stain which would render her unfit to be acknowledged as the wife of any honourable gentleman? How simple it all seemed! Unlike his friends here present, Stowmaries saw no shame in the scheme--no shame, let us say to himself! Disgrace to the woman--yes! but he did not know her, and he hated the very thought of her! Disgrace perhaps to the scoundrel who would undertake the ignoble treachery! but to the Earl of Stowmaries who would sit quietly at home whilst the roguery was being carried on by others?--'Sblood! who would suggest such a ridiculous idea? His eyes wandered round the table. Sir Anthony Wykeham was no longer frowning and Lord Rochester had laughed--a little nervously perhaps--but no one had actually protested. There was no gainsaying the fact that Ayloffe was a rogue to suggest so profligate a scheme, but profligacy was all the rage now and vastly pleased the King. "By Gad, a mad notion!--But a right merry one!" quoth Sir Knaith Bullock, himself a rogue and as full of dare-devil schemes as an egg is full of meat. The remark loudly spoken and accompanied by a blasphemous oath and the loud banging of a clenched fist against the table, eased the tension finally. Even Wykeham began to laugh. Not one of these young men here had wanted to feel ashamed, rather did each one desire to seem a vast deal worse than his neighbour. It was no good allowing the recollections of early lessons in chivalry to mar the enjoyment of the present merry life; not even if those lessons had been taught by a father who had died fighting for King and cause. Let the ball of pleasure be set rolling; that ball partly made up of love of devilry, partly of ennui seeking for amusement and of contempt for woman's virtue. "'Twere rare sport!" said Rochester. Sport! The word acted like magic and shame was completely vanquished by the pleasing sense of excitement. Bah! what was the virtue, the fair name, the happiness of a tailor's daughter worth, in the face of the vastly pleasing entertainment she herself would provide for her betters. "An ignoble trick to play on a woman," murmured Wykeham. But his protest had become very feeble. He saw nothing in the suggestion that shocked his religious scruples, for the rest he cared but little. The victim was only a tailor's daughter after all, and Stowmaries--his friend--would not be the one to repudiate his marriage vows. "Bah! a tailor's daughter!" was the gist of the argument in favour of the scheme. "She shall have full compensation," quoth my lord Stowmaries somewhat tonelessly, for his throat felt parched and his tongue seemed to be several sizes too large for his mouth. He drank down a large bumper full of sherry into which Ayloffe had unobtrusively thrown a dash of raw brandy. "Have you forgotten, gentlemen," now said gallant Sir John lustily, "that my lord of Stowmaries will give seventy thousand pounds to the friend who will help him in his need. A fortune methinks, which should tempt any young gallant in search of romantic adventure and a pretty wife." "But the details, man! the details!" came from every side, "surely you have thought of them!" "And of the risks!" suggested Lord Rochester, who was practical, and who had oft suffered because of his gallant adventures. "There are no risks, gentlemen," quoth Sir John Ayloffe, "not to us at any rate, nor yet to my lord Stowmaries. As for the tailor and his family, believe me they will be so covered with ridicule, that they will not cause his lordship a moment's anxiety. Just think on it! To give away one's daughter to a man who is not her husband! to greet him with festivities and merrimaking, to kill the fatted calf in honour of the man who brings dishonour into one's home! Nay! Nay! The breeches-maker of Paris will have cause to keep silent after the adventure. The maid perchance will retire into a convent, and the gallant adventurer can brave the world in comfort with seventy thousand pounds in his pocket." "Bravo! Well said!--But the details?--how will you work, it, Ayloffe?" Obviously the scheme was commending itself more and more to these over-heated brains. There were no shame-faced looks round the table now. Stowmaries did not speak; his excitement was too keen to find vent in words, and he was shrewd enough to realise at once that Ayloffe did not mean to give away the details of his plans to this trio of young addle-pated rakes. But cries of "The details, man, the details!" became more and more insistent. Sir John, glass in hand, at last rose in response. "The details are simple enough, gentlemen, and now that I have your approbation, I will be quick enough in working them out. In the meanwhile let us drink to the gallant adventurer who must help us in our scheme. We do not yet know his name, who he is or whence he comes; the fairy Prince who will free my lord Stowmaries from irksome bondage and the tailor's daughter from the fetters of a respectable home. What we do know is that this Prince must be young, else he could not pass for milor of Stowmaries, he must be well-favoured, else the lady might fight shy of him; but he may be as poor as the proverbial church mouse, since seventy thousand pounds, and the fortune of the richest tailor in Paris are jointly to be his. Come, gentlemen, will you take my toast?" Loud banging of pewter mugs against the deal table greeted this merry sally. The young men jumped to their feet. "To him! To the unknown!" they shouted laughing with one accord. There were loud calls for Master Foorde, and confused orders for more Spanish wine. Sir John called for brandy, and anon when the worthy hosteler filled the bumpers all round the table, Ayloffe followed him adding brandy here and there to the wine, laughingly insistent, praising the quality of the liquor for inducing to gaiety and all the elegant qualities of amiable drunkenness so fashionable in a gentleman of the period. He was quite clever enough not to make any further direct allusions to the scheme, the realisation of which meant the transference of twelve thousand pounds from Mistress Julia Peyton's pocket into his own. So far he had gained the first stake in the game which he had set himself to play, and was content for the moment merely to addle still further the heads of these young reprobates by wild talks of adventure, and sly allusions to the delights of coming scandal, mixed with sweeping sarcasm directed at feminine virtue in general and the morals of the Paris bourgeoisie in particular. He knew well enough that Stowmaries was at one with him by now, but that he never would have succeeded in persuading the young man to enter into such villainous schemes, if he had been alone with him. Away from the glamour of his rakish friends, of the atmosphere of the tavern, of the smell of wine and tobacco, Stowmaries' better nature and the inherited instincts of honour would have rebelled against the roguery. Any of these young men here present would individually have repudiated the monstrous proposal whilst collectively they were over-ready to trample on any nascent idea of chivalry, each one ashamed to be called squeamish or Puritanical by the other. There was nothing really depraved in these young men, only a desire to outdo each other in profligacy, in a show of anti-Puritanism, the immediate outcome of the enforced restraint of the past generation. Ayloffe knew this, and, therefore, he had chosen the supper hour, and the presence of a select number of the worst rakes in London--Rochester and Bullock--for testing Stowmaries' willingness to enter into his own villainous scheme. He wanted the support of confused brains, of rowdy excitement, of shouts and of laughter to drown the preliminary call of conscience. This once smothered, would probably never lift a warning voice again, and details could be comfortably settled in private later on. "Believe me, gentlemen," he said gaily, "that that tailor's minx will thank us all on her knees for the entertainment which we will provide for her. Odd's fish and I mistake not she hath but little stomach for becoming an honourable British matron, and you may be sure that 'tis only her parents who force her into an unwelcome marriage. We shall be the rescuers of beauty in distress, and will provide the wench with such an adventure as will draw the eyes of half Europe upon her and give her that notoriety which all women prize far beyond those virtues which are only vaunted by the old and ugly ones of their own sex. A bumper on it, gentlemen! I pledge the tailor's minx, ill-favoured though she be--my word on that! she'll become the talk of London--I drink to her adventure--and to the bold man who will share in it--By my halidame, were I but twenty years younger, I'd apply for the post myself." Ayloffe's irresponsible talk, and the heady wines mixed with alcohol completed the work of destruction. Lord Stowmaries and his friends contrived within the next hour or so to lose more self-respect than their fathers had gained in a lifetime through sublime adherence to a forlorn cause. CHAPTER X But indeed words are very rascals since bonds disgrace them. --TWELFTH NIGHT III. 1. I think that we shall have to accept Sir Anthony Wykeham's account of how the proceedings finally terminated. He avers that by the time the church clock of St. Clement's had struck the hour of ten, Sir John Ayloffe was the only man present in that small private room who could at all be called sober. At that hour my lord of Rochester it seems lay right across the table with flushed face hidden in the bend of the elbow, snoring lustily at intervals and at others lifting a heavy head in order to hurl a bibulous remark at impassive Sir John or over-excited Stowmaries: Sir Knaith Bullock had quite frankly exchanged the rickety incertitude of Master Foorde's chairs for the more solid level of the floor, where after sundry struggles with a tiresome cravat and a persistently wry perruque he lay amidst the straw and the unsavoury postprandial debris that littered it, in comfort and security. Wykeham, according to his own account, had lapsed into somnolent sulkiness, vaguely listening to the ribald jests and coarse oaths uttered by the others, and to the monotonous murmur of Sir John's voice as he explained the details of his scheme to Stowmaries. The latter had certainly drunk more brandy than was good for the clearness of his brain. Excitement, too, had wrought upon his blood, with the result that the events of this night took on the garb of some over-vivid dream: but, as soon as he realised that his perceptions were becoming too confused to take in Ayloffe's varied suggestions, he made a vigorous effort to regain possession of himself. He called for a bowl of iced water, and dashed its contents into his face and across his eyes. After that he steadily refused to drink any more, nor did Sir John press him any further. The insinuating poison had done its work: there was no fear now that Stowmaries would wish to draw back. "I pray you draw your chair nearer, my lord," said Ayloffe after awhile when of a truth he saw that the rest of the company was quite helpless, "these gentlemen are not like to disturb us now." With unaccountable reluctance Stowmaries did as the older man bade him, and presently the two men withdrew altogether from out the circle of dim light thrown by the guttering tallow candles. "Your lordship, I take it then, agrees with the broad basis of my scheme," said Ayloffe, speaking quite low, only just above a whisper. "You are anxious to free yourself from this undesired marriage, and you think that my suggestion is one which will most easily help you to accomplish this purpose?" "That is so," assented Stowmaries readily. "On the other hand," continued Ayloffe, "your lordship is prepared to pay the sum of seventy thousand pounds to the man who will impersonate your lordship in the house of M. Legros, merchant tailor of Paris, who will--in your name and person--claim the Legros girl as his wife, and go through the necessary civil and religious ceremonies that will ratify the original marriage; and, finally, who will undertake not to reveal his own identity to the tailor's daughter until you, my lord, will grant him leave. For these services," concluded Sir John with emphasis, "is your lordship prepared to pay the vast sum of seventy thousand pounds?" "More than that," replied Stowmaries in an excited whisper, which rendered his voice hoarse and his tongue stiff and parched. "More than that and money down: fifty thousand pounds on that day that he signs and seals the bargain with me, and starts on his errand for Paris, and a further seventy thousand on the day that the tailor's daughter leaves her parents' home in his company. A hundred and twenty thousand pounds! mine honour! my life upon it. But where in the name of Hell will you find the man to take it?" By way of an immediate reply, Sir John placed a warning finger to his mouth, then rose and beckoning to the other to follow him, he went to the door which divided the private parlour from the public Coffee Room, and throwing it open he pointed to the rowdy company who sat assembled each side of the oblong trestle table. "Amongst that crowd," he whispered with an insinuating smile. CHAPTER XI Good-night, good sleep, good rest from sorrow To these that shall not have good morrow. --SWINBURNE. At first when Sir John Ayloffe threw open the door of the public room, Stowmaries was only conscious of an almost Satanic din; he certainly could see nothing through the dense cloud of smoke which filled every corner of the long, narrow hall. Gradually, however, his eyes, still dimmed from recent libations and acute excitement, became accustomed to this haze-covered gloom, whilst his ears distinguished isolated sounds, drunken songs, loud oaths or hoarse laughter from out the deafening roar which surged towards him like the noise of breakers against a rock. A narrow deal table ran from end to end of the room, from the main door at the top to the small latticed window at the bottom. The floor was strewn with rushes on which sprawled recumbent figures in various stages of drunken sleep, in the very midst of a litter of debris, broken glasses, overthrown mugs, patches of spilt wine or ale, bones and remnants of pastry and of bread--all evil-smelling and unspeakably dirty. On the table itself the remnants of pies and cooked meats, and a forest of empty mugs and bottles. One by one the tallow candles which had been placed at intervals throughout the whole length of the table had thrown up their last flicker of feeble light, had spluttered their last with a hissing sound and finally died out in a column of grimy smoke. There were but some half dozen or so left now, which threw uncertain yellow gleams through the thick veil of tobacco fumes, on the prostrate figures that sprawled across the table, on overthrown goblets and jugs, on all the unsavoury debris--remnants of the past orgy. The rest of the room was in darkness, and through the gloom the figure of a young man, with flushed face and dark brown hair innocent of perruque, moved backwards and forwards to the rhythmic cadence of a boisterous chorus of song. The draught from the badly-fastened window wafted the strips of cotton which hung in lieu of curtains, straight into the room, with a swishing, moaning sound around which--soft though it was--could be heard like a long drawn-out sigh of pain, in the pauses of lusty laughter and of ribald song. The storm outside seemed to have ceased, for, as the curtains blew away from the window the pale, ghost-like streaks of moonbeams searched the darkness of that end of the room and found here a fold of satin tattered and frayed, there a broken paste buckle, or rusty sword hilt on which to play its weird gamut of faint and ghoulish rays. The noise was incessant, merriment mixed with quarrelsome oaths, lively songs alternating with hoarse shouts. All those who were not snoring babbled incoherently, swore or sang; Irish brogue mingling with broad Yorkshire tones, round Scotch oaths striking against Gaelic ones, whilst from time to time, a noisome word loudly flung from end to end of the table like a filthy rag would rouse one of the sleepers and spur him to respond to the challenge with vile blasphemy. At times the clink of a sword would cut sharply through the buzzing air, the beginnings of a quarrel, a volley of vituperations, a pewter mug or half-empty bottle thrown right across the table scattering its contents over tattered coats and already much-stained vests: then the hoarse admonitions of the peacemakers, the first refrain of a song by way of a diversion, more lively, more out of tune than before, and laughter and jests once more reigned supreme. Stowmaries gazed on this scene, the while he still felt that somnolent feeling of being in a dream, enveloping his senses. He heard the noise and saw the figures swaying to and fro, moving on unsteady legs, in and out of the narrow circles of yellow light like gnomes dancing the figures of a saraband, in the anteroom of Hell. The figure of the young man at the extreme end of the room fascinated him. He could not discern the face clearly, only as a flushed mask with the pale moonbeams touching the dark hair with their ghostly rays. "'Tis your cousin Michael," whispered Ayloffe close to his ear. Stowmaries gave a sudden start. He understood now why Sir John had shown him this scene, the picture of this rowdy crowd composed of the ne'er-do-well, unclassed profligates who had flooded the country ever since the Restoration, hurrying back to England from Flanders or from Spain, under the guise of Royalist loyalty which had suffered exile for the great cause, and was now eager and ready for reward. Boisterous, unscrupulous, disrespecters of persons and of dignity, they traded on the people's avowed dislike of the canting Puritans who had ruled in England for so long. Jeering, mocking and carousing they filled London with their noise, the open scandal of their lives, the disgrace of their conduct. By day they paraded the streets loudly singing licentious songs, dressed in the rags and tatters of cavalier accoutrements long since thrown away, seeking the peaceful citizen with the Puritan leanings, who chanced to find himself in their way and holding him up to ridicule, the butt of their uncontrolled merriment. By night they filled the taverns and coffee houses of the city and only the small hours of the morning witnessed their final retirement into the small brothels of evil repute where alone they could obtain lodgings. There were hundreds of these men about the London streets during the few years which followed the Restoration. The great plague had decimated them somewhat, the fire of 1666 had scattered some of them broadcast, but in this present year there were still a goodly number of them about. They were the terror of the night watchmen and the despair of the ill-organised and inefficient police-patrols, and rendered the lesser streets of the city well-nigh impassable to quiet citizens and to decent women. And it was amongst these men that Michael Kestyon was most often to be found; shouting with them by day, drinking and gambling with them by night. Michael Kestyon, cousin to my lord of Stowmaries and like him descended from those who in mediæval days had writ their name largely on the pages of history: Michael, the ne'er-do-well, the wastrel, the profligate: Michael the idler who strove in such company to forget that he had been born a gentleman, and that he held a claim to the title and estates of Stowmaries which many thought was passing just. CHAPTER XII Oh, the strife Of waves at the stone, some devil threw In my life's mid-current thwarting God. --BROWNING. For Michael Kestyon was a man with a grievance. A just grievance enough since many held that he and not his cousin Rupert should have been the present Earl of Stowmaries. But possession in those far-off days was even more absolutely an integral part of the law than it is now. Rupert Kestyon was _de facto_ established at Maries Castle, whilst Michael had to begin life by selling his sword or his skin to the highest bidder, and all because his father and grandfather before him had been either very supine or hideously neglectful of their own respective son's interests to enforce the decree of King Edward III anent the family succession. That the decree existed no one attempted to deny; it was embodied in a document which with other family archives was actually in the possession of Michael Kestyon the pretender. These papers in fact were the only inheritance bequeathed to him by his father, besides a legacy of hatred and covetousness against the usurpers of the name and fortune of Stowmaries. But ye shall judge if the reigning earls were usurpers or not. It seems that in those distant days when Edward III reigned over England and France, the then Lady of Stowmaries presented her lord with twin boys, born within an hour of another. Fine boys they were, so tradition hath it, well grown and sturdy and as like to one another as two peas lying in the same pod. The fond mother as she gazed proudly upon these children--who of a truth were each endowed with a powerful pair of lungs--little guessed the mischief which their joint arrival would cause in the ancient and noble family of Kestyon. According to the laws of military tenure, the eldest of these two boys--older remember than his own brother only by a short hour or so--should have been held to be the heir to the titles, dignities, lands and appurtenances held in fief direct by the Lord of Stowmaries from his suzerain liege Lord Edward III by the Grace of God King of England and of France. But as evil chance--presided over by some imp of mischief--would have it, the twins--when scarce a few hours old--being placed by my lady's tiring-woman side by side in the bed, presently took to vigorous quarrelling. My lady thereupon was much perturbed and her women were all hastily summoned to her bedside, so that they might administer such soothing draughts as were usual under the circumstances. When my lady was once more restored to her former quietude she asked for her boys, requesting that the eldest be first placed in her arms. Alas! the mischief was done! The tiring-woman could not remember which child she had lain on the right side of the bed, and which on the left, nor could her astuteness combined with the adoring mother's searching eyes state positively afterwards which boy was heir to the barony of Stowmaries, and which the mere younger son. Imagine the confusion which ensued. Stories of innumerable quarrels between the brothers as they grew up to boyhood's estate have been handed down to their posterity. The father himself was at a loss what to do. He had a great love for both his boys, and not knowing which was the elder and which the younger son, he had a vast fear of doing an injustice either to the one or to the other. What could he do but ask the advice and ascertain the wishes of his suzerain liege? This we are told he did as soon as the children had reached the mature age of ten and owed military service to their lord. King Edward III we all know was a model of justice and of sound common sense. He declared it impossible that either of the boys should be deprived of what might be his lawful inheritance. Therefore, by a special decree signed by his own hand manual, he declared that on the death of his faithful cousin, the Baron of Stowmaries, the title, estates in fief or military tenure and other lands and appurtenances thereof should devolve jointly on the twin sons of the said lord, and that the first born child in the next generation should then once more reunite in his own person the titles and estates of Stowmaries. Moreover the King decreed that if at any future time, a Lady of Stowmaries should take it into her gracious head to present her lord with twins, this same rule of succession should apply. Thus said His Majesty King Edward III, and my lord of Stowmaries was thereby satisfied. The brothers were henceforth brought up as joint heirs of one of the finest baronies in the Kingdom and we hear nothing more of family feuds or dissensions. That the twins eventually did jointly succeed to their father's title and estates we know from the records anent the twin Barons of Stowmaries who fought under the banner of John of Gaunt in the days of Richard II; and from the fact that King Henry IV in 1410 created the then Baron of Stowmaries, Earl of Stowmaries and Riveaulx we may infer that one of those turbulent twins did have a son who succeeded alone to his father and uncle, and once more united in his own person all dignities and lands belonging to the ancient family. Thus the carelessness of a tiring-wench had for the time being no further serious consequences on the fortunes of the Kestyons. For some generations to come it seemed that the ladies of Stowmaries had no predilection for twins. But in the year 1552, so the family archives tell us, the wife of John, Earl of Stowmaries--Grand Master of the Ceremonies to King Edward VI--presented her lord with a sturdy pair of boys. As like to one another as the proverbial peas were these two new scions of the ancient family of Kestyon, and mightily proud of them was their fond mother, but there never was any confusion as to their identity. One of them--Rupert--was born fully two hours before his brother Michael, and was ever after looked upon as his father's heir. Nor, on the death of the Earl, did any one seem to have thought of disputing his sole right to the title and estates of Stowmaries. Rupert succeeded his father and in his turn was succeeded by his son. But what we do know as a certain fact is that Michael, the younger twin, had a son born to him a full year before his elder brother took unto himself a wife, and that if the decree of King Edward III had been duly enforced by law, Rupert and Michael should have been joint Earls of Stowmaries and it should have been Michael's son--the first born in the next generation--who should have united the title and estates in his own person. Why Michael did not endeavour to enforce the ancient decree of Edward III we shall never know: there are neither letters nor other documents to explain this supineness, which is all the more inexplicable since it affected the future of his own son even more than his own. We are concerned with the present generation. With Rupert, Earl of Stowmaries, the direct descendant of the older twin, and with Michael Kestyon, the grandson of the younger. Such as I have related is the true history of the grievance which this Michael nurtured against his cousin whom he deemed an usurper, and against all his peers, kinsmen and fellow gentlemen for the injustice which they abetted by admitting that usurper as one of themselves. But unlike his father and grandfather before him Michael was not content to see any one else in possession of the family title and estates, which of a truth should have been his. From his father he had inherited among other family archives the mediæval document embodying the decree of Edward III and bearing that monarch's signature. How and wherefore this had remained as an heirloom in this branch of the family, tradition does not tell us. The fact seems to suggest that the younger twin--Michael--may have had some intention of enforcing his son's claim at a future time--an intention, mayhap, frustrated by death. The man whom Lord Stowmaries saw at this moment, with flushed face and unsteady voice singing ribald songs to the accompaniment of boisterous laughter, chink of dice and sword, and blasphemous oaths, had at one time taken up his own cause with ardent and heart-whole enthusiasm. At the age when boyhood first yields to maturity, Michael had lost his father and thereupon had begun to fight for his rights, with all the strength of a turbulent nature, full of instincts of luxury and driven to penury through flagrant injustice. He had spent some of the best years of his life, in a perpetual appeal to the King and to his peers to try his cause and if necessary to find it just. But the King was not fond of settling important questions himself and the Lords' House of Parliament was overbusy re-establishing a number of its own lapsed privileges to bother about a claimant with empty pockets. Driven from pillar to post, Michael appealed to Common Law, to Chancery and to equity, setting up divers pleas in order to bring his case within the jurisdiction of these respective Courts. He spent all his substance in lawyer's fees, in sworn documents, in meeting constant demands for bribery, the while his kinsman sat comfortably enthroned at Maries Castle paying no heed to a claim, the justice of which one attempted to deny yet which no one was able legally to enforce. Gradually as his pockets grew more and more empty, as constant rebuffs took the edge off his optimism, Michael carried on the fight with less and less hope if with unabated doggedness. In the intervals he had sold his sword and his skin to the highest bidder, to Italy or Flanders, to the Emperor or to the King of France. He had led the life of the adventurer, who knows not from day to day whence will come the rations for the morrow, of the soldier of fortune who has neither kindred nor home. His mother whom he adored--in his own turbulent passionate way--spent a life of humble penury in a remote Kentish village. To this lowly abode of peace Michael returned from time to time from his far-off wanderings in Sicily or Spain; here he would spend some few days in worshipping his mother, until the agony of seeing her patient and serene within measurable sight of starvation drove him frantic from out her doors. Then he would rush back to London and once more haunt the Courts and the purlieus of Whitehall, swallowing his outbursts of pride in vain supplications for a fresh hearing, in a mad desire to see the King, in licking the dust before the feet of those who might help him to further his cause. At those times self-deprecation would render him moody; his pleasure-loving nature was swamped beneath the heavy pall of a mother's want, a mother's sorrow and misery. He despised himself for being unable to lift her out of such humiliating penury. She who should be Countess of Stowmaries, one of the greatest ladies in the land, scrubbed her own floors and oft lacked a meal, the while her son, the able-bodied and reckless adventurer, was eating out his heart with the shame of his own impotence. But what he could not accomplish whilst the scanty means left to him by his father were still at his command, he was totally unable to obtain now that he had not one stiver to offer to those who might have helped him but whose palms seemed forever to be in want of grease. Blood-money abroad had also become more meagre. The King of France and the Emperor had their own standing armies now, and had less need of mercenary troops than of yore. Michael who in battle sought wounds as another would seek cheap glory, was given but twenty crowns for a sword thrust which he received at Fehrbellin whilst fighting for the Elector of Brandenburg. He nearly died of the thrust, and afterwards of starvation, for he sent the twenty crowns to his mother, and being considered too enfeebled for active service, he could not immediately obtain further enlistment. This was but one of the many episodes which had helped to make Michael Kestyon what he now was. A bitter sense of wrong gnawed at his heartstrings, the while he strove to hide his better nature beneath the mask of boisterous gaiety, of a licentious life and reckless gambling. The buffetings of law officials, the corrupt practises of second rate attorneys, the constant demands on his scanty purse now made up the sum total of his dealings with humanity, when he was not actually in the company of adventurers more profligate, more dissolute than himself. He saw the better world--that world which was composed of his own kindred--turned, as if in arms against him. Not a friend to give him help save at a price which he could not afford to pay. It was money and always money: money which he could not get, and without which he saw the last chance of getting a hearing for his case vanishing beyond his reach. The descent from those early boyish days full of idealism and of hope, down to the lowest rung of the social ladder, to the companionship of gamesters and of drunkards, had been overcertain and none too slow. Accustomed to the revelries of camp life, to that light-hearted gaiety so full of exuberance to-day and oft the precursor of a bloody death on the morrow, Michael found the England of the Restoration a mercenary and inhospitable spot. Among his own kind, mockery of his vain endeavours; among the others--the wastrels--a life of boisterous merrimaking which at any rate made for forgetfulness. CHAPTER XIII My conscience hath a thousand several tongues And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain. --RICHARD III. V. 3. In response to Ayloffe's whisper, Stowmaries had asked hurriedly: "Is this the man?" The older man nodded, and Stowmaries gazed long and searchingly upon his cousin, vaguely wondering if Sir John's astuteness had pointed in the right direction, if indeed this were the man most likely to lend himself for a large sum of money to the furtherance of an ignoble scheme. Stowmaries saw before him a man--still in the prime of life but on whom dissipation, sleeplessness by night and starvation by day had already boldly writ their impress; a man like unto himself in feature, a distinct family resemblance being noticeable between the two cousins, but in Michael Kestyon--the reckless adventurer--the evenly placid expression born of a contented life had long ago yielded to the wild, hunted look, the mirror of a turbulent soul. He wore a surcoat which was obviously of rich cloth though the many vicissitudes of camp life had left severe imprints upon its once immaculate surface: beneath this coat there peeped out innocent of vest, the shirt, which once had been wrought by loving fingers, of fine linen and delicate stitchery, but now presented the appearance of a miscellaneous collection of tatters and darns with here and there a dark stain on it, which spoke of more than one sword thrust in the breast, of the miseries of that life of fighting and of toil, of aches and pains and of ill-tended wounds. The rest of Michael's attire was in keeping with the surcoat and the shirt: the faded silk sash long since deprived of tassels, the collar free from starch, the breeches a veritable motley of patchwork, and the high boots of untanned leather, stained a dark greenish brown from exposure to constant damp. This then was the man who was most like to sell himself for so much money, and Stowmaries noting the squalor of Michael's attire, the dissipated yet wearied look in his face, ceased to wonder how it came that Sir John had thought of this wastrel, and in his mind fully approved of the choice. Suddenly Michael Kestyon caught sight of the two men standing under the lintel of the door. He greeted them at once with a shout of welcome. "My worthy coz!" he said gaily, "and if I mistake not 'tis gallant Sir John Ayloffe, the finest rogue that ever graced a court. Gentlemen!" he continued mocking, and advancing with mincing and unsteady steps towards the two men, "pray tell us--though by the Mass I call you right welcome--what procures this humble abode the honour of such distinguished company?" Whilst the young man spoke, most of his companions had ceased both song and laughter; several faces--all flushed with heady liquor--were turned towards the door, whilst glances wherein suspicion fought with the confusing fumes of alcohol, were directed on the newcomers. But Sir John Ayloffe with determined good humour had returned Michael's greeting with easy bonhomie. "Nay, friend Michael," he said, the while he prudently closed the door behind him and Stowmaries, lest the noise in the coffee room awaken his sleeping friends, "your amiable cousin and I myself were tired of the sober assembly in the parlour and had desire for more merry company. I hope your call of welcome was no mere empty word, and that of a truth we may join your hospitable board." With much gravity Michael surveyed Ayloffe and Stowmaries up and down, from the diamond buckles on their shoes to the elaborate curls of their gigantic perruques; then he turned to his friends, who had followed his every movement with that solemn attention peculiar to the drunkard, which tries yet fails to comprehend what is going on before him. "What say you, gentlemen?" he said, "shall we admit these noble rogues to our table? My cousin here, as you see, has but lately emerged from the surveillance of his keeper, he inhabited a monkey garden for a considerable time, and hath collected a vast amount of hair on his head from the shavings of his many companions." A terrific and prolonged shout of laughter shook the very walls of the room, the while Stowmaries, who suddenly had became pale with rage, placed a quivering hand on the hilt of his sword. "Insolent beggar!--" he murmured in a hoarse voice, which, however, was completely drowned in the bibulous noise which had greeted Michael's impertinent sally and which rose and fell in a continuous roar for some considerable time, the while Michael himself, satisfied at the effect which he had produced, struck up the refrain of a drinking song. "In the name of the lady whom you honour with your love, good my lord," whispered Ayloffe close to Stowmaries' ear and with impressive earnestness, "I entreat you to keep your temper. We have need of this wastrel for the success of our scheme, and a quarrel would of a surety ruin it completely." Michael Kestyon now turned to his cousin once more. "I pray you take your seats, gentlemen," he said pointing with unsteady gesture to a couple of empty chairs placed at the head of the table, "though you may not be aware of it, my friends here have shown a desire for the continuance of your presence amongst us. Had they not desired it they would have shown their disapproval by various hints more or less gentle, such as the throwing of a pewter mug at you or the elevation of their toe to the level of your majestic persons. But as it is ye may rest assured, ye are welcome here." "I thank you, good Michael," said Ayloffe pleasantly, as in response to Michael's invitation he now advanced further into the room and took his seat at the head of the board, followed by Stowmaries who was making vain attempts to conceal his contempt of the proceedings, and to master his ill-humour. "Indeed," continued Sir John addressing with gracious familiarity the united company present, "I know not what we have done to deserve your favours. Believe me, we came as suppliants desiring to be entertained by the most noted merrimakers in London." Michael with the same mock gravity once more resumed his place at the table close beside Sir John Ayloffe. He drew two mugs towards him and from a gigantic pewter jug, he poured out full measures of a thick red liquid, which had the appearance of spiced wine. The beverage certainly exhaled a remarkable methylic odour, which from the nostrils seemed to strike straight into the brain making the blood seethe in the head and the eyes glow as with the heat of running fire. Moreover the mugs which Michael had filled, and then pushed towards the newcomers were not over clean. Even Sir John had much ado to keep his outward show of geniality and to mask his friend's more and more marked impatience and disgust. "By the Mass, merry sirs," quoth Michael with boisterous hilarity, "an you really desire to be of our company we will grant you admittance. But first must ye pledge us in a full bumper of this nectar, concocted by good Master Foorde for the complete undoing of his most favoured guests. We drink to you, gentlemen, brother rogues an you please. If you are saints do not drink. The liquid will poison you." "To you all, brother rogues," came in lusty accents from Sir John Ayloffe as he jumped to his feet, bumper in hand, "and may you accept us as two of the worst rogues that ever graced your hospitable board." He quaffed the sickly, very heady liquid at one draught. He had kept himself uncommonly sober throughout the evening and the potion he knew could not do him a great deal of harm. He had a solid head and was not unused to the rough concoctions made up of cheap wines, of alcohol and sundry spices wherewith these noisy louts were wont still further to addle their over-confused pates. Stowmaries would have demurred, despite the warning look thrown at him from beneath Sir John's heavy lids, but, looking up, he saw Michael's deep-set eyes fixed upon him with a measure of amusement not altogether free from sarcasm which vastly irritated him and without attempting to hide his disgust he raised the heavy mug with a gesture of recklessness and contempt and he too drank it down at one draught. There were loud shouts of approval at this, and the occasion was further improved by more drinking and the singing of various snatches culled from the most noted and most licentious songs. But Michael was now examining Sir John Ayloffe very attentively. The latter having drunk expressed distinct appreciation of the beverage, and even made pretence, as he once more resumed his seat, of asking for more. "You are looking at me with strange persistence, good Michael," he said at last with unalterable blandness, as he returned the younger man's questioning gaze. "May not a cat look at a king," retorted the other lightly, "or a beggar gaze on the exalted personality of Sir John Ayloffe?" "By all means, and welcome. But, on my faith, my personality is in no wise exalted, therefore, I may be permitted to ask again what is the cause of your flattering attention?" "Curiosity," replied Michael curtly. "Curiosity?" "Yes. I was wondering in my mind why you are here to-night, and why you have brought mine estimable if somewhat weak-minded cousin with you here, in the very midst of the most evil-reputed crowd in London?" "Oh!" protested Sir John gallantly, "'tis not the most evil-reputed crowd by any means. We, who are accustomed to the profligate life of a gentleman, look over leniently on the innocent if somewhat flashy debaucheries of these pleasure-lovers here." "Yet are we no mere pleasure lovers, Sir John," said Michael with a sudden air of seriousness which contrasted strangely with his flushed face and his slovenly and ragged attire. "You see here before you the very scum of humanity, the bits of flotsam and jetsam which the tide of fortune throws upon the shores of life; tattered rags of manhood, shattered lives, disappointed hopes! This room is full of these wreckages, like morsels of poisonous seaweed or of empty shells that litter the earth and make it foul with their noisome putrefaction. Elegant gentlemen like you and my fair cousin here should not join in this mêlée wherein crime falls against crime, and moral foulness pollutes the air. We are rogues here, sir, all of us," he added bringing his hand open-palmed crashing down upon the table, "rogues that have long ago ceased to blush, rogues that shrink neither before crime nor before shame. Rogues! rogues! all of us--not born so remember, but made rogues because of some one else's crime, some one else's shame!--but damned rogues for all that!" He drank another bumper full of spiced wine! He had spoken loudly and hoarsely with wrathful eyes gazing straight ahead before him, as if striving through the foul smoke and vitiated air of this den of thieves to perceive that nook in a Kentish village, where in a tumble-down, miserable cottage, a woman who should have been Countess of Stowmaries was often on her knees scrubbing the tiled floors. But Stowmaries's laugh, loud and almost malignant, broke the trend of Michael's thoughts. "Ay, ay! Well said!" he shouted as loudly, as hilariously as had done the others. "Well said, Michael, for you at least, an rumour doth not lie, are a damned rogue for all that!" "Nay! Nay!" interposed Ayloffe with mild amiability, "you do your cousin Michael a grave injustice. I know that my lord of Rochester would back me up in what I say. All these gentlemen here are rogues but in name. They shout and they sing, they parade the streets and make merry, but they are, of a truth, of a right good sort, and if only a pleasing turn of fortune came their way, they would all become peaceful citizens in a trice and forswear all their deeds of profligacy, of which they are often cordially ashamed." 'Twas Michael's turn to laugh. He threw back his head so that the muscles of his neck stood out like cords, and he laughed loudly and immoderately, with a laugh that had absolutely no mirth in it. "Ashamed of our roguery," he said at last, when that outburst had ceased and he was once more learning forward across the table with dark, glowing eyes wandering from one flushed face to another. "Hark at him, gentlemen! Sir John Ayloffe here would make saints of us! Hark ye, sir," he continued bringing his excited face close to that of Sir John, "I for one delight in mine own roguery. I am what I am, do you hear? what the buffetings of Fate and the injustice of man have made me. The more my mealy-mouthed cousin here exults in his courtliness and in his honour, the more do I glory in mine own disgrace. If _that_ is honour," he said pointing with a trembling hand at Stowmaries who despite his brave attire cut but a sorry figure at the present moment, for he felt supremely ill at ease, "then am I content to be a rogue. The greater the villainy, the prouder am I to accomplish it, and if I am to go to Hell for it, then let my damnation be on the head of those who have driven me thither." Stowmaries shrugged his shoulders in moody contempt. Sir John looked like one profoundly impressed at an unforeseen aspect of affairs. "As for me," growled one of the men sulkily, "pay me for it and I'll stick a knife into any person you list." He was an elderly man with a red face and straggly white hair. He had been a scholar once, drunkenness and an inordinate love of gambling had made him what he now was. "For ten golden sovereigns I'd poison the King!" quoth another thickly. "For less than that I'd sell my soul!" added another. "Thou canst not sell what thou hast not got," comes in a quick reply from the further end of the table. "And you, friend Michael, what would you do for a fortune?" asked Sir John returning Michael's gaze with a firm, earnest look. "I'd ask the devil to spare my cousin here!" replied Michael flippantly. "You would not play the part of an hired assassin, I am sure." "If I hated any one well enough, I'd kill him without pay," retorted the other. "Or abduct a woman?" "An she pleased me, I'd not want money to tell her so." "Then meseems," sighed Sir John with a deprecating shrug of the shoulders, "that I have come to the wrong man with mine offer." "There was no offer," quoth Michael curtly. "Ay! of a fortune," rejoined the other calmly. "Not a serious one." "As serious as mine own presence here." "You have come here prepared to make me an offer?" reiterated the young man now, with contemptuous incredulity. "The offer of a fortune," reiterated Ayloffe quietly. "How much?" "One hundred and twenty thousand pounds." "One hundred--" "And twenty thousand pounds," repeated Sir John with slow emphasis. "Bah!--'tis a stupid and a purposeless lie!" And Michael striving to look indifferent leaned back in his chair, then fell forward again with elbows resting heavily on the table the while his eyes glowing with the excitement of heady liquor and the vague suggestion only half expressed searched the face of the older man. "Who would give a ne'er-do-well one hundred and twenty thousand pounds?" he reiterated in an unsteady voice, "and for what purpose? Are you fooling me, Sir John?" "On my solemn word of honour, no!" asserted the latter calmly. "Then for what purpose?" repeated Michael, whilst a sneer which looked almost evil for a moment quite distorted his face. "Am I to murder some offending stranger in the dark? bribe the King's physician to poison him, or turn informant against my cousin's co-religionists in England as is the fashion nowadays? Well! tell me what it is? Have I not told you that I am rogue enough to accomplish mine own damnation--at a price." "My good Michael, you mistake my meaning. I propose no roguery unworthy a gentleman. An you'll accept my offer you'd have no cause to regret it, for you'd be a rich, happy and contented man to the last day of your life." "An it were so simple as that, man," quoth Michael drily, "you'd have no need to offer a fortune to a rogue in order to get what you want. As for the rest, methinks that most rogueries are unworthy a gentleman. But then you see I am no gentleman, else I were not here now, and probably had long ere this flung my glove in your face. So out with it--you offer me one hundred and twenty thousand pounds--for what?" Instinctively for the last five minutes or so as their conversation drew into more serious channels, the two men had gradually dropped their voices, speaking almost in a whisper. They had drawn their chairs closely together to the corner of the table, with Lord Stowmaries between them, silent and attentive. Sir John at this stage was sitting close to the end of the table, the full length of which stretched out on his right. He raised his head now and gave a quick glance at the rest of the assembly. Those of the revellers who were not wholly incapable, either sprawling across the table, or lying prone upon the floor, had drawn up their chairs in groups. The rattle of dice in boxes was distinctly audible above the snoring of the sleepers, also muttered curses from the gamblers who were losing and the clink of brass money passing from hand to hand. Satisfied that the attention of the company had long since wandered away from himself and Michael, he once more turned to the young man and said quietly in response to that impatient: "For what?" "For marrying the pretty daughter of an amiable Paris bourgeois, the wench being over-ready to fall into your arms." Michael made no movement but he studied Sir John's face, as if he thought that the man was not completely sane, or had succumbed to the fumes of spiced wine. "I do not understand," he murmured quite bewildered. "Must I repeat my words?" said Sir John imperturbably. "There is a wench over in Paris, as pure and good as the day on which she lisped her first Ave Maria at her mother's knee. For certain simple reasons which you will hear anon, a husband must be found for her within the next fourteen days. An you'll be that happy man there will be fifty thousand pounds for you as soon as you agree to the bargain, and seventy more on the day that you bring home the bride." "Yes! that sounds simple enough. But now tell me the hitch." "The hitch?" "Yes. The hitch which forces you to ask a blackguard like myself to do the work for you. Why do you not become the happy man yourself for instance?" "Oh! I am not young enough, nor yet well-favoured. The first fifty thousand pounds will help to make of you the most dashing gallant in the two kingdoms." "But why a blackguard?" persisted Michael with cutting sarcasm. He felt agitated, even strangely excited. He was shrewd enough to see that Sir John was not fooling him, that there was more than a mere undercurrent of seriousness in this extraordinary offer made across this common supper table. His fingers were beating an incessant tattoo upon the boards, and his eyes restless, keen as those of a wild beast scenting a trap, searched the face of his interlocutor. "Why a blackguard if the wench is a saint as you say, why a blackguard?" he insisted. "A blackguard? Perish the thought!" said Sir John lightly. "Nay! the reason why your personality commended itself to me and to my lord of Stowmaries was because you are a gentleman, despite the many vicissitudes of an adverse Fate, and that you would render the girl happy and proud to be your wife." "Ah! my worthy cousin is a party to this game?" queried Michael with a sneer. "In Heaven's name, man," he added with almost savage impatience, "why cannot you speak up like a man? Cards on the table, by the Mass, or my hand will come in contact with your mealy mouth--" He checked himself, angry at his own outburst of rage which he had been unable to control. "Have I not said that I am on my way to Hell," he added more quietly, "why should you hesitate to show me a short cut?" "Cards on the table, friend Michael, since you'll have it so," now said Ayloffe in a quiet impressive whisper, "bear that one hundred and twenty thousand pounds in your mind all the while you listen to me. The wench over in Paris was made to go through a marriage ceremony with your cousin here, eighteen years ago, when she was a babe in arms and he a mere lad, unable to defend himself against this encroachment on his future liberty. Since then my lord of Stowmaries has never met his bride, nor did her parents--worthy yet mercenary tradespeople of Paris--desire him to see their daughter. He was poor Rupert Kestyon then, an undesirable son-in-law if ever there was one: they would have broken the marriage then, only the Church would not allow it. Then my lord became what he now is, rich, influential, desirable, and promptly the Paris shopkeepers changed their tactics. They demanded that your cousin shall acknowledge and take to his heart and home a woman whom he has never seen, whom he can never love; for the affection of his heart, of his whole manhood is pledged to another whom he adores. In his despair my lord hath come to me and I am proud to be his friend. I would help him to regain that liberty which an untoward Fate hath fettered. Is not my lord a wholly innocent victim? He did not ask to wed--for long he was spurned as one unworthy. Now because he is rich, he is to be made the tool of rapacious bourgeois, who would see their daughter Countess of Stowmaries. They have invoked the aid of the Church who spurred by their gold hath threatened anathema and excommunication on my lord. The King--sorely inclined to Catholicism--will not hear of breaking marriage vows which he calls solemn, and which under such circumstances sensible men cannot fail to call a farce. My lord hath come to me and I have thought of a scheme--" So far Michael had listened with unswerving attention to this long exposé delivered by Sir John in clear, even voice that was hardly raised above a whisper. He had listened, his head resting in his right hand, his left lying clenched and motionless on the table. But now he interrupted Ayloffe's placid flow of eloquence. "You need not tell me your scheme, man," he said, "I have guessed it already. I know now why you had need of a rogue for the furtherance of your project. I, Michael Kestyon, am to go to Paris and there impersonate my love-sick cousin, carry away the bride by that trick, and thus forever so shame her, that a dissolution of that child-marriage will readily be granted by Church and State." "And that for the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, friend Michael! one hundred and twenty thousand pounds--a fortune that would tempt a King!" added Sir John earnestly. Michael made no comment, and there was thus an instant's silence at this end of the table where sat the three men: only a second or two mayhap during which a blasphemous oath uttered at the further end of the room seemed in some strange and occult way to mark the descent of a soul one step further down on its way to Hell. One instant during which the tempter watched the tempted, and from the giddy heights of future satisfied ambition showed him the world conquered at the paltry price of momentary dishonour. One fitful ray of a ghoulish moon searched, through a narrow slit between swishing curtains, the fleshy face of Ayloffe, the descendant of the Hebrew bondswoman; the thickly-lidded eyes fixed like those of some poison-giving reptile upon the trapped victim. It played weird and ghost-like upon the dull scarlet of his cloak, and made strange shadows beneath his heavy brows, giving him an eerie, satanic expression, which Stowmaries--whose brain was on fire--was quick to note. He shuddered and instinctively drew away. But Michael Keyston who had not stirred a muscle, who had scarce breathed during that moment's solemn pause, now leaned forward and said quietly: "For the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, I will do what you wish." Then noting that the look of satisfaction on Stowmaries' face was not wholly unmixed with contempt, he added with a quick return to his flippant mood: "Nay, Cousin, look not so loftily from adown the giddy heights of supposed integrity. 'Tis useless at this stage to despise the hand that will help you in your need. Methinks that my share in the intrigue is no more unavowable than your own. 'Tis you are married to the lady and owe her protection, yet you offer money to further treachery against her. Now I have never seen the wench and am no traitor to her since I do not know her. I owe her no allegiance; she is but one woman out of a million to me. Have you never tried to win a woman by trickery, good Coz?" He spoke lightly, even gaily, only Sir John--the keen observer of his fellowmen--noted that the laugh which accompanied this tirade had a hollow ring in it, also that Michael after he had spoken drank down one after another two large goblets full of wine. "Do not let us split hairs, gentlemen, over the meaning of a word," said Ayloffe pleasantly. "Friend Michael, my hand on it. I devised the scheme, and confess that my thoughts flew to you for its accomplishment." He put out his hand, but Michael seemed to ignore the gesture. With a shrug of the shoulders indicating good-tempered toleration, the other continued glibly, "Let us own to it, gentlemen, we are all rogues, every one of us here present; I, who made the proposal, my lord of Stowmaries who pays the piper, and Michael who takes a fortune in exchange for a trick. Bah, gentlemen, 'tis but a merry jest, and, on my honour, no harm can come to any one. Is not Michael Kestyon henceforth rich, as well as highly-connected and amiable of mien. By Gad the practised hand of his future father-in-law together with that of a court barber, would soon turn him into the most gallant gentleman in the two kingdoms." "A truce on this nonsense," interposed Michael with a quick return to his impatient mood. "Tell me what you expect me to do, and I'll do it; but there's no cause for such empty talk. I am being paid to act and not to listen." "We'll be serious, old sobersides," quoth Sir John with imperturbable good humour, "and think of the best schemes to bring our scheme to a successful issue. My lord of Stowmaries, have I your leave to place the details of our plan before our friend here?" Scarce waiting for the impatient assent of the other, Ayloffe continued, speaking directly to Michael: "Firstly, then: to-morrow as soon as the shopkeepers have taken down their shutters you shall go to the King's tailor in Holborn and there order yourself various suits of clothes, befitting the many occasions when you shall have need of them in Paris and on your honeymoon. Once the bargain sealed between us, by word of honour as between gentlemen, your gracious cousin will place fifty thousand pounds in your hands. You will be a rich man to-morrow, friend Michael, and can attire yourself in accordance with your whim. From the tailor's in Holborn you had best proceed to the barber's in Fleet Street, who will provide you with the most fashionable perruques--" "I know all that, man," interrupted Michael with ever-growing impatience. "I know that the monkey hath to be tricked out for parade. When I have been made to look like a fool in motley garb, what further shall I do?" "You'll hie over to France as soon as may be; for already at break of day to-morrow you--in your temporary name of Earl of Stowmaries--will write a letter to M. Legros, merchant tailor of Paris apprising him of your intentions no longer to disobey the decrees of the Church, or the dictates of your own heart, which of a truth has ever been true to your baby bride; also you will tell him of your desire to proceed forthwith to Paris in order to claim your wife, to have the marriage ceremony of eighteen years ago formally ratified and finally to bring her back in state and solemnity to her new home in England." "Am I to write all these lies myself?" asked Michael. "Nay! I'll constitute myself your secretary," replied Ayloffe, "you need only to sign 'Stowmaries.' As I mistake not, 'tis a name you would gladly sign always, 'twill not come amiss for once. You may have to sign papers over there, 'twere better that your handwriting be known at once." "When do I start for Paris?" "What say you to a fortnight's hence from this day? 'Twill give you ample time for the completion of your toilet. An you will allow me I will provide you with a retinue worthy of your rank. It must be composed of men whom we can trust, and men who do not know my lord of Stowmaries by sight and are not like to guess that something is amiss. Three will be sufficient. I will engage them at the last, so that there may be no fear of our secret reaching their knowledge." "Clothes, men, money," quoth Michael, "methinks, Sir John, you have thought of everything. Once I am in Paris?" "You will act as judgment guides you." "And no doubt seventy thousand pounds is a good guide to judgment." Michael's somewhat defiant manner seemed completely to have vanished. He appeared to be yielding himself quite freely to the delights of the promised adventure; at least this was what good Sir John hoped whilst congratulating himself on the remarkable attainment of his fondly-cherished desire. But remember that this same good Sir John was no superficial observer of human nature. He was not altogether deceived by Michael's outward show of flippancy. That excitement had got hold of the adventurer's imagination was undoubted and probably the obstinacy of an untamed nature would prevent his drawing back from a promise once given. At the same time the glint of excitement in Michael's eyes had but little genuine merriment in it. It was more like the unnatural fire produced by fever-heated blood. It was the money which had tempted Michael--so concluded Ayloffe in his own mind. The money which mayhap would help the claimant to bring forward his cause once again into the light of day. Money which would mean bribes, high enough to tempt corrupt judges or even--who knows--a pleasure-loving King. What Michael thought of the adventure itself, what it cost him to acquiesce in it with an outward show of careless gaiety even the astute Sir John could not have said: he himself had achieved his own ends and personally he cared little what Michael felt so long as the young man fulfilled his share of the ignoble contract. Was it so ignoble after all? Sir John with a smile of self-contempt found himself wondering in his mind whether any one would indeed be the loser by it. Stowmaries? certainly not!--he could well afford to pay twice a hundred thousand pounds for the gratification of his most ardent desire: his freedom to marry the woman whom he loved. Michael?--of a truth Michael would lose a little more self-respect than he had already done, but then he must have so little left--and he would become passing rich. As for the tailor's wench, bah!--one husband was as good as another, concluded Sir John with a splendid cynicism, and if Michael Kestyon was not actually Earl of Stowmaries, by Gad he was mighty near to it, and--who knows?--with one hundred and twenty thousand pounds in his pocket might yet oust his cousin from that enviable state. And he--Sir John Ayloffe--gambler on his beam ends, would henceforth look forward to a comfortable old age with Mistress Julia Peyton's twelve thousand pounds carefully placed at interest so that there might be no temptation to dribble it away. All was for the best in the best possible world! CHAPTER XIV Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. --MACBETH IV. 1. But there was one more card which Ayloffe, the gambler, desired to play ere he lost sight momentarily of the man who was to be his tool in the carving of their respective fortunes. He now rose from the table and went up to the door which gave on the private parlour. This he opened and looked in. Just as he had anticipated, there was but little change in the attitude of the three gentlemen whom he had left in the room. Sir Anthony Wykeham still sat moodily leaning back in his chair, a shade more confused in his brain than he had been before, his eyes more shifty and uncertain in expression. A couple of empty bottles in front of him mutely explained the reason for this gradual change in the emphatic moraliser of a while ago. Sir Knaith Bullock was still lying on the floor, in the midst of the straw which with idle hands he had gradually heaped up all round him, so that he seemed reclining in a nest. But he was not asleep now; he was singing chorus to the songs of my lord Rochester, who--frankly tipsy--made as much noise and sang as thoroughly out of tune as any of the plebeian revellers in the coffee room. "Hello, Sir John!" he shouted lustily, "where in the devil's name have you and Stowmaries been hiding yourselves?" His tongue was thick and the words fell inarticulately from his quivering lips. Sir Knaith Bullock rolled over in the straw in order to have a good view of the intruder. "Where the devil--sh--sh--Stowmaries?" he babbled as incoherently as his friend. "We have been busy finding an alternative husband for the tailor's daughter," said Sir John gaily. "And have you found one?" queried Wykeham with vague, somnolent eyes fixed upon the speaker. "Ay! that we have! And I pray you gentlemen to join the merry company in the coffee room and to pledge the bold adventurer in a monster goblet of wine." "Egad!--you--you don't mean--that--hic!--" hiccupped Bullock who had rolled right over in the straw and now looked like a giant and frowzy dog with prickly wisps standing out of his perruque and sticking to his surcoat and velvet breeches. He contrived to work himself about until he got onto his feet, whereupon he stood there tottering and swaying the while his bleary eyes tried to take in what was going on around him. A great shout issuing from the coffee room, great banging of mugs against the boards, loud laughter and the first verse of a song, roused Rochester from his apathy and Wykeham from his moodiness. "They are passing roisterous over there!" remarked the latter, gazing covetously toward the open door. "They are toasting the gallant adventurer," said Sir John; "I pray you, gentlemen, come and join us. Let us drink to the future husband of the tailor's daughter, the future possessor of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds in solid cash and of my lord Stowmaries' eternal gratitude. Let us drink to Michael Kestyon." "Michael--Kesh--Keshtyon is it?" babbled Sir Knaith. "The damned blackguard--" murmured Wykeham. "I say hurrah for Michael Kestyon!" roared my lord Rochester lustily, "the beggar hath pluck. By Gad! won't old Rowley laugh at the adventure? Would I'd had the impudence to go through with it myself!--I say hurrah for Michael Kestyon!" He lurched forward in the wake of Sir John who had once more turned towards the coffee room, and closely followed by the others, all four men shouting: "Hurrah for Michael Kestyon! Hurrah for the tailor's daughter!" Their advent was greeted by more vigorous shouting, more singing and cries of: "Hurrah!" which issued from out the darkness. For by now only one last tallow candle was left spluttering and dripping, its feeble yellow rays illumining but one narrow circle of light wherein the remnant of a pie, an overturned bottle and a pool of red wine, stood out as the sole objects actually visible in the room. In this total darkness, the noise of hoarse shouts, of cries for "Michael Kestyon!" of blasphemies and of oaths sounded weird and satanic, like a babel of ghouls exulting in the realms of the night. Sir John paused at the door. He had wished to see Michael Kestyon commit himself finally before these other three gentlemen, who were almost partners in the conspiracy. He wanted to see the bond sealed with the word of honour of the rogue who--as Ayloffe well knew--would never break a pledge once given. Therefore, he called loudly to Michael, and listened for the cheery tones of his voice. But no response came, only from out the gloom a curt answer from Stowmaries: "Oh! 'tis no use calling for Michael! He hath gone!" CHAPTER XV Still his soul fed upon the sovereign hour That had been or that should be: --SWINBURNE. Michael in the meanwhile was running through the deserted streets like a man possessed. Cloakless and hatless he ran, bending his head to the gusts of wind which tore down the narrow byways in the neighbourhood of the Strand. Fitful clouds chased one another over his head, obscuring the moon, and from time to time descending in sharp showers of icy rain. But Michael loved the wind and cared naught for the wet. The rags he wore were soon soaked through, but he did not attempt to take shelter beneath the various yawning archways which he passed from time to time; on the contrary he liked the cold douches of these winter showers which seemed to cool his head, burning with inward fever. Michael Kestyon, the gambler, the adventurer, the wastrel, had begun the fight against his own soul. For the space of a few seconds, there in the over-heated tavern room in the midst of all those drunkards, those profligates--scums of humanity--dying honour had called out in its agony: "Wilt sell me for gold?" but Michael had laughed out loud and long, and smothered those warning cries with the recklessness of the soldier of fortune who stakes his all on the winning card. His claim, his rights! His and those of that patient old soul dying of want in a lonely cottage, the while she should be living in the lap of luxury and of ease. She was dying of want, of actual hard, bitter starvation. Michael knew it and could do naught to help, and in the midst of the dissolute life of the town had vainly striven to forget that even at the cost of his life's blood, which he would have given gladly drop by drop, he could not purchase for her a soft bed on which she would finally go to her eternal sleep. His claim! His rights! Her happiness! The happiness of the one being in the whole wide world who had clung to him, who loved him for what he was and did not despise him for what he had become: this he could purchase for one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. Had not Sir John Ayloffe himself said that 'twas a fortune which would tempt a king. The lawyers had told Michael that only money was wanted to bring his claim before the Lords' House of Parliament now, and once publicly debated, justice could not stand against it. Michael had oft laughed at those two words, "Only money!" Only money! and when he sought and got a sword thrust that nearly killed him, he was given twenty crowns as blood-money. He reckoned at this rate that his miserable body would have to be as full of holes as a sieve, before he obtained enough money wherewith to satisfy the first lawyer who would condescend once more to take up his case. But now all that--lawyers' fees, fees for a first hearing, for a second and for a third, for pleadings, interrogatories and affidavits, for petitions to the King and for briberies to obtain a private audience--all that would be within his reach. The price? A woman's honour and his own self-respect. Once--very long ago, these would have mattered to him a great deal; in those days he had believed in men's honour and in women's virtue. But now? He had lost so much self-respect already--what mattered if a few more shreds of it went the way of all his other ideals. He had once boldly said that he would give his life's blood drop by drop, endure every agony, undergo every torture to see his mother installed at Maries Castle, her rightful and proper place. Well, that had been easy to say! These things were not asked of him, and he had gone through so much, suffered often so terribly from hunger, wounds and fatigue that the sacrifice of his life or the endurance of most bitter tortures would have been an easy sacrifice. He was hard and tough--what nerves he had had been jarred beyond all sensibility long ago. But now something was asked of him. Fate had spoken in no uncertain accents. She had said: "Make a sacrifice of thine honour, and thy most cherished wish will be gratified!" If those former bold words--offers of blood and life--were not the talk of a weak-kneed braggart, then, Michael Kestyon, thou shouldst not hesitate! Dost prize those paltry remnants of self-respect so highly that thou wouldst see thy mother starve ere thou sell them? Starve, remember, starve!--in the direct, absolute, unmitigated sense of the word. If thou canst not provide her with the necessities of life, she must starve sooner or later, in a month, in a year, in two mayhap, that would depend how charitably inclined the neighbours happened to be. But starve she must, if thou, her son, dost naught for her. And Fate had whispered: "Money, power, justice await thee, at the price of thy self-respect and the honour of a woman who is a stranger to thee." The subtle temptation had entered into Michael's heart like an insinuating poison which killed every objection, every argument, every moral rebellion in his soul. And the temptation assailed him just at this time when his whole being ached with the constant buffetings of life, when he longed with all the maddening strength of defiant impotence to hit right and left at the world which had derided him, to begin again a new life of action, of combat, of lofty aspirations. Try and pity him, for the temptation was over-great; pity him because Fate had struck him one blow after another, each more and more difficult to bear since his soul, his mind, his entire self had scarcely time to recover from one before the next came crashing down, leaving him with one hope the less, one more ideal shattered, one more misery to bear. One hundred and twenty thousand pounds!--Michael kept repeating the half dozen wonderful words to himself over and over again as he walked. Thus tottering, buffeted by the wind, drunk with the magic of the thought which the words evoked, he reached his lodgings at last. He rapped loudly at a low door with his knuckles, but had to wait some time before it was opened. A gnome-like figure wrapped in a tattered dressing gown and wearing a cotton night-cap appeared in the doorway. It was difficult to distinguish if the figure was that of man or woman. In brown and wrinkled hands it held a guttering tallow dip which threw a trembling light on the dank walls of the narrow passage and feebly illumined the approach to the rickety stairs beyond. Michael paid no heed to the muttered grumblings of the creature, but walked straight past it along the passage, and then up the creaky stairs which led to the garret above. As he reached the several landings he nearly fell over various prostrate bundles made up of human rags from out of which issued sleepy oaths, as Michael's foot stumbled against them. His own garret was not much better than those open landings across which he had tottered and fumbled in the dark. Here the roof sloped down to the tiny dormer window, innocent of curtains, and made up of some half dozen tiny panes, mostly cracked and covered with thick coatings of grime. Along the low wall opposite the window a row of ragged bundles--human only in shape--and similar to those which encumbered the landings, told their tale of misery and of degradation. There were some half dozen of these bundles lying all of a row against the wall. They were Michael's room companions, the wreckages of man and womankind, with whom he had lived now for close on eighteen months. Snores and drunken oaths, blasphemy too and noisome words spoken in sleep came from these bundles, greeting Michael's somewhat stormy entrance into this den. He shut the rickety door behind him, and made his way to the little window, through which the light of some street lanthorn opposite came shyly peeping through. Michael threw the casement open, allowing that feeble light to enter more fully, then he turned and surveyed his surroundings,--those bundles along the floor, the wooden boards across which a crowd of vermin were scrampering out of sight, the two chairs, innocent of seats, the wooden packing case in lieu of table, the walls dank and grey, covered with obscene writing scribbled with shaky fingers dipped in grime! Michael looked at it all, as if he had never seen it before. In an angle of the room was the straw paillasse still empty which awaited him, and around which the dying instincts of gentle birth had caused him to erect a kind of unseen barrier between that corner and the rest of the room. Here the floor was clean, the straw was fresh; above the paillasse the wall had been carefully wiped clean and rubbed over with lime, and on an overturned wooden case beside the miserable bed there were one or two books, and a small metal crucifix which profane fingers had apparently never dared to touch. But these very trifling attempts at cleanliness were the only luxury which had come within Michael's reach, ever since he came home from that last campaign in Brandenburg and sent his last crown to his mother in Kent. And remember that such garrets, such degrading propinquity, such misery and such dirt represented the only kind of life which London offered in those days to the poor, to the outcast and the homeless. There was nothing else except the gutter itself. Michael stood in the centre of this garret and looked upon the picture--his life! His life such as it had been for the past eighteen months, such as it would continue to be until he became too old and too feeble to drag himself up from that straw paillasse in the corner. Then he would lie there sick and starving until he was taken away feet foremost down the rickety stairway to the paupers' graveyard out beyond St. Paul's. With arms akimbo, hands resting on his hips and feet firmly planted on the dust-covered floor, Michael looked and laughed; not bitterly or mirthlessly. Bitterness had gone--strangely enough--at sight of the picture. He laughed, mocking himself for the few scruples which had assailed him awhile ago, for having conjured up--yes! conjured up himself--those phantoms of honour which accused him of selling his self-respect. Was this self-respect, this den of rogues, this herd of miserable ne'er-do-wells, these filthy walls, this life of misery, of wretchedness, of shifts--growing day by day more unavowable for obtaining bread for the morrow? Was this manhood to stand against such odds? Was this honour to endure such a life? Bah! if it was, then far better sell it for the price of oak boards sufficient to make two coffins: one for the man, the other for the old woman living the same life and enduring the same misery. Michael turned back to the window and with a brusque, impatient gesture tore open the second casement. A gust of wind found its way into the musty corners of the garret and scattered the vitiated air, the while the moon emerging triumphantly from her long imprisonment behind the clouds searched with bluish and ghostly rays the grey walls opposite, the drunken sleepers on the floor, the vermin scuttling between those litters of straw more fit for cattle than for human beings. The blustering wind, as it tore at the rickety casements roused some of the sleepers from their dreams. Volleys of oaths were flung at Michael, but he heard nothing now. He leaned out of the narrow window--as far out as he could--and looked on the forest of chimney stacks, the irregular roofs and tall spires of this great and heartless city. How peacefully she lay beneath the cool kiss of the moon! Invisible arms seemed to be stretched out toward the lonely watcher bidding him to come and conquer. There was no longer any compunction in Michael's heart, and certainly no shame. "I am a man," he said speaking to those unseen shadows, "and what I do, I do!" The freshness of the air came as a bath of moral cleanliness to his soul; he felt an excitement, too, akin to that of a war horse when scenting the coming battle. To Michael now the whole transaction--to which on the morrow he would affix the seal of his pledged word--was but a mighty combat wherein a powerful weapon would be placed in his hand. He would at last be able to hit right and left, to be even with that world which had buffeted him, which had scorned his efforts, but allowed his mother to starve. Aye! He was a turbulent soul; a soul created to fight and not to endure. And if at moments during that lonely watch above the chimney stacks and roofs of London there came floating to his mind the thought of the girl who was nothing to him, the stranger whom he would so bitterly wrong, then with a proud toss of the head, a joy which literally lighted up his whole being, he would send an unspoken challenge up to those swiftly-flying clouds which tended southwards, towards Paris. "Go tell her!" he murmured, "that whoever she may be Michael Kestyon will serve her with gratitude and love all the days of his life. On his knees will he worship her, and devote his life to her happiness. And," he added mentally, whilst a quiver of excitement shook his broad shoulders, "tell her that an she desires to be Countess of Stowmaries, even that desire Michael Kestyon will gratify, for he will make her that--tell her--tell her that before next December's snows cover the earth there will be two Countesses of Stowmaries in England: Michael Kestyon's mother and Michael Kestyon's wife." He did not attempt to go and rest on his miserable couch, but leant for hours up against the window watching the moon slowly drawing its peaceful course along the dark firmament, seeing the fleecy, silvered clouds fly madly across the sky, lashed by the wind into fantastic shapes of witches' heads and of lurid beasts. He watched the roofs and towers of many churches as gradually they were wrapped in the mist-laden mantle of approaching dawn. He watched until far away above chimney stacks and pointed steeples a feeble rosy glow precursed the rising sun. He was too weary now to think any more, too weary to dream, too weary he thought even to live. And through the gathering mist it seemed to him that the ghostly spectres of his tumultuous past came to him enwrapped in white palls, monstrous and majestic, towering above mighty London, and that walking slowly in their wake, tottering and shy was his mother, enfeebled by starvation and the wretchedness of her life. She held out emaciated arms to him in a mute appeal for help, whilst the ghosts of the past spoke with unseen lips of all that he had suffered, of the great sorrows and the tiny pin-pricks. And with every word they uttered his soul sank more and more to rest, and even as his aching head sank down upon his outstretched arms, and his eyes closed in a dreamless sleep, his lips murmured with final defiance: "I am a man! and what I do, I do." CHAPTER XVI Now mark! To be precise--Though I say "lies," all these, at this first stage 'Tis but for science' sake. --BROWNING. In the meanwhile my lord of Stowmaries had been allowed to spend a happy hour in the tiny withdrawing room at Holborn Row, kneeling at Mistress Julia Peyton's feet. He had been so excited, so full of Sir John's proposals and their more than probable success that like Michael Kestyon he had no desire for rest. He had soon wearied of the crowd in the coffee room, and presently had allowed Ayloffe to lead him out into the streets. Instinctively his footsteps turned in the direction of Holborn Row, the while he lent a somewhat inattentive ear to what Sir John was saying to him. Ayloffe was talking of the details of his scheme; of the payment of the money to Michael on the morrow, if the latter finally pledged himself to the bargain; fifty thousand pounds then, and a further seventy on the day that the tailor's daughter left her home in her husband's company. "We must be as good as our word, my lord," said the astute Sir John. "A word misplaced, the faintest suggestion of withdrawal on any point might upset Michael's curious temper and turn his acquiescence into obstinate refusal." Ayloffe had no doubt of Stowmaries' integrity, only the sum was such a vast one--and the worthy baronet was so unaccustomed to the handling of thousands--that he could not help dreading the fact that the young man had mayhap overestimated his power of paying away such large sums at such short intervals, and that, when the time came for disbursement, a hitch might occur which would rouse Michael's antagonism and upset the perfectly-laid scheme once and for all. Stowmaries, however, seemed to attach very slight importance to this question of money. "I am a man of my word," he said curtly. "I have no wish to draw back. What I've said, I've said." What cared he if it cost him twice one hundred thousand pounds, if indeed he were free to wed the beautiful Julia? He was over-eager to be at her feet now and showed marked impatience to rid himself of Ayloffe's company. "My hand on it, Sir John," he said, halting at the corner of Holborn Row, for he did not want the older man to see whither he was going, the while the latter was well aware that my lord was on his way to Mistress Peyton's house. "My hand on it; and to-morrow Michael Kestyon shall have his fifty thousand pounds, if he finally agrees to do what we want." "This he must do in the presence of witnesses--my lord of Rochester or Sir Knaith Bullock would favour us as much. Yet have I no fear that the rogue will play us false, 'tis the money he wants, and fifty thousand were not enough to tempt him; 'tis that further seventy that he'll crave for most." "I know, I know," said Stowmaries, impatiently anxious to get away, now that he had perceived--as he thought--a light in one of the windows of his fair Julia's house. "He shall have that, too. The money is at interest with Master Vivish the diamond merchant. I can get it at any time." "We promised it to Michael on the day that the tailor's daughter leaves her father's home," urged the over-prudent Sir John. "On that day he shall have it," rejoined the other. "Then your lordship would have to journey to France in order to fulfil that promise." "I'll to France then," retorted the young man who had come to the end of his tether, "an you'll go to Hell now and leave me in peace." Ayloffe laughed good-humouredly. Usually prone to quarrel he was determined to keep his temper to-night; and as he felt that nothing further would be gained now by talking whilst Stowmaries was so obviously waiting to be rid of him, he said nothing more, but gave his friend a cordial Good-night and turned on his heel in the direction of Lincoln's Inn Fields. Stowmaries--as soon as the other was out of sight--walked down Holborn Row, and had soon reached the familiar door. In response to his loud knocking the East Anglian serving-man came to open it. With the stolidity peculiar to his race, he showed no surprise at the untimely visitor, and with solemn imperturbability held out his furrowed hand even before Stowmaries had produced the small piece of silver which alone would induce the old man to permit that visitor to enter. The piece of silver being deemed sufficient to overcome the man's scruples, he shuffled along the flagged passage without uttering a word, leaving Stowmaries to follow as he liked, and presently he threw open the door which gave on the small parlour. Though it was close on midnight, Mistress Peyton was not abed. She had been to the Playhouse, and was still attired in that beautiful cream-coloured brocade which had been the envy of the feminine portion of the audience there; but though she was tired after the many and varied emotions of that eventful day, yet she felt that she could not have slept. Her proposals to Sir John Ayloffe, the schemes which she well knew that the gambler would concoct, the possibility or probability of ultimate success, harassed her nerves and fired her brain. She had spent the last two hours in that narrow room, now pacing up and down like a caged rodent, now throwing herself down in a chair in an agony of restlessness. The advent of my lord Stowmaries occurred in the nick of time, for she was on the verge of hysterics. He knelt at her feet, adoring and excited. He told her all that had occurred during that momentous evening, humbly begging her pardon for having betrayed the secret of their mutual love, his own passion and his despair, to some of his most intimate friends. Mistress Julia whose flushed face when my lord entered might have been caused by shyness at his stormy entrance, or by anger at the untimeliness of his visit, looked adorable in her obvious agitation. She chided him gently for his impetuosity, and for disclosing her tender secret to those who mayhap would sneer at her hopeless love. Then my lord told her of Sir John Ayloffe's scheme, the proposed public disgrace of the tailor's daughter which would render the dissolution of the child-marriage not only probable but certain. Mistress Julia looked quite sad and shed sympathetic tears; she was so sorry, so very sorry for the poor dear child. But when she heard that my lord had actually promised one hundred and twenty thousand pounds to his cousin Michael Kestyon for rendering him this service, the fair Julia frowned and checked an angry exclamation which had risen to her lips. "The sum seems overvast," she remarked with affected indifference. "The bribe had to be heavy, Mistress," replied my lord. "Michael was the only man who could help us. He might have refused for less. It had to be a fortune worth a gentleman's while to accept. Michael is a gentleman despite his roguery, and we were asking him to do a mighty villainous action. He had to be well paid for it," repeated the young man decisively, "methinks that for less he would have refused." Mistress Peyton allowed the subject to drop for the moment and her lover to wander back into the realms of dithyrambic utterances, of vows and of sighs. But anon she recurred to the question of the money, showing a desire to know how and when it would be paid over. "To-morrow when we have Michael's final acquiescence," said Stowmaries, eager to dismiss this question, "I will hand over fifty thousand pounds to him, and another seventy thousand the day on which Rose Marie Legros leaves her father's shop in company with mine adventurous cousin." "You talk lightly of such vast sums, my lord," said Julia. "Would I not give my fortune to win you?" he rejoined. She continued for a long time afterwards to listen shyly and adorably to my lord's continued protestations, and when these became too violent, she rang for her tiring-wench and with many charmingly-timid blushes dismissed her adorer, promising to receive him again on the morrow. He went away quite happy, vowing that he would gladly have given not only his entire fortune, but also his family estates and titles to Michael for enabling him to regain his freedom and to marry the most adorable woman in the whole world. But Mistress Julia Peyton was not quite so content as all that. After my lord's departure, she went up to her sleeping room and exchanging her stiff brocade for a loose and easy wrap, she sat down in order to think various matters out. Agitation and restlessness had gone from her, but not the frown of disapproval. Her impetuous lover had been a fool, and Sir John a traitor to have allowed such monstrous promises to be made to Michael Kestyon. Surely her own kinsman should have known that her ardent love for my lord of Stowmaries consisted in the main of an overmastering desire to become a countess. Now with one hundred and twenty thousand pounds in Michael's hands and given that claimant's obstinate temperament and determination to carry his cause through, was there not a grave danger that the wretch would win his case after all and that my lord would presently have to yield his title and estates to the cousin whom he had so needlessly rendered rich? It was monstrous, silly and childish! Sir John of course must have been well under the influence of liquor ere he allowed such a bargain, without realising the danger which threatened his kinswoman's ambitious desires. She was mightily angry with Sir John, who should have been more shrewd, and could not understand how it was that so astute and so unscrupulous a schemer had overlooked the eventuality which she herself had foreseen in a flash. The first fifty thousand, well and good!--Julia supposed that so vast a sum would certainly be required to bribe even a broken-down gentleman to enter into Ayloffe's dishonourable schemes. But the further seventy thousand, was unnecessary, she felt sure of that and moreover it was dangerous. Would it not be the most bitter irony of which Fate was capable if the tailor's daughter became Countess of Stowmaries after all? Such a thing had become possible now, nay, probable, thanks to the blunder made by Sir John. As for my lord, he seemed unaware of the danger--he was too fond of laughing at Michael Kestyon's pretensions, and was ever inclined to dismiss them as puerile and beneath contempt; mayhap, too, that he was fatuous enough to think that even without wealth or title his adored one would become his. But the adored one had no such intention. Like unto the adventurer himself up in that squalid garret above the roofs of London, Mistress Peyton could not rest that night. Her active mind was troubled with plans of how to undo the blunders of the past hour. And whilst Michael dreamed of future glory, of power and of wealth, Julia racked her woman's brain to find a means to bring him back to the dust. PART III CHAPTER XVII Her eyes were deeper than the depth Of waters still at even: She had three lilies in her hand, And the stars in her hair were seven. --DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. "No, no, my cabbage, I do not find that plain gown becoming, of a verity thou must remember that thou art an English Countess and must henceforth adorn thy person with proper grandeur." And worthy Mme. Legros, whilst vainly trying to express disapproval, gazed with obvious admiration at the dainty apparition before her. "Let be, Maman, let be!" interposed Papa Legros soothingly, "the chit is well enough as she is. When she is over there in England, she may well look grand and stately; for the present she is still a tailor's daughter and I'll challenge the world to produce a daintier bale of goods. _Par ma foi!_ were I not thy father, my pigeon, I were tempted to envy that profligate young scoundrel, thy noble lord and husband. 'Tis a mightily succulent morsel he will bite into the nonce." Rose Marie striving to hide the confusion, which her kind father's broad allusion caused in her sensitive young heart, buried her face in the bouquet of snowdrops which she held in her hand. No wonder that her adoring parents were proud of her. She looked a picture on this cold winter's morning, standing there in her little room beneath the eaves, clad in pure white like the snow which lay thick on the narrow window sill and along the streets of Paris. She had fashioned her gown herself, of white grogram with a beautiful openwork lace pinner and delicate kerchief demurely folded across her young bosom. Her fair hair was dressed in small curls all over her small head, her neck was bare, as were her arms and hands, and in colour as delicate as the snowdrops which she carried. The spring was still in its infancy and snowdrops were very scarce; worthy M. Legros had paid a vast sum of money in order that Rose Marie should carry a bouquet when first she met her lord. All white she looked--almost like a little snow image, only that her cheeks glowed with the excitement in her blood, and her bosom rose and fell with unwonted rapidity beneath the filmy folds of her muslin kerchief. My lord of Stowmaries had arrived in Paris the evening before, and had sent one of his serving-men round to say that he would come and pay his respects before midday. Oh! there seemed no laggardness about him now. The influence of Monseigneur the Archbishop and no doubt his own better nature had prevailed at last, and since a fortnight ago when his letter arrived announcing his coming, he seemed to have lost no time in useless preparations. Now he was here in Paris and Rose Marie had put on her pretty gown in order to receive him. She did so mightily desire to please him, for she on her side was quite ready to give him that respectful love which husbands demand of their wives. Mme. Legros had fussed round the child all the morning, and though she grumbled at the simplicity of the gown, she could not help but admire the exquisite picture of innocent girlhood which her daughter presented with such charming unconsciousness. Rose Marie had been singularly silent all the while that she dressed. She was very anxious to be beautiful, and thought that this could not be accomplished without much care and trouble. This she bestowed ungrudgingly on every curl as she twisted and pinned it up, on every fold of her kerchief, on the tying of her shoe. She had taken over two hours in completing her toilet, selecting with scrupulous care each article of dainty underlinen, which her own fingers had embroidered months ago, in anticipation of this great day: the white stockings, the silken garters, the beribboned shift and petticoat. When she was ready, she called to maman to come and inspect, and oh! to criticise if there were any fault to find, which maman of a surety would detect. Mme. Legros determined not to let affection blind her, had turned the snow-white apparition round and round, seeking for defects, where none existed, readjusting a curl here, a ribbon there, and finally calling to good M. Legros to come and give his verdict on the picture. But good M. Legros was far too adoring to do aught but admire. So now Rose Marie, if not quite free from doubt, was at any rate satisfied that everything which could be done to render her beautiful and desirable, had of a truth been done. "We had best go down, Maman," said Legros at last, when he had finished feasting his eyes on the beauty of his daughter, "and make ready to receive milor. The child had best remain up here, and not enter the parlour until her lord is there, ready to greet her as she advances." The worthy tailor was more agitated than he cared to own. He felt fussy and could not manage to sit still. It still lacked nearly an hour to midday, and he was ready and over-ready to receive milor. He bustled maman out of the room, then ran back to have a final look at Rose Marie. "Keep calm, my treasure," he said agitatedly, "_par Dieu_! There's no need for excitement. Thou art not the first and only bride who has ever been claimed by an unknown husband. 'Tis milor, no doubt, who feels flustered. He has been in the wrong and comes to make amends. Not a very pleasant position for a proud English lord, eh, my pigeon? But thou art within thy rights, and wilt receive him with becoming dignity." With gentle, insinuating gestures Rose Marie contrived to lead her father out of the room, and finally to close the door behind him. Time was hurrying on and she did so want to be alone and to think. This was the end of the old life, the beginning of the new: the new with all its hopes, its fears, its mysteries. She had put it very pertinently to her mother when she said that nothing, nothing would ever be quite the same again. Now that dear Papa Legros' heavy footsteps had died down the steep staircase, Rose Marie could sit by the open window and just think of it all, for the last time, before these mysteries of the new life were revealed to her. I think that what struck her as most curious in the future was the idea that she would never be quite alone again. For she had--despite the loving care of adoring parents--been very much alone. We must remember that there is never complete harmony between the young and the old. The former live for the future, the latter for the present, oft times only for the past. Papa and Maman Legros found their joy in seeing Rose Marie grow up and live, like some beautiful flower, carefully tended, guarded against the tearing winds of life, nourished, fed and caressed. But Rose Marie thought she cherished her parents, dreamed of the time when she would be a woman with another home, with other affections, with other kindred. Therefore she was lonely even in the midst of her happy home. There was a great deal that Rose Marie did not understand in life, but there was an infinity which maman would never comprehend. Would this newcomer, this stranger understand better than maman, she wondered. Would he know what ailed her when in the very midst of joy she suddenly felt inclined to cry? Would he then know just the right word to say, the right word to soothe her, and to fit in with her mood? There were other thoughts that flew through Rose Marie's mind during this, the last lonely hour of her girlhood, but these she would not allow to linger in her mind, for they caused her cheeks to blush, and her heart to beat with sudden, nameless fear. She had seen the girls and boys of Paris wandering arm in arm in the woods of Fontainebleau, she had seen a fair head leaning against a dark head, and lips meeting lips in a furtive kiss, and now in her innocent heart she wondered what it felt like thus to be kissed. Hush!--sh!--sh!--No, no! Maman was not there to see the quick blush which at the thought rose to the girlish cheek. Maman would not understand. She would say gaily: "_Pardi_ my cabbage! but thy husband shall kiss thee of a truth and right lustily on thy fresh cheeks or thy budding mouth. A good, round, sounding kiss an he loves thee, which of course he will!" And the girls, too, in the woods at Fontainebleau, they usually laughed after that furtive kiss snatched behind some tree, when they thought that no one was looking. But Rose Marie did not think that she would laugh when my lord kissed her. It seemed to her so strange that girls should make light of such wondrous moments in their lives. Rose Marie thought that when my lord kissed her she would probably cry, not in grief, oh, no! but with a strange exultant joy because of his love for her. And that was what she hoped that he would understand. CHAPTER XVIII And a bird overhead sang "Follow"! And a bird to the right sang "Here"; And the arch of the leaves was hollow And the meaning of May was clear. --SWINBURNE. But good M. Legros could not contrive to sit still. He had gone down into the parlour and worried maman, until, poor soul, she had put milk into the metheglin, in mistake for ale, and had to brew the mixture all over again, quite a quantity of good Spanish wine having been completely spoilt, owing to the fidgety temper of her lord. He hung round her whilst she evolved the fresh bowl of posset, and made her so nervous that in desperation, fearing that more waste of expensive liquid would ensue, she ran upstairs loudly calling to Rose Marie to come down and help keep papa quiet by engaging him in a game of cribbage. Therefore it was that when with loud clatter of hoofs on the rough pavement of the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie, my lord and his retinue drew rein outside the tailor's shop, Rose Marie was sitting in the room above playing cribbage with her father. She heard the noise of the horses, the brief word of command as the small party halted, but not for all the treasures of this world could she at this moment have risen in order to peep out of the window and thus get a glimpse of her future husband. Papa rose in great agitation. Maman ceased fussing round the room and there was silence for a time, the while no doubt my lord dismounted. Then M. and Mme. Legros went out of the room in order to welcome the distinguished guest. But Rose Marie sat quite still, with her trembling fingers clasped tightly round the tiny bouquet of snowdrops. Through the window behind her the spring sun peeped in, pale and tender, and searching the remote corner of the homely parlour found the dainty, white-clad figure of the girl and touching her fair hair with the magic of its kiss turned it into an aureole of gold. The door opened and Michael entered. Thus he saw her for the first time--she, the woman whom he had been paid to wrong. He realised this the moment he saw her. In all the whirl of riotous thought which had assailed him during the past three weeks since that night which he had spent in self-communion, the impression of the woman had never been a lasting one. He had never thought of her as a distinct personality, as a creature of flesh and blood with thoughts and feelings mayhap as deep as his own. To his mind so far she had only been a tool, a sexless means to his ends: and this man who had such a passionate attachment for his mother, such a sense of her worth and importance, had given but a very cursory thought to her who was to become his wife by a trick. In this we must do him justice, that he did not dream of wronging the woman, who was the channel which Fortune had selected for her welcome course towards him. His cousin Stowmaries would of course repudiate her, that was understood. Undoubtedly he would be allowed to do this: but he--Michael Kestyon--would atone for his kinsman's villainy, he would keep, honour and respect her as his wife and the future mother of his children, and make her--by the will of God, the King and the Lords' House of Parliament, and by the power of his newly acquired wealth--Countess of Stowmaries despite the rogues who had planned to oust her from that place. Because of all these good resolutions, Michael had therefore anticipated his meeting with his future wife with perfect equanimity. I do not think that during the many preparations for his journey which he had to see to in the past three weeks, he ever tried even for a moment to picture to himself what she would be like. Now she stood before him, in the full charm of her innocent girlhood, clad all in white, with her little hands clasping that bunch of flowers, the pale rays of an April sun touching her fair hair with gold. Her blue eyes were raised shyly to him just for an instant as she rose to meet him. He thought her elegant and pretty, stately, too, in her prim white gown. "She was born to be a great lady," he thought to himself with an inward chuckle, "and by Gad I'll make her one." In his mind--which seemed all in a whirl now--he compared her to Mistress Julia Peyton, and thought his cousin a mighty fool for preferring the latter. He bowed very low as Rose Marie advanced and at an encouraging word from maman, she placed her hand on his, and he kissed the tips of her ice-cold fingers. "A snow-maiden, by my faith!" he thought to himself. "Michael, thou rogue! Thou'lt of a surety have to infuse warmth into those pale cheeks." She felt almost paralyzed with shyness, and very angry with herself for seeming so gauche and stupid. The while she curtsied to my lord in the most approved and primmest of fashions, the little bouquet of snowdrops escaped her trembling fingers. My lord stooped and picked it up, and she held out her hand for it, but he met her swift and timid glance with a bold challenge, and raised the bouquet to his lips before he hid it in the folds of his surcoat. Rose Marie thought her future lord picturesque in his elegant accoutrements; the fine cloth of his coat, of a dull shade of red, the cut of his garments, the delicate bit of lace at throat and wrist set off the massive strength of his figure: she was not quite sure if he were really handsome, for there was a curious look in his eyes, especially when they met hers which she had never seen in any man before, and a strange setting of mouth and jaw which did I not suggest the love-sick husband. But she liked his easy bearing as he talked to maman with an easy familiarity that proclaimed high birth and, gentle breeding. He had declined for himself Mme. Legros' offers of refreshment in the shape of mead or aromatic wines, but accepted gratefully when she offered to take mugs of steaming ale out to his men. Rose Marie felt as if this were all a dream, and as if she would wake anon in her narrow bed behind the cotton curtains in her room under the eaves. She took several furtive glances at her future lord, and felt not a little piqued that he took so little heed of her. After that first hand kiss, and that quick flash of his deep-set eyes, when he hid her bouquet in his coat, she had not caught him once looking at her--was it because he did not think her fair? Papa talked incessantly, and presently maman came back, and in that same vague dream-like way Rose Marie seemed to hear them talking about the wedding ceremony. My lord seemed impatient and anxious to get through the necessary formalities prescribed by the Church, and then to take his bride away with him to England as quickly as possible. Obviously she was not to be left alone with her future husband just now; and though in her young heart, she had looked forward to the moment when she would be alone with my lord, she now felt relieved at the thought that it was not to be. Poor Rose Marie was bitterly disappointed. It had all been so very, very different--this first meeting--to what she had anticipated. She felt very angry with herself indeed for being so childish and so timid--no doubt by now my lord had set her down as a silly goose quite unfit to be a great English lady. At this thought she felt tears of shame welling to her eyes, and was infinitely relieved when maman took hold of her hand and led her out of the room. She bowed to my lord, and then held her head very erect as she walked past him to the door; she wanted to look proud and defiant now, for she had felt those strange deep-set eyes of his fixed upon her with an expression she could not define. And when she was alone in her room, she went straight to the image of the Virgin Mary which hung against the wall close to her narrow bed. She knelt on the prie-dieu beneath it, and she begged the Holy Mother of God to teach her not to be rebellious, and to be ready to obey her lord in all things, to give him love and respect, "And O holy Mary, Mother of God!" she added with a pitiful little sigh, "if it be in your power to make my lord love me, then I humbly pray you tell him so to do; and whisper to me from on high what I must do to please him and to find favour in his sight." CHAPTER XIX Smiling, frowning, evermore Thou art perfect in love-lore. --TENNYSON. "My cabbage," said Maman Legros in that decisive tone, which she only assumed on great occasions, and which then no one dreamed of contradicting, "what thou dost ask is entirely out of the question. It is not seemly for a maiden to be left alone in company with her lord. Why! every one down the street would know of it--thy father's 'prentices would make mock of thee--and thy reputation would be as surely gone as is thistle-down after a gale." "But, Maman," hazarded Rose Marie, bold for the first time in her life, in the face of maman's stern refusal, "my lord is not my future husband. He _is_ my husband, and surely I have the right to talk to him alone sometimes." "Rose Marie, thou talkest like a goose, that cackles without understanding," replied maman sternly, "though my lord is thy husband by law and by the will of the Church, he will not be thy true lord until the day after to-morrow, when thou wilt ratify thy vows to love, honour and humbly obey him, which vows I, thy mother, took in thy name eighteen years ago. Before thou hast spoken them with thine own lips, after High Mass on Wednesday, thou dost an unseemly and unmaiden-like act in wishing to be alone in his company. Truly thy guardian angel must be veiling his face with the shame of thee at the present moment." But Rose Marie refused to look upon the troubles of her guardian angel with proper compunction. She still felt rebellious and argumentative; but she changed her tactics. The sly young damsel realised that she had taken maman the wrong way and that she would gain nothing by controversy. She, therefore, brought forth her other weapons of attack, certain methods of pressure on the parental will which hitherto she had never known to fail. She commenced proceedings by allowing her blue eyes to be veiled in tears, then seeing that maman turned her face away so as not to be forced to look on those pathetic dewdrops the rogue went close up to her mother and kneeling beside her put two loving arms round the old woman's shoulders. "Maman!" she whispered with quivering lips. "'Tis no use," retorted maman obdurately. "Only one very tiny, short quarter of an hour, Maman _chérie_--after dinner--when papa goes downstairs to set the afternoon work to the 'prentices--you could be busy in the kitchen--accidentally--just for one quarter of an hour--Maman _chérie_!" The pleading voice was hard to resist. Maman tried to steel her heart and obstinately turned away from those liquid eyes, drowned in tears. "But in the name of the Holy Virgin, child," she said gruffly, "what is there that thou wouldst say to my lord, that thou canst not do in thy mother's presence?" "'Tis not what I would say, Maman--" rejoined Rose Marie in a soft murmur quite close to maman's ear. "Then what?" "I want to hear him speak to me, Maman _chérie_--oh, I am sure that he will say naught that is unseemly--he is too proud and too rigid for that--but, when you and papa are in the room he never, never speaks to me at all--I have oft wondered if he thought me a goose. When he comes, he greets me of a truth as if I were a queen, he kisses my hand--and bows in the most correct manner--then, when I sing to him and play on the harpsichord, he praises my voice, and coldly thanks me for the entertainment--" "And 'tis right and proper conduct on the part of a great gentleman," retorted maman hotly, "thou wouldst not have him kiss thee, as if thou wert a kitchen wench." But Rose Marie did not commit herself into saying what she did wish in this matter, but continued with seeming irrelevance. "When I go out of the room, after the frigid and stately adieux which my lord bestows upon me, I oft hear his ringing, merry voice echoing up the stairs, right through the walls to my room. I hear papa and you laughing, in obvious response to his sallies--and once--it was yesterday--I stayed peeping over the bannister until my lord departed--" "Very unseemly behaviour," growled maman whilst an obvious blush rose to her fat cheeks, and her little, beady eyes seemed to twinkle at a certain recollection. "I saw my lord take thee in his arms, Maman," continued Rose Marie with stern reproach, "and he imprinted two such kisses on thy cheeks that literally raised the echoes in the house and must have been heard in the 'prentices' shop." Maman made great efforts to preserve her gravity. "Well!" she said, "and if he did--I am old enough to be his mother--and would it had pleased God to give me a son like him! Those merry eyes give joy to my heart when I look into them, and he has such funny ways with him--such amusing sallies--why not later than yesterday, he said, speaking of Mme. Renaud, the cobbler's wife down the street, that--" Maman caught Rose Marie's blue eyes fixed eagerly upon her--there were no tears in them now--only excitement and curiosity--Maman promptly checked her own flow of eloquence and suddenly resumed her gruff, stern voice. "But that is naught for thee, my pigeon--and now, enough of this talk--the _pot-au-feu_ will be boiling over." She wore a great air of finality now and would have risen but for Rose Marie's clinging arms. "Maman darling," pleaded the girl. "Nonsense!" retorted Mme. Legros decisively. "One little, tiny, very, very short quarter of an hour." "Nonsense." "I want so to know what he would say when we are alone--he could not sit before me mute as a carp, and stiff as papa's wooden measure. I want to hear his merry voice myself. I want to see--what he looks like--when he laughs." "Nonsense," reiterated maman for the third time. But even as she spoke the word, she looked down upon the beautiful upturned head, the glowing eyes, the quivering lips parted in earnest pleading, and like the thistle-down in a gale, which she herself had quoted, the worthy old woman's resistance fell away. "Of a truth thou'rt a rogue," she said more gently. "Fifteen minutes, Maman." "Thy father would not hear of it." "He need not know. When he goes down after dinner--to set the work for the 'prentices." Maman hesitated one moment longer, but that final hesitation was useless by now. The fortress had yielded to the powerful weapons of the loved one in tears. "Very well," she said. And Rose Marie jumped to her feet with a little cry of triumph. "But remember," continued maman with stern, upraised finger, "it shall be ten minutes and no more." CHAPTER XX --So that hour died Like odour rapt into the winged wind Borne into alien lands and far away. --TENNYSON. Thus it was that this day, after maman had cleared the debris of dinner, and papa went downstairs to set the 'prentices to their afternoon's work, that no sooner had Rose Marie sat down to her harpsichord and begun to sing: "La nuit écoute et se penche sur l'onde Pour y cueillir rien qu'un souffle d'amour," then maman gave a slight cry of surprise, and jumped to her feet exclaiming: "Oh, _mon Dieu_! I had forgot the pot-au-feu--it must be boiling over," and incontinently ran out of the room. Rose Marie continued her song. She was sitting with her back to the light, and my lord straight in front of her: and as her young voice rose and fell to the simple cadence of the old song, she was able to throw many a veiled look in his direction. At first when maman ran away, he had made a movement as if he would follow her, then seeing that Rose Marie remained at the harpsichord, he seemed to think that mayhap courtesy compelled him to remain with her. He sat down again in the high-backed arm chair and rested his head in his hand. Every time that Rose Marie looked up she caught his deep-set eyes fixed upon her. Strangely enough the look in them seemed quite sad--indeed if it were possible in one so rich and in so high-born a gentleman--Rose Marie would almost have imagined that my lord's whole attitude was one which made appeal to her tenderness and even to her pity. Then when the last note of her song died away in a soft murmur, my lord rose and came up to her. "What a sweet voice you have, Rose Marie," he said in that even, gentle voice with which he usually addressed her and which seemed to her veiled with studied coldness, "and 'tis a tender song which you sang." "It pleases me, my lord, that it should find favour with you," she replied demurely, the while she allowed her long lashes to veil the light of excitement which danced in her eyes. "Nay! who am I that you should try to please me, dear heart?" he said a trifle sadly, "rather is it I who with my whole mind and soul and strength should strive to make you happy." "That were not very difficult, my lord." She would then and there have liked to give her excitement fuller rein, to jump up, to clasp her hands together and to look up into his grave face and say: "Only, only be kind and gentle to me, give me as much love as ever you can--I am prepared to be the truest, most devoted, most loving wife that e'er strove to be a joy to her lord. Give me sunshine, and gaiety and laughter, and what meed of love you are able to give." But she did not quite dare to say and do all that, for maman's admonitions were still fresh in her mind, and her guardian angel would of a surety have had to veil his face again before this unseemly behaviour on the part of his turbulent charge. Therefore she added somewhat tamely: "I have been taught to be easily contented, and meseems that by honouring me with your love, you, my lord, would be doing all that God doth ask of you." Though she had spoken lightly, almost flippantly, for her heart was glad, and her mind free from any presage of sorrow, his face, which all along had been passing grave now looked deeply troubled at her words. "Doing all that God doth ask of me," he exclaimed with sudden vehemence, whilst a tone of bitterness, which she could not understand, rang through his usually clear and fresh voice. "Nay, little snowdrop, therein you wrong divine justice--if indeed there be one. Dear heart, were I from this time forth to shed drop by drop all the blood of my veins, were I to give my life inch by inch, my flesh piece by piece to secure your happiness, even then I would not be doing all that God would ask of me." He had turned from her and while he spoke he paced up and down the narrow room like some untamed creature fretful of its cage; then he broke into a laugh--not the merry laugh which she had so oft heard ringing through the house, but a harsh outburst of passionate sarcasm, which had an undercurrent in it of deep and hidden sorrow. Rose Marie felt a wealth of pity surging in her heart, when she heard that mirthless laugh. Yet was it not passing strange that she, an humble tradesman's daughter, with no knowledge of that great world in which lived my lord, that she should thus dare to pity this noble, high-born and rich English gentleman? But she could not combat the feeling and her innocent blue eyes watching his restless movements, and that troubled look on his face, were filled with the tears of womanly compassion. She looked divinely pretty thus, sitting at the harpsichord, one delicate hand idly resting on the ivory keys, from which almost unconsciously she had just evoked one sweet and melancholy chord from out the soul of the old instrument, like a long-drawn-out sigh of unspoken sorrow. Her young bosom rose and fell beneath the folds of the primly folded kerchief, and her upturned face showed the white column of her throat round which nestled a string of pearls, large and translucent--his bridal gift to her. He paused beside her, and in his expressive face the signs of a great inward combat became strangely visible. Then he knelt down, close to her, and with a curious gesture half masterful and half appealing he took both her hands and imprisoned them in his own. He looked straight into those tear-dimmed eyes, with a questioning look that seemed to probe the very depths of her soul. "My lord you are troubled," she said gently. "Ay, little snowdrop," he replied, "deeply troubled at sight of the exquisite purity which speaks to me with such mute eloquence from out the depths of your blue eyes. How dare I, miserable wretch, drag you from out that secluded garden of innocence wherein you have grown to such perfect beauty. How dare I with impious hand guide you toward that great outer world which lies so far beyond the glorious land of your girlish dreams? It is a world, dear heart, wherein great monsters dwell, pollution, sin and evil and that canker of corruption which will inevitably mar the calyx of the snowdrop and cause her white petals to droop at its touch." "I have no fear of that great world, my lord," she rejoined simply, "since I will enter it in your company." "No, no, you must not talk like that, dear heart," he said with strange persistence, "you must not trust me so. What do you know of me or of my life? You so young, so pure, so exquisite, and I--" He paused and pushing her hands away with a rough, impetuous movement he jumped to his feet and once more resumed his restless wanderings up and down the room. "Have you ever wandered, little one, in the forests round Cluny," he asked with one of those sudden transitions in voice and manner which puzzled her so, "and paused beside that pool which the country folk about there call the Lake of Sighs? Yes, I see from your telltale eyes that you do remember it. Well then, you must oft have seen it lying silent and stagnant beneath the shades of the overhanging willows, whilst on its smooth, dark surface water lilies as white as snowdrops rear their stately heads in June. You should see these in the spring tall and majestic, with graceful upright stems and fragrant, wide-open buds, which seem to invite with a kind of cold aloofness the rough caresses and kisses of the bee. Tall and majestic like you, dear heart, pure and coldly innocent like your soul--the spring, coy and cool, smiles and passes by, leaving those lilies to face the scorching breath of awakened summer. Have you stood beside the Lake of Sighs, little one, when dying a summer draws out her last sigh of agony? When rank weeds and poisonous plants begin to grow apace from out the slimy ooze which encircles the pool, and throw out sinewy, death-dealing arms along its peaceful surface? Then noisome trails of slugs and grime skim the once pure waters of the pond and rank growths of coarse weeds cover the slender stems of the lilies, and drag them down, down until the stately flowers, weighted with mud-scattering rain bend their proud heads to the mire, the while in their slimy hovels, loathsome toads croak their chorus in unison. The world to which I must take you, little snowdrop, is just such another pool, you the lily and I the weed--and men and women the loud-voiced croakers who are always ready to proclaim triumphantly the pollution of a work of God." Whilst he spoke he halted opposite to her and looking down into her face he studied every line of it, watching for the first look of horror which would mar its perfect peace. He was conscious of a strange desire to see her afraid of him, to feel that at his words her innocence would rebel, that if after what he had said he attempted to touch her, she would shrink away in unexplainable horror. Now that he was alone with her for the first time, and could study at leisure every line of her graceful form, the perfect shell which contained a perfect soul, the first poisoned fangs of remorse fastened themselves into his heart, and impatient of the monster's attack, he strove to smother it, and thus longed to see her less trustful, less innocent, even--God help him--less pure! Already he was searching for justification for that great wrong which he was about to commit, nay which he did commit with every word of gentleness which he spoke to her, with every moment that he spent in her company. Therefore he tried to make his voice harsh and rough, he did not want the child's regard, her trust, her allegiance. He would have had her ambitious, sordid and grasping for in this he could satisfy her by and bye, when he had all the promised riches in his hands, and had made her Countess of Stowmaries. He would have had her look on him as a necessary means to her own ends, as a man who would at best be wholly indifferent to her, or if that could not be, then as a man whom she would hate. But in spite of all he said, in spite of his harsh words, and strange imageries, the meaning of which she scarce understood, yet almost feared to guess, her face remained perfectly calm, and her eyes--still tender and compassionate--met his in absolute, childlike serenity. "I am not afraid of entering that world, my lord," she said, "with you to guide me." "What a brave snowdrop," he said, "nay, you foolish little daughter of the frosts, you'll want an angel to guard you and to stand 'twixt you and me. I begin to think that cold ice-maiden though you be, you must at some time of your brief terrestrial existence have offended the God who made you, since He has thought fit to punish you so severely by giving you for husband the most abandoned sinner that ever defiled His earth. Or was it in a former existence, dear heart, when you dwelt amidst the snows that you roused the ire of devils to such an extent that they swore to be revenged on you, once you were a woman and could understand and feel. 'Twas a cowardly revenge of a surety, for there were other men--less vile, less corrupt, less contemptible than he in whose hand you so trustfully place yours. God forgive me, but meseems that I do feel tempted to draw aside the veil of ignorance which lies before your blue eyes, and to show you pictures of evil and of wretchedness from which your calm soul would shrink in horror, and even your serene virginity would recoil in fear. See the abandoned wretch that I am! I would rouse terror in those eyes--which hitherto have been the blue and opaque windows through which a placid soul hath gazed upon the devilries of mankind--and gazing hath not seen. Dear heart, how will you bear it, this first contact with pollution, and with sin; my hand to guide you, my finger to be the one to point the hideous way?--Broad the priests call it, and an easy descent to Hell, lined with the grinning faces of monstrous ghouls, one of which is called drunkenness, the other licentiousness, whilst blasphemy is the constant companion of both--and right and left from the road itself stand those hideous booths where poverty and degradation shrink out of sight in the dark hours of the evening gloom, and where hovers--like a gigantic bat with black and loathsome wings outspread and claw-like feet that grip and tear--that cruel Titan, called Remorse. Little snowdrop, snow-white and so pure, how will you trust after that, the hand that would guide you still further on the way, the voice that in its agony of shame would yet murmur in your ears promises of a turning out of the hideous road, a turning which leads to happiness and peace?" His voice broke in a sigh which was almost a sob. Gradually as he spoke he had drawn nearer to her, until his knee touched the ground, and his head was bowed in his hands. But had he looked at her face even now he would not on any line of it have seen the slightest sign of the fear which he wished to evoke, nor of the loathing which he would have conjured up, yet would dread to see. Only her eyes as pure, as childlike as before, were veiled in the tears of infinite pity. There was silence for awhile in the little parlour, her hands had fallen away from the keys of the harpsichord. Only the old clock ticked solemnly on, marking the brief minutes wherein these two souls met each other in this their first communion. Then as she did not speak, his whole soul recoiled at thought of losing her and a great dread seized him, lest after all she had understood, and in understanding, turned away from him in fear. And humbly, gently, not daring to look up, and murmuring scarce above a whisper, he said: "Little snowdrop, would you trust me still?" And whilst despite iron will, obstinacy and pride hot tears would surge to his eyes and sear his aching lids, he suddenly felt a light touch, soft and cool as a snowflake, a tiny hand resting upon his shoulder. "I trusted you ere this, my lord," she said simply, "trusted and honoured you, mayhap a little feared you as my lord and master. But now, methinks that a great sorrow lies buried in your heart--you choose to call it sin--mayhap it is--that I do not know--I am a woman--soon to be your wife, but never your judge, my lord. And if you have sinned, then you stand nearer to me, who am so far from that perfection which, alas! you see in me. If I feared you before, my lord--meseems that I could love you now." To Michael Kestyon, with a life of insubordination behind him, a life of debauchery, of loneliness and lovelessness, it seemed as if some unknown Heaven had opened and he had his first vision of what paradise might be. A paradise wherein voices of angels spoke to him of love, and cool white hands, cold as snowflakes yet infinitely gentle, led him towards that open door. That tiny snowflake fell from his shoulder onto his own burning hands, and to his vague astonishment it did not melt at the contact, but lay there cool and soft, mayhap a little trembling, having suddenly changed into some fairy bird. Michael pressed his hot forehead against it, his eyes and then his lips. His whole soul cried out mutely now in a passionate longing for happiness. Womanly tenderness, womanly pity awaited him in that paradise, the door of which stood open, and if honour long since dormant called out loudly against treachery and against a trick, who shall pronounce judgment on this man, if he had not the strength at this moment to respond to that call? With his own hands now, with one word spoken by his own lips, he could shut against himself those glorious gates of Heaven, and deliberately turn his back on that brief vision of paradise, and walk once more down that hideous path which leads straight to Hell. There were but the two courses open to him. The one was to take this trusting, loving woman to his heart, to guard and keep her in happiness and peace, whilst showering on her all the gifts which her weaker nature might desire. He was rich now, would be richer still, he could satisfy her ambition, and by constant love and tender care, he could win her heart and her inner self in time, even though he had won her person by a trick. The other course was the rugged path to which the inexorable hand of almost barbaric honour pointed relentlessly, to tell her all and to lose her forever. To throw back in his kinsman's face the price of this girl's innocence, and then to go back to that life in London, the drinking booths, the degrading hovels, the propinquity of abandoned reprobates as despicable as he had been himself before he met her. Pity him if you can!--judge him not if you've never been tempted to chose 'twixt life and living death, 'twixt happiness and degradation, 'twixt the hand of an angel and the gripping tentacles of devils. Pity him for he was only a man, with a burning thirst for happiness, a mad longing for love and for peace. Michael Kestyon kissed the little hand which had confirmed the promise of love spoken by the girl's pure lips. He looked up then and met her eyes. Heaven alone knows what he would have said or done the next moment. The Fates who in their distant, rock-bound cavern spin the threads of destiny decreed that these two people should --ere another word was spoken between them--be incontinently hurled from out the realms of romance wherein they had wandered hand in hand for over ten minutes. For that--as we know--was the time limit set by maman, for allowing her daughter to be alone in the company of my lord. And Michael had only just time to free the small imprisoned hand so that it might wander back to the keys of the harpsichord ere Mme. Legros--rubicund, fussy and prosy--made irruption into the room. Thus it was that for Michael Kestyon the gates of paradise remained for the nonce invitingly open, nor did the Fates give him another chance to close them against his own happiness. CHAPTER XXI Love took up the Harp of Life and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. --TENNYSON. The old, majestic Church of St. Gervais had been made quite gay with flowers. Good M. Legros was passing rich, thank God! He could gratify his only child's every whim--however trivial--on this her wedding day. She had expressed a great desire to see the church quite full of flowers--as many flowers as it could hold, and Papa Legros had spent--so the gossips said--enough money in indulging this wish as would have kept a dozen poor families in comfort for a dozen years. 'Twas mid April and there were white roses from the King's conservatories in Versailles, white hyacinths from Fontainebleau and white violas from the walled-in gardens at Blois, there were white violets and snowdrops and sweet-scented narcissi. They lay everywhere in heavy fragrant bunches and wreaths fashioned by loving hands, untutored in the art of decoration. The high altar groaned beneath the weight of huge brass pots wherein old-fashioned stocks reared their sweet-scented heads. The Virgin in her niche, the saints upon their altars almost disappeared beneath their monster crowns of violets and of roses. The central nave was filled with a motley crowd, attired in holiday clothes, come to see the tailor's daughter wedded to the English milor. A few simple folk there were--gaffers and cronies who had watched Rose Marie as she grew up in her father's back shop, and who came with shaking heads and ominous murmurs to see the last of the poor child, who of a surety would be drowned when she sailed upon the sea or if she did survive that calamity, would certainly be most unhappy in a land of evil-doers, and of cruel, red-haired, large-toothed men. But there were others, too, mere idlers these, who had never before set eyes on an English milor, and were curious to know if what was said of these English were true, namely that they were big as giants and like them ferocious, with fangs instead of teeth, and fists as heavy as bullocks. Under one of the arches, quite close to the chancel, special places had been reserved and chairs covered with red cloth. Here a small group of gaily-dressed ladies and gentlemen had assembled, gilded butterflies flown from out their silken nets over in the St. Germain quarter and even from the Louvre and Versailles; gentlemen of the court and of His Majesty's bedchamber with their ladies in stiff brocaded paniers and silken skirts which made a soft swishing sound as the wearers turned to right or left to lend an ear to the whisperings of a gallant or to murmur a word of scandal in that of a friend. They had crossed the river and wandered into this abandoned quarter of the city from idle curiosity. Rumours had reached the Court that the Earl of Stowmaries, one of the richest young gallants of London, had come to wed the daughter of the Paris breeches-maker, a man well-known to all. His Majesty had deigned to seem interested, Mme. de Montespan expressed a desire to see this milor, whom gossip had reported as handsome and had endowed with the romantic history of early life spent in distant lands, where he was kept in poverty and exiled by a rapacious kinsman, who robbed him of his inheritance. Gossip as a rule had mingled truth with fiction, but the marquise was interested and brought her brilliantly decked-out sycophants in her train--gentlemen and ladies who sunned themselves in the sunshine of her graces,--to witness the ceremony of St. Gervais. From this group beneath the archway came the constant murmur of fluttering fans, the rustle of silks, the creaking of chairs on the flag-stones of the floor--also at times a giggle quickly suppressed, a cry of astonishment or amusement held in check only by the solemnity of the surroundings. The atmosphere was waxing oppressive, despite the cold April breeze which found its way into the edifice through the chinks of many cracked window panes. The scent of the poet's narcissus, heavy and intoxicating, filled nostrils and brain with its overpowering savour; the roses already inclined to droop added their faded fragrance to the air, mingling, too, with the penetrating odour of white Roman hyacinths and the pungent smell of primroses and of violas, whilst through it all the heavy fumes of incense rose upwards to the high-vaulted roof and wrapped the statues of saints, the small side altars and tall embroidered banners in their mystery-creating clouds. Monseigneur the Archbishop of Paris had just entered, robed in gorgeous cope and mitre and followed by the clergy of St. Gervais and the band of acolytes clad in scarlet and white. Behind heavy curtains, a band of skilled musicians from His Majesty's own opera house were playing an Introit from one of M. Lulli's most exquisite scores. All necks were craned to catch sight of the man and woman who were kneeling on crimson cushions at the foot of the chancel steps. The bride could scarce be seen though her figure looked dainty in her simple white gown; but her golden head was hidden beneath a filmy veil of delicate Mechlin lace, which fell right over her face and far back to the edge of her gown. But every one could see milor well, for his dark head towered above those of the spectators. And he held his head very erect, some folk thinking that on this occasion a man should look less proud and certainly less defiant. He was gorgeously clad in surcoat and vest of delicate ivory-tinted silk, with exquisite embroideries of gold and silver which the gaffers thought must have cost a mint of money. But then English milors were all so rich, and this one--so 'twas said--was one of the richest amongst all; he certainly was one of the most handsome. Goodly to look at was the verdict of the women, with his dark hair innocent of those monstrous perruques which the _jeunesse dorée_ of Paris and Versailles had lately affected. He wore neither beard nor moustache and every one could see what a firm, strong mouth and jaw he had--an obstinate one murmured some of the ladies, a masterful one, sighed the others. Mme. de Montespan enthroned on a velvet-covered armchair made vain attempts to draw his dark, deep-set eyes to hers. But milor looked straight before him, and his arms were crossed over his broad chest. When Monseigneur kneeled at the foot of the altar and began to recite the first verse of the Introibe, milor knelt too, beside his bride, and buried his face in his hands. M. and Mme. Legros clad in their Sunday best, knelt quite close to the bridal pair. Maman in rich puce-coloured brocade, her scanty locks hidden beneath a remarkable confection of lace was frequently mopping her eyes, the while M. Legros, master tailor to the Court of Paris, tried to conceal the inordinate pride which he felt at seeing his only child wedded to so great a lord. Now Monseigneur bent his broad shoulders and sotto voce murmured the Confiteor. Rose Marie in the innocence of her heart prayed to the Virgin to make her quite, quite perfect, as good as my lord thought her to be, lest he be deceived and disappointed in her. She had not spoken to him alone again after that happy yet sad quarter of an hour when she had seen his proud head bent before her, and felt that unutterable pity for him, which so quickly then became unutterable love. That his self-accusations were only the result of an over-sensitive conscience she firmly believed, and if in his early youth my lord had sinned as other young men sin from thoughtlessness and want of a guiding hand, who was she that she should judge him, now that he had honoured her with his love? And as Monseigneur at the altar read the Holy Gospel wherein the Good God himself enjoins man and woman to cleave to one another, Rose Marie's whole heart went out to the man by her side, and the magnetism of her enthusiastic sacrifice of her whole self to him drew his dark eyes down to hers. Michael, as in a dream, saw the exquisite white-clad figure close to him; never--he thought--had he beheld aught so lovely, so pure, so worthy of love. Then looking from her to the great altar before him, he saw through the moving clouds of incense phantom figures and objects from out his past. There in that dark recess, beside the niche of that mitred saint, faces of men who had sneered at his misfortunes, the men of law who had plundered him, and a forest of outstretched palms, oily and smooth awaiting the bribes. There again high up in the groined roof, his companions in those far-off days in Flanders, faces red with the excesses of the day, hands soiled with the evil deeds of night; the miserable camp followers in the wake of a starving mercenary army, dissolute men and intemperate women; and all around him the poor, miserable scum of London, the men with whom he had herded, beasts like himself, no more human since wretchedness had killed all manhood in that perpetual, that degrading search after forgetfulness. All these monsters and ghoulish phantoms grinned at Michael now, polluting the sacred edifice with their imaginary presence. They floated corpse-like on the shifting clouds of the ever-rising incense and taunted Michael with their grinning faces, daring him now to turn from the broad path of happiness whither the snow-white hand of an ignorant girl was so trustingly leading him. "Follow the path of honour, follow truth and loyalty now, Michael, and to-morrow thou'lt be one of us again: one with the grinning and dishonest sceptics, one with the profligate crowd of mercenary soldiers, one with the flotsam and jetsam of criminal London, the drunkards, the roisterers, God's damned upon earth. Truth leads the way to perdition, follow truth now, Michael, an you can." And as, up high on the altar steps, Monseigneur now held up for the adoration of the multitude the sacred mysteries which no brain of man can understand, Michael bowing his head and looking within himself with searching, conscience-stricken eyes, saw nothing but loyalty to the girl who was thus unwittingly snatching him from out the yawning abyss of misery and degradation, of humiliation for himself and starvation for his mother. Anon Monseigneur whispered the Pater Noster, and after that he turned and with hand upheld, three fingers pointing upwards to the mystery-hidden vault, he pronounced the solemn benediction on Michael Kestyon and Rose Marie his wife. Not a sound stirred in the vast and ancient church, save the voice of the Archbishop as it rose high above the chancel, and the blessing spoken by him seemed to descend with unseen wings on the bowed heads of the two young people whom so strange a fate was linking together. To her--the girl--it was a Sacrament--this confirmation of the vows spoken in her name when she was too young even to lisp them; for him it was the word of honour of a man who throughout a rough life had never succeeded in burying honour out of sight. Both pronounced their vows without thought of ever rebelling against them. Both pronounced the solemn "I will" with fervour as well as gladness. The assistants almost held their breath. Instinctive awe had silenced every chattering tongue, stilled every careless laugh. My lord's voice rang out clear and distinct in the midst of that hushed reverence, and more than one fair dame accustomed to the insipid gallantries of the Court of Versailles sighed for the latent and rugged passion which rang out through that firm "I will." Rose Marie's young heart gave a great leap for joy. "He loves me," she whispered exultantly to herself, despite the solemnity of the moment, the sacredness of her surroundings, "he loves me, he loves me. I can tell it by the sound of his voice." And she had to press her bouquet of roses to her lips to suppress the little cry of joy which almost escaped her throat. Perhaps she did not altogether understand at this moment what she herself meant when she thought "he loves me!" Mayhap some of those ladies in the stiff brocades, who cast admiring glances at my lord knew and guessed much more of what went on in his mind than did the simple tradesman's daughter with the innocent mind and the pure heart of childhood still undefiled within her. And now Monseigneur came right down the altar steps and my lord and Rose Marie had to rise, and to pass through the wrought-iron gates of the rood screen, then pause, standing just below the communion rail. Monseigneur stood there awaiting them, and the good curé of St. Gervais was near him holding a jewelled salver whereon rested two circlets of gold. My lord took one of these between his fingers and some one whispered in Rose Marie's ear to hold out her hand. From far away came in sweet muffled sounds the opening bars of Lulli's Beati Omnes exquisitely played on the string instruments. All round Rose Marie's feet lay a carpet of white roses which sent their last dying fragrance into the air. She felt my lord's strong hand grasping her own and the tiny band of gold being slipped on her finger--the sign of her bondage to her lord; she was so happy that she could have cried for joy, so happy that she longed to kiss that cold little circlet which now irrevocably bound her to him. She raised her eyes and saw his dark head bent just over her hand, and it seemed as if a magnetic fluid ran from his veins into hers, for she felt the passion which quivered in his pulse, and though she might not wholly understand it as yet, she nevertheless responded to it with all the strength of her young nature full of the joy of love and of life. "May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob be with you and remain with you always." Monseigneur had begun to speak the final prayer. Bride and bridegroom had partaken of the Sacrament together, and Monseigneur had declared that the other sacrament, that of matrimony, had indissolubly now renewed the ties which already bound them to one another since childhood. This was not a marriage, he said, but the repetition of solemn vows made in their name when they were too young to understand, the consecration by the Church of those bonds which she forged for them eighteen years ago. The solemn Amen was pronounced and sung; the King's musicians played the first bars of a stirring wedding march specially composed for this great occasion by Maître Colasse of His Majesty's orchestra. There was a general movement amongst the spectators, a great sigh of excited satisfaction as Monseigneur having stood for a few moments whispering final admonitions to milor, now turned and walked with slow steps out through the chancel door. One by one the glittering group of gorgeously-clad priests and acolytes disappeared out through the narrow opening. The strains of the hidden orchestra swelled in glorious volume until they filled every corner of the vast building, like a pæan of triumph and of joy. There was a general frou-frou of silken skirts, a clink of swords, a scraping of chairs against the flagged floor, as my lord now led his young bride down the nave. He pressed her trembling hand against his side, the while he frowned--despite himself--at this crowd of peering faces, this sea of importunate looks which made him restive and impatient. He longed to take his snowdrop away with him, out of this indifferent throng, far, far away to some hidden nook among the Kentish hills, there where the lime trees were just beginning to unfold their delicate leaves of emerald tinged with gold, where lying on a carpet of primroses and violets, beneath a cool, grey sky, his burning head fanned by the cold, spring breezes, he could kneel at her feet and tell her that with her small icy tendrils she had already twined herself around his heart; that her blue eyes, cold and pure as those of a forget-me-not beside a brook, had taught the miserable reprobate his first lesson of love. Then when the pale tints of the limes turned to a more vivid green, when primroses had paled beneath the shadows of brilliant Lent lilies, then he would try his hand at the great miracle of which he dreamed, the transmutation of the white snowdrop into a glowing, crimson rose. CHAPTER XXII Sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl. --A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. "By the Mass, but the blackguard bears himself bravely! And you, my lord, have no cause to be ashamed of your substitute." It was Lord Rochester who spoke. He, together with Lord Stowmaries and Sir John Ayloffe, was standing on the top of the steps beneath the ancient stone portcullis which surmounts the porch. They formed a compact little group, which gained distinction from the rest of the motley throng, by the sober cut of the English-made clothes, and by the drooping plumes of the hats--a fashion long since discarded in France. Michael Kestyon with his bride on his arm had just come out of the church. She, wrapped in cloak and hood--for the spring day was chilly and the east wind keen--looked little more for the moment than a small bundle of humanity desirous above all of escaping observation. But Michael for all the world looked the picture of the soldier of fortune, defiant and conscious of danger, ready to walk straight into that yawning abyss, at the bottom of which lurks a mysterious death, yet disdainful to evade it, too proud to halt, too obstinate to turn back. As he came out of the porch, a violent gust of wind caught the folds of his cloak, and lashed him in the face, whipping up the swiftly-coursing blood which the solemnity of the religious service, the drowsy influence of faded roses had lulled into temporary somnolence. The glare of the young April sun dazzled him, after the sombre, grey tones of the majestic chancel; the pupils of his eyes contracted to a pin's point, making the eyes themselves seem pale in colour, and tawny as those of a wild beast sweeping the desert with great savage orbs. There was altogether for the moment in the man's expression a strange look of dreamy aloofness. His eyes wandered over the crowd but obviously they recognised no individual face. No wonder that Lord Rochester--essentially a man himself and a despiser of the other sex--gazed with ungrudging admiration at this splendid blackguard, who bore the stamp of virility on every line of his massive frame, and who seemed to defy contempt and dare contumely to reach him. Looking at Michael now it seemed impossible to think that he could ever regret any action which he had set his mind to do. Compunction is for the weak who is led astray, who fears gibes and dreads humiliation, but this man had donned an armour of pride and of ruthless ambition which neither sneers nor contempt could ever penetrate. He might be a blackguard--he was one by every code of moral or religious civilisation, but in his most evil moments he was never paltry and never vile. "I feel no longer any sorrow for the girl," continued Lord Rochester after awhile. "Odd's fish! Were I a woman I would not complain at the bridegroom. And withal she looked vastly pleasing as a bride, and methinks Michael Kestyon, too, is overmuch in luck's way. What say you, Ayloffe? are you not grieved that you did not take the entire business on your own shoulders, rather than depute that good-looking young reprobate to earn a fortune and an exquisite bride to boot?" Sir John frowned. Some thought, such as the one expressed by Rochester, had mayhap crossed his own mind during the past three weeks--but this was not for other people to see. He, too, watched Michael's tall retreating figure, as he led Rose Marie down the stone steps, giving it ungrudging admiration and also the tribute of secret envy, until a crowd of friends and servants closed in round the bridal pair and hid them both from view. Then Sir John turned to his friends and said drily: "My lord of Rochester is ever ready for a joke. I desired this scheme to succeed, and obviously the worthy tailor yonder would never have mistaken me for a man who was seven years old eighteen years ago. But I'll confess, an it'll please you, my lord and also my lord of Stowmaries, that I do deem Michael Kestyon a lucky dog. One hundred and twenty thousand pounds and such a bride! By Gad, had I been able to put back the hand of time some twenty years--" "The bride would have loathed you," retorted Stowmaries with an unpleasant snarl. "She'll fall in love with Michael and clear me of remorse." "Surely my lord of Stowmaries is not troubled with any such unpleasantness?" said Ayloffe imperturbably. "'Tis too late now to give way to remorse. By to-morrow's dawn, my lord, you'll be as free as air to wed whom you please. That simpering tailor's daughter will not have a rag of reputation left to her name, and you can repudiate her whenever you feel so inclined." "And that will be at once," replied Stowmaries, who, of a truth, was not experiencing the slightest pricks of conscience. The thought of this mock wedding which he had actually witnessed to-day had been dwelling in his mind for close upon a month. He had envisaged it from every point of view and had completely exonerated himself from blame in the matter. The image of his fair Julia had quite succeeded in screening from his mental vision all thought of the unfortunate girl whom he was thus condemning to disgrace and to shame, and whilst he steadily looked on Michael as a miserable blackguard he firmly believed that when once he had paid over the price of an innocent girl's betrayal he himself would remain absolutely free from blame. "I have made all enquiries," now continued Sir John drawing his two friends out of earshot of the crowd. "I understand that there are to be rare doings to-day in Master the tailor's back shop--a banquet, dancing and I imagine a good deal of wine drinking and licentious entertainment. These French bourgeois have no knowledge of decency and Michael Kestyon, methinks, did not learn to be squeamish whilst herding with the scum of mercenary armies in Flanders and Brandenburg. At five o'clock however a coach is to take the bridal pair as far as St. Denis--" He paused a moment, then added with a cynical smile, almost cruel in its callousness: "The first stage of their journey to Havre." Lord Rochester laughed loudly. He had all along only seen the humour of the adventure. A woman's reputation destroyed, a woman won by a trick, by Gad! these were of every-day occurrence in the life of a fashionable gentleman. Indeed he thought that both Stowmaries and Ayloffe were making far too much of the whole business, and though he, too, called Michael Kestyon a rogue, yet he admired him for his pluck and envied him for his good fortune. In his heart of hearts he much regretted that on the memorable night when the adventure was proposed, he had been too drunk to accept its terms or to enter the lists for it himself. "Nay then!" he said lustily, "we'll all call on the turtle doves at St. Denis to-night, and whilst my lord of Stowmaries pays up like a man for all that he gains by Michael's roguery, Sir John Ayloffe and I will entertain the bride by hoodwinking her still further into the belief that she is of a truth Countess of Stowmaries forever and ever Amen, as the Archbishop told her this day." "I should be glad to get to St. Denis to-night," rejoined Stowmaries. "I owe Michael seventy thousand pounds, which according to promise I should pay him to-day. The draft for it on Master Vivish the goldsmith is in my pocket now. The sooner I am rid of it the more pleased will I be." "Then will I at once and see about a coach," said Sir John. "We can make a start at about six o'clock, one hour after the dove hath flown out of the paternal cote." "Nay, old Daniel Pye will see about the coach," rejoined Stowmaries. "He hath met a crony who speaks English and knows his way about Paris better than we do. He'll get us what we want." "Daniel Pye!" exclaimed Sir John in astonishment. "What doth my kinswoman's faithful henchman in this depraved city?" "Mistress Julia Peyton desired him to do certain commissions for her here in Paris. When she heard that I was making the journey she requested that I should allow her servant to travel in the company of my men, since he was unversed in foreign ways, and knew nothing of the French language." Sir John made no further comment, but he wondered vaguely in his mind as to why the fair Julia had sent old Pye over to Paris. The question of commissions was of course nonsense. Daniel could no more choose a length of silk or even of grogram, than he could trim a lace coif or fashion a pinner. "Mayhap my fair coz is jealous," was Sir John's mental comment and the conclusion to which he arrived with that convenient cynicism of his, with which he usually disposed of any problem wherein feminine motives or feminine actions played an important part. "She hath mayhap deputed that old sinner, Daniel Pye, to watch over young Stowmaries and to make report in case the wiles of this wicked city make my lord forget his allegiance to herself." Thus content with his own explanation of the circumstance, Sir John dismissed the old serving-man from his mind, but not without deciding to question Pye closely as soon as he had an opportunity so to do. Most of the crowd had dispersed by now. The bridal pair with good M. and Mme. Legros were being escorted by a merry crowd of 'prentices, servants and friends as far as the worthy tailor's house in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. This cortège had already turned the angle of the street, and the noise of laughter and of songs sung to the accompaniment of flute and _hautbois_ was gradually dying away in the distance. The few laggards who remained behind were discussing the chief actors in the pageant which they had witnessed. Mme. de Montespan and her gaily chattering court were gossiping whilst waiting for their chaises. "Ah!" sighed Madame provokingly, "are all these English milors as handsome as that? I vow our gallants of Versailles have much to learn from them, if indeed they all look like milor of Stowmaries." And while the gallants there present protested in dismay an ill-concealed jealousy, Madame's roving eyes had discovered the small group of Englishmen close by, and amongst them had recognised Lord Rochester. "Ah, milor," she exclaimed, "I pray you approach. I did not know you were in Paris! What brings you hither, I pray?" Lord Rochester, obedient to the call, had already advanced, and was duly allowed to kiss those finger tips whereon royal lips were ever wont to linger. Englishmen were in high favour with Madame for the next half hour at least. "Why are you in Paris?" she repeated. "To catch a glimpse of the most beautiful woman in Europe," replied my lord of Rochester with bold gallantry. "Then you'll come see her in Versailles," she replied, drinking in the full measure of his flattering speech, the obvious falseness of which would not have deceived a child. "Nay, now that I have seen her!" he retorted, "I must hie me home to England again." "So soon! Then why did you come? Nay!" she added with mock severity, "Do not repeat your pretty lie again. You could not imagine to see me in this old church to-day. I came out of curiosity, to see this strange, ill-assorted marriage. Tell me what makes the rich Earl of Stowmaries wed a tailor's daughter?" "He was not always rich, nor always Earl of Stowmaries. The ceremony was not a marriage. It was a confirmation." "And you came to witness it?" "And to take part in an adventure." "I might have guessed. Who is the lady?" "The bride of half an hour ago." "I do not understand," said Mme. de Montespan with a frown. "Pray explain." "I'll do even more than that, Madame la Marquise," retorted Lord Rochester as he stepped a little to one side and disclosed the person of my lord of Stowmaries. "I will with your permission present to you my friend the Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, the _only_ Earl of Stowmaries whom I or His Majesty the King of England would ever acknowledge as such." The Marquise looked very bewildered, her great violet-hued eyes opened wide and wandered in puzzlement from the face of Lord Rochester to that of his friend. "The only Earl of Stowmaries!" she exclaimed in astonishment. "I vow milor that you have vastly puzzled me. Then who was that handsome young milor who just now swore to love the tailor's daughter, the while the hearts of two Duchesses, and one other Marquise besides myself were pining for his glance." My lord of Rochester, however, kept Madame on the tenter-hooks of expectation, whilst he affected the elaborate presentation of his friend which the etiquette of the time demanded. He introduced my lord of Stowmaries to Madame la Marquise de Montespan, and performed a like service for Sir John Ayloffe. Then only did he partly satisfy Madame's curiosity. "The young reprobate," he said airily, "whom the most beautiful Marquise in Christendom has honoured with a glance of her Myosotis eyes is--well! just a young reprobate, whom my lord of Stowmaries here is paying handsomely to take an unwelcome bride from off his shoulders. My lord of Stowmaries was seven years old when he wedded the tailor's daughter--now he has other matrimonial views--also a handsome cousin who was not averse to stepping into his shoes for this occasion which we have all witnessed to-day. He'll be well paid--neither bride nor bridegroom will have much to complain of--the bridegroom was a wastrel ere my lord of Stowmaries proposed this adventure--and the bride is only a tailor's daughter. She will have a handsome husband, if Michael Kestyon chooses to acknowledge her--if not there is always the nunnery handy for those saintly women like herself who have made a temporary if not wholly voluntary diversion from the strict paths of decorum and virtue. Et puis voila!" Mme. de Montespan had listened attentively to this tale so cynically told; her friends, too, had closed in round her. Every one was vastly interested and I assure you not the least in the world shocked. The Court of le Roi Soleil abounded in such adventures, the convents of France were filled with the grief-stricken victims of the dissolute idlers of the day. Lord Rochester's story evoked nothing but amusement, and Lord Stowmaries at once became the centre of an admiring little crowd. "But par ma foi!" commented Madame with a sigh not altogether free from envy, "you English gentlemen are mighty blackguards!" "We do our best, Madame," rejoined Rochester lightly, "to emulate our confrères in France." "His Majesty shall hear of your gallantries this very night. I pray you, Lord Rochester, do not leave us yet, nor you, my lord of Stowmaries, nor you, Sir Ayloffe. His Majesty would delight in your company. He so loves a bold adventure. And I am much mistaken he'll wish to see our handsome young reprobate, too--Michael Kestyon, did you say?" she added, prettily mispronouncing the English vowels, "'tis an ugly name--but oh! he hath fine eyes and a manly bearing--and did he really do it for money?" She called Lord Stowmaries to her side and closely questioned him, until she knew the entire discreditable story from beginning to end. Her amusement in the recital of the tale, her appreciation of the adorable wickedness which had prompted the scheme for the cruel hoodwinking of another woman, did much to dissipate once and for all any lingering thoughts of remorse which Stowmaries may still have been troubled with. Nothing would do but the imperious beauty's decree that after the call at St. Denis--which was the call of honour since it meant the paying of money for services rendered--the three English gentlemen must straightway back to Versailles, where they would be sure of a cordial welcome from His Majesty and from every lady and gentleman at his Court. "And," urged Madame, when at last she was installed in her chaise and was bidding farewell to her array of courtiers, "if you can bring that adorable young blackguard with you, you'll earn a gratified smile from the lips of King Louis, and I'll promise not to do more than turn his head and make him forget that he was paid in order to wed the daughter of a tailor--brrr--the thought makes me shudder. The rogue is an Apollo, milors, else a Hercules--and has just that wicked look which makes us poor women tremble and which we adore." And with this parting shot levelled at those who would have fought to the death for praise such as this, Madame ordered her serving-men to bear her away. Rochester, satisfied that he had sown the seeds of the most amusing and most comprehensive piece of scandal that had ever amused the jaded monarchs of two rival kingdoms, turned to his friends for final approval. Ayloffe was distinctly appreciative of the new move, but Stowmaries with that shiftiness peculiar to weak characters was not quite sure if it had been premature. Anyhow the draft for seventy thousand pounds on Master Vivish seemed to burn a hole in the pocket of his elegant surcoat. He was longing to be rid of all obligations in the matter, firmly convinced as he was when he had made Michael richer by one hundred and twenty thousand pounds and himself poorer by that vast sum, this tiresome feeling of uncertainty would leave him, and he could once more enjoy life in its full--life with the prospect of adorable Mistress Julia as a constant companion by his side. He and his friends walked back to the hostelry where they had put up for the night. There Stowmaries called for Daniel Pye in order to give him instructions about getting a coach ready for the trip to St. Denis. But it seems that Daniel had gone out earlier in the day and no one knew whither he had gone. But there was no difficulty about the coach. The amiable host of the uncomfortable little inn assured MM. les milors that one would be ready by half-past five of the clock and that the journey to St. Denis could be accomplished in something less than three hours. CHAPTER XXIII The man was my whole world all the same With his flowers to praise or his weeds to blame And either or both to love. --BROWNING. The workshop of Master Legros, tailor-in-chief to His Majesty the King of France, had been transformed into a vast assembly-room. The big central tables whereon usually sat cross-legged the 'prentices and stitchers, had been pushed to one side, right along the wall where it now groaned beneath the weight of pasties, and of pies, of a lamb roasted whole, of dishes of marrow bones, of prawns and of cheese, amongst which dishes and platters, the bottles of good Burgundy and of wine of Navarre, and the jugs of metheglin and hypocras reared their enticing heads. The centre of the room was given over to dancing. The wooden floor had been greased and polished until it had become slippery to the feet, whilst in a corner raised upon a wooden platform covered with crimson cloth a band of musicians were playing good lilting, swinging measures for a dance. None of your simpering minuets or slow-going pavanes for these young people; but something with a good lively tune in it, and plenty of noise and banging of the small drum and cymbal, so that a youngster could have a chance of gripping a wench well round the waist and of turning her round and round until she became so giddy, so breathless and so hot that she had to cry for mercy even at the price of a sounding kiss. For close upon an hour now the musicians had played the same rousing tune, and for close upon an hour indefatigable feet--some clad in shoe leather, others with hard bare soles beating the polished floor--had been raising up a mighty cloud of dust which settled on pasties and on cheese, on the big drum and on perspiring faces. Cheeks were crimson from the exertion, short hair and long hair, curly and straight hung limply over sweating, greasy foreheads. Pinners were getting awry, displaying more bosom than prudery would otherwise allow. To right and left surcoats and vests were being cast aside and flung across the room leaving bare arms and chests to view, or else a shirt more full of tatters than of stitches. Daylight still came streaming in for it was only four o'clock and _les mariés_ would not be leaving for at least another hour. In the meanwhile M. Legros had much ado to keep the curious, the idle, the impertinent from his doorstep, for, look you! though the hospitable abode of the goodly tailor was open on this great occasion to all and sundry friends and acquaintances who wished to eat and drink and to make merry, yet there was no intention of permitting every shiftless vagabond to come and partake of the cheer. Good Papa Legros had planted two of his most stalwart assistants at the door, with orders to admit no one who did not bear a familiar face, and if any one prove importunate, why then the end of a whip-lash or even a stout stick should drive impudence away. Thus it was that when Master Daniel Pye--the faithful henchman of fair Mistress Peyton--presented himself at the tailor's shop in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie, he was incontinently refused admittance. "I desire to speak with M. Legros, tailor to His Majesty the King of France," growled Daniel Pye in excessively bad French, for he knew nothing of the gibberish and had only learnt this phrase off by heart like a parrot that jabbers without understanding. "Then thou silly lout of a buffle-headed Englishman, thou'lt have to wait with thy desire until to-morrow." "I desire to speak with M. Legros, tailor to His Majesty the King of France," repeated Pye mechanically. It was the only sentence which he knew, and he had been assured by his crony that the magic phrase would ope the doors for him without any difficulty. "Get thee gone, and come back to-morrow," retorted the stalwart sentinel. "I desire to speak with--" "An thou'lt not go at once," shouted the tailor's irascible cutter, "I'll give thee a taste of a French stick across thy English shoulders." "I desire--" Bang! came the stout stick crashing down on worthy Pye's broad back, quickly bent in order to check the strength of the blow. But he held his ground. "Thou'lt go to Paris in company with my lord," the mistress had said to him peremptorily, "and on the day on which the daughter of Master Legros, tailor-in-chief to His Majesty the King of France weds an English gentleman, thou'lt to the house of that same Master Legros, and thou'lt deliver him this letter--to him and to no one else--and without saying whence thou comest, nor who it was that sent thee. Thou'lt go to him one hour after the religious ceremony of matrimony shall have been performed in the church and before the newly-wedded pair have quitted the bride's parental home." Daniel Pye had presented himself according to instructions. He had safely hidden in his breast pocket the letter which he was to deliver to the tailor of his Majesty the King of France, and to no one else. If he failed in the discharge of his duty, he knew that his fair mistress would punish him mercilessly, probably dismiss him from her service altogether and send him--old and unfit for other work--to starve in his remote East Anglian village. At best there were plenty of subordinates in Mistress Peyton's household who would only too gladly wield the lash on him who never spared it to others. Therefore Daniel Pye held his ground. The more blows he received, the more sure would he be of the indulgence of his own mistress. He had a tough hide, and after all is said and done, one does not die of a beating. So he bore the blows of the stick on his back, and the stinging swish of whipcord round his legs. He knew quite well that on occasions such as marriage-feasts or other merrimaking days, 'prentices and young assistants would have their bit of fun. He had had his own many a time. So when his back ached overmuch, and his legs were more sore than he could stand, he gave up all further attempts to force his way into the house and beat a retreat in the rear of the good-natured crowd. He would, he thought, find a means to speak to Master Legros a little later on, when every one's attention would be more fully concentrated on merrimaking, and the door was not so closely guarded. When Papa Legros heard of the incident he was vastly amused, then he bethought himself that mayhap the persistent English lout had some command for him for some rich clothes on behalf of one or other of the elegant milors who were in Paris at this moment--friends of my Lord Stowmaries, mayhap. Master Legros was vastly perturbed, and sent one of his 'prentices to search for the Englishman in the crowd, and to bring him hither forthwith. But Master Daniel Pye with that stolidity peculiar to his race had gone very quietly off to a neighbouring coffee house to nurse his sores, to drink mulled ale and to await events. In the meanwhile within the house itself much time had been spent in eating and drinking, as the debris which at this hour littered Mme. Legros' kitchen could well testify. The banquet had lasted for nearly two hours and had gone on at intervals ever since. M. Legros had made a speech which had caused his fair young daughter to blush and made every one there clap mugs against the table and shout: "Long live! long live!" until the old rafters and beams shook with the mighty echo. One or two buxom maids of all work, with muscular, bare arms and streaming, red faces had since then brought in fresh relays of victuals, and any number of bottles of wine--quite enough for every 'prentice in the shop to get as drunk as any lord. The noise in the back shop was now incessant and the shouting of the dancers, the screams of the girls, the laughing and hooting of the boys, almost drowned the cymbal, _hautbois_ and big drum. The intoxication of pleasure had whipped up the blood of all these youngsters. Ay! and of the sober folk, too, for behold Mme. Legros in her beautiful puce silk footing it with good M. Dumas, the shoesmith, and displaying a length of stockinged leg such as no decent matron should show except to her husband. But what would you? This is an occasion such as only occurs once in a lifetime: the marriage of an only daughter, and that to the handsomest, richest, most noble seigneur that ever dwelt at the Court of the King of England. Then _vogue la galère_! Let us dance and make merry! Dance until every sinew in the body aches and clothes slip off dripping shoulders. "_Mais va donc! vieille tortue!_" shouted some of the young 'prentices to the musicians as these poor wretches, perspiring profusely, straining their arms and puffing out their cheeks tried to keep up the measure to the required rapidity. "_C'est un enterrement par Dieu!_" yelled another, as he whirled his partner round until both her little feet gave way and she and the indefatigable youth collapsed with a violent thud upon the hard floor. A terrific shout of laughter greeted the catastrophe. The musicians, in response to vigorous shouts, struck up the measure with renewed quickness. They blew and puffed at such a rate now that no foot of man could have kept up with the tune, at least not after an hour of this same exertion. "Assez! assez! not so fast morbleu!" But the players evidently had resented the previous comments anent their slowness, and now would listen to no admonition in the contrary direction. Faster and faster they played, the exhausted, sweating 'prentices tripped it with frantic efforts; the girls loudly clamoured for the music to stop. They were giddy, they were toweringly hot, the young men's breath almost burned their cheeks. "Enough! enough! _par tous les diables!_ These musicians have the devil in them!" The couples fell back one by one panting against the wall, only one pair remained in the centre now twirling and twisting in a cloud of dust. The girl's white skirts flew out all round her like a thousand wings which seemed to lift her off her feet. The man held her tightly, his strong arms twined round her as if he never would let her go again, but meant to dance and turn, to whirl her through space even to eternity. His head was bent for he was over-tall and towered above every one else in the room. He was a head taller than she was, but he looked straight down at her as he held her, straight into her eyes, those beautiful blue eyes of hers which he had thought so cold. They were dark now, almost as dark as his own, and flashed with curious purple lights, and deep velvety shadows; her lips were parted with the effort of breathing, they were red and full, and showed glimpses of small pearly teeth, and the red moist tongue between them. The man's heart gave a great bound of joy. This was no ice-maiden wrapped in a mantle of snow, the tips of whose chaste fingers he had hitherto hardly dared to touch with his lips. No! this was a living, breathing woman full of passion, full of the joy of life, a woman moreover who was ready to love him, to return passion for passion, and kiss for kiss. Ye gods! Michael, but thou'rt a happy man! He held her close in his arms, for is not God's most glorious, most perfect creation upon earth a woman who is pure the while she burns with passion? And that priceless treasure was his. Fate had given her to him, Fate and his own damnable action. Nay, Michael, thou blackguard, if thine action be damnable, then by all the Saints in Heaven and by all the devils in Hell, do thou go and be damned, but hold this woman first. And wild, mad thoughts went coursing through his brain, thoughts of himself and of her: "I am a man, and what I do, I do. With mine honour did I buy thee, with mine own humiliation and shame have I conquered thee. Thou who art no snow-maiden but living lava melting at my touch, thou whom I adore, for whom were it to be done again, I would lie and I would cheat, I would descend to Hell or conquer paradise. I am a man and what I do, I do! Perish honour, perish life itself and eternal salvation if to gain honour mean to forsake thee." These were the tumultuous coursings of his excited brain the while he held her thus, swirling and whirling in his arms, swaying as a reed in the embrace of a blasting wind. The cloud of dust enveloped them, as, on the Brocken, the steam from unseen cauldrons envelops the witches in their revels. Through this haze Rose Marie saw nothing but his face and in it she read mayhap something that was passing in his mind, something of that passion which her mind as yet could not understand, even though her blood and heart were so ready to respond. But strangely enough she was not afraid. The child whose life boundary did not extend far beyond the walls of the parental home looked out on a limitless horizon of men's passions and men's sins, but even beyond that horizon the personality of the man to whom she had given her innocent love stood out clear and pure: the master to obey, the hero to worship. That she had roused a great love in him, she could not fail to see; of that she was proud, for her feminine instinct whispered that the greatness of his love transcended any sin which he ever might commit. * * * * * How it all happened she never afterwards could say; but it was all so different to what had been prearranged by mother and father, and by all the friends. Rose Marie had not heard the pawing of horse's hoofs outside, nor yet the rumble of the coach. Truth to tell she was so lost in the wild dream of the moment that she had forgotten all about what was to come: the farewell to maman and papa, the noisy "good-bye" to friends, the conventional departure accompanied by shouts and cheers and showers of rose leaves which all richly-dowered brides have to experience. In her case, too, it had all been duly planned, but it happened so differently! She had been dancing with her lord, looking up like a fascinated bird into his face glowing with ardent love. Then the room began to spin round and round, she could see nothing very clearly, yet a delicious languor stole into her every limb, she closed her eyes, and gave herself over limp and motionless into his embrace. Suddenly she felt herself lifted off her feet and carried by strong protecting arms through door and passage, until the cold April wind struck her cheeks and forced her with the power of his frolicsome will to open her eyes once more. She saw as in a quick vision a rearing horse, two or three men in sad-coloured surcoats, one of whom clung to the horse's bridle, whilst the other held the stirrup, and then as a background of curious faces the crowd of street gaffers standing gaping round. Behind her the dense throng of 'prentices and wenches, of friends and serving-maids pressed forward down the narrow passage, shouting, clamouring cheering to the echoes; in the forefront of these papa and maman half laughing, half crying, waving hands and mopping tears. But it was only a vision swift and sudden, for everything happened so quickly--and she was still so dizzy with the frantic whirl of the dance that she hardly remembered being lifted up on to the saddle and landed safely in the strong arms of her lord. The words of command had been so quickly spoken, my lord had jumped with such rapidity into the saddle, no wonder that she did not know exactly how she came to be where she was, clinging to him with all her might, and making herself very, very small lest she hindered him in the guiding of his horse. She knew exactly how to hold on, and how to sit, for she had oft sat thus ere now, on her father's saddle when he took her with him for a ride--he bent on some business errand, she enjoying the movement, and the fresh air as soon as the grime and smoke of Paris had been left behind. But no other ride had ever been quite like this one, for soon the horse settled down to an easy, swinging canter in the soft mud of the road, and there was an infinite sense of security in the clasp of the sinewy arm which held her so deliciously close. Just one slight shifting of her lissome body to settle herself more comfortably, one little movement which seemed to bring her yet a little nearer to him. "Is it well with you, my snowdrop?" he asked, bending his head in a vain endeavour to catch sight of her face. He only could see the top of a small, fair head, from which the hood had slipped off, disclosing the wealth of quaint curls and puffs, the formal bridal coiffure since then somewhat disarranged. The wealth of curls shook in obvious assent, and presently a shy voice murmured: "Why do you call me snowdrop?" "Because I was an ignorant fool," he replied, "when I first beheld you, a blind and senseless lout who did not distinguish the lovely crimson rose that hid so shyly within a borrowed mantle of ice." "They call me Rose Marie," she whispered. "Rosemary to me," he said fervently, "which is for remembrance." "Tu m'aimes?" she asked, but so softly that whilst she wondered if he would hear she almost hoped that the April breeze would fail to carry her words to his ear. Of course he did not reply. There is no answer to that exquisite question when it is asked by the loved one's lips, but his right arm tightened round her, until she felt almost crushed in the passionate embrace. CHAPTER XXIV Love that keeps all the choir of lives in chime Love that is blood within the veins of time. --SWINBURNE. You all know that funny little inn at St. Denis, on what was then the main road between Paris and Havre; it stands sheltered against north and east winds by a towering bouquet of mighty oaks, which were there, believe me--though mayhap not quite so gnarled and so battered by storms of wind and thunder as they are now--in the April of that year 1678. The upper story gabled and raftered hung then as now quite askew above its lower companion, and the door even in those days was in perpetual warfare with its own arched lintel, and refused to meet it in a spirit of friendly propinquity. The Seine winds its turgid curves in the rear of the building with nothing between it and the outer walls only the tow path always ankle deep in mud. The view out and across the winding river is only interesting to the lover of colour and of space, for there are no romantic hills, no rugged crags or fir-crowned plateaus to delight the eye. Only a few melancholy acacias sigh and crackle in the wind and tall poplars rear their majestic heads up to the vast expanse of sky. Now elegant villas and well-trimmed gardens fill the space over which two hundred and forty years ago the eye wandered seeking in vain for signs of human habitation. Rank grass covered the earth, and close to the water's edge clumps of reeds gave shelter to water rats and birds. Through the small dormer window just beneath the gable, Michael Kestyon looked out upon the melancholy landscape and found it exquisitely fair. The wind howled down the wide chimney and sighed drearily through the reeds, whereon the spring had not yet thrown her delicate tints of green; but Michael thought the sound divine, for it mingled in his ear with the tones of a fresh, young voice which had prattled gaily on throughout supper-time, of past and of future--not of the present, for that was sacred, too sacred even for her words. She was a little tired at first, when he lifted her off the saddle, and the amiable hostess of the ramshackle inn took charge of her and saw to her comforts. But after a little rest in her room, she came and joined him in the stuffy parlour, the window of which gave on that far horizon, beyond which lay the sea, England and home. She seemed a little scared when she found herself quite alone with him, without maman or papa to interrupt the tête-à-tête. She was so young, and oh! how tender and fragile she appeared to him, as she came forward a little timidly, with great, blue eyes opened wide, wherein her pure love fought with her timidity. Her whole appearance, her expression of face as she yielded her hand to him, and allowed him to draw her closer ever closer to his heart, made appeal to all that was best, most humbly reverent within him. Rose Marie was home to him, she was joy and she was peace, and he, the homeless, the joyless, the insubordinate wastrel, felt a wave of infinite tenderness, a tenderness which purified his love, and laid ardent passion to rest. He led her to the window, and throwing it wide open, he knelt down beside her there in the embrasure. She sat on the narrow window seat, looking out on that vast expanse of sky and land whereon the shadows of evening had thrown a veil of exquisite sadness and peace. The bare branches of the acacias as yet only tipped with tiny flecks of green moaned softly beneath the kiss of the breezes. Banks of clouds lashed into activity by the wind hurried swiftly past, out towards the unseen ocean, now obscuring the moon, now revealing her magic beauty, more transcendent and glorious after those brief spells of mystery conquered and of darkness subdued. Michael said very little. There was so little that he could say, which was not now a lie. He could not speak to her of his home, for home to him had been a miserable garret under the grimy roof of a house of disrepute, shared with others as miserable, as homeless as himself. He could not speak to her of friends, for of these he had none, only the depraved companions of a dissolute past, nor could he speak of kindred, unless he told her that it was because his mother was dying of hunger in a wretched hovel that he had spoken the mighty lie and taken payment for speaking it. I would not have you think that even now Michael felt any remorse for what he had done. He was not a man to act first and blush for his actions afterwards. He knew his action to be vile, but then he had known that ere he committed it, and knowing it had deliberately taken his course. Were it to be done all over again, he would do it; since she never could be his save by the great lie and the monstrous trick, then the lie must be spoken and the trick accomplished. For she meant love and purification; she meant the re-awakening of all that was holy in him and which the Creator infuses in every man be he cast into this world in a gutter or upon a throne. And he would make her happy, for he had gained her love, and a woman such as she hath but one love to give. She would never have loved Stowmaries, and not loving, she would have been unhappy. He had taken upon himself the outer shell of another man, and that was all; just another man's name, title and past history, nothing more. But it was his personality which had conquered her, his love which had roused hers. She loved--not an Earl of Stowmaries, the plighted husband of her babyhood. No! she loved him, Michael, the blackguard, the liar, the cheat an you will call him so; but she loved him, the man for all that. Therefore he felt no remorse, when he knelt beside her and during that exquisite hour of evening, when shadows flew across the moon, and the acacias whispered fairy tales of love and of brave deeds, he listened to her innocent prattle with a clear mind and a determined conscience, and the while she spoke to him of her simple past life, of her books and of her music, his ambition went galloping on into the land of romance. The title of Earl of Stowmaries which he had assumed, he could easily win now; the riches, the position, everything that could satisfy a woman's innocent vanity he would shower upon his snowdrop. She would have all that her parents wished for her, all and more, for she would have a husband who worshipped her, whose boundless love was built on the secure foundation of a great and lasting gratitude. It was in this same boundless gratitude that he kissed her hands now; those little hands which had been the exquisite channels through which had flown to him the pure waters of love and of happiness. How quaint she looked, with her fair hair almost wild round her little head. The dance first, then the ride through wind and space had loosened most of the puffs and curls from their prearranged places. That tired look round the eyes, the ring of dark tone which set off the pearly whiteness of her skin, the beads of moisture on her forehead, these gave her a strangely-pathetic air of frailty, which most specially appealed to Michael's rugged strength. Her white gown was torn here and there--Michael remembered catching his foot in it in the mazes of the dance--it was crumpled, too, and hung limply round her young figure, showing every delicate curve of the childlike form, every rounded outline of budding womanhood. Think you it was an easy task for Michael to keep his tempestuous passion in check, he who throughout his life had known no control save that of cruel necessity? Think you he did not long to take her in his arms, to cover those sweet lips with kisses, to frighten her with the overwhelming strength of his love and then to see fright slowly changing to trust and the scared look give way beneath the hot wave of passion. But with all that mad desire coursing through brain and blood, Michael knelt there at her feet, holding her hands, and listening to the flow of talk which like a cooling stream rippled in his ear. She asked him about England and about his home, and wanted to know if in springtime the white acacias were in bloom in Sussex, and if rosemary--her namesake--grew wild in the meadows. In the woods round Fontainebleau the ground was carpeted with anemones; were there such sweet white carpets in the English woods? Then she looked about her in the ugly, uninteresting little room and saw a broken-down harpsichord standing in a corner. She jumped up gay as a bird and ran to open it. There were several broken keys, and those that still were whole gave forth quaint, plaintive little sounds but she sang: "Si tu m'aimais, tu serais roi de la terre!" and he remained beside the window, with the cold breeze fanning his cheek, his head resting in his hand, and his eye piercing the gloomy corner of the room from whence came the heavenly song. Indeed! was he not king of all the world? Thus passed a delicious hour. Anon the coach--which originally should have brought the bridal pair hither, had not milor carried off the bride in such high-handed fashion--came lumbering up to the door. Prudent maman had despatched it off in the wake of the impetuous rider. It contained a bundle of clothes and change of linen for Rose Marie and had my lord's effects, too, in the boot. Rose Marie gave a little cry of delight when she realised maman's forethought, and then one of dismay for she suddenly became conscious of her disordered dress. The worthy hostess--fat, greasy and motherly, had entered, candle in hand, to announce the arrival of the coach. "Me and my man expected Monsieur and Madame to arrive in it," she explained volubly. "Monsieur's servant came yesterday to bespeak the rooms and to arrange for the stabling. I was so surprised when Monsieur arrived on horseback, so much earlier, too, than we had anticipated--else I had had supper ready ere this, for Monsieur and Madame must surely be hungry." "But supper must be ready by now, good Madame Blond," said Rose Marie blushing to hear herself called "Madame," "and I pray you have my effects taken to my room." "They are there already, so please you, my pigeon," said the amiable old soul, "and there is some water for washing your pretty face." "And will supper be ready soon?" she reiterated insistently for she was young and healthy, and had eaten very little for sheer excitement all day. "While you smooth out your golden curls, _ma mignonne_, I'll dish up the soup. Nay! but Monsieur is in luck's way!" she said, shaking her large round head. "Madame is the comeliest bride we have seen at St. Denis for a long time past. And they all come this way, you know--away from the prying eyes of kindly friends. Me and my man are so discreet!--especially if the bride be so pretty and the bridegroom so good to look at." She would have babbled on a long time, despite Monsieur's look of fretful impatience, but fortunately just then the hissing sound of an overflowing soup-pot came ominously through the open door. "Holy Joseph, patron of good housewives, defend us!" exclaimed Mme. Blond, making a dash for the door, "the croûte-au-pot is boiling over." Rose Marie made to follow her. "Need you go, my snowdrop?" he asked, loth to let her go. "Just to change my crumpled gown, and smooth my hair," she replied demurely. "You are so beautiful like this, I would not wish to see one single curl altered upon your head, or one fold changed upon your gown." She was standing against the table, the fingers of one hand resting lightly upon the blackened oak, her head bent slightly forward the while her blue eyes half sought, half shrank from his gaze. He went up to her, and drew her to him. The desire was irresistible and she almost called for that first kiss by her beauty, her innocence, her perfect girlishness which was so ready to give all bliss and to taste all happiness. He kissed her fair hair, her eyes, her delicate cheeks now suffused with blushes. Then with a look he asked for her lips and she understood and yielded them to him with a glad little sigh of infinite trust. The hand of time marked these heavenly minutes; surely the angels looked down from their paradise in envy at this earthly heaven. Outside the wind sighed amid the branches of the acacias, wafting into the room something of the pungent odour of this spring air, of the opening buds of poplars and of beeches and the languorous odour of newly-awakened life. Gently she tried to disengage herself from his arms. "I must go now," she whispered. "Not yet." "For a moment and I'll come back." "Not yet." "Let go, dear lord, for I would go." "Not till I've had another kiss." Happiness and the springtime of the earth, joy and life and love dancing hand in hand with youth! O Time, why dost not stop at moments such as this? The sighing of the reeds on the river bank came as the sound of a fairy lullaby, the scent of the spring reached the girl's nostrils like an intoxicant vapour, which clouded her brain. The room was quite dark, and she could scarcely see his face, yet she felt that his eyes perpetually asked a question, to which she could only respond by closing her own: "Tu m'aimes?" he whispered, and the heavy lids falling over ardent eyes made mute response to him. A confused sound of horses' hoofs outside, of shouts and calls from within roused them both from their dream. She succeeded now in disengaging herself from his arms, and still whispering: "I'll come back!" she retreated toward the door. Just as she reached it, the moon so long obscured burst forth in full glory from behind a bank of clouds, her rays came straight into the narrow room and lighted on the dainty figure of the girl standing with crumpled white dress and hair disarranged, cheeks rosy red and eyes full of promise and love against the dark background of the heavy oaken door. Michael looked upon her with longing, hungry eyes, drinking in every line of that delicately-moulded form, the graceful neck, the slender hands, the firm girlish shoulders on which the prim kerchief had become slightly disarranged. Then as she retreated further into the next room, she vanished from his sight; the door fell to behind her with a heavy, ominous sound, shutting out the radiant vision of Michael's cherished dream, leaving him on the other side of the heavenly portals, alone and desolate. Thus he saw her in full light, and lost her in the shadows. Something of the premonition of what was to come already held his heart as in a cold and cruel vice. When the door closed upon his dream, upon his Rose Marie, he knew by an unerring and torturing instinct that he would never, never see her quite as she had been just now. The Rose Marie who had left him was for remembrance. CHAPTER XXV Though doom keep always heaven and hell Irreconcilable, infinitely apart; Keep not in twain for ever heart and heart That once, albeit by not thy law, were one. --SWINBURNE. The next moment the door which gave on the landing was thrown open, and Michael stood face to face with M. Legros. Thus premonition had come true. Thus would nothing remain of the past delicious hour only remembrance and bitter, bitter longing for what could never be. The light of the one candle fell full upon the unromantic figure of the good tailor, on his pallid face whereon beads of perspiration told their mute tale of anxiety and of fulsome wrath. His eyes, dilated and tawny in colour were fastened full upon the reprobate, demanding above all things to know if the outraged father had perchance arrived too late. The man's gay wedding clothes were torn and awry; mud covered his shoes and stockings for he had not even stopped to be booted and spurred. The old English serving-man who had vainly tried earlier in the day to gain speech with the master tailor, had reached the august presence at last, and had handed to M. Legros the letter which was to be given to him and to no one else. It was written in a bold, clear hand and in scholarly French for the better understanding of Monsieur the tailor to the king. Mistress Peyton having penned a few ill-scrawled, ill-spelt words had bethought herself of a young Huguenot clerk of French parentage who earned his living in London by the work of his pen; and being desirous above all that M. Legros should fully comprehend her letter, she caused it to be translated and writ clearly by that same young clerk, ere she finally entrusted it to Daniel Pye for delivery. Thus it was that that which was written in the letter did not fail to reach the understanding of good Papa Legros. It was a full and detailed account of the treachery which had been perpetrated on the tailor's daughter by one Michael Kestyon, who was naught but a dissolute profligate, a liar and a cheat, since his own cousin was Earl of Stowmaries, and no one else had any right to such title but he. Papa Legros did not trouble to ask many questions, and since the English lout knew not a word of French, the good tailor took no further heed of him. He spoke to no one, not even to his wife. The letter said something which must be verified at once--at once--before it was too late. He gave orders that no one--least of all Mme. Legros--was to be disturbed, the merrimaking was to go on, the dancing, the eating and drinking, the speech making and all. Then he slipped out by the back door and reached the small outbuilding where he kept a horse, which served him on occasions when he had to go to Versailles to try on a pair of breeches for His Majesty the King. It took good M. Legros no time to saddle his horse, and a ride of over three hours had no terrors for him beside the awful fear which gripped his paternal heart. Before he left his home he detached from a nail on the wall of the shed an enormous stick with heavy leather thong, with which he at times administered castigation to refractory or evil-minded 'prentices. Then he mounted his horse and rode away in the fast-gathering twilight. He knew his way to St. Denis and to the inn whither he wished to go. He put his horse to a gentle canter and it was just past nine o'clock when he saw the light in the old tower of the Church of St. Denis. He was tired and stiff from riding, but he had sufficient control of himself to speak quietly to the host of the little inn, and to ask cheerfully of good Mme. Blond which room his daughter was occupying. The amiable old soul pointed the way up the stairs, then returned to her stock-pot with the cheerful comment that she would serve the soup in a few moments. Then Papa Legros went upstairs and pushing open the door stood face to face with Michael. With one hand he gripped the heavy stick with the stout leather thong on it, with the other he fumbled in the pocket of his surcoat until he found the letter again--the letter which was penned in such scholarly French by the Huguenot clerk, and which revealed such damnable treachery. But Papa Legros wanted above all to be fair. During the long, monotonous ride in the silence and darkness of this spring evening he had had time to collect his thoughts somewhat, to weigh the value of the anonymous writing, to think of milor as he had known him these past three weeks: gallant and plucky to a fault, proud, generous and brave; and now that he stood before the man, saw the noble bearing of the head, the fine dark eyes, the mouth that was so ready to smile or to speak gentle words, his terror fled from him, and though his voice still shook a little from the intensity of his emotion, he contrived to say quite quietly, as he held the crumpled letter out toward Michael: "My lord--you will forgive me--I know you will understand--but it is the child's happiness--and--and--my lord, will you read this letter and tell me if its contents are true?" Michael took the paper from him quite mechanically, for of course he had guessed its contents, but mayhap he had a vague desire to know who it was that had so wantonly destroyed his happiness. He went to the table and drew the flickering candle a little nearer, then bent his tall figure to read that cruel letter. The handwriting told him nothing, but the tale was plainly told. The avenging angel of God was already standing with flaming sword at the gate of his paradise, forbidding him ever to enter. He looked up from the letter to that black door behind which she was; it almost seemed as if his aching eyes could pierce the solid oak. She was there behind the door and he could never, never again go to her, he could never, never again hold her in his arms. Heaven had vanished and at his feet now yawned merciless, illimitable Hell. "My lord," and the trembling voice of the outraged father broke in upon his thoughts, "my lord, I still await your answer--I'll not believe that nameless scrawl--I ask your word--only your solemn word, my lord, and all my fears will vanish. Swear to me, my lord, on the innocent head of my darling child that this letter holds nothing but calumnies and I'll believe you, my lord--if you'll swear it on her golden head." Do you know that hush that to the imagination seems to fall upon the whole world just when a human heart is about to break? Michael felt that hush all around him now; the April wind ceased its moaning in the boughs of the young acacia trees, the reeds by the river bank sighed no longer in the breeze, awakened nature just for one moment fell back into winter-like sleep, and a shadow--blacker and more dense than any that can fall from an angry heaven over the earth--descended on Michael's soul. To swear--as he had sworn this morning at the foot of the altar? To swear by that most sacred thing upon God's earth, her sweet head?--no! "Will you swear, my lord, that this letter is but vile calumny?" And Michael gave answer loudly and firmly: "It is the truth!" Less like a man than like an infuriated beast, the meek man--now an outraged father--literally sprang forward with upraised arm wielding the heavy dog-whip, ready to strike the miscreant in the face. The proud, defiant head, noble even now in its humiliation, was bent without a murmur. Michael made no movement to avert the blow. "Will you not kill me instead?" was all the protest which he made. Legros' upraised hand fell nerveless by his side. He threw the stick away from him. He, poor soul, had never learned to control emotion, he had gone through no hard school wherein tears are jeered at, and sorrows unshared. He had never learned to be ashamed either of joy or of grief, and now, face to face with this man who had so deeply wronged him, and whom, despite his wrath, he was powerless to strike, he sank into a chair, and buried his face in his hands whilst a pitiful moan escaped his lips. "The child--the poor child--how shall I ever tell her? The shame of it all--the cruelty--the shame--how shall I tell her?" And Time's callous hand marked these minutes of terrible soul-agony, just as awhile ago it had marked the fleeting moments of celestial joy. Michael was silent, the while he wondered almost senselessly--stupidly--if Hell could hold more awful agony than he was enduring now. Yet through it all his turbulent soul rebelled at the situation, the sentimental parleyings, the pitiful grief of the father and the enforced humility of his own attitude. He knew that he had lost his Rose Marie, that the parents would never give her to him now; the solid and indestructible wall of bourgeois integrity stood between him and those mad, glad dreams of triumph and of happiness. It was characteristic of the man that he never for a moment attempted to guess or to find out the channel through which his own misery had come to him. He certainly never suspected his cousin of treachery. Fate had dealt the blow cruelly and remorselessly and sent him back to a worse hell than he had ever known; a hell which Satan reserves for those he hates the most--the way to it leads past the entrance to heaven. "Good M. Legros," said Michael at last, striving to curb his impatience and to speak with gentleness, "will you try and listen to me? Nay, you need not fear, 'tis not my purpose to plead justification, nor yet leniency--I wish that you could bring yourself to believe that though I wooed and won your daughter by what you think is naught but an abominable trick, I had one great thought above all others and that was that I would make her happy. This I do swear by the living God, and by what I hold dearer still, by the love which I bear to Rose Marie. And as there is a heaven above me, I would have made her happy, for I had gained her heart, and anon when the bonds of mine own boundless love had rivetted her still more closely to me, I should have taught her to forgive my venial sin of having entered heaven by a tortuous way. The name which I bear is mine own, the title which I have assumed is mine by right, I would have conquered it for myself and for her. You say that it is not to be--yet I swear to you that she will not be happy if you take her from me. This I know; if I did not I would go to her myself and tell her that I have lied to her. If despite what you know you will still confide her to me, you will never regret it to your dying day, for apart from the life of love and happiness which will be hers, I will lavish upon her all the treasures of satisfied ambition, far surpassing anything which you--her father--have ever wished for her." M. Legros despite his grief which had completely overmastered him for awhile, raised his head in absolute astonishment. Surely these English were the most astounding people in all the world! Here was this man who of a truth had committed the most flagrant, most impudent act of trickery, that had ever been perpetrated within memory of living man--he had done this thing and been ignominiously found out. By all the laws of decent and seemly behaviour he should now be standing humble and ashamed before the man whom he had tried to injure. And yet what happened? Here he stood, in perfect calm and undisguised pride, not a muscle of his face twitched with emotion, and his neck was as stiff as if he were exulting in some noble deed. Had these English no sense of what was fitting? had they no heart? no feelings? no blood within their veins? The man--so help us the living God!--was actually suggesting that his trickery be condoned, that an innocent child be entrusted to him, who stood convicted of falsehood and of treachery! Good M. Legros' Gallic blood boiled within him, overwhelming grief gave place to uncontrollable wrath. He rose to his feet, and pulled up his small stature to its uttermost height. "You will make her happy!" he thundered, throwing an infinity of withering scorn into every word. "You--who like a prying jackal came to steal the fledgling from its nest? You who took money with one hand, the while you snatched a girl's honour with the other? With lying lips and soft, false words you stole our child's heart--even until father and mother were forgotten for the sake of the liar and the cheat who--" Michael held up a quick warning hand, and instinctively the insults died on the other man's lips. Rose Marie--white as the clinging, crumpled gown which she had hastily refastened when anon she heard her father's voice raised in angered scorn--Rose Marie silent and still, and with great eyes fixed on Michael Kestyon, was standing in the doorway. At sight of her good M. Legros' grief swept over him with renewed force. Once more he sank into a chair, and buried his face in his hands whilst a moan of painful soul-agony escaped his lips. "The child!--the child! My God how to tell her!" But Rose Marie's voice came quite clear and distinct, there was no catch in her throat, nor tremor in the gentle tones as she said quietly: "Nay! my dear father, an there is aught to tell--milor will best know how to say it to me." CHAPTER XXVI As the dawn loves the sunlight, I love thee. --SWINBURNE. Papa Legros at first had been too dazed to protest. Truly his loving heart had been for hours on the rack at thought of the awful task which lay before him--the opening of his child's eyes to the monstrous trick played upon her by the man to whom her innocent heart had turned in perfect love and in perfect trust. He, the father, who worshipped this dainty, delicately-nurtured daughter, who had spent the past twenty years of an arduous life in trying to smooth away every unevenness from the child's pathway of life, now suddenly saw himself like unto the scarlet-clad executioner, rope and branding irons in hand, forced to bind his beloved one on the rack, and himself to apply the searing torture of sorrow and of shame to her soul. The child's calm words as she stood confronting the miscreant had almost brought relief. Why indeed should not the villain accomplish his own unmasking? Papa Legros hating the man who had done him and his child an infinite wrong, had a sufficiency of perception in him to realise, with that subtle cruelty of which the meek are alone capable, that he could not inflict more exquisite torture on his enemy than by forcing him to stand self-convicted before the child. Just for the moment--and truly he may be forgiven for it--all that was good and kind in the gentle nature of the tailor had been ousted by his wrath as a father and as a man. He had found himself unable to strike the liar just now; but he longed for the power to torture his very soul, to bring him to the dust in sorrow and humiliation, to see the proud head down in the mud of abject shame. Great God! did you not know that Papa Legros had learned to love this man like he would his own son, and that the grief which he felt was in part for Rose Marie and in part for the miscreant who had twined himself around his heartstrings, and whom he cherished the while he longed to chastise him with infinite cruelty? "Father dear," said Rose Marie after a slight pause, "will you not allow me to speak with milor alone?" "I would not trust thee one second in his keeping, child, now I know him for what he is." "You need have no fear, dear," she rejoined calmly, "and 'twere best methinks for us all if milor were to tell me himself all that I ought to know." The candle flickered low, and Michael stood back amidst the shadow; thus the good tailor failed to see if his own shaft had gone home--if it had pierced that armour of stolid English indifference which the descendant of Gallic forebears found so difficult to comprehend. Certain it is that Michael raised no protest, and that not even a sigh escaped him as this final insult was hurled at him with the utmost refinement of vengeful cruelty. Rose Marie went up to her father and placed her small cool hands on his. Then with gentle persuasion she drew him up. He yielded to her, for vaguely at the bottom of his heart, he knew that he could trust the man whom he loved and hated, yet even now could not wholly despise. For one moment as father and daughter stood side by side, he took her in his arms and kissed her forehead. She rested against him cold and placid, and when he released her from his embrace she took his rough toil-worn hand and kissed it tenderly. Then with supreme yet irresistible gentleness she led him out of the room. As he passed close to Michael he held out the fateful letter to him. "You will show her that," he almost commanded. "An you wish it," replied the other, as he took the letter from him. A curious instinct prompted Michael to blow out the flickering light, just as Rose Marie, having closed the door behind her father, turned back into the room. He went up to her, but she retreated a step or two at his approach, and of her own accord went to the window seat, there where a brief hour ago she had sat with him in perfect communion and perfect happiness. The casement was still open, and the moon which had been so fitful throughout the evening poured her cold radiance straight on the dainty silhouette of the girl, just as she had done awhile ago, ere the gates of paradise were closed and the angels had ceased to sing their glad hosannas! Outside, the sighing of the reeds and the moaning of the wind in the young acacias made a sound as of innumerable feet of restless spirits stirring the dead leaves of an unforgettable past. "That letter, milor," said Rose Marie, "will you give it me--since my father hath so commanded." Without a word he handed the paper to her, and when he saw that she could not read it--for the room was dark and the rays of the moon not sufficiently bright--he took out his tinder-box and relighted the guttering candle. Then as the wind blew the feeble flame hither and thither he shielded it with his hand, and held the candle so that she might read and yet not move from that window seat. She read the letter through to the end, and while she read he could see the top of her head bent down to the paper, and the wealth of those fair curls which he would never again be allowed to kiss. When she had finished reading, she looked up and he threw the candle far away out through the window. "Then you had lied to me," was all that she said; and she said it so calmly, so quietly, like the true snow maiden which she had once more become, now that he who alone had the power to turn the snow to living fire, was proved to be treacherous and false. Then she folded up the letter and slipped it under her kerchief. Stately and tall as the water lilies on the pond which he had once described to her--she drew up her slender figure and held her little head erect. She did not look in his direction but rose slowly and turned to go out of the room. "Rose Marie," he called out to her in an involuntary moan of agony. Instinctively his hand went out to her as she passed, and clutched the crumpled wedding dress which seemed to wrap her in, now like a shroud. She tried to disengage her gown, but as he held it tight she desisted, standing there cold and impassive, a woman turned to ice. "Rose Marie!" he whispered, "my own little snowdrop, will you be so unyielding now? Awhile ago do you remember, you yielded to the sweetness of a first kiss?" "And yet you lied to me," she said slowly, tonelessly, the while her eyes sought the distant horizon far away, where astride on the cold grey mists unreached by the tender light of the moon, her dreams of happiness were fleeting quickly away. He drew himself up and caught her to him with a masterful gesture of possession. He felt her body rigid and impassive at his touch, stiffening in a backward motion away from him behind that massive stone wall of awful finality which had so mercilessly risen between her and him. He felt that he was losing her, that she was slipping away from him--slipping--up, up to some cold and unresponsive heaven, peopled with stern angels, whose great white wings would soon enclose her and hide her from him forever. He felt that he was losing her, not with that same bitter-sweet sense of sadness as he did just now when the savour of her exquisite lips still clung to his own, and she retreated out of his sight like a perfect vision of beauty. Now an almost savage longing was in him not to let her go, to keep her to him at any cost, any sacrifice, even that of his own self-control. There was enough power in his own ardent love for her so to bind her to him that she could never, never leave him. "My beautiful crimson rose," he murmured, drawing her closer, closer, even while he felt that with her whole gentle strength she opposed an icy calm to the warm glow of his passion, "turn your dear eyes to me, just for one brief moment. Oh! think, think of the past few days when first our hearts, our souls, our entire beings met in perfect accord. Look at me, my dear, sweet soul, am I not the man to whom you have listened so oft, sitting at your harpsichord, the while he whispered to you the first words of love? Look, look, my dear, mine eyes, are they not the same?--my lips have they not met yours in one sublime, unforgettable kiss? You were a child, ere your soul met mine--now you are a woman, 'tis I who applied the magic fire to your heart, 'tis I who kindled the flame of your pure love; you are no longer a child now, Rose Marie, you are an exquisitely beautiful woman, and I love you with every fibre of my body, with every aspiration of my soul--" "And yet you lied to me." "And would lie again, would sin again a thousand times, since my sin gave you to me. Sweetheart, if I have sinned, yet have I expiated already--one cold look from your dear eyes hath caused me more acute agony than the damned can ever suffer in Hell. My love--my love--do you understand what you mean to me? Have you realised the exquisite gift--your perfect womanhood--which you would snatch from me? I was a wastrel, a thief, a miserable degraded wretch--awhile ago when I held you in my arms I was king of all the world. By my sin I won you! Great God, then is not my sin the greatest, grandest and most glorious deed ever accomplished by man--in order to gain a heaven?" But with all his ardour, all his savage strength of will and of purpose, Michael was but bruising his heart against a solid stone wall. Perhaps if Rose Marie had been a little older, a little more sophisticated, a little more wearied in the ways of men, she might have yielded to the love of the man, and closed her eyes to the deeds of the sinner. Whatever else he had done, she would easily have forgiven--nay! she would never have judged--but it was the betrayal of her trust which turned her heart to stone. Of course she had not had time as yet to think. In the letter which he had given her she had read the awful account of that transaction wherein she appeared as a mere chattel tossed from one hand to another, paid for with money like a bale of goods. Oh! the shame of it! And he, to whom she had given her entire heart and soul, to whom she was ready to yield herself absolutely and completely had bought her at a price. Love? She no longer believed in it. If he had lied to her, then neither love nor purity nor manhood existed on God's earth--and this was no vale of tears but one of infinite shame. She looked down on him with just such a cold look in her eyes as he had compared to the infliction of the tortures of the damned. She knew that physically she would be too weak to resist him, and she would scorn to call out to her father. This she tried to convey to him by that cold look and by the perfect placidity of her demeanour. For one moment he was conscious of the wild desire to snatch his happiness from out the burning brand even now, and to take her in his arms and ride away with her into the land of forgetfulness. The wind in the trees seemed to call out to him not to let her go, and the reeds murmured as they bent their heavy heads that she would forgive everything after another kiss. "Rose Marie!" Something of what was passing in his mind must have reached her inner consciousness. She was quite woman enough to know that here was no ephemeral passion, no flame of desire extinguished as soon as born. He loved her and she loved him, that was as true, as incontestable as that--in her understanding--the treacherous act which he had committed now stood irremediably between them, whilst to his wild and rugged sense of the overwhelming grandeur of love, nothing could or should ever part him from her. In her eyes the betrayal was greater than the love which--in his--had by its very existence atoned for everything. But throughout her deeply resentful feeling of wrong done to her and hers there was mayhap an unconscious sense of weakness, a desire to bring forth a greater array of will power and set it up against the insinuating persuasion of his voice, the insidious magic of his touch. Certain it is that she felt suddenly compelled to break the rigid silence which throughout his impassioned pleading she had so deliberately imposed upon herself. Held in his nervy grip, she could not altogether withdraw from him, but her eyes, cold and calm sought his in the gloom. "My lord," she said quietly and firmly, "since I know you by no other name, therefore still my lord to me, I would have you recall the day when sitting in my father's house, you whiled away an idle afternoon by telling a foolish maid the pretty allegory of water lilies growing on the weedy pond at Cluny, and of the slime which oozes from unclean things and pollutes the white petals of the flowers. 'Twas a pretty tale and no doubt it afforded you much amusement to see the look of puzzledom in the eyes of an ignorant tailor's wench. Well, my lord! the wench is no longer ignorant now--she understands the rude imagery, her eyes have seen such pollution, such miserable corruption as will forever leave them tainted with the villainy which they have seen. Whoever you are, sir, I know not--what other deeds of evil and disgrace you may have committed I care not--I only pray God that we may never meet again. You no doubt will find pleasures elsewhere, some other flower to pollute with your touch, some other heart to break. That you brought shame upon me, mayhap God will one day forgive you, I could perchance have forgiven you that had your sin rested there, but you tried to bring dishonour on my father's house. You did succeed in bringing sorrow and shame into it. My father and mother, who loved you almost as a son, will never again hold their heads high among their kind; a dishonoured daughter--for I am that now, for my true husband will cast me off as a woman unfit to be his mate--a dishonoured daughter is a lasting curse upon a house. That is your work, stranger, whoever you are; and this deed like unto the treachery which by a kiss brought the beloved Master to death upon the Cross, cries out to heaven for punishment; it is writ on the very front page in the book of the recording angel, and all the tears which you may shed, all the blood and all the atonement could not now wipe that front page clean. All this I do know, and yet one thing more: and that is that you do err when you speak of my love for you. To you who have lied, who with soft words and false pretences did enter my father's house and stole that which is most precious to us humble folk, our honour and the integrity of our name, to such as that, I gave no love. 'Tis true that I did love a man once--for one brief hour he lived in my heart but nowhere else. He was true and loyal, too proud to lie, too noble to steal. He has vanished like the mist, leaving no trace of his passage, for my heart wherein he dwelt is broken, and even his memory hath faded from my ken--" Her voice died away like a long-drawn-out sigh, mingling with the murmur of the reeds and the moaning as of lost souls gliding through the branches of the acacias in their restless wandering through infinite space. The next moment she was gone, leaving in Michael's trembling hands a scrap of torn lace, a tiny shred of her gown. All that was left of her--and the savour of a bitter memory--rosemary for remembrance! CHAPTER XXVII Such a deal of wonder is broken out within this hour That ballad-makers cannot be able to express it. --A WINTER'S TALE V. 2. It was about an hour later that a hired coach brought three English gentlemen to the small inn at St. Denis. M. Blond was much perturbed. He was not accustomed to foreigners at any time and he held the English theoretically in abhorrence, and now here were four of these milors actually under his roof at one and the same time. The three who had last arrived in the coach from Paris carried matters off in a very high-handed fashion and seemed ready to throw money about in a manner which was highly satisfactory to the bedraggled and seedy married couple who--besides the landlord and his spouse--formed the sum total of the personnel at the Sign of "Three Archangels" in St. Denis. Sir John Ayloffe had assumed the leadership of the small party. He gave his own name to the landlord, and added that he and his two friends had come to pay their respects to my lord of Stowmaries, but lately arrived with his young bride. Now can you wonder at good M. Blond's perturbation? The incidents which had crowded in at the Sign of the "Three Archangels" in the past half hour were enough to furnish food for gossip for many a long evening to come. In point of fact M. and Mme. Blond had just started talking the whole sequence of events over from the beginning when the coach arrived with the three English milors, nor had the worthy couple had any chance of comparing impressions on these same mysterious events. Firstly there had been the extraordinary arrival of the bride and bridegroom, who of a truth had been expected, since relays for the next day's journey had been sent to the "Three Archangels" the day before, but they certainly had not been expected under such amazing circumstances, the English milor's horse covered with lather, and the bride in her wedding gown all crumpled and soiled, clinging to her newly-wedded husband in front of his saddle, and in a vastly uncomfortable position. This astonishing arrival of a bride and bridegroom who were reputed to be passing wealthy had of course vastly upset mine good host and his amiable wife. But then English milors were known to be eccentric, in fact most folk who had travelled in the fog-ridden country vowed that all the people there were more or less mad. 'Twas but lately that they had cut off the head of their king and set up a low-born soldier to rule them. No wonder that King Louis--whom _le bon Dieu_ preserve!--was greatly angered with these English, and only forgave them when they returned to their senses and once more acknowledged the authority of him who was their king by right divine. Worthy Monsieur Blond had explained all these matters to his buxom wife in an off-hand yet comprehensive manner, the while the latter made haste to hurry on the preparations for supper, for the pretty bride and the English milor--deeply in love with one another though they were, as any one who looked could see--had shown a very sensible and laudable desire to have some of Mme. Blond's excellent croûte-au-pot to warm the cockles of their young hearts. The second incident on this eventful evening was of minor importance, and tended greatly to minimise the eccentricity of that romantic arrival. The coach which should have brought the bridal pair to the "Three Archangels" did come in due time--even whilst Mme. Blond was preparing her bit of fricandeau garnished with fresh winter cabbage, which was to be the second course at the bridal supper. The thoughtful mother of the love-sick bride had had the good sense to send her daughter's effects along, and all recollection of the curious arrival on horseback was forgotten before the prosy advent of boxes and bundles of clothes. Mme. Blond, moreover, became fully satisfied that everything was right as right could be, when she went upstairs to announce the arrival of the coach. The bride's pretty face was as pink as the eglantine in June, and her eyes brighter than the full moon outside, whilst milor--ah, well, Mme. Blond had seen many a man in love in her day, Blond himself had not been backward when he was courting her--but never, never, had she seen a man so gloating on the sight of his young wife, as that eccentric mad milor had done, the while the pretty dear was prosily asking for supper. All then had been for the best at nine of the clock that evening, but mark ye, what happened after that. Less than ten minutes later a rider--obviously half exhausted from a long and wearying journey--drew rein outside the "Three Archangels." M. Blond who more than once had been in Paris, had no difficulty in recognising in the belated traveller Master Legros, tailor in chief to His Majesty the King, and the father of the pretty bride upstairs. Master Legros undoubtedly did not look like himself, though he did try to assume a jaunty air as he asked to be shown the room wherein his daughter and milor would presently be supping. It seemed a fairly simple incident at the time, this late arrival here of the bride's father, though Mme. Blond in thinking over the matter afterwards distinctly remembered that the fact did strike her as odd. What should good M. Legros be doing at St. Denis at this tardy hour, when most good citizens should be in bed, and when he had given his paternal blessing to the young couple fully four hours ago? "Milor's best suit of clothes had not been finished in time for the departure, and Maitre Legros brought it along himself," suggested M. Blond placidly. But he scratched his dark poll while he made this suggestion knowing it to be nonsense. Mme. Blond's premonitions proved to be correct. Half an hour elapsed, the while she and Blond took turns on the upstairs landing to try and hear something of what was going on inside that room, wherein awhile ago the turtle doves had been cooing so prettily. The croûte-au-pot had been ready ages ago but no one had asked for it. No sound penetrated through the heavy oaken doors; only once had Mme. Blond heard a voice raised in what seemed most terrible anger. She then fled incontinently back to her kitchen. A quarter of an hour later M. Legros gave orders that the coach which had brought his daughter's effects an hour previously, be got ready at once, and that those horses be put to it that had been sent down the day before with a view to the continuance of the journey to Havre. He gave no explanation, of course, nor answered any of the discreet questions put to him by Mme. Blond. He tried to swallow some hot soup, but gave up the attempt after the third spoonful; he looked as white as a sheet, and trembled like a poplar leaf in the breeze. Presently the young bride came down the stairs. She still wore her wedding gown under her thick dark cloak. Mme. Blond noticed how crumpled it looked and that a great piece of the beautiful lace was torn off. But she wore her hood closely wrapped round her head, so neither Monsieur nor Madame could see anything of her face; nor did she speak any words, save a short "Thank you!" to Mme. Blond, and this she said in a curious, husky voice as if her throat were choked. Maitre Legros paid lavishly for everything. The bride's boxes and bundles were once more stowed away in the boot of the coach; then she and her father stepped into the vehicle, the postillion cracked his whip, there was a scraping of iron hoofs on the rough paving stones, a clanking of chains, a shout or two and the lumbering coach turned out toward the highroad and was quickly lost to sight in the gloom. After that nothing! Not a sound came from the room where the English milor had remained alone. Mme. Blond at her wits' ends what to do or how to interpret the remarkable series of incidents which had occurred beneath her roof, had thought of knocking at milor's door and asking him if he would have some supper. Her mind--which as her good man was wont to say--was ever inclined to romance, had seen horrible visions of a bleeding corpse lying prone upon the parlour floor. Suicide must have followed this forcible abduction by an infuriated father, of the ardently worshipped bride. Great was her astonishment, perhaps also her disappointment, when in answer to a peremptory "Come in" she went into the room and saw milor standing there by the open window looking out upon the moonlit landscape for all the world as if nothing had happened. "There he was," she explained somewhat irately to her man, for she felt almost as if she had been cheated out of the most thrilling chapter of her romance, "dressed in his beautiful bridal clothes, with arms folded across his chest, and not a hair on his head the least bit ruffled. Ah! these English! they have no heart. I thought to find him either with a sword thrust through his heart, else a man mad and raving with grief. Holy Virgin! Had my father taken me away from thee, my Blond, on the very night of our wedding day, wouldst thou not have been crazy with rage, even if thou hadst not actually committed suicide? There's heart for thee! There's love! But not in these English! And wilt believe me that when I said something to milor about supper, he did not even curse me, but said quite quietly that he had no hunger." Well now! does not all that give furiously to think? Milor had no hunger, the bride had gone and the supper was ready. What could Mme. Blond do better than to dish up the croûte-au-pot and the fricandeau with the winter cabbage and to serve it to her man? Monsieur Blond took off his heavy boots and donned a pair of cloth slippers, he covered his dark hair with a warmly-fitting cap and drew the most comfortable chair to the table, preparatory to enjoying a supper fit for an English milor. But he was not destined to enjoy more than a preliminary sniff at the succulent croûte-au-pot. Mme. Blond had been very talkative and the dishing-up process consequently slow, and at the very moment when good M. Blond was conveying the first spoonful of soup to his mouth there was a loud noise of wheels grating against the slipper, the cracking of a whip and a good deal of shouting; all of which were unmistakable signs that more mysterious travellers had chosen this eventful night for their arrival at the "Three Archangels." CHAPTER XXVIII What whisperest thou? Nay, why Name the dead hours? I mind them well: Their ghosts in many darkened doorways dwell With desolate eyes to know them by. --DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. Michael Kestyon had paid no heed to the noise of this last arrival. Indeed he had heard nothing since that one awful noise, the departure of the coach which bore her away from him. How long ago that was he could not say. It might have been a moment or a cycle of years. Just before it he had had his last glimpse of her. She crossed the room in company with her father, who had come up to fetch her. She was wrapped from head to foot in cloak and hood; all that he could see of her was her torn wedding gown. He made no movement as she walked past him, and though his whole soul called out her name, his lips uttered no sound. What were the use? If she did not hear the silent call of love, no words could move her. "Even his memory hath faded from my ken." Michael vaguely remembering the sacred tale told him in his childhood by his mother of how God had hurled His sinful angels from Heaven down to Hell, could not recall that in His anger He had used words that were quite so cruel. Well, that page in life had been written, the book was closed. One brief glimpse at possible happiness, one tiny chink open in the gates of paradise, and then once more the weary tramp along the road which leads to misery on this earth, to perdition hereafter. The gambler had staked his all upon one venture and had lost. But Michael Kestyon was not made of the mould which rots in a suicide's grave or harbours a brain which goes crazy with grief. A weaker man would have felt regrets, a better man would have been racked with remorse. Michael with her words ringing in his ears thought only of redemption. "My father and mother, who loved you as their son, will never again hold their heads high among their kind--for a dishonoured daughter is a lasting curse upon a house. That is your work, stranger--it is writ on the front page in the book of the recording angel, and all the tears which you may shed, all the blood and all the atonement could not now wipe that front page clean." The gambler in losing all had, it seems, involved others in his ruin; innocent people who had loved and trusted him. The debt which he had thus contracted would have to be paid to them, not in the coin which Michael had tendered--since it had been dross in their sight--but in coin which would compensate them for all that they had lost. And it was because of the future redemption of that great debt, because of all that there was yet to do, that Michael held such a tight rein over his reason, the while it almost tottered beneath the crushing blow. Nor did he allow the thought of suicide to dwell in his mind. Yet madness and death--the twin phantoms born of cowardice--lurked within the dark shadows of the low-raftered room, after Rose Marie's last passage along the uneven floor when her torn wedding gown swept over the boards with a sighing and swishing sound, which would reverberate in Michael's heart throughout eternity. From beneath the lintel of that oaken door which had clanged to behind her, the spectre of madness grinned into the deserted room, and beckoned to the man who stood there in utter loneliness; and on the window-sill whereat she had sat awhile ago the gaunt shadow of suicide whispered the alluring words: Rest! Forgetfulness! Rest! Forgetfulness! Michael did not flee from the twin demons. He called them to his side and looked fully and squarely at their hideous, alluring forms. Madness and Death! Destruction of the mind or of the body. Both would blot her image from his soul. Madness enticed by drink would mean the bestial forgetfulness of heavy sleep and addled intellect. Death would mean infinite peace. The struggle 'twixt devils and the man was fierce and short. Anon the crouching spectres vanished into the night; and the man stood there in splendid isolation with the memory of a great crime and of a brief joy for sole companion of his loneliness. But the man was a man for all that; body and mind were still the slaves of his will, not for the carving of his own fortune now, not for the spinning of the web of Fate, but bound and fettered under the heel of an iron determination to wipe out the writing on that front page in the book of the recording angel; not by tears, not by blood and cringing atonement, but by deeds and acts dark if necessary, heroic always, by vanquishing the wrongs of the past with the triumphant redemption to come. In this mood the good landlady of the "Three Archangels" found him and marvelled at British indifference in the face of a love tragedy. And he was still in this selfsame mood half an hour or so later when my lord of Stowmaries and his friends came upon the solitary watcher in the night. Michael had not eaten, nor had he relinquished his place by the open window, for it seemed to his over-sensitive mind as if the sound of those wheels which bore his snowdrop further and further away from him echoed against the distant bank of storm-portending clouds, and though the heartrending sound reverberated within him like unto the grinding of the rack which tears the limbs and martyrizes the body, yet it still seemed something of her, the last memory, the final farewell. It was past ten o'clock now, and of a surety Michael thought that he must have fallen asleep, dreaming by that open window, when the sudden noise of several familiar voices, a loud if somewhat forced laugh, and the peremptory throwing open of the door brought the dreamer back to the exigencies of the moment. The aspect of the room was almost weird, dark and gloomy with only the slanting moonbeams to touch with pale and capricious light the tall, solitary figure in the window embrasure. For a moment the three men paused beneath the lintel, their volatile imagination strangely gripped by the picture before them, that dark silhouette against the moonlit landscape beyond, the total air of desolation and loneliness which seemed to hang like a pall even in the gloom. Sir John Ayloffe was the first to shake himself free from this unwonted feeling of superstitious awe: "Friend Michael, by the Mass!" he shouted with somewhat forced jocoseness. "Still astir, and like the love-sick poet contemplating the moon." The loud words broke the spell of subtle and weird magic which seemed to pervade the place. Michael Kestyon gave a start and turned abruptly away from the window. "Are we welcome, Michael?" added Lord Rochester pleasantly. "Or do we intrude?" Michael whose surprise at seeing the three men had been quite momentary, now came forward with outstretched hands. "Not in the least," he said cordially, "and ye are right welcome. I had thoughts of going to bed and yet was longing for merry company, little guessing that it would thus unexpectedly fall from heaven. And may I ask what procures St. Denis the honour of this tardy visit from so distinguished a company?" "The desire to see you, Cousin," here interposed Lord Stowmaries, "and if you'll allow us, to sup with you, for we were not invited to your wedding feast, remember, and have not enjoyed the worthy tailor's good cheer." "We have not tasted food since the middle of the day," added Ayloffe, "and that was none of the best." "But mayhap Michael hath supped," suggested Lord Rochester, who contrary to his usual freedom of manner and speech seemed unaccountably reticent for the nonce. "Nay, nay! And if I had I could sup again in such elegant company," rejoined Michael. "But I was dreaming indeed since I was forgetting that we were still in the dark. Our amiable host must bring us light as well as food. It will give me much pleasure to see your amiable faces more clearly." Even as he spoke he went to the door, and soon his calls to Mme. Blond for lights and supper echoed pleasantly through the house. The three others were left staring at one another in blank surprise. They had not thought of putting questions to mine host on their arrival, but had merely and somewhat peremptorily ordered M. Blond to show them up to the room occupied by their friend, the English milor. They, therefore, knew nothing of what had happened, but all three of them vaguely felt--by a curious, unexplainable instinct--that something was amiss, and knew that Michael's attitude of serene indifference was only an assumed rôle. "Strike me dead but there's something almost uncanny about the man," said Lord Rochester, forcing a laugh. "Something has happened of course," rejoined Ayloffe, "but nothing to concern us. Mayhap an early quarrel with the bride." "'Tis strange, forsooth, to find the bridegroom alone at this hour," added Stowmaries, whilst the refrain of a ribald song rose somewhat affectedly to his lips. But Rochester quickly checked him, for Michael's footstep was heard on the landing. The latter now entered, closely followed by M. Blond who carried a couple of candelabra of heavy metal and fitted with tallow candles. These he soon lighted and the flickering yellow flames quickly dispersed the gloom which lingered in the corners of the room. They threw into full relief the faces of the four men, three of whom retained an expression of great bewilderment, whilst the fourth looked serene and placid, as if the entertaining of his friends was for nonce the most momentous thing in his existence. Michael went to the window and with a quick, impatient gesture he pulled the curtains together, shutting out the moonlit landscape and the silhouette of the trees, whose soft sighs had been the accompaniment to the murmur of her voice; mayhap he had a thought of shutting out at the same time the very remembrance of the past. Then he turned once more to the others and his face now was a perfect mirror of jovial good-humour as he said gaily: "I hope, gentlemen, that you are anhungered. As for me I could devour a wilderness of frogs, so be it that it is the only food of which this remarkable country can boast. I pray you sit. Supper will not be long--and in the meanwhile tell me, pray, the latest gossip in London." The company settled itself around the table. Every one was glad enough to be rid of the uncanny sensation of awhile ago. M. Blond in the meanwhile had bustled out of the room but he soon reappeared bearing platters and spoons, and, what was more to the purpose, pewter mugs and huge tankards of good red wine. Close behind him came his portly spouse holding aloft with massive, outstretched arms, the monumental tureen whence escaped the savoury fumes of her famous croûte-au-pot. Loud cheers greeted the arrival of the worthy pair. Mme. Blond quickly fell to, distributing the soup with no niggardly hand, the while her man made the round, filling the mugs with excellent wine. Gossip became general. Rochester as usual was full of anecdotes, bits of scandal and gossip, retailed with a free tongue and an inexhaustible fund of somewhat boisterous humour. The soup was beyond reproach and the wine more than drinkable. "Gad's 'ounds," he cried presently when Blond and his wife had retired, leaving the English company to itself, "this is a feast fit for the gods! Michael Kestyon, our amiable host, I raise my glass to thee! Gentlemen, our host!" He raised his glass, Stowmaries following suit; but Ayloffe checked them both with a peremptory lifting of his hand. "Nay, nay!" he said, "my lord Rochester you do forget--and you, too, gentlemen! Fie on you, fie, I say! Not a drop shall pass your lips until you have pledged me as you should. 'Tis I will give you the first toast of the evening. Gentlemen, the bride!" There was loud clapping of mugs against the table, then lusty shouts of "The bride! the bride!" The three men raised their bumpers and drained them to the last drop, honouring the toast to the full. Sir John looked keenly at Michael, but even his sharp, observant eyes could not detect the slightest change in the calm and serene face. Michael, too, had raised his mug, but Ayloffe noted that he did not touch the wine with his lips. Shrewd Sir John ever alive to his own interests fell to speculating as to what had gone amiss, and whether any event had been likely to occur which would affect his own prospects in any way. Mistress Peyton's twelve thousand pounds had not yet--remember,--been transferred to Cousin John's pocket, and no one was more profoundly aware of the truth of the old dictum that "there's many a slip--" than was Sir John Ayloffe himself. But there was naught to read on Michael Kestyon's placid face, only the vague suspicion of carefully concealed weariness; and in Ayloffe's practical mind there was something distinctly unnatural in the serene calm of a man who was richer to-day by one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, not even to mention an excessively pretty and well-dowered bride. Sir John, relying on his own powers of observation, had every intention of probing this matter to the bottom, but in the meanwhile he thought it best not to let the others see, too clearly, what he himself had only vaguely guessed, therefore it was he again who shouted more lustily even than before: "Now the bridegroom, gentlemen! I give you the bridegroom! Long live! Long live I say!" He was on his feet waving his mug with every lusty shout. Then he drained it once more to the last drop, Stowmaries and Rochester doing likewise, for time-honoured custom demanded that such toasts must be responded to right heartily. Michael however made no acknowledgment as he should have done. He sat quite still with slender, nervy fingers idly toying with the crumbs on the table. "Respond, Michael, respond," cried Lord Rochester who seemed to have quite shaken off his former diffidence. "Man, are you in the clouds?--Of a surety," he continued with a knowing wink directed at his friends, "'twere no marvel on this eventful night, and with a pretty bride awaiting her lord not thirty paces away on the other side of that door. We saw her in church, Michael, and by Gad, man, you are a lucky dog! But we did drink to the bridegroom and--" "And I, too, drink to him," interposed Michael loudly, as he rose to his feet, bumper in hand and turned directly to his Cousin Stowmaries, "to you, my lord and cousin do I drink--the only bridegroom worthy of such a bride." To say the least of it, this speech was vastly astonishing. No one quite knew how to take it, and as Michael drained his cup Stowmaries broke into a forced laugh. "You do flatter me, Coz," he said, feeling strangely uncomfortable under the other's steady gaze, and realising that some sort of reply was expected of him, "but of a truth the flattery is misplaced. The bride is yours and you have won her by fair means; and I, in my turn, will add something to my lord Rochester's toast--something which, an I mistake not, will be vastly acceptable to you--a draft for seventy thousand pounds on my banker, Master Vivish of Fleet Street. The final payment of my debt to you." And Stowmaries took a paper from the pocket of his surcoat and handed it to Michael, who made no movement to take it. "Cousin," he said, "when I accepted the bargain which you offered me, I was more deeply in my cups than I myself had any idea of. Let us admit that 'twas an ignoble bargain, shameful alike to me and to you. Now I would pray you to return that draft to your pocket; 'tis but little I have spent of that first fifty thousand pounds, the balance of what remains you shall have on my return to London, as for the rest--that which I have so foolishly spent--I pray you to grant me a few months delay and I will repay you to the full. Thus we two who made the bargain, and these two gentlemen who witnessed it, will cease to have aught but a dim recollection of the shameful doings of a mad and roisterous night." Silence greeted this strange speech. The beginning of it had at once awakened surprise, the end left the three men there present in a state of complete puzzlement. Stowmaries frankly gazed at Michael with wide-open eyes wherein good-humoured contempt fought with utter amazement. Then as no one spoke, Michael added quietly: "I await your answer, Cousin." "Tush, man, you are joking," retorted Stowmaries with a shrug of the shoulders. "I never was more serious in my life," rejoined the other with deep earnestness, "and 'tis a serious answer that I ask of you." "But I know not to what your lengthy speech did tend, how can I give it answer?" "I asked you to put that draft for money yet unpaid into your pocket; I propose to repay you in full every penny of that which this folly hath already cost you, and you on the other hand can fulfil your obligations to the lady who, of a truth, is still legally your wife." "Hold on, man, hold on!" cried Stowmaries almost in dismay, for it seemed to him that his cousin was bereft of his senses. "Odd's fish! But you talk like a madman--and a dangerous one, too, for you use words which, were I not your guest, I could not help but resent." "There is naught to resent, Cousin, in what I say, nor is it the act or speech of a madman to ask you to rescind a bargain which tended neither to your honour nor to mine own." "But, by the Mass, Cousin, the bargain good or bad, righteous or shameful, is no longer in the making. Even were I so minded--which by our Lady I vow that I am not--I could not now release you of your pledged word to me. What is done, is done, and you have fulfilled your share of the bargain. Now 'tis my turn as an honourable gentlemen to acquit myself of my debt to you. So I pray you take the money--it is justly yours--but do not prate any further nonsense." "Ay! ay! friend Kestyon," added Ayloffe with his habitual bonhomme, through which nevertheless the cloven hoof of sarcasm was quite perceptible, "do not allow your over-sensitive conscience to persuade you into refusing what is justly your due." "Odd's fish, man, you have won the bride and thereby rendered Stowmaries an incomparable service," quoth Lord Rochester decisively, "and--" He was about to say more but Michael interrupted him. "I pray you, gentlemen," he said, "grant me patience for awhile; I fear me that my gentle cousin did not altogether grasp my meaning. Cousin," he added, turning once more fully to Stowmaries, "will you put your money back into your pocket and instead of fulfilling your engagements to me, fulfil them toward the lady who hath first claims on your loyalty?" "Tush, man!" retorted Stowmaries, who was waxing wrathful, "cannot you cease that senseless talk? The thing is done, man, the thing is done. Gad! We none of us want it undone, nor could we an we would." "My lord of Stowmaries is right," concluded Lord Rochester decisively, "and you, Kestyon, do but run your head against a stone wall. An you feel remorse, I for one am sorry for you--but what has been, has been. You no more can withdraw from your present position than you could erase from the Book of Life all that has passed to-day. So take your money, man, you have the right to it. Odd's fish! A hundred and twenty thousand pounds, and you talk of flinging it as a sop to your perturbed conscience." "Who talked of conscience, my lord?" rejoined Michael haughtily, "or yet of remorse? Surely not I. We have all been gambling on an issue, and I now offer my cousin of Stowmaries his own stakes back again an he'll pay his just debt to his wife rather than to me." "My wife, man, are you joking!" retorted Stowmaries hotly. "After what has occurred, think you I would take for my countess--" "The purest, most exquisite woman, Cousin, that ever graced a man's ancestral home," interposed Michael earnestly. "To say less of her were blasphemy." "Pshaw!" ejaculated Stowmaries with ill-concealed contempt. "Cousin, I swear to you," reiterated Michael with solemn emphasis, "by all that men hold most sacred, by all that I hold most holy, that the lady is as pure to-day as when her baby hand was placed in yours eighteen years ago, in token that she was to be your wife. She is as worthy to be the wife of a good man, the mother of loyal children, as I am unfit to tie the laces of her shoe. An you'll do your duty by her, you'll never regret it--all that you will regret will be the memory of that turbulent night when in your madness you thought of wronging her!" "By God, man, I swear that you are crazy!" cried Stowmaries whose impatience had been visibly growing and who now gave full rein to his exasperation. "Are you a damned, canting Puritan that you talk to me like that? Nay, an you wish to be rid of yon baggage, send her back to the tailor's back shop whence she came,--throw her out into the streets,--I care not what you do with her, but in G--d's name I tell you that you shall not palm off on to my mother's son a cast-off troll whom you no longer want." But even before the words had fully escaped the young man's lips Michael had lifted his glass and thrown its full contents in the face of the blasphemer. Sickened and blinded with his own fury and the pungent odour of the wine which poured down his face into his eyes and mouth, Stowmaries uttered a violent oath and the next instant had sprung upon his kinsman like an infuriated and raging beast, and had him by the throat even before Ayloffe and Rochester who had quickly jumped to their feet were able to interfere. The onslaught was vigorous and sudden and Stowmaries' fury hot and uncontrolled. But Michael who throughout the wordy warfare had kept his own temper in check, who had foreseen the attack even when he threw the wine in the younger man's face, had already grasped Stowmaries' wrists with a steel-like pressure of his own nervy hands, causing the other to relax his grip and forcing an involuntary cry of pain to escape his throat. "Nay, Cousin," he said, still speaking quite quietly, but with a slight tone of contempt now, "in a hand-to-hand struggle you would fare worse than I. Have I hurt your wrist? Then am I deeply grieved--but 'tis not broken I assure you--and you know, dear Coz, that since you are still my debtor, you could not in honour kill me until you had acquitted yourself of your debt to me. I have offered you a fair way of paying that debt, not to me but to her to whom you really owe it. An you'll keep your money now, and take back all you've given me, an you'll fulfil your sacred promise to take Rose Marie for wife, you'll be the happiest man on God's earth. This I swear to you, and also that I'll serve you humbly and devotedly as servant or as slave to the last day of my life and with the last drop of blood in my veins. After that an you wish to kill me--why, my life is at your service. Will you do it, Cousin? God and his army of saints and of angels will give you rich reward." But Stowmaries who with a sulky look on his face was readjusting the lace ruffles at his wrist whilst glowering at the man whose physical strength he had just been made to feel, turned on him now with an evil sneer. "You seem to be intimately acquainted with the heavenly hierarchy, Cousin," he said, "but, believe me, I have no intention of entering those celestial spheres which are of your own imagining and of which you seem to be the self-constituted guardian." "Sneer at me as much as you will, Cousin, but give me answer," urged Michael and for the first time his voice shook as he uttered this final, desperate appeal, "'Twere best for you--this I entreat you to believe. Best for you and right for her. As for me, I no longer exist; the ignoble bargain has never been; wipe it out, Cousin, even from your memory. Take back your money and with it your honour. She is worthy of your love, of your faith and of your trust; take her to your heart, Cousin, take her for she is as pure as the Madonna and you will be richer by all that she can give, the priceless guerdon of her exquisite womanhood." The other two men were silent. They had taken no part in the discussion and had listened to it each with vastly divers emotions. Rochester, a noble gentleman despite his many extravagances, could not help but admire the man who thus stood up boldly to right a wrong, fearless of consequences, fearless of ridicule. But Ayloffe merely hoped that Michael's rugged eloquence, his earnest, passionate appeal would fail to reach the armour of selfishness and vanity which effectually enveloped Stowmaries' better nature. Now after this last appeal there was a pause. The storm of turbulent passions was lulled to momentary rest, the better to gather strength for the final conflict. "Take her to your heart, Cousin," Michael had urged, and no one there could guess the infinity of renunciation which lay in this appeal. Stowmaries was silent for awhile. His glowering eyes expressed nothing but unyielding obstinacy. Otherwise he was totally unmoved. Then, keeping his gaze rivetted on Michael, he pointed with outstretched finger to the paper which lay on the table--the draft for seventy thousand pounds on Master Vivish of Fleet Street. "That is my answer, Cousin," he said loudly and firmly. "You have rendered me a service; for this now I pay you to the full as agreed. Let there be no more of this crazy talk, for what is done is done, and you above all should be satisfied." Once more there was silence in the low-raftered room. A gust of wind blew the thin curtains way from the open window and caused the scrap of paper to stir with a soft sound as of a spirit voice that murmured a warning "Hush!" Michael had neither moved nor spoken, not a line of his face betrayed the conflict in his soul. But three pairs of eyes were fixed upon him. He did not seem to see them, for his own were fixed on the fluttering curtain which had whispered spectral words to him; between the gently swaying folds there peeped cold gleams of moonbeam radiance, and from far away the sighing of the young acacia boughs which had mingled with her voice awhile ago. Then he turned his gaze back to the paper which lay before him, still gently stirring under the soft breath of the evening air. Deliberately and with a firm hand he took it up, folded it across and across and slipped it in the inner pocket of his coat. "You know best, Cousin," he said in a quiet, unmodulated voice. "As you say, I have rendered you a service. You have paid me in full according to our bond. We should both be satisfied. And now, gentlemen, shall we proceed with supper?" PART IV CHAPTER XXIX And do you ask what game she plays? With me 'tis lost or won; With thee it is playing still; with him It is not well begun; But 'tis a game she plays with all Beneath the sway o' the sun. --DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. Mistress Julia Peyton felt a trifle worried. Matters had not turned out exactly as she had anticipated; it is a way peculiar to matters over which we have no control. She had been quite aware of the fact that my lord of Stowmaries, with Sir John Ayloffe and Lord Rochester, had made the journey over to Paris in order to be present at the marriage of Michael Kestyon with the tailor's daughter, and it had been with the intention of frustrating my lord's desire to pay his final debt of seventy thousand pounds to Michael that she had sent old Daniel Pye over in the gentlemen's company, armed with the letters writ in scholarly French by the exiled Huguenot clerk and intended for good M. Legros' personal perusal. Mistress Peyton had no special wish to save the susceptibilities of a tailor's wench, and cared little whether the fraud was discovered by her before she had left her father's home or afterwards, but--she had argued this out in her own mind over and over again--if the girl never actually left her father's house, my lord would not in honour be bound to pay Michael the additional seventy thousand pounds, since the latter would not have accomplished his own share of the bargain to the full. On the other hand there would be quite enough public scandal and gossip round the girl, as it was, to enable my lord of Stowmaries to justify his repudiation of the matrimonial bonds, contracted eighteen years ago, on the grounds that the future Countess of Stowmaries no longer bore a spotless reputation. That had been Mistress Peyton's subtle argument, and on the basis of this unanswerable logic she had laid her plans. Caring nothing for the girl, she cared everything for the money, and above all for the power that so vast a sum would place in Michael's hand for the furtherance of his own case. Daniel Pye had returned to England about a week after the wedding at St. Gervais. He was an unblushing liar, both by habit and by temperament. Therefore, when he presented himself before his mistress, he assured her that he had handed her letter over to the master tailor even while the wedding festivities were in progress in the back shop, and long before the coach bore the bridal pair away. When Mistress Peyton heard the circumstantial narrative of how her faithful henchman had fought his way into the tailor's house at peril of his life, and had given the letter into M. Legros' own hands, the while his own poor shoulders were bruised and well-nigh broken with the blows dealt to him by cruel miscreants who strove to hinder him from performing his duty--when the fair Julia heard all this, I say, she was vastly pleased and commended Master Pye very highly for his faithfulness, and I believe even rewarded him by giving him five shillings. The wedding it seems had been the talk of Paris, ladies and gentlemen from the Court had been present thereat, and Mme. de Montespan had loudly praised the handsome presence of the bridegroom. All this was passing satisfactory, and Mistress Julia was quite content to think that the tailor and his family would--after such an esclandre--be only too willing to hide their humble heads out of the ken of society wherein they had become a laughing stock. On legal grounds my lord of Stowmaries could readily command the nullity of the child-marriage now; as for the religious grounds which had been the chief stumbling-block hitherto--"Bah!" argued the fair Julia naïvely to herself, "His Holiness the Pope of Rome is a gentleman; he will not expect an English grand seigneur to acknowledge as his countess the cast-off plaything of an adventurer." The disappointment came some three or four days later when Cousin John in his turn presented himself at the little house in Holborn Row. Of course he had known nothing of his fair cousin's treacherous little scheme, and although he had greatly wondered at Master Pye's presence in Paris at the time of the wedding, yet he had been far from suspecting the truth with regard to its purport. All that good Sir John knew was that the bridal pair did leave the house of M. Legros in a somewhat unconventional style, for this he had been told by the gaffers of the neighbourhood. He had not seen the departure, but had heard glowing accounts of it all from one or two of the spectators whom he had closely questioned. There was no doubt that it had been a fine departure: romantic and epoch-making. No fear now of the scandal being in any way hushed up. "Milor the Englishman," as that rascal Michael had been universally called in that quarter of Paris wherein his prowess had been witnessed, was a magnificent horseman, so the gossips declared with one accord. The way he had jumped on his horse, using neither stirrup nor bridle, was a sight good for sore eyes, then two of his English serving-men had raised the bride to his saddle bow, and after a lusty shout of farewell milor had ridden away with her, and soon his horse was head galloping at maddening speed. Never had such a spectacle been witnessed in the streets of Paris before; the gaffers were still agape at the remembrance of it, and it had all seemed more like a vivid and exciting dream than like sober reality. But no sooner had milor and the bride disappeared round the bend of the narrow street than the first breath of gossip rose--apparently from nothingness--in their wake. Whence it originated nobody knew, but sure it is that within an hour the whole of the quarter was agog with the scandal. Cousin John prided himself on the fact that he had contributed more than his share in spreading the report from one end of Paris to the other that the daughter of the mightily rich and highly-respectable tailor-in-chief of His Majesty the King of France had eloped with an adventurer, who was even kinsman to her own husband, my lord of Stowmaries and Rivaulx. "The scandal is quite immense, fair Cousin," quoth Cousin John lustily, and with a merry guffaw the while he sat sipping sack-posset in Mistress Peyton's elegantly furnished boudoir. "Personally I see naught for the tailor's wench but the inevitable nunnery, although Michael--but of this more anon. In the meanwhile Mme. de Montespan dotes on the adventure. Lord Rochester retailed it all to her outside the church porch, and you may well believe that it hath lost naught in the telling. She quite fell in love with Michael's handsome presence, and His Majesty the King of France vows that English gentlemen are the primest rogues on this earth; and even sober diplomatists aver that Michael's prowess and Michael's romantic personality have done more to cement international friendship than a whole host of secret treaties. From the Court the scandal hath reached the lower classes of Paris, all thanks to your humble servant, so I flatter myself; the tailor and his family are the butt of every quip-maker in the city. There is a rhyme that goes the round which--nay, your pardon, fair Cousin, I could not repeat it for fear of offending your ears, but let me assure you that the heroine thereof is not like to petition Monseigneur the Archbishop of Paris or His Holiness the Pope to assert her rights to be Countess of Stowmaries--Countess of Stowmaries," added Sir John with another prolonged guffaw, "Countess of Stowmaries! Odd's fish! In Paris they sing of her: '_Une vertu ingulière_--' your pardon--your pardon again, dear Coz, I was forgetting--" And Cousin John had indeed to stop in his narration, for he was choking for very laughter and the tears were streaming down his ruddy cheeks. Mistress Peyton had listened to the cheerful tale with but ill-repressed impatience, and had not Sir John been so absorbed in what was his favourite topic of conversation--the tearing to shreds of a woman's reputation--he would not have failed to notice that his kinswoman was far from sharing his own hilarity. Of a truth, the fair Julia's impatience soon gave place to great anger, for it was by now quite clear to her that Daniel Pye had failed in his trust, that he had not only lied like a consummate rogue, but had actually by his unforgivable delinquency caused his mistress' most cherished and carefully-conceived counter-intrigue to come absolutely to naught. Michael Kestyon had carried off the bride and Lord Stowmaries could not now as a man of honour refuse to pay him that final seventy thousand pounds; a fortune, forsooth, wherewith the adventurer, the wastrel, the haunter of brothels and booths could now make good his claim to the title and peerage of Stowmaries and Rivaulx. Given a dissolute, money-grabbing king on whose decision the claim for the peerage rested, given this adventure which rendered Michael interesting to those who had the ear of Charles Stuart, and what more likely than that the present lord of Stowmaries should find himself in the terrible position of having paid for his own undoing? And all because a fool of a serving-man had failed in doing what he had been ordered to do, and this in despite of the most carefully thought-out plans, most ardent wishes and most subtle schemes. We may take it that visions of a terrible retribution to be wreaked on that rascally Daniel Pye already found birth in his mistress' inventive brain; and whilst good Cousin John was wiping the tears of laughter which his own narrative had called to his bulgy eyes, his fair cousin was meditating on the best pretext she could employ for ordering Pye to be lawfully and publicly flogged. At last Mistress Peyton's sullen silence brought Cousin John back from the pleasing realms of gossip and scandal. Looking into her face he saw anger, where he had expected to witness a smile of triumph; he also saw two perfect lips closed tightly in obvious moodiness, the while he had looked forward to unstinted praise for his own share in the furtherance of her desires. Cousin John, therefore, was vastly astonished. Puzzlement in its turn yielded to speculation. Mistress Julia was angered--why? She had desired the scandal; now she seemed to resent it. Something had gone amiss then--or had she veered round in her intentions? Women were strange cattle in Sir John Ayloffe's estimation. Had his ambitious cousin perchance nurtured some counter-scheme of her own, which had come to naught through the success of the original intrigue? It almost seemed like it from the wrathful expression of her face. The presence of Daniel Pye in Paris came back to Sir John as a swift memory. There had been a counter-intrigue then? Of a truth this would trouble him but little, provided that such intrigue did not affect the due payment to himself of the twelve thousand pounds promised by the capricious lady. But of this guerdon he felt fully assured. Which is another proof of the truth of the ancient adage which says that there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, and also of the fact that women are far keener diviners of such untoward slips than are those who belong to the sterner and less intuitive sex. Even while the prospect of those pleasing thousands was flitting--all unbeknown to him--further and further from his future grasp, Sir John, studying his cousin's unaccountable mood tried to make some of his wonted cynical maxims anent the motives and emotions of the other sex fit the present situation. Mistress Peyton was angered when she should have been pleased. Had she perchance conceived an attachment for the romantic blackguard? Such things were possible--women's tastes ever erred on the queer side--and this would certainly account for Julia's impatient anger when she heard of Michael's interesting departure with the beautiful bride in his arms. Nay then! if this was the case, good Cousin John had still the cream of his narrative in reserve, and the final episode which he had to relate would of a surety satisfy the most rancorous feelings of revenge harboured against a hated rival by any fair monster that wore petticoat. And at the moment that Mistress Peyton finally decided in her own mind that an accusation of theft preferred by herself against Daniel Pye would bring that elderly reprobate to the whipping post and the stocks, Cousin John's mellifluent voice broke in upon these pleasant dreams. "Odd's fish, fair Coz," he said loudly and emphatically, for he desired his words to rouse her from her absorption, "imagine our surprise, nay, our consternation when on our arrival at St. Denis we found one solitary turtledove mourning over the absence of the other--" The effect of these words was instantaneous. The fair Julia's thoughts suddenly flew from prospective vengeance to present interests, and though the frown did not disappear from her brow, her eyes flashed eagerness now rather than anger. "What nonsense is this?" she queried with a show of petulance. "I pray you, Cousin, speak with less imagery. The matter is of serious portent to me as you know--and also to yourself," she added significantly, "and I fear me that my poor wits are too dull to follow the circumlocutions of your flowery speech." Sir John smiled complacently; he was quite satisfied that he once more held his cousin's undivided attention, and resumed his narrative with imperturbable good-humour. "I crave your pardon, fair lady," he said, "but on my honour 'tis just as I have told you. My lord of Stowmaries, Lord Rochester and your humble servant did journey by coach to St. Denis, for we knew that thither was the bridal couple bound. We drove in the lumbering vehicle on God-forsaken roads all the way from Paris, and never in all my life did I experience such uncomfortable journeying. 'Milor the Englishman,' quoth Rochester as soon as his feet had touched the ground, 'is he abed?' For you must know that it was then nigh on ten of the clock and the hostelry of the Three Archangels looked as dark as pitch from within and without. 'Milor is upstairs,' exclaimed mine host who, of a surety, looked vastly bewildered at our arrival. He seemed like a man bursting with news, and as if eager to explain something, but we were too impatient to pay any heed to him at the time and ran helter-skelter upstairs in the wake of Lord Rochester who, as you know, is ever in the forefront in a spicy adventure, and who moreover was eager for another peep at the bride, whom he had greatly admired during the religious ceremony in the church. We none of us had any idea that anything could be amiss, and as I have had the honour of assuring you, our consternation was great when on entering the parlour we found Michael standing by the open window, staring moodily out into the dreary landscape, the room itself in total darkness, and--as we learnt afterwards--the bride gone back to Paris by coach in company with her father." "Impossible," ejaculated Mistress Peyton, feigning surprise which of a truth she did not feel. What had been and still was a mystery to Sir John was clear enough to his fair cousin, and there was, it seems, some slight attenuation to Daniel Pye's monstrous delinquency. The letter, by some idiotic blunder on the part of old Pye, had reached Master Legros just a trifle too late, but it had reached him at last, and the infuriated father had contrived to reach St. Denis in time to snatch his daughter away from the arms of the adventurer--who thus stood prematurely unmasked. "Impossible!" she reiterated the while Sir John like a true raconteur, having succeeded in capturing her interest, made an effective pause in his narration. He could not complain of her moodiness now, for she seemed all eagerness and agitation. "True, nevertheless," he asserted quietly, "the bride was gone and Michael--left desolate--seemed inclined to act like a man bereft of his senses." "How mean you that?" she asked. "He had, it seems, fallen madly in love with the tailor's daughter, and had no doubt during his hours of loneliness been assailed with remorse at what he chose to call a shameful bargain." Again Cousin John paused; his large, prominent eyes were fixed once more upon his cousin. Clearly there was an undercurrent of intrigue going on here of which he did not as yet possess the entire secret, for he had distinctly noted that at his last words the deep frown which had still lingered on Julia's snow-white brow now vanished completely, giving place to an excited look of hope. Something of the inner workings of her mind began to dawn on him, however, a vague, indefinable sense of what had gone before, what she had feared, and what she now hoped. Therefore he waited awhile, watching her eager, impatient face, the play of her delicate features, the nervous movements of her hands, ere he resumed with well-simulated carelessness. "Ay! my dear Coz, the more I think on it, the more am I convinced that Michael in his love-sickness became bereft of reason, for you'll scarce believe it when I tell you that when my lord of Stowmaries desired to acquit himself like an honourable gentleman of his debt to his kinsman, and held out to him the draft for seventy thousand pounds, Michael refused to take it." This time there was no mistaking the look of pleasure which lit up the fair Julia's face. A less acute observer than was Sir John would have realised at once that this last item of news was essentially pleasant to the hearer. Mistress Peyton of a truth, found her anxieties vanishing away, and was at no pains to hide the pleasure which she felt. Hope was returning to her heart, also gratitude towards Fate who, it seems, had been kind enough after all to play into her hands. Psychologically the situation was interesting, and we may assume that Cousin John was no longer at sea now. He might not yet possess the key which opened the magic gate into his fair cousin's secret orchard, but he was essentially a gambler, an unscrupulous schemer himself; money, to him, was the all-powerful solution of many an obscure puzzle. The mention of money had brought on the beautiful face before him the first smile of satisfaction since the beginning of his narrative; ergo, argued Cousin John, the fair mistress entered into a private, villainous little scheme of her own, of calling the tune without paying the piper. Women have no sense of honour, where debts between gentlemen are concerned. Once on a track, Sir John was quick enough to follow the puzzle to its satisfactory solution. But he was not pleased that his cousin, and partner in the whole enterprise, should thus have intrigued without his knowledge or counsel. Heavens above, if conspirators did not work together, every plot, however well laid, would speedily abort. Women were ever ready for these petty infamies; they seemed to revel in them, to plan and scheme them even if--as in this case--they were wholly superfluous. He was angry with his pretty cousin, and showed it by keeping her on tenter-hooks, dropping his narrative and ostentatiously draining a mug of posset to its last drop. He would force her, he thought, to disclose her treacherous little hand to the full. And he succeeded, for as he did not speak she was quite unable to curb her impatience. "Then--the money--" she asked with obviously affected indifference, "what became of it?" "The money?" he asked blandly "What money?" "The seventy thousand pounds," she said, "which Michael Kestyon was to receive and which he refused to take." Cousin John looked at her over the top of his goblet, his round, bulgy eyes told her quite plainly that he had read her through and through, and that he for one was not sorry that her little counter-scheme had failed, since she had not thought fit to ask his advice. But he said quite lightly, as one who speaks of a trifle too mean to dwell in the memory: "Oh! the seventy thousand pounds! They are where they should be, dear Cousin, in Michael Kestyon's pocket. The just reward for his services rendered to his kinsman, your future lord, fair Coz!" "But you said just now--" she stammered on the verge of tears, for the sudden sense of disappointment had been very bitter to bear. "I said that Michael had been smitten with remorse, and had at first refused to take the money, but Lord Stowmaries soon overcame his scruples and--" "Lord Stowmaries is a fool!" she interrupted hotly. Sir John feigned great astonishment. "A fool? For acquitting himself of a debt of honour?" he asked in tones of mild reproof. "Ay! a fool, and thrice a fool," she reiterated with increased vehemence, for she was no gaby and was not taken in now by Cousin John's blandness. He had divined her thoughts, and guessed something of her aborted plans; there was no occasion therefore to subdue her annoyance any longer. "An Michael Kestyon was such a dotard as to refuse a fortune," she continued, "why should my lord Stowmaries be the one to force it upon him. Nay! The whole bargain was iniquitous or worse. Ridiculous it was of a truth--one hundred and twenty thousand pounds to a man who would have done the trick for so many pence. I marvelled at you, Cousin, for lending a hand to such wanton waste and did my best to circumvent your folly, but thanks to that dolt Daniel Pye, and apparently to my lord Stowmaries' idiocy, Michael Kestyon is now in possession of the means whereby he can divest the cousin who paid him so well not only of his title but of all his wealth. A blunder, Cousin, an idiotic, silly blunder," she added as she jumped to her feet, unable to sit still, tramping up and down the room like a raging wildcat, lashing herself into worse fury by picturing all the evils which the unfortunate business would bring in its train, chief amongst these being my lord Stowmaries' undoing, for which she really cared naught only in so long as it affected her own prospects. "The silly adventure is already the talk of the town; the king has asked to see Michael Kestyon. Bah! The man sold his kingdom, the liberty and dignity of England for a sum not much larger than what Michael can now offer him for a favourable decision in a peerage claim. Ye saints above! what fools men are! what blind, blundering, silly fools, the moment they begin to prate of honour!" Cousin John had allowed his fair cousin's vehement vituperations to pass unchallenged over his humbled head. That there was some truth in her argument he himself could not deny, and it was a fact that fears very akin to her own in the matter of the money had more than once crossed his mind. Feeling, therefore, that the reproof, though exceptionally violent, was not undeserved, he dropped his bland, cynical manner, and when at last the fair Julia paused in her invectives, chiefly for lack of breath, and also because tears of anger were choking her voice, he spoke to her quite quietly and almost apologetically. "Indeed, Coz," he said, "I would have you believe that I am deeply touched by your reproaches, which, alas, I may have merited to a certain extent. Zeal in your cause may have rendered me less far-seeing than I really should have been, considering what we both have at stake. But let me tell you also that I have not been quite such a dolt as you seem to think. You are quite wrong in supposing that Michael Kestyon would have acted the part which he did for a less sum than we have given him. Nothing but a real substantial fortune would have tempted Michael. Nothing," reiterated Sir John emphatically, seeing that Julia made a contemptuous gesture of incredulity. "He is a curious mixture of the wastrel and the gentleman; if we could not satisfy his ambition, we could not attack his sense of honour. Where we made the mistake was in thinking that a substantial sum would satisfy him in itself. No one guessed that his dormant claim to the peerage of Stowmaries was still of such vital importance to him. He had ceased to move actively in the matter partly through the lack of money, but also in part through the moral collapse which he has undergone in the past two years. I confess that I did think that when he was possessed of his newly-acquired fortune, he would continue the life of dissolute vagabondage which we all believed had become his second--nay, his only nature. It seems that we were all mistaken--" "What do you mean? Has anything occurred already?" asked Julia, who found all her fears increased tenfold at Cousin John's seriously-spoken words. "No! No! No!" he said reassuringly, "nothing at present, save that Michael Kestyon has made no attempt to return to his boon companions in the various brothels which were wont to be his haunts. Rumour hath it that he is oft seen in the company of my lord Shaftesbury, and there is no doubt that the king was vastly amused by the adventure. Some say that royal smiles are the sure precursors to royal favours. But between entertaining Charles II with tales of spicy adventures and obtaining actual decisions from him in important matters lie vast gulfs of kingly indifference and of kindly indolence. There is nothing that the king hates worse than the giving of a decision, and, believe me, that he will dilly-dally with Michael until that young reprobate will have spent every penny of his new fortune, and will have none left to offer as a bribe to our merry monarch. It is not cheap, believe me, to be a temporary boon companion to Charles Stuart, and a great deal more than a hundred thousand pounds would have to pass through Michael's fingers in keeping up a certain gentlemanly state, in tailor's accounts, in bets and in losses at hazard, before the king would think of rewarding him in the only manner which would compensate him for all the money expended in obtaining the royal smiles." "You may be right, Cousin," said Mistress Peyton, somewhat reassured, "at the same time a great deal of anxiety would have been saved me, if that old liar Daniel Pye had done as he was bid. But he shall rue his prevarications, and bitterly, too." "You may wreak what vengeance you will, fair Cousin, on the varlet who hath disobeyed you. But I entreat you to keep your favours for those who have tried to serve you to the best of their poor abilities. As for the rest, let me assure you now that Michael Kestyon refused the seventy thousand pounds and even offered to repay the first instalment of fifty thousand on terms which were wholly unacceptable to Lord Stowmaries. The chief condition being that my lord should rescind the whole of the bargain, and take the tailor's wench back into his heart and marital bosom. You see, fair Coz, how impossible it was to treat with Michael at all, and we certainly were not to blame. My lord of Stowmaries is still the happiest man on earth; glad enough to have purchased his happiness for one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. An I mistake not he is in Rome now, awaiting the Pope's decision--but that is a foregone conclusion. Monseigneur the Archbishop hath assured him of his cooperation. Soon my lord will receive that for which he craves: religious dispensation to avail himself of the civil law of England which will readily grant him nullity of marriage, and the blessing of the Pope himself on his remarriage with the fairest beauty that e'er hath graced an ancestral home. Until then I entreat you, Cousin," added Sir John with elaborate gallantry, "to smooth away those frowns of anxiety which ill become the future Countess of Stowmaries. Let me see you smile, dear Coz, ere I take my leave, having, I trust, assured you that you have no truer servant than your faithful kinsman, the recipient of your favours, and, I trust, of many more in the not very distant future." There was no resisting Cousin John's assurance and his smile of confident encouragement. Mistress Peyton did allow the wrinkles of anger to fade from her smooth brow. But complete peace of mind was not restored to her in full; she was almost glad that "the happiest man on earth" was away from her just now. She wanted to think matters over in absolute quietude, away from her good cousin's bland platitudes. It almost seemed as if Fate had reshuffled all her cards; she and her partners in the great life-gamble, Lord Stowmaries, Sir John and Michael Kestyon, too, had had fresh hands dealt to them. They needed sorting and the game mayhap reconsidering. It was even doubtful at the present moment what was the chief trump card. Daniel Pye with his clumsy fingers had abstracted one out of his mistress' hand. At thought of that the frown returned and the "fairest beauty that e'er graced an ancestral home" looked not unlike a vengeful termagant gloating over the petty revenge which--in a small measure--would compensate her for all anxieties past, present and to come. CHAPTER XXX How! Old thief thy wits are lame; To clip such it is no shame; I rede you in the devil's name, Ye come not here to make men game. --SWINBURNE. Daniel Pye, having arrived at that corner stone in Holborn Row which afforded him a full view of the house whence he had just been ignominiously dismissed, turned and shook a menacing fist in its direction. His body ached, he was smarting in every limb, and he had a grievance which clamoured loudly for revenge. In Paris he had endured, whilst executing his duty, the buffetings and blows of a crowd of rowdy apprentices; this he had done not from any deep-rooted attachment to a capricious and exacting mistress, nor from any very exalted notions of abstract duty, but chiefly for the sake of the commendations and the rewards which the due fulfilment to Mistress Peyton's commands would naturally bring in its train. The fact that, in order to allay the futile anxieties of a pretty woman, good Daniel Pye subsequently went in for a somewhat highly-coloured tale of his adventures was, after all, a venial sin, and surely the minor transgression which he had committed in delivering the letter, half an hour later than he should have done, did not call for such malignant and cruel treatment as his ungrateful mistress had thought fit to impose upon him. Under a paltry accusation of theft, which the lady herself must have known was totally unfounded, she had handed him over to the magistrate for punishment. Convicted of the charge on the most flimsy evidence, he had been made to stand in the pillory two hours, and been publicly flogged like some recalcitrant 'prentice, or immoral wench. Nay, worse! For Mistress Peyton herself, accompanied by Sir John Ayloffe, had gone down to Bridewell to see her serving-man whipped, under the pretence that she wished to see justice properly tempered with mercy, since she only desired merited chastisement for him and not wanton cruelty. And yet when he, Daniel Pye, was howling at the whipping post like one possessed, the while a crowd of young jackanapes--among whom were some of Pye's fellow servants--stood hooting and jeering, Sir John Ayloffe at Mistress Peyton's special command had ordered that an additional ten strokes with the lash be dealt him with no lenient hand. And when Daniel anon stood in the pillory, bruised, sore, every limb in his body aching with the heavy blows, Sir John had caused baskets full of rotten eggs and scraps of tainted fish and meat and decayed vegetable to be distributed among the spectators so that the ribald youngsters might throw this evil-smelling refuse at the unfortunate man whose sole crime had been a tiny lie spoken in order to reassure an ungrateful mistress. Finally Pye was dismissed from Mistress Peyton's service, despite his abject entreaties. He was kicked out of the street door by a young lacquey whom he himself had oft flogged for impertinence and who now had already assumed the comfortable shoes of office which Daniel had worn for so long. To the last the mistress had persisted in her unfounded and cruel accusations. To the last she coldly asserted that Daniel had robbed her of seventy thousand pounds. Seventy thousand pounds! By Heaven! Daniel was not aware that such a vast sum existed in the world, nor if he had stolen it--which of course he had not--would he have known what to do with all that money! No wonder, therefore, that the man felt mentally as well as bodily sore--nay, that he swore to be revenged on the cruel lady who had so wantonly wronged him. What form his revenge would take he could not at first determine, but these were days when it was not over-difficult for a man to make his petty spite be very uncomfortably felt, provided he had nothing more to lose and possessed neither conscience nor fear of ulterior punishment. Now Daniel Pye, we know, had no overwhelming regard for truth; as to punishment, by the Lord, he had had all the punishment that any menial could possibly receive. He could sink no lower in the hierarchy of respectable domesticity; he had nothing more to lose, nothing more to gain. A serving-man who had been publicly flogged for theft was an outcast as far as gentlemen's houses were concerned. All the service that a branded thief might obtain in future would be in mean taverns or places of doubtful reputation where the master could not afford to be over-particular in the choice of his henchmen. Pye had indeed shaken a menacing fist at the house in Holborn Row. Though he had not thought out the exact form which his revenge might take, he knew by instinct in what quarter to seek for guidance in this desire. His steps led him almost mechanically in the direction of Whitefriars. When he himself was still a respectable lacquey; he would have scorned to set foot in this unhallowed spot where cheats, liars and other reprobates rubbed shoulders with the wastrels of aristocratic descent who had sought sanctuary here against their creditors. In a corner of the narrow street, and in what had once been the refectory of white-robed monks, there now stood a tavern of evil fame--one or two low-raftered rooms, wherein light and air penetrated in such minute particles that these had not the power to drive away the heavy fumes of alcohol, of rank tobacco, of vice and of licentiousness which filled every corner of this dark and squalid spot. Here the informer, the perjurer, the cheat, held his court unmolested, here the debtor was free from pursuit, and the highway robber safe from the arm of the law. Whitefriars was sanctuary! Oh, the mockery of the word! For it was the brawlers and the bullies, the termagants and hags that inhabited these once holy and consecrated precincts, who enforced this self-ordained law of sanctuary. Neither townguard nor soldiery would dare to enter the unhallowed neighbourhood save in great numerical strength, and even then the flails of the lawless fraternity, the bludgeons of the men and stew-pans and spits of the women oft gained a victory over the musketeers. To this spot now Daniel Pye unhesitatingly turned his footsteps. The servant kicked out of house for theft, the henchman who had been flogged and had stood in the pillory, naturally drifted towards those who like himself were at war with law and order, who had quarrelled with justice or were nursing a grievance. It was then late in the afternoon. Outside the beautiful May sun was trying to smile on the grimy city, on all that man had put up in order to pollute God's pure earth: the evil-smelling, narrow streets, the pavements oozing with slimy, slippery mud, the rickety, tumble-down houses covered with dirt and stains. All this the sun had kissed and touched gently with warmth and promise of spring, but into that corner of Whitefriars where Daniel Pye now stood, it had not attempted to penetrate. Overhead the protruding gables right and left of the street almost met, obscuring all save a very narrow strip of sky. Underfoot the slimy mud, fed by innumerable overflowing gutters, hardly gave a foothold to the passerby. But the door of the brothel stood invitingly open. Daniel Pye walked in unchallenged; scarce a head was turned or a glance raised to appraise the newcomer. He looked sulky and unkempt, his clothes were soiled and tattered after the painful halt in the pillory. In fact he looked what he was--a rebel against society like unto themselves. Men sat in groups conversing in whispers and drinking deeply out of pewter mugs. One of these groups, more compact than the others, occupied the centre of the room. In the midst of it a man with thin, long, yellow hair straggling round a high forehead, his thin shanks encased in undarned worsted stockings, his stooping shoulders covered by a surcoat of sad-coloured grogram, seemed to hold a kind of court. Daniel slouched toward that group; the man in the sad-coloured coat raised a pair of pale, watery eyes to him, and no doubt recognising by that subtle instinct peculiar to the great army of blackguards, that here was a kindred spirit, he made way for the stranger so that the latter might sit on the bench beside him. After a very little while Pye found himself quite at home in that low-raftered room, wherein the air surfeited with evil-smelling fumes was less foul than the sentiments, the lies, the blasphemies that were freely emitted here. The group of whom Mistress Peyton's ex-henchman had now become a unit, and over which presided the lanky-haired, pale-eyed youth, consisted of men who had neither the enthusiasm of their own villainy nor the courage of their own crimes; they were the spies that worked in the dark, the informers who struck unseen. False oaths, perjured information, lying accusations were their special trade. It did not take Daniel Pye very long to learn its secrets. The man with the yellow hair was called Oates. He had once been a priest, now he was a renegade, a sacrilegious liar, and maker of false oaths. Close to him sat another man, outwardly very different to look at, for he was stout and florid, and his eyes were bleary, but the perversion of the soul within was equal in these two men. Oates and Tongue! What a world of infamy do their very names evoke! They were the leaders of this band of false informers who lived and throve by this infamous trade. Oates soon made a fortune by those very schemes which he propounded to his henchmen on this memorable day when Daniel Pye drifted into their midst. The East Anglian peasant torn from his primitive home amongst the wheatfields of Norfolk, transplanted into the vitiated atmosphere of the great city, there to learn the abject lessons which the service of a capricious woman and the bribes of her courtiers do so readily teach to a grasping nature, now fell a ready slave to the insidious suggestions of these perjurers. Pye at first had listened with half an ear. His thoughts were still centred on vengeance and on his own aches and pains, and the denunciations against Papists which was the chief subject of discussion between Oates and his audience seemed to him of puerile significance. But the eye of the other, of him with the florid complexion, was constantly fixed on Daniel Pye. Gradually he drew the latter into conversation. A vague question here, a suggestion there, and the whole history of that day's bitter wrongs was soon poured into overwilling ears: the accusation of theft, the whipping post, the pillory. Pye felt no shame in retailing these humiliating woes to a stranger. Ever since he had been kicked out of the house by that insolent subordinate he had longed to tell the tale to some one. Truly he would have gone raving mad with compressed rage if he had had to go silently to bed. The stranger was a sympathetic listener: "Strike me! but 'tis a damnable tale," he said, "misdeeds that cry loudly for revenge. Cannot you, friend, be even with a woman who hath treated you so ill?" "How can I?" growled Pye, moodily. "A woman! She is rich, too, and hath many friends--" "Well-favoured, too, mayhap," suggested the other. "Ay, she's counted pretty--" "And her friends are mostly gentlemen, I imagine." "Mostly," replied Daniel impatiently, for he liked not this digression from the all-absorbing topic of his own woes. Tongue said nothing more for the present, but anon he called for mulled ale, and made Pye draw nearer to the table and partake largely of his lavishness. The ale had been strengthened with raw alcohol, and made heady with steaming and the admixture of spices. It had special properties--as all blackguards in search of victims or confederates well knew--of loosening tongues and addling feeble minds. Daniel Pye had had no desire to be reticent. He was already over-ready to talk. But the spirituous ale which soon got into his head killed that instinctive native suspicion in him, which in more sober moments would have caused him to look askance at the easy familiarity of his newly-found friend. Pye was quite unaware of the fact that Tongue was really questioning him very closely, and that he himself gave ready answer to every question. Within half an hour, he had told the other all that there was to know about Mistress Peyton and her household, but still Master Tongue was disappointing in his offers of advice. Daniel was under the impression that the man with the florid face would help him to be revenged on his spiteful mistress, and yet time went on and Daniel had told his story over and over again in every detail and yet nothing had been suggested that sounded satisfactory. He wanted to dwell on his troubles, those final ten lashes specially ordered, the rotten eggs thrown at him one by one by that damnable little scullion whom he himself had so often thrashed. Yet Master Tongue would no longer dwell on these interesting facts, but always dragged the conversation back to Mistress Peyton's household, or to the gentlemen who formed her court. "Surely, friend," he said somewhat impatiently at last, "you must have known some of these gentlemen quite intimately. If as you say your mistress was a noted beauty, she must have had many admirers, some more favoured than others--some of these must have been Papists. The Duke of Norfolk now--did he come to see your lady?" "No," replied Daniel Pye, sulkily. "But just as that rascally scullion hit me in the eye--" "Never mind about that now," interrupted the other. "Try and tell me the names of those gentlemen who most often visited this Mistress Julia Peyton." "There was Sir John Ayloffe--" "He is no Papist--who else?" "Sir Anthony Wykeham--" "Oh!" said Tongue eagerly. "Did he come often?" "No. Only once. But as I was telling you, there was a youngster in that crowd--" But the other again broke in impatiently: "You only saw Sir Anthony Wykeham once? When was that?" "He came with my lord of Stowmaries." "My lord Stowmaries? You know my lord Stowmaries? Did he come often?" "Every day nearly. Mistress Peyton is like to marry him, now that he's rid of his first wife." To Daniel Pye's utter astonishment, this simple fact--which he himself considered of very minor interest in comparison with the story of his own troubles--seemed to delight his newly-found friend. Master Tongue jumped up with every sign of eager excitement. "You knew my lord Stowmaries?" he reiterated insistently. "You knew him well?" Then as Pye, somewhat bewildered, assented, he ejaculated: "By G--d! the best man we could ever have hit upon, under the circumstances." He now slipped his hand confidentially under Pye's arm, forcing him to rise, then he dragged him away from the group, and into a distant corner of the room. "Friend," he whispered eagerly, "let me tell you that you are in luck to-day. You want your revenge; you shall have it, and much more yet to boot, and your spiteful mistress will yet have cause to rue the day when she turned you out of doors. Listen to me, man! Are you desirous of securing a good competence as well as of being even with her who had you whipped and pilloried?" "Ay!" replied Daniel Pye with a fervour which was too deep for a longer flow of words. "Then do you go out of here now and find means to kill time in some other tavern close by. But at ten of the clock this night return here. You will find me and my friend Oates, and one or two more of these gentlemen who have a vast scheme in hand for our own good fortune, wherein we will ask you to participate. Nay, ask me no more now!" added the man with the bleary eyes. "It were too long to explain, and there are several pairs of ears present in this room at this moment who are not meant to hear all that I say. But I tell you, friend, that if you be willing, my friend Oates will help you to your revenge, and in addition there will be at least £30 in your pocket, and the chance of earning more. Well, what say you?" "That I'll come," said Daniel Pye simply. CHAPTER XXXI Love's wings are overfleet And like the panther's feet The feet of Love. --SWINBURNE. When Mistress Peyton had finally dismissed Daniel Pye from her service, after having seen him flogged and pilloried, she felt somewhat more at ease. She did not see his gesture of menace, nor would it have perturbed her much if she had. Her spite against the man had been cruel and petty; she knew that well enough, yet did not strive to curb it. Daniel Pye's howls at the whipping post had momentarily served to alleviate the anxieties which as day succeeded day grew in intensity. The recollection of what she had made the man suffer was a solace, even now when the awful truth had begun to dawn upon her that in striving to gain too much, she had very likely lost all. Rumour was overbusy with Michael Kestyon; his popularity with the king, my lord Shaftesbury's interest in the long-forgotten peerage claim, Michael's long conferences with Sir William Jones, the Attorney-General, who was said to know more about peerages, genealogies and legitimacies than did His Majesty's heralds and poursuivants themselves. On Sir William's report would the king ultimately base his decision as to Michael Kestyon's claim to the title and estates of Stowmaries and Rivaulx. The matter would not be referred to the Lord's House of Parliament. It was absolutely one for the Crown to decide, nor were the noble lords like to go against the king's mandate. Already gossips averred that Michael had paid the Attorney-General one hundred thousand pounds for the report which was ready to be submitted to the king, and which, needless to say, was entirely in favour of the claim. It was also said that my lord Stowmaries--financially somewhat straitened for the moment, through a recent highly-interesting adventure--was unable to cap his cousin's munificent gift to Sir William Jones by one more magnificent still. All these rumours were quite sufficient forsooth to cause the fair Julia many an anxious hour and many a sleepless night. Small wonder that when she thought of Daniel Pye and of that hundred thousand pounds paid to the Attorney-General, which could not have been forthcoming if the miserable reprobate had delivered his mistress' letter to M. Legros in good time, no wonder, then, I say, that her small teeth, sharp as those of a wildcat, set against each other in an agony of impotent rage. She would have liked to have got hold of her serving-man again, to have had him flogged again and again, ay, and to have had him deprived of his right hand for his disobedience and his lies. The "might-have-beens" were becoming positive torture to the beautiful Julia; and my lord Stowmaries had not yet come home. He had gone to Rome for the dispensation, which he told her in an ardent and passionate missive, he had at last obtained. Julia laughed, a cruel, callous, bitter laugh when she read that letter. Of a truth the man must be mad who could for a moment think that she would wed him in poverty and obscurity, just as readily as she would in riches. Cousin John did his best to console her. He vowed that rumour lied, that Michael was spending his money in a vain endeavour to retain his popularity with the king, in which he was rapidly failing, and that no sensible-minded person did believe that His Majesty would uphold the preposterous claims of a sworn adventurer, wastrel and soldier of fortune, against so elegant a gentleman as was my lord of Stowmaries. After one of these visits from Cousin John, Mistress Julia always felt temporarily relieved of her anxiety. She had thought it best for the moment to keep aloof from the society of London; she was nowhere to be seen in public, not even at the playhouses where she had once been the cynosure of all eyes. She wanted to see her future fully assured before she again encountered the admiring glances of the men, or the oft ill-natured comments of the women. When at last Lord Stowmaries, back from his journey to Rome, was once more at her feet, glowing with loving ardour, triumphant in his success, Mistress Peyton remained cold and unresponsive. He did not notice this, for he was full of projects and happy that the path which led him to her arms had at last been made quite clear. "Madly as I longed for your sweet presence, my best beloved," he said whilst he covered her little hands with kisses, "I would not return until I knew that I was free--quite free to place mine all, my name, my fortune at your feet. I journeyed to Rome, dear heart, immediately after the esclandre in Paris. I paid Michael his due, then flew to His Holiness. When I returned homewards I was eager to know how the scandal had spread. Nay, there is no fear now that the tailor will strive to interfere with me. There are various rumours current about the wench, one of them being that she will go to a nunnery, the other, which gains far more credence, being that King Louis, vastly interested in her adventure hath cast eyes of admiration on her and that Mme. de Montespan is deadly jealous. Be that as it may, Monseigneur the Archbishop of Paris is now wholly on my side. He gave me letters to His Holiness, whom I saw in Rome." "And what said His Holiness, the Pope?" queried Julia, feigning eagerness which she was far from feeling. "He has granted me religious dispensation to contract a fresh marriage, provided the courts of England do dissolve my present bonds, which is a foregone conclusion," said the young man triumphantly. "My man of law tells me that it will be but a matter of a few weeks, and that the case will be decided as soon as heard, provided the tailor's wench doth not defend it, which under the circumstances she is not like to do. I am free, dear heart, free to marry you as soon as you will consent." Then, as she did not reply, he added reproachfully: "You are silent, my Julia; will you not tell me that you are glad?" She made no effort to smile. "Indeed, my lord, I am glad," she said calmly, "but I would not have you hasten matters too much." "Why not? To me every day, every hour that separates me from you, seems like weary cycles of dull and deadly years. Methinks that if you would but allow me to proclaim you to the whole world as my future countess, I could wait more patiently then." "Not yet, my lord, not yet," she said with a slight show of petulance. "Why not?" he urged. "The times are troublous for your co-religionists, my lord," she said vaguely. "Bah! the troubles will not last, and they do not affect me." "Are you quite sure of that, my lord? One by one the Papists in the kingdom fall under the ban of public hatred." "We are much maligned, but the king is on our side," interposed Stowmaries with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. "Mayhap, mayhap," she rejoined impatiently. "But nevertheless, the Papists are in bad odour. There is talk that the Duke of York will soon be sent abroad. The outcry in London is loud against what is called a Papist intrigue to sell England to France and to place her people under the yoke of Rome." "What hath all that to do with our love, dear heart?" "Everything," she said, angry with him for being so obtuse, not liking yet to show him her hand, the cruel hand which would dismiss him without compunction, were his fortunes on the wane. "You forget that by disgracing the tailor's wench, you have made Michael Kestyon, the claimant to your title, passing rich." "Bah! He hath spent half that substance already, so 'tis said. The king soon tires of his friends, and his affections are an expensive luxury to keep." "Rumour goes on to say that Michael Kestyon hath paid the Attorney-General one hundred thousand pounds that he may send a favourable report of his case to the king," asserted Mistress Peyton, relentlessly, almost spitefully. Lord Stowmaries made no direct reply. Truth to tell, he thought his fair Julia's anxieties futile, but at the same time, with unvarying optimism and self-sufficiency, he had attributed these anxieties on his behalf to her great love for him. Everything so far had gone well with him; for years now his every wish in life had been gratified; even the child-marriage, that great obstacle to the desires of his heart, had been swept away from before his path, leaving it clear and broad, to lead him straight to gratification and to happiness. With characteristic vanity he would not see that Julia, who had been all eagerness and ardour awhile ago, had suddenly become cold and well-nigh hostile. In every word which she uttered, in every inflection of her voice--even when it became petulant and spiteful--he heard but the echo of the overmastering emotions of a tender heart, whose sole object, himself, was in imaginary peril. He loved her all the better for her fears, though he felt none himself. He knew quite well that a wave of fanatical hatred against the Roman Catholics was passing over Puritan England; that the nation tired of a king's treachery had turned in deadly bitterness against those whom it held responsible for the constitutional faithlessness of a Stuart. But Titus Oates had not yet come forward with his lies, and Lord Stowmaries and his co-religionists were the last to foresee that the abject terror and malignant intolerance of the whole nation were already being directed against them, and that these would anon culminate in those shameful accusations, mock trials and scandalous verdicts which have remained to this day a dark and ineradicable blot on England's integrity and on her sense of justice. We must not suppose for a moment that Mistress Peyton foresaw the ugly black cloud which was looming on the not very distant horizon. Her intuition in political matters only went so far as these affected her own prospects. But no one who lived in London in this year of grace could help but see that Papists were held in abhorrence and in fear. The terms of the treaty of Dover had, despite strenuous efforts on the part of my lords Clifford and Arlington, become public property. England, with eyes rendered unseeing by abject fear, saw herself the minion of France, the slave of the Papacy. It only needed the tiny spark to kindle these smouldering ashes into raging flames. Mistress Peyton, keenly alive to her own interests, did not wish to tie her future irrevocably to a man who within the next few months might find himself divested of title and wealth and mayhap in the dock for treason. Therefore, all Stowmaries' ardent entreaties received but little response. "There is time and to spare," was all the hope which the fair beauty chose to give to her adorer; "as you say, this wave of anti-Romanism will pass away; Michael Kestyon will dissipate his newly-acquired wealth in riotous living; then you, my lord, will be free to think once more of marriage. I' faith the bonds are scarce broken yet; your nullity suit, my lord, hath not even been tried; the tailor may prove more obstinate than you think, and give you trouble yet. On my soul, 'twill be better to wait till all anxiety is removed from you, until Michael Kestyon is sunk back in obscurity and the tailor's baggage hid in a nunnery. Then, my lord, you may claim my promise--but not before." My lord of Stowmaries had perforce to be satisfied for the present, though he chafed under this further period of incertitude. But the fair Julia would grant him no more for the present, although after her cold declaration that she herself would not be tied by a promise, she did exact from him a holy and solemn pledge that he considered himself bound to her irrevocably and whatever might betide, so help him God. CHAPTER XXXII They said that love would die when Hope was gone And Love mourned long, and sorrowed after Hope; At last she sought out Memory and they trod The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope, And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears. --TENNYSON. M. Legros walked out backwards from the august presence of Monseigneur the Archbishop of Paris with head reverently bent to receive the benediction not altogether ungraciously given. Through the close ranks of gorgeously attired, liveried servants he passed, then across the courtyard and through the gilded gates out into the street. Then only would his sense of what was due to Monseigneur allow him to give vent to his feelings. He sighed and shook his head and muttered vague words of despondency. Of a truth how different had been this interview to-day to that other one a brief while ago, when with light elastic step, good M. Legros had left Monseigneur's presence with his heart full of elation, of triumph and of hope. It had been November then; the kindly tailor remembered how cold had been the night, with that penetrating drizzle which sought out the very marrow of the unfortunate pedestrian who happened to be abroad. But M. Legros had not heeded the cold or the wet then, his heart had been warm with the joyful news which he was about to bring into his home. Now the warm glow of a late September sun was in the air; not far away in the gardens of the Queen Mother's palace the last roses of summer were throwing their dying fragrance into the air even as far as the dismal streets which Legros traversed, oh, with such a heavy heart! Indeed, he paid no heed to the scent of the flowers, the last tender calls of thrush and blackbird which came from the heavy bouquets of the Luxembourg, and he almost shivered despite the warmth of this late summer's afternoon. Monseigneur had not been encouraging; and even the tailor's philosophical temperament had shown signs of inward rebellion at the cold manner in which the Archbishop had received his just plaint. Wherein had he sinned, either he or his wife? They had been deceived, nothing more. Would not any one else have been deceived in just the same way, by the soft words and grand manner of that splendid blackguard? And Rose Marie, the innocent lamb? Was it not a sin in itself even to suggest that she had been to blame? Yet Monseigneur would not listen, despite good M. Legros' entreaties. "You should have guarded your daughter's honour more carefully," His Greatness had said very severely. Prayers for help had been of no avail. "I cannot help you now," Monseigneur had reiterated with marked impatience; "the matter rests with your daughter's husband. My lord of Stowmaries is the gravely-injured husband; he may choose to forgive and forget, he may take his erring wife back to his heart and home, but I cannot interfere; the Holy Church would not enforce her decree under such circumstances. It would be cruel and unjust. If the law of England will grant the suit of nullity, the Holy Father will not--nay, he cannot, object. My lord of Stowmaries hath the right to his freedom now, an he choose." "But my child is as pure and as innocent as the Holy Virgin herself," M. Legros had protested with all the strength of his poor broken heart; "will not the Church protect the innocent, rather than the guilty? My lord of Stowmaries himself was a party to the infamous trick which--" "Into this discussion I cannot enter with you, sirrah!" His Greatness had interrupted with overwhelming severity. "The matter is one which doth not concern the Church. What doth concern her is that my lord of Stowmaries, who is a devout Catholic, hath asked for leave to appeal to the civil courts of his country for a dissolution of his marriage with a woman who no longer bears a spotless reputation. This leave under the unfortunate circumstances and the undoubted publicity of the scandal around your daughter's fame, the Holy Father hath decided to grant. I can do nothing in the matter." "Your Greatness, knowing the real facts of the case--" hazarded the timid man rendered bold by the excess of his sorrow. "I only know the facts of the case, such as I see them," interrupted the Archbishop haughtily, "but since you are so sure of your daughter's innocence, go and persuade my lord of Stowmaries to view it in the same light as you do. Transcendent virtue," added Monseigneur, with a scarce perceptible curl of his thin lips, "is sure to triumph over base calumny. I promise you that I will do nothing to fan the flames of my lord's wrath. My attitude will be strictly neutral. Go, seek out Lord Stowmaries. Let your daughter make a personal appeal. My blessing go with you." M. Legros was dismissed. It had been worse than useless now to try and force a prolongation of the interview. Monseigneur's indifference might turn at any moment to active opposition. The tailor had made discreet if lavish offers of money--alms or endowments; he would have given his entire fortune to see Rose Marie righted. But either my lord of Stowmaries had forestalled him, or the matter had become one of graver moment beyond the powers of bribery; certain it is that Monseigneur had paid no heed to vague suggestions and had severely repressed any more decided offers. No wonder, therefore, that despair lay like a heavy weight on the worthy tailor's heart, as he made his way slowly along the muddy bank of the river, crossed the Pont Neuf and finally turned in the direction of the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. Now as then, a girlish hand opened the door for him, in response to his knock; now as then a pair of confiding arms were thrown around his neck. But it was a sigh which escaped his throat, and to the sigh there was no response from those girlish lips turned grave in sorrow. Maman, with unvarying optimism, insisted on hearing a full account of the interview with Monseigneur; she weighed every sentence which was faithfully reported to her, queried indefatigably and commented with somewhat forced cheerfulness on what she heard. Rose Marie sat--silent and absorbed--at her father's knee. She had never harboured any hopes from this long-projected audience; the result therefore in no way disappointed her. Not even maman knew what went on in the girl's thoughts, nor how complete and sudden had been the transformation from the child into the woman. Rose Marie, when she returned home with her father on that never-to-be-forgotten night in April, had gone to bed tired and submissive. When she rose the next morning at her accustomed hour she took up the threads of her former uneventful life, just as if they had never been snapped by that strong and treacherous hand. She studied her music, and delved deeply into her books, she read aloud to her father out of holy books, and oft sang to him whilst playing on the harpsichord. M. and Mme. Legros oft wondered exactly how much she felt; for they loved her far too dearly to be deceived by these attempts at indifference. Something of Rose Marie's girlishness had gone from her, never again to return, something of the bird-like quality of her voice, something of the deer-like spring of her step. The blue eyes were as clear as ever, the mouth as perfectly curved, but across the brow lay--all unseen save to doting eyes--the ineradicable impress of a bitter sorrow. But the child never spoke of those three weeks that were past, nor was Michael's name ever mentioned within the walls of the old house in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. "Milor" had come and stolen the girl's heart and happiness, wrecked the brightness of a home, and sown disgrace and shame. And yet to all these three people who should so ardently have hated him, his name seemed to have become through the intensity of that grief which he had caused, almost sacred in the magnitude of his sin. It was as, when to a fanatic, the name of Lucifer becomes as unspeakable as that of God. The news that the real lord of Stowmaries had appealed to His Holiness for leave to contract a fresh marriage had not been long in reaching the tailor's house. For the past five months now M. Legros had exhausted every means of persuasion and of bribery to obtain an audience of Monseigneur. The Archbishop had been overbusy with grave affairs of state, so the wretched man was invariably told whenever he tried--most respectfully--to press his claim for an early audience. It was only after the terrible news which came direct from Rome that at last Monseigneur consented to see the stricken father. Now that interview was over--on which so many feeble hopes had of a truth been built--His Greatness had been haughty and severe, and the only consolation which he had deigned to offer was advice which was indeed very hard to follow. At the first suggestion, somewhat hesitatingly put forward by Papa Legros to his daughter, she rose up in revolt. "Make appeal to my lord Stowmaries?" she said indignantly. "Never. How could Monseigneur suggest such a course?" Papa was silent, and even maman sighed and shook her head. Rose Marie had gone to the window, and her cheeks aflame now, she was staring out into the street. "Are we beggars," she murmured, proudly defiant, "that we should be bidden to sue for grace?" From where she sat, could her vision but have pierced through the forest of houses, and thence through the sunlit distance, she might have beheld the forest of Cluny, and that silent pool whereon the water lilies reared their stately heads. Here she had sat, just by this same window, when with bitter words--cruel in that irresistible appeal which they made to her heart--he had told her about that pool, the lilies stained with mud, the slimy weeds that spread and girt the graceful stems, the ineradicable smirch of contact with the infamies of this world. Even now his captivating voice seemed to ring in her ears. The blaze of wrath fled from her cheeks, and the terrible, awful pain gripped her heart which she knew would never find solace whilst she lived. At the other end of the room her parents were conversing on the ever-present topic. Maman's hitherto indomitable optimism was at last giving way. She had held up bravely throughout these five weary months of waiting, hoping--almost against hope, sometimes--that everything would come right in one audience with Monseigneur. With unvarying confidence she waited for the summons for Papa Legros to appear before His Greatness; once the Archbishop heard the truth he would soon put the matter to rights, and His Holiness himself would see that the child was righted in the end. But now the long-looked-for audience had taken place, and it was no longer any use to disguise the fact that the last glimmer of hope had flickered out behind the gilded gates of Monseigneur's palace. Maman, too, had felt indignant when first she heard the Archbishop's callous advice to Papa Legros. Her mother's heart rebelled at the very thought of seeing her child a suppliant; she would not add fuel to the flames of outraged pride by showing what she thought on the matter, but when Rose Marie rose in revolt with the indignant outcry of "Are we beggars?" she, the mother, quietly went up to her stewpot and kept her own counsels to herself, the while she stirred the soup. Anon when the first wave of angry rebellion had subsided, when Rose Marie sat quiescent by the open window, Maman Legros put down her wooden spoon and went up to her husband, putting her heavy, rough hand on his shoulder, with a motherly gesture of supreme consolation. "Perhaps Monseigneur is right, Armand," she said with her own indomitable philosophy; "why not make appeal to Lord Stowmaries, he may not be a bad man after all." "You have heard what the child said, Mélanie," replied M. Legros sadly. "Are we beggars that we should be bidden to sue?" A great sob rose in Rose Marie's throat. It was the sorrow, the humiliation of these two dearly-loved folk that was so terrible to bear. They had been stricken in what they held most dear, in their integrity and in their child. Self-reproach, too, played no small part in their grief, and they had not even a memory on which to dwell. She--Rose Marie--had had her glorious three weeks of perfect happiness, before she had known that the man she loved was a liar and a cheat. For the sake of those few brief days of unalloyed joy, because of the memory of that unclouded happiness, she had endured such an intensity of pain, that at times she felt--nay! hoped that death or madness would end the agony. But she had been happy! Remembrance brought an overwhelming shame, but she had been happy! Sometimes she thought that her whole soul must have become perverted, her sense of virtue warped, for bitter as was the pain of it all, she dwelt oft and oft in her mind on those three exquisite weeks of perfect happiness. Her heart, starved and aching, now lived on that memory. Her ears seemed to catch again the timbre of his voice vibrating with passion, her eyes rendered dull and heavy with all the unshed tears, seemed, in closing, to see him there, standing near her with his arms held ready to enfold her, and that burning, ardent look in his dark eyes which had shown her visions of an earthly heaven, such as she had never dreamed before. Was it wicked to dwell on it all? Sinful, mayhap!--and surely not chaste, for he had lied to her when he said-- And then an insidious spirit voice would interrupt this train of thought and whisper in her ear: "No, he did not lie when he said that he loved thee, Rose Marie!" and the girl--just a suffering woman now--would in response feel such an agonizing sense of pain that she cried to God--to the blessed, suffering Lord--to take her away out of this unbearable misery. But they--the dear old folk--had no such bitter-sweet memories on which to dwell, nothing but blank, dull sorrow, with no longer now any hope of seeing the load lifted. It would grow heavier and heavier as the years went by. Rose Marie had noticed that the streaks of grey on maman's smooth hair had become more marked of late, and Papa Legros seldom rose from a chair now without leaning heavily on his stick, with one hand, and on the arm of the chair with the other. Yet maman still strove to be cheerful, even now she said with that new touch of philosophy in her which seemed to have taken the place of her former optimism: "Ah, well, Armand! if the child will not go, we cannot force her, poor lamb! but 'tis not saying that we are beggars and I cannot help thinking that Monseigneur may be right in his advice after all." Then as Papa Legros sighed and shook his head, staring in mute depression straight out before him, Rose Marie rose from the window seat and came close to where her parents sat. Kneeling beside the kind father, whose every sigh cut into her heart, looking up at those streaks of grey in her mother's smooth hair, she said simply: "We are beggars, Father, Mother dear, beggared of happiness, of joy, of pride. Father, we'll to England when you will. We'll seek out my lord of Stowmaries and make appeal to him, that he may restore to us that which in wantonness he hath taken away." "The child is right, Armand," said maman, and like a true phoenix from out the flames, her optimism rose triumphant: "I do verily believe," she said cheerfully, the while she surreptitiously wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, "I do verily believe that the young man when he sees our Rose Marie will repent him of his folly and will be joyful to take her to his heart." CHAPTER XXXIII Brute worshippers or wielders of the rod Most murderous even of all that call thee God! Most treacherous even of all that called thee Lord! --SWINBURNE. No one--not even her parents--knew what the proposed journey cost the girl in bitter sense of shame. She had, in order to consent to this pilgrimage of humiliation, to put aside all thoughts of her own feelings in the matter. She as a sentient, thinking, suffering woman must for awhile cease to be; her individuality must sink into nothingness, her pride, alas, must be broken on the wheel of her filial affection, crushed out of all desire for rebellion. If the dear folk thought that a personal appeal to Lord Stowmaries was a possible loophole out of the present abyss of sorrow and disgrace, then she--Rose Marie--would lend herself to that appeal: and that not as a martyr, a saint going to the rack, but as readily, as cheerfully, as if the meeting with the man who had despised and discarded her, who had sold her to another man, as if seeing him face to face was at least a matter of indifference to her. Once having made up her mind to the sacrifice, Rose Marie would not allow herself to think of it. She set to her little preparations for the journey with well-feigned eagerness. Even maman was at times deceived, for the child would sing whilst she put a few stitches to the clothes which she was to take away. Only when she was quite alone, or lying awake in the narrow little bed in the wall, would that sinful and rebellious pride rise up in arms, and Rose Marie would almost have to cling to the woodwork of her bed lest she found herself jumping up and rushing to her parents with a frantic cry of revolt: "I cannot go! I cannot do it!" One word of protest from her even at this eleventh hour, and the journey would have been abandoned. But she made no protest, and the day for the voyage was fixed. It was some two or three days before the projected departure that M. Legros, going down at his accustomed hour, to see the last of his 'prentices and cutters ere they left the workshop, found that two strangers were waiting to speak with him. One of them was not altogether a stranger, for Papa Legros looking--with the keen eyes of a successful business man--on the unkempt and slouchy figure that stood expectantly in the doorway soon made up his mind that he had seen the face before. A second look decided the point, and brought back with a sharp pang the bitter memory of that gay wedding festivity which the advent of this same stranger, then the bearer of a fateful letter, had so rudely interrupted. Daniel Pye and his companion, a meek-faced young man who looked like a scholar very much out at elbows, were kept humbly standing in the doorway, the while the 'prentices filed out past them, on the close of the working-day. We may assume that these rowdy youngsters did not make the two men's halt there any too pleasant for them. But Pye had learnt patience in the past two months, ever since he had ceased to be the dreaded majordomo in a pretty woman's household. He did not understand the gibes aimed at him by the impertinent crowd, and the pin-pricks, covert pinches and other physical inconveniences to which he was subjected left him passably indifferent. As for the young student who accompanied him, he certainly looked well accustomed to buffetings from whatever quarter these might descend upon him. The two men stood stolidly still, twirling their soft felt hats in their hands, never moving from the spot where they had been told to wait until such time as Maitre Legros might condescend to speak with them. Maitre Legros for the nonce was engaged in counting out his 'prentices as they filed past him and then out by the door, lest one of them bent on nocturnal mischief remained behind in safe concealment until time was ripe for pranks. After the 'prentices, the cutters and fitters filed out--more soberly for they were older men, but every man as he passed threw a curious look at the visitors, more especially at the shaggy, grimy face of Daniel Pye. When the last of the crowd of workers had passed out into the street, Papa Legros turned to his foreman cutter, who had introduced the strangers into the shop. "What do these men want?" he asked. "Have they told you their business, Master Duval?" "No, M'sieu," replied the foreman, "one of them does not understand French, the other one only seems to be here as interpreter. The one with the shaggy beard is the principal, he asked for M. Legros with great insistence and as he has been here before--" "Ah!--You do recognize him then?" "I have seen his face before, M'sieu--I'd take my oath on that--though when that was I could not say." "Bien, my good Duval, I'll speak to the stranger anon," rejoined M. Legros. "I shall not require you any more to-day. You may go now. I'll lock the back doors." Whilst Duval obeyed, Legros studied the face of his visitor very attentively. He had no doubt in his mind that this was the same man who had brought him that fateful letter on Rose Marie's wedding day, just an hour after the child had gone away with that cruel and treacherous blackguard. Undoubtedly the face was very much altered; it had been trim and clean-shaved before, now an unkempt beard hid the mouth and jaw. The eyes, too, looked more sunken, the nose and forehead more pinched, and a shifty, furtive expression replaced the former obsequious manner peculiar to the well-drilled lacquey. Obviously this man was the principal in this new affair, and at a curt word from M. Legros he came forward into the room with a certain air of sulky defiance, the while his companion followed meekly in the rear. Papa Legros would have not owned to it for worlds, but as a matter of fact his heart was throbbing with anxiety. Instinctively he looked on the shaggy figure of Daniel Pye as on a bird of ill-omen. It was through the agency of those same grimy hands that the first terrible blow of a crushing misfortune had fallen on the tailor and his family. What other misery would this unwelcome visitor bring in his train? "You have business with me, my masters?" asked M. Legros at last. He settled himself down resolutely in the high-backed chair, which he always used when talking to his inferiors--but he left the two men standing before him; there were no other chairs in the room. Daniel Pye had grunted a surly assent. "And of what nature is that business?" continued M. Legros, keeping up an air of haughty indifference. "It is of a private nature, Master," here interposed the younger of the two men. He was evidently impressed by the great tailor's august condescension and spoke timidly with a slight impediment in his speech. "Then you may speak of it freely," said M. Legros. "No one can overhear you. All my men have gone. So I pray you be brief. My time is much occupied, and I have none to waste." The young student no doubt would have hemmed and hawed very hesitatingly for some little while to come. But Daniel Pye, moody and impatient, gave him a vigorous nudge in the ribs. "Go it, Master Clerk," he said gruffly in English. "By G--d, man, I am not paying you to toady to this old fool, but to state my business clearly before him. Let me tell you that that business will be highly welcomed in this house, so there is no cause for this damnable shaking of your body, as if you were afraid." "What does your friend say to you, sirrah?" asked the tailor peremptorily, for he did not like this conversation carried on in a language which he did not understand. "He says, my Master," replied the clerk, "that I must speak up boldly, for his business will be pleasing to your graciousness. I am but the poor, ill-paid interpreter, who--" "Then I pray you interpret both boldly and briefly," interposed M. Legros impatiently. "What is your friend's business? Out with it, quick, before I have you both kicked out of this door." The clerk did not think it necessary to translate the tailor's last words into English. "The business concerns my lord the Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx," he began. "Then 'tis none of mine," retorted the tailor coldly. "Ay, but of a truth it is, good Master," rejoined the other more boldly, "and my friend here, Master Daniel Pye, by name, a worthy and independent Englishman, hath journeyed all the way from London to speak with you on this business. The noble Earl of Stowmaries hath greatly wronged you, sir, and your family. You have suffered great humiliation at his hands. Your daughter through his neglect is neither wife nor maid--" "And you, sirrah, will be neither alive nor dead, but near to both estates, an you do not hold your tongue," said M. Legros bringing an angry fist crashing down on the arm of his chair. "Out of my house this instant!--How dare you speak my daughter's name without my leave, you dirty paper-scraper, you bundle of quill feathers, you--" Good M. Legros was choking with wrath but he did fully intend to put his threat into execution and to kick these two impertinent rascals out of his house. Ere he could recover himself, however, the clerk forcibly egged on by Daniel Pye had interposed quietly but firmly: "Nevertheless, sir, it is my duty to be the mouthpiece of my friend who hath come all this way to tell you that God himself hath taken up your cause against the great and noble Earl of Stowmaries, whose pride will soon be laid in the dust, who will become an abject, cringing creature, dependent mayhap on your bounty for subsistence, dispossessed, disinherited, nay worse, tried for treason, and hanged, sir, hanged as a traitor! Is not that a glorious revenge, sir, for the wrongs which he has done to you?" "Nay, and by the Mass, sirrah," said M. Legros who had recovered sufficiently from his blind wrath to be justly indignant at this mealy-mouthed harangue, "if you do, value your shoulders and if your friend cares for his skin, you can have thirty seconds wherein to reach that door, after which the toe of my boot and the stout stick in yonder corner shall accelerate your footsteps." "Sir," protested the clerk, prompted thereto by Daniel Pye, "my friend here desires to remind you that he was driven away by blows from your doors in this like manner just five months ago. Had you given him more ready access to your august person, the letter which he bore and which was written by my hand at a kind lady's bidding, would have been delivered into your hands one hour the earlier, and thus would have averted a misery which you yourself would now give your life's blood to undo." The words were well chosen. The Huguenot clerk had interpreted Daniel Pye's promptings in a manner which could not fail to bear impress on Master Legros' mind. The shaft had been well aimed. It had struck a vital nerve centre. The tailor, feeling the justice of the reproof, curbed his wrath. He was silent for a moment or two, while the two men watched and waited. Suddenly the touch of a hand which he loved, roused Master Legros from his moody incertitude and a girl's voice said with firm decision: "These men are right in what they say, Father. There is no harm in hearing what they have to say. If they bring lying news or empty scandal 'twill be ample time then to turn them out of doors." "You have not heard all their impertinent canting harangues, my jewel." "I heard enough to understand that these men have come here to tell you of some evil which is about to descend on my lord of Stowmaries, my husband before God. That is so, is it not?" And she turned great inquiring eyes on Daniel Pye and on the clerk. "That is so, Mademoiselle." "My mother and I heard my father's voice raised in anger against you. She bade me come down to see what was amiss. The matter which concerns my lord of Stowmaries also concerns me, so I pray you tell my father all about it in my presence, and have no fear of his wrath, for he will listen to you for my sake." "Then, sirrah, an my daughter desires it, I pray you tell your story!" rejoined Legros. "But do so briefly; I'll patiently hear of the evil which hath befallen my lord Stowmaries, but will not listen to any impertinent comments on his actions past or in the present." "Tell them the whole tale just as you did write it out," whispered Daniel Pye to his interpreter. "Damn you, sir, how much longer will you be about it!" "Then hear me, master tailor, for it began this wise," now said the clerk with a great effort at composure. "My lord of Stowmaries hath a kinsman, one named Michael Kestyon, whom you know, and on whose conduct I am not permitted to make comment. Michael hath for years held--on grounds which it would take too long now to explain--that he and not his cousin should own the titles and estates of Stowmaries and Rivaulx. But hitherto he hath had no money wherewith to press his claim. The law as administered in England is a vastly expensive affair, my master, and Michael Kestyon was a poor man, poorer even than I; he was a wastrel and many called him a dissolute reprobate." "Enough of Michael Kestyon," interrupted Legros gruffly. "Have I not told you to be brief." "Michael Kestyon's affairs form part of my tale, Master. You must know that he is now passing rich. Many and varied are the rumours as to the provenance of his wealth, and many the comments as to the change in the man himself. Armed with money Michael Kestyon hath obtained the ear and attention of the high dignitaries of the law and the favour of the King himself. The fact hath become of public knowledge that only His Majesty's signature to a document is needed now to instate Michael Kestyon in the title and dignities which are declared to be legally his. My lord of Stowmaries, therefore, is, as you see, no longer secure in his position and his wealth, and though you may not permit the humble clerk to make comment on the doings of his betters, yet Master Daniel Pye hath come all the way from England to bring you this news, which must be vastly gratifying to you, whom that same lord of Stowmaries had so wantonly injured." Daniel Pye and his mouthpiece both looked at the tailor with marked assurance now. Of a truth they were quite confident that the Legros thirsting for revenge would receive the news with every sign of exultation. But the master tailor was silent and moody, and it was Mademoiselle who spoke. "And is this all the news which you, sir, came all the way from England to impart to my father?" she asked, addressing Daniel Pye in his mother tongue. "No, not altogether all, Mistress," he replied; "I have better news for you yet." "Anent my lord Stowmaries' troubles?" "Ay, something you will be still more glad to hear." "What is it?" "My lord of Stowmaries is a Papist--or--saving your presence he is a Catholic, and Catholics are in bad odour in England just now--they are said to be conspiring to murder the King, and to place the Duke of York on the throne--to sell England to France, and to place the English people under the yoke of the Pope of Rome." "Hath my lord of Stowmaries thus conspired?" she asked coldly. "I think so," replied Daniel Pye. "How do you mean? That you think so is no proof that he hath done it." "I can soon bring forward the proofs," said Pye with a knowing leer directed at her from under his shaggy brows, "if you, Mistress, will help me." Rose Marie felt a shudder which was almost one of loathing creeping up her spine, at sight of the expression in the man's face. It told such an infamous tale of base thoughts and desires, of cupidity and of triumphant revenge, that her every nerve rebelled against further parleyings with such a villain. But there was something more than mere feminine curiosity in her wish to know something definite of what was really passing in the mind of Daniel Pye. That shrewd instinct and sound common sense--which is the inalienable birthright of the French bourgeoisie--told her that the man would not have undertaken the arduous and costly journey from England to France unless he had some powerful motive to prompt him thereunto, or--what was more likely still--some reward to gain. The desire to learn the truth of this motive or of this hoped-for gain remained therefore paramount in her mind, and she did her best not to give outward expression to her sense of repulsion when Daniel Pye drew nearer to her in an attempt at confidential familiarity. He was far from guessing that his last words had done aught but please this wench and her father, both of whom had as serious a grievance against Lord Stowmaries as he himself had against Mistress Peyton. It had not taken the dismissed serving-man very long to learn the lesson of how he could best be revenged on his past mistress. The easiest way to hit at the ambitious lady was undoubtedly--as Master Tongue had pointed out to him--by bringing the man she desired to marry to humiliation and ruin. Michael Kestyon's successful claim to the peerage of Stowmaries had paved the way for the more complete undoing of my lord, and Daniel Pye soon knew the lesson by heart which the informers of Whitefriars had taught him. Oates was ready with his lies; he and his confederates had soon mustered up a goodly array of names of Papist gentlemen against whom these lies could most easily be proved. The first spark had been set to the tinder which presently would set the whole of England ablaze with the hideous flame of persecution. But to make their villainous perjuries more startling, and at the same time to obtain better pay for uttering them, they wanted to add to their list a few more high-sounding names which would have the additional advantage of proving the far-reaching dimensions of the supposed Popish plot. Amongst these names that of Stowmaries would be of great moment. Daniel Pye with his intimate acquaintance with my lord became a valuable addition to the band. Soon he was taught to concoct a plausible story; information against Papists was being richly rewarded already by the terrorised Ministry and Parliament. But Pye, grafting his own wits onto the lesson given, bethought himself of the rich tailor over in Paris who surely would not only help him actively in the telling of his lies, but also pay him passing well for bringing Lord Stowmaries to humiliation and disgrace--if not to the gallows. Tongue--who had remained Daniel Pye's guide and leader in all his villainies--fully approved of the plan; we may take it that he intended to levy a percentage on what the more ignorant peasant would obtain from Master Legros. It was felt among that vile band of informers that foreign witnesses, especially those of French nationality, would be a valuable help to the success of the accusations, and to all these men of low and debased mind, it seemed quite natural that the tailor--whose daughter had been the heroine of a public scandal brought about by Lord Stowmaries' repudiation of her--would out of vengeful malice be only too ready to swear to any falsehood against the young man. Thus Daniel Pye went over to France, accompanied by the good wishes of an infamous crowd. The few pounds which he had saved whilst he was in Mistress Peyton's service were rapidly dwindling away. The journey to Paris had been expensive, too, and he had therefore much at stake in this interview with the tailor, and watched with greedy eyes the face both of Legros and of his daughter, now that the latter was silent and that the old man resolutely took no part in the conversation. Of a truth Legros had been listening moodily to what this uncouth stranger was saying, trying to comprehend the drift of all his talk. But the worthy tailor had only a very scanty knowledge of the English tongue, only so much in fact as enabled him in his business to make himself understood by the cloth manufacturers and button makers of England with whom he came in contact. Therefore he had only made vague guesses as to what Pye was saying to Rose Marie. Once or twice he tried to interpose, but every time his daughter checked him with a gesture of firm entreaty, and then a whispered: "_Chéri_, allow me to speak with him!" Now after that first instinctive movement of recoil quickly suppressed, Rose Marie, keen to know what ugly schemes were being nurtured in the man's brain, feeling, too, that to know might mean the power to avert or to help, turned with well-assumed cordiality once more to Daniel Pye. "Meseems, sir," she said, "that you have more to tell me. In what way can I help to prove that my lord of Stowmaries hath conspired against the King of England?" "You need not do much, Mistress," rejoined Pye confidentially. "I will do most of the work for you. But I am a poor man and--" "I understand. You want some money. You wish to be paid. For what?" That sense of repulsion almost overmastered her again. Was she not lending herself--if only with words and with seeming acquiescence--to some abominable infamy? Swiftly her thoughts flew back to the pool of Cluny, the water lilies smirched with the slime. How true had been those words he spoke: contact with what is depraved, what is mean and base, soils and humiliates ineradicably very soon. "You have come to my father to sell him some information against Lord Stowmaries. Is that it?" she reiterated impatiently as Daniel Pye was somewhat slow in replying. "I can bring Lord Stowmaries to the gallows, by just saying the word," replied the man. "I thought Master Legros would wish me to say the word--that he would help a poor man who tried to do him service." "My lord of Stowmaries is not at the mercy of false accusers," she said almost involuntarily. "Papists in England do conspire," retorted Pye phlegmatically, "and I and my friends know a vast deal of their doings--Hark 'ee, Mistress," he added, drawing nearer to her, "and you too, my master, for methinks you understand something of what I say. It is all as simple and as clear as daylight. Papists are in very bad odour in England, and the Ministry and Parliament are all in blue terror lest the country be sold to France or to Rome. Now my friend Titus Oates and some other equally honourable gentlemen bethought themselves of a splendid plan whereby we can all render our own country a great service by exposing these Papist conspiracies. We are being well paid already for any information we get, and information is quite easy to obtain. Look at Master Oates! He hath invented a splendid tale whereby the Duke of York himself and certainly his secretary--one Coleman--and a number of others do find themselves in dire trouble. Lord Stowmaries is a Papist, too. I know him well. You know him passing well. We can readily concoct a famous story between us, which will vastly please the Privy Council and Parliament. Lord Stowmaries, I feel sure, would wish to see England Catholic like himself. He wishes to see the King put away, and the Duke of York reigning in his stead. Well! all that we need do, good Master and Mistress, is to write out a statement wherein we all swear that we overheard my lord of Stowmaries express a desire to that effect, and the man who did you both so great a wrong, the man, Master, who first married your daughter and then cast her away from him as if she were of evil fame, will dangle on the gallows to your satisfaction and to mine." Daniel Pye paused, viewing his two interlocutors with a glance of triumph. He had absolutely no doubt in his mind that the rich tailor would within the next second or two--as soon, in fact, as he had recovered from the first shock of pleasant surprise, jump up from his chair, and with the impetuous fervour peculiar to Frenchmen, throw himself on the breast of his benefactor. The transference of a bag full of gold from the pocket of the grateful and rich tailor to that of good Master Pye would then be but a matter of time. But no such manifestations of joyful excitement occurred, and the expression of triumph in the informer's face soon gave place to one of anxiety. M. Legros had looked up at his daughter, who stood beside him, pale and thoughtful. "I have not understood all that this man hath said, my jewel." "'Tis as well, Father dear," she replied, "for methinks you would have thrashed him to within an inch of his life. Nay!" she added coldly as the Huguenot clerk--suddenly realising that matters were taking a dangerous turn all unbeknown as yet to his companion--gripped the latter's arm and began to talk to him volubly in English, "you, sir, need not warn your friend. I will tell him, myself, all that he need know." "Miserable perjurer," she continued, now speaking directly to Pye, "go out of my father's house forthwith, ere he understands more of your villainies and breaks his stick across your back, as he would over that of a mad and vicious cur. I have listened to your lies, your evil projects, your schemes of villainies only because I wished to know the extent of your infamy and gauge the harm which your perjuries might cause. Now, with the help of God, I can yet warn him, who though he may have injured me, is nevertheless my husband in the sight of Heaven. Your perjuries will do you no good--they will mayhap lead you and your friends to the gallows. If there is justice in England your lies will lead you thither. Now you can go, ere I myself beg my father to lay his dog-whip across your back." Daniel Pye's surprise was quite boundless. It had never for a moment entered his head that the tailor and his family would not join readily in any project for the undoing of my lord Stowmaries. He blamed himself for having been too precipitate; he would have liked to argue and mayhap to persuade, but though he did not understand the French language, he guessed by the expression in the master tailor's eyes, as his daughter now spoke with cold decision to him, that the moment was not propitious for a prolonged stay in this inhospitable house. The look of terror on his interpreter's face also warned him that a hasty retreat would be the most prudent course; already M. Legros was gripping his stick very ominously. But by the time the old man had struggled to his feet, Daniel Pye and his companion had incontinently fled. They had reached the door, torn it open and were out in the street even before M. Legros had time to throw his stick after them. CHAPTER XXXIV A saint whose perfect soul With perfect love for goal Faith hardly might control, Creeds might not harden. --SWINBURNE. When Legros was alone once more with his daughter he asked for a fuller explanation. "I wish, my jewel, that you had not interfered," he said reproachfully, "when first I desired to kick those rascals out of doors. My first instinct was right, you see." "Nay, but, Father dear," she said gently, "I am glad that you yielded to me in this. If we had not listened to what these men said, we should know nothing of the villainies which they are concocting, and could not warn those whom they attack." "Methinks that were no concern of ours," retorted her father gruffly. "They are proposing to bring false accusations of treason against Lord Stowmaries," urged Rose Marie, almost reproachfully. "And what is that to us, my child?" "Lord Stowmaries is my husband, Father; to-morrow we set out on a journey in order to ask him to render me justice--and this we do on Monseigneur's advice." "There is no obligation on our part to undertake the journey." "There was none yesterday, Father dear, but there is to-day." "To-day? Why?" "Because to-day we know that Lord Stowmaries--my husband--is in danger of his life, and that we can, mayhap, give him timely warning." "Lord Stowmaries is so little thy husband, child, that even to-day when thou thinkest of saving him from these perjurers, he goes about carrying in the pocket of his coat the dispensation to repudiate thee, which he hath obtained from His Holiness by a misrepresentation of facts." Even as he spoke these harsh words--and he spoke them roughly, too--the good tailor took his daughter's hand tenderly in his, and stroked it, as if to mitigate by this loving touch the cruelty of the words. But the child who had been once so yielding and submissive was now an obstinate woman. "All the more reason, Father dear," she said, "for proving to my Lord Stowmaries that he hath deeply wronged me, and that I am worthy to be his wife." He was wholly unaccustomed to this new phase in his daughter's character. She had always been of a meek, gentle disposition, still a child in her expressions of loving obedience, in her tender, clinging ways. Now, suddenly she seemed to have a will of her own. She it was who had decreed that Monseigneur's advice should be followed, she it was now who refused to give up all thoughts of the journey. Let us confess that worthy M. Legros was now for awaiting events. If the rascals spoke true, God Himself had provided a glorious vengeance against the dastardly young reprobate who had so ill-used Rose Marie. Papa Legros of a truth did not see that she--the injured wife--was called upon to move a finger in the cause of a man who had paid another to dishonour her. There are times and circumstances in life when the meekest of men become as ravenous tigers. The kindly tailor had a heart of gold, a simple mind and an adoring fondness for his child. He would never have done the meanest man any hurt. Yet in this case, and because of the terrible wrong done to his Rose Marie, he almost gloated on the thought of the troubles which were about to descend on Stowmaries. Vaguely the hope wormed itself into his heart that my lord would cease to exist--painlessly if possible--still that he would cease to be, and then Rose Marie would be free, a child-widow, who might yet find happiness in the arms of a good man. But not one thought of Michael in all this! Legros himself would not let his mind dwell on that reprobate whom he had loved as a son. And Rose Marie? Did she perchance, when thinking of her journey to England, feel a vague thrill of hope that she might see him there? Who shall pry into the secret orchard, the key of which lies hid in a young girl's heart. Those who knew Rose Marie both before and after the tragic episode of the mock marriage, declared that she had a great desire to see Michael Kestyon again. If only to tell him that she had not forgiven him--that she would never forgive--and never, never forget. CHAPTER XXXV Steep and deep and sterile, under fields no plough can tame, Dip the cliffs full-fledged with poppies red as love or shame. --SWINBURNE. And it was in consequence of Monseigneur the Archbishop's advice, and of maman's desire that this advice be acted upon, that anon we see Master Legros, tailor-in-chief to His Majesty, the King of France, journeying with his daughter to England. But this was chiefly, too, because of what Daniel Pye, the informer, had gone over to Paris to say. Nothing would take it out of Rose Marie's head that it was her duty now, if ever, to be loyal to the man who was still her husband in the sight of God. He could repudiate her--if His Holiness gave him leave--but two great wrongs could never make one simple right. She, Rose Marie, had no dispensation to break the marriage vows of eighteen years ago. She had done no wrong to justify a dissolution of that marriage. Her husband was her husband; he was in danger of losing his honour and his life. She could at least give him timely warning. If she failed in this, her duty, then indeed would she deserve the scorn of the world, the repudiation and the disgrace which pertains to the unfaithful wife. On a beautiful sunny day early in October, Master Legros and his daughter first caught sight of the white cliffs of England gleaming beneath the kiss of the radiant sun. Rose Marie had sat silently, meditatively, in the prow of the boat; she had gazed during the past few hours into that distant horizon whereon trembled a heat-laden mist. The titanic band of gilded atoms had long hidden from her view the shores of that mysterious country wherein he dwelt. England to her meant the land where Michael Kestyon lived, and with aching eyes and throbbing heart she watched and watched, waiting for that first view when the mist would part and reveal to her the soil on which his foot was wont to tread. How starved was her heart that even that thought was a solace; the sensation of putting her foot down on the selfsame land whereon he dwelt was almost a consolation. She gazed at the white cliffs like one anhungered, and as the slowly-moving boat drew nearer to this new land of promise, the sun slowly setting in the west changed with a touch of the fairy wand the white cliffs into gold. She thought England beautiful both in the long twilight when mysterious veils of grey and mauve soften the outlines of the distant landscape, and in the glory of noon when tiny clouds chase one another across a sky of tender sapphire blue. She loved the early morning when every blade of grass on the crest of the cliffs at Dover was adorned by a tiny brilliant diamond, and she loved the midday sun which had drawn the breath of the dew until its soul had passed into delicate golden vapours. She loved the quaintly-arrayed army of fruit trees in the orchards, the tender green of the lawns, the ruddy tints of early autumn which clothed the hillside with a brilliant mantle of gold. No! She could not believe that in this land of beauty, of peace and of plenty, all men were born traitors, all men were liars and thieves of honour. Some subtle change came over them, no doubt, and their bravery, their loyalty, passed away from them, revealing the devil which had taken possession of their soul. She would persist in thinking that Michael, whom she had loved, was a different man to the one who stood before her, accused and self-convicted--more shamed than she whom he had wronged. Thus her thoughts kept her body alert and she scarcely felt the fatigue of that long, lumbering drive on the stage-coach between Dover and London. There was so much to see and so much to think on and to plan. The very next day her father should seek out my lord of Stowmaries and tell him all that was brewing against him. It was surely more than likely that my lord would be grateful and in his gratitude strive to undo the mischief which his own wantonness had created. What this would mean to Rose Marie she had not even dared to ask herself. A strong sense of right and of justice and an overwhelming love for her parents had prompted her to offer herself a willing sacrifice for their happiness. Her own poor heart was already so bruised, so battered, almost broken in its agony of sorrow, what mattered a little more humiliation, a few more tears, another pang? Rose Marie sighed with regret when in the gloaming the stage-coach finally left behind it the orchards and green pastures of Kent and rattled over the cobblestones of the big city. At seven o'clock, with much rattle of chains and billets, many shouts from driver and ostler and much champing of bits, the big vehicle swung through the gates of the yard at Savage's Bell Inn near Lud Gate. Here the tailor and his daughter meant to put up, the hostelry having been warmly recommended to him by several business friends who travelled to and fro from London to Paris. As Rose Marie climbed down from the top of the coach, it seemed to her that despite the fast-gathering gloom within the enclosed yard, she could recognise the face of Master Daniel Pye among the crowd who were assembled to witness the arrival of the coach. The face disappeared in the crowd almost as soon as she had recognised it, but the brief vision left her with a great sense of satisfaction that obviously the journey had not been undertaken in vain. The man had taken the trouble to watch and to wait, obviously fearing that his nefarious plans might be frustrated by those whom he had hoped to enlist on his side. Neither Rose Marie nor good M. Legros slept much that night. The fatigue of the journey, the sound of many voices jabbering in a tongue unfamiliar to their ear, chased sleep resolutely away. Only toward early morning did father and daughter, each in their respective very uncomfortable beds, fall into troubled slumber. Master Legros dreamt of the morrow's meeting with his lordly son-in-law, and Rose Marie fell asleep wondering in what quarter of the great city dwelt the man whose very image she would wish to blot out of her memory. CHAPTER XXXVI These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life, One time or other, break some gallows back. --2 HENRY IV. IV. 3. Master Daniel Pye had certainly thought it wiser--after that precipitous exit from the master tailor's house--to watch and to await events. He had been wholly taken by surprise at M. Legros' reception of his news, and staggered at the thought that where he had sought a patron, or at least an ally, he had found an active enemy. He soon learned that preparations were being actively pushed forward in the house of the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie for the journey of the master and his daughter to England. Pye and his interpreter, therefore, well-disguised and travelling as the poorest of men in the wake of their betters, reached Dover by the same packet boat that had brought the Legros hither. While the latter took rest at a small hostelry in the town, awaiting the day when a stage-coach would take them to London, Pye made his way straight to the great city, using what humble conveyances he contrived to hire for some portions of the road. The yard of Savage's Bell Inn near Lud Gate was the halting place of the stage-coach from Dover, and thither Pye repaired on those afternoons--three days in the week--when a complement of voyagers from France were expected. It was quite simple, and within forty-eight hours Pye found his patience rewarded and his worst fears justified. The good tailor had obviously come to London in order to warn Lord Stowmaries of the mischief that was brewing against him. Fortunately Pye had his false information against my lord ready, even before he had set out for Paris. His friend, the Huguenot clerk, had writ out the deposition in a good round hand, and Daniel Pye had sworn to it before a commissioner. All he had to do now was to lodge it with Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, who had already received the sworn depositions of Titus Oates and of Tongue. Lord Stowmaries' name also figured on the Oates indictment as one of those who were said to have been present at the famous "consult" whereat the Duke of York was offered the crown of England by the Catholic peers of this realm at the express desire of the Pope of Rome. Daniel Pye had incontinently sworn to everything that had been asked of him. He pretended a close intimacy with my lord of Stowmaries, and was prepared to take all the solemn oaths that were required to the effect that he had overheard my lord express loudly every kind of treasonable wish--notably that of seeing the king duly poisoned by his physician. But for all these false accusations, Pye presently discovered that he could only get about £20 as a reward, and that only if the indictment was proved on evidence. The commissioners had already told him that in order to bring his accusations home it were better that another witness came forward to swear to the same story. This is where the help of the French tailor or of the wench would have been so useful for--as luck and his own eagerness would have it--Pye had declared in his original affidavit that he had overheard my lord Stowmaries' treasonable conversations at a hostelry in Paris. Pye had thought thereby to give more verisimilitude to his story, and even Master Tongue had approved of this plan, when he heard the man declaring emphatically that the tailor's daughter would only be too ready to swear away the life of the man whom she must hate with all the bitter sense of an overwhelming wrong. Thus therefore did the accusation stand. Master Daniel Pye had sworn that when he was at the hostelry of the "Rat Mort," in Paris, on April 19th of this same year of grace, he had overheard my lord of Stowmaries talking--with one of the ministers of the King of France--of the terms of a treaty whereby the Papist peers of England would acclaim the Duke of York as King of England and vassal of the Pope, and receive a subsidy of five million livres from King Louis for their pains. It was indeed a splendid story. No wonder that Master Pye was over-pleased with it; he had added the final touch of apparent truth to it by stating that M. Legros--a French subject--and his daughter--the reputed and repudiated wife of the accused--were also present at the "Rat Mort" on that occasion and had also overheard this conversation, and would testify as to the verity thereof. Imagine the disappointment, the vexation, nay, the grave fears now engendered in Master Pye's mind at thought that the tailor and his wench meant to frustrate his schemes completely, and not only to throw discredit on the elaborate accusation, but even mayhap to prejudice the payment of that meagre reward of £20. When Master Legros, accompanied by his daughter arrived at the Bell Inn, Daniel Pye was at first seized with a mad desire to try and influence them yet once again in his own favour. Remember that Pye was little more than an uncouth peasant, with just as much knowledge of other people's natures as he had gleaned through daily contact with his own underlings. He could not get it into his head that the Legros really meant to forego the happy sensation of a complete revenge, and half thought that, mayhap, they had misunderstood the whole scheme during that stormy interview in the back shop, when there was so much talk of stick and of dog-whip, and not nearly enough of just reward for a great service rendered. At the last moment, however, when Legros had alighted from the coach and had somewhat impatiently ordered beds and board, Daniel Pye's heart misgave him, and he felt afraid to encounter the irascible little tailor's wrath. Once more he sought out his friend, the needy and out-at-elbows Huguenot clerk, and offered him a shilling to go the next morning to the Bell Inn and to watch the Legros' movements. Quite a goodly amount of Master Pye's savings were now dwindling away in this direction. "Do you try and get speech with the tailor," he said to the young scribe, "and try by your great skill to make him believe that you would wish to serve him, seeing that you have quarrelled with me and are now penniless. These people must of a truth be friendless and lonely in London; who knows but that they may take you as their guide, in which case all you need do is to try and prevent by every means in your power that they have speech with Lord Stowmaries for the next few days. Once my lord is duly arrested on our information, strangers will, of course, have no access to him; the trials we know are to be hurried through very quickly and there would then be no fear of our losing our just rewards." Well schooled in the part which he had to play, the Huguenot clerk duly installed himself just outside the gates of the yard of the Bell Inn on the following morning, and by ten o'clock he had the satisfaction of seeing Master Legros obviously bent on obtaining information, and wandering for that purpose somewhat disconsolately about the yard, seeing that no one there was able to converse with him in his own tongue. This was the clerk's opportunity. He slipped through the gate, and doffing his soft cap, humbly accosted the foreign gentleman. "Can I be of service, Master?" he said in French. "I am an interpreter by trade." "And if I mistake not," replied the tailor suspiciously, "you are one of two damned blackguards who came to my house in Paris with some lying tale of Papist conspiracy against my lord Stowmaries, some few days ago." "Hush, hush, good Master, I entreat you," quoth the clerk with well-feigned alarm, and throwing quick, furtive glances around him; "the subject is not one which must be discussed aloud just now." "And why, sirrah, must it not be discussed aloud?" "Because to call yourself a Papist just now, my Master, is synonymous to proclaiming yourself a traitor. Your very life would not be safe in this yard. A reign of terror hath set in in England. The peaceful citizens themselves go about the streets carrying flails hidden in the pockets of their breeches to defend themselves against the Jesuits. Nay, Master, an your business is not urgent, I entreat you to return to France, ere you or your daughter come to any harm." "My business with my lord Stowmaries is urgent," said Legros with characteristic hot-headed impulsiveness; "an you'll direct me to his house, there'll be a shilling or mayhap two for you." "In the name of Heaven, good Master," ejaculated the clerk in an agonised whisper, "do not speak that name aloud. My lord is in very bad odour. His arrest is imminent and all his friends are like to fare as badly as himself." "All the more reason why I should speak with him at once. So now, sirrah! Wilt earn that shilling and direct me to his house, or wilt thou not?" "Alas, kind sir, I am a poor man, a starving man since that traitor, Daniel Pye, hath turned against me, seeing that I would not aid him in his conspiracies. And I'll gladly earn a shilling, kind sir, and direct you to the house of my lord Stowmaries, an you will deign to place yourself under my protection." Truly Master Legros had no cause not to accept the clerk's offer. However villainous the man's conduct might or might not be, there could be no harm in accepting his escort in broad daylight as far as the house of my lord of Stowmaries. Legros was a complete stranger in the English city, which he thought overwhelmingly vast and terribly dirty. He had heard many tales of the plague in London, and though this had occurred thirteen years ago, he still thought the place infected and mistrusted the hackney coaches and carrying chairs which were plying the streets for hire. After hurried consultation with his daughter, he decided that no harm could come of being escorted by the clerk through the streets of London. The latter spoke French and would be vastly useful, and he could easily be dismissed, once my Lord Stowmaries' house had been reached. Good M. Legros was suffering from an unusually severe attack of chronic fussiness. He could not have sat still another hour, and was for starting immediately for my lord's house. Rose Marie had no reason for wishing to put off that interview, the thought of which she abhorred more and more strongly as the time for its occurrence drew nigh. She was conscious of a desire to get it over, to put finality between the inevitable and her own ever-rebellious hopes. For her parents' sake she wanted to see Lord Stowmaries grateful and yielding; for her own she almost wished that he remained obdurate. She would gladly have purchased her freedom at the price of more bitter humiliation than she had yet endured, yet she had set herself the task of purchasing the content and happiness of those she cared for at the price of her freedom and the most bitter of all humiliation. These contradictory thoughts and wishes fretted her and rendered her nervous and agitated. But at her father's bidding, she was ready to make a start. When Legros once more came down into the courtyard, dressed for the momentous visit, and with his daughter on his arm, the Huguenot clerk was nowhere to be seen. He soon reappeared, however, almost breathless from fast running, but seemingly ready to accompany the distinguished foreign visitors withersoever they wished to go. He had just had time in the interim to consult with Master Daniel Pye as to what had best be done. "If I do not take that accursed tailor over to my lord Stowmaries, some one else will for sure," he said disconsolately. "Let me think for a moment," quoth Pye, with an anxious frown on his lowering brow. "I understand that the arrest of my lord is imminent--if only we can put off this meddlesome Frenchman for to-day, I do verily believe that all will be well. For the nonce you had best tell him that my lord Stowmaries is from home, but is expected daily, hourly, to return. Thus we might gain twenty-four hours, for you would tell the same tale again in the afternoon--after that your wits should give you counsel. Am I not paying you that they should be of service to me?" Thus it was that when the clerk arrived breathless in the yard of the Bell Inn, where Master Legros was impatiently awaiting him, he excused himself for his absence on the grounds that he had--surely with commendable forethought--taken the precaution to make enquiries as to whether my lord of Stowmaries was at home. "My lord's house is some distance from here," he explained, "and I thought to save you and the fair mistress a fruitless walk through the city." "Then 'twas mightily officious of you, sirrah?" quoth the irascible tailor, "to meddle with what doth not concern you." "Zeal in your service prompted me, good master, and as my lord of Stowmaries is from home, I have the honour of saving you much fatigue." "My lord is from home, did you say?" queried Legros in a tone of obvious disappointment. "Ay, good master; but his servants expect to see him back to-morrow." "We will find out for ourselves, Father dear, when my lord is expected home," here interposed Rose Marie, with her usual quiet air of decision; "no doubt there are others in London besides this same officious clerk who will guide us to his house." We may imagine that at this point the pious young Huguenot formulated an inward but very emphatic "Damn!" cursing the interference of young damsels and their impatient ways. Not having his principal to consult with, he was momentarily thrown on his own resources of wit and of readiness. This was certainly an occasion when the devil should aid those who serve him well. The clerk had only a very slight moment of hesitation, then a brilliant idea seemed to strike him, for his wizened face brightened up visibly. "Fair Mistress," he said in tones of respectful reproach, "far be it from me to shirk my duty toward you. An you'll permit me I'll escort you to the house of my lord of Stowmaries forthwith." "Then, why so much talking, sirrah," rejoined Papa Legros. "March, and briskly, too. I have a convenient stick which oft works wonders in making laggards walk briskly. Go ahead; my daughter and I will follow." CHAPTER XXXVII "I will hold your hand but as long as all may, Or so very little longer." --BROWNING. After half an hour's continuous walking--for the roads out of London were over-bad after the heavy rains during the past week--the Huguenot clerk, closely followed by Master Legros, who had his daughter on his arm, turned into the new parish of Soho, where a number of fine houses had been recently erected, and a few more were even now in process of construction. The clerk had at first seemed desirous of imparting various scraps of topographical information to his compatriots, but to his interesting conversation the tailor only responded in curt monosyllables. He still harboured a vague mistrust against his guide. The latter part of the walk through the ill-paved, muddy and evil-smelling streets of London was therefore accomplished in silence. Rose Marie's nerves were tingling with excitement, and she shivered beneath her cloak and hood, despite the warmth of this fine summer afternoon. Soon the little party came to a halt before a newly-built house, fashioned of red brick with a fine portico of stone, richly carved and tall, arched windows set in flush with the outside walls and painted in creamy white. "Here lives my lord of Stowmaries," said the clerk, as without waiting for further permission he plied the brass knocker vigorously. "Shall I ask if he hath come home?" The tailor nodded in assent. He, too, was now getting too excited to speak. The next moment a serving-man, dressed in clothes of sober grey, opened the front door, and to the clerk's query whether my lord was at home, he replied in the affirmative. Master Legros and Rose Marie were far too troubled in their minds to notice the furnishings and appointments of the house. Rose Marie threw the hood back from her face, and asked whether they could speak with my lord forthwith. "Will you tell him, I pray you," she added, "that Monsieur Legros from Paris desires speech with him." Legros dismissed the clerk--who was eager enough to get away--by bestowing a shilling upon him, and after that he and his daughter followed the serving-man through the hall into a small withdrawing room where they were bidden to wait. A few moments of suspense--terrible alike to the girl and to the father--then a firm tread on the flagged floor outside; a step that to Rose Marie's supersensitive ear sounded strangely, almost weirdly familiar. The next moment Michael Kestyon had entered the room. "You have come to speak with me, good M. Legros--" he said even as he entered. Then he caught sight of Rose Marie and the words died on his lips. They looked at one another--these two who once had been all in all one to the other--parted now by the shadow of that unforgettable wrong. Instinctively--with eye fixed to eye--each asked the other the mute question: "Didst suffer as I did?" and in the heart of each--of the defiant adventurer, and the unsophisticated girl--there rose the wild, mad thrill, the triumphant, exulting hosanna, at sight of the lines of sorrow, so unmistakable, so eloquent on the face so dearly loved. Rose Marie saw at once how much Michael had altered--that tender, motherly instinct inseparable from perfect womanhood told her even more than that which the sunken eyes and the drawn look in the face so pathetically expressed. Yet outwardly he had changed but little; the step--as he rapidly crossed the room--had been as firm, as elastic as of old; he still carried his head high, and his manner--as of yore--was easy and gracious. When he had first entered, there was even an eager, joyful expression in his face. He did not know, you see, that M. Legros' visit to him was the result of a mistake, the freak of a mischievous clerk. He really thought that the good tailor had come here to see him, Michael, and the news had brought almost joy to his heart and had accelerated his footsteps as he flew down to greet his visitor. No, the change was in none of these outward signs. It was the spirit in him which had changed. The dark eyes once so full of tenderness had a cold, steely look in them now, which was apparent even through the first pleasurable greeting. The mouth, too, looked set in its lines; the lips, which ere this were ever wont to smile, were now tightly pressed as if for ever controlling a sigh or trying to suppress a cry of pain. Michael--with the eyes of a man hungering for love--gazed on his snowdrop and saw the change which the past dark months had wrought on the former serenity of her face. And if he had suffered during that time the exquisite pangs of mad and hopeless longing, how much more acute did that pain seem now that he saw her, looking pale and fragile, almost frightened, too, in his presence, cold as she had been ere that mad glad moment when he had held her--a living, loving woman--in his arms, with the hot blood rushing to her cheeks at his whispered words of passion, and the light of love kindled in her eyes. Can brain of man or of torturing devils conceive aught so cruel as this living, breathing embodiment of the might-have-been; this tearing of every heart-string in the maddening desire for one more embrace, one last lingering kiss, one touch only of hand against hand, one final breath of life--after which, death and peace? As in a dream, good Master Legros' diffident voice struck on Michael's ear: "It was with my lord of Stowmaries that we wished to speak." And directly after that, Rose Marie's trembling tones, half-choked with sobs resolutely suppressed: "Let us go, Father--we--we must not stay here--let us go--" She had drawn close to her father, and was twining her hands round his arm trying to drag him away. The sad pathos of this appeal--this clinging to another as if for protection and help, whilst he--Michael--stood by--nothing to her, less than nothing, a thing to fear, to hate, mayhap, certainly to despise--struck him as with a whip-lash across his aching breast. But it woke him from his dream. It brought him back to earth, with senses bruised and temples throbbing, his pride of manhood brought down to the dust of a childish desire to keep her here in his presence if only for a moment, a second; to hear her speak, to look on her, to endure her scorn if need be, only to have her there. Therefore, he turned to Papa Legros and almost humbly said: "Will you at least tell me, good Master, if I cannot serve you in any way?" "No, sir, you cannot," replied Papa Legros gruffly. "I would have you believe and know that we came here under a misapprehension. A miscreant interpreter brought us hither, though he was bidden to take us to the house of Lord Stowmaries. We did not know that this was your house, sir, or believe me, we had never entered it." "This is not my house," rejoined Michael gravely. "It is that of my mother, who hath left her Kentish village in order to dwell with me. For the rest, the misapprehension is most easy of explanation; nor is your interpreter so very much to blame." He paused for the space of a second or two, then fixing steady eyes on the face of Rose Marie and throwing his head back with an air that was almost defiant in its pride, he said: "You asked to speak with my lord of Stowmaries--'tis I who am the lord of Stowmaries now." Then, as Legros, somewhat bewildered, stared at him in blank surprise, he added more quietly: "You did not know this, mayhap?" "No--no--my lord," stammered the tailor, who of a truth felt strangely perturbed, "we--that is, I and my daughter did not know that--" "His Majesty gave his decision late last night." There was a moment's silence in the room. It seemed as if Michael was anticipating something, waiting for a word from Rose Marie. His very attitude was an expectant one; he was leaning forward, and his eyes had sought her lips, as if trying to guess what they would utter. "Then the title which you borrowed from your cousin awhile ago, and to some purpose, you have now succeeded in filching from him altogether?" said the girl coldly. If she had the desire to hurt him, she certainly did succeed. Michael did not move, but his cheeks, already pale, turned to ashy grey; the eyes sank still deeper within their sockets, and in a moment the face looked worn and haggard as that of a man with one foot in the grave. Then he said slowly: "Your pardon, Mistress; I have filched naught which was not already mine, mine and my father's before me. That which I took was my right; it is also my mother's, who for years had been left to starve whilst another filched from her that which was hers. For her sake did I claim that which was mine, because during all those years of starvation, misery and degradation--her misery and mine own degradation--she kept up her faith in me. And also for mine own sake did I claim my right, and in order to mend a wrong which, it seems, I had committed. Good Master Legros," he added, turning to the vastly bewildered tailor, "as Lord of Stowmaries I entered your house and, methinks, your heart. Of this I am not ashamed; the wrong that I did you is past; the righting thereof will last my lifetime and yours. I was Lord Stowmaries then by the word of God--I am that now by the word of the King and Parliament. That which seemed a lie I have proved to be true. Will you give me back your daughter, whom the caprice of a wanton reprobate would have cast from him, and whom I have justly won, by my deeds, by my will, by my crime if you call it so, but whom I have won rightfully and whom I would wish to render happy even at the cost of my life." Gradually, as he spoke, the tone of defiance died out of his voice and only pride remained expressed therein--pride and an infinity of tenderness. There was no attempt at mitigating the fault that was past, no desire to excuse or to palliate. The man and his sin were inseparable; obviously had the sin to be again committed, Michael would have committed it again, with the same determination and the same defiance. "I am a man, and what I do, I do. I won you by a trick. I fought for your love and won it. Mine enemy put a weapon in my hand. With it I conquered him; I conquered Fate and you. Had I been ashamed of the act, I had never committed it. I looked sin squarely in the face and took it by its grim hand and allowed it to lead me to your feet. To you I never lied; you I do not cheat." These thoughts and more were fully expressed in his eyes as they rested on Rose Marie, and so subtle is the wave of sympathy that she understood every word which he did not utter; she understood them, even though she steeled her heart against the insidious whisperings of a drowsy conscience. We may well imagine that on the other hand, good M. Legros, though he did not altogether grasp the proud sophistries of such a splendid blackguard, nevertheless quickly ranged himself against the whole array of all the grim virtues. Would you blame him very much if you knew that within the innermost recesses of his kindly and simple heart he no longer greatly desired to speak with the man whom he had come all the way from Paris to supplicate and to warn? Was it very wrong, think you, very self-interested on the part of this amiable little tailor to be now cursing those very necessities engendered by an ultrasensitive sense of loyalty which imposed on him the task of cleaving to that man who was now dispossessed, beggared, a most undesirable husband for his beautiful daughter? Truly the situation, from the point of view of conscience and of decency, was a very difficult one. Is it a wonder that the doting father was quite unable to grapple with it? Here was a man who was a terrible scoundrel, yet a mightily pleasing one for all that. He was now rich, of high consideration and power; he professed and undoubtedly felt a great and genuine love for Rose Marie. On the other hand, the other--his daughter's rightful lord--only too ready, nay, anxious, to repudiate her--who truly was a far greater blackguard and not nearly such an attractive one--he was now poor and insignificant--always providing that Michael Kestyon's story was true and--and-- Good M. Legros' conscience was having such a tough fight inside him that he had to take out his vast, coloured handkerchief and to mop his forehead well, for he was literally in a sweat of intense perturbation. He would not meet Michael's enquiring eyes, lest the latter should read in his own the ready assent which they proclaimed. The worst of the situation was that good M. Legros was bound to leave the ultimate decision to his daughter, and alas, he knew quite well what that decision would be. And God help them all, but he was bound to admit that that decision was the only right one, in the sight of the Lord and of all His self-denying and uncomfortably rigid saints. Even now Rose Marie's clear voice, which had lost all its childlike ring of old and all its light tones of joy, broke in on her father's meditation. "Sir, or my lord," she said coldly, "for of a truth I know not which you are, meseems you do a cowardly thing by appealing to my father. He would only have my earthly welfare in view, and even in this he might be mistaken if he thought that my earthly welfare could lie there, where there is disloyalty and shameless betrayal. For all your pride, good sir, and for all your defiance, you cannot e'en persuade yourself that what you do is right. As for me, I am a wife--not yours, my lord--despite the trick wherewith you drew from me an oath at the altar. I swore no love, no allegiance to any man save to him whom you have now wholly despoiled and beggared--nay," she added with a look of pride at least as great as his own, "I need no reminder, sir, that I stand here, a cast-out wife, repudiated for no fault of mine own, but through an infamy in which _you_ bore the leading hand. But, nevertheless, I am a wife, and as such God hath enjoined me to cleave to my husband. Since you have beggared him, I, thank God, can still enrich him. Never have I blest my father's wealth so sincerely as now, when it can go to proving to a scoffer that there is truth and loyalty in women, even when sordid self-interest fights against truth and justice. And if all the world, his king and country, turned against my lord, I, his wife, good sir, his wife in the sight of God, despite dispensations, despite courts of law and decrees of popes or kings, I, his wife, for all that would still be ready to serve him." Gradually her voice as she spoke had become more steady and also less trenchant; there was a quiver of passion in it, the passion of self-sacrifice. And he--poor man--mistook that warm, vibrating ring in the sweet, tender voice for the expression of true love felt for another. "I did not know that you loved him, Rose Marie," he said simply. She bent her head in order to hide the blush which rose to her cheeks at his words. Was she thankful that he had misunderstood? Perhaps! For of a truth it would make the battle less hard to fight, and would guard against defeat. But, nevertheless, two heavy tears rose to her eyes, and strive as she might she could not prevent their falling down onto her hands which were clasped before her. He saw the tears, and heard her murmur: "He who was my lord of Stowmaries is a beggar now." "No, not a beggar," he rejoined quietly, "for he is rich beyond the dreams of men." "Good sir--or--or my lord," here interposed Papa Legros, who was still in a grave state of mental perturbation, "you see that the decision doth not rest with me--Heaven help me, but with all your fault I would--somehow--somehow have entrusted my child in your keeping with an easy heart." "And may God bless you for these words, good Master," said Michael fervently. "But you see, kind sir--I mean my lord--that this cannot be. My lord of Stowmaries--if so be that he is that no longer--yet as lord of Stowmaries he did wed my daughter. She feels--and rightly, too, no doubt--that she owes fealty to him. God knows but 'tis all very puzzling and I never was a casuist, but she says this is right and no doubt it is. It had all been much easier but for this additional grave trouble which threatens my lord." "What additional grave trouble? I know of none such," queried Michael. "A scoundrel, liar and perjurer hath laid information against my lord, that he did conspire against the King of England." "Impossible." "Ay! 'tis true, good my lord. The damned ruffian came to Paris to inform me of all the lies which he meant to tell against Lord Stowmaries, hoping that I would be pleased thereat and would reward him for his perjuries. I kicked him out of my house, and my daughter and I came to warn my lord of the mischief that was brewing against him." A frown of deep perplexity darkened Michael's brow. "Good master tailor, I pray you leave me to see my cousin forthwith. The trouble, alas, if your information be correct, is graver than even you have any idea of. England is mad just now! Terror hath chased away all her reason, and, God help her, all her sense of justice. It may be that I shall have to arrange that my cousin leave the country as soon as may be. An you return to France soon he could travel in your company." "I would wish to see my lord myself," said Rose Marie. "Because you do not trust me?" he asked. She would not reply to his look of reproach. How strange it is when a wave of cruelty sweeps over a woman, who otherwise is tender and kind and gentle. Rose Marie felt herself quite unable to stifle this longing to wound and to hurt, even though her heart ached at sight of the hopeless misery which was expressed in Michael's every movement, in the tonelessness of his voice, and the drawn look in his face. Who shall probe the secrets of a woman's heart, of a woman who has been cheated of a great love even at its birth, of a woman who thought that she had reached the utmost pinnacle of happiness only to find herself hurled from those giddy heights down, down to an abyss of loneliness, of lovelessness, and of bitter, undying memories. "The child is unstrung, good my lord," here interposed Papa Legros gently. "I pray, do not think that we do not trust in you. It were better mayhaps that you did see Lord Stowmaries--er--your cousin--alas! I know not how to call him now--and we'll to him this afternoon. He can then best tell us what he desires to do." "Come, Rose Marie, we had best go now," he added with a pathetic sigh, which expressed all the disappointment of his kindly heart. He picked up his soft felt hat and with gentle, trembling movement twirled it round and round in his hand. Rose Marie drew the hood over her hair and prepared to follow him. It was all over then! The seconds had flown. She had come and would now go again, leaving him mayhap a shade more desolate even than before. It was all over, and the darkness of the past months would descend on him once more, only that the darkness would be more dense, more unbearable, because of this one ray of light--caused by her presence here for these few brief moments. Of a truth he had not known until now quite how much he had hoped, during these past months whilst he fought his battle with grim and steady vigour, winning step by step, until that last final decision of the king, which gave him all that he wanted, all that he desired to offer her. Now she was going out of his life--for the second time--and it seemed more irrevocable than that other parting at St. Denis. She was going and there would not remain one single tiny spark of hope to light the darkness of his despair. Nothing would remain, only memory! Memory, on which the tears of Love would henceforth for ever be fed. Her words might ring in his ears, her image dwell in his mind, but his heart would go on starving, starving, athirst for just one tiny remembrance on which to dwell until mercifully it would break at last. "May I not kiss your finger tips once more, Rose Marie?" he pleaded. The words had escaped his lips almost involuntarily. The longing for the tiny remembrance had been too strong to be stilled. A kiss on her finger tips, one crumb of bread to a man dying of hunger, the sponge steeped in water to slake a raging thirst. She turned to him. The tears had dried on her cheeks by now, and her eyes were seared and aching. She looked on his face, but did not lift her hand. Papa Legros, who felt an uncomfortable lump in his throat, busied himself with a careful examination of the door handle. "It will probably be a long farewell," said Michael gently. "Will you not let me hold your hand just once again, my snowdrop? Nay, not mine, but another's--a king now amongst men." Then, as very slowly, and with eyes fixed straight into his own, she raised her hand up to his, he took it, and looked long at each finger tip, tapering and delicately tipped with rose. "See the epicure I am," he said, whilst a quaint smile played round the corners of his lips; "your little hand rests now in mine. I know that I may kiss it, that my lips may linger on each exquisite finger tip, until my poor brain, dizzy with joy, will mayhap totter into the land of madness. I know that I may kiss this cold little hand--so cold! I know that it will chill my lips--and still I wait--for my last joy now is anticipation. Nay, do not draw your hand away, my beautiful ice-maid. Let me hold it just one little brief while longer. Are we not to be friends in the future? Then as a friend may I not hold and kiss your hand?" She could not speak, for sobs which she resolutely suppressed would rise in her throat, but she allowed her hand to rest in his; there was some solace even in this slight touch. "Is it not strange," he said, "that life will go on just the same? The birds will sing, the leaves in autumn will wither and will fall. Your dear eyes will greet the first swallow when it circles over the towers of St. Gervais. Nature will not wear mourning because a miserable reprobate is eating out his heart in an agony of the might-have-been." "I pray you, milor, release my hand," she murmured, for of a truth she no longer could bear the strain. "My father waits--" "And the husband whom you love--nay, he must be a good man since God hath loved him so--" "Farewell, my lord." "Farewell, Rose Marie--my rosemary--'tis for remembrance, you know." He tasted the supreme joy to the full--all the joy that was left to him now--five finger tips, cold against his burning lips, and they trembled beneath each kiss. Then she turned and followed her father out of the room. For a moment he remained alone, standing there like one drunken or dazed. Mechanically his hand went to the inner pocket of his coat and anon he pulled out a withered, crumbling bunch of snowdrops, the tiny bouquet which she had dropped at his feet that day in Paris, when first he saw her, and her blue eyes kindled the flame of a great and overwhelming passion. Nay! thou art a man, and of what thou doest, thou art not ashamed; but, proud man that thou art, there is thy Master, Love; he rules thee with his rod of steel, and if thou sin, beware! for that rod will smite thee 'til thou kneel humbly in the dust, with the weakness of unshed tears shaming thy manhood, and with a faded bunch of snowdrops pressed against thy lips, to smother a miserable, intensely human cry of awful agony. CHAPTER XXXVIII What be her cards you ask? Even these:-- The heart, that doth but crave More, having fed; the diamond, Skilled to make base seem brave; The club, for smiting in the dark The spade, to dig a grave. --DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. The one supreme moment of complete and abject weakness was soon past; it had gone by in solitude. No one saw the fall of the defiant reprobate brought to the dust by the intensity of his grief. No one but God and triumphant Love. Within a few minutes Michael had gathered together his scattered senses. What avail were tears and the bitter joys of lingering memories when there was still so much to do? Of a truth, Rose Marie's firm attitude of loyalty towards her rightful husband had not so much astonished Michael, for to a man who loves, the adored one necessarily possesses every virtue that ever adorned the halo of a saint; but he did not know that she loved her husband, and the warmth of her defence of the absent one had, in Michael's ears, sounded like the expression of her love. He did not stop to reason, to visualize the fact that Rose Marie did not know Stowmaries, that the passion in her voice had the ring of tragic despair in it, coupled with the sublime ardour of heroic self-sacrifice. A man in love never stops to reason. Passion and the dormant seeds of ever-present jealousy still the powers of common sense. The thought that Rose Marie loved him, the remembrance of that day when he had held her in his arms, feeling her young body quivering at his touch, seeing her eyes glowing in response to his ardour, her exquisite lips moist with the promise of a kiss, these had been his life during the past few months; they had been the very breath of his body, the blood in his veins, the strength which bore him through all that he had set himself to do. The winning of name and estate, and then a reconquering of his snowdrop, with a foregone certainty of victory ahead, that had been his existence. A foregone certainty of victory! How oft had he exulted at the thought, drugging his despair with the intoxicating potion of hope, and now one brief word from her and defeat had been more hopeless, more complete than before. "I am his wife," she said; "his wife in the sight of God; his wife despite the infamy in which you bore the leading hand!" Michael had thought of everything, had envisaged everything save this: that Rose Marie would turn from him, because she loved the other. Loyalty and love, love and passion, were all synonymous to the impatient ardour, the proud defiance of this splendid blackguard--splendid in this, that he never swerved from the path into which he had once engaged his footsteps, never looked back with purposeless longing, and neither cursed Fate nor ever gave way to despair. Even now, he pulled himself together, and within half an hour of the Legros' departure from his house he was on his way to see his friend Sir William Jones, the Attorney-General, first, and thence to his cousin's house on the outskirts of Piccadilly. Rupert Kestyon--by the king's mandate no longer Lord of Stowmaries now--still occupied the same house into which he had made triumphant entry some two years ago on the death of the old earl. It was an ancient family mansion built a century and a half back, with gigantic and elaborate coat of arms carved in stone above the majestic porch. The serving-man who in response to Michael's peremptory knocking opened the massive door to him, gave no outward sign that so great a change had come, and with appalling suddenness, in the fortunes of his master. He even addressed Michael as "sir" and spoke of "his lordship" being still in his room upstairs. Impatiently waving the man aside, Michael threw hat and cloak down in the hall, and not waiting to be formally announced he ran quickly up the broad staircase. He knew the house well, for in childhood he had oft been in it, when his mother, holding him by the hand, came to ask for pecuniary assistance from the wealthy kinsman. Without hesitation, therefore, Michael went up to the door of the principal bedroom and gave an impatient rap with his knuckles on the solid panel. A fretful "Come in!" from within invited him to enter. Rupert Kestyon was lying on the monumental four-post bedstead stretched out flat on his back and staring moodily into the glowing embers of the wood-fire which was burning in the wide-open grate. At sight of his cousin he jumped up to a sitting posture; a deep frown of anger puckered his brow, and lent to the face a look of savagery. He stared at Michael for awhile, more than astonished at this unlooked-for appearance of his triumphant enemy; then he blurted out in his overwhelming wrath: "Out of my house! Out of my house, you thief--you--out of here, I say--the men are still my servants--and I am still master here." He put his feet to the ground, and made straightway for the door, but Michael intercepted him, and gripping the young man's wrists with his own strong fingers, he pushed him gently but firmly back. "Easy, easy, Coz!" he said with kindly firmness; "by our Lady, but 'tis poor policy to harass the harbinger of good news." "Good news," quoth Rupert, who was boiling over with rage, "good news from you, who have just robbed me of my inheritance!" "'Twas an even game, good Coz," retorted Michael good-naturedly. "My father, my mother and I had all been robbed in the past, and left in a more pitiable plight, believe me, than it was ever my intention to leave you." "Prate not of your intentions, man. You used my money, the money I myself did give you, in order to wage war against me, and press a claim which you never would have made good but for that money which I gave you." "Let us be fair, good Coz. I offered you the whole of that money back on that memorable night in April at the inn of St. Denis." "Ay, on a ridiculous condition to which I cared not to agree." "The ridiculous condition," said Michael gravely, "consisted in your acknowledging as your lawful wife, an exquisitely beautiful and virtuous lady who already had claim on your loyalty." "The exquisitely beautiful lady," retorted Rupert with an ugly sneer, "had, an I mistake not, already dragged her virtue in the wake of your chariot, my friend." "Silence, man," said Michael sternly, "for you know that you lie." "Will you attempt to deny that your magnanimous offer at St. Denis was made because you were in love with my wife?" "I'll not deny it, but what my feelings were in the matter concerned no one but myself." "Mayhap, mayhap, but e'en you admit, good Coz," quoth Rupert with obvious spite, "that a wife's conduct--" "Your wife's conduct, Cousin, is beyond reproach," broke in Michael calmly, "as you know right full well." "Pardi! Since she is in love with you--" "That, too, is a lie--She loves no one but you." "Mayhaps she told you so?" queried the young man, as with a yawn of ostentatious indifference he stretched himself out again--on a couch this time, with one booted leg resting on the ground and tapping it impatiently, whilst the other kicked savagely at an unoffensive sofa-cushion, tearing its silk cover to shreds. "Yes!" replied Michael calmly, "she hath told me so." Then as the other broke into a loud, sarcastic laugh, he continued earnestly: "Listen, Cousin, for what I am about to tell you concerns the whole of your future. You are a penniless beggar now--nay, do not interrupt me--I have well weighed every word which I speak, and have an answer for each of your sneers--you are a penniless beggar--through no fault of your own, mayhap, but I was a beggar, too, through none of mine. My mother was left--almost to starve--alone in a God-forsaken village. For years I kept actual starvation from her by courting wounds in order to get blood-money. That has been your fault ever since the old uncle's death, Cousin, for you knew that your kinswoman starved, and did naught to help her. But that is over, let it pass! I was a wastrel, a reprobate, a dissolute blackguard an you will! Had I been a better man than I was, you had never dared to offer me money to dishonour a woman. Let that pass too. But this I swear before God that I never meant to dishonour the girl. I was ready to take her to my heart, to give her all that she asked and more, the moment you in your wantonness had cast her off. But she is too proud to take anything from me, and wants nothing but her rights. Nay, you must listen to me patiently, till I have told you all--She is loyal to you, with heart and soul and body, and hath come to England to beg of you to render her justice." "Have I not told you, man," here broke in Rupert Kestyon, with a blasphemous oath which momentarily drowned the quieter tones of the other man, "have I not told you that were that accursed tailor and his miserable wench to go on their knees to me, I would not have her--no, a thousand times no--with the last penny left in my pocket I'll obtain the decree of nullity, and marry the woman whom I love--" "If she'll have you, Cousin," quoth Michael drily, "now that you are a beggar." In a moment Rupert was on his feet again, burning with rage, swearing mad oaths in his wrath, and clenching his fists with a wild desire to rush at Michael and grip him by the throat. "Nay, Coz," said the latter with a smile, "let us not fight like two brawling villains. My fist is heavier than yours: and if you attack me, I should have in defending mine own throat to punish you severely. But why should you rage at me; I have come to you with good intent. Think you, I would have left you to shift for yourself in this inhospitable world? Great God, do I not know what it means to shift for oneself--the misery, the wretchedness, the slow but certain degradation of mind and of body? By all the saints, man, I would not condemn mine enemy to such a life as I have led these past ten years." "You do the tailor's wench no good anyhow by preaching to me," growled Rupert sulkily, feeling somewhat shamed. He sat down once more, in an attitude of dejection, resting his elbows on his knees and burying his head in his hands. "I did not come to preach," rejoined Michael quietly. "A blackguard like me hath no right to preach, and a blackguard like you, Cousin, is not like to listen. Nay, man, we are quits; we have both of us a pretty black mark against us in the book of records up there. 'Tis nigh on a year ago now that you came to me with your proposals. They have had far wider reaching consequences than any of us had dreamed of at the time. When I made a proposal to you at the inn at St. Denis, you refused my terms peremptorily--they were not sufficiently munificent, it seems, to tempt you to right a great wrong. I felt my weakness, then. I had no more to offer than just the return of your own money. You were a rich man still and could afford to pay largely for the satisfaction of a wanton caprice. But now matters stand differently; the money which you so contemptuously flung away at St. Denis hath borne royal fruit. I made that money work; I forced it to toil and slave to gain my purpose. I have beggared you, Cousin, and made myself powerful and strong, not because I hated you, not because I any longer desire dignity and riches, but because I wanted to hold in my hand a bribe that would be regal enough to tempt you." He paused awhile, with stern dark eyes fixed on the weak, somewhat feminine face before him. Rupert Kestyon's vacillating pupils searched his cousin's face, trying to divine his thoughts. He raised his head, and rubbed his eyes, like a man wakened from sleep, and stared at Michael as on a man bereft of his senses. "I do not understand," he stammered in his bewilderment. "Yet, 'tis simple enough," resumed Michael calmly. "The good tailor whom you despise hath come over from France because he had heard rumours that a charge of conspiracy against the king was being brought against you by false informers." "Great God!" murmured Rupert, who at these words had suddenly become pale, whilst great beads of perspiration rose upon his forehead. "Ay," said the other, "we know what that means, Cousin. Your name amongst those implicated in this so-called Popish plot--think you you'll escape the block? Hath any one escaped it hitherto who hath come within the compass of the lies told by that scoundrel Oates?" "It's not true," murmured Rupert Kestyon. "What is not true? That the information hath been laid against you? That, alas, is only too true. A man named Daniel Pye is the informant. It seems that his former mistress--your own liege lady, Coz--had him flogged for theft awhile ago. This has been his idea of revenge on her--to bring you to disgrace or death, he cares not which, so long as the desires of her life--which, it seems, are that she be wedded to you--are frustrated. I have all this from the Attorney-General whom I saw a quarter of an hour ago. Nay, there is no doubt that the blackguard hath informed against you, and in a vastly circumstantial manner. Come, you are a man, Coz," added Michael not unkindly, seeing that Rupert was on the point of losing his wits in the face of the awful prospect of this accusation, knowing full well its probable terrible consequences, "and men in these troublous times must know how to look on death in whatever grim guise it may appear." "But not that," murmured the younger man involuntarily, "surely not that--" "I trust not," rejoined the other. "Have I not told you that I was the bearer of good news?" "Good news!" "I own it sounds like irony, but, nevertheless, Coz, you'll presently see that it is better than it seems. Let me resume, and tell you all I know. Daniel Pye hath lodged his information against you. I have it directly from Sir William Jones, who in his turn had it from Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. The villainous rogue says that on a certain day in April he was at the hostelry of the 'Rat Mort' in Paris, in the company of one Legros--tailor of Paris--and that there he overheard you talking over with one of the ministers of the King of France, a plan whereby Charles Rex is to be murdered, the Duke of York to be placed on the English throne, and the whole of England sold to France and to Rome. It is one of those impudent and dastardly lies which, alas, find ready credence in our poor country just now. You remember Stailey's trial on the information of that scoundrel Oates, who in spite of his own obvious blunderings and contradictions was absolutely believed." "I know, I know," said Rupert Kestyon with a groan, "I am undone, I know. Cousin, I must fly the country at once--I can reach Dover to-night." "Nay, that you cannot, Cousin; your arrest is imminent. The warrant is out and would take effect the moment you attempted to leave your house." "But in the name of God, is there no way out?" came in tones of tragic despair from the unfortunate man. "Ay, that there is and a right simple one. The regal bribe, Cousin," said Michael with a grim smile, "which I promised to offer you." "My life--do you mean my life? You have not the power to save my head from the block. If I am arrested and brought to trial on one of these infamous charges, the king himself could not save me." "No; the king could not--but I can." "How?" "On one condition." "I can guess it." "The same I put before you at St. Denis." Rupert Kestyon broke out into a laugh, a harsh, disagreeable laugh of irony and of despair. "Man, the wench would not have me now. Am I not beggared and a fugitive from justice? Her father would now be the first to take her from me. She married the Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx--" But Michael interrupted him, saying: "And after a brief sojourn with her in her old home in Paris you, as Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, will bring your wife back as chatelaine of Maries Castle, even before the last leaf has fallen from the oak." "But you--'tis you who--" "I stay here to meet the charge of high treason and conspiracy preferred against the Earl of Stowmaries," said Michael very quietly. Like one in a dream, Rupert Kestyon passed a trembling hand over his damp forehead. "You--you would--" he stammered. "Am I not the Earl of Stowmaries?" queried the other simply. "Was I not actually in Paris on that memorable day in April? True, I am not a Romanist by religion, but the travesty of justice which, alas, now goes on under the guidance of Chief Justice Scroggs, will not ask too many questions and will be satisfied as long as it has one more prey to throw to the hungering intolerance of the mob. When I am gone, Cousin, you are the rightful heir to the title and estates which the king's mandate hath just conferred on me. You see how simple it is. It but rests with you to accept or refuse." "But why--why should you do this?" murmured the other, whose brain seemed almost reeling with this sudden transition from tragic despair to the first glimmer of hope. "Why should you give your life--and--and mayhap die such an awful death?" "Not for love of you, Coz; you may take an oath on that," said Michael with a humorous twinkle in his eye and a quick smile which softened the former stern expression of his face. "No, I know that," retorted the other, "'tis because you love her--my wife." "My head will no longer grace my shoulders when you return with your bride to England, Cousin; you have therefore no cause for jealousy." There was silence between the two men now. Rupert was of a truth too dazed to understand fully all that his cousin's proposal would mean to him. "But, by the Mass, man!" he said, "I cannot accept such a sacrifice." "'Twill not be the first act of cowardice that you'll have committed, Cousin. This one will atone for the graver sin of a year ago. Take what I offer you. Now that we are both face to face with the problem of life or death, we can look back more soberly on the past. We have both done an innocent woman an infinite wrong. Fate hath so shuffled the cards that we can both atone; after all, methinks that mine is the easier rôle. It is ofttimes so much simpler to die than to live. Nay, Cousin, your part will not be altogether that of a coward, not even though your path in life will henceforth be strewn with roses. She loves you purely, loyally, good Coz. 'Tis your duty as a man to render her happy. Above all, think not of me. Odd's fish, man, death and I have looked at one another very straight many a time before--we are friends, he and I." "But not such a death, Cousin--and the disgrace--" "Bah, even disgrace and I have held one another by the hand ere this. And now before I leave you, Coz, your solemn word of honour that you will make her happy, for by God!" he added more lightly, "methinks my ghost would haunt you, if ever it saw her in tears." "Will you take my hand, Cousin?" asked Rupert in simple response, as he somewhat timidly held his hand out to the other man. Michael took it without a word and thus at last were the hands of these two men clasped for the first time in friendship. Kinsmen by blood, Fate and human passions had estranged them from one another; yet it was blood that told, else Rupert could not even for a moment--and despite his love of life and joy in living--have accepted the sacrifice. Even now he hesitated. This taking of his cousin's hand, this tacit acceptance of another man's life to save his own, wore an ugly look of cowardice and of dishonour. Yet the young man was no coward. In open fight in a good cause, his valour would have been equal to that of any man, and he would on the field of honour have met death, no doubt, with fortitude. But what loomed ahead was far different to the glamour, the enthusiasm of courting death for honour. It meant disgrace and shame, the trial, the ignominy: death dealt by the hand of the executioner in sight of a jeering mob. It meant the torture of long imprisonment in a gloomy, filthy prison; it meant the ill-usage of warders and menials, insults from the judge, rough handling by the crowd. It meant, above all, the supreme disgrace of desecration after death, the traitor's head on Tyburn gates, the body thrown to the carrion, an ignominy from which even the least superstitious shrank in overwhelming horror. Ay, and there was worse shame, more supreme degradation still--for a traitor's death was rendered hideous by every means that the cruelty of man could invent. This picture stood on one side of Rupert Kestyon's vision, on the other was only a hated marriage and the somewhat cowardly acceptance of another man's sacrifice. Rupert Kestyon did hesitate, the while the insidious voice of Luxury and of Ease whispered sophistries in his ear: "He does not do this for thee, man, but for the woman whom he loves. Why shouldst thou stand in the way of thine own future comfort and peace?" The battle was a trying one and whilst it lasted Rupert Kestyon felt unwilling to meet his cousin's eyes. Yet had he done so, he would have seen nothing in them save expectancy, and from time to time that same humorous twinkle, as if the man derived amusement from the conflict which was raging within the other's heart. As usual under these circumstances, Fate put her lean, sharp-pointed finger into this grim pie, and it was the small incident which settled the big issue in the end, for even as Rupert stood there, shamed, hesitating, fighting the inward battle, there came a timid rap at the door, and a serving-man entered, bearing a missive which was tied down with green cord but otherwise left unsealed. "What is this?" asked Rupert Kestyon, who seemed to be descending from the stars, in so dazed a manner did he gaze at the man who was handing him the letter. "A man hath just brought it, my lord; he said that the message was urgent but would not say from whence he came--he went away down the street very quickly as soon as I had taken the letter from him." "Good; you may go." With hands still trembling from recent emotion, Rupert Kestyon, as soon as the servant had gone, tore open the missive, on the outside cover of which he had at once recognised the ill-formed scrawls which emanated from the untutored pen of Mistress Peyton. It was addressed in that same illiterate but deeply loved hand to Mister Rupert Kestyon, erstwhile my lord of Stowmaries, and began: "_Honord Sir._ "This is to warn you that the villan Daniel Pye hath informed against you, he did make brag of it befor my servants to-day saying that you will be arrested for treson and he be thus revenged upon me. i think it were best you did not com to my house until this clowd has clered away. But i am yr frend always." The lady had signed the missive with her name in full. The hot blood rushed to Rupert Kestyon's face, for despite his own natural vanity he could not help but see the callous indifference as to his own fate which pierced through the fair Julia's carefully-worded warning. Without a word, however, he folded the letter and slipped it into the inner pocket of his coat. Then he turned once more to his cousin. "Is there no other way?" he asked, whilst the weakness of his nature, the vacillation peculiar to his character, was very apparent now, in the ever-shifting expression of his face, the pains he took to avoid looking Michael quite square in the face. "I see none now," rejoined the other. "Methinks, Coz, that you have received confirmation of what I told you." "Yes. I have. Unless I leave the country to-day I shall be a prisoner ere nightfall." "And Rose Marie, beyond all that we have made her suffer already, will be left to mourn for you. To torture a woman then leave her desolate! Nay, man, the shame of that were worse than a traitor's death." "When shall I see her?" "Anon, I think. Master Legros is on his way to you." "Then I'll to France to-day, taking my wife with me," said Rupert resolutely, "and may God guard you, Cousin." "Nay, we'll not ask Him to do that just now," rejoined the other with the same quaint smile; "rather may He protect her, and give her happiness. We both owe her that, methinks." Thus was the compact sealed. It had of course been a foregone conclusion all along, and Michael had never for a moment anticipated that his cousin would refuse the sacrifice. The great game begun a year ago across the supper table of a tavern and in the midst of a drunken orgy, ended here and now. Both the gamblers lost all that they had staked. One was losing his self-respect, the woman he loved with a capricious passion, the freedom which he had coveted; the other was throwing away his all so that a fair-haired girl, the cold ice-maid who had no love for him, should still be the only winner in the end. CHAPTER XXXIX Are the skies wet because we weep, Or fair because of any mirth? Cry out; they are gods; perchance they sleep! --SWINBURNE. Rupert Kestyon--erstwhile styled my lord of Stowmaries and Rivaulx--turned away from his house in Piccadilly with a comparatively light heart. Comparatively only, because strive as he might he could not altogether banish from his mind the last picture he had of his cousin, standing all alone in the gloomy withdrawing room, tall, erect, perfectly cheerful and placid, just as if he were awaiting a summons to some festivity rather than to disgrace and to death. "It is best that I should remain here pending the execution of the magistrate's warrant," Michael had explained simply. "It will then be done without confusion of identity or difficulties of any kind. The informer will probably not see me until I am on my trial, and, in any case, I imagine that he will be just as content to tell his lies against me as he would against you." Rupert, of a truth, did marvel not a little at his cousin's coolness at such a moment; he himself felt a tingling of all his nerves and his faculties seemed all numb in face of this terrible crisis through which he was passing. He could not really imagine that any man could thus calmly discuss the details of his own coming dishonour, of the awful public disgrace, the physical and mental agony of a coming trial and of ignominious death. Yet Michael was quite serene, even cheerful, and ever and anon a whimsical smile played round the corners of his lips when he caught the look of shame, of perturbation and renewed hesitancy in the younger man's face. He himself was ever wont to decide quickly for good or ill, to map his course of action and never to deviate from it. Many there were who knew Michael Kestyon well, and who declared that he had no conscience, no real sense of what was right or wrong. That may be so. Certain it is that whatever part in life he chose to play, he never paused to think whether morally it was right or wrong that he should play it. Even now he did not pause to think whether what he was doing was sublime or infamous. He gave his honour, his name and his life not in order to right a wrong, not in order to atone for a sin which he himself had committed, but because his love for Rose Marie transcended every other feeling within him, overshadowed every thought. She had told him that her happiness lay there where duty and loyalty called. He--poor fool!--imagined that she loved Rupert, her husband, from a sense of duty mayhap, but loved him nevertheless. With an accusation of conspiracy threatening that man, an accusation which could only find its complement in a traitor's death, Rose Marie could not be aught but unhappy. So thought Michael to himself, whereupon the giving of name, of honour and of life to the man whom Rose Marie loved, was as natural to Michael as to draw his breath. The fact that this sacrifice meant dishonour and shame was no pang. Michael cared less than naught for public opinion. To himself he would not stand disgraced. He had weighed his action, looked at it from every point; had in his mind's eye seen the public trial, the ignominious condemnation, all the disgrace which pertains to such a death. He had seen it, and decided without the slightest hesitation. All this Rupert could not of course understand. In this he was different to Michael, that he felt poignant remorse for his own action, the while he had really not the moral power to reverse his decision. Had the acceptance of another man's heroic sacrifice to be done again, he again would have accepted it, and again have bitterly repented, hesitated, repented and accepted again. He would have understood Michael's attitude better if there were any prospect of an admiring world knowing subsequently the truth of the sacrifice, of there being a chance of the public recognition of the heroism, even after death. But here there was no such prospect. For Michael it would be humiliation, and nothing but humiliation, shame and disgrace even beyond the grave. Therefore, the young man was over-glad when--the preparations for his journey being all complete--he at last turned his back on the old house in Piccadilly. All the servants had been enjoined that if any one came thither and asked for my lord of Stowmaries the new and only real lord of Stowmaries would receive the visitor, whatever his errand might be. Then Rupert took his leave of his cousin; not a word more was said on the subject of the future, nor did the young man attempt to express any gratitude. I do not think that he felt any in the true sense of the word, and Michael's attitude was not one that called forth any outward show of sentiment. An hour later Rupert Kestyon had finally turned his steps in the direction of Fleet Street; soon he found himself inside the yard of the Bell Inn, asking if he might have speech with Master Legros of Paris, lately come to the hostelry. There was something almost comical in good Papa Legros' expression of surprise when he realised who his visitor was. Rupert's face was of course unfamiliar to him, and it took him quite a little time to collect his thoughts, in view of the happy prospect which this unexpected visit had called forth before him. His kindly heart, ever prone to see good, even where none existed, quickly attributed to this erring sinner the saving clause of loyal repentance. Knowing nothing of what had occurred between the cousins, Papa Legros naturally sprang to the conclusion that the young man, tardily smitten with remorse, had come of his own accord to make reparation, and the worthy tailor was only too ready to smooth the path of atonement for him as much as lay in his power. "Milor," he began, as soon as he understood who Rupert was, and stretching out a cordial hand to him. "Nay! I am no longer milor now," broke in Rupert Kestyon with a slight show of petulance. "My Cousin Michael is Lord of Stowmaries now. I am only a poor suppliant of high birth and low fortunes who would humbly ask if your daughter--my wife before God--is still prepared to link her fate to mine." "My daughter, milor--sir--will answer herself," rejoined the tailor with at least as much dignity as a high-born gentleman would have displayed under the like circumstances; then he went to the door, and opening it called to Rose Marie. Rupert Kestyon, despite the deep-rooted antagonism which he felt against this woman to whom now his future was irrevocably bound, was forced to own to himself that Fate tempered her stern decrees with a goodly amount of compensation. Rose Marie's beauty was one which sorrow doth not mar; in her case it had even enhanced it, by etherealising the childlike contour of the face, and giving the liquid blue eyes an expression such as the mediæval artists of old lent to the saints whom they portrayed. She came forward with quiet self-possession, through which shone an air of simple confidence and of sublime forgiveness. Though she had not expected Rupert's coming, yet she showed no surprise, only pleasure that he had so nobly forestalled her, and saved her the humiliation of coming to him as a suppliant. Rupert Kestyon was young, and his senses were quickly enflamed at sight of so much loveliness, and though inwardly he railed at chance, that had not made of this exquisite woman a great lady, yet when she so graciously extended her hand to him, he kissed it as deferentially as he would that of a duchess. "Madam," he said, as soon as she was seated, and he standing before her, "we are told in the Scriptures that there is more joy in Heaven for the conversion of one sinner than for the continued goodness of one hundred holy men. It had always struck me ere this that this dictum was somewhat unfair on the holy men, but now I have come to be thankful for this disposition of Heaven's rejoicings, since you--who no doubt have come straight from there--will mayhap show some consideration to the repentant sinner who hath so miserably wronged you, and who now craves humbly for pardon at your feet." He was very much pleased with himself for this speech, accompanied as it was with pretence of bending the knee. He felt sure that Michael would be pleased with him for it, nor did it cost him much to make it, for of a truth Rose Marie was exquisitely beautiful. "By Gad," he murmured to himself, "meseems that I am ready to fall in love with the wench." "My lord," she said quietly, meeting with perfect impassiveness the sudden gleam of admiration which lit up his eyes, "'tis not for me--your wife--to judge you or your conduct. The wrong which you did to me, I do readily forgive, so be it that my father and mother, whom you have wronged as deeply as you did mine own self, are equally ready to forget all that is past." "An my lord is willing to make amends," said Papa Legros with an involuntary sigh. He thought of Michael and how different he had looked when first he had wooed Rose Marie; Michael with the handsome proud head, the merry smile, the twinkling dark eyes so full of fun at times, at others so earnest and so infinitely tender. Papa Legros sighed, even as he felt that rectitude was a hard taskmistress, and that 'twas a vast pity Rose Marie was quite such an angel of goodness. But Rupert's impatient voice broke in on these thoughts. "I pray you," he said, "do not persist in calling me my lord. My Cousin Michael is and has always been, it seems, the rightful Lord of Stowmaries. I am a poor man, now--" "And my father, sir, is rich enough that your poverty need not fret you," said Rose Marie quietly. "An you'll have me as your wife--" "It is my duty as well as my pleasure, Madam," he broke in decisively, "to ask you if you'll permit me to lay my submission at your feet." "You have but to command me, sir," she rejoined coldly. "An unfortunate incident, of which I understand you have some inkling, will force me to leave England for a time." "We know that a false charge has been preferred against you, sir, and we came to England--I trust not too late--to warn you of your danger." "Nay, not too late, Madam; as you see I am still free. I had warnings from other quarters yet am equally grateful for your pains." "The cloud will blow over," she said stiffly. "When do you propose to go to France?" "To-night an it please you, Madam," he replied. "Will you journey in my company?" "If you so desire it, sir." She rose, and with the same calm dignity prepared to go. Rupert's glowing eyes followed her graceful movements and dwelt with unconcealed pleasure on every line of her young figure, which the somewhat stiff mode of the day could not altogether disguise. A warm tinge of colour flew to her cheeks when, raising her eyes to his for a moment, she encountered his bold look; then when the colour flew as swiftly as it came she looked pale and frail as the snowdrops to which Michael had ever loved to compare her. But beyond that quick blush, she showed no sign of emotion. Her almost mediæval sense of duty to her husband caused her to accept his every word, his every look, without a thought of censure or even of rebellion. She had so schooled her sensibilities that they were her slaves, she their absolute mistress--the rigid and mechanical being come into existence from out the ashes of her past happy self in order to right the great wrong committed by another. Obedient to her lord's mute but peremptory request, she gave him her hand, and accepted his kiss as she would have done his scorn, coldly and humbly, for her father stood there and watched her, and she would not let him see what this interview was costing her in agony of mind, in humiliation of her entire soul. For, look you, when she left Paris in order to offer herself a willing sacrifice on the altar of filial love, she had steeled her pride against her husband's scorn, but not against his capricious passion, and now that his boldly admiring glance swept over her face and form, she felt a wild, mad longing to flee--to hide her sorrow which had suddenly turned to shame, and to put the whole world between herself and the pollution of her husband's kiss. Her father's voice recalled her to herself, and even Rupert Kestyon had not noted the swiftly-flying look of agony which had momentarily darkened her eyes. "Sir," said Papa Legros now, with firmer decision than he had hitherto displayed, "you see that both my daughter and myself are over-ready to forget the past. You are young, sir, and methinks sinned more from thoughtlessness than from any love of evil. Rose Marie is ready to follow you, withersoever you may command. She is your wife before God, and directly we are in Paris we will ask His blessing in confirmation of your union. Monseigneur will not refuse to perform the ceremony--the other, alas, whereat a miscreant held my daughter's hand, was but a mockery--Monseigneur will pass it over. 'Twas he advised me to make a final appeal to your honour, and I thank God on my knees, sir, that with you rests the glory of having made such noble amends entirely of your own accord. I pray you only--and herein you must forgive a father's anxiety--I pray you to place in my hands the final pledge of your good faith towards my daughter." "What may that be, sirrah?" quoth Rupert, whilst the first show of arrogance suddenly pierced through his borrowed armour of outward deference. "The decree of His Holiness the Pope," rejoined the tailor quietly, "annulling your marriage with my daughter. An you mean loyally by her you will place the mandate in my hands." For a second or two only Rupert seemed to hesitate. This simple giving over of a paper meant the final surrender of his will, the giving up of all for which he had planned and intrigued; the acknowledgment that Fate was stronger than his desire, God's decree greater than the schemes of men. That mandate once out of his hands, he could never get it back again, nor ever obtain another. It was real, tangible finality; therefore did he hesitate, but the next moment he had looked once more on Rose Marie, and the natural primitive man in him, the shallow nature, the masterful senses, caused him to shrug his shoulders in indifference. Bah, one woman after all was as good as another; this one loved him in her curious, cold way, and---by Gad!--she was d--d pretty. So Rupert Kestyon delved in the deep pocket of his surcoat and drew out therefrom a parchment to which was appended an enormous seal that bore the arms and triple crown of His Holiness the Pope. This he handed to Papa Legros. The latter took it and glanced at its contents; one phrase therein caused a dark frown to appear on his brow, and a flash of anger to rush to his cheeks. It related to the misconduct of Rose Marie, the daughter of one Armand Legros, master tailor of Paris, in consequence of which His Holiness did grant dispensation to Rupert Kestyon, Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, to contract a marriage with another woman, his former marriage being null and void. For a brief moment good Papa Legros hated the young reprobate before him with all the strength of which his kind heart was capable; for a moment he longed to throw that lying parchment back into the teeth of the miscreant who had dared to put an insult on record against the purest saint that had ever adorned her sex. The good man's hands shook as they held the paper, and during that brief moment Rupert experienced a hideous sensation of fear. If Rose Marie rejected him now, would Michael withdraw from the sacrifice which he was prepared to make? But that anxiety was short-lived. With a deep sigh of resignation, and a firm compression of the lips, Master Legros looked the young man straight in the face. "What is past, is past," he said, as if in answer to the other's thought, "and I am satisfied." But he did not tear the parchment up, as Rupert had at first thought that he meant to do. He folded it up with hands still slightly shaking from the inward struggle which had just taken place within his simple soul, and then slipped it into the breast pocket of his coat. CHAPTER XL So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be, How know I what had need of thee, For thou wert strong as thou wert true? --TENNYSON. It was later in the afternoon and Master Legros and his daughter had finished their preparations for the return journey. Strangely enough, papa's heart was not as glad as it should have been, considering that the object of his visit to England had been attained, and that he had reached the pinnacle of his desire much more easily than he had ever dared to contemplate, for he had reached it without the cost of humiliation to his child or rebuff to himself. Nevertheless, the kindly heart was like a dead weight in the good man's breast, even though Rose Marie did her best to seem cheerful, talking ever of the joy of seeing maman again, and at times quite serenely of her own future. "Thy husband looks kind, Rose Marie," said papa tentatively, whilst his eyes, rendered keen through the intensity of his affection, strove to pierce through the mask of impassiveness wherewith his child tried to hide her thoughts. "He also seems greatly to admire thee," he added with an involuntary display of paternal pride. But has any man--has even the most devoted of fathers--ever succeeded in reading a woman's thoughts on the subject of another man. All that Papa Legros thought at this moment was that Rose Marie looked very pale and that a shiver seemed to go through her as if she had the ague. Mayhap she was over-tired, certainly she was unstrung. He himself felt uncommonly as if he would like to cry. In the early part of the afternoon he persuaded Rose Marie to lie awhile on her bed and rest. "Milor"--for so he still persisted in calling Rupert Kestyon in his mind--would be here at six o'clock; his coach would then be ready for the journey to Dover. It was now little more than three. Rose Marie obeyed willingly. She was very tired and she longed to be all alone. Papa declared his intention of going out for a walk and of returning within an hour. A great longing had seized him to see Michael once again. The worthy man cursed himself for his folly and for his weakness but he felt that he could not go away from England without grasping once more that slender, kindly hand, which he once used to look on as that of a dearly-loved son. Papa Legros did not see the reason why--now that all difficulties had been duly planed--he and Michael should not remain friends. He had more than a vague suspicion, too, that "milor's" repentant attitude was due to Michael's persuasion. Asking his way from the passers-by as he went, he soon found himself once again before the house in Soho. But his disappointment was bitter when he heard that my lord was from home, and no one knew when he would return. Sadder of heart then, Master Legros retraced his steps towards the Bell Inn. On the way he had wiped many a tear which had fallen down his cheeks, blaming himself severely the while for this display of weakness. But--strange though it may seem--this failure in seeing Michael and in hearing his cheery voice speak the "God-speed" had weighed the good tailor's spirits down with an oppressive weight which seemed almost like a foreboding. In the yard of the inn, Master Legros encountered quite a crowd of gaffers. Some great excitement seemed to be in the air; they talked volubly to one another, with that stolid absence of gesture, that burying of hands in breeches pockets which always makes an Englishman's excitement seem so unconvincing to the foreign observer. In the centre of the yard, a heavy coach--a note of bright canary yellow in the midst of all the sober greys and drabs around--stood ready, with ostlers at the leaders' heads, the horses champing their bits and impatiently pawing the cobblestones. The driver, with thick coat unbuttoned displaying an expanse of grey woolen shirt, was quenching his thirst inside the vehicle; obviously it was not his intention to join actively in the babel of voices which went on all round him, although the coach itself and the horses seemed special objects of curiosity, since a crowd of gaffers surrounded it as closely as the impatient horses themselves would allow. Master Legros made his way through the crowd, trying to catch a chance phrase or so, which might give him the keynote to all this unwonted bustle. The words "Papist" and "arrest," which he understood, caught his ear repeatedly, also the name "Stowmaries," invariably accompanied with a loud imprecation. Feeling naturally diffident through his want of knowledge of the language, he was somewhat timorous of asking questions, but hurried up to his room, having bidden the barman downstairs take a bottle of wine and two glasses up to his room. He found Rose Marie sitting quietly in the armchair, pensive but otherwise serene. To the father's anxious eyes it seemed as if she had been crying, but she returned his kiss of greeting with clinging fondness, and assured him that she felt quite rested and ready for the journey. "My lord" had arranged that his coach should take them by night journey to Dover, and thence immediately to Calais if the packet-boat was plying; for "my lord" seemed in a vast hurry to get across to France as soon as may be, and Rose Marie herself was conscious of a great longing to put the sea between herself and this land which called forth so many bitter memories. When the serving-man brought the wine, Legros asked his daughter to question him as to the excitement which reigned in the yard. "Oh!" explained the man, who was eager enough to talk, "'tis only the news of the arrest of another of these d--d Papists. They do conspire, you know, to murder the king, and it seems that this time they've arrested another noble lord, no less a person than my lord of Stowmaries." "My lord of Stowmaries!" ejaculated Legros in utter dismay, for he had partly guessed, partly understood, what the man was saying; "surely it cannot be--" "When and where did this occur?" queried Rose Marie peremptorily. "About an hour ago, at his lordship's house in Piccadilly," replied the man. "They do say that the miscreant hath confessed, directly he saw the musketeers. He was scared, no doubt, and blurted out the truth. By the Lord! If the people of England had their way, a man like that should be broken on the wheel and the fires of Smithfield should be revived to rid the country of such pestilential vermin." Fortunately Master Legros did not understand all that the man said, else his wrath had known no bounds. As it was he had only a vague idea that the man was being insolent, and he shouted an angry command of: "Enough of this! Get out, sirrah!" which the man readily obeyed, being over-satisfied that he had annoyed and even frightened these foreign Papists, who, no doubt, had come to England only to brew mischief. Directly the door had closed behind the serving-man, Rose Marie said decisively: "Father dear, we must to my husband's house at once, and find out what has happened." "He seemed to make so light of the danger which threatened him, when he was here just now, that I had begun to think that blackguard Daniel Pye was naught but a clumsy blackmailer. And yet, milor--I--I mean our milor--he thought the matter grave, and went forth very hurriedly to warn his kinsman." "Father dear, I would give anything to have further news," said Rose Marie, who was trembling with agitation. "Do, I pray you, let us go forth and try and find out something more." But even as with feverish movements, she began putting on a cloak and hood, the door opened and Rupert Kestyon entered. Rose Marie stared at him as if she had seen a ghost, and Master Legros murmured in complete bewilderment: "You--you, my lord--then, thank God!--it is not true." "What is not true?" queried the young man, who also seemed labouring under grave agitation, for his cheeks were almost grey in colour, and his lips twitched painfully as he tried to control the tremor of his voice. "That you have been arrested, my lord!" said Legros. "They told us that you had been arrested for treason and--" "They told you lies, no doubt," broke in Rupert roughly, "as you see I am safe and sound. The horses are put to," he added with obvious want of control over his own impatience. "I pray you, Madam, to descend as soon as you are ready, and you, too, good Master, and to enter the coach without parleying with the crowd. You need have no fear; they will not molest you." "We are ready, milor--I mean sir," said Papa Legros, who was taken with an exceptionally severe attack of his usual fussiness. "I pray you give your arm to my daughter--I will follow close on your heels." "My lord," it seems, was so agitated that he even forgot his good manners, and curtly bidding the others not to linger, he darted out of the room, and had even disappeared down the corridor before Rose Marie had had time to collect her little bits of hand luggage. She went back to the window which gave on the covered balcony that on this floor ran all round the house, overlooking the yard. The excitement down below was evidently reaching fever pitch; every one was rushing toward the gate and the yard itself was for the moment left deserted. Only one ostler remained at the horses' heads, and his head, too, was turned in the direction of the gates. The driver had emerged from the depths of the vehicle and together with his mate was hoisting the Legros' luggage into the boot. He, too, however, craned his neck from time to time, trying to see beyond the dense knot of human heads which totally obstructed both the view and the passage out into Fleet Street. Rose Marie, feeling still strangely perturbed, her heart beating with a nameless fear, which she could not herself understand, threw open the window and stepped out onto the balcony. Rupert Kestyon was standing just below, giving impatient directions to his men anent the disposition of the luggage. The sound of the opening window and of Rose Marie's footsteps above, caused him to look up and at sight of her he uttered a loud oath. It was evident that he had completely lost all control over himself. "You have run it too late, d--n you!" he shouted roughly. "Now we cannot get through Fleet Street till after that accursed mob hath dispersed." Rose Marie with lips compressed and brows closely puckered withdrew out of his sight, blushing with shame at the thought that a group of serving-girls who stood also on the balcony not far from her, giggling and chattering, should have heard her husband's rough words. But the wenches were evidently too much engrossed with their desire to see something of what was going on beyond the hostelry gates to pay much heed to the pale, foreign miss and to her doings, and even as Rose Marie prepared once more to join her father, she heard one girl say excitedly: "He won't be passing by for another few minutes--we'll have time to run to the gates--" "No! no! Cannot you hear the shouts? They are bringing him along now," cried another, holding with both hands to the iron railing, the while her companion tried to drag her away. "I can just see over the heads of the crowd," said another. "Here they come! Here they come! Can you hear them all hooting?" And she herself indulged in a vicious "Boo! Down with the traitor! Down with the Papists!" Beyond the gates, the crowd, invisible to Rose Marie, was evidently giving vent to its excitement. As the wench had said, they were hooting lustily. Shouts of "Death to the traitors!" mingled with obvious cries of terror and of pain following immediately on the clatter of horses' hoofs on the mud-covered street. "It's a closed vehicle!" said one of the girls on the balcony in obvious disappointment. "And you can't see even that with all that pack of soldiery." "Boo! Boo! Death to the Papist!" screamed the other girls in unison. Just for a moment then in the small space between the top of the archway, and above the heads of the crowd, Rose Marie caught sight of a closed hackney coach, being driven at slow pace and surrounded by an escort of musketeers. The hooting, hissing, and other expressions of hatred and opprobrium became almost deafening for the moment, and through the shouts of "The rope, the rack, the stake for the Papists!" could distinctly be heard the name, "Stowmaries!" accompanied by loud imprecations, whilst a shower of evil-smelling refuse was hurled at the vehicle by the enthusiastic staff of the Bell Inn, congregated at its gates. Rose Marie felt sick with horror. Gradually that fear which had hitherto been nameless, gained more tangible shape. She peeped down again and saw that her husband had taken refuge inside his coach. Then she understood. It was Michael who had been arrested--the only Lord of Stowmaries, as he himself had proudly said awhile ago. Did some inkling of the real truth of the case rise in her heart then and there, it were difficult to say. There is a strange telepathy which exists in nature and which warns the sensitive mind of the danger, the misfortune of another being. It was only a purely natural, human instinct which prompted her to ask the serving-wenches a final question, the answer to which she knew already. "What is all the excitement about?" she asked, turning to the group of girls and steadying her voice as much as she could. "Who is it they are taking past in that closed carriage?" "My lord of Stowmaries, Mistress," said one of the girls. "He is one of the Papists that do conspire against the king. He'll hang for sure--I wish they'd burn the lot as they did in the olden days." "But 'tis my lord Stowmaries' coach that is standing here below," said Rose Marie; "he is safe and sound within." "Nay! I know naught about that," quoth the girl decisively; "'tis my lord Stowmaries they are taking to prison sure enough, and 'twill be my lord of Stowmaries' head that'll be on Tyburn gate before many days are over, and I for one'll go to see him beheaded, if I can get a holiday on that day." CHAPTER XLI In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. --EDGAR ALLAN POE. Rose Marie had told her father all that she feared, all that she, alas, knew to be true. "We cannot go now, Father dear," she said with quivering voice, whilst her eyes burning with hot tears, looked down appealingly at her father, "we must surely hear what becomes of him." "Nay, my child," said Papa Legros with a heavy sigh, "what can we do by remaining here? Your duty is to your husband. No doubt he, too, fears for his life, and would wish to leave this country ere suspicion fall upon him." "But Father, methinks you do not understand. I know not if there hath been conspiracy or not, but this I do know, that the charge was preferred against my husband. Then why is my lord arrested?" "I know not, my jewel," replied Papa Legros, deeply perplexed and miserable. "England seems to be a queer country just now. Mayhap all these gentlemen do conspire. God knows there always have been many conspiracies against our own most high and most Catholic King Louis, the ever victorious." And Master Legros doffed his felt hat in token of deep respect. "Thy husband waits, child," added the worthy man resignedly; "'tis him thou must obey." Even as he spoke, Rupert's steps were heard once more along the corridor. He entered, still looking miserably anxious, but at sight of Rose Marie a blush of shame-facedness overspread his pale cheeks. "Your pardon, Mistress," he said, striving to speak quietly, "methinks the coast is clear now. Will you deign to descend?" He offered Rose Marie his arm. She felt like some wild creature trapped, looking round her with wild, terrified eyes as if for a means of escape. Her father gave her an appealing look, and Rupert reiterated his request with more distinct command in his tone. His eyes, wherein wrath, fear, and a certain look of shame were obviously fighting for mastery, seemed to dare her to disobey. He was her master after all, and a master of her own choosing. The bars of that cage against which she would henceforth for ever bruise her heart were fashioned by her own hands. "Come, Mistress, I wait," said Rupert, and with a gesture which was almost rough in its peremptoriness, he took her hand and slipped it under his arm. Papa Legros gathered the sundry small bags and parcels which formed his own and his daughter's hand luggage, and then he followed the young couple out of the room. But Rose Marie once across the threshold and in the corridor soon disengaged her arm. This masterful appropriation of her person and of her will caused her an instinctive pang of fear. Good God! Was she going to hate this man whom through an impulse of loyalty and righteousness she had openly acknowledged as her lord, and to whom she almost wilfully had surrendered her whole young life, her hopes of happiness, her every thought and wish? Now with every look of unfettered admiration, with every word of command, he roused her numbed spirits into rebellion. Even now she could not bear to take his arm, she could not bear the touch of his hand on hers as he began to lead her along the corridor, as if already she were part of his goods and chattels, the obedient servant of his caprice. When she withdrew her hand from his, he looked inquiringly on her face, then realising her motive, guessing her repugnance, he laughed a forced, ironical laugh and said with obvious intent to wound: "Nay, Madam! I'm vastly sorry that even in this dark passage you cannot fancy that I am my cousin Michael. But you made your choice yourself 'twixt him and me, and therefore pray understand that 'tis too late to repent." He walked, however, on ahead, keeping a little in front of her, and soon reached the door which gave on the yard. His coach stood there all in readiness, the driver on the box holding the ribbons, the groom standing by the carriage holding open the door. But between the coach and the door through which Rupert with Rose Marie and Papa Legros had just stepped forth into the yard, there stood a group composed of three musketeers, one of whom was a little in advance of the others, and apparently in command. Master Savage, landlord of the Bell Inn, was in close and voluble converse with the soldier, as Rupert with a peremptory voice called to his own driver to pull up a little closer. At the sound, Master Savage turned, and the musketeer now came up to the little party in the door. "Which of you two gentlemen," he said, looking from Rupert Kestyon to Master Legros, "is Master Legros, tailor-in-chief to His Majesty the King of France?" Papa Legros, hearing his name thus mentioned, instinctively stepped forward, more fussy than ever, poor man, wondering indeed if some fresh misfortune was not coming his way. Rupert, pale to the lips, stood mutely staring at the musketeer. "By order of His Majesty the King!" resumed the soldier now addressing Legros, and presenting a paper to him, which the worthy tailor, hopelessly bewildered and not a little frightened, now took from him. "My orders are to intimate to Master Legros, tailor-in-chief to His Majesty the King of France, that he is not to leave his present place of abode without express permission from the Lord Chief Justice of England." "Qu'est ce qu'il dit?" queried Papa Legros, turning helplessly toward his daughter. "That we may not leave England just now," she said, feeling not a little bewildered, too, for this was so unexpected. "Let me see that paper, Father dear." Rupert, whom this incident had thrown into a well-nigh unbearable state of fear, had kept silent all this while, longing yet not daring to question the officer closer. But the latter seemed in no way concerned with him, his errand was apparently solely confined to these peremptory orders to Master Legros. Rose Marie read the paper through, then she looked inquiringly on Rupert. "What are we to do, sir," she asked coldly. "You have no option," he said, as he took hold of her wrist and quietly drew her back under the shadow of the doorway. "There is no doubt," he continued in an agitated whisper, "that if your father attempts to disobey the order, he would be stopped more forcibly, and his situation would then become more uncomfortable. Does this paper state on what grounds your father is thus forbidden to go away?" "Yes," she replied calmly; "it says that by order of the king, Master Legros, tailor of Paris, is required to give evidence on behalf of the Crown in the forthcoming trial of the Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, for conspiracy and treason." "He is summoned as a witness. He has no option--he must stay--they would stop him if he attempted to go," reiterated Rupert Kestyon, whose trembling voice scarce contrived to pass from his dry throat through his parched lips. "Then with your permission," she rejoined, "I will stay with my father." "As you please," he said hurriedly. Rose Marie bent her head in token of farewell. She felt more like a puppet moving and acting mechanically than like a sentient woman. She suffered such an agony of mind and heart at thought of what had occurred, what she visualized and what she guessed, that the mere act of speaking and of moving seemed no part of her present existence. She was called upon to act and to decide for herself and for her father--but as Rupert Kestyon very properly said, there was no option. Nor had Rose Marie anything to fear for her father; it was difficult for her to imagine how the present situation had come about, and why the King of England should desire Master Legros to be a witness for the Crown against the Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, accused of conspiracy and treason, nor did she quite understand what being a witness for the Crown really meant, but for her own part she was conscious of an intense sense of relief when she saw Rupert Kestyon--her husband--turning on his heel, and without looking either to right or left, making his way somewhat hurriedly to his coach. She went back to her father's side, and taking his arm in order to assure him that all was well, she turned to the musketeer. "Sir," she said to him, "are there any further orders which you have to transmit to my father?" "No, Mistress, none," replied the soldier. "Your father must understand that he is free to come and go as he pleases, so long as he remains in the city. Strong measures would only be taken if he attempted to go." "My father understands all that, sir," she said with a haughty little toss of the head; "though we are strangers, we respect the laws of your country just as we in France would expect you to respect ours. My father understands the order as set forth in this paper, and he will not leave this city until His Majesty the King of England hath no longer any need of his services. Come, Father dear," she whispered, in her own mother tongue and with gentle pressure trying to lead the good man away, "I will explain everything to you when we are alone." "But thy husband, child!" urged Papa Legros, whose bewilderment had reached its veriest climax. "Thy husband!" Without giving direct reply, Rose Marie pointed to the coach, just ahead of them both, in the middle of the yard. Papa Legros, following his daughter's glance, saw Rupert Kestyon in the act of stepping into the carriage, and the groom closing the door in after him. "He goes to France without us, Father dear," she said simply. And for the first time for many days now, a real smile lit up the girl's eyes, and chased away the miserable, haggard look from her young face. She bowed graciously to the musketeer officer, who saluted her with utmost deference. Then she led her father away. The soldier's eyes followed her graceful form with undisguised admiration. At the door she turned back and gave him a final little bow of farewell. For Rose Marie in the midst of her great sorrow and of her agonizing fear, looked on that young musketeer as a deliverer and was grateful to him, too, for the good news which he had brought. CHAPTER XLII This year knows nothing of last year To-morrow has no more to say To yesterday. --SWINBURNE. That same afternoon, and at about the same time as Rupert Kestyon's coach swung out of the gates of the Bell yard, Sir John Ayloffe presented himself at his kinswoman's house in Holborn Row. He had come in answer to an urgent and peremptory summons, and had made all haste, seeing that he had just heard the news that it was Michael Kestyon who had been arrested for treason, and not the fair Julia's erstwhile faithful adorer, Rupert. Visions of that exceedingly pleasant £12,000 which he had thought were lost to him for ever when Michael obtained the peerage of Stowmaries, once more rose before his mind's eye, surrounded with the golden halo of anticipatory hope. Of a truth, if Michael was condemned and executed for treason--and there was but little doubt of that, taking the temper of Parliament and people on the subject of the hellish Popish plots--then young Rupert would come into his own again very quickly and there was no reason why the pleasing scheme of the fair Julia's marriage with her faithful admirer should not reach success after all. To Cousin John's supreme astonishment, however, instead of finding his beautiful cousin in gleeful excitement at the good news, he saw her lying on a sofa in her tiny boudoir with her fair head buried in billows of lace cushions, and on the verge of hysterics. She was clutching a letter in her hand, and when Cousin John approached her, with that diffidence peculiar to the male creature in face of feminine tears, she held out the paper mutely towards him. It was a letter signed Rupert Kestyon. Cousin John quickly ran his eye over its contents. In flowery and elegant language and with many reproaches directed at the cruel beauty who that very morning had struck him to the heart at a moment when she believed him to be in the most dire distress, the writer explained that Fate would now part him from his beautiful Julia for ever: "I go to France this night," he added, "with the wife whom God gave me eighteen years ago, and to whom I now see that 'tis my duty to cleave. You, I feel, did never love me, else you had not sent me that cruel message this morning." He was his Julia's adoring and ever-faithful servant, but there was no mistaking the tone of the letter: he was leaving her for good and all. Silently Cousin John folded up the letter and handed it back to his cousin. There was nothing more to be said. He could only console and even in this he was unsuccessful, for his own heart was heavy at thought of that £12,000 which now could never be his. Mistress Peyton had by the selfishness of her own ambition allowed the trump card in the great gamble of life to slip through her dainty fingers. The incident was closed; the tailor's wench had won the stakes in the end. No wonder that Julia fell into hysterics; indeed, indeed, Fate's irony had been over-cruel. It seemed as if every one of her schemes turned wantonly to a weapon against her most cherished desires. Cousin John was vastly puzzled. He could not understand what had induced Rupert to make amends to the wife in order to repudiate whom he had spent a fortune, and lost his all. But when, anon, he heard through public news-criers that Michael had confessed to the charge preferred against him, and when his keen mind began to think over in detail the various events in connection with the arrest, he arrived at a pretty shrewd guess as to what had occurred between the cousins. Remembering the incidents of that memorable evening at St. Denis and Michael's offer to Stowmaries then, he bethought himself that men who are great blackguards are capable of strange things when they love a woman. Whereupon good Sir John shook his head and ceased his wanderings in the realms of conjecture, for he had come across a psychological problem which passed his understanding. CHAPTER XLIII Certes his mouth is wried and black Full little pence be in his sack, This devil hath him by the back It is no boot to lie. --SWINBURNE. Daniel Pye on that selfsame memorable day was literally floating in a blissful atmosphere of delight. My lord of Stowmaries had not only been arrested but he had confessed to his guilt; a matter which at first had greatly surprised Master Pye, who had been at great pains to concoct an elaborate lie, only to find through some mysterious accident of Fortune, he must have hit upon the truth. Of course he did not realise as yet that the man who had been arrested and who had confessed was not the former suitor for Mistress Peyton's hand. He had only heard some pleasant rumours anent the reward which he would get as soon as conviction was obtained against the accused. Many spoke of fifty pounds, others that his reward would be as great as that given to Master Oates: a substantial pension and comfortable lodgings in one of the king's houses. But the thought of Mistress Peyton's miserable condition of vain regrets and bitter disappointment the while her lover lingered in the Tower, pleased Master Pye as much as that of his own good fortune, nor could he resist the desire to brag of his prowess to those very menials who had witnessed his downfall. There would be no great pleasure in the discomfiture of Mistress Peyton, unless she knew whose was the hand that had dealt the death blow to all her cherished schemes. Of a truth the lady was staggered when she heard of Daniel Pye's boasts. He had been sitting in the kitchen for the past hour surrounded by a crowd of gaping listeners, and enjoying one of the many fruits of notoriety. The cook had placed a large venison pasty before him, together with a tankard of ale, and lacqueys and wenches were hearing open-mouthed the account of how Master Pye had brought my lord of Stowmaries to disgrace, and that the life of more than one great nobleman lay in the palm of that same Pye's very grimy hand. Mistress Peyton, when she heard of the man's boasts and of his popularity among her servants, had him incontinently kicked out of the house again, but not before he had told her with insolent spite that she was now paying for the injustice she had perpetrated on a faithful servant close on half a year ago. To Daniel Pye the awakening from these pleasing dreams came all too soon. That same evening at the tavern in Whitefriars, he gathered the truth from out the conflicting rumours which he heard. It was the new Earl of Stowmaries who had taken upon himself the charge of conspiracy preferred by Master Pye, and 'twas he who had confessed his guilt. What could this mean, and what would be the consequences which would accrue to the informant, to his future reward and future safety through this unexpected turn of affairs? Master Oates, consulted on the point, was for sticking to the lie on every point. The actual personality of the man could not matter in the least, and since this Earl of Stowmaries actually pleaded guilty to the charge, why then, all was for the best and it was not for Daniel Pye to worry about it all. Master Tongue--more wary--feared a trap, but his objections were overruled, and on the whole the infamous fraternity decided that confrère Pye must uphold his perjuries to the end, since he would obtain the reward whoever was condemned on his information. "You need have no fear, good Master," concluded Oates reassuringly; "you'll be believed in any event. Master Bedloe and myself never had any difficulty hitherto, even though at the Stayley trial we got in vast confusion, seeing that we made several slips which could easily have been proved against us, had the judge and jury been so minded. Nay! nay! Do you stick to your story. Since one Lord Stowmaries desires to hang instead of the other, why, let him, so say I." This cynical speech was, alas, an only too true exposé of the situation. Daniel Pye was almost reassured, and fell to applying himself to making his story more circumstantial. On consultation with his friends it was decided that the recent murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey would be dragged into the indictment. That mysterious crime was indeed a trump card in the hands of the informants. It seemed a pity not to play it when the stakes were as high as they were just now. Pye therefore prepared himself to state on oath that the murder was freely projected by my lord Stowmaries with the minister of the King of France, in the course of the treasonable interview in Paris. But even then did the course of this true liar not run altogether smooth, for anon it became generally known that Master Legros, tailor of Paris, and his daughter who was none other than the wife of the dispossessed Lord of Stowmaries, had been compelled to give evidence for the Crown in corroboration of Master Pye's story. Whereupon the latter fell into a state of agitation worse than before. He stared dry-lipped and wide-eyed at the man who had come in with this news. This was the first intimation which he had that one of his lies at least would find him out. When he had vowed that Master Legros had overheard the treasonable conversation between the Earl of Stowmaries and the minister of the King of France, he had no thought that the tailor would actually be compelled to give testimony, whether he would or no. Pye turned well-nigh sick at the thought. Dotard though he was, he had no hopes that Master Legros would endorse his lies. Once more he turned to his friends for counsel, and briefly explained to them the terrible plight in which he now found himself. "Mayhap I'd better disappear," he suggested timorously, "before I am caught for perjury. It means the loss of my right hand and years of imprisonment; mayhap in this case the rope." "Bah, man, be not such a coward," admonished Oates boldly. He had gone through all the anxieties himself and knew how to make light of them. "'Twas a pity you did drag an alien's name into the case, of course, but--" "'Twas the magistrate suggested it to me," broke in Pye, who was on the verge of tears; "he said that it would be better if another witness were forthcoming, who also had heard the conversation at the hostelry in Paris. It would strengthen my evidence, so he said." "But why this French papist?" queried Bedloe with an oath. "Because the tailor was in deadly enmity with my lord of Stowmaries--with the other one, I mean--and I thought he would help me and gladly too." "And think you he'll turn against you?" "I fear me that he will," quoth Pye, who truly was in a pitiable condition. "Then, man, you must change your tactics," now said Oates decisively. "Nay! I repeat, do not be afraid. 'Tis you they will believe, and not the papist tailor or his daughter. What can they say? That they did not hear the treasonable conversation between the accused and the minister of the King of France. Well, what of that? 'Tis but a negation, and no evidence. The Attorney-General will soon upset such feeble testimony. But do you swear that on thinking the matter over you now remember that the tailor and his daughter had already left the hostelry of the 'Rat Mort' when that treasonable consult took place and that you were in my company and not in theirs. Then with one fell swoop do you destroy the whole value of the Legros' evidence, and place yourself once more in an unassailable position, for I too can swear then that I was with you at the time, and heard the whole conversation--so be that you are prepared to share the reward which you will get with me," concluded the scoundrel with earnest emphasis. Daniel Pye had no option. Of a truth he was not quite such a hardened sinner as these professional liars who had thriven and prospered under their organized perjuries for close on half a year. The whole of the information against Lord Stowmaries was therefore gone through all over again, nor was there any fear that this change of front would in any way prejudice the noble jury against the informant. In Coleman's case and in that of Stailey, and alas, in that of many others, the infamous witnesses contradicted themselves and one another to an extent which makes the modern historian gasp, when he has to put it on record that men in England were condemned to death wholesale, on evidence that was as flimsy as it was false. Master Pye, once more at peace, therefore, with his prospects and with himself, learned his new lesson with diligence. But Master Oates was firm on one point, and that was on his share in the coming reward. Pye demurred for a long time. Emboldened by the encouragement of his friends, he now thought that he could carry the whole business through alone. Ultimately it was decided that Master Oates was to receive £5 of the reward, provided he swore that on a certain day in April he too was present at the tavern of the "Rat Mort" in Paris when my lord of Stowmaries discussed with the minister of the King of France the terms of the shameful treaty whereby King Charles was to be murdered, the Duke of York be placed on the throne of England and the latter country sold to the French and to the Pope of Rome. CHAPTER XLIV For Death is of an hour, and after death Peace! --SWINBURNE. The news that Michael Kestyon--the hero of one of the most exciting adventures in the history of gallantry, the man who less than twenty-four hours ago had by the king's mandate obtained the titles and estates for which he had fought for over ten years--the news that he had been arrested for treason connected with the hellish Popish plot, horrified and astonished all London. It seemed incredible that a man whose romantic personality had charmed all the women and even fascinated the king, could lend himself to such base treachery as to sell his country to the foreigners, and to incite others to poison the merry monarch who even at that moment had with one stroke of the pen seen that justice was done to the miserable reprobate. Such is popularity! Michael, who a couple of days ago was the idol of society, the cynosure of all eyes at assemblies or in the playhouse, on whom the women smiled, and whom the men were proud to know, Michael now was naught but an abominable traitor, for whom hanging and the rack were more suitable than the block to which he was entitled by virtue of his newly acquired dignities. And there was no doubt as to his villainies: the infamous blackguard had confessed, even at the time of his arrest, which no doubt had taken him wholly by surprise, and thus forced on an avowal which would expedite the trial and give every one a chance of seeing the traitor's head on Tyburn gate before many days were over. Excitement and terror had by this time so taken hold of the people of England that all sense of justice had gone hopelessly astray, and there was but little chance of any man--however high placed he might be, however upright and loyal had been his conduct throughout his life--escaping condemnation and death, once the army of false informers and perjurers had singled him out for attack. As for Michael, everything was against him from the first. His former dissolute life, his long wanderings abroad, where he was supposed to have imbibed all the imaginary desires of the foreigners to turn England into an obedient vassal of France and Rome, also his sudden accession to wealth and the rumours anent that certain adventure, the details of which grew both in confusion, in mystery and even in horror as they were passed from mouth to mouth. When the fact that the young girl-wife of the dispossessed Earl of Stowmaries would be one of the witnesses for the Crown became known, gossip became still more wild. Interest in that former adventure increased an hundred fold, and the news did of a truth give verisimilitude to the most weird conjecture. The words black magic and witchcraft were soon freely bandied about. Michael Kestyon was no longer an ordinary plotter, but the veriest anti-Christ himself, who was in league with the Pope of Rome to ruin England and to bring forth her submission by such means even as the Lord employed against the Egyptians in favour of the Israelites. Only in this case, the devil was to be the instrument whereby the ten plagues were to be hurled on this defenceless isle. There was to be a plague of locusts and one of rats, the waters of the Thames would turn to corroding acid and the miscreant Earl of Stowmaries had promised to give the devil the blood of every noble virgin in England as payment for his satanic help. Had we not the testimony of sane-minded men and women who lived at the time, and who witnessed every phase of that amazing frenzy which swept over England during these awful years, we could not believe that the people of this country, usually so gifted with sound minds and above all with a sense of justice and of tolerance, could thus have rushed headlong into an abyss of maniacal fanaticism which hath for ever remained a blot upon the history of the seventeenth century. There is a curious letter extant written by Mistress Julia Peyton in her usual almost illegible scrawl and embellished by her more than quaint spelling; it was addressed to her cousin, Sir John Ayloffe, a week or so before the trial, and in it she says: "I wod Like to know the truth about this Story wich sayth that my lord Stowmaries wil be acused of witchcraft. They do sa he praktised Black Magic, and tried to kil the talor's daughter, so to use her blood for his Arts and his Inkantations. She being a Virgin. They do sa also that her Evidens against Him wil vastly startle Every one. As for me I tak vast Interest in the reprobate and do wish him well at his Trial. The husband of the talor's wench is naut to me. I do not desire to see him become Earl of Stowmaries, but rather that Michael be suksesful." What other schemes the fair lady now nurtured in her heart we know from the fact that she made several attempts to have access to the prisoner, all of which were unsuccessful, despite the fact that she used the influence of her other admirers to effect her ends, whilst on one occasion she wrote to Cousin John: "An Michael doth sukseed in getting an acquittal, I pra you bring him to my house forthwith afterwards. Remember good coz that I promisd you twelve thousand pounds if I do marry the Earl of Stowmaries." But beyond these secret wishes of the fair beauty, and mayhap a sigh of regret or so from pretty lips for the handsome adventurer, popular feeling was raging highly against the accused, and many chroniclers aver that among the many conspirators who were brought to these shameful trials during this time, against none was there so much venomous hatred as there was against Michael Kestyon. There is this to be remembered--though truly 'tis but weak palliation for the disgraceful antagonism displayed against the accused--that this was the first instance where a man so highly placed as was the Earl of Stowmaries was directly implicated in the plot; he was a sop thrown to the rampant radicalism of the anti-Church party as well as to its intolerant fanaticism. Public sympathy on the other hand had at once gone out to the dispossessed Earl of Stowmaries, whom the traitor had tried to rob of his wife and had effectually succeeded in robbing of his inheritance. But retribution for the guilty and compensation for the innocent had come together hand in hand. Michael Kestyon would hang, of course, whereupon the only rightful Lord of Stowmaries would once more come back into his own. The latter with commendable delicacy had left London directly his cousin's arrest became known; he would not stay to gloat over his enemy's downfall. In fact, for the moment everything that Rupert did was right and proper and worthy of sympathy, and everything that Michael had ever said and done and all that he had never said or done was held up against him by all those who awhile ago were ready to acclaim him as a friend. Of all these rumours Michael himself knew nothing. On his arrest he had at once pleaded guilty, hoping thereby to expedite his trial, and to curtail the time during which he would have to linger in prison. Echoes of the turmoil which was raging in the capital did reach him from time to time. The murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey had sent raging fanaticism to boiling point. Needless to say that here was another crime to fasten on the already overburdened shoulders of the accused. All these fresh outbursts of hatred and injustice, however, left Michael cold and indifferent, even when through a subordinate he heard the amazing story of how he was supposed to have tried to murder his cousin's wife by means of black magic, he had nothing but an almost humorous smile for the quaint monstrosity of the suggestion. He quickly tired of prison life and though there was no pang of suspense connected with it, for the issue was of course a foregone conclusion, yet he fretted at the delay which the importance of his case had brought about in the otherwise simple machinery of summary justice. CHAPTER XLV Her game in thy tongue is called Life As ebbs thy daily breath; When she shall speak, thou'lt learn her tongue And know she calls it death. --DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. For the rest, 'tis in the domain of history. Michael could have been tried by his peers had he so desired it. The few friends who rallied round him urged him to demand the right, but when we remember that in pledging his life to his cousin, his one wish was speedy condemnation and summary death, we cannot be astonished that he refused to be tried by those who might have been lenient toward one of themselves. Among his peers, too, the fact would of a surety have come to light that he did not belong to the Catholic branch of the Kestyons, that he himself was a member of the Established Church, which--as all these trials, alas, really amounted to religious persecution--would almost certainly have obtained an acquittal. Parliament--still suffering severely of its no-Popery fit--demanded that the traitor be tried as a common criminal before the King's Bench and required the king to issue a special commission that the day might be fixed as soon as may be. The accused was of course allowed no counsel, and no defence save what he could say on his own behalf. Nor did he know the precise words of the indictment, or what special form the informant's lies had taken. He did not know exactly what he was supposed to have said or done, he could only vaguely guess from what he knew of similar trials that had gone before. The trial of Michael Kestyon, Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, did, we know, take place before the King's Bench on the twenty-first day of November, 1678. Lord Chief Justice Scroggs presided, and the Attorney-General, Sir William Jones, once the friend of Michael, addressed the jury for the Crown. We also know that the court sat in Westminster Hall for the occasion, as it was expected that a very large concourse of ladies and gentlemen would desire to be present. As a matter of fact, the élite of London society did forego on that occasion the pleasures of The Mall, and of the playhouse in order to witness a spectacle which would rouse the jaded senses of these votaries of fashion and whip up their blasé emotions more than any comedy of Mr. Dryden or the late Master Shakespeare could do. This would be a tragedy far more moving, far more emotional than that of Hamlet or of Romeo and Juliet, for the element of romance mingled agreeably with that of crime, and the personality of the accused was one that aroused the most eager interest. Outside, a gloomy November drizzle enveloped London with its clammy shroud. Ladies and gentlemen arrived in their chairs or their glass coaches, wrapped to the eyes in mantles and hoods of fur. There was a goodly array of musketeers guarding the approach to the Hall, and a small company of the trained bands of London lined the way from Whitehall to Westminster, for it was pretty well known that His Majesty would come--in strict incognito--to see the last of his nine days' favourite, who during the last few months had made Mistress Gwynne sigh very significantly, and caused Lady Castlemaine to make invidious comparisons between the gallant bearing of the romantic adventurer and the mincing manners of the gentlemen of the Court. The less exalted spectators of to-day's pageant were being kept outside and pushed well out of the way by the soldiery; nevertheless, they stood about patiently--ankle deep in the mud of the roadway, their sad-coloured doublets getting soaked beneath the persistent drizzle and exhaling a fetid odour which made the street and the open place seem more dismal and humid than usual. The men pressed to the front, leaving the women to shift for themselves, to see as best they could. It was pre-eminently a spectacle for men, since it carried with it its own element of danger. For, look you, the Papists would be mightily rampant on this occasion, and who knows but that a gigantic conspiracy was afoot to blow up the Lord's House of Parliament, which would sit this day to try the arch-conspirator. Recollections of the Gunpowder Plot caused men to curse loudly, and to grasp with firm hand the useful flail safely hid inside the doublet: a good protection against personal attack, but alas, useless if the whole of Westminster was really undermined with powder. The 'prentices, ever to the fore, had taken French leave to-day. At certain risk of castigation to-morrow they deserted work with one accord and were at the best posts of observation, long before the more sober folk had thought to leave their beds. They wriggled their meagre bodies between the very legs of the soldiery, like so many lizards in search of sunshine, until they had conquered their places of vantage in the foreground whence they would presently see the prisoner when he stepped out of the vehicle which would bring him from the Tower. In the meanwhile the crowd wiled away the time by watching the arrival of the grand folk, and noting their names and quality as they descended from coach and chaise. "That's my lord of Rochester." "And this my lady Evelyn." "I vow 'tis Master Pepys himself." "And his lady, too." "'Tis His Grace of Norfolk!" Whereupon since the duke was a well-known Papist, there were hoots and hisses and cries of "The stake for heretics!" in which even the musketeers joined. The informers came together and were vigorously cheered and loudly acclaimed. "An Oates! An Oates! A Bedloe! Hurrah for the saviours of the nation!" Daniel Pye, a little anxious, was being upheld by his friend Tongue, who kept up a running flow of encouraging words which he poured forth into the other man's ear. He not being known to the mob remained unnoticed. As the time drew nigh for making his lying statements more public, the East Anglian peasant felt his courage oozing down into his boots. Bedloe and Oates, who had gone through similar experiences several times now, added their own encouragement to that expressed by Tongue. "No one will worry you," said Bedloe loftily; "they'll believe every word you say. Only stick to your story, man, and never hesitate. They can't contradict you: no one else was there to see." Although the gloom outside had almost changed day into evening, yet on entering the great hall wherein a very few lamps flickered near the centre dais, Daniel Pye could see nothing of his surroundings. He was glad that Oates himself took him by the arm, and piloted him through the great hall toward a side door immediately behind the bench and which gave on the room that had been assigned to the witnesses. A goodly number of ladies and gentlemen wore masks when they arrived, and among these was a man obviously young and of assured position, for his step was firm and his movements like those of one accustomed to have his own way in the world. He was dressed in rough clothes of sad-coloured material, but there was nothing of the menial about his person as he presented his paper of admission to the most exclusive corner of the hall. Here he sat himself down in a dark recess beneath the sill of the great mullioned window, nor did he remove his mask as almost every one else had done. Had not the crowd all round him been deeply engrossed in its own excitement no doubt that some one would have challenged and mayhap recognised the solitary figure. But as it was, no one took notice of him. Rupert Kestyon--like the criminal who cannot resist the impulse of once more revisiting the scene of his crime--had returned to London to see the final act of the great tragedy, wherein he himself was playing such a sorry part. Not that Rupert had any fear that matters would not turn out just as Michael had mapped them out. He knew his kinsman far too well to imagine for a moment that he would lift a finger to save the life which he had bartered for his cousin's loyalty to the tailor's daughter. But in Paris, whilst waiting in seclusion and inactivity, the moment when--the tragedy being over--he could once more resume the more pleasing comedy of life, he felt an irresistible longing to see the fall of that curtain, to be present when Fate dealt him his last trump-card, the final sacrifice of the man who stood in the way of his own advancement. Therefore he sat there in the corner, solitary and watchful, noting the arrival of the spectators, the appearance of the men of law, the whole paraphernalia of justice which was about to crush an innocent man. The hall by now was packed to overflowing; to right and left temporary seats had been erected and covered with crimson cloth, forming an amphitheatre which accommodated over a thousand people, amongst whom were many that bore historic names, as well as the gayer crowd that formed the Court set. Vast as was the room, it had already become insufferably hot; ladies plied their fans vigorously, whilst the men, worried with their heavy perruques, became restless and morose. On the right hand side, and somewhat in advance of the rest of the seats, a few more comfortable chairs had been disposed. Here sat a man dressed in sober black, with dark perruque pushed impatiently off his high forehead, and shifty, mistrustful-looking eyes wandering over the sea of faces all around him. To right and left of him ladies whispered and chatted, trying to bring a smile to the pinched lips, and not succeeding, for the man in the black surcoat was moody to-day, anxious, too, and vastly dissatisfied with himself, which is ever an uncomfortable state of mind. He had entered the Hall almost unobserved by the crowd outside, stepping out of a closed coach in no ways different to others that had driven up before. He had worn a mask when he arrived and only removed it when he was already seated. Several people recognised him then, but what cheering there came from the more brilliant members of this promiscuous throng was quickly repressed. Despite the many supposed attempts on the life of the king, he was far from popular just now. Conscious of this, he frowned when he realised that--though he was recognised by many--yet he was acclaimed only by a very few. Already the jury were seated and Sir Cresswell Levins was sorting his papers, and incidentally chatting with the Attorney-General. And now from outside came a muffled sound, like unto great breakers rolling into shore; distant at first, it gradually drew nearer, drawing strength as it approached. Soon through it there came, striking sharply on the ear, the stamping of horses' hoofs on the cobblestones of the road, and the creaking of heavy wheels through the mud. The sound of rolling waves turned to one which came from hundreds of human lips--hisses and groans were distinctly heard; shouts of execration, with here and there a blasphemous oath loudly uttered against the cursed Papists. The prisoner had arrived. Inside the Hall all necks were craned to catch the first glimpse of the man who was destined mayhap not to leave this place save with the axe suspended over his head. The romantic tales which had clustered around the personality of Michael Kestyon, the horrible suggestions of unavowable deeds, of black magic and devilish incantations, had borne fruit. Though eyes were fixed with eager curiosity on the man as he entered, though many a pleasing shudder ran along white plump shoulders as this confederate of Satan passed so closely by, there was not a single demonstration of sympathy on his behalf. The women whispered: "He is goodly to look on!" and took stock of the prisoner's bearing, the upright carriage of his handsome head, the quiet look of splendid aloofness with which he regarded his surroundings. Whereupon the men retorted gruffly: "The emissaries of the devil are always made handsome in the eyes of others. Satan arranges it so, else they would have no power." Following on the prisoner's entrance, the great doors of the Hall had been closed, whereupon the noise outside became quite deafening. The hoots and hisses, the shouts of execration, were still apparent but they mingled now with the clash of arms, the tramping of many feet, and loudly repeated groans of agony. The mob, robbed of its spectacle, had turned restive, the men broke through the lines of the soldiery and made an effort to rush the gates of the Hall. From the officers came quick words of command, rallying their lines from where they stretched toward White Hall. A few heavy blows, well aimed and vigorously dealt, with the butt end of the muskets, a few bodies trampled beneath horses' hoofs, some broken heads and shattered limbs, and the mob sobered down, withdrew grumbling and cursing, but understanding that the great pageant within was for their betters and not for them. During the turmoil the Lord Chief Justice had entered and the prisoner had been led to the bar; he had been made to hold up his right hand whilst he was told why he had been brought here, and why he was made to stand his trial. Being a peer, the Chamberlain of the Tower stood beside him holding the axe. Michael silently did all that he was bidden to do. The proceedings had no interest for him. Of a truth he had been more than satisfied if the more barbarous justice of two centuries ago had been meted out to him. An accusation, a brief interrogation, mayhap an unpleasant quarter of an hour in the torture chamber, then the block! How much more simple, how much more easy to endure than this sea of curious faces, this paraphernalia of gorgeously-clad judge and of lawyers assembled there with the pre-conceived and firm determination to condemn the accused whatever might betide. The while Sir Cresswell Levins opened the case, admonishing the jury to do their duty by the prisoner at the bar, Michael with indifferent eyes scanned the faces all around him. He saw Mistress Julia Peyton in the front rank of the spectators clad in exquisite pearl grey silk, her beautiful shoulders but thinly veiled beneath filmy folds of delicate lace. He saw the piquant face of Mistress Gwynne, the haughty figure of Lady Castlemaine. Most of the women as they encountered his look blushed to meet those dark eyes, which looked almost unnaturally large in the face rendered thin and pale through the nerve-racking experiences of the past few weeks. Anon Michael's eyes met the restless ones of the king. He bent his head with deep respect, for he had not yet learned to despise the man to whom he owed all that he had, all that he was now sacrificing in order that his snowdrop might find happiness again. Charles Stuart turned his head away with a sigh. All that was good and noble and kind in him went out to that man, in whose innocence he firmly believed but whom he found was well-nigh intolerable. But Michael now was obliged to pull his senses back to the exigencies of the moment and he pleaded "Guilty!" in a calm and steady voice. He had not even grasped the full meaning of the indictment read out at full length by the Attorney-General. All he knew was that he was accused of having plotted to murder the king, whom he revered, and of having sold his country to the head of a Church to which he did not happen to belong. Michael desired his own condemnation. He was here solely for that, in order that the man whom his ice maiden loved with that cold, passionless heart of hers might give her all that she wanted, all that was her due. But the inactivity of the moment was so terrible to bear. To a man accustomed to rule his own destiny, to choose his own path, and to say to Fate: "This will I do, and thou art my slave!" to a man of that stamp the present situation was well-nigh intolerable. The long-drawn-out speech of the Attorney-General, the platitudes addressed to the accused by the Lord Chief Justice, his own answers mechanically given soon left him wandering into the realms of unreality. The heat in the room pressed upon his temples like a monster weight of lead. Michael, gazing with eyes that saw not on the solemn scene in which he was the chief personage, soon fell into a kind of torpor akin to a trance. Ghost-like forms clad in crimson robes, grinning faces with perruques awry, began to dance before his fevered fancy. They twirled and turned, round and round the flickering flames of the lamps, until these were magnified an hundredfold and multiplied innumerably. Now faces and forms disappeared: there were only a thousand millions of eyes that blinked and blinked, the while the lamps were will-o'-the-wisps, glowworms with monstrous shining horns that stood upright on iron tails and joined in the wild saraband which had transformed the solemn Hall of Westminster into the precincts of Hell. Then gradually all the grinning faces, all the glowing monstrosities and witch-like forms became a gigantic circle of ruddy light wherein flames flickered at intervals like unto a burning halo which seared the eyes of the beholder. And right in the very centre of that transcendent glow two faces appeared, white and ghost-like, spirits surely from a world beyond. Michael knew that he was dreaming, his temples and pulses were throbbing. He had lost count of space and of time. He just breathed and held himself upright and no more; living had become an unknown thing to him. But the faces were there still, in the centre of the glowing halo, and they were those of his beautiful snowdrop and of Master Legros, tailor to the King of France. CHAPTER XLVI And now she spoke as when The stars sang in their spheres. --DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. His snowdrop was gazing straight at him from out great, wide eyes, her lips were parted as if she meant to speak, and her hand lay on the arm of her father, good Papa Legros, dressed all in black, and above whose sombre surcoat shone a kindly face almost distorted by its expression of anxiety and from which ran streams of perspiration which the poor man wiped off ever and anon with a bright-coloured handkerchief. With a mechanical movement Michael passed his hand across his eyes. His brain returned from its long wandering in the realm of dreamland; the light ceased to flicker, the sea of grinning faces receded into the darkness. Michael now only saw Rose Marie. The devilish visions had been transformed into peaceful dreams of Heaven. Though his mind--still feverish and numb--refused to believe that she was really there, yet his eyes took in every tiny detail of the golden picture which they saw. There were the tiny curls that, ever rebellious, would break through the confines of the lace cap and flutter tantalisingly round her ear; there was the little mole just above the lip, which gave the perfect mouth, that otherwise had been accounted too serious, an exquisite air of piquancy; there was the delicate rise of the throat, peeping above the lace kerchief, a god-like snare wherein he had once dared to hope that his lips would be entrapped. And all the while that Michael looked on his beloved, Daniel Pye was busy with his perjuries, and Master Oates stood up to corroborate these. Once or twice the Lord Chief Justice had turned to the accused, expecting a contradiction of such obvious lies. But the only word that ever escaped the latter's lips came mechanically as from one who had learned a lesson by heart. "I am guilty--what these men say is true." Once the Attorney-General had spoken quite irritably: "The prisoner's attitude, my lord," he said, "is one of contempt for this Court. He must be made to answer more fully the charges that are preferred against him." "Then 'tis for you to question him," retorted the Lord Chief Justice drily. Emboldened by Michael's attitude of passive acquiescence, Pye and Oates surpassed themselves. Their story gained in detail, in circumstantial broiderings under cross-examination. Once or twice their imagination and impudence carrying them too far, they palpably contradicted one another. A man's voice then rose from the midst of the spectators: "These men are accursed liars!" The voice was authoritative and loud, as of a man accustomed to be obeyed. And no one cried "Hush!" to the remark, since it came from royal lips. After an examination which we know lasted nearly an hour, the two witnesses were dismissed. They left the great hall together and walked with an assured air of satisfaction across to the small room beyond the bench, where they were bidden to wait in case they were required again. To a sanely judicial mind the only point which would present itself in the evidence of these miscreants as being uncontradicted and unquestionably established by them, was that the treasonable converse between the accused and a minister of the King of France did take place at the tavern of the "Rat Mort" in Paris in the evening of the nineteenth day of April of this same year. Beyond that it was a tangle which Michael, had he chosen, could easily have unravelled in his own favour. But this he did not mean to do; he was only anxious for the end. While the lying informer spoke of that same nineteenth day of April his thoughts flew back on the sable wings of a dead past to all the memories that clung to that day. The religious ceremony at St. Gervais, the dance on the dusty floor of the tailor's back shop, the ride through the darkness along the lonely road with his beloved clinging to him, the while his arm ached with an exquisite sense of numbness under the delicious burden which it bore. These men spoke of the evening of that nineteenth day of April! Oh, the remembrance of every hour, every minute which the date recalled! The darkened room in the old inn, the streaks of moonbeam which kissed the gold of her hair, the April breeze which caused her curls to flutter, and the sighing of the reeds and young acacia boughs like spirit whisperings that presaged impending doom! Her voice, her eyes, so tender, for that one brief day! Would not the remembrance of it be graven on his heart when after so much joy, such hopeless abnegation, it would cease to beat at last. Of a truth can you wonder that Michael was impatient for the end? He had seen his snowdrop through the gossamer veil of a day-dream across the crowded court and the vision had caused him to realise more fully than he had ever done before how impossible life would be without her. Thank God, that he had pledged his life to his cousin! Thank God, that Rupert had accepted the pledge, and gave in exchange for the worthless trifle, his own loyalty to Rose Marie. Then why so many parleyings, such long, empty talk, such tortuous questionings? Michael had pleaded guilty and almost asked for death. Even as with an impatient sigh of intense weariness he had for the twentieth time that day spoken his mechanical "Guilty!" there was general movement amongst the spectators. Imagine a hive of bees swarming round their queen: the women leaned forward clutching their fans, forgetting the heat and the discomfort of those long hours. The men put up spy-glasses the better to see what went on in the centre of the stage, the while a murmur of excitement ran right through the assembly. Papa Legros was being led by a gorgeously-clad usher in the direction of the bar, opposite to the prisoner, whilst his daughter walked by his side. Dormant attention had indeed been roused, necks were craned to get a better view of the interesting witnesses. "She is the wife of my lord of Stowmaries," came in whispers all round the hall, like the swish of the wind through poplar trees. "What--of the prisoner?" "No! No! Of the man whom he dispossessed and who will be Lord of Stowmaries again, once this man is hanged." "She is very young." "Ay--a girl-wife. 'Tis her whom the accused tried to murder, so that he might offer her blood in sacrifice to the devil." But this statement obtained little credence now. "The accused does not look like a wizard, or an emissary of the devil," commented the ladies. "Yet the girl is there to testify against him." "That is because she must hate him so. She is the wife of the man whom the accused hath dispossessed. They say she dearly loves her husband, yet did the accused try and steal her from him." "She will make a handsome Countess of Stowmaries anon," quoth Lord Rochester with his wonted cynicism, and speaking in the ear of his royal master, "What think you, sire?" "Odd's fish!" retorted Charles Stuart. "If she proved as big a liar as these damnable informers then is there no virtue writ plainly on any woman's face." There certainly was something infinitely pathetic in the appearance of father and daughter: he in his clothes of deep black, and with the tears of anxiety and perturbation rolling slowly down his cheeks. She fragile and slender, with pale, delicate face and eyes wherein girlish timidity still fought against a woman's resolve. No wonder that for the moment every unkind comment was hushed. The Countess of Stowmaries--as she was already universally called--seemed to command respect as well as sympathy. With a great show of kindness, the Lord Chief Justice himself spoke directly to the two witnesses, asking their names and quality, as was required for form's sake. Rose Marie now no longer looked at the accused. She stood beside her father, tall and stately as the water-lilies to which the man who loved her so ardently had once compared her. The mud of the world had left her unsmirched; she carried her head high, for the slimy tendrils of men's unavowable passions, of trickery, of lies and deceit had not reached the high altitude whereon her purity sat enthroned. Her father was the witness called on behalf of the Crown; he had made his statement on oath, and stood here now to repeat it before all the world. His daughter was his interpreter, since he was unacquainted with the English language. Her voice was clear and firm as in answer to the questions put to her by the Lord Chief Justice she gave her father's humble name and quality and then her own as Mistress Kestyon, wife of Rupert Kestyon, erstwhile known as my Lord of Stowmaries and Rivaulx. CHAPTER XLVII Love that is root and fruit of terrene things, Love that the whole world's waters shall not drown The whole world's fiery forces not burn down. --SWINBURNE. Michael could scarce believe his own eyes. The reality had brought him back with irresistible force from his day-dream to the tangible situation of the moment. Papa Legros was here with Rose Marie. So much was true; that was no longer in the domain of dreams. They had been brought here to add their testimony to the lies spoken by the informers. Torturing devils, whispering in Michael's ears, made this hellish suggestion. With it came an intensity of bitterness. He had thought that the old man loved him, yet his appearance here and now seemed like petty vengeance wreaked on a fallen enemy. Michael ground his teeth, trying to drive these whispering devils away. He would not--even at a moment such as this--lose if only for an instant his perfect faith in the purity of the woman he loved. If she stood here, it was for a noble purpose. What that purpose could be, not even the mad conjectures of his own fevered fancy could contrive to imagine; his veins were throbbing and he could not think. Only the puzzle confronted him now, mocking his own obtuseness; the laggard brain, that had suffered so long, and was now dormant, unable to guess the riddle which could not be aught save one of life or death. All he did know was that Rose Marie was standing there before all these people, she the very essence of purity and of truth, and that she was being made to swear that she would speak the truth. Was this not a vile mockery, masters, seeing that naught but what was true could ever fall from her lips? Now the Attorney-General was questioning her father, with thin, sarcastic lips curled in a smile. Rose Marie replied calmly and firmly, interpreting her father's answers, not looking once on the accused, but almost always straight before her, save when she threw a look of encouragement on good Papa Legros, who then would pat her hand with unaffected tenderness. "And you were present, so the other witness swore in his original information, on the 19th day of April, with him at the tavern of the 'Rat Mort' in Paris, and you did on that same evening hear the accused hold converse with one who was minister to His Majesty the King of France?" The Attorney-General's voice was metallic, trenchant, like a knife; it reached the furthermost distance of the great hall and grated unpleasantly on Michael's ear. He hated to see his beloved standing there before that gaping crowd. He cursed the enforced inactivity which made of him a helpless log when with every fibre within him he longed to take her in his arms and carry her away to a secluded spot where impious eyes were not raised to her snow-white robes. "My lord," he interposed loudly, "I have confessed to my guilt. What this witness may have to say can have naught to do with the plain fact. I am guilty. I have confessed. Cannot your lordship have mercy and pass sentence as soon as may be?" "Prisoner at the bar," rejoined the Lord Chief Justice, "'tis not for you to dictate the procedure of justice. 'Tis my duty to hear every witness who hath testimony to lay before this court. You have confessed your guilt, 'tis true, but on such confession the law will not hold you guilty, until you have so been proved; and for the sake of the witnesses who have testified against you, as well as for the sake of justice, we must obtain corroboration of their statements." Then he turned once more to Papa Legros and graciously bade him to make answer to the questions put by the Attorney-General. Rose Marie, before she spoke, turned and looked on Michael. Their eyes met across that vast assembly and as in one great vivid flash, each read in those of the other the sublime desire for complete sacrifice. In a moment Michael understood; in that one brief flash and through the unexplainable telepathy which flew from her soul to his, the truth had burst upon him with the appalling force of absolute conviction. She, the woman whom he adored, who was a saint exalted in his mind above every other woman on earth, she was about to throw her fair fame, her honour, her purity as a plaything to this crowd of hyena-like creatures, who would fall on the tattered remnants of her reputation and tear its last fragments to shreds. This she meant to do. This was the grim and sublime answer to the riddle which had so puzzled Michael when first he saw his Rose Marie in this court. She meant to give her honour for his life. She loved him and came here to offer her all--her own, her father's good name, so that he--Michael--should be saved. The terrible, awful agony of this thought, the mad, tumultuous joy! Here was the moment at last--the one second in the illimitable cycle of time--when if there be mercy in Heaven or on earth, the kiss of Death should bring peace to the miserable wastrel who had in this brief flash of understanding tasted an eternity of happiness. She loved him and was here to save him! But Heavens above, at what a cost! He looked round him like some caged beast, determined at all hazards to make a mad dash for liberty. It could not be! No, no; it should not be! Surely God in Heaven could not allow this monstrous sacrifice; surely the thunderbolts from above would come down crashing in the midst of this mocking, jeering assembly before his exquisite snowdrop dragged her immaculate white skirts in the mire. What he did or how he fought, Michael himself scarcely knew. What was he but one small, helpless atom in this avalanche of callous lawmakers? All that he did know was that with all the strength at his command he protested his guilt again and again, imploring judgment, uttering wild words of treason that might secure his own immediate condemnation. "My lord, my lord," he cried loudly, "in the name of Heaven as you yourself hope for justice hereafter, listen not to these witnesses. I swear to you that they will only confirm what the others have said. I am guilty--thrice guilty, I say--yes, I plotted to murder the king. I plotted to sell England to France and to Rome. I admit the truth of every word the informers have uttered. I am guilty, my lord--guilty--judgment, in Heaven's name--I ask for judgment." "Prisoner at the bar, I command you to be silent." Silent, silent when so monstrous a thing was about to happen! As well command the giant waves lashed into madness by the fury of the wind to be silent when they break upon the rocks. The Lord Chief Justice commanded the musketeers to restrain this madman, to force him to hold his tongue, to drown his voice with the clatter of their arms. The spectators stared aghast, women gasped with fear, the men were awed despite themselves in the presence of this raging torrent of a man's unbridled passion. The general impression which this scene had created was of course that the prisoner was dreading some awful revelation which these two witnesses might make. He was avowing his guilt, therefore he did not hope to escape death; once more the superstitious dread of witchcraft rose in the minds of all. Was the accused--already practically condemned for treason--in fear that his death would mean the stake rather than the block? A close phalanx gathered round the person of the king, who with a cynical smile was watching the confusion which occurred round the august majesty of this court. But he waved aside those who would have stood between him and Michael. "He'll quieten down anon," he said simply, "and if I mistake not, gentlemen, we shall then learn a lesson which throughout our lives we are not like to forget." Was it accident or design? Had Michael fought like a madman, or had his brain merely given way under an agonizing moral blow. Certain it is that suddenly he felt a terrible pain in his head, his senses were reeling, his tongue, parched and dry, refused to obey the dictates of his will that bade it protest again and again, until his heart could no longer beat, until his last breath had left his body. He tottered and would have fallen but for strong arms that held him up. He felt that irons were being placed on his wrists, that four pairs of hands gripped his arms and shoulders so that he could no longer move. The pain in his head was well-nigh intolerable; he closed his eyes in the vain effort not to swoon. It was the butt end of a musket that had rendered him helpless. From the lips of many spectators came loud invectives against the miscreant who had dared to strike a peer; vaguely reaching the half-unconscious brain came the sound of voices, also the cry from a woman's throat, heard above all the others, uttered with an intensity of agony even as he fell. With Michael's half-swoon the turmoil had somewhat subsided. The musketeers round him, terrified at their comrade's act, were bathing the prisoner's head with water hastily obtained. The spectators, deeply moved--unable to understand the inner meaning of the strange scene which they had just witnessed--were talking excitedly to one another. Conjectures, wild guesses, flew from mouth to mouth. And in the midst of all this noise, and of all the confusion, Rose Marie had remained calm, holding her father by the hand. Only when the dastardly blow felled the fighting lion down, then only did a cry of pain escape her trembling lips. Now when comparative stillness reigned around her, she once more faced the judges. Michael was now helpless, she could offer up her sacrifice in peace. The Lord Chief Justice repeated his question and even as he began speaking complete silence fell upon all. "Will you swear before this court that on the evening of the nineteenth day of April you were present with Master Pye and Doctor Oates at the hostelry of the 'Rat Mort' in Paris and there on that same evening did hear the accused holding converse with a minister of the King of France?" "No, milor," replied Rose Marie firmly; "my father was not present on the evening of the nineteenth day of April in the tavern of the 'Rat Mort' in Paris, nor in any other tavern, nor did the accused hold converse on that same evening with a minister of the King of France. And this do I swear in my father's name and mine own." "But," interposed the Attorney-General in his dry, sarcastic tone, "the former witnesses have sworn that you were there present together with them, when the converse did take place." "Those witnesses have lied, my lord," spoke Rose Marie. "Take care, Mistress," admonished the Lord Chief Justice, "you do bring a grave charge against those witnesses." "A grave charge yet a true one, my lord. Yet what they have sworn to is both false and grave." "Yet are you sworn in as a witness for the Crown." "And as a witness for the Crown do I speak," rejoined Rose Marie simply, "for the Crown of England is the crown of truth, and my father and I are here for the truth." "Which mayhap will bear fuller investigation," quoth Sir William Jones with a sneer. "As full an one as you desire, my lords." "Then pray, Mistress, since you and your father do swear that you were not at the hostelry of the 'Rat Mort' in Paris on the evening of the nineteenth of April, how comes it that you can state so positively that the accused did not then and at that place hold treasonable converse with the minister of the King of France, as the other witnesses have testified?" Rose Marie paused before she answered; it almost seemed as if she wished to wait until all disturbing sounds had died down in the vast hall, so that her fresh and firm voice should ring clearly from end to end. Then she spoke, looking straight at the judge: "Because of the truth of the statement, my lord," she said, "to which my father hath already sworn before the magistrate, and to which he must, it seems, now swear openly before this court, according to the laws of your country. The accused, my lord, could not have been present at a hostelry in Paris, or held converse with a minister of the King of France on the evening of the nineteenth day of April, for on that day did I plight my troth to him at the Church of St. Gervais, and he did spend the full day in my father's house. At five o'clock in the afternoon he did journey with me to St. Denis and there remained with me at the hostelry of the 'Three Archangels,' when my father came and fetched me away." "It is false," came faintly whispered from the lips of the prisoner, whose consciousness only seemed to return for this brief while, that he might register a last protest against the desecration of his saint. Rose Marie's words had rung clearly and distinctly from end to end of the hall. After she spoke, after that protest from the accused, dead silence fell on all. Only the fluttering of the fans came as a strange moaning sound, hovering in the over-heated air. Excitement like the embodiment of a thousand spirits flew across and across on wings widely outstretched--unseen yet tangible. Soon a half-audible curse spoken from beneath the mullioned windows broke the spell of awed silence. Rupert Kestyon, with rage and shame surging in his heart, fear, too, at the possible consequences of this unexpected interference, muttered angry oaths beneath his breath. Then like the ripple of innumerable waves, an hundred exclamations rose from every corner of the court. Lord Rochester was seen to whisper animatedly to the king. Mistress Peyton turned and held hurried converse with Sir John Ayloffe, who sat at her elbow. A few women tried to titter; the lowering cloud of scandal made vain endeavour to spread itself over the head of that slender girl who stood there before the judge, fearless and impassive beneath this gathering tempest of sneers and evil words. She had heard the muttered oath, spoken by lips that she had already learned to dread, and her calm, blue eyes, serene as the skies of her native Provence, sought the lonely figure beneath the mullion, and rested on it with a look of challenge and of defiance. She had meant and desired to be loyal to him, she would have clung to him through sorrow and loneliness, humiliation and derision, if need be, but Fate had been too strong for her. The man she loved was in peril of his life and could only be saved at the sacrifice of her own loyalty and of her honour. There had never been any conflict within her. The moment she knew how the accusation stood against her beloved, she mapped out her course and never swerved. Come contumely and disgrace, public scandal and her own undoing, she was ready for it all. It had been over-easy to guess what had occurred: how Michael had come to be accused of that which was threatening his cousin. Rose Marie understood it, even as if she had been present at the interview between the two kinsmen, when one man sold his life for the other's loyalty and for her happiness. All this and more her glance across the court told to Rupert Kestyon. It told him that ready as she had been to follow him even at the cost of her own misery, she was not ready to pay for his safety with the life of the man whom alone she loved. Michael may have sinned. He did sin, no doubt, against God and against her, but God of a truth had made him suffer enough. It was Rupert's turn now to pay, and pay he must. Small coin it was, for his child-wife's disgrace, his own humiliation at the inevitable scandal and consequent gossip was but small money indeed beside the boundless wealth of self-sacrifice which Michael had been ready to throw in his cousin's lap. Perhaps that something of the magnetism which emanated from her personality, perhaps the subtle and mysterious magic which Love exercises over all who think and who feel, affected these people who were present at this memorable scene. Certain it is that there were but very few men and women in this stately hall who did not feel an undefinable sense of sympathy for the three chief actors of the drama which they were witnessing. The Lord Chief Justice--at best a hard and cynical man of the world, a man on whom history hath cast a mantle of opprobrium--was strangely impressed. He had watched the girl very closely whilst she spoke, had noted the looks which passed between father and daughter and thence across to the prisoner at the bar, and something of the truth of the soulful sacrifice which all three were prepared to make dawned upon his alert brain. His words were the first clear tones that rose above the babel of whisperings and titters; he turned directly to Master Legros and addressed him personally, speaking in fluent French. "Your daughter, Master," he said, "hath made a strange statement. Do you endorse its purport?" "My daughter spoke the truth, milor," replied Papa Legros quietly, "and I endorse every word which she hath said." "Upon your oath?" "On mine oath." "It is false, my lord," murmured Michael still feebly, but making frantic efforts to keep his wandering spirits in bondage. "It is false, on my soul--I was in Paris--not at St. Denis--the lady is unknown to me--I am guilty." "You hear the prisoner's protest, Master?" queried the judge, once more speaking directly to Legros. "If your statement be true, he is your bitter enemy." "He did my daughter a great wrong, my lord, but he is an innocent man, unjustly accused of a grave crime. I cannot let him die for that which he hath not done." "Yet doth he protest his guilt." "'Tis natural that he should thus protest, my lord. He hath taken on his own shoulders the burden of another. Yet I would have you believe that I would not stand by now, and see my daughter sacrificing her good name for any cause save that of truth." Papa Legros spoke with so much simplicity, such perfect dignity, and withal had made so logical a statement, that it seems impossible to imagine that it should not carry at least as much conviction to the minds of judge and jury and of all the assembly as the obviously lying statements of the informers had done. Yet such was the temper of the times, such the wave of intolerant fanaticism which had passed over the country, that even whilst good Master Legros was stating so noble and simple a point of truth, the first murmurs of dissent against him and his daughter rose throughout the hall: whispered words of "foreign papist," of "prejudiced witnesses," of "a wench and her lover," flew from mouth to mouth. Rose Marie, whose sensibilities were attuned to their highest pitch, felt this wave of antipathy, even before its first faint echo had actually reached her ears. She was quite clever enough to know that the simple mention of an actual fact by herself and her father would not be sufficient to turn the tide of judicial sympathy back toward Michael, after the perjuries of men who had for some time now been exalted into popular heroes; she had, alas, known only too well that she had not yet reached the summit of that Calvary which she had set herself to climb for the loved one's sake. There were yet many cups of bitter humiliation which she and her kind father would have to drain ere an innocent man was forbidden to give his life for another, and the first of these was being held to her lips even now by the Attorney-General, as he said, turning once more to her: "You are aware, Mistress, of these statements to which your father hath sworn in open court. Do you on your own account and independently of your father, add your sworn testimony to his?" "I do, sir," she replied; "I swear, quite independently of what my father hath said, that on the evening of the 19th day of April, when the false witnesses aver that my lord of Stowmaries was in Paris, he was at St. Denis with me." "You are quite sure of the date?" "Am I like to forget?" "Odd's fish!" he retorted, with a sarcastic curl of the lips, "when a pretty wench is in love." "I am the wife of Rupert Kestyon, formerly styled my lord of Stowmaries," she rejoined with calm emphasis. "Had my father kept silent, had he not endeavoured to clear an innocent man of an unjust charge by giving up that which he holds most dear--his daughter's honour and his own good name--had he remained silent, I say, then would the accused have suffered death, my husband would have succeeded to his title and estates, and I would have duly become the Countess of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, the richest, mayhap the most honoured lady in this beautiful land. Think you, then, that 'tis the caprice of wanton love that would make me swear what I did? Think you that--unless truth and honour itself compelled him--my father would lend a hand to the degradation of his own child?" What Michael endured in agony of mind throughout this time, it were almost impossible to conceive. Imagine that type of man--the adventurer, the soldier of fortune, the carver of his own destiny, good or bad, the dictator of his own fate! Imagine that man for the first time in his life rendered absolutely helpless the while his fate, his life, was being decided on by others. After those first mad and useless protests, after that wild struggle for freedom of speech, for the right to refuse this whole-hearted sacrifice, this offering of the lily on the altar of love, he had remained silent, with his head buried in his hands, driving his finger nails into his own flesh, longing with a mad longing of pain to find a means of ending his own existence here and now, before his snowdrop had suffered the full consequences of her own heaven-born impulse. Ye gods above! And he--Michael--had doubted her love for him! Fool, fool that he had been, even for a moment, even in thought to give her up to another. He who had ever been ready to account for his own actions, who with the arrogant pride of fallen angels had always looked his own sins in the face, grinning, hideous monsters though they may have been--how came it that when first she spoke cold words to him he did not then silence them with a kiss, how came it that he did not then and there take her in his arms, defying the laws of men, for the sake of the first, the greatest of God's laws which gives the woman to the man? Fool that he had been to think of aught save love, and of love alone. And all the while, Rose Marie, calm and still as the very statue of abnegation, was completing her work of self-immolation. When the Attorney-General-with sneering lips and mocking eyes threw discredit on those statements which she and her dear father were making at the cost of their own honour, she felt the first terrible pang of fear. Not for herself or her future, but for him whom she longed to save and lest her sacrifice be made and yet remain useless. Just for that moment, her serenity gave way. She looked all round her on that sea of jeering faces, longing to cry for help, just as with her whole attitude she had until this moment only called for justice. Once more her eyes lighted on Rupert Kestyon, her husband, throwing him a challenge, which now had almost become a prayer. He could if he would help her even now. She had become naught to him, of course. Whatever he said could not add to her disgrace; but he could help to save Michael if he would. She met his lowering glance, the look of hatred and wrath which embraced her and her father, and the obstinate set of jaw and lips which spoke of the determination to win his own safety, his own advancement and the furtherance of his own ambition now and at any cost. But when the iron determination of a woman who loves, and who fights for the safety of the man she loves, comes in contact with the cold obstinacy of a man's ambition, then must the latter yield to the overwhelming strength of the other. Rupert Kestyon could have saved Michael at cost of his own immediate exaltation, and thus saved Rose Marie a final and complete humiliation, but this, his every look told her that he would not do. Therefore after that quick glance, her eyes no longer challenged him; she feared that if she dragged him forcibly into this conflict with perjury, his own self-interest would make a stand against justice. Heaven alone knew to what evil promptings his ambition would listen at the moment, when the one life--already so splendidly jeopardised--stood between him and the title and wealth which he coveted. She did not know that any one save her father and herself could speak with certainty as to that memorable evening of April nineteenth when she went forth--cruel, cold and resentful--leaving Michael alone and desolate at the inn of St. Denis. Even now the Attorney-General, fresh to the charge, pressed her with his sarcastic comments. "You speak well, fair Mistress," he said blandly, "but you know no doubt that your story needs corroboration. Two witnesses who are Englishmen and members of our National Church have sworn that the prisoner spent the evening of April the nineteenth in treasonable converse with an enemy of this country and in their presence; mark you that the accused himself hath confessed to his guilt. Yet do you swear that he spent that day and evening in your company, until so late that a cruel father came and dragged you away from the delectable privacy. But with all due acknowledgment to the charm of your presence, Mistress," added Sir William Jones, suddenly dropping his bland manner and speaking with almost studied insolence, "you must see for yourself that if a wench desires that she be credited, she must above all bear a spotless reputation, and this on your own acknowledgment you flung to the winds, the day that you--avowedly married to Mr. Rupert Kestyon, formerly styled Earl of Stowmaries--did publicly flout your marriage vows by leaving your father's house in company with the accused. Now justice, though blind, my wench, doth wish to see farther than a minx's tale which mayhap hath been concocted to save her gallant from the block." The girl had not winced at the insults. Happily her father had not understood them, and the issue at stake was far too great to leave room for vain indignation or even for outraged pride. What bitter resentment she felt was for Michael's sake. She knew how every insolent word uttered by that bland cynic in the name of the law and of justice, would strike against the already-overburdened heart of the man who loved her with such passionate adoration. The impotence that weighed on Michael now was of a truth the most bitter wrong to bear in the midst of all this misery. Samson bound and fettered was helpless in the hands of the Philistines. Prometheus chained to the rock saw the vultures hovering over him and the eagles pecking at his heart. "As to that, sir," replied Rose Marie quietly, after a brief pause, "these honourable gentlemen here whom you call the jury will have to judge for themselves as to who hath lied: those other witnesses or I--they who have everything to gain, or I and my father, who have everything to lose. But you say that the justice of this land will need corroboration of our statements ere she turns to right an innocent man. This corroboration, sir, you shall have, an you will tell me what form it shall take." "Some other witness of the prisoner's presence in your company at the inn of St. Denis during the day and evening of April nineteenth," retorted Sir William Jones brusquely. "I know only of the innkeeper himself and his wife," she rejoined. "Simple folk to whose testimony--seeing the temper of the people of England just now--you would scarce give credence, mayhap." "Mayhap not," quoth the Attorney-General mockingly. "Yet think again, Mistress," interposed the Lord Chief Justice not unkindly, "corroboration the law must have--if not to right the innocent then to punish the guilty." The young girl's eyes closed for a moment. She clung to her father in pathetic abandonment; beads of perspiration stood on her forehead; her eyes were dry and hot and her throat parched. But for Papa Legros' presence mayhap her magnificent calm would have deserted her then. She drew herself together, however, and a look of understanding passed between father and daughter. Then the tailor drew a paper from his pocket. It was a large and heavy document and it bore two huge seals engraved with the arms of the Holy See. This Papa Legros gave into an usher's hand, who in his turn handed it up to the Lord Chief Justice. "What is this paper?" queried His Lordship. "It is a dispensation, my lord," replied Rose Marie firmly, "signed by His Holiness the Pope, as you will see. It was granted to my husband, Rupert Kestyon, then styled my Lord of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, giving him leave to avail himself of the laws of England, which would, on his request, annul his marriage with one Rose Marie Legros, who did on the nineteenth day of April, 1678, break her sworn marriage vows by contracting with Michael Kestyon a--" But even as the awful words trembled on the girl's lips, Michael's restraint completely gave way. Despite the soldiers around him--who of a truth were taken by surprise--despite the hopeless futility of his former attempt--he broke through the rank of musketeers who were surrounding him, and with a cry as that of a wild animal wounded unto death, he bounded forward to where his snowdrop stood, and with one arm round her, pressing her to him with all the strength of passion held in check so long, he, with the other hand placed upon her mouth, smothered the word which would have escaped her lips. "My lord, my lord," he cried, "is this justice? Sire, you are here present! Where is your kingly power? Will you not stop this desecration of the purest, holiest thing on earth? Are we in the torture chambers of our forefathers that men in England will listen unmoved to this?" He had taken the guard so completely by surprise that the men were still standing mute and irresolute, the while the prisoner with defiant head erect challenged the king himself to intervene. He had sunk on one knee, his arm still round the form of his beloved. No one would have dared to touch him then, for he was like a wild beast defending its mate. Rose Marie's strength had indeed failed her at last; when she felt herself falling against the breast of the man whom she so ardently loved, all her calm, all her resolution suddenly gave way. Once more she was the woman, the pure, tender-hearted, gentle-nurtured child, content to rest in the protecting arms of her lord, content to live for his happiness, or to share his disgrace. "If I feared you before, my lord--meseems that I could love you now," her cold lips seemed to murmur the echo of the very first words of love which they had ever uttered. And a groan of agony escaped the poor blackguard's overburdened heart. No longer splendid now, no longer defiant or proud--but humbled from his self-exalted state of arrogant manhood. And she, the slender water-lily, had of her own free will allowed the mud of a polluted world to soil the exquisite whiteness of her gown. She had descended from her lofty pedestal of saint-like aloofness, in order to link her fate to his--her sins to his--her life and love to his own. Fate and the overwhelming love of a woman had conquered his will. "I am a man and what I do, I do!" "No!" love triumphant had retorted, "for what _I_ command that must thou do. I am the ruler, thou my slave! Whoever thou art, I am thy master and the arbiter of thy destiny!" CHAPTER XLVIII And not ever The justice and the truth o' the question carries The due o' the verdict with it. --HENRY VIII. V. 1. At Michael's call, at his sudden rush for the protection of his beloved, general confusion prevailed such as had never before been witnessed in the sober halls of Westminster. Gorgeously-clad gentlemen of high degree, ladies in silks and brocades, elbowed and pushed one another, climbing on their chairs, in order to have a clear view of the small group on the floor of the hall at the foot of the judge's bench--Michael kneeling on one knee, Rose Marie half prostrate on the ground, Papa Legros with large coloured handkerchief mopping his streaming forehead. These were times when men gave freer rein to their emotions than they do now; they were not ashamed of them, and modern civilisation had not yet begun to propagate its false doctrine that only what is ugly and sordid is real, and what is fine and noble--and therefore mayhap a trifle unbridled and primitive--is false and must be suppressed. That public feeling had--with characteristic irresponsibility--veered round to the accused and to these two witnesses was undoubted. The poignancy of the situation had told on every one's nerves. It had been a moving and palpitating drama, vivid, real and pulsating with love, the noble passion that makes the whole world kin. The same men and women who awhile ago had clamoured for the traitor's head, who had heaped opprobrium, invectives and curses upon him, were now quite prepared to demand his acquittal, with as little logic in their sympathy as they had shown in their unreasoning vituperations. The same primeval vices of bigotry and intolerance that had presided at the trials of Stailey and Coleman and sent them to the gallows, sat here in judgment, too, equally intolerant of contradiction, equally bigoted and peremptory. In the midst of this unprecedented turmoil which had turned stately Westminster Hall into an arena filled with wildly-excited spectators, the ushers' loud calls for silence were absolutely drowned. Nor could the Attorney-General and the Lord Chief Justice make themselves heard by the jury, even though his lordship did his best to admonish these twelve honourable gentlemen not to allow their sentiment to run away with their conscience. "Justice, good Masters, justice above all! Remember these people are all Papists. They will help one another through thick and thin. What is a papal dispensation, good Masters? It can be bought and bartered. 'Tis a true witness we want, an honourable witness to prove the truth of what may be but a fabulous concoction, devised to cheat the gallows of a traitor." "Nay, then odd's fish!" here interposed a loud voice from out the crowd; "since it must be, it shall be, and here, my Lord Justice, is a witness to your hand whose honourability I'll challenge you to doubt." The tones rang clear and loud; they were those of a man accustomed to be heard in large or small assemblies, of a man who knew how to make his presence felt and his word obeyed. Instantly the waves of murmurs, of cries, of excited whispers were stilled. Eyes so long fixed on the moving spectacle at the foot of the bench were turned in the direction of the speaker. It was my Lord of Rochester, standing beside the king. He waited a moment, then taking the judge's silence for assent, and obviously encouraged by a nod from His Majesty himself, he made his way to the witness bar. "My Lord of Rochester," protested the Attorney-General sternly, "by what right do you come forward at this hour?" "By the right that every man hath in England, to bear testimony for or against a man or woman accused of crime," replied my Lord of Rochester. "I stand here as a witness on behalf of the prisoner, and called by the other witness--Rose Marie Legros--to corroborate what she already hath said." "Do you swear?" "I'll swear to tell all the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God." "All on behalf of the accused?" sneered Sir William Jones. "Every word which I must utter will be in his favour, sir, seeing that on the nineteenth day of April, I too, in company with Mister Rupert Kestyon, then styled my Lord of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, and with Sir John Ayloffe, were present at the Church of St. Gervais where Mistress Rose Marie Legros did plight her troth to the accused. We witnessed their departure from the church to the house of Master Legros, tailor-in-chief to His Majesty the King of France, where great festivities were then the order of the day. The accused and Mistress Rose Marie Legros did start for St. Denis on that selfsame afternoon in the presence of a vast number of spectators, from whom I had detailed account of the event. We--that is Mister Rupert Kestyon, Sir John Ayloffe and myself--did make for St. Denis less than an hour after the accused and the lady had left the tailor's house. We arrived at the inn of the 'Three Archangels' at ten of the clock and there found the accused all alone, and we did stay with him, and supped with him until far into the night. This do I swear on my most solemn oath, and, therefore, any one who says that the accused was in Paris on the evening of that nineteenth day of April is a liar and a perjurer--so help me God!" My Lord of Rochester's lengthy speech was listened to in silent attention. Michael, kneeling beside Rose Marie, scarcely heeded it. What happened to him now or hereafter mattered so little, now that he knew that she loved him with that strength which moveth mountains. But to the vast company assembled here, all that my Lord of Rochester said mattered a great deal, for it was a confirmation of inward convictions. It gave sympathy free rein, having crowned it with justification. Even Sir William Jones felt that the prosecution had completely broken down beneath the weight of my Lord of Rochester's evidence. He meant to demand further corroboration, seeing that Sir John Ayloffe was in court; but it would be an uphill fight now, against what was too obvious justice to be wilfully set aside. But he did ask my Lord of Rochester why he had delayed in coming forward until well-nigh it had been too late. "I was ready to come forward at any time," was Rochester's simple reply; "had the prisoner called me, I would have told the truth at once. But among gentlemen, sir, there is an unspoken compact, guessed at by those who understand one another as gentlemen should. That the accused did not desire mine evidence I readily saw. Only when a noble lady came forward in sublime sacrifice and I feared that this--great as it was--might prove purposeless, then did I feel in honour bound to corroborate her testimony and to prove her true, whilst placing at her feet the expression of my most humble respect." To have doubted my Lord of Rochester's testimony had been madness in the face of public feeling as well as of justice. No one would ever attempt to suggest that his lordship was either a Papist or biassed in favour of Roman Catholicism. Moreover, Sir John Ayloffe, also an unimpeachably honourable gentleman, was there to add his word to that of his friend. Sir William Jones having called him, asked him but a few questions. What could Cousin John do, but swear to the truth? Believe me that had he found the slightest loophole whereby he could even now arrange a happy marriage between his fair cousin and any earl of Stowmaries who happened to be bearing the title at the time, he would have done it, and earned that £12,000 which now certainly seemed hopelessly beyond his grasp. But he could find no loophole, nor could he attempt to deny the truth of what Lord Rochester had said. By the time Sir John Ayloffe had given what evidence was asked of him, the spectators were loudly clamouring for the verdict. "Not guilty! Not guilty!" came in excited shouts from the furthermost corners of the great hall. Of a truth had the informers been recalled they could not have escaped with their lives, and as a measure of precaution the Lord Chief Justice, before he began his summing up, did, we know, order the removal of Pye and Oates through a back door and unbeknown to the crowd. Oates' villainies did, unfortunately, rise triumphant from out the ashes of this his first signal defeat in his campaign of perjuries. As for Pye, he passed through that back door out of ken. I believe that his name doth occur on several of the lists of witnesses brought up against the unfortunate Papists during the whole feverish period of the Popish plots, so we may assume that he continued his career of informer with some benefit to himself. But in Westminster Hall to-day the verdict was a foregone conclusion. Even whilst the Lord Chief Justice summed up--as he did, we are told, most eloquently and entirely in favour of the accused--he was frequently interrupted by cries of: "Not guilty! Not guilty! The verdict!" When the verdict was pronounced, with absolute unanimity by the jury in whose hands lay the life that had been so nobly fought for, it was received with acclamation. Men and women cheered to the echoes, whilst many voices shouted: "God save Your Majesty!" There was a general rush for the centre of the Hall, there where that small group of three still stood isolated. The musketeers had grave difficulty in keeping any order. In the midst of all this turmoil no one noticed that from the dark corner beneath the mullioned window there rose the figure of a young man dressed in rough clothes of sad-coloured cloth, whose pale face was almost distorted by lines of passionate anger. He drew a mask over his face and made his way through the excited crowd. Under cover of the confusion, the rushing to and fro, the cheering for the acquitted and the king, he quietly passed out of sight. CHAPTER XLIX Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes. --TROILUS & CRESSIDA III. 3. That same evening in the small house in the parish of Soho, Michael sat beside an old woman whose wrinkled, toil-worn hand he held tenderly in his own. Life had dealt hardly with her, unaccustomed toil and a rough life had done their work. Her sensibilities were blunted, almost extinct save one--her love for her son. Obediently she had left her Kentish village, her miserable cottage, and ungrateful garden, to come to London when first he bade her so to do. She had exchanged her rough worsted kirtle for a gown of black silk, soft and pliable to the touch. This she had done to please Michael, not because she cared. It was many, many years since last she had cared. Humbly acceding to his wish she had lived in the house in Soho Square, allowing herself to be tended by servants, she who awhile ago had been scrubbing her own floors. To please him she had accepted all the comforts, all the luxuries which he gave her. As for herself she had no need of them. Then when he went away and she was all alone in the big house, save for the army of mute and obedient servants round her, she had wept not a little because she did not see her son. She knew not whither he had gone, and when she asked any of the servants they gave no definite answer, only seemed more mute, more obedient than before. But she did not complain. Michael was oft wont to go away like this, to the wars mayhap; soon he would return all in good time and she would see him again. Not the faintest echo from the great world outside reached the lonely house in Soho Square; but then it had not reached the Kentish village either, so old Mistress Kestyon was quite satisfied. To-night Michael had returned. She was over-glad to see him. It seems he had not been wounded in the wars, for which she was over-glad. He would not let her out of his sight, even when a visitor came desiring speech with him. The visitor was Rupert Kestyon; the name hardly reached the feeble intelligence, and the face conveyed no meaning. The old dame was quite happy, however, for Michael sat beside her, holding her hand in his. She did not understand much of what went on between the two men. They were cousins, so Michael had said when first the young man entered and he himself went forward to greet him and warmly took his hand. "You see me shamed before you, Coz," he said gravely. "You know that had I had the control of my fate, I should be watching you now from the height or depth of another world--" "You sent for me," said Rupert, in no way responding to the other's cordiality. "I presume 'tis because you have something to say to me of more importance than excuses for your happening to be alive." "Nay! There is nothing more important than that just now, Coz," retorted the other quietly. "I sent for you because a chance of word from your servant to mine revealed to me the fact that you were in London. You came, no doubt, to see me hanged. A beautiful woman of whom you, Coz, were never worthy, hath decided that I shall live." The word that Rupert uttered in response brought an ugly frown on Michael's brow. "Cousin," he said sternly, "in your own interest I pray you cease this wanton talk. I would have you know that I mean well by you." He drew from out his pocket the paper that had the seal of His Holiness the Pope attached to it and handed it to Rupert, who with a savage oath took it from him. "Here, Coz," he said, "is the papal dispensation which good M. Legros gave into my hands when I parted from him at Westminster Hall. The civil law of England will not take long in setting you free. What money can accomplish, that it shall do to expedite your case. My word on it! The lady will not defend it and the nullity of your marriage shall be pronounced ere the first bud appears on the chestnut trees." "A free man and yet a beggar," murmured Rupert moodily. "Nay, nay, Cousin, why should you look on me as your enemy? Have I ever acted as such? My mother, alas, is here as a proof that you and yours were enemies to me, but I, not to you, 'pon my honour. I have no need of great riches. The hundred and twenty thousand pounds with which you gambled a year ago are yours, Cousin. Let us call them a loan which you made me, and wherewith Fate hath worked its will for us. I give them to you freely and with all my heart. You are not a beggar, you see, and are free to marry whom you choose. You are still the cousin of, if not the actual Earl of Stowmaries; many a pretty woman with taste and ambition will--an I mistake not--smile on you. Life is full of joys yet for you, Cousin, and Mistress Peyton will relent." While he thus spoke lightly, almost gaily, the frown of moodiness fled from Rupert Kestyon's brow. He could not help but be gratified at his cousin's generosity, even though his heart no longer turned toward the faithless beauty whose callousness had killed in him all love for her. But there were plenty of pretty women yet in England, thank God, and a man well-born and well-connected could cut a very fine figure in London society these days on one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. In the far-off days in old Virginia he had been quite glad of as many pence. He was quite manly enough to thank his cousin warmly. But before he went, he told Michael the news that had been all over London for some day before the trial, namely, that beautiful Mistress Peyton had finally decided to bestow her hand and fortune and her heart--on John Ayloffe. Good Cousin John! Confronted with beggary and the irretrievable loss of that £12,000, he had bethought himself of the only plan whereby the latter goodly sum could, after all, find its way into his own pocket. The money with the lady was his only chance, and we are told that he took it boldly, even contriving not to make too wry a face when the capricious beauty--realising that Cousin John was her only hope of matrimony now that her name had been so plentifully bespattered with ridicule--decided to bestow her £20,000, her house and her person, on the one man who would accept. Cousin John became exceedingly fat after his marriage, for he led a life of ease and comfort even though his former merry haunts knew him no more. CHAPTER L And o'er the hills and far away, Beyond their utmost purple rim, Beyond the night, across the day, Thro' all the world she followed him. --TENNYSON. Michael did not see Rose Marie in England, for her father had taken her away that same evening, after the acquittal, and journeyed with her forthwith to Paris. And it was in the little room of the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie that Michael once more beheld his snowdrop. It was December now and the room was filled with Christmas roses. Outside, the snow lay heavy on the ground. Maman Legros, with sleeves well rolled up over her sturdy arms, was stirring the contents of her stock-pot. Papa--a little more grey, a little more bent, mayhap, than he had been a year ago--was staring silently into the fire. Rose Marie sat at her harpsichord in the window embrasure, and sang to her own accompaniment. Through the panes of the leaded window the pale rays of a December sun lit up the golden radiance of her hair, and rested on her hands as they wandered over the ivory keys. Thus Michael saw her again after all these months of suffering. He stood for a moment in the doorway, for happiness at times is more difficult to bear than grief. But Love was triumphant at last. The splendid blackguard, the reckless adventurer, was only an humble lover now. He gazed on his snowdrop with eyes wherein ardent passion mingled with deep reverence. Let the veil of oblivion be drawn across those leaded windows; let it shut out all light which comes from the outer world. Michael at Rose Marie's feet forgot all save that he had won her--the pure, stainless girl--even through the infinity of her pity which had first called into being her infinite love. Papa and Maman Legros, looking on their child's exquisite face, suffused now with the glow of perfect love and perfect trust, exchanged a knowing look. Then they very softly tiptoed out of the room. THE END