HO THOBOUGHEABE 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS AND WILKIE COLLINS. 
 
 THE EXTRA CHRISTMAS NUMBER 
 
 OF 
 
 ALL THE TEAR ROUND, 
 
 CONDUCTED BY 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS, 
 
 FOR CHRISTMAS, 1867. 
 
 CONTENTS: 
 
 THE OVERTUEE. 
 
 THE CURTAIN KISES. 
 ENTER THE HOUSEKEEPER. 
 THE HOUSEKEEPER SPEAKS. 
 
 NEW CHABAOTKBS ON THE SCENE. 
 
 EXIT WILDING. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 MAKES LOVE. 
 VENDALE MAKES MISCHIEF. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 IN THE VALLEY. 
 ON THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 THE CURTAIN FALLS. 
 
 LONDON: 26, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND, W.O.; 
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ANTHONY TROLLOFE'S NEW MAGAZINE. 
 
 PUBLISHED MONTHLY, PRICE ONE SHILLING, 
 
 SAINT PAULS, 
 
 EDITED BY ANTHONY TROLLOPB, AND ILLUSTRATED BY J. E. MILLAIS, K,A. 
 
 Contents of No. 1, October, 1867. 
 
 Illustration." One Kiss before we part" 
 
 1. An Introduction by the Editor. 
 
 2. "The Leap in the Dark;" or, a Glance at what was done 
 
 last Session. 
 
 8. All for Greed. A Novel. By the Baroness Blaze de Bury. 
 4. The Ethics of Trades' Unions. 
 6. The Turf : its Present Condition and Prospects. 
 
 6. On Sovereignty. 
 
 7. On Taste. By Henry O'Neil, A.R.A. 
 
 Contents of No. 2, November, 1867. 
 
 Illustration. "You don't quite know Mr. Kennedy yet" 
 
 1. All for Greed. By the Baroness Blaze de Bury. 
 
 2. The New Electors. 
 
 3. The Tourist at Home. 
 
 4. Secrets. 
 
 5. The Decay of the Stage. 
 
 6. The Military Armaments of the Five Great Powers. 
 
 7. A Sheffield Workman's Week Excursion to Paris and 
 
 back for Seventy Shillings. 
 
 8. About Hunting. 
 
 9. Glass Houses. 
 
 10. Phineas Finn, the Irish Member. By Anthony Trollops. 
 
 S. Phineas Finn, the Irish Member. By Anthony Trollope- 
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 BY THE MOST EMINENT COMPOSERS. 
 
 EDITED BY LINDSAY SLOPES. 
 
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 M. W. BAXFE. VIRGINIA GABRIEL. II WALTER MACFARREN. jl 
 
 s^assask fevftr*- 
 
 RENE FAVARGER, G. A. MACFARREN. II E. SILAS. 
 
 Arrangements are pending with other composers of eminence. 
 
 Contents of No. 2, December, 1867. 
 
 A Pianoforte Piece, by E. Silas. 
 A Song, by M. W. Balfe. 
 
 HENRY SMART. 
 BOYTON SMITH. 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 ARTHUR S. SULLIVAN. 
 
 Contents of No. 1, November, 1867. 
 
 A Pianoforte Piece, by Jules Benedict. 
 A Song, by Arthur S. Sullivan. 
 A Pianoforte Piece, by Sydney Smith. 
 A Song, by Henry Smart. 
 
 LONDON: ASHDOWN AND 
 
 A Pianoforte Piece, by W. Kuhe. 
 A Song, by Virginia Gabriel. 
 PARRY, HANOVER SQUARE. 
 
 NEWTON WILSON & CO.'S 
 
 NEW HAND SEWING MACHINES. 
 
 PARIS EXHIBITION, 
 PRIZE MEDAL. 
 
 1867. 
 
 CLEOPATRA," 
 
 3 Guineas. 
 
 These Machines work with a single thread, 
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 the speed of the latter with the hand alone 
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 Extras applicable to Hand Machines : 
 
 Box of Tools, with Oil, Needles, Tuckiug I 5 
 
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 4 Guineas. 
 
 HAND LOCK-STITCH MACHINES. 
 
 DORCAS," These Machines work with two 
 
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 Depots: 144, High Holborn, and 144, Cheapside, London. 
 
NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 BY CHARLES DICKENS AND WILKIE COLLINS. 
 
 BEING THE EXTHA CHRISTMAS NUMBER OE ALL THE YEAR ROUND, 
 
 CONTAINING THE AMOUNT OF TWO ORDINAKY NUMBERS. 
 
 CHRISTMAS, 1867. 
 
 Prico 
 
 4d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE OVERTURE PAGE 1 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 THE CURTAIN RISES 8 
 
 ENTER THE HOUSEKEEPER 6 
 
 THE HOUSEKEEPER SPEAKS 7 
 
 NEW CHARACTERS ON THE SCENE 10 
 
 EXIT WILDING . 16 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 VENDALE MAKES LOVE PAGE 
 
 VENDALE MAKES MISCHIEF 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 ON THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 THE CLOCK-LOCK 
 
 OBENREIZER'S VICTORY 
 
 THE CURTAIN FALLS ... 
 
 THE OVERTURE. 
 
 of the month and year, November the 
 thirtieth, one thousand eight hundred and 
 thirty-five. London Time by the great clock of 
 Saint Paul's, ten at night. All the lesser Lon- 
 don churches strain their metallic throats. 
 Some, flippantly begin before the heavy bell 
 of the great cathedral ; some, tardily begin three, 
 fo^ir, half a dozen, strokes behind it ; all are in 
 sufficiently near accord, to leave a resonance 
 in the air, as if the winged father who devours 
 his children, had made a sounding sweep with 
 his gigantic scythe in flying over the city. 
 
 What is this clock lower than most of 
 the rest, and nearer to the ear, that lags so far 
 behind to-night as to strike into the vibra- 
 tion alone ? This is the clock of the Hos- 
 pital for Foundling Children. Time was, when 
 the Foundlings were received without question 
 in a cradle at the gate. Time is, when inquiries 
 are made respecting them, and they are taken 
 as by favour from the mothers who relinquish 
 all natural knowledge of them and claim to 
 them for evermore. 
 
 The moon is at the full, and the night is fair 
 witli light clouds. The day has been other- 
 wise than fair, for slush and mud, thickened 
 with the droppings of heavy fog, lie black in the 
 streets. The veiled lady who flutters up and 
 down near the postern-gate of the Hospital for 
 Foundling Children has need to be well shod 
 to-night. 
 
 She flutters to and fro, avoiding the stand of 
 hackney-coaches, and oftenpausing in the shadow 
 of the western end of the great quadrangle wall, 
 with her face turned towards the gate. As above 
 her there is the purity of the moonlit sky, and 
 below her there are the defilements of the pave- 
 ment, so may she, haply, be divided in her mind 
 between two vistas of reflection or experience ? 
 As her footprints crossing and recrossing one 
 
 another have made a labyrinth in the mire, 
 so may her track in life have involved itself in 
 an intricate and unravellable tangle? 
 
 The postern-gate of the Hospital for Found- 
 ling Children opens, and a young woman comes 
 out. The lady stands aside, observes closely, 
 sees that the gate is quietly closed again from 
 within, and follows the young woman. 
 
 Two or three streets have been traversed ia 
 silence before she, following close behind the 
 object of her attention, stretches out her hand 
 and touches her. Then the young woman stops 
 and looks round, startled. 
 
 " You touched me last night, and, when I 
 turned my head, you would not speak. Why 
 do you follow me like a silent ghost ?" 
 
 " It was not," returned the lady, in a low- 
 voice, "that I would not speak, but that I could 
 not when I tried." 
 
 " What do you want of me ? I have never 
 done you any harm ?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 "Do I know you?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then what can you want of me ?" 
 
 " Here are two guineas in this paper. Take 
 my poor little present, and I will tell you." 
 
 Into the young woman's face, which ishonesfc 
 and comely, comes a flush as she replies : " There 
 is neither grown person nor child in all the 
 large establishment that I belong to, who hasn't 
 a good word for Sally. I am Sally. Could I 
 be so well thought of, if I was to be bought?" 
 
 " I do not mean to buy you ; I mean only to 
 reward you verv slightly." 
 
 Sally firmly, but not ungently, closes and puts 
 back the offering hand. " If there is anything 
 I can do for you, ma'am, that I will not do for 
 its own sake, you are much mistaken in me if 
 you think that 'l will do it for money. What is 
 it you want ?" 
 
2 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 " You are one of the nurses or attendants at 
 the Hospital, I saw you leave to-night and last 
 night." 
 
 "Yes, lam. I am Sally." 
 
 " There is a pleasant patience in your face 
 which makes me believt that very young chil- 
 dren would take readily to you." 
 
 "God bless 'em! So they do." 
 
 The lady lifts her veil, and shows a face no 
 older than the nurse's. A face far more refined 
 and capable than hers, but wild and worn 
 with sorrow. 
 
 " I am the miserable mother of a baby lately 
 received under your care. I have a prayer to 
 make to you." 
 
 Instinctively respecting the confidence which 
 has drawn aside the veil, Sally whose ways are 
 all ways of simplicity and spontaneity replaces 
 it, and begins to cry. 
 
 " You will listen to my prayer ?" the lady 
 urges. " You will not be deaf to the ago- 
 nised entreaty of such a broken suppliant as I 
 am ?" 
 
 "Odear, dear, dear!" cries Sally. "What 
 shall I say, or can I say ! Don't talk of prayers. 
 Prayers are to be put up to the Good Father of 
 All, and not to nurses' and such. And there ! 
 I am only to hold my place for half a year longer, 
 till another young woman can be trained up to it. 
 I am going to be married. I shouldn't have 
 been out last night, and I shouldn't have been 
 out to-night, but that my Dick (he is the young 
 man I am going to be married to) lies ill, and I 
 help his mother and sister to watch him. Don't 
 take on so, don't take on so !" 
 
 " O good Sally, dear Sally," moans the lady, 
 catching at her dress entreatingly. " As you are 
 hopeful and I am hopeless ; as a fair way in life 
 is before you, which can never, never, be before 
 me ; as you can aspire to become a respected 
 wife, and as you can aspire to become a proud 
 mother ; as you are a living loving woman, and 
 must die ; for GOD'S sake hear my distracted 
 petition !" 
 
 "Deary, deary, deary ME!" cries Sally, her 
 desperation culminating in the pronoun, "what 
 am I ever to do ? And there ! See how you 
 turn my own words back upon me. I tell you 
 I am going to be married, on purpose to make 
 it clearer to you that I am going to leave, and 
 therefore couldn't help you if I would, Poor 
 Thing, and you make it seem to my own self 
 as if I was cruel in going to be married and 
 not helping you. It ain't kind. Now, is it 
 kind, Poor Thing?" 
 
 " Sally ! Hear me, my dear. My entreaty 
 is for no help in the future. It applies to what 
 is past. It is only to be told in two words." 
 
 " There ! This is worse and worse," cries 
 Sally, " supposing that I understand what two 
 words you mean." 
 
 " You do understand. What are the names 
 they have given my poor baby ? I ask no more 
 than that. I have read of the customs of the 
 place. He has been christened in the chapel, 
 and registered by some surname in the book. 
 He was received last Monday evening. What 
 have they called him r 1 " 
 
 Down upon her knees in the foul mud of Ihe 
 by-way into which they have strayed an empty 
 street without a thoroughfare, giving on the 
 dark gardens of the Hospital the lady would 
 drop in her passionate entreaty, but that Sally 
 prevents her. 
 
 " Don't ! Don't ! You make me feel as if I 
 was, setting myself up to be good. Let me 
 IOOK in your pretty face again. Put your 
 two hands in mine. Now, promise. You will 
 never ask me anything more than the two 
 words?" 
 
 " Never ! Never !" 
 
 " You will never put them to a bad use, if I 
 say them ?" 
 
 "Never! Never!" 
 
 "Walter Wilding." 
 
 The lady lays her face upon the nurse's 
 breast, draws her close in her embrace with 
 both arms, murmurs a blessing and the words, 
 " Kiss him for me !" and is gone. 
 
 Day of the month and year, the first Sunday 
 in October, one thousand eight hundred and 
 forty-seven. London Time by the great clock 
 of Saint Paul's, half-past one in the afternoon. 
 The clock of the Hospital for Foundling 
 Children is well up with the Cathedral to-day. 
 Service in the chapel is over, and the Foundling 
 children are at dinner. 
 
 There are numerous lookers-on at the dinner, 
 as the custom is. There are two or three 
 governors, whole families from the congrega- 
 tion, smaller groups of both sexes, individual 
 stragglers of various degrees. The bright 
 autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wardS; 
 and the heavy-framed windows through which 
 it shines, and the panelled walls on which it 
 strikes, are such windows and such walls as 
 pervade Hogarth's pictures. The girls' re- 
 fectory (including that of the younger children) 
 is the principal attraction. Neat attendants 
 silently glide about the orderly and silent 
 tables ; the lookers-on move or stop as the 
 fancy takes them; comments in whispers on 
 face such a number from such a window 
 are not unfrequent ; many of the faces are 
 of a character to fix attention. Some of the 
 visitors from the outside public are ac- 
 customed visitors. They have established a 
 speaking acquaintance with the occupants of 
 particular seats at the tables, and halt at those 
 points to bend down and say a word or two. 
 It is no disparagement to their kindness that 
 those points are generally points where personal 
 attractions are. The monotony of the long 
 spacious rooms and the double lines of faces, is 
 agreeably relieved by these incidents, although 
 so slight. 
 
 A veiled lady, who has no companion, goes 
 among the company. It would seem that 
 curiosity and opportunity have never brought 
 her there before. She has the air of being a 
 little troubled by the sight, and, as she goes the 
 length of the tables, it is with a hesitating step 
 and an uneasy manner. At length she comes 
 to the refectory of the boys, They are so much 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 3 
 
 less popular than the girls that it is bare oi 
 visitors when she looks in at the doorway. 
 
 But just within the doorway, chances to 
 stand, inspecting, an elderly female attendant : 
 some order of matron or housekeeper. To whom 
 the lady addresses natural questions : As, how 
 many boys P At what age are they usually put 
 out in life? Do they often take a fancy to the 
 sea? So, lower and lower in tone uiitil the 
 lady puts the question: "Which is Walter 
 Wilding ?" 
 
 Attendant's head shaken. Against the rules. 
 
 " You know which is Walter Wilding ?" 
 
 So keenly does the attendant feel the closeness 
 
 with which the lady's eyes examine her face, that 
 
 she keeps her own eyes fast upon the floor, lest 
 
 by wandering in the right direction they should 
 
 betray her. 
 
 " I know which is Walter Wilding, but it 
 is not my place, ma'am, to tell names to 
 visitors." 
 
 " But you can show me without telling me." 
 The lady's hand moves quietly to the at- 
 tendant's hand. Pause and silence. 
 
 " I am going to pass round the tables," says 
 the lady's interlocutor, without seeming to 
 address her. " Follow me with your eyes. 
 The boy that I stop at and speak to, will not 
 matter to you. But the boy that I touch, will 
 be Walter Wilding. Say nothing more to me, 
 and move a little away." 
 
 Quickly acting on the hint, the lady passes on 
 into the room, and looks about her. After a 
 few moments, the attendant, in a staid official 
 way, walks down outside the line of tables com- 
 mencing on her left hand. She goes the whole 
 length of the line, turns, and comes back on the 
 inside. Very slightly glancing in the lady's 
 direction, she stops, bends forward, and speaks. 
 The boy whom she addresses, lifts his head and 
 replies. Good humouredly and easily, as she 
 listens to what he says, she lays her hand 
 upon the shoulder of the next boy on his right. 
 That the action may be well noted, she keeps 
 her hand on the shoulder while speaking in 
 return, and pats it twice or thrice before moving 
 away. She completes her tour of the tables, 
 touching no one else, and passes out by a door 
 at the opposite end of the long room. 
 
 Dinner is done, and the lady, too, walks down 
 outside the line of tables commencing on her left 
 hand, goes the whole length of the line, turns, 
 and comes back on the inside. Other people 
 have strolled in, fortunately for her, and stand 
 sprinkled about. She lifts her veil, and, stopping 
 at the touched boy, asks how old he is ? 
 
 " I am twelve, ma'am," he answers, with his 
 bright eyes fixed on hers. 
 "Are you well and happy ?" 
 "Yes, ma'am." 
 
 " May you take these sweetmeats from my 
 hand?" 
 
 " If you please to give them to me." 
 In stooping low for the purpose, the lady 
 touches the boy's face with her forehead and 
 with her hair. Then, lowering her veil again, 
 she passes on, and passes out without looking 
 back. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 THE CUKTAIN RISES. 
 
 In a court-yard in the City of London, which 
 was No Thoroughfare either for vehicles or 
 foot-passengers ; a court-yard diverging from 
 a steep, a slippery, and a winding street 
 connecting Tower-street with the Middlesex 
 shore of the Thames ; stood the place of busi- 
 ness of Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants. 
 Probably, as a jocose acknowledgment of the 
 obstructive character of this main approach, 
 the point nearest to its base at which one could 
 take the river (if so inodorously minded) bore 
 the appellation Break-Neck-Stairs. The court- 
 yard itself had likewise been descriptively en- 
 titled in old time, Cripple Corner. 
 
 Years before the year one thousand eight 
 hundred and sixty-one, people had left off taking 
 boat at Break-Neck-Stairs, and watermen had 
 ceased to ply there. The slimy little causeway 
 had dropped into the river by a slow process of 
 suicide, and two or three stumps of piles and 
 a rusty iron mooring-ring were all that remained 
 of the departed Break-Neck glories. Some- 
 times, indeed, a laden coal barge would bump 
 itself into the place, and certain laborious heavers, 
 seemingly mud-engendered, would arise, deliver 
 the cargo in the neighbourhood, shove off, and 
 vanish ; but at most times the only commerce 
 of Break -Neck-Stairs arose out of the convey- 
 ance of casks and bottles, both full and empty, 
 both to and from the cellars of Wilding and Co. 
 Wine Merchants. Even that commerce was 
 but occasional, and through three-fourths of 
 its rising tides the dirty indecorous drab of a 
 river would come solitarily oozing and lapping 
 at the rusty ring, as if it had heard of the Doge 
 and the Adriatic, and wanted to be married to 
 the great con server of its filthiness, the Right 
 Honourable the Lord Mayor. 
 
 Some two hundred and fifty yards on the 
 right, up the opposite hill (approaching it from 
 the low ground of Break-Neck-Stairs) was 
 Cripple Corner. There was a pump in Cripple 
 Corner, there was a tree in Cripple Comer. All 
 Cripple Corner belonged to Wilding and Co. 
 Wine Merchants. Their cellars burrowed under 
 it, their mansion towered over it. It really 
 had been a mansion in the days when merchants 
 inhabited the City, and had a ceremonious 
 shelter to the doorway without visible support, 
 like the sounding-board over an old pulpit. It 
 had also a number of long narrow strips of 
 window, so disposed in its grave brick front as 
 to render it symmetrically ugly. It had also on 
 its roof, a cupola with a Dell in it. 
 
 " When a man at five-and-twenty can put his 
 'iat on, and can say this hat covers the owner 
 of this property and of the business which is 
 transacted on this property,' I consider, Mr. 
 Bintrey, that, without being boastful, he may be 
 allowed to be deeply thankful. I don't know 
 low it may appear to you, but so it appears to 
 ne." 
 
 Thus Mr. Walter Wilding to his man of law, 
 n his own counting-house ; taking his hat down 
 'rom its peg to suit the action to the word, and 
 
4 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charlei Dickens 
 
 hanging it up again when he had done so, not 
 to overstep the modesty of nature. 
 
 An innocent, open-speaking, unused-looking 
 man, Mr. Walter Wilding, with a remarkably 
 pink and white complexion, and a figure much 
 too bulky for so young a man, though of a good 
 stature. With crispy curling brown hair, and 
 amiable bright blue eyes. An extremely com- 
 municative man : a man with whom loquacity 
 was the irrestraiuable outpouring of content- 
 ment and gratitude. Mr. Bintrey, on the other 
 hand, a cautious man with twinkling beads of 
 eyes in a large overhanging bald head, who in- 
 wardly but intensely enjoyed the comicality of 
 openness of speech, or hand, or heart. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Biutrey. " Yes. Ha, ha !" 
 
 A decanter, two wine-glasses, and a plate of 
 biscuits, stood on the desk. 
 
 " You like this forty-five year old port wine ?" 
 said Mr. Wilding. 
 
 " Like it P" repeated Mr. Bintrey. " Rather, 
 sir!" 
 
 " It's from the best corner of our best forty- 
 live year old bin," said Mr. Wilding. 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said Mr. Bintrey. "It's 
 most excellent." 
 
 He laughed again, as he held up his glass and 
 ogled it, at the highly ludicrous idea of giving 
 away such wine. 
 
 "And now," said Wilding, with a childish 
 enjoyment in the discussion of affairs, " I think 
 we have got everything straight, Mr. Bin- 
 trey." 
 
 " Everything straight," said Bintrey. 
 
 " A partner secured " 
 
 "Partner secured," said Bintrey. 
 
 "A housekeeper advertised for " 
 
 "Housekeeper advertised for," said Bintrey, 
 " * apply personally at Cripple Corner, Great 
 Tower-street, from ten to twelve' to-morrow, 
 by-the-by." 
 
 "My late dear mother's affairs wound 
 up " 
 
 "Wound up," said Bintrey. 
 
 " And all charges paid." 
 
 "And all charges paid," said Bintrey, with a 
 chuckle : probably occasioned by the aroll cir- 
 cumstance that they had been paid without a 
 haggle. 
 
 " The mention of my late dear mother," Mr. 
 Wilding continued, his eyes filling with tears 
 and his pocket-handkerchief drying them, "un- 
 mans me still, Mr. Bintrey. You know how I 
 loved her; you (her lawyer) know how she 
 loved me. The utmost love of mother and 
 child was cherished between us, and we never 
 experienced one moment's division or unhappi- 
 ness from the time when she took me under her 
 care. Thirteen years in all! Thirteen years 
 under my late dear mother's care, Mr. Bintrey, 
 and eight of them her confidentially acknow- 
 ledged son ! You know the story, Mr. Bintrey, 
 who but you, sir !" Mr. Wilding sobbed and 
 dried his eyes, without attempt at concealment, 
 during these remarks. 
 
 Mr. Bintrey enjoyed his comical port, and 
 said, after rolling it in his mouth : " I know the 
 story." 
 
 " My late dear mother, Mr. Bintrey," pur- 
 sued the wine-merchant, " had been deeply de- 
 ceived, and had cruelly suffered. But on that 
 subject my late dear mother's lips were for ever 
 sealed. By whom deceived, or under what cir- 
 cumstances, Heaven only knows. My late dear 
 mother never betrayed her betrayer." 
 
 "She had made up her mind," said Mr. 
 Bintrey, again turning his wine on his palate, 
 " and she could hold her peace." An amused 
 twinkle in his eyes pretty plainly added " A 
 devilish deal better than you ever will !" 
 
 " ' Honour,' " said Mr. Wilding, sobbing as he 
 quoted from the Commandments, " c thy father 
 and thy mother, that thy days may be long in 
 the land.' When I was in the Foundling, Mr. 
 Bintrey, I was at such a loss how to do it, that 
 I apprehended my days would be short in the 
 land. But I afterwards came to honour my 
 mother deeply, profoundly. And I honour and 
 revere her memory. For seven happy years, Mr. 
 Bintrey," pursued Wilding, still with the same 
 innocent catching in his breath, and the same un- 
 abashed tears, " did my excellent mother article 
 me to my predecessors in this business, Pebble- 
 son Nephew. Her affectionate forethought like- 
 wise apprenticed me to the Vintners' Corapanj^ 
 and made me in time a Free Vintner, and and 
 everything else that the best of mothers could 
 desire. When I came of age, she bestowed her 
 inherited share in this business upon me; it 
 was her money that afterwards bought out 
 Pebbleson Nephew, and painted in Wilding and 
 Co.; it was she who left me everything she 
 possessed, but the mourning ring you wear. And 
 yet, Mr. Bintrey," with a fresh burst of honest 
 affection, " she is no more. It is little over half 
 a year since she came into the Corner to rrad 
 on that door-post with her own. eyes, WILDING 
 AND Co. WINE MERCHANTS. And yet she is 
 no more !" 
 
 " Sad. But the common lot, Mr. Wilding," 
 observed Bintrey. " At some time or other we 
 must all be no more." He placed the forty-five 
 year old port wine in the universal condition, 
 with a relishing sigh. 
 
 " So now, Mr. Bintrey," pursued Wilding, 
 putting away his pocket-handkerchief, and 
 smoothing his eyelids with his fingers, "now 
 that I can no longer show my love and honour 
 for the dear parent to whom my heart was 
 mysteriously turned by Nature when she first 
 spoke to me, a strange lady, I sitting at our 
 Sunday dinner-table in the Foundling, I can at 
 least show that I am not ashamed of having 
 been a Foundling, and that I, who never knew 
 a father of my own, wish to be a father to all 
 in my employment. Therefore," continued 
 Wilding, becoming enthusiastic in his loqua- 
 city, "therefore, I want a thoroughly good 
 housekeeper to undertake this dwelling-house 
 of Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants, Cripple 
 Corner, so that I may restore in it some 
 of the old relations betwixt employer and 
 employed ! So that I may live in it on the 
 spot where my money is made ! So that I may 
 daily sit at the head of the table at which the 
 people in my employment eat together, and may 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 5 
 
 eat of the same roast and boiled, and drink of 
 the same beer ! So that the people in my em- 
 ployment may lodge under the same roof with 
 
 me ! So that we may one and all 1 beg; your 
 
 pardon, Mr. Bintrey, but that old singing in my 
 head has suddenly come on, and I shall feel 
 obliged if you will lead me to the pump." 
 
 Alarmed by the excessive pinkness of his 
 client, Mr. Bintrey lost not a moment in lead- 
 ing him forth into the court-yard. It was easily 
 done, for the counting-house in which they 
 talked together opened on to it, at one side 
 of the dwelling-house. There, the attorney 
 pumped with a will, obedient to a sign 
 from the client, and the client laved his 
 head and face with both hands, and took a 
 hearty drink. After these remedies, he declared 
 himself much better. 
 
 " Don't let your good feelings excite you," 
 said Bintrey, as they returned to the counting- 
 house, and Mr. Wilding dried himself on a jack- 
 towel behind an inner door. 
 
 "No, no. I won't," he returned, looking 
 out of the towel. "I won't. I have not been 
 confused, have I ?" 
 
 "Not at all. Perfectly clear." 
 
 " Where did I leave off, Mr. Bintrey ?" 
 
 "Well, you left off but I wouldn't excite 
 myself, if 1 was you. by taking it up again just 
 yet." 
 
 "I'll take care. I'll take care. The sing- 
 ing in my head came on at where, Mr. Bin- 
 trey ?" 
 
 "At roast, and boiled, and beer," answered 
 the lawyer, prompting " lodging under the 
 same roof and one and all " 
 
 " Ah ! And one and all singing in the head 
 together-" 
 
 "Do you know I really would not let my 
 good feelings excite me, if I was you," hinted 
 the lawyer again, anxiously. " Try some more 
 pump." 
 
 " No occasion, no occasion. All right, Mr. 
 Bintrey. And one and all forming a kind of 
 family ! You see, Mr. Bintrey, I was not used 
 in my childhood to that sort of individual ex- 
 istence which most individuals have led, more or 
 less, in their childhood. After that time I 
 became absorbed in my late dear mother. 
 Having lost her, I find that I am more fit for 
 being one of a body than one by myself one. 
 To be that, and at the same time to do my duty 
 to those dependent on me, and attach them to 
 me, has a patriarchal and pleasant air about it. 
 I don't know how it may appear to you, Mr. 
 Bintrey, but so it appears to me." 
 
 " It is not I who am all-important in the 
 case, but you," returned Bintrey. " Conse- 
 quently, how it may appear to me, is of very 
 small importance." 
 
 " It appears to me," said Mr. Wilding, in a 
 glow, " hopeful, useful, de-lightful !" 
 
 "Do you know," hinted "the lawyer again, 
 " I really would not ex " 
 
 " I am not going to. Then there's Handel." 
 
 " There's who ?" asked Bintrey. 
 
 "Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, 
 Doctor Arne, Greene, Mendelssohn. I know 
 
 the choruses to those anthems by heart. 
 Foundling Chapel Collection. Why shouldn't 
 we learn them, together !" 
 
 "Who learn them together?" asked the 
 lawyer, rather shortly. 
 
 " Employer and employed." 
 
 "Aye, aye!" returned Bintrey, mollified; as 
 if he had half expected the answer to be, Lawyer 
 and client. " That's another thing." 
 
 "Not another thing, Mr. Bintrey! The 
 same thing. A part of the bond among us. 
 We will form a Choir in some quiet church 
 near the Corner here, and, having sung to- 
 gether of a Sunday with a relish, we will come 
 home and take an early dinner together with a 
 relish. The object that I have at heart now, 
 is to get this system well in action without 
 delay, so that my new partner may find it 
 founded when he enters on his partnership." 
 
 " All good be with it !" exclaimed Bintrey, 
 rising. " May it prosper ! Is Joey Ladle to 
 take a share in Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, 
 Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, and Mendels- 
 sohn ?" 
 
 " I hope so." 
 
 " I wish them all well out of it," returned 
 Bintrey, with much heartiness. " Good-bye, 
 sir." 
 
 They shook hands and parted. Then (first 
 knocking with his knuckles for leave) entered 
 to Mr. Wilding, from a door of communication 
 between his private counting-house and that in 
 which his clerks sat, the Head Cellarman of the 
 cellars of Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants, 
 and erst Head Cellarman of the cellars of 
 Pebbleson Nephew. The Joey Ladle in ques- 
 tion. A slow and ponderous man, of the dray- 
 man order of human architecture, dressed in a 
 corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a 
 composite of door-mat and rhinoceros-hide. 
 
 ".Respecting this same boarding and lodging, 
 Young Master Wilding," said he. 
 
 "Yes, Joey?" 
 
 " Speaking for myself, Young Master Wilding 
 and I never did speak and I never do speak 
 for no one else/ don't want no boarding 
 nor yet no lodging. But if you wish to 
 board me and to lodge me, take ms. I can 
 peck as well as most men. Where I peck, 
 ain't so high a object with me as What I 
 peck. Nor even so high a object with me as 
 How Much I peck. Is all to live in the house, 
 Young Master Wilding ? The two other cellar- 
 men, the three porters, the two 'prentices, and 
 the odd men ?" 
 
 "Yes. I hope we shall all be an united 
 family, Joey." 
 
 " Ah !" said Joey. " I hope they may be." 
 
 " They ? Rather say we, Joey." 
 
 Joey Ladle shook his head. " Don't look to 
 me to make we on it, Young Master Wilding, 
 not at my time of life and under the circum- 
 starnces which has formed my disposition. I 
 have said to Pebbleson Nephew many a time, 
 when they have said to me, ' Put a livelier face 
 upon it, Joey' I have said to them, * Gentle- 
 men, it is all wery well for you that has been 
 accustomed to take your wine into your systems 
 
6 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOKOUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 by the conwivial channel of your throttles, to 
 put a lively face upon it ; but,' I says, f I have 
 been accustomed to take my wine in at the 
 pores of the skin, and, took that way, it acts dif- 
 ferent. It acts depressing. It's one thing, 
 gentlemen/ I says to Pebbleson Nephew, 'to 
 charge your glasses in a dining-room with a 
 Hip Hurrah and a Jolly Companions Every 
 One, and it's another thing to be charged your- 
 self, through the pores, in a low dark cellar 
 and a mouldy atmosphere. It makes all the dif- 
 ference betwixt bubbles and wapours,' I tells 
 Pebbleson Nephew. And so it do. I've been 
 a cellarman my life through, with my mind fully 
 given to the business. What's the conse- 
 quence P I'm as muddled a man as lives you 
 won't find a muddleder man than me nor yet 
 you won't find my equal in molloncolly. Sing 
 of Filling the bumper fair, Every drop you 
 sprinkle, O'er the brow of care, Smooths away 
 a wrinkle? Yes. P'raps so. But try filling 
 yourself through the pores, underground, when 
 you don't want to it !" 
 
 " I am sorry to hear this, Joey. I had even 
 thought that you might join a singing-class in 
 the house." 
 
 " Me, sir ? No, no, Young Master Wilding, 
 you won't catch Joey Ladle muddling the 
 Armony. A pecking-machine, sir, is all that I 
 am capable of proving myself, out of my 
 cellars; but that you're welcome to, if you 
 think it's worth your while to keep such a 
 thing on your premises." 
 
 " I do, Joey." 
 
 " Say no more, sir. The Business's word is my 
 law. And you're a going to take Young Master 
 George Vendale partner into the old Business ?" 
 
 " I am, Joey." 
 
 " More changes, you see ! But don't change 
 the name of the Firm again. Don't do it, 
 Young Master Wilding. It was bad luck 
 enough to make it Yourself and Co. Better 
 by far have left it Pebbleson Nephew that 
 good luck always stuck to. You should never 
 change luck when it's good, sir." 
 
 " At all events, I have no intention of 
 changing the name of the House again, Joey." 
 
 " Glad to hear it, and wish you good day, 
 Young Master Wilding. But you had better by 
 half," muttered Joey Ladle, inaudibly, as he 
 closed the door and shook his head, " have let 
 the name alone from the first. You had better 
 by half have followed the luck instead of cross- 
 ing it." 
 
 ENTER THE HOUSEKEEPER. 
 
 The wine-merchant sat in his dining-room 
 next morning, to receive the personal appli- 
 cants for the vacant post in his establishment. 
 It was an old-fashioned wainscoted room ; the 
 panels ornamented with festoons of flowers 
 carved in wood ; with an oaken floor, a well- 
 worn Turkey carpet, and dark mahogany furni- 
 ture, all of which had seen service and polish 
 under Pebbleson Nephew. The great sideboard 
 had assisted at many business-dinners given by 
 Pebbleson Nephew to their connexion, on the 
 
 principle of throwing sprats overboard to catch 
 whales ; and Pebbleson Nephew's comprehen- 
 sive three-sided plate- warmer, made to fit the 
 whole front of the large fireplace, kept watch 
 beneath it over a sarcophagus-shaped cellaret 
 that had in its time held many a dozen of 
 Pebbleson Nephew's wine. But the little rubi- 
 cund old bachelor with a pigtail, whose por- 
 trait was over the sideboard (and who could 
 easily be identified as decidedly Pebbleson and 
 decidedly not Nephew), had retired into an- 
 other sarcophagus, and the plate-warmer had 
 grown as cold as he. So, the golden and 
 black griffins that supported the candelabra, 
 with black balls in their mouths at the end of 
 gilded chains, looked as if in their old age they 
 had lost all heart for playing at ball, and 
 were dolefully exhibiting their chains in the 
 Missionary line of inquiry, whether they had 
 not earned emancipation by this time, and were 
 not griffins and brothers ? 
 
 Such a Columbus of a morning was the sum- 
 mer morning, that it discovered Cripple Corner. 
 The light and warmth pierced in at the open 
 windows, and irradiated the picture of a lady 
 hanging over the chimney-piece, the only other 
 decoration of the walls. 
 
 "My mother at five-and-twenty," said Mr. 
 Wilding to himself, as his eyes enthusiastically 
 followed the light to the portrait's face, "I 
 hang up here, in order that visitors may admire 
 my mother in the bloom of her youth and 
 beauty. My mother at fifty I hang in the se- 
 clusion of my own chamber, as a remembrance 
 sacred to me. Oh ! It's you, Jarvis !" 
 
 These latter words he addressed to a clerk 
 who had tapped at the door, and now looked in. 
 
 " Yes, sir. I merely wished to mention that 
 it's gone ten, sir, and that there are several 
 females in the Counting-House." 
 
 " Dear me !" said the wine-merchant, deepen- 
 ing in the pink of his complexion and whitening 
 in the white, " are there several ? So many as 
 several ? I had better begin before there are 
 more. I'll see them one by one, Jarvis, in the 
 order of their arrival." 
 
 Hastily entrenching himself in his easy-chair 
 at the table behind a great inkstand, having 
 first placed a chair on the other side of the 
 table opposite his own seat, Mr. Wilding entered 
 on his task with considerable trepidation. 
 
 He ran the gauntlet that must be run on 
 any such occasion. There were the usual 
 species of profoundly unsympathetic women, 
 and the usual species of much too sympathetic 
 women. There were buccaneering widows who 
 came to seize him, and who griped umbrellas 
 under their arms, as if each umbrella were he, 
 and each griper had got him. There were 
 towering maiden ladies who had seen better days, 
 and who came armed with clerical testimonials 
 to their theology, as if he were Saint Peter with 
 his keys. There were gentle maiden ladies who 
 came to marry him. There were professional 
 housekeepers, like non-commissioned officers, 
 who put him through his domestic exercise, 
 instead of submitting themselves to catechism. 
 There were languid invalids to whom salary was 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 Pecember 12, 1867.] 7 
 
 not so much an object as the comforts of a 
 private hospital. There were sensitive creatures 
 who burst into tears on being addressed, and 
 had to be restored with glasses of ' cold water. 
 There were some respondents who came two 
 together, a highly promising one and a wholly 
 unpromising one : of whom the promising one 
 answered all questions charmingly, until it would 
 at last appear that she was not a candidate 
 at all, but only the friend of the unpromising 
 one, who had glowered in absolute silence and 
 apparent injury. 
 
 At last, when the good wine-merchant's simple 
 heart was failing him, there entered an applicant 
 quite different from all the rest. A woman, per- 
 haps fifty, but looking younger, with a face re- 
 markable for placid cheerfulness, and a manner 
 no less remarkable for its quiet expression of 
 equability of temper. Nothing in her dress 
 could have been changed to her advantage. 
 Nothing in the noiseless self-possession of her 
 manner could have been changed to her ad- 
 vantage. Nothing could have been in better 
 unison with both, than her voice when she 
 answered the question: "What name shall I 
 have the pleasure of noting down ?" with the 
 words, " My name is Sarah Goldstraw. Mrs. 
 Goldstraw. My husband has been dead many 
 years, and we had no family." 
 
 Half a dozen questions had scarcely extracted 
 as much to the purpose from any one else. 
 The voice dwelt so agreeably on Mr. Wilding's 
 ear as he made his note, that he was rather 
 long about it. When he looked up again, Mrs. 
 Goldstraw's glance had naturally gone round 
 the room, and now returned to him from the 
 chimney-piece. Its expression was one of frank 
 readiness to be questioned, and to answer 
 straight. 
 
 " You will excuse my asking you a few ques- 
 tions P" said the modest wine-merchant. 
 
 " Oh, surely, sir. Or I should have no busi- 
 ness here." 
 
 " Have you filled the station of housekeeper 
 before P" 
 
 ** Only once. I have lived with the same 
 widow lady for twelve years. Ever since I lost 
 my husband. She was an invalid, and is lately 
 dead : which is the occasion of my now wearing 
 black." 
 
 " I do not doubt that she has left you the 
 best credentials ?' y said Mr. Wilding. 
 
 "I hope I may say, the very best. I 
 thought it would save trouble, sir, if I wrote 
 down the name and address of her representa- 
 tives, and brought it with me." Laying a card 
 on the table. 
 
 " You singularly remind me, Mrs. Gold- 
 straw," said Wilding, taking the card beside 
 him, " of a manner and tone of voice that 
 I was once acquainted with. Not of an indi- 
 vidual I feel sure of that, though I cannot 
 recal what it is I have in my mind but of a 
 general bearing. I ought to add, it was a kind 
 and pleasant one." 
 
 She smiled, as she rejoined : " At least, I 
 am very glad of that, sir." 
 
 " Yes," said the wine-merchant, thoughtfully 
 
 repeating his last phrase, with a momentary 
 glance at his future housekeeper, "it was a 
 kind and pleasant one. But that is the most I 
 can make of it. Memory is sometimes like a 
 half-forgotten dream. I don't know how it 
 may appear to you, Mrs. Goldstraw, but so it ap- 
 pears to me." 
 
 Probably it appeared to Mrs. Goldstraw in 
 a similar light, for she quietly assented to the 
 proposition. Mr. Wilding then offered to put 
 himself at once in communication with the gen- 
 tlemen named upon the card : a firm of proc- 
 tors in Doctors' Commons. To this, Mrs. Gold- 
 straw thankfully assented. Doctors' Commons 
 not being far off, Mr. Wilding suggested the fea- 
 sibility of Mrs. Goldstraw's looking in again, say 
 in three hours' time. Mrs. Goldstraw readily 
 undertook to do so. In fine, the result of Mr. 
 Wilding's inquiries being eminently satisfactory, 
 Mrs. Goldstraw was that afternoon engaged (on 
 her own perfectly fair terms) to come to-morrow 
 and set up her rest as housekeeper in Cripple 
 Corner. 
 
 THE HOUSEKEEPER SPEAKS. 
 
 On the next day Mrs. Goldstraw arrived, to 
 enter on her domestic duties. 
 
 Having settled herself in her own room, 
 without troubling the servants, and without 
 wasting time, the new housekeeper announced 
 herself as waiting to be favoured with any in- 
 structions which her master might wish to give 
 her. The wine-merchant received Mrs. Gold- 
 straw in the dining - room, in which lie had 
 seen her on the previous day; and, the usual 
 preliminary civilities having passed on either 
 side, the two sat down to take counsel together 
 on the ad'airs of the house. 
 
 "About the meals, sir?" said Mrs. Gold- 
 straw. " Have I a large, or a small, number 
 to provide for ?" 
 
 " If I can carry out a certain old-fashioned 
 plan of mine," replied Mr. Wilding, " you will 
 have a large number to provide for. I am a 
 lonely single man, Mrs. Goldstraw; and I hope 
 to live with all the persons in my employment 
 as if they were members of my family. Until 
 that time comes, you will only have me, and 
 the new partner whom I expect immediately, 
 to provide for. What my partner's habits may 
 be, I cannot yet say. But I may describe my- 
 self as a man of regular hours, with an invariable 
 appetite that you may depend upon to an ounce." 
 
 "About breakfast, sir?" asked Mrs. Gold- 
 straw. "Is there anything particular ?" 
 
 She hesitated, and left the sentence un- 
 finished. Her eyes turned slowly away from 
 her master, and looked towards the chimney- 
 piece. If she had been a less excellent and ex- 
 perienced housekeeper, Mr. Wilding might 
 have fancied that her attention was beginning 
 to wander at the very outset of the interview. 
 
 "Eight o'clock is my breakfast-hour," he 
 resumed. " It is one of my virtues to be never 
 tired of broiled bacon, and it is one of my vices 
 to be habitually suspicious of the freshness of 
 eggs." Mrs. 'Goldstraw looked back at him, 
 
8 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By CHarles Dickens 
 
 still a little divided between her master's 
 chimney-piece and her master. "I take tea," 
 Mr. Wilding went on; "and I am perhaps 
 rather nervous and fidgety about drinking it, 
 within a certain time after it is made. It' my 
 tea stands too long " 
 
 He hesitated, on his side, and left the sentence 
 unfinisheyi. If he had not been engaged in dis- 
 cussing a subject of such paramount interest 
 to himself as his breakfast, Mrs. Goldstraw 
 might have fancied that his attention was be- 
 ginning to wander at the very outset of the 
 interview. 
 
 " If your tea stands too long, sir ?" said 
 
 the housekeeper, politely taking up her master's 
 lost thread. 
 
 " If my tea stands too long," repeated the 
 wine-merchant, mechanically, his mind getting 
 further and further away from his breakfast, 
 and his eyes fixing themselves more and more 
 inquiringly on his housekeeper's face. " If 
 
 my tea Dear, dear me, Mrs. Goldstraw ! 
 
 what is the manner and tone of voice that you 
 remind me of? It strikes me even more 
 strongly to-day, than it did when I saw you 
 yesterday. What can it be ?" 
 
 "What can it be?" repeated Mrs. Gold- 
 straw. 
 
 She said the words, evidently thinking while 
 she spoke them of something else. The wine- 
 mercliant, still looking at her inquiringly, ob- 
 served that her eyes wandered towards the 
 chimney-piece once more. They fixed on the 
 portrait of his mother, which hung there, and 
 looked at it with that slight contraction of the 
 brow which accompanies a scarcely conscious 
 effort of memory. Mr. Wilding remarked: 
 
 " My late dear mother, when she was five- 
 and-twenty." 
 
 Mrs. Goldstraw thanked him with a move- 
 ment of the head for being at the pains to ex- 
 plain the picture, and said, with a cleared brow, 
 that it was the portrait of a very beautiful lady. 
 
 Mr. Wilding, falling back into his former 
 perplexity, tried once more to recover that lost 
 recollection, associated so closely, and yet so 
 undiscoverably, with his new 'housekeeper's 
 voice and manner. 
 
 " Excuse my asking you a question which 
 has nothing to do with me or my breakfast," 
 he said. " May I inquire if you have ever oc- 
 cupied any other situation than the situation of 
 housekeeper?" 
 
 " Oh yes, sir. I began life as one of the 
 nurses at the Foundling." 
 
 " Why, that's it !'* cried the wine-merchant, 
 pushing' back his chair. "By Heaven! Their 
 manner is the mariner you remind me of!" 
 
 In an astonished look at him, Mrs. Goldstraw 
 changed colour, checked herself, turned her 
 eyes upon the ground, and sat still and silent. 
 
 "What is the matter?" asked Mr. Wilding. 
 
 "Do I understand that you were in the 
 Foundling, sir ?" 
 
 " Certainly. I am not ashamed to own it." 
 
 " Under the name you now bear ?" 
 
 " Under the name of Walter Wilding." 
 
 " And the lady P" Mrs. Goldstraw 
 
 stopped short, with a look at the portrait 
 which was now unmistakably a look of alarm. 
 
 " You mean my mother," interrupted Mr. 
 Wilding. 
 
 " Your mother," repeated the housekeeper, 
 a little constrainedly, " removed you from the 
 Foundling ? At what age, sir ?" 
 
 "At between eleven and twelve years old. 
 It's quite a romantic adventure, Mrs. Gold- 
 straw." 
 
 He told the story of the lady having spoken 
 to him, while he sat at dinner with the other 
 boys in the Foundling, and of all that had fol- 
 | lowed, in his innocently communicative way. 
 " My poor mother could never have discovered 
 ma," he added, " if she had not met with one 
 of the matrons who pitied her. The matron 
 consented to touch the boy whose name was 
 ' Walter Wilding' as she went round the dinner- 
 tables and so my mother discovered me again, 
 after having parted from me as an infant at the 
 Foundling doors." 
 
 At those words Mrs. Goldstraw's hand, rest- 
 ing on the table,dropped helplessly into her lap. 
 She sat, looking at her new master, with a face 
 that had turned deadly pale, and with eyes that 
 expressed an unutterable dismay. 
 
 "What does this mean?" asked the wine- 
 merchant. " Stop !" he cried. " Is there some- 
 thing else in the past time which I ought to 
 associate with you? I remember my mother 
 telling me of another person at the Foundling, 
 to whose kindness she owed a debt of gratitude. 
 When she first parted with me, as an infant, one 
 of the nurses informed her of the name that had 
 been given to me in the institution. You were 
 that nurse ?" 
 
 " God forgive me, sir I was that nurse !" 
 
 "God forgive you?" 
 
 " We had better get back, sir (if I may make 
 so bold as to say so), to my duties in the 
 house," said Mrs. Goldstraw. "Your breakfast- 
 hour is eight. Do you lunch, or dine, in the 
 middle of the day ?" 
 
 The excessive pinkness which Mr. Bintrey 
 had noticed in his client's face began to appear 
 there once more. Mr. Wilding put his hand to 
 his head, and mastered some momentary con- 
 fusion in that quarter, before he spoke again. 
 
 "Mrs. Goldstraw," he said, "you are con- 
 cealing something from me !" 
 
 The housekeeper obstinately Tepeated, "Please 
 to favour me, sir, by saying whether you lunch, 
 or dine, in the middle of the day?" 
 
 " I don't know what I do in the middle of the 
 day. I can't enter into my household affairs, 
 Mrs. Goldstraw, till I know why you regret an 
 act of kindness to my mother, which she always 
 spoke of gratefully to the end of her life. You 
 are not doing me a service by your silence. You 
 are agitating me, you are alarming me, you are 
 bringing on the singing in my head." 
 
 His hand went up to his head again, and the 
 pink in his face deepened by a shade or two. 
 
 " It's hard, sir, on just entering your ser- 
 vice," said the housekeeper, " to say what may 
 cost me the loss of your good will. Please to 
 remember, end how it may, that I only speak 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 9 
 
 because you have insisted on my speaking, and 
 because I see that I am alarming you by my 
 silence. When I told the poor lady, whose por- 
 trait you have got there, the name by which 
 her infant was christened in the Foundling, I 
 allowed myself to forget my duty, and dreadful 
 consequences, I am afraid, have followed from 
 it. I'll tell you the truth, as plainly as I can. 
 A few months from the time when I had in- 
 formed the lady of her baby's name, there came 
 to our institution in the country another lady 
 (a stranger), whose object was to adopt one of 
 our children. She brought the needful per- 
 mission with her, and after looking at a great 
 many of the children, without being able to 
 make up her mind, she took a sudden fancy 
 to one of the oabies a boy under my care. 
 Try, pray try, to compose yourself, sir ! It's 
 no use disguising it any longer. The child the 
 stranger took away was the child of that lady 
 whose portrait hangs there !" 
 
 Mr. Wilding started to his feet. " Impos- 
 sible !" he cried out, vehemently. " What are 
 you talking about ? What absurd story are you 
 telling me now? There's her portrait ! Haven't 
 I told you so already? The portrait of iny 
 mother !" 
 
 " When that unhappy lady removed you from 
 the Foundling, in after years," said Mrs. Gold- 
 straw, gently, "she was the victim, and you 
 were the victim, sir, of a dreadful mistake." 
 
 He dropped back into his chair. " The room 
 goes round with me," he said. " My head ! my 
 head !" The housekeeper rose in alarm, and 
 opened the windows. Before she could get to 
 the door to call for help, a sudden burst of tears 
 relieved the oppression which had at first almost 
 appeared to threaten his life. He signed entreat- 
 ingly to Mrs. Goldstraw not to leave him. She 
 waited until the paroxysm of weeping had worn 
 itself out. He raised his head as he recovered 
 himself, and looked at her with the angry un- 
 reasoning suspicion of a weak man. 
 
 " Mistake ?" he said, wildly repeating her 
 last word. " How do I know you are not mis- 
 taken yourself?" 
 
 " There is no hope that I am mistaken, sir. 
 I will tell you why, when you are better fit to 
 hear it." 
 
 "Now! now!" 
 
 The tone in which he spoke warned Mrs. 
 Goldstraw that it would be cruel kindness to 
 let him comfort himself a moment longer with 
 the vain hope that she might be wrong. A few 
 words more would end it and those lew words 
 she determined to speak. 
 
 " I have told you," she said, " that the child of 
 the lady whose portrait hangs there, was adopted 
 in its infancy, and taken away by a stranger. I am 
 as certain of what I say as that I am now sitting 
 here, obliged to distress you, sir, sorely against 
 my will. Please to carry your mind on, now, 
 to about three months after that time. I was 
 then at the Foundling, in London, waiting to 
 take some children to our institution in the 
 country. There was a question that day about 
 naming an infant a boy who had just been 
 received. We generally named them out of the 
 
 Directory. On this occasion, one of the gentle- 
 men who managed the Hospital happened to be 
 looking over the Register. He noticed that 
 the name of the baby who had been, adopted 
 (' Walter Wilding') was scratched out for the 
 reason, of course, that the child had been re- 
 moved for good from our care. ' Here's a name 
 to let,' he said. ' Give it to the new foundling 
 who has been received to-day.' The name was 
 given, and the child was christened. You, sir, 
 were that child." 
 
 The wine-merchant's head dropped on his 
 breast. "I was that child!" he said to him- 
 self, trying helplessly to fix the idea in his 
 mind. " 1 was that child !" 
 
 " Not very long after you had been received 
 into the Institution, sir," pursued Mrs. Gold- 
 straw, " I left my situation there, to be married. 
 If you will remember that, and if you can give 
 your mind to it, you will see for yourself how the 
 mistake happened. Between eleven and twelve 
 years passed before the lady, whom you have be- 
 lieved to be your mother, returned to the Found- 
 ling, to find her son, and to remove him to her 
 own home. The lady only knew that her infant 
 had been called ' Walter Wilding.' The matron 
 who took pity on her, could but point out the 
 only ' Walter Wilding' known in the Institu- 
 tion. I, who might have set the matter right, 
 was fat' away from the Foundling and all that 
 belonged to it. There was nothing there was 
 really nothing that could prevent this terrible 
 mistake from taking place. I feel for you I 
 do indeed, sir! You must think and with 
 reason that it was in an evil hour that I came 
 here (innocently enough, I'm sure), to apply for 
 your housekeeper's place. I feel as if I was to 
 blame I feel as if [ ought to have had more 
 self-command. If I had only been able to keep 
 my face from showing you, what that portrait 
 and what your own words put into my mind - 
 you need never, to your dying day, have known 
 what you know now." 
 
 Mr. Wilding looked up suddenly. The inbred 
 honesty of the man rose in protest against the 
 housekeeper's last words. His mind seemed 
 to steady itself, for the moment, under the 
 shock that had fallen on it. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that you would have 
 concealed this from me if you could ?" he ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " I hope I should always tell the truth, sir, 
 if I was asked," said Mrs. Goldstraw. " And 
 I know it is better for me that I should not have 
 a secret of this sort weighing on my mind. But 
 is it better for you ? What use can it servo 
 now ?" 
 
 " What use ? Why, good Lord ! if your 
 story is true " 
 
 " Should I have told it, sir, as I am now 
 situated, if it had not been true ?" 
 
 "I bsg your pardon," said the wine-mer- 
 chant. " You must make allowance for me. 
 This dreadful discovery is something I can't 
 realise even yet. We loved each other so 
 dearly I felt so fondly that I was her son. 
 She died, Mrs. Goldstraw, in my arms she 
 died blessing me as only a mother could have 
 
10 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 blessed me. And now, after all these years, to 
 be told she was not my mother ! O me, O me ! I 
 don't know what. I am saying !" lie cried, as the 
 impulse of self-control under which he had 
 spoken a moment since, flickered, and died out. 
 '* It was not this dreadful grief it was some- 
 thing else that I had it in my mind to speak of. 
 Yes, yes. You surprised me you wounded me 
 just now. You talked as if you would have 
 hidden this from me, if you could. Don't talk 
 in that way again. It would have been a crime 
 to have hidden it. You mean well, I know. I 
 don't want to distress you you are a kind- 
 hearted woman. But you don't remember what 
 my position is. She left me all that I possess, 
 in the firm persuasion that I was her son. I am 
 not her son. I have taken the place, I have in- 
 nocently got the inheritance of another man. 
 He must be found ! How do 1 know he is not 
 at tkis moment in misery, without bread to eat ? 
 He must be found ! My only hope of bearing 
 p against the shock that has fallen on me, is 
 the hope of doing something which she would 
 have approved. You must know more, Mrs. 
 Goldstraw, than you have told me yet. Who 
 was the stranger who adopted the child? You 
 must have heard the lady's name ?" 
 
 "I never heard it, sir. I have never seen 
 her, or heard of her, since." 
 
 "Did she say nothing when she took the 
 child away ? Search your memory. She must 
 have said something." 
 
 " Only one thing, sir, that I can remember. 
 It was a miserably bad season, that year ; and 
 many of the children were suffering from it. 
 "When she took the baby away, the lady said to 
 me, laughing, 'Don't be alarmed about his 
 health. He will be brought up in a better 
 climate than this I am going to take him to 
 Switzerland/" 
 
 "To Switzerland? What part of Switzer- 
 land?" 
 
 " She didn't say, sir." 
 
 "Only that faint clue!" said Mr. Wilding. 
 " And a quarter of a century has passed since 
 the child was taken away ! What am I to do ?" 
 
 " I hope you won't take offence at my free- 
 dom, sir," said Mrs. Goldstraw ; " but why 
 should you distress yourself about what is to be 
 done ? He may not be alive now, for anything 
 you know. And, if he is alive, it's not likely he 
 can be in any distress. The lady who adopted 
 him was a bred and born lady it was easy to 
 see that. And she must have satisfied them at 
 the Foundling that she could provide for the 
 child, or they would never have let her take him 
 away. If I was in your place, sir please to ex- 
 cuse my saying so I should comfort myself 
 with remembering that I had loved that poor 
 lady whose portrait you have got there truly 
 loved her as my mother, and that she had truly 
 loved me as her son. All she gave to you, she 
 gave for the sake of that love. It never altered 
 while she lived ; and it won't alter, I'm sure, 
 as long as you live. How can you have a better 
 right, sir, to keep what you have got than 
 that ?" 
 
 Mr. Wilding's immovable honesty saw the 
 
 fallacy in his housekeeper's point of view at a 
 glance. 
 
 " You don't understand me," he said. " It's 
 because I loved her that I feel it a duty a 
 sacred duty to do justice to her son. If he is 
 a living man, I must find him : for my own sake, 
 as well as for his. I shall break down under this 
 dreadful trial, unless I employ myself actively, 
 instantly employ myself in doing what my 
 conscience tells me ought to be done. I must 
 speak to my lawyer ; I must set my lawyer at 
 work before I sleep to-night." He approached 
 a tube in the wall of the room, and called down 
 through it to the office below. "Leave me for 
 a little, Mrs. Goldstraw," he resumed ; " I shall 
 be more composed, I shall be better able to 
 speak to you later in the day. We shall get on 
 well I hope we shall get on well together in 
 spite of what has happened. It isn't your fault ; 
 I know it isn't your fault. There ! there ! shake 
 hands ; and and do the best you can in the 
 house I can't talk about it now." 
 
 The door opened as Mrs. Goldstraw advanced 
 towards it; and Mr. Jarvis appeared. 
 
 " Send for Mr. Bintrey," said the wine-mer- 
 chant. " Say I want to see him directly." 
 
 The clerk unconsciously suspended the exe- 
 cution of the order, by announcing " Mr. Yen- 
 dale," and showing in the new partner in the 
 firm of Wilding and Co. 
 
 "Pray excuse me for one moment, George 
 Vendale," said Wilding. " I have a word to 
 say to Jarvis. Send for Mr. Bintrey," he 
 repeated " send at once." 
 
 Mr. Jarvis laid a letter on the table before 
 he left the room. 
 
 " From our correspondents at Neuchatel, I 
 think, sir. The letter has got the Swiss post- 
 mark." 
 
 NEW CHARACTERS ON THE SCENE. 
 
 The words, " The Swiss Postmark," follow- 
 ing so soon upon the housekeeper's reference to 
 Switzerland, wrought Mr. Wilding's agitation 
 to such a remarkable height, that his new 
 partner could not decently make a pretence of 
 letting it pass unnoticed. 
 
 " Wilding," he asked hurriedly, and yet 
 stopping short and glancing around as if for 
 some visible cause of his state of mind : " what 
 is the matter ?" 
 
 " My good George Vendale," returned 
 the Avine -merchant, giving his hand with an 
 appealing look, rather as if he wanted help to 
 get over some obstacle, than as if he gave it in 
 welcome or salutation : " my good George Ven- 
 dale, so much is the matter, that I shall never 
 be myself again. It is impossible that I can 
 ever be myself again. For, in fact, I am not 
 myself." 
 
 The new partner, a brown-cheeked hand- 
 some fellow, of about his own age, with a quick 
 determined eye and an impulsive manner, 
 retorted with natural astonishment : " Not your- 
 self?" 
 
 " Not what I supposed myself to be," said 
 Wilding. 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [Decembei 12, 1867.] 11 
 
 "What, in the name of wonder, did you 
 suppose yourself to be that you are not ?" was 
 the rejoinder, delivered with a cheerful frank- 
 ness, inviting confidence from a more reticent 
 man. " I may ask without impertinence, now 
 that we are partners." 
 
 " There again !" cried "Wilding, leaning back 
 in his chair, with a lost look at the other. 
 " Partners ! I had no right to come into this 
 business. It was never meant for me. My 
 mother never meant it should be mine. I mean, 
 his mother meant it should be his if I mean 
 anything or if I am anybody." 
 
 " Come, come," urged his partner, after a 
 moment's pause, and taking possession of him 
 with that calm confidence which inspires a 
 strong nature when it honestly desires to aid a 
 weak one. " Whatever has gone wrong, has 
 gone wrong through no fault of yours, I am 
 very sure. I was not in this counting-house 
 with you under the old regime, for three years, 
 to doubt you, Wilding. We were not younger 
 men than we are, together, for that. Let me 
 begin our partnership by being a serviceable 
 partner, and setting right whatever is wrong. 
 Has that letter anything to do with it ?" 
 
 " Hah !" said Wilding, with his hand to his 
 temple. " There again ! My head ! I Avas 
 forgetting the coincidence. The Swiss post- 
 mark." 
 
 " At a second glance I see that the letter is 
 unopened, so it is not very likely to have much 
 to do with the matter," said Vendale, with com- 
 forting composure. " Is it for you, or for us ?" 
 
 " For us," said Wilding. 
 
 " Suppose I open it anil read it aloud, to get 
 it out of our way ?" 
 
 "Thank you, thank you." 
 
 "The letter is only from our champagne- 
 making friends, the House at- Neuchatel. 
 ' Dear Sir. We are in receipt of yours of the 
 28th ult., informing us that you have taken 
 your Mr. Vendale into partnership, whereon we 
 beg you to receive the assurance of our felicita- 
 tions. Permit us to embrace the occasion (ft 
 specially commending to you, M. Jules Oben- 
 reizer.' Impossible !" 
 
 Wilding looked up in quick apprehension, 
 and cried, <; Eh?" 
 
 "Impossible sort of name," returned his 
 partner, slightly " Obenreizer. ' Of specially 
 commending to you M. Jules Obenreizer, of 
 Soho-square, London (north side), henceforth 
 fully accredited as our agent, and who lias 
 already had the honour of making the acquaint- 
 ance of your Mr. Vendale, in his (said M. 
 Obenreizer's) native country, Switzerland.' 
 To be sure : pooh pooh, what have I been think- 
 ing of! I remember now; 'when travelling 
 with his niece. 5 
 
 " With his ?" Vendale had so slurred the 
 
 last word, that Wilding had not heard it. 
 
 ^"When travelling with his Niece. Oben- 
 reizer's Niece," said Vendale, in a somewhat su- 
 perfluously lucid manner. "Niece of Obenreizer. 
 (I met them in my first Swiss tour, travelled a 
 little with them, and lost them for two years ; 
 met them again, my Swiss tour before last, and 
 
 have lost them ever since.) Obenreizer. Niece of 
 Obenreizer. To be sure ! Possible sort of name, 
 after all ! ' M. Obenreizer is in possession of 
 our absolute confidence, and we do not doubt 
 you will esteem Ids merits.' Duly signed by 
 the House, 'Defresnier et C ie .' 'Very well. 
 I undertake to see M. Obenreizer presentlv, 
 and clear him out of the way. That clears 
 the Swiss postmark out of the way. So now, 
 my dear Wilding, tell me what I can clear out 
 of your way, and I'll find a way to clear it." 
 
 More than ready and grateful to be thus taken 
 charge of, the honest wine-merchant wrung his 
 partner's hand, and, beginning his tale by pathe- 
 tically declaring himself an Impostor, told it. 
 
 " It was on this matter, no doubt, that you 
 were sending for Bintrey when I came in?" 
 said his partner, after reflecting. 
 
 "It was." 
 
 " He has experience and a shrewd head ; I 
 shall be anxious to know his opinion. It is 
 bold and hazardous in me to give you mine 
 before I know his, but I am not good at hold- 
 ing back. Plainly, then,- I do not see these 
 circumstances as you see them. I do not see 
 your position as you see it.. As to your being 
 an Impostor, my dear Wilding, that is simply 
 absurd, because no man can be that without 
 being a consenting party to an imposition. 
 Clearly you never were so. As to your enrich- 
 ment by the lady who believed you to be her 
 son, and whom you were forced to believe, on 
 her own showing, to be your mother, consider 
 whether that did not arise out of the personal 
 relations between you. You gradually became 
 much attached to her; she gradually became 
 much attached to you. It was on you, per- 
 sonally you, as I see the case, that she con- 
 ferred these worldly advantages ; it was from, 
 her, personally her, that you took them." 
 
 " She supposed me," objected Wilding, 
 shaking his head, "to have a natural claim upon 
 her, which I had not." 
 
 "I must admit that," replied his partner, 
 " to be true. But if she had made the dis- 
 covery that you have made, six months before 
 she died, do you think it would have cancelled 
 the years you were together, and the tender- 
 ness that each of you had conceived for the 
 other, each on increasing knowledge of the 
 other?" 
 
 " What I think," said Wilding, simply but 
 stoutly holding to the bare fact, " can no more 
 change the truth than it can bring down the sky. 
 The truth is that I stand possessed of what was 
 meant for another man." 
 
 " He may be dead," said Vendale. 
 
 " He may be alive," said Wilding. " And if 
 he is alive, have I not innocently, I grant you 
 innocently robbed him of enough? Have I 
 not robbed him of all the happy time that I 
 enjoyed in his stead ? Have I not robbed him 
 of the exquisite delight that filled my soul when 
 that dear lady," stretching his hand towards the 
 picture, " told me she was my mother ? Have 
 I not robbed him of all the care she lavished on 
 me ? Have I not even robbed him of all the 
 devotion and duty that I so proudly gave to 
 
12 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 her? Therefore it is that I ask myself, George 
 Vendale, and I ask you, where is he ? What 
 has become of him ?" 
 
 " Who can tell !" 
 
 " I must try to find out who can tell. < I must 
 institute inquiries. I must never desist from 
 prosecuting inquiries. I will live upon the in- 
 terest of my share I ought to say his share in 
 this business, and will lay up the rest for him. 
 When I find him, I may perhaps throw myself 
 upon his generosity; but I will yield up all to 
 him. I will, I swear. As I loved and honoured 
 her," said Wilding, reverently kissing his hand 
 towards the picture, and then covering his eyes 
 with it. " As I loved and honoured her, and 
 have a world of reasons to be grateful to her !" 
 And so broke down again. 
 
 His partner rose from the chair lie had oc- 
 cupied, and stood beside him with a hand softly 
 laid upon his shoulder. " Walter, I knew you 
 before to-day to be an upright man, with a pure 
 conscience and a fine heart. It is very fortu- 
 nate for me that I have the privilege to travel 
 on in life so near to so trustworthy a man. 
 I am thankful for it. Use me as your right 
 hand, and rely upon me to the death. Don't 
 think the worse of me if I protest to you 
 that my uppermost feeling at present is a con- 
 fused, you may call it an unreasonable, one. I 
 feel far more pity for the lady and for you, because 
 you did not stand in your supposed relations, 
 than I can feel for the unknown man (if he ever 
 became a man), because he was unconsciously 
 displaced. You have done well in sending for 
 Mr. Bintrey. What I think will be a part of his 
 advice, I know is the whole of mine. Do not 
 move a step in this serious matter precipitately. 
 The secret must be kept among us with great 
 strictness, for to part with it lightly would be 
 to invite fraudulent claims, to encourage a host 
 of knaves, to let loose a flood of perjury and plot- 
 ting. I have no more to say now, Walter, 
 than to remind you that you sold me a share in 
 your ^business, expressly to save yourself from 
 more work than your present health is fit for, 
 and that I bought it expressly to do work, and 
 mean to do it." 
 
 With these words, and a parting grip of his 
 partner's shoulder that gave them the best em- 
 phasis they could have had, George Vendale 
 betook himself presently to the counting-house, 
 and presently afterwards to the address of M. 
 Jules Obenreizer. 
 
 As he turned into Soho-square, and directed 
 his steps towards its north side, a deepened 
 colour shot across his sun-browned face, which 
 Wilding, if he had been a better observer, or 
 had been less occupied with his own trouble, 
 might have noticed when his partner read aloud 
 a certain passage in their Swiss correspondent's 
 letter, which he had not read . so distinctly as 
 the rest. 
 
 A curious colony of mountaineers has long 
 been enclosed within that small flat London 
 district of Soho. Swiss watchmakers, Swis- 
 silver-chasers, Swiss jewellers, Swiss importers 
 of Swiss musical boxes and Swiss toys of various 
 kinds, draw close together there. Swiss profes^ 
 
 sors of music, painting, and languages ; Swiss 
 artificers in steady work ; Swiss couriers, arid 
 other Swiss servants chronically out of place ; in- 
 dustrious Swiss laundresses and clear-starchers ; 
 mysteriously existing Swiss of both sexes ; Swiss, 
 creditable and Swiss discreditable; Swiss to be 
 trusted by all means, and Swiss to be trusted by no 
 means; these diverse Swiss particles are attracted 
 to a centre in the district of Soho. Shabby 
 Swiss eating-houses, coffee-houses, and lodging- 
 houses, Swiss drinks and dishes, Swiss service 
 for Sundays, and Swiss schools for week-days, 
 are all to be found there. Even the native- 
 born English taverns drive a sort of broken- 
 English trade; announcing in their windows 
 Swiss whets and drams, and sheltering in their 
 bars Swiss skirmishes of love and animosity on 
 most nights in the year. 
 
 When the new partner in Wilding and 
 Co. rang the bell of a door bearing the blunt 
 inscription OBENKEIZER on a brass plate the 
 inner door of a substantial house, whose ground 
 story was devoted to the sale of Swiss clocks 
 he passed at once into domestic Switzerland. 
 A white-tiled stove for winter-time filled the 
 fireplace of the room into which he was shown, 
 the room's bare floor was laid together in a neat 
 pattern of several ordinary woods, the room had a 
 prevalent air of surface bareness and much scrub- 
 bing ; and the little square of flowery carpet by 
 the sofa, and the velvet chimney-board with its 
 capacious clock and vases of artificial flowers, 
 contended with that tone, as if, in bringing out 
 the whole effect, a Parisian had adapted a dairy 
 to domestic purposes. 
 
 Mimic water was dropping off a mill-wheel 
 under the clock. The visitor had not stood 
 before it, following it with his eyes, a minute, 
 when M. Obenreizer, at his elbow, startled him 
 by saying, in very good English, very slightly 
 clipped : " How do you do ? So glad 1" 
 
 "I beg your pardon. I didn't hear you come 
 in." 
 
 " Not at all ! Sit, please." 
 
 Releasing his visitor's two arms, which he 
 had lightly pinioned at the elbows by way of 
 embrace, M. Obenreizer also sat, remarking, 
 with a smile : " You are well ? So glad !" and 
 touching his elbows again. 
 
 "I don't know," said Vendale, after exchange 
 of salutations, " whether you may yet have heard 
 of me from your House at Neuchatel ?" 
 
 "Ah, yes!" 
 
 " In connexion with Wilding and Co. ?" 
 
 "Ah, surely!" 
 
 " Is it not odd that I should come to you, in 
 London here, as one of the Eirm of Wilding and 
 Co., to pay the Firm's respects ?" 
 
 " Not at all ! What did I always observe 
 when we were on the mount aiiis ? We call them 
 vast ; but the world is so little. So little is the 
 world, that one cannot keep away from persons. 
 There are so few persons in the world, that they 
 continually cross and re-cross. So very little 
 is the world, that one cannot get rid of a per- 
 son. Not," touching his elbows again, with an 
 ingratiatory smile, " that one would desire to 
 get rid of you." 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 13 
 
 " I hope not, M. Obenreizer." 
 
 "Please call ine, in your country, Mr. I 
 call myself so, for I love your country. If I 
 could be English ! But I am born. And you ? 
 Though descended from so fine a family, you 
 have had the condescension to come into trade ? 
 Stop though. Wines ? Is it trade in England 
 or profession ? Not fine art ?" 
 
 " Mr. Obenreizer," returned Vendale, some- 
 what out of countenance, "I was but a silly 
 young fellow, just of age, when I first had the 
 pleasure of travelling with you, and when you 
 and I and Mademoiselle your niece who is 
 well?" 
 
 " Thank you. Who is well." 
 
 " Shared some slight glacier dangers to- 
 gether. If, with a boy's vanity, I rather vaunted 
 my family, I hope I did so as a kind of intro- 
 duction of myself. It was very weak, and in 
 very bad taste ; but perhaps you know our 
 English proverb, 'Live and learn/ " 
 
 " You make too much of it," returned the 
 Swiss. " And what the devil ! After all, yours 
 teas a fine family." 
 
 George Vendale' s laugh betrayed a little vex- 
 ation as he rejoined : " Well ! I was strongly 
 attached to my parents, and when we first 
 travelled together, Mr. Obenreizer, I was in 
 the first flush of coming into what my father 
 and mother left me. So I hope it may have 
 been, after all, more youthful openness of speech 
 and heart than boastfulness." 
 
 "All openness of speech and heart! No 
 boastfulness !" cried Ooenreizer. " You tax 
 yourself too heavily. You tax yourself, my 
 faith ! as if you was your Government taxing 
 you ! Besides, it commenced with me. I 
 remember, that evening in the boat upou the 
 lake, floating among the reflections of the 
 mountains and valleys, the crags and pine 
 woods, which were my earliest remembrance, 
 I drew a word-picture of my sordid childhood. 
 Of our poor hut, by the waterfall which my 
 mother showed to travellers ; of the cow-shed 
 where I slept with the cow; of my idiot half- 
 brother always sitting at the doorj or limping 
 down the Pass to beg ; of my half-sister always 
 spinning, and resting her enormous goitre on a 
 great stone; of my being a famished naked 
 little wretch of two or three years, when they 
 were men and women with hard hands to beat 
 me, I, the only child of my father's second mar- 
 riage if it even was a marriage. What more 
 natural than for you to compare notes with me, 
 and say, 'We are as one by age ; at that same 
 time I sat upon my mother's lap in my father's 
 carriage, rolling through the rich English 
 streets, all luxury surrounding me, all squalid 
 poverty kept far from me. Such is my earliest 
 remembrance as opposed to yours !' " 
 
 Mr. Obenreizer was a black-haired young man 
 of a dark complexion, through whose swarthy 
 skin no red glow ever shone. When colour 
 would have come into another cheek, a hardly 
 discernible beat would come into his, as if the 
 machinery for bringing up the ardent blood 
 were there, but the machinery were dry. He 
 was robustly made, well proportioned, and had 
 
 handsome features. Many would have perceived 
 that some surface change in him would have 
 set them more at their ease with him, without 
 being able to define what change. If his lips 
 could have been made much thicker, and his 
 neck much thinner, they would have found 
 their want supplied. 
 
 But the great Obenreizer peculiarity was, 
 that a certain nameless film would come over 
 his eyes apparently by the action of his own 
 will which would impenetrably veil, not only 
 from those tellers of tales, but from his face at 
 large, every expression save one of attention. It 
 by no means followed that his attention should be 
 wholly given to the person with whom he spoke, 
 or even wholly bestowed on present sounds and 
 objects. Rather, it was a comprehensive watch- 
 fulness of everything he had in his own mind, 
 and everything that he knew to be, or sus- 
 pected to be, in the minds of other men. 
 
 At this stage of the conversation, Mr. Oben- 
 reizer's film came over him. 
 
 " The object of my present visit," said Ven- 
 dale, " is, 1 need hardly say, to assure you of the 
 friendliness of Wilding and Co., and of the 
 goodness of your credit with us, and of our 
 desire to be of service to you. We hope shortly 
 to offer you our hospitality. Things are not 
 quite in train with us yet, for my partner, Mr. 
 Wilding, is reorganising the domestic part of 
 our establishment, and is interrupted by some 
 private affairs. You don't know Mr. Wilding, 
 I believe?" 
 
 Mr. Obenreizer did not. 
 
 " You must come together soon. He will be 
 glad to have made your acquaintance, and I 
 think I may predict that you will be glad to 
 have made his. You have not been long 
 established in London, I suppose, Mr. Oben- 
 reizer ?" 
 
 " It is only now that I have undertaken this 
 agency." 
 
 " Mademoiselle your niece is not mar- 
 ried ?" 
 
 "Not married." 
 
 George Vendale glanced about him, as if for 
 any tokens of her. 
 
 " She has been in London ?" 
 
 " She is in London." 
 
 " When, and where, might I have the honour 
 of recalling myself to her remembrance ?" 
 
 Mr. Obenreizer, discarding his film and 
 touching his visitor's elbows as before, said 
 lightly : " Come up-stairs." 
 
 Fluttered enough by the suddenness with 
 which the interview he had sought was coming 
 upon him after all, George Yendale followed up- 
 stairs. In a room over the chamber he had 
 just quitted a room also Swiss-appointed a 
 young lady sat near one of three windows, 
 working at an embroidery-frame ; and an older 
 lady sat with her face turned close to another 
 white-tiled stove (though it was summer, and 
 the stove was not lighted), cleaning gloves. 
 Tlie young lady wore an unusual quantity of 
 fair bright hair, very prettily braided about a 
 rather rounder white forehead than the average 
 English type, and so her face might have been 
 
 B 
 
14 [December 12, 18(57.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 a shade or say a light rounder than the 
 average English face, and her figure slightly 
 rounder than the figure of the average English 
 girl at nineteen. A remarkable indication of 
 freedom and grace of limb, in her quiet atti- 
 tude, and a wonderful purity and freshness of 
 colour in her dimpled face and blight grey eyes, 
 seemed fraught with mountain air. Switzerland 
 too, though the general fashion of her dress 
 was English, peeped out of the fanciful bodice 
 she wore, and lurked in the curious clocked red 
 stocking, and in its little silver-buckled shoe. As 
 to the elder lady, sitting with her feet apart upon 
 the lower brass ledge of the stove, supporting 
 a lap-full of gloves while she cleaned one 
 stretched on her left hand, she was a true 
 Swiss impersonation of another kind ; from the 
 breadth of her cushion-like back, and' the ponde- 
 rosity of her respectable legs (if the word be 
 admissible), to the black velvet band tied tightly 
 round her throat for the repression of a rising 
 tendency to goitre ; or, higher still, to her great 
 copper-coloured gold ear-rings ; or, higher still, 
 to her head-dress of black gauze stretched on 
 wire. 
 
 " Miss Marguerite," said Obenreizer to the 
 young lady, " do you recollect this gentleman ?" 
 
 " I think/' she answered, rising from her 
 seat, surprised and a little confused : " it is Mr. 
 Vendale?" 
 
 " I think it is," said Obenreizer, dryly. " Per- 
 mit me, Mr. Vendale. Madame Dor." 
 
 The elder lady by the stove, with the glove 
 stretched on her left hand, like a glover's sign, 
 half got up, half looked over her broad shoulder, 
 and wholly plumped down again and rubbed 
 away. 
 
 " Madame Dor," said Obenreizer, smiling, " is 
 so kind as to keep me free from stain or tear. 
 Madame Dor humours my weakness for being 
 always neat, and devotes her time to removing 
 every one of my specks and spots." 
 
 Madame Dor, with the stretched glove in the 
 air, and her eyes closely scrutinising its palm, 
 discovered a tough spot in Mr. Obenreizer at 
 that instant, and rubbed hard at him. George 
 Vendale took his seat by the embroidery-frame 
 (having first taken the fair right hand that his 
 entrance had checked), and glanced at the 
 gold cross that dipped into the bodice, with 
 something of the devotion of a pilgrim who had 
 reached his shrine at last. Obenreizer stood 
 in the middle of the room with his thumbs in his 
 waistcoat-pockets, and became filmy. 
 
 "He was saying down-stairs, Miss Oben- 
 reizer," observed Vendale, " that the world is so 
 small a place, that people cannot escape one 
 another. I have found it much too large for 
 me since I saw you last." 
 
 "Have you travelled so far, then?" she 
 inquired. 
 
 " Not so far, for I have only gone back to 
 Switzerland each year ; but I could have wished 
 and indeed I have wished very often that 
 the little world did not afford such opportunities 
 for long escapes as it does. If it had been less, 
 I might have found my fellow-travellers sooner, 
 you know." 
 
 The pretty Marguerite coloured, and very 
 slightly glanced in the direction of Madame Dor. 
 
 " You find us at length, Mr. Vendale. Per- 
 haps you may lose us again." 
 
 " I trust not. The curious coincidence that 
 has enabled me to find you, encourages me to 
 hope not." 
 
 " What is that coincidence, sir, if you please ?" 
 A dainty little native touch in this turn of speech, 
 and in its tone, made it perfectly captivating, 
 thought George Vendale, when again he noticed 
 an instantaneous glance towards Madame Dor. 
 A caution seemed to be conveyed in it, rapid 
 flash though it was ; so he quietly took heed of 
 Madame Dor from that time forth. 
 
 " It is that I happen to have become a part- 
 ner in a House of business in London, to which 
 Mr. Obenreizer happens this very day to be 
 expressly recommended : and that, too, by an- 
 other house of business in Switzerland, in which 
 (as it turns out) we both have a commercial 
 interest. He has not told you?" 
 
 " Ah !" cried Obenreizer, striking in, film- 
 less. " No. I had not told Miss Marguerite. 
 The world is so small and so monotonous that 
 a surprise is worth having in such a little jog- 
 trot place. It is as he tells you, Miss Margue- 
 rite. He, of so fine a family, and so proudly 
 bred, has condescended to trade. To trade ! 
 Like us poor peasants who have risen from 
 ditches !" 
 
 A cloud crept over the fair brow, and she 
 cast down her eyes. 
 
 " Why, it is good for trade !" pursued Oben- 
 reizer, enthusiastically. " It ennobles trade ! 
 It is the misfortune of trade, it is its vulgarity, 
 that any low people for example, we poor pea- 
 santsmay take to it and climb by it. See 
 you, my dear Vendale !" He spoke with great 
 energy. " The father of Miss Marguerite, my 
 eldest half-brother, more than two times your 
 age or mine, if living now, wandered without 
 shoes, almost without rags, from that wretched 
 Pass wandered wandered got to be fed with 
 the mules and dogs at an Inn in the main valley 
 far away got to be Boy there got to be Ostler 
 got to be Waiter got to be Cook got to be 
 Landlord. As Landlord, he took me (could he 
 take the idiot beggar his brother, or the spin- 
 ning monstrosity his sister ?) to put as pupil to 
 the famous watchmaker, his neighbour and 
 friend. His wife dies when Miss Marguerite 
 is born. What is his will, and what are his 
 words, to me, when he dies, she being between 
 girl and woman ? ' All for Marguerite, except 
 so much by the year for you. You are young, 
 but I make her your ward, for you were of the 
 obscurest and the poorest peasantry, and so was 
 T, and so was her mother; we were abject pea- 
 sants all, and you will remember it.' The thing 
 is equally true of most of my countrymen, now 
 in trade 'in this your London quarter of Soho. 
 Peasants once ; low-born drudging Swiss Pea- 
 sants. Then how good and great for trade :" 
 here, from having been warm, he became play- 
 fully jubilant, and touched the young wine- 
 merchant's elbows again with his light embrace : 
 " to be exalted by gentlemen !" 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 15 
 
 " I do not think so," said Marguerite, with 
 a flushed cheek, and a look away from the 
 visitor, that was almost defiant. " I think it is 
 ay much exalted by us peasants." 
 
 " Tie, fie, Miss Marguerite," said Obenreizer. 
 " You speak in proud England." 
 
 " I speak in proud earnest," she answered, 
 quietly resuming her work, "and I am. not 
 English, but a Swiss peasant's daughter." 
 
 There was a dismissal of the subject in her 
 words, which Vendale could notcontend against. 
 He only said in an earnest manner, " I most 
 heartily agree with you, Miss Obenreizer, and I 
 have already said so, as Mr. Obenreizer will bear 
 witness," which he by no means did, "in this 
 house." 
 
 Now, Vendale's eyes were quick eyes, 
 and sharply watching Madame Dor by times, 
 noted something in the broad back view of that 
 lady. There was considerable pantomimic ex- 
 pression in her glove-cleaning. It had been 
 very softly done when he spoke with Mar- 
 guerite, or it had altogether stopped, like the 
 action of a 'listener. When Obenreizer's peasant- 
 speech came to an end, she rubbed most vigor- 
 ously, as if applauding it. And once or twice, 
 as the glove (which she always held before 
 her, a little above her face) turned in the 
 air, or as this linger went down, or that went 
 up, he even fancied that it made some tele- 
 graphic communication to Obenreizer : whose 
 back was certainly never turned upon it, though 
 he did not seem at all to heed it. 
 
 Vendale observed, too, that in Marguerite's 
 dismissal of the subject twice forced upon him 
 to his misrepresentation, there was an indignant 
 treatment of her guardian which she tried to 
 check : as though she would have flamed out 
 against him, but for the influence of fear. He 
 also observed though this was not much 
 that he never advanced within the distance 
 of her at which he first placed himself: as 
 though there were limits fixed between them. 
 Neither had he ever spoken of her without the 
 prefix. " Miss," though whenever he uttered it, it 
 was with the. faintest, trace of an air of mockery. 
 And now it occurred to Vendale for the first 
 time that something curious in the man which 
 he had never before been able to define, was 
 definable as a certain subtle essence of mockery 
 that eluded touch or analysis. He felt convinced 
 that Marguerite was in some sort a prisoner 
 as to her free will though she held her own 
 against those two combined, by the force of 
 her character, which was nevertheless inade- 
 quate to her release. To feel convinced of this, 
 was not to feel less disposed to love her than 
 he had always been. In a word, he was des- 
 perately in love with her, and thoroughly de- 
 termined to pursue the opportunity which had 
 opened at last. 
 
 Tor the present, he merely touched upon the 
 pleasure that Wilding and Co. would soon have 
 in entreating Miss Obenreizer to honour their 
 establishment with her presence a curious old 
 place, though a bachelor house withal and so 
 did not protract his visit beyond such a visit's 
 ordinary length. Going down stairs, conducted 
 
 by his host, he found the Obenreizer counting- 
 house at the back of the entrance-hall, and 
 several shabby men in outlandish garments, 
 hanging about, whom Obenreizer put aside that 
 he might pass, with a few words in patois. 
 
 " Countrymen," he explained, as he attended 
 Veudale to the door. " Poor compatriots. 
 Grateful and attached, like dogs ! Good-bye. 
 To meet again. So glad !" 
 
 Two more light touches on his elbows dis- 
 missed him into the street. 
 
 Sweet Marguerite at her frame, and Madame 
 Dor's broad back at her telegraph, floated before 
 him to Cripple Corner. On his arrival there, 
 Wilding was closeted with Bintrey. The cellar 
 doors happening to be open, Vendale lighted a 
 candle in a cleft stick, and went down for a 
 cellarous stroll. Graceful Marguerite floated 
 before him faithfully, but Madame Dor's broad 
 back remained outside. 
 
 The vaults were very spacious, and very 
 old. There had been a stone crypt down 
 there, when bygones were not bygones ; some 
 said, part of a monkish refectory ; some said, 
 of a chapel; some said, of a Pagan temple. It 
 was all one now. Let who would, make what 
 he liked of a crumbled pillar and a broken arch 
 or so. Old Time had made what he liked of it, 
 and was quite indifferent to contradiction. 
 
 The close air, the musty smell, and the thun- 
 derous rumbling in the streets above, as being 
 out of the routine of ordinary life, went well 
 enough with the picture of pretty Marguerite 
 holding her own against those two. So v eudale 
 went on until, at a turning in the vaults, he saw 
 a light like the light he carried. 
 
 " Oh ! You are here, are you, Joey ?" 
 
 "Oughtn't it rather to go, 'Oh! IWre 
 here, are you, Master George ?' For it's my 
 business to be here. But it ain't yourn." 
 
 "Don't grumble, Joey." 
 
 " Oh ! / don't grumble," returned the 
 Cellarman. "If anything grumbles, it's what 
 I've took in through the pores ; it ain't me. 
 Have a care as something in you don't begin a- 
 grumbling, Master George. Stop here long 
 enough for the wapours to work, and they'll be 
 at it." 
 
 His present occupation consisted of poking 
 his head into the bins, making measurements 
 and mental calculations, and entering them in a 
 rhiuoceros-hide-looking note-book, like a piece 
 of himself. 
 
 " They'll be at it," he resumed, laying the 
 wooden rod that he measured with, across 
 two casks, entering his last calculation, and 
 straightening his back, " trust 'em ! And so 
 you've regularly come into the business, Master 
 George ?" 
 
 " Regularly. I hope you don't object, 
 Joey ?" 
 
 "/ don't, bless you. But Wapours objects 
 that you're too young. You're both on you 
 too young.' 1 
 
 "We shall get over that objection day by 
 day, Joey." 
 
 " Aye, Master George ; but I shall day by 
 day get over the objection that I'm too old, and 
 
15 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 so I shan't be capable of seeing much improve- 
 ment in you." 
 
 The retort so tickled Joey Ladle that he 
 grunted forth a laugh and delivered it again, 
 grunting forth another laugh after the second 
 edition of " improvement in you." 
 
 "But what's no laughing matter, Master 
 George," he resumed, straightening his back 
 once more, "is, that Young Master Wilding 
 has gone and changed the luck. Mark my 
 words. He has changed the luck, and he'll 
 find it out. /ain't been down here all my life 
 for nothing ! / know by what I notices down 
 here, when it's a-going to rain, when it's a-going 
 to hold up, when it's a-going to blow, when it's 
 a-going to be calm. / know, by what I notices 
 down here, when, the luck's changed, quite as 
 well." 
 
 " Has this growth on the roof anything to 
 do with your divination ?" asked Vendale, hold- 
 ing his light towards a gloomy ragged growth 
 of dark fungus, pendent from the arches with a 
 very disagreeable and repellent effect. " We 
 are famous for this growth in this vault, aren't 
 we?" 
 
 "We are, Master George," replied Joey 
 Ladle, moving a step or two away, "and if 
 you'll be advised by me, you'll let it alone." 
 
 Taking up the rod just now laid across the 
 two casks, and faintly moving the languid fungus 
 with it, Vendale asked, " Aye, indeed ? Why 
 so?" 
 
 " Why, not so much because it rises from 
 the casks of wine, and may leave you to judge 
 what sort of stuff a Cellarman takes into 
 himself when he walks in the same all the 
 days of his life, nor yet so much because at 
 a stage of its growth it's maggots, and you'll 
 fetch 'em down upon you," returned Joey 
 Ladle, still keeping away, "as for another 
 reason, Master George." 
 
 "What other reason?" 
 
 " (I wouldn't keep on touchin' it, if I was you, 
 sir.) I'll tell you if you'll come out of the place. 
 First, take a look at its colour, Master George." 
 
 " I am doing so." 
 
 " Done, sir. Now, come out of the place." 
 
 He moved away with his light, and Vendale 
 followed with his. When Vendale came up 
 with him, and they were going back together, 
 Vendale, eyeing him as they walked through 
 the arches, said : " Well, Joey ? The colour." 
 
 " Is it like clotted blood, Master George ?" 
 
 " Like enough, perhaps." 
 
 " More than enough, I think," muttered Joey 
 Ladle, shaking his head solemnly. 
 
 "Well, say it is like; say it is exactly like. 
 What then ?" 
 
 " Master George, they do say " 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " How should I know who ?" rejoined the 
 Cellarman, apparently much exasperated by the 
 unreasonable nature of the question. " Them ! 
 Them as says pretty well everything, you know. 
 How should I know who They are, if you 
 don't ?" 
 
 "True. Goon." 
 
 " They do say that the man that gets by any 
 
 accident a piece of that dark growth right upon 
 his breast, will, for sure and certain, die by 
 Murder." 
 
 As Vendale laughingly stopped to meet the 
 Cellarman' s eyes, which he had fastened on. his 
 light while dreamily saying those words, he 
 suddenly became conscious of being struck upon 
 his own breast by a heavy hand. Instantly 
 following with his eyes the action of the hand 
 that struck him which was his companion's 
 he saw that it had beaten off his breast a web 
 or clot of the fungus, even then floating to the 
 ground. 
 
 For a moment he turned upon the cellar man 
 almost as scared a look as the cellarman turned 
 upon him. But in another moment they had 
 reached the daylight at the foot of the cellar- 
 steps, and before he cheerfully sprang up them, 
 he blew out his candle and the superstition 
 together. 
 
 EXIT WILDING. 
 
 On the morning of the next day, Wild- 
 ing went out alone, after leaving a message 
 with his clerk. " If Mr. Vendale should ask 
 for me," he said, " or if Mr. Bintrey should 
 call, tell them I am gone to the Foundling." 
 All that his partner had said to him, all that 
 his lawyer, following on the same side, could 
 urge, had left him persisting unshaken in his 
 own point of view. To find the lost man, 
 whose place lie had usurped, was now the para- 
 mount interest of his life, and to inquire at the 
 Foundling was plainly to take the first step in 
 the direction of discovery. To the Foundling, 
 accordingly, the wine-merchant now went. 
 
 The once-familiar aspect of the building was 
 altered to him, as the look of the portrait over 
 the chimney-piece was altered to him. His one 
 dearest association with the place which had 
 sheltered his childhood had been broken away 
 from it for ever. A strange reluctance pos- 
 sessed him, when he stated his business at 
 the door. His heart ached as he sat alone in 
 the waiting-room while the Treasurer of the 
 institution was being sent for to see him. 
 When the interview began, it was only by a 
 painful effort that he could compose himself 
 sufficiently to mention the nature of his errand. 
 
 The Treasurer listened with a face which 
 promised all needful attention, and promised 
 nothing more. 
 
 " We are obliged to be cautious," he said, 
 when it came to his turn to speak, " about all 
 inquiries which are made by strangers." 
 
 " You can hardly consider me a stranger," 
 answered Wilding, simply. "I was one of 
 your poor lost children here, in the bygone 
 time." 
 
 The Treasurer politely rejoined that this 
 circumstance inspired him with a special in- 
 terest in his visitor. But he pressed, never- 
 theless, for that visitor's motive in making his 
 inquiry. Without further preface, Wilding told 
 him his motive, suppressing nothing. 
 
 The Treasurer rose, and led the way into the 
 room in which, the registers of the institution 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 17 
 
 were kept. "All the information which our 
 books can give is heartily at your service," he 
 said. " After the time that has elapsed, I am 
 afraid it is the only information we have to 
 offer you." 
 
 The books were consulted, and the entry was 
 found, expressed as follows : 
 
 "3rd March, 1836. Adopted, and removed 
 from the Foundling Hospital, a male infant, 
 named Walter Wilding. Name and condition 
 of the person adopting the child Mrs. Jane 
 Ann Miller, widow. Address Lime-Tree 
 Lodge, Groombridge Wells. References the 
 Reverend John Harker, Groombridge Wells ; 
 and Messrs. Giles, Jeremie, and Giles, bankers, 
 Lombard-street." 
 
 "Is that all?" asked the wine-merchant. 
 " Had you no after-communication with Mrs. 
 Miller?" 
 
 " None or some reference to it must have 
 appeared in this book." 
 
 " May I take a copy of the entry ?" 
 
 " Certainly ! You are a little agitated. Let 
 me make the copy for you." 
 
 " My only chance, I suppose," said Wilding, 
 looking sadly at the copy, "is to inquire at 
 Mrs. Miller's residence, and to try if her refer- 
 ences can help me ?" 
 
 "That is the only chance I see at present," 
 answered the Treasurer. " I heartily wish I 
 could have been of some further assistance to 
 you." 
 
 With those farewell words to comfort him, 
 Wilding set forth on the journey of inves- 
 tigation which began from the Foundling 
 doors. The first stage to make for, was plainly 
 the house of business of the bankers in Lom- 
 bard-street. Two of the partners in the firm 
 were inaccessible to chance-visitors when he 
 asked for them. The third, after raising certain 
 inevitable difficulties, consented to let a clerk 
 examine the Ledger marked with the initial 
 letter "M." The account of Mrs. Miller, 
 widow, of Groombridge Wells, was found. 
 Two long lines, in faded ink, were drawn across 
 it ; and at the bottom of the page there ap- 
 peared this note : " Account closed, September 
 30th, 1837." 
 
 So the first stage of the journey was reached 
 and so it ended in No Thoroughfare ! After 
 sending a note to Cripple Corner to inform his 
 partner that his absence might be prolonged 
 for some hours, Wilding took his place in the 
 train, and started for the second stage on the 
 journey Mrs. Miller's residence at Groom- 
 bridge Wells. 
 
 Mothers and children travelled with him; 
 mothers and children met each other at the 
 station ; mothers and children were in the shops 
 when he entered them to inquire for Lime- 
 Tree Lodge. Everywhere, the nearest and 
 dearest of human relations showed itself 
 happily in the happy light of day. Every- 
 where, he was reminded of the treasured delu- 
 sion from which he had been awakened so 
 cruelly of the lost memory which had passed 
 from him like a reflection from a glass. 
 
 Inquiring here, inquiring there, he could hear 
 
 of no such place as Lime-Tree Lodge. Pass- 
 ing a house-agent's office, he went in wearily, 
 and put the question for the last time. The 
 house-agent pointed across the street to a dreary 
 mansion of many windows, which might have 
 been a manufactory, but which was an hotel. 
 "That's where Lime-Tree Lodge stood, sir," 
 said the man, " ten years ago." 
 
 The second stage reached, and No Thorough- 
 fare again ! 
 
 But one chance was left. The clerical re- 
 ference, Mr. Harker, still remained to be found. 
 Customers coming in at the moment to occupy 
 the house-agent's attention, Wilding went down 
 the street, and, entering a bookseller's shop, 
 asked if he could be informed of the Reverend 
 John Barker's present address. 
 
 The bookseller looked unaffectedly shocked 
 and astonished, and made no answer. 
 
 Wilding repeated his question. 
 
 The bookseller took up from his counter a 
 prim little volume in a binding of sober grey. 
 He handed it to his visitor, open at the title- 
 page. Wilding read : 
 
 "The martyrdom of the Reverend John 
 Harker in New Zealand. Related by a former 
 member of his flock." 
 
 Wilding put the book down on the counter. 
 " I beg your pardon," he said, thinking a little, 
 perhaps, of his own present martyrdom while 
 he spoke. The silent bookseller acknowledged 
 the apology by a bow. Wilding went out. 
 
 Third and last stage, and No Thoroughfare 
 for the third and last time. 
 
 There was nothing moKe to be done ; there 
 was absolutely no choice but to go back to 
 London, defeated at all points. From time to 
 time on the return journey, the wine-merchant 
 looked at his copy of the entry in the Foundling 
 Register. There is one among the many forms 
 of despair perhaps the most pitiable of all 
 which persists in disguising itself as hope. 
 Wilding checked himself in the act of throwing 
 the useless morsel of paper out of the carriage 
 window. " It may lead to something yet," lie 
 thought. " While I live, I won't part with it. 
 When I die, my executors shall find it sealed 
 up with my will." 
 
 Now, the mention of his will set the good 
 wine-merchant on a new track of thought, 
 without diverting his mind from its engross- 
 ing subject. He must make his will imme- 
 diately. 
 
 The application of the phrase No Thorough- 
 fare to the case had originated with Mr. 
 Bintrey. In their first long conference follow- 
 ing the discovery, that sagacious personage had 
 a hundred times repeated, with an obstructive 
 shake of the head, " No Thoroughfare, Sir, No 
 Thoroughfare. My belief is that there is no 
 way out of this at this time of day, and my 
 advice is, make yourself comfortable where you 
 are." 
 
 In the course of the protracted consultation, a 
 magnum of the forty-five-year-old port wine had 
 been produced for the wetting of Mr. Bintrey's 
 legal whistle ; but the more clearly he saw his 
 way through the wine, the more emphatically 
 
18 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickeiis 
 
 lie did not see his way through the case ; re- 
 peating as often as he set his glass down 
 empty, " Mr. Wilding, No Thoroughfare. Rest 
 and be thankful." 
 
 It is certain that the honest wine-merchant's 
 anxiety to make a will, originated in profound 
 conscientiousness ; though it is possible (and 
 quite consistent with his rectitude) that he may 
 unconsciously have derived some feeling of 
 relief from the prospect of delegating his own 
 difficulty to two other men who were to come 
 after him. Be that as it may, he pursued his 
 new track of thought with great ardour, and 
 lost no time in begging George Vendale and 
 Mr. Bintrey to meet him in Cripple Corner 
 and share his confidence. 
 
 "Being all three assembledwith closed doors," 
 said Mr. Bintrey, addressing the new partner on 
 the occasion, " I wish to observe, before our 
 friend (and my client) entrusts us with his fur- 
 ther views, that I have endorsed what I under- 
 stand from him to have been your advice, 
 Mr. Vendale, and what would be the advice of 
 every sensible man. I have told him that he 
 positively must keep his secret. I have spoken 
 with Mrs. Goldstraw, both in his presence and 
 in his absence ; and if anybody is to be trusted 
 (which is a very large IP), I think she is to be 
 trusted to that extent. I have pointed out to 
 our friend (and my client), that to set on foot 
 random inquiries would not only be to raise the 
 Devil, in the likeness of all the swindlers in the 
 kingdom, but would also be to waste the estate. 
 Now, you see, Mr. Vendale, our friend (and my 
 client,) does not desire to waste the estate, but, 
 on the contrary, desires to husband it for what 
 he considers but I can't say I do the right- 
 ful owner, if such rightful owner should ever be 
 found. I am very much mistaken if he ever 
 will be, but never mind that. Mr. Wilding and 
 I are, at least, agreed that the estate is not to be 
 wasted. Now, I have yielded to Mr. Wilding's 
 desire to keep an advertisement at intervals 
 flowing through the newspapers, cautiously in- 
 viting any person who may know anything 
 about that adopted infant, taken from the Pound- 
 ling Hospital, to come to my office ; and I have 
 pledged myself that such advertisement shall 
 regularly appear. I have gathered from our 
 friend (and my client) that I meet you here to- 
 day to take his instructions, not to give him 
 advice. I am prepared to receive his instruc- 
 tions, and to respect his wishes ; but you will 
 please observe that this does not imply my ap- 
 proval of either as a matter of professional 
 opinion." 
 
 Thus Mr. Bintrey ; talking quite as much at 
 Wilding as to Vendale. And yet, in spite of 
 his care for his client, he was so amused by his 
 client's Quixotic conduct, as to eye him from 
 time to time with twinkling eyes, in the light 
 of a highly comical curiosity 
 
 "Nothing," observed Wilding, "can be 
 clearer. I only wish my head were as clear as 
 yours, Mr. Bintrey." 
 
 " If you feel that singing in it, coming on," 
 hinted the lawyer, with an alarmed glance, "put 
 it off. I mean the interview." 
 
 "Not at all, I thank you," said Wilding. 
 " What was I going to " 
 
 " Don't excite yourself, Mr. Wilding," urged 
 the lawyer. 
 
 " No ; I wasn't going to," said the wine-mer- 
 chant. " Mr. Bintrey and George Vendale, 
 would you have any hesitation or objection to 
 become my joint trustees and executors, or can 
 you at once consent ?" 
 
 " /consent," replied George Vendale, readily. 
 
 " / consent," said Bintrey, not so readily. 
 
 " Thank you both. Mr. Bintrey, my instruc- 
 tions for my last will and testament are short 
 and plain. Perhaps you will now have the 
 goodness to take them down. I leave the whole 
 of my real and personal estate, without any ex- 
 ception or reservation whatsoever, to you two, 
 my joint trustees and executors, in trust to pay 
 over the whole to the true Walter Wilding, if 
 he shall be found and identified within two 
 years after the day of my death. Failing that, 
 in trust to you two to pay over the whole as a 
 benefaction and legacy to the Foundling Hos- 
 pital." 
 
 "Those are all your instructions, are they, 
 Mr. Wilding?" demanded Bintrey, after a blank 
 silence, during which nobody had looked at any- 
 body. 
 
 " The whole." 
 
 "And as to those instructions, you have 
 absolutely made up your mind, Mr. Wild- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Absolutely, decidedly, finally." 
 
 "It only remains," said the lawyer, with one 
 shrug of his shoulders, " to get them into tech- 
 nical and binding form, and to execute and 
 attest. Now, does that press ? Is there any 
 hurry about it ? You are not going to die yet, 
 sir." 
 
 " Mr. Bintrey," answered Wilding, gravely, 
 " when I am going to die is within other 
 knowledge than yours or mine. I shall be 
 glad to have this matter off my mind, if you 
 please." 
 
 " We are lawyer and client again," rejoined 
 Bintrey, who, for the nonce, had become almost 
 sympathetic. " If this day week here, at the 
 same hour will suit Mr. Vendale and yourself, 
 I will enter in my Diary that I attend you 
 accordingly." 
 
 The appointment was made, and in due 
 sequence kept. The will was formally signed, 
 sealed, delivered, and witnessed, and was carried 
 off by Mr. Bintrey for safe storage among the 
 papers of his clients, ranged in their respective 
 iron boxes, with their respective owners' names 
 outside, on iron tiers in his consulting-room, as 
 if that legal sanctuary were a condensed Family 
 Vault of Clients. 
 
 With more heart than he had lately had for 
 former subjects of interest, Wilding then set 
 about completing his patriarchal establishment, 
 being much assisted not only by Mrs. Goldstraw 
 but by Vendale too : who, perhaps, had in his 
 mind the giving of an Obenreizer dinner as soon 
 as possible. Anyhow, the establishment being- 
 reported in sound working order, the Oben- 
 reizers, Guardian and Ward, were asked to 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 19 
 
 dinner, and Madame Dor was included in the 
 invitation. If Veudale had been over head and 
 ears in love before a phrase not to be taken as 
 implying the faintest doubt about it this dinner 
 plunged him down in love ten thousand fathoms 
 deep. Yet, for the life of him, he could not get 
 one word alone with charming Marguerite. So 
 surely as a blessed moment seemed to come, 
 Obenreizer, in his filmy state, would stand 
 at Vendale's elbow, or the broad back of 
 Madame Dor would appear before his eyes. 
 That speechless matron was never seen in a 
 front view, from the moment of her arrival to 
 that of her departure except at dinner. And 
 from the instant of her retirement to the draw- 
 ing-room, after a hearty participation in that 
 meal, she turned her face to the wall again. 
 
 Yet, through four or five delightful though 
 distracting hours, Marguerite was to be seen, 
 Marguerite was to be heard, Marguerite was to 
 be occasionally touched. When they made the 
 round of the old dark cellars, Vendale led her by 
 the hand ; when she sang to him in the lighted 
 room at night, Ven.dale, standing by her, held 
 her relinquished gloves, and would have bartered 
 against them every drop of the forty-five year 
 old, though it had been forty-five times forty -five 
 years old, and its nett price forty-five times 
 forty-five pounds per dozen. And still, when 
 she was gone, and a great gap of an ex- 
 tinguisher was clapped on Cripple Corner, he 
 tormented himself by wondering, Did she think 
 that he admired her ! Did she think that he 
 adored her ! Did she suspect that she had won 
 him, heart and soul ! Did she care to think at 
 all about it ! And so, Did she and Didn't she, 
 up and down the gamut, and above the line 
 and below the line, dear, dear ! Poor restless 
 heart of humanity ! To think that the men who 
 were mummies thousands of years ago, did the 
 same, and ever found the sjecret how to be 
 quiet after it ! 
 
 "AVhat do you think, George," Wilding 
 asked him next day, "of Mr. Obenreizer? (I 
 wont ask you what you think of Miss Oben- 
 reizer)." 
 
 " I don't know," said Vendale, " and I never 
 did know, what to think of him." 
 
 "He is well informed and clever," said 
 Wilding. 
 
 " Certainly clever." 
 
 " A good musician." (He had played very 
 well, and sung very well, overnight.) 
 
 "Unquestionably a good musician." 
 
 "And talks well." 
 
 "Yes," said George Vendale, ruminating, 
 "and talks well. Do you know, Wilding, it 
 oddly occurs to me, as I think about him, that 
 he doesn't keep silence well !" 
 
 " How do you mean ? He is not obtrusively 
 talkative." 
 
 " No, and I don't mean that. But when he 
 is silent, you can hardly help vaguely, though 
 perhaps most unjustly, mistrusting him. Take 
 people whom you know and like. Take any 
 one you know and like." 
 
 " Soon done, my good fellow " said Wilding. 
 "I take you." 
 
 " I didn't bargain for that, or foresee it," re- 
 turned Vendale, laughing. " However, take me. 
 lieflect for a moment. Is your approving know- 
 ledge of my .interesting face, mainly founded 
 (however various the momentary expressions it 
 may include) on my face when I am silent P" 
 
 " I think it is," "said Wilding. 
 
 " I think so too. Now, you see, when Oben- 
 reizer speaks in other words*, when he is 
 allowed to explain himself away he comes out 
 right enough ; but when he has not the oppor- 
 tunity of explaining himself away, he comes out 
 rather wrong. Therefore it is, that I say he 
 does not keep silence well. And passing hastily 
 in review such faces as I know, and don't trust, 
 1 am inclined to think, now I give my mind to 
 it, that none of them keep silence well." 
 
 This proposition in Physiognomy being new 
 to Wilding, he was at first slow to admit 
 it, until asking himself the question whether 
 Mrs. Goldstraw kept silence well, and remem- 
 bering that her face in repose decidedly invited 
 trustfulness, he was as glad as men usually are 
 to believe what they desire to believe. 
 
 But, as he was very slow to regain his spirits 
 or his health, his partner, as another means of 
 setting him up and perhaps also with contin- 
 gent Obenreizer views reminded him of those 
 musical schemes of his in connexion with his 
 family, and how a singing-class was to be formed 
 in the house, and a Choir in a neighbouring 
 church. The class was established speedily, 
 and, two or three of the people having already 
 some musical knowledge, and singing tolerably, 
 the Choir soon followed. The latter was led 
 and chiefly taught, by Wilding himself : who had 
 hopes of converting his dependents into so 
 many Foundlings, in respect of their capacity to 
 sing sacred choruses. 
 
 Now, the Obenreizers being skilled musicians 
 it was easily brought to pass that they should 
 be asked to join these musical unions. Guar- 
 dian and Ward consenting, or Guardian con- 
 senting for both, it was necessarily brought to 
 pass that Vendale?s life became a life of absolute 
 thraldom and enchantment. For, in the mouldy 
 Christopher- Wren church on Sundays, with its 
 dearly beloved brethren assembled and met to- 
 gether, five-and-twenty strong, was not that Her 
 voice that shot like light into the darkest places, 
 thrilling the walls and pillars as though they 
 were pieces of his heart ! What time, too, 
 Madame Dor in a comer of the high pew, turn- 
 ing her back upon everybody and everything, 
 could not fail to be Ritualistically right at some 
 moment of the service ; like the man whom the 
 doctors recommended to get drunk once a month, 
 and who, that he might not overlook it, got 
 drunk every day. 
 
 But, even those seraphic Sundays were sur- 
 passed by the Wednesday concerts established 
 for the patriarchal family. At those concerts 
 she would sit down to the piano and sing 
 them, in her own tongue, songs of her own 
 land, songs calling from the mountain-tops 
 to Vendale, "Rise above the grovelling level 
 country ; come far away from the crowd ; 
 pursue me as I mount higher, higher, higher, 
 
20 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 melting into the azure distance ; rise to my 
 supremest height of all, and love me here !" 
 Then would the pretty bodice, the clocked 
 stocking, and the silver-buckled shoe be, like the 
 broad forehead and the bright eyes, fraught 
 with the spring of a very chamois, until the 
 strain was over. 
 
 Not even over Vendale himself did these 
 songs of hters cast a more potent spell 
 than over Joey Ladle in his different way. 
 Steadily refusing to muddle the harmony by 
 taking any share in it, and evincing the 
 supremest contempt for scales and such like 
 rudiments of music which, indeed, seldom 
 captivate mere listeners Joey did at first 
 give up the whole business for a bad job, and 
 the whole of the performers for a set of howl- 
 ing Dervishes. But, descrying traces of un- 
 muddled harmony in a part-song one day, he 
 gave his two under-cellarmen faint hopes of 
 getting on towards something in course of time. 
 An anthem of Handel's led to further en- 
 couragement from him : though he objected 
 that that great musician must have been 
 down in some of them foreign cellars pretty 
 much, for to go and say the same thing so 
 many times over; which, took it in how you 
 might, he considered a certain sign of your 
 having took it in somehow. On a third 
 occasion, the public appearance of Mr. Jarvis 
 with a flute, and of an odd man with a 
 violin, and the performance of a duet by the 
 two, did so astonish him that, solely of 
 his own impulse and motion, he became in- 
 spired with the words, "Ann Koar!" re- 
 peatedly pronouncing them as if calling in a 
 familiar manner for some lady who had dis- 
 tinguished herself in the orchestra. But this 
 was his final testimony to the merits of his mates, 
 for, the instrumental duet being performed at 
 the first Wednesday concert, and being pre- 
 sently followed by the voice of Marguerite 
 Obenreizer, he sat with his mouth wide open, 
 entranced, until she had finished ; when, rising 
 in his place with much solemnity, and prefacing 
 what he was about to say with a bow that spe- 
 cially included Mr. Wilding in it, he delivered 
 himself of the gratifying sentiment : " Arter 
 that, ye may all on ye get to bed !" And ever 
 afterwards declined to render homage in any 
 other words to the musical powers of the 
 family. 
 
 Thus began a separate personal acquaintance 
 between Marguerite Obenreizer and Joey 
 Ladle. She laughed so heartily at his compli- 
 ment, and yet was so abashed by it, that Joey 
 made bold to say to her, after the concert was 
 over, he hoped he wasn't so muddled in his head 
 as to have took a liberty ? She made him a 
 gracious reply, and Joey ducked in return. 
 
 " You'll change the luck time about, Miss," 
 said Joey, ducking again. " It's such as you 
 in the place that can bring round the luck of 
 the place." 
 
 " Can I ? Round the luck ?" she answered, 
 in her pretty English, and with a pretty wonder . 
 " I fear I do not understand. I am so stupid." 
 
 "Young Master Wilding, Miss," Joey ex- 
 
 plained confidentially, though not much to her 
 enlightenment, "changed the luck, afore he 
 took in young Master George. So I say, and 
 so they'll find. Lord ! Only come into the 
 place and sing over the luck a few times, Miss, 
 and it won't be able to help itself !" 
 
 With this, and with a whole brood of ducks, 
 Joey backed out of the presence. But Joey 
 being a privileged person, and even an involun- 
 tary conquest being pleasant to youth and beauty, 
 Marguerite merrily looked out for him next 
 time. 
 
 " Where is my Mr. Joey, please ?" she asked 
 of Yendale. 
 
 So Joey was produced and shaken hands 
 with, and that became an Institution. 
 
 Another Institution arose in this wise. Joey 
 was a little hard of hearing. He himself said 
 it was " Wapours," and perhaps it might have 
 been; but whatever the cause of the effect, 
 there the effect was, upon him. On this first 
 occasion he had been seen to sidle along the 
 wall, with his left hand to his left ear, until he 
 had sidled himself into a geat pretty near the 
 singer, in which place and position he had re- 
 mained, until addressing to his friends the ama- 
 teurs the compliment before mentioned. It 
 was observed on the following Wednesday that 
 Joey's action as a Pecking Machine was im- 
 paired at dinner, and it was rumoured about 
 the table that this was explainable by his 
 high-strung expectations of Miss Obenreizer's 
 singing, and his fears of not getting a place 
 where he could hear every note and syllable. 
 The rumour reaching Wilding's ears, he in 
 his good nature called Joey to the front at 
 ni^ht before Marguerite began. Thus the In- 
 stitution came into being that on succeeding 
 nights, Marguerite, running her hands over 
 the keys before sinking, always said to Vendale, 
 "Where is my Mr. Joey, please?" and that 
 Vendale always brought him forth, and stationed 
 him near by. That he should then, when all 
 eyes were upon him, express in his face the 
 utmost contempt for the exertions of his friends 
 and confidence in Marguerite alone, whom he 
 would stand contemplating, not unlike the rhi- 
 noceros out of the spelling-book, tamed and on 
 his hind legs, was a part of the Institution. 
 Also that when he remained after the singing 
 in his most ecstatic state, some bold spirit 
 from the back should say, " What do you think 
 of it, Joey?" and he should be goaded to 
 reply, as having that instant conceived the re- 
 tort, "Arter that ye may all on ye get to 
 bed !" These were other parts of the Institu- 
 tion. 
 
 But, the simple pleasures and small jests of 
 Cripple Corner were not destined to have a long 
 life. Underlying them from the first was a 
 serious matter, which every member of the 
 patriarchal family knew of, but which, by tacit 
 agreement, all forbore to speak of. Mr. Wild- 
 ing's health was in a bad way. 
 
 He might have overcome the shock he had 
 sustained in the one great affection of his life, 
 or he might have overcome his consciousness of 
 being in the enjoyment of another man's pro- 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 21 
 
 perty ; but the two together were too much for 
 him. A man haunted by twin ghosts, he be- 
 came deeply depressed. The inseparable spec- 
 tres sat at the board with him, ate from his 
 platter, drank from his cup, and stood by his 
 bedside at night. "When he recalled his sup- 
 posed mother's love, he felt as though he had 
 stolen it. When he rallied a little under the 
 respect and attachment of his dependents, he 
 felt as though he were even fraudulent in making 
 them happy, for that should have been the un- 
 known man's duty and gratification. 
 
 Gradually, under the pressure of his brooding 
 mind, his body stooped, his step lost its elas- 
 ticity, his eyes were seldom lifted from the 
 ground. He knew he could not help the de- 
 plorable mistake that had been made, but he 
 knew he could not mend it ; for the days and 
 weeks went by, and no one claimed his name or 
 his possessions. And now there began to creep 
 over him, a cloudy consciousness of often-recur- 
 ring confusion in his head. He would unac- 
 countably lose, sometimes whole hours, some- 
 times a whole day and night. Once, his remem- 
 brance stopped as he sat at the head of the 
 dinner-table, and was blank until daybreak. 
 Another time, it stopped as he was beating time 
 to their singing, and went on again when he and 
 his partner were walking in the courtyard by 
 the light of the moon, half the night later. He 
 asked Vendale (always full of consideration, 
 work, and help) how this was ? Yendale only 
 replied, " You have not been quite well ; that's 
 alL" He looked for explanation into the faces 
 of his people. But they would put it off with, 
 " Glad to see you looking so much better, sir ;" 
 or "Hope you're doing nicelv now, sir;" in 
 which was no information at all. 
 
 At length, when the partnership was but five 
 months old, Walter Wilding took to his bed, 
 and his housekeeper became his nurse. 
 
 " Lying here, perhaps you will ,not mind my 
 calling you Sally, Mrs. Goldstraw ?" said the 
 poor wine-merchant. 
 
 " It sounds more natural to me, sir, than any 
 other name, and I like it better." 
 
 " Thank you, Sally. I think, Sally, I must 
 of late have been subject to fits. Is that so, 
 Sally ? Don't mind telling me now." 
 
 " It has happened, sir." 
 
 " Ah ! That is the explanation !" he quietly 
 remarked. " Mr. Obenreizer, Sally, talks of the 
 world being so small that it is not strange how 
 often the same people come together, and come 
 together, at various places, and in various stages 
 of life. But it does seem strange, Sally, that I 
 should, as I may say, come round to the Pound- 
 ling to die." 
 
 He extended his hand to her, and she gently 
 took it. 
 
 " You are not going to die, dear Mr. Wilding." 
 
 " So Mr. Bintrey said, but I think he was 
 wrong. The old child-feeling is coming back 
 upon me, Sally. The old hush and rest, as I 
 used to fall asleep." 
 
 After an interval he said, in a placid voice, 
 "Tlease kiss me, Nurse," and, it was evident, be- 
 lieved himself to be lying in the old Dormitory. 
 
 As she had been used to bend over the father- 
 less and motherless children, Sally bent over 
 the fatherless and motherless man, and put her 
 lips to his forehead, murmuring : 
 
 " God bless you !" 
 
 " God bless you !" he replied, in the same 
 tone. 
 
 After another interval, he opened his eyes in 
 his own character, and said : " Don't move me, 
 Sally, because of what I am going to say ; I 
 lie quite easily. I think my time is come. I 
 don't know how it may appear to you, Sally, 
 but " 
 
 Insensibility fell upon him for a few minutes ; 
 he emerged from it once more. 
 
 " I don't know how it may appear to you, 
 Sally, but so it appears to me." 
 
 When he had thus conscientiously finished 
 his favourite sentence, his time came, and he 
 died. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 VENDALE MAKES LOVE. 
 
 The summer and the autumn had passed. 
 Christmas and the New Year were at hand. 
 
 As executors honestly bent on performing 
 their duty towards the dead, Yendale and 
 Bintrey had held more than one anxious con- 
 sultation on the subject of Wilding's will. The 
 lawyer had declared, from the first, that it was 
 simply impossible to take any useful action in 
 the matter at all. The only obvious inquiries 
 to make, in relation to the lost man, had been 
 made already by Wilding himself; with this 
 result, that time and death together had not 
 left a trace of him discoverable. To advertise 
 for the claimant to the property, it would be 
 necessary to mention particulars a course of 
 proceeding which would invite half the im- 
 postors in England to present themselves in the 
 character of the true Walter Wilding. " If we 
 find a chance of tracing the lost man, we will 
 take it. If we don't, let us meet for another 
 consultation on the first anniversary of Wild- 
 ing's death," So Bintrey advised. And so, 
 with the most earnest desire to fulfil his dead 
 friend's wishes, Yendale was fain to let the 
 matter rest for the present. 
 
 Turning from his interest in the past to his 
 interest in the future, Yendaie still found him- 
 self confronting a doubtful prospect. Months 
 on months had passed since his first visit to 
 Soho-square and through all that time, the one 
 language in which he had told Marguerite that 
 he loved her was the language of the eyes, as- 
 sisted, at convenient opportunities, by the lan- 
 guage of the hand. 
 
 What was the obstacle in his way ? The one 
 immovable obstacle which had been in his way 
 from the first. No matter how fairly the oppor- 
 tunities looked, Yendale's efforts to speak with 
 Marguerite alone, ended invariably in one and 
 the same result. Undjer the most accidental cir- 
 cumstances, in the most innocent manner pos- 
 sible, Obenreizer was always in the way. 
 
 With the last days of the old year came an 
 unexpected chance of spending an evening with 
 
22 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 Marguerite, which Vendale resolved should be a 
 chance of speaking privately to her as well. A 
 cordial note from Obenreizer invited him, on 
 New Year's Day, to a little family dinner in 
 Soho-square. "We shall be only four," the 
 note said. "We shall be only two," Vendale 
 determined, " before the evening is out ! " 
 
 New Year's Day, among the English, is asso- 
 ciated with the giving and receiving of dinners, 
 and with nothing more. New Year's Day, 
 among the foreigners, is the grand opportunity 
 of the year for the giving and receiving of pre- 
 sent s. It is occasionally possible to acclimatise 
 a foreign custom. In this instance Vendale felt 
 no hesitation about making the attempt. His 
 one difficulty was to decide what his New Year's 
 gift to Marguerite should be. The defensive 
 pride of the peasant's daughter morbidly sen- 
 sitive to the inequality between her social posi- 
 tion and his would be secretly roused against 
 him if he ventured on a rich offering. A gift, 
 which a poor man's purse might purchase, was 
 the one gift that could be trusted to find its 
 way to her heart, for the giver's sake. Stoutly 
 resisting temptation, in the form of diamonds 
 and .rubies, Vendale bought a brooch of the 
 filagree-work of Genoa the simplest and most 
 unpretending ornament that he could find in the 
 jeweller's shop. 
 
 He slipped his gift into Marguerite's hand as 
 she held it out to welcome him on the day of 
 the dinner. 
 
 "This is your first New Year's Day in 
 England," he said. "Will you let me help to 
 make it like a New Year's Day at home ? " 
 
 She thanked him, a little constrainedly, as she 
 looked at the jeweller's box, uncertain what it 
 might contain. Opening the box, and discover- 
 ing the studiously simple form under which 
 Vendale's little keepsake offered itself to her, 
 she penetrated his motive on the spot. Her 
 face turned on him brightly, with a look which 
 said, " I own you have pleased and flattered me." 
 Never had she been so charming, in Vendale's 
 eyes, as she was at that moment. Her winter 
 dress a petticoat of dark silk, with a bodice 
 of black velvet rising to her neck, and enclos- 
 ing it softly in a little circle of swansdown 
 heightened, by all the force of contrast, the 
 dazzling fairness of her hair and her complexion. 
 It was only when she turned aside from him to 
 the glass, and, taking out the brooch that she 
 wore, put his New Year's gift in its place, that 
 Vendale's attention wandered far enough away 
 from her to discover the presence of other 
 persons in the room. He now became conscious 
 that the hands of Obenreizer were affectionately 
 in possession of his elbows. He now heard the 
 voice of Obenreizer thanking him for his atten- 
 tion to Marguerite, with the faintest possible 
 ring of mockery in its tone. (" Such a simple 
 present, dear sir ! and showing such nice tact !") 
 He now discovered, for the first time, that there 
 was one other guest, and but one, besides him- 
 self, whom Obenreizer presented as a compatriot 
 and friend. The friend's face was mouldy, and 
 the friend's figure was fat. His age was sug- 
 gestive of the autumnal period of human life. 
 
 In the course of the evening he developed two 
 extraordinary capacities. One was a capacity 
 for silence ; the other was a capacity for empty- 
 ing bottles. 
 
 Madame Dor was not in the room. Neither 
 was there any visible place reserved for her 
 when they sat down to table. Obeureizer ex- 
 plained that it was "the good Dor's simple 
 habit to dine always in the middle of the day. 
 She would make her excuses later in the even- 
 ing." Vendale wondered whether the good 
 Dor had, on this occasion, varied her domestic 
 employment from cleaning Obenreizer's gloves 
 to cooking Obenreizer's dinner. This at least 
 was certain the dishes served were, one and 
 all, as achievements in cookery, high above the 
 reach of the rude elementary art of England. 
 The dinner was unobtrusively perfect. As for 
 the wine, the eyes of the speechless friend 
 rolled over it, as in solemn ecstasy. Sometimes 
 he said " Good !" when a bottle came in full ; 
 and sometimes lie said "Ah!" when a bottle 
 went out empty and there his contributions 
 to the gaiety of the evening ended. 
 
 Silence is occasionally infectious. Oppressed 
 by private anxieties of their own, Marguerite 
 and Vendale appeared to feel the influence of the 
 speechless friend. The whole responsibility of 
 keeping the talk going rested on Obenreizer's 
 shoulders, and manfully did Obenreizer sustain it. 
 He opened his heart in the character of an en- 
 lightened foreigner, and sang the praises of Eng- 
 land. When other topics ran dry, he returned to 
 this inexhaustible source, and always set the 
 stream running again as copiously as ever. 
 Obenreizer would have given an arm, an eye, or 
 a leg to have been born an Englishman. Out of 
 England there was no sucli institution as a 
 home, no such thing as a fireside, no such ob- 
 ject as a beautiful woman. His dear Miss 
 Marguerite would excuse him, if he accounted 
 for her attractions on the theory that English 
 blood must have mixed at some former time 
 with their obscure and unknown ancestry. 
 Survey this English nation, and behold a tall, 
 clean, plump, and solid people ! Look at their 
 cities ! What magnificence in their public 
 buildings ! What admirable order and pro- 
 riety in their streets ! Admire their laws, com- 
 ining the eternal principle of justice with the 
 other eternal principle of pounds, shillings, and 
 pence ; and applying the product to all civil 
 injuries, from an injury to a man's honour, to 
 an injury to a man's nose ! You have ruined 
 my daughter pounds, shillings, and pence ! 
 You have knocked me down with a blow in my 
 face pounds, shillings, and pence! Where 
 was the material prosperity of such a country 
 as that to stop ? Obeureizer, projecting him- 
 self into the future, failed to see the end of it. 
 Obenreizer's enthusiasm entreated permission 
 to exhale itself, English fashion, in a toast. 
 Here is our modest little dinner over, here is 
 our frugal dessert on the table, and here is the 
 admirer of England conforming to national 
 customs, and making a speech ! A toast to 
 your white cliffs of Albion, Mr. Vendale ! to 
 your national virtues, your charming climate, 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 23 
 
 and your fascinating women ! to your Hearths, 
 to your Homes, to your Habeas Corpus, and to 
 all your other institutions ! In one word to 
 England! Heep-heep-heep ! hooray! 
 
 Obenreizer's voice had barely chanted the 
 last note of the English cheer, the speechless 
 friend had barely drained the last drop out of 
 his glass, when the festive proceedings were 
 interrupted by a modest tap at the door. A 
 woman-servant came in, and approached her 
 master with a little note in her hand. Oben- 
 reizer opened the note with a frown; and, 
 after reading it with an expression of genuine 
 annoyance, passed it on to his compatriot and 
 friend. Vendale's spirits rose as he watched 
 these proceedings. Had he found an ally in 
 the annoying little note ? Was the long- 
 looked-fo/ chance actually coming at last ? 
 
 " I am afraid there is no help for it ?" said 
 Obenreizer, addressing his fellow-countryman. 
 " I am afraid we must go." 
 
 The speechless friend handed back the letter, 
 shrugged his heavy shoulders, and poured 
 himself out a last glass of wine. His fat 
 fingers lingered fondly round the neck of the 
 bottle. They pressed it with a little amatory 
 squeeze at parting. His globular eyes looked 
 dimly, as through an intervening haze, at Yen- 
 dale and Marguerite. His heavy articulation 
 laboured, and brought forth a whole sentence 
 at a birth. " I think," he said, " I should have 
 liked a little more wine." His breath failed 
 him after that effort ; he gasped, and walked to 
 the door. 
 
 Obenreizer addressed himself to Vendale with 
 an appearance of the deepest distress. 
 
 " 1 am so shocked, so confused, so distressed," 
 he began. " A misfortune has happened to one 
 of my compatriots. He is alone, he is ignorant 
 of your language I and my good friend, here, 
 have no choice but to go and help him. What 
 can I say in my excuse ? How can I describe 
 my affliction at depriving myself in this way of 
 the honour of your company ?" 
 
 He paused, evidently expecting to see Yen- 
 dale take up his hat and retire. Discerning 
 his opportunity at last, Yendale determined to 
 do nothing of the kind. He met Obenreizer 
 dexterously, with Obenreizer's own weapons. 
 
 "Pray don't distress yourself," he said. 
 " I'll wait here with the greatest pleasure till 
 you come back." 
 
 Marguerite blushed deeply, and turned away 
 to her embroidery-frame in a corner by the 
 window. The film showed itself in Obenreizer's 
 eyes, and the smile came something sourly to 
 Obenreizer's lips. To have told Vendalethat there 
 was no reasonable prospect of his coming back 
 in good time would have been to risk offending 
 a man whose favourable opinion was of solid 
 commercial importance to him. Accepting his 
 defeat with the best possible grace, he declared 
 himself to be equally honoured and delighted by 
 Yendale's proposal. " So frank, so friendly, so 
 English !" He bustled about, apparently look- 
 ing for something he wanted, disappeared for a 
 moment through the folding-doors communi- 
 cating with the next room, came back with his 
 
 hat and coat, and protesting that he would return 
 at the earliest possible moment, embraced Yen- 
 dale's elbows, and vanished from the scene in 
 company with the speechless friend. 
 
 Yendale turned to the corner by the window, 
 in which Marguerite had placed herself with 
 her work. There, as if she had dropped from 
 the ceiling, or come up through the floor 
 there, in the old attitude, with her face to the 
 stove sat an Obstacle that had not been fore- 
 seen, in the person of Madame Dor ! She half 
 got up, half looked over her broad shoulder at 
 Yendale, and plumped down again. Was she 
 at work ? Yes. Cleaning Obenreizer's gloves, 
 as before ? No ; darning Obenreizer's stockings. 
 
 The case was now desperate. Two serioas 
 considerations presented themselves to Yendale. 
 Was it possible to put Madame Dor into the 
 stove ? The stove wouldn't hold her. Was it 
 possible to treat Madame Dor, not as a living 
 woman, but as an article of furniture ? Could 
 the mind be brought to contemplate this re- 
 spectable matron purely in the light of a chest 
 of drawers, with a black gauze head-dress acci- 
 dently left on the top of it? Yes, the mind 
 could be brought to do that. With a compara- 
 tively trifling effort, Yendale's mind did it. As 
 he took his place on tbe old-fashioned window- 
 seat, close by Marguerite and her embroidery, 
 a slight movement appeared in the chest of 
 drawers, but no remark issued from it. Let it 
 be remembered that solid furniture is not easy 
 to move, and that it has this advantage in con- 
 sequence there is no fear of upsetting it. 
 
 Unusually silent and unusually constrained 
 with the bright colour fast fading from her 
 face, with a feverish energy possessing her 
 fingers the pretty Marguerite bent over her 
 embroidery, and worked as if her life depended 
 on it. Hardly less agitated himself, Vendale 
 felt the importance of leading her very gently 
 to the avowal which he was eager to make to 
 the other sweeter avowal still, which he was 
 longing to hear. A woman's love is never to 
 be taken by storm; it yields insensibly to a 
 system of gradual approach. It ventures by 
 the roundaoout way, and listens to the low 
 voice. Yendale led her memory back to their 
 past meetings when they were travelling to- 
 gether in Switzerland. They revived the im- 
 pressions, they recalled the events, of the happy 
 bygone time. Little by little, Marguerite's 
 constraint vanished. She smiled, she was in- 
 terested, she looked at Yendale, she grew idle 
 with her needle, she made false stitches in her 
 work. Their voices sank lower and lower; 
 their faces bent nearer and nearer to each 
 other as they spoke. And Madame Dor? 
 Madame Dor behaved like an angel. She never 
 looked round ; she never said a word ; she went 
 on with Obenreizer's stockings. Pulling each 
 stocking up tight over her left arm, and holding 
 that arm aloft from time to time, to catch the 
 light on her work, there were moments, delicate 
 and indescribable moments, when Madame Dor 
 appeared to be sitting upside down, and contem- 
 plating one of her own respectable legs elevated 
 in the air. As the minutes wore on, these 
 
[December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 elevations followed each other at longer and 
 longer intervals. Now and again, the black 
 gauze head-dress nodded, dropped forward, re- 
 covered itself. A little heap of stockings slid 
 softly from Madame Dor's lap, and remained 
 unnoticed on the floor. A prodigious ball of 
 worsted followed the stockings, and rolled 
 lazily under the table. The black gauze head- 
 dress nodded, dropped forward, recovered itself, 
 nodded again, dropped forward again, and re- 
 covered itself no more. A composite sound, 
 partly as of the purring of an immense cat, 
 partly as of the planing of a soft board, rose 
 over the hushed voices of the lovers, and 
 hummed at regular intervals through the room. 
 Nature and Madame Dor had combined to- 
 gether in Vendale's interests. The best of 
 women was asleep. 
 
 Marguerite rose to stop not the snoring 
 let us say, the audible repose of Madame Dor. 
 Vendale laid his hand on her arm, and pressed 
 her back gently into her chair. 
 
 "Don't disturb her," he whispered. "I 
 have been waiting to tell you a secret. Let me 
 tell it now." 
 
 Marguerite resumed her seat. She tried to 
 resume her needle. It was useless ; her eyes 
 failed her ; her hand failed her ; she could find 
 nothing. 
 
 "We have been talking," said Vendale, "of 
 the happy time when we first met, and first 
 travelled together. I have a confession to 
 make. I have been concealing something. 
 When we spoke of my first visit to Switzerland, 
 I told you of all the impressions I had brought 
 back with me to England except one. Can 
 you guess what that one is ?" 
 
 Her eyes looked steadfastly at the embroi- 
 dery, and her face turned a little away from 
 him. Signs of disturbance began to appear in 
 her neat velvet bodice, round the region of the 
 brooch. She made no reply. Vendale pressed 
 the question without mercy. 
 
 "Can you guess what the one Swiss im- 
 pression is, which I have not told you yet P" 
 
 Her face turned back towards him, and a 
 faint smile trembled on her lips. 
 
 " An impression of the mountains, perhaps ?" 
 she said, slily. 
 
 "No; a much more precious impression 
 than that." 
 
 " Of the lakes ?" 
 
 " No. The lakes have not grown dearer and 
 dearer in remembrance to me every day. The 
 lakes are not associated with nay happiness in 
 the present, and my hopes in the future. 
 Marguerite ! all that makes life worth having 
 hangs, for me, on a word from your lips. Mar- 
 guerite ! I love you !" 
 
 Her he^d drooped, as he took her hand. He 
 drew her 'to him, and looked at her. The tears 
 escaped from her downcast eyes, and fell slowly 
 over her cheeks. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Vendale," she said, sadly, "it 
 would have been kinder to have kept your secret. 
 Have you forgotten the distance between us ? 
 It can never, never, be !" 
 
 " There can be but one distance between us, 
 
 Marguerite a distance of your making. My 
 love, my darling, there is no higher rank in 
 goodness, there is no higher rank in beauty, than 
 yours! Come! whisper the one little word 
 which tells me you will be my wife !" 
 
 She sighed bitterly. "Think of your family," 
 she murmured ; " and think of mine !" 
 
 Vendale drew her a little nearer to him. 
 
 " If you dwell on such an obstacle as that," 
 he said, "I shall think but one thought I 
 shall think I have offended you." 
 
 She started, and looked up. " Oh, no !" she 
 exclaimed, innocently. The instant the words 
 passed her lips, she saw the construction that 
 might be placed on them. Her confession had 
 escaped her in spite of herself. A lovely flush 
 of colour overspread her face. She made a 
 momentary effort to disengage herself from her 
 lover's embrace. She looked up at him en- 
 treatingly. She tried to speak. The words 
 died on her lips in the kiss that Vendale 
 pressed on them. "Let me go, Mr, Vendale !" 
 she said, faintly. 
 
 " Call me George." 
 
 She laid her head on his bosom. All her 
 heart went out to him at last. " George !" she 
 whispered. 
 
 " Say you love me !" 
 
 Her arms twined themselves gently round 
 his neck. Her lips, timidly touching his cheek, 
 murmured the delicious words " I love you !" 
 
 In the moment of silence that followed, the 
 sound of the opening and closing of the house- 
 door came clear to them through the wintry 
 stillness of the street. 
 
 Marguerite started to her feet. 
 
 "Let me go 1" she said. "He has come 
 back !" 
 
 She hurried from the room, and touched 
 Madame Dor's shoulder in passing. Madame 
 Dor woke up with a loud snort, looked first 
 over one shoulder and then over the other, 
 peered down into her lap, and discovered 
 neither stockings, worsted, nor darning-needle 
 in it. At the same moment, footsteps became 
 audible ascending the stairs. " Mon Dieu!" 
 said Madame Dor, addressing herself to the 
 stove, and trembling violently. Vendale 
 picked up the stockings and the ball, and 
 huddled them all back in a heap over her 
 shoulder. " Mon Dieu !" said Madame Dor, 
 for the second time, as the avalanche of worsted 
 poured into her capacious lap. 
 
 The door opened, and Obenreizer came in. 
 His first glance round the room showed him 
 that Marguerite was absent. 
 
 " What !" he exclaimed, " my niece is away ? 
 My niece is not here to entertain you in my ab- 
 sence? This is unpardonable. I shall bring 
 her back instantly." 
 
 Vendale stopped him. 
 
 "I beg you will not disturb Miss Oben- 
 reizer," he said. " You have returned, I see, 
 without your friend ?" 
 
 "My friend remains, and consoles our afflicted 
 compatriot. A heart-rending scene, Mr. Ven- 
 dale ! The household gods at the pawnbroker's 
 the family immersed in tears. We all em- 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 25 
 
 braced in silence. My admirable friend alone 
 possessed his composure. He sent out, on the 
 spot, for a bottle of wine." 
 
 " Can I say a word to you in private, Mr. 
 Obenreizer ?" 
 
 " Assuredly." He turned to Madame Dor. 
 " My good creature, you are sinking for want 
 of repose. Mr. Vendale will excuse you." 
 
 Madame Dor rose, and set forth sideways on 
 her journey from the stove to bed. She dropped 
 a stocking. Vendale picked it up for her, and 
 opened one of the folding-doors. She ad- 
 vanced a step, and dropped three more stock- 
 ings. Vendale, stooping to recover them as 
 before, Obenreizer interfered with profuse 
 apologies, and with a warning look at Madame 
 Dor. Madame Dor acknowledged the look by 
 dropping the whole of the stockings in a heap, 
 and then shuffling away panic-stricken from the 
 scene of disaster. Obenreizer swept up the 
 complete collection fiercely in both hands. 
 " Go !" he cried, giving his prodigious handful 
 a preparatory swing in the air. Madame Dor 
 said, " Mon Dieu," and vanished into the next 
 room, pursued by a shower of stockings. 
 
 "What must you think, Mr. Veudale," said 
 Obenreizer, closing the door, "of this de- 
 plorable intrusion of domestic details ? For 
 myself, I blush at it. We are beginning the 
 New Year as badly as possible ; everything has 
 gone wrong to-night. Be seated, pray and 
 say, what may I offer you ? Shall we pay our 
 best respects to another of your noble English 
 institutions ? It is my stuay to be, what you 
 call, jolly. I propose a grog." 
 
 Vendale declined the grog with all needful 
 respect for that noble institution. 
 
 "I wish to speak to you on a subject in 
 which I am deeply interested," he said. " You 
 must have observed, Mr. Obenreizer, that I 
 have, from the first, felt no ordinary admiration 
 for your charming niece ?" 
 
 " You are very good. In my niece's name, I 
 thank you." 
 
 "Perhaps you may have noticed, latterly, 
 that my admiration for Miss Obenreizer has 
 grown into a tenderer and deeper feeling ?" 
 
 " Shall we say friendship, Mr. Vendale ?" 
 
 "Say love and we shall be nearer to the 
 truth." 
 
 Obenreizer started out of his chair. The 
 faintly discernible beat, which was his nearest 
 approach to a change of colour, showed itself 
 suddenly in his cheeks. 
 
 "You are Miss Obenreizer's guardian," pur- 
 sued Vendale. " I ask you to confer upon me 
 the greatest of all favours I ask you" to give 
 me her hand in marriage." 
 
 Obenreizer dropped back into his chair. 
 " Mr. Vendale," he said, " you petrify me." 
 
 "I will wait," rejoined Vendale, " until you 
 have recovered yourself." 
 
 " One word before I recover myself. You 
 have said nothing about this to my niece ?" 
 
 " I have opened my whole heart to your niece. 
 And I have reason to hope " 
 
 " What !" interposed Obenreizer. " You have 
 made a proposal to my niece, without first ask- 
 
 ing for my authority to pay your addresses to 
 her ?" He struck his hand on the table, and 
 lost his hold over himself for the first time in 
 Vendale's experience of him. "Sir!" he ex- 
 claimed, indignantly, " what sort of conduct is 
 this ? As a man of honour, speaking to a man 
 of honour, how can you justify it ?" 
 
 " I can only justify it as one of our English 
 institutions," said Vendale, quietly. "You 
 admire our English institutions. I can't honestly 
 tell you, Mr. Obenreizer, that I regret what I 
 have done. I can only assure you that I have 
 not acted in the matter with any intentional dis- 
 respect towards yourself. This said, may I ask 
 you to tell me plainly what objection you see to 
 favouring my suit ?" 
 
 "I see tnis immense objection," answered 
 Obenreizer, " that my niece and you are not on 
 a social equality together. My niece is the 
 daughter of a poor peasant ; and you are the 
 son of a gentleman. You do us an honour," he 
 added, lowering himself again gradually to his 
 customary polite level, "which deserves, and 
 has, our most grateful acknowledgments. But 
 the inequality is too glaring ; the sacrifice is too 
 great. You English are a proud people, Mr. 
 Vendale. I have observed enough of this 
 country to see that such a marriage as you pro- 
 pose would be a scandal here. Not a hand 
 would be held out to your peasant-wife ; and 
 all your best friends would desert you." 
 
 " One moment," said Vendale, interposing on 
 his side. " I may claim, without any great 
 arrogance, to know more of my country -people 
 in general, and of my own friends in particular, 
 than you do. In the estimation of everybody 
 whose opinion is worth having, my wife herself 
 would be the one sufficient justification of my 
 marriage. If I did not feel certain observe, I 
 say certain that I am offering her a position 
 which she can accept without so much as the 
 shadow of a humiliation I would never (cost 
 me what it might) have asked her to be my wife. 
 Is there any other obstacle that you see ? Have 
 you any personal objection to me ?" 
 
 Obenreizer spread out both his hands in cour- 
 teous protest. "Personal objection!" he ex- 
 claimed. " Dear sir, the bare question is pain- 
 ful to me." 
 
 "We are both men of business," pursued 
 Vendale, " and you naturally expect me to 
 satisfy you that I have the means of supporting 
 a wife. I can explain my pecuniary position in 
 two words. I inherit from my parents a fortune 
 of twenty thousand pounds. In half of that sum 
 I have only a life-interest, to which, if I die, 
 leaving a widow, my widow succeeds. If I die, 
 leaving children, the money itself is divided 
 among them, as they come of age. The other 
 half of my fortune is at my own disposal, and is 
 invested in the wine-business. I see my way to 
 greatly improving that business. As it stands 
 at present, I cannot state my return from my 
 capital embarked at more than twelve hundred 
 a year. Add the yearly value of my life-interest 
 and the total reaches a present annual income 
 of fifteen hundred pounds. I have the fairest 
 prospect of soon making it more. In the 
 
 J 
 
26 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 mean time, do you object to me on pecuniary 
 grounds ?" 
 
 Driven back to his last entrenchment, Oben- 
 reizer rose, and took a turn backwards and for- 
 wards in the room. For the moment, he was 
 plainly at a loss what to say or do next. 
 
 " Before I answer that last question," he 
 said, after a little close consideration with him- 
 self, "I beg leave to revert for a moment to 
 Miss Marguerite. You said something just now 
 which seemed to imply that she returns the 
 sentiment with which you are pleased to regard 
 her ?" 
 
 "I have the inestimable happiness," said 
 Vendale, " of knowing that she loves me." 
 
 Obenreizer stood silent for a moment, with 
 the film over his eyes, and the faintly perceptible 
 beat becoming visible again in his cheeks. 
 
 " If- you will excuse me for a few minutes," 
 he said, with ceremonious politeness, " I should 
 like to have the opportunity of speaking to my 
 niece." With those words, he bowed, and 
 quitted the room. 
 
 Left by himself, Vendale's thoughts (as a 
 necessary result of the interview, thus far) 
 turned instinctively to the consideration of 
 Obenreizer's motives. He had put obstacles in 
 the way of the courtship ; he was now putting 
 obstacles in the way of the marriage a mar- 
 riage offering advantages which even his inge- 
 nuity could not dispute. On the face of it, his con- 
 duct was incomprehensible. "What did it mean ? 
 
 Seeking, under the surface, for the answer to 
 that question and remembering that Obenreizer 
 was a man of about his own age ; also, that 
 Marguerite was, strictly speaking, his half-niece 
 only Yendale asked 'himself, with a lover's 
 ready jealousy, whether he had a rival to fear, 
 as well as a guardian to conciliate. The thought 
 just crossed his mind, and no more. The sense 
 of Marguerite's kiss still lingering on his cheek 
 reminded him gently that even the jealousy of a 
 moment was now a treason to her. 
 
 On reflection, it seemed most likely that a 
 personal motive of another kind might suggest 
 the true explanation of Obenreizer's conduct. 
 Marguerite's grace and beauty were precious 
 ornaments in that little household. They gave 
 it a special social attraction and a special social 
 importance. They armed Obenreizer with a 
 certain influence in reserve, which he could 
 always depend upon to make his house attrac- 
 tive, and which he might always bring more or 
 less to bear on the forwarding of his own private 
 ends. Was he the sort of man to resign such 
 advantages as were here implied, without obtain- 
 ing the fullest possible compensation for the 
 loss ? A connexion by marriage with Vendale 
 I offered him solid advantages, beyond all doubt. 
 But there were hundreds of men in London 
 with far greater power and far wider influence 
 than Vendale possessed. Was it possible that 
 this man's ambition secretly looked higher than 
 the highest prospects that could be offered to 
 him by the alliance now proposed for his niece ? 
 As the question passed through Vendale's mind, 
 the man himself reappeared to answer it, or 
 not to answer it, as the event might prove. 
 
 A marked change was visible in Obenreizer 
 when he resumed his place. His manner was 
 [ess assured, and there were plain traces about 
 liis mouth of recent agitation which had not 
 been successfully composed. Had he said some- 
 thing, referring either to Vendale or to himself, 
 which had roused Marguerite's spirit, and which 
 liad placed him, for the first time, face to face 
 with a resolute assertion of his niece's will ? It 
 might or might not be. This only was certain 
 he looked like a man who had met with a re- 
 pulse. 
 
 "I have spoken to my niece," he began. 
 ' I find, Mr. Vendale, that even your influence 
 tias not entirely blinded her to the social objec- 
 tions to your proposal." 
 
 "May I ask," returned Vendale, "if that is 
 the only result of your interview with Miss 
 Obenreizer ?" 
 
 A momentary flash leapt out through the 
 Obenreizer film. 
 
 " You are master of the situation," he an- 
 swered, in a tone of sardonic submission. " If 
 you insist on my admitting it, I do admit it in 
 those words. My niece's will and mine used 
 to be one, Mr. Vendale. You have come be- 
 tween us, and her will is now yours. In my 
 country, we know when we are beaten, and we 
 submit with our best grace. I submit, with my 
 best grace, on certain conditions. Let us re- 
 vert to the statement of your pecuniary posi- 
 tion. I have an objection to you, my dear sir 
 a most amazing, a most audacious objection, 
 from a man in my position to a man in yours." 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " You have honoured me by making a pro- 
 posal for my niece's hand. For the present (with 
 best thanks and respects), I beg to decline it." 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because you are not rich enough." 
 The objection, as the speaker had foreseen, 
 took Vendale completely by surprise. For the 
 moment he was speechless. 
 
 " Your income is fifteen hundred a year," 
 pursued Obenreizer. " In my miserable country 
 I should fall on my knees before your income, 
 and say, c What a princely fortune !' In wealthy 
 England, I sit as I am, and say, ' A modest in- 
 dependence, dear sir ; nothing more. Enough, 
 perhaps, for a wife in your own rank of life, 
 who has no social prejudices to conquer. Not 
 more than half enough for a wife who is a 
 meanly born foreigner, and who has all y^our 
 social prejudices against her.' Sir ! if my niece 
 is ever to marry you, she will have what you 
 call uphill work of it in taking her place at 
 starting. Yes, yes ; this is not your view, 
 but it remains, immovably remains, my view for 
 all that. For my niece's sake, I claim that this 
 uphill work shall be made as smooth as possible. 
 Whatever material advantages she can have to 
 help her, ought, in common justice, to be hers. 
 Now, tell me, Mr. Vendale, on your fifteen 
 hundred a year can your wife have a house in 
 a fashionable quarter, a footman to open her 
 door, a butler to wait at her table, and a 
 carriage and horses to drive about in ? I see 
 the answer in your face your face says, No. 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 27 
 
 Very good. Tell me one more thing, and I 
 have done. Take the mass of your educated, 
 accomplished, and lovely countrywomen, is it, 
 or is it not, the fact that a lady who lias a 
 house in a fashionable quarter, a footman to 
 open her door, a butler to wait at her table, 
 and a carriage and horses to drive about in, 
 is a lady who has gained four steps, in female 
 estimation, at starting ? Yes ? or No ?" 
 
 " Come to the point/' said Vendale. " You 
 view this question, as a question of terms. What 
 are your terms ?" 
 
 " The lowest terms, dear sir, on which you can 
 provide your wife with those four steps at start- 
 ing. Double y oar present income the most rigid 
 economy cannot do it in England on less. You 
 said just now that you expected greatly to in- 
 crease the value of your business. To work 
 and increase it ! I am a good devil after all ! 
 On the day when you satisfy me, by plain proofs, 
 that your income has risen to three thousand a 
 year, ask me for my niece's hand, and it is 
 yours." 
 
 " May I inquire if you have mentioned this 
 arrangement to Miss Obenreizer?" 
 
 " Certainly. She has a last little morsel of 
 regard still left for me, Mr. Vendale, which is 
 not yours yet ; and she accepts my terms. In 
 other words, she submits to be guided by her 
 guardian's regard for her welfare, and by her 
 guardian's superior knowledge of the world." 
 He threw himself back in his chair, in firm 
 reliance on his position, and in full pos- 
 session of his excellent temper. 
 
 Any open assertion of his own interests, in 
 the situation in which Vendale was now placed, 
 seemed to be (for the present at least) hope- 
 less. He found himself literally left with no 
 ground to stand on. Whether Obenreizer's 
 objections were the genuine product of Oben- 
 reizer's own view of the case, or whether he 
 was simply delaying the marriage in the hope 
 of ultimately breaking it off altogether in 
 either of these events, any present resistance 
 on Vendale's part would be equally useless. 
 There was no help for it but to yield, making 
 the best terms that he could on his own side. 
 
 " I protest against the conditions you impose 
 on me," he began. 
 
 " Naturally," said Obenreizer ; " I dare say 
 I should protest, myself, in your place." 
 
 " Say, however," pursued Vendale, " that I 
 accept your terms. In that case, I must be 
 permitted to make two stipulations on my part. 
 In the first place, I shall expect to be allowed 
 to see your niece." 
 
 " Aha ! to see my niece ? and to make her in 
 as great a hurry to be married as you are your- 
 self ? Suppose I say, No ? you would see her 
 perhaps without my permission ?" 
 
 "Decidedly!" * 
 
 " How delightfully frank ! How exquisitely 
 English ! You shall see her, Mr. Vendale, on 
 certain days, which we will appoint together. 
 What next?" 
 
 "Your objection to my income," proceeded 
 Vendale, "has taken me completely by surprise. 
 I wish to be assured against any repetition of 
 
 that surprise. Your present views of my 
 qualification for marriage require me to have 
 an income of three thousand a year. Can I be 
 certain, in the future, as your experience of 
 England enlarges, that your estimate win rise 
 no higher ?" 
 
 " In plain English," said Obenreizer, " yon 
 doubt my word ?" 
 
 " Do you purpose to take my word for it 
 when I inform you that I have doubled my in- 
 come ?" asked Vendale. " If my memory does 
 not deceive me, you stipulated, a minute since, 
 for plain proofs r" 
 
 " Well played, Mr. Vendale ! You combine 
 the foreign quickness with the English solidity. 
 Accept my best congratulations. "Accept, also, 
 my written guarantee." 
 
 He rose ; seated himself at a writing-desk at 
 a side-table, wrote a few lines, and presented 
 them to Vendale with a low bow. The engage- 
 ment was perfectly explicit, and was signed and 
 dated with scrupulous care. 
 
 " Are you satisfied with your guarantee ?" 
 
 "I am satisfied." 
 
 " Charmed to hear it, I am sure. We have 
 had our little skirmish we have really been 
 wonderfully clever on both sides. Eor the 
 present our affairs are settled. I bear no 
 malice. You bear no malice. Come, Mr. 
 Vendale, a good English shake hands." 
 
 Vendale gave his hand, a little bewildered 
 by Obeureizer's sudden transitions from one 
 humour to another. 
 
 "When may I expect to see Miss Oben- 
 reizer again ?" he asked, as he rose to go. 
 
 " Honour me with a visit to-morrow," said 
 Obenreizer, " and we will settle it then. Do 
 have a grog before you go \ No ? Well ! 
 well! we will reserve the grog till you have 
 your three thousand a year, and are ready to be 
 married. Aha ! When will that be ?" ' 
 
 " I made an estimate, some mouths since, of 
 the capacities of my business," said Vendale. 
 " If that estimate is correct, I shall double my 
 present income " 
 
 " And be married !" added Obenreizer. 
 
 "And be married," repeated Vendale, "within 
 a year from this time. Good night." 
 
 VENDALE MAKES MISCHIEF. 
 
 When Vendale entered his office the next 
 morning, the dull commercial routine at 
 Cripple Corner met him with a new face. 
 Marguerite had an interest in it now ! The 
 whole machinery which Wilding's death had 
 set in motion, to realise the value of the busi- 
 ness the balancing of ledgers, the estimating 
 of debts, the taking of stock, and the rest of 
 it was now transformed into machinery which 
 indicated the chances for and against a speedy 
 marriage. After looking over results, as pre- 
 sented by his accountant, and checking 
 additions and subtractions, as rendered by 
 the clerks, Vendale turned his attention to 
 the stock-taking department next, and sent 
 a message to the cellars, desiring to see the 
 report. 
 
28 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 The Cellar-man's appearance, the moment he 
 put his head in at the door of his master's 
 private room, suggested that something very 
 extraordinary must have happened that morn- 
 ing. There was an approach to alacrity in Joey 
 Ladle's movements ! There was something 
 which actually simulated cheerfulness in Joey 
 Ladle's face ! 
 
 "What's the matter?" asked Vendale. 
 " Anything wrong ?" 
 
 "I should wish to mention one thing," 
 answered Joey. " Young Mr. Vendale, I have 
 never set myself up for a prophet." 
 
 " Who ever said you did ?" 
 
 "No prophet, as far as I've heard tell of 
 that profession," proceeded Joey, " ever lived 
 principally underground. No prophet, what- 
 ever else he might take in at the pores, ever 
 took in wine from morning to night, for a num- 
 ber of years together. When I said to young 
 Master Wilding, respecting his changing the 
 name of the firm, that one of these days he 
 might find he'd changed the luck of the firm 
 did I put myself forward as a prophet ? No, I 
 didn't. Has what I said to him come true ? 
 Yes, it has. In the time of Pebbleson 
 Nephew, Young Mr. Vendale, no such thing 
 was ever known as a mistake made in a con- 
 signment delivered at these doors. There's a 
 mistake been made now. Please to remark 
 that it happened before Miss Margaret came 
 here. Tor which reason it don't go against 
 what I've said respecting Miss Margaret sing- 
 ing round the luck. Read that, sir," concluded 
 Joey, pointing attention to a special passage in 
 the report, with a forefinger which appeared to 
 be in process of taking in through the pores 
 nothing more remarkable than dirt. "It's 
 foreign to my nature to crow over the house I 
 serve, but I feel it a kind of a solemn duty to 
 ask you to read that." 
 
 Vendale read as follows: "Note, respecting 
 the Swiss champagne. An irregularity has 
 been discovered in the last consignment re- 
 ceived from the firm of Defresnier and Co." 
 Veudale stopped, and referred to a memoran- 
 dum-book by his side. "That was in Mr. 
 Wilding's time," he said. " The vintage was a 
 particularly good one, and he took the whole 
 of it. The Swiss champagne has done very 
 well, hasn't it ?'\ 
 
 " I don't say it's done badly," answered the 
 Cellarman. " It may have got sick in our 
 customers' bins, or it may have bust in our 
 customers' hands. But I don't say it's done 
 badly with its" 
 
 Vendale resumed the reading of the note : 
 " We find the number of the cases to be quite 
 correct by the books. But six of them, wnich 
 present a slight difference from the rest in the 
 brand, have been opened, and have been found 
 to contain a red wine instead of champagne. 
 The similarity in the brands, we suppose, 
 caused a mistake to be made in sending the 
 consignment from Neuchatel. The error has 
 not been found to extend beyond six cases." 
 
 " Is that all !" exclaimed Vendale, tossing 
 the note away from him. 
 
 Joey Ladle's eye followed the flying morsel 
 of paper drearily. 
 
 " I'm glad to see you take it easy, sir," he 
 said. " Whatever happens, it will be always a 
 comfort to you to remember that you took it 
 easy at first. Sometimes one mistake leads to 
 another. A man drops a bit of orange-peel on 
 the pavement by mistake, and another man 
 treads on it by mistake, and there's a job at 
 the- hospital, and a party crippled for life. 
 I'm glad you take it easy, sir. In Pebbleson 
 Nephew's time we shouldn't have taken it 
 easy till we had seen the end of it. Without 
 desiring to crow over the house, Young Mr. 
 Vendale, $ I wish you well through it. No 
 offence, sir," said the Cellarman, opening the 
 door to go out, and looking in again ominously 
 before he shut it. " I'm muddled and mollon- 
 colly, I grant you. But I'm an old servant of 
 Pebbleson Nephew, and I wish you well 
 through them six cas_es of red wine." 
 
 Left by himself, Vendale laughed, and took 
 up his pen. " I may as well send a line to 
 Defresnier and Company," he thought, " before 
 I forget it." He wrote at once in these terms : 
 
 " Dear Sirs. We are taking stock, and a trifling 
 mistake has been discovered in the last consignment 
 of champagne sent by your house to ours. Six of 
 the cases contain red wine which we hereby Te- 
 turn to you. The matter can easily be set right, 
 either by your sending us six cases of the cham- 
 pagne, if they can. be produced, or, if not, by your 
 crediting us with the value of six cases on the 
 amount last paid (five hundred pounds) by our firm 
 to yours. Your faithful servants, 
 
 " WILDING AND Co." 
 
 This letter despatched to the post, the sub- 
 ject dropped at once out of Vendale's mind. 
 He had other and far more interesting matters 
 to think of. Later in the day he paid the visit 
 to Obenreizer which had been agreed on be- 
 tween them. Certain evenings in the week 
 were set apart which he was privileged to 
 spend with Marguerite always, however, in 
 the presence of a third person. On this stipu- 
 lation Obenreizer politely but positively in- 
 sisted. The one concession he made was to 
 give Vendale his choice of who the third person 
 should be. Confiding in past experience, his 
 choice fell unhesitatingly upon the excellent 
 woman who mended Obenreizer's stockings. 
 Oil hearing of the responsibility entrusted to her, 
 Madame Dor's intellectual nature burst suddenly 
 into a new stage of development. She waited 
 
 Obenreizer's eye was off her and then she 
 Looked at Vendale, and dimly winked. 
 
 The time passed the happy evenings with 
 Marguerite came and went. It was the tenth 
 morning since Vendale had written to the Swiss 
 5rm, when the answer appeared on his desk, 
 with the other letters of the day : 
 
 'Dear Sirs, We beg to offer our excuses for 
 the little mistake which has happened. At the same 
 time, we regret to add that the statement of our 
 error, with which you have favoured us, has led to 
 a very unexpected discovery. The affair is a most 
 serious one for you and for us. ,The particulars are 
 as follows : 
 
 " iiaving no more champagne of the vintage last 
 
and Wilkie Colling.] 
 
 NO THOKOUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 29 
 
 sent to you, we made arrangements to credit your 
 firm with the value of the six cases, as suggested 
 by yourself. On taking this step, certain forms ob- 
 served in our mode of doing business necessitated a 
 reference to our bankers' book, as well as to our 
 ledger. The result is a moral certainty that no such 
 remittance as you mention can have reached our 
 house, and a literal certainty that no such remit- 
 tance has been paid to our account at the bank. 
 
 " It is needless, at this stage of the proceedings, 
 to trouble you with details. The money has un- 
 questionably been stolen in the course of its transit 
 from you to us. Certain peculiarities which we ob- 
 serve, relating to the manner in which the fraud has 
 been perpetrated, lead us to conclude that the thief 
 may have calculated on being able to pay the 
 missing sum to our bankers, before an inevitable dis- 
 covery followed the annual striking of our balance. 
 This would not have happened, in the usual course, 
 for another three months. During that period, but 
 for your letter, we might have remained perfectly 
 unconscious of the robbery that has been committed. 
 
 " "VYe mention this last circumstance, as it may 
 help to show you that we have to do, in this case, 
 with no ordinary thief. Thus far we have not even 
 a suspicion of who that thief is. But we believe 
 you will assist us in making some advance towards 
 discovery, by examining the receipt (forged, of course) 
 which has no doubt purported to come to you from 
 our house. Be pleased to look and see whether it is 
 a receipt entirely in manuscript, or whether it is a 
 numbered and printed form which merely requires 
 the filling in of the amount. The settlement of 
 this apparently trivial question is, we assure you, a 
 matter of vital importance. Anxiously awaiting 
 your reply, we remain, with high esteem and con- 
 sideration, " DEFRESXIER & C IB ." 
 
 Vendale laid the letter on his desk, and 
 waited a moment to steady his mind under the 
 shock that had fallen on it. At the time of all 
 others when it was most important to him to 
 increase the value of his business, that business 
 was threatened with a loss of five hundred 
 pounds. He thought of Marguerite, as he took 
 the key from his pocket and opened the iron 
 chamber in the wall in which the books and 
 papers of the firm were kept. 
 
 He was still in the chamber, searching for 
 I the forged receipt, when he was startled by a 
 ' voice speaking close behind him. 
 
 " A thousand pardons/' said the voice ; " I 
 am afraid I disturb you." 
 
 He turned, and found himself face to face 
 with Marguerite's guardian. 
 
 "I have called," pursued Obenreizer, "to 
 know if I can be of any use. Business of my 
 own takes me away for some days to Manchester 
 and Liverpool. Can I combine any business of 
 yours with it ? I am entirely at your disposal, 
 in the character of commercial traveller for the 
 firm of Wilding and Co." 
 
 " Excuse me for one moment," said Vendale ; 
 "I will speak to you directly." He turned 
 round again, and continued his search among 
 the papers. "You come at a time when 
 friendly offers are more than usually precious 
 to me," he resumed. "I have had very bad 
 news this morning from Neuchatel." 
 
 "Bad news !" exclaimed Obenreizer. "From 
 Defresnier and Company ?" 
 
 "Yes. A remittance we sent to them has 
 
 been stolen. I am threatened with a loss of 
 five hundred pounds. What's that ?" 
 
 Turning sharply, and looking into the room 
 for the second time, Vendale discovered his en- 
 velope-case overthrown on the floor, and Oben- 
 reizer on his knees picking up the contents. 
 
 " All my awkwardness !" said Obenreizer. 
 " This dreadful news of yours startled me ; I 
 stepped back " He became too deeply in- 
 terested in collecting the scattered envelopes to 
 finish the sentence. 
 
 "Don't trouble yourself," said Vendale. 
 " The clerk will pick the things up." 
 
 "This dreadful news !" repeated Obenreizer, 
 persisting in collecting the envelopes. " This 
 dreadful news !" 
 
 " If you will read the letter," said Vendale, 
 "you will find I have exaggerated nothing. 
 There it is, open on my desk." 
 
 He resumed his search, and in a moment 
 more discovered the forged receipt. It was on 
 the numbered and printed form, described by 
 the Swiss firm. Vendale made a memorandum 
 of the number and the date. Having replaced 
 the receipt and locked up the iron chamber, he 
 had leisure to notice Obenreizer, reading the 
 letter in the recess of a window at the far end 
 of the room. 
 
 " Come to the fire," said Vendale. " You 
 look perished with the cold out there. I will 
 ring for some more coals." 
 
 Obenreizer rose, and came slowly back to the 
 desk. "Marguerite will be as sorry to hear of 
 this as I am," he said, kindly. " What do you 
 mean to dp ?" 
 
 " I am in the hands of Defresnier and Com- 
 pany," answered Vendale. " In my total igno- 
 rance of the circumstances, I can only do what 
 they recommend. The receipt which I have 
 just found, turns out to be the numbered and 
 printed form. They seem to attach some special 
 importance to its discovery. You have had ex- 
 perience, when you were in the Swiss house, of 
 their way of doing business. Can you guess 
 what object they have in view ?" 
 
 Obenreizer offered a suggestion. 
 
 " Suppose I examine the receipt ?" he said. 
 
 "Are you ill ?" asked Vendale, startled by 
 the change in his face, which now showed itself 
 plainly for the first time. " Pray go to the fire. 
 You seem to be shivering I hope you are not 
 going to be ill ?" 
 
 "Not I!" said Obenreizer. "Perhaps I 
 have caught cold. Your English climate might 
 have spared an admirer of your English insti- 
 tutions. Let me look at the receipt." 
 
 Vendale opened the iron chamber. Oben- 
 reizer took a chair, and drew it close to the 
 fire. He held both hands over the flames. 
 "Let me look at the receipt," he repeated, 
 eagerly, as Vendale reappeared with the paper 
 in his hand. At the same moment a porter 
 entered the room with a fresh supply of coals. 
 Vendale told him to make a good fire. The 
 man obeyed the order with a disastrous alacrity. 
 A.S he stepped forward and raised the scuttle, 
 his foot caught in a fold of the rug, and he dis- 
 charged his entire cargo of coals into the grate. 
 
30 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 The result was an instant smothering of the 
 flame, and the production of a stream of yellow 
 smoke, without a visible morsel of fire to ac- 
 count for it. 
 
 " Imbecile !" whispered Obenreizer to himself, 
 with a look at the man which the man remem- 
 bered for many a long day afterwards. 
 
 "Will you come into the clerks' room?" 
 asked Yendale. " They have a stove there." 
 
 " No, no. No matter." 
 
 Vendale handed him the receipt. Oben- 
 reizer's interest in examining it appeared to 
 have been quenched as suddenly and as effectu- 
 ally as the fire itself. He just glanced over the 
 document, and said, " No ; I don't understand 
 it ! I am sorry to be of no use." 
 
 " I will write to Neuchatel by to-night's post," 
 said Vendale, putting away the receipt for the 
 second time. " We must wait, and see what 
 comes of it." 
 
 "By to-night's post," repeated Obeureizer. 
 " Let me see. You will get the answer in eight 
 or nine days' time. I shall be back before 
 that. If I can be of any service, as com- 
 mercial traveller, perhaps you will let me know 
 between this and then. You will send me 
 written instructions ? My best thanks. 1 
 shall be most anxious for yonr answer from 
 Neuchatel. Who knows ? It may be a mis- 
 take, my dear friend, after all. Courage ! 
 courage ! courage !" He had entered the room 
 with no appearance of being pressed for time. 
 He now snatched up his hat, and took his leave 
 with the air of a man who had not another 
 moment to lose. 
 
 Left by himself, Vendale took a turn thought- 
 fully in the room. 
 
 His previous impression of Obenreizer was 
 shaken by what he had heard and seen at the 
 interview which had just taken place. He was 
 disposed, for the first time, to doubt whether, 
 in this case, he had not been a little hasty and 
 hard in his judgment on another man. Oben- 
 reizer's surprise and regret, on hearing the 
 news from Neuchatel, bore the plainest marks 
 of being honestly felt not politely assumed 
 for the occasion. With troubles of his own 
 to encounter, suffering, to all appearance, 
 from the first insidious attack of a serious ill- 
 ness, he had looked and spoken like a man 
 who really deplored the disaster that had fallen 
 on his friend. Hitherto, Veudale had tried 
 vainly to alter his first opinion of Marguerite's 
 guardian, for Marguerite's sake. All the gene- 
 rous instincts in Ids nature now combined to- 
 gether and shook the evidence which had seemed 
 unanswerable up to this time. "Who knows?" 
 he thought, " I may have read that man's face 
 wrongly, after all." 
 
 The time passed the happy evenings with 
 Marguerite came and went. It was again the 
 tenth morning since Vendale had written to the 
 Swiss firm ; and again the answer appeared on 
 his desk with the other letters of the day : 
 
 " Dear Sir. My senior partner, M. Defresnier, has 
 been called away, by urgent business, to Milan. In 
 hia absence (and with his full concurrence and autho- 
 
 rity), I now write to you again on the subject of the 
 missing five hundred pounds. 
 
 " Your discovery that the forged receipt is executed 
 upon one of our numbered and printed forms has 
 caused inexpressible surprise and distress to my 
 partner and to myself. At the time when your 
 remittance was stolen, but three keys were in exist- 
 ence opening the strong box in which our receipt- 
 forms are invariably kept. My partner had one 
 key ; I had the other. The third was in the pos- 
 session of a gentleman who, at that period, occupied 
 a position of trust in our house. "We should as soon 
 have thought of suspecting one of ourselves as of 
 suspecting this person. Suspicion now points at 
 him, nevertheless. I cannot prevail on myself to 
 inform you who the person is, so long as there is 
 the shadow of a chance that he may come innocently 
 out of the inquiry which must now be instituted. 
 Forgive my silence ; the motive of it is good. 
 
 "The form our investigation must now take is 
 simple enough. The handwriting on your receipt 
 must be compared, by competent persons whom we 
 have at our disposal, Avith certain specimens of hand- 
 writing in our possession. I cannot send you the 
 specimens, for business reasons, which, when you 
 hear them, you are sure to approve. I must beg 
 you to send me the receipt to Neuchatel and, in 
 making this request, I must accompany it by a word 
 of necessary warning. 
 
 "If the person, at whom suspicion now points, 
 really proves to be the person who has committed 
 this forgery and theft, I have reason to fear that 
 circumstances may have already put him on his 
 guard. The only evidence against him is the evi- 
 dence in your hands, and he will move heaven and 
 earth to obtain and destroy it. I strongly urge you 
 not to trust the receipt to the post. Send it to me, 
 without loss of time, by a private hand, and choose 
 nobody for your messenger but a person long estab- 
 lished in your own employment, accustomed to 
 travelling, capable of speaking French; a man of 
 courage, a man of honesty, and, above all things, a 
 man -who can be trusted to let no stranger scrape 
 acquaintance with him on the route. Tell no one 
 absolutely no one but your messenger of the turn 
 this matter has now taken. The safe transit of the 
 receipt may depend on your interpreting literally the 
 advice which I give you at the end of this letter. 
 
 " I have only to add that every possible saving 
 of time is now of the last importance. More than 
 one of our receipt-forms is missing and it is im- 
 possible to say what new frauds may not be com- 
 mitted, if we fail to lay our hands on the thief. 
 
 " Your faithful servant. 
 
 "KOLLAND, 
 
 "(Signing for Defresnier and C ie )." 
 
 Who was the suspected man ? In Vendale's 
 position, it seemed useless to inquire. 
 
 Who was to be sent to Neuchatel with the 
 receipt ? Men of courage and men of honesty 
 were to be had at Cripple Corner for the 
 asking. But where was the man who was 
 accustomed to foreign travelling, who could 
 speak the French language, and who could be 
 re-ally relied on to let no stranger scrape ac- 
 quaintance with him on his route ? There was 
 but one man at hand who combined all those 
 requisites in his own person, and that man was 
 Vendale himself. 
 
 It was a sacrifice to leave his business ; it 
 was a greater sacrifice to leave Marguerite. 
 But a matter of five hundred pounds was in- 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 31 
 
 volved in the pending inquiry ; and a literal in- 
 terpretation of M. Holland's advice was insisted 
 on in terms which there was no trifling with. 
 The more Vendale thought of it, the more 
 plainly the necessity faced him, and said, " Go !" 
 
 As he locked up the letter with the receipt, 
 the association of ideas reminded him of Oben- 
 reizer. A guess at the identity of the suspected 
 man looked more possible now. Obenreizer 
 might know. 
 
 The thought had barely passed through his 
 mind, when the door opened, and Obenreizer 
 entered the room. 
 
 " They told me at Soho-square you were ex- 
 pected back last night," said Vendale, greeting 
 him. " Have you done well in the country ? 
 Are you better?" 
 
 A thousand thanks. Obenreizer had done 
 admirably well ; Obenreizer was infinitely bet- 
 ter. And now, what news ? Any letter from 
 Neuchatel ? 
 
 " A very strange letter," answered Vendale. 
 "The matter has taken a new turn, and the 
 letter insists without excepting anybody 
 on my keeping our next proceedings a pro- 
 found secret." 
 
 " Without excepting anybody ?" repeated 
 Obenreizer. As he said the words, he walked 
 away again, thoughtfully, to the window at the 
 other end of the room, looked out for a 
 moment, and suddenly came back to Vendale. 
 "Surely they must have forgotten?" he re- 
 sumed, "or they would have excepted me?" 
 
 " It is Monsieur Holland who writes," said 
 Vendale. " And, as you say, he must certainly 
 have forgotten. That view of the matter quite 
 escaped me. I was just wishing I had you 
 to consult, when you came into the room. 
 And here I am tied by a formal prohibition, 
 which cannot possibly have been intended to 
 include you. How very annoying !" 
 
 Obenreizer's filmy eyes fixed on Vendale 
 attentively. 
 
 "Perhaps it is more than annoying!" he 
 said. " I came this morning not only to hear 
 the news, but to offer myself as messenger, ne- 
 gotiator what you will. "Would you believe 
 it ? I have letters which oblige me to go to 
 Switzerland immediately. Messages, docu- 
 ments, anything I could have taken them all 
 to Defresnier and Holland for you." 
 
 " You are the very man I wanted," returned 
 Vendale. " I had decided, most unwillingly, 
 on going to Neuchatel myself, not five minutes 
 since, because I could find no one here capable 
 of taking my place. Let me look at the letter 
 again." 
 
 He opened the strong room to get at the 
 letter. Obenreizer, after first glancing round 
 him to make sure that they were alone, fol- 
 lowed a step or two and waited, measuring 
 Vendale with his eye. Vendale was the tallest 
 man, and unmistakably the strongest man also 
 of the two. Obenreizer turned away, and 
 warmed himself at the fire. 
 
 Meanwhile, Vendale read the last paragra^ 
 in the letter for the third time. There was 
 the plain warning there was the closing sen- 
 
 tence, which insisted on a literal interpretation 
 of it. The hand, which was leading Vendale in 
 -he dark, led him on that condition only. A 
 arge sum was at stake : a terrible suspicion 
 remained to be verified. If he acted on his own 
 responsibility, and if anything happened to de- 
 'eat the object in view, who would be blamed ? 
 As a man of business, Vendale had but one 
 course to follow. He locked the letter up 
 again. 
 
 c " It is most annoying," he said to Obenreizer 
 " it is a piece of forgetfulness on Monsieur 
 Holland's part which puts me to serious incon- 
 venience, and places rne in an absurdly false 
 Dosition. towards you. What am I to do ? I 
 am acting in a very serious matter, and acting 
 entirely in the dark. I have no choice but to be 
 guided, not by the spirit, but by the letter of my 
 instructions. You understand me, I am sure'? 
 You know, if I had not been fettered in this 
 way, how gladly I should have accepted your 
 services ?" 
 
 " Say no more !" returned Obenreizer. "In 
 your place I should have done the same. My 
 good friend, I take no offence. I thank you 
 for your compliment. We shall be travelling 
 companions, at any rate," added Obenreizer. 
 " You go, as I go, at once ?" 
 
 " At once. I must speak to Marguerite first, 
 of course!" 
 
 " Surely ! surely ! Speak to her this even- 
 ing. Come, and pick me up on the way to 
 the station. We go together by the mail 
 train to-night ?" 
 
 "By the mail train to-night." 
 
 It was later than Vendale had anticipated 
 \vhen he drove up to the house in Soho-square. 
 Business difficulties, occasioned by his sudden 
 departure, had presented themselves by dozens. 
 A cruelly large share of the time which he had 
 hoped to devote to Marguerite had been 
 claimed by duties at his office which it was 
 impossible to neglect. 
 
 To his surprise and delight, she'was alone in 
 the drawing-room when he entered it. 
 
 " We have only a few minutes, George," she 
 said. " But Madame Dor has been good to me 
 and we can have those few minutes alone." 
 She threw her arms round his neck, and 
 whispered eagerly, '* Have you done anything 
 to offend Mr. Obenreizer ?" 
 
 " I !" exclaimed Vendale, in amazement. 
 
 " Hush !" she said, " I want to whisper it. 
 " You know the little photograph I have got of 
 you. This afternoon it happened to be on the 
 chimney-piece. He took it up and looked at 
 it and I saw his face in the glass. I know 
 you have offended him ! He is merciless; he is 
 revengeful ; he is as secret as the grave. Don't 
 go with him, George don't go with him !" 
 
 "My own love," returned Vendale, "you 
 are letting your fancy frighten you! Oben- 
 reizer and I were never better friends than 
 we are at this moment." 
 
 Before a word more could be said, the sud- 
 den movement of some ponderous body shook 
 the floor of the next room. The shock was fol- 
 
32 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 lowed by the appearance of Madame Dor. 
 " Obenreizer !" exclaimed this excellent person 
 in a whisper, and plumped down instantly in her 
 regular place by the stove. 
 
 Obenreizer came in with a courier's bag 
 strapped over his shoulder. 
 
 " Are you ready ?" he asked, addressing Ven- 
 dale. "Can I take anything for you? You 
 have no travelling-bag. I have got one. Here 
 is the compartment for papers, open at your 
 service." 
 
 " Thank you," said Vendale. " I have only 
 one paper of importance with me; and that 
 paper I am bound to take charge of myself. 
 Here it is," he added, touching the breast- 
 pocket of his coat, " and here it must remain 
 till we get to Neuchatel." 
 
 As he said those words, Marguerite's hand 
 caught his, and pressed it . significantly. She 
 was looking towards Obenreizer. Before Ven- 
 dale could look, in his turn, Obenreizer had 
 wheeled round, and was taking leave of Madame 
 Dor. 
 
 "Adieu, my charming niece!" he said, turn- 
 ing to Marguerite next. " En route, my friend, 
 for Neuchatel!" He tapped Vendale lightly 
 over the breast-pocket of his coat, and led the 
 way to the door. 
 
 Vendale's last look was for Marguerite. 
 Marguerite's last words to him were, " Don't 
 go !" 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 IN THE VALLEY. 
 
 It was about the middle of the month of 
 February when Vendale and Obenreizer set 
 forth on their expedition. The winter being a 
 hard one, the time was bad for travellers. So 
 bad was it that these two travellers, coming 
 to Strasbourg, found its great inns almost 
 empty. And even the few people they did en- 
 counter in that city, who had started from Eng- 
 land or from Paris on business journeys towards 
 the interior of Switzerland, were turning back. 
 
 Many of the railroads in Switzerland that 
 tourists pass easily enough now, were almost or 
 quite impracticable then. Some were not begun ; 
 more were not completed. On such as were 
 open, there were still large gaps of old road 
 where communication in the winter season was 
 often stopped; on others, there were weak 
 points where the new work was not safe, either 
 under conditions of severe frost, or of rapid 
 thaw. The running of trains on this last class 
 was not to be counted on in the worst time of 
 the year, was contingent upon weather, or was 
 wholly abandoned through the months con- 
 sidered the most dangerous. 
 
 At Strasbourg there were more travellers' 
 stories afloat, respecting the difficulties of the 
 way further on, than there were travellers to 
 relate them. Many of these tales were as wild as 
 usual ; but the more modestly marvellous did 
 derive some colour from the circumstance that 
 people were indisputably turning back. How- 
 ever, as the road to Basle was open, Ven- 
 dale's resolution to push on was hi no wise 
 
 disturbed. Obenreizer's resolution was neces- 
 sarily Vendale's, seeing that he stood at bay 
 thus desperately : He must be ruined, or must 
 destroy the evidence that Vendale carried about 
 him, even if he destroyed Vendale with it. 
 
 The state of mind of each of these two fellow- 
 travellers towards the other was this. Oben- 
 reizer, encircled by impending ruin through 
 Vendale's quickness of action, and seeing the 
 circle narrowed every hour by Vendale's energy, 
 hated him with the animosity of a fierce cun- 
 ning lower animal. He had always had in- 
 stinctive movements in his breast against him ; 
 perhaps, because of that old sore of gentleman 
 and peasant ; perhaps, because of the openness 
 of his nature ; perhaps, because of his better 
 looks ; perhaps, because of his success witli 
 Marguerite ; perhaps, on all those grounds, the 
 two last not the least. And now he saw in him, 
 besides, the hunter who was tracking him down. 
 Vendale, on the other hand, always contending 
 generously against his first vague mistrust, now- 
 felt bound to contend against it more than ever : 
 reminding himself, " He is Marguerite's guar- 
 dian. We are on perfectly friendly terms ; 
 he is my companion of his own proposal, and 
 can have no interested motive in sharing this 
 undesirable journey." To which pleas in behalf 
 of Obenreizer, chance added one consideration 
 more, when thejr came to Basle, after a journey 
 of more than twice the average duration. 
 
 They had had a late dinner, and were alone 
 in an inn room there, overhanging the Rhine : 
 at that place rapid and deep, swollen and loud. 
 Vendale lounged upon a couch, and Obenreizer 
 walked to and fro : now, stopping at the window, 
 looking at the crooked reflections of the town 
 lights in the dark water (and peradventure 
 thinking, " If I could fling him into it !"); now, 
 resuming his walk with his eyes upon the floor. 
 
 " Where shall I rob him, if I can ? Where 
 shall I murder him, if I must?" So, as he 
 paced the room, ran the river, ran the river, ran 
 the river. 
 
 The burden seemed to him at last, to be grow- 
 ing so plain that he stopped; thinking it as well 
 to suggest another burden to his companion. 
 
 " The Rhine sounds to-night," he said with 
 a smile, " like the old waterfall at home. That 
 waterfall which my mother showed to travellers 
 (I told you of it once). The sound of it changed 
 with the weather, as does the sound of all fall- 
 ing waters and flowing waters. When I was 
 pupil of the watchmaker, I remembered it as 
 sometimes saying to me for whole days, ' Who 
 are you, my little wretch ? Who are you, my 
 little wretch?' I remembered it as saying, 
 other times, when its sound was hollow, and 
 storm was coming up the Pass : ' Boom, boom, 
 boom. Beat him, beat him, beat him.' Like 
 my mother enraged if she was my mother." 
 
 " If she was P" said Vendale, gradually chang- 
 ing his attitude to a sitting one. " If she was ? 
 Why do you say 'if'?" 
 
 " What do I know ?" replied the other negli- 
 gently, throwing up his hands and letting them 
 fall as they would. " What would you have ? 
 I am so obscurely born, that how can I say ? I 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 pecember 12, 1867.] 33 
 
 was very young, and all the rest of the family 
 were men and women, and my so-called parents 
 were old. Anything is possible of a case like 
 that?" 
 
 " Did you ever doubt ?" 
 
 " I told you once, I doubt the marriage of 
 those two,"' he replied, throwing up his hands 
 again, as if he were throwing the unprofitable 
 subject away. "But here I am in Creation. 1 
 come of no fine family. What does it matter ?" 
 
 " At least you are Swiss," said Vendale, after 
 following him with his eyes to and fro. 
 
 " How do I know ?" he retorted abruptly, 
 and stopping to look back over his shoulder. 
 " I say to vou, at least you are English. How 
 do you know ?" 
 
 " By what I have been told from infancy." 
 
 " Ah ! I know of myself that way." 
 
 " And," added Vendale, pursuing the thought 
 that he could not drive back, " by my earliest 
 recollections." 
 
 " I also. I know of myself that way if that 
 way satisfies." 
 
 " Does it not satisfy you ?" 
 
 "It must. There is nothing like 'it must' 
 in this little world. It must. Two short words 
 those, but stronger than long proof or reasoning." 
 
 " You and poor Wilding were born in the 
 same year. You were nearly of an age," said Yen- 
 dale, again thoughtfully looking after him as he 
 resumed his pacing up and down. 
 
 " Yes. Very nearly." 
 
 Could Obenreizer be the missing man ? In 
 the unknown associations of things, was there 
 a subtler meaning than he himself thought, in 
 that theory so often on his lips about the small- 
 ness of the world? Had the Swiss letter 
 presenting him, followed so close on Mrs. 
 Gold straw's revelation concerning the infant 
 who had been taken away to Switzerland, be- 
 cause he was that infant grown a man ? In 
 a world where so many depths lie unsounded, 
 it might be. The chances, or the laws call 
 them either that had wrought out the revival 
 of Vendale's own acquaintance with Obenreizer, 
 and had ripened it into intimacy, and had 
 brought them here together this present winter 
 night, were hardly less curious ; while read by 
 such a light, they were seen to cohere towards 
 the furtherance of a continuous and an in- 
 telligible purpose. 
 
 Vendale's awakened thoughts ran high while 
 his eyes musingly followed Obenreizer pacing up 
 and down the room, the river ever running to the 
 tune : " Where shall I rob him, if I can ? Where 
 shall I murder him, if I must ?" The secret of 
 his dead friend was in no hazard from Vendale's 
 lips ; but just as his friend had died of its 
 weight, so did he in his lighter succession feel 
 the burden of the trust, and the obligation to 
 follow any clue, however obscure. He rapidly 
 asked himself, would he like this man to be 
 the real Wilding ? No. Argue down his mis- 
 trust as he might, he was unwilling to put such 
 a substitute in the place of his late guileless, 
 outspoken, childlike partner. He rapidly 
 asked himself, would he like this man to be 
 rich ? No. He had more power than enough 
 
 over Marguerite as it was, and wealth might 
 invest him with more. Would he like this man 
 to be Marguerite's Guardian, and yet proved to 
 stand in no degree of relationship towards her, 
 however disconnected and distant ? No. But 
 these were not considerations to come between 
 him and fidelity to the dead. Let him see to 
 it that they passed him with no other notice 
 than the knowledge that they had passed 
 him, and left him bent on the discharge of 
 a solemn duty. And he did see to it, so soon 
 that he followed his companion with ungrudging 
 eyes, while he still paced the room ; that com- 
 panion, whom he supposed to be moodily 
 reflecting on his own birth, and not on an- 
 other man's least of all what man's violent 
 Death. 
 
 The road in advance from Basle to Neuchatel 
 was better than had been represented. The 
 latest weather had done it good. Drivers, both 
 of horses and mules, had come in that evening 
 after dark, and had reported nothing more 
 difficult to be overcome than trials of patience, 
 harness, wheels, axles, and whipcord. A bar- 
 gain was soon struck for a carriage and horses, 
 to take them on in the morning, and to start 
 before daylight. 
 
 "Do you lock your door at night when 
 travelling ?" asked Obenreizer, standing warm- 
 ing his hands by the wood fire in Vendale's 
 chamber, before going to his own. 
 
 " Not I. I sleep too soundly." 
 
 " You are so sound a sleeper ?" he retorted, 
 with an admiring look. " What a blessing !" 
 
 " Anything but a blessing to the rest of the 
 house," rejoined Vendale, "if I had to be knocked 
 up in the morning from the outside of my bed- 
 room door." 
 
 " I, too," said Obenreizer, " leave open my 
 room. But let me advise you, as a Swiss who 
 knows : always, when you travel in my country, 
 put your papers and, of course, your money 
 under your pillow. Always the same place." 
 
 " You are not complimentary to your country- 
 men," laughed Vendale. 
 
 "My countrymen," said Obenreizer, with 
 that light touch of his friend's elbows by way of 
 Good Night and benediction, " I suppose, are 
 like the majority of men. And the majority of 
 men will take what they can get. Adieu ! At 
 four in the morning." 
 
 " Adieu ! At four." 
 
 Left to himself, Vendale raked the logs to- 
 gether, sprinkled over them the white wood- 
 ashes lying on the hearth, and sat down to com- 
 pose his thoughts. But they still ran high on 
 their latest theme, and the running of the 
 river tended to agitate rather than to quiet 
 them. As he sat thinking, what little disposi- 
 tion he had had to sleep, departed. He felt 
 it hopeless to lie down yet, and sat dressed by 
 the fire. Marguerite, Wilding, Obenreizer, 
 the business he was then upon, and a thousand 
 hopes and doubts that had nothing to do with 
 it, occupied his mind at once. Everything 
 seemed to have power over him, but slumber. 
 The departed disposition to sleep kept far 
 away. 
 
3 4- [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 He had sat for a long time thinking, on the 
 hearth, when his candle burned down, and its 
 light went out. It was of little moment ; there 
 was light enough in the fire. He changed his 
 attitude, and, leaning his arm on the chair-back, 
 and his chin upon that hand, sat thinking still. 
 
 But he sat between the fire and the bed, and, 
 as the fire flickered in the play of air from the 
 fast-flowing river, his enlarged shadow fluttered 
 on the white wall by the bedside. His attitude 
 gave it an air, half of mourning, and half of 
 bending over the bed imploring. His eyes were 
 observant of it, when he became troubled by 
 the disagreeable fancy that it was like Wilding's 
 shadow, and not his own. 
 
 A slight change of place would cause it to 
 disappear. He made the change, and the appa- 
 rition of his disturbed fancy vanished. He now 
 sat in the shade of a little nook beside the fire, 
 and the door of the room was before him.- 
 
 It had a long cumbrous iron latch. He saw the 
 latch slowly and softly rise. The door opened 
 a very little, and came to again : as though only 
 the air had moved it. But he saw that the 
 latch was out of the haso. 
 
 The door opened again very slowly, until it 
 opened wide enough to admit some one. It 
 afterwards remained still for a while, as though 
 cautiously held open on the other side. The 
 figure of a man then entered, with its face 
 turned towards the bed, and stood quiet just 
 within the door. Until it said, in a low half- 
 whisper, at the same time taking one step for- 
 ward : "Vendale!" 
 
 " What now ?" he answered, springing from 
 his seat ; " who is it ?" 
 
 It was Obenreizer, and he uttered a cry of 
 surprise as Vendale came upon him from that 
 unexpected direction. " Not in bed ?" he said, 
 catching him by both shoulders with an in- 
 stinctive tendency to a struggle, " Then some- 
 thing is wrong !" 
 
 " What do you mean ?" said Vendale, releas- 
 ing himself. 
 
 " First tell me ; you are not ill ?" 
 
 "111? No. 33 
 
 " I have had a bad dream about you. How 
 is it that I see you up and dressed ?" 
 
 " My good fellow, I may as well ask you how 
 is it that I see you up and undressed." 
 
 " I have told you why. I have had a bad 
 dream about you. I tried to rest after it, but 
 it was impossible. I could not make up my 
 mind to stay where I was, without knowing you 
 were safe ; and yet I could not make up my 
 mind to come in here. I have been minutes 
 hesitating at the door. It is so easy to laugh 
 at a dream tfyat you have not dreamed. W^iere 
 is your candle ?" 
 
 " Burnt out." 
 
 " I have a whole one in my room. Shall 
 fetch it P" 
 
 "Do so." 
 
 His room was very near, and he was absent 
 for but a few seconds. Coming back with the 
 candle in his hand, he kneeled down on the 
 hearth and lighted it. As he blew with his 
 breath a charred billet into flame for the pur 
 
 pose, Vendale, looking down at him, saw that 
 his lips were white and not easy of control. 
 
 "Yes!" said Obenreizer, setting the lighted 
 candle on the table, "it was a bad dream. 
 Only look at me !" 
 
 His feet were bare ; his red-flannel shirt was 
 thrown back at the throat, and its sleeves were 
 rolled above the elbows; his only other gar- 
 ment, a pair of under pantaloons or drawers, 
 reaching to the ankles, fitted him close and tight. 
 A certain lithe and savage appearance was on 
 his figure, and his eyes were very bright. 
 
 " If there had been a wrestle with a robber, 
 as I dreamed," said Obenreizer, " you see, 
 I was stripped for it." 
 
 " And armed, too," said Vendale, glancing at 
 his girdle. 
 
 " A traveller's dagger, that I always carry on 
 the road," he answered carelessly, half drawing 
 it from its sheath with his left hand, and putting 
 it back again. " Do you carry no such thing ?" 
 
 " Nothing of the kind." 
 
 " No pistols ?" said Obenreizer, glancing at 
 the table, and from it to the untouched pillow. 
 
 "Nothing of the sort." 
 
 "You Englishmen are so confident! You 
 wish to sleep ?" 
 
 " I have wished to sleep this long time, but 
 I can't do it." 
 
 " I neither, after the bad dream. My fire 
 has gone the way of your candle. May I come 
 and sit by yours ? " Two o'clock ! It will so 
 soon be four, that it is not worth the trouble to 
 go to bed again." 
 
 " I shall not take the trouble to go to bed 
 at all, now," said Vendale ; " sit here and keep 
 me company, and welcome." 
 
 Going back to his room to arrange his dress, 
 Obenreizer soon returned in a loose cloak and 
 slippers, and they sat down on opposite sides of 
 the hearth. In the interval, Vendale had 
 replenished the fire from the wood-basket in his 
 room, and Obenreizer had put upon the table a 
 flask and cup from his. 
 
 " Common cabaret brandy, I am afraid," he 
 said, pouring out ; " bought upon the road, and 
 not like yours from Cripple Corner. But yours is 
 exhausted ; so much the worse. A cold night, a 
 cold time of night, a cold country, and a cold 
 house. This may be better than nothing ; try it." 
 
 Vendale took the cup, and did so. 
 
 "How do you find it?" 
 
 " It has a coarse after-flavour," said Vendale, 
 giving back the cup with a slight shudder, " and 
 I don't like it." 
 
 " You are right," said Obenreizer, tasting, 
 and smacking his lips ; " it has a coarse after- 
 flavour, and 1 don't like it. Booh ! it bums, 
 though !" He had flung what remained in the 
 cup, upon the fire. 
 
 Each of them leaned an elbow on the table, 
 reclined his head upon his hand, and sat looking 
 at the flaring logs. Obenreizer remained watch- 
 ful and still ; but Vendale, after certain nervous 
 twitches and starts, in-one of which he rose to 
 his feet and looked wildly about him, fell into 
 the strangest confusion of dreams. He carried 
 his papers in a leather case or pocket-book, in 
 
and Wilkle Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 35 
 
 an inner breast-pocket of his buttoned travelling 
 coat; and whatever he dreamed of, in the 
 lethargy that got possession of him, something 
 importunate in these papers called him out of 
 that dream, though he could not -wake from it. 
 He was belated on the steppes of Russia (some 
 shadowy person gave that name to the place) 
 with Marguerite; and yet the sensation of a 
 hand at his breast, softly feeling the outline of 
 the pocket-book as he lay asleep" before the fire, 
 was present to him. He was shipwrecked in an 
 open boat at sea, and having lost his clothes, had 
 no other covering than an old sail ; and yet a 
 creeping hand, tracing outside all the other 
 pockets of the dress he actually wore, for papers, 
 and finding none answer its touch, warned him to 
 rouse himself. He was in the ancient vault at 
 Cripple Corner, to which was transferred the very 
 bed substantial and present in that very room at 
 Basle ; and Wilding (not dead, as he had sup- 
 posed, and yet he did not wonder much) shook 
 him, and whispered, " Look at that man ! Don't 
 you see he has risen, and is turning the pillow ? 
 Why should he turn the pillow, if not to seek 
 those papers that are in your breast ? Awake !" 
 And yet he slept, and wandered off into other 
 dreams. 
 
 Watchful and still, with his elbow on the 
 table and his head upon that hand, his com- 
 panion at length said : " Vendale ! We are 
 called. Past Four !" Then, opening his eyes, 
 he saw, turned sideways on him, the filmy face 
 of Obenreizer. 
 
 "You have been. in a heavy sleep," he said. 
 " The fatigue of constant travelling and the 
 cold !" 
 
 "I am broad awake now," cried Vendale, 
 springing up, but with an unsteady footing. 
 " Haven't you slept at all ?" 
 
 " I may have dozed, but I seem to have been 
 patiently looking at the fire. Whether or no, 
 we must wash, and breakfast, and turn out. 
 Past four, Vendale ; past four !" 
 
 It was said in a tone to rouse him, for already 
 he was half asleep again. In his preparation 
 for the day, too, and at his breakfast, he was 
 often virtually asleep while in mechanical action. 
 It was not until the cold dark day was closing 
 in, that he had any distincter impressions of the 
 ride than jingling bells, bitter weather, slipping 
 horses, frowning hill-sides, bleak woods, and 
 a stoppage at some wayside house of enter- 
 tainment, where they had passed through a 
 cowhouse to reach the travellers' room above. 
 He had been conscious of little more, except of 
 Obenreizer sitting thoughtful at his side all day, 
 and eyeing him much. 
 
 But when he shook off his stupor, Obenreizer 
 was not at his side. The carriage was stopping 
 to bait at another wayside house ; and a line of 
 long narrow carts, laden with casks of wine, 
 and drawn by horses with a quantity of blue 
 collar and head-gear, were baiting too. These 
 came from the direction in which the travellers 
 were going, and Obenreizer (not thoughtful 
 now, but cheerful and alert) was talking with 
 the foremost driver. As Vendale stretched his 
 limbs, circulated his blood, and cleared off the 
 
 lees of his lethargy, with a sharp rim to and fro 
 in the bracing air, the line of carts moved 
 on : the drivers all saluting Obenreizer as they 
 passed him. 
 
 " Who are those ?" asked Vendale. 
 
 " They are our carriers Defresnier and Com- 
 pany's,' 5 replied Obenreizer. " Those are our 
 casks of wine." He was singing to himself, 
 and lighting a cigar. 
 
 "I have been drearily dull company to- 
 day," said Vendale. "I don't know what has 
 been the matter with me." 
 
 " You had no sleep last night ; and a kind of 
 brain-congestion frequently comes, at first, of 
 such cold," said Obenreizer. " I have seen it 
 often. After all, we shall have our journey for 
 nothing, it seems.'i 
 
 " How for nothing ?" 
 
 "The House is at Milan. You know, we 
 are a Wine House at Neuchatel, and a Silk 
 House at Milan? Well, Silk happening to 
 press of a sudden, more than Wine, Defresnier 
 was summoned to Milan. Rolland, the other 
 partner, has been taken ill since his departure, 
 and the doctors will allow him to see no one. 
 A letter awaits you at Neuchatel to tell you 
 so. I have it from our chief carrier whom you 
 saw<me talking with. He*was surprised to see 
 me, and said he had that word for you if he 
 met you. What do you do ? Go back ?' 
 
 " Go on," said Vendale. 
 
 "On?" 
 
 " On ? Yes. Across the Alps, and down to 
 Milan." 
 
 Obenreizer stopped in his smoking to look at 
 Veiidale, and then smoked heavily, looked up 
 the road, looked down the road, looked down 
 at the stones in the road at his feet. 
 
 " I have a very serious matter in charge," 
 said Vendale ; " more of these missing forms 
 may be turned to as bad account, or worse ; I 
 am urged to lose no time in helping the House 
 to take the thief; and nothing shall turn me 
 back." 
 
 " No ?" cried Obenreizer, taking out las 
 cigar to smile, and giving his hand to his 
 fellow-traveller. " Then nothing shall turn me 
 back. Ho, driver ! Despatch. Quick there ! 
 Let us push on !" 
 
 They travelled through the night. There had 
 been snow, and there was a partial thaw, and 
 they mostly travelled at a foot-pace, and always 
 with many stoppages to breathe the splashed 
 and floundering horses. After an hour's broad 
 daylight, they drew rein at the inn-door at 
 Neuchatel, having been some eight-and-twenty 
 hours in conquering some eighty English miles. 
 
 When they had hurriedly refreshed and 
 changed, they went together to the house of 
 business of Defresnier and Company. There 
 they found the letter which the wine-carrier 
 had described, enclosing the tests and com- 
 parisons of hand-writing essential to the dis- 
 covery of the Forger. Vend ale's determination to 
 press forward, without resting, being already 
 taken, the only question to delay them was 
 by what Pass could they cross the Alps? 
 Respecting the state of the two Passes of the 
 
36 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 St. Gotthard and the Simplon, the guides and 
 mule-drivers differed greatly ; and both Passes 
 were still far enough off, to prevent the travellers 
 from having the benefit of any recent experience 
 of either. Besides which, they well knew that a 
 fall of snow might altogether change the de- 
 scribed conditions in a single hour, even if they 
 were correctly stated. But, on the whole, the 
 Simplon appearing to be the hopefuller route, 
 Vendale decided to take it. Obenreizer bore 
 little or no part in the discussion, and scarcely 
 spoke. 
 
 To Geneva, to Lausanne, along the level 
 margin of the lake to Vevay, so into the 
 winding valley between the spurs of the moun- 
 tains, and into the valley of the Rhone. The 
 sound of the carriage-wheels, as they rattled 
 on, through the day, through the night, became 
 as the wheels of a great clock, recording the 
 hours. No change of weather varied the 
 journey, after it had hardened into a sullen 
 Irost. In a sombre-yellow sky, they saw the 
 Alpine ranges ; and they saw enough of snow 
 on nearer and much lower hill-tops and hill- 
 sides, to sully, by contrast, the purity of 
 l&ke, torrent, and waterfall, and make the 
 villages look discoloured and dirty. But no 
 snow fell, nor was there any snow-drift on 
 the road. The stalking along the valley of 
 more or less of white mist, changing on their 
 hair and dress into icicles, was the only variety 
 between them and the gloomy sky. And still 
 by day, and still by night, the wheels. And still 
 they rolled, in the hearing of one of them, to 
 the burden, altered from the burden of the 
 Rhine: "The time is gone for robbing him 
 alive, and I must murder him." 
 
 They came, at length, to the poor little 
 town of Brieg, at the foot of the Simplon. 
 They came there after dark, but yet could see 
 how dwarfed men's works and men became with 
 the immense mountains towering over them. 
 Here they must lie for the night ; and here was 
 warmth of fire, and lamp, and dinner, and wine, 
 and after-conference resounding, with guides 
 and drivers. No human creature had come 
 .across the Pass for four days. The snow above 
 the snow-line was too soft for wheeled carriage, 
 and not hard enough for sledge. There was 
 snow in the sky. There had been snow in the 
 sky for days past, and the marvel was that it 
 had not fallen, and the certainty was that it 
 must fall. No vehicle could cross. The journey 
 might be tried on mules, or it might rje tried 
 on foot; but the best guides must be paid 
 danger-price in either case, and that, too, 
 whether they succeeded in taking the two 
 travellers across, or turned for safety and 
 brought them back. 
 
 In this discussion, Obenreizer bore no part 
 whatever. He sat silently smoking by the fire 
 until the room was cleared and Vendale referred 
 to him. 
 
 " Bah ! I am weary of these poor devils and 
 their trade," he said, in reply. " Always the same 
 story. It is the story of their trade to-day, as it 
 was the story of their trade when I was a ragged 
 boy. "What do you and I want ? "We want a 
 
 knapsack each, and a mountain-staff each. We 
 want no guide ; we should guide him ; he would 
 not guide us. We leave our portmanteaus here, 
 and we cross together. We have been on the 
 mountains together before now, and I am 
 mountain-born, and I know this Pass Pass ! 
 rather High Road ! by heart. We will leave 
 bhese poor devils, in pity, to trade with others ; 
 but they must not delay us to make a pretence 
 of earning money. Which is all they mean." 
 
 Vendale, glad to be quit of the dispute, and 
 to cut the knot : active, adventurous, bent on 
 getting forward, and therefore very susceptible 
 to the last hint : readily assented. Within two 
 hours, they had purchased what they wanted foi 
 the expedition, had packed their knapsacks, and 
 lay down to sleep. 
 
 At break of day, they found half the town 
 collected in the narrow street to see them de- 
 part. The people talked together in groups ; 
 the guides and drivers whispered apart, and 
 looked up at the sky ; no one wished them a 
 good journey. 
 
 As they began the ascent, a gleam of sun 
 shone from the otherwise unaltered sky, and 
 for a moment turned the tin spires of the town, 
 to silver. 
 
 "A good omen!" said Vendale (though it 
 died out while he spoke). "Perhaps our ex- 
 ample will open the Pass on this side." 
 
 "No; we shall not be followed," returned 
 Obenreizer, looking up at the sky and back at 
 the valley. " We shall be alone up yonder.". 
 
 ON THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 The road was fair enough for stout walkers, 
 and the air grew lighter and easier to breathe 
 as the two ascended. But the settled gloom 
 remained as it had remained for days back. 
 Nature seemed to have come to a pause. ^The 
 sense of hearing, no less than the sense of sight, 
 was troubled by having to wait so long for the 
 change, whatever it might be, that impended. 
 The silence was as palpable and heavy as the 
 lowering clouds or rather cloud, for there 
 seemed to be but one in all the sky, and that 
 one covering the whole of it. 
 
 Although the light was thus dismally shrouded, 
 the prospect was not obscured. Down in the 
 valley of the Rhone behind them, the stream 
 could be traced through all its many windings, 
 oppressively sombre and solemn in its one 
 leaden hue, a colourless waste. Ear and high 
 above them, glaciers and suspended avalanches 
 overhung the spots where they must pass by- 
 and-by; deep and dark below them on their 
 right, were awful precipice and roaring; torrent; 
 tremendous mountains arose in every vista. The 
 gigantic landscape, uncheered by a touch of 
 changing light or a solitary ray of sun, was yet 
 terribly distinct in its ferocity. The hearts of 
 two lonely men might shrink a little, if they 
 had to win their way for miles and hours among 
 a legion of silent and motionless men mere 
 men like themselves all looking at them with 
 fixed and frowning front. But how much 
 more, when the legion is of Nature's mightiest 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 37 
 
 works, and the frown may turn to fury in an 
 instant ! 
 
 As they ascended, the road became gradually 
 more rugged and difficult. But the spirits of 
 Vendale rose as they mounted higher, leaving 
 so much more of the road behind them con- 
 quered. Obenreizer spoke little, and held on 
 with a determined purpose. Both, in respect of 
 agility and endurance, were well qualified for 
 the expedition. Whatever the born mountaineer 
 read in the weather-tokens, that was illegible to 
 the other, he kept to himself. 
 
 " Shall we get across to-day ?" asked Vendale. 
 
 " No," replied the other. " You see how 
 much deeper the snow lies here than it lay half 
 a league lower. The higher we mount, the 
 deeper the snow will lie. Walking is half wad- 
 ing even now. And the days are so short ! If 
 we get as high as the fifth Refuge, and lie to- 
 night at the Hospice, we shall do well." 
 
 " Is there no danger of the weather rising in 
 the night," asked Vendale, anxiously, "and 
 snowing us up?" 
 
 "There is danger enough about us," said 
 Obenreizer, with a cautious glance onward and 
 upward, "to render silence our best policy. 
 You have heard of the Bridge of the Ganther ?" 
 
 " I have crossed it once." 
 
 " In the summer ? " 
 
 " Yes ; in the travelling season." 
 
 " Yes ; but it is another thing at this season ;" 
 with a sneer, as though he were out of temper. 
 "This is not a time of year, or a state of things, 
 on an Alpine Pass, that you gentlemen holiday- 
 travellers know much about." 
 
 "You are my Guide," said Vendale, good 
 humouredly. "I trust to you." 
 
 "I am your Guide," said Obenreizer, "and 
 I will guide you to your journey's end. There 
 is the Bridge before us." 
 
 They had made a turn into a desolate and 
 dismal ravine, where the snow lay deep below 
 them, deep above them, deep on every side. 
 While speaking, Obenreizer stood pointing at 
 the Bridge, and observing Vendale's face, with a 
 very singular expression on his own. 
 
 "If I, as Guide, had sent you over there, 
 in advance, and encouraged you to give a 
 shout or two, you might have brought down 
 upon yourself tons and tons and tons of snow, 
 that would not only have struck you dead, but 
 buried you deep, at a blow." 
 
 " No doubt," said Vendale. 
 
 "No doubt. But that is not what I have 
 to do, as Guide. So pass silently. Or, going as 
 we go, our indiscretion might else crush and 
 bury me. Let us get on ! " 
 
 There was a great accumulation of snow on 
 the Bridge ; and such enormous accumulations 
 of snow overhung them from projecting masses 
 of rock, that they might have been making their 
 way through a stormy sky of white clouds. 
 Using his staff skilfully, sounding as he went, 
 and looking upward, with bent shoulders, as it 
 were to resist the mere idea of a fall from above, 
 Obenreizer softly led. Vendale closely followed. 
 They were yet in the midst of their dangerous 
 way, when there came a mighty rush, followed 
 
 by a sound as of thunder. Obenreizer clapped 
 his hand on Vendale's mouth and pointed to the 
 track behind them. Its aspect had been wholly 
 changed in a moment. An avalanche had swept 
 over it, and plunged into the torrent at the 
 bottom of the gulf below. 
 
 Their appearance at the solitary Inn not far 
 beyond this terrible Bridge, elicited many ex- 
 pressions of astonishment from the people shut 
 up in the house. " We stay but to rest," said 
 Obenreizer, shaking the snow from his dress at 
 the fire. " This gentleman has very pressing 
 occasion to get across ; tell them, Vendale." 
 
 " Assuredly, I have very pressing occasion. 
 I must cross." 
 
 "You hear, all of you. My friend has 
 very pressing occasion to get across, and we 
 want no advice and no help. I am as good a 
 guide, my fellow-countrymen, as any of you. 
 Now, give us to eat and drink." 
 
 In exactly the same way, and in nearly the 
 same words, when it was coming on dark and 
 they had struggled through the greatly in- 
 creased difficulties of the road, and had at last 
 reached their destination for the night, Oben- 
 reizer said to the astonished people of the Hos- 
 pice, gathering about them at the fire, while 
 they were yet in the act of getting their wet 
 shoes off, and shaking the snow from their 
 clothes : 
 
 "It is well to understand one another, 
 friends all. This gentleman " 
 
 " Has," said Vendale, readily taking him 
 up with a smile, " very pressing occasion to get 
 across. Must cross." 
 
 " You hear ? has very pressing occasion to 
 get across, must cross. We want no ad- 
 vice and no help. I am mountain-born, and 
 act as Guide. Do not worry us by talking 
 about it, but let us have supper, and wine, and 
 bed." 
 
 All through the intense cold of the night, 
 the same awful stillness. Again at sunrise, no 
 sunny tinge to gild or redden the snow. The 
 same interminable waste of deathly white ; the 
 same immovable air; the same monotonous 
 gloom in the sky. 
 
 "Travellers !" a friendly voice called to them 
 from the door, after they were afoot, knapsack 
 on back and staff in hand, as yesterday : " re- 
 collect ! There are five places of shelter, near 
 together, on the dangerous road before you; 
 and there is the wooden cross, and there is the 
 next Hospice. Do not stray from the track. 
 If the Tourmente comes on, take shelter in- 
 stantly !" 
 
 " The trade of these poor devils !" said Oben- 
 reizer to his friend, with a contemptuous back- 
 ward wave of his hand towards the voice. 
 " How they stick to their trade ! You English- 
 men say we Swiss are mercenary. Truly, it 
 does look like it." 
 
 They had divided between the two knapsacks, 
 such refreshments as they had been able to ob- 
 tain that morning, and as they deemed it 
 prudent to take. Obenreizer carried the wine 
 as his share of the burden ; Vendale, the bread 
 and meat and cheese, and the flask of brandy. 
 
33 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFAKE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 They had for some time laboured upward and 
 onward through the snow which was now 
 above their knees in the track, and of unknown 
 depth elsewhere and they were still labouring 
 upward and onward through the most frightful 
 part of that tremendous desolation, when snow 
 began to fall. At first, but a few flakes de- 
 scended slowly and steadily. After a little 
 while the fall grew much denser, and sud- 
 denly it began without apparent cause to whirl 
 itself into spiral shapes. Instantly ensuing 
 upon this last change, an icy blast came roaring 
 at them, and every sound and force imprisoned 
 until now was let loose. 
 
 One of the dismal galleries through which the 
 road is carried at that perilous point, a cave eked 
 out by arches of great strength, was near at 
 hand. They struggled into it, and the storm 
 raged wildly. The noise of the wind, the 
 noise of the water, the thundering down of 
 displaced masses of rock and snow, the awful 
 voices with which not only that gorge but every 
 gorge in the whole monstrous range seemed to 
 be suddenly endowed, the darkness as of night, 
 the violent revolving of the snow which beat 
 and broke it into spray and blinded them, 
 the madness of everything around insatiate 
 for destruction, the rapid substitution of furious 
 violence for unnatural calm, and hosts of appal- 
 ling sounds for silence : these were things, on 
 the edge of a deep abyss, to chill the blood, 
 though the fierce wind, made actually solid by 
 ice and snow, had failed to chill it. 
 
 Obenreizer, walking to and fro in the gallery 
 without ceasing, signed to Vendale to help him 
 unbuckle his knapsack. They could see each 
 other, but could not have heard each other 
 speak. Vendale complying, Obenreizer pro- 
 duced his bottle of wine, and poured some out, 
 motioning Vendale to take that for warmth's 
 sake, and not brandy. Vendale again comply- 
 ing, Obenreizer seemed to drink after him, 
 and the two walked backwards and forwards 
 side by side ; both well knowing that to rest or 
 sleep would be to die. 
 
 The snow came driving heavily into the 
 gallery by the upper end at which they would 
 pass out of it, if they ever passed out ; for greater 
 dangers lay on the road behind them than before. 
 The snow soon began to choke the arch. An 
 hour more, and it lay so high as to block out 
 half of the returning daylight. But it froze hard 
 now, as it fell, and could oe clambered through 
 or over. The violence of the mountain storm 
 was gradually yielding to a steady snowfall. The 
 wind still raged at intervals, but not incessantly ; 
 and when it paused, the snow fell in heavy 
 flakes. 
 
 They might have been two hours in their 
 frightful prison, when Obenreizer, now crunch- 
 ing into the mound, now creeping over it with 
 his head bowed down and his body touching the 
 top of the arch, made his way out. Vendale 
 followed close upon him, but followed without 
 clear motive or calculation. For the lethargy 
 of Basle was creeping over him again, and 
 mastering his senses. 
 
 How far he had followed out of the gallery, or 
 
 with what obstacles he had since contended, 
 he knew not. He became roused to the know- 
 ledge that Obenreizer had set upon him, and 
 that they were struggling desperately in the 
 snow. He became roused to the remembrance 
 of what his assailant carried in a girdle. He felt 
 for it, drew it, struck at him, struggled again, 
 struck at him again, cast him off, and stood face 
 to face with him. 
 
 " I promised to guide you to your journey's 
 end," said Obenreizer, "and I have kept my 
 promise. The journey of your life ends here. 
 Nothing can prolong it. You are sleeping as 
 you stand." 
 
 " You are a villain. What have you done to 
 me?" 
 
 " You are a fool. I have drugged you. You 
 are doubly a fool, for I drugged you once before 
 upon the journey, to try you. You are trebly 
 a fool, for I am the thief and forger, and in a 
 few moments I shall take those proofs against 
 the thief and forger from your insensible body." 
 
 The entrapped man tried to throw off the 
 lethargy, but its fatal hold upon him was so 
 sure that, even while he heard those words, he 
 stupidly wondered which of them had been 
 \vounded, and whose blood it "was that lie saw 
 sprinkled on the snow. 
 
 " What have I done to you," he asked, 
 heavily and thickly, " that you should be so 
 base a murderer?" 
 
 " Done to me ? You would have destroyed 
 me, but that you have come to your journey's 
 end. Your cursed activity interposed between 
 me, and the time I had counted on in which I 
 might have replaced the money. Done to me ? 
 You have come in my way not once, not 
 twice, but again and again and again. Did I 
 try to shake you off in the beginning, or no ? 
 You were not to be shaken off. Therefore you 
 die here." 
 
 Vendale tried to think coherently, tried to 
 speak coherently, tried to pick up the iron-shod 
 staff he had let fall ; failing to touch it, tried to 
 stagger on without its aid. All in vain, all in 
 vain ! He stumbled, and tell heavily forward 
 on the brink of the deep chasm. 
 
 Stupefied, dozing, unable to stand upon his 
 feet, a veil before his eyes, his sense of hearing 
 deadened, he made such a vigorous rally that, 
 supporting himself on his hands, he saw his 
 enemy standly calmly over him, and heard him 
 speak. 
 
 " You call me murderer," said Obenreizer, with 
 a grim laugh. " The name matters very little. 
 But at least I have set my life against yours, 
 for I am surrounded by dangers, and may never 
 make my way out of this place. The Tourmente 
 is rising again. The snow is on the whirl. I 
 must have the papers now. Every moment has 
 my life in it." 
 
 " Stop !" cried Vendale, in a terrible voice, 
 staggering up with a last flash of fire breaking 
 out of him, and clutching the thievish hands at 
 his breast, in both of his. " Stop ! Stand away 
 from me ! God bless my Marguerite ! Happily 
 she will never know how I died. Stand off 
 from me, and let me look at your murderous 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 39 
 
 face. Let it remind me of something left to 
 say." 
 
 The sight of him fighting so hard for his 
 senses, and the doubt whether he might not 
 for the instant be possessed by the strength of 
 a dozen men, kept his opponent still. Wildly 
 glaring at him, Vendale faltered out the broken 
 words : 
 
 " It shall not be the trust of the dead 
 betrayed by me reputed parents misinherited 
 fortune see to it !" 
 
 As his head dropped on his breast, and he 
 stumbled on the brink of the chasm as before, 
 the thievish hands went once more, quick and 
 busy, to his breast. He made a convulsive 
 attempt to cry "No!" desperately rolled him- 
 self over into the gulf ; and sank away from Ids 
 enemy's touch, like a phantom in a dreadful 
 dream. 
 
 The mountain storm raged again, and passed 
 again. The awful mountain-voices died away, 
 the moon rose, and the soft and silent snow 
 fell. 
 
 Two men and two large dogs came out at 
 the door of the Hospice. The men looked care- 
 fully around them, and up at the sky. The 
 dogs rolled in the snow, and took it into their 
 mouths, and cast it up with their paws. 
 
 One of the men said to the other : "We may 
 venture now. We may find them in one of the 
 five Refuges." Each fastened on his back, a 
 basket ; each took in his hand, a strong spiked 
 pole; each girded under his arms, a looped 
 end of a stout rope, so that they were tied to- 
 gether. 
 
 Suddenly the dogs desisted from their gam- 
 bols in the snow, stood looking down the ascent, 
 put their noses up, put their n.oses down, be- 
 came greatly excited, and broke into a deep loud 
 bay together. 
 
 The two men looked in the faces of the two 
 dogs. The two dogs looked, with at least equal 
 intelligence, in the faces of the two men. 
 
 " Au secours, then ! Help ! To the rescue !" 
 cried the two men. The two dogs, with a glad, 
 deep, generous bark, bounded away. 
 
 "Two more mad ones!" said the men, stricken 
 motionless, and looking away into the moon- 
 light. " Is it possible in such weather ! And 
 one of them a woman !" 
 
 Each of the dogs had the corner of a woman's 
 dress in its mouth, and drew her along. She 
 fondled their heads as she came up, and she 
 came up through the snow with an accustomed 
 tread. Not so the large man with her, who 
 was spent and winded. 
 
 " Dear guides, dear friends of travellers ! I 
 am of your country. We seek two gentlemen 
 crossing the Pass, who should have reached the 
 Hospice this evening." 
 
 " They have reached it, ma'amselle." 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! O thank Heaven !" 
 
 tc But, unhappily, they have gone on again. 
 We are setting forth to seek them even now. 
 We had to wait until the Tourmente passed. It 
 has been fearful up here." 
 
 " Dear guides, dear friends of travellers ! Let 
 me go with you. Let me go with you, for the 
 love of GOD ! One of those gentlemen is to 
 be rny husband. I love him, oh, so dearly. 
 so dearly ! You see I am not faint, you see 3 
 am not tired. I am born a peasant girl. 1 
 will show you that I know well how to fasten 
 nyself to your ropes. I will do it with my own. 
 hands. I will swear to be brave and good. 
 But let me go with you, let me go with you ! 
 If any mischance should have befallen him, my 
 love would find him, when nothing else could. 
 On my knees, dear friends of travellers ! By 
 the love your dear mothers had for your 
 fathers !" 
 
 The good rough fellows were moved. " After 
 all," they murmured to one another, " she 
 speaks but the truth. She knows the ways of 
 the mountains. See how marvellously she has 
 come here ! But as to Mousieur there, ma'am- 
 selle ?" 
 
 " Dear Mr. Joey," said Marguerite, addressing 
 him in his own tongue, " you will remain at the 
 house, and wait for me ; will you not ?" 
 
 "If I know'd which o' you two recom- 
 mended it," growled Joey Ladle, eyeing the 
 two men with great indignation, "I'd fight 
 you for sixpence, and give you half-a-crown 
 towards your expenses. No, miss. I'll stick by 
 you as long as there's any sticking left in me, 
 and I'll die for you when I can't do better." 
 
 The state of the moon rendering it highly 
 important that no time should be lost, and the 
 dogs showing signs of great uneasiness, the two 
 men quickly took their resolution. The rope 
 that yoked them together was exchanged for a 
 longer one ; the party were secured, Marguerite 
 second, and the Cellarman last ; and they set out 
 for the Refuges. The actual distance of those 
 places was nothing; the whole five and the 
 next Hospice to boot, being within two miles ; 
 but the ghastly way was whitened out and 
 sheeted over. 
 
 They made no miss in reaching the Gallery 
 where the two had taken shelter. The second 
 storm of wind and snow had so wildly swept over 
 it since, that their tracks were gone. But the 
 dogs went to and fro with their noses down, and 
 were confident. The party stopping, however, 
 at the further arch, where the second storm had 
 been especially furious, and where the drift was 
 deep, the dogs became troubled, and went about 
 and about, in quest of a lost purpose. 
 
 The great abyss being known to lie on the 
 right, they wandered too much to the left, and 
 had to regain the way with infinite labour 
 through a deep field of snow. The leader of the 
 line had stopped it, and was taking note of the 
 landmarks, when one of the dogs fell to tearing 
 up the snow a little before them. Advancing 
 and stooping to look at it, thinking that some 
 one might be overwhelmed there, they saw that 
 it was stained, and that the stain was red. 
 
 The other dog was now seen to look over the 
 brink of the gulf, with his forelegs straightened 
 out, lest he should fall into it, and to tremble in 
 every limb. Then the dog who had found the 
 stained snow joined him, and then they ran to 
 
40 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 and fro, distressed and whining. Finally, they 
 both stopped on the brink together, and setting 
 up their heads, howled dolefully. 
 
 " There is some one lying below," said Mar- 
 guerite. 
 
 " I think so," said the foremost man. " Stand 
 well inward, the two last, and let us look over." 
 
 The last man kindled two torches from his 
 basket, and handed them forward. The leader 
 taking one, and Marguerite the other, they 
 looked down : now shading the torches, now 
 moving them to the right or left, now raising 
 them, now depressing them, as moonlight far 
 below contended with black shadows. A pierc- 
 ing cry from Marguerite broke a long silence. 
 
 " My God ! On a projecting point, where a 
 wall of ice stretches forward over the torrent, I 
 see a human form !" 
 
 " Where, ma'am selle, where ?" 
 
 " See, there ! On the shelf of ice below the 
 dogs !" 
 
 The leader, with a sickened aspect, drew in- 
 ward, and they were all silent. But they were 
 not all inactive, for Marguerite, with swift and 
 skilful fingers, had detached both herself and 
 him from the rope in a few seconds. 
 
 " Show me the baskets. These two are the 
 only ropes ?" 
 
 "The only ropes here, ma'amselle; but at 
 the Hospice " 
 
 "If he is alive I know it is my lover he 
 will be dead before you can return. Dear 
 Guides ! Blessed friends of travellers ! Look at 
 me. Watch my hands. If they falter or go 
 wrong, make me your prisoner 'by force. If 
 they are steady and go right, help me to save 
 him !" 
 
 She girded herself with a cord under the 
 breast and arms, she formed it into a kind of 
 jacket, she drew it into knots, she laid its 
 end side by side with the end of the other 
 cord, she twisted and twined the two together, 
 she knotted them together, she set her foot upon 
 the knots, she strained them, she held them for 
 the two men to strain at. 
 
 " She is inspired," they said to one another. 
 
 " By the Almighty's mercy !" she exclaimed. 
 " You both know that I am by far the lightest 
 here. Give me the brandy and the wine, and 
 lower me down to him. Then go for assistance 
 and a stronger rope. You see that when it is 
 lowered to me look at this about me now 
 I can make it fast and safe to his body. Alive 
 or dead, I will bring him up, or die with him. 
 I love him passionately. Can I say more ?" 
 
 They turned to her companion, but he was 
 lying senseless on the snow. 
 
 "Lower me down to him," she said, taking 
 two little kegs they had brought, and hanging 
 them about her, "or I will dash myself to 
 pieces ! I am a peasant, and I know no giddi- 
 ness or fear ; and this is nothing to me, and I 
 passionately love him. Lower me down !" 
 
 " Ma'amselle, ma'amselle, he must be dvingr 
 or dead." 
 
 "Dying or dead, my husband's head shall 
 lie upon my breast, or I will dash myself to 
 pieces." 
 
 They yielded, overborne. Witli such pre- 
 cautions as their skill and the circumstances 
 admitted, they let her slip from the summit, 
 guiding herself down the precipitous icy wall 
 with her hand, and they lowered down, and 
 lowered down, and lowered down, until the cry 
 came up: "Enough!" 
 
 " Is it really he, and is he dead ? " they called 
 down, looking over. 
 
 The cry came up -. "He is insensible; but his 
 heart beats. It beats against mine." 
 
 " How does he lie ? " 
 
 The cry came up : " Upon a ledge of ice. 
 It has thawed beneath him, and it will thaw 
 beneath me. Hasten. If we die, I am con- 
 tent." 
 
 One of the two men hurried off with the dogs 
 at such topmost speed as he could make ; the 
 other set up the lighted torches in the snow, 
 and applied himself to recovering the English- 
 man. Much snow-chafing and some brandy 
 got him on his legs, but delirious and quite un- 
 conscious where he was. 
 
 The watch remained upon the brink, and his 
 cry went down continually : " Courage ! They 
 will soon be here. How goes it?" And the 
 cry came up : " His heart, still beats against 
 mine. I warm him in my arms. I have cast 
 off the rope, for the ice melts under us, and 
 the rope would separate me from him ; but I 
 am not afraid." 
 
 The moon went down behind the mountain 
 tops, and all the abyss lay in darkness. The 
 cry went down: "How goes it?" The cry 
 came up : " We are sinking lower, but his heart 
 still beats against mine." 
 
 At length, the eager barking of the dogs, and 
 a flare of light upon the snow, proclaimed that 
 help was corning on. Twenty or thirty men, 
 lamps, torches, litters, ropes, blankets, wood to 
 kindle a great fire, restoratives and stimulants, 
 came in fast. The dogs ran from one man to 
 another, and from this thing to that, and ran to 
 the edge of the abvss, dumbly entreating Speed, 
 speed, speed ! 
 
 The cry went down : " Thanks to God, all 
 is ready. How goes it ?" 
 
 The cry came up : " We are sinking still, and 
 we are deadly cold. His heart no longer beats 
 against mine. Let no one come down, to add to 
 our weight. Lower the rope only." 
 
 The fire was kindled high, a great glare of 
 torches lighted the sides of the precipice, lamps 
 were lowered, a strong rope was lowered. 
 She could be seen passing it round him, and 
 making it secure. 
 
 The cry came up into a deathly silence : 
 " Raise ! Softly !" They could see her dimi- 
 nished figure shrink, as he was swung into the 
 air. 
 
 They gave no shout when some of them laid 
 him on .a litter, and others lowered another 
 strong rope. The cry again came up into a 
 deathly silence : " Raise ! Softly!" But when 
 they caught her at the brink, then they shouted, 
 then they wept, then they gave thanks to 
 Heaven, then they kissed her feet, then they 
 kissed her dress, then the dogs caressed her, 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFAKE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 41 
 
 licked her icy hands, and with their hones 
 faces warmed her frozen bosom ! 
 
 She broke from them all, and sank over hin 
 on his littdr, with both her loving hands upoi 
 the heart that stood still. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 THE CLOCK-LOCK. 
 
 The pleasant scene was Neuchatel ; the plea 
 sant month was April ; the pleasant place was 
 a notary's office; the pleasant person in i 
 was the notary: a rosy, hearty, handsome oh 
 man, chief notary of Neuchatel, known far anc 
 wide in the canton as Maitre Voigt. Profes 
 sionally and personally, the notary was a popular 
 citizen. His innumerable kindnesses and his 
 innumerable oddities had for years made him 
 one of the recognised public characters of the 
 pleasant Swiss town. His long brown frock 
 coat and his black skull-cap were among the 
 institutions of the place ; and he carried a snuff- 
 box which, in point of size, was popularly be- 
 lieved to be without a parallel in Europe. 
 
 There was another person in the notary's 
 office, not so pleasant as the notary. This 
 was Obenreizer. 
 
 An oddly pastoral kind of office it was, and 
 one that would never have answered in England. 
 Tt stood in a neat back yard, fenced off from a 
 pretty flower-garden. Goats browsed in the 
 doorway, and a cow was within half-a-dozen 
 feet of keeping company with the clerk. Maitre 
 Voigt's room was a bright and varnished little 
 room, with panelled walls, like a toy-chamber. 
 According to the seasons of the year, roses, 
 sunflowers, hollyhocks, peeped in at the win- 
 dows. Maitre Voigt's bees hummed through 
 the office all the summer, in at this window 
 and out at that, taking it frequently in their 
 day's work, as if honey were to be made from 
 Maitre Voigt's sweet disposition. A large 
 musical box on the chimney-piece, often trilled 
 away at the Overture to Era Diavolo, or a 
 Selection from William Tell, with a chirruping 
 liveliness that had to be stopped by force on 
 the entrance of a client, and irrepressibly broke 
 out again the moment his back was turned. 
 
 ''Courage, courage, my good fellow!" said 
 Maitre Voigt, patting Obenreizer on the knee, 
 in a fatherly and comforting way. " You will 
 begin a new life to-morrow morning in my 
 office here." 
 
 Obenreizer dressed in mourning, and sub- 
 dued in manner lifted his hand, with a white 
 handkerchief in it, to the region of his heart. 
 "The gratitude is here," he said. "But the 
 words to express it are not here." 
 
 " Ta-ta-ta ! Don't talk to me about grati- 
 tude !" said Maitre Voigt. " I hate to see a man 
 oppressed. I see you oppressed, and I hold 
 out my hand to you by instinct. Besides, I am 
 not too old yet, to remember my young days. 
 Your father sent me my first client. (It was on 
 a question of half an acre of vineyard that 
 seldom bore any grapes.) Do I owe nothing 
 to your father's son? I owe him a debt of 
 friendly obligation, and I pay it to you. That's 
 
 rather neatly expressed, I think," added Maitre 
 Voigt, in high good humour with himself. 
 " Permit me to reward my own merit with a 
 pinch of snuff!" 
 
 Obenreiaer dropped his eyes to the ground, as 
 though he were not even worthy to see the 
 notary take snuff 
 
 " Do me one last favour, sir," he said, when he 
 raised his eyes. " Do not act on impulse. Thus 
 far, you have only a general knowledge of my 
 position. Hear the case for and against me, in 
 its details, before you take me into your office. 
 Let my claim on your benevolence be^recognised 
 by your sound reason as well as by your excellent 
 heart. In that case, I may hold up my head 
 against the bitterest of my enemies, and build 
 myself a new reputation on the ruins of the 
 character I have lost." 
 
 "As you will," said Maitre Voigt. "You 
 speak well, my son. You will be a fine lawyer 
 one of these days." 
 
 ^"The details are not many," pursued Oben- 
 reizer. " My troubles begin with the accidental 
 death of my late travelling companion, my lost 
 dear friend, Mr. Vendale." 
 
 "Mr. Vendale," repeated the notary. "Just 
 so. I have heard and read of the name, several 
 times within these two months. The name of 
 the unfortunate English gentleman who was 
 killed on the Simplon. When you got that 
 scar upon your cheek and neck." 
 
 " From my own knife," said Obenreizer, 
 touching what must have been an ugly gash at 
 the time of its infliction. 
 
 "Erom your own knife," assented the notary, 
 " and in trying to save him. Good, good, good. 
 That was very good. Vendale. Yes. I have 
 several times, lately, thought it droll that I 
 should once have had a client of that name." 
 
 " But the world, sir," returned Obenreizer, 
 " is so small !" Nevertheless he made a mental 
 note that the notary had once had a client of 
 that name. 
 
 " As I was saying, sir, the death of that dear 
 travelling comrade begins my troubles. What 
 follows ? I save myself. I go down to Milan. 
 I am received with "coldness by Defresnier and 
 Company. Shortly afterwards, I am discharged 
 jy Defresnier and Company. Why? They 
 give no reason why. I ask, do they assail 
 ny honour ? No answer. I ask, what is the 
 .mputation against me? No answer. I ask, 
 where are their proofs against me ? No answer. 
 [ ask, what am I to think ? The reply is, ' M. 
 Obenreizer is free to think what he will. What 
 
 . Obenreizer thinks, is of no importance to 
 Defresnier and Company/ And that is all." 
 
 " Perfectly. That is all," assented the notary, 
 aking a large pinch of snuff. 
 
 "But is that enough, sir?" 
 
 "That is not enough," said Maitre Voigt. 
 c The House of Defresnier are my fellow-towns- 
 nen much respected, much esteemed but the 
 louse of Defresnier must not silently destroy a 
 aan's character. You can rebut assertion. 
 3ut how can you rebut silence ?" 
 
 "Your sense of justice, my dear patron," 
 answered Obenreizer, "states in a word the 
 
42 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 cruelty of the case. Does it stop there ? No. 
 For, what follows upon that ?" 
 
 " True, my poor boy," said the notary, with a 
 comforting nod or two; "your ward rebels 
 upon that/' 
 
 " Rebels is too soft a word," retorted Oben- 
 reizer. " My ward revolts from me with 
 horror. My ward defies me. My ward with- 
 draws herself from my authority, and takes 
 shelter (Madame Dor with her) in the house of 
 that English lawyer, Mr. Bintrej, who replies 
 to your summons to her to submit herself to my 
 authority, that she will not do so." 
 
 " And who afterwards writes," said the 
 notary, moving his large snuff-box to look 
 among the papers underneath it for the letter, 
 "that he is coming to confer with me." 
 
 " Indeed ? " replied Obenreizer, rather 
 checked. "Well, sir. Have I no legal 
 rights ?" 
 
 "Assuredly, my poor boy," relumed the 
 notary. "All but felons have their legal 
 rights." 
 
 " And who calls me felon ?" said Oben- 
 reizer, fiercely. 
 
 " No one. Be calm under your wrongs. 
 If the House of Defresnier would call you 
 felon, indeed, we should know how to deal with 
 them." 
 
 While saying these words, he had handed 
 Bintrey's very short letter to Obenreizer, who 
 now read it and gave it back. 
 
 " In saying," observed Obenreizer with re- 
 covered composure, " that he is coming to con- 
 fer with you, this English lawyer means that he 
 is coming to deny my authority over my ward." 
 
 "You think so?" 
 
 " I am sure of it. I know him. He is obsti- 
 nate and contentious. You will tell me, my 
 dear air, whether my authority is unassailable, 
 until my ward is of age ?" 
 
 " Absolutely unassailable." 
 
 " I will enforce it. I will make her submit 
 herself to it. For," said Obenreizer, changing 
 his angry tone to one of grateful submission, 
 " I owe it to you, sir ; to you, who have so 
 confidingly taken an injured man under your pro- 
 tection, and into your employment." 
 
 " Make your mind easy," said Maitre Voigt. 
 " No more of this now, and no thanks ! Be here 
 to-morrow morning, before the other clerk 
 comes between seven and eight. You will find 
 me in this room ; and I will myself initiate you 
 in your work. Go away ! go away ! I have 
 letters to write. I won't hear a word more." 
 
 Dismissed with this generous abruptness, 
 and satisfied with the favourable impression 
 he had left on the old man's mind, Obenreizer 
 was at leisure to revert to the mental note he 
 had made that Maitre Voigt once had a client 
 whose name was Vendale. 
 
 " I ought to know England well enough by 
 this time ;" so his meditations ran, as he sat on 
 a bench in the yard ; " and it is not a name I 
 ever encountered there, except " he looked in- 
 voluntarily over his shoulder " as his name. Is 
 the world so small that I cannot get away from 
 him, even now when he is dead P He confessed 
 
 at the last that he had betrayed the trust of the 
 dead, and misinherited a fortune. And I was to 
 see to it. And I was to stand off, that my face 
 might remind him of it. Why my face, unless 
 it concerned me ? I am sure of his words, for 
 they have been in my ears ever since. Can 
 there be anything bearing on them, in the 
 keeping of this old idiot ? Anything to repair 
 my fortunes, and blacken his memory ? He 
 dwelt upon my earliest remembrances, that night 
 at Basle. Why, unless he had a purpose in it ?" 
 
 Maitre Voigt's two largest he-goats were 
 butting at him to butt him out of the place, as 
 if for that disrespectful mention of their 
 master. So he got up and left the place. But he 
 walked alone for a long time on the border of 
 the lake, with his head drooped in deep thought. 
 
 Between seven and eight next morning, he 
 presented himself again at the office. He found 
 the notary ready for him, at work on some 
 papers which had come in on the previous even- 
 ing. In a few clear words, Maitre Voigt ex- 
 plained the routine of the office, and the duties 
 Obenreizer would be expected to perform. It 
 still wanted five minutes to eight, when the pre- 
 liminary instructions were declared to be com- 
 plete. 
 
 "I will show you over the house and the 
 offices," said Maitre Voigt, "but I must put 
 away these papers first. They come from the 
 municipal authorities, and they must be taken 
 special care of." 
 
 Obenreizer saw his chance, here, of finding 
 out the repository in which his employer's 
 private papers were kept. 
 
 " Can't I save you the trouble, sir ?" he 
 asked. " Can't I put those documents away 
 under your directions ?" 
 
 Maitre Voigt laughed softly to himself; 
 closed the portfolio in which the papers had 
 been sent to him ; handed it to Obenreizer. 
 
 " Suppose you try," he said. "All my papers 
 of importance are kept yonder." 
 
 He pointed to a heavy oaken door, thickly 
 studded with nails, at the lower end of the 
 room. Approaching the door, with the port- 
 folio, Obenreizer discovered, to his astonish- 
 ment, that there were no means whatever of 
 opening it from the outside. There was no 
 handle, no bolt, no key, and (climax of passive 
 obstruction !) no keyhole. 
 
 "There is a second door to this room ?" said 
 Obenreizer, appealing to the notary. 
 
 " No," said Maitre Voigt. " Guess again." 
 
 " There is a window ?" 
 
 "Nothing of the sort. The window has 
 been bricked up. The only way in, is the way 
 by that door. Do you give it up ?" cried Maitre 
 Voigt, in high triumph. " Listen, my good 
 fellow, and tell me if you hear nothing inside ?" 
 
 Obenreizer listened for a moment, and started 
 back from the door. 
 
 " I know !" he exclaimed. "I heard of this 
 when I was apprenticed here at the watch- 
 maker's. Pen-in Brothers have finished their 
 famous clock-lock at last and you have got it ?" 
 
 "Bravo!" said Maitre Voigt. "The clock- 
 lock it is ! There, my son ! There you have one 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 43 
 
 more of what the good people of this town call, 
 ' Daddy Voigt's follies.' With all my heart ! 
 Let those laugh who win. No thief can steal 
 my keys. No burglar can pick my lock. No 
 power on earth, short of a oattering-rain or a 
 barrel of gunpowder, can move that door, till my 
 little sentinel inside my worthy friend who goes 
 'Tick, Tick,' as I tell him says, 'Open !' The 
 big door obeys the little Tick, Tick, and the 
 little Tick, Tick, obeys me. That !" cried Daddy 
 Voigt, snapping his fingers, " for all the thieves 
 in Christendom !" 
 
 " May I see it in action ?" asked Obenreizer. 
 " Pardon my curiosity, dear sir ! You know 
 that I was once a tolerable worker in the clock 
 trade." 
 
 " Certainly you shall see it in action," said 
 Maitre Voigt. " What is the time now ? One 
 minute to eight. Watch, and in one minute 
 you will see the door open of itself." 
 
 In one minute, smoothly and slowly and 
 silently, as if invisible hands had set it free, 
 the heavy door opened inward, and disclosed 
 a dark chamber beyond. On three sides, shelves 
 filled the walls, from floor to ceiling. Arranged 
 on the shelves, were rows upon rows of boxes 
 made in the pretty inlaid woodwork of Switzer- 
 land, and bearing inscribed on their fronts (for 
 the most part in fanciful coloured letters) the 
 names of the notary's clients. 
 
 Maitre Voigt lighted a taper, and led the way 
 into the room. 
 
 " You shall see the clock," he said, proudly. 
 "I possess the greatest curiosity in Europe. 
 It is only a privileged few whose eyes can look at 
 it. I give the privilege to your good father's 
 son you shall be one of the favoured few 
 who enter the room with me. See ! here it is, 
 on the right-hand wall at the side of the 
 door." 
 
 " An ordinary clock," exclaimed Obenreizer. 
 " No ! Not an ordinary clock. It has only 
 one hand." 
 
 "Aha!" said Maitre Voigt. "Not an ordi- 
 nary clock, my friend. No, no. That one hand 
 goes round the dial. As I put it, so it regu- 
 lates the hour at which the door shall open. 
 See ! The hand points to eight. At eight the 
 door opened, as you saw for yourself." 
 
 " Does it open more than once in the four- 
 and-twenty hours ?" asked Obenreizer. 
 
 " More than once ?" repeated the notary, 
 with great scorn. " You don't know, my good 
 friend, Tick Tick ! He will open the door as 
 often as I ask him. All he wants, is his direc- 
 tions, and he gets them here. Look below the 
 dial. Here is a half-circle of steel let into the 
 tvall,and here is a hand (called the regulator) that 
 travels round it, just as my hand chooses. Notice, 
 if you please, that there are figures to guide me 
 on the half-circle of steel. Figure I. means : 
 Open once in the four-and-twenty hours. Figure 
 II. means : Open twice ; and so on to the end. 
 I set the regulator every morning, after I have 
 read my letters, and when I know what my day's 
 work is to be. Would you like to see me set it 
 now ? What is to-day ? Wednesday. Good ! 
 This is the day of our rifle-club ; there is little 
 
 business to do ; I grant a half-holiday. No work 
 here to-day, after three o'clock. Let us first 
 put away this portfolio of municipal papers. 
 There! No need to trouble Tick-Tick to 
 open the door until eight to-morrow. Good ! I 
 leave the dial-hand at eight; I put back the 
 regulator to * I. ; ' I close the door; and closed 
 the door remains, past all opening by anybody, 
 till to-morrow morning at eight." 
 
 Obenreizer's quickness instantly saw the means 
 by which he might make the clock-lock betray its 
 master's confidence, and place its master's 
 papers at his disposal. 
 
 " Stop, sir !" he cried, at the moment when 
 the notary was closing the door. " Don't I see 
 something moving among the boxes on the 
 floor there ?" 
 
 (Maitre Voigt turned his back for a moment 
 to look. In that moment, Obenreizer's ready 
 hand put the regulator on, from the figure ' I.' 
 to the figure *!!.' Unless the notary looked 
 again at the half-circle of steel, the door would 
 open at eight that evening, as well as at eight 
 next morning, and nobody but Obenreizer 
 would know it.) 
 
 " There is nothing !" said Maitre Voigt. 
 " Your troubles have shaken your nerves, my 
 son. Some shadow thrown by my taper ; or some 
 poor little beetle, who lives among the old 
 lawyer's secrets, running away from the light. 
 Hark ! I hear your fellow-clerk in the office. 
 To work ! to work ! and build to-day the first 
 step that leads to your new fortunes !" 
 
 He good humouredly pushed Obenreizer out 
 before him ; extinguished the taper, with a last 
 fond glance at his clock which passed harm- 
 lessly over the regulator beneath ; and closed the 
 oaken door. 
 
 At three, the office was shut up. The notary 
 and everybody in the notary's employment, 
 with one exception, went to see the rifle-shoot- 
 ing. Obenreizer had pleaded that he was not 
 in spirits for a public festival. Nobody knew 
 what had become of him. It was believed that 
 he had slipped away for a solitary walk. 
 
 The house and offices had been closed but a 
 few minutes, when the door of a shining ward- 
 robe, in the notary's shining room, opened, and 
 Obenreizer stepped out. He walked to a win- 
 dow, unclosed the shutters, satisfied himself that 
 he could escape unseen by way of the garden, 
 turned back into the room, and took his place 
 in the notary's easy chair. He was locked up in 
 the house, and there were five hours to wait 
 before eight o'clock came. 
 
 He wore his way through the five hours: 
 some times reading the books and newspapers 
 that lay on the table : sometimes thinking : some- 
 times walking to and fro. Sunset came on. 
 He closed the window-shutters before he kindled 
 a light. The candle lighted, and the time draw- 
 ing nearer and nearer, he sat, watch in hand, 
 with his eyes on the oaken door. 
 
 At eight, smoothly and softly and silently 
 the door opened. 
 
 One alter another, he read the names 
 on the outer rows of boxes. No such name 
 as Vendale! He removed the outer row, 
 
44 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 and looked at the row behind. These were 
 older boxes, and shabbier boxes. The four 
 first that he examined, were inscribed with 
 French and German names. The fifth bore 
 a name which was almost illegible. He brought 
 it out into the room, and examined it closely. 
 There, covered thickly with time-stains and 
 dust, was the name : " Vendale." 
 
 The key hung to the box by a string. He 
 unlocked the box, took out four loose papers 
 that were in it, spread them open on the table, 
 and began to read them. He had not so oc- 
 cupied a minute, when his face fell from its ex- 
 pression of eagerness and avidity, to one of 
 haggard astonishment and disappointment. But, 
 after a little consideration, he copied the papers. 
 He then replaced the papers, replaced the box, 
 closed the door, extinguished the candle, and 
 stole away. 
 
 As his murderous and thievish footfall passed 
 out of the garden, the steps of the notary and 
 some one accompanying him stopped at the 
 front door of the house. The lamps were 
 lighted in the little street, and the notary had 
 his door-key in his hand. 
 
 " Pray do not pass my house, Mr. Bintrey," 
 he said. " Do me the honour to come in. It 
 is one of our town half-holidays our Tir but 
 my people will be back directly. It is droll 
 that you should ask your way to the Hotel of 
 me. " Let us eat and drink before you go 
 there." 
 
 "Thank you; not to-night," said Bintrey. 
 " Shall I come to you at ten to-morrow ?" 
 
 " I shall be enchanted, sir, to take so early 
 an opportunity of redressing the wrongs of my 
 injured client," returned the good notary. 
 
 "Yes," retorted Bintrey; "your injured 
 client is all very well but a word in your 
 ear." 
 
 He whispered to the notary, and walked off. 
 When the notary's housekeeper came home, she 
 found him standing at his door motionless, with 
 the key still in his hand, and the door unopened. 
 
 OBENBEIZER'S VICTORY. 
 
 The scene shifts again to the foot of the 
 Simplon, on the Swiss side. 
 
 In one of the dreary rooms of the dreary 
 little inn at Brieg, Mr. Bintrey and Maltre 
 Voigt sat together at a professional council of 
 two. Mr. Bintrey was searching in his de- 
 spatch-box. Maitre Voigt was looking towards a 
 closed door, painted brown to imitate maho- 
 gany, and communicating with an inner room. 
 
 "Isn't it time he was here?" asked the 
 notary, shifting his position, and glancing at a 
 second door at the other end of the room, 
 painted yellow to imitate deal. 
 
 "He is here," answered Bintrey, after listen- 
 ing for a moment. 
 
 The yellow door was opened by a waiter, 
 and Obenreizer walked in. 
 
 After greeting Maltre Voigt with a cordiality 
 which appeared to cause the notary no little 
 embarrassment, Obenreizer bowed with grave 
 and distant politeness to Bintrey. " Tor what 
 
 reason have I been brought from Neuchatel to 
 the foot of the mountain ?" he inquired, taking 
 the seat which the English lawyer had indicated 
 to him. 
 
 " You shall be quite satisfied on that head 
 before our interview is over," returned Bintrey. 
 " For the present, permit me to suggest pro- 
 ceeding at once to business. There has been 
 a correspondence, Mr. Obenreizer, between 
 you and your niece. I am here to represent 
 your niece." 
 
 " In other words, you, a lawyer, are here to 
 represent an infraction of the law." 
 
 '' Admirably put !" said Bintrey. " If all the 
 people I have to deal with were only like 
 you, what an easy profession mine would be ! 
 I am here to represent an infraction of the 
 law that is your point of view. I am here to 
 make a compromise between you and your 
 niece that is my point of view." 
 
 "There must be two parties to a compro- 
 mise," rejoined Obenreizer. " I decline, in this 
 case, to be one of them. The law gives me 
 authority to control my niece's actions, until 
 she comes of age. She is not yet of age ; and 
 I claim my authority. " 
 
 At this point Maitre Voigt attempted to 
 speak. Bintrey silenced him with a compas- 
 sionate indulgence of tone and manner, as if he 
 was silencing a favourite child. 
 
 " No, my worthy friend, not a word. Don't 
 excite yourself unnecessarily ; leave it to me." 
 He turned, and addressed himself again to 
 Obenreizer. "I can think of nothing compa- 
 rable to you, Mr. Obenreizer, but granite and 
 even that wears out in course of time. In the 
 interests of peace and quietness for the sake 
 of vour own dignity relax a little. If you 
 will only delegate your authority to another 
 person whom I know of, that person may be 
 trusted never to lose sight of your niece, night 
 or day !" 
 
 " You are wasting your time and mine," re- 
 turned Obenreizer. " If my niece is not ren- 
 dered up to my authority within one week from 
 this day, I invoke the law. If you resist the 
 law, I take her by force." 
 
 He rose to his feet as he said the last 
 word. Maitre Voigt looked round again to- 
 wards the brown door which led into the inner 
 room. 
 
 " Have some pity on the poor girl," pleaded 
 Bintrey. " Remember how lately she lost her 
 lover by a dreadful death ! Will nothing move 
 you?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 Bintrey, in his turn, rose to his feet, and 
 looked at Maitre Voigt. Maitre Voigt's hand, 
 resting on the table, began to tremble. Maitre 
 Voigt's eyes remained fixed, as if by irresistible 
 fascination, on the brown door. Obenreizer, 
 suspiciously observing him, looked that way 
 too. 
 
 " There is somebody listening in there !" he 
 exclaimed, with a sharp backward glance at 
 Bintrey. 
 
 " There are two people listening," answered 
 Bintrey. 
 
and Wilkio Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 45 
 
 "Who are they?" 
 
 " You shall see." 
 
 With that answer, he raised his voice and 
 spoke the next words the two common words 
 which are on everybody's lips, at every hour of 
 the day : " Come in !" 
 
 The brown door opened. Supported on Mar- 
 guerite's arm his sunburnt colour gone, his 
 right arm bandaged and slung over his breast 
 Yendale stood before the murderer, a man risen 
 from the dead. 
 
 In the moment of silence that followed, the 
 singing of a caged bird in the courtyard out- 
 side was the one sound stirring in the room. 
 Maitre Voigt touched Bintrey, and pointed to 
 Obenreizer. " Look at him !" said the notary, 
 in a whisper. 
 
 The shock had paralysed every movement in 
 the villain's body, but the movement of the 
 blood. His face was like the face of a corpse. 
 The one vestige of colour left in it was a livid 
 purple streak which marked the course of the 
 scar, where his victim had wounded him on the 
 cheek and neck. Speechless, breathless, motion- 
 less alike in eye and limb, it seemed as if, at the 
 sight of Vendale, the death to which he had 
 doomed Yendale had struck him. where he 
 stood. 
 
 " Somebody ought to speak to him," said 
 Maitre Voigt. "Shall I? 
 
 Even at that moment, Bintrey persisted in 
 silencing the notary, and in keeping the lead in 
 the proceedings to himself. Checking Maitre 
 Voigt by a gesture, he dismissed Marguerite 
 and Vendale'in these words : " The object of 
 your appearance here is answered/ 5 he said. 
 " If you will withdraw for the present, it may 
 help Mr. Obenreizer to recover himself." 
 
 It did help him. As the two passed through 
 the door, and closed it behind them, he drew a 
 deep breath of relief. He looked round him for 
 the chair from which he had risen, and dropped 
 into it. 
 
 " Give him time !" pleaded Maitre Voigt. 
 
 " No," said Bintrey. " I don't know what 
 use he may make of it, if I do." He turned 
 once more to Obenreizer, and went on. " I owe 
 it to myself," he said " I don't admit, mind, 
 that I owe it to you to account for my 
 appearance in these proceedings, and to 
 state what has been done under my advice, 
 and on my sole responsibility. Can you listen 
 to me?" 
 
 " I can listen to you." 
 
 " Recal the time when you started for Switzer- 
 land with Mr. Vendale," Bintrey began. " You 
 had not left England four-and-twenty hours, 
 before your niece committed an act of impru- 
 dence which not even your penetration could 
 foresee. She followed her promised husband on 
 his journey, without asking anybody's advice or 
 permission, and without any better companion 
 to protect her than a Cellarman in Mr. Vendale's 
 employment." 
 
 " Why did she follow me on the journey ? 
 and how came the Cellarman to be the person 
 who accompanied her ?" 
 
 " She followed you on the journey," answered 
 
 Bintrey, " because she suspected there had been 
 some serious collision between you and-Mr. Ven- 
 dale, which had been kept secret from her; 
 and because she rightly believed you to be 
 capable of serving your interests, or of sa- 
 tisfying your enmity, at the price of a crime. 
 As for the Cellarman, he was one, among 
 the other people in Mr. Vendale's esta- 
 blishment, to whom she had applied (the 
 moment your back was turned) to know 
 if anything had happened between their 
 master and you. The Cellarman alone had 
 something to tell her. A senseless superstition, 
 and a common accident which had happened to 
 his master, in his master's cellar, had connected 
 Mr. Vendale in this man's mind with the idea 
 of danger by murder. Your niece surprised 
 him into a confession, which aggravated tenfold 
 the terrors that possessed her. Aroused to a 
 sense of the mischief he had done, the man, of 
 his own accord, made the one atonement in his 
 power. ' If my master is in danger, miss/ he 
 said, ' it's my duty to follow him, too ; and it's 
 more than my duty to take care of you.' The 
 two set forth together and, for once, a super- 
 stition has had its use. It decided your niece 
 on taking the journey ; and it led the way 
 to saving a man's life. Do you understand me, 
 so far?" 
 
 " I understand you, so far." 
 
 " My first knowledge of the crime that you 
 had committed," pursued Bintrey, "came to 
 me in the form of a letter from your niece. All 
 you need know is that her love and her courage 
 recovered the body of your victim, and aided the 
 after-efforts which brought him back to life. 
 While he lay helpless at Brieg, under her care, 
 she wrote to me to come out to him. Before 
 starting, I informed Madame Dor that I knew 
 Miss Obenreizer to be safe, and knew where she 
 was. Madame Dor informed me, in return, 
 that a letter had come for your niece, which she 
 knew to be in your handwriting. I took posses- 
 sion of it, and arranged for the forwarding of 
 any other letters which might follow. Arrived 
 at Brieg, I found Mr. Vendale out of danger, 
 and at once devoted myself to hastening the day 
 of reckoning with you. Defresnier and Com- 
 pany turned you off on suspicion ; acting on in- 
 formation privately supplied by me. Having 
 stripped you of your false character, the next 
 thing to do was to strip you of your authority 
 over your niece. To reach this end, I not only 
 had no scruple in digging the pitfall under your 
 feet in. the dark I felt a certain professional 
 pleasure in fighting you with your own weapons. 
 By my advice, the truth has been carefully con- 
 cealed from you, up to this day. By my advice, 
 the trap into which you have walked was set for 
 you (you know why, now, as well as I do) in 
 this place. There was but one certain way of 
 shaking the devilish self-control which has 
 tiitherto made you a formidable man. That way 
 bas been tried, and (look at me as you may) 
 that way has succeeded. The last thing that 
 remains to be done," concluded Bintrey, pro- 
 ducing two little slips of manuscript from his 
 despatch-box, " is to set your niece free. You 
 
46 [December 12, 1867.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFAKE. 
 
 [By Charles Dickens 
 
 have attempted murder, and you have committed 
 forgery and theft. We have the evidence ready 
 against you in both cases. If you are convicted 
 as a felon, you know as well as I do what be- 
 comes of your authority over your niece. Per- 
 sonally, I should have preferred taking that way 
 out of it. But considerations are pressed on ine 
 which I am not able to resist, and this interview 
 must end, as I have told you already, in a com- 
 promise. Sign those lines, resigning all autho- 
 rity over Miss Obenreizer, and pledging your- 
 self never to be seen in England or in Switzer- 
 land again; and I will sign an indemnity 
 which secures you against further proceedings 
 on our part." 
 
 Obenreizer took the pen, in silence, and signed 
 his niece's release. On receiving the indemnity 
 in return, he rose, but made no movement to 
 leave the room. He stood looking at Maitre 
 Voigt with a strange smile gathering at his 
 lips, and a strange light flashing in his filmy 
 eyes. 
 
 "What are you waiting for?" asked Bin- 
 trey. 
 
 Obenreizer pointed to the brown door. " Call 
 them back," he answered. " I have something 
 to say in their presence before I go." 
 
 " Say it in my presence," retorted Bintrey. 
 " I decline to call them back." 
 
 Obenreizer turned to Maitre Voigt. " Do 
 vou remember telling me that you once 
 liad an English client named Vendale ?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " Well," answered the notary. " And what 
 of that?" 
 
 " Maitre Voigt 3 your clock -lock has betrayed 
 you." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " I have read the letters and certificates in 
 
 your client's box. I have taken copies of 
 
 them. I have got the copies here. Is there, 
 
 or is there not, a reason for calling them 
 
 I back?" 
 
 For a moment the notary looked to and fro, 
 between Obenreizer and Bintrey, in helpless 
 astonishment. Recovering himself, he drew his 
 brother-lawyer aside, and hurriedly spoke a few 
 words close at his ear. The face of Bintrey 
 after first faithfully reflecting the astonishment 
 on the face of Maitre Voigt suddenly altered 
 its expression. He sprang, with the activity of 
 a young man, to the door of the inner room, 
 entered it, remained inside for a minute, and 
 returned followed by Marguerite and Vendale. 
 " Now, Mr. Obenreizer," said Bintrey, " the 
 last move in the game is yours. Play it." 
 
 " Before I resign my position as that young 
 lady's guardian," said Obenreizer, "I have a 
 secret to reveal in which she is interested. In 
 making my disclosure, I am not claiming her at- 
 tention for a narrative which she, or any other 
 person present,is expected to take on trust. I am 
 possessed of written proofs, copies of originals, 
 the authenticity of which Maitre Voigt himself 
 can attest. Bear that in mind, and permit me 
 to refer you, at starting, to a date long past 
 the month of February, in the year one thousand 
 eight hundred and thirty-six." 
 
 "Mark the date, Mr. Vendale," said Bin- 
 trey. 
 
 " My first proof," said Obenreizer, taking a 
 paper from his pocket-book. " Copy of a letter, 
 written by an English lady (married] to her 
 sister, a widow. The name of the person 
 writing the letter I shall keep suppressed until 
 I have done. The name of the person to whom 
 the letter is' written I am willing to reveal. It 
 is addressed to ' Mrs. Jane Ann Miller, of Groom- 
 bridge-wells, England." 
 
 Vendale started, and opened his lips to speak. 
 Bintrey instantly stopped him, as he had stopped 
 Maitre Voigt. '*' No," said the pertinacious 
 lawyer. "Leave it to me." 
 
 Obenreizer went on : 
 
 " It is needless to trouble you with the first 
 half of the letter," he said. " I can give the 
 substance of it in two words. The writer's 
 position at the time is this. She has been long 
 living in Switzerland with her husband obliged 
 to live there for the sake of her husband's 
 health. They are about to move to a new resi- 
 dence on the Lake of Neuchatel in a week, and 
 they willbe ready to receive Mrs. Miller as visitor 
 in a fortnight from that time. This said, the 
 writer next enters into an important domestic 
 detail. She has been childless for years she 
 and her husband have now no hope of children ; 
 they are lonely ; they want an interest in life ; 
 they have decided on adopting a child. Here 
 the important part of the letter begins ; 
 and here, therefore, I read it to you word for 
 word." 
 
 He folded back Hie first page of the letter 
 and read as follows : 
 
 a * * * Will you help us, my dear sister, to 
 realise our new project? As English people, we 
 wish to adopt an English child. This may be done, I 
 believe, at the Foundling: my husband's lawyers in 
 London will tell you how. I leave the choice to 
 you, with only these conditions attached to it that 
 the child is to be an infant under a year old, and is 
 to be a boy. Will you pardon the trouble I am 
 giving you, for my sake ; and will you bring our 
 adopted child to us, with your own children, when 
 you come to Neuchatel ? 
 
 " I must add a word as to my husband's 
 wishes in this matter. He is resolved to spare the 
 child whom we make our own, any future mortifica- 
 tion and loss of self-respect which might be caused 
 by a discovery of his true origin. He will bear my 
 husband's name, and be will be brought up in the 
 belief that he is really our son. His inheritance of 
 what we have to leave will be secured to him not 
 only according to the laws of England in such cases, 
 but according to the laws of Switzerland also ; for 
 we have lived so long in this country, that there is 
 a doubt whether we may not be considered as ' domi- 
 ciled ' in Switzerland. The one precaution left to 
 take is to prevent any after-discovery at the Found- 
 ling. Now, our name is a very uncommon one j 
 and if we appear on the Eegister of the Institution, 
 as the persons adopting the child, there is just a 
 chance that something might result from it. Your 
 name, my dear, is the name of thousands of other 
 people ; and if you will consent to appear on the 
 Register, there need be no fear of any discoveries in 
 that quarter. We are. moving, by the doctor's orders, 
 to apart of Switzerland in which our circumstances 
 
and Wilkie Collins.] 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [December 12, 1867.] 47 
 
 are quite unknown ; and you, as I understand, are 
 about to engage a new nurse for the journey when 
 you come to see us. Under these circumstances, 
 the child may appear as my child, brought back to 
 me under my sister's care. The only servant we 
 take with us from our old home is my own maid, 
 who can be safely trusted. As for the lawyers in 
 England and in Switzerland, it is their profession 
 to keep secrets and we may feel quite easy in that 
 direction. So there you have our harmless little con- 
 spiracy ! Write by return of post, my love, and tell 
 me you will join it." * * * 
 
 " Do you still conceal the name of the writer 
 of that letter ? " asked Vendale. 
 
 " I keep the name of the writer till the last," 
 answered Obenreizer, "and I proceed to my 
 second proof a mere slip of paper, this time, 
 as you see. Memorandum given to the Swiss 
 lawyer, who drew the documents referred to in 
 the letter I have just read, expressed as fol- 
 lows: 'Adopted from the Foundling Hospital 
 of England, 3rd March, 1836, a male infant, 
 called, in the Institution, Walter Wilding. 
 Person appearing on the register, as adopting 
 the child, Mrs. Jane Anne Miller, widow, acting 
 in this matter for her married sister, domiciled 
 in Switzerland.' Patience!" resumed Oben- 
 reizer, as Vendale, breaking loose from Bintrey, 
 started to his feet. "I shall not keep the 
 name concealed much longer. Two more little 
 slips of paper, and I have done. Third proof! 
 Certificate of Doctor Ganz, still living in prac- 
 tice at Neuchatel, dated July, 1838. The doctor 
 certifies (you shall read it for yourselves directly), 
 first, that he attended the adopted child in its 
 infant maladies ; second, that, three months 
 before the date of the certificate, the gentleman 
 adopting the child as his son died ; third, that 
 on the date of the certificate, his widow and her 
 maid, taking the adopted child with them, left 
 Neuchatel on their return to England. One 
 more link now added to this, and my chain of 
 evidence is complete. The maid remained with 
 her mistress till her mistress's death, only a 
 few years since. The maid can swear to 'the 
 identity of the adopted infant, from his child- 
 hood to his youth from his youth to his man- 
 hood, as he is now. There is her address in 
 England and there, Mr. Vendale, is the fourth, 
 and final proof!" 
 
 "Why do you address yourself to me?" 
 said Vendale, as Obeureizer threw the written 
 address on the table. 
 
 Obenreizer turned on him, in a sudden frenzy 
 of triumph. 
 
 "Because you are the man! If my niece 
 marries you, she marries a bastard, brought up 
 by public charity. If my niece marries you, 
 she marries an impostor, without name or 
 lineage, disguised in the character of a gen- 
 tleman of rank and family." 
 
 " Bravo !" cried Bintrey. " Admirably put, 
 Mr. Obenreizer ! It only wants one word more 
 to complete it. She marries thanks entirely to 
 your exertions a man who inherits a handsome 
 fortune, and a man whose origin will make him 
 prouder than ever of his peasant-wife. George 
 Vendale, as brother-executors, let us congratu- 
 
 late each other ! Our dear dead friend's last 
 wish on earth is accomplished. We have found 
 the lost Walter Wilding. As Mr. Obenreizer 
 said just now you are the man !" 
 
 The words passed by Vendale unheeded. 
 For the moment he was conscious of but one 
 sensation; he heard but one voice. Marguerite's 
 hand was clasping his. Marguerite's voice was 
 whispering to him: " I never loved you, George, 
 as I love you now ! " 
 
 THE CUllTAIN FALLS. 
 
 May-Day. There is merry-making in Cripple 
 Corner, the chimneys smoke, the patriarchal 
 dining-hall is hung with garlands, and Mrs. 
 Goldstraw, the respected housekeeper, is very 
 busy. For, on this bright morning the young 
 master of Cripple Corner is married to its young 
 mistress, far away : to wit, in the little town of 
 Brieg, in Switzerland, lying at the foot of the 
 Simplon Pass where she saved his life. 
 
 The bells ring gaily in the little town 
 of Brieg, and flags *re stretched across the 
 street, and rifle shots are heard, and sounding 
 music from brass instruments. Streamer-deco- 
 rated casks of wine have been rolled out under 
 a gay awning in the public way before the Inn, 
 and there will be free feasting and revelry. What 
 with bells and banners, draperies hanging from 
 windows, explosion of gunpowder, and rever- 
 beration of brass music, the little town of Brieg 
 is all in a flutter, like the hearts of its simple 
 people. 
 
 It w r as a stormy night last night, and the 
 mountains are covered with snow. "But the sun 
 is bright to-day, the sweet air is fresh, the tin 
 spires of the little town of Brieg are burnished 
 silver, and the Alps are ranges of far-off white 
 cloud in a deep blue sky. 
 
 The primitive people of the little town of 
 Brieg have built a greenwood arch across the 
 street, under which the newly married pair shall 
 pass in triumph from the church. It is inscribed, 
 on that side, " HONOUR AND LOVE TO MARGUE- 
 RITE VENDALE !" for the people are proud of her 
 to enthusiasm. This greeting of the bride under 
 her new name is affectionately meant as a sur- 
 prise, and therefore the arrangement has been 
 made that she, unconscious why, shall be taken 
 to the Church by a tortuous back way. A 
 scheme not difficult to carry into execution in 
 the crooked little town of Brieg. 
 
 So, all things are in readiness, and they are 
 to go and come on foot. Assembled in the 
 Inn's best chamber, festively adorned, are the 
 bride and bridegroom, the Neuchatel notary, 
 the London lawyer, Madame Dor, and a certain 
 large mysterious Englishman, popularly known 
 as Monsieur Zhoe-Ladelle. And behold Madame 
 Dor, arrayed in a spotless pair of gloves of 
 her own, with no hand in the air, but both hands 
 lasped round the neck of the bride ; to 
 embrace whom Madame Dor has turned her 
 broad back on the company, consistent to the 
 ast, 
 
 " Forgive me, my beautiful," pleads Madame 
 Dor, " for that I ever was his she-cat ! " 
 
43 
 
 NO THOROUGHFARE. 
 
 [ December 12, 18G7. 
 
 " She-cat, Madame Dor ?" 
 
 "Engaged to sit watching my so charming 
 mouse," are the explanatory words of Madame 
 Dor, delivered with a penitential sob. 
 
 " Why, you were our best friend ! George, 
 dearest, tell Madame Dor. Was she not our 
 best friend ? " 
 
 "Undoubtedly, darling. What should we 
 have done without her ? " 
 
 "You are both so generous," cries Ma- 
 dame Dor, accepting consolation, and imme- 
 diately relapsing. "But I commenced as a 
 she-cat." 
 
 "Ah! But like the cat in the fairy-story, 
 good Madame Dor," says Vendale, saluting 
 her cheek, "you were a true woman. And, 
 being a true woman, the sympathy of your heart 
 was with true love." 
 
 " I don't wish to deprive Madame Dor of her 
 share in the embraces that are going on," Mr. 
 Bintrey puts in, watch in hand, " and I don't 
 presume to offer any objection to your having 
 got yourselves mixed together, in the corner 
 there, like the three Graces. I merely remark 
 that I think it's time we were moving. What 
 are your sentiments on that subject, Mr. 
 Ladle?" 
 
 "Clear, sir," replies Joey, with a gracious 
 grin. "I'm clearer altogether, sir, for having 
 lived so many weeks upon the surface. I never 
 was half so long upon the surface afore, and it's 
 done me a power of good. At Cripple Corner, 
 I was too much below it. Atop of the Simple- 
 ton, I was a deal too high above it. I've found 
 the medium here, sir. And if ever I take it 
 in convivial, in all the rest of my days, I mean 
 to do it this day, to the toast of 'Bless 'em 
 both.'" 
 
 " I, too !" says Bintrey. " And now, Mon- 
 sieur Yoigt ; let you and me be two men of 
 Marseilles, and aliens, marchous, arm-in- 
 arm ! " 
 
 They go down to the door, where others are 
 waiting for them, and they go quietly to tiie 
 church, and the happy marriage takes place. 
 While the ceremony is yet in progress, the 
 notary is called out. When it is finished, he 
 has returned, is standing behind Yeudtde, and 
 touches him on the shoulder. 
 
 " Go to the side door, one moment, 
 Monsieur Vendale. Alone. Leave Madame 
 to me." 
 
 At the side door of the church, are the same 
 two men from the Hospice. They are snow- 
 stained and travel-worn. They wish him joy, 
 and then each lays his broad "hand upon Yen- 
 dale' s breast, and one says in a low voice, while 
 the other steadfastly regards him : 
 
 "It is here, Monsieur. Your litter. The 
 very same." 
 
 Your 
 
 "My litter is here? Why?" 
 
 " Hush ! For the sake of Madame, 
 companion of that day " 
 
 "What of him?" 
 
 The man looks at his comrade, and his com- 
 rade takes him up. Each keeps his hand laid 
 earnestly on Yendale's breast. 
 
 "He had been living at the first Refuge, 
 monsieur, for some days. The weather was 
 now crood, now bad." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " He arrived at our Hospice the day before 
 yesterday, and, having refreshed himself with 
 sleep on the floor before the fire, wrapped iu 
 his cloak, was resolute to go on, before dark, 
 to the next Hospice. He had a great fear of 
 that part of the way, and thought it would be 
 worse to-morrow." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "He went on alone. He had passed the 
 gallery, when an avalanche like that which fell 
 behind you near the Bridge of the Ganther " 
 
 " Killed him ?" 
 
 " We dug him out, suffocated and broken all 
 to pieces ! But, monsieur, as to Madame. We 
 have brought him here on the litter, to be buried. 
 We must ascend the street outside. Madame 
 must not see. It would be an accursed thing 
 to bring the litter through the arch across the 
 street, until Madame has passed through. As 
 you descend, we who accompany the litter will 
 set it down on the stones of the street the 
 second to the right, and will stand before it. 
 But do not let Madame turn her head towards 
 the street the second to the right. There is no 
 time to lose. Madame will be alarmed by your 
 absence. Adieu !" 
 
 Yendale returns to his bride, and draws her 
 hand through his unmanned arm. A pretty 
 procession awaits them at the main door of 
 the church. They take their station in it, and 
 descend the street amidst the ringing of the bells, 
 the firing of the guns, the waving of the flags, 
 the playing of the music, the shouts, the smiles, 
 and tears, of the excited town. Heads are 
 uncovered as she passes, hands are kissed to 
 her, all the people bless her. " Heaven's bene- 
 diction on the dear girl ! See where she goes in 
 her youth and beauty; she who so nobly saved 
 his life!" 
 
 Near the corner of the street the second to 
 the right, he speaks to her, and calls her atten- 
 tion to the windows on the opposite side. The 
 corner well passed, he says : " Do not look 
 round, my darling, for a reason that I have," 
 and turns his head. Then, looking back along 
 the street, he sees the litter and its bearers 
 passing up alone under the arch, as he and she 
 and their marriage train go down towards the 
 shining valley. 
 
 THE END OF THE CHRISTMAS NUMBER FOR 1867. 
 
 The right of Translating any portion, of this story is reserved by the Author*. 
 
 Vubliahcd at the Oflice. No. L'C. Wellinctou Street. Btrund. Printed by C. Wumsc. Beaufort House, Strand. 
 
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