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QUEEN COPHETUA 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
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OUEEN COPHETUA 
 
 BY 
 
 R. E. FRANCILLON 
 
 AUTHOR OF *OLYMPIa' ETC. 
 
 /JV THREE VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 1880 
 
 \The right of trans laticn is reserved'\ 
 
THE REPRESENTATIVE BODY 
 
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 The Library, 
 
 52 ST. GREEN, E, 
 
 CLASS m.^.2ii. 
 
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QUEEN GOPHETUA. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. - 
 
 As some dull wanderer, to enlarge his mind 
 With wider wisdom, leaves his home behind, 
 And, having journeyed half the countries o'er, 
 Finds everywhere himself, and nothing more — 
 So he who, for the first of all his days, 
 Lost on Love's Island, treads undreamed-of ways : 
 Who, all unlettered in that country's tongue. 
 Hears the birds sing, but doth not know the song — 
 He, if he knew not, ere he crossed the sea. 
 What herbs are sweet, and what taste bitterly, 
 Will only find, for all he seeketh well. 
 His home-born rue mid meads of asphodel. 
 
 Nobody ever carried away distrust from a 
 second look at Gideon Skull. As for Helen, 
 she saw at once that this big, broad-shoul- 
 dered, burly Briton, with his grave, frank 
 smile and straight, open eyes, w^as made by 
 nature to tell everything that he knew about 
 anything to any woman who cared to ask 
 him. She almost smiled at herself for having 
 VOL. n. B 
 
2 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 surrounded liim, in her thoughts, with an 
 atmosphere of mystery, and for ever having 
 suspected a man Hke this of foul play instead 
 of his foppish and plausible friend. Yes, 
 there was no doubt about it ; not even a 
 second look was needed to prove Gideon 
 Skull a man cut out for being turned by a 
 clever friend round his wrist, and by any 
 woman round her little finger. All women's 
 instincts are always right — at least all the 
 world says so ; they are as infallible as first im- 
 pressions, and as true as the characters that 
 nature writes on men's faces in large capitals. 
 
 She could see that he lacked the intan- 
 gible and indefinable part of the look and 
 bearing of a gentleman ; but that was nothing. 
 Indeed, it was to his credit, for no finished 
 gentleman could have associated with Victor 
 Waldron vfithout being a finished scoundrel 
 besides. And a certain want of grace and 
 polish was not unbecoming in one who had 
 made himself by sheer strength, in the teeth 
 of the world. He looked honest and he 
 looked strong, which ought to be enough for 
 any man. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 3 
 
 'I am sorry my brother has just gone 
 out,' she began, before her second look was 
 complete, thinking how she could best manage 
 to learn all she wanted, and in how small a 
 number of minutes, while the strange chance 
 was still in her own hands. ' He has told 
 me — how kind you have been to him. Can I 
 give him any message from you ? ' 
 
 If Helen had known how very long it 
 was since Gideon Skull had found himself in 
 company with a lady, she would not have 
 been quite so ready to put his defects of 
 manner down to natural shyness or any 
 equally innocent cause. It was in truth so 
 long, that he had practically forgotten the 
 look of one, and believed he had an exhaustive 
 knowledge of womankind : just as some of us 
 may think we know the moon, till we chance 
 to remember that she has another side. The 
 side he had seen, and had really learned to 
 know, was that which she turns downwards 
 and earthwards at the full. In the moonlight 
 and limelight of scene-painters he was per- 
 fectly at home ; and no woman who was not 
 
 2 
 
4 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 also a lady ever suspected Gideon Skull of 
 being a shy man. 
 
 ' Then you are Miss Eeid ? ' asked he. 
 
 ' Yes. Won't you sit down ? ' 
 
 He sat down, for he had a sort of fancy 
 that he did not feel himself quite at home, 
 and he did not approve of the feehng. ' I'm 
 sorry not to find your brother in — that is to 
 say, I'm not,' he corrected himself, thinking it 
 necessary to pay some sort of a comphment, 
 and yet feeling that it was both out of place 
 and of the wrong kind. ' I only called to ask 
 if he could dine with me to-night instead of 
 to-morrow — since we parted in the City, I've 
 been at the " Argus " office again, and their 
 man there is in such a hurry to send your 
 brother off that I've had to hurry matters. 
 If he has any other engagement to-night, he 
 must put it off, if he possibly can.' 
 
 ' I will tell him when he comes in. There 
 is nothing to prevent his coming. . . . Mr. 
 Skull — I'm not used to thanking people for 
 great things ; will you let me say just " I 
 thank you," without trying to say how 
 much ' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 5 
 
 ' No, I won't. Miss Eeid. Nobody need 
 ever thank me for anything. You don't 
 suppose, do you, that I've been putting myself 
 an inch out of the way to serve a man who's 
 an utter stranger to me ? I'm glad it's fallen 
 in my way to put your father's son up to a 
 good thing, and all the more glad because it 
 gives me no trouble and costs me nothing. 
 That's all.' 
 
 Helen smiled to herself at her own pene- 
 tration. Of course she took it for granted 
 that, when a man disclaims having taken 
 trouble, it is as certain that he has taken a 
 great deal, as that, when he brags of the pains 
 he has been at, he has taken none. Was he 
 not taking some trouble in making this very 
 call, and in arranging his days and hours for 
 the sake of others ? In less than two minutes 
 she had taken the measure of Gideon Skull 
 from head to heel. She was almost disap- 
 pointed to find in him, instead of a mystery, a 
 plain, rough, simple, good-natured man. 
 
 Nor was her measure altogether wrong. 
 With his usual contempt for hypocrisy, he 
 had plainly, roughly, and simply spoken the 
 
6 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 truth — that he would not have put hhnself an 
 inch out of the way to serve any creature but 
 Gideon Skull ; at least, since he had given up 
 serving Victor Waldron. He did not even 
 imagine that she thought so ; and he honestly 
 hated to be thanked, because to profess grati- 
 tude to a man is to insult him : it is as much 
 as to say you take him for the fool he would 
 be if he believed you. Of course, thanks, in 
 common cases, might pass as common forms ; 
 but he felt a curious sort of dislike to hearing 
 them from Helen Eeid. He had not seen her 
 for more than a moment, or heard her sj)eak 
 more than half-a-dozen words ; he considered 
 himself woman-proof, except when it was his 
 deliberate pleasure to be otherwise ; and yet 
 he felt on the edge of a new discovery. It 
 was that there are two sorts of women in the 
 world, after all ; and that the sort which 
 contains all women on earth excepting one is 
 of no account and not worth knowing, so long 
 as the sort which comprises one, and only 
 one, remains unknown. Gideon Skull had 
 never been in love, except after his fashion — 
 and he was forty years old. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 7 
 
 At one look, at one word,- over went 
 Gideon Skull as if he had been a boy con- 
 sciously going out to meet passion nine-tenths 
 of the way. Heaven knows — and not even 
 Heaven knew better than herself — there was 
 little enough of the angel about Helen that 
 the mere sight of her face and the mere sound 
 of her voice should thus startle into life 
 all that in Gideon Skull did duty for a soul. 
 Angels have no enemies ; and, if they have, 
 they do not hate them. But, even at first 
 sight, she was an angel of angels compared 
 with such makeshifts as he had known. It 
 may be that without the dark spot in her 
 heart she would have been in an atmosphere 
 too high above the range of his passion, and 
 that, in some subtle and occult way, it was 
 her worst that made it possible for her best 
 to draw his heart from him. He knew that 
 he saw his highest ; and yet one of those 
 unconscious insights of which every sort of 
 love, from best to worst, is full, told him that 
 his highest was not too high for him. And 
 she was his highest, too, in many more ways 
 than one. It was very far from nothing to 
 
6 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 Gideon Skull of Hillswick that she was a 
 Miss Eeid of Copleston. He might sneer at 
 Mr. Crowder for worshipping a Duke in the 
 abstract ; he might not know that he looked 
 up to any fellow-mortal ; but he could not 
 help having come from Hillswick, and being 
 a Hillswick man, any more than Mr. Crowder 
 could help coming from Spraggville. Even 
 in her London lodging, Helen was still a Eeid 
 of Copleston. She was so different, in look 
 and in bearing, from all those who had taught 
 him to think that he knew all women. Her 
 beauty, whether it were much or little, was 
 her own ; she was natural and at ease, and 
 obviously so little expected him to make any 
 sort of love to her on a first introduction that 
 he scarcely knew how to behave or what to 
 say. For once he had been taken by surprise. 
 And, above all things, he was forty years old 
 — of the age when sentiment has been worn 
 out, and experience has grown wearisome, and 
 passion, if as yet asleep, stretches its limbs 
 and dreams of waking up and entering upon 
 the empty stage. 
 
 But, though ashamed of his inability to 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 9 
 
 find fitting speech, or action for this new 
 country of whose language he had never 
 learned the simplest word, he never thought 
 of imposing silence upon his eyes. Love is 
 no such almighty wizard that its first breath 
 can wash off the stains and scalds of forty 
 years. With all her home-nursed ignorance 
 of what some hold all men and women to 
 know by nature, she could not help colouring 
 under the long look in which her plain, rough, 
 simple, ^good-natured man seemed to drink 
 her in. Of course, his manners meant 
 nothing ; one is not angry at the no-manners 
 of a tradesman, who, having made himself, 
 has naturally made himself more or less 
 badly. But her tinge of pink made Gideon's 
 pulse beat hard. In itself it was a charm, 
 and it gave him courage as well as fire. She 
 was so much the one woman in all other things 
 that, in his new-born humility, he had been 
 almost fearing lest she might be the one 
 woman in the whole world whom a man 
 who willed it might not be able to win. But 
 this mere mortal blush reassured him. The 
 only sort of blush he knew of was that which 
 
lo QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 means warmth of blood when it does not 
 happen to mean rouge. 
 
 In spite of the quickness of his desires, he 
 was a slow-minded man ; it took him nearly two 
 whole seconds to grasp a fact for which few 
 men would have needed even so much as one. 
 The good of this was, that he always knew 
 exactly what he wanted, and how, and why. 
 He did not tell himself, in that one second of 
 looking and thinking, that he was a fool for 
 wanting a girl who had been a mere name to 
 him five minutes ago more than he had ever 
 wanted anything — ^more than money even. 
 He never told even himself what he did not 
 think was absolutely true ; and of course it 
 could not be true that, under any conceivable 
 circumstances, Gideon Skull could be a fool. 
 That second's thought simply saved him from 
 driftino; over the edgfe of a dream. He did 
 not drift or fall : he threw himself over with 
 all his strength and with his eyes open, telling 
 himself that he wanted Helen in his life, and 
 that wanting meant willing, and willing win- 
 ning, with Gideon Skull. Slow-minded as he 
 was, it did not take him long to see the 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 II 
 
 advantages that, from liis point of view, lay on 
 his side. It was as if she had been given into 
 his hands. In a few hours she would not 
 even have so much as that helpless brother of 
 hers to protect her. She was poor : in a 
 very little while, if his schemes for fortune 
 turned out fairly well, he would be rich 
 enough to buy her, if he could get her in no 
 better way — if there be a better. For, though 
 he had got so far as to put Helen apart from 
 other women, he could not be expected to 
 learn all at once that the difference lay in 
 anything more than that, while the price 
 of women in general is low enough, hers 
 might be inconveniently high. Well, she 
 was worth it. Waldron had not been 
 quite such an idiot, after all, when he had 
 been tempted to sell Copleston for the eyes 
 of Helen Eeid. Did the Yankee black- 
 guard think of her still? If so, love for Helen 
 would be sweetened by triumph over Victor 
 Waldron. 
 
 ' But it is kind of you, and I do thank 
 you,' Helen was saying, quite unconscious of 
 her sudden conquest, and almost of her pass- 
 
12 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 ing tinge of colour. ' You have done more 
 for my brother ' 
 
 A great deal had happened since he had 
 first been thanked bj^ Helen. It was no 
 longer true that he was hurrying Alan off to 
 Versailles without reasons for which she ought 
 to feel grateful. ' More for your brother than 
 anybody ever did for me? You're right 
 enough, if you put it that way. I only wish 
 — I only wish I could undo everything that 
 has been done. I wish ' 
 
 Helen's heart began to beat quickly, and 
 the colour came again, but from a very differ- 
 ent cause. She had been wondering how she 
 could make him speak of Cof)leston, and it 
 had been upon his lips until he paused. 
 
 ' Then,' she said, half eagerly, half guiltily, 
 as she set her foot on the forbidden ground, 
 ' then — you do not think right has been 
 done ? ' 
 
 ' J, Miss Eeid ? / think right has been 
 done ? Has not your brother told you what 
 / think of what has been done ? ' 
 
 ^No.' 
 
 ' Do you suppose there is a single human 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 13 
 
 being who thinks that because a man dies 
 without a will, his children should be turned 
 by a stranger out of house and home ? ' 
 
 Helen knew as little of the law of real 
 property as most people ; but she had cer- 
 tainly never doubted that, when a man dies 
 without a will, his land goes to his eldest son. 
 Was not this the very point that had been 
 bewildering her ? If Gideon went no further 
 than an indignant question based upon a 
 monstrous piece of absurdity, he certainly 
 would not carry her very far towards the 
 root of the mystery. And yet she could not 
 openly ask him to explain, though what kept 
 her back was less loyalty to her brother than 
 the shame of having to say that she had to 
 apply to a stranger for the confidence which 
 her own mother and brother thought fit to 
 withhold from her. She could only wait for 
 him to say more ; but he said no more. His 
 thoughts were travelling on a far different 
 road. She had not the least doubt of hearing 
 all, before he had done, from one whose look 
 was growing much more than merely frank 
 and open ; but then Mrs. Eeid might come 
 
14 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 down again from her room at any moment, 
 and the chance might never come back again. 
 
 ' Mr. Waldron is not a stranger,' she said 
 at last : the remark was just sufficiently called 
 for by what he had said to be worth making 
 as a safe way, without betraying her ignorance, 
 of giving the subject another opening. 
 
 ' He is an infernal scoundrel ! ' burst out 
 Gideon, with his whole heart in his voice. 
 He wanted an outlet of some sort, and if it 
 was too soon to make love to Helen Eeid, it 
 was not too soon to let her know that her 
 enemies and her hates were his own. He took 
 hate for a bond of sympathy, and, for once, 
 the wise man did not happen to be wrong. 
 
 His strong words, and his stronger voice, 
 fell on Helen's unaccustomed ears like a blow. 
 They startled her out of her own timidity ; 
 she had hoped for an instrument, but had 
 never dreamed of an ally, in Gideon Skull. 
 She made a movement forward and, not 
 thinking of what she was doing, held out her 
 hand. ' Then you are not Ms friend as well 
 as ours ? ' said she. 
 
 He held out his own hand : but hers had 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 15 
 
 gone back \o herself — it had not gone out to 
 be taken. ' Yes,' he said, sullen for what felt 
 like an omen that the fruit he wanted must 
 be climbed for and not simply shaken down, 
 ' of course you have been putting down every- 
 thing to my score. I was to blame. I be- 
 lieved Victor Waldron an honest man, instead 
 of a cheat and a liar. But I know him now.' 
 
 ' I have not wronged him, then ? ' 
 
 ' You could only wrong him by thinking 
 well of him. Ah, Miss Eeid,' he went on, 
 looking at her eager face as a lion might look 
 at an especially attractive lioness, ' if your 
 brother were like you ' 
 
 'Well? If he were like me ? Do 
 
 you mean that he has been cheated out of 
 Copleston? Is the law truly on the unjust 
 side? Alan is too noble-minded, if such a 
 thing could be. He would throw away his 
 life — he has thrown it away, more than any- 
 body knows but me — rather than strike one 
 blow for it that might be thought unfair. He 
 is not like me. I have to fight for him — 
 alone.. You are our friend, you are our 
 cousin's enemy ; tell me what to do.' 
 
1 6 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 That speech, in that voice, went straight 
 to the inmost soul of Gideon Skull. She had 
 not dreamed of finding an ally in him less 
 than he had dreamed of finding a heroine 
 after his own heart in the sister of a mean- 
 spirited, straw-splitting simpleton like Alan 
 Eeid. Why had he never known her before ? 
 It cost him no logic to transfer his indignation 
 against Waldron for his own wrongs into 
 equally righteous wrath against him for his 
 treatment of the Eeids. 
 
 ' Miss Eeid,' he said, ' you just now wanted 
 to thank me for nothing. Do you know there 
 is simply nothing on earth that I would not do 
 for you ? ' 
 
 He had fallen back into his quietest man- 
 ner, but for the first time something in it 
 made her look at him with new eyes. A 
 woman is born a woman, after all ; she does 
 not need middle-aged experience to be a great 
 deal quicker-minded in some things than 
 Gideon Skull. If the thing had not been too 
 utterly and ridiculously absurd, she would 
 have fancied that the man was thinking of 
 making bearish love at first sight to her. In 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 17 
 
 the old times she would hardly have been 
 able to keep herself from laughing at such 
 a notion to his face ; as things were, she 
 forgot to remember that a penniless nobody 
 had no longer the right to give herself airs 
 before a prosperous somebody like Gideon 
 Skull. 
 
 ' That is a rash speech ! ' she said. ' Sup- 
 pose I were to take you at your word ? ' 
 
 ' Take me at my word, and see.' 
 
 ' You need not be afraid. You have done 
 more for us already than — but you know the 
 way of grateful people ; they like the feehng 
 of gratitude so much that they are always 
 asking for something more to be grateful for. 
 There is something more that you can do for 
 —Alan.' 
 
 ' For — ^Alan ? ' He frowned. 
 
 ' For us all. You know our whole story. 
 Tell me what can be done for him.' 
 
 ' I have done all that can be done for youi 
 brother. Miss Eeid. Heaven helps those that 
 help themselves. Heaven helps Victor Wal- 
 drons, not Alan Eeids. Or if not Heaven, 
 something else that does just as well. I can 
 
 VOL. II. c 
 
i8 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 tell you notliing that can be done for the sake 
 of— Alan.' 
 
 There was no mistakmg what he meant 
 this thne. Its bemg ridiculous did not make 
 it less a glaring fact that her plain, rough, 
 simple, good-natured man was, in the first ten 
 minutes of a first interview, trying to set up 
 an understanding betAveen them in the name 
 of a common cause, and on the ground of a 
 common hate, that he was to be her knight 
 instead of her brother's friend. Indeed, it was 
 more than ridiculous — ^it was almost as if he 
 could have guessed that her need of help was 
 so strong, and allowed of such little delay, 
 that she was ready to buy it of him then and 
 there. Chivahy she did not expect from a 
 Gideon Skull : but this looked hke downright 
 impudence instead of mere want of manners, 
 and she found herself wondering, almost with 
 shame enough to lose the sense of its ab- 
 surdity, whether Gideon Skull would have 
 dared thus to speak to Miss Eeid of Cople- 
 ston. 
 
 ' You are Alan's friend, and I am Alan's 
 sister,' she said quickly. ' Whatever I do is 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 19 
 
 for him ; whatever my friends do must be 
 done for him too. His friends are mine, and 
 his enemies are mine. He would be too 
 proud to ask you what I have been asking you. 
 I am proud too. But there is nothing for 
 which I am too proud — for Alan. For myself I 
 want nothing ; nothing in the whole world.' 
 
 She meant to put him in his place at once, 
 and sharply. But to him, who had found out 
 at last what he wanted, her words rang like a 
 challenge. He seemed to bow to them — but 
 even so men have to seem to bow when they 
 stoop to lift a glove that has been thrown 
 down before them. 
 
 ' So be it, then,' he said quietly. ' You 
 and I for him. Victor Waldron is your bro- 
 ther's enemy, therefore he is yours, therefore 
 he is mine. Alan Eeid is your brother, there- 
 fore he is my friend. It comes to the same 
 thing. You cannot be more anxious than I 
 am to undo this monstrous wrong — partly my 
 own doing, because I trusted a scoundrel : 
 unwillingly enough, God knows. Your bro- 
 ther does me that justice : you will not do me 
 less than he.' 
 
 c 2 
 
20 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 ' Only tell me one thing — can it be un- 
 done ? ' 
 
 Gideon paused long before he answered/ 
 He was not more sure that he loved Helen 
 Eeid, after his manner, than that a more pro- 
 digious and incomprehensible piece of in- 
 justice had been done than anybody, who 
 does not know the infinite caprices of men 
 and women through and through, could guess 
 or dream. He was not surer of the real 
 emptiness of his purse, which he chose every- 
 body to believe so full, than he was that old 
 Harry Eeid had not been so mad as to die 
 without a will. Supreme, indeed, must be the 
 faith in Uncle Christopher that imagines him 
 capable of keeping a possibly profitable secret 
 from his nephew Gideon ; strange the disbelief 
 in Gideon's order of talent that would suppose 
 the slightest hint of such a secret to be 
 thrown away upon him. The curate of Hills- 
 wick was sorely burdened in mind : and there 
 are hundreds of ways in which such a mind 
 as his will contrive to relieve itself, without 
 any approach to making confidences or to 
 open confession. Whatever Mrs. Eeid's mo- 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 21 
 
 lives might be at bottom, lie had certainly- 
 got hold of a family secret of the first order : 
 if he could only lay his hand upon that will, 
 he felt that he ought to be able to make a 
 very good thing out of Alan Eeid by gratify- 
 ing a just vengeance against Victor Waldron. 
 Victor Waldron had cheated him, therefore it 
 was monstrously unjust that he should keep 
 Alan Eeid out of Copleston ; but to play the 
 part of king-maker for nothing could not enter 
 the head of a sane man. IsTobody else would 
 do so ; why should Gideon Skull ? He had 
 been a little thrown out in his calculations by 
 Alan's extraordinary way of receiving as 
 broad a hint as prudence had allowed him to 
 make of the existence of a will, and of his 
 readiness to sell to the rightful heir the ser- 
 vices for which he had not been paid by the 
 wrongful one. But Victor himself had taught 
 him that quixotic professions simply mean a 
 determination under no circumstances what- 
 ever to see what one does not wish to see ; to 
 be very angry if an agent is so indehcate and 
 so inconsiderate as to throw upon his principal 
 the responsibility for all the means that re- 
 
22 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 quire to be justified by tlieir end. That Alan, t 
 being human, would accept Copleston if he 
 could — so long; as he was allowed to ask no 
 questions — Gideon was sure : and that he 
 would not be allowed to repeat Waldron's 
 trick of getting it back for nothing, Gideon 
 was equally sure. All — assuming, as a matter 
 of course, that to know of the existence of a 
 will implied its discovery — had been as clear 
 as daylight ten minutes ago. But these ten 
 minutes' talk with Helen compelled him to 
 pause and to think with all his might before 
 risking another word. 
 
 ' If I tell her right off* all I think,' thought 
 he, following out his views of human nature 
 to their thorough end, ' she is clever enough 
 to pay me with a " Thank you," even if she 
 doesn't get rid of me by treating me like that 
 scoundrel. She's sharp enough to worm it 
 all out for herself if I were to let out to her as 
 much as half a word. If I were a woman I 
 should have known as much as Uncle Christo- 
 pher long ago. . . . If I don't tell her some- 
 thing I shall seem of no use, and women don't 
 give something for nothing. . . . And if I tell 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 23 
 
 her half a word, where's the good gone of pack- 
 ing that brother of hers off out of the way, and 
 of having her poor enough for buying ? . . . 
 Why, if some chance bullet found its way to 
 her brother's skull before that will turned up, 
 I might be owner of all Copleston . . . Ah, 
 I'm not such an ass after all ; I thought there 
 must be something more about a girl than her 
 mere flesh and blood to make me want her, as 
 if there were no she-flesh in the world but 
 hers. ... If young Eeid doesn't get killed, 
 his only sister would not make the man who 
 married her a beggar's husband, unless the 
 will's very unlike any that old Harry would 
 have drawn. . . 
 
 ' Can it not be undone ? ' asked Helen. 
 ' Must Alan put up with what you tell me all 
 the world would think unjust because some 
 lawyer's quibble is against him ? How can 
 anybody but he — how can anybody on earth 
 come between his father and him ? ' 
 
 ' I did not say it could not be undone,' 
 Said Gideon. ' Of course Victor Waldron was 
 a scoundrel beyond words to take advantage 
 of your father's sudden death without a will. 
 
24 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 If lie had gone for Copleston on \Yhat lie 
 tlionglit were his rights, I should have said 
 nothing ; he would have had right as well as 
 law on his side, and you can't blame a man 
 for trying to get his own. But — — ' 
 
 ' There is no occasion to abuse anybody/ 
 said Helen. ' Tell me what can be done ; and 
 if Alan ought not to do it, I will.' 
 
 ' Anything in the world ? ' 
 
 ' Anything in the world. I know what I 
 am saying, Mr. Skull. I have thought about 
 it ever since. I have no right to think of 
 myself ; I should despise myself if I let any 
 selfish scruple about what it was proper for 
 me to do ruin Alan. I would not talk like 
 this if it were only Copleston.' 
 
 Gideon nodded assent a little impatiently. 
 Why should people persist in the humbug of 
 making these conventional disclaimers, which 
 they knew could deceive nobody, of being 
 moved by the only motives that are natural, 
 healthy, and sane ? Well, she was a woman 
 — it would not do to expect too much from 
 her. 
 
 ' But it is not only that — it is Alan's life. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 25 
 
 not his land. If we must fight them m their 
 own way, he must not use their weapons. I 
 would not have my brother do one least thing 
 that he might for one moment dream of being 
 against his honour. Eather than that, I 
 would have him lose all that Copleston means 
 to him. But rather than see him lose his 
 rights by deserving them, I would do every- 
 thing that I would not have him do. Any- 
 thing — everything. Do you understand ? 
 Don't tell me that right is right, and wrong 
 is wrong. I know that as well as you. I 
 suppose I am talking what some people would 
 call wickedly. I should call it far more 
 wicked to think more of one's own selfish 
 soul, which is of no consequence to any crea- 
 ture but oneself, before right and justice, and 
 the life and happiness of Alan. Tell me 
 everything that anybody can do for him.' 
 
 She was not giving any special confidence 
 to Gideon. She was only letting Alan's well- 
 wisher and Waldron's enemy see that he 
 might place implicit confidence in her, and 
 might, without fear of finding any of Alan's 
 scruples, count upon her as a thorough-going 
 
26 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 ally. She was not even defending herself to 
 herself, for her self-defence had been put 
 beyond doubt or question long ago. If she 
 was right, she was right ; if she was wrong, it 
 was all for Alan. Her voice, as it grew in 
 courage and eagerness, sent a thrill through 
 Gideon, and made his heart beat and his 
 blood burn as if twenty years of his life had 
 been suddenly startled away. A girl who felt 
 thus for a brother — what would she not feel 
 and do for the man who could make her love 
 him with the whole passion which he felt sure 
 was waiting for but a single spark to set it 
 ablaze ? Why, without a dower, what would 
 not a girl like this help him to do, so soon as 
 she learned to be no longer a girl ? And all 
 this wasted on a brother! — but that should 
 not be for long. Of course it was all only the 
 usual sham about her not caring for Cople- 
 ston. But she shammed splendidly ; and her 
 outspoken readiness to do anything to get 
 what she wanted meant the most entire union 
 of souls. He began to guess what real love 
 really means, her nature seemed so utterly 
 in harmony with his own. Strange, indeed, 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 27 
 
 would it have been if Gideon Skull, at forty 
 years old, liad not fallen in love at very first 
 sight with a handsome girl who was ready to 
 go any lengths to get whatever she most 
 wanted in the world. It is true that, as yet, 
 her interpretation of ' Everything and Any- 
 thing ' was not quite the same as his own ; but 
 then he fully believed, and thousands will agree 
 with him, that where a man will go a mile for 
 what he wants, a woman will go a league — 
 unless her goal is ten leagues yet farther off, 
 and then she will go the other ten. 
 
 ' I will tell you what I think of you : you 
 are ' 
 
 ' I don't want to know what anybody 
 thinks of me. I want to know how Copleston 
 is to be got back for Alan. I know what to 
 think of myself; people may think of me as 
 they please.' 
 
 ' Miss Eeid.' 
 
 'Well?' 
 
 ' Will you — remembering what you have 
 told me — let me go over the whole affair in 
 my own mind, and try to give you an answer, 
 say, in three days ? ' 
 
28 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 Helen's face fell. ' Need it take so long ? 
 If there is fraud ' 
 
 ' So long — for two people against the 
 law ? ' 
 
 ' It cannot be the law that, when a man 
 like my father dies without a will, his land 
 goes to a distant cousin instead of his only 
 son.' 
 
 ' It cannot be justice — no. But when that 
 son is in Alan's position, it most surely is the 
 law. Surely you know that. Miss Eeid.' 
 
 ' In Alan's position I don't understand,' 
 she said, turning pale with fear of the revela- 
 tion of she knew not what mystery. ' I know 
 Alan as I know myself. What can Alan have 
 done that the law should rob him of his own ? 
 Tell me, for God's sake, what you mean ! ' 
 
 ' You mean to say you do not know — you 
 have not been able to understand how the law 
 does not look upon your brother as any man's 
 son ! ' 
 
 ' I know nothing — I understand nothing. 
 I must and I will know.' 
 
 ' Do you mean to tell me that nobody has 
 explained to you ? ' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 29 
 
 ' Tell me instantly what you mean.' 
 
 It could not come into his head — though 
 it might easily have come into that of a much 
 less clever man — that Helen had been kept in 
 ignorance of the cause of the loss of Copleston. 
 He could only suppose that, as was natural 
 enough, she had not been able, considering 
 her age rather than her sex, to grasp the 
 exact bearing of the laws of marriage when 
 they stood on one side and justice and interest 
 on the other. He had never yet found a 
 woman capable of fully understanding a law 
 that worked to her own injury, however great 
 her genius might be for knowing by instinct 
 the most intricate legal rules that bore in her 
 favour. And probably, considering both her 
 age and her sex, her mother and brother, 
 being no doubt slaves to all the proprieties, 
 had not been given to discuss such a matter 
 before Helen. But he, being no slave to any 
 absurd and hypocritical notions, was certainly 
 not going to leave her in the dark about any 
 matter that would tend to make her reliance 
 upon him more absolute and thorough. ' I 
 will tell you,' said he. ' The law of England 
 
30 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 does not — except, I believe, under some very- 
 peculiar circumstances witli wliicli we have 
 no concern — recognise a second marriage 
 while a first wife is living. It does not only 
 forbid such a marriage : it treats it as an idle 
 form, and as no more a marriage than if the 
 parties to it had never even gone through the 
 form. And, in the teeth of nature, it declares 
 that without a marriage there can be no chil- 
 dren. Now you see. Miss Eeid, there is no 
 question but that your father and mother 
 thought they were free to marry. Perhaps 
 your mother never even thought of a possible 
 obstacle — but that you no doubt know better 
 than I can suppose. Waldron is an unspeak- 
 able scoundrel, no doubt, to take advantage of 
 an unintentional bigamy. But he knew his 
 facts ; and you know how completely your 
 brother and your mother have considered that 
 he proved them. So, you see, when your 
 father died — ^without the will by which he 
 might have left Copleston to me, if he had 
 pleased — he could not be succeeded by his 
 son, because, in law, he had no son. He was, 
 as a matter of course, succeeded by Victor 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 31 
 
 Waldron, who was his heir-at-law, and black- 
 guard enough to go to your brother and show 
 that he was in a position to enforce his claim. 
 Miss Eeid — I declare to you that, when I 
 warned your brother of the state of the case, 
 I had no more idea of his surrendering with- 
 out a fight, and a hard one, and perhaps a 
 successful one, than I should have thought 
 it of — of — you. I thought he would have 
 brought forward unanswerable proof that- 
 good God ! — Miss Eeid !— What is the matter 
 — are you ill ? ' 
 
 ' Who says that my mother was not my 
 father's wife ? You ? ' 
 
 His story had through all its after-part 
 been turning into mere words that scarcely 
 touched even her ears. She had scarcely 
 heard since she was born of harm unfitting to 
 lodge in a girl's mind and memory ; all life 
 had been clean and pure to her every day and 
 all day long. She had more than a girl's 
 ignorance of all things of which it used to be 
 held right for a girl never even to hear the 
 names. Alan's care for her in this had only 
 been the natural outcome of the whole air in 
 
32 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 which she had grown. And now the shock of 
 suddenly enhghtened ignorance about such 
 things — always more than repulsive enough — 
 came upon her in the shape of the discovery 
 that her dead father, and her own mother, 
 and she, and Alan, were mixed together in a 
 chaos of unlawful relationship ; that they were 
 declared and branded outcasts, beyond the 
 pale of human law. No wonder that Gideon 
 Skull had thought her taken suddenly faint 
 or ill. 
 
 But he did not think so for long. The 
 spirit of shame had fallen upon Alan, and 
 had crushed his pride ; but it was the spirit 
 of rebellion that came to her, and raised hers. 
 Victor Waldron, in Hillswick Churchyard, had 
 seen her flashing out war against one man. 
 Gideon Skull saw more — he saw her as she 
 stood before him as if defying the world : for 
 it was the whole unjust world that had now 
 become her foe. 
 
 So, in the eyes of the world that had once 
 looked so beautiful — yes, even these last 
 months now looked scarcely worse than a 
 cloudy day — the daughterhood and brother- 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 33 
 
 hood which had given her world its hving 
 soul were worse than dead things ; they were 
 thino^s that had never been. How could she 
 look upon a world that had invented such a 
 lie, and then bade her believe it true ? which 
 had invented a sin, and then punished for it 
 those who she knew had in their hearts and 
 minds never sinned — even Alan, who had 
 never even stumbled into the likeness of 
 wrong-doing ? It was, indeed, a hideous lie. 
 How could the world rob her of one thing 
 that had been as true as if the law had not 
 declared her to be fatherless and brotherless, 
 and a distant, unknown foreign cousin to be 
 of nearer kin and blood to her own father 
 than his own son ? That she had been kept 
 in the dark magnified all these things a hun- 
 dredfold. What must it not all mean when 
 Alan himself had left her to grope blindly and 
 to feel untrusted rather than let her know 
 what had really come to her? She judged 
 him by her far more thorough self — that was 
 her way. Had he been afraid that the news 
 would strike her dead, or madden her, or 
 what was it that he had feared ? Why had 
 VOL. 11. D 
 
34 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 he not told lier, in all gentleness, that they 
 were brother and sister no more — except in 
 such useless, idle things as fact, and truth, 
 and love, and nature — instead of leaving her 
 to hear it coarsely and cuttingly set out by 
 this Gideon Skull? If he thought her too 
 weak to bear such news from him, how ought 
 she to bear it now ? Did it not seem horrible 
 enough to her that she bore it at all ? 
 
 'Did not I tell you it was the law that 
 said so ?' said Gideon. ' I am not the law.' 
 
 ' I thank you for telling me,' said Helen. 
 ' I thank you for knowing me better than 
 even my own brother knew me. It is right 
 I should know at once that nothing can be 
 done, and that Alan . . . Thank you for your 
 kindness to him and to me. I suppose you 
 have done more than go out of your way in 
 taking any notice of such people as we are. 
 . . . Yes, I see now why my mother wishes 
 Alan to make a name of his own. . . . And 
 why he ... I will give him your message. I 
 have nothing more to ask you. Good-bye. 
 Won't you shake hands? Or is that improper^ 
 and against the law ? ' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 35 
 
 Gideon had not put out Ms hand to hers, 
 for he was in no hurry to leave, and he was 
 getting a httle bewildered. One moment 
 Helen seemed to be above all women simply 
 in her thoroughness of what he called woman- 
 hood ; the next he was thrown back upon his 
 first impression, that she must be different 
 from them in kind. ' What can she be 
 driving at now ? ' he thought, with an anxious 
 frown. ' Good-bye ? She's got nothing out 
 of me yet ; I haven't let slip one hint about 
 the will. One would think that a girl had 
 never been born out of marriage before, or 
 that it signified a straw, apart from one's 
 father dying without a will.' But in the same 
 breath of thought the light in her eyes and 
 the curl of her parted lips blinded him to all 
 else ; he let her motives run off unhunted, and 
 seized her hand in both his own. 
 
 ' There ! ' he said, deeply and fiercely. 
 ' That's how much / care. Didn't I say there 
 was nothing on earth I wouldn't do for you ? ' 
 He kept her hand hard, and rejoiced in the 
 ruin, grief, and shame which had dragged her 
 down to him, even so near that he might 
 D 2 
 
36 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 claim the right of a champion to feel the 
 pulses of her fingers send thrills and stings 
 through his veins. It was a hand after his 
 own heart, soft and delicate, but nervous and 
 firm, which one might press without crushing 
 or feeling it melt into nothing. 
 
 For her, her hand might have been as free 
 as her thoughts, for anything she knew. In 
 truth, Gideon Skull was as far from her as he 
 was fancying her near to him. She saw no- 
 thing in the eyes bent down upon her that, 
 had she seen it, would have alarmed even her 
 ignorance, and have made her feel that she 
 must have fallen low indeed before she could 
 have been thus looked upon. She withdrew 
 her hand, suspecting no cause for being angry 
 with an impulse of generous kindness in a 
 man who might almost have been her father, 
 for his years, and who had proved hinself her 
 brother's friend — less than kin and more than 
 kind. 
 
 ' You have told me everything now,' she 
 said, half sadly, half bitterly. ' There is no- 
 thing to be done, except to let me have a httle 
 while to myself before I see Alan again.' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, ^ 37 
 
 Gideon felt he had advanced so much 
 farther in half an hour than he could have 
 hoped for from a month's hard marching that 
 he was well content with the wisdom of risk- 
 ing no chance of loss until he also had taken 
 time to think and plan. Nor did he wish to 
 see either Alan or Mrs. Eeid just then. He 
 wished to carry away with him the fresh 
 flavour of his new passion, as well as to shape 
 out a method for making passion and prin- 
 ciple — his principle- — agree. He moved to 
 leave her instantly, as if her least word were 
 a command to him. 
 
 'But something can be done — something 
 rsliall be done. I asked you for three days. 
 But everything shall be done, if it takes three 
 years.' 
 
 And so, at last, Helen knew why Alan had 
 let Copleston slip from his fingers without a 
 word. What was left to be done for Alan 
 now ? 
 
38 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Heracles, — All blue, with balls of light, what is't thy 
 
 shoulders bear ? 
 Atlas. — Thou deem'st — poor mortal dwarf — 'tis good to have 
 
 such care ? 
 
 Know that these shoulders ache beneath the weight of air, 
 Aweary with the light thou breathest everywhere. 
 
 Thou fain wouldst grasp the stars : there, take them — to thy 
 pain : 
 
 Lift up Orion's Sword, and hold on high the Wain : 
 Before the sun is red, thou'lt pray them lost again. 
 Wis , for 'tis good to wish : — and best, to wish in vain. 
 
 While exaggerating all tlie rest of lier posi- 
 tion in a manner that would indeed have 
 amazed the common sense of Gideon Skull 
 could he have read Helen's whole mind, her 
 ignorance saved her from one suspicion that, 
 could it have found its way to her, would 
 have made all the rest of her shame as no- 
 thins;. It never came into her heart to imao:ine 
 that her father and her mother could have 
 done wrong : if the world condemned them, it 
 was the world that was in the wrong, and not 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 39 
 
 they. She was prepared to change all her 
 beliefs and all her instincts in an instant if in 
 this matter they chose to take the world's 
 side. New light came over a hundred things 
 which she had taken as the simplest matters 
 of course until now. She thought she could 
 understand why it was that her father and 
 mother had never cared to mix with a world 
 of which they no doubt comprehended the 
 injustice, tyranny, and hypocrisy, and why 
 ^he and Alan had been brought up apart from 
 others — since it was others who made up the 
 world. She knew how good they were, so 
 that all who condemned them must needs be 
 evil. Her whole nature blamed them in a 
 very different way. They should not have 
 taken refuge in a hermitage : they should have 
 fought against the world, and conquered, and 
 been ruined, not as helpless victims, but as 
 martyrs. Alan and she should have been 
 trained to strength, and to the wisdom which 
 is the better part of innocence. Alan would 
 not have taken the world's part against him- 
 self and those who were dearer to him than 
 himself, and she would not stand, in her igno- 
 
40 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 ranee and lier weakness, alone against the 
 world. 
 
 But was she so weak, after all ? 
 
 As thought, after its first shock, took con- 
 scious shape again, and as she went over agaih, 
 all at once, all the words of this last half-hoijr, 
 she felt that at least one strong man had not 
 found her so. Knowledge is not vanity, k 
 soldier is not vain because he finds his rifle 
 straight and his sword true. If what she 
 knew to be true were true,, vshe was not utterly 
 without arms ; she had only omitted to learil 
 how to use them. She would have been 
 thankful, in the rebellion of her whole spirit 
 against all mankind and against her own help- 
 lessness, if anybody had put nothing better 
 than a pointed straw into her hand. She 
 would have gone hard to work to find some 
 use for the straw. It seemed as if Gideon had 
 taught her that she was the owner of some 
 weapon of which she could as yet but dimly 
 guess the strength and the nature ; but it must 
 needs be of more worth than a straw, and she, 
 at least, would not go to the law to ask it if 
 she might use what nature had given her. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 41 
 
 whatever it might be. She began, with no 
 touch of vanity, to think of herself with new 
 thoughts and to look upon herself with new 
 eyes. Of course, being a woman, she took it 
 for a matter of course that it is beauty, and 
 nothing else, which gives a woman power over 
 man ; so, with no more elation of heart than 
 if she had been examining the attractions of 
 Bertha Meyrick, she assumed that she must have 
 more beauty than she had hitherto thought of 
 thinking, and went deliberately to the fly- 
 blown mirror over the fireplace to find out 
 exactly where it lay. It was a wretched 
 piece of self-consciousness that Gideon had 
 taught her — it was as if looks like his could 
 not light on a woman without staining her. 
 But it was not Gideon who had taught her 
 the desire to make the worst of herself if 
 her worst could be the best for Alan. Nor 
 could she have learned it from her father, 
 who, if he could have seen her then with 
 those spiritual eyes which are blind to 
 faces and see nothing less real and substan- 
 tial than souls, would have failed to recog- 
 nise his own child. But, nevertheless. 
 
42 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 her spirit could not be wholly her own, 
 and 
 
 ' Who has been here ? ' asked Mrs. Eeid, 
 seeing nothing out of the common in a girl 
 standing before a looking-glass, even though 
 the girl was Helen — ^whom the glass might 
 have told that her mother's beauty must once 
 have been very like her own, though probably 
 much greater, and that the likeness had been 
 growing these last months in more ways than 
 one. ' I [heard a voice just now, and I did 
 not care to come down.' 
 
 One natural impulse in Helen to say out, 
 ' Mother, I know everything now — why have 
 you kept it from me ? Could you think that 
 I should blame you ? ' would at any rate have 
 opened Mrs. Eeid's eyes to the fact that her 
 suppression of the will for her son's sake had 
 delivered Copleston into the hands of an 
 owner instead of the mere trustee whom she 
 supposed the curate of Hillswick to have found 
 for her. She certainly would not have earned 
 Alan's reverence and Helen's wonder by taking 
 seeming ruin quite so calmly. But the impulse 
 did not come. Mothers and daughters must 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 43 
 
 not put off the first of such, impulses for twenty 
 years if they wish them to be possible ; it was 
 their father to whom Alan and Helen had 
 always gone with their hearts in their hands. 
 They knew their mother's love for them, and 
 guessed its depths, especially, to Helen s com- 
 plete content with a second place in all things, 
 for Alan ; but they could not give it back to 
 her openly as they could their father's, which 
 had been always in sight, and had been the 
 chief part of the air of their lives. So she 
 only said, with the sigh of one who has been 
 making a longjourney alone in dreamland, and 
 is suddenly called upon to wake up to daily 
 things, ' Yes, Gideon Skull has been here. He 
 wanted to see Alan about his going to the siege.' 
 
 Mrs. Eeid noticed the sigh ; but it was 
 natural, when Helen had to speak about a 
 first parting from Alan, and she had no reason 
 to notice anything more. She also sighed. 
 ' I wish Alan had never come across this 
 man. I am more than sorry he has been here. 
 He is not a good man.' 
 
 'I suppose he is no worse than other men,' 
 said Helen. ' I suppose they are all much the 
 
44 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 same. I suppose it is men who make up the 
 world and the laws.' 
 
 ' Helen ! what do you mean ? It is not 
 brave of you to speak in that bitter way — it 
 is not hke you, and not like the courage you 
 promised me. What men have you known, 
 but Alan and your father, that you should 
 judge them all together with a man like 
 Gideon Skull ? And what do you know of him, 
 that you think him no worse than your father 
 and Alan ? What has he been saying to you ? 
 We have not given up all our friends in order 
 to open our doors to Gideon Skull when he 
 pleases to call. He would never have dared 
 to call at Copleston.' 
 
 ' I mean I suppose Alan must 
 
 know all sorts of men.' 
 
 ' There is not the least reason why he 
 should accept favours from Gideon Skull. 
 There is no reason why Gideon Skull should 
 call here. He is a man of the very worst 
 character, as I told you before you left 
 Copleston.' 
 
 ' And is that how he has come to be rich 
 — his being of the worst character ? Poor 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 45 
 
 Alan ! He will always be poor Alan, I'm 
 afraid.' 
 
 ' I won't have you talk nonsense, Helen. 
 He has become rich, and he has a bad charac- 
 ter. But he has become rich because he was 
 obliged to work for his living. I don't want 
 Alan to become rich, God knows. But there 
 is one thing in which I do wish him to be like 
 Gideon Skull.' 
 
 ' Yes, mamma. You mean, you wish him 
 to conquer the world.' 
 
 ' I wish him to make the best and utmost 
 of himself. If he learns that, I shall thank 
 God for all our other loss, and so will he. I 
 don't say that Gideon Skull's best is Alan's 
 best — God forbid ; But- ' 
 
 ' Yes, mamma,' said Helen again. ' Yes, I 
 do see what you mean. We must fight the 
 world in its own way, or else submit to every 
 sort of wrong, and admit that wrong is right 
 by our own submission. I wish / were a man.' 
 
 'You are not yourself to-day, Helen. I 
 
 don't know what you mean But I do 
 
 know that, if I can help it, we have seen the 
 last of Gideon Skull.' 
 
46 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 There was more sympathy between Helen 
 and Gideon than even he could hope to gain 
 by strength and patience in many years. If 
 evil must be done that good may come, he had 
 argued, I'll do it and welcome. As others 
 don't like to see the dirt on their fingers, I 
 don't mind seeing on mine whatever's there. 
 And if such evil must be done, argued she, 
 let me be the one to do it, since other hands 
 must not be stained. What does a process 
 signify, if the end be the same ? Though it is 
 true that, by a good end, he and she did not 
 mean quite the same thing. She, too, had a 
 best and utmost to make of herself; and 
 Gideon Skull, who had been strong enough to 
 conquer the world, had taught her to guess 
 wherein it lay. The minute had gone by for 
 telling her mother all she knew, even had the 
 whole household history of the Eeids made 
 such a confidence possible under any condi- 
 tions. She had foroned no plan ; but she felt 
 it to be a first condition of any plan she might 
 be able to form that her mother and her 
 brother should be kept as completely in the 
 dark from all knowledge of it as they tried to 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, . 47 
 
 keep her. Any plan of hers would be certain, 
 whatever else it might be, to be one of which 
 they would not approve. 
 
 In one word, she was the Helen Eeid of 
 that Easter eve in Hillswick Church no more. 
 
 Thanks to Mrs. Eeid's thorough-going love 
 for her son, which set character above happi- 
 ness, and happiness above fortune, Victor 
 Waldron was master of Copleston. 
 
 He had certainly done his best and utmost 
 to get rid of it. But he found himself as unable 
 to get rid of a fine estate and an exceptionally 
 fine income as most men are to rid themselves 
 of their burdens. Not long ago he would have 
 felt that to be once more Waldron of Copleston 
 was the fulfilment of an ambition so great as 
 to be well-nigh no better than a dream. But 
 what flavour could it have to him when he 
 thought of how it had come to him ? And what 
 should he do with it now that it had come ? 
 It is barely possible to follow him through the 
 labyrinthine knot of difficulties which Alan 
 had so proudly refused to permit him to cut 
 in two. For many days there was not one in 
 
48 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 which his whole heart did not curse Gideon 
 Skull, or Alan hardly less than Gideon. He 
 had seen Helen before she had changed, and 
 her eyes, angry with honest scorn, followed 
 him. He had seen the look in them which he 
 would have given fifty Coplestons not to see ; 
 and it seemed to haunt him more and more. 
 He had no thought of marrying anybody, but 
 he had no settled intention of marrying no- 
 body ; and it certainly seemed hard that he, 
 at his age, should take a monk's vows so as to 
 guard against the chance of having children 
 to whom it would be unjust to allow Copleston 
 to descend. Alan, or Alan's children, or 
 Helen, or her children, must be his heirs ; and, 
 for that purpose, he must allow Copleston to 
 cut him off from the commonest right of being 
 happy. The treason of selling the place never 
 entered his mind, so that Copleston, his family 
 Mecca, dearer and more sacred to his romance 
 than it could in that way be to any mere sub- 
 stantial possessor, should fall to some acciden- 
 tal stranger without one drop of Waldron 
 blood in his veins. Why, thought the Eepub- 
 lican from America, it might go to some shop- 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 49 
 
 keeper who might even be an alderman. Once 
 a day at least he used to feel amused at his own 
 hardly comprehensible perplexity in groaning 
 under the weight of acres w^hich most people 
 would have carried as lightly as a feather ; it 
 seemed ridiculous even to him that a sane man 
 should quarrel with wealth and position which 
 had come to him lawfully, and, so far as his 
 intentions and wishes had been concerned, not 
 unfairly. But such moods did not last. Co- 
 pleston would insist upon looking at him with 
 the eyes wherewith Helen Eeid had declared 
 war to the knife against him. In short, he 
 was more troubled in spirit over these English 
 acres than two great nations were over Alsace 
 and Lorraine. 
 
 He certainly did not house his bachelor- 
 hood in the large empty mansion which he had 
 hardly had the heart to go and see. When he 
 had come over from America with his fancied 
 right, he had amused himself with the vision 
 of taking a leading place in the country, and 
 showing his neighbours what an enlightened 
 and civilised American thought of the rights 
 and duties of a squire — how romance and pro- 
 
 VOL. II. E 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 gress might blend into one liarmonious whole. 
 But, if this was the mission for which Provi- 
 dence had forced Copleston upon him, there 
 would be ample time, and to spare, for that when 
 he could make up his mind that there was no 
 escape from it, and that he must needs submit 
 with resignation to being a rich country gentle- 
 man instead of a man about the world with 
 only his own wits for capital. It would be 
 time enough then, in his capacity of American 
 justice of the peace for an English county, to 
 teach his brethren of the quorum truth and 
 common sense about the game laws, and thus 
 become so popular and so much thought of 
 that — quahfied by the British birth of his 
 grandfather — he might carry his notions into 
 Parhament itself, and show Lords and Com- 
 mons what statesmanship, as understood by 
 the most advanced and civilised of nations, 
 really means. But meanwhile, though very 
 far from shy, he did not care, as a mere matter 
 of duty, to face all these rights and duties 
 among strangers. He left Hillswick, and went 
 to Deepweald, the county town. There, hke 
 a sensible man of business, he put Copleston 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. ^ 51 
 
 and its affairs into the hands of Mr. Swann, the 
 leading estate agent there, who acted as steward 
 for some of the largest estates in the county ; 
 and from Deepweald he went back to London, 
 where Copleston, however it might interfere 
 with his life, need not interfere with his days 
 more than he pleased. Mr. Swann had found 
 his new client merely an excellent business 
 man ; the Hillswick people found plenty of 
 food for talk, but none for wonder, in the fact 
 that a Yankee squire should feel himself too 
 little at home to care to stay there. No doubt 
 he did not feel up to mixing with the county 
 people, who would certainly object to asso- 
 ciating on equal terms with a man whom his 
 native air compelled to chew tobacco in an 
 unpleasant way, to shoot guests who refused 
 a cocktail, and to stretch out his legs upon in- 
 stead of under the table. Nobody had seen 
 him do anything of the sort at the ' George,' but 
 then, as all the world knows, want of experi- 
 ence counts for nothing when opposed by 
 notoriously universal theory. And no doubt 
 he would in due time bring home a Yankee 
 wife to Copleston — and then, indeed, it would 
 E 2 
 
52 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 be time to talk, and all Hills wicK would see 
 what it would see. 
 
 He was intensely in earnest in all he 
 thought and felt about Copleston ; certainly 
 not the less because it was with Helen's eyes 
 that this perverse estate insisted on facing 
 him. But, nevertheless, a weight seemed to 
 drop from him at the end of every mile be- 
 tween Deep weald and town. One cannot be 
 for ever worrying oneself about the inevitable, 
 still less about matters which do not admit of 
 immediate action or even decision. Inaction 
 and indecision were both alike hateful to Vic- 
 tor Waldron, so he dwelt upon their necessity 
 as little as possible. He was not so uselessly 
 and childishly proud as to refuse to touch the 
 rents that he received through his steward and 
 agent at Deepweald ; indeed, how he could re- 
 fuse to take his own without setting about any 
 quantity of talk and scandal, and with out being 
 in the end shut up as a madman, is hard to 
 say. It was certainly not the receipt of the 
 annual income of Copleston that troubled him, 
 so long as he did nothing to damage the estate 
 from which the income came ; and, for that 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, . 53 
 
 matter, the estate itself needed outlays from 
 time to time which he could not have met 
 otherwise. So, for the present, he made a sort 
 of settlement in London, without any fixed 
 plan of staying there or anywhere ; living 
 easily and quietly at a large hotel where the 
 guests were mainly of his own country, drift- 
 ing into a sort of general acquaintance among 
 whom he never spoke of Copleston or of his 
 stake in the mother country, professing to 
 study English political and social institutions, 
 amusing himself for occupation, according to 
 his tastes and opportunities, and writing a 
 book for pastime. He felt tempted now and 
 then to enter into business, not being of 
 the stuff of which idlers are made ; but he 
 could not make trade square in his mind with 
 his ideal of a Waldron of Copleston. It is a 
 wonder that he did not fall in love with some- 
 body, just for the sake of having something to 
 do that would really absorb him without doing 
 anything that might misbecome one who bore 
 such a name. 
 
 It was September, so that the season was 
 not favourable for the collection of materials 
 
54 QUEEN COPEIETUA. 
 
 at first hand for liis book on English Society ; 
 but it gave him the much greater advantage 
 of hearing the opinions and experiences of an 
 army of his traveUing fellow-countrymen who 
 had enjoyed greater and more frequent oppor- 
 tunities for observation than he. For the first 
 time in histor)^, a squire of Copleston was in 
 town when the fields were in stubble. The 
 birds must have thouo^ht it the beo;innini? of 
 their millennium. This kind of hfe was all 
 very well for a time, so long as he required 
 nothing more than an escape from Copleston 
 into the liberty of London/ and an opportunitj^ 
 for not thinking about anything when every- 
 thing was so disagreeable ; but presently he 
 began to feel infinitely bored and to be angry 
 with himself for his indecision. 
 
 ' If I don't settle my life somehow,' he 
 thought to himself one day as he went out 
 after a whole hour's literary labour, ' I shall 
 forget how to feel that I have more legs than 
 an oyster. I believe the best thing I could do, 
 after all, would be to forge a will for old 
 Harry Eeid and hide it away in Copleston 
 where it would be certain to be found. But I 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 55 
 
 suppose even then something would happen — 
 I should forget to dot an or to flourish a 
 and then I should still be Waldron of Cople- 
 ston and a felon into the bargain. I wonder 
 if it would be criminal to commit forgery in 
 order to deprive oneself of one's own inherit- 
 ance ; the thing would be worth doing if only to 
 clear up the point of law. . . . What ! Why^ 
 Sims ? What are you doing this side of 
 things ? ' 
 
 ' Waldron ? Glad to see you, sir,' said the 
 sub-editor of the ' Argus,' holding out his 
 hand. ' I hope you are well.' 
 
 ' You know all about everything, Sims, 
 don't you ? ' 
 
 ' Eeckon an editor's got to know most 
 things,' said Mr. Sims, ' but don't follow he 
 tells. What do you want to know ? ' 
 
 ' I want to know what they'd do to a man 
 in this country who forged a document that 
 would leave him without a cent in the 
 world ? ' 
 
 ' Give that up,' said Mr. Sims. 
 
 ' No— it's not a conundrum. I want to 
 know.' 
 
56 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 ' What they'd do to a man who committed 
 forgery against himself? This is in many 
 ways a very remarkable country, Mr. Waldron/ 
 
 ' That's my thunder — don't quote my book 
 before it's Avritten over. Well ? I want to 
 know.' / 
 
 ' It is in many ways a very remarkable coun- 
 try. But I have observed that there is con- 
 siderable unanimity among mankind where 
 human nature comes in. And by human 
 nature I don't mean British nature, or French 
 nature, or Prussian nature, or American na- 
 ture, but the nature of men. And this is a 
 question of human nature. Therefore I con- 
 clude, Mr. Waldron, that a man who forged 
 such a document as you mention would be 
 dealt with in Great Britain just as he would 
 be treated at home.' 
 
 ' And how would they treat him at home 
 — say in Spraggville ? ' 
 
 ' They would confine him in the state 
 asylum. And they would not let him out 
 again while he had a cent left to forge away.' 
 
 ' Yes ; I suppose a man is a lunatic who 
 doesn't take all he can get, and stick to it as 
 
QUEEN COP HEX U A, , 57 
 
 tight as lie can. What are you clomg over 
 here ? Work or play ? ' 
 
 ' I am assisting Mr. Crowder to carry on 
 this war. I wish I had met you sooner ; I 
 could have offered you the post of special cor- 
 respondent for the Argus " at Versayl.' 
 
 'And on my honour, Sims, I wish it too ; 
 for if you had, I believe I should have taken 
 it and gone. Do you know how it feels to 
 want to shoot somebody — anybody — just for 
 the sake of doing something real, and to have 
 something to think about for the rest of one's 
 days ? ' 
 
 Mr. Sims looked at him a little nervously. 
 Such talk of unprofitable forgery and general 
 murder made him feel as if his allusion to 
 madhouses might be a better -fitting cap than 
 he had supposed. ' No,' said he meditatively, 
 ' I do not call to mind having felt that. Nor 
 is it the duty of a war correspondent to be 
 shot, if he can help it, nor to shoot at all.' 
 
 ' Well, I would have gone. And I'd have 
 raised the hair on the heads of all Spraggville 
 with the letters I'd have written them. Is it 
 too late ? Have you got a better man ? ' 
 
58 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 ' No, sir ; we have not got a better man. I 
 am disappointed in Crowder. Crowder has his 
 good qiiahties, but he is weak, Mr. Waldron. 
 He is not strong. I find no fault with Crowder. 
 But I do say that when a man in the position 
 of Europian editor of a great journal throws 
 all the work on other shoulders for the sake 
 of putting his legs under the same table with 
 a lord, and chooses a man for the responsible 
 post of war correspondent because that man 
 happens to be a lord's friend — I do say that is 
 weak in Crowder, and not what the repre- 
 sentative of a great paper engaged in carrying 
 on a great war ought to do. I do not ask for 
 your opinion on the subject, Mr. Waldron, 
 because I happen to know that it can't help 
 being the same as my own. What's the good 
 of having no lords of our own, if we go and 
 ko-tow them whenever we're abroad ? It is a 
 feature in our national character which I do 
 not admire.' 
 
 ' I don't know,' said Victor with a smile, 
 w^ondering whether it was altogether a spirit 
 of national independence, entirely unadul- 
 terated with jealousy, that made a Sims so 
 
I 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 59 
 
 severe upon the foibles of a Crowder. ' I 
 wouldn't mind, myself, going out of my way 
 to dine with a duke, if he was a good fellow. 
 A man can't help his inheritance sometimes, 
 and it's hard to visit the sins of the fathers on 
 the children, though I know it's the way. I've 
 enough of the old Tory in me to have a good 
 deal of sympathy with Crowder, though of 
 course you're right on principle. I wish I'd 
 been born in Spraggville ; I should always 
 know then what to think about everything. 
 Come and dine with me. I can't promise you 
 a duke, but ' 
 
 ' It isn't a duke,' said Mr. Sims. ' Crowder 
 won't like it when I tell him to-morrow that 
 I've made inquiries, and that his lord's only a 
 lord in Ireland, and doesn't belong to the 
 House of Peers. I should like to dine with 
 you, but Crowder's made that impossible. 
 Eeckon, though, he'll be sorry when he finds 
 he's been out of the way, and that they know 
 it in Spraggville, when the biggest thing in the 
 whole war comes in.' 
 
 ' What's that ? I've heard no news to- 
 day.' 
 
6o QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 ' The " Spraggville Argus " must not suffer 
 by the temporary want of a correspondent, 
 Mr. Waldron. It must not depend upon the 
 leg of a Scotchman. The news must come in. 
 And they shall know in Spraggville that the 
 biggest thing in the whole siege came in while 
 Crowder was licking the boots of a lord.' 
 
 ' I feel as if I'd dropped right off the face 
 of the world,' thought Victor, when he had 
 parted from Sims. ' Instead of being in the 
 thick of things, I'm amusing myself by look- 
 ing on at others. That's not a wholesome 
 feeling. I shall end by thinking that people 
 are all fools except ten, and that the ten are 
 all knaves except one, and that the one's a 
 Victor Waldron — a sort of mongrel, who 
 doesn't want to keep his own because he's 
 afraid of being thought a knave, and yet can't 
 throw it away because he's afraid of being 
 thought a fool. I wish that girl could know 
 how much good Copleston's doing me. I 
 wish I hadn't met her in that confounded old 
 belfry. Things would have been an ounce or 
 two easier. Even if old Harry Eeid had died 
 all the same, I could have called at Copleston. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 6i 
 
 And who knows ? But that's too great rub- 
 bish to think of ; that way hes sheer idiocy. 
 As for mooning round in London, I'm as 
 hkely to see her as if I went to Astrakhan ; 
 and if I did, she'd either cut me dead with a 
 toss of her chin and a sweep of her gown, or 
 else she'd give me the other half of her mind. 
 I wish I was Sims, or Crowder. They're both 
 happy men. I must do something or other, if 
 it's only for the sake of snapping my fingers in 
 my own face and letting Victor Waldron of 
 Copleston see what account I make of him 
 and his sickly notions. I'll leave London, and 
 go and study the social and political institu- 
 tions of Nova Zembla. Perhaps Miss Helen 
 Eeid might be passing that way, and get 
 wrecked on the coast, and I might save her 
 life — or her brother's — and then she'd have to 
 be polite enough to hear what I'd got to say ; 
 and her tongue might run out, and give me 
 time to get a word in before the end of an 
 Arctic winter. Anyhow, it's a more likely 
 way than mooning round here. I'll go and — 
 dine.' 
 
 He turned into his nearest dining haunt, 
 
62 QUEEN COFHETUA. 
 
 and, in spite of his troubles, dined well. But 
 there was still a long evening to be spent, and 
 the approach of the equinox was sending so 
 many of his acquaintances homewards that he 
 chanced to find himself for once altogether on 
 his own hands. Though sociable by nature, 
 he had made no intimate comrade since his 
 quarrel with Gideon ; his life felt no need of 
 any companionship save such as he was not 
 likely to find, and not even of that con- 
 sciously. There are times when one's soil 
 prefers to lie fallow rather than bear any crop 
 except one, and may mistake for natural bar- 
 renness its want of even so much as a crop of 
 weeds. In the hope of curing like by like, he 
 bored himself at a theatre, and then went to 
 complete the process by turning into one of 
 those clubs which sprout up in Bohemia like 
 mushrooms, and are to the palaces of Pall Mall 
 what the half-world is to the whole one. 
 
 He had become free of many such, for 
 Bohemia is a hospitable country, and, while it 
 feasts the poor, it never forgets the rich — for, 
 even there, somebody must pay. This was a 
 society which called itself the Bats ; and it 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 63 
 
 opened its arms freely to everybody who 
 could lay the least clami to any connection 
 with art or literature by going to bed when 
 the sun set — on the other side of the world. 
 Not many of the Bats were as yet known to 
 public fame, but every one of them was going 
 to be in the course of a week or so, and mean- 
 while they discounted glory for one another 
 on Uberal terms. 
 
 It was early for the Bats, for Victor had 
 left the theatre early and had gone straight 
 there, while there was seldom much of a 
 gathering till after twelve. In the dingy 
 room at the top of the house, within three 
 doors of where the Eeids were living, Victor 
 seated himself among the few Bats who were 
 there, some breakfasting and all smoking 
 hard, without the power of guessing that 
 the girl who ran, like a persistent and obtru- 
 sive discord, through all his thoughts, and 
 whom he thought a voyage to Nova Zembla 
 the most likely way to find, was within fifty 
 yards of his chair. It was certainly no occult 
 result of spiritual magnetism which had made 
 his thoughts run so much to-day upon Helen ; 
 
64 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 for yesterday also, when he had not been near 
 her, she had been more in his mind than the 
 day before. But to think how we in London 
 meet and do not meet, how miles may mean 
 yards, and how inches may mean hundreds of 
 miles ; how all reason is defied by the crossing 
 of parallels and the divergence of straight lines 
 from their own directions ; how the accident 
 of a minute, or the existence of a wall of lath 
 and plaster, makes and ruins lives — all this is 
 a commonplace well-nigh too awful to face 
 and to dwell upon. 
 
 The talk of the Bats was not brilhant at 
 present ; they were mostly men who required 
 time for waking, and nobody who chanced to 
 have anything new to say cared to waste it 
 upon a small and early company. The few 
 who were present talked about the war, the 
 weather, and their absent friends so much like 
 commonplace people that an outsider would 
 have been puzzled to guess in what lay those 
 special sympathies which brought them to- 
 gether out of the vulgar world. But pre- 
 sently men began to drop in by ones, twos, 
 and threes : and by about one o'clock the 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 65 
 
 room was tolerably full, and the talk a great 
 deal more free. 
 
 Victor was taking his full share in the talk 
 of the men just round him, some of them Bats 
 and some of them Bats' friends, when the door 
 swung open, and he saw through the smoke 
 cloud an entrance, which, if he could have 
 foreseen it, would have made him avoid the 
 Bats for that evening. It was a party of four 
 — a member and three friends. The Bat was 
 Lord Ovoca, an Irish earl with whom he had 
 some club acquaintance ; a good-looking, 
 good-natured young man, who lived in some 
 sort of fashion upon his own and his ancestors^ 
 debts, betted when he was certain of winning, 
 had a large stock of highly-flavoured anec- 
 dotes which his brogue made amusing, and 
 had otherwise qualified himself for the Bats by 
 having written a comic song and by hanging 
 about stage doors. It is always considered 
 a graceful thing when a nobleman prefers 
 the society of artists and men of letters to any 
 other. With his arm through this young 
 nobleman's, and with his chin high in the air, 
 entered a figure which a stranger might easily 
 
 VOL. II. F 
 
66 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 liave taken for that of Mr. Sims, but wliich 
 Victor, who knew Spraggville, recognised as 
 Mr. Crowder's, to whom Lord Ovoca's arm 
 was not merely a source of pride, but of use 
 as a support : for Mr. Crowder, as he came in, 
 most unmistakably lurched against the door. 
 Behind these was a young man whom Wald- 
 ron did not know. But behind him ao^ain 
 was Gideon Skull. 
 
 However, there was no reason why the 
 two former friends should interfere with one 
 ^.nother on this neutral ground. They glanced 
 at one another for a moment, and then looked 
 away again as if they were strangers — ^Victor 
 unable to help a slight flush, Gideon with no 
 expression at all. But Mr. Crowder inter- 
 cepted Victor's glance on its return, nodded 
 with a look of wooden wisdom, steadied himself, 
 and led Lord Ovoca to him across the room. 
 
 ' How do you do, sir ? ' he said. ' I hope 
 you are well. Good fellows ought to know 
 one another. Allow me to introduce to you 
 my old friend the Eight Honourable the Earl 
 of Ovoca. We have been dining at the Uni- 
 versal. Allow me to introduce to your Lord- 
 ship my old friend Mr. ' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 67 
 
 ' We're fellow Bats, Crowder/ said Lord 
 Ovoca. ' I know'm, and he knows me. 
 What'U ye drink now? Oli, but ye must,' 
 and he rang for the waiter. ' I take brandy 
 myself — ' and, forgetting that Waldron was 
 writing a book which, by its scheme, included 
 the manners and customs of British Earls as 
 well as of lesser men, winked most signifi- 
 cantly to the author behind the back of the 
 editor. It was not every day that Lord Ovoca 
 had a teetotaller to play with, but he clearly 
 understood the spirit of the game. ' There, 
 Crowder, ye may drink that brandy for a 
 week, and ye'll be as sober on Saturday as ye 
 were on Sunday. I think,' he said to Wal- 
 dron, ' that ye know Skull ? Ye should have 
 been with us to-day — they gave us a bisque 
 that would have turned old Bismarck into a 
 Frenchman.' 
 
 Victor and Gideon made a pretence of 
 bowing, and then Gideon turned his back and 
 marched off to the farthest end of the room. 
 Victor had already shown he had no shame ; 
 Gideon woifld have felt mean-spirited if he 
 had for one needless moment put up with 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 tlie company of such a knave. Nor did he 
 hke him the better for having known Helen 
 before him. But then it was true that she 
 had only known him to hate him — and no 
 wonder. 
 
 ' This gentleman,' said Mr. Crowder, as he 
 took a good gulp of the brandy-and-water 
 that Lord Ovoca had mixed for him — ' This 
 gentleman is going to represent the " Argus 
 at Versayl. It is a great responsibility to 
 represent the " Argus " at Versayl. He's going 
 to start for the " Argus " in twelve hours. 
 Allow me to introduce you two gentlemen. 
 Mr. Wal— Waldor, Mr. Allen— Mr. Allen, Mr. 
 
 Wa . Good fellows ought to know one 
 
 another. We're all good fellows. We'll all 
 know one another all round.' He took another 
 gulp, and grinned. 
 
 ' So you are going out for the " Argus " ? ' 
 said Victor. ' By Jove, I envy you.' 
 
 ' We'll all go out for the " Argus," ' said 
 Mr. Crowder. ' Everybody here.' 
 
 Victor let the talk, such as it was, go on 
 while he smoked and conversed with the ceil- 
 ing. He must do something — anything ; what 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 69 
 
 better thing could he do, in war time, while 
 history was making itself at white heat, than 
 make himself a part of it, however small? 
 What was London to him, after all, or he to 
 London? He had found nothing there that 
 he wanted, and never would ; and as to put- 
 ting a few miles more between himself and 
 Copleston, he would gladly have put a thou- 
 sand. Would any one of his ancestors, down 
 to his grandfather the rebel general, have 
 stayed at home while the trumpets were 
 sounding and the swords clashino^ and the 
 guns firing less than two short hundred miles 
 away ? He looked at the supposed Mr. Allen 
 and took stock of him ; he liked his face, with 
 its frankness tempered by a certain grave 
 modesty, and thought, ' I suppose this young 
 fellow would change places with me any day. 
 I wonder if Sims would think me still more of 
 a lunatic if I were to offer him Copleston and 
 its thousands a year to take his place at Ver- 
 sailles. . . . Well, one can find better work at 
 a siege than writing letters to Spraggville. 
 . . . So you are starting for Versailles in 
 twelve hours ? ' 
 
70 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 ' Those are my orders,' said Alan. 
 
 ' And, by a curious coincidence,' said 
 Victor, still looking at the ceiling, ' so am I. 
 I'm going to Versailles too.' 
 
 ' Indeed ! Also for a paper ? ' 
 
 ' No. I'm not going for a paper. I'm 
 going, like Harry Smith, -for my own hand. 
 I've seen something of fighting on our side 
 the water, and I've got a fancy for seeing how 
 they do it on yours. Let's start together. I 
 do not know when I get out what I shall do, 
 but if you do not know Spraggville, I can put 
 you up to a thing or two till we part com- 
 pany. Yes — I mean it. In twelve hours we'll 
 be off to Versailles.' 
 
 His national restlessness had found a vent 
 at last, in Avhich to think might mean to 
 decide, and to decide would mean to do. Alan 
 looked at Victor in his turn, and he said : 
 
 ' By all means. I shall be only too glad 
 of your company. Where shall we meet, and 
 how ? I start from Charing Cross at twelve. 
 I suppose you've made all your plans ? ' 
 
 ' All I need. I hate plans. I like taking 
 what comes. I've got to write a letter or two, 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 71 
 
 and I'll meet you at the depot. Look out for 
 me, and Til look out for you.' 
 
 There was nothing to surprise anybody in 
 Waldron's resolve, which might, for anything 
 anybody knew, have been made weeks before. 
 Plenty of people went to the siege for no better 
 reason. He stayed at the Bats, talking, till 
 Alan had said good-night, shaken hands with 
 Gideon, and had hurried off home to make the 
 best of the few hours left him to prepare, and 
 to spend all the time he could with Helen and 
 his mother. Waldron left Lord Ovoca, Mr. 
 Crowder, and Gideon Skull at the Bats, and 
 went back to his hotel, where, in truth, he 
 had nothing to do but write to Mr. Swann at 
 Deepweald, pack a valise, and pay his bill. 
 
 'Well, we're fairly off now,' said Victor when 
 their train was on its way, ' and we needn't 
 be in a hurry about anything for a couple of 
 hours. We may as well know one another as 
 well as we can. Did I understand Crowder to 
 say your name is Allen ? ' 
 
 ' Crowder mixed other things besides his 
 drinks,' said Alan with a smile. ' My name is 
 Alan Eeid.' 
 
72 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 ' Alan Eeid ! ' 
 ' Why not ? ' 
 
 ' Eeid — of Copleston ? ' asked Victor, so 
 eagerly that Alan stared at hiin. 
 
 ' I once hved at Copleston/ said he, with a 
 frown. ' What do you know of Copleston ? ' 
 
 ' I've been about in your country, and I've 
 heard of that family. I thought you might 
 be one of them. That's all. We Americans 
 are famous for asking qu-cstions, you know. 
 Think yourself lucky I didn't ask you right oft' 
 how old you are, and what you've got a year.' 
 
 ' I didn't quite catch your name either,' 
 said Alan. 
 
 Victor thought for an instant : but no pause 
 was perceptible. 'My name? Oh, Gray,' 
 said he. 
 
 ' I fancied Crowder called you Walters, or 
 some such name.' 
 
 ' Crowder was drunk. He was calling 
 everybody by his first name. He called you 
 Alan, and you're Alan Eeid ; he called me 
 Walter, and I'm Walter Gray. I dare say he 
 ended by calling Lord Ovoca, Bill. And now, 
 as we know how we're called, let's start fair, 
 and shake hands,' said Victor. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 73 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 Traveller, Show me my path, fair star : to right ? to left ? 
 Ignis Fatuus. To left. 
 
 Traveller, Whereunto shall I reach this road to-night ? 
 Ignis Fatuus, To Night. 
 
 Traveller. I seek no nighty good star : I seek a rest. 
 Ignis Fatuus. Arrest ! 
 
 Traveller, Nay, but not here ? — which turn doth point a way ? 
 Ignis Fatuus. Away ! 
 
 Traveller. Thou'rt Echo's Sister. Lead where go I will. 
 Ignis Fatuus. I will. 
 
 Traveller. Now hath she answered me— I'll trust this Elf — 
 Ignis Fatuus, Thyself. 
 
 Alan had seen nothing new m his sister before 
 he set off for Versailles. He had no reason to 
 look for anything, and was much too full of 
 hurry, and of a long-forgotten glow of what 
 — had he thought about them — he must, in 
 the face of hopeless love, have been compelled 
 to call high spirits, to set down Helen's manner 
 to anything but sympathy with his own ex- 
 citement, tempered by whatever sadness his 
 sudden departure might bring upon her during 
 
74 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 the hour of good-bye. Men cannot love with- 
 out Hving ; and there are not many — happily 
 for something a great deal better than romance 
 — who can keep themselves up to broken- 
 hearted point every day and all day long. At 
 any rate, Alan Eeid was not a lover of that 
 kind, and the prospect of an escape from the 
 stagnant pond in which he had been living all 
 these months into the stormiest of seas was 
 more than enough, at the first burst, to thrust 
 even Bertha a good way back into a rather 
 dark corner of the heart of a healthy- bodied 
 man. After all, a thing is not thrust out by 
 being pushed farther in. 
 
 But Helen, reading his clear nature by her 
 own clouded twilight, saw in his perfectly 
 frank and natural pleasure at finding himself 
 alive again only the recklessness of despair, 
 driving her brother to any sort of false excite- 
 ment — sending him to the whirl of war as a 
 substitute for the bottle, the dice-box, or for 
 any like lunacies which their meanness closed 
 to him. Of course she did not even by a look, 
 so far as she could control her looks, give him 
 the least hint of the new knowledge she had 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 75 
 
 learned from Gideon Skull. That had come 
 to divide them, not indeed in heart, but in 
 soul. Their ways and their thoughts could be 
 the same no more. 
 
 To her mother she was just as silent, while 
 any change in her, coming with Alan's de- 
 parture, seemed just as natural. Indeed, Mrs. 
 Eeid, like her son, had a good deal more to 
 think about than Helen's looks and words, 
 which could matter nothing. Thus far, the 
 course of her plan had proved a disappoint- 
 ment to her. But even the nature of her dis- 
 appointment only proved to her more clearly 
 how very right she had been. Alan, to her 
 anxious and impatient eyes, had displayed all 
 the faults and weaknesses that she had feared ; 
 only they seemed more ingrained and de- 
 veloped than she had feared. Knowing nothing 
 of what he had lost or of what he believed, 
 she could only wonder, with an aching heart, 
 at the unlooked-for manner in which a seem- 
 ingly healthy-minded and strong-bodied young 
 man, a gentleman, too, and with her own blood 
 in him, had taken the mere loss of a fortune. 
 He had been patient : and she had looked for 
 
76 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 the eager spirit of tlie soldier who hears the 
 sound of the trumpet sounding the charge. 
 He had plodded and tramped about London 
 in search of daily bread, when she had looked 
 for the birth of the spirit which knows of no 
 choice but that between death and victory. 
 He had been proud and sensitive, instead of 
 covering himself with steel ; passively kind 
 and tender when he should have been wilful 
 and strong. And now, instead of making 
 some far-reaching plan to lead him to some 
 great goal, he had thankfully picked up the 
 first bone with a scrap or two of meat for the 
 day upon it which had been thrown him by a 
 stranger as a useless thing. No, thought she, 
 he is not like his father, after all. His father 
 would have done all things, if he had had 
 them to do. It looks as if he had left nothing 
 to his son but his one weak side. And so, 
 rendered doubly obstinate by disappointment, 
 she hardened herself in her scheme — certainly 
 none the less because of a secret doubt that it 
 was an error from the beginning. How could 
 she go to him and say, ' You have proved to 
 me that you deserve nothing — so take the 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 fortune that yon do not deserve, and could 
 never have made ' ? It would be insulting her 
 own son, who had all her living love and his 
 dead father in him. He had the one virtue of 
 pride, and that would make him refuse to take 
 what only her half-scornful pity tossed back 
 to him. Perhaps he would only feel that she 
 had been wronging him, and playing with him 
 as if he had been a child. Only the success of 
 her scheme could make him understand her 
 and thank her ; and if he failed to understand 
 her — better than such an end as that would 
 be loss and poverty to the very end. 
 
 In short, if her plan for Alan did not win 
 by itself, it must be made to win. She was 
 most assuredly not playing to lose. If dice 
 happen to be so made that nothing but the 
 double ace turns up however they are thrown^ 
 the weight must be shifted to the other side 
 if one means to win. What error had she 
 committed ? Absolutely none that she could 
 see. While Alan was on his way to Versailles, 
 and Helen was thinking her own thoughts, 
 their mother sat reviewing from the beginning 
 a situation of which nobody could dream but 
 
78 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 the curate of Hillswick, and he only as a phase 
 of thought which mental humility, a natural 
 lowliness and reverence of self-ordering to all 
 his betters, and the hope of a living, might 
 make him accept, but could not help him to 
 understand. She could find no error. There 
 had been no difiiculty even. She had looked 
 for many, and had found none. Without any 
 sort of legal fuss or form her co-executor had 
 found her a steward and trustee for Copleston, 
 willing to act as owner : for Waldron's entry 
 upon the estate meant nothing'more to her. The 
 curate himself could not undeceive her, even 
 had he been willing ; for that very same good 
 office of finding the ostensible owner and secret 
 trustee which she believed he had done for her, 
 he believed that his nephew Gideon had done 
 for him. Without Gideon's help he could not 
 have done it at all ; while he was the last man 
 on earth to lessen his importance in Mrs. Eeid's 
 eyes by admitting the most unavoidable breach 
 of confidence tO a necessary deputy; and 
 Gideon was no less the last man, when he saw 
 a misunderstanding going, to cut off* any possi^ 
 bility of using it by clearing it away prema- 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 79 
 
 turely. So, reviewing all she could possibly 
 know, Copleston, without any trouble, was as 
 secure as if it had been in Alan's own hands. 
 The will, too, was as safe as Copleston, in a 
 box in the strong-room of the bank at Hills- 
 wick, where no one would dream of looking 
 for what nobody thought existed, and where 
 no accident could bring it to light until she 
 pleased. JSTot that she intended any accident, 
 even in seeming, to bring it to light even when 
 the time came. Alan, she felt, would blame 
 her now if by any impossible chance he should 
 discover the method she had chosen for his 
 education. But when the time came, whether 
 at the end of seven years or later, the chest 
 would be given up to him without any mystery, 
 and she would say to him with pride in him and 
 for him, ' See what I have done for you and 
 borne for you ! ' and he would thank her, not for 
 giving him a fortune, but for having made him 
 a man. Surely, after all, her disappointment 
 was all too soon. It came from over-impa- 
 tience, perhaps — nothing more. What were a 
 few months to make a beginning in, out of 
 seven years ? No doubt his beginning had 
 
So QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 been a bad one. All the more need to stand 
 by a plan which was made out to ensure a 
 good end. Providence itself must be vexed 
 and puzzled now and then at the immediate 
 effect of its own plans. All the more reason 
 for not changing them. A cloudy morning is 
 the surest sign of a clear noon. 
 
 So once more the poor lady let her warm 
 Welsh heart and her sharp Welsh wits twist 
 themselves into a web from which a colder 
 nature and a blunter mind would surely have 
 saved her. A stranger to the world from her 
 cradle, born and bred among out-of-the-way 
 mountains, matured and completed in the 
 self-sufficing circle of four at Copleston, her 
 husband and her son had been her universe, 
 which she had studied with far more love and 
 zeal than knowledge. She had learned only 
 the romance of the world's battle, and it had 
 fired her mind with barren ambition for them. 
 She had come to Copleston as a stranger, and 
 a stranger she had hved in it all her days, 
 looking at life, both within and without the 
 park palings, very differently from those who 
 really felt it to be their home. She could 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 8i 
 
 not make them understand what she saw and 
 knew, in spite of all her wit and all her will. 
 When all she read and heard, even down to 
 the Eeverend Christopher Skull's Sunday ser- 
 mons, told her that life was so great and death 
 so awful, how sane men could content them- 
 selves with catching fish, or peddling over 
 parish or even county matters, or breeding 
 foxes to be worried by dogs, she had never 
 been able to comprehend. The common lot 
 of women she accepted, for she had never 
 heard of the new school ; whatever was, was 
 right, as a matter of course, for Helen and her. 
 But it was like a burden on her own conscience 
 that one whom love, as a matter of course, 
 accepted as made by nature for a great poet 
 or a great statesman — perhaps the greatest of 
 his age and country — should act, or rather rust, 
 as if life were nothing to him ; as if the common 
 accident of having a few thousands a year had 
 set him outside the largest issues and above 
 the highest and worthiest ambitions. She felt 
 the full weight of Copleston when, after a few 
 efforts to strike fire out of old Harry, she had 
 to own that, not even to please her, could lie 
 
 VOL. II. G 
 
82 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 become anytliing but what nature — or, as she 
 put it, as Copleston — had made him. He 
 would have gone to the block for her sake, 
 she knew, and she was proud of the knowledge : 
 but she wanted him to go to a throne — and 
 to that wish he seemed simply deaf and blind, 
 and as happy and content in ignoring it, and as 
 much taking her share in his own content and 
 happiness for granted, as if they had only one 
 soul between them, and that his own. No 
 wonder that, when he died, the common 
 household happiness with which he had filled 
 her life oppressed her like a sense of sin. Into 
 what might not his ten talents have grown if 
 she herself had not fallen short in strength of 
 purpose and will ? What sort of wife is she 
 who does not supply all that is wanting in her 
 husband to make the best and utmost of him ? 
 What else should marriage mean ? Well — 
 motherhood might mean that too, and more. 
 Alan had none of his father's genius — as she 
 termed the little tastes and turns that had 
 blossomed so brightly at Copleston and round 
 Hillswick ; that is to say, where there were 
 neither critics nor rivals. But it is better to 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 83 
 
 use one talent tlian bury ten — ^and where 
 would lier conscience be if Alan's one went to 
 swell tlie hoard that had been buried in 
 Copleston ? 
 
 Much of all this she had already put intc 
 words, when she was unwillingly obliged te 
 take into her confidence the man who had the 
 temporary cure of her soul, and who, under 
 her husband's will, shared her temporal respon - 
 sibilities. But the better half had been left 
 unspoken, even to herself ; impulse and in- 
 stinct, in this quiet, slow-moving woman, were 
 at the root of it all, and these are without 
 language. They have to go to reason for 
 words ; reason finds words of a sort fast enough, 
 but never quite the right ones, and, more often 
 than not, exactly the wrong. Her text to-day 
 was a small packet of bank-notes which Alan 
 had bargained to receive beforehand from the 
 ' Argus', so that he might feel at ease about his 
 mother and sister. They were to receive for 
 him all except what he was to be paid for his 
 expenses, and, thanks to the atmosphere of 
 Gideon's dinner, with its lord and its cham- 
 pagne, the payment in advance had been more 
 G 2 
 
84 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 generous than it miglit have been had Alan's 
 engagement been made in cold blood in the 
 Fleet Street office, and with Mr. Sims to watch 
 the proceedings. Mrs. Eeid looked down upon 
 their source — a newspaper, and not even an 
 Enghsh one — but her fingers could not feel 
 quite unmoved at the touch of the first gold 
 that Alan had earned. As she felt now, even 
 a reporter's wages were more honourable, and 
 promised more, than the whole income of 
 Copleston. If it had only been a barrister's 
 or a physician's first fee ! It would have 
 justified her whole plan for him, instead of 
 only encouraging her to go on to the end, to 
 put doubt and impatience once for all under 
 lock and key, hide them with the will, and 
 never look at them again. Without the notes 
 she and Helen had enough for immediate 
 needs ; and she had taken care to provide for a 
 long day of waiting better than she had let her 
 children suppose. She put the notes into her 
 desk, locked them up, and all misgivings with 
 them. ' We will pay them back in less than 
 seven years, please God,' said she. 
 
 But meanwhile somebody else was putting 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 85 
 
 his thoughts in order — and this was Gideon 
 Skull. 
 
 When he parted from Helen, it must be 
 owned that his mind had been, for him, 
 strangely confused. He knew his new pur- 
 pose, and had justified it to reason and sanity 
 by making worldly wisdom approve of a seem- 
 ingly irrational passion. He also knew that 
 he was on some sort of road towards it ; but 
 he was in a new and strange country, and he 
 suspected that, even if he were on the best and 
 straightest road, he might come to a dozen 
 unexpected and bewildering turnings before 
 he had advanced a mile. Love is by no means 
 a simple matter when it comes, for the first 
 time, to a man of forty. Gideon was quite 
 sure that he would not take Helen — at least 
 for a wife — without either Copleston itself as 
 a dowry or with some near approach to its 
 money value. He was certain of this, because 
 he was quite sure that he was not insane. On 
 the other hand, he could not bring himself to 
 feel, as a sane man ought, that he would take 
 two Coplestons as the price of giving up Helen ; 
 not even if by taking them and leaving her he 
 
86 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 could inflict a just and righteous vengeance 
 uj)on Victor Waldron. He thought, as he 
 went about his immediate financial business, 
 of her lips, her voice, her waist, the light in 
 her eyes, and the blood in her cheeks, and the 
 thrill in her fingers, in a way which women 
 who like to catch what they call love at first 
 sight from men with plenty of body about them 
 must, we are bound to suppose, find flattering 
 to them and pleasant to imagine. Perhaps if 
 Helen had not gathered all her notions of love 
 at first sight from story-books, which deal with 
 it as if it were an ethereal film of most delicate 
 spiritual subtlety most unlikely to catch its 
 usual victims, she would have been less elated 
 by the discovery that, in a reckless and des- 
 perate mood, she had some power over man- 
 kind as represented by Gideon Skull. But not 
 even his particular way of thinking about 
 Helen, engrossing as it was, nor the farther- 
 reaching but equally engrossing thought of 
 how he could make its satisfaction profitable to 
 himself at the expense of Victor Waldron, made 
 him inattentive to the demands of the hour. 
 Instead of mooning about and trying to turn 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 87 
 
 his feelings into rliyme as well as reason, as 
 a weaker-minded lover might have done, he 
 went straight to the office of Messrs. Aristides 
 and Sinon, where he had met Alan Eeid. 
 
 Mr. Sinon, who had returned from Bir- 
 mingham, received Gideon in a comfortable 
 and not very business dike little office where 
 the immediate affair on hand was a bottle of 
 sherry and a pate de Strasbourg. The mer- 
 chant might have been a Jew, and was often 
 thought so by those who knew no better. But 
 he was very far indeed from being a Jew. The 
 most typical and conventional of Jews would 
 soon have found himself the most innocent of 
 babies in the hands of a Gentile like Mr. Sinon 
 — for it is a profound mistake to suppose that 
 the Jews, who are supreme in Music and in 
 all the pleasure-giving arts, crafts, and trades, 
 and are better in spending than in getting, 
 stand anywhere near first in business or in 
 really important things. Why are there no \ 
 Jews in Scotland ? Why are they so shy ' 
 of returning to the Promised Land ? Why 
 do they become mere nobodies where Greeks 
 and Armenians flourish and do well ? Mr. 
 
88 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 Sinon was a pure-blooded Gentile and a most 
 orthodox Christian of historic descent, in spite 
 of his nose and his eyes. The Sinons are a 
 very old Greek family, as every schoolboy 
 used to know ; and are at any rate well known 
 in Smyrna. 
 
 ISTo greater contrast in looks can be than 
 that between Mr. Sinon and his friend — in a 
 strictly business sense — Gideon Skull ; or in 
 manner either. And yet one can be greater — 
 that between the two men as they looked and 
 the two men as they were. Gideon looked 
 the typical Englishman — bluff, close, silent, 
 heavy, slow, with the honesty which is born 
 of stupidit3^ Mr. Sinon, besides being hook- 
 nosed, sallow-faced, and sharp-eyed, was small, 
 restless, and so given to brag and to chatter 
 that even the cunning were taken in, and set 
 him down as a conceited fool, or, at best or 
 worst, as a very harmless sort of knave. In 
 short, Gideon's stupidity and Mr. Sinon's folly 
 were very much on a par, and neither had 
 any cause to be ashamed of his ally or very 
 much reason to be afraid of him. For that 
 matter, Gideon Skull was afraid of nobody. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 89 
 
 He made no remark on entering : his 
 ' Good-day ' was to pour himself out a glass of 
 wine, over which he sat ruminating. 
 
 ' You have the melancholy air ! ' said Mr. 
 Sinon gaily. He spoke English with a perfect 
 accent, but occasionally used eccentric idioms 
 when he was in a good humour and in sym- 
 pathy with Paris — as she had been. ' Ah, if 
 you were me — if your head was being gnawed 
 by all the rats — I am one fool, Mr. Skull. 
 Would you believe ? I come late from Bir- 
 mingham : I tire : I must amuse myself in 
 whatever way. I go to the Juliette. I meet 
 of jolidogs cliez elle — eight, nine, ten. We 
 drink all the champagne. We play the 
 grand treize. I lose — I win — I lose. I lose 
 my head ; I win the ache for him. I take 
 the hairs of the dog — one dozen, two, three. 
 No question, in the cup I tell everything. 
 I ' 
 
 ' Whatever you told, it was the right thing 
 to the right man, in your cups or out of it,' 
 said Gideon. ' The question is, what you 
 did in Birmingham ? ' He could not help the 
 slightest possible sneer at the idea of the 
 
90 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 vulture-faced, sallow little man — looking like 
 a cross between a usurer and a conspirator — 
 making a night of it in such a fashion, and 
 having nothing but a headache to show for it 
 in the morning. 
 
 'In Birmingham? Ah, I forget. What 
 does one like me in Birmingham? Ah, I 
 remember. I go to the theatre. I see in the 
 ballet one pretty girl. I laugh to see her 
 pirouette — it was like the English crocodile. 
 But her hair, my friend, it was all gold and 
 silk, like an angel at the bar. Direct, I fall 
 
 into the love. I make her my friend. I 
 
 Ah, I am one other fool. There shall be two 
 sort of men, my friend. One sort is the 
 women, the other sort is the fools. Voila la 
 vie' 
 
 ' Hm ! ' growled Gideon, for he was not 
 yet sure how far Mr. Sinon's philosophy might 
 not be true. 
 
 ' On my word of honour as a gentleman,' 
 said Mr. Sinon, ' I have but one little house, 
 and that cost me twelve thousand pounds 
 every year. I shall never be rich, like you. 
 Monsieur Aristides has one whole wife and 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 91 
 
 children — five, six, seven. They cost him not 
 the half what my one httle house cost me. 
 It is true he play ; but then it is true he 
 win. I do not play so much ; but then I 
 lose. Last night I lose one thousand pounds. 
 You shall play with me to-night, my friend ; 
 and you shall win.' 
 
 ' Hm ! ' growled Gideon again, but in 
 another tone. ' I make it a rule never to 
 play with people who always lose ; somehow, 
 one never gets up the winner. I suppose 
 you found time, in the middle of your busi- 
 ness, to amuse yourself for five minutes with 
 attending to what you went for ? ' 
 
 ' You English ! Always the business, the 
 business, the business. That make you so 
 rich. But what means business but to pay 
 for the pleasure, eh ? One hour to work — 
 twenty-three hour to live. That is right. 
 You go to the sleep for the ten, and to the 
 business for the fourteen hour, and not to the 
 play for none. Yes, I find one little minute. 
 He is slow — he take fifty-nine second ; I am 
 quick — I take one second. It is done.' 
 
 ' I supposed so. Well ? ' 
 
92 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 ' I order the rifles for the Sultan of Cash- 
 gar, you comprehend. They ask no ques- 
 tions ; they are men of business ; Cashgar is a 
 good place of business, the first part of him. 
 I pay more down than they would ask, to 
 begin ; and, in fine, Sinon and Aristides are 
 good names on a bill. They will make the 
 guns so cheap to look like guns, and to be 
 good for at least one bang. Then you run 
 them to Cashgar by the route of Morlaix, and 
 you deliver them to the consignee, and when 
 they have done with the franc-tireurs they 
 shall go to Cashgar, or to Jericho, or to the 
 pieces, if they burst not before. And you ? ' 
 
 ' I've spent the price of a dinner in buying 
 the use of a newspaper, only a backwoods 
 sort of rag, but with a strong name for war 
 news just now. I prefer an American paper 
 to work with : war news that has crossed the 
 Atlantic twice is, of course, ten times the value 
 of what only comes once over the Straits of 
 Dover. You see if we don't get earlier and 
 better French news from Spraggville than 
 anybody else does from Versailles.' 
 
 Ah ! If you had bought the " Times " 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 93 
 
 . . . . but we shall do what we can. And 
 the Eentes ? ' 
 
 ' I've not done badly there, but it wasn't 
 by flirting with ballet-girls, I can tell you. 
 By good hard work, I've got hold of a quarter 
 of a million without raising the market a sou. 
 One way and another, we ought to get them 
 up to twice the price before settling day. If 
 we don't clear fifty thousand at least, you'll 
 be about right about our belonging to the 
 fools.' 
 
 ' Fifty thousand? It is not much, but is 
 better than nothing at all.' 
 
 ' Would you like to see the memoranda ? ' 
 
 * Oh no, my friend. My poor head is all 
 one ache of champagne. I do not need — I 
 could not comprehend one penny from one 
 pound, and I should add it up all wrong. 
 There is no need of the detail when one deals 
 with the Englishman. If you were a rascal 
 of a Greek — but, in fine, you are Gideon 
 Skull, and not a Greek at all.' 
 
 ' Then there's nothing more to be said to- 
 day ? About the news ? ' 
 
 ^We shall leave that to you. You will 
 
94 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 know what the sort of American duck you 
 Enghsh will like the best to swallow and to 
 pay. I have to take the sherry all the after- 
 noon, for I play to-night, and I must not lose 
 quite so much what I win. You will come ? 
 
 No ? It is strange, you so rich ' 
 
 ' That's just what I'm not, Sinon. I don't 
 play because I can't afford to play. I've 
 played across the water, but that's a different 
 thing.' 
 
 ' I see. It is that you like to win. Now, 
 as for me, I hke to lose. It is that I have 
 the good fortune, you comprehend, in the 
 other way. Oh, you shall win much, if you 
 play with me.' 
 
 ^ That's tempting. I do like to win.' 
 
 ' Come with me to-night to Juliette, then. 
 She is charming ; and you shall find the joli- 
 dogs there once more. What have you to 
 do ? ' 
 
 ^ Nothing,' said Gideon. ' Well, as you 
 say, one must amuse themselves sometimes. 
 rU come for an hour or two, if you'll lend me 
 a few pounds. One mustn't go with empty 
 pockets to ladies whose names end in ette or 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 95 
 
 ine ; and I have a particular objection to be 
 thought anything short of a millionaire among 
 people that don't know me. I won't win 
 more than two hundred of you, and you shall 
 pay me a hundred on account now.' 
 
 How Gideon Skull never failed to impress 
 everybody, even Greeks from Asia, with a 
 sense of wealth and prosperity, is the only 
 mystery which this book contains. He never 
 failed to have money for the needs of the day, 
 which he never met in a niggardly fashion ; 
 but that was nothing — that feat is constantly 
 achieved, and kept up through a long life, 
 by men who notoriously have not a penny 
 of their own, who never earn one, and 
 whom nobody would trust with one. Per- 
 haps it was partly that he never bragged of 
 wealth, and at the same time never fell into 
 the grand blunder, with which mere cunning 
 so often defeats itself, of making a parade of 
 his poverty. The days are gone by when 
 everybody who called himself poor in and out 
 of season was instantly suspected of being a 
 milHonaire — the trick became too stale. No 
 doubt his business look and manner, and his 
 
96 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 natural and genuine genius for easy-going and 
 open-speaking honesty, went very far in helping 
 him, while his reserved manner and absence 
 of every sort of affectation went farther still. 
 But even as one may have every detail and 
 attribute of beauty and yet not be beautiful, 
 so one may have every one of these gifts and 
 yet fail to be a Gideon Skull. The reputa- 
 tion for being rich, which sticks to one even 
 when one asks a friend for the fatal loan of 
 half-a-crown, must be inborn, and belong to 
 the harmony of the whole man. Even to 
 Mr. Sinon from Smyrna, Gideon's request for 
 a hundred pounds seemed the most natural 
 thing in the world, oddly as it must have 
 come from any other man. It is true that 
 Gideon, in the most natural way, had given 
 an excellent reason — that it was after bank- 
 ing hours, and he would willingly have paid 
 down a thousand pounds if they were the 
 straw that would turn the scale of Gideon's 
 mind in favour of going to Mademoiselle Juli- 
 ette's on that or any other evening. His satis- 
 faction with having got an ally like Gideon to 
 play into the hands of his house had hitherto 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 97 
 
 been a good deal modified by his friend s 
 almost over-respectable aversion to winning 
 and losing except at the great game of which 
 all Europe was the board. Gideon may or 
 may not have known, by reason or instinct, 
 what was passing in Mr. Sinon's mind : the 
 most wonderful thing about genius is the way 
 in which it reaches its ends blindfold, without 
 being able to remember or even to perceive a 
 single step of the road, like the cat who may 
 be carried in a bag to the utmost ends of the 
 earth and yet will find the quickest and 
 straightest way back again to those who flat- 
 tered themselves that they were rid of her for 
 ever. 
 
 Most certainly Gideon did know this — that 
 Mr. Sinon, had he guessed the true state of 
 things, would not only have refused him the 
 hundred pounds, but would have had abso- 
 lutely nothing to do with him, even as a jackal. 
 He knew perfectly well that they were laughing 
 at him behind his back, as a rich amateur in 
 business whom they could use and fleece, and 
 who could be made to pay for everything that 
 went wrong until all he possessed had passed 
 
 VOL. II. H 
 
98 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 into their hands or into those of friendly cre- 
 ditors of their own rehgion. But he by no 
 means, when he left the office, turned the 
 tables by laughing at the backs of Messrs. 
 Sinon and Aristides. It was all much too 
 serious, and at the same time too simple and 
 natural, for laughter even in one's sleeve. It 
 was in the fitness of things that Greek mer- 
 chants and American editors and German 
 statesmen should unite and combine to make 
 the fortune of Gideon Skull. For what had 
 the Americans fought one another but to 
 institute a profitable blockade, or at least a 
 blockade that should have been profitable 
 except for subsequent circumstances that 
 genius itself could not foresee Such mis- 
 takes were not likely to happen again. And 
 now, as if he himself had arranged the board, 
 there was a great war in France, an admirable 
 system of neutrahty laws in England, and a 
 clever Greek firm at his disposal to make his 
 fortune for him — really his fortune, at last — 
 out of straw. If the speculation in news and 
 Eentes failed, lie could not lose ; for he had 
 nothing to lose. But it could not fail. It 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 99 
 
 must succeed; and lie would be a capitalist 
 at once, and in due time a millionaire ; and — 
 who knows? — squire of Copleston, and hus- 
 band of Helen Eeid. 
 
 Victor Waldron had once called him a 
 sanguine man. And certainly it had happened 
 only too often that his plans, since he had 
 given up pleasure as the great purpose of life, 
 had failed. Otherwise he would not have 
 been living from hand to mouth on a barren 
 reputation for success at forty years old. But 
 it would be hard to say that there was any- 
 thing over-sanguine here. Everybody was 
 playing into his hands. 
 
 Even some happy instinct had led him to 
 get rid of Helen's brother, or at least to get 
 him out of the way before he could guess, not 
 having yet seen Helen, how important it was 
 about to become that she should have no 
 brother for a while. ' No,' he thought, ' I 
 must not produce that will, even if I could 
 lay my hand on it this minute, till there's 
 occasion. I should make her grateful to me 
 all her days, and I should lose her for all 
 
 mine. As long as the Eeids go down and 
 H 2 
 
loo QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 Eentes go up, I have the whip hand : but the 
 will must be in nobody's hands but mine. I 
 wish I could imagine what it all means ; but 
 I must do without imagining. If there's a 
 will, and there's any flaw about it, such as 
 the Eeids and the Waldrons seem to have 
 been in the habit of making, I shall know 
 pretty well what to do. If there's one — I 
 shall know any way what to do with Waldron. 
 I think he'll be sorry not to have paid his 
 debts, one of these days — and the longer I 
 hold it back, the better for me and the worse 
 for him. Helen married — out comes the will 
 at any time ; out of any old lumber-room, or 
 wherever it might be. Let me see — I told 
 her I'd take three days. Considering what 
 sort of an uncle I've got, one ought to do ; 
 and a run down to Copleston won't run away 
 with much of a hundred pounds — I shall have 
 almost enough left to last me till it's time to 
 send Eentes up as high as the sky. Three 
 days ! I'm hanged if I make it two.' 
 
 So he turned into the next telegraph ofiice 
 and despatched this message : — ' Skull to 
 Sinon. — Can't come to-night. Must go and 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 loi 
 
 see an old uncle in the country. Back day- 
 after to-morrow if all goes well.' Without 
 putting a false word into the message, his 
 instinct felt that Mr. Sinon would translate it 
 into a summons to a rich death-bed. In what 
 other sense could the word ' must ' and ' an 
 old uncle in the country ' be possibly em- 
 ployed by Gideon — or by anybody else for 
 that matter, according to Mr. Sinon's know- 
 ledge of the world ? Nor would the legatee- 
 like extravagance and haste of putting more 
 than twenty words into the despatch be 
 wholly thrown away. 
 
I02 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 In Matters Politic, better it is that we trust them that he 
 over-hold than them that he over- wise For the Com- 
 plexion of Mar^ his Virtue, saith in his Book Barochus of Flo- 
 rensj is to guard with Heat and to he glad in his Guarding : 
 hut of wise old Satuim it is to guard with more of Heed, but 
 yet to be sad and sorrowful therein. Wherefore if thou take 
 a Soldier for thine Heart-fellow, it may be he will lodge thy 
 Secrets on Caucasus his Peak where none dare climb albeit some 
 may see them twinkle afar. But if thou take some clerkly 
 Wight, then will he, by divers cunning Shifts and crafty Turn- 
 ings, bury them as Dcedalus his Man-Bull where none may see, 
 yet shall Sir Theseus coming with his Clew find and gain the 
 
 same For the Seeker of Men's Devices climbeth not 
 
 Atlas after them. But the Maze twisteth not whereof thine 
 Enemy, though he halt never so, gathereth not the Clew 
 hard by. 
 
 Gideon Skull had his share of human weak- 
 nesses, and he was far too honest a man to 
 deny them. But Eomance was not one of 
 them. His home was not Hillswick, but the 
 world ; so his rare visits to his uncle were 
 most healthily free from those sentimental 
 passages in which the tumble-down church 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 103 
 
 tower of the little country town in which he 
 had played as a boy and done a great deal 
 worse as a young man might have been ex- 
 pected to take part more or less prominently. 
 Nevertheless, when h^ left his fly in the George 
 Yard, there was a sort of atmosphere about 
 Hillswick which seemed half new to him and 
 yet half old, as if he were remembering some- 
 thing that had never happened. After all, 
 there must have been some scrap of heart 
 somewhere about his very first flirtation ; and 
 something had happened within the last eight- 
 and-forty hours to put a ghost of life into 
 that long-forgotten atom. As he passed down 
 the lane that led to the rectory, he remembered 
 how, in that very lane, nearly^five-and-twenty 
 years ago, his uncle Christopher had caught 
 him arm-in-arm with Sally Green, the carpen- 
 ter's daughter, and what a storm there had 
 been in Hillswick for a whole week after. 
 To-night was just such a starry evening ; and 
 he wondered, as he half smiled at^^the thought 
 of that scene, what might or might not have 
 happened if Uncle Christopher had not been 
 quite so much shocked at the sight of a young 
 
loi QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 man's first evening walk with a girl, even 
 tliougli she was by no means pretty, and 
 though her father was but a carpenter. Per- 
 haps, he thought, if he and she had been well 
 laughed at instead of preached at and scolded 
 and made the town-talk of, things might be 
 rather different with him now, and decidedly 
 better for her. But after a moment he 
 shrugged his shoulders at himself, and went 
 back upon the double track of Helen Eeid, 
 almost within reach of one hand, and a good 
 share of at least fifty thousand pounds within 
 grasp of the other. He had not gone near 
 enough to a reverie to prevent him from 
 noticing even such a common object of Hills- 
 wick as old Grimes. 
 
 ' Is parson at home ? ' he asked, as the 
 clerk and sexton pulled his cap to him. 
 
 ' Yes, Mr. Skull,' said old Grimes, whom 
 experience and tact had taught never to be 
 deaf with Gideon. ' He'll be at home.' 
 
 ' Any news ? ' 
 
 ' None but a burying to-morrow, Mr. 
 Gideon, and a wedding next day but two.' 
 ' How do you like the Yankee squire ? ' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 105 
 
 asked Gideon, in the bitter tone that never 
 failed to come when he spoke of his old friend. 
 ' I suppose he's managed to come over you 
 all pretty well by this time, eh ? ' 
 
 ' Come over, is it, Mr. Gideon? Oh yes, 
 that's it, if gone off's come over. I'm nigh 
 eighty, and I never see nor hear tell of such 
 a squire. I don't see him at all, for that 
 matter. He's been up in Lun'on all the time 
 he's been here. He's not pulled a bell-rope in 
 this church ever since he's been away ; and 
 as for spending a penny in the place, he's not 
 done it, Mr. Gideon. That's bad for trade, I say, 
 though he can't stop the folk from marrying 
 nor from burying. He may call himself Wal- 
 dron, but it's plain Waldron aren't Eeid. Old 
 Harry Eeid that I rang into the world and 
 tolled out of it was worth twenty of Squire 
 Waldron.' 
 
 ' Do you mean to tell me that he doesn't 
 live at Copleston ? I came across the — him, 
 up in town ; but I never supposed he wasn't 
 
 living here So that's what wanting 
 
 Copleston for the sake of the people means,' 
 thought Gideon. 
 
io6 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 ' All, I thought when he first came grub- 
 bmg and an ti- quitting and perigeeing up in 
 the steeple, he warn't writing a county history. 
 I've halft a mind to write a county history 
 myself out of the rat-holes, to try and pick 
 up a fortune too. There's lots more papers, 
 if a man'ld only care to go through, and 
 could pay me my fee — and I'd live in the 
 place, and spend my money on it like a gen- 
 tleman.' 
 
 Gideon was duly welcomed by his aunts 
 as a rich and flourishing nephew who did 
 credit to the familj^, and, having relieved their 
 minds of the terrors of hospitality by telling 
 them that he should put up at the George as 
 usual for the few days he intended to be in 
 Hillswick, went to look for his uncle in the 
 study. His arrival was always governed by 
 the same forms, down to the same precise 
 words about their having dined early, the 
 larder being just unluckily empty, and the 
 spare bed-room being just in a state of full 
 scour. The curate was always deep in 
 accounts, which he kept with the regularity 
 of clockwork, and with as much inaccuracy as 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 107 
 
 regularity ; so, as lie had perpetual arrears of 
 the most complicated errors in shillings and 
 halfpence to rectify, and was seldom seen but 
 in the profoundest depths of long-division and 
 rule-of-three, no wonder he got the character 
 of being an excellent man of business for a 
 clergyman. 
 
 Gideon had not seen his uncle for a con- 
 siderable time, and noticed that he was looking 
 either worried or unwell. His general air of 
 being a sketch in outline had been increased 
 by the addition of lines and the subtraction of 
 such colour as he had to lose. 
 
 ' And six is three-and-fivepence-halfpenny. 
 Ah, Gideon! I'm very glad to see you, in- 
 deed. YouVe seen your aunts, I suppose ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, yes. I'm taking a day or two's holi- 
 day, but I shall give no trouble : I'm at the 
 c George, as usual. Hillswick's looking much 
 the same. One doesn't see much sign of 
 the new state of things. Why, I expected 
 to see the High Street turned into another 
 Broadway, and an Athenseum, and a new 
 Church, and an Opera House, under the 
 Yankee rule — or a new town-pump any way. 
 
io8 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 I don't see a spark of enterprise ; and the 
 George fly was decidedly not new.' 
 
 ' I am happy to tell you, Gideon, that the 
 exceedingly unpleasant.and uncourteous Ameri- 
 can person who broke my reading lamp and 
 nearly fractured my skull chooses to be non- 
 resident. It is very much for the best that it 
 should be so. It reconciles me to your choice 
 of an American.' 
 
 ' Ah, yes, old Grimes, whom I met in the 
 lane, told me he hasn't been taking much 
 advantage of his spell of Copleston. But, as 
 you say, all the better for a warming-pan. 
 It's a most extraordinary story, and the more 
 I think of it the more extraordinary it seems 
 to be.' 
 
 'Yes,' said Uncle Christopher nervously, 
 ' it is very extraordinary — very strange. Mrs. 
 Eeid is a good, well-meaning woman, but I do 
 not think she has been very considerate of 
 Me. It is true that she has considered my 
 flock in the future, and that ought to be 
 enough for me ; and doubtless that is the first 
 thing to be thought of, but it is not the only 
 thing, Gideon. It is a heavy thing for a man 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 109 
 
 at my age to be made responsible for responsi- 
 bilities which — which are, in fact, heavy ones. 
 I wish she had taken you into her counsel 
 instead of me.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Gideon, ' no doubt it would 
 have been better. But she did not know me, 
 you see, and she did know you.' 
 
 ' She rehed upon my judgment : but — 
 well, it will be a relief to me when everything 
 is put straight again. Excuse me a moment, 
 I must see about getting you a glass of wine 
 after your drive.' 
 
 ' I'm hanged if I know what to make of it 
 at all ! ' thought Gideon, as he stood with his 
 back to the empty fireplace in the usual atti- 
 tude of concentrated meditation. ' That 
 miserable old idiot, Uncle Christopher, has got 
 something on his mind — bah, on his liver — 
 I'll swear. I'd swear that, if it was only be- 
 cause he's gone to get me a glass of wine. 
 When did he ever think of a glass of wine 
 between meals in his hfe before He wants 
 the wine, and he wants an excuse for it to 
 the aunts, and the excuse is Me. It can't 
 be that he's got to keep secret that mad 
 
no 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 crotchet of Mother Eeicl: a secret of hers 
 would have made hhn a hajDpy man. I won- 
 der if he murdered old Harry ? By Jove ! 
 not a bad notion. What a sight it would be 
 to see Uncle Christopher hanged ! It's like 
 enough he's taken to drink, and he looks as if 
 he had a bad touch of the nerves ; but he's 
 not the sort of man to spend good money on 
 bad drink for nothing. You are a murderer, 
 Uncle Christopher. You are a second Eugene 
 Aram, scholar and murderer. Or, perhaps, 
 you're a madman ? No ; a man can't go out 
 of his mind without a mind to go out of. So 
 you must be a sane and cold-blooded murderer. 
 I'm beginning to get proud of you. I wonder 
 what you'd take to dispose of the Yankee 
 squire, with young Alan to follow. Not much, 
 I dare say. I wonder what you do the trick 
 with,' Gideon's thoughts ran on, too tired with 
 the long journey and too slackened by the 
 sudden plunge from the strain of London into 
 the almost painful quiet of Hillswick for any- 
 thing but jesting in their own pecuhar way. 
 ' Slow poison or a sudden blow ? You look 
 most like a poisoner. I shouldn't wonder, if 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 Ill 
 
 I opened that bureau, to see a few dozen of 
 acqiia tofana ; or perhaps you invite your vic- 
 tims to dinner, and are clever enough to get 
 them to take a second glass of your wine. I 
 must look out when that wine comes.' His 
 eyes rested idly on the bureau, and his hands 
 took a book from the table no less idly. ' I 
 wonder what you're mixing with the wine that 
 you're so long, or if you're only making it on 
 the premises, or trying to persuade Aunt Sarah 
 to part with the cellar-key ? A law-book ? 
 Well, I never saw a law-book here before, any 
 more than I ever saw wine between meals — 
 or wine at any time for that matter. Now 
 what can you have been spending money on 
 law-books for — or borrowing them ? " Plead- 
 ing and evidence in Criminal Cases," eh ? And 
 with a marker in it, too ; stuck in at " Poison," 
 I suppose. Ah, I'm on your traces now, 
 Uncle Christopher. This ought to be worth 
 ten pounds a year to me — Whosoever shall, 
 either during the life of the Testator or after 
 his Death, steal, or for any fraudulent purpose 
 destroy, cancel, obliterate, or conceal any 
 Will " By Jupiter Ammon ! ' cried 
 
112 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 Gideon aloud, as he slammed back the book 
 on the table, ' I've got it now ! ' 
 
 He thought on, without any more jest- 
 ing, until his uncle returned with the wine 
 ' By the way,' he said, ' talking of what you 
 were saying, I've seen the Eeids in town. 
 Do you ever hear from them — from Mrs. 
 Eeid ' 
 
 ' Not often. I hear from Mrs. Eeid now 
 and then. I hope they are well.' 
 
 ' Then, if you've not heard lately, I sup- 
 pose you don't know that young Eeid has 
 taken a place on a newspaper and gone to 
 Versailles ? ' 
 
 ' It is all very extraordinary, Gideon.' 
 
 'It's more than that. Uncle Christopher. 
 I hope you and the old lady know very well 
 what you're both about, and have got lawyer's 
 advice about the matter. I shouldn't like to 
 be in your shoes if young Eeid gets a stray 
 bullet in him. There was a war correspon- 
 dent killed the other day Look here, 
 
 Uncle Christopher ; I have been thinking a good 
 deal about the Eeids since I met them, and I 
 naturally take an interest in my own relations. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 113 
 
 I'm not a lawyer, but I'm a business man, and 
 to know business is much the same as to know 
 law. You mustn't let a madwoman like Mrs. 
 Eeid lead you by the nose. I wish ' 
 
 ' She would not think of such a thing. I 
 have never been led by the nose since I was 
 born. I have always been remarkable for an 
 exceptional degree of moral resolution.' 
 
 ' I beg your pardon. Uncle Christopher. 
 Of course I know that a man like you would 
 never allow himself to be led by the nose. 
 But, I was going to say, I wish you'd let me 
 see the will. That's all.' 
 ' The i^liat^ Gideon ? ' 
 
 ' Old Harry Eeid's will. You needn't look 
 so scared. Uncle Christopher. I'm not likely 
 to get my own uncle sent to gaol. I only 
 want to see that everything will be safe for 
 you if anything happens to young Eeid. Of 
 course the mother will be safe from everything 
 but a lunatic asylum, if the story of Copleston 
 ever comes to be known.' 
 
 ' You've seen the Eeids ? Mrs. Eeid has 
 been consulting you ? ' 
 
 Gideon thought for a moment whether it 
 
 VOL. II. I 
 
114 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 might not be advisable to claim Mrs. Eeid's 
 authority for his information and for his right 
 to advise. But his natural honesty prevailed. 
 ^ Xo, Uncle Christopher. She has said nothing 
 to me. But in business we learn a knack of 
 putting things together, that's all. Conceal- 
 ing wills is felony, you know ; and a mad 
 woman's sure to be cunning enough to manage 
 so as to throw the responsibility on you. 
 Young Eeid might be merciful to his mother's 
 infirmities ; but I don't think you'd ever be 
 able to make him understand that a clergy- 
 man, resolute and clear-sighted like you, who 
 kept him out of his rights for the best seven 
 years of his life, ought to be easily forgiven. 
 I know what I should feel, or any man.' 
 
 ^ Gideon,' said his uncle eagerly, ' you are 
 wrong — quite wrong. I've examined the sta- 
 tute over and over again, and made all the 
 inquiries I could, and it is clear — quite clear 
 — that in a case like this, where there is no 
 fraudulent intent — those are the very words,' 
 he went on, opening his law-book nervously 
 and handing it to his nephew, ' there is no 
 crime. For any fraudulent purpose," those 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 115 
 
 are the words, you see. You can't call it a 
 fraudulent purpose to help a woman to — to — 
 carry out the best intentions. I have gone 
 throuo^h it over and over ao^ain.' 
 
 ' Yes — I see the words — " Penal servitude " 
 — " Not less than three years " — " Fraudulent 
 purpose " — " presumed." I wish I were a 
 lawyer. But if you think the law will acquit 
 you on the ground that somebody else meant 
 well, I feel pretty sure you're wrong.' 
 
 'But my own intentions are good too, 
 Gideon ; they are excellent intentions. In 
 undertaking this responsibility, most unwil- 
 lingly, but unavoidably ' 
 
 ' Uncle Christopher ! You will never 
 make this evil-thinking and scandalous world 
 believe that an elderly clergyman, of exceed- 
 ingly small private means, concealed a will 
 merely because somebody told him to do so, 
 and without a view to his own advantage in 
 some way. You may get the Attorney-Gene- 
 ral to argue it for you for ten years, and you 
 won't change the nature of the world. You 
 know so much of the other world, Uncle 
 Christopher — there's a common notion about 
 I 2 
 
ii6 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 what use tliey make of good intentions there 
 Any way, in this world, they pave a good 
 many gaols with them.' 
 
 ' You — you think — that ? ' faltered Uncle 
 Christopher, gulping down the rest of his 
 wine. 
 
 ' Well— I can't mince matters — I do. But 
 I can't be sure without seeing the will. I 
 hope it's safe, wherever it may be. Those 
 things have a knack of turning up where 
 they're least expected, you know. And if 
 young Eeid, who's no fool, ever gets a hint 
 from his mother — who is^ and a woman into 
 the bargain — ^well, there'll be the devil to pay. 
 Of course it leaves everything to him, and 
 something to Helen — Miss Eeid. Old Harry 
 would have only one idea of will-making. I 
 don't suppose he's made me a legatee — I don't 
 suppose you've been defrauding your own 
 flesh and blood, Uncle Christopher. Who 
 are the executors ? ' 
 
 ' Mrs. Eeid and I « ' 
 
 ' The devil you are ! I beg your pardon, 
 but it's enough to make the nephew of an 
 angel swear. Well, it's too late for anything now 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 117 
 
 but to keep you safe, and to manage that the 
 will, when it's wanted, shall be by the merest 
 chance in the world — ^where is it, this will ? ' 
 ' I have pledged my solemn word, Gideon 
 
 ' Come, uncle — be a man ; I declare it's 
 monstrous, the way in which Mrs. Eeid has 
 been treating you. Upon my soul, I shouldn't 
 wonder if you'd got it put away in that very 
 bureau. You've kept whatever promise she got 
 you to make only too well — it's not your fault 
 that a man of the commonest common-sense 
 has been able to see through a pane of glass, 
 for it's been nothing more. What's the good 
 of keeping a secret in a box with a glass lid, 
 I'm hanged if I can see. Alan Eeid isn't your 
 nephew, you know. Any way, I supposed 
 you never promised not to tell the terms, I 
 don't like to see a man like you the slave of 
 any woman. Uncle Christopher.' 
 
 What man, unless he be the strongest in a 
 thousand, can bear to be told that he is a 
 woman's slave ? Gideon nearly succeeded in 
 striking a spark of anger out of Uncle Chris- 
 topher. ' Slave— eh ? What's that ? Slave ? 
 
1 1 8 Q UEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 Ah, I suppose because you think I give way 
 to your aunts for the sake of peace and quiet- 
 ness, I couldn't take my own way if I pleased ? 
 They are aware of it, too. They know, if I 
 really wanted to do a thing, I'd do it — only, you 
 see, those great occasions very seldom occur^ 
 and, whenever they don't, why should a man 
 throw away his superior strength in trivial 
 contentions about such domestic matters as — 
 as — the cellar-key ? If Mrs. Eeid thinks she 
 can order me about and make me liable for 
 her consequences, then I say she is taking a 
 most unwarrantable liberty, which I, for one, 
 will not allow.' 
 
 'Ah, that's speaking like a man, now. 
 Let me see, nobody's so young as to count on 
 living out the next seven years, or the next 
 six years, even. It would be a pretty affair, if 
 Alan Eeid were to die without a will from not 
 knowing that he had anything to leave. 
 Who'd get Copleston then ? — if he died un- 
 married, I mean ? ' 
 
 Uncle Christopher nearly choked himself 
 with another gulp of wine, as a protest against 
 the accusation of being a victim to petticoat 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 119 
 
 tyranny. He seemed growing reckless in his 
 old age, and it must have been an intense re- 
 lief to him to unburden himself of one more 
 fragment of the secret to which the bare letter 
 of his loyalty to his hopes of the living did 
 not bind him. ' Miss Eeid. Most unquestion- 
 ably Miss Eeid. She would be his heir-at- 
 law.' 
 
 ' By Jupiter Ammon, Uncle Christopher, 
 I wouldn't be in your best boots for ten thou- 
 sand pounds if you ever get into hot water 
 with Miss Helen. That young woman's got 
 devil enough in her for ten : and she's as sharp 
 ^as a million needles. Why, if there's a secret 
 within a hundred miles of her, she'll work it 
 out — I'm saying what she has done. And if 
 there's anything to be got by it, she'll do it 
 again. She's hard on the track as it is ; and 
 though she might spare her own mother, I'll 
 eat my own worst boots if she'll spare you. 
 She's not a girl of the Eeid pattern, I can tell 
 you. I hope you don't keep that will on the 
 premises. Uncle Christopher. If you do, she'll 
 ferret it out, as sure as you're a living man. 
 Now, if I had it, I could keep it in my own 
 
I20 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 office safe, wliicli is just the last place any- 
 body would look for it in.' 
 
 ' Ell ? You ? ' Gideon somehow felt that 
 his offer had been made the slightest shade of 
 a degree too soon, and that he had, by the 
 same amount, overrated his uncle's confidencje 
 in him. It does not answer to treat any m^ 
 as if he were wholly imbecile. His uncle 
 could not and did not suspect him : but this 
 sudden generous offer to take the chances of 
 all sorts of trouble upon his own shoulders did 
 not seem quite characteristic of Gideon. He 
 had just enough ear for harmony of character 
 to feel that a false note had jarred him, though 
 he had not enough to tell how or why. 
 ' You ? I am much obliged to you, Gideon. 
 But it is quite safe in the bank here. Nobody 
 will look for it there.' 
 
 ' Perhaps not — perhaps not, uncle,' said 
 Gideon, more vexed that the will was not in 
 the house than that his offer had been refused. 
 ' Banks are safe — unless they happen to smash, 
 or get broken into, or burn ; or unless Miss 
 Helen finds out where it is from her mother, 
 and comes down to Copleston and fascinates 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 121 
 
 the bank manager. Or unless — but, well, 
 none of these things may happen in the next 
 seven years. I wouldn't choose a county-bank 
 for a hiding-hole myself — but then, of course, 
 
 your experience is greater than mine 
 
 you old idiot ! ' thought Gideon. ' But, well, 
 — things are found when one knows where 
 they are.' 
 
122 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 oil whaur's the tune o' heather bells ? 
 
 An' whaur's the gowd o' broom ? 
 An' whaur's the glee the lavrock tells 
 
 When hearts are leir an' toom ? 
 'Tis then sae brawly frae the flure 
 
 The nettle pouks her sting 
 As a' the flowers the muirlan' bure 
 
 When love was wed wi' Spring. 
 
 The nettle decks hersel' wi' green 
 
 An' thinks her Queen ower a' : 
 Quo' she, nae lady e'er was seen 
 
 Sae sheensome an' sae braw. 
 Oh, whaur's the guid when Hearts fa' wrang ? 
 
 An' when the lavrock's fain 
 To lilt aboon his soarin' sang 
 
 She gars him croon her ain. 
 
 The end of Helen's thoughts was to sit down 
 and write a letter : 
 
 ' Dearest Bertha, — It is so long since you 
 heard from me that you must have forgotten 
 that there is anybody named Helen in the 
 world. The fact is, I forget it myself, some- 
 times ; but, whenever I remember it, I am 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 123 
 
 selfish enough to hope that she is not quite 
 forgotten by everybody within a drive from 
 her old home. As I don't want you to skip 
 the whole of my letter, 111 begin at the end, 
 so you'll have no excuse for not reading what 
 comes afterwards. So, in the first and last 
 place, I am, dearest Bertha, your most loving 
 Helen. In the last place but one, I fancy you 
 will still care a little to know that Alan has 
 left us, and gone to Paris, or, at least, as near 
 to Paris as the Parisians will let him. But 
 don't think he has done anything so roman- 
 tically desperate as to turn soldier. His 
 duties are, first and foremost, to keep out of 
 harm's way, and, secondly, either to find ad- 
 ventures or make them. He has gone out to 
 write letters for an American newspaper, and 
 I am glad of it, for he needs any sort of man's 
 life, and I'm sure was being bored and wor- 
 ried to death with us two useless women. I 
 know wild steam-engines wouldn't drag that out 
 of him, but / have felt it, and have been 
 hating myself for being one of them. He is 
 very patient and very kind and very brave, 
 but he has given up telling any of his thoughts 
 
124 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 and feelings even to me. But I know, dear 
 Bertha, a great deal of what he does feel. I 
 was very much surprised and hurt, too, that 
 he left Copleston without wishing you good- 
 bye. I could not understand it at all ; and I 
 dare say you think of my brother — whatever 
 you may think of me, and if you think of him, 
 at all — only as a light-brained, ill-mannered 
 nobody not worth remembering. Well, you 
 knoAv my flighty ways, and how I never could 
 see anything go crooked without trying to put 
 it straight, and, in short, all about Helen 
 Eeid, and above all how she cares for nobody 
 on earth as she does for her brother and her 
 old friend. By all means forget him, but let 
 it be in a just way. I have found out why he 
 did not say good-bye to you ; and though I 
 can't tell you why, I can tell you that if I 
 were a girl he cared for, I don't know whether 
 I should have been angry with him : I think 
 I should ; but I should have honoured him. 
 Men's reasons are almost always absurd, but 
 they can't help their nature, and we must be 
 content with their meaning well. All by my- 
 self I have found out that he most dehberately 
 avoided even seeing you for what he thought 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 125 
 
 was honour's sake and out of respect for you. 
 You know I would not ask you to think 
 kindly of him if I did not know that you 
 may, and if you didn't know you might trust 
 me in this as I would trust you. Don't make 
 things more bitter for me by making me feel 
 that there are misunderstandings and misjudg- 
 ments between the only two people for whom 
 ' — except, of course, myself — I care. And 
 please don't answer me by saying " What in 
 the world are you making such a fuss about ? 
 I'm sure I never thought about it at all." For 
 I'm sure you must have thought a httle about 
 one who you know liked you as Alan did, and 
 who left you because he loved you, and because 
 he does^ as / know. 
 
 ' How I should like to see you again ! I 
 don't suppose you'd make me feel that things 
 were so very much changed. Mamma is a 
 miracle of content ; and I have no particular 
 wish for myself, except that I could turn my- 
 self into a young man. I should make a better 
 one than Alan, a long way. I should go straight 
 to the girl I loved, and say, " Here I am, pen- 
 niless, useless, nameless, every thingless. Marry 
 me." And then I'd go to my enemy, with her 
 
126 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 glove in my hat, and smite him hip and thigh. 
 But I can't do it ; and in these days Eosahnd 
 and the Spanish Nun and Joan of Arc and 
 Imogen would be misunderstood, and set 
 down as being sadly improper. Something, 
 of course, I must do ; but I'm in the hardest 
 position a girl was ever in. Whatever I do, it 
 must be what Alan would approve of, and what 
 would not obhge me to leave mamma, especially 
 now that Alan is away. I'm no companion to 
 her, but it would not do to leave her all alone. 
 Why can't I sing, or play the piano, or draw, 
 or act, or sew, or turn pirouettes, or write 
 novels, or cook, or do a single thing that other 
 girls can ? Why, I don't know enough of such 
 things even to teach them ; so, from what I 
 see in London, my knowledge must be small 
 indeed. I'm a downright plebeian in my no- 
 tions, but both mamma and Alan are so terri- 
 bly proud that I believe they'd rather see me 
 elope than trying to teach other girls how to 
 behave themselves. What should you do ? 
 
 ' And, please, I should like to hear some- 
 thing about Copleston. We never talk of it 
 in our new home, or hear of it from anybody. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 127 
 
 What sort of a man is Mr. Waldron ? Have 
 you yet become acquainted with him ? Has 
 he given any parties yet, and have you been 
 to them ? If you have, how odd it must have 
 seemed to you, who knew the old place in the 
 old times ! I do really want to know all you 
 can tell me about Mr. Waldon. Who have 
 they said is to be Mrs. Waldron ? Somebody, of 
 course, and not Miss Bolt, I suppose. Or is he 
 to bring you a nasal lady from beyond the sea ? 
 
 ' I suppose nobody asks after us, not even 
 old Grimes ? If you come across him when 
 you chance to be shopping in Hillswick, re- 
 member me to him. Do let me have a line at 
 once, dear Bertha, to let me know what you 
 are doing, and how you all are, and all about 
 everything. I forgive you for not writing 
 sooner, because you didn't know our address, 
 and I was ashamed to let you know it for 
 Alan's behaviour's sake. But I'm not now. 
 This is a terribly long letter — too many words 
 and too little sense in them ; but there is some 
 sense near the top of the first page. Do write 
 soon, and believe me — as I said before — ^your 
 most loving Helen. 
 
128 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 ' Do tell me all about Copleston.' 
 
 It was a very mixed letter indeed. Helen 
 had been seized with an impulse to do some- 
 thing exceedingly politic, had then forgotten 
 herself in her earnestness about Alan, and 
 had so gone on, alternating between impul- 
 sive policy and politic impulse to the end, 
 when she remembered her first intention and 
 put it into a postscript of just six words. The 
 letter was very unintentionally sincere, and 
 yet Bertha might look in vain for what was 
 written between the lines. However, it was 
 safe to be answered, and something of Bertha's 
 mind Helen must needs know before setting 
 to work in earnest for Alan. She did not think 
 that the woman lived who could be faithless 
 in her heart to Alan ; but still she had been 
 wrong in so many things that she might be 
 wrong again — and if Bertha were lost, she felt 
 that Copleston might just as well be lost too, 
 so far as any good to Alan was concerned. 
 And as Victor Waldron must be the centre of 
 all her plans, whatever they might be, she 
 must study the force and nature of the enemy 
 and his country from more trustworthy sources 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 129 
 
 than the reports of Gideon Skull, whose views 
 were coloured by enmity and were only a 
 man s. If Bertha would act as her inno- 
 cent spy, she would learn a ^thousand little 
 things, infinitely more important than great 
 ones, which only a woman can tell because 
 only a woman would dream of seeing them. 
 
 And what could an answer from Bertha 
 Meyrick to Helen Eeid prove but the warmest 
 of invitations to spend the time of Alan's 
 absence at Thorp End, where the Meyricks 
 lived, within an easy drive of Hillswick and 
 Copleston ? Alan would not have permitted 
 such a visit for an instant, but he was away, 
 and could not object for months to come. 
 Mrs. Eeid would no doubt be more than un- 
 wilhng to accept, and to return in such a 
 manner to the neighbourhood of her old home ; 
 but, thought Helen, she will hardly have the 
 heart to say No to the first piece of pleasure 
 that has come to me ; and she will herself be 
 glad, in her heart, to escape from this useless 
 life in London, which means nothing, now that 
 Alan has gone. And, once in the enemy's 
 country, though but on its outskirts, many 
 
 VOL. II. K 
 
I30 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 chances might come — some must come — and 
 it would be her own fault if she lost one. It 
 would clearly be her own fault if she never 
 came across Victor Waldron again, either at 
 Thorp End, where he would of course be an 
 occasional visitor, or in Hillswick, or at au}^ 
 rate somewhere. And then, with the effect of 
 her unintentional experiment upon Gideon 
 Skull fresh upon her, it would be scarcely less 
 her fault if Victor Waldron himself did not 
 end the war by suing at her feet for leave to 
 make any sort of terms. 
 
 It was all for Alan. What did it signify what 
 happened to her, whatever the terms might be ? 
 She had ceased to respect herself enough to 
 feel any hurt or harm about selling herself into 
 downright slavery, had that been in question, for 
 the sake of Alan. Of what use was she in the 
 whole world except to do all things and suffer 
 all things for him ? Of vanity and presump- 
 tion, her plan had no more than Cleopatra's 
 when she sailed down the Nile to conquer 
 Antony. She knew her power, and knowledge 
 can never be vain. Gideon Skull had taught 
 her the first letters of a new alphabet, and tl:e 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 131 
 
 most universal and natural of instincts, forced 
 by desperate necessity, had taught her the rest 
 from the beo^innino; to the end. There was as 
 much presumption in her as in creatures that 
 have suddenly found out the use of their 
 bright skins or plumes and their sharp claws, 
 and no more vanity than in a falcon, who 
 hunts not for herself but for her master. She 
 was feeling towards Waldron just then as a 
 falcon to a kite. What girl needs age or 
 experience to learn, with knowledge, the exact 
 measure of her own power ? Only, most 
 happily learn it from actual or possible love, 
 and not from hate and its needs. 
 
 Mrs. Eeid's plan for her children's welfare 
 was certainly working well enough to some 
 sort of end. 
 
 The letter was hardly oflf Helen's mind 
 when one came from Alan, who had not yet 
 reached the point between Dover and Ver- 
 sailles where private correspondence would 
 have to cease for a time. It came from the 
 Fleet Street office for Mrs. Eeid, and had been 
 written in pencil on the road, full of haste and 
 good spirits. Helen chose to consider the 
 K 2 
 
132 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 spirits forced. Mrs. Eeid would have been 
 better pleased had he written less like a 
 schoolboy on a holiday. He had not yet 
 seen more than the merest outskirts of a 
 country with an enemy in its heart, and he 
 had as yet found no adventures worth record- 
 ing except a few difficulties about getting 
 forward. He had never been out of England 
 in his life before, nor ever had occasion to 
 speak in French to a Frenchman, so that his 
 difficulties would have proved real adventures 
 — so he wrote — had it not been for his luck 
 in having for travelling companion a capital 
 fellow named Gray, who knew a good deal 
 about France and French ways, and who was 
 going to the siege for fun, and who had 
 helped him through his first ' Argus ' letter in 
 splendid style. The weather was splendid. 
 And Helen decidedly made up her mind not 
 to make a single extract from her brother's 
 letter for the benefit of Bertha. It is to be 
 hoped that Alan's first letter to the ' Argus ' 
 gave more satisfaction than his first letter home. 
 
 Nothing of real consequence had happened 
 when, well within the three days after his 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 13.3 
 
 first visit, Gideon Skull called again. People 
 always assume that the forms of such visits 
 will repeat themselves for ever after the 
 precedent of the first, and Gideon was put 
 out by not finding Helen alone. It had not 
 occurred to him that seeing Helen except in 
 her mother's presence was not to be counted on; 
 and when he found the two ladies together, he 
 also found himself unprepared with an excuse 
 for calling. Mrs. Eeid, too, looked by no 
 means encouraging, and received him with the 
 stiffest of bows and a look of surprise at his ap- 
 pearance which meant anything but welcome. 
 But he noticed also that Helen coloured when 
 he entered, and that was even better than he 
 had looked for. She, -vexed at such an acci- 
 dent, was ashamed of the shame which the 
 sight of Gideon, for no cause of which she 
 could possibly be conscious, made her feel. 
 Well, it should be for the last time. She 
 would take good care not to change colour 
 in that way again, or without good practical 
 reason. What shame should or could there 
 be in seeing Gideon Skull when — seeing it was 
 all for Alan — there was none in feeling and 
 
134 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 thinking what he had made her think and feel 
 during these two nights and days ? 
 
 ' I — I suppose you are surprised to see 
 me here, Mrs. Eeid,' said Gideon, with un- 
 characteristic discomposure, while he tried to 
 study Helen's looks without apj)earing to pay 
 any special heed to her. Some men, and all 
 women, can do that very cleverly ; but then 
 all women have tact, and some men have 
 cunning, and Gideon was without either 
 So he looked and stammered like a big, 
 rough man who has fallen into first love, 
 and does not know how to behave himself 
 under such new conditions. ' The fact is — 
 well I was passing, and I thought perhaps 
 
 Have you heard from young — from 
 
 your son ? ' 
 
 And, no doubt, the fact was that he had 
 been passing, and that he had been thinking, 
 and his question was natural, and neither 
 logically nor grammatically connected with his 
 passing and thinking. But, with the usual per- 
 versity of all Gideon's words and ways, what 
 was simple, literal, grammatical truth gave Mrs. 
 Eeid the impression of meaning what a lie could 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 135 
 
 not have made them seem to mean half so 
 well. It was perfectly natural that the man 
 who had got Alan his place should have some 
 polite curiosity as to how Alan was faring. 
 She ceased to be surprised at the impudence 
 implied by a morning call made by Gideon 
 Skull upon the widow and daughter of Mr. 
 Eeid of Copleston, but she was anything but 
 unobservant with her quick Welsh eyes, and 
 something about the set of Gideon's neck as 
 he spoke to her, but only half towards her, 
 made her doubly determined that this call, at 
 least, should be his last. Nor had she been 
 quite blind to Helen's look when Gideon first 
 came in. She did not forget that long interview 
 of the day before yesterday, nor what Helen 
 had said about him afterwards. Sidelooks and 
 sudden flushes, however meaningless and ac- 
 cidental, should not pass between Gideon Skull 
 and the sister of Alan. 
 
 ' He is very well, I thank you,' said Mrs. 
 Eeid, in her most icily graceful way. 
 
 ' You've heard from him, then ? ' said 
 Gideon, more like himself, for her high-and- 
 mightiness was .certainly not the way to put 
 
136 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 liim down. ' That's well. I'll see that you 
 get the Argus " regularly ' 
 
 ' Thanks. But I won't give you so much 
 
 trouble. I dare say Mr. , the man in the 
 
 office, will let me buy it. I believe Miss Eeid 
 has already thanked you for all the trouble 
 you have taken with my son ? ' 
 
 ^ Yes. More than enough. A great deal 
 more. It's not worth mentioning.' 
 
 The talk, such as it was, broke down. 
 Helen, having planned out her own campaign 
 on her own account, seemed to have no wish 
 for a private talk with Gideon. Mrs. Eeid 
 was very certain that such a thing should not 
 happen, and Gideon did not know how to 
 bring one about, while he had made up his mind 
 very distinctly that he was not going to leave 
 the house without one. It can only seem odd 
 that a man who playing chess with such large 
 pieces on so great a board should be unable 
 to manage a couple of inexperienced women 
 in so small a matter ; but so it was, strange 
 or no : and perhaps, after all, it was very far 
 from strange. Other men than the Eeverend 
 Christopher Skull have found that the force of 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 137 
 
 great minds and iron will has its limits where 
 the question of a five minutes' tete-a-tete or the 
 control of a cellar-key comes into question. 
 
 ' I have just come from Hillswick/ at last 
 said Gideon to Mrs. Eeid, but at Helen, so 
 that she might understand how he had not 
 been letting the grass grow in her cause. 
 
 ' Indeed ? ' said Helen. 
 
 ^ Yes,' said Gideon. 
 
 Mrs. Eeid said nothing. And down went 
 the talk again. 
 
 At last even Gideon had to own himself 
 beaten, and rose. Mrs. Eeid gave him her 
 hand coldly and stiffly, and rang the bell. 
 He lingered a little and then went to the door. 
 * Is there any way I can be of use to you now 
 your son is gone ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' None, thank you,' said Mrs. Eeid. He 
 began to feel like an injured man, who was 
 being treated ungratefully. But holding the 
 door-handle was only waste of time. 
 
 ' I'm on my way to the ''Argus,'" he tried 
 again. ' I will let you know anything I hear 
 there.' And before Mrs. Eeid could say ' No, 
 thank you,' again, he was gone. At any rate 
 
138 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 he had estabhshed a basis for calhng, and he 
 had made up his mind that Helen was worth 
 even being patient for. 
 
 Mrs. Eeid sighed with rehef as she heard 
 the street-door slam rather more loudly and 
 fiercely than the latch required. 
 
 ' Helen/ she said, ' I shall certainly give 
 orders that we are not at home whenever that 
 horrid man calls again. Your father would 
 never have let him enter his door. I am not 
 grateful to him for sending Alan abroad, and 
 I will have nothing to do with him.' 
 
 ' I suppose he has meant to be kind/ said 
 Helen. 
 
 ' Fm afraid, unless he has changed very 
 much, that a great many people have thought 
 that, and have found themselves wrong. There 
 is no right reason, absolutely none, for his 
 taking an interest in us. Indeed I am not 
 wrong, Helen, nor uncharitable. I dislike 
 him and I distrust him, and the less reason 
 one can give for such feelings the more there 
 is sure to be. This is the first time I have 
 seen him for twenty years, and the moment 
 he came in— I felt ' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 139 
 
 ' What could you possibly feel about Mr. 
 Skull, mamma ? If he was not so big and so 
 slow, he would be like any other common- 
 place fellow-creature.' 
 
 ' I can't put just what I felt into words. 
 But there is no need. We could not take 
 help from him even if we needed it ; and, as 
 we could not take his help, or use him, or 
 repay him, or even endure him, I do not 
 choose to be at the mercy of visits which he 
 would not make without a motive. I know 
 what I mean very well. Under no circum-^ 
 stances will I allow you to have anything 
 whatever to do with Gideon Skull.' 
 
 Helen had by no means the same impres- 
 sion about Gideon. She had already made 
 all the use of him she required, and by no 
 means wished to embarrass her movements 
 with such an ally. Perhaps it was as well 
 that her mother should take this view of him, 
 for she no longer attached a sense of awe, 
 mystery, and destiny to the name of Gideon 
 Skull. He had turned out a very manageable 
 piece of mere common clay after all, who had 
 entered her life with a tremendous flourish of 
 
I40 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 trumpets merely for the purpose of answering 
 a question. 
 
 But, in the course of the evening, and pre- 
 cisely in the course of a particular five minutes 
 when her mother happened to be out of the 
 room, the maid-servant brought her a pencil 
 note in an unknown hand, which, she was 
 told, had just been left at the door. 
 
 ' Dear Miss Eeid, — Of course you under- 
 stood when I called this afternoon that it was 
 to see you and alone. I have been acting on 
 the persuasion that you meant, with all your 
 soul and strength, every word you said when 
 you told me there was nothing you were not 
 prepared to do for your brother. I told you 
 I would see you again in three days. I have 
 something of the utmost importance to say to 
 you — and I must say it to you alone. You 
 understand. I have taken care that this shall 
 be delivered to you when you are by yourself. 
 For your sake, as I choose to put it, for your 
 brother's sake, if you prefer it, you will give 
 me an interview, so that we may speak for at 
 least five minutes without being disturbed. I 
 will call on you if you will name an hour. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 141 
 
 You can send me word to care of Messrs. 
 Aristides and Sinon, Woodenhorse Yard. If 
 you are never sure of being by yourself 
 indoors, I will meet you elsewhere — you can 
 easily call at the " Argus " office for news of 
 your brother, and I will be there at any hour 
 to-morrow you name. I have to say what I 
 cannot write, but which it is needful you 
 should know. — G.S.' 
 
 Helen did not merely flush this time. She 
 turned hot all over. Whatever was to be 
 known she must know, whatever it might 
 cost her. What could it be that could not be 
 written, and which required so much mystery ? 
 Yes — she must see Gideon Skull, and learn 
 what might possibly change all her plans of 
 action. Had he used the time to such good 
 purpose as to have discovered the nature of 
 Waldron's fraud, or learn that the law was, 
 after all, on the side of the right instead of the 
 wrong? When she, perhaps, already had it 
 in her power to do all things for Alan at one 
 stroke, who was she that she should let prudish 
 instincts and technical obedience to an un- 
 reasonable command keep her from meeting 
 
142 
 
 QUEEN. COPHETUA. 
 
 the man who had been forging her armour ? 
 Of course her mother must not be allowed to 
 guess at what was gomg on for her sake and 
 for Alan's. She knew well enough that her 
 mother would rather lose Copleston for Alan 
 than let his sister steal out on a false pretenc e 
 to meet Gideon Skull alone. Of any danger 
 but her mother's knowledge she had abso- 
 lutely no fear. But — in spite of all things — 
 her cheeks and forehead flamed^ as if she were 
 doing a mean thing, and not for Alan, as she 
 wrote her answer for the post : — 
 
 ' At the ''Argus " to-morrow at 12. — H. E.' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 143 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIL 
 
 I am the Knight of Malavis : 
 
 In sooth; a right adventurer : 
 
 For fifty years with rein and spur 
 I ride the hills, nor take mine ease. 
 For battle doth my body please, 
 
 And all my comfort keeps therein — 
 
 I've found no hour for sweeter sin : 
 I am the Knight of Malavis. 
 
 No lore have I of maiden's kiss — 
 
 No maiden yet I've happed to see : 
 
 I am not rich as robbers be, 
 For still I lose whate'er I seize. 
 But armed I am from eyes to knees. 
 
 And I will keep her, when I find 
 
 A maid whose lips may mate my mind : 
 I am the Knight of Malavis. 
 
 Her son robbed of the love which was his true 
 chance of manhood, and driven to do what 
 was not his duty in a sphere of hfe to which 
 he had not been called — her daughter driven 
 among the rocks and shoals of concealment, 
 deceit, and unscrupulous scheming — a well- 
 intentioned clergyman frightened out of his 
 
144 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 wits — an innocent man tricked by the phan- 
 tom of a fortune — these were what Mrs. Eeid's 
 plan for the correction of Providence had to 
 show for itself hitherto. And these were all, 
 if Ave omit its probable result in its advantage 
 to Gideon Skull ; for in so far as it was hkely 
 to be of some sort of good to somebody, it 
 cannot be looked upon as w^hoUy in vain. If 
 Mrs. Eeid could have hfted the least corner of 
 the cloth that hid from her eyes everything 
 that was going on just under them, and seen 
 the maze of loss, corruption, and peril that 
 was grooving from the seed she had sown mth 
 such good intentions, she would have been 
 horrified at what she had been the means of 
 doing ; she certainly Avould not have let Helen 
 go out alone the next morning. 
 
 Helen did not feel good as she left the 
 house to keep her appointment with Gideon 
 Skull. It felt like doing a great thing — hke 
 visibly and consciously cutting her life in two. 
 It had been easy enough, in sohtude, to dream 
 of rising to great, vague crimes, and of de- 
 scending to the meanest depths, and to triumj)h 
 in them beforehand because they would be all 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 145 
 
 for Alan. But none of her enthusiasm helped 
 her when the time came for action, and when 
 she found herself obliged, not to plunge a 
 dagger into somebody's heart, but only to 
 hide from her mother the real object of her 
 walk that morning. Her imagination had 
 never led her to the point of having to do 
 anything so wretchedly small — so small that 
 not even its being for Alan's sake could 
 give it dignity. She was only a sly girl, 
 with a lie in her heart and almost on her 
 lips, creeping out to meet a man whom her 
 mother had forbidden her to know ; and it 
 was all the worse because there was no hint 
 or dream of love in the affair, and because it 
 was for a brother who would have given 
 up even his dreams of Bertha rather than 
 believe his sister capable of anything so un- 
 Eeid-like and so mean. But what could she 
 do — being she ? She had committed herself 
 to this appointment, or thought so ; and 
 supposing that she lost a chance for Alan 
 by not keeping it, how would she ever for- 
 give herself all her days ? Her mother's 
 daughter, who grew more and more like that 
 VOL. 11. L 
 
146 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 mother every day, was not likely to give up 
 any sort of design wliich might lead to a 
 good end, through whatever rocks and bogs 
 the road to that end might lead her. She 
 did not doubt or waver in the depth of herself 
 even in such a miserably little matter as keep- 
 ing a secret tryst with Gideon. She felt, in 
 her extreme way, that she was closing the 
 street-door upon her ladyhood ; and she felt, 
 too, that she was making the first step down 
 that road of which the first step alone is hard. 
 But — well, it might prove better for Alan, in 
 the long-run, that she should teach herself as 
 soon as possible not to be ashamed of little 
 things. She had no doubt of being able to 
 trust herself in great ones. What lay before 
 her, whatever course it might take, was not to 
 be work for a lady's hand. It could only have 
 been a very invisible and deep-lying instinct 
 indeed which told her how much a first secret 
 meeting with Gideon must needs be — indeed 
 the last thing which one who prided herself on 
 her ladyhood would dream of doing. 
 
 But it was all for Alan. In one great 
 thing she and her mother were one. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 1^7 
 
 It is not far, as all the world knows, to 
 Fleet Street from the Strand, so that she could 
 keep her interview easily without being long 
 away from home, while to meet on the way 
 anybody who knew her was happily impos- 
 sible. Since she had been in London she had 
 been out by herself on common errands dozens 
 of times ; but, naturally, never to the eastward 
 of Temple Bar, though it was not many stones- 
 throw distant. The city gate was standing in 
 those days, and its arch, as she passed under it, 
 seemed to her mind the symbol of another 
 gateway on the road along which her mind 
 was passing. She half lingered, as if the 
 presence of a visible gateway warned her that 
 another road than the street changed its name 
 beyond, and that it divided two cities which 
 were not merely London and Westminster, 
 That is to say, her pace slackened, for she 
 could not really linger ; and she breathed 
 more freely when she had once passed 
 through. It was as if Helen Eeid had en- 
 tered the archway, and had never come out 
 again ; as if she who left its shadow was 
 either not Helen Eeid, or else had left a 
 L 2 
 
148 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 burdensome and troublesome part of herself 
 on the other side. She felt quite certain that 
 henceforth — for Alan's sake — she would never 
 be troubled with scruples again about such a 
 trumpery matter as going out without saying 
 why or where. She must have been terribly 
 frank and open — once — to feel so changed and 
 hardened by what very few would regard as 
 being so much as a mere common, every-day 
 lie. No — she had already done enough to 
 know that she could never feel like Alan's 
 sister, or old Harry Eeid's daughter, any 
 more. 
 
 She had little difficulty in finding the out- 
 side of the office of the ' Argus/ and was too 
 well provided with an excuse for calling to 
 feel over-shy about entering. She had abso- 
 lutely no views about what sort of place a 
 newspaper office was likely to prove. Strange 
 as such an idea may seem to some, she would 
 not have been astonished to find the ' Times ' 
 itself issued from some small news-shop, so 
 that she drew no moral from the contrast be- 
 tween the surroundings of the ' Argus ' and the 
 tremendous character of the organ by means 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 149 
 
 of which Spraggville ruled the world. She 
 tajDped gently at the door to which she had 
 been guided, and was answered by a ' Come 
 in ! ' in an accent which reminded her a little 
 of the voice of her enemy, Victor Waldron. 
 
 She looked round for Gideon. But she 
 found nobody but Mr. Crowder and Mr. Sims, 
 whom she knew neither by sight nor by 
 name. 
 
 Neither face moved a muscle at the un- 
 expected appearance of a young lady in the 
 rooms of the ' Argus,' except for a slight frown 
 which passed over that of Mr. Sims. His once 
 immaculate chief, he could not help thinking, 
 was going a great deal too far — neglecting 
 duty to dine with lords, showing unmistakable 
 signs of it the next morning, and now visited 
 by young women. It was becoming a case for 
 watching in the interests of the ' Argus,' if not 
 for the serious consideration of the Platonic 
 Institute of Spraggville, to which they both 
 belonged, where young men and young women 
 of an intellectual turn met to discuss social 
 philosophy from a purely spiritual and sym- 
 pathetic point of view, and never made love 
 
150 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 except in spectacles. Well, tlie blight of tlie 
 aristocratic upas must produce its natural 
 poison. From dining with lords to drinking 
 champagne, from champagne to whisky, from 
 whisky to assignations, were but steps in a 
 chain which might lead at last even to smok- 
 ing cigars, before it had run out to the bitter 
 end. One can hardly tell why Helen's visit 
 should instantly, and without the faintest 
 evidence, have presented itself in this light to 
 Mr. Sims. But so it was : and he wavered 
 between waiting and watching on the one 
 hand, and pointedly rising and leaving the 
 office on the other, to show his colleague that 
 he understood the situation perfectly. 
 
 ' Is this the office of the " Argus " ? ' asked 
 Helen. ' I am Miss Eeid. I came to ask if — 
 if you had heard from my brother.' Perhaps 
 Gideon would not come, after all. 
 
 ' Be seated. Madam,' said Mr. Crowder. 
 ' I hope you are very well. Let me see — Eeid 
 — ^Eeid. Yes ; our correspondent at the siege. 
 You will pardon me — with so many names to 
 think of, and with such a war on my hands, 
 it is not easy to keep my mind upon indi- 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 151 
 
 viduals. Have we heard from Eeid, Mr. 
 Sims?' 
 
 ' Wired it yourself to Spraggville yester- 
 day/ said Mr. Sims bluntly. He was begin- 
 "ning to suspect his chief of being a little of an 
 impostor, and of giving himself lordly airs, 
 and it galled him. 
 
 ' That is so,' said Mr. Crowder. ' It was a 
 good letter. I am happy to tell you^ Miss 
 Eeid, that your brother, under careful editing, 
 is likely to give satisfaction to the city of 
 Spraggville. He is the firstEnglish literary man 
 I have happened on who seems to understand 
 what , we want and the way to put things. 
 There were some touches in his last letter that 
 were worthy of an American.' 
 
 ' I am very glad indeed,' said Helen, too 
 indifferent to wonder at her brother's sudden 
 success in so unlikely a direction, and by no 
 means proud of Mr. Crowder 's praise. Of 
 course, whatever Alan undertook to do he 
 would do well — that went without saying ; 
 but she could feel no elation at his turning 
 out what she could only consider a first-rate 
 travelling clerk to this fellow-countryman of 
 
152 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 iier enemy. She could not be just, and would 
 have been ojSended by hearing that Niagara, 
 since it was in Waldron's hemisphere, is the 
 largest waterfall in the world, and makes the 
 loudest noise. 
 
 She hardly knew whether to drag out the 
 interview till Gideon should come, or to leap 
 at his non-appearance as a sign that he was 
 not coming and to hurry back through 
 Temple Bar. But she was saved the difficulty 
 of deciding by the voice of Gideon himself at 
 the door. After all, the clocks were not 
 many minutes on their way past noon. 
 
 ' Miss Eeid ! ' he said, dividing a nod 
 between Mr. Sims and Mr. Crowder, and 
 holding out his hand to Helen with a curious 
 mixture, which struck even her, of eagerness 
 and awkwardness together. He had not said, 
 ^ Who would have thought of meeting you 
 here ? — certainly not I,' for that would have 
 been hypocritical, and therefore impossible 
 for Gideon Skull. But his ' Miss Eeid ! ' had 
 implied it all, and Helen was thankful to him 
 for not claiming an appointment with her. 
 * Are you going to write for the " Argus " too ? 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 153 
 
 Well, Crowder, how's news to-day? Don't let 
 me drive you off, Miss Eeid. I am not going 
 to stay a minute, and I have something to 
 say to you, if you'll let me walk part of your 
 way. I hope you're not too well off for news, 
 Crowder, for I've picked up a crumb for you 
 that will make the hair of all Spraggville stand 
 on end, and glorify the old Argus " for ever/ 
 
 ^ I shall be pleased to hear, sir, whatever 
 you may have to say,' said Mr. Crowder. 
 
 ' I dare say you would. But none of you 
 fellows have any pluck, you see. No, not one 
 of you. If I had the misfortune to edit a 
 newspaper, I should make a point of coming 
 out with a first-class prophecy of the most 
 tremendously unlikely sort every ninth day. 
 Nobody remembers failures. Look at the 
 weather almanacs ; if I brought out one of 
 those, I'd prophesy a snowstorm in July re- 
 gularly every year. It would come at last, 
 and I should be rich and famous for ever. 
 And in war and politics you'd have the pull 
 that the unlikeliest forecasts are right in nine 
 cases out of ten. No, you actual editors 
 have no pluck ; not one of you.' 
 
154 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 'It is the first time I have heard the 
 " Spraggville Argus " charged with deficiency 
 in pluck, Mr. Skull,' said Crowder. 
 
 ' Yes, because there's nobody who knows 
 what pluck means, I dare say. Now, if I was 
 to tell you Bismarck was shot, you'd wire it 
 ofT to Spraggville, because it might be likely 
 even if it mightn't be true. But you wouldn't 
 dare to fix a date for the sortie from Paris 
 which is to break the German cordon and fix 
 a communication between the army of the 
 South and the capital. You wouldn't do that 
 even if you knew. Now, I would, even if I 
 didn't know. That's pluck, and that's the 
 difference between me and you. By George ! 
 Think of Spraggville if I fixed it for Tuesday 
 week. If I wasn't Gideon Skull, I'd be owner 
 of the Argus " for twice nine days after.' 
 
 ' Mr. Skull,' said Mr. Crowder with dig- 
 nity, ' my experience as a journalist is not 
 quite so small as you appear to conclude ; 
 and I guess you must be out and around 
 before twelve o'clock if you wish to be 
 beforehand with me or with Mr. Sims. Before 
 sailing for Europe I drew up a programme of 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 155 
 
 this war, the resuUs of which might surprise 
 you. It has often enabled me to anticipate 
 events, as well as to correct the accounts of 
 our correspondents on both sides. I do not 
 say that such a sortie is inconsistent with that 
 programme, but I do say, and Mr. Sims will 
 
 confirm that view, that not to beat about 
 
 the bush, Mr. Skull, which is not American, it 
 is my duty to inquire if you intend that sortie 
 to be taken as a fact, and, if so, what your 
 views may be in bringing it to this journal? ' 
 
 ' Ah, Crowder, there's no doing you. Yes, 
 I do want to get that wired to Spraggville,' 
 said Gideon frankly. ' The fact is, I'm en- 
 gaged rather deeply in relation to the 
 neutrality laws — you understand. In the rifle 
 and provision line. Instincts of an old 
 blockade-runner will out, you see. The army of 
 the South is my customer just now, and I natu- 
 rally get to know more than there can be on 
 anybody's programme. For obvious financial 
 reasons I want that sortie to succeed ; but for 
 equally obvious reasons I want to be very par- 
 ticular to the wrong day. Now, I happen to 
 know, as a fact, that Bismarck never passes 
 
156 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 a morning without reading right through 
 every word in the Argus " about the war. He 
 and Moltke will take that Tuesday week for 
 granted, you may be sure ; and no doubt 
 there'll be a rehearsal — what soldiers call a de- 
 monstration — on that day. The " Argus " will 
 be out by a day or two about the real day, of 
 course ; but who'll heed a day or two when 
 they talk of the prophecy fulfilled? There, 
 I've made a clean breast of it. It's all in my 
 own interest, of course, so take it or leave it 
 as you please. I'd take it if I were you. I'm 
 worth gratifying, I can tell you ; a man who's 
 bound up with the big French guns, and 
 behind their scenes, can give plenty of pickings 
 as true as this to any paper that's got pluck 
 and go and isn't afraid of big things. Come 
 and have another feed with me and Ovoca on 
 Saturday. He's taken a wonderful fancy to 
 you. Can you forgive me for keeping you 
 waiting all this while. Miss Eeid ? I'm at 
 your service now whenever you please.' 
 
 ' Surmised,' said Mr. Sims as soon as their 
 visitors had gone, ' Gideon Skull didn't give an 
 earl for dinner without wanting to be paid.' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 157 
 
 ' I am surprised, Sims/ said Mr. Crowder, 
 ' that you should see in a piece of simple 
 courtesy more than there is to be seen. It 
 shows a want of knowledge of the world. A 
 British lord, I take it, does not lay himself 
 open to misconstruction when he admits him- 
 self to be no more than the equal of a plain 
 American journalist like you and me. It does 
 him honour, Sims.' 
 
 ' Some people are partial to headaches. 
 Can't say I'm one. Wire ? ' 
 
 ' Some people are partial, and prejudiced, 
 and — and — jealous,' said Mr. Crowder. ^ That's 
 so. I'll wire myself, Sims.' 
 
 ' Jealous ? ' asked Mr. Sims, with a sudden 
 hot look in his eyes. 
 
 ^ That is so,' said Mr. Crowder sadly. 
 ' That is a painful fact, Sims. Some people 
 are.' 
 
 'And some people drink champagne, and 
 receive visits from females, and smoke to- 
 bacco ; and some people are as fit to represent 
 the " Argus " as — as — you,' said Mr. Sims. 
 
 ' I would like to see that man,' said 
 Mr. Crowder, his voice beginning to rise at 
 
158 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 last, ' who is as fit to represent the " Argus " as 
 — as — I. I should have a very decided opinion 
 concerning the existence of that man. As to 
 females, and spirits, and tobacco, I trample on 
 the words. Perhaps you will proceed with 
 your occupation, which is not that of slander, 
 Mr. Sims.' 
 
 ' No, nor of jealousy, Mr. Crowder. I 
 would as soon be jealous of some people as 
 
 ' His failure to find a simile gave his 
 
 chief the triumph of the last word. But his 
 having come off only second best in this 
 terrible quarrel only made him feel the more 
 keenly that there was at least one person 
 better qualified to represent the ' Argus ' than 
 Mr. Crowder. He felt he could not approve 
 of permitting the great organ of Spraggville 
 to become the tool of a Lord Ovoca and a 
 Gideon Skull. His duty might become un- 
 pleasant, but it must be done. 
 
 'It must have seemed very strange to 
 you,' said Gideon to Helen, ' all that talk in 
 the office. Business, to an outsider, must 
 seem a curious thing.' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 159 
 
 ' It did not seem strange to me at all,' 
 said Helen. ' I was not listening, and what 
 words I heard meant nothing to me. You 
 asked me to see you. What have you to 
 say ? ' 
 
 ' It is difficult talking in the crowd of the 
 street. We had better walk this way ; it will 
 take us along the river, and be all on your 
 
 way home Well, I have not been 
 
 idle ; I have been to Hillswick.' 
 
 ' So you told me yesterday. I am sorry 
 if you have been taking real trouble for Alan, 
 though, of course, I must thank you. What 
 have you learned that I need know, if I do 
 not even yet know all ? ' 
 
 ' Miss Eeid, I will not be thanked by you. 
 
 All that I do is you know what I told 
 
 you three days ago. You will not thank me 
 when you hear that I have — failed.' 
 
 ' Failed ? In what had you to fail ' 
 
 ' I have the worst news for you .... 
 your father left no will.' 
 
 For the first time in this story Gideon 
 Skull told a lie — a direct, downright lie. 
 Clearly his association with Helen was cor- 
 
i6o 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 rupting liis honesty. But she had already- 
 felt all the guilt for both : mere imitation did 
 not prove hard. 
 
 ' Well asked Helen. 
 
 ' Do you mean to say you have forgotten 
 what that means ? ' 
 
 ' What liave you found, then ? ' 
 
 ' Is it not more than enough to have 
 found .^^ The worst of all?' 
 
 'I knew that there was no will. What 
 else does our whole life mean ? I don't under- 
 stand. Tou ask to see me — only to tell me 
 that you have nothing to tell — nothing to 
 say ? How could a visit to Hillswick make 
 clearer to you what all the world knew 
 before ? ' 
 
 ' I told you,' said Gideon humbly and 
 patiently, 'that I would come back to you 
 within three days and let you know how 
 much hope I had found. I did hope — 
 sanguinely, even. I could not believe that 
 there could be really no will. It seemed 
 impossible. Well, since you needed no con- 
 vincing, I need tell you nothing of the chains 
 of argument which, at Hillswick, led me to 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. i6r 
 
 the same conclusion. Eational men don't hide 
 wills away in corners ; the lawyers are sure 
 to know of them, even if they don't have 
 them in their own hands, and Waldron had 
 no opportunity of finding one and putting it 
 in the fire. No ; there is no will.' 
 
 ' This is all you asked to see me for ? ' 
 asked Helen, feeling almost disappointed, 
 though she had expected nothing. It was 
 hard that she should have had to pass 
 through so much shame for no end. But she 
 was by no means looking downward, and a 
 glimpse of his grave and down-turned face, 
 in which she could read nothing but the 
 shame of a strong man who has boasted of 
 his will and strength beforehand and has 
 found them impotent, made her feel guilty of 
 ingratitude. 
 
 ' Well, I do thank you,' she said, ' for all 
 you hoped and tried to do for Alan. I am 
 glad — in a way — that you are convinced 
 there is nothing for any — outside — friend to 
 do. You do know that nobody thinks you to 
 blame .... and if you had been .... you 
 have tried every way to undo it all. It is no 
 
 VOL. II. M 
 
i62 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 one's fault that there is no way. If we do not 
 
 happen to meet again ' 
 
 ' Not meet again ? ' he asked, really 
 startled ; for it was the last point at which he 
 had been aiming, and the words, though he 
 would have known how to take them at their 
 worth from all such women as he had known, 
 seemed to mean something when spoken b}^ 
 Helen Eeid. It was not the first time during 
 these last days that his heart had been start- 
 ling him. It was a heavy, cumbrous muscle, 
 Gideon Skull's heart, and its struggles into 
 life were as hard as those of most hearts 
 never are but when they are djdng. But it 
 was a heart, after all, and he was a man. He 
 came near even to self-deception, to feeling as 
 if he were dealing truly and openly with her, 
 and to pitying, in a hungry sort of way, the 
 pain he supposed his tidings were giving her. 
 He could hardly resist the temptation of 
 beheving them himself, though they were lies. 
 Love must needs take its one form, and it will 
 somehow manage to wear that one form and 
 no other. ' Not meet again ? ' he repeated : 
 ' but we most surely shall. Have you for- 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 163 
 
 gotten what you told me you are living for — 
 to get back Copleston for your brother, and 
 that by any means ? You are not one to take 
 up a life's purpose in one moment and drop it 
 in the next, if I know you at all.' 
 
 ' I don't see how you can know me at all.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you don't see it ; but I do. You 
 made a resolve when you believed there was 
 no will. You are not hkely to drop it because 
 you now know there is no will. Belief and 
 knowledge are practically much the same 
 thing, I suppose ; and that means — you will 
 need me. It is idle to talk of our not meeting 
 again. You have a brother, and I have — well, 
 an enemy. Our motives are different, but our 
 end is the same. We both mean that, in one 
 way or another, Victor Waldron is not to keep 
 Copleston.' 
 
 One must not shut one's eyes to human 
 nature out of any tenderness for Helen — ^if 
 such a thing still lingers. One cannot help 
 remembering that she was walking by the side 
 of the one man she had yet seen who made 
 her feel that he was strong and resolute, and 
 that he had a will, and that his will meant 
 
 K 2 
 
1 64 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 something. She could not know how little 
 strength, will, and resolution had hitherto 
 meant with him, though she was right enough 
 in her instinct that he had them all ; and, more 
 right than even instinct could tell her in fee ing 
 that, if he had never had them before, he had 
 them now. She was inspiring a knight — for so 
 common a thing there is no need that the lady 
 should be the heau ideal of her sex, or the 
 knight a Bayard. He may even be a strug- 
 gling adventurer, preying upon the refuse and 
 garbage of the world's great doings, hke 
 Gideon, and slie may be no better or nobler 
 than Helen Eeid. It may be that the brigand, 
 or even the pickpocket, draws as much inspi- 
 ration of strength or address from the eyes or 
 voice of his mistress as the knight-errant from 
 those of his lady — and of the same kind, 
 though to a somewhat different end. And 
 surely the woman does not live who does not 
 know when and whom she inspires, and who, 
 when she knows it, can avoid a little pride. 
 She may feel a little frightened also, but in 
 that case she feels yet more proud. Helen 
 had been too much used all her life to seeing 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 165 
 
 broad shoulders and strong arms to think any- 
 thing about them, or to take them as the out- 
 ward and visible signs of anything beyond 
 themselves. But she felt there was that 
 about Gideon's build which made it the sign 
 of something to which she had not been 
 accustomed, either in her father or in Alan. 
 It was much more than that he by no means 
 fulfilled her ideas of a gentleman. She had 
 no objection to him on that score. The cir- 
 cumstances of her own birth prevented that 
 sort of pride ; and then she had taken Wal- 
 dron for a gentleman — so huge a mistake, 
 that she might be equally mistaken in taking 
 Gideon Skull for none. 
 
 ' Yes,' she answered him absently. ' But we 
 have different ends — and different ways. You 
 can have no hand in anything I may find to 
 do ; and I, heaven knows ! can be of less use 
 to you than you can be to me. Mr. Waldron 
 does happen to be my enemy. But he is too 
 mean for hating. Why do you hate him ? ' 
 
 ' You do hate him. Miss Eeid. A girl like 
 you does not hate or love by halves. You 
 hate him with all your soul. And I — you ask 
 
1 66 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 me why I hate him? Who does not hate 
 hypocrites, and scoundrels, and hars ? I can't 
 content myself with looking down on snakes. 
 
 They are more dangerous than tigers 
 
 We are something more than allies, Miss Eeid, 
 you and I. You mean work, and I mean work 
 too. We must not be in the dark about one 
 another. Two people looking for the same 
 thing in the dark are apt to jostle, and to spoil 
 everything. That must not be. At present, 
 I own myself at sea, without a plan. I am 
 thrown out by the want of that will. But you 
 have one, and I have a right to help you.' 
 
 Helen certainly began to be a little afraid 
 of the honest tradesman whom she had be- 
 lieved herself able to twist round her little 
 finger. He was taking ells without having 
 been allowed inches, and now he was claiming 
 them as his due. She by no means wanted an 
 ally who would claim a right to her con- 
 fidence, would compel her to speak out what 
 she was not reconciled to feeling, and probably 
 end by sliding into the place of director and 
 master. 
 
 ' I have no plan,' said she. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 167 
 
 'No?' 
 
 ' No. And if I had — it slioiild be my own. 
 If I wanted help ' 
 
 ' You would come to me. Miss Eeid — you 
 distrust me. Why ? ' 
 
 ' Indeed I do nothing of the kind. There 
 — we have said all that has to be said, and 
 done all that can be done. Thank you for all 
 your trouble and all your goodwill. This is 
 my way home, I think. Good-bye.' 
 
 ' No ; it is not yoitr way home yet. Yours 
 is still several turnings farther on. Do you 
 suppose for one instant that I think you are 
 giving up Copleston? And do you think I 
 can stand by and see a girl like you, who 
 knows nothing of the world — thank God ! — 
 preparing to get aground on all sorts of quick- 
 sands and run her head against all sorts of 
 stone walls ? I don't guess what you mean to 
 do, for I'll own you're likely to be ten times 
 cleverer in laying plans than I am. But lay- 
 ing plans is one thing, and carrying them out 
 is another. You must have a man's counsel. 
 And since your brother is gone, there is no- 
 body to give it you but me.' 
 
i68 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 Helen might have smiled at the idea of any 
 man's thinking he could help her in carrying 
 out her half-made scheme. But he had 
 brought her face to face with it, and she 
 could not smile. Though she felt what it was 
 well enough, there is probably no reader of 
 her story who could not put it into words 
 better than she. It was to fascinate the 
 enemy, obtain, by craft or surprise, the secret 
 of his fraud, and then save herself — if she 
 could — from selhng herself for Alan. Of 
 course, if she failed she must fail ; but no 
 absolutely last resource ever looks desperate : 
 hope must hang to something, and if there be 
 nothing left but a straw, then to a straw as 
 completely as if the straw were a barge. How 
 could she breathe a whisper of such a scheme 
 even to a dearest friend who shared her in- 
 most wishes with her She knew well enough 
 what she would have called any other girl 
 who should make any such confession — out- 
 rageously vain would have been her lightest 
 word. And she had been asked, nay, ordered 
 to make her confession to Gideon Skull ! 
 
 ' I hate Waldron much,' he said, ' but I 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 169 
 
 should hate myself ten thousand times more if 
 I let you do yourself any harm. If it were 
 any girl, I should feel very much the same/ 
 added the Quixote-scorner, without being in 
 the least troubled by his want of consistency. 
 It did not even strike him that the sentiment 
 was not original or entirely his own ; and 
 one feels wonderfully honest and generous 
 while one is saying generous things. He did 
 not wish to see Helen Eeid become quite of 
 his world — he only wanted to find her suffi- 
 ciently of it to be reasonably within reach of 
 his arm. ' Promise me, when you find your- 
 self in any trouble, to trust to me. Forget, if 
 you like, how much I am with you in heart ; 
 remember only that I am your brother's friend. 
 Whenever you want help, send a line to me 
 at the " Argus," and I will never fail you — be 
 quite sure. Whenever I have anything to say, 
 I shall let you know it.' 
 
 ' There must be an end of this,' thought 
 Helen, wishing she had left herself any right 
 to be angry at the suggestion of a secret cor- 
 respondence with Gideon Skull. ' We shall be 
 leaving London in a few days,' said she. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 ' Don't think I don't trust you, but our ways 
 do not run together, and ' 
 
 ' You are going to leave London ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, now that my brother is gone. We 
 shall most likely be staying with our friends 
 the Meyricks ' 
 
 ' The Meyricks, of Thorp End ? With- 
 in a drive of Copleston ? ' 
 
 She had spoken of her intended visit as 
 her best open reason for leaving town, so that 
 she might leave Gideon no room for further 
 questioning. Nor did he question her further. 
 He only fell into silent rumination over what 
 she could possibly be intending to do. ' If 
 she's been getting any notions of that will on 
 her own account,' he thought, ' and if she's 
 going down there to pump Uncle Christopher 
 
 ' The idea led to nothing in particular, 
 
 and he thought again. Her going to stay 
 with her friends might mean nothing, but then 
 it might mean a great deal. Gideon was be- 
 ginning to feel a martyr to mystery. He had 
 got to the bottom of his uncle's, only to be 
 plunged into a new one by Helen. Perhaps it 
 was nothing. But while he thought, his eyes 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 171 
 
 found their inevitable way to Helen's face, and 
 he could not reconcile with a single possible 
 view of human nature the idea of a girl like 
 her — keen, eager, and thorough-going beyond 
 reason, as he knew, passionate in her depths 
 he was sure, scorning laws that opposed her 
 and hating all who wronged her, with a great 
 estate as a prize to be fought for — of a girl 
 like this letting herself be tossed about among 
 her acquaintances without any sort of plan. 
 
 However, he must be patient again. 
 ^ Well,' he said, ' your visit in the country 
 will be pleasanter than it might have been. 
 You won't be troubled by the neighbourhood 
 
 of a scoundrel But if you have any 
 
 notion of searching Copleston in the absence 
 of its owner, you may spare yourself the 
 pains. No will is to be found anywhere.' 
 
 ' What ! ' exclaimed Helen. ' Is not Mr. 
 Waldron at Copleston ' 
 
 She was so obviously startled at his 
 obvious piece of news that the most unreason- 
 able of all unreasonable jealousy fell over him. 
 He was so new in love that its phases were 
 playing chaos in him. Ever since seeing Helen 
 
172 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 lie had been jealous of Waldron's admiration 
 for her, and even that long talk in the church- 
 yard had been rankhng. The feeling was 
 absolutely and preposterously without reason, 
 but in his hungry way he hated to think that 
 she and Waldron should even have quarrelled 
 eye to eye. A man who comes to be quar- 
 relled with may come too near ; he wished to 
 think of Helen as shut up in her present 
 poverty and helplessness, without a friend but 
 himself, or even a visible enemy in the shape 
 of a man, and that man Victor Waldron. For, 
 with all the duller part of his nature — but not 
 altogether without experience — he held that 
 hate and love are next-door neighbours, and, 
 yet more dully, that all girls prefer fops to 
 men. He despised Waldron for his foppish 
 affectations, which is the same thing as saying 
 that he envied them. Helen's startled question 
 made him savage. Simple indifference is the 
 most satisfactory feeling on the part of the 
 woman one loves towards one's enemy : hate 
 is a great deal too warm. 
 
 ' No,' said Gideon, ' he is not at Copleston. 
 He has never been there since you left it, and 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 173 
 
 most likely never will be. He is in his own 
 country for ought I know, spending Copies- 
 ton in New York or Spraggville ; or, being an 
 American, and Paris being shut up, he's more 
 likely in Eome. All the Yankees have got a 
 craze that Eome isn't a suburb of Spraggville. 
 If you want to meet Victor Waldron, Miss 
 Eeid, I think you'd better visit somebody in 
 Eome — if you can stand the way in which all 
 the inhabitants twang English through the 
 nose, and sculpt, and talk of the Eye-talians.' 
 
 Gideon had to let out his growing wrath, 
 and Victor Waldron's fellow-countrymen were 
 the first objects at hand. He had brought a 
 good many British prejudices home with him 
 — at least as many as he had carried out — and 
 had never been in Eome. The piece of petu- 
 lance was not meant for Helen, though it 
 wrapped up a point that was meant for her. 
 But she did not notice even the apparently im- 
 becile suggestion that she, Helen Eeid, wished 
 to meet Victor Waldron at Copleston, and was 
 going into its neighbourhood for that impos- 
 sible end — a suggestion as imbecile as it was 
 right, and an end as impossible as it was true. 
 
174 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 Down went her house of cards — queen, 
 knave, and all. 
 
 It had been a very flnnsy house, even for 
 one of cards. But she had built it for strength, 
 and had thought it strong, so the blow was as 
 great as if it had been built of marble and iron. 
 Never had she felt till now that her helpless- 
 ness was utter and absolute — only equalled by 
 the passion of desire to do anything and all 
 things for Alan. She was too paralysed even 
 to sigh, as one does at the downfall of a com- 
 mon dream. To will wrong without the power 
 to do wrong — what on the face of the whole 
 earth is half so bitter and so hard ? 
 
 ' What can I do ? ' she almost cried out, 
 forgetting where she was, who was with her, 
 and what her cry of weakness might mean. 
 
 Gideon smiled — that smile which had gone 
 far to make Waldron his friend, and was the 
 best part of him. He had not been clever 
 enough to find out her intended plan of action, 
 but his honest bit of anger had served him as 
 well as instinct in defeating her plan. She 
 would not talk of leaving London any more, 
 he was sure. ' What can you do ? Trust, dear 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 175 
 
 Miss Helen. That is the first great thing. 
 For one thing — you may trust me. Perhaps 
 you have not yet learned the power of money 
 in this world. It can't do everything, but it 
 can buy secrets, and fight the law, and recover 
 rights when nothing else can. I have been 
 poor and rich, and I know what both the 
 things mean. Ko — you cannot fight Victor 
 Waldron, but I can, and I will. People call 
 me rich now. But nobody — not even I my- 
 self—knows how rich I shall be in a few weeks 
 from now. Pm the last man to boast of such 
 things. You are the first man, woman, or 
 child who has heard me speak in this way. I 
 tell you that you may know what you are 
 trusting, as well as whom. Dear Miss Helen, 
 it is only too true that there is no Avill, and 
 that you. and your brother have no rights at 
 law. But as long as Gideon Skull has even a 
 poor ten thousand a year, neither you nor he 
 is poor. Be brave, and trust, even if Copleston 
 must go. Here is your turning at last,' he 
 said with a sigh. ' Good-bye — for now.' 
 
 ' Good-bye,' said Helen coldly — not with 
 intention, but because her heart felt cold. 
 
175 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 Everything was lost and gone, except Gideon 
 Skull. She went home, and despaired. Her 
 scheme looked very ugly now that it had 
 become impossible. But she felt, in herself, 
 that its impossibility was no merit of hers, and 
 that the wrong of a thing is complete when 
 the thing is planned. Yes, it is hard to wish 
 what one hates oneself for having wished, and 
 to feel at the same time that the self-contempt 
 comes from having failed. It disposes one to 
 resolve never to fail again. As for the self- 
 contempt, that cannot be felt twice over. 
 What could Helen do for her brother now ? 
 
 Gideon, having bid for Helen the ten 
 thousand a year at least which he was going 
 to have in full time to make his statement per- 
 fectly true, returned to the ' Argus.' He felt he 
 was not making a fool of himself in bidding 
 even twenty thousand a year for this girl, 
 seeing that he knew all about the will. If it 
 did not end in making him master of Copies- 
 ton, it would ensure the ruin of Victor 
 Waldron, and bring him a good dowry with 
 his wife and a considerable amount of prize- 
 money from his brother-in-law. Well, perhaps 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 177 
 
 not that, seeing that gratitude was not to be 
 looked for from the high-minded and un- 
 worldly type of young man. But the rest was 
 secure, and probably a great deal more. And 
 yet, in spite of all things, he was thinking of 
 Helen herself much more than of Copleston. 
 
 ^ Crowder,' he said, when he reached the 
 office again, ' Miss Eeid tells me she is leaving 
 town. You'll give me all private letters from 
 her brother, and 111 forward them to wherever 
 she may be. That's all .Remember Saturday.' 
 
 1 will ! ' said Mr. Crowder, sending a look 
 of defiance across the table to Mr. Sims. 
 
 VOL. II* 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 Luke. — A fig for all siicli baubles, and the fools 
 Who waste their wits, and fog their arid skulls 
 To learn that force is force and weight is weight, 
 And that on nothing not a straw can stand ! 
 Give me one pinch of dust, and I will move 
 The elemental world, the solar sphere, 
 ' Cycle and epicycle, planet, star, 
 All earth and anti-earth, without the aid 
 ^'Of wheel, or block, or bar, or slant, or spire — 
 All that the Syracusan dreamed I'll do 
 Without a fulcrum — so the dust be gold. 
 
 Sure enough, when Helen went indoors again 
 she found upon the mantelpiece a letter from 
 Bertha. There was no need to open it in order 
 to know that it contained a j)ressing invitation 
 to her and her mother to make a long stay at 
 Thorp End. Without such an invitation the 
 letter would not have been from Bertha. 
 Helen did not take the trouble to open the 
 letter immediately. What did anything sig- 
 nify ? The whole future looked too hideous 
 for facing. Alan, at barely more than five- 
 and-twenty, was to accept as his destiny a life 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 179 
 
 of heartless plodding for daily bread — wliat 
 would lie become ? She, at less than five-and- 
 twenty, was to accept as liers — nothing ; 
 and to accept this no-life after having set 
 herself to do all things for Alan. She had 
 been robbed of all that she had made up her 
 mind to live for, and nothing was left but the 
 barrenness of waiting for what she knew 
 nothing of, save that it was something which 
 could never come to her. Waiting to turn 
 into a man, perhaps — that would be the best 
 thing, and by no means the most impossible. 
 In what spirit can a girl, in her first woman- 
 hood, tell herself consciously that such a life 
 as this must be hers ? 
 
 If she have one least touch of nature in 
 common with Helen Eeid, she will have but 
 one answer to give herself. She will flatly 
 refuse. There was as much desire for the 
 fulness of life in her as if she had not devoted 
 her life to her brother's, and far more than if 
 she had not been torn out of her natural 
 world. In leaving Helen out of it, Mrs. Eeid 
 had neglected to take into account a very 
 considerable element in her scheme for Alan. 
 
 If 2 
 
i8o QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 Fortunately — or unfortunately — her 
 mother was not in their parlour when she 
 came in, so she had time to think quietly, as 
 well as to feel the whole need for thinking. 
 She was by no means blind to the very plainly 
 written cause of Gideon's energy and devotion 
 — he had taken care to print it clearly and 
 largely enough in looks, movements, tones, in 
 everything but mere words, which in them- 
 selves count for nothing in such cases. For 
 that matter, it was these unspoken speeches 
 of Gideon which had given rise to her barren 
 idea of using what he had taught her against 
 the usurper of Copleston. At any rate, she 
 was driven to think a great deal of Gideon 
 Skull — almost as much as he could have 
 desired, though not altogether in the w^ay that 
 he would have chosen. She felt no instinctive 
 liking for the man. Women are not much 
 better or more exacting judges of the points 
 which go to make up a gentleman than men 
 are of the attributes of ladies ; but she could 
 not help feeling that if to be a gentleman 
 means to be like her father and her brother, 
 then Gideon Skull could not be one. He was 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. i8i 
 
 coarse both in his choice and in his use of 
 words, and absolutely without the faintest 
 flavour of courtesy. But then, on the other 
 hand, he was the most perfect of gentlemen, 
 if to be a gentleman means to be unhke Victor 
 Waldron. And, after all, is not outward 
 coarseness and roughness one of the most 
 famous notes of the diamond ? What is polish 
 but an accident ? It was no fault of Gideon's 
 that he had been hardened and roughened by 
 a life spent in fighting single-handed against 
 the world, and — winning. Yes, he had won 
 in the battle of life ; Helen was in a mood to 
 look upon that as the greatest thing a man 
 can do. If likeness of look comes from like- 
 ness of thought, there was every reason for 
 the growth of the likeness between Helen and 
 her mother. 
 
 And what, after all, mattered the birth or 
 breeding of man or woman to a nameless no- 
 body like her ? Had she not been declaring war 
 against the whole unjust world to which Victor 
 Waldron belonged in order to make up for her 
 father's cowardice and her brother's tame sub- 
 mission ? Why, Gideon Skull, who had fought 
 
1 82 (lUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 and won, was a liero ; and was she to be so 
 cowardly and so submissive as to throw away 
 lier power over such a man because his words 
 lacked polish and his manner courtesy ? 
 
 He was strong, she felt ; but she was 
 stronger than he, she knew. The only ques- 
 tion worth thinking about was what she 
 should do with him. Being himself part of 
 her enemy, the world, his only use was to be 
 used. How she could use wealth, however it 
 might come to her, she knew very well. Her 
 mother would be put above want, Alan's up- 
 hill path to Bertha would be made straight 
 and level, Copleston might be won back, and 
 life for herself, though it could never again 
 become beautiful, might be turned into a space 
 in which some few wrong's mirfit be rio:hted 
 and a little c^ood mij^ht be done. She would 
 not feel so wholly like an insect who has got 
 caught in the wheels of a machine, and whose 
 capacities for life and flight are being ground 
 to pieces uselessly. 
 
 Yes, it would be terrible waste to let 
 Gideon Skidl sli]3 out of her hand. The only 
 question was how, and not whether, she should 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 183 
 
 use liim. And that is a question which can 
 hardly help answering itself, when it lies be- 
 tween a woman and a man. Victor Waldron 
 was the shadow of a piece of flesh, the two 
 birds in the bush, the half loaf, compared with 
 Gideon. 
 
 She soon, however, had enough of straight- 
 forward thinking about such things. It is best 
 10 let them drift, and spare one the discomfort 
 of any avoidable loss of self-respect by settling 
 themselves. She opened Bertha's letter, but 
 cnly took the most languid interest in what 
 her dearest friend had to say to lier. There 
 was nothing in it beyond what she had ex- 
 pected, and yet it seemed to her as if it had 
 been written to quite another Helen Eeid than 
 tie Helen into whose hands it had come, even 
 than the Helen whom it was answering. 
 
 ' Dearest Nelly,' she read, — 'As if I 
 wasn't glad and thankful to hear from you ; 
 as if I had not been wondering what had be- 
 come of you, and not been afraid to hear ! 
 Why didn't you write months and months 
 ago? If I didn't know you, I should have 
 
i84 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 thoiiglit you were something more than un- 
 kind ; but what is the use of friendship if I 
 can't go on trusting through silence even ? I 
 do know you, you see ; and though / don't 
 see why you shouM not have written to me, I 
 am sure that you know why, and that your 
 reason has been some wild, extravagant, ge- 
 nerous, heroic, absurd, incomprehensible, true- 
 hearted reason — just hke you. I'm sure 1 
 should love you for it, even though I can't 
 understand, and though I mean never to foi[- 
 give you for it as long as I don't see you. % 
 wish, dearest Nelly, I had the wit for undej- 
 standing as well as for trusting. Yes, it did 
 seem to me almost past believing that you-f- 
 all of you — even you, Nelly, went away with- 
 out a good-bye, or a word instead of one. I 
 hardly know how to tell you what it made mb 
 think. It seemed as if you were too proud to 
 have anything more to do with anybody who 
 knew you before that dreadful time. Only 
 such a thing as that could not be between me 
 and you. I'm glad, with all my heart and 
 soul, to hear it wasn't that — at least with you. 
 As if I haven't been thinking more kindly of 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 185 
 
 you than ever ; as if, if I had thought any 
 other way, I should have cared ! Then it is 
 true that you have lost everything ? I had 
 heard so ; but I had been hoping against hope, 
 and nobody seemed to know anything for cer- 
 tain, except that in some strange way Cople- 
 ston did not belong to you. Nobody seems to 
 know quite why you had to give it up without 
 a trial ; but everybody is sure that whatever 
 you did was just and right, and worthy of 
 your father, who was loved and honoured, 
 and is still, in a way that would make you too 
 proud to be proud of anything else under the 
 sun. I wish you could hear how mine speaks 
 of yours. Come and hear it, Nelly. Papa has 
 told me, without a hint or a word from me, to 
 tell you and Mrs. Eeid to come to Thorp End 
 and stay here all the time your brother is 
 away — and longer, if you will. You can't 
 want to be by yourselves in London all alone ; 
 and it is enough to break my heart when you 
 talk in that way of not being able to do any- 
 thing you want to. You can do everything 
 you need do, and that is to get into a train and 
 come to Thorpe End. I do want you, Nell. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 There is nobody I care to see since you left ; 
 and as for talking, I have not done such a 
 thing since last Easter Eve. And I think you 
 want to talk and to be talked to as much as I, 
 and more. Your letter tells me that, Nelly. 
 Your letter reads as if all sorts of things had 
 been gathering in your heart and turning 
 bitter ; and that will not do. Shall I be such 
 a baby as to pretend I don't understand you 
 about Alan ? I thought of being one ; but no, 
 I don't think I will. I'll be old and grown up 
 enough to tell you this : that if you had never 
 written me one word about him, I should have 
 known what you tell me — that he did whatever 
 he thought was best for others. I wish people 
 would not be so z^7z-selfish, Nelly. He never 
 said a word to me more than any old friend 
 might who had almost grown up with one. I 
 suppose I have no right to mix up what might 
 have been with what might not have been. 
 
 But if You don't think I should have 
 
 said " Yes " on Easter Eve, and " No " on Easter 
 Day ! He did not care enough to try me — 
 that's all. And why should he ? I never sup- 
 posed he did ; and I assure you, with all my 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 187 
 
 heart, that I don't feel one atom the less his 
 friend than ever because he did not happen to 
 ask me to marry him. It would be rather 
 hard on a man if there was to be nothing be- 
 tween not caring for a girl at all and wanting 
 to spend his whole life in her company. I 
 want a great many people, men and women, 
 to care for me very much ; but I couldn't 
 marry them all, and I don't mean or want to 
 marry one of them. No, Nelly, not even Mr. 
 Victor Waldron. I think of your brother as 
 always^ even though he might have come to 
 say good-bye to an old playfellow without 
 being afraid of her saying anything to him 
 but " God bless you ! " — as she does now. 
 
 ' It was you made me think of Mr. Victor 
 Waldron ; for, so far from knowing him, I 
 have never even set eyes on him. I believe 
 he is known very well at the " George " at 
 Hillswick, and that he made a bosom friend of 
 old Grimes, the sexton ; but he has never made 
 or received a call from any real people, and 
 the last news of him is that he has gone back 
 to America. And as to Copleston, indeed, 
 Nelly, I have never had the heart to go in 
 
i88 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 sight of the lodge gate, and have always ridden 
 other ways. And so — I have no news. For 
 it isn't news, is it, that I want you ? You will 
 come, and you will give my dearest love to 
 Mrs. Eeid ; and if you are a better letter- 
 writer to your brother than you are to your 
 sister, tell him that his sister Bertha thinks 
 just as kindly of him as his sister Helen. Say 
 " Yes " by return of post, and come by the next 
 train. 
 
 ' Your loving 
 
 ' Bertha.' 
 
 When she had finished the letter, Helen 
 felt that even Bertha herself was a little 
 changed. These airs of wisdom and resig- 
 nation and dignity looked much more Hke the 
 scar of a wound than the signs of having been 
 left heart-whole. ' Thank God for that ! ' 
 sighed Helen. ' He is not breaking his heart 
 and spoiling his life for nothing. Yes, she 
 does love him, and will Avait for him, if I can 
 only use the time I ' She read the letter again, 
 this time between the hues, and found proof 
 enough that the invitation to Thorp End was 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 189 
 
 fully as much for Alan's sister as for Bertha's 
 friend ; and she was pleased with a hundred 
 tokens of what Bertha, who had never been 
 asked for her ' Yes,' was too shy to put into 
 plain words. Well, that would soon all come 
 
 out in talk ; but ' What am I thinking ? ' 
 
 Helen suddenly remembered. 'What can I 
 do for them at Thorp End ? My work must 
 be here.' 
 
 Helen Eeid might work for a century with- 
 out pushing on Alan's fortunes so far as to 
 make it consistent with his notions of honour 
 to ask an heiress to share them with him. 
 Left to himself, Alan, altogether desperate and 
 heart-broken as she took him to be, might 
 work to the same end for a thousand years. 
 But what might not be done, and done quickly, 
 by Mrs. Gideon Skull? 
 
 When the saving sense of humour is dead, 
 the meanly grotesque will take its room. 
 ' Mrs. Gideon Skull ! ' The name helped the 
 man by becoming the worst part of him. 
 Nothing could possibly be worse about him 
 than his name, which had been identified all 
 her life with his Uncle Christopher. She did 
 
I90 (2UEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 not imagine for an instant that Alan would 
 approve of the means she took to raise the 
 fortunes of the Eeids. But she was her own 
 mistress ; she had a right to make her own 
 choice, and a poor man who loved a rich girl 
 could have no stones to throw at a girl who 
 chose to fall in love — yes, she must make up 
 her mind to fall in love — with a rich man. 
 He might not approve her taste : brothers are 
 not bound to admire their brothers-in-law : 
 but they must accept them, and, when their 
 brothers help them to the desire of their own 
 hearts, they will accept them. After all, be- 
 yond his name and his style of talk, no fair 
 objection could possibly be taken to Gideon. 
 He was a man ; and in point of manhood and 
 money, earls' daughters have been known to 
 make worse matches with the approval of the 
 world. It was by marriage that CojDleston had 
 come to the Eeids in the beginning. And 
 Alan and Helen were not even Eeids — the 
 Skulls were of a higher caste than the son and 
 daughter of nobody. ' Can I manage to really 
 care about him ? ' asked Helen. ^ It will make 
 things so far and far easier if I only can — a 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 191 
 
 little. I suppose I can if I try,' thought she 
 who had once said ' I would be Queen Cophe- 
 tua,' and was now scheming how best and 
 soonest to catch Gideon Skull because of his 
 ten thousand a year. 
 
 There was no need to keep Bertha's letter. 
 That had been written to Queen Cophetua. 
 She tore it up and threw it into the fire — 
 burning her ships behind her. 
 
192 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 You have pity for the sparrow 
 
 When the cloud lies white and deep, 
 
 When the day is dark and narrow, 
 And the world's afraid to sleep, 
 
 Fearing frost for heart and marrow. 
 Hoarding all the life we keep ? 
 
 Pity not the slave of Nature, 
 
 Though the cold hath numbed his tongue : 
 
 Frost may come with kinder feature 
 Than your linnet finds in song — 
 
 Pity thou the caged creature, 
 
 Longing when the days are long ! 
 
 Mrs. Eeid was not yet at the end of the 
 means she had reserved to herself in order to 
 begin the battle. She also had burned her 
 ships, or at least cut herself away from them 
 for seven years ; for to play at poverty and 
 not to throw the whole burden of battle upon 
 Alan's shoulders in the fullest and sternest real- 
 ity would have been the merest child's pla3^ 
 She would not expose herself to the temp- 
 tation of secretly helping him out of some 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 193 
 
 hard strait, as she might prove weak enough 
 to do if she had kept her communications 
 with her sources of supply open ; and the 
 point and glory of her triumph was to be his 
 coming triumphantly out of a struggle as real 
 as if he had been born to poverty. She 
 never dreamed that the means she had kept 
 for starting would run out before even the 
 first sign or promise of success, nor did she 
 think so now ; for that matter, she did not 
 allow herself to think so. Such a thought 
 would mean fear of failure, and that was to 
 be impossible. This barren, boyish folly of 
 running off to see the soldiers and hear the 
 drums drove her to a stricter economy, if 
 that could be possible. But there was no 
 reason to fear that things would not hold out 
 until he returned, and then the poorer he 
 found them the better. 
 
 She had locked up in her desk the ad- 
 vance of Alan's wages from the ' Argus ' ; but 
 these were not to be toufhed, whatever might 
 happen, until they should be repaid with 
 interest at the end of the seven years. Alan, 
 she knew well enough, would never ask a 
 VOL. II. 0 
 
194 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 word about them, and, apart from her plan, 
 she would have been ashamed — she, who had 
 been born a Hoel of Pontargraig, and had 
 married scarcely, if at all, beneath her- — to 
 live on the wages that a newspaper paid a 
 reporter. Her one idea of giving and taking 
 hard blows in the battle of life, and of elbow- 
 ing and fighting one's way through the crush, 
 was to come, see, and conquer : her notion of 
 ladder-climbing was to make a clear spring 
 over the lower half of the rungs. She had 
 occasion to open her desk when the postman 
 brought Bertha's letter, so that she happened 
 to be out of the way when it arrived, and was 
 undisturbed by the sight of the Hillswick 
 postmark. Indeed, she was too deeply ab- 
 sorbed in her accounts to hear the knock at 
 the door, or she might have hurried down in 
 the hope of another letter from Alan. The 
 time had long gone by for finding any excite- 
 ment in such reckonings of petty cash for 
 a great purpose, while feeling all the while 
 that nothing but her will prevented each 
 sovereign she dealt with from turning into at 
 least a hundred a year. 
 
 But the more she reckoned, the harder 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 195 
 
 became the meeting of both ends. It seemed 
 as if the situation would become something 
 more than serious for want of a number of 
 pounds so few that she might, if she pleased, 
 treat them as of no more account than shil- 
 lings. It had certainly never occurred to her 
 that she and Helen might have to face the 
 very hardest realities of the battle, such as 
 women alone can feel. She looked at the 
 notes she had received for Alan. If she used 
 them as a loan, they could still be repaid 
 when the time came, and she would be spared 
 the complication of her scheme by the meanest 
 and most sordid of details. Perhaps the time 
 might come when the use of these bank-notes 
 would become what most people would call 
 an inevitable necessity, and when she would, 
 as a matter of course, have to go to her desk 
 on finding her purse empty. And that must 
 not be allowed to happen. She could not 
 disapprove of the source and use what came 
 therefrom. 
 
 So, while her purse was not as yet wholly 
 i empty, and while to-morrow with its needs 
 was still that to-morrow which is always so 
 0 2 
 
196 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 far away, she made the notes up into a packet 
 in order to place them where, should she ever 
 come to need them, she would be unable to 
 obtain them without a conscious and delibe- 
 rate suppression of pride — that is to say, 
 where they would be as safe from her as if 
 she had spent them. An account in Lom- 
 bard Street was still lingering in her name, 
 unknown to her son or daughter, and by 
 adding these notes to it she would put them 
 beyond the reach of any chance mood of 
 weakness such as the extremity of some day's 
 pressure might bring upon her. Without 
 seeing whether Helen had returned from her 
 errands, she carried her notes eastward as if 
 her spirit had been a miser's, so afraid of 
 spending that it would not trust the strength 
 of its own hands. Avarice itself could not 
 have done more than pride. 
 
 She paid in Alan's notes over the bank 
 counter and turned homewards, with her mind 
 relieved of the fear of a burden. She had 
 nearly reached her own street when she saw 
 before her her daughter Helen, walking by the 
 side of Gideon Skull. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 197 
 
 Inconceivable as that bare fact was, it was 
 not all. They were walking slowly, and in 
 earnest talk, and his head was turned and his 
 face bent down towards hers. It might have 
 been a chance meeting — it must have been. 
 How could it be anything else, when their 
 whole acquaintance was confined to a single 
 interview ? And yet Mrs. Eeid's heart sank 
 and trembled as it remembered all at once a 
 hundred nothings — a hundred nou^ghts which, 
 nothing in themselves, became signs of power 
 by grouping themselves after the fact which 
 she saw with her own eyes. Helen was not 
 one towards whom a mother, with a great 
 secret to keep of her own, could find distrust 
 impossible. For all these last months they 
 had for the first time been such close and 
 constant companions as to find out, each for 
 herself, that the other's real life was one in 
 wdiich she had no share, and that a wall stood 
 between them of a nature beyond guessing. 
 Helen thought her mother hardened and 
 weighed down by the sense of a marriage that 
 had been no marriage, by pride that forbade 
 her to share shame, and by its cruel con- 
 
198 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 sequences to lier son. Mrs. Eeid tliouglit her 
 daughter crushed by adversity hke a coward, 
 so that she felt her not worth consideration or 
 confidence in her plans for Alan. But that 
 was a very different thing from finding her 
 almost arm in arm with Gideon Skull, as if 
 she had been some Hillswick shop-girl who 
 had crept out of the house on a false pretence 
 to meet a lover — a lover whom many a Hills- 
 wick shop-girl had crept out to meet, if all 
 old tales were true. 
 
 For what had Gideon called upon them at 
 all ? Why had he been so incomprehensibly 
 and unreasonably friendly towards Alan ? 
 Men like Gideon, so much even Mrs. Eeid 
 knew, do not go among the fallen to pick up 
 friends, or waste their good offices upon those 
 who can do nothing in return. Why had he 
 called a second time within two days ? Why 
 had her presence confused his looks and his 
 words, and driven him out of the house as if he 
 were afraid of an elderly woman and a girl ? 
 In what way but one was she to read the 
 speech of his eyes during his visit ; and what 
 could have been the meaning of Helen's 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 199 
 
 changes of colour and unnatural silence in 
 liis presence, and her feeble excuses for him 
 when his back was turned ? It did not seem 
 impossible to her that a girl should be led 
 astray by Gideon. She herself did more than 
 justice to his pluck, his strength, and his 
 triumph in the battle of life, which had gone 
 far to inspire her with her scheme for Alan. 
 She did not underrate his old character with 
 respect to women ; he had been, ever since 
 her marriage, her sole living type of the great, 
 bold, bad man, whom she feared far too much 
 to despise ; and she had a sort of lingering 
 mistrust that she had done wrong to warn 
 Helen, against him on so dangerous and fasci- 
 nating a ground. Gentleman or not, how could 
 Mrs. Eeid tell what arts and forces he might 
 not have wherewith to subdue girls ? Women 
 know better than to think that ladies, though 
 their own daughters, are made of different 
 flesh or blood from the rank and file of Hills- 
 wick or of anywhere. She would sooner have 
 seen Helen walking with a lion than with 
 Gideon Skull. No wonder her heart sank and 
 grew cold. Such meetings as this are never 
 
200 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 accidents, however they may happen ; and 
 the mere thought or dream of Helen — Helen, 
 out of all the world — being in the streets 
 with Gideon Sknll ! It must be true, because 
 it could never have entered her head to 
 dream. 
 
 She would have given anything for the 
 power to go near enough to them to catch one 
 least word. She could only keep them in sight : 
 and she noticed they remained together, as if 
 unwilling to part, till Helen reached the last 
 turning that would lead her home. Why did 
 not Gideon see her to her door, not a hundred 
 steps away? And he held her hand for a 
 whole half-second longer than there was need. 
 
 She waited till Helen was well indoors 
 before following her, and the time she gave 
 herself for her suspicions to cool in gave them 
 ample time to grow and to combine them- 
 selves. She went indoors, and found Helen, 
 still in her hat and cloak, throwing scraps of 
 paper into the fire. It was a strange occu- 
 pation ; at least, all that was in her mother's 
 heart made it strange. 
 
 Still, it might have been nothing but an 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 201 
 
 accident, after all. Even in London people 
 may fall across one another witliont intention ; 
 and it was one thing to doubt her own 
 daughter with her eyes and another with her 
 heart. Helen could not surely have waited 
 till she was a woman to begin secret-keeping. 
 So her mother said nothing beyond some 
 common word in order that Helen might 
 herself tell her, without asking, of this chance 
 meeting, for such it must really have been 
 after all ; though hardly even by chance could 
 it have happened at Copleston. 
 
 But Helen only answered with the com- 
 monest of words. None but the very com- 
 monest had passed for a long time between 
 these two. 
 
 ' You have had a letter ? ' asked Mrs. Eeid, 
 looking at the last scrap of paper as it fluttered 
 up the chimney. 
 
 ' Yes, a line from Bertha. There was 
 nothing in it, only her own affairs, and to ask 
 about us, and — that's all.' 
 
 ' From Bertha Meyrick ? How did she 
 find out where we were ? ' asked Mrs. Eeid, 
 wishing that Helen had not been the last to 
 
202 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 mention tlie letter, but not really wondering 
 at -so simple a thing as a letter from a girl to 
 a girl which mothers might not be meant to 
 read. ' From Mr. Skull, I suppose. I thought 
 for a minute it might have been from Alan.' 
 
 ' They seem all very well, and Bertha 
 sends her love to you. I didn't know you 
 were going out, mamma.' 
 
 ' And I didn't know you were, or I should 
 have asked you to do an errand or two — or 
 we could have gone together. Have you been 
 back long ? ' 
 
 Helen noticed no anxiety in her mother's 
 voice, which, indeed, never told anything. It 
 was far too well preserved to have known 
 the wear and tear of the voices of those 
 whose hearts and tongues are tied together. 
 
 ' Only a minute or two. I wonder what 
 Alan is doing now ? ' 
 
 ' I don't much like the idea of your going 
 out all by yourself, Helen. London isn't 
 Copleston.' 
 
 ' Why, what could happen to me ? ' 
 
 'That's just what I mean — you don't 
 know ; but we all know that things do 
 
(2UEEN COPHETUA, 203 
 
 happen. Of course, if you were not alone, it 
 would be a different thing.' 
 
 ' Mamma, do you mean that I ought to sit 
 indoors and wait till Alan comes home again ? ' 
 
 She should have said ' But I was not 
 alone,' thought Mrs. Eeid. ' Then, you met 
 nobody — nothing happened to you ? ' 
 
 ' What a starthng question, mamma ! ' 
 said Helen. ' Whom should I meet ? What 
 should have happened to me ? ' 
 
 ' One gets ideas, Helen. I don't know 
 London, and I suppose I never shall. . . . . 
 One hears all sorts of nonsense, you know, 
 and fancies more. No, of course, there's 
 nobody you were likely to meet, nor anything 
 likely to happen. No doubt you're thinking 
 me the very stupidest of old ladies to be 
 nervous about your going out by yourself. I 
 suppose I shall get used to it in time. Well, 
 nothing happened, and you met nobody. 
 That's what most such fancies and presenti- 
 ments come to, I suppose.' 
 
 A real destiny seemed driving Helen. 
 Pirst, she had conquered herself so far as to 
 lay siege to Copleston in the person of its 
 
204 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 usurper. Victor Waldron's absence had sent 
 that to the winds. Then, not to be defeated, 
 she had brought herself to forge a golden 
 fulcrum out of Gideon Skull ; and was that 
 also to be defeated by a needless answer to a 
 meaningless fancy ? For she knew well enough 
 what her mother thought about Gideon, and 
 how gradual and imperceptible conquest of 
 such a prejudice must be ; certainly not by 
 saying, ' Yes ; I met him because I went out 
 to meet him,' and then having to find an 
 answer to a ' Why ? ' Still less by saying, 
 'Yes, by accident, Gideon Skull.' If she 
 strained at a whole downright lie, it was 
 not likely she would be able to swallow such 
 a far worse-tasting and meaner-natured thing 
 as half a one. Perhaps she felt that a girl 
 who is scheming that most monstrous of all 
 lies to which people swear when they marry 
 one another for love of money had no right 
 to avoid one which is a mere means to an 
 end, and which at any rate has the merit of 
 keeping peace and sparing pain. Perhaps, in 
 a deeper way, her mother's having a secret 
 made it the easier for her to say — 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 205 
 
 ' No, I met nobody, and nothing happened 
 to me.' 
 
 It was Helen's first untruth, and she was 
 surprised, even then, at the easy and matter- 
 of-course way in which it came to her. She 
 spoke it without a stumble, and felt sure that 
 she turned neither red nor pale. Her heart, 
 started by Gideon, must have been rolling 
 down hill faster than she had fancied. But 
 she did not look her mother in the eyes, and 
 therefore did not see in them what she might 
 have seen. 
 
 Mrs. Eeid was not one of those happy 
 people who can disbelieve their own eyes and 
 ears when they please. She did not think it 
 more likely that her own senses should have 
 deceived her than that Helen should deny 
 having met Gideon Skull, even by chance, 
 within a few minutes of parting with him. 
 Such confidence as there had ever been 
 between Mrs. Eeid and her daughter had 
 been long melting away into mere daily asso- 
 ciation, and what must it mean when a girl 
 hides from her mother that she meets a man 
 out of doors who has been forbidden in the 
 
206 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 plainest possible terms to visit her at home ? 
 The untruth did not trouble Mrs. Eeid so 
 much as its cause. There are times, even 
 Mrs. Eeid knew, when the senses of the heart 
 become confused, and when daughters think 
 no more of deceiving their mothers than their 
 mothers thought of deceiving their grand- 
 mothers before them. Nothing Helen could 
 do or say could be of equal consequence with 
 Alan's deeds and words. But how, in this 
 httle while, could matters have gone so far 
 between Helen and this man that even her 
 truth, which was her nature, should have 
 become a slave to him ? In this bare light 
 it seemed incredible, and yet it was true. 
 Gideon must be something a great deal more 
 than a merely dangerous man. He must have 
 acquired that mysterious power of fascination 
 which makes women slaves, and a Gideon 
 Skull the equal of even a Hoel. She had read 
 and heard of such things, and now her own 
 daughter had become a victim to it before 
 her ej^es. She saw no outward charm in 
 Gideon. To her, at his last visit, he had 
 looked like a man in love, but in the most 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 207 
 
 rude and awkward of fashions — the victim 
 and not the victim-maker. But then fascina- 
 tion is by its nature a mystery of mysteries to 
 all but the one whom it concerns. What was 
 Mrs. Eeid to do ? 
 
 A pang did go through her when it was 
 thus, for the first time, brought home to her 
 that she and Helen were not all to one another 
 that they should have been, and that her own 
 reserve in outward affection and shyness in 
 feeling might have led to their like in Helen. 
 She could not charge Helen with deceit, up- 
 braid her with it, and forbid her, in plainer 
 terms than ever, to have anything to do with 
 this man. That would be the wisdom of a 
 fool. If Helen was really so far gone in her 
 blind folly as to have secret meetings with 
 Gideon and to tell untruths about them, she 
 had certainly long passed the stage where 
 simple obedience can be looked for, or where 
 shame may be expected to undo what love 
 had done. And, besides, Mrs. Eeid had alwaj^s 
 instinctively avoided putting Helen's obedience 
 to the proof even in little things ; they had 
 always understood one another so little that 
 
2o8 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 there had always been a sort of fear between 
 them. Why, for aught she knew, a girl like 
 Helen, under such influence as Gideon's had 
 shown itself to be, would fly to open rebelHon 
 for what she thought love's sake when she 
 found that secresy would no longer serve her. 
 For once, Mrs. Eeid's shame and sorrow were 
 infinitely too deep for the anger which alone 
 could have made her do so foolish a thing as 
 to drive Helen's womanhood into open revolt 
 against her. And as for arguments and 
 prayers, Helen had shown clearly enough 
 how much she would care about such things 
 as those. It was not so much Helen's fault, 
 after all. It is not the sparrow's fault when 
 it comes down from its height and its safety 
 for the sake of the serpent's eyes ; nor, per- 
 haps, is it even the serpent's — but it was most 
 assuredly Gideon's. Helen must be saved by 
 watchfulness ; force would be worse than folly. 
 Meanwhile, there was one thing which could 
 be done, and that instantly. 
 
 Vl have been going through our accounts 
 this morning,' she said in her quietest way. 
 There was absolutely nothing left in her eyes 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 20 
 
 or her voice to tell Helen that she had lied 
 vainly. ' And I find — well, it comes to this — - 
 we cannot go on living as we are, or here 
 while Alan is away.' 
 
 ' Do you mean we are spending too much 
 — that we can possibly spend less than we 
 do?' 
 
 ' I mean that, whether we can or cannot, 
 we must, Helen.' 
 
 ' But what can we do ? I spend nothing, 
 and you must live in comfort. What would 
 Alan say ? ' 
 
 ' Alan will say as you do, and I would not 
 grudge any hardship on earth if it would serve 
 him for a spur. I don't mean we need live 
 less well on the whole, but we must live a 
 great deal less well if we do not live elsewhere. 
 Alan took these lodgings for us before he could 
 possibly tell what our means would be, and 
 when he thought, no doubt, that money would 
 drop upon us somehow from the skies ; and I 
 can understand that he did not like to bring 
 you and me straight from Copleston into worse 
 lodgings than these are. But it must be done, 
 if we are to go on at all. It is not as if we 
 VOL. II. p 
 
2IO 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 had an income that we might have to manage, 
 but still that we could trust to.' 
 
 ' Oh, mamma, I wish with all my heart 
 there were no money in the world.' 
 
 ' You are not the first to say that, Helen ; 
 and it is no use saying.' 
 
 ' Then what must we do ? I feel as if 
 there were nothing useless in the world but 
 me. I wish Alan were at home again. I 
 cannot leave you now ; but when he does 
 come back, and you would not have to be left 
 alone ' 
 
 Hope came back into Mrs. Eeid's heart. 
 If Gideon Skull had been asking Helen Eeid 
 to marry him, and if she, in some fit of mad- 
 ness, had stooped so far as to accept him, then 
 her untruth had not been a lie, but simply the 
 outcome of the shyness and confusion of a girl 
 who has been planning to tell her wonderful 
 story at her own time and in her own way, 
 and has been suddenly thrown out by an un- 
 looked-for question. If that were all, Mrs. 
 Eeid would know what to do exceedingly 
 well — Gideon Skull, as an honest lover, would 
 be very different to deal with than Gideon 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 211 
 
 Skull prowling about more characteristically 
 after his prey. 
 
 ' Well, when Alan comes ? ' 
 
 ' You will let me do something for myself, 
 mamma — and for him, and for us all. You 
 will have liim then, you know,' said Helen 
 with a little more jealousy in her emphasis 
 than she knew, for she was beginning to feel 
 terribly alone ; so much alone that Gideon 
 Skull's friendship felt as worth buying as his 
 strength and his gold — not because he was 
 Gideon Skull, but because he was a man upon 
 whom she could lean, and whom she might 
 learn how to reward. 
 
 ' I don't know what I can do — nothing 
 well, I suppose — but sometimes people want 
 companions, or people to . look after growing 
 girls without exactly teaching them, or — there 
 must be things to be done. What do other 
 girls do not to be burdens on their brothers, 
 and not to be mere eating and sleeping 
 machines ? ' 
 
 It was rather an after-thought, which came 
 to her like most of her impulses — too sud- 
 denly to be thought over, and too strongly 
 p 2 
 
212 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 and completely to be ever withdrawn. In 
 her present mood it meant, as she supposed, 
 freedom to work and plan, and from being 
 unable to go out of doors for an hour without 
 having to tell lies when she returned ; and, 
 beyond even this, she was feeling such a mere 
 prisoner upon a treadmill which ground no- 
 thing that, for its own sake, she w^as hungry 
 for change and open air. 
 
 Whatever she may mean to think and to 
 feel, what should come to a girl born and bred 
 to all manner of happiness who finds herself, 
 for no fault of hers, condemned to such a gaol 
 as Helen Eeid's, with no hope of love or joy 
 for herself, feehng herself and all who be- 
 longed to her crushed under a dead load of 
 injustice like the Titans under the mountains, 
 and yet all this without having lost one 
 memory of old freedom, or one capacity for 
 happiness and joy ? Perhaps there are girls 
 who do not know how to answer, and one 
 hardly knows whether to say so much the 
 worse or so much the better for them. But 
 caged birds who were not born in cages 
 know ; and what they know is that the songs 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 213 
 
 which they sing behind wires are not good 
 songs. 
 
 Mrs. Eeid's heart sank again, bitterly dis- 
 appointed. So that was all — only a desire to 
 leave home ; and what should be the meaning 
 of such a desire but one thing ? A wish to go 
 out to service, even were it an honest one, 
 showed loss of pride enough to account for 
 her stooping to fifty lies. It shocked her even 
 more than the lie, and frightened her more 
 than the want of confidence from which the 
 lie had come. 
 
 ' A companion — a nursemaid ! You ! ' she 
 said, with the most sincere amazement and 
 dismay. ' Alan's sister out at service — are 
 you mad, Helen ? ' 
 
 ' Why not, mamma ? Alan has become a 
 clerk — why should not I be a clerk's sister ? ' 
 
 ' Why not ? Because it is impossible. 
 There is nothing that you can do except — 
 being patient — not for long ; and being good, 
 Helen, and true. What else should a woman 
 be ? And what more should she want to be ? 
 Is it not enough for her ? You want to help 
 Alan — don't you know the way ? ' 
 
214 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 ' Should I not liave been brought up to 
 earn my own bread if — if I had not been 
 born at Copleston ? ' 
 
 ' If one thing is different, all other things 
 are different too. Oh, Helen, I do wish you' 
 thought less of wdiat you w^ant and more of 
 others. Think of your father — think how he 
 would feel, yes, and ivill feel, at seeing you, 
 Helen, turned into a paid drudge ; what he 
 would think of me for permitting you ; what 
 he would think of Alan for not being man 
 enough to keep you safely in your own place 
 — for no woman can lose her right place, 
 whatever can happen to her. And think of 
 Alan — what would he say when he returns ? 
 Think of his shame. I don't ask joii to think 
 of me, because I only think of Alan. But if 
 there is one more way left for you to wound 
 me, it would be your forcing me to let me 
 see a girl with the blood of princes in her, viy 
 daughter, forgetting herself and her birth by 
 
 ^No. Never let me hear you speak of 
 
 such a thing again.' 
 
 ' But — if Alan would think only for me, 
 ought I not to think only of him ? ' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 215 
 
 'He would not think of you only. He 
 would think of all that was due to his father, 
 and to his name.' 
 
 ' His name ! ' The word came so hotly 
 into her heart that it slipped from her tongue 
 before she could call it back again. /Oh, 
 mamma,' she said, ' indeed I did not mean — 
 but ' 
 
 ' Indeed I do not know what you mean,' 
 said Mrs. Eeid. ' I should have thought you 
 would have known that by a man's name one 
 does not mean merely a number of letters 
 which may spell anything, but all the highest 
 that his own self can be to him — all the 
 trusts that generations have laid upon him, 
 and all that makes him differ from others, 
 for good or ill.' Helen wondered at her 
 mother's calmness, and was obliged to set 
 it down to the apathy which comes from long 
 endurance and increasino; agje. She did not 
 seem even to notice that Helen's slip of the 
 tongue betrayed a knowledge of the family 
 shame. 
 
 'I mean,' said Helen quickly, 'you say a 
 woman cannot lose her right place, whatever 
 
2l6 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 happens ; there are ladies everywhere, doing 
 all sorts of things.' 
 
 I mean/ said her mother, ^ that no woman 
 can lose her right place if she remains true in 
 thought and true in word. In that sense there 
 are ladies everywhere.' 
 
 ' And why should not I be as true in my 
 words and my thoughts, even if I went behind 
 
 a counter, as ' She could not say, ' as I 
 
 am now.' 
 
 ' As you are now ? ' asked her mother for 
 her, sadly. ' Yes, you might be tliat^ Helen 
 .... But that is not the question now. I do 
 not choose that you should do one least thing 
 unbecoming Alan's sister — one least thing be- 
 low that, from marriage down to doing badly 
 
 what thousands can do well We will 
 
 go and look for other lodgings, cheaper ones, 
 and go into them as soon as we can leave here. 
 But there is no reason why, because we have 
 to count shillings, we should lose pride. Be- 
 fore I married we were all poor at home, but 
 
 we never forgot ourselves And,' thought 
 
 Mrs. Eeid to herself, 'wherever we go, I shall 
 not send our address to Gideon Skull.' She 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 217 
 
 did not add, ' JSTor will Helen.' Weak as her 
 daughter had shown herself, there was no 
 need, even for an instant, to suppose her ca- 
 pable of carrying deliberate disobedience and 
 concealment quite so far. 
 
 But why not ? when, in doing one wrong 
 thing, Helen felt that she had left no road 
 open but that which led forward. What 
 could be so mean as to let her own mother 
 grow poorer and poorer, and leave Alan un- 
 aided, because she was afraid of helping them 
 in spite of themselves ? The greater was their 
 pride, the less must be hers. She did not real- 
 ise her own passionate hunger for life, freedom, 
 and action, which was thwarted by the tyranny 
 of every petty detail. Gideon Skull, she felt, 
 would find her out wherever she might be — 
 and this bare thought almost made her look 
 upon him as her knight as well as her lover. 
 
2l8 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 For Thou, qiiotli he, shall be my Wife, 
 
 And honoured for my Queen : 
 With Thee I mean to lead my Life, 
 
 As surely shall be seen. 
 Our Wedding shall appointed be, 
 And every Thing in its Degree : 
 Come on, quoth he, and follow me — 
 
 She was in great Amaze : 
 At last she spoke with trembling Voyce, 
 And said, 0 King, I doe rejoyce 
 That you will take me for your Choyce, 
 
 And my Degree's so base. 
 
 King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid. 
 
 Mrs. Reid liacl lost no time in moving with 
 her daughter into other and cheaper quarters, 
 sending notice of their removal to the office in 
 Fleet Street, with a letter for Alan to be for- 
 warded thence at the first opportunity. It 
 was at last becoming a little strange that no 
 letter for home had come from Alan. But no 
 mother was ever cleverer at making excuses 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 219 
 
 for her son than Mrs. Eeid. Helen s faults 
 had always been sins, and Alan's, virtues. If 
 Helen had been away from home and had not 
 written to her for a month, she would have 
 made up for her real indifference by irritating 
 herself into anger. But if Alan had been 
 silent for a whole year, she would have some- 
 how managed to make it perfectly clear that 
 nothing could be more natural in a young 
 man than to be heedless ; and that if her 
 heart wore itself out with anxious waiting, it 
 would be no fault of Alan's. It had not 
 always been with her quite like this. But 
 Helen's secret walk with Gideon, and her he 
 to cover it, had brought about an atmosphere 
 of watchful mistrust and suspicion between 
 the mother and daughter ; while the deep- 
 lying consciousness, which would now and 
 again rise up to trouble her, of the desperately 
 well-meant wrong she was doing her son, 
 forbade her any longer to be less than exag- 
 geratedly over-just to him in all other things. 
 She refused to complain of, or even to see, his 
 silence. She never spoke of it to Helen ; and 
 if Helen ever mentioned it, she defended him 
 
220 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 eagerly. No doubt there were difficulties in 
 the way of private correspondence which they 
 at home could not divine. Very hkely he was 
 not allowed to make use of Field-posts except 
 for public correspondence. Even if he were, 
 it was not likely he would have time for 
 writing more than he was obhged. No doubt, 
 considering all things, his official letter-writing 
 would take up every spare minute he could 
 find out of the saddle. No news must always 
 be good news. If anything happened, they 
 would be sure to hear. At any rate, what- 
 ever was the cause, Alan might be unam- 
 bitious, but nobody could charge him with so 
 much as the barest capacity for being unkind 
 — and to his own mother ! Why, except in 
 taking this wretched newspaper work at all, 
 he had been only too tender-natured. A 
 little more hardness — short of absolute selfish- 
 ness — was what she wished to give him. And 
 so, in short, his silence must be right, because 
 he was he ; and if he was ceasing to be quite 
 the same he, then his silence must be even 
 more right still. Her having to put all this 
 before Helen obliged her, for conscious con- 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 221 
 
 sistency's sake, to tell herself the same things 
 when alone. 
 
 But were her arguments likely to satisfy 
 Helen, who certainly did not yield to her 
 mother in fancying that she was the only 
 person on earth who really knew Alan? 
 Probably not ; if she, like Gideon Skull, had 
 not found means to know more of her brother's 
 doings and movements than her mother might 
 share with her, it was a fortunate thing that 
 Mrs. Eeid was so determined to be satisfied on 
 merely general grounds. 
 
 Gideon, we know, had arranged with Mr. 
 Crowder to receive Alan's home letters. And 
 Mrs. Eeid, while shifting her quarters to 
 escape from Gideon, had not forgotten to 
 send her new address to the office, where he 
 now called almost daily. She could hardly 
 have done better than send it to the ' Argus ' 
 had she wished the very man to know it on 
 whose account she had made the change. 
 But still, how should that affect Helen ? What- 
 ever letters there might be from Alan, she 
 had received none of them. 
 
 It was certainly time for her to take 
 
222 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 matters into lier own hands. Justice and 
 Copleston might have drifted away into dream- 
 land. But it was no dream that her mother 
 was drifting and sinking into that worst slough 
 of poverty which pride makes hopeless, and 
 that, if she herself did nothing, Alan must be 
 dragged down and kept down by the weight 
 of two women in addition to his proper 
 burdens. She had not more than half thought 
 of all this while dreaming of winning back 
 Copleston for Alan, for one cannot think while 
 one is dreaming. And, unless she took her 
 own life into her own hands, fully and once 
 for all, she must make up her mind to 
 surrender herself to the shame of helplessness 
 all her days. Twenty times, at least, she had 
 tried to bring round her mother to her views. 
 Every time her answer had been the same — 
 ^ You must not disgrace Alan by making him 
 the brother of a servant or a shop-girl.' To 
 Helen, who did not know that, in the natural 
 course of things, everything was to be made 
 right again in little more than six years, and 
 that nothing was really required but the 
 exercise of patience and content — for Alan's 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 223 
 
 sake — her mother's eternal answer began at 
 last to look like the very insanity of pride. 
 One afternoon, she did what I suppose not 
 more than one girl in a hundred would have 
 waited half so long to do. She wrote to her 
 brother's best friend — a man who could help 
 her if he would, considering his place in the 
 world, and who would if he could, she felt 
 sure. He who had found a crust for Alan 
 might find a crumb for her. It was not his 
 fault that her mother objected to him on the 
 score of his being some sort of a tradesman, 
 nor was it hers that she was driven once more 
 to deceive and to disobey. As for her own 
 pride, she had parted with that at Temple 
 Bar. And there is nothing to be ashamed of 
 in disobeying and deceiving for their good the 
 sick, the insane, the unreasonable, the ob- 
 stinate, the proud, and all other weak creatures 
 to whom only worse weakness than their own 
 allows their own way. 
 
 It was not much of a letter. It made no 
 mention of Copleston, and merely spoke of 
 her pressing need to be put in the way of 
 doing something to relieve Alan by supporting 
 
224 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 herself, and, if possible, her mother also. Any 
 girl might have written it to any man whom 
 she had no reason for mistrusting — and every- 
 body always trusted Gideon. After all, as she 
 said to herself as she wrote it, if there was 
 anything in the matter unlike the lady that 
 Alan's sister ought to be, it was natural 
 enough, seeing that she was not a lady. 
 Ladies have surnames, and she had none. She 
 would not allow herself the right to blush 
 when she added, in a postscript, that she was 
 obhged to act without her mother's knowledge, 
 and that he must direct his answer to a post- 
 office. In spite of the postscript, there are 
 men enough who know the world too well to 
 have been taken in by such a letter. But 
 Gideon knew but a quarter of the world. It 
 was just what he had expected — nay, was it 
 not just what he had been planning for ? So 
 his rather reckless bid of ten thousand a year 
 in the bush for Helen Eeid, and possibly for 
 Copleston, had not been made in vain. She 
 had spread out her net for him a little sooner 
 than he had looked for — that was all. AH 
 the better. The golden bird desired nothing 
 
 \ 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 225 
 
 better than to be caught in any net she might 
 choose to spread lor him. He was pleased 
 with himself ; and he let himself enjoy the 
 sensation of feeling his heart beat almost like 
 a boy's at the prospect of a secret rendezvous 
 with Helen. It was certainly first love in its 
 way. He had not always looked forward to 
 marriage as a condition of his purchasing 
 a lady to add to his collection. But his actual 
 knowledge, not only of the existence, but of 
 the very place, of her father's will, had now 
 made a regular and indisputable marriage a 
 matter of business which justified his readiness 
 to go even to such a length for the sake of 
 Helen. Some people try to cover interest 
 with romance, and make believe that they are 
 marrying for true love when it is really for 
 money. Gideon, on the contrary, tried to 
 defend his first romance by good financial 
 reasons, and made believe that he was going 
 to marry for money's sake, when it was in 
 truth for just as much love as he could feel. 
 And, for that matter, his sort of love will go a 
 great deal further than love of the sentimental 
 sort ever dreams of going. 
 
 VOL. II. Q 
 
226 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 Naturally, when Helen called at the post- 
 office two days afterwards in hopes of finding 
 an answer, she found none. But Gideon 
 knew that women live very much in grooves, 
 and that her hour for calling one day would 
 be her hour for calling on the next day also. 
 And so it happened that, when she called at 
 the post-office on the next day, she again 
 found no answer. But, when she had left 
 the counter, she met Gideon himself at the 
 door. 
 
 He had not, thanks to Patience, seen her 
 since their walk along Thames Bank, and he 
 was not ill pleased to see her looking rather 
 thin and worn. Victor Waldron, who had, 
 after all, seen her but twice in his life, would 
 have found it difficult to recognise in her 
 either the girl overrunning with health, youth, 
 and high spirits with whom he had been shut 
 up in Hillswick church, or the scornful enemy 
 who had declared war upon him in the church- 
 yard. She certainly did not expect to meet 
 Gideon Skull ; but she did not start ; and if 
 she had, he would only have admired her the 
 more for her acting. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 227 
 
 ' You see/ he said abruptly, and with an 
 entirely new incapacity for remembering, or 
 saying without remembering what he had 
 meant to say, ' I am come.' He had the air 
 of a slave of the lamp who has received a 
 summons. 
 
 It is only too easy to be hard on Helen. I 
 own that I have give her up ever since she 
 passed through Temple Bar. Henceforth, if 
 any excuses are to be found for her, it is not 
 I who make them. It is not to coin excuses, 
 but simply to string facts, when we go out of 
 our way to remember all that had happened 
 in her inner life since she left Copleston — all 
 the less that had happened in her outer life ; 
 how, save from Gideon, she had not touched 
 a hand that seemed friendly or heard a word 
 that was kind. Life had become a harsh 
 tyranny — a close hedge presenting a face of 
 iron thorns towards her on all sides, against 
 which she felt herself being goaded to re- 
 bellion. After all, she was young — not one 
 of her powers for life and joy, or her inborn 
 thirst for them, had been destroyed : distortion 
 makes such things more strong. Gideon's 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 eagerness and hurry to serve her touched her 
 keenly. She had been made to think of him 
 as her knight — a rough and discourteous Sir 
 Orson, it might be, but, therefore, all the 
 trustier, according to the belief that you may 
 know a true heart by a heavy hand and a 
 rough tongue as surely as you may tell a 
 false one by the signs of a Victor Waldron. 
 She could not help the glow of a new sort of 
 pride. Suppose that this man's coming to 
 meet her instead of writing meant that he felt 
 something more than friendly towards her — 
 what then ? At any rate it meant that, what- 
 ever had happened, there was a man in the 
 world who cared for her, all poor, and friend- 
 less, and unhappy as she was ; it meant 
 something that she could never feel sure of so 
 long as she had been the sister of Alan Eeid 
 of Copleston. She felt very much like a 
 woman, and very little like an avenger, just 
 then. Nobody could ever look down upon 
 Gideon : and a woman who needed strength 
 above all things, and had none of her own, 
 could very easily learn to look up to him. 
 She should have been angry at his coming. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 229 
 
 but she could not find it in her heart to 
 remember to be angry. She almost felt tears 
 in her eyes at so suddenly feehng that she 
 was not wholly alone. 
 
 He saw her eyes grow brighter, and a 
 faint glow come into her cheeks ; and he felt 
 himself more in love with her than ever. 
 And, at the same time, his hunger to have 
 Helen for himself, without much care whether 
 she married him for love or money, appeared 
 to pass into a new phase. There seemed some- 
 thing about her so new and so simply human 
 and womanly to-day, that a sort of real knight- 
 liness towards her came over him — the sensa- 
 tion was so utterly new and strange that it 
 simply bewildered him. When one has waited 
 till over forty years old to feel anything of 
 that kind, self-knowledge becomes rather 
 hard. That must needs be a strange sort of 
 day in which the sun does not rise until the 
 afternoon. 
 
 ' Is there anything I can do ? ' asked she. 
 
 ' I — I don't know,' said Gideon absently. 
 ' What do you mean by " anything " ? Of 
 course I have been thinking. I haven't been 
 
230 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 thinking of much else, for that matter. You're 
 in no hurry to go home, I hope? All this 
 wants talking over. We can take a long 
 round homeward, and talk as we go. What 
 do you mean by " anything " ? ' 
 
 ' I must be home soon. Anything — any- 
 thing that will earn money. That is what I 
 mean. We shall soon have nothing left at all 
 — till Alan comes home ; and then — how can 
 I be a useless burden upon him ? If I must 
 give up the battle for him, I must not tie his 
 hands. And Alan — you know those people 
 at the office : we have not heard from him, or 
 of him, almost ever since he went away.' 
 
 ' Oh,' said Gideon, ' he's all right ! They 
 get his copy, and that's all right, so he can't 
 possibly be wrong. Why should he be? I 
 take it, if he does his duty, he must give up 
 writing home. You can't expect a man who 
 isn't made of cast-iron to be about in the 
 saddle all day, and to be talking and drinking 
 all the evening, and to be writing half the 
 night, and then, instead of getting a few 
 hours' sleep, to take up his pen again and 
 spin out more copy for his mother and sister. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 231 
 
 You'd know soon enough if anything went 
 wrong — ^why, it would be pubhc news. Tm 
 at the office every day, so I should be the first 
 to hear — and you the second. Men may go 
 without rest and sleep to write to their sweet- 
 hearts, but to nobody else that I ever heard. 
 No — the question is about you. But I can 
 hardly hear for all this noise. We'll cross the 
 park — we can talk better there.' 
 
 ' I suppose it must be as you say— about 
 Alan. .... Is there anything I can do for 
 us all ? ' 
 
 'Honestly — No.' 
 
 ' You mean that I can do nothing — nothing 
 in the whole world ? That I am only fit to 
 look on and see my mother starve ? I cannot. 
 Sooner than that, I must do anything — the 
 lowest and meanest thing : anything, right or 
 wrong.' 
 
 'I — ^I'm afraid you don't know what a 
 girl is taken to mean, when she talks that 
 way.' 
 
 'Is it not what I said when I talked of 
 doing something else for Alan ? This is for 
 Alan too.' 
 
232 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 ' Oh — of course — for Alan ! Yes. You 
 did say that. I don't forget what you say. 
 And there was no way, neither a right nor a 
 wrong. And there is none now.' 
 
 ' Hundreds of girls ' 
 
 'Yes — hundreds of girls do hundreds of 
 things well that you can't do at all.' 
 
 ' Is that all you came to tell me ? I 
 thought ' 
 
 'No. It is not all. There is something 
 — well, that you caii do, that no other girl 
 can do at all. Listen to me.' 
 
 ' What is it ? I will do it, whatever it 
 may be.' 
 
 ' You have no means left — no means at 
 all?' 
 
 ' I don't know how little — or how long 
 what we have will last : but not for long ; and 
 then ' 
 
 ' You will be absolutely without a penny 
 in the world ? Is that what you mean ? ' 
 
 ' Utterly without a penny in the world.' 
 
 ' Yes — and then your brother will come 
 back : wars don't last for ever, worse luck ; I 
 wish they did, with all my heart and soul. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 233 
 
 I suppose he will have some money due to 
 him ' 
 
 ' And it must be his. He must not come 
 back to find that he has to spend it all in 
 paying his mother's and sister's bills for food 
 and lodging. Alan — ^Alan must be rich — I 
 alone know why. Do you think it was for 
 the sake of the land that I wanted Copleston 
 back for Alan ? ' 
 
 ' You won't listen. You don't know what 
 I mean. I mean that whatever money is due 
 to him will hardly keep him till he earns 
 more. You don't know what these times are 
 — talk of a girl earning enough to keep herself 
 and her mother hke ladies, when thousands of 
 men, with brains and with muscles too, think 
 themselves lucky if they can make some 
 seventy pounds a year ! Of course, I might 
 be able to do something for Mm — but ' 
 
 ^But — for me, you were going to say? 
 What is the one thing that you say even I 
 can do ? ' 
 
 ' And that you say you will do, whatever 
 it may be. Be my wife.' 
 
 He said 'Be my wife,' in so grave and 
 
234 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 simple a fashion that she was almost surprised 
 at not feeling surprised. She certainly had 
 no wish to become the wife of Gideon Skull, 
 or of any man. But it was impossible to 
 doubt that he was perfectly serious. And 
 even if he had really understood her, he could 
 not have done better than make his offer in 
 that manner, without any of the conventional 
 sentiment which can only become poetry by 
 being shared. In truth, Gideon had been 
 forced to bring out his question in that rough 
 and almost savage fashion because he had a 
 sort of a suspicion that there must be some fit 
 and appropriate way of making love to ladies, 
 if he only knew it ; but that, not knowing it, 
 instinct preferred the straight line to the risks 
 of taking any haphazard and probably alto- 
 gether misleading curve. If he had begun 
 by talking to her hke a lover, so as to lead 
 up gracefully and poetically to its chmax, she 
 would have known how to answer him very 
 well : but the more delicate style, though it 
 had been beaten out over days and weeks of 
 wooing, would not have had half the effect 
 upon a girl who did not love him of this 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 235 
 
 sudden command. There must needs be more 
 heart and strength in one of three words than 
 in ten of three thousand. If a woman loves, 
 she prefers the three thousand, for the sake of 
 prolonging the pleasure. But Helen would 
 not have listened to the three thousand ; and 
 she could not help listening to the three. 
 
 She did not answer him at all. What is 
 there about plain questions that always makes 
 it impossible to answer them plainly ? It was 
 not a common case of the proverb about the 
 Castle that speaks and the Woman who does 
 not know what to say. She was neither lost 
 nor won. But she could not say a plain 
 'No' that might serve once for all. He 
 deserved more than the most grateful ' No ' 
 that her heart could spell. He was rich : she 
 was poor. He was an absolutely free man ; 
 her husband must take, with her, the accom- 
 panying burdens of an unmanageable mother 
 and a brother whose fortune had to be made. 
 He was certainly not a man of birth or rank : 
 but had he been a ragpicker, and the son — if 
 only the lawful son — of a ragpicker, he would 
 have had to stoop to the hand of a girl with 
 
236 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 no birth, no honest calhng, and no name. He 
 must care for her, or his ^ Be my wife ' would 
 have been the words of a madman. She had 
 come to feel so low, and so helpless, and so 
 contemptible in her own eyes, that any man 
 who could possibly want her seemed to have 
 a sort of right to her. Not every man may 
 lawfully take possession of a pearl that comes 
 in his way : but the common broken shell 
 cannot say to any chance finder with a fancy 
 for its worthless fragments, ' No : you have 
 no right to me ; I don't belong to you.' The 
 pearl can belong to one only, but its shell to 
 anybody in the world. 
 
 ' Yes. Be my wife,' said Gideon again : 
 this time more humbly, and with some tone of 
 pleading. And, though he beheved that she 
 was drawing him deliberately into her net, the 
 humbler and more pleading tone was no mere 
 form. He had felt to-day as if there were 
 something about her which she could not sell 
 him : and he wanted this too. 
 
 ' I shall never marry anybody,' said Helen 
 — quite quietly, and as if an offer of marriage 
 were as common as a ' Good Morning.' For 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 237 
 
 that matter, with her it had really become as 
 common a thing. ' I suppose you are sorry 
 for me, as strong men always are for creatures 
 that can't help themselves. I have felt hke 
 that for broken-winged birds ; but I haven't 
 wanted to marry them. — Oh, you don't know 
 how grateful I am! Much too grateful to 
 thank a friend who cares for me and mine by 
 giving him a bad wife, such as I should be.' 
 
 ' That is all nonsense,' said Gideon roughly, 
 in the tone he used when brought face to face 
 with any form of the hypocrisy which he 
 despised. ' I dare say you would make a bad 
 wife to ninety-nine men out of a hundred. 
 That's nothing to me. I'm the hundredth 
 man. And if I wasn't, I know what I want : 
 I always know what I want, and I mostly get 
 it too.' 
 
 They were not alone in the park, but love- 
 making like this might have been made in the 
 pubhc streets — he might have been a heavy 
 father who was making the course of true love 
 as rough as he could for some troublesome 
 and obstinate daughter, so far as any passer- 
 by could tell. His last words, so far as they 
 
238 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 implied a boast beforehand, gave a little prick 
 to the pride that Helen chose to think was 
 dead and buried in her. 
 
 ' I have said my say,' said she. ' Thank 
 you with all my heart and soul for giving me 
 a new behef — if you say you care for me, it 
 must be true, seeing what you are, and what 
 I am. But — I am married to Alan, you know. 
 I am glad you are his friend.' 
 
 ' So, she wants to drive a bargain ? ' 
 thought Gideon. ' Well, with all my heart — 
 that's only natural and fair. Only, confound 
 that eternal brother of hers, all the same 
 . , . . Of course,' he said, ' I don't expect 
 you — yet awhile — to care a straw for me, 
 except as for a man who can help you. As 
 for the rest — well, I'm not afraid — everything 
 in its own time. I shall never let you hate 
 me, anyhow. As a man who can help you, 
 then — can, yes, and will, while he has a shill- 
 ing or a drop of blood left to spend for you ; 
 for you and yours. Why, I wouldn't feel 
 jealous if you married me only to climb by. 
 What else do women marry men for ? They 
 get to like the ladder for its own sake, after- 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 239 
 
 wards, often enough to make the risk worth 
 running. Do you suppose any man, who isn't 
 quite an idiot, thinks a woman wants to marry 
 him for the sake of his beauty, or his wisdom, 
 or his virtue, or the way he does his hair ? 
 Why, a woman might just as well think that a 
 man wants to marry her best gown. I don't 
 ask you to care for me — I'm content to run 
 that chance — Helen. I know it isn't like 
 blockade-running, where it's eleven to one 
 against winning, but where, to win once, it's 
 worth while to lose ten times over. One 
 can't marry eleven wives. But I swear 
 I'd rather lose ten times over with you 
 than win a hundred times running with any 
 
 woman in the world Think. Think 
 
 what it would be for that con for Alan 
 
 to have a sister married to a man worth at 
 least ten thousand a year, and a man, too, who 
 could put him in the way of making ten 
 thousand a year of his own. Why, he might 
 buy back Copleston — who knows? And, if 
 he didn't, Copleston isn't the only place in 
 England. There's your mother, too — think of 
 her. She'd be angry at first, of course, but 
 
240 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 she'd thank you in a year. And you — who 
 would do anything for Alan, right or wrong 
 — stand thinking and doubting as soon as a 
 real chance comes to you ! . . . . It's not as 
 if I were old enough to be your grandfather, 
 or a sick man whoni you'd have to nurse, or a 
 miser, or any worse than his neighbours in any 
 way. How many men can say, as I can, that 
 I never loved a woman till I saw tlie one, the 
 first that I ever wanted to be my wife — and 
 the last too ?....! want you in my life ; 
 that's enough for me. I can do all things 
 that you want done ; that should be more than 
 enough for you." 
 
 This see-saw between real but uneloquent 
 passion and the most prosaic bargaining con- 
 tained many coarse touches which Gideon 
 might have avoided had he kept to a few 
 strong words, and which a girl who had ever 
 been brought into contact with real coarseness 
 in any shape could hardly have failed to see. 
 But a woman must have the too late ex- 
 perience of many years before she can tell 
 when and how a man is not a gentleman, 
 however well she can tell by instinct when he 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 241 
 
 is one. • As it was, he had said many things 
 that jarred npon her ; though only so far as all 
 romantic prejudice must needs be jarred upon 
 by inexorable prose. 
 
 ' You mean- — that you want to marry me 
 for Alan's sake ? ' she asked. ' No — it is 
 impossible ' 
 
 ' No,' said Gideon. ' It is not for Alan's 
 sake that I want to marry you. It is for my 
 own sake, as selfishly as you please. It isn't 
 even for yours ; it's for my own. But if it is 
 only for Alan's sake yoit would marry me — let 
 it be for Alan's sake. Any sake will do. I 
 shall know why you marry me, never fear. I 
 shall try to make you care for me a great 
 deal ; but, if you can't, I will remember why 
 you married me — ^Alan shan't lose. In spite 
 of himself, he shall be as rich as a Jew. As 
 his friend and well-wisher, I can help him to 
 a crumb or two ; but how can I do what a 
 rich sister can ? When Waldron bursts up — . 
 as he must- — I'll find the money to buy back 
 Copies ton. Helen — I only want you.' 
 
 It certainly did feel to her like a piece of 
 miserable weakness that she, who had once 
 
 VOL. II. R 
 
242 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 gone so far as to dream, for Alan's sake, of 
 bringing to her feet a villain like Waldron, 
 should feel the least scruple about taking 
 advantage of Gideon Skull. ' All for Alan/ 
 indeed, when she was hesitating over the only 
 thing that was left her to do for him — and if it 
 were but a little thing for him, what matter 
 whether it were great or small for her ? The 
 sacrifice, if it were one, ought to be only too 
 easy. There was simply no sort of intelligible 
 objection to Gideon, except a certain want of 
 polish and of refinement in thought — and even 
 this was a wholesome contrast to the smooth 
 ways which she had learned to associate with 
 all things false and mean. He was a strong 
 and true man ; one on whom, as on a tower 
 of strength, any woman or any man might 
 safely lean. It was not as if he were one by 
 whom, even if no love ever came, a wife would 
 find it hard to do her duty, while it would 
 be easy to give him respect, gratitude, and 
 honour. There was something almost touch- 
 ing, and certainly balm-like to her pride, in 
 his eagerness to give her all things for the 
 sake of a chance of liking in return. And, 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 243 
 
 above all, it was not as if he asked her to come 
 to him on false pretences, professing, either by 
 words or silence, a love which she conld not 
 feel. There was no first love to stand in her 
 way ; she was called npon to be false neither 
 to him nor to any man — how could she pause 
 twice before such an All for Alan ? 
 
 She was even ashamed of pausing. But 
 she did pause ; and Gideon, wondering what 
 he could possibly have omitted to urge, had 
 to leave her that morning disappointed, 
 anxious, and hardly answered. But her No 
 had not been a real No — certainly not such a 
 JSTo as she could bring back to her mother. 
 Helen had wholly learned that, whatever she 
 did, she must take her whole life into her own 
 hands. It was in spite of herself that her 
 mother must be saved. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 If I the Sun 
 
 Had placed on high to guide this errant star, 
 I had not made him fitful, faint, and far : 
 But he had shone 
 
 Nigh, strong, and constant. And if I the Rose 
 Had made, who is the garden's liege and Queen, 
 Thornful and fit for fading had not been 
 .Her transient glows. 
 
 What need I but one life wherein to give 
 The touches God forgot ? Ah God, that I, 
 Who would make good Thy flaws, am bound to die 
 Before I live ! 
 
 No letter came from Alan. But liis mother 
 had at last cultivated obstinate faith in her 
 own opinions into a severe system of self- 
 defence. If she gave up one inch of ^ her 
 system, she must give up her whole plan. 
 She had determined that nothing which Alan 
 could possibly do or leave undone could pos- 
 sibly be wrong. It was part of her system 
 that he was very much too tender- natured ; 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 245 
 
 and if she was wrong in one least point, she 
 might just as well own that she had been 
 mistaken from the beginning. And she had 
 certainly not gone through all this for 
 nothing. 
 
 And so it happened that her resolute 
 satisfaction with things as they ought not to 
 be relieved Helen's mind from the weight of 
 knowing that all was well with Alan, without 
 being able to share her knowledge with her 
 mother. She did once or twice summon up 
 courage to mention Gideon's name, but it 
 would have been the height of folly to mention 
 it a third time. To escape from Gideon was 
 also part of the system, or at any rate had 
 become so. Helen knew that her mother, 
 with her proud Welsh blood stung and sharp- 
 ened by Pride's twin-sister, Poverty, would 
 far rather see her in her grave than the wife 
 of Gideon Skull. To inflame monomania by 
 argument is worse than absurd. It was not 
 good to go against her mother in so great a 
 thing ; but obedience would be worse and 
 more Selfish still, and whatever had to be done 
 for Alan must be done. It must even be 
 
246 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 without Alan's knowledge ; for she much 
 feared that he would be one with his mother 
 in this matter. They must be able to reap the 
 harvest without the shame and labour of 
 having had to sow the seed for themselves. 
 All the labour and all the shame must be hers 
 alone. They would forgive her when it was 
 too late for anything but pardon ; and, even 
 if they could not, she would be able to helj) 
 them in spite of their pride. And as for Alan, 
 if his pride could stand against her, it would 
 surely melt before Bertha. 
 
 But how, in ten books, can one trace 
 Helen's whole heart and mind? Sense and 
 folly, heroism and weakness, pride and self- 
 scorn, recklessness and duty, cowardice and 
 courage, romance and necessity — who may 
 end such an infinite catalogue ? — ^were all con- 
 fused and tang-led into a kind of chaos 
 infinitely beyond her own comprehending. 
 And, then, things were getting worse and 
 worse at home. She could not make out how 
 it was that they had not reached the end of 
 their resources long ago. Literally, there was 
 only one thing left, and that must be done 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 247 
 
 without any of the helpless, and worse than 
 useless, talk which only disturbs decision and 
 hinders and defeats action. 
 
 It must not be supposed that, with all her 
 confusion about the rights and wrongs of life, 
 she could go on, day after day, in an atmo- 
 sphere of the wretched little secrets which are 
 the detestable spawn of great ones, without 
 the consciousness, deformed and distorted as 
 it was, that she was doing something heroic, 
 and was only doing and bearing evil that 
 good might come to him for whom she had 
 bound herself to do and to bear all things. 
 But she could not always keep herself up to 
 the needful pitch of heroic zeal. Often and 
 often she felt very unlike a heroine, and very 
 like a very mean sort of schoolgirl who is 
 trying to act a novel. On such occasions, she 
 had often written half a letter to Gideon to 
 tell him that she was too weak to do even 
 thus much for Alan, and to ask him to forget 
 that there was a Helen Eeid in the world. 
 But the letter never got finished. Even for so 
 much as that she was too weak or else too 
 strong. She could not write, 'There is some- 
 
248 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 thing that I cannot do for Alan.' And her 
 will had become sadly weakened, which was 
 certainly not the case with Gideon's. She 
 knew well enough that he did not mean to let 
 her go. If she could make the only man who 
 loved her happy enough with a tenth part of 
 a heart, she could do so much, at least, for 
 somebody in the world. 
 
 But at last came one morning when she 
 never felt less like a heroine, and never more 
 miserable. It was a fine, bright day, too, such 
 as girls and girls' friends like to have for a 
 wedding day. Between Helen and the weather 
 there was generally a very close sympathy. It 
 was mostly on dull days that she had written 
 those half-letters to Gideon. But to-day it 
 was as if there were thunder in some inner 
 air. She came down purposely late to break- 
 fast, for she dreaded to meet her mother and 
 to talk about everyday things. There was as 
 little sympathy between Helen and her mother 
 as between Helen and the sunshine. Mrs. 
 Eeid had already looked at the two empty 
 plates, on which no letter was ever laid, and, 
 for the first time, she saw something in her 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 249 
 
 daughter's pale cheeks and heavy eyes that 
 obhged her, at last, to think of somebody 
 besides Alan. No doubt Helen's want of cour- 
 age and patience had terribly disappointed 
 her. But she had not reckoned upon the 
 chance of illness for one who had never been 
 really ill since she was born, and to whom 
 headaches were things unknown. 
 
 ' Don't you feel well, Helen ? ' she asked, 
 half gently, half reproachfully. 'What has 
 made you so late ? And you are not eating, 
 I see- ' 
 
 Helen gathered her strength together. ' I 
 
 am well — quite well. There, mother ' 
 
 'Well, Helen?' 
 
 Nothing could be more discouraging than 
 Mrs. Eeid's way of saying ' Well, Helen ? ' It 
 was especially discouraging to-day. 
 
 ' If there were any great thing I could do 
 for Alan, something very great indeed ' 
 
 ' You can do something — something very 
 great indeed ; the greatest thing in the world.' 
 
 'What is that?' 
 
 ' You know.' 
 
 'Oh, to be patient — and brave. Of course 
 
250 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 — I try to be that ; but I'm not patient for 
 him ; and I'm not brave hke you. I don't 
 mean those things. I mean something real — 
 something that one can do ' 
 
 ' Helen, I Avill not hear one word of your 
 governess scheme again. That is not being 
 patient — nor brave. When Alan becomes 
 what he mU become ' 
 
 ' You still think he would be ashamed of 
 my having to do something while he was 
 poor ? ' 
 
 ' It is not what he would feel, but what 
 you ought to do. Don't speak of it again.' 
 
 ' Suppose I found some man — some very 
 rich man — who would marry me for myself, 
 and help Alan for my sake ' 
 
 ' Are you mad, Helen ? Is it such a chance 
 as that that makes you want to leave home ? 
 And if there was such a man, is it like Alan's 
 sister to ' 
 
 ' But suppose there were such a man, who 
 could, and would, do all things that I 
 say?' 
 
 ' Who can answer such a question ? If 
 you loved him, and if he loved you, and if, as 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 251 
 
 well as rich, lie was well born and a gentle- 
 man, and if lie was a good man besides, and not 
 in trade, and one of whom Alan and I could 
 approve — well, I suppose you ought to marry 
 him for your own sake, and not for Alan's. 
 But if you married him only for Alan's sake 
 and without loving him, or if he was of birth 
 and rank lower than you would have looked 
 for when we were at home, or if he was not a 
 good man, or not rehgious, or not moral, or if 
 he was a tradesman — ^why, you might as well 
 talk of marrying — Gideon Skull ! I should 
 have thought you would know that as well 
 as L' 
 
 Helen flushed crimson. Why should her 
 mother have dragged in the name of Gideon 
 as the type of the man whom she ought not 
 to marry ? No — it was clear that she might 
 as well try to make a confidante of a rock as 
 of her mother. Apart as they were, Helen 
 felt as if they must be living in different 
 worlds. There was something her mother 
 loved better than Alan, after all — her own 
 pride. And then, that wretched prejudice 
 against Gideon for being Gideon, and against 
 
252 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 trade for being trade — she could only sigh 
 and say no more. 
 
 But Mrs. Eeid had seen the blush, and 
 had by no means spoken at hazard when she 
 mentioned Gideon. Could it be possible that 
 the walk of long ago had meant even more 
 than she had dreaded at the time ? 
 
 ' Never let me hear that man's name 
 again,' she said. 
 
 ' It was you mentioned him, mamma — 
 not I.' 
 
 ' Then, / will not mention him again.' 
 
 It was quite clear that Helen must find 
 sense and strength for both, and must turn 
 heroine at last — once for all. 
 
 Helen might look ill, and even feel ill : but 
 Mrs. Eeid, without showing a single sign of 
 illness, had become conscious of certain symp- 
 toms which, not alarmed her, but troubled 
 her. Nothing had gone as she wished thus 
 far, and her suppressed anxiety about Alan's 
 silence was amply enough to bring about one 
 kind of heart-sickness. Her sudden change of 
 life and her self-imprisonment at her time of 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 253 
 
 life, in what to her was the unnatural atmo- 
 sphere of London lodgings, were as bad for her 
 health as anything could be : and the bare 
 fact of her sharing the same roof and the 
 same table with Helen did not save her from 
 living absolutely alone. She was Hving for 
 her secret : and who can live for a secret 
 without being worn out by inches ? In short, 
 she was torturing herself by a prolonged 
 martyrdom : and nothing but its hardness 
 prevented her from giving way. She still 
 believed that she had done what was right, 
 and was the last woman on earth to let 
 herself be turned aside by any trouble or 
 suffering which it might bring to her. In 
 Helen's place she would not have doubted, 
 even for an instant, whether she ought to 
 marry Gideon : the two were, after all, far 
 more fully mother and daughter than she 
 and Alan were mother and son. But none of 
 these things wholly accounted for the exact 
 manner in which her health, or at any rate 
 her strength, was beginning to fail her. She 
 had never been active in her ways, like her 
 husband and her children ; but still it was a 
 
254 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 new thing to her to feel it needful to sit down 
 and rest after going up or down stairs ; and 
 she had become subject to alternate numbness 
 and burning of the feet and hands, which 
 often extended nearly to the shoulders, and 
 was sometimes accompanied by a sense of 
 general oppression and pain. She was cer- 
 tainly not nervous about herself; and the 
 Hoels of Pontargraig had always been a tough 
 race, and famous, Avithii^ their narrow circle, 
 for length of life in a country where life runs 
 longer than in any other country in the world. 
 Besides, it was out of the question that any- 
 thing should go seriously wrong with her 
 before the end of the seven years. Nobody is 
 ever permitted to die — she had read on high 
 authority — until his or her allotted task on 
 earth is fulfilled. It was only just and rational 
 that it should be so : and certainly the most 
 sceptical may be defied to find any convincing 
 evidence to the contrary. But, without 
 wanting either faith or courage, one may be 
 prudent. And it so happened that on this 
 very day she had planned to get rid of Helen 
 for an hour or two in the morning, so that 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 255 
 
 she might consult a physician without letting 
 her errand be suspected. For her going out 
 alone would have been a very noteworthy 
 event in such a life as she and Helen led in 
 London. 
 
 And it so happened that Helen was so 
 anxious to leave the house alone that morning, 
 that no common excuse or errand seemed 
 good enough to suit her. They had become 
 shy of one another ; indeed, when Helen and 
 her mother sat lingering over the breakfast- 
 table — Helen vainly seeking a good reason for 
 going out alone, her mother trying to think 
 of an errand upon which to send her : both 
 anxious for the same thing, both for a secret 
 reason, and neither able to think of an open 
 commonplace one. 
 
 ' But you are ill, Helen,' said Mrs. Eeid, 
 at last. ' If you have no headache now, you 
 will have ; you seem all nervous and unstrung. 
 I cannot afford to have you ill. It is such a 
 fine morning — go and take a walk in the air. 
 It is the best thing you can do.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Helen. ' I suppose it is the 
 best thing I can do with myself to-day.' But 
 
256 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 she felt that she had never known what 
 shame meant until then. To have the door 
 opened for her like that, in kindness and in 
 trust, and to take advantage of it, felt worse 
 a hundred times than telling a lie. Dis- 
 obedience and deceit might be right : but this 
 felt like treachery. But — to-day, at least — 
 she had not the right to do as she pleased. 
 She could only change her answer. ' No — I 
 have no headache, and I don't feel ill. But I 
 will go out ' 
 
 ' Yes — go out : what is the use of our 
 being so near the park if you lose the fine 
 mornings ? ' 
 
 ' Mamma ' 
 
 'Well, Helen?' 
 
 ' If — if I ever did — anything — that seemed 
 — that might seem — very strange and wrong 
 — for Alan — to help Alan — if I ever do — only 
 for him — would you remember that I think- 
 nothing wrong that I do for him ? Oh, 
 mamma, if you only knew what he has lost, 
 you would think nothing wrong for Alan ! ' 
 
 ' Good gracious, Helen ! What do you 
 mean ? He has lost Copleston — he will gain 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 257 
 
 something far better and higher, I trust and 
 beheve. How can your doings, right or wrong, 
 help him to get back the worse or gain the 
 better ? Who has ever dreamed of your doing 
 wrong ? ' But Mrs. Eeid was growing really 
 anxious at last. She did think her daughter 
 capable of disgracing herself — had not that 
 been proved ? But she had not thought her 
 capable of developing morbid or nervous 
 humours like these. It had been part of her 
 scheme that Helen should accept everything 
 that came, without questioning or breaking 
 down. And now she seemed ready to turn 
 hysterical. ' Do go out, and take a good brisk 
 walk,' she said. ' And — Helen — — ' 
 
 A new thought had come to her. What 
 could Helen do for Alan that could look half 
 so wrong in surface-reading eyes as what she 
 herself had already done, and was doing still ? 
 It was a new light ; there are days and hours 
 for us all when the nature of our eyes seems 
 to change. Often enough the change has no 
 meaning but for the moment ; but sometimes 
 — ^well, there is a relation between souls and 
 bodies which it is waste of time to try to 
 VOL. II. s 
 
258 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 understand. All who have ever chanced 
 to behold the courage of the coward, the 
 cowardice of the brave, the justice of the 
 unjust, the illumination of the blind, will 
 know something of what such things mostly- 
 mean. 
 
 ' My dear Helen,' she said, as tenderly as 
 her long repression of all tender ways allowed, 
 ' we both of us live for our boy, you as well 
 as I. Some day all will be well, never fear. 
 Only, we must give our boy time to become a 
 man. Meanwhile, nothing that is done for 
 him, really and truly for him, can be wrong. 
 If it is wrong, it is not done truly and really 
 for him. There are many right things that 
 nobody will ever be able to understand. But 
 we must do them all the same. What others 
 may think of them, what does that matter to 
 us a straw ? ' She had forgotten her text, and 
 was thinking only of the defence that she 
 herself would need. ' We have only to do 
 what we know must be right, cost us what it 
 will. It is all we women are made for, it seems 
 to me.' 
 
 ' Mamma, one thing more.' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 259 
 
 'Well, Helen?' 
 
 ' We think the same. If ever / do wrong 
 — what seems wrong — for Alan — you will 
 understand.' 
 
 Mrs. Eeid could not help starting. Could 
 her own secret have been divined ? Was all 
 this talk only Helen's way of saying to her 
 what Nathan said unto David? It was 
 impossible, but it seemed as if the tables were 
 somehow being turned. She looked at Helen, 
 but saw nothing that she could read. But 
 what she had said had been life and strength 
 to Helen, who, moved by a long-forgotten 
 impulse, suddenly knelt down and put her 
 forehead to the lips of her mother. 
 
 ' Say,' said Helen, ' that you know that all 
 I want to do is that one thing — all for Mm' 
 
 ' Surely I know that,' said her mother, both 
 with earnestness and with anxious wonder 
 at what Helen could mean. But it was the 
 earnestness alone that Helen heard. Sympathy 
 would be better than pardon. She could go 
 out now with courage for all things that 
 might come. It was unlucky that these two 
 were so much alike. Sjanpathy would have 
 
 s 2 
 
26o 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 been easy and full, if Helen had been like 
 Alan. 
 
 Mrs. Eeid waited quietly till Helen liad 
 left the house. The talk, which had almost 
 grown into one of those scenes which she 
 disliked and avoided, had tried her already ; 
 it was certainly one of her bad days. So she 
 went to the sofa, and was not sorry that 
 Helen went out without coming back to the 
 parlour. It was horribly annoying, this trick 
 of being made to feel almost faint with the 
 least exertion. She was as much ashamed of 
 it as if it were something wrong. It was 
 impossible that anything could be the matter 
 with her heart, because such a thing as heart 
 disease, in any form, had been utterly un- 
 known among the Pontargraig branch of the 
 Hoels, who never went out of their way to 
 get anything, from money upwards, which did 
 not come to them by nature. And then she 
 had read, or been told, that diseases of the 
 heart are rarely accompanied by pain. It was 
 of heart disease that her husband had died, 
 and he had seemed as well when he went out 
 fishing as he had ever been — she remembered 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 261 
 
 liis good spirits when he left her, and hoAv 
 nothing had been farther than the shadow of 
 sudden death from their minds. It w^as not 
 hkely that a husband and wife should have 
 the same trouble ; still less likely that the 
 hearts of the Eeids, who were, after all, but 
 people of the day before yesterday, should 
 have anything of so much consequence in 
 common with the hearts of the Hoels, who 
 were at least three times as old as the 
 Waldrons themselves. 
 
 Still, it would be as well to see a doctor, 
 and it might be as well to see a lawyer also : 
 for that will in the Eeverend Christopher 
 Skull's bankers' custody had given her certain 
 poAvers of bequest which she ought not to 
 leave unused. Though she might be as hale 
 and sound as her husband had seemed on the 
 day of his death, and though her heart might 
 be as strong as her will, still, every minute of 
 every day brings chances of sudden death 
 with which the state of the heart, or of any 
 other organ, has nothing to do. What is a 
 heart out of order but one chance of sudden 
 death the more added to ten thousand others ? 
 
262 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 But, now that she had got her daughter 
 out of the way, she still felt unwilling to 
 move. She seemed to have to think of so 
 many things — her great scheme for making 
 Alan all over again would perhaps never have 
 had birth could she have foreseen all its turns 
 and details. Her faith had not waned : she 
 still told herself that she was glad she had not 
 foreseen. It had not proved so easy as she 
 had thought it, and as rich and comfortable 
 people always think it, to give up for the sake 
 of principle the comforts which we never heed 
 while we have them. 
 
 ' I wish Alan were home again,' thought 
 she. And so, having touched the centre of 
 her pain, she at last got ready to start on her 
 own errand. It was already later than she 
 ought to start if she wanted to be sure of 
 being home again before Helen. 
 
 She was almost in the passage on her way 
 to the street-door when she was delayed by 
 a knock ; and presently she was told that a 
 gentleman wished to see her. It sounded 
 impossible — and that her first visitor should 
 have chosen the first hour when she really 
 cared not to be delayed, made the whole day 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 263 
 
 look bent upon going wrong. But she dared 
 not say she was not at home. People with 
 secrets are denied the luxury of feeling in- 
 different about the business of unseasonable 
 callers. It might be the Eeverend Christopher 
 Skull, or — the hope leaped up in her— might 
 it be Alan himself come home, and amusing 
 himself with a minute's mystery ? But it was 
 neither ; only a tall, lean, pale, more than 
 solemn-faced man whom she had never seen 
 before. 
 
 ' Mrs. Eeid ? ' asked he. She bowed. 
 
 ' My name is Crowder,' said he. And that 
 was all that he appeared to intend to say. 
 Mrs. Eeid felt that she ought to have some 
 sort of association with the name, but could 
 not remember how, or when, or where. She 
 had never taken the smallest heed of the 
 details of Alan's engagement ; and the name 
 of his employer, if it had ever entered at one 
 ear, had immediately gone out at the other. 
 She could only wait for him to tell his busi- 
 ness. But he remained dumb. 
 
 ' I cannot remember ' — she was obliged at 
 last to begin 
 
 ' I represent the Spraggville Argus " in 
 
264 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 this city/ said lie. And again lie was 
 dumb. 
 
 ' The newspaper that my son — well — you 
 have news of him ? A letter ' 
 
 She stopped short. It was not Mr. Cro\T- 
 der's natural solemnity that startled her. Slie 
 had never set eyes on the man till now ; and 
 yet she was able to recognise a look in his 
 eyes that she knew was not always in them, 
 perhaps had never been in them before. 
 
 ' He is ill ? ' she said suddenly. ' Where 
 can I find him ? — how soon can I reach him ? 
 What has happened ? ' 
 
 Still Mr. Crowder was dumb. 
 
 ' What has happened to Alan ? ' 
 
 Mr. Crowder looked away. He was equal 
 to facing most things, and believed himself 
 capable of facing all. But, without any reason, 
 Mrs. Eeid was not the sort of woman to whom 
 he had come to tell what he had to tell. If 
 he had come prepared with speech, it was 
 gone ; and for once he felt that the ' Argus ' 
 was not the heart of the whole world. Was it 
 even the whole of his own ? 
 
 How, with those anxious eyes suppli- 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 265 
 
 eating, nay, commanding news that might be 
 borne, was he to say what he had come to 
 say ? His eyes could only fall before hers ; 
 and that told her all. He had meant to break 
 the news to her tenderly : he had left Mr. 
 Sims in sole charge, that a stranger to him 
 might not be startled by a certain double- 
 leaded paragraph in the ' Argus ' which of 
 course she read faithfully ; and now he almost 
 wished he had not come. He felt he had done 
 a braver thing than if he had led a charge 
 against a regiment of Prussian Grenadiers. 
 And it was true. 
 
 ' Alan is dead ! ' said she. 
 
 It was not a cry, but a most desolate 
 moan. For an instant her limbs seemed 
 giving way under her, and he moved towards 
 her. But she did not fall ; she did not even 
 seek to support herself; she stood straight 
 and rigid, groping in the air with her hands 
 as if she had been suddenly struck blind. 
 
 Even he, who did not know her, felt that 
 she was battling hard for enough strength not 
 to give way before a stranger. He had seen 
 such things in his own Civil War. But then, 
 
266 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 in his own war, mothers and daughters and 
 wives had enthusiasm, and the pride of giving 
 up all things for the great Cause, to yield them 
 greater strength than their own ; here, there 
 was only the mother of an only son, dead for 
 no cause greater than the pocket of the owner 
 of the ' Argus,' and with no strength but such 
 as she could find in her own soul. 
 ' How did he die ? ' 
 
 ' Doing his duty,' said Mr. Crowder almost 
 in the telegraphic tone of his friend and 
 enemy Mr. Sims. ' He had entered Pahrus 
 among the first, he and another Amurcan. It 
 was his duty to go. You have read what 
 went on after the siege ; and I assure you the 
 
 " Argus " is no more to blame for it than 
 
 Well! He and his companion got mixed up 
 with a crowd and a woman. They got the 
 woman through, but — No ; he couldn't 
 have suffered. A man does not feel in the 
 skin when he is fighting hard with his blood 
 well up ; and a stab or a bullet, till it gets 
 cold, is not so bad as a blow. And I con- 
 clude that a journalist, or any man who is 
 killed for his journal or for his fellow-man, is 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 267 
 
 as good as any soldier who is killed because 
 he will be shot if he runs away. We are a 
 Peace Journal. And those who die in the 
 great cause of peace and progress are martyrs 
 of whom their fellow-citizens will some day be 
 as proud as the citizens of Spraggville are to- 
 day.' His style of speech did not sound the 
 least strange. They were kind words, meant 
 to give Alan's mother such strength and after- 
 comfort as might come from knowing that her 
 son Avas not only dead, but was praised and 
 honoured for dying well. After that terrible 
 first word, Mrs. Eeid's brain seemed well-nigh 
 too numbed to feel. Even Mr. Crowder felt that 
 she had far better have fallen in a dead swoon 
 than be thus standing before him, rigid and 
 hard-eyed like a woman of stone. 
 
 ' I thank you,' she said. ' You say that 
 Alan Eeid died fighting against numbers for a 
 woman, like a gentleman — ^he is a Hoel- ' 
 
 ' Like a Man — like a Man ! ' said Mr. 
 Crowder sharply, alarmed at such signs of 
 wandering wits, and trying to startle them 
 back to their place again. ' Is there anything 
 that I can do for you ? There must be many 
 
268 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 things — are you alone here ? Of course not, 
 though. Shall I communicate with our friend 
 Gideon Skull?' 
 
 If he had said with the Emperor of Tartary , 
 it would have meant the same to her. Since 
 Alan was dead, it was as hkely as not that 
 Gideon Skull, or anybody else, should be 
 mentioned to her by Mr. Crowder. 
 
 ' I thank you,' she said again. ' I am 
 not alone. If you will leave me, I shall be 
 much obliged. Miss Eeid will be home soon 
 now ' 
 
 He had to leave her : there was a spasm 
 about her lips while she spoke which showed 
 that a strange presence was becoming more 
 than she could bear. But, even when he was 
 gone, she did not give way. She only went 
 back to the sofa, and turned her face to the 
 wall. 
 
 What must be done, must at times be done 
 in haste, for fear lest the strength we have to 
 do it should fail. 
 
 Alan's mother was not thinking of her 
 daughter, God knows. If she had been — now 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 269 
 
 —she would only have thought herself lost in 
 another dream. 
 
 She would have seen the interior of a 
 strange church, twice as large as that of Hills- 
 wick, nearly as worn out, and three times as 
 dark and dusty — a wilderness of huge galleries 
 and baize-lined pews, into which the sun, un- 
 soffcened by colour, seemed to stare sullenly 
 and only because he was obliged. At the east 
 end she would have seen a communion table 
 fenced in by thick wooden railings hke dwarfed 
 bed-posts ; and, flanked on the right by a well- 
 dressed young gentleman and on the left by 
 a clerk and a pew-opener, she would have 
 seen, standing before a surpliced clergyman, 
 Gideon Skull and Helen. It might have seemed 
 natural to her — ^in a dream. She would have 
 seen the giving of the ring that was to trans- 
 form Alan Eeid of Copleston into the brother 
 of Gideon Skull. 
 
 Helen and her husband parted at the 
 church door. She was certain she had done 
 what was right, and indeed it was needful for 
 her to be certain, henceforth and for ever. 
 The door for compunction and regret had 
 
270 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 been closed for lier, she could fancy, without 
 the help of her own hands. She had certainly 
 driven an excellent bargain ; for so long as she 
 allowed him to be her husband, Gideon had 
 been perfectly ready to give way to her in all 
 things, even in what he must have thought 
 her idlest whims. Not only had he been made 
 clearly to understand that it was for her 
 brother's sake alone that she had brought 
 herself to allow him to marry her — she was 
 not even to be asked to leave her mother 
 until she pleased ; and her dread of having to 
 make her confession met with such complete 
 sympathy and acquiescence from Gideon, that 
 she had resolved to put it off until to-morrow. 
 It did seem strange to her that doing right 
 should always seem so hard — first the doing 
 and then the telling. Well : it was all for 
 Alan, and her mother would understand. 
 
 So — half wondering that she felt in no 
 wise stronger or better than half an hour ago 
 — she first kept Gideon to his promise by 
 bidding him good-bye till at least to-morrow, 
 and, as soon as she could, got rid of Lord 
 Ovoca, who had been Gideon's best man, and 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 271 
 
 who insisted on seeing the bride at least part 
 of the way home. The young man never saw 
 anything odd in anything that was out of the 
 common ; his own hfe ran so much out of the 
 groove that he had no surprise left for any 
 but common ways. The secret marriage, and 
 the parting at the church door, must needs be 
 right, because they tasted in his mouth like 
 sawdust flavoured with orange-peel. He was 
 rather obtrusive in his attentions to Helen, but 
 his brogue and his general easiness of going 
 always saved him from offending anybody ; 
 but even he was made to feel at last that the 
 bride wanted to be left alone on her wedding- 
 day. His chief reflection on the whole matter 
 was, ' Fancy the feelings of a girl who's had a 
 decent name of her own when she hears her- 
 self called for the first time — ^Mrs. Gideon 
 Skull ! ' 
 
 But neither to-day nor to-morrow — that 
 day which never comes ! — was Helen to tell 
 her mother her new name. By the time she 
 reached home, her mother had died, without 
 moving from where she had lain down. 
 
272 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 I read it in a strange old book, 
 
 When hours were long and sunny, 
 How some one from a Fairy took 
 
 A purse for making money. 
 No more than half a pair of shakes 
 
 Would bid a bag of leather 
 Snow down, like Mother Carey's flakes, 
 
 Ten thousand pounds together. 
 
 How oft I wish, nor wonder why, 
 
 That fairies still were common. 
 Nor bade each girl and boy Good-bye 
 
 Who turns to man or woman ! 
 For, just as clearly as I see 
 
 The cock on parish steeple, 
 I know they'd give that purse to me. 
 
 And not to common people. 
 
 Mr. Demetrius Aristides, who represented 
 the respectable side of his firm, lived at Bays- 
 water in very good style, and, out of business 
 hours, held very little social communication 
 with his junior partner, Mr. Sinon. Many 
 people, judging by the very different view of 
 their house presented by the two partners. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 273 
 
 both in business and society, mistook it for 
 two dijBferent houses, whereas it was in reality 
 entirely the same, and scarcely differed from a 
 hundred others in having two different doors. 
 Mr. Sinon, his partner himself felt compelled 
 to confess, was far too much of a roue and a 
 gambler for a merchant of the City of London. 
 On the other hand, Mr. Sinon was exceedingly 
 fond, behind his partner's back, of girding at 
 him as a pedant, a miser, and a humbug, who, 
 though born in the Levant, was no better than 
 a common Englishman. Mr. Sinon seemed to 
 throw away, with both hands, all the profits 
 that Mr. Aristides made. But one advantage 
 they had, which presumably worked well. 
 The foes of one were the natural friends of the 
 other, so that either partner could afford to 
 lose a personal friend without necessarily 
 costing the firm a client or customer. And 
 then their divergence of character enabled 
 them to carry on many very opposite forms 
 of business which greater harmony of nature 
 must have made impossible. In short, Mr. 
 Sinon was the sharp, dashing, bachelor 
 partner ; Mr. Aristides the honest, respect- 
 
 VOL. II. T 
 
274 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 able, domestic one. And they were of perfect 
 accord in considering each other indispens- 
 able. They were seldom seen together, even 
 at their joint office in the City, and Mr. Sinon 
 did not pay his partner's family more than 
 one visit a year — that is to say, when he 
 brought Madame Aristides an offering of 
 sugarplums on Old New Year's day. But 
 they had never been known to have a dispute, 
 except very publicly indeed, and when it was 
 a matter of policy as well as of temper to hurl 
 at one another those magnificently resonant 
 epithets of Eastern Greece which are to our 
 noisiest Billingsgate what thundering rocks 
 are to clattering pebbles. And they never 
 bore malice, but forgave one another instantty 
 as soon as they were alone. 
 
 Mr. Demetrius Aristides was really, and 
 without the faintest tinge of sarcasm at the 
 expense of a most respectable word, a highlj- 
 respectable man. He was even a good 
 Christian, of the orthodox Levantine school, 
 and hated Jews like poison. So orthodox 
 was he that this was the second, if not the 
 very first, article in his creed. He felt it his 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 275 
 
 duty to attack them in business at every turn, 
 and almost always came off the winner. He 
 was a cosmopolitan steeped in national pre- 
 judices. Thus he objected to Scotchmen, on 
 principle, because it wastes time and ruins 
 temper to deal with people who will consider, 
 one by one, every one of the four hundred 
 thousand sixpences in ten thousand pounds. 
 He was cynically indifferent to Irish wrongs, 
 as affecting a country which has more to gain 
 than to lose; but he liked England, and he 
 adored America as the land of a spending, 
 speculating, and, above all, impulsive and 
 confiding people who gave him a great deal of 
 pleasure and no trouble at all. Ten Yankees 
 to beat one Jew, ten Jews to beat one Scotch- 
 man, ten Scotchmen to beat one Genoese, ten 
 Genoese to beat one Greek, ten Greeks to beat 
 one Demetrius Aristides, was one of his multi- 
 plication tables, and he found it fairly accurate 
 on the whole. The match for ten of himself 
 he had not yet found — not even in Mr. Sinon, 
 who had many genuine weaknesses, while his 
 own armour had 23roved hitherto without a 
 flaw. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 His wife, Madame Aristides, with splendid 
 black eyes that had once made her beautiful, 
 but with a degree of stoutness that no longer 
 allowed her to be graceful, and with an im- 
 perfect knowledge of English that happily 
 concealed her nearly perfect ignorance of 
 everything, was an ex-ballet-dancer whose 
 father had been a brigand of some note in his 
 day ; but she passed very well in London as a 
 foreign lady. He w^as an art patron — especi- 
 ally in the matter of paintings, which are 
 always worth money, while a song, once sung 
 and heard, is as unprofitable as a cab that 
 has once been ridden in. However, he by no 
 means bought pictures and bric-k-brac merely 
 to sell again. He liked his house in Bays- 
 water, overlooking the gardens, to be one of 
 the aesthetic show-places of London, and spent 
 hundred of cards a year upon enthusiasts who 
 were told it was the wrong thing not to have 
 seen some Brown or Jones in the possession of 
 Mr. Aristides. He spent little upon feasting, 
 because that was in his partner's department ; 
 but whenever he gave dinners they were at 
 least as great works of art as his paintings. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 277 
 
 and invitations to Madame's occasional re- 
 ceptions, where people were always allowed 
 plenty of room to dance in, were things to be 
 fought for. And all this came out of that 
 little back office in Woodenhorse Yard, where 
 nobody ever seemed to do anything, or to have 
 anything to do, but consume sherry and cigars. 
 
 It was one of Madame's receptions to- 
 night. It would have been easy to find more 
 distinguished society under much humbler 
 roofs ; but there were quite enough good 
 people with good reason for being there to 
 attract still better people there also. And, at 
 any rate, it had the merit of variety, for Mr. 
 Aristides had the good sense to mix his guests 
 well, without caring in the least who might 
 meet whom. He might lose a few ex- 
 ceptionally strait-laced people that way, but 
 not many, and hardly any worth keeping ; 
 and, for the rest, the more mixed the com- 
 pany, the more safe they are to enjoy them- 
 selves in their hearts, whatever they may 
 think it right to say when the time comes for 
 talking things over. Lord Ovoca, for instance, 
 would not have enjoyed himself very much in 
 
278 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 the society of his peers, nor many of them 
 very much in his ; while by bringing him to- 
 gether with half-a-dozen aesthetic republicans 
 seven people were equally pleased. Fine 
 ladies were enabled to flatter themselves that 
 they might be mistaken for foreign singers, 
 while they at the same time made the haute 
 noblesse of Bohemia feel charitably towards 
 those poor creatures of whom no stories can 
 be told. For the true Bohemian longs in his 
 or her inmost soul for the Philistine plains far 
 more truly and honestly than the adventurous 
 Philistine for the imaginary charms of Bohemia. 
 Whenever you hear Bohemia praised and glori- 
 fied, be sure that the praiser has never been 
 really and truly there — unless, indeed, he be 
 a Philistine fox who has lost his tail. 
 
 It was good of Mr. Aristides to amuse and 
 interest his titled and moneyed friends by 
 giving his artistic clientele a respectable holi- 
 day. It was easy to account for the presence 
 of most of the company. The connection of 
 Mr. Aristides with many kinds of speculation, 
 and his patronage of almost every branch of 
 art — save only that of the ballet^ which was 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 279 
 
 strictly in the department of Mr. Sinon — were 
 amply sufficient reasons for an infinite number 
 of individual cases. But still there were a 
 few flies in amber even there — people whom 
 nobody knew, who interested nobody, and 
 perhaps could hardly themselves have given 
 an account of how or why they had come. 
 
 There was, at any rate, one man who 
 seemed to be in this position. He was near 
 the door, looking about him as a mere stranger 
 would, and without joining in the confused 
 chatter, perpetually rising higher and higher 
 in pitch, which on such an occasion reminds a 
 cynical listener of nothing so much as of his last 
 visit to a collection of cockatoos and macaws. 
 He was a tall man, made lean and strong, 
 with a grave, straight-featured, sun-browned 
 face, and a large brown beard. Nothing 
 about him told what he was, or in what part 
 of the world he had been born, except that he 
 was certainly not a countryman of Mr. Aris- 
 tides. He looked as much, or as little, like 
 one of the artists there, or one of the stock- 
 brokers, as like a soldier, which is giving a 
 tolerably wide margin. Without looking par- 
 
28o QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 ticulaiiy interested or at all amused, he seemed 
 entirely and unaffectedly at his ease, and quite 
 content to be talking to nobody. But in that 
 house it was next to impossible for anybody 
 who had ever known anybody in his hfe — 
 even if he were a stranger to London — to get 
 through a whole evening without being run 
 across by somebody whom he had known 
 somewhere, for there was somebody there 
 from almost everj'where. 
 
 ' Holloa ! ' said a little man, otherwise un- 
 noticeable, who was rather roughly rubbing 
 the heat from his forehead on his w^ay towards 
 the door — ' you here ! Eather different from 
 the last place we met in, eh ? Hotter in one 
 way, but not in another ? ' 
 
 The silent man in the doorway smiled 
 slowly and pleasantly, and held out his hand. 
 ' Yes, I'm here. And so, if I'm not mistaken, 
 are you. Yes, it's different here, as you say. 
 What brings you into this galley ? ' 
 
 The little man shrugged his shoulders, 
 almost like a Frenchman, thoug^h he was cer- 
 tainly not one. ' That's a long story. And 
 you ? ' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 281 
 
 ' That's a longer. Doctor. I wonder if any- 
 body's here without some sort of a why. It's 
 almost like the Legion etrangere. If I wanted 
 plots for plays, I'd hang about this house, and 
 make a fortune in no time.' 
 
 ^ Or lose one,' said the Doctor, shrugging 
 his shoulders again. ' But it's true you might 
 make one, if you had none to lose. I hope 
 you're not a man of property. If you're not, 
 I'm glad to meet you. If you are ' 
 
 The other frowned deeply for an instant, 
 and then smiled again. ' You seem to know 
 the country, Dale. I like the look of it, 
 rather. Standing in this doorway, it's like 
 taking a bird's-eye view of the world.' 
 
 ' How long have you been in town ? And 
 if you've been long, why didn't you look me 
 up long ago, and have a good big talk about 
 blood and bones ? ' 
 
 'I'd have liked it, and I'll have it too. 
 But I've not been long over. I've been seeing . 
 how they do things in Spain. Why didn't 
 you come ? ' 
 
 ' Ah — you fellows have all the luck ! ' 
 sighed Dr. Dale. ' As if I'd let Sark make 
 
282 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 war on Scilly, if I could help it, without my 
 being there to have a finger in the fun. But 
 I'm a bandaged man. I've dropped into music, 
 you see, since the good old times.' 
 
 'Into music — you? If you sing the old 
 songs in the old way, you would make one 
 sort of sensation : no doubt of that. But per- 
 haps it's the cymbals or the drum ? ' 
 
 ' Pooh ! I mean I've got to look after the 
 throats of twenty-seven opera women, and it's 
 no sinecure, I can tell you. I'd rather saw 
 off twenty legs a day.' 
 
 ' Why don't you then ? We hadn't a man 
 who could cut off so much as a head properly 
 where I've been : though we've had a good bit 
 of throat-cutting, it's true.' 
 
 ' I shall cut somebody's throat some day 
 — and it will be a woman's. You see that fat 
 old woman talking to Lord Ovoca? Her 
 confounded pharynx gives me more bother 
 than life's worth living for. If she fancies 
 she feels a tickling for a minute, she goes 
 to bed and sends for me ; and before I'm 
 at her house she's up again, and forgotten 
 all about the matter. Some day she'll be 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 283 
 
 found with her throat cut — and I shall be 
 hanged.' 
 
 ^Then cut it, or hang her, and come.' 
 
 ' I've done my best. I make a point of 
 going to all my prettiest patients oftener than 
 I need, just to make my wife order me to give 
 up the theatre practice, and to insist on 
 my going off to Spain to be out of harm's 
 way. I've told her I've been to attend an 
 alderman's gout, and then taken care to let 
 her find out that I've been lying, and that I've 
 been with some fascinating soprano all the 
 while. But it's no use. She won't be jealous, 
 do what I will.' 
 
 ' Oh, if you're married — then I'll congratu- 
 late you with all my heart ; and don't be a 
 humbug. Dale. I conclude your long story 
 means that you've got a wife whose company 
 you prefer even to that of Carhst brigands, 
 and that she doesn't want to get rid of you, and 
 is too sharp to be jealous of women that aren't 
 fit to tie the shoes of women like what Mrs. 
 Dale is sure to be. Is she here ? ' 
 
 ' aSA^— Mrs. Dale ? ' 
 
 'Why not?' 
 
284 * QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 ' Do you think I'd bring my wife among 
 my patients and my host's customers? I'd 
 sooner take her with me to Spain. No, no. 
 Practice is practice : but one's wife's one's wife, 
 and home's home.' 
 
 ' Are they such a bad lot, then, that you 
 and I have got among ? ' 
 
 'Bad? — ^No. No worse than you and 1. 
 But — well — when you're married, you'll know 
 what I mean. No : they are not bad. My 
 patients are very good : but then their good 
 isn't just everybody's good, you know. In 
 short, it's another earth that goes round just 
 as rightly as ours, only the opposite way. 
 And with the City people it's the same : the 
 sort, I mean, like Aristides, and Sinon, and 
 Skull.' 
 
 'Skull? What Skull?' 
 
 ' I forgot — you can't know the ins and outs 
 as we do who live behind the scenes. Do you 
 know the name? It isn't a common one. 
 No ? Well, Gideon Skull's a sort of a dark 
 horse — something in the City, you know — I 
 know him pretty well by meeting him here. 
 He's not what I call good form, you know. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 285 
 
 He's rich. There are queer stories of his 
 deahngs in French stock and Enghsh rifles and 
 army stores in our war — but I don't under- 
 stand those things myself, so I can't say. Some 
 people think he's a sleeping partner in Aris- 
 tides and Sinon. Some say they're only his 
 agents : some say he's only theirs. There are 
 one or two people, besides myself, who say 
 openly that they don't know. And that 
 "don't know" is just the very point, you see. 
 That's what it comes to with just nine-tenths 
 of the people here. They've all got stories — 
 nine-tenths of them. Very likely most of the 
 stories are lies. But then lies aren't told of 
 people who haven't got some real story, which 
 may, as likely as not, be worse than the real 
 one.' 
 
 ' You're a charitable sort of a doctor, Dale, 
 I must say.' 
 
 ' Compared with others, I am.' 
 
 ' Is Gideon Skull here to-night ? I think 
 it's quite possible he may be a man I used to 
 know.' 
 
 ' No ; but you know him, do you ? I 
 didn't know that, you see, when I brought 
 
286 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 him in by way of example. He may be a 
 saint — I don't know ; perhaps you do. But 
 that's it, after all. / doribt know. It's nothing 
 to me whom I visit as a patient ; but Practice is 
 Practice, and Home's Home, you see. And it 
 don't so much matter, after all, of course, 
 between a man and a man. I've been hail- 
 fellow-well-met with scores of men I know 
 
 nothing of ' 
 
 ' Such as I, Doctor ? ' 
 
 'Well, say such as you. But it's the 
 women. If I brought Laura — that's Mrs. Dale — 
 into the set — she'd have to know Mrs. Skull.' 
 
 'Mrs. Skull? Do you mean to tell me 
 that there is a woman in the world called 
 Mrs. Gideon Skull?' 
 
 ' I do, though.' 
 
 ' And who, in the name of wonder, is 
 she?' 
 
 'Ah, you see, that's just the point! / 
 dovbt know. And nobody knows.' 
 
 ' Lots of money, no doubt ? ' 
 
 ' Not a penny, they say.' 
 
 ' That's simply and absolutely impossible, 
 Dale. Skull was always a bit of a rake, and 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 287 
 
 of course he might take up with any woman, 
 money or no money ; but marry her without 
 a cent — No ! ' 
 
 ' Did I say he had married her ? ' 
 
 ' Didn't you ? ' 
 
 ' No ; you asked if there was a woman 
 called Mrs. Gideon Skull, and I said there is. 
 That's all.' 
 
 ' Isn't he really married, then ? ' 
 
 ' There it is again — / don't know' 
 
 ' Do you know her ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; pretty well.' 
 
 ' Is she here to-night ? ' 
 
 ^Yes. Why?' 
 
 ' Because I haven't a Laura to think of, 
 and because I have a great curiosity to see a 
 woman to whom Gideon Skull has given his 
 name. If she has made him marry her with- 
 out a penny, she must be a wonder. Which 
 is she ? ' 
 
 ' That young woman in black velvet, sit- 
 ting near the piano. Some people think her 
 a beauty ; but I don't know. Of course I'll 
 introduce you, if you please.' 
 
 ' If you please. I should like it very much 
 
288 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 indeed. She doesn't look particularly won- 
 derful, though, after all/ 
 
 He followed Dr. Dale to the piano, and 
 was duly introduced to the young woman in 
 black velvet. 
 
 'Mrs. Gideon Skull — allow me to intro- 
 duce my friend, Mr. Walter Gray.' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 289 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A higher alt, a deeper bass, 
 
 She heareth as the dancers pass : — 
 
 Are not the moments flying? 
 Have we not heard them sighing ? 
 Do we not see them dying ? 
 
 Shall we not feel them sweet ? 
 Summer hath lips that flatter : 
 Earth is of dust — what matter ? 
 Bright is the bloom we scatter 
 
 Under our failing feet. 
 
 This is our winged story : 
 Summer is dumb with glory ; 
 Name her — and snow-tide, hoary, 
 ^ Heavy of heart, we meet : 
 
 Yea, by a word that's spoken, 
 Straight is our music broken — 
 Songs that are sung betoken 
 Silence for hearts that beat. 
 
 Anybody who had ever known Gideon would 
 feel a little curious about the woman who, with= 
 out a penny (if gossip were true), had reduced 
 him to marriage in any shape or form. Oddly 
 enough it almost seemed to Mr. Walter Gray 
 as if he had met her before somewhere, some- 
 
290 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 when or other. It was not unhkely ; having 
 known the husband, it was natural enough 
 that he should have come across one with 
 whom Gideon must have been acquainted for 
 some longer or shorter time before marrying 
 her. The more he looked, the more sure he felt 
 in one way, and the more doubtful in others. 
 All the lady acquaintances of Gideon whom 
 he had ever known had been either Americans 
 — which Mrs. Skull certainly was not — or else 
 in America ; and there was no place or set of 
 circumstances in the American part of his 
 memory with which he could associate her. 
 And then they had seldom, if ever, been ladies 
 except by an extravagantly courteous stretch 
 of conventional terms ; while she, he was sure, 
 was a lady bred and born — at any rate in the 
 conventional sense, if not in any more satis- 
 factory one. At first sight, she was not the 
 kind of young woman whom he would expect 
 to disprove her ladyhood by catching a man 
 like Gideon for the sake of a fortune. Of 
 course it might be for love ; but then, men 
 cannot be expected to see one another with 
 women's eyes, and never can be made to quite 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 291 
 
 understand how any men but themselves can 
 make women fall in love with them. They are 
 bound to accept facts, of course ; but scarcely 
 even these when the love-winner is so unlike 
 themselves as Gideon Skull was unlike Walter 
 Gray. She interested him at once, for all 
 these reasons, but even more because she 
 looked like one of those women who have a 
 story — not merely told about them by others, 
 like half the women in the room, but written 
 on her lips and in her eyes. To pique curiosity 
 by looking interesting is the great secret with 
 which some very plain women have learned to 
 rule the world. Mrs. Skull was very far from 
 plain. But the story which her eyes and her 
 lips expressed to the sight without speaking to 
 th^ mind, like a poem in an unknown tongue, 
 already half explained to Walter Gray the 
 fascination she had no doubt exercised over 
 Gideon, though nothing, apart from wealth, 
 could interpret his attraction for her. 
 
 His introduction to her did not interrupt 
 any conversation, for she was sitting as much 
 alone at the end of the piano as he had been 
 at the door. He noticed that she did not give 
 
 TJ 2 
 
292 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 him the usual smile of greeting. She only 
 bowed rather coldly, and waited, with a dis- 
 couraging air of indifference, for him to say 
 anything he pleased. Perhaps she had nothing 
 to say. It is often the way with people whose 
 eyes seem to say a great deal — ^which so con- 
 stantly turns out to be a vast quantity of 
 nothing. 
 
 ' I had the — hm ! — pleasure, of knowing 
 Mr. Skull a long time ago,' he said, though 
 very hkely he wouldn't remember even my 
 name. Will he be here to-night ? ' 
 
 ^No,' she said. 'I think not, at least. 
 He hardly ever goes out, and is very 
 busy.' 
 
 Her voice, with its quiet indifference of tone, 
 did not help his memory. It only satisfied 
 him that she was very thoroughly an English- 
 woman; and made him guess — though he 
 certainly could not have told how or why — 
 that she was as indifferent to her husband's 
 comings and goings as she was to being ques- 
 tioned about them by a stranger. Clearly, 
 Walter Gray had something of a woman's way 
 of seeing a great deal in a very httle. 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 293 
 
 'I see they are going to waltz. Will 
 
 you ' 
 
 ' I don't dance.' 
 
 ' Then, in that case, nor do L' 'I wonder,' 
 he began to think, ' how she really did manage 
 to catch Gideon. It's true he never danced 
 either; but, all the same, she's no more in his 
 line than if he waltzed like an Austrian. Do 
 you know, Mrs. Skull, I have got a fancy that 
 troubles me ; and I can neither waltz nor rest 
 in any other way till I've told it to you.' 
 
 These receptions of Mrs. Aristides — as her 
 husband's assemblies of his clientele were 
 technically called — generally ended with a 
 sudden happy thought on the part of some- 
 body to extemporise a ball. But it never had 
 to depend upon the piano for inspiration. 
 Impromptu as it always was, there never failed 
 to be a certain number of distinguished mu- 
 sicians present, and the various collections of 
 Mr. Aristides comprised one of instruments 
 ready to their hands, with which they were 
 never too proud to add to the pleasure of 
 such good company. For from Mr. Aristides 
 even pipers and fiddlers got — or thought they 
 
294 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 got — rather more than they gave. But a 
 reputation for mipromptu dances, with real 
 musicians with real names to play the tunes, was 
 well worth the few guineas for concert tickets 
 which it cost their host in the year. Just then 
 a bright and lively waltz started out in splen- 
 did form from what might almost be called an 
 orchestra, which made up for its smallness by 
 spirit and style. Mrs. Skull must be free from 
 the dancing fever indeed not to break through 
 her rule. ' Yes ; Gideon would be just the man 
 to object to his wife's waltzing with anybody 
 but himself,' thought Walter Gray. He 
 waited for her to ask him about his fancy ; but 
 as she seemed as indifferent to it as to dancing, 
 he was obliged to take her question as made. 
 
 ' I can't get it out of my head, Mrs. Skull, 
 that I have met you before.' 
 
 ' Indeed ; I don't think that likely. I 
 know very few of Mr. Skull's friends.' 
 
 /Yes;' he thought, 'just the man to 
 object to his wife knowing his friends. A re- 
 formed rake always makes the most jealous 
 husband. I wonder why he lets her come to 
 this place alone — or at all ; old Dale wasn't a 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 295 
 
 rake, and even lie keeps Laura at home when 
 he goes out for fun.' ' But, all the same,' he 
 went on, ' I feel I have seen you somewhere. 
 Of coarse I know that one's always meeting 
 women, and men too, whom one used to know 
 intimately in some other world before one was 
 born. That's always happening to everybody 
 every day. But I don't mean anything so 
 commonplace as that, you know. I mean in 
 this world. Have you ever been in America ? ' 
 
 'No — never. I have never even ' 
 
 ' Then, that won't do. In Paris perhaps ? ' 
 
 'I have never been in Paris.' 
 
 ' You have never been in Paris ? Im- 
 possible! Why, I never heard of anybody 
 who had never been to Paris. But perhaps in 
 Eome?' 
 
 ' I have never been to Eome.' 
 
 'In Venice, then? In Vienna? InBerhn ?' 
 
 ' No ; I have never ' 
 
 'Let me see. Not in Athens — certainly; 
 I couldn't forget if I'd met your there. Could 
 it possibly have been in Cairo ? ' 
 
 ' I have never been out of England since 
 I was born.' 
 
296 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 ' Please don't think me a boor, Mrs. Skull, 
 to be cross-examining you in this way. I can't 
 have met you anywhere, then, that's clear — 
 unless I've passed you by some chance in the 
 street in London, and remembered your face — 
 which is a thing that I never do. I was never 
 meant to be a king — I can remember some 
 things very well, all sorts of useless ones ; but 
 in remembering faces I am a perfect fool. I 
 have to see a face at least three times to have 
 a chance of knowing it again ; I am always 
 cutting my best friends, and so losing them ; 
 and I don't believe I should know my own very 
 self if I were to see him anywhere but in a 
 mirror. But — yes, I do seem to remember 
 yours, some way. Not you, but something 
 about you — a sort of you not mixed up with 
 any place where I have seen people, but in 
 some quiet way — ^well, I've not had many quiet 
 ways in my life, so it may have been in some 
 other world before I was born, after all.' 
 
 ' You seem to have been a great traveller, 
 Mr. Gray.' 
 
 ' She has said something of her own at 
 last ! ' thought he. ' Not that it amounts to 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 297 
 
 much. But — ^Yes, or rather no; I have been 
 a traveller, but certainly not a great one. I 
 am a man with a great incapacity for sit- 
 ting still. Yesterday in Spain — to-morrow in 
 London— to-day in Cosmos, judging from the 
 varieties of all nations who are spinning round 
 us. Ah ! this is a waltz ; you ought to dance, 
 Mrs. Skull. It stops thinking; and thinking is 
 the worst thing in the world for the brain. 
 Why, look at Dale ; even he is dancing. He is 
 another whom I used to know as a confirmed 
 bachelor, and whom I find turned into a 
 married man. I should never have thought 
 that of — Dale.' 
 
 'Why not of him.^^' 
 
 ' Because he was a man of just one idea 
 when I knew him ; and it certainly was not of 
 the sort that leads to marriage. He didn't 
 care for money, and he didn't care for comfort 
 — in fact, he didn't care for anything on earth 
 beyond an all-devouring passion for standing 
 in the middle of a storm of bullets without 
 an umbrella, and cutting oj9r people's legs. 
 That meant perfect happiness for him, and 
 everything else meant misery. That isn't the 
 
298 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 real Dale at all whom you see dressed up there 
 in evening clothes and making himself hot 
 and red with dancing, and fussy with chatter- 
 ing. The real man is as cool and as silent as 
 the North Pole, and that only happens when 
 he's cutting legs instead of capers, to the music 
 of rifles instead of fiddles. When he's himself, 
 there's no finer fellow alive. War isn't all evil, 
 Mrs. Skull. It brings out the best of a man, 
 and unmasks the worst of him, and makes him 
 what nature meant him to be. Peace, Pm a 
 great deal too certain, does just the other 
 things. What do we know about all these 
 people here ? To do that, we must turn it 
 into another ball before Waterloo.' 
 
 ' What war was it,' asked she, with a shade 
 of interest in her voice, Uhat made you 
 acquainted with Dr. Dale ? ' 
 
 He had been trying to interest her; but 
 her interest fell a httle into the wrong hne 
 when it at last showed signs of coming. He 
 had reached the point of mounting a pet 
 hobby of all who have seen war — not too far 
 ojQT to understand its grandeur as the greatest 
 of living forces, and not so near as to see 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 299 
 
 nothing but their own sorrows. She ought 
 not to have checked him so suddenly with a 
 question about a merely personal detail. How- 
 ever, he dismounted gracefully. The question 
 was stupid; but why should he expect Mrs. 
 Skull herself to be otherwise ? 
 
 * At the siege of Paris. The very last time 
 I saw him he was himself, and under circum- 
 stances that you wouldn't think it nice to hear 
 described. It's an odd sensation to meet 
 him here.' 
 
 ' You were at the siege of Paris ? ' she asked. 
 The question belonged to the common forms 
 of talk; but something in its tone suddenly 
 opened his ears, and he looked at her with 
 new eyes. All her scarcely courteous indiffe- 
 rence had given place to what sounded 
 like eager anxiety. With his faculty for 
 noticing hghts and shades, he felt as if he had 
 read a word of her story, unintelligible with- 
 out the context, but suggesting what the 
 whole might be — for stories which write them- 
 selves in faces are always sad ones. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said, a little vexed with himself 
 for having possibly touched some wound or 
 
300 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 other, and for having been guilty of such a 
 blunder as to speak admiringly of war to a 
 woman — that is to say, to one who could have 
 known nothing of war save its personal and 
 sorrowful side. ' And I saw the end. You 
 mustn't think, Mrs. Skull, that I am as blood- 
 thirsty in my tastes as Dale. One gets to 
 talk lightly of such things because no language 
 has got words strong enough and deep enough 
 to speak of them seriously. I can talk well 
 enough about war in the large way, which 
 concerns mankind — that is, all the people for 
 whom one doesn't care ; but how can one 
 talk at all about the way it comes home to 
 oneself: as it did to me and thousands more.^' 
 ' She mustn't think me a cold-blooded, un- 
 sympathetic, philosophical brute,' he thought. 
 
 ' I hate war,' said she ; but in such a tone 
 as to make him think himself mistaken in the 
 nature of her interest in any particular war, 
 or as if she were practised in habitual self- 
 repression and felt bound to correct any sign 
 of emotion which she might have chanced to 
 betray. 
 
 ' So do I,' said he, ' in one way — though 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 301 
 
 liate is terribly like love when the fever-fit is 
 on. Yes ; I can't keep away from the air 
 that breeds the fever, after once having 
 breathed it, even now, though it cost me the 
 life of the only human being I ever cared very 
 much about — of course except myself — and 
 the best and finest fellow I ever knew. I don't 
 want you to think that when I praise war it is 
 in the way that poets praise passion — because 
 I don't know what it means. I do know. I 
 have drunk the dregs of it as well as the 
 wine. I have seen a man — the man I spoke 
 of — murdered in war ; not fighting for his 
 country or any cause that concerned him, but 
 killed because war, which turns many weak 
 men into grand heroes, turns more common- 
 place nobodies into fiends. This man should 
 have had a long life of happiness and honour. 
 He had no more business with the French and 
 the Germans than Dale has with a London ball- 
 room. And he was killed because the Ameri- 
 cans — who were as little to him as the French 
 and Germans — wanted news, which he never 
 could learn how to give them: and because 
 war lets loose tigers as well as sets lions free.' 
 
302 QUEEN COPHETUA. 
 
 ' When you were at the siege of Paris/ 
 said she, again bringing down the flight of 
 his oration to the level of a woman's world, 
 ' did you ever happen to meet with a corre- 
 spondent of an American newspaper named 
 Alan Eeid?' 
 
 ' Good God! Why, he was the man! Mrs. 
 Skull — God forgive me! — what have I said? 
 what have I done?* 
 
 'My brother — ^Alan ' 
 
 He heard no more than half the cry, as 
 she sprang up from her seat, and covered her 
 eyes with her hands — trembling, as if a ghost 
 had suddenly appeared before her. The waltz 
 went on, wildly and joyfully. None noticed 
 her who was learning for the first time that the 
 brother, for whose sake she hved, had died. 
 
 Yes — Walter Gray knew well enough where 
 he had seen her now. But he did not wonder 
 how or why he had not known her again. He 
 did not remember faces; and the passing of 
 many events had made those two meetings 
 vague things of long ago. There was but 
 little left of the girl with whom he had been 
 shut up in the belfry ; little indeed of her who 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA. 303 
 
 had crushed him with her scorn in the church- 
 yard. Even had she been less changed in her 
 whole self, it would have been hard enough to 
 associate this lady in black velvet in the 
 drawing-room of a Mr. Aristides with one's 
 memories of Helen Eeid of Copleston — Mrs. 
 Gideon Skull. How had such a thing as that 
 come to pass? Walter Gray would as soon 
 have thought of discovering a likeness in the 
 royal wife of King Cophetua to Penelophon 
 the beggar-maid. But now he knew that it 
 was she. 
 
 But then, how was it she had never known 
 of her brother's death till now? It had hap- 
 pened long ago. Even if Mr. Crowder had 
 been too sublimely above trifles which could 
 not affect the interests of the ' Argus ' to let her 
 and her mother hear of it, still it must have 
 been a scrap of pubhc news for its hour. He 
 had ample time to think and feel all this, and 
 to swear at himself for the accident which had 
 told her all without preparation, in such a place 
 and in such a way, for he had not a word to 
 say, and no hving man could have found a fit 
 one. 
 
304 
 
 QUEEN COPHEJUA. 
 
 But suddenly she left off trembling, took 
 her hands from her face, and looked at hnn 
 with a strange, hard look, in which he could 
 recall no sign of Helen Eeid. 
 
 ' He was my only brother,' she said, in a 
 voice that was hke her look. ' And I thought he 
 was still hving — strange as it must seem to you. 
 You must forgive me for having seemed a 
 little sorry. It was very bad taste and quite 
 out of place ; but I assure you it was not 
 because I don't know how absurd and con- 
 temptible such things as feelings, and all 
 that sort of rubbish, are. As a matter of 
 curiosity, I should hke to know when my only 
 brother died.' 
 
 ^ Good God ! Don't speak — don't look hke 
 that, Miss Eeid. Forgive me — no, not that; 
 only ' 
 
 ' I assure you I would not for a moment 
 think of putting the music out by screaming 
 or fainting — perfect calmness is one's first duty 
 to society. I think you ought to be obliged to 
 me for not making such a disagreeable thing 
 as a scene. Tell me, if you please, when my 
 brother died.' 
 
QUEEN COPHETUA, 305 
 
 * My poor friend — — ' 
 ' He is not poor now; and men don't have 
 friends.' 
 
 'He was struck dowli on the street, almost 
 at my side, on the 29th of January. For God's 
 sake. Miss Eeid, take my arm, and leave this 
 room. Let me see you home.' 
 
 ' I am going — home. But please do not 
 leave the room. I am not the least ill, and I 
 can walk alone to my — my husband's carriage 
 perfectly well. Forgive me if I have been — 
 seemed impolite to you. I dare say you were 
 his friend — I dare say he had nothing that you 
 wanted — and he — Good night ' 
 
 She left him suddenly and hurriedly, as if 
 she were not quite so much mistress of herself 
 as she had been trying, with ill success enough, 
 to make him believe. He had not learned a 
 single word of her real story, that was clear. 
 Helen Eeid the wife of Gideon Skull ! He did 
 not let her see that he followed her, but he 
 took care not to lose sight of her until she was 
 in her carriage; and then he watched the 
 carriage till he could follow it with his eyes no 
 longer. 
 
 VOL. 11. X 
 
3o6 
 
 QUEEN COPHETUA, 
 
 ' Well, Gray,' said Dr. Dale, ' how did you 
 get on with Mrs. Skull? Eather heavy to hft, 
 isn't she?' 
 
 'You never told me she is the sister of 
 poor young Eeid.' 
 
 ' Is she ? I'm sure I didn't know. Poor 
 young fellow! I suppose that's why she's 
 always in mourning. Then it's true Skull 
 married without a penny, for Eeid hadn't any 
 money, I'll swear. But, do you know, I fancy 
 there's something about to-night out of the 
 common. There's a sort of a feehng of 
 thunder in the financial air. Stock has gone 
 up or down. I hope you're not interested in 
 that sort of thing?' 
 
 ' Is Mrs. SkuU a patient of yours ? ' 
 
 'No. I wish she were. But what makes 
 you so desperately interested in Mrs. Skull ? 
 She's neither a stock nor a share, but another 
 man's wife, you know.' 
 
 ' Yes — Gideon Skull's wife, and Alan Eeid's 
 sister. It's a queer world this ; so I'll wish it 
 good-night — till to-morrow.' 
 
 EXD OF THE SECOIs'D VOLUME. 
 
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