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 BY JOHN STRANGE WINTER. 
 
 
 
 izmo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $i. oo. 
 
 A MAGNIFICENT YOUNG MAN. 
 
 EVERY INCH A SOLDIER. 
 
 AUNT JOHNNIE. 
 THE OTHER MAN'S WIFE. 
 
 ONLY HUMAN. 
 
 THE TRUTH-TELLERS. 
 
 INTO AN UNKNOWN WORLD. 
 
 " The reading world has a great respect for its 
 fun-makers, those who skilfully weave the gaudier 
 colors into the story of life's web. John Strange 
 Winter never fails us in this respect. Her choice 
 of characters is out of the common, and her tact 
 is exquisite as she brings them together, groups 
 them, and disperses them with their various 
 destinies." Boston Courier.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN STRANGE WINTER 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE TRUTH-TELLERS," 
 "ONLY HUMAN." ETC. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 1898
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1898, 
 
 BY 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. SOMETHING HAPPENS 5 
 
 II. THE STORY OF A NEW RELIGION 14 
 
 III. A PLUNGE INTO A STRANGE WORLD 21 
 
 IV. JOHN STRODE . 31 
 
 V. THE STORY OF THE DIAMONDS 39 
 
 VI. THE SANCTUARY OF THE PEACEMAKERS 51 
 
 VII. MRS. MATTHEW 57 
 
 VIII. ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN 66 
 
 IX. UNDER THE VENEER 76 
 
 X. THE DIFFERENCE IN A CHOICE 92 
 
 XI. A THUNDERBOLT 100 
 
 XII. No ALTERNATIVE 122 
 
 XIII. A WAY OUT OF THE DIFFICULTY 137 
 
 XIV. ON A LONELY PATH 148 
 
 XV. A RAY OF LIGHT 161 
 
 XVI. THE LITTLE BIRD 171 
 
 XVII. PLAIN SPEAKING 184 
 
 XVIII. THOUGHTS 196 
 
 XIX. A GREAT SOCIAL EVENT 207 
 
 XX. A WALL OF ADAMANT 216 
 
 XXI. BREAKING BOUNDS 227 
 
 2229095
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXII. A MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW 240 
 
 XXIII. THE WORM WILL TURN 252 
 
 XXIV. ON A NEW ROAD 265 
 
 XXV. HURRAH ! 2 7 8 
 
 XXVI. LOST! 2 9* 
 
 XXVII. THIRTY YEARS OF WAITING 34
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SOMETHING HAPPENS. 
 
 It is wonderful to note as we go through life how, in a single mo- 
 ment, the whole current of our existence may be irrevocably changed. 
 
 A SUDDEN thrill shot through Florence Milvane's 
 heart. It was not, as a general rule, a heart that 
 was troubled with thrills or qualms of any kind, for 
 Florence Milvane was a staid little woman who went 
 to business in the City every morning at ten o'clock, 
 who did her full share of work during a stated 
 number of hours, and sometimes, if there happened 
 to be a press of business on, for a longer time than 
 the regulation slice of the day which constituted her 
 working-time. 
 
 She was pretty, yes, very pretty , of a fair and 
 ethereal type both of face and person; she had a 
 sweet, refined voice, was worth just fifty shillings a 
 week to her employers, shared rooms with a girl 
 friend, went for bicycle rides on Saturday afternoons 
 and generally on Sundays too, belonged to a choral 
 society, and was just turned four-and-twenty. 
 
 5
 
 6 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 As I have said, she was a staid little person, and in 
 truth she had had enough experience of the sad side 
 of life to make her so, for Flo, as her own people 
 called her, was the eldest of a large and fatherless 
 family. Her father had been in business in rather a 
 large way, but he had died suddenly when compara- 
 tively young and had left his widow with about two 
 hundred a year, on which she had to do the best she 
 could for the young brood who had been accustomed 
 to a large house run on generous lines. 
 
 Mercifully, the very young adapt themselves to 
 change of circumstance with wonderful rapidity, and 
 by the time Flo Milvane was turned seventeen she 
 as naturally found herself looking out for something 
 to do, as she would have naturally looked out for a 
 situation as a domestic servant had her father hap- 
 pened to be a blacksmith. 
 
 She was not without influence, for Thomas Mil- 
 vane had been a straight man possessed of many 
 friends, and at least half a dozen business houses 
 were ready with an offer of a place for his daughter. 
 Her career in the City has little or nothing to do 
 with this story. It is sufficient to say that after she 
 entered upon it she never cost her mother a penny 
 for her personal needs, and after twelve months had 
 gone by she began to pay for her own board and 
 lodging. Two years after this Mrs. Milvane fell in 
 for a small inheritance, including a pleasant cottage
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 7 
 
 a few miles from London, and left her small abode at 
 Brixton to go and dwell under her own. vine and 
 fig-tree in the country. It was at this period that 
 Flo Milvane went into rooms together with a girl 
 friend. 
 
 And, as I said before, when she was just turned 
 four-and-twenty, a sudden thrill shot through her 
 heart. The cause of the thrill was a young man, of 
 course, it almost goes without saying. There was, 
 if the truth be told at once, a corresponding disturb- 
 ance in the heart which beat beneath his smart frock- 
 coat ; there was a light in his blue eyes which found 
 an answering shine in her gray ones ; in short, these 
 two, who had met and become acquainted in a dry- 
 as-dust office over the details of most unsentimental 
 bargains, fell in love with each other. 
 
 " Do you cycle, Miss Milvane ?" he asked some- 
 what diffidently one day, when he had concluded the 
 business part of his conversation. 
 
 She brightened up as a girl does when she is un- 
 expectedly asked about a favourite pursuit. 
 
 " Oh, yes," she replied. " I cycle a lot ; whenever 
 I get the chance, in fact. I have a Swift, a beauty." 
 
 " I ride a Beeston-H umber," he said, very seriously ; 
 " but I must say I've heard great things of Swifts. 
 Are you that is, would I mean, are you ever open 
 to a ride ?" 
 
 " I don't often go out in the evening excepting in
 
 8 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 summer," she replied ; " but I go somewhere every 
 Saturday afternoon and most Sundays." 
 
 " Would you go for a ride with me one day ?" he 
 asked, still more diffidently. 
 
 " I'd love to," she returned promptly. 
 
 "Say Saturday?" he suggested. It was then 
 Thursday, be it known. 
 
 " I'd like it immensely." 
 
 " Where shall I come for you ?" 
 
 "I live at Brixton," she replied. "I always go 
 home to lunch and start about half an hour after." 
 
 " Then I'll come down for you. If I am there by 
 two sharp, will that suit you ?" 
 
 She replied that it would suit her exactly, and then 
 he took down her address in his pocket-book, and 
 they parted, he going out of the dingy office looking 
 as pleased as possible, she remaining behind with 
 her brain in a whirl and her heart all aglow. 
 
 During that Saturday's ride she learned a good 
 deal about him and his belongings. His name, of 
 course, she had known for a long time, ever since 
 one bright May morning when he had walked into 
 the office saying that he had an appointment with 
 Mr. Weaver, the head of the firm. She learned his 
 Christian name for the first time during that first 
 outing. It was Matthew, Matthew Gorman. " My 
 sisters call me Matt," he said, looking at her as if to 
 see whether she approved of the name or not.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 9 
 
 Flo was discreetly silent, and kept all her attention 
 fixed upon her machine. They were spinning away 
 down a pleasant and well-kept suburban road. " Jolly 
 houses, these," said Matt Gorman, indicating the trim 
 detached villas on either hand by a gesture of his 
 arm. 
 
 " Delightful !" said Flo. " But they mean money, 
 Mr. Gorman." 
 
 " To a certain extent," he rejoined, carelessly. 
 
 Flo Milvane laughed. "You may put it that 
 way," she said, gaily, " but to me such a house as 
 one of these implies an income of so much and no 
 less." 
 
 " It would be easy enough for you to acquire such 
 an income, Miss Milvane," he said, earnestly. 
 
 " I'd like to know how," she exclaimed, turning 
 her dark-set gray eyes upon him. 
 
 " It's simple enough, by marrying a man who can 
 give it to you. Nothing could be easier," he said, 
 quietly and yet with meaning. 
 
 She started and smiled. " Yes, that might be an 
 easy way, and, on the other hand, it might not." 
 
 " Easy enough for you." 
 
 " Do you think so ?" She felt what was coming, 
 and her fencing was of a kind not intended to ward 
 off his next words. 
 
 " Let's rest here awhile," he suggested. " There 
 is actually a seat." He caught her bicycle from her
 
 io THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 as she dropped lightly to the ground, and set it care- 
 fully against the paling which skirted the road. 
 
 " Do you know why I asked you to come out with 
 me to-day?" he asked. "No? Then I'll tell you. 
 I want you to marry me. I know that you don't 
 know me so very well, but but do you think it's 
 necessary to know one another so very long before- 
 hand ? One glance was enough for me." 
 
 " Was it ?" Her tone invited him to go on, and 
 he took advantage of it. 
 
 " Wasn't it for you ? Don't you think we were 
 made for each other, you and I ? I do. I'm a good 
 sort of fellow, we have a splendid business in Mul- 
 lingham, I'm partner with my father. You should 
 have as good a house as any of these," with a jerk 
 of his head towards the road down which they had 
 just come. 
 
 She flashed a look at him. " And what should I, 
 without a penny to my name, bring to you ?" 
 
 "Yourself, your sweet, charming, dainty, dear 
 little self. Say yes, only say yes, and make me the 
 happiest fellow in all England to-day." 
 
 " I I might say yes, but your people, your father 
 and mother ?" she began. , 
 
 " My father and mother, they won't interfere with 
 me," he said, confidently. 
 
 " If I say yes, it must be conditionally on their 
 consenting," she said at last.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. n 
 
 "Good! Then it's the same thing as settled. 
 What day will you go down to see them ?" 
 
 " How far is it to Mullingham ?" 
 
 " About four hours and a half." 
 
 " Because I how am I to leave ? I don't expect 
 any holiday before Christmas, I get three days 
 then." 
 
 " Christmas !" he echoed with scorn. " And this 
 the beginning of November ! Pooh ! I want to be 
 married before that." 
 
 " Before Christmas !" 
 
 " Yes, of course ; what's the good of wasting time 
 waiting ? I want my wife." 
 
 She looked at him from under her long eyelashes 
 with a glance of admiration. " You have soon made 
 up your mind," she said. 
 
 He drew her a trifle nearer to him. " A man who 
 can't make up his mind on any subject sharp is an 
 ass," he replied. 
 
 "Yes, but " 
 
 " Tell me, haven't you already made up yours ? I 
 had you there, sweetheart, don't you think ? Well, 
 this is Saturday. I go home Tuesday, for I cannot 
 get through my business before then. I shall write 
 home Monday, well, I shall write really to-morrow, 
 but post it, of course, on Monday. If my mother 
 writes to you by return, could you manage to go 
 down on Saturday by the train from Euston at one
 
 12 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 o'clock, which will land you at home just in time for 
 dinner ?" 
 
 "And when could I get back, late on Sun- 
 day?" 
 
 " My people won't like your travelling on Sunday," 
 he said, promptly ; " but there's a train that leaves 
 Mullingham at six in the morning which gets you at 
 Euston at half-past ten. I'm afraid, my poor dar- 
 ling, you will land at your office more dead than 
 alive, but " 
 
 "Not at all. I've done the same thing before, 
 many a time." 
 
 " And you can relieve your feelings by giving no- 
 tice," he said, laughing. 
 
 " Not before you have seen my mother," she re- 
 joined quickly and with a sudden accession of dig- 
 nity in her tones. 
 
 He could not help smiling. " I thought you would 
 take me down to see her to-morrow," he said, very 
 meekly. 
 
 " Before your people have given their consent ?" 
 doubtfully. 
 
 " My people's consent is a foregone conclusion," 
 he declared. " I believe there is a telegraph-office 
 about a mile further on. Let us send a wire to 
 your mother telling her to expect us to-morrow. 
 Come." 
 
 "I see," said Flo, "that from this time forward
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 13 
 
 Florence Milvane will not know what it is to have 
 any sort of a soul of her own." 
 
 "On the contrary," he said, quickly, "you will 
 have two souls, yours and mine. Come, let us 
 push on. It is chilly here for you."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE STORY OF A NEW RELIGION. 
 
 A religion which was born and grew out of the unsatisfied long- 
 ings of one bleeding human heart. 
 
 As soon as it was possible to do so, Florence 
 Milvane received a letter from Matthew Gorman's 
 mother. It was written on the thickest of paper, 
 had a crest or device in the corner, and the address 
 printed very clearly in dark-blue letters. 
 
 "THE ABODE OF PEACE, MULLINGHAM, November 16, 18 . 
 " MY DEAR Miss MILVANE, My son has written to me of the 
 new relation which has arisen between you and him, and I hasten 
 to- assure you that if your engagement to each other prove to be 
 conducive to peace in our family circle, I shall very gladly and cor- 
 dially welcome you to our midst. My son says there is a possibility 
 of your being able to come down to pay us a short visit next Satur- 
 day. Any arrangement you make with him will be pleasant and 
 convenient to me. I will reserve all further remarks until we meet, 
 excepting just to say that the fact of my son's having chosen you for 
 his wife prepossesses me in your favour, as he has not hitherto been 
 a general admirer of our sex ; and also the fact that you have made 
 your consent consequent upon ours adds greatly to the feeling that 
 he has chosen one who will only add to and not in any way take 
 from our circle. 
 
 " Cordially yours, 
 
 " MARGARET GORMAN."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 15 
 
 The handwriting was clear and strong, the calig- 
 raphy of a woman of education and of natural re- 
 finement. Something in the general tone of the 
 letter struck the girl as forced and as unusual. And 
 what a name for a house ! " The Abode of Peace." 
 In her journeyings to and fro she daily passed 
 "The Hut," "The Dove-Cot," "The Cedars," and 
 " The Tower House," while " Windermere," " Hu- 
 onferme," " Ben Nevis," and " Merryfield" greeted 
 her from time to time when she extended her walks 
 or rides further afield. But " The Abode of Peace !" 
 It was on a level with " The Ark of Noah." Of a 
 certainty Florence Milvane was not a little mystified. 
 
 Then the phrasing of the letter itself, " If your 
 engagement to each other prove to be conducive to 
 peace in our family circle," and so on. What a 
 very curious way of welcoming her sorts fiancee! 
 Of course it was true that some young wives did 
 make things " hum" in their husband's family in a 
 very unpleasant way. She had known several in- 
 stances of girl-friends who had never seemed able to 
 rest until they had alienated their husbands from all 
 their own people, but she made no doubt that such 
 desire had come upon them after the ceremony had 
 been performed and not before it. 
 
 On the Wednesday morning Matthew Gorman 
 came in to tell her that he had been detained in 
 London by fresh business connected with the firm
 
 16 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 and to ask her to dine with him and go to a theatre 
 afterwards. " I shall go down to-morrow by the one 
 o'clock train," he said. 
 
 She was, naturally enough, quite willing to share 
 in the proposed programme, and when they had 
 decided on both the place of dining and the theatre 
 that they would go to, she told him that she had 
 had a letter from his mother. 
 
 " I thought you would have. It was all right, of 
 course ; at least mine was." 
 
 " I'll show it to you to-night," she said, smiling up 
 at him. " And now do go, for I'm fearfully busy." 
 
 He went off then, but was waiting in the street 
 for her when she left the office. He had already 
 dressed for the evening, so that he was able to go 
 down to Brixton with her. As soon as they were 
 settled in the railway carriage, she showed him the 
 letter which she had received from his mother. He 
 read it quickly through, put it in the envelope again, 
 and gave it back to her. 
 
 " You see I was right," he said, smiling. 
 
 She hesitated a little. " Matt," she said at last, 
 " would you mind I mean, may I say, at least ask 
 plainly er is there something something unusual 
 about your family?" 
 
 " Unusual ! No, of course not," in accents of pro- 
 found astonishment. "You're thinking that my 
 mother's letter is a bit cold in tone? She's not a
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 17 
 
 gushing woman it's true, but a splendid character, 
 and her friendship is worth having. And she has 
 gone through a lot in her time, poor dear." 
 
 " I didn't mean that exactly," said Flo. " I've no 
 love for gush, I can assure you. What I meant was 
 well, it's such a queer name for a house, the 
 Abode of Peace." 
 
 Matt Gorman burst out laughing. " By Jove," he 
 exclaimed, " I forgot to tell you about that, you 
 poor, little, puzzled, mystified thing. Upon my 
 word, I'm so happy it has pretty well driven every- 
 thing else out of my head. The truth is, my dar- 
 ling, that my father and mother, especially my father, 
 are not church people " 
 
 " Methodists !" she exclaimed. 
 
 " No, by Jove ; it would be better if they were. 
 The fact is that many years ago my father got a 
 great shock and he invented, or practically in- 
 vented, a new religion." 
 
 " Good gracious ! And what do they call them- 
 selves ?" 
 
 " The Peacemakers," he answered. 
 
 "The Peacemakers!" she echoed. "And how 
 does it work ?" 
 
 "Well, they have a little chapel. I think the 
 entire congregation is under fifty souls. My father 
 pays the piper and generally sets the tune. There's 
 a minister, a nice old chap who has seen a good
 
 i8 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 deal of the storm and stress of life and is thankful 
 to have found a haven of refuge for the end of his 
 days. His daughter plays the organ yes, they've 
 got an organ ; rather a nice one ; the governor gave a 
 hundred and fifty pounds for it and she runs the 
 Sunday-school." 
 
 " And your sisters ?" 
 
 "They? Well, they used to do a bit in the 
 Sunday-school, but there are only seven or eight 
 children now, as it happens, and somehow they 
 don't feel active over it." 
 
 " But what do they believe the Peacemakers, I 
 mean ?" 
 
 "Upon my word, I hardly know. In peace, of 
 course, that first and foremost. You see, it came 
 about in this way. My father was the son of a 
 widower, who married three times after my grand- 
 mother died. Each fresh wife was worse and more 
 interfering and quarrelsome than the last one, and 
 when, at last, wife No. 4 succeeded in breaking off 
 my father's engagement to the girl of his heart, he 
 came to a way of thinking that if only a poor soul 
 could have peace everything in life would be easy. 
 The girl married somebody else and died early, and 
 after that my father came in for his father's business 
 and the bulk of his property, and he founded the 
 sect of the Peacemakers." 
 
 " Does it work ?" asked Flo.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 19 
 
 " In a way, yes. The old man is happy enough, 
 and my mother, who joined the sect years ago, be- 
 fore she was married, lives up to all his principles 
 both in letter and spirit. For myself, I'm so used to 
 the the every-day habit of it all that I think no 
 more about it than church people think of themselves 
 as miserable sinners, unless that is something calls 
 it especially to mind." 
 
 " Then you are a Peacemaker by birth and habit, 
 not by conviction," she suggested. 
 
 " Exactly so ; and, therefore, I don't think very 
 much about it one way or another. Of course, you 
 know, there's nothing so red-hot as a Vert to any 
 faith." 
 
 They reached Brixton Station then, so did not 
 pursue the subject further. Flo, her curiosity being 
 satisfied, was not very keenly interested. She was 
 young, she was very much in love, and she was on 
 the eve of making what for her circumstances was a 
 brilliant marriage. She was very soon going to for- 
 get that she had ever lived on fifty shillings a week, 
 she was going to be well off, to have a seal-skin 
 jacket and several servants. All the old pinching 
 days of work and comparative poverty would soon 
 be at an end ; and in the happy prospect of an afflu- 
 ent career with Matt Gorman she was not minded 
 to search very closely for the pea of discord which 
 might be found under eleven mattresses, as was found
 
 20 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 by the princess in the old fairy-tale. If Matt's father 
 and mother liked to indulge themselves in a religion 
 all of their own, particularly such a very mild and 
 harmless one as theirs seemed to be, why, it did not 
 hurt anyone else, and would hurt her least of all. 
 Indeed, although a very good little churchwoman 
 who scarcely ever missed a Sunday morning service, 
 she made up her mind that, if it would please them 
 for her to become a Peacemaker, she would join the 
 new sect from the day of her marriage, yes, that 
 she would. And as she dressed in haste a mist of 
 tears came before her eyes at the thought of the 
 broken hearts upon which the religion of the Peace- 
 makers had been founded, the wonderful faith which 
 had been built upon a foundation of pain.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A PLUNGE INTO A STRANGE WORLD. 
 
 One of the most curious sensations in life is that which a young 
 woman experiences when she first goes to be inspected by her future 
 husband's near relations. 
 
 IT was with strangely mingled feelings that Flor- 
 ence Milvane left Euston the following Saturday at 
 one o'clock that she might go down to Mullingham 
 to make the acquaintance of her future husband's 
 family. It was, in the first place, a dreadful ordeal 
 for a girl to undergo, to make a visit for the pur- 
 pose of being inspected. In the second place, she 
 was hardly, as yet, well enough used to Matt to feel 
 really at ease. And to be with him among a wholly 
 strange family who all knew him extremely well 
 rendered the situation still more appalling. How- 
 ever, Matt himself appeared at the last stopping-place, 
 some twenty-five miles on the London side of Mul- 
 lingham, and Matt looked so smart and nice in his 
 country clothes, and was, moreover, so unfeignedly 
 delighted to see her, that she straightway forgot her 
 fears and gave herself up to the pleasure of seeing 
 him again. 
 
 Some of the qualms came back again as they ran
 
 22 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 into Mullingham Station, and when Matt, looking 
 out of the window, said, 
 
 " Hollo ! there's Polly on the platform, and Matty. 
 I do call that decent of them." She looked eagerly 
 out to see two tall, stylish-looking girls eagerly scan- 
 ning the windows of the carriages. 
 
 " There he is," she heard one say to the other 
 amid shouts of " Mull'gham, Mull'gham," and the 
 next minute they had rushed to the door and were 
 trying to open it. 
 
 " Here you are," called out one in a loud, hearty 
 voice. " We were so afraid you would miss the train 
 or something," cried the other. "Welcome to Mul- 
 lingham," cried the two, as Flo reached the plat- 
 form. 
 
 She was small and slight and they were tall and 
 well grown, and she seemed to disappear under the 
 overpowering warmth of their welcome. " You are 
 a dear little thing," exclaimed Matty. " And we are 
 so glad to see you. You look after her luggage and 
 we'll go straight to the carriage. Yes," as they led 
 her off, "you don't know how glad we are that 
 Matt isn't going to marry a Mullingham girl. We 
 don't know one that we should really like." 
 
 " One," corrected Polly. 
 
 "Amy? Well, yes; we shouldn't have minded 
 Amy, but she is engaged to some one else, and be- 
 sides that, Matt never could bear her. There are
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. . 23 
 
 plenty of nice girls in Mullingham, oh, yes, heaps 
 of them, but not to be sisters-in-law somehow." 
 
 " I always think it's better to marry away from 
 one's own place, and then families don't get to quar- 
 relling over the young couple's affairs," Polly chimed 
 in. " This way yes, that's the carriage. John, this 
 is Miss Milvane. He's been with us twenty years, 
 so speak to him," she added in a loud whisper to 
 Flo. 
 
 Flo at once put out her hand to the old coach- 
 man. " How do you do ?" she said in her sweet 
 voice. 
 
 " You're right welcome, miss," said John, touching 
 his hat, and then taking the proffered hand. " The 
 Lord shed His blessings on you, miss, and give you 
 peace in all your life. Mr. Matthew's a rare fine fel- 
 low, miss ; I've known him twenty years." 
 
 Flo felt inclined to choke, and hardly knew what 
 to say. Matty, however, being better used to the 
 ways of the Peacemakers, for John was a confirmed 
 Peacemaker, relieved the situation easily enough. 
 
 " Ah, you always spoil Mr. Matthew, John ; but it's 
 a shame to show your partiality as you do. You 
 wouldn't say as much for any of your young ladies. 
 Now, Flo dear, get in, and we'll get in with you till 
 Matt comes." 
 
 " Till Matt comes ?" Flo exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes, of course. Why, you don't suppose we are
 
 24 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 such idiots as to drive home with you ? Good gra- 
 cious, what do you take us for ?" 
 
 " Of course you will. Is it far your house ?" 
 
 " A mile or so ; we shall be there almost as soon 
 as you will. Besides, we have something to do in 
 the town." 
 
 " The carriage can stop," said Flo, eagerly. She 
 felt instinctively that her entrance into the domestic 
 circle would be easier if these two fine outspoken 
 girls were with her. 
 
 " And earn Matt's hatred for ever. Oh, here he is." 
 
 " Matt," said Flo, eagerly, " your sisters want to 
 walk just because I'm here." 
 
 " Oh, they needn't do that," he replied. 
 
 " My dear," said Matty, " I assure you we never 
 get into the old tub if we can help it. Go along 
 with Matt, you dear, unselfish little thing, and don't 
 waste a thought upon us. What you mustn't waste 
 is time, for mother is very anxious to see you." 
 
 Flo caught hold of her future sister-in-law's hand. 
 " Matty," she said, earnestly, " do you think she'll 
 like me ?" 
 
 " Yes, and you will like her. She's sweet, sweet. 
 Oh," in an almost fierce whisper, " that's no word 
 for mother. She's a saint, if ever one trod the earth." 
 
 The significance of her tone struck the girl, who 
 was a stranger, as with a flash of pain ; but before 
 she could speak Matt touched her arm, saying,
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 25 
 
 "Now, if you are quite ready, dearest;" and the 
 next moment she found herself in the carriage, which 
 immediately rolled away from the blazing station 
 lights into the comparative darkness of the gas-lit 
 road. 
 
 She realized long before she got to the Abode of 
 Peace that it was a good deal more than a mile from 
 the station. It seemed a very long time before Matt 
 said, " Ah, here we are," and the carriage was stopped 
 that the entrance-gates might be opened. 
 
 And then a curious little ceremony was gone 
 through. A bright-faced woman came to the door 
 of the carriage, saying, in a solemn voice, " Peace be 
 on you," to which Matt replied in a cheery tone, 
 "And on you also." Then the carriage rolled on 
 into the darkness of a longish avenue. 
 
 Arrived at the house itself, Flo was cheered by the 
 streams of light which flooded out upon them. A 
 gray-haired butler came down the wide steps as they 
 drew up, and opened the door with the same solemn 
 yet comforting greeting, " Peace be on you." 
 
 " And on you also," Matt replied ; then added, 
 " This is the future Mrs. Matthew, William." 
 
 "Welcome to the Abode, miss," said William. 
 " The mistress has been rare and anxious, there she 
 is, Mr. Matthew." 
 
 To her dying day Flo knew that she would never 
 forget her first sight of Matthew Gorman's mother.
 
 26 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 She came out to the door quickly yet without 
 hurry. 
 
 " Is that you, Matthew ?" she said, softly. " Have 
 you brought her ? Ah, yes. Welcome to the Abode 
 of Peace, my dear," she said, and drew the girl into 
 the full light of the large and handsome hall. After 
 a single glance at the girl's fair, sensitive face, she 
 put both her arms round her and kissed her very 
 kindly. " Oh, my dear, my dear, I see you with my 
 boy's eyes ! May this prove an Abode of Peace to 
 you all the days of your life ; but" her voice sink- 
 ing to a bare whisper " let it be an abode of real 
 peace, real, true, peaceful peace. I can wish you 
 nothing better." 
 
 Then she released her, and, still keeping fast hold 
 of her hand, she drew her across the large hall. 
 " Come," she said, gently, " your father is in the 
 library." 
 
 Flo went unresistingly. She was not a little awed 
 by the continual reiteration of the watchword of the 
 Peacemakers. It affected her as she might have been 
 affected by some solemn ritual or by some semi- 
 sacred play, and, as yet, it seemed impossible for her 
 to realize that Matt and his sisters were one and the 
 same family as Mrs. Gorman and her dependants. 
 
 Perhaps some noise of their arrival had penetrated 
 to the library, which she afterwards found was Mr. 
 Gorman's particular sanctum, for as they crossed the
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 27 
 
 hall the door opened and he appeared upon the 
 threshold. 
 
 He was very tall and spare, a man of over sixty 
 years old, dark-eyed and eagle-faced, with a mass of 
 snow-white hair crowning him. As they approached 
 he raised both his hands in solemn benediction. 
 " The Lord's peace be upon you all," he said, in a 
 deep, sonorous voice ; then, as his hands fell, he held 
 them out towards her in welcome. " I am glad to 
 see you ; you are most welcome to my house." 
 
 "Thank you very much," murmured Flo, Her 
 words sounded desperately commonplace to her own 
 ears by comparison with the picturesque unusualness 
 of the style of greeting which had met her in this 
 new circle. Somewhat nay, I should say not a 
 little to her relief, she found that the solemn tone 
 and stilted phraseology were not continuously kept 
 up when once the benedictory greetings were over, 
 but that the elder members of the family relapsed 
 into more ordinary forms of conversation, Mrs. Gor- 
 man becoming entirely everyday in tone, though the 
 old gentleman still retained a few traces of his old- 
 fashioned formality. 
 
 " Bring her to the morning-room, Matthew," said 
 Mrs. Gorman. " The tea is waiting there. The poor 
 child must be famished after so long a journey. Are 
 you coming with us, father?" 
 
 " Surely," he replied ; and added, as they passed
 
 28 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 through the hall, " I, too, want to see something of 
 Matthew's choice, the girl of his heart." 
 
 At this Matt laughed and caught hold of her 
 hand. And Flo laughed too, a laugh of such utter 
 happiness that Mrs. Gorman turned and looked at 
 her. 
 
 " Mrs. Gorman, don't you feel well ?" Flo asked. 
 " You are so pale." 
 
 " Am I ?" and she put up her hand to her face as 
 if she could tell by touching it whether it was white 
 or not " Oh, it is nothing. I am not always 
 strong, and I am naturally without colour. Shall I 
 make your tea ? Cream and sugar ?" 
 
 " Yes, both, please," Flo answered. " I am not 
 new-fashioned enough to do without sugar, though 
 sometimes I feel desperately dowdy when I confess 
 to liking two lumps." 
 
 " I should dislike any one who gave up sugar 
 because it was the fashion," said Mrs. Gorman, de- 
 cidedly. " Try some of those little sandwiches, dear, 
 it wants more than two hours to dinner-time, and 
 you must be hungry." 
 
 " Yes, try some of them, egg and chickweed," 
 laughed Matt, " with some curious flavouring intro- 
 duced which makes you fancy they are anchovy or 
 caviare or something of that. I tell my mother that 
 she is a perpetual fraud in the way of cooking." 
 
 Thus bidden, Flo did try the sandwiches and
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 29 
 
 found them excellent. In truth, she was hungry, 
 and it was no small relief to find that hunger was 
 not considered a sin in the Abode of Peace. She 
 had just taken her third one when the door was 
 thrown open with a jerk, and two girls, whom she 
 had not seen before, came in. " We passed Polly 
 and Matty on the road just now," one said. " Peace 
 be with you father, dear. How do you do ? We 
 are to call you Flo straight off, of course. Very 
 glad to see you," kissing her rather boisterously. 
 " Hope you'll like us and be happy among us. 
 Darling mother," dropping a light kiss upon the 
 heavy braids which crowned her mother's head, 
 " here is your silk ; the best match Miss Glover had. 
 If it won't do, she will have to send to London for 
 it." 
 
 " Thank you, dear child. Flo, this is our youngest 
 girl, Rachel. And this is Beth. Now you have 
 seen us all, for I suppose Polly and Matty came to 
 meet you." 
 
 "Yes, and would walk home when there was 
 plenty of room in the carriage," replied Flo, vexedly. 
 
 Mrs. Gorman smiled. " Ah, well, they are young 
 and like exercise," she said, indulgently, and then 
 Flo saw her glance over to the tall old man on the 
 other side of the well-kept fireplace. 
 
 Rachel Gorman was the only one of the five chil- 
 dren who in any way resembled her father. Matt
 
 3 o THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 and his three sisters, Polly, Matty, and Beth, were 
 all of the same blond complexion as their mother. 
 In the case of Matt this complexion was consider- 
 ably browned by exposure, and the faces of the 
 girls were tinged with a charming apple-blossom 
 pink, evidently just what their mother had possessed 
 at their age. But Rachel was quite unlike them, 
 being very much taller than any of her sisters, dark- 
 haired and dark-eyed, with a brilliant colour like a 
 blush rose. She was the only one of them all who 
 was conspicuously slight like a willow wand, and in 
 her cycling skirt she looked even taller than she 
 might otherwise have done. She had a fascinating 
 trick of turning her head and setting it a little side- 
 ways in a way which showed her long slender throat 
 off to perfection. " Oh, Matt," Flo whispered sud- 
 denly to her sweetheart, as they all made a move to 
 their own rooms, " how could you look at me when 
 you have such a sister as that ?" 
 
 " Do you mean Rachel ?" he asked, in genuine 
 surprise. " Well, of course, a man cannot marry his 
 sister, no matter what she happens to be like ; and, 
 between ourselves, I don't admire gawky girls at 
 all."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 JOHN STRODE. 
 
 Sometimes the presence of a stranger in a family gathering comes 
 as a distinct relief. 
 
 THE four sisters in a body escorted Flo to her bed- 
 room. " Now you need not feel lonely," said Matty, 
 " because your room is next to dear mother's ; Polly 
 and I have rooms on your other side, and Beth and 
 Rachel are just opposite. This is not the very best 
 room, but you must not think that we meant any 
 slight not to have given you that. It is right away 
 at the further end of the corridor, and mother 
 thought you might be lonely there. We generally 
 give this room to girl visitors because they like to 
 be near us." 
 
 Flo looked around the spacious room, at the 
 cheerful fire blazing in the bright steel grate, the 
 delicately tinted rose-lined draperies of windows and 
 bed, at the soft rose-strewn carpet, the pretty, con- 
 venient white enamelled furniture, the little dainty 
 odds and ends in all parts of the room. Then with 
 a sudden gush of feeling she caught Matty's hand. 
 
 " Oh !" she cried, " do you think I've come down 
 here to carp and pick holes ? Has Matt told you
 
 32 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 everything ? That I earn my own living in an office 
 and live in cheap lodgings with another girl ? Has 
 he told you all ?" 
 
 " Well, I think he has," said Matty, " and, of 
 course, we would wish, and especially mother would 
 wish, to do you all the honour we can. Of course 
 we admire you very much for earning your own 
 living, and all that. We couldn't do it ourselves. 
 You see, we have always been rich and never had to 
 think of those things, but if we had to turn out we 
 should make a mighty poor try at it, I'm afraid." 
 
 " Awful," chimed in Beth. 
 
 "As for your living in lodgings and having no 
 fortune, what's that to us ? You are Matt's choice, 
 and a very good choice, too, and a lucky day for 
 Matt when you fell in love with each other." 
 
 "For Matt!" echoed Flo, pausing in her work 
 of laying out her dress for the evening. 
 
 " Yes, for Matt. We are rich and respectable and 
 all that, but we're not everybody's money, and we 
 know it, far better than anybody who can tell us." 
 
 " But why ?" 
 
 " My dear," Matty cried, " it wants but twenty 
 minutes to dinner, and I have laced boots on. Let 
 us discuss our respective merits at a more con- 
 venient season. Is anybody coming to dinner ?" 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Strode," answered Beth, as she hurried 
 away.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 33 
 
 " Mr. Strode ! My poor child, I'm so sorry. I 
 suppose he was asked before we heard of your 
 coming. He has to be invited sometimes for busi- 
 ness reasons, and he would like to marry Rachel." 
 
 " You needn't remind me, Matty," cried Rachel, 
 furiously, the blush rose of her cheeks deepening to 
 a flaming colour and her dark eyes flashing fire. 
 
 " I alluded to it as your misfortune," laughed 
 Matty ; but Rachel had flown out of the room, shut- 
 ting the door behind her with a crash. 
 
 " Poor Rachel, she's very tender on the subject of 
 Mr. Strode. If you want to put her in a boiling 
 passion, you've only got to say Rachel Strode to do 
 it. Well, I'm off. By-by." 
 
 Flo Milvane dressed herself in a maze of wonder- 
 ment. What did Matty mean by saying that they 
 were not everybody's money ? And for the Abode 
 of Peace, how odd to give a newcomer into the family 
 a recipe for putting one of them into a boiling 
 passion. And what was the meaning of that curious, 
 wistful, strained, questioning look on Mrs. Gorman's 
 pale face, the face which was refined and had been 
 very pretty once, but which had such an unnaturally 
 bleached look ? It was all very strange, but as she 
 put the last touches to her toilette a remembrance 
 of Matthew came to her, dear Matt, rich, clever, 
 stalwart, and simple, and she forgot to wonder any 
 more. 
 
 3
 
 34 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 Flo had not made any great attempt at evening 
 dress. She wore her best black skirt, a silk one 
 bought at one of the many sales in Regent Street, 
 and with it a smart high blouse of soft rose-coloured 
 material. This had been bought specially on the 
 previous day after leaving the office, and was a 
 smarter thing of its kind than she had ever indulged 
 herself in before. It had many tucks and puffs and 
 gatherings, and suited her fair slight prettiness to 
 perfection. 
 
 As a matter of fact, she had hesitated some little 
 time between this and a black one made on similar 
 lines, and more than once after her choice had been 
 made she had almost regretted it, fearing that it was 
 too dressy. She found, however, on entering the 
 drawing-room at the Abode of Peace, that she need 
 have had no fears on that score. All the girls were 
 in evening dress, their bodices cut low and their 
 sleeves reaching to the elbow. Mrs. Gorman was 
 wearing a handsome brown velvet gown trimmed 
 about the square-cut bodice with rich old lace, and 
 on her bosom a few diamonds twinkled brilliantly. 
 Matt came in immediately, wearing a theatre jacket, 
 and soon after the old gentleman made his appear- 
 ance too, but wearing a swallow-tail and a shirt 
 frill. 
 
 "John Strode is late," said Mr. Gorman, taking 
 out his watch.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 35 
 
 " I hear his cart," returned Matt, bending his head 
 to listen. 
 
 A minute or two later the door opened, and 
 William ushered in the visitor. 
 
 " The Lord's peace be on you," said the master of 
 the house, solemnly. 
 
 " And on you, my friend," was the reply, " and on 
 all your household. How are you? Pretty fit, I 
 hope. Mrs. Gorman, I hope I see you well. Miss 
 Matty, you are blooming as a rose. Miss Rachel, 
 peace be on you." He held out his hand to the girl, 
 who was standing near to the fireplace, and she 
 unwillingly laid hers in it. " Peace be on you," he 
 repeated. 
 
 " And on you also," she replied in a tone so rude 
 and brusque that Flo Milvane opened her eyes wide 
 with astonishment, and a suppressed giggle behind 
 her betrayed the fact that the other members of the 
 family were not blind to what was going on. Then 
 Rachel snatched away her hand with an expression 
 on her face in which peace was wholly lacking. 
 
 " Dinner is served. Let it be eaten in peace," an- 
 nounced William in a loud voice at this moment, and 
 Flo turned to lay her hand on Mr. Gorman's arm 
 with a deeper sense of relief than she had ever known 
 what it was to experience in all her life before. 
 
 The dining-room was a large and finely propor- 
 tioned apartment severely furnished in yellow oak,
 
 36 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 which matched the doors, the skirtings, and the tall 
 chimney-shelf. The chairs were cushioned with deep 
 red leather, and had very tall, high backs. She per- 
 ceived that the family custom was for each person to 
 stand behind their chair and to rest the hands upon 
 the back thereof while grace was uttered by the head 
 of the house. As a grace it certainly had to Flo the 
 attraction of novelty. 
 
 " The Lord gave this food for our good ; let us 
 eat it in thankfulness and peace." 
 
 Flo was not a little awed by the sight of the tall, 
 picturesque old man, in his semi-old-world attire, 
 standing with hands outstretched in benediction over 
 the elegantly arranged table, and it was with a sharp 
 shock that her eyes next fell upon Rachel Gorman's 
 darkly mutinous glances at the visitor whom she had 
 contrived to balk by putting the entire length of 
 the table between them. 
 
 She stole a look at Mr. Strode then to see whether 
 he was much upset by this manoeuvre, but apparently 
 he had expected nothing else, for he was talking al- 
 ready to Mrs. Gorman as if his interest in the young- 
 est of her daughters was no more than in any other 
 member of the family. 
 
 I have not explained that Mr. and Mrs. Gorman 
 occupied the two centre seats at the table, so that 
 Mr. Gorman was able to talk a good deal to the 
 guest, and Flo was thus left free to devote most of
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 37 
 
 her attention to her fiance. She was also able to 
 hear most of Mr. Strode's conversation. 
 
 " Awful brute, isn't he ?" murmured Matt in her ear. 
 
 " Is he so bad ?" whispered Flo back again. 
 
 " Yes, most emphatically yes," was Matt's vigorous 
 reply. 
 
 Flo made no rejoinder, but all the same she had 
 expected a very much worse specimen than this John 
 Strode. He was not old or fat, nor did he misuse 
 his aspirates ; his garments were as well cut as Matt's, 
 and his person was thoroughly well groomed and 
 refulgent with cleanliness. He had no particular 
 display of jewelry beyond one little diamond in his 
 shirt-stud and a plain gold signet ring on one hand. 
 He had not $ven a locket on his watch-chain. His 
 voice was not unpleasant, though he pronounced one 
 or two words in an irritatingly peculiar fashion. 
 
 At last, however, she received a clue, for Mr. 
 Strode happened to mention a certain Major O'Reilly, 
 on which Mr. Gorman said promptly that he was a 
 person of whom he had no opinion. 
 
 " An irredeemable scamp," chimed in Matt, from 
 his place on the other side of Flo. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," said John Strode, pursing up 
 his lips. " Major O'Reilly must be a hundred-thou- 
 sand-pound man at least. He has a good deal of 
 influence. Not, of course, that money always does 
 it. There's Harry de Kloof, worth half a million
 
 38 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 at least, and the county won't have him because of 
 that little affair about those diamonds. But it seems 
 a shame, doesn't it ?" 
 
 " What was that ?" whispered Flo to Matt. Matt 
 looked up. " Harry de Kloof is another of the same 
 sort, or worse," he said, coolly. " Get money : get 
 it honestly if you can, but get money. By the 
 way, what was the right story about those diamonds ?" 
 
 Thus started, John Strode launched forth promptly 
 into the true story of Harry de Kloof and the dia- 
 monds.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE DIAMONDS. 
 
 The wise man to whom we owe the Book of Proverbs tells us 
 that the price of a virtuous woman is far above rubies. How many 
 a woman's virtue has come to grief over diamonds ! 
 
 "WELL, now, I have always rather pitied poor 
 Harry in that matter," he said, confidentially. " Yes, 
 reelly. After all, business is business, and when 
 ladies take to doing shady things I can't see that 
 they ought to get off scot-free because they happen 
 to be called ' Your Ladyship.' And, after all, poor 
 Harry did no more than he was well within his right 
 in doing, he didn't, reelly." 
 
 " Yes, but," persisted Matt, " what was the story ? 
 I have only a confused sort of remembrance of it." 
 
 " It was like this. Lady Mullingham the Count- 
 ess, you know is rather a go-ahead little lady, who 
 married the Earl more for his position and money 
 than anything else. She was the daughter of an 
 Irish peer, very pretty and a great flirt, and they did 
 say she was over head and ears in love with some 
 fellow in the Lancers, and that her family wouldn't 
 let her have him. So, in a sort of half-huff, half- 
 desperation, she took the next good match that hap- 
 pened to come along, and that was Lord Mulling- 
 
 39
 
 40 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 ham, just twenty years older than she was, but the 
 Earl of Mullingham and what seemed like the riches 
 of Croesus to her, who had never had the spending 
 of too much at a time. Of course, he did not know 
 anything about the fellow in the Lancers, and was 
 awfully smitten with her, and he indulged her in 
 everything she wanted. And she wanted more and 
 more every day. Her dresses, her jewels, her whims 
 and caprices simply ran money away like water. She 
 seemed just reckless, as if she did not care what she 
 spent. I've seen her chuck down her sable cloak, 
 that cost nine hundred guineas, as if it was an old 
 rag that hadn't cost a guinea ! I have, reelly. Well, 
 this, as you all must remember, went on for four or 
 five years. Lord, how she made the money fly! 
 All her toilet services were of the finest Worcester 
 china, decorated with her coronet and cipher en- 
 twined in wealth of roses and forget-me-nots, and 
 cost fifteen guineas a set. All her own room was 
 furnished with the same idea. Her name was Rosa- 
 mund. She had great artists down from London to 
 paint her ceilings, and her doors, and white enam- 
 elled wardrobes and things; the carpets were like 
 soft moss strewn with roses you could pick up. I 
 saw them at Moorman's before they were sent to the 
 Castle, and they cost fifty guineas each, and everything 
 else was done in the same way. She had at least 
 half a dozen bicycles enamelled to match the dress
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 41 
 
 she might happen to be wearing. The best horses, 
 the finest hunters, the smartest ponies, prize cats, the 
 champion Great Dane, and, in short, she went the 
 pace, just tremendous. And at last the Earl pulled 
 up short and said she'd have to draw in her horns a 
 bit. Of course, he was master, he paid the piper, 
 and for several years that is, ever since he married 
 her she chose the tune, and when he did pull her 
 up short she did not dare tell him what her liabilities 
 reelly amounted to. For a bit she tried spending a 
 little less, and even went so far as to make believe 
 that over-dressing was vulgar, and to use all her 
 pretty face and her influence to what she called the 
 revival of simplicity. Lord love you ! she even got 
 up a league and called it the Guild of Simplicity, and 
 took to wearing plain black gowns and plain black 
 sailor hats, with a neat little bonnet, like a Puritan, 
 for grand occasions. But it did not catch on much, 
 and the dressmakers took to threatening her. She 
 had five hundred a year pin-money, but five hundred 
 a year don't go far when you owe fifteen thousand, 
 and her ladyship soon found herself in desperate 
 straits and didn't know which way to turn. She was 
 afraid to ask the Earl for any more, for he was get- 
 ting a bit off and not quite so infatuated with her as 
 he had been, and they do say that he dropped down 
 to it that she didn't care a button for him. And it 
 was then that she bethought herself of Harry de
 
 42 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 Kloof. He, of course, had not long before bought 
 the Carstairs out of Allingham Towers, and was very 
 anxious to get into the county set. Every one be- 
 lieved that he was on the Stock Exchange, and in 
 time he might have come to it, particularly if he had 
 married a county girl, and had made the settlements 
 big enough. As it was, Fate with the help of an im- 
 pudent tramp who thought he had got a pretty lady 
 on a bicycle at his mercy sent him the Countess's 
 way, and she took his card and his escort home, and 
 insisted on Lord Mullingham going personally to 
 thank him. The Earl grumbled pretty much, said 
 he was a low, money-lending Jew, and that a letter of 
 thanks would be enough. However, eventually he 
 went over to Allingham Towers and did the civil as 
 graciously as he could bring himself to do. Then 
 he thought the whole affair ended ; but her ladyship, 
 who was a little flirt still at bottom, struck up a kind 
 of friendship with Harry on the sly, and at last she 
 told him what awful straits she was in for money, and 
 entreated him to save her. Now, Harry de Kloof 
 was, of course, a Jew and a money-lender, and the 
 old instinct was strong in him. So he told her he 
 would lend her as much as she needed if she would 
 give him some security in the way of jewelry. So 
 what does the little Countess do but take over a heap 
 of her jewels to Allingham Towers and put it into 
 his hands.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 43 
 
 " ' I suppose this is all your own ?' he asked. 
 
 " ' Yes, of course/ she replied. ' It was mostly 
 given to me at the time of my marriage.' 
 
 "So Harry advanced her a couple of hundred 
 pounds on it and put the jewels in his safe. ' You'd 
 better just put your name to this in case anything 
 happens to me,' he said, and she signed the paper 
 without even looking at it. 
 
 " ' I am to pay you back in six months,' she said, 
 as she put the notes away in her purse. 
 
 "'Yes, and I keep the jewels mean time,' he 
 answered. 
 
 " ' Oh, I'll soon save that out of my pin-money,' 
 she said, gaily enough. 
 
 " But, poor little soul, that two hundred only 
 stopped the maw of the dressmakers for a few weeks, 
 and not a penny did she save before the six months 
 had run out. By that time a hint of her friendship 
 with Harry had got to the Earl's ears, and she found 
 herself under pretty close observation. At the end 
 of the time he wrote to her and told her the time 
 was up and that he wanted the money or some other 
 consideration. With great difficulty she managed to 
 meet him, when he made himself clear. ' Look here, 
 Lady Mullingham,' he said, and mind you, I had 
 the story straight from Harry himself, ' I've got your 
 jewels and you owe me two hundred pounds. That 
 is a mere flea-bite ; but you can do something for me,
 
 44 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 and I shall be ready to cry quits as soon as you like. 
 I'm a rich man, a half-million man, and I want to get 
 into society. I want to be in the county set. Now, 
 if you like, you can do what I want. Ask me to 
 dinner at the Castle a real slap-up dinner-party, say 
 of twenty-four or thirty of the best people you know 
 and I'll forgive you the debt and hand you over 
 the jewels within twenty-four hours. Now, what do 
 you say?' 
 
 " ' Why, just this,' she said : ' five years ago I could 
 have done it as easily as I can snap my fingers ; but 
 now his Lordship' yes, she called her husband his 
 Lordship as if by instinct, and that upset Harry more 
 than anything ' is so annoyed with me for having 
 spent such a lot of money that he is not as easy to 
 manage as he once was. Oh, Mr. de Kloof/ she 
 exclaimed, * are you set on conquering the county ? 
 They are so stupid and dull, these county people, 
 they are not worth it.' 
 
 " But Harry was as obstinate as a mule. ' It's my 
 whim,' he said, doggedly, ' and I am willing to pay 
 for it. Think, Lady Mullingham, two hundred 
 pounds. It's a big price to pay for one dinner- 
 party.' 
 
 " ' Yes, but it's a big thing to ask,' she replied. 
 ' You want to meet all the pick of the neighbour- 
 hood, and the question is, do the pick of the neigh- 
 bourhood want to meet you ?'
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 45 
 
 " ' Very likely not,' said Harry. ' But that doesn't 
 concern you. I only want my opportunity, the rest 
 is my affair. Now, what do you say ? Will you do 
 it or not ?' 
 
 " ' It does not rest with me,' she said. ' I would 
 do it like a shot, I'd do almost anything for two hun- 
 dred pounds. However, as I said, it does not rest 
 with me. I'll do my best, but I must have my hus- 
 band's leave. That's essential.' 
 
 " ' Can't you ask whom you like to your own 
 home ?' he said, and he owns that he couldn't help 
 a bit of a sneer at that. 
 
 " ' No,' she said, ' I can't. I can do a good deal 
 on my own responsibility, but I can't do that.' And 
 so they left it. 
 
 " Harry never knew how she worked it, but two 
 days later he received an invitation from the Earl 
 and Countess of Mullingham for a dinner-party to 
 take place three weeks later. He joyfully accepted, 
 and stuck the card up in his dining-room and took 
 care that every one of the few people he knew knew 
 that he had been invited to dinner at Mullingham 
 Towers with three weeks' notice. Well, he went on 
 quite happily till the very day, when, about four 
 o'clock in the afternoon, he received a note from 
 Lord Mullingham saying that he regretted that, 
 owing to Lady Mullingham's sudden indisposition, 
 he would not be able to receive him that evening.
 
 46 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 Harry went out and saw the groom, enquired ten- 
 derly as to her ladyship's condition, but got nothing 
 at all out of the man, who simply said that he did 
 not happen to have seen her ladyship that day, and 
 knew nothing of what went on indoors. Harry 
 went over to call the next day, and the flunky who 
 came to the door told him that her ladyship was 
 somewhat better but was not receiving. So Harry 
 handed in his card and got back into his carriage 
 and pair again, and he says he had a sort of feeling 
 all the time that something was wrong ; but that I 
 dare say wasn't presentiment at all, but only the un- 
 comfortableness of being looked over by the flunkey 
 of the house he wanted to know intimately and 
 couldn't get to. He sent over the next day, and the 
 answer was that her ladyship was all right again, 
 and he naturally enough began to watch for the 
 dinner invitation again. And then he happened to 
 hear that the dinner-party had taken place after all" 
 
 The narrator paused and looked round the table 
 to give full effect to his words. The entire family 
 who never happened to have heard the full version 
 of the story before uttered an exclamation as if by 
 one consent, " Well ?" And even Rachel forgot that 
 she never showed the smallest interest in anything 
 that John Strode said, and leaned forward as eagerly 
 as the rest. 
 
 " Well," John Strode went on, " that was an awful
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 47 
 
 blow to poor old Harry ; he couldn't believe it, he 
 couldn't, reelly. He enquired about a bit and found 
 that it was perfectly true, that on the very same 
 evening that he'd been put off with an excuse as to 
 her ladyship's indisposition a dinner of thirty had 
 been given at the Castle. He came in to my place 
 and stormed and raved, said he'd have the best of 
 the little devil yet, and a good deal more, and the 
 very next day I happened to be talking to him about 
 a horse in Anderton's Yard, when in comes Lord 
 Mullingham. Harry isn't one that wants for pluck, 
 and besides his monkey was up, so he walks straight 
 over to the Earl, and he says, ' I understand, Lord 
 Mullingham, that you had a dinner of thirty covers 
 at the Castle the very night that you put me off 
 with the excuse that Lady Mullingham was ill?' 
 Lord Mullingham you know what he's like, two 
 yards of pump water with cold blue eyes and a 
 tired look he just looks Harry over and he says, 
 ' Yes, that is quite true.' ' Then may I ask what's 
 the meaning of it?' Harry blusters. 'Better not,' 
 says my lord in his gentle voice. ' But I insist on 
 having an explanation,' Harry shouts. 'And you 
 shall,' says my lord in the same tired way. ' I don't 
 very often interfere with my wife's doings, but her 
 ladyship is still very young, and when she makes 
 such a mistake as to ask you to dinner, I have to get 
 her out of it the best way I can.'
 
 48 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " For a minute," John Strode went on, " I thought 
 Harry was going for him. The veins stood out on 
 his temples like cords, and his face went a deep dull 
 purple." 
 
 " ' Perhaps your lordship will change your tune 
 one of these days,' he said at last. ' Harry de 
 Kloof isn't the most insignificant person in the 
 world, though you seem to think so now. Mark 
 my words, my Lord Mullingham, the day will come 
 when you will wish you had never written me that 
 letter, and ' 
 
 " ' And till then/ said the Earl, yawning, ' we will 
 not renew this very tiresome conversation.' He 
 turned away then," John Strode continued, " exactly 
 as if Harry was so much dirt under his feet. As 
 for Harry, he was well-nigh speechless with fury. 
 When he did find his tongue again, he said very 
 little. ' I'll be even with him before a week has 
 gone over our heads,' he ground out between his 
 teeth, and never mentioned the matter again till 
 nearly a fortnight had gone by. Then he came to 
 me one day and said, ' John, old fellow, I'm in the 
 .thick of a shindy with the Right Honourable the 
 Earl of Mullingham, and I've got to meet him at 
 old Willoughby's office to-morrow morning at eleven 
 o'clock. I don't want to take my own lawyer, my 
 town man, and I don't want to employ a local so- 
 licitor on a money-lending business, and I don't
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 49 
 
 want to go alone. Will you go with me and see 
 me through it ?' 
 
 " I promised to do that, of course ; and then he 
 told me that, by way of taking revenge, he had sim- 
 ply sold Lady Mullingham's jewels to a London 
 jeweller, and that he had taken means to let the 
 Earl have a hint of it, and that it turned out several 
 of the ornaments were heirlooms (as Harry had sus- 
 pected all along) and would have to be bought back 
 again at any price. Well, the next day we met the 
 Earl at Mr. Willoughby's office, and they made it 
 very hot for Harry. The jeweller, who had given 
 fifteen hundred pounds for the things, was there, and 
 he was civil and fair, and said that, under the cir- 
 cumstances, he would give them up without a penny 
 more profit than would cover the cost of his journey 
 from town and back. Old Willoughby told Harry 
 plainly that if Lord Mullingham chose to carry it 
 into court the affair would ruin him in the eyes of 
 all decent-feeling men and women. They called him 
 a cad and a swindler and a Jew cutpurse, and lots 
 of other things ; but Harry never budged one inch 
 from his position that he had done no more than he 
 had a perfect right to do. And at last Lord Mul- 
 lingham wrote a cheque for fifteen hundred and five 
 pounds, and thanked the jeweller very civilly for 
 meeting him in the matter of obtaining the things 
 back. Then old Willoughby got up and pointed to
 
 50 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 the door. ' Oblige me/ he said to Harry, ' by leaving 
 my office at once.' 
 
 " ' Certainly/ said Harry, getting up deliberately. 
 Then he turned and looked at the Earl. ' Fifteen 
 hundred and five pounds, and this old gentleman's 
 fees into the bargain/ he said, with a frightful sneer. 
 ' You had better have let that dinner invitation stand, 
 my lord.' 
 
 "Lord Mullingham just looked up in his tired 
 way. ' On the contrary/ he said, in the sweetest 
 tone possible, ' / consider it cheap at the price! 
 
 " That finished poor old Harry," John Strode went 
 on. " He turned and went out without another word. 
 I never saw him or any one else so crushed. And 
 that is the worst of trying to fight these swells. You 
 never know where you have them. They'd go to 
 the scaffold as cool and quiet as they'd light a cigar- 
 ette." 
 
 " And the story crept out," said Matt. 
 
 "Crept out? Lord, yes, and was the social ruin 
 of poor old Harry with the county set," John Strode 
 replied. " I always thought it was rather hard on 
 him, the whole affair. They might just as well have 
 let the dinner invitation stand. You see it cost the 
 Earl fifteen hundred pounds." 
 
 " I agree with Lord Mullingham," remarked Matt, 
 in a sharp, dry voice. " It was cheap at the price."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SANCTUARY OF THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 What a strange world the next one would be if we could each 
 arrange a Heaven of our own I 
 
 THE following morning Flo went to service with 
 the rest of the family. They called it going to give 
 thanks. They walked to the little sanctuary, as they 
 called the chapel, which was not more than five min- 
 utes' walk from the Abode of Peace. 
 
 It was a little gem of a building, unlike any place 
 of worship which Flo had ever seen before. It was 
 of an oblong form, and had small windows at regular 
 intervals all the way round, each furnished with a 
 window-box filled with plants. The windows were 
 all of stained glass, and the one over the altar was 
 much larger, as in a church, and told very beautifully 
 the story of Jacob and Rachel, not in the usual con- 
 ventional church-window style, but more like a pic- 
 ture painted upon a great sheet of glass instead of 
 on a canvas. 
 
 The pews were very wide, and were fitted with 
 regular stalls on the one side and with wide kneeling- 
 stools and sloping book-rests on the other. The 
 pulpit was a piece of superb carving, and the altar 
 
 51
 
 52 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 was decked with a richly broidered purple cloth, and 
 was adorned by many beautiful plants and flowers. 
 To Flo's mind, the mind of a churchwoman, the 
 sanctuary was more suggestive of a drawing-room 
 than of a place of worship, and the service was so 
 very friendly that it seemed as if the assembly had 
 gathered together for a conversazione rather than for 
 a ritual. As soon as the organ began to play, how- 
 ever, all present went to their respective seats, and 
 the general behaviour was decorous in the extreme. 
 
 The service impressed the girl deeply. It was so 
 gentle and peaceful, the music was of such thrilling 
 sweetness and the prayers were so tender, the ser- 
 mon so filled full and overflowing with all love and 
 charity. There were no denunciations of sins hurled 
 at the meek faithful who had come in a spirit of love 
 and duty, no vivid pictures of hell or descriptions of 
 the death-bed of the unrepentant. All was gentle 
 and persuasive. " If there be any among you who 
 have not yet found peace," said the preacher, " there 
 is one sure way of finding it. Give it to others, my 
 brothers and sisters, and surely some small portion 
 will rest over, which will take root in your hearts 
 and grow and flourish there exceedingly. Work for 
 others, and some overflow will well back upon your- 
 selves, and it will bring the richest blessings of the 
 God of Peace with it." 
 
 It was just then that Florence Milvane happened
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 53 
 
 to turn her eyes upon her future father- and mother- 
 in-law as they sat side by side at the end of the pew. 
 Mr. Gorman sat still as a statue, with his dark burn- 
 ing eyes resting upon the preacher. His expression 
 was one of complete satisfaction and appreciation. 
 His wife was sitting with her eyes closed, her face 
 paler than ever, and bearing an expression of in- 
 tensest pain upon it. As the sermon came to an 
 end, Flo saw that a sigh escaped her lips, and she 
 fancied it was a sigh of! relief. The thought flashed 
 upon her that Mrs. Gorman was devoured by some 
 secret trouble, and that it was literally eating her 
 heart out. Then her attention was recalled to the 
 old pastor with his gentle voice and silvery hair as 
 he announced hymn No. 48, and then he read the 
 text: "These are they which came out of great 
 tribulation." 
 
 Then the pastor's daughter played the first two 
 lines, and they began to sing, 
 
 "These are they which came, 
 
 All praise and glory giving, 
 Through tribulation great, 
 To seek the waters living. 
 
 "These are they to whom 
 
 God gave below affliction, 
 That they might know above 
 His endless benediction.
 
 54 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " These are they ! God's peace 
 
 Their portion is for ever; 
 A band once scattered now 
 
 Nor time nor chance can sever. 
 
 "These are they! On earth 
 
 Wide, wide apart their races; 
 Jew, Christian, and Turk, 
 
 But God's seal on their faces. 
 
 " These are they which wrote 
 
 With tears the human story; 
 God sought them far and wide, 
 In peace to share His glory." 
 
 The hymn was a favourite one with the little con- 
 gregation, the tune to which it went w^as sweet and 
 alluring, and the effect upon the stranger was almost 
 magical. There were tears in her eyes as she sank 
 upon her knees for the final blessing. 
 
 " The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord 
 make His face to shine upon you and give you peace, 
 now and for evermore. Amen." 
 
 In the solemn hush which followed, Florence 
 Milvane determined to turn aside from the colder 
 path in which she had walked all her life and to 
 become in heart and truth a Peacemaker. 
 
 Matt's first words when they once more gained 
 the street struck her with the shock of hideous 
 incongruity. " Well," he said, " how did you like it ? 
 Queer little show, isn't it?"
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 55 
 
 " Oh, Matt !" she burst out. 
 
 " Eh, what ? Why, little girl, you don't mean to 
 say it has been too much for you ? You need not 
 go, you know, if you don't feel that way. I'll say 
 that for the Peacemakers, they never urge any one 
 to join them. My father believes in perfect freedom 
 of religious thought. They only want members who 
 feel just as they do." 
 
 "Oh, Matt," she cried, "I thought it was beauti- 
 fulbeautiful." 
 
 " Did you ? Well, we never can tell how a differ- 
 ent form of service will strike others. Then you 
 won't mind going to sanctuary sometimes ?" 
 
 " I shall always go," she burst out. 
 
 " That will please my old father intensely," he said. 
 " We must take an opportunity of telling him." 
 
 He did not do so, however, until quite late in the 
 day, after the late supper, indeed, when Mrs. Gor- 
 man and the girls had left the room. Then Matt 
 stayed behind and told his father that Flo had been 
 deeply impressed by the service that day, and had 
 declared her intention of becoming a regular member 
 of the community after her marriage. 
 
 Mr. Gorman said little, but an hour later he came 
 into the drawing-room, where the whole party were 
 sitting very happily around the fire, and put an en- 
 velope into Flo's hand. " My new little daughter," 
 he said, laying his disengaged hand upon her head,
 
 56 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " my son's chosen wife, this is my antenuptial 
 present to you, a trifle to buy pretty clothes with. 
 You can look at it afterwards." And she closed her 
 fingers over the bit of paper in a plain hint that she 
 should not open it until she was alone. 
 
 " Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Gorman !" Flo cried, 
 then blushed a deep rosy red. " Are you both quite 
 sure that that you are satisfied with me?" At 
 which somehow everybody laughed, and Mrs. Gor- 
 man put out a tender hand and held hers close in a 
 silence that was eloquence itself. And when she 
 came later to look what the envelope contained she 
 found a cheque for a hundred pounds.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MRS. MATTHEW. 
 
 The moon looks to our unassisted vision like a disc of silver; 
 while to the same eyes, by a powerful telescope, it is shown to be 
 pierced by deep fissures and scarred by the eruptions of great vol- 
 canoes. So do a bride's views of her husband's relations change 
 after her marriage. She then begins to perceive the fissures in her 
 new world, and to become aware of the scars of'old wounds, hitherto 
 hidden from her. 
 
 THE three girls got up very early the following 
 morning, that they might give Flo breakfast before 
 she left the Abode; and it was a very gay and 
 happy party which gathered around the table in the 
 morning-room, where Mrs. Gorman had ordered the 
 meal to be served. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Gorman 
 appeared ; indeed, both had promised Flo that they 
 would not do so. 
 
 And after that last merry meal eaten in the small 
 hours of the morning, Flo saw no more of the 
 Gorman family until a couple of days before her 
 wedding. Matt, of course, she saw constantly, as 
 often indeed as she could spare time to slip away to 
 London. 
 
 As soon as she reached the office on the morning 
 of her arrival in London after her brief visit to Mul- 
 
 57
 
 58 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 lingham, she sought out her chief and tendered her 
 resignation to him. He pulled a wry face, but told 
 her that under the circumstances he could not raise 
 any objection. " But I would not have let you go 
 for any other reason, Miss Milvane," he added. 
 
 She remained at her post until her successor was 
 ready to fill it, and then she spent a pleasant week 
 in getting herself some wedding garments, among 
 them a dove-gray gown in which to be married, and 
 a gray felt hat with many feathers to wear with it. 
 Her own savings and Mr. Gorman's present she 
 spent very carefully and judiciously, and when her 
 purchases were all made, she went down to her 
 mother's pretty country home that she might spend 
 the few remaining days of her spinsterhood with 
 her. 
 
 The details of the wedding do not concern my 
 story. The Gorman family came down from their 
 hotel in London and lunched at the principal hotel 
 in the little town. Then they walked quietly to 
 church, where, they met Flo, her mother, and several 
 of her brothers and sisters. The only guest who 
 could in any way be called an outsider was the girl 
 friend with whom Flo had shared rooms for so long 
 a time, and she was in a curiously mixed state, being 
 half-exultant at the brilliance of the marriage and 
 half-resentful of her own loss thereby. 
 
 The most important events of our earthly careers,
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 59 
 
 weddings and buryings, take but little time to ac- 
 complish, and this wedding, being such a simple 
 affair, was soon over, and Flo was Florence Mil vane 
 no longer, but Matthew Gorman's wife. 
 
 Surely never did any young bride set out before 
 with happiness so well assured as when Florence 
 Gorman left her mother's pretty cottage on her 
 honeymoon. " I cannot believe that I am really 
 your wife, really married," she said, as the train 
 moved away from the station. 
 
 But habit, as all the world knows, is second na- 
 ture, and by the time that Matt and his wife arrived 
 at Mullingham, after a delicious month spent in the 
 sunny South, Flo was quite accustomed to thinking 
 of herself as Mrs. Matthew Gorman, and quite accus- 
 tomed to the feeling that if she wished for a pretty 
 hat or a new pair of gloves she could indulge herself 
 in such luxuries without a sensation lurking some- 
 where in the recesses of her heart that she was little 
 short of a criminal. 
 
 They arrived at the Abode on the i8th of January, 
 and found that the fatted calf had been killed over 
 and over again in their honour. This time Flo was 
 conducted to the best bedroom, and Mrs. Gorman 
 told her that she hoped she and Matthew would keep 
 it for a long, long time. 
 
 " Not that I should wish to suggest that you 
 should stay here always, dear child," she said, " for
 
 6o THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 half the pleasure of being married is in having a house 
 of your very own and in being mistress of it. You 
 have led a busy life, and you would find time hang 
 very heavily on your hands if you had no home to 
 think of and see to. But choose your house with 
 care, and have any alterations which it may chance 
 to want done before you go into it. And until your 
 house is quite ready for you and you are quite ready 
 for it, remember this is your home." 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Gorman, you are too kind," Flo said. 
 " Thank you so much. I I have no words I I 
 am so happy and you are all so good to me. I think 
 I am the very luckiest girl in all the world." 
 
 " You really love my boy ?" Mrs. Gorman asked, 
 looking at her fixedly. 
 
 " I adore Matt," Flo replied instantly. 
 
 Mrs. Gorman gave a sigh as of relief. " My dear," 
 she said, gently, " troubles will come, they come to 
 all. But you and Matthew are starting fair. The 
 greatest trouble that can touch the human heart you 
 will be spared." 
 
 " You mean " said Flo. 
 
 " Mother darling, would you go and speak to Dow- 
 son a minute ?" said Matty at that moment. " She is 
 in your sitting-room." 
 
 " Of course I will. Is anything the matter ?" Mrs. 
 Gorman asked. 
 
 " I don't know. She only told me she wanted to
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 61 
 
 see you particularly," Matty returned. Then, as her 
 mother left the room, she turned to Flo and said, 
 " Well, my dear, you've got the swagger bedroom 
 this time. I hope you'll be happy and comfortable 
 in it." 
 
 " Oh, I shall," replied Flo, smiling. 
 
 " You needn't make much of a toilette," Matty went 
 on. "There's nobody coming to dinner to-night. 
 Mother thought you might be tired and glad to be 
 alone. To-morrow and the next day you have to be 
 at home to receive callers, poor thing. They'll come 
 in crowds. To-morrow evening there is a small din- 
 ner, and on Tuesday a big dance. After that there 
 are heaps of invitations for all sorts of festivities, for 
 this is the gay time of the year in Mullingham. I 
 hope you've brought some very smart frocks." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I have," Flo replied, sitting down oppo- 
 site to Matty and toasting her feet in the fender, 
 " some tremendously smart frocks. Matt insisted 
 on it." 
 
 " Of course, when you were down before it was 
 such a little pop visit that you saw none of our 
 friends, only two or three who go to the sanctuary." 
 
 " Then you know lots of people besides the con- 
 gregation ?" Flo remarked. 
 
 " Dear, yes, child ; we should be badly off for 
 friends if we depended on the Peacemakers for so- 
 ciety. I don't suppose," she went on, reflectively,
 
 62 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " that you will care very much about the members 
 of the congregation. We don't." 
 
 " Does that mean " 
 
 " We young ones. Oh, father is the boss of the 
 whole show, so he likes it because he does exactly 
 as he pleases. Everybody kow-tows fearfully to 
 father, and he has got used to an atmosphere of def- 
 erence. But, of course, none of us get any defer- 
 ence, and oh, well, of course, we go to sanctuary 
 to please father." 
 
 "And you are not a real Peacemaker?" said 
 Flo. 
 
 " Nearer to a born mischief-maker," returned Matty, 
 with a laugh. " Seriously, though, I think I would 
 rather go to church like other people. However, 
 mother likes to please father, and so we go to sanc- 
 tuary instead, and put up with the rest of the lot that 
 go there as best we can." 
 
 " But you don't believe in it," persisted Flo. 
 
 "Just about as much as you believe in all the 
 tenets of your church," answered Matty, with a 
 promptitude which was almost flippant; "in the 
 actual theories, yes, yes, emphatically yes; in the 
 application of them, it is more doubtful." 
 
 Flo sighed. " I was so deeply impressed," she 
 said, " so so much awed. It seemed as if as if 
 this peace had really found a spot on earth and " 
 
 " I suppose my father has found it," Matty said,
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 63 
 
 seriously. " And my mother is an angel, an angel 
 on earth ; but for the rest, oh, well, you will see in 
 time, the same ideas, the same faiths, don't work 
 the same way with everybody. That can never be. 
 Take Matt, now, for instance. He goes straight on 
 his own line, turning neither to right nor left. I don't 
 suppose he ever gives a thought one way or another 
 to the difference between the Peacemakers and the 
 Church of England ; possibly he doesn't even know 
 it; I'm sure I don't. And yet Matt is good and 
 straight and true and absolutely unaffected by all 
 the bickerings that go on around us. Take my 
 advice and do the same. I don't often talk religion, 
 but I believe in one thing. Make a bee-line for 
 the Kingdom of Heaven and leave all the highways 
 and byways to take care of themselves. But, my 
 dear, are we not taking a very serious line for our 
 first chat in your new home ? for this is your home 
 until you are in one of your very own." 
 
 " Well, what are you two talking about ?" cried 
 Rachel's gay young voice at the door. " Can I come 
 in ? Dear Flo, I'm so sorry to have been out when 
 you came, but I had a singing lesson and I did not 
 want to miss it. Welcome home, dear. I saw Matt 
 downstairs just now, looking very consequential and 
 important. Have you had a good time ? I didn't 
 worry you with letters because I didn't want to give 
 you the trouble of answering them."
 
 64 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 "Ahem!" said Matty, in a loud voice, betokening 
 unbelief. 
 
 Rachel laughed. "Well, I really did have some 
 thought of that. I must tell you, Flo, that I'm a 
 notoriously bad correspondent. All the same, I do 
 hope when I am married that my friends and rela- 
 tions will let me enjoy my honeymoon without worry- 
 ing to know whether I think Paris gay or Florence 
 fascinating. Oh, I say, Matty, what do you think ? 
 I met Mrs. Johnson-Biggs this afternoon, and she 
 asked me how many servants Matt and Flo are 
 going to keep, and whether Flo has any money of 
 her own !" 
 
 "What cheek!" said Matty. "What a horrid 
 woman she is ! You saw her at sanctuary, Flo ; she 
 had a red feather in her bonnet." 
 
 " To our left ?" 
 
 " Yes, and never took her eyes off you. She 
 always piles it on very thick to father, never omits a 
 greeting, though she never greets us when we are 
 alone. She went a bit too far with him one day, all 
 the same, for she began to make a complaint to him 
 about the rudeness of the chief cashier's wife to her, 
 her husband is one of the managers at the Works, 
 and father turned sharp round and said, ' Madam, 
 I go from the sanctuary to the Abode of Peace. 
 Spare me the knowledge of any outward strife, I 
 entreat you.' Of course she had to bottle up all
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 65 
 
 her chagrin as best she might. Horrid creature she 
 is." 
 
 " Here's Matt. We'll be off. Ta-ta," and away 
 the two girls went in a whirl. 
 
 Matthew Gorman shut the door after them and 
 drew near to the fireside where his wife sat. 
 " Well ?" he said. 
 
 Flo looked up. " Well, Matt dear," she said, but 
 her face was very grave. 
 
 He was quick to note the expression on her face. 
 " What is it ? Has anything upset you ?" 
 
 " Not in the least. They are all kindness itself," 
 she replied. " I am trying to piece things together, 
 that is all, and I am puzzled." 
 
 " About what ?" 
 
 " Everything ! Religion life work play love 
 everything." 
 
 He stooped and drew her into his arms. " Not 
 about love," he said, fondly. "Surely there is 
 nothing in that to puzzle you ?" 
 
 " In your love and mine no, nothing," she made 
 answer. " In the so-called love of humanity for one 
 another so much, Matt, so much." 
 
 " And you have only just begun to find it out ?" 
 smiling. 
 
 " I think only since I knew what love can be," she 
 answered. " Oh, Matt, Matt, I am so happy myself, 
 I want all the world to be happy too." 
 
 5
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 People often confuse homeliness with vulgarity ; yet how many 
 men and women there are who have no education, and who are igno- 
 rant of conventional manners, who are full of dignity and who fill 
 their appointed place in the world with honour. 
 
 As Matty Gorman had predicted, the friends and 
 acquaintances of the family began to assemble for 
 the purpose of visiting the bride soon after three 
 o'clock of the afternoon following the day of her 
 arrival at the Abode. 
 
 Early among the callers was Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, 
 who speedily put Flo through her facings. 
 
 " You like Mullingham, Mrs. Matthew ?" she de- 
 manded, almost before she had settled herself on the 
 sofa whereon Flo was sitting. 
 
 Flo smiled. " Well, I hardly can say that I know 
 it as yet," she replied. " I think this is a charming 
 house." 
 
 " You would do so, of course. I suppose you will 
 soon be moving into a house of your own ?" 
 
 " Yes, after a little while." 
 
 "Have you any idea what part of the town you 
 are likely to choose ?" 
 
 66
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 67 
 
 " Not at all. You see, I don't know one part of 
 the town from another." 
 
 " Ah, no, I suppose not. You ought to come near 
 to where we are, not far from the Works, most con- 
 venient houses, and very reasonable in rent. I sup- 
 pose you intend to keep two servants ?" 
 
 " I really cannot say," Flo replied. " It will de- 
 pend upon the size of the house we take." And Flo 
 made a mental vow that, under no circumstances, 
 would she consent to taking any house which would 
 make her a near neighbour of this lady's. 
 
 " Are you going to attend sanctuary ?" was the 
 next question. 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 " Oh, you haven't made up your mind yet. Ah, 
 my dear, it is a blessed faith, that of the Peacemakers. 
 A little flock, and perhaps somewhat unconsidered 
 in the eyes of the world, but peace reigns within its 
 borders, and it breathes good-will towards all men. 
 Oh, dear, here's Mrs. Wilson ; really, that woman 
 does forget her position entirely." 
 
 " Who is she ?" Flo enquired. Looking up, she 
 saw a very stout, good-natured-looking woman come 
 bustling in. She was rather loudly dressed, and had 
 a smart blue feather in her bonnet. Flo saw that 
 her mother-in-law went a few steps to meet her, and 
 that she greeted her with much kindness. 
 
 "'Ow are you? Cold, ain't it? I came to
 
 68 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 see Mrs. Matthew and wish 'er 'ealth and 'appi- 
 ness." 
 
 " Here she is ! Flo dear, come and be introduced 
 to Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Wilson's good husband is one 
 of Mr. Gorman's most trusty lieutenants." 
 
 Flo rose at once and crossed the room to where 
 Mrs. Gorman and the stout old lady were still stand- 
 ing. " This is Matthew's wife," said the hostess, put- 
 ting her hand on Flo's shoulder. 
 
 " Peace be with you," said Mrs. Wilson, taking 
 Flo's two hands and pressing them warmly. " Eh, 
 my dear, but you're bonny. And you've got a bonny 
 man of your own. I've known Mr. Matthew ever 
 since 'e was in long clothes ; 'e was bonny then and 
 'e's bonny now, fair inside and out." 
 
 " I think so too," said Flo, with a charming smile. 
 
 " And well you may. Not but what you're bonny 
 too. I used to think I should like to 'ave a little 
 girl of my own, just such a one as you are. But the 
 Lord was never pleased to send me one, and perhaps 
 it was all for the best, I might 'ave lost 'er. Nay, 
 I never 'ad chick nor child, so maybe I was all the 
 better able to look after Wilson and see that 'e got 
 'is meat comfortable." 
 
 " Come and sit here by me, Mrs. Wilson," said 
 Mrs. Gorman. " You like a cup of chocolate, don't 
 you ? You see Beth hasn't forgotten your tastes." 
 
 " Ah, Miss Beth, dear, you're a jewel," the old lady
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 69 
 
 cried. " Yes, if you'll put it on the little table. I 
 must get my gloves off, and they're new. I put an 
 old pair in my pocket, for I knew I should never 
 struggle into them again." 
 
 Flo turned away to the tea-table, which was spread 
 at the side of the room near to the door. " Give me 
 the cake," she said to Rachel. " I must take some 
 myself to that delicious old lady." 
 
 "Yes, do," Rachel replied; "she's an old dar- 
 ling." 
 
 Bearing the great silver cake-basket which was 
 half-filled with neatly cut wedges of wedding cake 
 with her, Flo went back to where Mrs. Wilson had 
 just divested herself of her second glove. " You'll 
 have some cake, won't you ?" she asked. 
 
 " Ay, my dear, that I will, and wish you all the 
 luck in the world while I'm eating of it," Mrs. Wilson 
 replied. Then she helped herself to a .generous slice 
 without seeming to think it necessary to excuse her- 
 self on the score of its size. Flo immediately carried 
 the basket across to Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, to whom 
 Beth had just taken a cup of tea. 
 
 " Give that to me," said Matty, in peremptory 
 tones, when Mrs. Johnson-Biggs had helped herself. 
 " There will be shoals of people here presently. I 
 can hear some more in the hall now." 
 
 Thus bereft of her office, Flo subsided again on to 
 the sofa beside Mrs. Johnson-Biggs. " Who is she ?"
 
 70 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 she asked, indicating the stout old lady opposite by 
 a glance. 
 
 " Mrs. Wilson ? Oh, her husband's the chief 
 engineer at the Works; he began as a common 
 workman and now he has fifteen hundred a year, 
 and his wife visits with Mrs. Gorman. I confess I 
 cannot understand Mrs. Gorman receiving her." 
 
 " Mrs. Gorman likes her, I fancy." 
 
 " She always seems to do so. They the Wilsons 
 always spend Christmas Day here; so strange 
 when one remembers that she was cook at the 
 Deanery once." 
 
 " Who, Mrs. Gorman ?" 
 
 " No, no," in a shocked tone ; " Mrs. Wilson. Oh, 
 it isn't scandalmongering, there's no secret about it. 
 ' Me and Wilson,' she always says, ' me and Wilson 
 did our courting in the Deanery kitchen.' " 
 
 At this moment Flo rose in response to a summons 
 from her mother-in-law, and went to be presented 
 to- several newcomers. After various more or less 
 uninteresting scraps of conversation, she once more 
 found herself beside Mrs. Wilson. "A bit more 
 cake ?" she said, smiling. 
 
 " I think not, thank you, my dear. I'm not so 
 young as I was, and good as it is, it may sit 'eavy. 
 Ah, 'ere's the Dean's lady." 
 
 The lady who came in next was a very dignified 
 person, with high features of aristocratic cast and a
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 71 
 
 general air of looking down upon the world from a 
 high pinnacle of superiority. She was followed by 
 a very tall old gentleman, thin as a whipping-post, 
 who poked a little in a short-sighted way as he 
 walked, and Flo saw that he wore gaiters and apron. 
 Behind him came a rather haughty-looking girl very 
 much like her mother. 
 
 " This is Matthew's wife, Lady Emily," said Mrs. 
 Gorman, " Lady Emily Maxwell, dear, .and the 
 Dean. And Miss Maxwell." 
 
 " Our best wishes to you," said Lady Emily, taking 
 Flo's hand and speaking in very melodious accents. 
 " We have known your husband a long, long time, 
 and have as much respect for him as for his dear and 
 good father and mother." 
 
 " Oh, thank you," murmured Flo. 
 
 " I should like to have married you to Matt," said 
 the old Dean, breaking in, " but it was all done so 
 quietly " 
 
 " Oh, I should never have dared to ask you," Flo 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Tut, tut, I hope we shall be very good friends. 
 I daresay my wife and daughter will absorb your 
 interest soon enough. You see there is no parishing 
 work in the sanctuary. I always tell my friend, Mr. 
 Gorman, that it is a little religion de luxe, very well 
 fitted for the rich and temperate few, but not for the 
 workaday world."
 
 72 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 At this point Flo saw old Mrs. Wilson get on to 
 her feet with a valiant effort, for she was very stout, 
 and the settee, on which she had subsided in response 
 to Mrs. Gorman's invitation, was very low and 
 luxurious, and Lady Emily turned from her hostess 
 to greet her. Truth to tell, ever since the origin of 
 Mrs. Wilson had been made known to her and the 
 identity of the Maxwells had been revealed, she had 
 kept a curious eye on the two ladies who had once 
 been mistress and cook, wondering the while how 
 they would greet one another. To her surprise, 
 Lady Emily went forward with outstretched hand. 
 " I thought I should see you here, Polly," she heard 
 her say. " I knew the bride and groom would have 
 your wishes for happiness." 
 
 " Ah, my lady," the other replied, " you and me 
 knows what married 'appiness is, and if Mr. Matt 
 and 'is dear young wife is 'alf as 'appy as me and 
 you, they'll not ail much, that they won't." 
 
 " I'm sure I hope they will. Yes, thank you, dear, 
 I'll have chocolate," turning to Beth, who had ap- 
 proached her with a cup of the fragrant beverage. 
 Then, as the girl moved away, she added in an 
 undertone, " But I never get such chocolate as yours, 
 Polly." 
 
 Mrs. Wilson's broad red face beamed with satisfac- 
 tion, and before she could speak the Dean's daughter 
 came across the room, and, bending down, kissed
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 73 
 
 her. " Polly darling, I haven't seen you for weeks," 
 she said, sitting down on the arm of the settee. 
 " You've got a new diamond ring, Polly. How Mr. 
 Wilson does spoil you !" 
 
 " Why, you see, my lamb, it's all 'e 'as to do with 
 'is money. If 'e'd a dear young thing like you, 
 'e'd 'ave to spend 'is money on bicycles and pretty 
 frocks and such-like, but, not 'aving aught young 
 to spend it on, 'e just lavishes things on 'is old 
 woman." 
 
 "He utterly spoils you," said the girl, holding 
 Mrs. Wilson's fat hand so that she could examine 
 her numerous rings. " Polly, what day can I come 
 to tea ?" 
 
 "The 'ouse is there, my love," Mrs. Wilson re- 
 plied, " and your welcome's in it, and will be as long 
 as the roof covers me." 
 
 "Then say to-morrow, about a quarter-past five. 
 I've something to tell you." 
 
 On the opposite side of the room, Flo, who once 
 more found Mrs. Johnson-Biggs beside her, had 
 missed little or nothing of these scraps of conver- 
 sation. She was startled by the acrid voice of that 
 lady. " I can't think what all these people can be 
 thinking of. There's Muriel Maxwell actually invit- 
 ing herself to tea with her and just look at that." 
 
 " Now, don't rise, Polly, I entreat you," said the 
 Dean at that instant.
 
 74 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " Nay, but I will rise, sir," said Mrs. Wilson, 
 struggling on to her feet again. " I never could 
 abide them that gives themselves airs when they 
 get on in the world ; and no one shall ever say that 
 Mrs. Wilson forgot 'erself so far as to sit still when 
 'er own old master came special to speak to 'er. 
 Bless me, sir, because Wilson 'as got on in the 
 world and 'as fifteen 'undred a year, I don't forget 
 that I was once cook at the Deanery and was wed 
 therefrom." 
 
 " Nor do we, Polly," said the old Dean, laughing 
 outright, " for there has never been such a cook in it 
 since." 
 
 " God bless you, sir, I can't 'elp saying I'm glad 
 of it," was the quick reply. 
 
 " Yes, yes, my dear, I'm coming," said the Dean 
 in answer to a touch on his elbow from his wife. 
 "Then good-bye, my old friend. It is always a 
 pleasure to see your kind face." 
 
 "God bless you, sir," said Mrs. Wilson; "and 
 you too, my dear lady, and my dear lamb, al- 
 ways." 
 
 " Don't forget the toffee to-morrow, Polly," said 
 Miss Maxwell, laying her blooming face against the 
 old woman's red one for an instant. " What, you 
 don't know her toffee !" she laughed to Beth as they 
 crossed the room together. " Then let me recom- 
 mend you to lose no time in coaxing some out of
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 75 
 
 her. Mrs. Wilson's toffee is a dream, neither more 
 nor less." 
 
 " I can't think," remarked Mrs. Johnson-Biggs at 
 this moment in Flo's ear, "what people can be 
 thinking of. The Maxwells mostly look at one so 
 very much de haughty bar that they seem to belong 
 to another world altogether." 
 
 Flo was puzzled for a minute or so to think what 
 " de haughty bar" could possibly mean. Then she 
 grasped the good lady's meaning, but did not like to 
 repeat the phrase lest she should seem to be correct- 
 ing her. " I don't think," she said, gently, " that 
 there seems to be anything of that kind about them. 
 They all seem very fond of Mrs. Wilson, and there 
 is no sham about their relative positions." 
 
 " That's very true. I always say to Mr. Johnson- 
 Biggs that I was born just too high. If you are 
 not born with a title, in the purple, so to speak, you 
 do better to have come right out of the gutter. A 
 man who starts with a good grammar-school educa- 
 tion has no chance against one that began with four- 
 pence a day as a pit-boy, or as a nipper in works of 
 some kind. It's because education makes people 
 sensitive, yes, that's it. They haven't the same 
 push in them."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 UNDER THE VENEER. 
 
 Human nature is human nature, whether it wears velvet or fustian, 
 or whether it abides in a palace or a hovel. 
 
 THE reception days once over, the young couple 
 began to look out for a nest of their own. Flo, be- 
 ing wholly ignorant of Mullingham and its traditions, 
 had but little to say on the question of locality. All 
 that she concerned herself with was that the house 
 should not be too near, or, indeed, at all near to the 
 domicile of Mrs. Johnson-Biggs. " I daresay she is 
 most desirable and good and all that, Matt," she said, 
 " but I have never been used to chumming up with 
 just that kind of woman, and I don't think I could 
 stand her being my intimate friend and neighbour. 
 I think one gets like that when one has been used to 
 keeping office hours, one somehow never knows 
 the real domesticated sort of person." 
 
 " Mrs. Johnson-Biggs is horrid," Matt declared, 
 with the most uncompromising plainness. " My 
 mother tolerates her because her husband is useful 
 well, almost essential to my father ; none of the 
 girls can stand her at any price. Besides that, I 
 don't want to be anywhere near the Works ; I get 
 76
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 77 
 
 enough of them without living near to them, espe- 
 cially as I cycle both ways. I believe it would be 
 best to go a little further out of their way, then we 
 should be near enough to my people and not too 
 near any one we want to get out of the way of." 
 
 Eventually they decided upon taking a house 
 about half a mile beyond the Abode. It was a 
 charming place, a pretty two-storied villa with wide 
 eaves and French windows, standing in a large gar- 
 den. It had a good entrance, a pleasant drawing- 
 room, a charming conservatory, and an exceptionally 
 good staircase. " Even a full-sized tennis-ground," 
 said Matt, in a jubilant tone. 
 
 So it soon became known amongst the friends of 
 the Gorman family that Mr. and Mrs. Matthew had 
 taken " The Larches" for three years. 
 
 It happened on the day that Flo went to return 
 the call of that excellent lady, Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, 
 that she was by force of circumstances obliged to go 
 alone, as her husband had to run over to another 
 large manufacturing town about twenty miles away. 
 " Get one of the girls to go with you," was his last 
 suggestion before leaving home. 
 
 But Flo did not do so. She learned incidentally 
 that the girls had all some engagement on hand, so, 
 as she had made up her mind that Mrs. Johnson- 
 Biggs's visit should be returned that day, she went 
 alone. The lady greeted her with effusion.
 
 78 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " When are you coming to look over No. 6 ?" she 
 enquired. 
 
 " No. 6, what is No. 6 ?" asked Flo. 
 
 " The house in this road that I was telling you of 
 the other day," Mrs. Johnson-Biggs replied. 
 
 " Oh, we have taken a house," cried Flo. " We 
 have taken ' The Larches/ on the Sudbury Road, you 
 know." 
 
 " Indeed ! Then my well-meant efforts to assist 
 you in your search have been taken for nothing. I 
 had got the key from the owner, and " 
 
 " Oh, dear, I am so sorry," Flo cried, in genuine 
 compunction. " I did not in the least understand 
 that you were going to busy yourself to take any 
 trouble over it. Do forgive me. I quite misunder- 
 stood you." 
 
 " I never take offence," said Mrs. Johnson-Biggs ; 
 " but when my advances are misunderstood, I shrink." 
 
 The tone and the manner aroused Flo to a sense 
 of her own rights instantly. " Of course, to take of- 
 fence about such a thing would be extremely fool- 
 ish," she said, promptly. " For so many questions 
 have to be taken into consideration in choosing a 
 house. Now, as a matter of fact, I did mention to 
 my husband that you had told me of a house near 
 to yours, but he objected to it because it was too 
 near the Works." 
 
 " The young men of the present day are like that,"
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 79 
 
 said Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, sententiously. " Business 
 in business hours, and otherwise dissociate yourself 
 from it as far as possible. However, we must all 
 judge for ourselves. I am a Peacemaker by the 
 spirit as well as the letter, and I wish to be at peace 
 with the whole world. Not but what as I have 
 often said to Mr. Gorman the evil of the world 
 creeps in even among our enlightened few, and frets 
 as a moth doth fret a garment." 
 
 " I am afraid none of us will find perfect peace in 
 this world," said Flo, beginning to wonder if she 
 could not soon cut her visit short. 
 
 " Never never," said the other, with a portentous 
 shake of the head ; " it is a contentious world, and 
 sad is the pity of it. However, we cannot hope to 
 alter it ; we can only go each doing our trifle towards 
 the general welfare. But, Mrs. Matthew, this is a 
 triste subject of conversation for a young thing like 
 you. Do tell me, are you very gay just now ?" 
 
 " Fairly so," Flo replied, glad enough to change 
 the subject. 
 
 They chatted then amicably on various matters, 
 and Flo noticed that, whatever little failings Mrs. 
 Johnson-Biggs might have, she certainly served the 
 tea with good taste and daintiness; in fact, it was 
 quite a pleasant little meal, and she enjoyed it ex- 
 ceedingly. 
 
 " You will come again, often, I hope," said Mrs.
 
 8o THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 Johnson-Biggs, as Flo took her hand at parting. 
 " We are not rich, but we wish well to all the world. 
 By the way, have you been to see Mrs. Wilson yet ?" 
 
 " No, not yet. I thought of going there to-mor- 
 row," Flo replied. 
 
 Mrs. Johnson-Biggs drew herself up with an air of 
 gratified pride which was plain to be seen. " A good 
 soul," she said, in a patronizing tone, " but common, 
 so common." 
 
 "Yet she seems to be a very real peacemaker," 
 said Flo, not, perhaps, without a spice of mis- 
 chief. 
 
 " Yes, yes, a good soul, as I say. Well, good-bye, 
 dear Mrs. Matthew ; your visit has been a great pleas- 
 ure to me." 
 
 That evening during dinner Flo happened to men- 
 tion where she had been during the day, and at once 
 her sisters-in-law began to reproach her for not 
 having waited until they could, one or more of them, 
 have gone to return Mrs. Johnson-Biggs's visit with 
 her. " The idea of your going all by your little self 
 and facing such an ordeal !" Beth cried. " There was 
 no hurry to go there. Any day would have done for 
 her." 
 
 " I am glad that Flo lost no time in paying that 
 particular call," put in Mr. Gorman at the moment. 
 " Mrs. Biggs may be a foolish woman and an insin- 
 cere one, and one it is not incumbent upon Flo to
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 81 
 
 become in any way intimate with, but William Biggs 
 is one of my right hands at the Works and I could 
 ill spare him, while it would pain me greatly to think 
 that either he or his wife were slighted ever so little 
 at the hands of any of my children." 
 
 " I am sure, father," said Beth, with rising colour, 
 " that we always make a point of being especially 
 civil to Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, and it is not always 
 easy, for she is a silly, pretentious, ridiculous woman, 
 with whom, but for her husband, we should never 
 trouble to be on terms of any kind. I, for one, can- 
 not endure her, and I do think it is hard on poor 
 Flo that she should think it necessary to go all 
 alone to brave her airs and graces." 
 
 " It has not hurt me," cried Flo, with a laugh. 
 " Let us hope that I may never have anything worse 
 to try me, that's all." 
 
 Mrs. Gorman gave her a quick look, as of com- 
 mendation, but Mr. Gorman glanced rather severely 
 at Beth. " I am afraid, my child," he said, " that 
 my teaching has been in many cases wholly without 
 fruit. It pains me to hear you speak in such a way 
 of one who comes to my house as a friend. It is 
 incompatible with all the tenets of our faith. You 
 should try to cultivate a more genial feeling towards 
 those whom you dislike needlessly. Your reward 
 would be a thousand-fold. And besides that, I 
 greatly dislike to hear wholesale and sweeping judg- 
 
 6
 
 82 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 ments, more particularly from the young, those who 
 have not as yet been tried in the fire and who see 
 only the outside of things, and who have not suffi- 
 cient experience of the deeper side of life to be able 
 to see below the surface. I grant you that Mrs. 
 Biggs has certainly affectations of manner and cer- 
 tain little failings of disposition which she would be 
 better without. But I do know this, that she has 
 had a hard struggle in many ways, that she has 
 been a good and faithful wife to William Biggs, and 
 that is a great set-off to the folly of calling herself 
 Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, with a little dash between the 
 two which is not actually hers by right." 
 
 " But if it is not hers by right, she is guilty of a 
 fraud in using it," exclaimed Beth, rather hotly. 
 
 " In the strict letter . . . yes, perhaps she is," Mr. 
 Gorman replied. " In actuality the little dash does 
 no one any harm, takes away the right of no one 
 else, and is a foible, nothing more. You should try 
 to look at the good in people, my dear, to live in 
 peace and amity ... in real amity . . . with all 
 men. Then, and not before, you will have peace, 
 the most precious gift in all the world." 
 
 As these words passed the old man's lips, Flo 
 happened to be looking at her mother-in-law. She 
 saw that she opened her mouth eagerly, as if she 
 were going to say something almost against her 
 will ; then she closed it resolutely, and helped her-
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 83 
 
 self to a dish which the footman handed to her at 
 that moment. 
 
 Just then Matt, seeing that the hot blood had 
 flushed to Beth's young face, plunged into the con- 
 versation. " I suppose she was pleased to see you," 
 he said to Flo, " and civil and all that." 
 
 " Oh, very much so," Flo made haste to reply. 
 " She gave me quite a lovely tea, and asked me to 
 come again as often as I liked. And then I went 
 down to the town and ... I spent some money to 
 my great satisfaction." 
 
 " What did you buy ?" was the general cry, every 
 one being but too thankful to be got off the sub- 
 ject of Mrs. Johnson-Biggs and the duties of good 
 peacemakers. 
 
 "A doll," answered Flo. 
 
 "A doll . . . and for whom?" It was Matty 
 who spoke. 
 
 " Well, I was going to get some gloves, and I hap- 
 pened to see a poor little child get as bad a knock 
 over as I ever saw in all my life, not to be smashed 
 up altogether, don't you know. I picked her up, 
 and the man who knocked her over drove on with- 
 out a word." 
 
 " The brute !" cried Matt, indignantly. " Who was 
 he ? Oh, but of course you would not know. Was 
 she much hurt ?" 
 
 " She was pretty badly bruised," Flo replied. " I
 
 84 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 took her into a chemist's to have her looked to and 
 to see whether it was necessary to take her to a 
 doctor or a hospital. She was badly bruised, but 
 that was all. As he said, these little ones' bones are 
 soft and don't snap as ours might do. The chemist 
 gave her a pick-up, and we soothed her down, and 
 then I took her to a toy-shop near at hand and 
 bought her a big doll, to her immense gratification. 
 I think she would even have rather liked to be 
 knocked down over again." 
 
 " Poor little soul," murmured Mrs. Gorman, softly. 
 " Flo dear, I should like to pay for that doll." 
 
 " We will look her out and do something for her," 
 put in Mr. Gorman from the other end of the table. 
 
 " What I would like to find out is ... who was 
 the man," said Matt. 
 
 " I asked a bystander his name," answered Flo, 
 *' but his reply was so very much the reverse of po- 
 lite that I really cannot repeat it. But he told me 
 his name ; it is de Kloof." 
 
 "By Jove!" ejaculated Matt, in great astonish- 
 ment. " You don't say so ?" 
 
 " Why, do you know him ?" Flo cried, surprised 
 at her husband's tone. " I fancied from what the 
 man told me that he was no one belonging to Mul- 
 lingham. He called him, among other things, a 
 blackmailing Jew from London." 
 
 "But don't you remember the story that John
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 85 
 
 Strode told us about Lady Mullingham's diamonds 
 . . . the first night you ever came here ?" 
 
 " O h, that man !" Flo exclaimed, enlightened now 
 as to Mr. de Kloof's identity. 
 
 " Of course, you did not hear the child's name," 
 said Matt. 
 
 " Yes, I did. It was Turner, Lizzie Turner." 
 
 " Turner. Ah ! That is scarcely identification 
 enough in Mullingham. There are hundreds of 
 Turners here." 
 
 Before they had finished dinner, however, the but- 
 ler came in and made a confidential communication 
 to Matt; and Matt looked across the table at Flo 
 with a laugh. " I am afraid your sin has already 
 found you out," he said. " One Robert Turner is 
 here and wishes to see me ' particular' for two min- 
 utes. You'll excuse me, mother, won't you ?" 
 
 Mrs. Gorman smiled her assent, and Matt left the 
 table and went out of the room. In a very short 
 time he came back. " I was right," he said, tri- 
 umphantly. " I guessed it was the child's father 
 come to thank you and to get information if he 
 could. Do you mind coming to speak to him ?" 
 
 " We will all go," said Mrs. Gorman. " We can 
 come back for our dessert and coffee." 
 
 So they all trooped out to the morning-room 
 where William had shown the visitor. He was 
 standing near to the fireplace, a decently dressed
 
 86 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 workingman who had evidently been cleaned up for 
 the occasion. As Mr. Gorman entered the room he 
 at once recognised him as one of his own workmen 
 and held out his hand. " My son's wife was telling 
 us about the accident just before you came, Turner," 
 he said, in a sympathetic tone. " I hope the child is 
 no worse." 
 
 " Peace be with you, sir," replied the man, respect- 
 fully. " My little lass is not much the worse, least- 
 ways there are no bones broke ; but she's sadly 
 bruised and shook, and I left her mother trying to 
 get her to sleep, and I doubt she had a heavy task 
 in front of her. I'd rather have stayed and helped 
 to get her off, for I always did believe in doing the 
 job first that comes nighest to hand ; but my missis, 
 she's like all women, saving your presence, ma'am," 
 with a bow towards Mrs. Gorman, who smiled in- 
 dulgently. " The little 'un keeps sobbing and crying 
 and calling out the horse is upon her, and that she'll 
 be killed before she can get out of the way, and then 
 my missis she ramps and raves, and nothing will sat- 
 isfy her but that she must have the man's blood, and 
 I don't know who the feller was, and my neighbours 
 tell me that a man standing by told the lady who he 
 was, and naught will satisfy my missis but that I 
 should clean myself and come along to give her 
 heartfelt thanks and find out who the feller was. I 
 represented that it wasn't exactly seemly to be coming
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 87 
 
 so late of a night, but she wouldn't even hear me. 
 She says, says she, that the master has a tender 
 heart, and that the family was human beings like 
 ourselves, even if they do eat their dinner at supper- 
 time. I'm sure I hope you'll excuse her, ladies and 
 gentlemen." 
 
 " Of course, even if there was anything to excuse, 
 which there certainly is not," said Mrs. Gorman, 
 kindly. " I am sorry, Turner, that the poor little 
 thing is so upset. I only hope it won't cause her 
 any permanent injury. I have a horror of harm to 
 a child's nerves, for one never knows when or where 
 it may stop." 
 
 " Thank you kindly, indeed, ma'am," said Turner, 
 gratefully. " Then did Mrs. Matthew hear the gen- 
 tleman's name ?" 
 
 " Yes, I did . . ." Flo began, when Mr. Gor- 
 man broke in. 
 
 " Turner," he said, gently, " cannot you persuade 
 your wife that to forget and forgive is to show the 
 most divine. . . ." 
 
 " I'm afraid I can't, sir," Turner replied, promptly. 
 " If I go back without finding out something about it, 
 my missis will give me no peace of my life. You see, 
 sir, she's only human like other women, and when 
 it touches her bairns, she's apt to get tigerish, just 
 as every other woman would. Think, sir, if it was 
 a little child of your own that a feller had ridden
 
 88 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 over with no more compassion than you'd give to a 
 dog. How'd you feel yourself, sir?" 
 
 Mr. Gorman threw out his hand with an im- 
 pulsive gesture and opened his mouth as if to speak ; 
 then he seemed to change his mind, and his hand 
 fell to his side again. " I have nothing to say to 
 that, Turner," he said, in a strange, strained voice. 
 " Flo, my dear, if you have anything to tell, tell 
 it." 
 
 "The name of the . . . the . . . man who 
 knocked down your little child to-day was de 
 Kloof," Flo said to Turner. 
 
 " Thank you, ma'am, thank you," he said. " And 
 can you add to your kindness by telling me where 
 he lives ?" 
 
 Flo looked at her husband. 
 
 " Mr. de Kloof," said Matt, " lives at Allingham 
 Towers. He bought the place of Colonel Carstairs 
 some two years ago." 
 
 " Thank you, sir, thank you," said Turner. " I'll 
 send over and communicate with Mr. de Kloof to- 
 morrow. I should think if I was to go to Mr. 
 Yarborough it would be the best thing I could do." 
 
 Mr. Yarborough was the solicitor to the Works, 
 and like the doctor was supposed to look after the 
 interests of all and sundry connected even in the 
 most remote manner with Mr. Gorman's great busi- 
 ness. " I am sure that Mr. Yarborough would ad-
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 89 
 
 vise you as to your best course," said Matt. " Don't 
 you think so, sir ?" appealing to his father. 
 
 " Yes, I am sure of it," replied Mr. Gorman, in a 
 stifled tone, as he turned away. 
 
 "Then I'll go back and tell my missis," said 
 Turner, with deep satisfaction. 
 
 " And you shall take a few sweet things and some 
 fruit with you," said Mrs. Gorman, kindly. " Poor 
 little darling, she may have a bad night, and such 
 things help children to forget." 
 
 Before the words had left her mother's lips Beth 
 slipped out of the room, returning with a cardboard 
 box which had once held a pair of smart satin slip- 
 pers. This was rilled to overflowing with fruit and 
 good things such as little folk love, and she put it 
 into the man's hands with a pleasant word such as 
 made the gift doubly sweet. 
 
 " I thank you, ladies, with all my heart, and my 
 missis, too. And my little maid will when she's 
 older, even if she doesn't now. As for Mrs. Mat- 
 thew, we've no words . . . but our hearts is full." 
 He put out his hand as Flo stretched out hers, and 
 shook as warmly as a man of his class ever does 
 shake hands. 
 
 " My dear child," said Matt to his wife, as they 
 all went back to the dining-room again, " you have 
 made your reputation with the people at the Works 
 for ever. Mullingham folks are rough and ready,
 
 90 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 very independent and sturdy, very rude and brusque 
 at times, but they're all right down at the bottom. 
 Once win them and you win them for good and all. 
 There are no half measures about Mullingham folk, 
 are there, mother ?" 
 
 " No, nor if you are unlucky enough to win their 
 hatred," replied his mother, smiling. 
 
 Mr. Gorman alone seemed to have nothing to say. 
 He sat down in his place and drank his coffee with 
 an abstracted air, and when he had finished it, 
 he looked at his wife and asked her to excuse 
 him. 
 
 "What a pity poor Turner did not have sense 
 enough to forego his special scheme of revenge !" 
 exclaimed Beth, as the door closed behind her 
 father. " Father would never have forgotten it, and 
 as the child is not much hurt, it would have paid 
 Turner very much better to have pleased him rather 
 than to have gone for this Mr. de Kloof. How 
 shortsighted most people, and especially working 
 people, always are !" 
 
 " Beth /" cried Mrs. Gorman, in a shocked voice. 
 " My dear child, I wish you would not let your 
 tongue run away with your wits as you do." 
 
 " It's perfectly true, mother," cried Beth, who was 
 a rebellious young soul and never cared to choose 
 her words overwell. " If Turner had had sense 
 enough, he would have at least promised to talk his
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 91 
 
 missis over to father's way of thinking. He will get 
 little or nothing out of the Jew man." 
 
 "All the same," said Flo, speaking very decidedly, 
 " Jews are, as a rule, extremely fond of and good to 
 children." 
 
 " In any case your father would much rather that 
 Turner, or any one else he knew, was honest and 
 straight in all and every relation of life," said Mrs. 
 Gorman with dignity. "I am sure that nothing 
 would grieve him and pain him more than to know 
 that his advice was taken from mere mercenary 
 motives." 
 
 "Which it very often is," flashed out the irre- 
 pressible Beth.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DIFFERENCE IN A CHOICE. 
 
 Injustice would often pass unnoticed if it were not for the incon- 
 sistency which so frequently attends it. 
 
 THE following evening, when the Gorman family 
 was assembled at the dinner-table, Mr. Gorman, when 
 he had blessed the food, looked around with a smile 
 of intensest satisfaction. " I have something to tell 
 you all," he said. " I went to see that poor little 
 child to-day, and ..." 
 
 " They've let de Kloof off," muttered Beth, in a 
 quick whisper. 
 
 "... and I am pleased to be able to tell you that 
 Mrs. Turner, poor soul, has agreed that it would be 
 foolish and contentious to take any definite action 
 against this man de Kloof. But I have instructed 
 Mr. Yarborough to write him a temperate letter, 
 pointing out that the child has been severely bruised, 
 and suggesting that he make some compensation for 
 his carelessness." 
 
 " What does Yarborough put it at ... a fiver ?" 
 Matt enquired. 
 
 " Thereabouts," replied Mr. Gorman. 
 
 After this the subject was dismissed, and was ap- 
 parently forgotten. Matt and Flo were extremely 
 92
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 93 
 
 busy looking to the details of their new house and 
 in trying to keep pace with the many invitations 
 which poured in upon them. It was not until they 
 found themselves settled down at " The Larches," and 
 began to be socially somewhat more quiet, that Flo 
 saw very much more of the little congregation which 
 went by the name of the Peacemakers. On several 
 Sundays she and Matt had gone out into the country 
 to spend the day with old friends of his, and twice 
 they had paid Friday to Monday visits to London in 
 order that they might get certain things not easily 
 obtainable in Mullingham. So it happened that 
 during several weeks they were not seen at the 
 sanctuary, and when, on the first Sunday of their 
 residence at " The Larches," they did make their ap- 
 pearance there, Mrs. Matt found herself the object 
 of considerable attention of a kind which was not 
 altogether pleasant to her. 
 
 " I quite thought that you were going to attend 
 sanctuary regularly," remarked Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, 
 as she shook hands at the door. 
 
 " So I am," returned Flo, with a smile. " But for 
 several Sundays we have been away from home." 
 
 " Oh, I am glad of that. I should not like to see 
 either you or Mr. Matthew falling away from the 
 faith," was the lady's comment. "Are you quite 
 settled in your new house?" 
 
 " Quite, thank you," Flo replied ; then asked a
 
 94 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 few polite questions as to Mrs. Johnson-Biggs's 
 health, wondering the while why the Gormans were 
 so long in coming. 
 
 " It was a sweet discourse this morning," said Mrs. 
 Johnson- Biggs, who was determined to keep "the 
 bride," as Flo was still called in the Gorman circle, 
 as long as she could. " I thought the dear pastor 
 so true in what he said about not picking holes in 
 our neighbours. The text ' Let brotherly love ensue' 
 was excellently worked out, and must have gone 
 home to a good many hearts this morning. Oh, 
 Miss Rachel, how you did make me jump!" she ex- 
 claimed, as tall Rachel came behind her and stood 
 close against her. 
 
 "Ah, I believe that was your conscience, Mrs. 
 Johnson-Biggs," Rachel cried. " That sermon went 
 home. I thought you looked like it." 
 
 " To some present I have no doubt but that it did, 
 Miss Rachel," was the crushing reply. " For my- 
 self, I am thankful to say that my heart is at peace 
 and that I dwell in amity with all men. It would be 
 well if all of us could say as much." 
 
 " They can't," cried Rachel, laughing. " Mrs. 
 Wilson alone perhaps excepted. And here she 
 comes. Talk of the . . ." 
 
 " My dear Miss Rachel, and you just out of sanct- 
 uary!" exclaimed Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, genuinely 
 scandalized by the girl's remark.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 95 
 
 Rachel made great eyes of innocence. " Why, 
 dear lady," she cried, " I was only going to say that 
 if you talk of the angels you will hear their wings. 
 You evidently know a much naughtier version of 
 the same saying. Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, I am sur- 
 prised at you." 
 
 " You will have your fun, Miss Rachel," the other 
 returned, holding out her hand ; but she moved away 
 in a certain amount of confusion, and the colour had 
 mounted to her very eyes. 
 
 " You were rather hard on her, Rachel," said Flo, 
 compassionately. 
 
 " Not a bit of it," Rachel replied, sturdily. " I 
 do think Mrs. Johnson-Biggs is the ve'ry biggest 
 hypocrite I ever knew in all my life. She a Peace- 
 maker, indeed ! . . . Horrid, tittle-tattling, mischief- 
 making cat ! that's what she is. I can't endure her. 
 I can't stand her at any price." 
 
 Flo laughed. " Oh, well, she might be worse, and 
 she might come much more into your lives than she 
 does. If you had to be very intimate with her and 
 to meet her every day and wherever you went, it 
 would be ever so much more difficult. As it is, she 
 is only an incident, so to speak." She dismissed the 
 subject then in a way that was peculiarly her own, 
 and went on talking about other things, so that 
 Rachel, who was, she had already found out, rather 
 fond of wearing a grievance to death, had no chance
 
 96 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 of continuing it. Nothing more was said that day 
 about Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, but without doubt Rachel 
 was ruffled and unlike herself, and once or twice Flo 
 looked at her in wondering enquiry. 
 
 " What is amiss with Rachel to-day ?" she said to 
 Matty when at last she found herself in her eldest 
 sister-in-law's room. 
 
 " Oh, poor Rachel !" laughed Matty. " Things are 
 not going very easily with her these last few days. 
 The redoubtable John Strode is to the front again. 
 He wants an answer, and won't take no for it." 
 
 " Rachel couldn't marry a creature like John 
 Strode," cried Flo, indignantly. " Why doesn't your 
 father tell him so, and bring things to a proper 
 end ?" 
 
 " Because my father thinks Rachel might as well 
 marry John Strode as any one else," answered Matty, 
 promptly. " Tell me, Flo, has it never struck you 
 as rather strange that we girls are all unmarried? 
 Rachel is seventeen, nearly eighteen, in fact, and 
 she is the youngest of us all. I am a year older 
 than Matt. I should have been married years and 
 years ago if it had not been for an idea of my father's 
 that he knew better what sort of man I wanted than 
 I did." 
 
 " But . . ." cried Flo, indignantly, " what differ- 
 ence can it make to your father? I thought he was 
 so keen on young people pleasing themselves. He
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 97 
 
 never raised the very smallest objection to our being 
 married. And Matt must have known heaps of girls 
 with money or influence, while I have neither the one 
 nor the other." 
 
 "Yes, but you were Matt's choice. How many 
 times did not father impress that upon you both, 
 upon every one of us ?" 
 
 " But John Strode is most emphatically not Rachel's 
 choice," Flo exclaimed. 
 
 " With father that does not count ; ... it is only 
 the men who count," Matty declared. " Oh, I can't 
 explain it all to you . . . you'll find it all out in 
 time." Then there was a moment's silence, after 
 which Matty, with one swift glance at her sister-in- 
 law, burst out as if she was getting something off 
 her mind. " Look here, Flo," she exclaimed, in an 
 odd, breathless kind of way, " when you've got to 
 know us better than you do now, you'll find out what 
 possibly even Matt has never known . . . that it 
 isn't all quite as it seems, this Peacemaking creed of 
 ours ; there is very little of peace about it. If we 
 young ones stick to it, it is to please our mother, who 
 is a saint if ever there was one on earth, and in no 
 sense because we wish to curry favour with our 
 father, as is the case with half the people who fill the 
 sanctuary every Sunday that ever is. As for what 
 you may say about my father having accepted you 
 without a word as to your fortune or your influence 
 
 7
 
 98 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 . . . that has nothing to do with it. You were Matt's 
 choice. That was enough for him. In the first 
 place, Matt is not the kind of fellow who would 
 brook interference even from his father, though a 
 better and more dutiful son never lived in this world. 
 Still, Matt is a partner in the Works, not a depend- 
 ant of father's, and he was able to please himself 
 about his marriage, and he did. Again, it is part of 
 father's creed that a man shall marry the girl of his 
 heart, though he never seems to think the same thing 
 at all necessary for his daughters. He would will- 
 ingly see poor Rachel married to John Strode to- 
 morrow, blatant cad as he is, simply because he is 
 rich, and because he declares that Rachel is the girl 
 of his heart and that he cannot be happy with any 
 other. But he is a man, and men's feelings you know 
 are strong and deep, not like a girl's, which are easily 
 satisfied if only you give them plenty to eat and 
 drink and a warm bed to lie in, as you do for the cats. 
 Girls will love any one . . . hush . . sh . . sh ! that's 
 mother coming; not a word to her . . . she can't 
 bear us to criticise father in any way." 
 
 They could hear Mrs. Gorman talking to some 
 one in the corridor. 
 
 " Tell me, quick," exclaimed Flo, in a breathless 
 whisper . . . "Will she ever give in? Will she 
 ever let herself be persuaded to marry that dreadful 
 man ?"
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 99 
 
 " Never," returned Matty, with emphasis. " Rachel 
 is young, but she is not weak, and she would die 
 first." 
 
 " I'm glad of that, ' murmured Flo, as the door 
 opened and Mrs. Gorman came into the room.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 A THUNDERBOLT. 
 
 A bold move is a very fine thing, and often carries the day for 
 sheer want of a bolder move to parry it. 
 
 As soon as Matt and Flo were really settled in 
 their new house they gave a dinner-party. It was a 
 very serious affair for Flo, who had never had any 
 say in the giving of a party of any kind in all her 
 life before; but she found in her mother-in-law a 
 great tower of strength, which enabled her to sail 
 through her difficulties without feeling in any way 
 that she was giving up her rights as the mistress of 
 " The Larches." It was Mrs. Gorman who made the 
 final decisions as to the menu, who advised Flo what 
 decorations she could have which would be a little 
 out of the common and original. It was Mrs. Gor- 
 man who instructed her as to who should take who, 
 and who gave her many most useful hints as to her 
 best plan for making the whole affair go off success- 
 fully. And the entertainment was an unqualified 
 success from first to last, and more than one lady 
 said plainly to Mrs. Gorman that for a young wife's 
 first dinner-party everything had gone off wonder- 
 fully well.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 101 
 
 Of course, at this first and most formal party of 
 the family at the Abode of Peace, only Mr. and Mrs. 
 Gorman had been present. Flo had suggested that 
 at least two of her sisters-in-law should join them, 
 but the girls themselves had promptly vetoed any 
 such arrangement. " My dear," said Matty, who 
 was a young woman gifted with quite her full share 
 of common sense, " whatever you do, don't swamp 
 your first dinner-party with relations. If you ask 
 father and mother, that is all that is necessary. We 
 don't need to be pushed in every time you invite 
 any one else. We'll come to your next one, and then 
 you need not ask the father and mother. To my 
 mind there is nothing so terrible as going to a dinner 
 and finding oneself flanked on either side by belong- 
 ings of the house. Don't begin it, my dear, and 
 then you will never have to lop off and give offence 
 all round later on." 
 
 So only the heads of the family were bidden, and 
 Flo suggested to Matt, when he was congratulating 
 her afterwards, that they might give a little dinner 
 specially for his sisters. "You must know heaps of 
 men, Matt," she said. " I mean bachelors, unattached 
 men who would love to come to a young dinner- 
 party. What do you think ?" 
 
 " I think it's a splendid idea," he declared. " We'll 
 get the invitations out at once, and don't let on who 
 is comingf."
 
 102 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 Accordingly the list for this second dinner was 
 kept a profound secret between Matt and his wife, 
 and not even Mrs. Gorman was taken into their con- 
 fidence. Their party was one of fourteen, but the 
 previous day Matt, when he got home to dinner, said 
 to his wife, ..." I say, dearest, I don't know what 
 you'll say, but I've taken on myself to ask another 
 man for to-morrow evening." 
 
 Flo looked rather dismayed. "Another man, 
 Matt !" she cried. " Why, won't that upset all the 
 table ? Hadn't we better try and get another girl ?" 
 
 "We might do that. There's Mary Broughton. 
 She was at the other dinner with her father, but we 
 could explain the circumstances, and I'm sure she 
 would come." 
 
 "At all events, we can ask her," said Flo, who 
 was not one to make a trouble of a small matter. 
 " And who is the man, Matt ?" 
 
 " A very nice chap, who has just come to Mulling- 
 ham. He has bought a share in the big steel works 
 over at Ayton. His name is Barty, Brooke Barty." 
 
 " And how long have you known him ? I never 
 heard you speak of him before," said Flo, who was 
 by no means dismayed at such a desirable-sounding 
 addition to her party. 
 
 " My dear child, I never saw him before to-day. 
 He came with a letter of introduction from a fellow 
 I was at school with, my greatest chum at Harrow,
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 103 
 
 and, as I wanted to show him instant hospitality, I 
 suggested that he should join us to-morrow. He 
 accepted at once when I told him I could answer for 
 you." 
 
 "All right. Then I'll go round the first thing 
 after breakfast to see if Miss Broughton will not 
 help us out of our difficulty." 
 
 The result of this arrangement was the dinner of 
 the following evening was one of sixteen instead of 
 seventeen. Flo awaited with some anxiety the ad- 
 vent of the stranger. As soon as he entered the 
 room, she saw that he would prove no drawback to 
 her entertainment. He was a tall young man of 
 seven- or eight-and-twenty years old, fair-haired and 
 fair-skinned, though much tanned and burned by an 
 outdoor life. His voice was pleasant and mellow, 
 his manner quiet and easy, his dress studiously plain. 
 Such a young man, in fact, as Flo had not often 
 known, though she had seen hundreds of his class 
 walking about the West-end of London when she 
 had chanced to find herself in fashionable quarters 
 thereof. He met her with a half apology for his 
 presence. " I do hope, Mrs. Gorman," he said, as 
 she went forward to meet him, " that my coming to- 
 night was not a great bore to you and did not put 
 you out very much. Your husband simply insisted 
 on my coming, and hardly left me any choice." 
 
 " And he was quite right," declared Flo, in friendly
 
 104 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 tones. " He would have asked you to dine with us 
 under the circumstances unless we had actually been 
 going out ; and surely it was fortunate that we hap- 
 pened to have some friends dining with us ... only 
 young friends; but perhaps you won't mind that," 
 she added, with a smile. 
 
 " I have no rooted objection to young people, cer- 
 tainly," he declared promptly. "And very often 
 there are few or no young people at dinners, so that 
 I may call myself very much in luck's way." 
 
 Being the greatest stranger, and one to whom 
 she wished to show especial honour, Flo intimated 
 to Matt's new friend that he was to take her into 
 dinner, and she had arranged that Miss Broughton, 
 who had come to her rescue in the matter of num- 
 bers, should sit on his other hand. Miss Broughton's 
 cavalier, however, did not give her neighbour very 
 much chance of talking to her, and Flo found that 
 she was obliged to do the most of the task of enter- 
 taining him herself. It was towards the middle of 
 the repast that Mr. Barty suddenly put a plain ques- 
 tion to her. " Mrs. Gorman," he said, " who is that 
 young lady opposite in the white and yellow dress ?" 
 
 Flo loolced down the table. " Oh, that is one of 
 my sisters-in-law, one of my husband's sisters," she 
 replied. 
 
 " Oh, yes . . . and her name is ... ?" 
 
 " She is called Racliel," Flo answered.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 105 
 
 " Rachel !" He repeated the name lingeringly, 
 and a new idea came into Flo's mind. She looked 
 at him sharply, indeed, but he was again looking at 
 Rachel, so that she could gather nothing from his 
 face. 
 
 But later on in the drawing-room, she carefully 
 abstained from introducing him to Rachel. " If he 
 wants to know her," her thoughts ran, " he shall ask 
 for it." Wherein she showed that she was clearly 
 of opinion that a certain wise man was really wise 
 when he said, " In vain is the snare spread in the 
 sight of any bird." Nor did she have to wait long. 
 Before the men had been ten minutes in the room, 
 Mr. Barty came to her and said, " Mrs. Gorman, 
 won't you introduce me to your sister-in-law ?" 
 
 " Oh, of course I will ; but to which one, for I 
 have four sisters-in-law here to-night," she returned, 
 with deliberate denseness of understanding. 
 
 " It is Miss Rachel that I would like to know," he 
 said, quite meekly. So Flo convoyed him across 
 the room and uttered the few words which were 
 necessary to include him among Rachel Gorman's 
 acquaintances for the future. Among her acquaint- 
 ances, did I say? I might have used a stronger 
 word, for from that moment it was evident to all 
 beholders that for Brooke Barty there was only one 
 woman in the world, and that woman was Rachel 
 Gorman.
 
 io6 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " My dear child," said Matt to his wife, when all 
 their guests had gone and they found themselves 
 once more alone, " did you ever see any one so 
 struck all of a heap as Barty was by Rachel to- 
 night ? Or was I mistaken ?" 
 
 " Not the very least in the world, dear boy," Flo 
 cried. " I've just been bursting to know whether 
 you saw it or not. They say that brothers never do 
 see anything of the kind, but it would indeed have 
 been a blind bat of a brother who saw nothing to- 
 night." 
 
 " Oh, I saw right enough," said Matt, with a laugh. 
 " And I saw, too, that Miss Rachel herself was any- 
 thing but averse to the attention Brooke Barty paid 
 her." 
 
 " I wonder," said Flo, half hesitatingly, " I won- 
 der, Matt, if ... if anything ... I mean if any- 
 thing serious should come of it, what your father 
 would say ?" 
 
 " My father . . . why, what should he say ? It is 
 nothing to him whether the girls marry one fellow 
 or another, so long as the ones they choose are all 
 right." 
 
 For the first time Flo realized that Matt knew 
 nothing of the several minor tragedies which had 
 been enacted during the past few years under the 
 roof of the Abode of Peace. " Matt," she said, 
 breathlessly, "have you never heard, or seen, or
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 107 
 
 realized that . . . your father has views of his own 
 on the subject of marriage ?" 
 
 " Of course, but only such as are reasonable and 
 just. He never said one word to interfere in any 
 way with my marriage." 
 
 " But with the girls . . . they have not such a free 
 hand as you have always had. Your father wants 
 Rachel to marry John Strode, and he thinks it pre- 
 posterous that a girl should want to have a voice 
 in the question of her husband." 
 
 " Oh, what rubbish . . . who has been stuffing 
 you up with all that ?" he exclaimed, contemptuously. 
 " My dear little girl, if that chap who was here to- 
 night wants to marry Rachel, you may depend upon 
 it that my father won't raise any serious objection. 
 He's young and certainly well off, and by all accounts 
 a very good fellow, and the whole matter lies with 
 the two themselves. We needn't bother our heads 
 about it one way or the other." 
 
 Flo said no more. She was a girl who in her 
 years of business life had learned to hold her peace, 
 where a more ordinary girl would have argued the 
 question out to the bitter end. She saw that Matt 
 really did not know certain things which had hap- 
 pened in the days that were gone by, and there was 
 a lurking suspicion in her brain that perhaps, after 
 all, Matty had fixed her heart upon some man who 
 was not all that was desirable in the eyes of her father
 
 io8 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 and mother, and that she had in her disappointment 
 got into a way of putting down extraordinary parental 
 prudence to the influence solely of her father's pe- 
 culiar creed. She had assuredly herself seen no 
 sign in her father-in-law's manner or conversation 
 that he did not wish for peace to be part and parcel 
 of his daughters's lives as well as of his son's and of 
 his own. In her sensible mind she came to the con- 
 clusion that there was a doubt, and she determined 
 to give Mr. Gorman the benefit thereof. 
 
 After this Brooke Barty was to be met with every- 
 where in Mullingham. From the Bishop's Palace to 
 the Deanery, from the small mess of the detachment 
 of infantry, who held the garrison at that time, to the 
 weekly dinner of the cricket club ; from the house 
 of the wealthy manufacturer to that of the careless 
 family who lived about a mile out of the town on 
 the remnants of an almost forgotten prosperity, and 
 danced their way through life on what they jokingly 
 called the edge of a razor. Brooke Barty was wel- 
 come to each and all as only a really good fellow or 
 a scamp ever can be. And there was very emphati- 
 cally nothing of the scamp about Brooke Barty. 
 
 To the Abode of Peace he went first of all and 
 most of all. With its mistress he quickly ingratiated 
 himself, and he fell into the ways of its master with 
 an alacrity which was as judicious as it was appar- 
 ently spontaneous.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 109 
 
 On the occasion of his first visit he was, it must 
 be owned, not a little startled by Mr. Gorman's form 
 of greeting when they first met ..." Peace be with 
 you," said Mr. Gorman, with uplifted hand and sol- 
 emn mien. 
 
 " Thank you, sir, very much," said Brooke Barty, 
 promptly. " Fine day, hasn't it been ?" 
 
 Mr. Gorman came down from the clouds with a 
 start. " Yes, a very fine day for the time of year," 
 he replied. " I hope that you like Mullingham and 
 are satisfied with your new life." 
 
 " Yes, it seems as good as any other," Brooke said, 
 quietly. " I won't pretend that I am desperately in- 
 terested in steel works except as an investment and 
 as a means of passing my life." 
 
 " Ah, there you are making a mistake," said Mr. 
 Gorman, becoming the man of the world all in a 
 moment. " A young man ought to be deeply inter- 
 ested in his business no matter what it is. If he is 
 not so he has not found his right vocation." 
 
 "That may be so in ordinary cases," returned 
 Brooke, who had no notion of changing his mental 
 attitude because of what any one else had to say on 
 the subject, " but in mine I don't think it is so. I 
 am an all-round mediocre man with no particular 
 gifts one way or another. I am a very good business 
 man, but I could never strike out a line and found a 
 big business for myself. I hate an idle life or to do
 
 no THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 what so many other men who are not obliged to 
 work for their bread and butter do, make a business 
 of sport. So I have settled myself in a line that will 
 keep myself employed and make me a bigger income 
 than I have, and I am very well satisfied, though not 
 in the least enthusiastic." 
 
 " But you have not come straight here as a part- 
 ner ... I mean without any experience ?" Mr. Gor- 
 man asked. 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ; I went through a regular course 
 at Driffield's," naming a great firm of steel-plate- 
 makers well known all over the world. " I had to 
 make up my mind when I left Haileybury what I 
 would do with my life, and that sort of thing seemed 
 to me as good as anything else. I did not know 
 then," he added, frankly, " that I should ever be in 
 a position to buy a share in anything." 
 
 " I hope you will do well," said Mr. Gorman. " I 
 confess though that I should like you to have a little 
 more enthusiasm. But," shaking his head a little 
 sadly, "it is a quality that is strangely lacking 
 among young men nowadays, and often when it is 
 found it is not appreciated at its true value." 
 
 "Which," whispered Matty to Rachel, "is one 
 specially meant for you, my dear." 
 
 It was natural enough that Mrs. Gorman should 
 include among the guests invited to her next dinner- 
 party the young man who had come to Mullingham
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. in 
 
 with a letter of introduction to her only son. " Of 
 course, if you wish to ask him, I have, can have no 
 possible objection," said Mr. Gorman, when she 
 mentioned the subject to him. 
 
 " I always like you to know who is coming, 
 Edward," said she. 
 
 " Yes, yes, my dear, but it is for you to decide," 
 he said, hastily ; " you are the mistress of my house, 
 and it is your right to settle all such questions." 
 
 " It is no pleasure for a woman to settle such 
 things by right," she said, in a pained voice. 
 
 The tall old man drew nearer to his wife, who was 
 flushed and troubled-looking. " My dear," he said, 
 " when I say your right, I mean only to convey that 
 to me your will is law. If you were to wish me to 
 receive a sweep or a man out of the gutter, I would 
 do it with pleasure to give you a moment's happi- 
 ness, much less a young man of whom we know 
 nothing but good, and whose manners are certainly 
 like his looks, quite charming." 
 
 She hesitated before she spoke again. " Edward," 
 she said, " we have daughters. ... It is well to be 
 prepared for any contingency which may arise." 
 
 " Such a contingency could not be disagreeable," 
 he replied, smiling. " If such a thing were to hap- 
 pen that he came to ask me for one of my daughters, 
 I should raise no objection. . . . Why should I ?" 
 
 " That is all. I wanted you to bear it in mind,"
 
 ii2 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 she said, quietly. Then she went away, closing the 
 door gently behind her ; but it was the action of a 
 woman to whom pain either of mind or body is a 
 thing of daily endurance. 
 
 The old man stood just where she had left him 
 for quite a long time. Then he sat down in his chair 
 again and stayed there thinking deeply. " Never was 
 man better loved than she loves me," his thoughts 
 ran. ..." And yet . . . and yet ... I don't seem 
 ever able to . . ." he rose abruptly and went over to 
 the great carved desk at which he usually sat to 
 write his letters, seating himself heavily in the big 
 library chair which stood before it. There he sat for 
 a minute or so, then, slowly and almost unwillingly, 
 he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a small 
 bunch of keys. Of these he selected one and put it 
 into the key-hole of the centre compartment of the 
 upper part of the desk, opened a little door, which 
 in turn disclosed a small cupboard, at the back of 
 which were three small drawers. Selecting another 
 key with just the same unwilling air, he opened the 
 lower of these small drawers and took therefrom a 
 bundle of letters and a small leather case. The 
 letters were tied with a faded blue ribbon and were 
 but few in number. The edges were torn and 
 crumpled, the ink was brown with age. He did not 
 untie the ribbon, but sat for a few minutes looking 
 at the packet earnestly. Then he slowly put it back
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 113 
 
 in its hiding-place and took up the leather case. 
 This he opened, disclosing a miniature, painted on 
 ivory, of a very young girl. She was brilliantly 
 beautiful, a little head running over with close clus- 
 tering dark curls, dark dancing eyes and a sweet 
 rebellious mouth half parted in a smile. He gazed 
 at the picture long and earnestly, a wholly different 
 Edward Gorman to him whom the world of Mul- 
 lingham knew, and if the truth be owned, feared as 
 much as it respected. " My lost love . . . my lost 
 love," he murmured at last. " Shall we never meet 
 again, I wonder? Or shall we drift to and fro 
 through the endless mazes of eternity, not knowing 
 when we are near one to the other? No, no, it 
 could never be, never ! And if we meet what will 
 become of Margaret, that patient one who has 
 lavished all her life's joy upon a heart that died 
 years and years ago ? My God . . . my God . . . 
 what a question to answer, what a doubt to come to 
 one ! Almost better the extinction of a featureless 
 heaven, a sexless communion with souls to whom 
 one will be wholly indifferent." 
 
 Then he gazed at the picture again with longing 
 eyes and a tender smile parting his lips. "Little 
 girl . . . little girl," he said, gently, " they sold you 
 to a fellow who was unworthy of you, who broke 
 your heart and made you old while you were yet a 
 child. ... Oh, my God 1"
 
 ii 4 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 He thrust the miniature back into its hiding-place 
 again with what was almost roughness, locked the 
 little drawer, and then the door of the cupboard. 
 And after that he sat for a long, long time just there 
 at the table, resting his head upon his hands. And 
 yet, with the strange inconsistency of his nature, he 
 never for one moment swerved in his idea that his 
 young daughter, Rachel, should in the end marry 
 John Strode, the man whom she openly detested. 
 He insisted ... or, stay ; that is scarcely the right 
 word to use, for in the Abode of Peace Mr. Gor- 
 man's lightest word was law, and was invariably 
 carried out as were the laws of the Medes and Per- 
 sians in olden times ... he expressed a wish that 
 John Strode should be included among the guests, 
 and Mrs. Gorman sent him an invitation, as a matter 
 of course, without so much as a suggestion that 
 he might be left out for once. It was not, indeed, 
 until she was speaking of the dinner to her eldest 
 daughter that the girls knew that there had been 
 any such invitation given or accepted. " Oh, 
 what a pity !" cried Matty. " Why did you ask 
 him? The party will be quite spoiled for poor 
 Rachel." 
 
 " Your father wished it," replied her mother, in a 
 tone which implied that there was nothing more to 
 say upon the subject. 
 
 Matty shrugged her shoulders and pursed up her
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 115 
 
 mouth, but she did not speak. Too well she knew 
 the hopelessness of appeal to her mother when any 
 wish of her father's was in question. And when the 
 evening of the dinner-party came, almost the first to 
 arrive upon the scene was the redoubtable John 
 Strode, who was refulgent with good grooming and 
 seemed to shine like the very sun. You know what 
 I mean, my reader, that over-grooming which, like 
 over-good manners, is positively offensive. Have 
 you not known the man who seems to spend his life 
 in jumping around offering chairs to people who 
 don't want them ? The man who, with the best in- 
 tentions in the world, seems never able to sit for five 
 minutes in conversation with even the most brilliant 
 and cultivated persons without always keeping a 
 weather eye open in case some lady may chance to 
 come in to whom he may have the felicity of handing 
 a chair, nine times out of ten when she would in- 
 finitely rather choose one for herself, more especially 
 when he happens to carry her his own. John Strode's 
 natural manners were not of this order, for he never 
 troubled about chairs or any other small courtesies 
 to ladies unless he had a distinct object to gain by so 
 doing. Then it is true that his attentions became 
 actually pestilential, as laboured as the aspirates of 
 those who have acquired them late in life, and who 
 speak as if they could never manage them unless 
 they were careful to give each its full and separate
 
 n6 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 value, a sort of running, settled, and paid account 
 with the letter H. 
 
 John Strode came armed with the sinews of war. 
 That is to say, he sent up by William, from whom he 
 learned that Miss Rachel was not yet downstairs, a 
 lovely knot of orchids such as would have made 
 most young ladies half wild with delight. Rachel 
 received them with a glance of contempt and care- 
 lessly threw them down on the nearest table. " How 
 dare he send me his things ?" she exclaimed, indig- 
 nantly. " It is positively indecent . . . like paying 
 before he has made his bargain." 
 
 Consequently she went down at the last minute, 
 wearing a simple white gown and not carrying a 
 flower of any kind. " Did you not get my flowers ?" 
 John Strode demanded, indignantly. 
 
 " Oh, yes," she replied, with studied indifference. 
 ..." I did not care for them. I hate flowers ... I 
 seldom wear them." 
 
 " Would you rather that I sent you diamonds ?" 
 he asked, with a very eager look. " Because, if you 
 would . . ." 
 
 " I should like nothing that you could send me, 
 Mr. Strode," said Rachel, with fearful distinctness. 
 " Pray don't trouble to send me anything. I should 
 never wear it, no matter what it was." 
 
 He glared at her for a moment as if he was try- 
 ing to gauge the depths of her dislike and distrust.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 117 
 
 " Miss Rachel," he said, choking down his wrath, " I 
 am to take you in to dinner." 
 
 " Really !" she said, with a sneer. " And did you 
 ask my father to arrange it ? I think you must have 
 done so. Otherwise you would have been given 
 somebody of much greater importance than I." 
 
 " You are too cruel," he burst out. 
 
 " Nay, not half so cruel as you are, for you never 
 give me a moment's peace. I wonder that you are 
 not ashamed to harry me as you do. If I were a 
 man, I would not give a second thought to a girl who 
 loathed me openly as I loathe you. I would say 
 with the old poet, ' If she be not fair for me, what 
 care I how fair she be.' " 
 
 " But I intend you to be fair for me one of these 
 days," he declared. 
 
 An expression of the most profound disgust 
 flashed across the girl's proud young face. " I sup- 
 pose that it is foolish to credit you with even the 
 most ordinary fineness of feeling," she said, with a 
 scornful air. And then she turned away as if it was 
 not worth while to consider the question any further. 
 
 Meantime Mr. Gorman was just bidding Matt's 
 new friend welcome in his own characteristic fashion. 
 The young man lingered awhile, but at the first 
 opportunity made his way to Rachel's side. " You 
 look very much put out," he said to her with a laugh. 
 " Is anything the matter ?"
 
 r 18 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " Well, in a way, yes ; but it is nothing I can tell 
 you about," she replied. A smile broke over her 
 face, and John Strode, who was watching her, seemed 
 suddenly to grow wiser as to the cause of his lady- 
 love's obduracy. His face darkened, and when Mrs. 
 Gorman, passing near them, took the opportunity of 
 introducing the two men, he could barely bring him- 
 self to greet his rival civilly. 
 
 " What's that fellow to you ?" he demanded of 
 Rachel, as they went across the hall into the dining- 
 room. 
 
 "What fellow?" she asked, in a chilly tone of 
 non-understanding. 
 
 " That new fellow, Barty." 
 
 " Nothing at all," she returned, promptly, " unless 
 it is something when one does not loathe a man with 
 all one's heart and soul." 
 
 " As you do me ... eh ?" 
 
 " Yes," with a defiant glance at him, " as I do you." 
 
 He laughed in a disagreeable way and pressed the 
 slim hand resting upon his arm. She deliberately 
 snatched it away with an indignant " Don't do that." 
 
 John Strode laughed again. " Flutter and struggle 
 as hard as you like," he said, with a frightful smile, 
 a smile which sent dismay and fear shooting right 
 through her heart, " it will be all one in the end. 
 The bird that flutters longest is often the tamest 
 when her wings are still. I am- patient enough, but
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 119 
 
 there is a time to end all things, and the end of your 
 tether is getting very near." 
 
 " How dare you ?" she gasped. 
 
 He laughed again. " You will understand by and 
 by," he said, with a persistent air of not taking 
 offence. 
 
 And Rachel did see. For an hour or so later, 
 when the main part of the dinner was finished, Mr. 
 Gorman asked his guests to charge their glasses, as 
 he had a health which he wished them to drink. 
 
 So the servants went round and filled up all the 
 glasses, and Mr. Gorman rose in his place. On every 
 face expectancy and wonder were imprinted, Mrs. 
 Gorman looking as mystified as any one. 
 
 " I wish you to join with me in drinking a health," 
 said Mr. Gorman, in his most mellifluous accents, 
 the accents which were most often in requisition in 
 matters connected with the sanctuary. " It is not 
 very long since my only son entered the bonds of 
 holy matrimony, and now I must ask you to join 
 with me in drinking to the future happiness of one 
 of my daughters." 
 
 At this the four daughters of the house stared 
 blankly at one another, and Mr. Gorman went on 
 speaking in his sweet, gentle tones. " I beg to an- 
 nounce to you that to-day I have given my consent 
 to an engagement between my friend, John Strode, 
 and my youngest daughter, Rachel. I am sure that
 
 120 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 you will join me in wishing the young couple every 
 happiness and prosperity." 
 
 For one blank moment of astonishment nobody 
 spoke or attempted to honour the toast which they 
 had just been asked to drink. Then one or two of 
 the older men caught up their glasses and made a 
 movement as if to hold them out towards the couple 
 sitting together at the end of the table. But before 
 a single glass could touch a lip, Rachel Gorman 
 sprang to her feet and held up her hand to secure 
 attention. " I am sorry," she said, in a voice that 
 trembled with rage, "that my father has made a 
 mistake. I am not engaged to Mr. John Strode, and 
 I never shall be. I have already, indeed, some time 
 ago, definitely and positively refused him. I shall 
 never have any other opinion on this matter, and I 
 beg that it may not be referred to in my presence 
 again." Then, without another word, without a look 
 at either her father or at John Strode, she pushed 
 back her chair and walked out of the room. It was 
 Matty who first made a hasty movement as if to 
 follow her, but Mr. Gorman perceiving her, said in a 
 low tone of command which there was no gainsay- 
 ing, "Sit still. Stay where you are. Rachel and 
 I will settle this matter afterwards." 
 
 For a few minutes the silence was profound and 
 painful, in spite of the efforts of several persons to 
 say anything which would cover the awkwardness
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 121 
 
 of the outbreak. Then Mrs. Gorman summoned up 
 courage to signal to the most important lady present, 
 and immediately all the ladies rose, glad enough to 
 get away. As for Mrs. Gorman, she walked blindly 
 across the hall to the drawing-room, and then she sat 
 down upon the nearest chair and fainted dead away.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 NO ALTERNATIVE. 
 
 They say that no mistress is so hard as one who has herself been 
 a servant ; and certain it is that no one is so unsympathetic in affairs 
 of the heart as the hero or heroine of a very romantic love story. 
 
 PERHAPS never, since the Abode of Peace had first 
 been built, had so stormy a scene been enacted under 
 its roof as that which followed Mr. Gorman's un- 
 lucky announcement concerning his daughter Rachel 
 and John Strode. 
 
 " How dared you defy me in my own house and 
 at my own table like that?" he exclaimed, indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 Rachel stood before him like an outraged young 
 goddess. " How dared you make such an arrange- 
 ment forme?" she demanded in her turn. "You, 
 my father, to whom I ought by right to look for 
 protection and for affection. I have already told 
 you that I will not marry John Strode. I will never, 
 never marry John Strode. You may persecute me, 
 you may turn me out of your house, and I daresay 
 you will . . . but force me into John Strode's arms 
 you never, never shall, not if I have to take my life 
 to prevent it." 
 122
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 123 
 
 "As your father . . ." he began, but Rachel in- 
 terrupted him. 
 
 " As my father you have a right to my obedience 
 on all minor points. To say what I shall spend, to 
 demand that I shall behave in a certain way, that I 
 shall conform to the rules of your house, and that I 
 shall do nothing which can in any way reflect on 
 your position either as a man or to bring your re- 
 ligion into disrepute. I have done these things. I, 
 like my mother and my sisters, have lived this life of 
 sham in order that I might please you. You cannot 
 say that I have done or said one single thing which 
 could make you ashamed of me. But when you 
 ask, nay, when you try to force me to marry a man 
 whom I know to be a cad, a man whom I dislike 
 and despise to the inmost core of my heart, you are 
 asking the unreasonable thing, and I refuse once for 
 all to obey you. I am your daughter ... I am not 
 your slave to sell in the open market to what bidder 
 you will." 
 
 " I am ashamed to hear you use such a simile," 
 Mr. Gorman cried, trying hard to recover his old 
 tone of calm and quiet command. 
 
 " And I," cried the girl, with a great passionate 
 scorn such as seemed to lift her to a height far 
 above that of every other person in the room, " I am 
 ashamed to think that you, my father, should make 
 me feel that such a simile could apply to me. How-
 
 124 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 ever, I don't want to say any more about it, only let 
 us clearly understand one another, that under no 
 circumstances could I or would I ever consent to 
 marry John Strode." 
 
 Something in the girl's words served to rouse the 
 old man to an almost ungovernable passion. " And 
 I say," he thundered, " that you shall marry John 
 Strode. While my daughters live under my roof in 
 luxury and . . . and . . ." 
 
 " And peace ?" suggested Rachel, with fine scorn. 
 
 " Yes, and peace, they shall do my bidding," he 
 cried, vehemently. " You have torn my most cher- 
 ished scheme to shreds this day, and you shall yet 
 submit to my will, or" threateningly "you shall 
 turn out to die in the gutter." 
 
 At this threat Mrs. Gorman uttered a piercing cry, 
 and Matt came forward and caught hold of his sis- 
 ter's hand. " Nay, sir," he said, in accents as sooth- 
 ing as he could make them, "you go too far. If 
 you turn Rachel out, she comes to me." 
 
 " What ! are you, too, against me ?" Mr. Gorman 
 cried, furiously. 
 
 "Not against you, sir; or if I am, only in so far 
 as you will wish me to go when you are calmer and 
 more like yourself. You would have my mother to 
 think seriously that you would turn a young girl 
 out into the world . . . her child ? The very idea 
 is preposterous. At all events, I am a man of my
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 125 
 
 word as much as you are, and I say that if Rachel 
 is turned out of her own home she comes to me, no 
 matter what the consequences may happen to be." 
 
 At this Rachel turned and literally flung herself 
 into her brother's arms. A word of kindness had 
 melted her as all the threats in the world would 
 never have had power to do, and she broke into 
 such bitter sobs as would have softened the heart 
 of a stone. " Oh, Matt ! . . . oh, Matt !" she moaned. 
 
 " There . . . there . . . it's all right .... I'll stand 
 by you," he whispered. 
 
 She clung convulsively to him and only the sound 
 of her sobs broke the death-like silence which fol- 
 lowed. Mr. Gorman stood before the fire, his eyes 
 blazing, his face dark, his whole person that of one 
 possessed by a great and overwhelming passion. 
 His wife, still weak and trembling from the effects 
 of the fainting fit into which she had fallen in the 
 drawing-room, was lying back in a chair not far 
 from him, evidently trying hard not to give way to a 
 complete collapse. The three elder girls had drawn 
 together and were eyeing their father with apprehen- 
 sion. Flo stood with her hand on the back of her 
 mother-in-law's chair, the very picture of astounded 
 dismay. 
 
 At last the old man spoke again. "Well, have 
 you made your choice ?" he asked, harshly. Rachel's 
 sobs were her only reply. " Because I will have
 
 126 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 your answer at once. You do my bidding or you 
 leave my house." 
 
 " No, Edward, no !" cried his wife, pitifully. " Don't 
 say it ; oh, don't say it ! She is your child, your own 
 child . . . my child. Is that nothing to you ?" 
 
 " I have a right to my daughter's obedience," he 
 replied. 
 
 Mrs. Gorman struggled to her feet and went to- 
 wards her husband. The poor woman was shaking 
 in every limb and her face was as white as chalk. 
 " Edward, I entreat you . . ." she began, when he 
 interrupted her harshly. 
 
 " I must beg, Margaret, that you will not give me 
 the pain of refusing you anything," he said, speaking 
 very coldly. 
 
 She shrank back as if he had struck her a blow 
 ... I mean a physical blow, for surely no man can 
 more surely strike a woman in spirit than by wound- 
 ing her through her children. She sank down in 
 her chair again, her teeth chattering with fear and 
 sorrow, and Mr. Gorman turned and looked at 
 Rachel, still encircled by her brother's arms. " Then 
 I am to understand that you both defy me ?" he said. 
 
 " If you like to put it in that way, sir," replied 
 Matt, speaking in deferential tones. " I shall cer- 
 tainly not stand quietly by and see one of my sisters, 
 my dear mother's child, forced to marry a man whom 
 she detests and despises. It is incredible to me that
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 127 
 
 you, a man whom I have regarded hitherto as the 
 very soul of honour, can seriously demand such a 
 preposterous and unnecessary sacrifice. The man is 
 a cad and a brute, and even if she were in love with 
 him I should be sorry to see Rachel or any other 
 girl for whom I had either respect or affection mar- 
 ried to such a fellow. He is common, vulgar, grasp- 
 ing, and sordid. As your friend, although we have 
 never been able to understand your liking for him, 
 we have put up with his presence and have treated 
 him with civility. And I must confess that, on my 
 part, it has always been with an effort. I have al- 
 lowed up to now the fiction to obtain that he comes 
 here for purposes of business. . . . Now, however, 
 that fiction need not be kept up any longer. Mr. 
 John Strode comes here as your friend and for no 
 other reason, but where your liking for him comes in 
 or why it exists is one of those mysteries which I 
 suppose we shall never understand. This is all be- 
 side the question, however, and the one which we 
 have to settle now is a more serious one. Do I un- 
 derstand that you really mean to turn Rachel out of 
 your house unless she consents to marry this man ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Good. Now we know where we are. You will 
 not expect me to visit you in the future ?" 
 
 " As you please ... I have no quarrel with you." 
 
 " I shall come to see my mother when I know that
 
 128 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 you are not at home . . . that is my duty equally 
 with my right. You clearly understand, sir, that I 
 shall not feel myself in any way bound to hold my 
 tongue on this most distressing subject." 
 
 " You can please yourself about that." 
 
 " It will seem rather strange to those who do not 
 understand our peculiar form of religion, that you 
 should have turned your young daughter into the 
 street for such a cause, you, a Peacemaker." 
 
 " That is my affair." 
 
 " Pardon me, it is my affair also. I would that it 
 were not so. By the bye, the first time I get hold 
 of John Strode I intend to half thrash the life out of 
 him." 
 
 The old man made a step towards his son. " I 
 forbid it ... I insist upon it that there is no open 
 strife between you," he cried. 
 
 Matt, however, shook his head. " I am sorry that 
 I cannot oblige you, sir," he said, decidedly. Then, 
 putting Rachel gently away from him, he went quite 
 near to his father. " You have put a new idea into 
 my head," he said, regarding him fixedly. " What 
 is John Strode to you, that you should put him 
 ostentatiously before your own children, that you 
 should for his sake be willing to break your wife's 
 heart ?" 
 
 For a moment Mr. Gorman did not speak. He 
 seemed like a person fascinated against his will. Yet
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 129 
 
 nevertheless he did not answer straight to his son's 
 question. " I have given my word. ... I have 
 sworn . . ." 
 
 " To whom ?" Matt demanded, sharply. 
 
 It was then that the old man shook off the shack- 
 les of his son's stronger will and burst into a perfect 
 paroxysm of rage. " How dare you catechise me in 
 this way !" he thundered. " I decline to be arraigned 
 by you or any of my children and dependants. I 
 will have no more of this discussion. When my 
 daughter thinks fit to submit to my will and to ask 
 pardon for her undutiful behaviour she can write to 
 me and perhaps I will forgive her. Until that time 
 I do not wish to be reminded that such a person as 
 Rachel Gorman has any existence. Not another 
 word, I beg. Florence, my dear, I will bid you 
 good-night. I am sorry that you have not been 
 spared such a scene as this." He bent down to kiss 
 her, and she, not in the least realizing what a will of 
 welded steel she had to deal with, put her two slim 
 hands upon his shoulders and held up a persuasive 
 face to his. " Dear Mr. Gorman," she said, " don't 
 be so hard on her. You are making the poor mother 
 so unhappy . . ." 
 
 He deliberately drew her two hands down from his 
 shoulders, and, bending, kissed her on both cheeks. 
 " You are going beyond your province, my dear," he 
 said, quietly. " Good-night. . . . Peace with you." 
 
 9
 
 1 3 o THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 No one but himself knew with what a mighty 
 effort he controlled himself to utter the shibboleth 
 of his self-made creed. The words served to rouse 
 all the fire burning in Rachel's hot heart to flaming 
 point again. " There is no peace in this house," she 
 burst out, indignantly. " It is all letter and no spirit. 
 There is only one real Peacemaker here," pointing 
 to her mother, " and look at her !" Then she turned 
 and walked straight out of the room. 
 
 Mr. Gorman did not wait for any further discus- 
 sion. As soon as the door had closed behind the 
 rebel he followed her and left the room. As soon 
 as the rest of the family realized that he was gone 
 they moved from their several places towards their 
 mother, who, the strain of her husband's pres- 
 ence removed, broke down into smothered weep- 
 ing. 
 
 " Pray, don't fret over it, dear mother," said Matt, 
 with infinite tenderness. " We will take every care 
 of the child, and it is better that she should be with 
 us than in an atmosphere of continual chafe and 
 strife here." 
 
 " The Abode of Peace," sobbed Mrs. Gorman, " the 
 Abode of Peace." 
 
 " Well, it is rather a mockery," said Matt, drily. 
 " But no more so than most of us have realized for 
 years past. Peace at. any price is what we may call 
 the motto of the house and of the Gorman family ;
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 131 
 
 but it is only to be had at one price. . . . Surely you 
 must have known it all along." 
 
 The mother drew herself together with a shudder- 
 ing sigh. " I ... I cannot speak against your father, 
 even in the face of this calamity," she said, drying 
 her eyes resolutely. " Perhaps he is right . . . per- 
 haps we are all wrong, and it is Rachel's duty to do 
 what he wishes. You are going to take care of her 
 for me, dear boy. I will try to content myself that 
 it will all work together for good . . . but I think my 
 heart has been broken this night. I think my heart 
 is broken." 
 
 " Go to bed, darling," said Matt, in his kindest 
 tones . . . and Matt was extremely fond of his mother. 
 " I suppose Rachel will only take enough things for 
 the night and that the girls will see to her other be- 
 longings being sent after her to-morrow. You ought 
 to be in your bed . . . you are worn out with all this 
 fuss and excitement, and no wonder that you are." 
 
 He gave a look at Matty and a jerk of his head 
 towards the door, as if to bid her see how long Rachel 
 would be in getting ready to go with him. Matty 
 took the hint, and she and Flo left the room to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Isn't it a shame ?" said Matty, as they went up 
 the wide stairs in search of Rachel. " Now you see 
 what I mean when I say that peacemaking is not al- 
 ways what it seems. It ought to be a perfect creed,
 
 132 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 Flo, and it would be if we could live up to it ; as it 
 is, it is a hideous travesty, neither more nor less." 
 
 " It is pretty much the same with every other 
 creed that ever I heard of," replied Flo, sensibly. 
 " Most creeds would serve us if we could only live 
 up to them." 
 
 " Yes, but this peacemaking has only worked so 
 far because my father has never been thwarted ; he 
 has always been considered and petted and made 
 much of till any sign of opposition seems to rouse 
 him to fury." 
 
 " But have you often had scenes like this ?" 
 
 " Never. . . . When my affair was on foot, there 
 was no discussion, no argument. I never dared 
 to utter a single word of protest. I would as soon 
 then have stood up to my father as Rachel did to- 
 night as I would have jumped out of my bedroom 
 window. Indeed, I would rather have chosen the 
 window of the two." 
 
 "Then your father's will has always been abso- 
 lute?" 
 
 "Always. I have never seen him as he was to- 
 night. What the effect will be on poor, dear 
 mother, it is impossible to say. Are you here, 
 Rachel? Are you nearly ready, dear? I would 
 only take what you need for the night and the 
 morning. We will see that your things follow you 
 to-morrow."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 133 
 
 Rachel looked round defiantly. " Am I doing 
 right to take anything ?" she asked, indignantly. 
 "Are not all my things belonging by right to my 
 father?" 
 
 " I believe that he cannot by law turn you out 
 into the street wholly destitute of covering," re- 
 plied Matty, sensibly. " Take what you want, dear. 
 Father will not say anything more. If he does, you 
 can send them back again." 
 
 Rachel rose from the small box that she was 
 packing and looked at her sister. " Matty," she 
 said, "you are older than I am and have known 
 father longer. Tell me why he is so fascinated by 
 John Strode as he is ?" 
 
 " I don't know. We none of us know," Matty 
 replied, shaking her head in a puzzled kind of way. 
 " I suppose there must be some bond, but what it is 
 we have not the very smallest idea. My poor dar- 
 ling, it is hard on you to be turned out as if you 
 were a servant who had been caught stealing, but it is 
 better than staying here in slavery, and slavery your 
 life would be if you did stay. You will be strong, 
 dear, you will be true to yourself whatever happens ? 
 Remember, even if you are kept, or rather if we are 
 kept wholly apart from you, that you have always 
 Matt to stand by you, and Matt is a very tower of 
 strength." 
 
 " Matt will always stand by you . . . and I,
 
 134 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 though it is little that I can do excepting to make 
 your brother's house pleasant and comfortable to 
 you," said Flo, who, if the truth be told, was hard 
 set to keep her tongue within reasonable limits at 
 this juncture. 
 
 Tall Rachel bent down and kissed her. " Thank 
 you a thousand times, dear Flo," she said, grate- 
 fully. " I shall never forget it. As for you, my 
 dear, dear sister, there is no need of words between 
 us two. You will always be my true friend, I know, 
 and you will look after mother and not let her fret 
 more than you can help. Perhaps, if he thinks of 
 it, father may forbid her to speak to me, and I may 
 not see her again for a long, long time ; but I leave 
 her to you, and I know that you'll do your best not 
 to let her dwell too much on this wretched night's 
 business." 
 
 Then she went downstairs to the room where she 
 had left her mother. Mrs. Gorman was still sitting, 
 or I should say, half lying in the large chair, and 
 looked like a shattered woman whom a single 
 word might send off into a fit of violent hysterics. 
 Rachel went to her side and knelt down. " Good- 
 bye for a little while, darling mother," she said, 
 softly. " Tell me before I go that you would have 
 me be true to myself, that you would not like me to 
 marry such a creature as John Strode." 
 
 Mrs. Gorman caught the girl to her heart with a
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 135 
 
 sudden cry. " Oh, my darling, my darling !" she 
 exclaimed, " did you think that I seemed to be con- 
 senting to such a thing, or that I knew anything 
 of what your father had in his mind ? No, my 
 love, no, a thousand times no. It would kill me to 
 see it. I would rather see you in your coffin this 
 minute than married to John Strode or such a one 
 as him. Perhaps I ought to have been stronger 
 ... to have stood up boldly for you as Matt did. 
 But I have always gone with your father ... it has 
 been the habit of my life to let him decide, and 
 though nothing will ever make me agree with this 
 arrangement, I have not the nerve to go dead 
 against him." 
 
 " My poor mother," murmured Rachel, gently. 
 " I understand, I understand." 
 
 The poor mother caught the girl to her with a 
 convulsive clasp as she bade her adieu, and then 
 Matt drew her gently away, feeling that it was 
 better for his mother in her half-fainting condition 
 that the agony should be cut as short as possible. 
 So Rachel Gorman went from under the roof of the 
 house which was called the Abode of Peace with 
 no knowledge whether she would ever set foot there 
 again. 
 
 As they crossed the threshold of " The Larches," 
 Matt took his sister in his arms and kissed her. 
 " This is a sorry welcome for your first visit to us,
 
 136 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 old girl," he said, with rough kindness, " but, at all 
 events, you will be free from John Strode and most 
 of his works as long as you stay here." 
 
 "You don't know what a haven of refuge it is, 
 though," returned Rachel, quickly. " I dread to 
 think what might have come if there had been no 
 " Larches" to come to." 
 
 " And the very first thing you will have to do is 
 a little housemaid's work," said Flo, trying to make 
 a joke of the unusual circumstance. " For the ser- 
 vants have certainly gone to bed, and we must make 
 up your bed ourselves. Come along, we can air the 
 sheets by my bedroom fire while yours burns up." 
 
 And thus it was that on this eventful night there 
 was one more denizen at "The Larches" and one 
 less under the roof of the Abode of Peace.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A WAY OUT OF THE DIFFICULTY. 
 
 What a wonderful thing love is ! How it lights up, smoothes, and 
 beautifies the pathway of life ! It is like a torch kindled with fire 
 from heaven. 
 
 ALMOST the first person that Matt met when he 
 went to business the following morning was his new 
 friend, Brooke Barty. If the exact truth be told, 
 Brooke Barty was purposely looking out for Matt, 
 and as they grasped hands, he went straight to the 
 point and blurted out just what was in his mind. 
 " Look here, Gorman," he said, speaking in open 
 honest tones, " I daresay you'll think me a meddle- 
 some, prying sort of chap, but I want to ask you a 
 plain question." 
 
 "Ask it by all means," said Matt, who had no 
 notion of trying to hush up the truth about the affair 
 of the previous evening, and guessing from Brooke 
 Barty's manner that the question was in some way 
 relating to that matter. 
 
 " Well, it's just this. Is your sister engaged to 
 that fellow Strode or not ?" 
 
 " Certainly not. She would rather die than marry 
 John Strode, and, with the exception of my father,
 
 138 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 we would all infinitely rather see her dead than 
 married to him." 
 
 " Then what made your father make such an an- 
 nouncement as he did last night ? Gorman, believe 
 me, I am not asking this from idle curiosity." 
 
 If he had noticed nothing of Barty's unmistakable 
 admiration for Rachel, Matt would have suspected 
 the state of his feelings from his tone and manner. 
 It did not, however, suit him to see too much just 
 then. He was a very wise and long-headed young 
 man, and knew when to shut his eyes as well as 
 most men. " My dear fellow," he said, simply, " you 
 have a perfect right to have an explanation of the 
 barbarous scene that you were let in for last night. 
 And as far as I can explain it to you, I will. Turn 
 back with me if you are not pressed for time . . . 
 no, I'll wheel my bicycle along. I don't bring it so 
 much for getting to the Works as for getting back 
 to my lunch in something like time. As to the 
 affair of last night, I can hardly give you a full ex- 
 planation, for I don't quite know what it means m)'- 
 self. My father, who is a singularly shrewd man on 
 most points, has what I can only call a craze for this 
 John Strode, whom we all cordially loathe. Strode 
 wants to marry my sister, Rachel, which isn't to be 
 wondered at, and he's the sort of brute who would 
 stick at nothing to get his own way; Most men 
 wouldn't look at a girl who systematically and
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 139 
 
 openly flouted and scorned them, and I can safely 
 say that I never heard Rachel give John Strode a 
 civil word in my life. However, my father wishes 
 her to marry him ; and my father, having been utterly 
 spoiled by my mother, who is a veritable saint, 
 though I do think a mistaken one in that respect, 
 has simply no idea of any one of his children having 
 a will of their own or any desires but his. I foresaw 
 this years ago, and I bargained when I went into 
 partnership with him that in all the affairs of life 
 apart from the Works I should be as free as if I 
 were a perfect stranger coming into the business from 
 a distance. Thankful I have been ever since, I can 
 tell you. With my sisters it was, of course, rather 
 different. They are entirely dependent on him, and 
 he can rule the roast for them in a way which he 
 would never try to do for me. I suppose he thought 
 if he brought matters between Rachel and Strode to 
 a climax by publicly announcing their engagement 
 Rachel wouldn't have pluck enough to assert herself 
 by repudiating it. You saw, however, that she had 
 quite as much pluck as was necessary." 
 
 " I did," returned Brooke Barty, whose eyes were 
 blazing. " And did anything happen after we left ?" 
 
 " There was a right royal row, out of which Rachel 
 came victor to the extent of not giving way one 
 single inch. But my father ordered her out of the 
 house."
 
 i 4 o THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " What!" 
 
 " Yes, it came to that, more's the pity." 
 
 " And where is she now ?" 
 
 " Oh, we took her home with us. Why, man 
 alive, you don't suppose I was going to stand by and 
 see even my own father bully one of my sisters into 
 desperation for such a cause ? Not I. I am probably 
 the only person in the world of whom my father 
 stands in a certain amount of awe. If I had had the 
 least inkling of what was likely to happen, I could 
 and would have prevented the whole affair. But it 
 was sprung upon me so unexpectedly that I hadn't a 
 chance of doing more than I did, that was to take 
 her out of the way of persecution." 
 
 For a minute or so Brooke Barty did not speak. 
 Then he said, in a curiously strained voice, " I'm 
 glad you did that, old fellow." Then he burst out 
 laughing, as the absurdity of the situation struck 
 him. " I say, Gorman, it's devilish cheeky of me to 
 be calmly patronizing you about your behaviour to 
 your own sister, but the truth is I take a good deal 
 of interest in that sister of yours, and your father's 
 announcement last night was a fearful blow to me, or 
 rather would have been a fearful blow if she hadn't 
 stood up for herself so splendidly as she did. Now 
 you understand why I wanted to know the rights of 
 things." 
 
 Matt laughed good-naturedly. " Is that so ? Well,
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 141 
 
 I'm afraid my father won't give you much encourage- 
 ment as long as John Strode is to the front and while 
 he feels that Rachel ought to give in to him." 
 
 " I daresay not. However, my great anxiety is 
 not on the score of your father. Tell me, was he 
 . always given to this sort of thing ?" 
 
 " Not at all. The fact is, some years ago he 
 started a little religion of his own . . . oh, well, be- 
 fore any of us were born, before he was married, in 
 fact ; and as nobody ever says nay to him, naturally 
 never at the Works, and as he stands the major part 
 of the expense of his place of worship, equally nat- 
 urally there also, he has got so accustomed to having 
 his own that he simply cannot stand it when anyone 
 belonging to him expresses a different view to his 
 own. It must have struck you as very funny last 
 night that you should be let in for such a scene in a 
 house called the Abode of Peace, at the table of 
 a man who prides himself that his religion is that of 
 a Peacemaker." 
 
 " Is that what he calls himself?" 
 
 " He does, indeed. My poor little sister launched 
 out, after every one had gone, on the matter of the 
 Peacemakers . . . and, by Jove, she let fly some ter- 
 rible home-truths while she was about it." 
 
 " Did she, though ? Then she is not wedded to 
 the sect ... I suppose you do call it a sect, don't 
 you ?"
 
 i 4 2 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " Oh, I suppose so. I can't answer for my sisters, 
 but I expect that they have done all along just as I 
 have, that is, gone to sanctuary and put up with the 
 show solely for the sake of. pleasing my father, when 
 left to themselves they would have drifted to church 
 as naturally as they eat their dinner every night 
 And talking of dinner, by the bye, will you venture 
 on coming out and dining with us one evening ? I 
 can promise you there shall be no surprises such as 
 you had last night." 
 
 Brooke Barty flushed up eagerly all over his face. 
 " Really, old fellow, you are too kind," he exclaimed. 
 " I shall be delighted to come." 
 
 "Then we had better fix a night at once. We 
 shall not be going out anywhere this week. What 
 night will suit you ?" 
 
 " Any one at all. May I go up and call, and then 
 perhaps Mrs. Matthew will settle it herself? Yes? 
 Then I'll go out this afternoon." 
 
 " All right. I'll tell my wife when I go home to 
 lunch that you are coming and that I have asked you 
 to arrange an evening for dining with her." 
 
 So the two young men parted, Matt Gorman feel- 
 ing that he had made a most useful and successful 
 move, and Brooke Barty with the pleasant sensation 
 that he was one stage nearer to the goal of his earthly 
 happiness. 
 
 Matt when he reached the Works found that his
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 143 
 
 father was already there and had been asking for him. 
 He went, therefore, at once to the chiefs private 
 office and cheerfully bade him good-morning, ex- 
 actly as if nothing unusual had occurred the previous 
 evening. " Shut the door. I want to speak to you," 
 said Mr. Gorman, in a constrained voice. 
 
 Matt shut the door quietly and sat down on the 
 chair which faced Mr. Gorman's own. There was a 
 moment's silence, then the old man cleared his throat 
 as a preliminary to saying what in truth he found 
 most awkward to say just then. " How is your wife ?" 
 he asked at last. 
 
 " Quite well, thank you, sir," replied Matt. 
 
 " Was she . . . was she " 
 
 "A good deal shaken?" suggested his son, 
 promptly. " Well, yes, sir ; I must admit that she 
 was a good deal shaken by what occurred, a good 
 deal." 
 
 " I don't see . . ." the old man began, rather in a flur- 
 ried kind of way, when Matt blandly interrupted him. 
 
 " Well, you see, sir, she had never a suspicion that 
 our particular creed was not all that it seems to be 
 on the surface, and it came with rather a shock when 
 she found that its tenets only hold good when they 
 happen to fit in with your wishes. You mustn't 
 blame her, sir." 
 
 " I'm not blaming her," said Mr. Gorman, testily. 
 "All this is quite beside the question. I suppose
 
 144 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 you mean to go on backing up Rachel in her dis- 
 graceful attitude against me ?" 
 
 Matt sat well back in his chair and looked steadily 
 at his father. " So long as you are trying to drive 
 her into a marriage which would be equally a dis- 
 grace to her and to me," he said, deliberately, " yes, 
 sir, I do intend to back her up." 
 
 "And to harbour her?" the old man suddenly 
 snapped out. 
 
 " If you like to put it so, sir," returned Matt, 
 calmly. 
 
 " Your mother thinks with me," Mr. Gorman be- 
 gan, but Matt broke in more sharply than he had 
 yet spoken. 
 
 " My mother has grown so accustomed to going 
 with you, and her love and duty to you have become 
 such a religion with her, that she cannot now bring 
 herself to go dead against you in anything," he said, 
 quietly. " But it is useless to tell me that she would 
 like a child of hers to marry a blatant cad like John 
 Strode." 
 
 " She is broken-hearted." 
 
 " Not at the fact that Rachel refuses to listen to 
 John Strode," cried Matt, quickly. " Don't tell me 
 that, sir. Broken-hearted, perhaps, to see her own 
 child, her youngest, the baby, turned out like a thief 
 into the street." 
 
 " She turned herself out," Mr. Gorman cried.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 145 
 
 " Pardon me, sir, it was you who first suggested 
 such an alternative, and it was then that I stepped in 
 and bade her come with me ; and I would do it again 
 to-morrow. And I would do it if my mother and 
 you and my three sisters were all against me in 
 opinion." 
 
 " I have a right to give my daughters to whom I 
 will." 
 
 " No, sir, that you have not. You have no right 
 to force any man or woman into a marriage which 
 is distasteful to them. And I must say that it passes 
 my comprehension why you should wish to sacrifice 
 your own young daughter, your own flesh and blood, 
 to a fellow who is, who can be, nothing to you." 
 
 " You mistake. John Strode is something to me," 
 the old man cried. " And, moreover, I have given 
 him my word and I cannot go back from it. I have 
 never broken my word in my life, nor do I intend to 
 begin to suit the silly whims and caprices of a girl 
 who does not know her own mind." 
 
 " Well, sir, it is no use to argue the point further," 
 said Matt, quietly, " for we shall never agree even 
 were we to talk till doomsday. We must agree to 
 differ, but, before we close this very unpleasant dis- 
 cussion, I would like to ask you a question. You 
 spoke just now of my mother being heart broken. 
 Do you happen to know that she fainted dead away 
 after she left the dining-room last night ?" 
 
 10
 
 i 4 6 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " I did not know it." 
 
 " It is a fact, nevertheless. She was a long time 
 coming round, and she was more shattered than even 
 the occasion seemed to warrant. If I were you, sir, 
 if you will allow me to say so without in any way 
 wishing to give you offence, if I were you, sir, I 
 would not press my mother's love too near to break- 
 ing point. I think it more than possible you might 
 do so." 
 
 " That is a question which I neither can nor will 
 discuss with you," said Mr. Gorman, speaking very 
 stiffly. " We will not enter into the main subject 
 again, if you please. I am to understand that you 
 intend to continue in your defiance of my wishes ; 
 therefore, out of business hours, we will see as little 
 of each other as possible." 
 
 " Very good, sir. Then I shall take opportunities 
 of visiting my mother when I know that you are not 
 at home." And then Matt rose and went away in 
 just his ordinary manner as if he had been discussing 
 no more important matter with his father than the 
 usual business letters received by almost every post. 
 But from that hour, between the two who had been 
 such good friends in days gone by, there came a 
 chasm which grew wider and wider with every day 
 that went over their heads. From that day Mr. 
 Gorman forewent his customary greetings when he 
 and his son met. Matt always said, " Good-morning,
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 147 
 
 sir; how is my mother to-day?" in perfectly civil 
 tones, yet tones nevertheless which seemed to say 
 to his father, " Thus far do you come and no fur- 
 ther." And, on his side, Mr. Gorman seemed to feel 
 instinctively that his customary mode of address 
 would, at this juncture, be as much out of place as 
 it would be were he to strike his son in the face 
 whenever and wherever they chanced to meet each 
 other. So he always replied to Matt's questions, 
 " Good-morning. Your mother is well," or, " Your 
 mother is not very well to-day." If it was the 
 latter reply, Matt invariably made answer, " I'm 
 sorry to hear that. I'll go in and see her on my 
 way home."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ON A LONELY PATH. 
 
 In the lives of most women and men there comes a time, sooner 
 or later, when they feel that they are Ishmaels to the rest of the world. 
 
 IF society in Mullingham in general, and in the 
 community of the Peacemakers in particular, was 
 very much upset by the trouble at the Abode of Peace, 
 the Gorman family did not know very much about 
 it. Those who had been present at the memorable 
 dinner when Mr. Gorman had announced Rachel's 
 engagement to John Strode naturally talked to each 
 other concerning the extraordinary mistake which 
 the old gentleman had made. 
 
 " It seems a queer thing that a man should make 
 a mistake on such a point as that," remarked one old 
 gentleman who had been present to the wife of his 
 bosom. 
 
 "Yes; but there was no mistake about Rachel; 
 she was outspoken enough, poor child. Between 
 ourselves, Joe, I don't think that the family knew 
 anything at all about the matter, not any of them." 
 
 " John Strode did," replied Joe, promptly. " I was 
 looking straight at him when the announcement was 
 made, and I saw it on his face as plainly as I ever 
 148
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 149 
 
 saw anything on a human face in my life. He looked 
 as if he had trapped her. There was no mistake 
 about it." 
 
 " And yet there was a mistake," said the old lady. 
 " She will never marry John Strode. I wonder if we 
 shall ever hear the upshot of the matter ?" 
 
 " Of course we shall know after a while whether 
 they are to be married or not. You may hear some- 
 thing when you call." 
 
 " I shall call on Thursday," said the lady. 
 
 Everybody who had been present at the dinner 
 called at the Abode of Peace on the following Thurs- 
 day, and a good many also went who had not been 
 present but who had heard a rumour of what had 
 happened. Mrs. Gorman was indisposed, suffering, 
 Matty said, from a severe headache. Mrs. Gorman 
 did suffer from headaches at times, so that there was 
 nothing very unusual in the announcement. The 
 general conduct of the house was very much as usual. 
 Mr. Gorman was not there, but then he hardly ever 
 was present on his wife's " At Home" days. 
 
 " And where is Rachel ?" asked the lady who had 
 called her husband Joe. 
 
 " Rachel is staying with Matt and his wife." 
 
 " Oh, is she ? I hope she is well." 
 
 " Oh, yes, very well, thank you, Mrs. Smithers, 
 extremely well," replied Matty. 
 
 Mrs. Matthew came in in the course of the after-
 
 150 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 noon, but was not accompanied by Rachel ; Matt 
 himself did not put in an appearance. 
 
 So those who had gone to spy out any nakedness 
 in the land and to see what they could see, went 
 away but little the wiser. There was nothing unusual 
 in a young girl paying a visit to her married brother 
 and his young wife, and at all events from Mrs. Gor- 
 man's " At Home" day little or nothing was gathered 
 by the friends and acquaintances of the family. 
 
 So the days passed by without any material change. 
 Mr. Gorman had not apparently altered his determi- 
 nation that Rachel should be shut out of her home 
 unless she was willing to comply with his commands. 
 The suffering look had settled more completely 
 down upon his wife's face than ever, and when Flo 
 saw her she was more than ever certain that her 
 mother-in-law was the victim of some terrible and 
 secret sorrow, borne in patient and uncomplaining 
 silence. As for the girls, they were one and all very 
 proud. In spite of their buoyant spirits, their charm- 
 ing and unaffected manners, they instinctively shrank 
 from commenting on their father's peculiarities and 
 on their sister's misfortunes. So when some among 
 their friends less delicate in touch than others, would 
 fain have coaxed the truth out of them, they drew 
 back and made it plain to be seen that this was a 
 subject too sacred for even intimate friendship to 
 handle.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 151 
 
 So the days went on one after another, until Sun- 
 day came round again. Then, of the entire Gorman 
 family, only Mr. Gorman himself occupied the long 
 pew which was arranged to hold eight persons. 
 
 " You will go to sanctuary this morning, Matty," 
 said Mrs. Gorman. 
 
 " Not this morning, mother," Matty replied. 
 
 " I am not fit to go," said Mrs. Gorman, passing 
 her hand across her eyes. 
 
 " No, of course you are not, and I shall stay with 
 you. Oh, here is father." 
 
 Mr. Gorman came into the well-shaded room with 
 quiet footsteps. 
 
 " Are you suffering, my dear ?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes, my head is dreadful, Edward ; I shall not 
 be able to go to sanctuary this morning." 
 
 " No, no ; that is not to be thought of for a 
 moment. You should keep quiet; and Matty will 
 stay with you, will you not, Matty ?" 
 
 " Yes, I will stay with my mother," said Matty. 
 
 She had spoken truly when she had said to her 
 sister-in-law that for fear of her very life she would 
 not have dared openly to defy her father as her young 
 sister Rachel had done. But yet the events of the 
 few preceding days had, as it were, endued her with 
 a strength which was not her own, I mean with a 
 strength that was not natural to her, and in the face 
 of her mother's suffering she felt that she could have
 
 i 5 2 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 stood up to him almost as pluckily as Rachel herself 
 could have done. 
 
 On his way downstairs he met with his second 
 daughter Polly, who was evidently on her way from 
 the breakfast-room to her bedroom. 
 
 " Have you seen your mother this morning ?" he 
 enquired. 
 
 " No, not this morning, father. I am going to her 
 in a few minutes." 
 
 " She is not well," said Mr. Gorman. " Matty is 
 going to stay with her. You will go to sanctuary 
 with me, I suppose, you and Beth ?" 
 
 " I am not going to sanctuary this morning, father," 
 said Polly. She looked at him straight in the eyes 
 as she spoke. 
 
 " May I ask why not ?" 
 
 " Because I don't feel like it," she replied. 
 
 " If you don't feel like it you are better away," he 
 said, speaking very quietly. 
 
 It was the wisest course that he could possibly 
 have taken, but he went on his way with the feeling 
 that the scene which had taken place a few evenings 
 before had been the first blow struck at the root 
 of his domestic happiness. He never enquired for 
 Beth, nor did he seek her out; on the contrary, he 
 passed into the library and seated himself in his 
 accustomed place at the table. 
 
 For a few moments he sat there leaning his head
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 153 
 
 upon his hand thinking, thinking deeply, that during 
 all these years that he had been living in an atmos- 
 phere of peace, amid surroundings of contentment 
 and ease and luxury, of beneficent affection on the 
 one side and willing obedience on the other, he had 
 been living a life which was a sham. The heart of 
 Edward Gorman was hard within him ; so hard and 
 so sorely stricken with what he called to himself the 
 rebelliousness of his children, as he put it in his own 
 thoughts, that he opened his secret cupboard and 
 took out once more the portrait of her who had 
 been his heart's first love, his heart's only love, if I 
 tell the truth and nothing but the truth. To him 
 she had never changed. There in the miniature, 
 aye, and in his heart, was the same radiant, rich 
 beauty which he had known forty years before ; its 
 vivid tints had been undimmed by the hand of time, 
 which had bleached the thick blond tresses of his 
 wife, who lay in pain and sorrow in her room above. 
 There was the same merry light in the eyes, the 
 same dimples about the sweet, smiling mouth. Time 
 had not altered them any more than time had 
 changed the hunger of his heart. His wife, who 
 had borne the heat and burden of the day, she had 
 changed with the years that were gone by, quite as 
 much as he had done. The picture of his first love 
 remained unchanged, gay as a little painted craft 
 which had sailed away upon a summer sea ; the wife
 
 154 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 who had patiently forded through the rougher and 
 deeper waters of a lifetime was as unlike to the first 
 love as the gaily-painted little craft of a summer's 
 morning is to the boat which has weathered the 
 storms of forty voyages. I suppose it is but human 
 that we should think more of the gaily-painted craft 
 which has seen no service than of the weather-beaten 
 boat which has borne so many lives over troublous 
 waters. Certain is it that Edward Gorman was think- 
 ing that Sabbath morning only of the old love who 
 had been his and yet never his, and not at all of the 
 wife who had given her life for his happiness. 
 
 " My lost love," he murmured ; " it is for you, all 
 for you. I had so schooled myself to a life without 
 you that I believed myself almost contented. But 
 they don't understand me ; they don't realize that it 
 is for you ; they don't understand that it is for you. 
 So they thwart me, and I bear it, because it is for 
 you for you only." 
 
 Then the little clock before him on the table 
 struck two sharp tiny strokes, which recalled him to 
 himself. He closed the case, laid it reverently back 
 in its hiding-place as in a shrine, and stood up, 
 shaking his shoulders back as if it was with no 
 small effort that he would take up the burden of life 
 once more. 
 
 But no troubles seemed to change the regular 
 routine of Edward Gorman's life. That morning
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 155 
 
 when he seemed to be as suddenly bereft of all his 
 domestic peace and happiness as if an earthquake 
 had demolished his dwelling, he brushed his hat as 
 carefully as was his wont, smoothing it afterwards 
 with a velvet pad as if he were a bridegroom going 
 to his bridal. Then he rang the bell. 
 
 " My coat," he said to the man who answered the 
 summons. 
 
 The man, anticipating his master's wishes, had 
 brought a light overcoat with him and assisted him 
 to put it on with ready hands. 
 
 " Your gloves, sir ?" he said. 
 
 "Thank you, yes; and my stick." 
 
 " I think it is likely for rain, sir," said the 
 man. 
 
 " I will take my stick," said Mr. Gorman ; " if it 
 rains, you can send the carriage for me." 
 
 Then he went out of the house and walked alone 
 to the sanctuary which he had created, the sanc- 
 tuary against the shadow of a broken heart, that 
 sanctuary which, only that morning, he had believed 
 to be a real place of safety, that sanctuary in which 
 others seemed to find no rest, no peace. 
 
 He had been in hopes, or perhaps I use too 
 strong a word, and should say that he had been 
 in some expectation that Matthew, or, at all events, 
 Mrs. Matthew, would not have deserted him that 
 morning. But of those at " The Larches," none went
 
 156 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 that day to swell the congregation at the sanctuary. 
 One or two of the older members of the community 
 greeted him with the formula " The Lord's peace be 
 upon you, Mr. Gorman," and received for reply the 
 customary answer, "And upon you also." But 
 none stayed him, as was the common habit of the 
 Peacemakers on Sabbath mornings. He passed to 
 his seat and sat there stern and forbidding, a marked 
 and solitary figure, stiff with pride, forbidding and 
 resolute of purpose. 
 
 Nor did the service, which was beautiful, tend to 
 soften his mood. The prayers seemed to be more 
 peace-breathing and tender than usual ; the lessons 
 chanced to be two poems, one culled from Eccle- 
 siastes, the other from the gospel of St. Matthew ; 
 the hymns were especially favourite ones, and the 
 text consisted of the words, " Peace, be still." I 
 have said before that from the silver-haired old pas- 
 tor of the sanctuary there came no denunciations of 
 sin or crime. His sermons breathed peace, and this 
 one was more redolent of the virtue of tenderness 
 than many of that small community could remem- 
 ber to have heard in that place before. The hymn 
 with which they ended the service was one which 
 might well have gone home to Edward Gorman's 
 heart, softening it with drops of the blessed oil of 
 charity and love. But, alas ! his heart was hardened, 
 hardened as was the heart of Pharaoh in the days
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 157 
 
 thousands of years ago when he would not let the 
 people of Israel go : 
 
 A HYMN OF PEACE. 
 " Peace in our Borders." 
 
 In childhood's simple days, 
 Let ours be gentler ways ; 
 May strife and quarrels cease, 
 Give us, dear Lord, Thy peace, 
 Dear Lord ! dear Lord ! 
 
 In later days, may we 
 Peaceably live in Thee ; 
 And for our great reward, 
 Give us Thy peace, dear Lord, 
 Dear Lord ! dear Lord ! 
 
 When age comes creeping on, 
 And life a victory won ; 
 Peace over strife our cry, 
 So win Thy peace on high, 
 
 Dear Lord ! dear Lord. 
 
 Until the last of the congregation had passed out 
 of the sanctuary Mr. Gorman did not move from his 
 seat. He did not remain longer upon his knees than 
 was usual with him, but he sat with folded arms, 
 looking with burning eyes straight at the altar, with 
 its array of pure white flowers, apparently oblivious 
 to the fact that more than one would have spoken 
 to him as they passed had he but turned his head. 
 Then he stood upright and walked slowly and sol- 
 emnly down the broad, softly carpeted aisle.
 
 i 5 8 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Gorman," said a voice, a voice 
 which, alas ! he knew too well, the voice of Mrs. 
 Johnson-Biggs, " my dear Mr. Gorman, I hope that 
 there is nothing wrong at the Abode of Peace ?" 
 
 Mrs. Johnson-Biggs had not, I need hardly say, 
 been present at the memorable dinner-party ; indeed, 
 she had not, up to that time, heard a single word of 
 the extraordinary announcement which had taken 
 place thereat. " My dear Mr. Gorman, I hope that 
 your dear wife is not ill ?" 
 
 " My wife is indisposed this morning, I thank you," 
 said Mr. Gorman, taking off his hat with a flourish. 
 " May the Lord's peace be with you !" 
 
 " I thank you, Mr. Gorman ; I feel that it is so. 
 May it rest on you also, and upon yours," was her 
 glib reply. 
 
 " Is it too much to enquire what is amiss with your 
 dear lady ?" 
 
 " My wife is suffering from a neuralgic headache," 
 said Mr. Gorman, in dangerously mild accents. I 
 say dangerously mild, because he had no idea that 
 his interlocutor was in total ignorance of the events 
 which had transpired lately under his roof, and he 
 was disposed to treat her affectionate and solicitous 
 enquiries as inquisitive impertinence rather than 
 neighbourly kindness. 
 
 At the term " neuralgic headache" Mrs. Johnson- 
 Biggs, who belonged to that class of persons who set
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 159 
 
 down all inconvenient disorders under the generic 
 and fashionable term of neuralgia, cast her eyes up 
 to heaven and went off into a paroxysm of sympa- 
 thetic regret. 
 
 " Oh, poor thing !" she exclaimed, in a very loud 
 voice. " Oh, poor, dear thing ! How hard it is to 
 think that the demon neuralgia should dare to set its 
 insidious foot within the Abode of Peace itself!" 
 
 " My house, madam," said Mr. Gorman, in tones 
 of stiff rebuke, " is as subject to the ills which beset 
 ordinary humanity as any other house." 
 
 " It ought not to be, dear Mr. Gorman. If any one 
 should have immunity from the ills to which human 
 nature is prone, it should be your dear and sweet 
 wife. Fond wife, devoted mother, true friend, sincere 
 Peacemaker " 
 
 " Madam," said Mr. Gorman, " I thank you for 
 your good opinion of my wife, but you cannot en- 
 lighten me as to her virtues. I will bid you good- 
 morning." 
 
 " Dear me !" said Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, as she stood 
 staring after the tall figure stalking away down the 
 road, " I meant no offence, I'm sure. Most people 
 are not so touchy when you pay them compliments ! 
 Did you hear what he said, Mrs. Smith?" she en- 
 quired, turning to the wife of the chief cashier, who 
 had just parted from a friend and was standing with 
 outstretched hand to greet her.
 
 160 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " Lor' ! my dear, haven't you heard ?" 
 
 "Heard? No. What?" 
 
 " Why, there has been a most awful rumpus at 
 the Abode of Peace ; even an ordinary church family 
 couldn't have quarrelled worse !" 
 
 " You don't say so ! Well, I never ! Do walk 
 back with me and tell me all about it." 
 
 And so Mrs. Johnson-Biggs learned for the first 
 time something of the tragedy which had but a few 
 evenings before been enacted under the roof of the 
 Abode of Peace.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A RAY OF LIGHT. 
 
 Do you not know the class of persons who grope continually after 
 light and yet seem never to find it ? 
 
 FROM the hour that Mrs. Johnson-Biggs had 
 gathered from the chief cashier's wife something of 
 what had passed concerning the desire of Mr. Gor- 
 man that his daughter Rachel should marry John 
 Strode, she set herself with great assiduity to ferret 
 out all that there was to be learned on the subject. 
 
 " William," she remarked to her good husband, as 
 they sat at their usual Sunday's dinner of roast beef 
 and Yorkshire pudding, " from what I hear this 
 morning, Mr. Gorman is in trouble." 
 
 " In trouble ? Why, what's amiss with him ?" 
 
 " I don't know what, William ; something between 
 young John Strode and Rachel Gorman." 
 
 " And enough," said William Biggs, gently patting 
 a neat little mound of mashed potato on to a heap 
 of beef and pudding, " and enough to make such 
 a man as Mr. Gorman sit down and give up trying 
 any more." 
 
 "And for why?" 
 
 " Because John Strode is a blackguard." 
 
 ii 161
 
 162 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " But, my dear William, it is just the other way 
 about. He wants her to marry John Strode, and 
 she won't look at him." 
 
 Mr. William Biggs was deftly preparing another 
 fork-load for transmission to his mouth, when he 
 stopped and gazed at his wife with absolute bewilder- 
 ment. 
 
 " Jane, my dear," he remarked, after staring at her 
 for a minute or two, " you've got hold of the wrong 
 pig by the ear." 
 
 " That's the story as it was told to me." 
 
 "Rubbish! Fiddle! Blither! Edward Gorman 
 has got over-much sense to want to tie his girl to 
 one of that breed. Tell me another." 
 
 " I only tell you the tale as it was told to me. At 
 all events, Mrs. Gorman is laid up with a neuralgic 
 headache, which may mean anything or nothing." 
 
 "Yes, I know," he said, winking his eye labori- 
 ously. " When a lady has been titivating the colour 
 of her hair it means a neuralgic headache, and when 
 she has got a hard day's mending on, that means a 
 neuralgic headache, too. Well " 
 
 " Well, anyway, Mrs. Gorman has got a neuralgic 
 headache, and not one of the girls was in sanctuary, 
 nor Matthew, nor Mrs. Matthew. Rachel is staying 
 at 'The Larches.'" 
 
 " Well, my dear, I shall believe that tale when I 
 have better evidence than your word for it. Not
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 163 
 
 that I doubt your word, Jane, my dear, but I do 
 doubt them that told you." 
 
 " Mrs. Smith told me." 
 
 " Oh ! And how did she hear of it ?" 
 
 " Well, she says that Mr. Matthew told Smith, 
 told him all about it." 
 
 " That's as it may be. I see a good more of Mr. 
 Matthew than Smith, and he never said a word to 
 me. All I say is, tell me another." 
 
 " Well, I shall go and call on Mrs. Matthew to- 
 morrow, Monday is her day, and see if I can hear 
 anything." 
 
 Accordingly, on the following day Mrs. Johnson- 
 Biggs arrayed herself in her best attire and set off to 
 pay a visit to young Mrs. Matthew at "The Larches." 
 
 She found the outward aspect of that pretty house 
 much the same as usual. Being early in the after- 
 noon, nobody else had arrived, not even the sisters 
 of its master. Mrs. Matthew received her in the 
 pretty drawing-room with kind words of welcome, 
 and promptly rang the bell to order tea for her 
 special benefit. 
 
 " Such a long way to walk," she said ; " I'm sure 
 you must be quite tired. Now, do take that chair 
 near to the fire, it is such a cosy one. Yes ; isn't 
 that a dear kitten? Matt gave it to me the other 
 day. I believe he gave a fabulous price for it, 
 between ourselves, but he doesn't tell me that. I
 
 1 64 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 have heard that smoke-gray Persians cost a mint of 
 money." 
 
 " And I, too," said Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, who knew 
 nothing whatever about the price of smoke-gray 
 Persians, or, indeed, of any other fancy cats. " But 
 then, you know, Mrs. Matthew, a cat of any out-of- 
 the-way kind does give a distinction to a house." 
 
 Flo laughed outright. 
 
 " Well, I suppose it does ; but that was not why 
 Matt bought it for me. Ah, here is the tea. Has it 
 stood long enough, Gerrold ?" 
 
 " Yes, m'm ; it is quite ready," said the maid. 
 
 " You take cream, Mrs. Johnson-Biggs ? Yes ? 
 So do I. And now I want you to try this cake ; it is 
 extra good. We made it at home. Oh, no, I didn't 
 make it, no, cooking isn't my forte ; I never had the 
 chance nor the time to learn anything of cooking. 
 But still, as regards this cake, I saw the recipe in a 
 lady's paper, and the cook made it. I am so anx- 
 ious to have a good opinion on it. It cuts nicely, 
 doesn't it ?" 
 
 Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, having drawn off her gloves, 
 helped herself to the liberal slice of cake which Mrs. 
 Matthew cut, and settled herself down to thoroughly 
 enjoy her tea. 
 
 " You were not at sanctuary yesterday morning, 
 Mrs. Matthew ?" 
 
 " No, we did not go."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 165 
 
 " I was afraid that somebody was ill at first," said 
 Mrs. Johnson-Biggs. 
 
 " Were you ? Why ?" 
 
 " Because not one of the family, only Mr. Gorman, 
 was there." 
 
 " Ah, well, Mrs. Gorman was not very well yester- 
 day; she had one of her dreadful headaches. She 
 does suffer from them, you know." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know that she does." 
 
 At that minute the door opened and Brooke Barty 
 was shown into the room. To Mrs. Johnson- Biggs 
 Brooke Barty was a new and unknown quantity. 
 She had never seen him before, and his name was 
 wholly strange to her. She noticed for very good 
 people, I mean people who profess to be very good, 
 are usually extremely quick to notice the expres- 
 sion of their friends' faces she noticed that Mrs. 
 Matthew flushed up and greeted him with unusual 
 warmth. 
 
 " Oh, how do you do, Mr. Barty ? So pleased to 
 see you. You are nice and early to-day." 
 
 " I hope I am not too early," said Brooke Barty, 
 holding her hand, the hand, mind you, of the woman 
 who was protecting the girl of his heart. 
 
 " You are never too early," said Mrs. Matthew, 
 with no attempt at lowering her voice. " May I in- 
 troduce you to Mrs. Johnson-Biggs? Mr. Brooke 
 Barty."
 
 166 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 Mr. Brooke Barty bowed to the lady, and gave an 
 enquiring glance around the room. 
 
 " Presently," said Flo, " presently." 
 
 At which he laughed, turned a fine rosy red, and 
 Mrs. Johnson-Biggs felt herself out of it. 
 
 " I thought as much," her thoughts ran on. " This 
 is what comes of a London miss coming down and 
 snapping up one of our best. young men!" 
 
 The good lady forgot that the London miss had 
 not come down to Mullingham until she had done 
 so in the character of Matt Gorman's future wife. 
 
 Mrs. Matt, all unconscious of the perturbed 
 thoughts of her guest, had turned to the newcomer. 
 
 "You'll have a cup of tea? It's quite fresh. Mrs. 
 Johnson-Biggs and I have scarcely tasted our first 
 cups." 
 
 " Thank you, yes ; I'd like a cup of tea very much," 
 he replied. 
 
 " And we've got a new cake," she went on. " Mrs. 
 Johnson-Biggs, you never told me whether you liked 
 our new cake or not." 
 
 " It's an excellent cake," said Mrs. Johnson-Biggs. 
 
 " I'm sure it is," said Brooke Barty, " if this is it. 
 You didn't make it ?" 
 
 " No, I didn't make it ; I'm not clever enough to 
 make a cake, I'm only clever enough to enjoy other 
 people's. No, our cook made it. I fished up the 
 receipt out of Home Notes, or the Ladies' 1 Treasury,
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 167 
 
 or one of those magazines that I pick up when I go 
 into Mullingham." 
 
 And then the door opened and Rachel came in, 
 Rachel, looking more like a wild violet than ever, 
 with her soft, dusky hair piled at the back of her 
 neatly shaped head, with her dewy eyes and her 
 roguish dimpling smiles. And Rachel said, "Oh, 
 how do you do, Mrs. Johnson-Biggs ? I hope you 
 are quite well; and your husband, is he all right? 
 How do you do, Mr. Barty ? You are here betimes 
 to-day." 
 
 Then the two settled down somewhat apart and 
 talked to each other, discussing the merits of the tea 
 and the new cake, the receipt for which Flo had 
 fished out of Home Chat, or the Ladies' Home, or the 
 Babies' Home t or some useful little family magazine 
 of that order. 
 
 To give Brooke Barty a shade more of a chance, 
 Flo drew her chair a few inches nearer to that of 
 Mrs. Johnson-Biggs. 
 
 " You told me the last time I came to see you," 
 she said, in her most confidential tones, " that you 
 would give me a receipt for making sponge-cakes. 
 I wonder if it would be too much to ask you to write 
 it down for me ? I do so love home-made sponge- 
 cakes." 
 
 " No trouble at all, my dear," said Mrs. Johnson- 
 Biggs ; and forthwith qpening her card-case she
 
 1 68 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 wrote upon the little memorandum form within it 
 that she should not forget the receipt for sponge- 
 cakes for Mrs. Matthew Gorman. " And talking of 
 cakes, Mrs. Matthew, I heard a rumour that there 
 would be another kind of cake wanted before long." 
 
 Flo blushed a vivid crimson hue. 
 
 "Oh, well, perhaps. Who told you anything 
 about it ?" 
 
 " Oh, the traditional little bird." 
 
 " Dear me, what an inconvenient little creature it 
 is ! But but it won't be wanted yet awhile." 
 
 Perhaps Flo's thoughts were running on one kind 
 of cake and the thoughts of Mrs. Johnson-Biggs were 
 running upon another kind ; anyway, that lady 
 dropped a small bombshell into that peaceful draw- 
 ing-room by breathing across the tea-cups, " My 
 husband says Mr. Gorman will never consent to her 
 marrying John Strode !" 
 
 At that Flo jumped, jumped, indeed, with such a 
 start that she spilled her teaspoon and part of her 
 wedge of cake into her lap. 
 
 "Oh, how you startled me!" she said. "I I 
 didn't know you meant that." 
 
 " Isn't it true ?" 
 
 "True? No, there's not a word of truth in it. 
 She wouldn't look at him !" 
 
 " Oh, wouldn't she ? Well, I'm glad of that. My 
 husband was saying to me only yesterday at dinner,
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 169 
 
 you know, that it would be a very bad day for her if 
 she did, and that Mr. Gorman would not consent to 
 it for a moment." 
 
 " Mr. Gorman has not been asked to consent to it," 
 said Mrs. Matthew, looking very straight at Mrs. 
 Johnson-Biggs, and wondering whether she was not 
 venturing very near to telling a lie by what her words 
 implied. " Besides, he would be a preposterous hus- 
 band for her, and we all detest him ; he is a horrid 
 person !" 
 
 " Now, if it was this one ?" said Mrs. Johnson- 
 Biggs, indicating Brooke Barty with a lift of her eye- 
 brows. 
 
 " Hush sh sh !" said Flo. " Don't breathe it, 
 don't speak of it. By and by you will see what you 
 will see." 
 
 All at once Mrs. Johnson-Biggs came, or thought 
 that she came, to an entire comprehension of the sit- 
 uation. Have you ever noticed, dear reader, what a 
 blissful sensation it is to most people when they en- 
 tirely comprehend a situation which hitherto has 
 been a little incomprehensible to them ? It is like a 
 haven of rest after a stormy voyage. And after a 
 few hours upon the troublous sea of conjecture, on 
 which the way was wholly unknown to her, it was 
 sweet to this lady to find herself suddenly landed in 
 the harbour of complete confidence and understand- 
 ing. In the harbour, did I say? I might rather
 
 170 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 have called it the dry-dock of perfect friendli- 
 ness. 
 
 Others came and went, but Mrs. Johnson-Biggs 
 and Brooke Barry each paid what might be called a 
 good, long, satisfying visit. And when, at last, the 
 good lady was compelled to tear herself away, she 
 took both Rachel's hands in a parting which was in 
 itself a benediction. 
 
 " Good-bye, my dear, and peace be with you ; 
 peace of every kind be yours." Then to Brooke 
 Barty she extended a friendly hand. " I am most 
 pleased to have met you, Mr. Barty," she said, with 
 emphatic fervour. " My dear Mrs. Matthew, your 
 house is so delightful, it is difficult to tear oneself 
 away at all." 
 
 As Brooke Barty closed the door behind her 
 Rachel and Flo looked at one another. After the 
 look Rachel tossed her head up in the air and turned 
 to the fireplace. Flo twisted the rings on her fingers. 
 
 " That is " she began. 
 
 " You needn't tell me," said he, quietly ; " I know 
 'em so well ; we've got ever so many of 'em down at 
 the Works ; they all called on me, and I've been to 
 tea with nearly all of them. You needn't explain the 
 lady !" 
 
 And then they all three burst out laughing, and 
 sat down again as merry a trio as ever a cloud rested 
 upon.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE LITTLE BIRD. 
 
 There is perhaps nothing in this world so stupid, inaccurate, and 
 meddlesome as the traditional " little bird;" the harm it does is in- 
 calculable ; the pain it causes beyond all telling. And the little bird 
 never lacks opportunities for doing mischief. 
 
 HAVING passed in the course of her curiosity-search 
 through many phases of mind, Mrs. Johnson-Biggs 
 betook herself away from "The Larches" in the direc- 
 tion of her own home. She had reached Matthew 
 Gorman's house in a fever of excitement, little hoping 
 that she would soon be able to satisfy herself as to 
 the true state of affairs. She had successfully un- 
 ravelled the most promising mare's-nest in taking for 
 granted that Brooke Barty was a special friend of 
 Mrs. Matthew's, who made a point of visiting her at 
 a time when Matthew was safe to be busily employed 
 at the Works. This mare's-nest had fallen to pieces 
 almost before she had put it together, and she had 
 become aware of the very promising flirtation which 
 was fast ripening into a love-affair between Brooke 
 Barty and Rachel Gorman. She felt very happy as 
 she trudged away down the rather muddy road. 
 
 She felt as if she would like to turn in at the big 
 
 171
 
 172 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 gates of the Abode of Peace and carry to Mrs. Gor- 
 man the welcome news that whatever her youngest 
 girl might have wished in the way of a sweetheart, 
 she was not breaking her heart about John Strode 
 at that moment. In the warmth of her overflowing 
 friendliness, she felt like "just popping in," as she 
 would herself have phrased it, and saying, " My dear 
 Mrs. Gorman, forgive me. The little bird has told 
 me that there has been some sort of friction in your 
 family on account of John Strode. Don't worry 
 yourself, my dear, don't worry yourself; she's sit- 
 ting up there at ' The Larches,' flirting away with a 
 young man called Brooke Barty in a way which 
 would do your mother's-heart good to see." Her 
 feelings so far carried her away that she actually 
 stopped at the lodge gates, but at this point her 
 courage gave way somewhat and she changed her 
 mind. Well, after all, it was getting rather late, and 
 William would be home and he would want his tea, 
 and she had promised Sarah that she should go out the 
 minute tea was done, and perhaps it would be just as 
 well if she did not put her finger into that particular 
 pie. So, choking down her friendly desires, she set 
 her face towards home and resolutely pushed thereto. 
 All the world says that second thoughts are 
 best, and undoubtedly Mrs. Johnson-Biggs's second 
 thoughts that day were distinctly better than her 
 first instincts, both for herself and for the Gorman
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 173 
 
 family. I have never found from my own experi- 
 ence such facts which will lead me to agree with the 
 old adage; I have never found second thoughts 
 best, quite the contrary. But still, if all the world 
 says a thing, there must be something in it, or gen- 
 eral experience would not have framed the saying. 
 Alas for Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, however, she that day 
 had an opportunity for third and fourth thoughts, 
 and they undid her. 
 
 As I said, she turned her steps towards home, and 
 hastened thereto, for she was somewhat late, and she 
 had both William and Sarah to consider. 
 
 " I am afraid I am very late, Sarah," she remarked 
 with pleasing trepidation to the young handmaiden 
 who gave her admittance. 
 
 " Oh, no, m'm, only a few minutes," was the cheer- 
 ful reply. " Master is in, m'm, and a gentleman with 
 him." 
 
 She heard voices in the large, warmly lighted 
 drawing-room, and went in there instead of going 
 straight upstairs to her bedroom to take off her out- 
 door garments. To her surprise Mr. Gorman was 
 sitting in the large arm-chair by the fire, and her 
 husband was standing with his elbow on the chim- 
 ney-piece talking to him. t 
 
 " Well, then," said Mr. Gorman, as she pushed 
 the door open, " I can rely on you, William, and I 
 need give no more thought to it."
 
 174 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 "Not the least in the world, sir," said William 
 Biggs. " I quite understand what you want, and I 
 will see that it is carried through." 
 
 " And you think I am wise, William ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir ; I think you are very wise. I always 
 did say that you had the soundest head for business 
 I ever saw in my life, and I don't see any need now 
 to change my opinions." 
 
 " Oh, here is your wife ! How do you do, Mrs. 
 Biggs?" 
 
 " Peace be with you," said Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, 
 her mind and her heart still full of the piece of news 
 she had gleaned up at " The Larches." 
 
 Mr. Gorman sighed. "Thank you, thank you, 
 Mrs. Biggs, thank you, and peace be upon you also." 
 
 " You don't look very well, Mr. Gorman." 
 
 " I daresay not, madam ; I have not been very 
 well." 
 
 " And dear Mrs. Gorman, is she better ? I trust 
 so." 
 
 " My wife is not at all well ; she suffers continually 
 with her head." 
 
 " Ah, well," said Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, " bad though 
 it is, cruel though those neuralgic affections always 
 are, there is one comfort, that in your house she has 
 peace." 
 
 " I don't know," said Mr. Gorman, shortly, " I 
 don't know."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 175 
 
 And then, second thoughts having safely carried 
 her over one peril, third thoughts presented them- 
 selves to Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, and landed her 
 well, the story will show later on. 
 
 " I did hear," said she, preening her head and 
 sitting down very carefully on an adjacent chair, 
 while she looked at the old man with much sweet- 
 ness, which was entirely thrown away upon him, " I 
 did hear a little bird told me of troubles that had 
 come into a certain family very near and dear to us." 
 
 " Indeed," said Mr. Gorman, in somewhat chilly 
 tones. 
 
 " I heard that everything was not going on as 
 peaceably, as smoothly, as is wont to be. Dear Mr. 
 Gorman/' she said, edging a little nearer, and allow- 
 ing herself to go off into a little gush of feeling, 
 " there is no need for anxiety at all ; it will be all 
 right in the end." 
 
 " I don't think I quite understand you," said Mr. 
 Gorman. 
 
 "Girls will be girls," said Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, 
 laying her hand affectionately upon his arm, "and 
 your Rachel is very pretty." 
 
 It was the first time in her life that she had ever 
 presumed to speak of one of Mr. Gorman's daugh- 
 ters without the prefix to her name. 
 
 " My daughter," said Mr. Gorman, " will, if she 
 chooses to make her own bed, lie upon it She
 
 176 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 knows my wishes, and it is a subject that I it pains 
 me I would rather not discuss it." 
 
 " Discuss it ! Oh, no, Mr. Gorman ; is it likely 
 that I should wish to do so ? But I thought that 
 when I had good news to tell you, that it was at 
 once my pleasure and my duty not to keep it from 
 you." 
 
 " Good news ?" said Mr. Gorman, bending his 
 shaggy eyebrows upon the lady. 
 
 " I have just seen her," said Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, 
 clasping her hands together, " looking so pretty, and 
 sweet, and charming, and occupied in a way that 
 showed that she was not at all inclined to go to 
 extremes in forbidden directions." 
 
 " Speak more plainly, I beg of you," said Mr. 
 Gorman. 
 
 "To speak more plainly," said Mrs. Johnson- 
 Biggs, " is just to say that I think one Mr. Brooke 
 Barty will, before long, be paying you a little visit 
 a visit of request you understand me ?" 
 
 " Perfectly, madam, and I thank you for the in- 
 formation. And now," with fine courtesy extending 
 his hand from his heart to the lady, " I will bid you 
 good-bye. William, my old friend, good-bye to you, 
 and peace be with you." 
 
 " There," said Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, when the door 
 had closed behind him, " I've set his poor old heart 
 at rest. Dear, dear, to think that a beautiful girl
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 177 
 
 like that should ever set her heart on a creature like 
 John Strode, even if she was only playing at it !" 
 
 Meanwhile, it must be confessed that Mr. Gorman 
 had gone down the road in a tearing passion. Not 
 one word, however, did he say on the subject when 
 he reached the Abode of Peace. Mrs. Gorman, 
 looking very white and shattered, made an effort to 
 appear at dinner, but spent the rest of the evening 
 in motionless silence in her accustomed place in the 
 drawing-room. Mr. Gorman retired to the library, 
 where he paced restlessly to and fro, thinking hard. 
 He took out the miniature again that night, and 
 confided most of his troubles thereto, and he wrote 
 a letter to his lawyers, and sat for a long time in 
 the big chair before the table thinking. And I am 
 bound, as a faithful chronicler, to say that of peace 
 in his heart there was none. 
 
 The following morning, as soon as he reached the 
 Works, he enquired for his son, and was told that 
 he had been there for about half an hour, and was 
 busy in his own office. 
 
 " Say to Mr. Matthew," was his command, " that 
 I wish to speak to him at his earliest convenience." 
 
 Accordingly, Matthew, a few minutes later, tapped 
 at the door of his father's sanctum. 
 
 " Good-morning, sir. You sent for me ?" he re- 
 marked. 
 
 Mr. Gorman looked up. 
 
 12
 
 178 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " Yes, I sent for you. Good-morning, Matthew." 
 He moved one or two papers in an abstracted kind 
 of way, took out his handkerchief from his breast- 
 pocket, shook out the snowy folds and deposited it 
 in a heap on the table at his left hand. " I I 
 I wanted to speak to you," he said. 
 
 Matthew shut the door, crossed the room, and 
 took the chair opposite to his father's. 
 
 " Well, sir ?" he said, in an enquiring tone. " I 
 am at your service." 
 
 Mr. Gorman continued to fidget about among the 
 papers on the table. 
 
 " I understand," he said, without looking at Mat- 
 thew, " that the young man Brooke Barty is a 
 frequent visitor at your house." 
 
 " Yes," said Matthew, " he is, fairly so." 
 
 "And I am also informed," Mr. Gorman went on, 
 " that some sort of an affair is brewing between him 
 and your sister Rachel." 
 
 " I don't know about that," said Matthew, folding 
 his arms and leaning back in his chair. " They're 
 on very friendly terms, certainly." 
 
 " I am informed," said Mr. Gorman, " that they 
 are on more than friendly terms." 
 
 " Well, sir, I don't know who your informant is," 
 said Matthew, "but I have seen nothing between 
 them but such friendship as there might be between 
 any young man and young woman."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 179 
 
 " Has he proposed to her ?" 
 
 " I cannot say ; not to my knowledge." 
 
 " But he is likely to do so ?" 
 
 " There you go beyond me, sir. It will be a very 
 good thing for Rachel if he does." 
 
 " You think so ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, I do think so ; I am sure of it. Mr. 
 Barty is young and well-to-do, his looks are every- 
 thing that can be desired, he is well-born and well- 
 bred, and straight, and wholesome, a gentleman in 
 every sense of the word. My sister will be a lucky 
 girl if he does ask her to marry him." 
 
 " And, thinking that, you will put no obstacles in 
 his way ?" 
 
 " No, sir, I shall put no obstacles in his way, or 
 in the way of any honest and reputable man who 
 wished to marry my sister, if she wishes to marry 
 him." 
 
 " Very good. Then my informant was not 
 wrong." 
 
 " I don't know, of course, who your informant 
 was, a busybody and a tale-bearer." 
 
 " My informant is a very good woman, with no 
 idea of tale-bearing or mischief-making," said Mr. 
 Gorman, suddenly turning his great bright eyes 
 upon his son. " My informant did not tell me this 
 bit of news as a piece of gossip, by no means, but, 
 having heard a mistaken story of the troubles in our
 
 1 8o THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 family, she told me by way of being a comfort to 
 me, a comfort, save the mark !" 
 
 "Oh, it was a lady," said Matt, very care- 
 lessly. 
 
 " Yes, it was a lady." 
 
 " Well, sir, of course you must be a law unto your- 
 self, as we all must; but I can hardly understand 
 that, having turned your daughter out of your house 
 and practically washed your hands of her, you could 
 condescend to listen to gossip about her from out- 
 siders. Of course we all have our own ideas of 
 what is right and wrong, and fitting and unfitting ; 
 but I am a little surprised, that is all. Have you 
 anything more to ask me ?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " How is my mother ?" 
 
 " She is not very well." 
 
 " I am sorry for that. I will go in and see her on 
 my way back. Then you require nothing more of 
 me just now, sir?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Very good. Good-morning, sir." 
 
 And Matthew went away, leaving the old gentle- 
 man sitting in a blaze of speechless passion by him- 
 self. 
 
 Of course, when Matthew Gorman went home to 
 lunch, he told his wife and sister what had transpired 
 between himself and his father.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 181 
 
 "That was Mrs. Johnson- Biggs. I always said 
 that she was an ill-natured cat !" cried Rachel. 
 
 " Nobody else came, excepting Mr. Barty. Oh, 
 yes, they did ; but nobody else connected with the 
 Works, I mean," added Flo. 
 
 " Besides," Rachel went on, " there is nothing in 
 it. He doesn't care anything about me." 
 
 " Oh, no, of course not," said Matt, promptly. 
 
 " Did you tell father so ?" 
 
 " I told him that, so far as I knew, there was 
 nothing in it ; and that, as far as I was concerned, I 
 should be very pleased if there was anything in it." 
 
 " You shouldn't have said that, Matt ; your being 
 pleased has nothing to do with it. I I I haven't 
 said that I should be very pleased if if Mr. Barty 
 . . ." Then she made a dive for her handkerchief, 
 and burst out crying, with her elbows on the table 
 and her handkerchief up to her eyes. 
 
 "Well, my dear girl, I didn't say anything that 
 could commit you in any way, or that could commit 
 anybody but myself. I was obliged to say some- 
 thing; and, after all, the whole conversation was 
 sprung upon me. Little thought I, when I was 
 sitting quietly doing my letters, that my father was 
 going to spring this bombshell upon me. I was so 
 taken aback, I had nothing else to say. I thought 
 we had kept our doings here dark enough from 
 everybody."
 
 1 82 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " Oh, it doesn't matter," cried Rachel, " it doesn't 
 matter a bit. Only I'm so so afraid he'll go and 
 say something to Mr. Barty; and, if he does, I shall 
 die of shame ; because he has never hinted he has 
 never hinted that that he cared twopence for 
 me." 
 
 " I wouldn't upset myself over that," said Matt ; 
 " because the governor isn't at all likely to give me 
 away by writing to Barty, or saying anything to him 
 about it. He'd be too much afraid of helping it on, my 
 dear. And, besides, as to not saying anything " 
 
 But at this point a vigorous nudge from Flo 
 caused him to stop short and finish his sentence in a 
 wholly different manner from what he had intended. 
 
 " I say," he said afterwards to his wife, " what did 
 you mean, why did you try to tweak a piece out 
 of my sleeve when Rachel was crying ?" 
 
 " Why, I didn't want you to tell her that Brooke 
 Barty had hinted to you about it. She's in that 
 frame of mind, she'd be saying ' No' and all sorts of 
 things. She might even say ' Yes' to the other man." 
 
 " To Strode ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Nonsense ! she's not such a fool as that ; don't 
 think it." 
 
 " Well, perhaps she isn't ; but you let well alone, 
 and don't you let on that Mr. Barty has ever said a 
 word to you. He wouldn't like it, and she wouldn't
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 183 
 
 like it, and you may depend upon it that I know 
 what I am talking about." 
 
 "Oh, you know what you're talking about, of 
 course you do. But it seems to me a pity that a girl 
 should be fretting her heart out and not knowing 
 what a man may be thinking of her ; it seems a pity, 
 when a word or two would set everything straight 
 between them." 
 
 " Yes, dear, I know ; but the word or two must 
 come from them, from one to the other, don't you 
 see, not from you. When a situation is so strained, 
 a word or two from the wrong person might do all 
 the harm in the world. Let them bring things about 
 between themselves in a natural way; it will be much 
 better so. As for your father, I cannot understand 
 him," she went on, reflectively. " He seems sensible 
 enough on most points, on most points, Matt." 
 
 " Oh, yes, he's sensible enough, but perverse." 
 
 "But there's no reason why he should be per- 
 verse ?" 
 
 " No reason that we know of, that's true." 
 
 " I'll tell you what I'll do, Matt," she said : " I'll 
 run in and see the mother this afternoon, and hear 
 whether there is any news at the Abode. Perhaps I 
 shall be stopped going there, who knows !" 
 
 " Nonsense !" was Matt's contemptuous rejoinder. 
 " What ideas you do get into your head, little 
 woman !"
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 PLAIN SPEAKING. 
 
 You know the old saying that the cobbler's wife goes the worst 
 shod ? How often do we find in the lives of those who profess any 
 particular line very warmly the utter absence of the very quality 
 which is the base of their professions ! 
 
 ACCORDINGLY, later in the afternoon, Mrs. Matthew 
 took the opportunity of paying a visit to the Abode 
 of Peace. She found Mrs. Gorman somewhat better 
 as regarded her general state, eager and anxious for 
 news of Rachel, but with evidently no knowledge 
 whatever of the information which had reached Mr. 
 Gorman's ears the previous day. 
 
 " I have felt so very unwell," she said, half apolo- 
 getically to Flo, " that I have not been able to come 
 up and see you, my dear. As soon as I am out 
 again I intend to do so. Oh, yes, I am not going 
 to give way and be ill altogether. It is only that 
 things have been a little too much for me latterly. 
 You understand, my dear, don't you ? You are sure 
 that Rachel is not fretting, that she is well and 
 happy. It seems so strange, and it must seem very 
 strange to you, dear Flo, that one of my children 
 should be an exile from home. But I am praying 
 184
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 185 
 
 and hoping that it will pass, that after a time her 
 father will realize that she does know her own mind, 
 and that she must be let to take her own way in such 
 a matter as this." 
 
 " Oh, I hope so ; I think that it will turn out so, 
 dear mother," said Flo, gently. " By the bye, did 
 you have any visitors yesterday ?" 
 
 " Yesterday ? I think not no. No, I was pros- 
 trated all day yesterday with my head, and the girls 
 were out. They came to see you, did they not ?" 
 
 " Yes, Matty came. She said Polly and Beth had 
 gone into the town for something." 
 
 " Ah, yes, I remember. No, I saw nobody yester- 
 day; there were no visitors here at all." 
 
 Evidently Mrs. Gorman knew nothing about the 
 rumour of the little bird, and, after sitting awhile 
 longer, Mrs. Matthew left her with a very tender 
 leave-taking. 
 
 On her way through the hall, however, she ran 
 against her father-in-law. 
 
 " Ah, it is you," he said. " Peace be with you." 
 
 " And with you also," said Flo. 
 
 She felt rather a hypocrite as the words passed 
 her lips, for she well knew that in that house there 
 was no peace. 
 
 " I am glad to have met you, Flo," said Mr. Gor- 
 man ; " I wanted to see you. Come into the library 
 with me, I want to ask you a question."
 
 186 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " Certainly, Mr. Gorman." 
 
 She followed him into the library, feeling as a 
 young warrior might feel when he first goes into 
 battle. She was very smartly and daintily dressed 
 in a costume of brown cloth with a good deal of 
 sable about it, and she held her hands very tightly 
 twined together in the shelter of her sable muff as 
 she followed the old man into the great dimly-lighted 
 library. He closed the door behind her and turned 
 up the electric light, then walked across to the great 
 fireplace, whither she followed him. 
 
 " Flo," he said, " I want to ask you a question. 
 Are you acting loyally by me ?" 
 
 She looked straight at him with her clear, honest 
 eyes. 
 
 " That depends, Mr. Gorman, upon what you call 
 loyalty. If you mean am I doing my duty as your 
 son's wife, giving him my love, my thought, my care, 
 yes ; I can unhesitatingly answer, yes." 
 
 " I do not mean in that way at all," he said, shortly. 
 There was a moment's pause; then he opened his 
 mouth with a sort of click, and, turning once more 
 towards her, brought his hand down heavily upon 
 her shoulder. "Are you aiding and abetting my 
 daughter in her rebellion against me ?" 
 
 " Yes," answered Flo, " I am." 
 
 " You do not know my motives for wishing her to 
 marry this man."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 187 
 
 " I don't want to know them, Mr. Gorman. The 
 man is odious ; he is not fit for a girl to marry, for 
 that girl to marry. She does not love him; she 
 does not even like him, or respect him, or admire 
 him. I should consider it a sin if I were to be what 
 you consider loyal in such a matter." 
 
 " I have a reason," he said, slowly. 
 
 " I don't doubt it. I should be sorry to think that 
 you could wish her to marry anybody without a 
 reason." 
 
 " I have a good reason." 
 
 " I don't think so." 
 
 " I know that I have. I have promised her." 
 
 " Yes ; but you have promised what is not yours 
 to give." 
 
 " She is my daughter." 
 
 " Yes, true ; but not to give in that way." 
 
 " At all events, if you cannot help me as you might 
 do to bring her to a more sensible and dutiful frame 
 of mind " 
 
 " That I cannot do," said Flo. 
 
 " No, I accept your decision in that respect ; I do 
 not any longer ask for it ; but you can do something 
 else for me, you can aid me in another way." 
 
 " In what way, Mr. Gorman ?" asked Flo. 
 
 " You can at least promise me that you will not 
 place any serious obstacles in the way of Rachel's 
 one day coming round to my way of thinking."
 
 i88 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 She stood eying him apprehensively. " You 
 mean " 
 
 " I mean that so long as there is a fair field " 
 
 " For John Strode ?" 
 
 " For John Strode." 
 
 " You mean that I am not to ask, that Matthew is 
 not to ask, any other man who might wish to marry 
 Rachel to our house. That is impossible, Mr. Gor- 
 man. I neither could nor would dictate to my hus- 
 band whom he should invite under his own roof. 
 You would not expect Mrs. Gorman to do so here." 
 
 " You might at least discourage " he suggested. 
 
 " Mr. Gorman," said she, speaking very quietly, 
 and yet with a flash in her eyes such as warned him 
 that he was treading on dangerous ground, " I don't 
 like to say what is in my mind." 
 
 " I beg that you will." 
 
 " Would you counsel me seriously to go against 
 my husband in the spirit while keeping with him in 
 the letter ?" 
 
 " You take too literal a view," he said, with a flour- 
 ish of his hand which might convey little or much. 
 
 " I don't think that one can take too literal a view 
 of such a matter," said Flo. 
 
 " Tell me this fellow Barty " 
 
 " I can tell you nothing about Mr. Barty except 
 what you already know." 
 
 " But he he comes to you ?"
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 189 
 
 " Yes, he comes to us." 
 " And he and Rachel 
 
 " I can tell you nothing," said Mrs. Matthew, very 
 sharply. 
 
 " Remember," said the old man, " I have sworn 
 that she shall marry John Strode." 
 
 " I am not likely to forget it ; I wish that I could," 
 said the girl, with spirit. " And if that is all that 
 you have to say to me, Mr. Gorman, I will bid you 
 good-day, because it is time that I was getting home. 
 Matthew will be anxious about me. Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye," he said, " and the Lord's peace be 
 with you." 
 
 " Mr. Gorman," said Flo, " it is easy to send peace 
 with me, but not while you are determined to marry 
 Rachel to John Strode." 
 
 Mr. Gorman turned away to the fire. 
 
 " We will discuss the subject no further, if you 
 please." 
 
 " Very well. Good-night, Mr. Gorman," said Flo. 
 
 She went quickly out of the handsome library, 
 hurrying across the spacious hall, and out of the 
 house. In truth, she did not want Mrs. Gorman or 
 any of the girls to know that her father-in-law had 
 had any private conversation with her. Her state of 
 mind was not a little mixed as she hurried along the 
 well-kept avenue. Relief that she had spoken her 
 mind to her father-in-law was mingled with a fervent
 
 i 9 o THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 hope that she had not done or said anything which 
 would make the situation more strained for the entire 
 family. Then there was also a good deal of an even 
 warmer feeling, a feeling of disgust, and a sense of 
 shocked pain that he, professing so much and think- 
 ing so much of the religious side of life, could de- 
 liberately have asked her, a young wife, little more 
 than a bride, a wife whom he knew to be beholden 
 to her husband for everything that made existence 
 fair and lovely to her, to go against him, to be with 
 him in the letter and to turn her hand against him in 
 the spirit. 
 
 The lodge-keeper ran out as she heard her foot- 
 steps approaching the gates. 
 
 " Good-night, Mrs. Jones," said Flo, coming back 
 to everyday life with a start, and speaking with her 
 accustomed bright and pleasant manner. 
 
 " Good-night, Mrs. Matthew. Peace be with you," 
 said the woman in reply. 
 
 "Thank you," said Flo. And then, as she was 
 about to pass through the gate, she turned and looked 
 at the woman standing in the warm shaft of light cast 
 through the open door of the lodge. " Mrs. Jones," 
 she said, " I don't know that there is much peace in 
 this world. I hope that it lives and rests with you." 
 
 The woman, who was comely and simple-looking, 
 stared at the young lady for a moment, and then her 
 face changed.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 191 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Matthew," she said, " I have my rubs, 
 like other people, but it's best to say nothing and to 
 put a good face on it." 
 
 " You can't always put a good face on it," said Flo. 
 
 The woman heaved a quick sigh. " Eh, ma'am, 
 but it's early days for you to have found it out !" 
 She spoke involuntarily, as one woman to another, 
 not from the position of the lodge-keeper's wife to 
 the daughter-in-law of the head of the house. Then, 
 with almost a cry, she tried to draw back. " I 
 oughtn't to have said that !" she exclaimed. 
 
 Flo put a hand out and touched her on the shoul- 
 der. " Nay," she said, " I have not found what you 
 thought. My life, so far, is most happy and blessed ; 
 I see no sign of its being otherwise. But I don't 
 find peace in all the world, Mrs. Jones. Don't think 
 anything of what I said ; Mrs. Gorman is not very 
 well to-night, suffering terribly with her head ; it 
 has made me sad going in to see her. She will be 
 better to-morrow. Don't think that I said anything 
 to seem dissatisfied ; I am the happiest woman in the 
 world." 
 
 In her jacket pocket she had a loose half-crown, 
 and she slipped it into the woman's hand, gently 
 closing her fingers over it, and fairly ran into the 
 road. And there she cannoned against her husband. 
 
 " Oh, how you frightened me !" she cried. 
 
 " My dear child ! You shot against me as if you
 
 i 9 2 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 had been shot out of a catapult ! Did they turn you 
 out ? What is the matter ? What has happened ? 
 Has it got to that ?" 
 
 " Oh, no, Matt. I was talking to the woman at 
 the gate. I was hurrying, I was late." 
 
 He drew her forward to where an electric light 
 illumined the road. It was one of Mr. Gorman's fads 
 that his house and its grounds, and, indeed, I might 
 almost say the boundaries thereof, should be well 
 lighted. " Something has happened," he said, look- 
 ing at her searchingly; "you are fairly knocked 
 over. What is it ?" 
 
 " Nothing nothing. Well, perhaps I shouldn't 
 say that. Well, Matt, I'll tell you." And then she 
 slipped her hand under his arm as they turned to- 
 wards their own home. " I'll tell you as we go 
 along," she said. " I suppose, if I was wise," she 
 continued, when she got to the end of her story, " I 
 suppose I shouldn't tell you that your father had 
 tried to influence me to work against your wishes ; 
 but I've never had a secret from you, and I don't 
 like to begin, even although it's something about 
 your own people." 
 
 " Besides," he rejoined, " it is my right to know it. 
 No man could have a more insidious enemy than his 
 own father. I mean, if one's father determined to 
 work against one, there is nobody else who has such 
 a chance of doing one harm. Little woman, I tell
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 193 
 
 you frankly that I don't know what it all means, I 
 can't tell you what it all means. There is something 
 that none of us know of or understand. Nothing 
 would make me believe that for sheer love and ad- 
 miration of himself my father wishes Rachel to 
 marry John Strode. That is beyond the bounds of 
 possibility. John Strode may have a hold over my 
 father, although, mind you, three months ago I 
 should have said that it was absolutely impossible 
 that such a thing could be. We may get to the 
 bottom of it one day, and we may not. Meantime, 
 our course is perfectly clear and plain, to keep out 
 of the quarrel if we can, for I hate quarrels ; they're 
 unseemly, and they're something worse when they 
 come between father and son. But we must go on 
 our own line as completely and entirely as if we had 
 nobody but ourselves to consider. I'm very glad 
 that you spoke your mind to him, because it will 
 make your path so much easier and so much clearer 
 in the future." 
 
 " And you won't tell him that I told you about it." 
 
 " No, not unless it should be absolutely necessary." 
 
 She walked along silently for a little distance, still 
 
 clinging tightly to his arm. " Dear boy," she said 
 
 at last, " what is it that is eating your mother's heart 
 
 out ?" 
 
 " My mother ? Oh, she is upset, and ill, and wor- 
 ried by all this this miserable affair. She has never 
 
 13
 
 194 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 gone against my father; it is, as she said the other 
 night, the habit of her life to side with him, and it 
 has become so thorough and so fixed a habit that 
 when she wants to go against him she cannot bring 
 herself to do it." 
 
 " Matt," said the girl, gently, " do you know, I be- 
 gin to see that it is true, that old saying, ' On-lookers 
 see most of the game.' Has it never occurred to you 
 that your mother's heart is breaking ? that her heart 
 was slowly breaking when I first came down here 
 to Mullingham before we were married ?" 
 
 " No. What makes you think so ?" 
 
 " What ? Everything. Your mother is not, with 
 the exception of being knocked over as she is just 
 now, a very delicate woman." 
 
 " Oh, no." 
 
 " And yet she has the air of constant suffering ; 
 such a strange, bleached, pained air of suffering, the 
 air of bearing something. I saw it before I had been 
 in the house ten minutes ; I have seen it ever since. 
 I suppose you are all so used to it that you look on 
 it as part of her ; but it is unnatural for a woman of 
 her age, who has even tolerable health, to look as 
 she looks. Have you never seen her face light up, 
 her lips part, as if she was going to say something, 
 something eager, something from her very heart, 
 and then seen her draw back, take a deep breath, 
 and choke it down, as if as if she would bear the
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 195 
 
 pain a little longer? Have you never noticed 
 that ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Ah ! Then it is as I say, on-lookers see most 
 of the game. And, Matt, although your sisters are 
 fond of saying that there is only one real Peace- 
 maker in all the house, and that is your mother, I 
 tell you and I know that I am right that there 
 never was any woman further from peace of any 
 kind than she is." 
 
 They reached the gate of " The Larches" as she 
 ceased speaking, and Matt stood there looking at her 
 by the flickering light of the gas-lamp above it. 
 
 " It may be that you are right," he said. " For my 
 part, as I told you before we were married, I never 
 took much interest in Peacemaking, or in any of the 
 show ; I conformed to it outwardly purely to please 
 my father and mother. I remember then that you 
 asked me how it worked. It might work, but it 
 doesn't. And if my mother is as unhappy as you 
 think, I verily believe it is the damned Peacemaking 
 that is at the bottom of it all." 
 
 And then he opened the gate and held it for her 
 to pass in.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THOUGHTS. 
 
 There are no thoughts so bitter as those that go back over the 
 past, holding the events of one's life in review and contrasting the 
 present as it is with the present as it might have been if we had acted 
 differently. 
 
 " MATT," said Flo, to her husband, opening the 
 door of his dressing-room that evening, " you won't 
 breathe a word to Mr. Barty of what happened to- 
 day, will you ?" 
 
 " Well, I don't want to throw my sister at any fel- 
 low's head," he replied, diplomatically. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Brooke Barty was dining that 
 night at " The Larches." I have said that he went 
 pretty often to Matt Gorman's house. Under ordi- 
 nary circumstances it is more than likely that the 
 all-important question would have been put to Rachel 
 some days earlier than this, but the peculiar circum- 
 stances under which she was visiting her brother 
 served somewhat to make her stand-offish to Brooke 
 Barty, and to make Brooke Barty extremely diffident 
 in his manner towards her. It was natural that the 
 girl should feel a certain amount of shame that her 
 father had thought her of so little importance as to 
 
 arrange and announce a marriage for her without 
 196
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 197 
 
 her consent, without having consulted her in any 
 way, in the face, actually, of a previous refusal to fall 
 in with such an arrangement. It was equally natural 
 that Brooke Barty should hesitate in treating her 
 quite as he would have been able to do had no such 
 contretemps come into her life. I do not say that he 
 ever put it into words, that his mind ever framed the 
 thought; and yet an instinct warned him that he 
 would have to be very careful in his dealings with 
 her lest she should take the natural expression of 
 his real feelings for one of pity. There is probably 
 nothing so proud in all the world as a woman who 
 has been scorned, and perhaps no scorn can be so 
 complete as where a woman is made to feel that her 
 judgment is valueless. Rachel Gorman had not 
 said in so many words that she was the more heart- 
 sick and sore because Brooke Barty had seen that 
 the two men who might be supposed to value her 
 the most of any in the world had thought her opinion 
 of no more value than if she were a bale of cotton 
 goods. So these two, while they were distinctly in- 
 terested the one in the other, while they were even 
 on the most friendly terms, were yet at arms' length 
 apart. 
 
 " Why doesn't he speak out ?" was Flo's vexed 
 thought as she watched them across the dinner-table ; 
 and almost simultaneously Matthew Gorman found 
 himself thinking, What a pity Barty hadn't broken
 
 i 9 8 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 the ice with Rachel before that fatal announcement 
 at his mother's dinner-party. However, it was not 
 possible for any young man to propose to the girl 
 of his heart while seated at the dinner-table in the 
 presence of her brother and his wife, and, as a matter 
 of course, Mrs. Matthew and Rachel left the table 
 that evening without having advanced the situation 
 in the smallest degree. 
 
 " What did you do this afternoon ?" Flo enquired 
 of her sister-in-law, as they settled themselves before 
 the drawing-room fire. 
 
 " Oh, I went to tea with Polly and Beth." 
 
 " At Hammond's ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Why didn't they come here ? They are not 
 obliged to meet their own sister at a confectioner's." 
 
 " No, dear, they're not. But you forget this place 
 is being watched : Hammond's isn't." 
 
 " But anybody could see you at Hammond's." 
 
 " Oh, no, they couldn't. Mrs. Hammond was our 
 cook ages ago, when we were small children, and 
 she knows all about the row. Polly is her especial 
 pet, and she will do anything for Polly. So she lent 
 us her own sitting-room. Not a soul knew anything 
 about it." 
 
 " And have you any news ?" 
 
 " Not exactly news. Father has forbidden them 
 to go to the Hospital Ball."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 199 
 
 "Oh, no!" 
 
 " Yes. Apparently all the house is going to be 
 put into a state of retreat and penitence because of 
 my sins and delinquencies. Did you hear anything 
 this afternoon, Flo ?" 
 
 " No, not in the way of news, dear. Your mother 
 looks very ill, and seems to be feeling more shattered 
 than usual. By the bye, she is coming up here to 
 see you as soon as she is a little better." 
 
 " He won't let her." 
 
 " I don't think," said Flo, " that he will venture, 
 autocrat as he is, to give your mother any distinct 
 orders on that subject. At all events, she is certainly 
 coming. And you will go to the ball, of course." 
 
 " Well, I don't know. I think if my sisters are 
 forbidden to go it will be rather mean." 
 
 " What do they say about it ?" 
 
 " Oh, they ? They're awfully good about it, aw- 
 fully unselfish. They say, go and enjoy yourself; 
 try to forget that the Abode of Peace has any exist- 
 ence. By the bye, they're going to church on Sun- 
 day." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 " They say so. They are like all the rest of us," 
 said the girl, nursing her knee and staring into the 
 fire with a hard, troubled gaze ; " they've found out 
 the hollowness of the sanctuary and everything that 
 goes on in it, so they say they're going to church."
 
 200 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " I'm afraid," rejoined Flo, " that going to church 
 won't help them while they go there utterly out at 
 elbows with their father, any more than sanctuary 
 will help them so long as their father, who founded 
 it, is utterly out at elbows with you. What a pity, 
 
 Rachel, that you don't like John Strode ! I mean 
 
 Oh, don't think that I'm advocating that man's claims, 
 that man's attentions, no, no. But what a pity that 
 your father didn't fix on somebody that you did like ; 
 somebody that you would have liked for a husband ; 
 somebody like like " 
 
 " I shouldn't like anybody if I was thrown at his 
 head in that way," said Rachel, promptly. " What 
 girl worth her salt would ? No, no ; fathers in Chris- 
 tian England, as they're so fond of calling it, should let 
 their sons and their daughters make their own plans in 
 life. A little advice, an opinion, just a bias, that is 
 allowable enough ; but I tell you this, that if John 
 Strode had been a duke and I had been in love with 
 him to the very tips of my fingers, to the last shred 
 of my heart, I would still hold back if a marriage 
 was hatched up without my knowledge and without 
 my consent. Yes, I will go to the ball, just to show 
 the Biggs lot and all the others who are standing 
 around wondering whether I shall bend or break, 
 that I've got a will of my own and that I mean to 
 use it." 
 
 " Perhaps he'll relent and let the others go."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 201 
 
 " My father never relents," said Rachel ; " at least, 
 I have never known him to do so, and I don't think 
 that in the face of present events he is likely to change 
 in that respect. Ah ! here they are." 
 
 And Rachel proved herself to be a true prophet 
 Mr. Gorman had forbidden the three girls at the 
 Abode of Peace to go to any outside entertainment 
 whatever. In vain did Mrs. Gorman entreat of him 
 to alter his decision ; in vain did she remind him that 
 Matty, for instance, without a single word, without a 
 struggle, without any show of repining, had given up 
 her heart's desire at her father's bidding. 
 
 " It is hard," she said, " that Matty, of all people, 
 should be punished because Rachel has gone against 
 you." 
 
 " I have spoken," said the old man. 
 
 " And you won't do it for me ?" 
 
 " My dear love," he said, suddenly softened, " if 
 you ask me, how can I refuse you anything ? But I 
 hope that you will not ask me." 
 
 And Mrs. Gorman sank back in her chair, the 
 words frozen on her lips, her whole soul more 
 crushed than she might have been had he struck 
 her. As soon as he was gone she blamed herself. 
 
 " Your father told me," she broke out to Matty, 
 " he told me that if I asked he could refuse me 
 nothing. Then he asked me not to ask it. Matty, 
 I couldn't do it."
 
 202 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " My dear," said Matty, " do you think that one 
 ball more or less matters to us ? We don't care ; 
 don't distress yourself. We wouldn't, any of us, 
 make you unhappy by pining after a mere pleasure 
 that might be no pleasure at all. Put it out of your 
 mind, dear mother." 
 
 " Rachel is going ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, Rachel is going. Matt is giving her a 
 new dress. She didn't want to go ; she felt, as we 
 were not to be let to have such a pleasure, that it 
 would be selfish of her. But Polly and Beth talked 
 her out of it, and, as Flo very sensibly says, if she 
 were to stay at home it would look as if there were 
 some slur upon her and she could not go. Her dress 
 I went to see it at Hardman's is beautiful. I 
 wish you could see her, see her in it." 
 
 " And she is bright ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, she is very bright. Do you think, 
 mother, that he will ever change ?" 
 
 " I don't think so," Mrs. Gorman replied. " Your 
 father is not of a changeable nature. I have never 
 known him change. Look back over your life, child, 
 and tell me, when your father had ever decided on 
 any point in question, however unimportant, did he 
 ever give the matter a thought again or allow any 
 other opinion to come in front of his. But he has 
 always been the same, even in small things ; and I 
 don't think that he will ever take any different
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 203 
 
 tone, even in this matter between Rachel and John 
 Strode." 
 
 For a moment there was silence between the 
 mother and daughter. Mrs. Gorman had found her 
 way into her daughter's room as she was undressing 
 for the night. She was seated on a little chair by the 
 fire, her strained face in contrast to her handsome 
 velvet dinner-gown, in the bosom of which some dia- 
 monds twinkled bravely. Mrs. Gorman was of a 
 nature which would have scorned to go differently to 
 her wont because she was not of the same mind as 
 her husband, and she never thought of allowing her 
 natural grief to make any difference in the matter of 
 her toilet. 
 
 Matty had moved softly about the room, brush- 
 ing her hair and performing several small offices 
 of her toilet while they talked. Then she came in 
 her white dressing-gown and stood opposite to her 
 mother. She looked at her half-doubtfully, toyed 
 with one or two of the girlish nicknacks on the 
 chimney-shelf, and at last said, " Mother, I want to 
 ask you something." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Well . . . What is it that makes John Strode have 
 such influence with my father ?" 
 
 Mrs. Gorman looked up. " I don't know." 
 
 " Don't you, really ?" 
 
 " No. I have no idea ; I cannot imagine. Per-
 
 204 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 sonally I think that he is the most loathsome young 
 man that I know, that I ever knew. I said as much 
 to your father once. He did not seem to agree with 
 me. He told me that it pleased him to have John 
 Strode at his table, so I never said anything more 
 about it." 
 
 " I have been thinking," said Matty, " a good deal 
 about him lately. You know, mother, the influence 
 is all on one side. My father has no influence with 
 John Strode." 
 
 " What makes you say that ?" 
 
 " If he had, he would go to sanctuary, he would 
 be a Peacemaker. But he laughs at it" 
 
 " No, no." 
 
 Yes; I have heard him. I have heard him what 
 he called ' chaff' my father for his views. Anyway, 
 the influence is all on one side. " I'd give," said 
 Matty, suddenly bringing her hand down with a bang 
 upon the wooden mantel-shelf, " I'd give a great 
 deal if I knew the whole mystery of John Strode." 
 
 There was a moment's silence ; then Mrs. Gorman 
 suddenly uproused herself. 
 
 " Well, my dear, I cannot help you to it, and the 
 subject is not so interesting that we need stop out 
 of our beds to discuss it. It is bad enough to have 
 the man himself here. Good-night, my darling; 
 don't worry about it. So long as he is kept from 
 marrying Rachel, that is all I care about."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 205 
 
 But Matty sat down in the chair which her 
 mother had just vacated and stirred the fire into a 
 brilliant blaze, that she might enjoy the luxury of a 
 good think. A new idea had come to her that 
 night, an idea that perhaps John Strode . . . But 
 no, it could not be that! Yet, he might well be 
 some relation, some person connected in some way 
 with their family, so that her father was anxious to 
 make provision for him. And yet, she had always 
 understood that John Strode was rich, that he was 
 the rich son of a rich father. He had a lovely 
 place, fine horses, smart carriages, and a yacht. 
 Could it be that her father was anxious to secure a 
 position of wealth for one of his children ? Could 
 it be that her father was not as well off as they had 
 always believed ? But no, there could be no trouble 
 of that sort, or Matt would be in the secret. She 
 was fain to confess at the end of her thinking that 
 she had solved no mystery, that she was no nearer 
 to an elucidation thereof. It was a mystery, and a 
 mystery, apparently, it must remain. 
 
 And then she fell a-dreaming of the days long 
 gone by, the days when a minor tragedy had come 
 into her life. Yes, she called it a minor tragedy, 
 even to herself; but she had not thought it so then, 
 when hope's fairy blossom had been blighted in its 
 bud, when all the tendrils of love had been ruth- 
 lessly torn from her heart, when the man who loved
 
 206 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 her had been dismissed with a curt " no" for answer, 
 and her feelings had been considered no more than 
 one would consider the feelings of the beetle that 
 one treads upon. It had seemed no minor tragedy 
 then. But now, in the face of this hideous scheme 
 that her father had prepared for Rachel, her own 
 tragedy seemed dwarfed and almost unimportant. 
 At worst she had been bereft, she had never been 
 offered for sale like some unknowing thing which 
 had no power of will. 
 
 She sat there for a long time, indeed until the fire 
 burned low in the grate and until a larger cinder 
 than had fallen for some time slipped through the 
 bars and woke her with a start from her brown 
 study. 
 
 " Well," she said, stretching her arms out wearily, 
 "it's no use sitting here trying to solve what is a 
 complete mystery. I suppose we shall get at the 
 bottom some day, and if only Rachel has strength 
 of mind enough to hold out, things may come 
 round and be as they were before."
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A GREAT SOCIAL EVENT. 
 
 Why is it that those who would not put their hands in their 
 pockets to the extent of a single guinea with which to swell a sub- 
 scription list, will put themselves to endless trouble and expense 
 when the self-same list is swelled by some social function ? 
 
 IT may be fairly said that the Hospital Ball was 
 the great pivot upon which the social life of Mul- 
 lingham turned. All sorts and conditions of society 
 were in the habit of meeting together that night in 
 the Town Hall, which was usually decorated and 
 lighted with all the ingenuity that skill could devise 
 and the electrical company provide. Great ladies 
 living a few miles out of the town, great both in the 
 matter of position and of wealth, filled their houses 
 yearly from roof to basement for the occasion of the 
 Hospital Ball, and, indeed, vied with each other as 
 to who should marshal the largest cohort of beau- 
 teous damsels into the great ball-room. People of 
 less importance did their share towards swelling the 
 ranks both of the dancers and the on-lookers, and 
 those who never went to any other ball in the year 
 made it a point of honour to attend the ball given 
 for the benefit of the County Hospital. 
 
 207
 
 208 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 The hospital at Mullingham was a very important 
 institution ; for Mullingham, being the seat of a 
 manufacturing trade, and also the centre of a large 
 mining district, was in the habit of doing big things 
 in the way of accidents, and at times the hospital, 
 always largely used, was taxed to its utmost re- 
 sources to accommodate the crushed and broken 
 limbs of those who were from time to time described 
 in the newspapers as " victims." 
 
 This year the Hospital Ball was to be on an even 
 grander scale than usual, for two colliery accidents 
 within a few weeks of each other, and a run of des- 
 perate cases from the different mills and Works, had 
 unfortunately demonstrated what a hospital board 
 had been urging for several years, that one of the 
 crying necessities of the day was a new wing to be 
 devoted entirely to emergencies and accident cases. 
 So the ladies of the neighbourhood had been pressed 
 into the service, and the price of the Hospital Ball 
 tickets had been doubled ; it was a bold move, but 
 one which under the circumstances was permissible 
 enough. Not only had the price of the tickets been 
 doubled, but a committee of ladies had been formed 
 for the purpose of canvassing for the sale thereof; at the 
 head of them the Dean's wife, Lady Emily Maxwell. 
 
 In the course of her peregrinations for the selling 
 of tickets Lady Emily had gone as naturally to the 
 Abode of Peace as had been her wont when guinea-
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 209 
 
 hunting for charity, and when Mrs. Gorman had 
 told her very gently, but decidedly, that she was so 
 grieved and sorry that she could not take any tickets, 
 because Mr. Gorman objected to their attending the 
 ball this year, Lady Emily had gathered her first 
 inkling of the trouble which was brewing in that 
 establishment. 
 
 " Not going to let the girls go to the Hospital 
 Ball, Mrs. Gorman !" 
 
 " No ; I am so sorry, dear Lady Emily," was Mrs. 
 Gorman's response, " but my husband has an objec- 
 tion." 
 
 " To the hospital ?" 
 
 " Oh, no, no ; but a private objection. I cannot 
 quite explain to you, but things have not been going 
 very smoothly with us lately, and " 
 
 " Smoothly ? Do you mean ?" she broke off 
 
 short, and turned a pair of eloquent eyes upon the 
 three men-servants who were at that moment serving 
 the tea. 
 
 " No, I don't mean in that way," said Mrs. Gor- 
 man, comprehending the look. "That has never 
 been one of our worries. We have always," she 
 said, as the door closed behind the men, " we have 
 always had plenty of money, Lady Emily. I cannot 
 tell you all about it, but my husband is not very well 
 pleased with the girls just now, and he doesn't wish 
 them to go to the Hospital Ball." 
 
 14
 
 2io THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " I shall go and see him about it," said Lady Emily. 
 
 " I don't think that he is in." 
 
 " No, no, dear Mrs. Gorman, not in that way, not 
 in that way at all ; but I will go down to the Works, 
 I have been there before, as perhaps you know. I 
 will go and beard him, and will tell him how prepos- 
 terous the whole thing is." 
 
 " I am sure he will not take the tickets," said Mrs. 
 Gorman, smiling in spite of herself. 
 
 " But I shall tell him that he must support local 
 charities, and I will talk to him, I will talk to him 
 like a mother !" 
 
 " Meantime you must let me give you something 
 towards your fund; the hospital is an institution 
 with which I have great sympathy. It is the fashion, 
 Lady Emily, to speak against hospitals and hospital 
 management, but they do a vast deal of good, there 
 is no gainsaying it." 
 
 " Yes, they do when they are properly managed, 
 when they have a proper committee of people of 
 responsible position to look after them," said Lady 
 Emily, now fairly launched on to her favourite topic. 
 " That is why the hospital is such a success here in 
 Mullingham, because you and I and a dozen others 
 who know our way about life and hospitals look after 
 it in more ways than as far as mere money is con- 
 cerned. If only London institutions of the same 
 kind could be managed as our country ones are it
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 211 
 
 would be better for everybody concerned. A dread- 
 ful case came under my notice only the other day. 
 Muriel has a friend, a parson's daughter, whose 
 mother was left a widow quite early, and not blessed 
 with too much money ; and this girl one of several 
 determined to become a nurse. Not being one- 
 and-twenty, she found great difficulty in being taken 
 on anywhere. Of course, it stands to common sense, 
 and if she had not been so plucky as to be almost 
 headstrong, she would have waited until she was one- 
 and-twenty, or have taken some private work which 
 would have begun her nursing education and yet 
 would not have drained her strength before she had 
 sufficient strength to stand that particular kind of 
 draining. But this girl, feeling herself fit and capable 
 and enthusiastic, went from one place to another, 
 until at last she got accepted at a fever hospital in 
 the East End of London. She was then nineteen 
 years old. Yes, thank you, I will have another piece 
 of that cake ; it is excellent. No, I have not finished 
 my tea yet, thank you. Well, this girl went down 
 to this hospital full of hope, full of courage, full of 
 enthusiasm. She ought, in the natural course of 
 events, to have done her three years in some recog- 
 nized hospital or infirmary, and to have taken a spell 
 at a fever hospital after that; but she put the cart 
 before the horse, and she began at East End Fever 
 Hospital. She was immediately put upon night
 
 212 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 duty, and was kept at it three months. No, I don't 
 say so much about that," as Mrs. Gorman gave a cry 
 of horror, " because, after all, it is easier, and most 
 nurses find it so, and most navvies find it so too, 
 mind you, than it would be to do week in and week 
 out of day and night work ; but the hospital was 
 so frightfully under-nursed, and from the matron 
 downwards there was very little to choose in point 
 of technical experience, that the most outrageous 
 and unheard-of things were of daily occurrence 
 among them. For instance, nurses in fever hos- 
 pitals, which are extremely trying as well as dan- 
 gerous, because you have to nurse fever or infectious 
 cases all the time, as you must know, ought to be 
 thoroughly well nourished and cared for outside the 
 wards. The food in this place was abominable; 
 nine times out of ten the wretched nurses turned 
 from it with loathing and went hungry. A nurse in 
 a fever hospital, particularly one who is on night 
 duty, should be made to take a proper amount of 
 air and exercise every day. It is a regular rule, you 
 know, that nurses in fever hospitals shall take exer- 
 cise in the grounds thereof and have their half 
 holiday every week, being thoroughly disinfected 
 before leaving the building. This particular fever 
 hospital has no grounds, and the nurses are expected 
 to take their two hours of exercise trailing about 
 the drab, uninteresting, endless, weary East End
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 213 
 
 streets. They are never disinfected. The process 
 by which the public is safeguarded consists simply 
 of changing the cotton ward-gown for an outdoor 
 one; the cotton ward-gown hangs under the same 
 curtain and on adjacent pegs to the outdoor gown 
 and outdoor garments, and every time that a nurse 
 from this hospital takes exercise she carries with 
 her myriads of fever and diphtheria microbes, which 
 she scatters freely and disinterestedly as she walks 
 along the crowded and unwholesome streets. Even 
 for half-holidays they go on the principle of what 
 the eye never sees the heart never grieves for, and 
 the disinfecting process is no more thorough than 
 that which I have just described. Fortunately for 
 the public, the nurses are generally too tired to take 
 the trouble of changing their clothes, and spend the 
 two hours' rest allotted for exercise either on their 
 beds or in sewing for themselves, only going into 
 the outer world on their weekly half- holidays. You 
 will hardly believe it, dear Mrs. Gorman, but at the 
 same time you may accept it as being simply, abso- 
 lutely, and entirely truthful, when I tell you that 
 when an unfortunate baby died in this brilliant insti- 
 tution, none of the nurses, ward-sisters, not even the 
 matron herself, knew how to perform the last offices 
 which the poor little thing required, and ran about 
 from one to the other asking how they should make 
 a shroud ! Everything was managed in the same
 
 214 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 way. My daughter's friend, however, determined 
 that she would remain the two years necessary to 
 acquire a character. When she had been nine 
 months in this precious institution the time came 
 round for her summer holiday, a fortnight. She 
 arrived at her home looking such a wreck and 
 seemed so completely used up, worn out, and ill, 
 that her mother and sisters entreated her to leave 
 and to take a long rest. This she absolutely re- 
 fused to do, and at the end of the fortnight she 
 went back again and took up her work once more. 
 A short time afterwards she was stricken with the 
 measles. She knew that she had them by her own 
 symptoms, and represented this to the matron. The 
 matron insisted that she had not got the measles, and 
 pooh-poohed the whole affair, though the girl was 
 feeling extremely ill. However, ultimately it turned 
 out that the girl was right, that she had veritable 
 measles, and where do you think she was laid up ? 
 Not in any isolation, not a bit of it. She just went 
 to her own bed in the nurses' dormitory, and re- 
 mained there as short a time as possible. Then, 
 when she was able to get about, without any change, 
 almost without any period of rest, almost without 
 any period of convalescence, she was put straight 
 on to night duty again. They were, as usual, short- 
 handed, for in this precious hospital, naturally, the 
 nurses were always leaving, She dragged on for
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 215 
 
 almost three months longer, and finally, after com- 
 plaining of feeling excessively ill, and being told 
 that she was only suffering from a little indigestion, 
 she left in a hurry and is at this moment down with 
 severe typhoid fever, from which it is very doubtful 
 whether she will ever fully recover. Now, I take 
 it," Lady Emily went on, " that in this hospital there 
 is a board of men. Men are extremely unobser- 
 vant, even doctors, but I do not think that with a 
 board of ladies paying regular visits and thoroughly 
 looking in to the working of the establishment that 
 it would be possible for such cases as this to exist." 
 
 " But what about the matron ?" asked Mrs. Gor- 
 man. 
 
 "The matron? Oh, well, you wouldn't have a 
 hospital board made of matrons ! In nine cases out 
 of ten, when a woman becomes a hospital matron, 
 she ceases to be a woman, she becomes merely a 
 slave-driver, and it is she who needs to be watched 
 more than anybody on the whole of the nursing 
 staff."
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A WALL OF ADAMANT. 
 
 I know of nothing which so offends a woman who has stooped to 
 ask a favour as to have it refused, no matter how sweetly the refusal 
 may be given. It is like a bitter almond which has been skilfully 
 sugared over, still bitter. 
 
 LADY EMILY MAXWELL drove down the next day 
 to that part of Mullingham where the Gorman 
 Works were situated. An ordinary lady would 
 probably not have found Mr. Gorman very readily, 
 but Lady Emily Maxwell was well known to the 
 employes of whom she enquired, and she very soon 
 found herself crossing the threshold of the master's 
 private office. 
 
 Mr. Gorman rose from his accustomed seat at the 
 big desk with a certain unction in his manner. 
 
 " The Lord's peace be with you," was his greeting. 
 
 " Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Gorman, thank 
 you. The same to you and many of them," said 
 Lady Emily, quite forgetting that he had not wished 
 her a happy New Year. " I hope you are not very 
 busy." 
 
 " I am always rather busy, Lady Emily, but never 
 too busy to receive you," said he, giving her the 
 biggest easy-chair in the room. 
 216
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 217 
 
 " Ah, now, that's very good of you to say that ; 
 that's now really extremely good of you. I wanted 
 to see you, Mr. Gorman, particularly, because I went 
 to see your dear and charming wife yesterday about 
 the Hospital Ball." 
 
 Mr. Gorman's face hardened. 
 
 " Your wife that is you are going to let the 
 girls come to the ball, are you not?" 
 
 " I think not, this year," said Mr. Gorman. 
 
 " Oh, but, Mr. Gorman, that is really too bad of 
 you. Here are all the ladies on the committee 
 moving heaven and earth to have a success this 
 year, a huge success, so as to be able to build this 
 new wing, and you, one of our chief supporters, won't 
 do your best to help us or let your daughters come 
 to it ! It is perfectly preposterous !" 
 
 " I I do not wish my daughters to go to the ball 
 this year." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 " I do not wish it," said he, in a stately manner 
 which would have snubbed most ladies into a state 
 of silence or of trembling fear. 
 
 " You have reasons ? Well, yes, I suppose you 
 have ; I suppose they've been naughty girls, have 
 they ? Well, now, Mr. Gorman, you must forgive 
 them. You preach peace, you know ; and I am 
 sure your children they must be very sorry, and you 
 cannot, you really cannot mean them to miss the
 
 2i8 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 ball for any small misdemeanours they may have 
 committed." 
 
 " Lady Emily," said Mr. Gorman, in a very sweet 
 tone, which to one of his own family would have 
 betokened even more determination than was usual 
 with him, " Lady Emily, I cannot discuss my daugh- 
 ters with any one. I do not wish them to go to the 
 ball, and if they do go, they will do it in defiance of 
 my wishes. I am not so puffed up with my own 
 conceit as to imagine that our presence or absence 
 will make any difference to the success of the even- 
 ing or to the state of the hospital finances. I have 
 never been behindhand in giving to the funds of 
 the hospital, and I have no intention of beginning 
 to be niggardly now. I am not going to the ball 
 myself, and I do not wish my daughters to do so. I 
 think I need not say any more." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Gorman, I am quite aware," said Lady 
 Emily, " that you mean to snub me and to tread me 
 out quite flat upon the ground ; but you know we 
 parsons' wives are very unsnubable creatures, and 
 being as intimate with your wife as I am, and taking 
 as much interest in your daughters as I do, and 
 coming and bleeding you for purposes of charity as 
 often as I do, I think that I am somewhat of a priv- 
 ileged person. What is it ? Cannot I help you out 
 of this ?" 
 
 " No, Lady Emily, I don't think that you can."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 219 
 
 " Open confession, you know, is good for the 
 soul." 
 
 He shot a glance at her which was not a peaceful 
 glance, quite the contrary ; but Lady Emily, serene 
 and safe in her position of birth and power, sat look- 
 ing benignly at him over her aquiline nose, and 
 neither realized, nor cared to realize, what a tumult 
 she was raising in the bosom of the old man. 
 
 " Lady Emily, I must ask you to excuse me," he 
 said, beginning to fidget among the papers before him. 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know ; but you know I am a very 
 privileged person, and, Mr. Gorman, your girls have 
 always gone to the ball ; the ball will be nothing 
 without them. Do think about it; do reconsider 
 your decision. I went to see your wife yesterday, 
 and she told me you would not let them go. I told 
 her that I should come and see you about it." 
 
 " I have nothing to add to what my wife has 
 already told you," said Mr. Gorman, beginning to be 
 more precise in manner and in tone with each mo- 
 ment that went by. " I shall be very pleased to give 
 you a donation for the new wing, I think it is an 
 excellent project, but you must please not " 
 
 " Not ask any questions, or seek to pry into my 
 neighbours' business," said Lady Emily, with a bland 
 little laugh. " Ah, Mr. Gorman, I don't know when 
 I have been so snubbed as this morning; and from 
 you, of all people, too ! It is odd."
 
 220 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " Far be from me any desire to snub you, Lady 
 Emily," said Mr. Gorman, opening a drawer at his 
 left hand and taking therefrom a cheque-book. 
 " Shall I write you a little cheque now ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, thank you ; we are by way of taking all 
 we can get. We shall want more than we shall re- 
 ceive, and we shall be most obliged, and the larger 
 you make it the more obliged we shall be ; but, at 
 the same time, it won't compensate me for the ab- 
 sence of your daughters." 
 
 " I am sorry for that, because they are not going 
 to the ball," said Mr. Gorman, beginning to write. 
 Then he signed his name with a flourish, turned the 
 cheque-book over, pressed it upon the blotting-pad, 
 tore out the leaf and folded it in four. " Shall I put 
 it into an envelope, Lady Emily, or will you have it 
 in your purse ?" 
 
 " Oh, I will take it in my bag here, thank you, 
 and cross it, will you ? Thank you so much." She 
 opened her velvet bag, which had a beautiful silver 
 top and chain, and held out her hand for the piece 
 of paper. 
 
 " I have crossed it," he said, as he handed it to her. 
 
 "May I look at it?" 
 
 " Oh, certainly." 
 
 She opened the folded cheque. " Five hundred 
 pounds! Mr. Gorman, this is munificent!" 
 
 " It is not too much ?" he asked.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 221 
 
 " Oh, no, no ; I will take it as a first donation, if 
 you like, but, joking apart, it is extremely handsome, 
 and I am most obliged to you, most obliged. And 
 I am sure the Dean will be ; poor thing, he is worn 
 to death by this hospital business, and he will be 
 most obliged to you, most obliged and grateful." 
 She slipped the chain of the bag over her wrist and 
 rose from her chair. " Well, good-bye, Mr. Gorman ; 
 my best thanks. I wish you were less hard-hearted. 
 You have made me at once very glad and very sorry. 
 I think I shall come every morning and see if I can- 
 not make you relent." 
 
 Mr. Gorman bowed over her hand. 
 
 " If you will honour me every morning," he said, 
 in his most dignified and courtly manner, " I cannot 
 say but that I should be extremely pleased to see 
 you ; but I cannot give you any other answer on 
 that question." 
 
 The lady heaved a great sigh. 
 
 "Ah, dear, dear; you are very difficult to treat 
 with, very. Well, having got so much out of you, I 
 suppose I mustn't abuse you, for I am most grateful 
 for the cheque; it is most kind of you. Well, good- 
 bye, good-bye, and thank you very much again." 
 
 She allowed him to put her into her carriage, and 
 drove away with a wave of her hand. But just out- 
 side the gates she chanced to see Mrs. Wilson coming 
 waddling along the road.
 
 222 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " Stop, John !" she said. " Good-morning, Polly." 
 
 "Ah, my lady, good-morning. Is that you? I 
 suppose you've been to see the master ?" 
 
 " Yes, Polly, I have. Are you going into the 
 Works?" 
 
 " I am only going to leave a bit of a note for Wil- 
 son, my lady ; that is all. Oh, I know better than 
 to go into them Works. What would they want 
 with an old thing like me worrying around ?" 
 
 "Well, I've been worrying around," said Lady 
 Emily. " Here, Charles, take Mrs. Wilson's note in. 
 Get in beside me, Polly ; I want to talk to you." 
 
 With a little difficulty Mrs. Wilson got into the 
 carriage and sat down beside Lady Emily. " What 
 is it, my lady ? You look troubled." 
 
 " I am troubled, Polly, I am troubled. I have 
 been to try and persuade Mr. Gorman a good man, 
 Polly, but very autocratic I have been to try and 
 persuade him to let those poor girls go to the Hospi- 
 tal Ball. I might as well have talked to the kerb- 
 stones !" 
 
 " Ah ! 'e's not against the hospital, surely." 
 
 "Against it? No. He gave me five hundred 
 pounds towards the new wing, indeed, I am not 
 sure whether it is not merely a first donation ; but 
 let his children go to the ball, he won't ! What is 
 the matter there, Polly ?" 
 
 " Well, my lady," said Polly, " if what I 'ear is
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 223 
 
 true, they say my darling young lady, my sweet 
 child, Miss Rachel, wants to marry John Strode." 
 
 " Oh, that is preposterous !" 
 
 " And they say that 'er pa won't 'ear of it." 
 
 " I should think not, indeed." 
 
 " And she's left 'ome, my lady." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Yes, she is staying up at ' The Larches,' with 
 Mr. Matthew and 'is wife. Mr. Matthew takes 'is 
 sister's part, and, if what my neighbour Mrs. Biggs 
 tells me is true, and I see no reason to doubt it, Mr. 
 Matthew is conniving at 'is sister's doing just as she 
 likes in the matter." 
 
 "Oh, well, if that is so, what wonder that Mr. 
 Gorman is angry and vexed? But still, it seems 
 rather hard that he shouldn't let the other three girls 
 go to the ball, doesn't it, Polly ? Can't you do any- 
 thing to persuade him ?" 
 
 " My lady, my lady, if you 'ave failed, 'ow is it 
 likely I should succeed ? I've about as much influ- 
 ence with Mr. Gorman as, as your carriage 'orses 
 'ave." 
 
 " But Mr. Wilson has " 
 
 " Wilson, yes ; Wilson 'as a deal of influence 
 with the master, that's true," said Mrs. Wilson, with 
 the air of one who is pondering deeply. 
 
 " Ah, here is Charles back again. Where do you 
 want to go, Polly ?"
 
 224 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " Just where you like, my lady, 'ome or into the 
 town ; it's all one to me." 
 
 " Well, drive into the town with me a little way, 
 and then I'll bring you back. Into the town, into 
 the High Street, Charles. Do you think," Lady 
 Emily went on eagerly, as soon as they were fairly 
 started, " do you think that Mr. Wilson could do 
 anything to bring him to reason ?" 
 
 " Well, I was just thinking, my lady, I was just 
 thinking. You see, Wilson 'as unbounded influence 
 at the Works, and in matters of business I've 'card 
 the master say over and over again that Wilson's 'is 
 right-'and man ; but whether 'e'd take kindly to Wil- 
 son's interfering with family matters is more than I 
 can say. Now I should think if anybody 'ad any 
 influence it's Mr. Matthew." 
 
 " But he is so fond of his sisters, surely he would 
 do his best for them." 
 
 " Maybe 'e 'as," said Mrs. Wilson, sensibly. " At 
 all events, Miss Rachel's staying up there." 
 
 "And you think it wouldn't do to get your hus- 
 band to say a word ?" 
 
 " Why, I don't think it would," replied Mrs. Wil- 
 son, " I really don't think it would. Because, you 
 see, perhaps you and the Dean wouldn't take it very 
 well if I was to go interfering with my dear Miss 
 Muriel." 
 
 "Well, perhaps I shouldn't, Polly, perhaps I
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 225 
 
 shouldn't. But it is vexing. Poor girls, they must 
 be heart-broken." 
 
 A little later in the day Lady Emily passed Polly 
 and Beth Gorman in the High Street. She at once 
 stopped the carriage and called to them. 
 
 " My dears, what is this that I hear about your 
 not going to the Hospital Ball ?" 
 
 "Oh, father won't let us go," replied Polly, 
 promptly. 
 
 " But why ?" 
 
 " Oh, he's so angry with Rachel." 
 
 " But why ? What has Rachel done ? Does she 
 really want to marry John Strode ?" 
 
 Lady Emily asked the question as if a more pre- 
 posterous notion could not enter a girl's heart. 
 
 "Rachel! Marry John Strode ! Oh, Lady Emily, 
 that is just it." 
 
 "What, what is just it?" 
 
 " That she won't marry John Strode." 
 
 Lady Emily's bland expression changed. 
 
 " Do you mean me to understand that your father 
 wishes such a marriage ?" 
 
 " Yes ; he insists upon it." 
 
 " That Rachel should marry John Strode ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 " We don't know. Father likes him." 
 
 " Likes John Strode ! Oh, my dear, I might well 
 is
 
 226 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 be unsuccessful when I went and entreated him to 
 allow you to go to the ball. I thought it was all the 
 other way, and that he was so vexed with her for 
 wanting to marry John Strode." 
 
 " But she refuses, she absolutely refuses !" Polly 
 cried, unable to help laughing at Lady Emily's mys- 
 tified countenance. " And that's why she's gone to 
 stay at 'The Larches' with Matt and his wife, be- 
 cause she won't marry John Strode." 
 
 " Dear me ! Well, my dear, you've given me quite 
 a shock. You don't say so ! Well, I did my best 
 to persuade your father to allow you to go, but, 
 really, I I I shouldn't like to quarrel with him, for 
 he is most good and generous when I want help of any 
 kind ; but, my dear girl, I shouldn't like to go again !" 
 
 " Oh, well, it wouldn't be any use, Lady Emily, 
 because father never changes his mind, and when he 
 says * no' he means ' no ;' so the moment he said we 
 were not to go to the ball, we gave up any idea of 
 thinking about it or fretting about it. And, after all, 
 what is a ball more or less ? It would only make 
 mother unhappy if we worried, and so we don't think 
 about it ; we are not going, that is all. But thank 
 you all the same for going and asking father ; it was 
 awfully good of you, awfully good. But please, 
 dear Lady Emily, don't worry about us." 
 
 " My dear," said Lady Emily, " you have given 
 me quite a shock."
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 BREAKING BOUNDS. 
 
 You know the old adage, " One man may lead a horse to the water, 
 but twenty cannot make him drink," and you probably know by the 
 experience of your observation that, of all circumstances in life, it is 
 most often applicable in affairs of the heart. 
 
 ALMOST the first person whom Lady Emily Max- 
 well saw when she entered the Town Hall on the 
 night of the Hospital Ball was Rachel Gorman, and 
 Rachel was walking across the ball-room with Brooke 
 Barty. Her first thought was that Mr. Gorman had 
 relented and had allowed his daughters to go to the 
 ball after all. Five minutes later, however, she saw 
 Matt Gorman passing near and beckoned to him to 
 come and speak to her. 
 
 " I thought your sisters were not to be allowed to 
 come to the ball, Mr. Matthew," she said to him. 
 
 " Neither are they, Lady Emily." 
 
 " But Rachel is here ?" 
 
 " Yes, but Rachel is staying with us." 
 
 " And you brought her ?" 
 
 " Yes, we brought her." 
 
 " Is this I hear true ?" 
 
 " I don't know what you heard, but I'm afraid it 
 is," he replied. 
 
 227
 
 228 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 She unfurled her fan and held it so that their con- 
 versation might be kept strictly to themselves. 
 
 " My dear boy," she said, looking at him very 
 much over the aquiline nose, " what can your father 
 be thinking of?" 
 
 " That's what we ask ourselves every day, all of 
 us." 
 
 " Did he consent to Rachel's coming ?" 
 
 " Oh, no. Rachel is cut adrift." 
 
 " Cut adrift ? What do you mean by that ?" 
 
 " What do I mean, Lady Emily ? Why, that she 
 has been turned out." 
 
 " From home ?" 
 
 " From home, Lady Emily ; yes." 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me that your father has 
 turned your sister out of the house ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then where, may I ask, does the Peacemaking 
 come in ?" 
 
 "That's what we all want to know," said Matt, with 
 a grim appreciation of the humorous side of the sit- 
 uation that was not lost upon the Dean's wife. " The 
 fact is, I heard the Dean say something the other 
 day to my mother that seemed to put the entire sit- 
 uation and hit the nail on the head as completely as 
 if he had known what was going to happen in the 
 immediate future. He said that he always told his 
 good friend Mr. Gorman that Peacemaking was a
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 229 
 
 little religion de luxe, very well fitted for the rich and 
 temperate few, but not for the work a day world. 
 That, Lady Emily, puts the whole case in a nutshell. 
 As long as the whole creed of the Peacemakers 
 meant no more than so much personal kowtow to 
 my father, the scheme worked beautifully ; the mo- 
 ment that anybody in the community ventures to 
 have an opinion of their own, Peacemaking has gone 
 to to pot. So long as my father is held as a sort 
 of first cousin to God Almighty, it is an admirable 
 religion.; but so soon as the rest of the sect find out 
 that they've got not only bodies, but souls and hearts 
 of their own, then the linch-pin seems to be gone. I 
 never exactly believed in it myself. I was born in it, 
 and I thought it as good as any other mode of living 
 a decent life ; in fact, I didn't think much about it, 
 one way or the other ; but I see now that no man can 
 start a religion of his own. It's so apt to be just a 
 nice little comfortable religion which will just suit 
 himself, and often only prove an easy fit for him as 
 long as things go smoothly and pleasantly." 
 
 " Ah," said the Dean's wife, " there is a great deal 
 in that." 
 
 " There is everything in it," said Matt. " You 
 know it is all fair enough that he who pays the piper 
 shall choose the tune, but there comes a day when 
 somebody else would like to pay the piper, there 
 comes a day when somebody else cannot dance to
 
 230 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 the tune chosen by another, and my poor little sister 
 has found it out already." 
 
 " She is quite firm ?" 
 
 " Oh, firm as a rock." 
 
 " And who is the young man she is dancing with 
 now ? I can't see. Was it Mr. Barty ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Ah ! a very good antidote to John Strode. Is 
 John Strode here to-night ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, in great form, with a diamond like a 
 shilling in his shirt-front, and his hair fresh cropped, 
 and an orchid in his button-hole, and the shiniest 
 boots, Lady Emily, that ever came out of a shoe- 
 maker's shop. I like shiny boots myself," he went 
 on, sticking his own foot out and looking at it reflec- 
 tively, " and I like an orchid in my button-hole, and 
 I like a man's hair to be well cropped, and I don't 
 know that I very strongly object to a diamond shirt- 
 stud, although I've never worn one myself, but, some- 
 how, all these things on John Strode become very 
 offensive, most offensive, and I feel every time I look 
 at him such an itching in my foot to go and give him 
 a downright good thundering kicking. I only hope, 
 Lady Emily, that I shall be able to keep that feeling 
 in check without committing myself very deeply, be- 
 cause I suppose that, after all, it is a sort of compli- 
 ment when even a John Strode wants to marry a 
 lady."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 231 
 
 " I don't think so," said Lady Emily ; " I really 
 don't think so. Well, my dear Matt, you and I can- 
 not sit here talking all the evening, I must call you 
 Matt, as I used to do when you were a boy " 
 
 " I wish you would." 
 
 " Yes ; it is not quite proper, I suppose, but I like 
 you so much, I like you so much ; I always thought 
 you one of the nicest boys I ever knew. You're as 
 nice as your mother, which is saying a great deal ; 
 most boys are not. But we must not stop here talk- 
 ing all the evening, because we both have the inter- 
 ests of the hospital at heart, we both have work to 
 do. By the bye, your wife has not been to speak to 
 me. Tell her she is not to neglect me ; I don't like 
 to be neglected. And I will take my opportunity 
 of telling that dear child not to be obstinate against 
 her father, oh, dear, no, but to be strong and firm in 
 her own rights. Yes, I think even the Dean would 
 say I was right in that. Now, my dear boy, go and 
 do your duty, and I will do mine." 
 
 " Hullo, Matt !" said a man, as Matthew walked 
 away in quest of his wife ; " Lady Emily looked as 
 if she was giving you a curtain lecture." 
 
 " Well, she wasn't ; she was giving me some very 
 excellent advice, which I mean to take. She is a 
 very fine woman, and she knows what she's talking 
 about," was Matthew's prompt reply. 
 
 He did come across his wife presently, radiant in
 
 232 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 a smart pink gown and all the advantages of an ex- 
 cellent partner. 
 
 " Flo," he said, " don't neglect to go and speak to 
 Lady Emily ; she told me you hadn't spoken to her 
 yet. Go pretty soon. By the bye, she knows all 
 about the row." 
 
 " She sides with us, of course ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes. Are you having a good time ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ; quite a splendid time. What are you 
 going to do ?" 
 
 " Well, I'm just going to look after some of the 
 people at the door. I promised I would stay about 
 there for half an hour and look after the late comers, 
 get them partners, and make myself generally useful." 
 
 So the evening wore away in all the delicious 
 whirl of general success. Never had such a crush 
 been known, even at a Hospital Ball. The brilliant 
 toilettes, many handsome uniforms, blazing jewels, 
 costly flowers, and radiant happiness of those par- 
 ticipating all served to make a brilliant and success- 
 ful whole. 
 
 " Rachel, my dear," said Lady Emily, an hour 
 later, as Rachel approached her on Brooke Barry's 
 arm, "you look quite charming to-night; I have 
 never seen you look better. Are you enjoying your- 
 self very much ?" 
 
 " Oh, very much, Lady Emily, thank you, very 
 much indeed."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 233 
 
 " Well, don't stay wasting precious time talking to 
 an old woman like me; go away and enjoy yourself 
 still more, dear. Mind you take care of her, Mr. 
 Barty." 
 
 They were on their way to sit out a dance in one 
 of the corridors leading to the offshoots from the 
 great hall of the building. 
 
 " Not that way," said Brooke Barty, as she would 
 have turned to the right. " Come this way. There 
 is the jolliest little corner here where we can sit most 
 happily for as long as we like. There, now, isn't this 
 jolly?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ; perfectly charming," cried Rachel, seat- 
 ing herself on the sofa, which was well screened from 
 general view. 
 
 Brooke Barty sat down beside her. " Let me fan 
 you," he said. 
 
 He fanned her so vigorously that she presently 
 cried out to him to stop. " Enough, enough ; I am 
 quite cold !" 
 
 And then, somehow, as they sat there, he reverted 
 to the careless words which Lady Emily Maxwell 
 had let fall. 
 
 " She said I was to take care of you," he said. " I 
 wish, Rachel, I wish that you would let me take care 
 of you for always." 
 
 "She meant it in jest, she meant for the mo- 
 ment."
 
 234 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " But I wish that you would let me take care of 
 you for always." 
 
 He had been waiting so long for the opportunity, 
 well, after all, it was only a few weeks, but they 
 had seemed long to him, and she had been hoping 
 and yet dreading to hear some such words as these, 
 more than half inclined in the face of recent events 
 to forswear herself from declarations of any kind, 
 and yet, when it came so simply, so naturally, and 
 yet so earnestly, there was no idea in Rachel Gorman's 
 mind of putting off the day for a single moment. 
 
 " Do you ?" she said. 
 
 She had laid her bouquet a beautiful posy of 
 white flowers which he had sent to her down on 
 the couch beside her; she was busily toying with 
 the mother-o'-pearl sticks of her feather fan, and she 
 looked down at her white gloved fingers as if all her 
 attention was necessary to the very trivial occupation 
 which she had found. He caught them passionately, 
 fan and all, in his own. 
 
 " You know that I do," he said. " I should have 
 spoken out ever so long ago, only I felt that you had 
 been so wronged, so startled out of yourself by all 
 that has happened, that my lips were sealed. And 
 yet, you must have known all along exactly what I 
 was feeling. You will ? You will give yourself to 
 me, won't you ? Surely, in the face of all this, your 
 father would not refuse you to me ?"
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 235 
 
 " I don't think that my father will ever give you 
 his consent." 
 
 " Well, so long as you give me yours which you 
 have not done yet nothing else matters. I will go 
 and see him to-morrow, if you will give me leave. 
 But first first of all I'd like you to give me the 
 leave, you know." 
 
 She looked up at him with a laugh that was half 
 shy and half glad. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Barty !" she said. 
 
 And then he well, you know how these things 
 happen ; somehow his arm found its way round her, 
 and she herself was drawn quite close to him. And 
 then there was no doubt that Rachel Gorman and 
 Brooke Barty had plighted their troth for all time. 
 
 How long they sat there in that pleasant hiding- 
 place I should not like positively to say. It was a 
 long time. Several partners were seeking Rachel all 
 over the place, but without success in finding her. 
 And when at last they did find their way back to 
 everyday life, Brooke Barty suggested that supper 
 would not be a bad idea, and carried her off in 
 search of it. However, even newly betrothed 
 couples cannot altogether have their own way and 
 break down already existing engagements, and be- 
 fore either of them had begun to think about moving 
 away from the table at which they had ensconced 
 themselves an imperative partner appeared upon the
 
 236 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 scene and insisted upon Rachel fulfilling her obli- 
 gations. 
 
 So Brooke Barty, feeling very much at peace with 
 the world himself, and everybody else, sauntered out 
 into the ball-room, and by an accident found himself 
 close to Matthew Gorman. 
 
 " Hullo, old chap, you not dancing?" said Matt. 
 
 " I've danced enough, thank you," Barty replied. 
 
 Matt looked at him sharply. " Not having a very 
 good time ?" 
 
 " Oh, my dear chap, yes ; the very best possible 
 time. I never enjoyed myself more in all my life. 
 I don't happen to be dancing this minute." 
 
 " Can I get you a partner ?" 
 
 "Oh, thank you, no, my dear fellow, no. I'm 
 going to dance again presently." Then he hooked 
 his arm into Matthew Gorman's. " I say, old fellow, 
 I've done it !" 
 
 " Done it ? Done what ?" 
 
 " I've spoiled John Strode's chance." 
 
 " By Jove, you don't say so ! Is it all settled ?" 
 
 " Between ourselves ; yes, all settled." 
 
 " By Jove, I'm glad ! I'll shake hands with you, 
 Barty ! I am glad, by Jove, yes. Oh, how pleased 
 my wife will be ! Good luck and happiness to you, 
 old fellow ; she's a brick, if ever there was one." 
 
 " Of course I've got to face your father yet." 
 
 " Well, yes, you have that."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 237 
 
 " I'll go and see him to-morrow ; I'll go down to- 
 morrow morning and get it over. If he says ' yes/ 
 of course it will be all plain sailing." 
 
 " And if he says ' no' ?" was Matthew's question. 
 
 " If he says ' no,' if he won't give his consent, 
 why, we must just do without it, that's all. I would 
 rather have taken my wife from her own home, with 
 the regulation fuss and blessing, and so on ; but if I 
 can't get her that way, why, I shall take her the way 
 I can get her. It would be a dreadful nuisance to 
 have to put the banns up somewhere on the sly and 
 run away ; but, of course, if your father is obstinate, 
 why, we shan't have any choice in the matter. But 
 surely, when he sees that we are both set upon each 
 other, that we've fixed our hearts, you know, old 
 chap, and that the other fellow is absolutely im-' 
 possible and distasteful to Rachel, surely he'll never 
 hold out longer than that." 
 
 " My dear Brooke," said Matthew Gorman, in a 
 very definite tone, " there is no knowing what line 
 my father will take. He's a Peacemaker, and Peace- 
 makers, you know, are a very curious set of people. 
 I take it that they're something like fire-worshippers, 
 all very well as long as you live in a hot climate, 
 where there's plenty of sun to worship, but a dead 
 failure when you get into the misty north, where 
 you've dull skies and clouds ad libitum. However, 
 my dear chap, you can but do your best and face the
 
 238 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 worst, and whichever way it goes remember she's 
 worth it, and I'll stick by you to the last ounce of 
 influence I've got in me. By Jove, I've never been 
 so pleased about anything in my life before !" 
 
 " Not even your own marriage ?" 
 
 " No, not even my own marriage ; because, you 
 see, my mother-in-law is a most sensible woman, who 
 doesn't interfere with her children's legitimate busi- 
 ness, and somehow or other my wife and I made up 
 our minds without bothering anybody or anybody 
 bothering us." 
 
 "Then your father never attempted to interfere 
 with you ?" 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Matthew, " it's part of my 
 father's creed that a man shall marry according to 
 his choice. The extraordinary thing is that he 
 doesn't consider the girl should have any choice at 
 all. That's where we're all at loggerheads." 
 
 " Then don't you think if I represent to him that 
 Rachel is the girl of my choice he may think it 
 quite right that she should be allowed to marry me, 
 I mean with bell and book and all that sort of thing ?" 
 
 " He may. Probably he'll be hard driven be- 
 tween the feeling that you both want her, and you 
 both can't have her. Only, I'm terribly afraid that 
 having given his word and promised his influence to 
 
 that brute Strode And, by Jove, if he isn't 
 
 asking Rachel to dance now ! Look at him !"
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 239 
 
 "That just reminds me," said Brooke Barty, 
 " she's engaged to me." 
 
 " I'm sorry," he heard Rachel say, as he hurried 
 up to her, " that I must refuse you. I am engaged 
 for this dance and for every other dance." 
 
 " And I think," said Brooke, offering his arm, and 
 utterly ignoring John Strode, " that you are engaged 
 to me."
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW. 
 
 They say that Christianize the African negro as you will, he will 
 always have lurking somewhere deep down in his heart some traces 
 of his original fetish-worship, which may rise up and possess him 
 again at any moment. And in some English husbands and fathers, 
 in spite of advanced education and the female suffrage question, 
 there still lingers some trace of the old holding that a woman is a 
 chattel and nothing more. It is a sort of Englishman's fetish. 
 
 THERE was not much of the caitiff in Brooke 
 Barty's genial nature. By eleven o'clock the fol- 
 lowing morning he turned in at the big gates of the 
 establishment, which was known as the Gorman 
 Steel Works, and, entering the enquiry office, asked 
 whether Mr. Gorman had yet arrived. 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir, an hour and a half ago," was the 
 reply. 
 
 " Oh, well, take my card, will you, and ask him if 
 he can see me ?" 
 
 The young clerk ushered Brooke into the waiting- 
 room and departed on his mission, returning in a 
 few minutes with a message to the effect that Mr. 
 Gorman was extremely busy, would Mr. Barty be 
 able to transact his business with Mr. Matthew? 
 
 " I'm afraid not," said Brooke, still in the same 
 240
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 241 
 
 easy tone. " Give my compliments to Mr. Gorman, 
 say that I will wait his pleasure, but that my busi- 
 ness is purely personal with himself." 
 
 Accordingly, after some minutes' delay, he was 
 escorted to Mr. Gorman's private sanctum. 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Gorman," said Brooke, step- 
 ping easily across the room and holding out his hand. 
 
 " The Lord's peace be with you." 
 
 " Thank you, very much, I'm sure ; the same to 
 you, sir. A fine day, isn't it ?" 
 
 " A very fine day," replied Mr. Gorman. " Won't 
 you sit down ?" 
 
 " Thank you, yes ; thanks, thanks." And Brooke 
 Barty seated himself in the big chair opposite to 
 Mr. Gorman's desk and settled himself comfortably 
 with his hat upon his knee. " The fact is," he said 
 " I'm very sorry to disturb you, Mr. Gorman, I 
 know what business hours are, but my business is 
 rather important, and I couldn't possibly transact it 
 with your son." 
 
 " I am at your disposal, my dear sir," said Mr. 
 Gorman, with profound civility. 
 
 " The fact is, Mr. Gorman, I want to marry your 
 daughter. It's no use beating about the bush ; that 
 is what I have come for ; I have come to ask your 
 consent." 
 
 " Which of my daughters ?" 
 
 " Rachel the youngest, Rachel. I shall be 
 16
 
 242 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 very pleased to give you every facility for enquiring 
 into my character, my family, my income, my pros- 
 pects, and all the rest of it. I feel very sure that 
 you can have no objection to me on the score of any 
 of these points." 
 
 " You have already asked my daughter to marry 
 you ?" 
 
 "I have." 
 
 " And she has accepted you ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Subject to my consent ?" 
 
 " Well, I suppose we took that for granted ; at all 
 events, I have come on the first opportunity to ask it." 
 
 "Yes. Well, Mr. Barty, I am very sorry, but I 
 cannot give you a favourable answer." 
 
 " And may I ask you why, sir ?" 
 
 " Because I have other views for my daughter. I 
 think you were present when I announced her en- 
 gagement to my friend Mr. John Strode. I I ex- 
 pect my daughter to carry out that engagement." 
 
 " My dear sir, you cannot want to marry your 
 daughter to a brute like Strode !" 
 
 " Not another word, I beg. If it had been one 
 of my other daughters whom you were anxious to 
 marry, and who was anxious to marry you, I should 
 not have said 'no,' but my youngest daughter is 
 already bespoken, and I am sorry that you are too 
 late."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 243 
 
 For a moment Brooke Barty sat stunned by the 
 indomitable and relentless will-power of the old man. 
 
 " Mr. Gorman," he said, " is it possible that you 
 mean what you say ?" 
 
 " I mean every word of it." 
 
 " That you would marry your daughter to a man 
 whom she positively loathes !" 
 
 " I am not prepared to discuss the question with 
 you," said Mr. Gorman, eying Brooke Barty with 
 straight and unflinching gaze. " I have promised 
 my daughter to my friend John Strode, and there is 
 nothing further to be said on the subject." 
 
 " She will never marry him !" 
 
 " Excuse me, she will." 
 
 Brooke Barty laughed outright. " Well, Mr. Gor- 
 man, you have a very extraordinary way of arrang- 
 ing these matters and dealing with your daughter's 
 life ; but I suppose there is no use in my wasting 
 your time, or you trying my patience any longer. I 
 think, as a gentleman, as an honest man, that it is 
 my duty to tell you that I am engaged to your 
 daughter Rachel, that I intend to marry her, and 
 that she intends to marry me." 
 
 " Not with my consent." 
 
 " Then, sir, we shall be obliged to do without it. 
 I am perfectly prepared to lay my past life before 
 you as an open book; I am perfectly prepared to 
 make very large settlements on Rachel and to defer
 
 244 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 to you in every possible manner. I would prefer to 
 take my wife straight from her own house from the 
 hands of her father and mother, but if her father is 
 so autocratic as you are, and her mother so weak as 
 Mrs. Gorman, you must forgive me if I take her 
 without this pleasure and without this formality. 
 She will remain with your son until we are married, 
 and, I warn you, we shall be married at the earliest 
 possible moment." 
 
 " You cannot legally be married until Rachel 
 comes of age," said Mr. Gorman. 
 
 " That's as may be, sir. If it is necessary to wait 
 until Rachel comes of age, I shall cheerfully do so ; 
 but although you may compel us to wait until then, 
 it is very certain that you cannot force your daughter 
 into a marriage to which she does not herself consent. 
 Mercifully, that is against the law of the land, and it 
 cannot be done. I am very sorry that you have met 
 me in this way, because I think that one day you 
 will be sorry for it also. So, Mr. Gorman, I will 
 wish you good-morning; but I don't think," turning 
 half back again, and looking at Rachel's father with 
 a steady, stern gaze, " I don't think that I will go 
 through the farce of calling down the Lord's peace 
 upon you. Good-morning, sir." 
 
 I think, if Brooke Barty had been a young man 
 who was by way of being troubled with gusts of 
 rage, that he would have gone out of Mr. Gorman's
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 245 
 
 presence that morning in a towering passion. As it 
 was, he only felt it a bore and a nuisance that 
 Matthew's predictions had come true. There would 
 probably be delay, of necessity there would be 
 trouble, in securing Rachel for his wife ; but the idea 
 of going back on his quest, of abandoning his wishes, 
 and of leaving Rachel to be forced into a marriage 
 with John Strode never entered his mind. 
 
 He looked in at the enquiry office again. 
 
 " Is Mr. Matthew in ?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes, sir, Mr. Matthew is in," was the reply. 
 
 " Ask him if he can see me, Mr. Barty." 
 
 The next moment he found himself mounting the 
 stairs towards Matt's room. 
 
 " Well, old chap, what luck ?" Matt enquired, as 
 the boy closed the door behind Brooke Barty. 
 
 "Oh, just what you predicted. Has other views 
 for her, and doesn't stir an inch from his original 
 standpoint ; says he'll make her marry John Strode 
 yet." 
 
 " And you ?" 
 
 " Oh, well, I told him what I thought, very 
 quietly, you know, and civilly, and all that, and 
 then I came away." 
 
 " What are you going to do now ?" 
 
 " I am going to find out how soon I can get mar- 
 ried. Your father says that I cannot be married 
 legally until she comes of age, but I fancy there
 
 246 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 must be a loophole out of that. I shall run up to 
 town to-day and consult my lawyers there. They'll 
 put me up to it if it's possible." 
 
 Matt was silent for a minute or so. 
 
 " Well, old fellow," he said, " I believe there's only 
 one way of doing it without committing perjury, 
 which is to put the banns up in some out-of-the-way 
 church and trust to luck that the governor hears 
 nothing about it. I fancy you'll find that you can 
 then give Rachel's age, her real age, and if you 
 can once get the knot tied there will be no question 
 of its legality." 
 
 " Then I'll tell you what I will do. I'll go straight 
 along now to my office and arrange any business 
 that may be pressing, and then I'll go up to lunch to 
 ' The Larches/ they'll give me some lunch, won't 
 they ?" 
 
 " Of course they will." 
 
 " Well, then, if I run up to town by the five o'clock 
 train, I shall catch my lawyer to-morrow morning 
 as soon as he gets to his office. He'll put me up to 
 it; he's the sharpest chap I ever knew in my life." 
 
 "All right; then I'll meet you at one o'clock. 
 We lunch at one sharp." 
 
 Matthew Gorman did not, however, get home to 
 " The Larches" at the hour which he had indicated 
 to Brooke Barty. For one thing, he was not very 
 keen on beine the one to break the news to his wife
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 247 
 
 and sister that his father had positively refused to 
 entertain the idea of Brooke Barty in the light of 
 Rachel's husband. For another thing, Mr. Gorman 
 himself quite prevented his son from observing his 
 usual punctuality; for just as Matt was thinking of 
 leaving his office a message came to him that the 
 governor wished to see him. 
 
 Mr. Gorman plunged straight into the question 
 just then uppermost in his mind. 
 
 " You know, of course, that young man Barty has 
 been to see me this morning ?" he broke out, without 
 any beating about the bush. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And equally, of course, that I told him that I 
 could not entertain the idea." 
 
 " It's a thousand pities," replied Matt, bursting out 
 with the remark in quite an involuntary fashion. 
 
 " As to that, I am the best judge," said Mr. Gor- 
 man. " You had better, since you are so friendly 
 with the young man, make it clear to him that I am 
 one of those people with whom second thoughts are 
 not best ; make him clearly understand that I never 
 entertain second thoughts." 
 
 "I have," said Matt; "I told him so before he 
 came to you." 
 
 " Oh, you did, did you ? That was more sensible 
 than I should have thought you would be, Matthew." 
 
 " Sensible ! My dear father ; I didn't do it to serve
 
 248 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 your ends ; don't you think it. I only did it to save 
 Barty the pain of being refused." 
 
 " The end is the same," said Mr. Gorman, with 
 magnificent indifference ; " the end is the same. If 
 he persists in his course, he will have to wait until 
 the girl is one-and-twenty, as I shall do everything 
 in my power to prevent their taking the law into their 
 own hands. I should naturally do so." 
 
 " Well, I don't know," said Matthew, " where the 
 naturalness comes in ; but I suppose we shall not be 
 likely to agree on that point. They will marry, even 
 if they have to wait until Rachel is of age. But 
 there's an old saying which says, you know, sir, 
 ' Love will find out the way,' and I shouldn't at all 
 wonder if love doesn't find out the way in this in- 
 stance." 
 
 " Love !" said Mr. Gorman. 
 
 " Yes, sir, love." Then he turned back and looked 
 at his father. " Some day," he said, " you will be 
 very glad that love did find out a way to prevent 
 Rachel from being married to a cad like John Strode ; 
 the man is a cad, and you know it. Only a cad 
 would wish to marry a girl who openly declares that 
 she hates him. By the bye, sir, how is my mother 
 this morning ?" 
 
 " I think she is better," said Mr. Gorman. 
 
 "I am glad to hear that. Then that is all you 
 wish to say to me ?"
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 249 
 
 " That is all. You will make it clear to Rachel 
 what she has to expect if she goes against me." 
 
 " No, sir, that I cannot do. I do not in the least 
 know what your intentions are with regard to 
 Rachel." 
 
 " Simply this. That if she carries out her present 
 rebellious intention of marrying this young man, 
 whom I definitely refused this morning, she will 
 never more be daughter of mine. I shall wipe her 
 name out of my will ; I shall wipe her name out of 
 the family record ; I shall have done with her, I 
 shall have done with her ; I shall have no daughter 
 Rachel. See that she clearly understands what her 
 position will be." 
 
 " Well, as to that," said Matt, sensibly enough, " it 
 doesn't much matter what the position of a girl's 
 father has been after she is once married ; then her 
 position depends entirely upon her husband. And 
 surely, sir, you must be perfectly well aware that 
 Mrs. Brooke Barty will take a very different position 
 in the world to anything that could be aspired to by 
 Mrs. John Strode. She may as well go her own way, 
 for if she were to give in to you and marry John 
 Strode she would certainly cut herself off from you 
 as surely as you will cut her off if she marries Brooke 
 Barty, so that she may just as well please herself as 
 far as her relations with you are concerned." 
 
 " A dutiful daughter," began the old man, " would
 
 250 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 take pleasure and satisfaction in doing her duty and 
 in giving filial obedience to her father." 
 
 " Perhaps that is so," said Matt ; " but I have al- 
 ways understood that that particular kind of duty 
 went very sorely against the grain when you were a 
 young man. I don't know whether it has ever struck 
 you, sir, that Rachel is more thoroughly a chip of 
 the old block than any one of your other children. 
 She is as like you as two peas." And with this shot 
 he turned on his heel and literally fled. 
 
 Meantime Brooke Barty had reached " The 
 Larches" with his news. 
 
 " No go, dearest," was the way in which he broke 
 it to his fiancee. 
 
 " But what possible objection can he have to you ?" 
 
 " None, not the least in the world, none what- 
 ever. The only objection he gives is that I am not 
 John Strode. He told me if I had wanted to marry 
 one of your sisters he would have been most pleased 
 to welcome me into the family, and so on ; but he 
 has promised you to John Strode, and to John Strode 
 he means to give you. Meantime, he says that we 
 shall have to wait until you are one-and-twenty, and 
 that he will put every obstacle in our way that he can 
 think of." 
 
 " Oh, there are ways and means of getting mar- 
 ried !" exclaimed Mrs. Matthew. " You don't mean 
 to wait until she is of age ?"
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 251 
 
 " Oh, dear, no," replied Barty. " I am going up to 
 town by the five o'clock train to consult my lawyers 
 and see what can be done." 
 
 " Did Matt say he would be in to lunch ?" asked 
 Mrs. Matthew of Brooke, looking at the clock, the 
 hands of which pointed to ten minutes past the hour. 
 
 " He did. He said he would be here at one 
 o'clock sharp." 
 
 " Ah, then he's late. I will go and look out for 
 him ; I always see him coming along the road." 
 
 As Flo closed the door behind her, Brooke Barty 
 turned to Rachel. 
 
 " I suppose, dearest," he said, holding her hands 
 in his and looking at her very tenderly, " I suppose 
 that if I make arrangements for pulling off this mar- 
 riage, you won't draw back, or anything of that 
 kind?" 
 
 She looked at him in amazement. 
 
 "Draw back, Brooke!" she exclaimed. "Every 
 hour that I am free leaves me in danger of being 
 made to marry John Strode. Make what arrange- 
 ments you like. Don't think that I am bold, or un- 
 feminine, or anything of that kind ; I have gone be- 
 yond all those things. I am yours ; as soon as you 
 can make arrangements that I shall be yours before 
 the whole world, I am ready for you. Until we have 
 actually come away from the church, I shall not feel 
 myself to be absolutely and entirely safe."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE WORM WILL TURN. 
 
 Some natures are like sleeping volcanoes, and go on for years and 
 years in absolute mental quiescence ; but when once they are roused 
 out of their habitual calm, or when something happens to disturb 
 their usual control over themselves, they are like the molten lava 
 pouring in torrents down the mountain-side. Those who have dom- 
 inated them before can do nothing more than stand by waiting. 
 
 WHEN Mr. Gorman went home to lunch that day 
 to the Abode of Peace, he made a communication to 
 his family. So long as there were servants in the 
 room he spoke on no private topic, but afterwards, 
 when the estimable butler and his underlings had left 
 them, as was their wont, he told them something of 
 what had happened that morning. 
 
 " I wish to say something," he said. " No," look- 
 ing at Matty, " it is not necessary for you to move ; 
 I wish you to hear what I have to tell your mother. 
 My dear, you have invited to this house, once or 
 twice, a young man called Barty, Mr. Brooke Barty." 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Gorman. 
 
 " I don't wish him to be invited here again." 
 
 "Very well, Edward." 
 
 " I will tell you why. He came to me this morn- 
 ing to ask my consent that he should marry Rachel. 
 252
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 253 
 
 I need hardly tell you that I refused it absolutely. I 
 have other views for Rachel, as she is perfectly well 
 aware. He told me, in very plain terms, that he in- 
 tends to marry Rachel, and I have warned him, and 
 I have also warned Matthew, what will happen if this 
 conduct is persisted in. Meantime, I do not wish 
 Mr. Barty to be a guest at my house. I understand 
 that Rachel was at the Hospital Ball last evening. I 
 cannot say that I was surprised, for at present nothing 
 surprises me that Rachel does. I thought that all the 
 world knew that I had objected to my daughters at- 
 tending the ball, and I think that she would have 
 shown better taste had she remained away." 
 
 " You see, Edward, you never told her that you 
 did not wish her to go," began Mrs. Gorman. 
 
 " She knew my wishes perfectly. She must have 
 known that her sisters were not allowed to go, that 
 I had objected to their going. However, we will let 
 that pass. She went, and I suppose this ridiculous 
 proposal was hatched up during the course of the 
 evening. At all events, so far as I am concerned, it 
 is disposed of, entirely disposed of. If they carry 
 it out in spite of me, I shall know what course to 
 take. I shall have no daughter called Rachel." 
 
 " Edward, you will not cut her off!" 
 
 "Absolutely. She has the alternative. She 
 chooses between me and this young man whom 
 she never saw until a few weeks ago."
 
 254 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " No, Edward, not between you and Mr. Barty, 
 because you are not content that the child should 
 stay in your house as she has done all her life until 
 now; you would force her into the arms of this 
 horrible young man." 
 
 " He is my friend, Margaret, and that should keep 
 him sacred from abuse. However, we need not 
 discuss it at this moment. What I wish to say is 
 this : that for the present I do not wish my daugh- 
 ters to visit at the house of their brother. If my 
 son chooses to defy me, and my daughter and my 
 son's wife choose likewise to defy me, that is no 
 reason why my daughters who have not yet gone 
 against me should give their countenance to those 
 who do so. You hear my wishes," looking at 
 Matty. " As long as you live in my house I have 
 a right to your obedience. You understand me. I 
 wish all communication between this house and 'The 
 Larches' to cease." 
 
 " Veiy well," said Matty. 
 
 It was not that the girl was afraid of her father, it 
 was not that she was cowed by him ; her sole desire 
 was to spare her mother from any possible trouble. 
 It was the same instinct which led her to look at her 
 sisters and sign to them to go with her out of the 
 room. She felt that her mother would be best left 
 alone at this juncture. 
 
 For a minute or two neither Mr. nor Mrs. Gor-
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 255 
 
 man spoke. Then by an immense effort Mrs. Gor- 
 man nerved herself to say what was in her mind. 
 
 " Edward," she began, " I wanted to say some- 
 thing to you." 
 
 " Very good, my dear ; I am ready to listen." 
 
 " It may not be very pleasant to you," she said, 
 gently, " but I must say it for all that. I have not 
 often gone against you in all the years we have been 
 married ; I have loyally done everything which I 
 believed would please you." 
 
 " I have never found fault with you," he reminded 
 her. 
 
 " No, Edward, I know it ; but at the same time 
 there is a place even for a husband to stop at, and 
 when you say that all communication between this 
 house and our son's house must cease, you touch 
 that point." 
 
 "And why?" 
 
 " Because Matthew is my son ; because Rachel is 
 my daughter. If you choose, unjustly, to cut them 
 off from you, that is your affair. You cannot insist, 
 or expect, that I, who brought them into the world, 
 shall join you in your tyranny." 
 
 " Margaret !" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes, I know what you would say, that never 
 have I spoken to you like this before in all the years 
 that we have been married ; I would not do so now 
 if I were not driven to desperation, if I did not feel,
 
 256 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 as I have felt day by day during these last few 
 weeks, that some one has come in between us who 
 had vowed to be all the world to each other. That 
 some one is the man John Strode. What the tie 
 which binds him to you is I do not know, I do not 
 want to know; as you wish him to marry our 
 daughter, it cannot be a tie which under other cir- 
 cumstances I should be inclined to imagine. For 
 this man, whatever binds him to you, you have 
 ruined your home, you are breaking my heart day 
 by day. Well, I say nothing. I have all these 
 years patiently and meekly taken the second place, 
 lived in you, for you, through you, strangled my 
 desires, given up my own wishes, my own will, my 
 own way, until I have come to be little more than a 
 mere figure-head, a cipher. But there is a place to 
 stop at, and we have touched it. So long as it is only 
 my will and happiness, my humanity that you would 
 sacrifice, they are yours, laid at your feet with the 
 love you have never valued ; but when you would 
 sacrifice the hearts and the happiness of my chil- 
 dren, when you would step in between them and 
 me, I say you must stop. While I am your wife, I 
 must have liberty to see my children when and how 
 I will. While I am the mistress of your house my 
 son must be free to visit me, and my daughter." 
 
 "And are you, too, turning against me?" he 
 asked, in a voice of thunder.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 257 
 
 She looked at him. 
 
 " I turn against you ? If you choose to put it so, 
 in that respect. Yes." 
 
 "And you will aid and abet her to marry this 
 man ?" 
 
 " No, I will not do so. But since I have had an 
 inkling that such a thing might be, I have prayed on 
 my knees, with my heart and my soul, day and 
 night, that God would be merciful and bring it to 
 pass ; I have prayed the Almighty to deliver my 
 child, my baby, from the cruel fate to which her own 
 father would condemn her, and to give her to the 
 arms of this gentleman. And I will go on praying, 
 Edward (as I will go on praying that God will de- 
 liver her from John Strode), that God will deliver 
 her from a fate so hideous, so monstrous as to be- 
 come the wife of a man whose acquaintance I re- 
 gard as the greatest blot of your whole life, so far 
 as I know it. I will respect your wishes ; I have 
 vowed to you my obedience as I gave you my love ; 
 but beyond that not one step will I take. And sup- 
 posing that I should never speak to this young man 
 again, this Brooke Barty, I will love him as only 
 the mother of an outraged daughter knows how to 
 love. I do not ask you to change your decision ; I 
 ask nothing of you. I only tell you that I must be 
 free in that one respect" 
 
 The old man's heart had undergone a dozen 
 17
 
 258 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 different phases of feeling during the time that his 
 wife was speaking. At one time she had touched 
 him almost to relenting, almost to giving up his 
 great point ; then, when she told him, in tones which 
 admitted of no question, that between her and her 
 children he must not attempt to come, his heart was 
 hardened. 
 
 " I am not aware," he said, " that I have ever 
 asked or demanded anything of you which was un- 
 reasonable. On the contrary, I have always given 
 you full honour and dignity. I cannot remember, 
 at this moment, that I have ever questioned one of 
 your decisions. I have been under the impression, 
 hitherto, that with me your word has been law. It 
 is news to me to find that I have been a vindictive, 
 crushing, inhuman tyrant, only anxious to make 
 those about me unhappy and wretched." 
 
 " I did not say that, Edward." 
 
 "You implied as much. Surely I know better 
 what is best for my daughter than she does. How 
 is a child of seventeen years old to know better 
 than her father, who has gained a long experience, 
 what is the best and wisest course for her to follow ? 
 Where is this child to have gained this wonderful 
 experience which is to make her above all advice, to 
 make her all-knowing and all-wise ?" 
 
 " It is not a question of experience, Edward, it is 
 a question of love."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 259 
 
 " The child does not know her own mind." 
 
 " She knows her mind well enough on both points. 
 She knows well enough that she hates John Strode, 
 and there she is justified, as any well-bred girl would 
 be justified. She knows well enough that she loves 
 the other one. Edward, I was no older than Rachel 
 when I first knew you. Did you think that I was 
 not old enough to know my own mind when I ac- 
 cepted you, when I told you that I loved you ? You 
 never said as much. You seemed to think then 
 that the opinion of a girl in her teens was of some 
 importance, nay, of all-importance. Why should 
 my daughter be different to me ? Why should she 
 be less able to choose her husband than I was ?" 
 
 " And yet," he said, " by going against me now it 
 tells me plainly that you do not know your own 
 mind, and that you have never learned to know 
 mine." 
 
 " In one sense you are right," she responded, 
 quickly. " I had not learned to know you. When 
 you told me that all the love on earth you had to 
 give was laid at my feet, I believed what you in- 
 tended me to believe ; I did not realize then that I 
 was not to be everything to you. I was young, I 
 did not understand that you were only giving me 
 the outer husk, the shell of what makes life precious 
 to all men and women. I thought that the past at 
 which you hinted was past, gone, done with for ever,
 
 260 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 and that I was to be something more than the mis- 
 tress of your house and the mother of your chil- 
 dren. Well, I was wrong; I found it out soon 
 enough. I thought if I was patient, if I made my- 
 self everything to you, that in time I should be what 
 I craved to be, that I should have all that I wanted. 
 I have been all these years, Edward, slowly learning 
 a difficult lesson. I have learned it a word at a 
 time, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, 
 a long lesson of anguish. Well, I have learned it 
 by heart now. You need not teach me any more. 
 I suppose this last demand is by way of finishing 
 my education. It was finished long since, long 
 since; I do not want to know any more. I am 
 crammed full of that kind of knowledge; I have 
 graduated in pain, I refuse to take any further les- 
 sons. No," she went on, as she saw he was about 
 to speak, " let be, let be. I have said my say, and I 
 have done. All the discussion in the world, all the 
 argument, all the pain and suffering cannot help me 
 now; I have learned my lesson too thoroughly to 
 try and take a fresh reading of life." 
 
 She swept out of the room, leaving him thunder- 
 struck. I can find no words which will adequately 
 describe his pure and unadulterated astonishment. 
 He was as intensely surprised as a butcher might be 
 if the timid sheep or the innocent young calf was to 
 suddenly turn and upbraid him with his trade. His
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 261 
 
 son might be independent, that was natural ; and he 
 even, in his heart of hearts, admired Matt that he 
 had so little sway over him. His daughters might 
 be rebellious and headstrong, he was determined to 
 match them and to outwit them ; but I do not think 
 that surprise had much to do with his feeling to- 
 wards them. But that his wife, Margaret, Margaret 
 who had loved him and looked up to him and yielded 
 to him in every possible way since the day thirty 
 years agone when he had first seen her, a slim, 
 young, fair-haired girl, with soft dove's eyes and 
 delicate apple-blossom cheeks, that she should turn 
 upon him and rend him, as it were, limb from limb, 
 that she should scathe and scorn him with her 
 mother-love, oh, it was incredible, astounding, pre- 
 posterous ! It was but an hour or two since Matt 
 had taunted him that Rachel was a chip of the old 
 block, his own daughter ; but surely if she had in- 
 herited certain qualities of resistance and will from 
 him, she had also inherited from her mother some 
 traces of a power of which he had never even sus- 
 pected the existence before. 
 
 " She does not know," he said, aloud to the dishes 
 and the decanters ; " if she knew, she would under- 
 stand. As it is, she has always been fighting against 
 against the past." 
 
 He pushed away his wine-glass, which stood there 
 just as the butler had filled it, and rose heavily from
 
 262 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 his chair, crossing the hall with an uncertain and 
 feeble step like a man who had suddenly aged ten 
 years. And there, in his library, he seated himself 
 in the great carved chair, and set his dazed brain to 
 think out all that had happened. So she had turned 
 against him at last, that meek and patient one who 
 had stood so long at the door of his heart waiting 
 until he should open it and bid her enter. So she 
 was tired of the quest ; she had come to feel that the 
 long-desired favour was not worth striving for. She 
 meant in the future to go her own way, she who 
 had always been content to travel along the path 
 chosen by him. The knowledge would have softened 
 most men, but the heart of Edward Gorman was 
 only made the harder. After all, she had been his 
 wife for nearly thirty years, she had enjoyed the 
 position for which that other one had craved so 
 sorely that she had died for the loss of it. And 
 during all that time, although she had chosen to 
 subserviate her will to his, there had never been one 
 to say nay to her. So this was the effect of Rachel's 
 rebellion, that the wife who had been everything to 
 him, his right hand, his willing slave, his admirer, 
 his comfort, everything but the love of his heart, 
 had turned against him. This was what his teaching 
 had come to ; and in his old age he was to be set at 
 naught, thwarted and defied under his own roof by 
 those who lived upon him; and he who had been
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 263 
 
 master not only of his own house, not only in his 
 own business, but whose lightest word had been law 
 even in his religion, was to be dethroned, and his 
 place usurped by a foolish girl's fancy for a man 
 upon whom she had never set eyes but a few weeks 
 before. 
 
 So the old man's heart, while it was heavy, yet 
 grew hard within him, and as with trembling hands 
 he sought the counterfeit presentment of her who 
 had never grown old, who had died young for love 
 of him, he registered a fresh vow that so long as he 
 was alive he would strive for the end which he be- 
 lieved to be right. 
 
 " Little Annie, little Annie," he murmured to the 
 picture, " they don't understand me ; nobody but you 
 really knew me; and I have been all these weary 
 years living a life of sham, living in a state as unreal 
 as it was unsatisfying, believing that because my pain 
 was lulled to sleep for a little while that it was no 
 longer there. But I will keep my word for your 
 sake, so that, when we meet again, I can tell you 
 truly that I never forgot the promise that I made to 
 you. Oh, little Annie, little Annie, you who died 
 when they tore you from me, you would have under- 
 stood, and you alone." 
 
 So he stayed there for a long, long time, resting 
 his white head upon his arms, going back in a reverie 
 that was half ecstasy, half pain, to those days gone
 
 264 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 by when the dark-haired girl was still alive, when he 
 and she had been young and their hearts full of love. 
 But no good angel came to tell him that the words 
 he had spoken to the miniature were true enough, to 
 remind him that little Annie would have understood 
 him, aye, but that she would have understood his 
 daughter Rachel still better. 
 
 And so his heart grew harder and harder, his 
 will stronger and more determined, his whole nature 
 more ready for the battle which lay before him.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ON A NEW ROAD. 
 
 There is nothing in the world so obstinate as a man who prides 
 himself on being firm. 
 
 WHEN Mrs. Gorman swept out of the dining-room, 
 leaving her husband almost struck dumb with amaze- 
 ment, she did not, as might have been expected in a 
 woman so suffering and so overstrained, show any 
 signs of faintness or collapse. On the contrary, she 
 went straight to her own little sitting-room and rang 
 the bell. 
 
 " Oh, William," she said to the servant who an- 
 swered it, " I want the brougham at once, that is, as 
 soon as it can be got ready. The time now is a quar- 
 ter-past two, say three o'clock." 
 
 " Very good, ma'am. Will you be at home to vis- 
 itors, ma'am, later ?" 
 
 " Not this afternoon, William ; I shall be out some 
 little time. If you see Louise, send her to me." 
 
 Before the maid could make her appearance, how- 
 ever, Matty came in search of her mother. 
 
 " Oh, you are here, dear," she said, in a tone of re- 
 lief. " I wondered where you were. What are you 
 going to do to-day ?" 
 
 265
 
 266 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " I am going out," said Mrs. Gorman. 
 
 " Do you want me to go with you ?" 
 
 " Not this afternoon, dearest child. I am going to 
 ' The Larches,' and you cannot go there." 
 
 For a moment Matty was almost too much as- 
 tounded to speak. 
 
 " But but " she stammered. 
 
 " Yes, I know ; your father has forbidden you and 
 your sisters to go there. Well, you must do as he 
 tells you. Your father has laid no embargo upon 
 me ; but, of course, he could not do so, and if he 
 did . . . Oh, well, dear child, I cannot discuss it 
 with you ; what your father wishes you to do does 
 not in any sense apply to me." 
 
 " And you going to see Rachel ?" 
 
 " Yes, I am going to see Rachel, I must see her. 
 I have ordered the carriage, and Louise will be here 
 in a minute." 
 
 " Let me put your things out," said Matty. 
 
 " No, no, dear ; don't interfere with Louise. She 
 knows where everything is." 
 
 Matty was thunderstruck at the calmness of her 
 mother's demeanour. She knew, as well as if she 
 had been present at the interview between her father 
 and mother, that her father's embargo on her own 
 movements and those of her sisters had been in- 
 tended to apply to her mother. She knew that under 
 ordinary circumstances her mother would have un-
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 267 
 
 hesitatingly accepted such an embargo as a perfectly 
 natural and unquestionable decision. And, in truth, 
 Mr. Gorman himself was not more utterly astonished 
 at his wife's sudden accession of will-power than his 
 eldest daughter was. 
 
 In due course of time Mrs. Gorman, arrayed in 
 her smartest visiting-gown, went downstairs and got 
 into the neat little brougham which was waiting at 
 the entrance-door. She gave the order, " To ' The 
 Larches,' " without any attempt at concealment, and 
 a few minutes later found herself at the door of 
 Matthew's house. And at "The Larches" she re- 
 mained for some little time, not discussing the situa- 
 tion, but simply accepting Brooke Barty, whom she 
 found there, as her future son-in-law. 
 
 " Don't ask me to talk things over," she said to 
 him, " because I neither can nor will do that ; but, 
 believe me, that I have had no such good news for 
 many a long day as that you and my dear child have 
 agreed to cast in your lots together. I am so sorry 
 that her father should see things in such a different 
 light to her and to me !" 
 
 So it was armed with the light of Mrs. Gorman's 
 approval that Brooke Barty went off to London to 
 consult his lawyer as to the best way of safely making 
 Rachel his wife. And Mrs. Gorman, feeling more 
 happy and satisfied in her mind than she had done 
 for many a long day, never, indeed, since the
 
 268 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 shadow of John Strode had first arisen upon her 
 horizon, went back to the Abode to take up the 
 burden of life once more. 
 
 She was too dignified a woman to quarrel or sulk 
 with her husband, and she met him at the dinner- 
 table precisely as if nothing had happened. He, who 
 had spent most of the time since they had parted sit- 
 ting in the big chair of the library in communion 
 with his lost love, was feeling crushed and weary, as 
 if the times were altogether out of joint with him. 
 Indeed, he had come, poor gentleman, to pity him- 
 self very much, and to feel that it was cruelly hard 
 upon him that his family could not be at one with 
 him on every point. Mrs. Gorman spoke to him 
 several times on casual matters, and he presently 
 asked her if she had been out during the after- 
 noon. 
 
 " Yes, I have been out," she replied. She did not, 
 as the three girls were present, tell him that she had 
 been to " The Larches," but after dinner, when they 
 had left the room, she lingered a moment, waiting, 
 indeed, until the door had closed behind them. 
 " Edward," she said, when they were alone, " you 
 asked me whether I had been out. I did not tell 
 you where I had been, because I did not think it 
 necessary to do so before the girls. I have been to 
 see Matthew, Matthew and Rachel." 
 
 He was struck by no sense of her innate honesty ;
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 269 
 
 he only felt that she was as a docile animal which 
 had taken the bit between her teeth and meant to go 
 whither she would. 
 
 " Very good," he said. " I have set no limit on 
 your coming and going. It is not necessary to tell 
 me where you have been." 
 
 " Not at all," she replied, sharply, and yet with an 
 air of dignity which was as new as her sudden de- 
 velopment of will power, " but I wished you to know. 
 There has never been, and there never will be, any 
 secret about my comings and goings." 
 
 " If you ask my approval " he began. 
 
 " No, Edward ; pray say no more on the subject. 
 I neither ask your approval nor any longer dread 
 your disapproval. I wished you to know, that is all ; 
 no more." And then, before he could speak, she 
 passed out of the room, closing the door very gently 
 behind her. 
 
 That was the beginning of a new era in the lives 
 of Mr. and Mrs. Gorman. From that time forward 
 she was, as she had never been before, the mistress 
 not only of the house but of her own life. From 
 that time forward he asked her no questions as to 
 her comings and goings, and she volunteered no in- 
 formation. Outwardly she was the same ; between 
 themselves each knew that there was a great gulf 
 fixed which possibly might never be bridged over 
 again in this world.
 
 270 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 So time went on. Mrs. Gorman paid frequent 
 visits to her son's house, but the three girls never 
 once crossed the threshold. Matthew and his father 
 met in business hours on what was apparently quite 
 the old footing; but Matthew never went to the 
 Abode of Peace, and not one of the family set foot 
 within the sanctuary of the Peacemakers. And Sun- 
 day after Sunday Mr. Gorman sat alone, tall, erect, 
 and forbidding, in the pew which had once been 
 filled with a dutiful and affectionate family. And the 
 rest of the community sat looking on in wonder, 
 while the white-haired old pastor preached the Gos- 
 pel of Peace and exhorted his hearers to brotherly 
 and Christian love. Many curious glances were cast 
 at the tall old man sitting with folded arms, with his 
 dark, burning eyes fixed upon the preacher; but 
 none knew the bitterness of the heart within, the 
 heart from which peace had spread her white wings 
 and flown for ever. 
 
 "What is going on at the Abode?" said Mrs. 
 Johnson-Biggs to Mrs. Wilson one day, when they 
 had seen Mr. Gorman stalking away with little more 
 than a wave of the hand by way of greeting to the 
 gathering of the faithful. 
 
 " Eh, my dear, it's a sad thing to see a 'appy 
 family broke up like that," cried Mrs. Wilson. " It 
 makes one doubt whether the belief of the Peace- 
 makers is as powerful as I thought it was."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 271 
 
 " It's a blessed belief," said Mrs. Johnson-Biggs, 
 unctuously. 
 
 " Yes, my dear, it is a blessed belief; you are quite 
 right there. But somehow it doesn't seem to be 
 bringing manifold blessings to 'im as founded it. 
 I'm sure 'is looks this morning is enough to make 
 one's very 'eart ache." 
 
 " He looks to me heart-broken," said Mrs. John- 
 son-Biggs. " I did my best to give him comfort." 
 
 " There is no giving of comfort," said Mrs. Wilson, 
 solemnly, " when the very foundations is rotten at 
 the core." 
 
 "Whatever can that pretty young thing see in 
 John Strode ?" 
 
 Mrs. Wilson turned a broad face of genuine aston- 
 ishment upon the speaker. " Why, my dear Mrs. 
 Biggs," she exclaimed, " you don't mean to say that 
 you've been all this time thinking that Rachel Gor- 
 man was willing and wishful to marry young John 
 Strode?" 
 
 " Of course she is." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, my dear, you've got the wrong end 
 of the story altogether. It's John Strode that wants 
 to marry 'er, and it's John Strode that 'er father 
 wants 'er to marry. As for Miss Rachel, bless 'er 
 sweet face, she never could abide the sight of 'im. 
 And small wonder of it ! I've known John Strode 
 this many a year. 'E's just a match for that de
 
 272 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 Kloof over at Arlington Towers, the kind of fel- 
 low that would put 'imself to any pains to catch a 
 girl that didn't want 'im, and then take a pleasure in 
 breaking 'er 'eart as soon as 'e'd got 'er." 
 
 " I assure you, my dear Mrs. Wilson, that you are 
 absolutely wrong." 
 
 " I assure you, my dear Mrs. Biggs, that I'm per- 
 fectly right" 
 
 " I had it from Mr. Gorman himself " 
 
 " No, no, my dear ; you didn't " 
 
 " You doubt my word " began Mrs. Johnson- 
 Biggs, in an offended tone. 
 
 " No, no, my dear, I don't doubt your word ; you 
 heard wrong, that's all. I had it from the dear pet 
 herself. It's the master that wants 'er to marry John 
 Strode." 
 
 " Do you really mean it ?" 
 
 " I mean it as sure as I'm standing 'ere on my two 
 feet this minute." 
 
 " But what can be his object ?" 
 
 " Goodness only knows. Some people might think 
 it was money. But I don't believe it's the money. 
 Mr. Gorman is too well off and too safely established 
 to care a brass farthing whether 'is daughters marry 
 money or whether they don't. But the simple truth 
 is that 'e's promised 'er to John Strode and she's 
 promised 'erself to young Mr. Brooke Barty." 
 
 " You don't mean it 1"
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 273 
 
 " But I do mean it ; of course I mean it. And 
 small blame to the poor child." 
 
 "Are you quite sure, Mrs. Wilson?" 
 
 " Perfectly sure. I 'ad it from the dear lamb 'er- 
 self." 
 
 A dull, burning blush arose in Mrs. Johnson- 
 Biggs's thin cheeks as she recalled how she had 
 conveyed, in all sincerity of purpose, the news of 
 Rachel's affair with Brooke Barty to her father. She 
 remembered how coquettishly she had told him, 
 well, she did not herself use that phrase even in her 
 own mind, so perhaps I ought not to use it either, 
 but she remembered in how sprightly a manner she 
 had conveyed to him that he need not worry about 
 Rachel's partiality for John Strode, as there was a 
 most promising flirtation going on with young Mr. 
 Brooke Barty. She remembered, too, how he had 
 shut her up, yes, shut her up ; it was the only term 
 which would adequately convey his manner on re- 
 ceipt of the news. Well, it was no use thinking 
 about it, blushing about it ; it was no use to feel hot 
 all over, to wish that she had left well alone and 
 minded her own business. It was done, and it could 
 not be undone. She had made a mistake, a great 
 mistake. 
 
 " Well, I am very sorry," she said to Mrs. Wilson, 
 putting out both her hands, and speaking very im- 
 pressively ; " it is always sad, dreadfully sad, to hear 
 
 18
 
 274 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 of disunion in families, more especially those who 
 have been happy and united. I should have 
 thought, myself, that Mr. and Mrs. Gorman would 
 have been both better pleased to have Mr. Barty as 
 a son-in-law than John Strode. Thank goodness, 
 my own children will not be troubling me on such 
 matters for another ten years or more. I have often 
 heard you wish that you had a dear little girl of 
 your own; perhaps you are just as well off without." 
 
 " Oh, well, it's as the Lord wills it," replied Mrs. 
 Wilson, easily ; " but if I'd 'ad a dozen little girls, 
 I'd 'ave let 'em 'ave the men o' their 'earts. Mar- 
 riages is between them as makes 'em, Mrs. Biggs, 
 and you might as well set three cooks to make a 
 decent omelette as set more than two people to 
 make a 'appy marriage." 
 
 " William," said Mrs. Wilson to her spouse, as 
 she waddled down the road beside him, " never in 
 my life did I see a woman so fairly took aback as 
 Mrs. j^Biggs was when I told 'er about the master 
 wanting Miss Rachel to marry young John Strode. 
 She seemed as if she couldn't believe it. She told 
 me she'd 'ad it from the master's own lips, and she 
 flushed up as red as a turkey cock. Now I wonder 
 what she's been up to." 
 
 " Oh, nothing at all," said Mr. Wilson, genially, 
 " nothing at all. She was a bit took aback and as- 
 tonished ; she might well be that."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 275 
 
 " You're right, she well might ; I was myself, but 
 not in that way, not to go red all over my face and 
 look as if I 'ad completely put my foot in it, as she 
 did. It's my opinion, William, that Amelia Biggs 
 'as been putting 'er finger in a pie that's no business 
 of 'er's, that's my opinion." 
 
 "Then take care you don't do the same, old 
 woman." 
 
 " Me ! Nay, I've ower much sense," she retorted. 
 " Ye know, William, it's just what the Dean says, 
 Peacemaking is all very well for them that 'asn't any 
 troubles, and it's all very well as long as things goes 
 smooth ; but when things begins to go a bit jerky, 
 what's the result? Master comes to sanctuary by 
 'imself." 
 
 " It does seem like it," said Wilson, reflectively. 
 " Yes, it seems like it, it does. But, lor, what can 
 he be thinking of to want that pretty young thing 
 to take up with John Strode ? It's past compre- 
 hension." 
 
 " Yes, it is." 
 
 " I don't know whether it has struck you, missis, 
 but I think the master's failing very fast.'' 
 
 " No, I don't think 'e's failing," replied Mrs. Wil- 
 son, " but I think 'e's worried, 'e's got a worried 
 look about 'im ; 'e used to be so easy, so ready with 
 'is greetings, the Lord's peace be on you, and 'e 
 used to say it as if 'e meant it. It's what the Dean
 
 276 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 says, William, it's all very well to make a little re- 
 ligion of your own, to suit your own ways when 
 you're in prosperity and 'ealth, but you're better in 
 the old tracks when troubles come along." 
 
 " I doubt you're right," said William Wilson, 
 "and I doubt the poor old master's beginning to 
 find it out. But, old woman, it isn't what I call 
 consistent with genuine Peacemaking to want your 
 girl to marry against 'er feelings and 'er inclinations. 
 Marriage never was intended for that and marriage 
 never was meant for that. It ought to be a union 
 of 'earts. That should be the first principle of mar- 
 riage, Polly, a union of 'earts." 
 
 " And it seems to me," said Mrs. Wilson, sensibly, 
 " that the first principle of Peacemaking should be 
 to let young folks start fair when they venture into 
 matrimony. That silly Amelia Biggs, what always 
 makes me think of a goose with a nick in 'er neck, 
 'as set me thinking, William," the old lady con- 
 tinued. " I've always wanted to 'ave a little girl of 
 my own, a dear little girl that I could dress and 
 pet and make much of, and love and be proud of 
 and do for ; but maybe it's all for the best that the 
 Lord never gave us one. Eh, dear, she might 'ave 
 wanted to marry somebody that I didn't like, and I 
 might 'ave wanted to marry 'er to somebody as she 
 didn't fancy ; and so it might 'ave been worse than 
 being without. For you and me, Wilson, although
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 277 
 
 we 've we've 'ad our rubs and our troubles and our 
 trials, there's one point that we've always thought 
 alike on, it's what you said just now, Wilson, mar- 
 riage ought to be a union of 'earts."
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 HURRAH ! 
 
 I wonder why wise people who make books and saying- for the 
 benefit of those less wise than themselves should always lay such 
 stress on " doing" ? It is so easy to do. One may make or mar 
 one's life in a minute, and it takes even less time than that to break 
 either a leg or a neck. But undoing, ah, that is another matter ! 
 
 MEANTIME the preparations for transforming Rachel 
 Gorman into Mrs. Brooke Barty were proceeding 
 merrily apace. On consultation with his lawyers, 
 Brooke Barty had found that the process was a 
 perfectly simple one, with but one mere chance by 
 which Rachel's father might be able to keep them 
 waiting until she was of full age. 
 
 " You must put the banns up in some out-of-the- 
 way parish or parishes," the lawyer explained ; " on 
 the whole, I think it would be better to do it in one 
 parish than in two, and, barring the chance of your 
 prospective father-in-law discovering that the banns 
 are up and forbidding them, you can be tied up as 
 legally as if your fiancee were twenty years older 
 than she is." 
 
 " But they will have to be put up in her parish, 
 the parish where she is staying," said Brooke Barty. 
 
 " Not a bit of it. Take a room in some house in 
 278
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 279 
 
 some parish, say St. Sepulchre's in the East or 
 Bromley or Clapton, Clapton is a nice out-of-the- 
 way part, and take another room for yourself, either 
 in an adjacent parish or in the same, but don't take 
 them in the same house. Put some belongings of 
 your own in the room you take in your own name 
 and some belongings of your fiancee's in the room 
 you take in her name, and, ten chances to one, your 
 future father-in-law will never hear that the banns 
 have been put up. When you are once married he 
 will not be very likely to raise any point as to the 
 legality." 
 
 " What point could he raise ?" 
 
 " Well, he might say that you were not really 
 living in that parish ; he might try to prove that you 
 had neither of you been actually in residence at the 
 addresses you give. Of course, if necessary, you 
 can actually live for the time in the parish in which 
 your banns are cried ; but the chances are that if 
 you did so, he would smell a rat and would set 
 people on to the track at once. By far your best 
 plan is simply to take the rooms and leave the rest 
 to chance." 
 
 Accordingly the following Sunday at the Church 
 of St. Mildred the Martyr, which was a new district 
 church situated in a most populous part of a North 
 London suburb, among a list of eight or nine others, 
 the banns of marriage were published "between
 
 280 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 Brooke Barty, bachelor, and Rachel Gorman, spin- 
 ster, both of this parish." The congregation was a 
 poor one, the neighbourhood one in which people 
 might live for ten years and not so much as know 
 the names of their next door neighbours, and not 
 one living soul in the church took the smallest 
 interest in or notice of this marriage any more than 
 the others which were published at the same time. 
 Nobody even speculated as to who Brooke Barty, 
 bachelor, or Rachel Gorman, spinster, might be. 
 A good lady of acidulated appearance in a semi- 
 genteel row of houses known as Garden Terrace 
 could have told the curious, had there been any, 
 that she had let her best rooms for a month to a 
 young lady guaranteed to give her no trouble, and a 
 short, stout elderly, widow, living in Malcolm Villas, 
 quite half a mile from Garden Terrace, could 
 have supplied information as to the exact parochial 
 pied a terre of Brooke Barty, bachelor. Brooke 
 Barty had, without explaining the precise situation 
 to his landlady, taken possession of his new quarters, 
 and, indeed, had slept there on two separate occa- 
 sions; and a slight, fair lady, wearing a golden 
 brown costume, much trimmed with sable, had taken 
 possession of the rooms in Garden Terrace. She, 
 too, had left several books inscribed Rachel Gorman, 
 and a hand-bag containing a change of clothing. 
 " And, of course, if anybody should make any en-
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 281 
 
 quiry, it is not necessary to say whether the rooms ar< 
 slept in or not, is it ?" Flo enquired. 
 
 " Oh, dear, no, miss," cried the landlady, who, not 
 unnaturally, took Flo for the bride-elect. " If the 
 rooms is took and paid for and kept clean, nothing 
 else is nothing to nobody. Any one who comes 'ere 
 poking and prying and, lor, them parsons do poke 
 and pry nowadays, very different to what they used 
 to be in my time I'll just say that Miss Gorman is 
 the sweetest young lady I've had the pleasure of 
 serving for a long time, and, if necessary, I'll just 
 take and show 'em the night-gown laid out on the 
 bed, and the brush and comb stood ready on the 
 dressing-table. But, lor, miss, don't you worrit; 
 nobody will ask a thing." 
 
 Flo was so struck with the ingenuity of laying out 
 the night-dress on the bed and the brush and comb 
 on the dressing-table that she slipped an extra dou- 
 ceur into the hand of the acidulated lady. 
 
 " Then I may depend upon you," she said ; " and, 
 believe me, I am most obliged to you for letting me 
 have these nice rooms. I only wish I could come 
 and live in them." 
 
 " Ah, indeed, and I wish so too. Perhaps when 
 you're married, miss " 
 
 " Ah, I'm afraid my home will be in the country," 
 said Flo, who thought it was better not to explain 
 too much the position of affairs. " But possibly I
 
 282 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 may come up and spend a night or two here with a 
 friend." 
 
 " The bridesmaid, perhaps ?" 
 
 "Well, not exactly the bridesmaid, but she is a 
 great friend," said Flo, edging away towards the door. 
 
 Apparently nobody took the trouble to enquire 
 whether there was a young lady staying at No. 10 
 Garden Terrace or a young gentleman at No. 2 Mal- 
 colm Villas, for the three necessary weeks passed 
 over without any enquiry, and on the three necessary 
 Sundays the same announcement was heard in the 
 Church of St. Mildred the Martyr as to the future 
 intentions of Brooke Barty, bachelor, and Rachel 
 Gorman, spinster. 
 
 These preparations were kept a dead secret from 
 everybody but Flo and Matthew. 
 
 " I think I really must have a new dress to be mar- 
 ried in," said Rachel, doubtfully, when they had fully 
 fixed on the date for the wedding. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; you can't be married in an old dress ; 
 you'll have no luck," cried Flo. 
 
 " I think you're very foolish to be buying a new 
 dress now; it's sure to arouse suspicion," objected 
 Matt. 
 
 " I might get it in London." 
 
 "Oh, surely, Matt, she could have a smart new 
 walking-dress," said Flo. " Do you suppose that 
 Briggs, the tailor, is going to trot round to the
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 283 
 
 Works and tell your father that the girl is going to 
 have a new dress ? The girls all have their own al- 
 lowance. Does your father ever trouble as to how 
 you spend your money ?" 
 
 " Oh, never." 
 
 "Then I should have a new tailor-made dress; 
 you'll feel so miserable in an old one. I know men 
 think it doesn't matter. All men are alike ; all men 
 who are going to be married say, ' Oh, don't bother 
 about it ; don't buy anything now ; I'll give you any- 
 thing you want afterwards.' But women don't feel 
 like that." 
 
 " I will buy her anything she wants afterwards," 
 cried Brooke Barty at this point ; " at least, I'll give 
 her as much money as she likes, and she can buy 
 what she wants." 
 
 " Oh, yes, dear boy, it's not that, it's not quite the 
 same thing, is it, Rachel ?" 
 
 " Well, I would rather be married in a new dress," 
 said Rachel, though she was obviously not very keen 
 on the subject of new clothing. " I think I'll get a 
 new dress at Briggs's and trust to chance for it's not 
 seeming to look like a wedding-dress." 
 
 Indeed, her choice was sober enough, and neither 
 Mr. Briggs nor any of his myrmidons guessed that 
 the simple gown of tabac brown for which Miss 
 Rachel Gorman was fitted about this time was, in 
 truth, her wedding garment.
 
 284 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 The secret was well kept. Not a word escaped 
 the lips of the four conspirators. Rachel did not see 
 her sisters excepting once or twice by chance on the 
 street, and all Brooke Barty's preparations were made 
 in London itself. 
 
 " We won't even think about a house until we are 
 married," he said, one evening on his return from 
 town, when he had brought half a dozen cases con- 
 taining beautiful jewellery for her acceptance. " That 
 can be done afterwards just as well as before. When 
 we come back again we will put up at the ' Mitre ;' 
 for I am sure we have inflicted ourselves long enough 
 upon Matt and his wife." 
 
 He forebore to say what was in his mind, that 
 when they came back again he would wish to have 
 his wife to himself; but that is neither here nor 
 there. 
 
 As for Rachel, she acquiesced in everything. So 
 long as she could get the barrier of Brooke Barty's 
 name and arm put between her and John Strode she 
 cared little for the actual manner in which the bar- 
 rier might be made a perfectly legal one. The 
 marriage was the thing, not the details thereof. 
 
 In an ordinary way, Matt would, of course, have 
 preferred to go with his wife and his sister to Lon- 
 don and see the knot safely tied. But he felt that it 
 would not do for him to be absent from the Works 
 for so much as a single day lest his father's sus-
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 285 
 
 picions should be aroused and possibly some watch 
 set upon his sister's movements. Therefore, when 
 the appointed day came, Flo went off to London 
 alone with Rachel. They left by the mail at nine 
 o'clock, Matt seeing them off and safely settled in a 
 reserved carriage. It was by the merest chance that 
 some one else did not see them also, for as he went 
 out of the station he ran against William Biggs, who 
 was just sauntering in. 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Matthew, is that you ?" he said. 
 
 "Yes, William. What are you doing gadding 
 about the station ?" 
 
 " I came down to buy an evening paper, Mr. 
 Matthew," replied Biggs. 
 
 " Well, I've just got one ; here it is ; it was the last." 
 
 " But don't you want it ?" 
 
 " No, no ; I only bought it for idleness." 
 
 He thrust the paper into the elder man's hand in 
 a way that admitted of no refusal. 
 
 " But you came down on purpose to get it, Mr. 
 Matthew," he remarked, as a last feeble objection. 
 
 " I didn't ; no, on my honour, I didn't. I came 
 down to see a friend off. I bought it from sheer 
 idleness, on my honour I did. Take it with a clear 
 conscience, William ; I'd ask you for it back if I 
 really wanted it." 
 
 The two turned and walked out of the station to- 
 gether, and along the road as far as their ways went
 
 286 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 together, and as Matthew, after parting with William 
 Biggs, went along the quiet suburban road to his 
 own house, he chuckled to think how near a shave 
 it had been of the whole situation being laid bare to 
 one who, with the best intentions in the world, might 
 chance to set his father on the track. 
 
 Meantime, Flo and Rachel were pleasantly speed- 
 ing along their road to London. 
 
 " I'm so glad we got safely away," cried Flo, who 
 was much the most excited of the two. 
 
 " Oh, yes. Why should anything happen ? Noth- 
 ing ever does." 
 
 " It might. One never knows." 
 
 The girl did not answer. She put her head back 
 against the cushions of the carriage as if she were 
 very tired. Flo looked at her in some astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " Why, my dear, how little excited you are ! No- 
 body would dream that you were just running away 
 from home !" 
 
 " I am excited," said Rachel, " but my case is too 
 serious to be foolishly excited about it. I am excited 
 at getting out of John Strode's clutches for ever, but 
 I am not in the least excited at marrying Brooke. 
 Besides, what would be the good if I were ? If I 
 were you, Flo, I would tuck your feet up and go to 
 sleep ; you will want all your strength to-morrow." 
 
 But sleep was very far from Flo's eyes. She found
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 287 
 
 herself wondering whether those whom they had 
 left behind had got any inkling of their intent, and 
 whether they might not find a detective at the other 
 end of the line who would politely recommend Miss 
 Rachel to go quietly with him, and express his sor- 
 row at the unpleasant duty he was called upon to 
 perform. She thought of all sorts of preposterous 
 and unlikely contingencies, forgetting quite that how- 
 ever stern a father might be, however set against a 
 daughter's marriage, he could not quite treat her as 
 if she were a criminal escaping from justice. 
 
 And nothing happened. They reached the ter- 
 minus without let or hindrance, and Brooke Barty 
 met them in quite his ordinary manner, as if they 
 were merely coming up to do a couple of theatres 
 and a little shopping. They went to an hotel in Hoi- 
 born, where Mr. Barty had already taken rooms for 
 them ; he had also ordered supper, a very modest 
 little meal, as he apologetically explained. And then 
 they parted for the night, to meet again the following 
 morning at the Church of St. Mildred the Martyr. 
 
 " I feel most horribly conspiratorial and guilty," 
 exclaimed Flo, as they got into the cab at the North 
 London Station, which was nearest to the church. 
 " And you, you wretched child, you look as happy 
 and as calm as if you'd been married every day of 
 your life for the last ten years." 
 
 " I don't see why you should feel conspiratorial,"
 
 288 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 said Rachel, glancing at her sister-in-law. " We've 
 been driven to what we are doing, and if nobody in- 
 terrupts us I shall be safe. Think of it ! For all 
 my life I shall never be pursued by John Strode any 
 more !" 
 
 " Oh, nothing will happen," cried Flo, assuming 
 an air of assurance which, in truth, she was very far 
 from feeling. 
 
 She was right, however, for nothing did happen. 
 Brooke Barty met them at the church and a great 
 friend of his, who had come to be his best man, one 
 Mr. Reginald Croft. Brooke Barty had already given 
 him an outline of the situation, and if Reginald 
 Croft thought his friend somewhat of a fool he kept 
 his opinion to himself. But when he saw Rachel, so 
 tall, so fresh, with her dewy eyes, her soft silky hair, 
 and her wonderful rose-and-lily skin, he understood 
 all at once why Barty had been so anxious not to 
 lose her. 
 
 " It is very hard upon you not to have a brides- 
 maid," said Flo, as they passed into the church 
 together. 
 
 " But you are the bridesmaid !" 
 
 " I ? No ; I'm her sister-in-law." 
 
 " Oh, I see. I thought you were Miss Gorman." 
 
 " No ; Mrs. Gorman, her sister-in-law. That's what 
 I say is so hard upon you. Best men always look for 
 a bridesmaid. But Oh, here's the clergyman."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 289 
 
 It does not take very long to unite a couple in 
 holy matrimony, and it seemed an incredibly short 
 time, even to those who were so anxious that the 
 end should be accomplished, before the words came, 
 " be not afraid with any amazement." 
 
 " I suppose we are all safe now," whispered Rachel, 
 as they went towards the vestry. 
 
 " I suppose so ; at all events, we shall be as soon 
 as the books are signed." 
 
 But there was no need of even the smallest qualm. 
 The four waited in the vestry while the clergyman 
 and the clerk got the books ready for signing, 
 then the signatures were appended, and nothing on 
 this side of the grave, excepting their own act, 
 could sever the two who had thus plighted their 
 vows. 
 
 They drove back to the station, waited a few 
 minutes for a train, and then went back to the hotel 
 where the two ladies had slept. Their luncheon was 
 awaiting them, with a wedding-cake sent from Buz- 
 zard's and some flowers, including the orthodox 
 orange blossoms, for Rachel to wear. There, too, 
 they found the best man's present, a handsome bangle 
 set with diamonds, a great diamond heart with R. B. 
 in rubies, the gift of the bridegroom, a beautiful 
 dressing-case from Matt, and several telegrams ad- 
 dressed to Mr. and Mrs. Brooke Barty. 
 
 " Before I sit down," said Brooke to Flo, " I must 
 19
 
 2 9 o THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 just go and send Matt a telegram to let him know 
 that all is over." 
 
 " There are forms on that table," said Flo, whose 
 quick eyes had been wandering about the room. 
 
 "All right. Will this do?" He sat down and 
 wrote, " Brooke Barty to Matthew Gorman, ' The 
 Larches/ Mullingham. Brooke and Rachel safely 
 married this morning." 
 
 " Yes, that will do," she said. 
 
 He signed his name at the bottom of the form, 
 and then added one jubilant word to the message, 
 " Hurrah !"
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 LOST! 
 
 It is a terrible thing when one feels that one has lived too long. 
 
 BROOKE BARTY did not content himself with send- 
 ing a single message announcing the accomplishment 
 of his marriage. At the same time that he sent one 
 off to Matthew, now his brother-in-law, he also sent 
 a similar message addressed to Mrs. Gorman at the 
 Abode of Peace. 
 
 Mrs. Gorman received the message just when they 
 were finishing luncheon. When William appeared 
 carrying the missive upon a tray, Mr. Gorman in- 
 stinctively stretched out his hand to take it. 
 
 " For me, William ?" 
 
 " No, sir ; for the mistress," was the reply. 
 
 Mr. Gorman looked surprised, but said nothing in 
 the presence of the servant, for it must be confessed 
 that telegraphic messages were not of frequent oc- 
 currence in Mrs. Gorman's life, excepting when her 
 husband happened to be away from home, which was 
 not very pften. It must be confessed that, under 
 existing circumstances, he did not like to ask her 
 what was in the message. If there was one subject 
 upon which he was more human than most others, it 
 
 291
 
 292 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 was the desire to know the contents of a telegram, 
 and after waiting a couple of minutes while William 
 decorously fidgetted about the room, his curiosity 
 got the better of him and he looked across the table 
 at his wife. 
 
 " No bad news, I hope, Margaret ?" 
 
 Mrs. Gorman rose from her chair. " For me, 
 Edward, the very best news," she said. " Pass that 
 to your father, Matty." 
 
 She did not wait to see the effect of the announce- 
 ment, but went out of the room, followed by her 
 daughters. 
 
 His wife's manner had told the old man what to 
 expect, but some moments passed before he could 
 sufficiently control himself to make himself master 
 of its contents. Then, when William had finally de- 
 parted, he braced himself for the effort and read the 
 message. It seemed to be written in letters of fire. 
 
 " Brooke and Rachel safely married at the Church 
 of St. Mildred the Martyr, London, N., this morning." 
 
 So they had outwitted him, and the darling 
 scheme of his heart was rendered impossible for 
 ever ; and his wife, the woman he had believed to be 
 his, to be all his, whom he had believed to have no 
 thoughts, hopes, ambitions, or desires outside of his 
 own, had spoken of it as the best possible news for 
 her, the happiest news that she could possibly re- 
 ceive! So this child and this young man, little
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 293 
 
 more than a stranger, had set their will up against 
 his, and they had been too many for him. They 
 had set him at naught, despised him, made little or 
 nothing of him. And he had no choice but to sub- 
 mit. Well, he had lived too long ; he had lived to be 
 too old ; his children, even those in their teens, knew 
 better than he, who had lived a long and honour- 
 able life. It was time that he went away : it was a 
 pity that he had not slipped quietly out of life a year 
 or two back, when all the world that knew him 
 would have held his name in honour, when his 
 children would have revered his memory, and his 
 wife would have said with truth that there had never 
 been but one thought between them. They had got 
 the better of him. How could he meet John Strode, 
 to whom he had given his word ? How could he 
 endure to see this rebellious child and her bold 
 young husband passing to and fro in the streets day 
 by day, week in week out ? He knew that all the 
 world would expect that he should forgive her ; he 
 knew, although he had for years past shut himself 
 up in a world of his own, in which his own will had 
 been omnipotent, his own wishes omniscient, and the 
 glory of Edward Gorman omnipresent, he knew that 
 the sympathy of human nature would go out to the 
 young couple who had taken the law into their own 
 hands. And yet, while they had made him break 
 his word to John Strode, he was not of necessity
 
 294 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 obliged thereby to break his oath with regard to 
 Rachel. 
 
 " From this moment," he said, banging his hand 
 down upon the table, " I have only three daughters." 
 
 It had been good news to his wife, to Rachel's 
 mother, to her who had upholden him during thirty 
 long years, yes, it had been good news. The world 
 would give her credit for her mother-love ; the world 
 would blacken him for a hard-hearted old man who 
 wanted to traffic his daughter; the world would 
 never understand. But the heart of Edward Gor- 
 man never softened in the smallest degree. No, the 
 world might deride him, the world might blame him ; 
 that was likely enough, for the world would never 
 realize or understand the pure justice of his motives, 
 would never understand that he had made a vow and 
 given a promise long years before that he would 
 serve John Strode, come weal, come woe, at his own 
 or any cost. 
 
 He wondered had they, those jubilant and trium- 
 phant ones in London, had they had the cruelty to 
 send their message speeding over the wires that John 
 Strode might know it as soon as anybody in Mulling- 
 ham ? He could not risk the chance of that ; he 
 must make an effort and see him yes ; he would 
 have the coupe at once, he would go and find him ; 
 he might be at the Club; if not, he would drive 
 on to Arlington Towers ; but it would be with an
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 295 
 
 effort. He felt as if his vitality was gone. His burn- 
 ing eyes wandered over the lunch-table. No, there 
 was nothing there that could help him. Good claret, 
 Niersteiner, they were very well to drink with a 
 meal, but they would put no life into a man who 
 felt as if his life was ebbing away. He must have 
 brandy. He looked round. Yes, it was there on 
 the sideboard ; he must make an effort to get to it. 
 
 He was still sitting there when William came in. 
 William coughed apologetically. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir ; I thought that you had 
 gone to the library." 
 
 " Give me the brandy, William," said Mr. Gorman, 
 speaking in a thick, uncertain voice. 
 
 "With soda, sir?" 
 
 " Put it down there and leave me." 
 
 " The master looks main queer," remarked William 
 to his special friend the cook, when he passed once 
 more into his own regions. " I doubt there was bad 
 news in that telegram the mistress got just now." 
 
 " Master's been failing for some time, let me tell 
 you, William," was the cook's reply. 
 
 " Ah, he's never been the same since he turned poor 
 Miss Rachel out. Mark my words, Mrs. Bell, that 
 no man, not even one that runs a praying-shop of his 
 own, can afford to go agin his own flesh and blood. 
 Master's tried it, and it's left its mark upon him." 
 
 " I've no patience with that same praying-shop,"
 
 296 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 said Mrs. Bell, speaking in very dry and decided 
 accents. " I always found a good 'onest church or 
 chapel, whichever 'appened to be 'andiest, good 
 enough for me. I'm afraid, William, that in religion 
 it's like everything else, them as isn't satisfied with 
 what they've got, they're like the bad workman that 
 never 'as good tools." 
 
 Meantime, Mr. Gorman still sat there at the foot 
 of the table, waiting to summon up courage to get 
 into his library. He half-filled a tumbler with the 
 brandy which William had set at his elbow. It was 
 old and extremely good in quality, and Mr. Gorman 
 tasted it ere he added water to it. He hesitated to 
 dilute what he required to give him strength. He 
 could not drink it neat, for he was not, and never had 
 been, in any sense of the word a drinker. Then his 
 eye fell upon a decanter of old port standing just in 
 front of him. He had not noticed it before when 
 glancing over the table. Without hesitation he filled 
 up the tumbler with port and drank the mixture almost 
 at a single draught. It was strong enough to make 
 him wince as if he had been drinking some corroding 
 spirit, strong enough to run like molten fire through 
 his veins, to give him new strength, to make for the 
 time a new man of him. 
 
 " Ah !" he said, taking a deep breath, " that has 
 pulled me together, that has made a man of me once 
 more."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 297 
 
 He left his place then, going with fairly steady 
 steps to the door and out into the hall. He reached 
 the shelter of the library without encountering any 
 of the family, who, if the truth be told, were keep- 
 ing purposely out of his road, and there he shut 
 the door behind him and crossed the great softly car- 
 peted room to the table, where he sat himself down 
 in the big chair alone with his purpose. For a few 
 minutes he sat still, as if trying to nerve and recover 
 himself. The strong drink that he had forced down 
 his throat was still running in his veins like fire, but 
 his head was clear, his purpose was definite. He 
 drew a block of note-paper towards him and took 
 his favourite pen from the tray which stood at his 
 right hand. Then he wrote : 
 
 " MY DEAR JOHN STRODE, This message, just received by my 
 wife, will tell you that it is no longer in my power to keep the 
 promise I made you and which I have done my best to further. 
 From this moment I have no daughter Rachel, and I shall be much 
 obliged to you if you will never speak of her to me again. I 
 cannot recall any instance in the whole of my life in which I have 
 hitherto failed to fulfil my promises and engagements. It is with 
 shame that I write to you now to confess that my promise is broken 
 and can never be carried out. 
 " I am, 
 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 " EDWARD GORMAN." 
 
 He sealed the letter with his own signet and set 
 it aside. Then he took his keys from his pocket
 
 298 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 and opened a cupboard at the right side of the great 
 desk. There was nothing there beyond two or 
 three large books. One of these he took from the 
 recess and laid it upon the table before him. It was 
 a large Bible, a very beautiful volume bound and 
 clasped with silver, and on the front page was 
 written the date of his father's and mother's mar- 
 riage, his own birth, his mother's death, the subse- 
 quent marriage of his father, his own marriage, and 
 the births of his children. He read them all from 
 first to last, and then he took up his pen again and 
 dipped it once more in the ink. Through the name 
 of Rachel at the end of the list he drew a thick and 
 heavy line, writing at the end " Lost," with the date 
 of the day and the year. This done, he made a 
 movement as if to take the blotting-paper which lay 
 underneath the book ; then he changed his intention 
 and determined to wait until the ink was dry. And 
 so he did ; aye, until the ink was more than dry, for 
 he sat there until the cold spring sunshine and the 
 spring daylight darkened into gray, until the fire 
 slowly died in the grate and the ink was dry, as dry 
 as that of any of the entries which had been made 
 before. 
 
 So, in the end, William found him, huddled up in 
 the great chair, his inert body supported by the 
 massively carved arms, the open Bible on the desk 
 before him, and the letter to John Strode just where
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 299 
 
 he had laid it down. It was but the work of a mo- 
 ment to rouse the house ; to call out that Mr. Gor- 
 man was very ill, that he had had some kind of fit, 
 to send one man for a doctor, another for brandy, to 
 give a third servant orders to prepare his bed, to 
 call for the mistress, to get him flat down upon the 
 floor, to unloosen his collar and shirt, to bid some 
 one fetch Mr. Matthew. 
 
 And in the midst of all this bustle Edward Gor- 
 man breathed heavily on, taking no heed of aught 
 that passed, or of any one who came and went. 
 
 The doctor was there in a few minutes. " Apo- 
 plexy," he said at once to William. " Little or 
 nothing to be done. Get hot bags and bricks to 
 his feet and legs, and half a dozen mustard leaves 
 to the nape of his neck ; but I am afraid it's all of 
 little use. My dear Mrs. Gorman," he said, " what 
 has happened to put your husband out ?" 
 
 " He has been put out to-day, doctor ; my young- 
 est daughter was married this morning." 
 
 " Against her father's wishes ?" 
 
 " Well, yes." 
 
 " Against yours ?" 
 
 " No, not against mine." 
 
 " You think he had the news ?" 
 
 "Yes; the news came just as we had finished 
 luncheon." 
 
 She was like a woman walking in a dream. She
 
 3oo THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 answered him in a hard, mechanical sort of way, as 
 if she was repeating something she had learned by 
 rote. 
 
 " This has been coming on for some time," he said, 
 gently ; " there is no doubt about that, and, possibly, 
 this news may have hastened the end. I am afraid, 
 my dear lady, that you must be prepared for the 
 worst." 
 
 "You mean that he is dying, that there is no 
 hope ?" 
 
 " There is always hope while there is life, but, at 
 the same time, the thread of hope in a case like this, 
 and in a man of your husband's age, is very, very 
 slight. Have you a nurse at hand ?" 
 
 " No. But I can send down to the institution." 
 
 " Then you had better send at once. I know that 
 they have at least two in. If you will give me pen 
 and ink I will write the note, so that the lady supe- 
 rior may know that the case is urgent." 
 
 " You had better get two if they can be spared," 
 said Mrs. Gorman. 
 
 " Very good." 
 
 His own instinct told him that, in all probability, 
 only one nurse would be required. However, the 
 Gormans were rich people, and there was just a faint 
 thread of hope, so that the lady's fancy might as well 
 be gratified. 
 
 " Shall we get him upstairs into his own bed ?"
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 301 
 
 " No, by no means. He must not be moved from 
 where he is excepting on to a mattress. There is 
 no need to carry him upstairs. Let some of your 
 people bring down a bed into the library. You will 
 find it more convenient on all accounts. I will stay 
 and see him lifted on to it ; indeed, I will stay until 
 the nurses come." 
 
 There was really not very much to be done. The 
 doctor, with quick professional hands, ripped off the 
 old man's clothing, cutting ruthlessly that he might 
 accomplish the task with greater ease and celerity, 
 and with the aid of the two men-servants, he very 
 soon got Mr. Gorman safely into the bed which they 
 had brought down to the library for him. It took 
 but little time to bring hot bags and bottles and put 
 them to the poor unconscious feet, to plaster the 
 back of the neck with mustard leaves. But it was 
 all of little use. Mr. Gorman took no notice of those 
 around him, and breathed heavily on, the breathing 
 of one whose hours in this world were num- 
 bered. 
 
 It seemed to be only a few minutes before Matt 
 came tearing up in the brougham from the Works. 
 He was looking very white and scared, but his 
 mother, who met him in the hall, was outwardly as 
 calm as a rock. 
 
 " Was it the news that did it ?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes, I am afraid it was."
 
 302 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 " Did you have a telegram ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Did you give it to him ?" 
 
 " Yes. He asked me for it." 
 
 " Poor little mother !" 
 
 She was not little, but she seemed so to Matt at 
 that moment. He put his arms round her and drew 
 her close to him. 
 
 " Dearest mother," he said, " is there no hope ?" 
 
 " I am afraid none." 
 
 " Where is he ?" 
 
 " In the library. Dr. Carson won't allow him to 
 be carried upstairs. They have brought a bed down. 
 The nurses will be here in a few minutes ; I have just 
 had a message from the institution." 
 
 " Does he know you ?" 
 
 " He knows nobody." 
 
 " Who is with him ?" 
 
 " William has never left him, dear. I I I ought 
 to be there. I'll go back there now." 
 
 " No, mother, stay quietly for a while with Matty ; 
 it cannot be necessary for you to be there if he is 
 unconscious. I will go and stay there. Here is 
 Matty coming downstairs. Cannot you keep mother 
 quietly for a little while until things are settled in 
 that room ?" he asked. 
 
 " I was just coming for her. Dear mother," she 
 said, "you have had no tea; come back into the
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 303 
 
 morning-room and let me give you some, and then 
 you will be more fit to go and stay there until, 
 
 until " 
 
 "Until the end," finished her mother.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THIRTY YEARS OF WAITING. 
 
 The martyr whose poor body is shrivelled up in one quick, scorch- 
 ing flame is honoured for all time ; the martyr whose heart is slowly 
 broken by a slow process of starvation is generally dismissed in a 
 single curt phrase, " It was her own fault." 
 
 As soon as he had seen his mother safely seated 
 by the fire of the morning-room, Matthew Gorman 
 left her to his sister's ministrations and went into the 
 library. He had not had much experience of illness 
 and none of death, but a glance was sufficient to 
 show him that the sands of his father's life were fast 
 running out. 
 
 " Can you do nothing ?" he said to the doctor, who 
 was bending over the patient. 
 
 " We are doing everything that we can," was the 
 guarded reply. Then he finished his particular task, 
 and, straightening his back, shook hands with Mat- 
 thew. Shook hands, did I say ? Well, he put one 
 hand on his shoulder and grasped his hand with the 
 other. " My dear boy," he said, in an undertone, 
 "your father is an old man, and the old must go 
 before the young. He feels nothing ; he is not suf- 
 fering, although that look is dreadful." 
 
 " Do you think he will come to again ?" 
 34
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 305 
 
 " He may do so, but I should say it was most 
 doubtful. By the bye, Matthew, I see that there are 
 drawers and cupboards open there ; let me advise 
 you, as you have strange nurses coming, and various 
 people about, to lock everything up and put the 
 keys in your pocket." 
 
 Thus Matthew's attention was drawn to the desk at 
 which his father had been sitting when William had 
 found him. The first thing he noticed was the letter 
 addressed to John Strode. This he slipped into his 
 pocket without a single word. Then he perceived 
 the great Bible lying open on the slope at which his 
 father always wrote. His first thought was one 
 almost of pride that his father's last act should have 
 been one of reading the Scriptures, but a second 
 glance showed him that he had evidently not been 
 occupied with the contents of the Holy Book. No, 
 there was the Book open at the pages which held the 
 family record, and there was the thick black score 
 passed through Rachel's name, and against it the 
 entry "Lost" with that day's date written under- 
 neath. 
 
 So his father's last act had been one not of peace 
 but of war. He had kept his word, he had cut the 
 girl off, blotting her out as ruthlessly as if she had 
 committed some terrible and disgraceful crime. Well, 
 at all events, his mother should not be pained by 
 seeing that, for the present at all events, never, if he
 
 3 o6 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 could avoid it. So he shut the book with a bang 
 and thrust it away into the depths of the cupboard 
 where it was usually kept, turning the key in the 
 lock and hiding the bunch of keys, of which it was 
 one, in his own pocket. Then he went back to the 
 doctor's side again. 
 
 And presently the nurses arrived and at once took 
 up their places by the bed. And then Matty came, 
 bringing her mother. And then the two girls, who 
 had been out in the town, came home, to be greeted 
 by the terrible news, and they stole in with white, 
 scared faces, for they had never been in the presence 
 of death before. 
 
 " I should like to send a message for Rachel," 
 Mrs. Gorman whispered to her son. "They may 
 have left the hotel; but surely we can find them 
 somehow?" 
 
 " They will not be wanted," he replied. 
 
 " Supposing that your father should come to him- 
 self and ask for them ?" she urged. " How terrible 
 if they were not here !" 
 
 " He won't ask for them, dearest." 
 
 " You don't know that, Matt," she whispered back, 
 painfully, "you don't know. Sometimes these fits 
 pass off, and Dr. Carson is doing everything that is 
 possible. Yes, nurse, I will move ; yes, don't let me 
 be in the road, because you know exactly what is 
 wanted and I don't. At all events, Matt dear, send
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 307 
 
 them a wire at once. We may catch them. Tell 
 them that your father is very ill, that they are to 
 return at once. When is Flo coming back ?" 
 
 " To-night. She is on her way now." 
 
 " Ah ! Then we cannot get her any sooner. But 
 do send that wire off at once ; it is not six o'clock. 
 Send it to the hotel where Flo stayed last night, and 
 tell them, if they are gone, to forward the message 
 without an instant's delay." 
 
 So Matt went out of the room to do her bidding, 
 and the dreary watch went on. 
 
 It was late in the evening when Flo came, tired 
 by her journey, yet full of pity and compassion for 
 the anguish in her mother-in-law's eyes and the look 
 of pain upon her blanched cheeks. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Gorman," she said, " was it the news 
 that caused this ?" 
 
 " I am afraid so. And I gave it to him, Flo, I 
 gave it to him. And I I told him that it was the 
 best news I could possibly have." 
 
 "Well, dear, you didn't know that this would 
 happen. How could you ? Why don't you come 
 away for a little time ? They will fetch you if there 
 is any change. Come out into one of the other 
 rooms ; it is so bad for you sitting here. Do, dear 
 Mrs. Gorman." 
 
 She suffered herself to be led out into the hall, 
 but immediately, when she realized where she was,
 
 308 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 turned and insisted on going back to the library 
 once more. 
 
 " No, no, I must be there. He might come back 
 to his own self again, and all might be as it used to 
 be between us. I I might be out of the room and 
 miss it. I must go back. Don't keep me, Flo." 
 
 She felt that there was nothing to be done but 
 allow the stricken woman to have her way. 
 
 So Margaret Gorman went back to her terrible 
 vigil by the side of him who had been her all in all. 
 
 One by one the girls came creeping in, taking it 
 in turns to sit with their mother, who never deserted 
 her post. And towards morning there came a mes- 
 sage from Brooke and Rachel at Dover, saying that 
 the telegram had been received and that they were 
 starting as soon as possible for home. 
 
 " If only she gets here in time I am sure he will 
 forgive her," whispered Mrs. Gorman, turning tender 
 eyes upon the inert figure on the bed. " Don't you 
 think he will, Matt ?" 
 
 " I hope so, dearest," said Matt. 
 
 He felt in the face of the scored-out name in the 
 Bible that it was most unlikely his father would, 
 if he came to his own senses again, relent in the 
 smallest degree. But, he argued with himself, what 
 was the use of harassing his mother with such infor- 
 mation or such conjecture at a time like this, at a 
 time when she was more than half inclined to blame
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 309 
 
 herself at having been the cause of his father's ill- 
 ness? 
 
 " He has been so strange, so unlike himself lately," 
 Mrs. Gorman went on ; " but at heart he always loved 
 peace." 
 
 " Yes, dear, yes. By the bye, would you like me 
 to send for Mr. Melville ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, Matt; yes, dear boy, I am sure your 
 father would wish it." 
 
 " I will go out and send now. No, dear, it is not 
 too late. It would never be too late for him; he 
 would be terribly upset if he thought that we should 
 consider the hour at a time like this." 
 
 As Matt went across the hall his sister Matty came 
 out of the morning-room. 
 
 " Oh, Matt, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson have just come, 
 dear ; they've just heard what has happened. They 
 are in there. There is nothing that they can do, but 
 it's awfully good of them to come. You might let 
 mother know." 
 
 "Yes, of course, I will. I don't think she will 
 come out of the room, because she's so afraid he 
 may come to again and miss her." 
 
 In reality, Matthew Gorman knew that his mother 
 was afraid that if his father came to his own senses 
 again she might miss the spell of lucidity. 
 
 He sent one of the men off for the old pastor, for 
 none of the servants had gone to bed, but preferred
 
 3io THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 to wait about on the chance of anything being wanted. 
 Then he went on into the morning-room, where Mr. 
 and Mrs. Wilson were waiting. 
 
 " I 'ave only just 'card the news, Mr. Matthew,' * 
 Mr. Wilson began, huskily. " Is it as bad as they 
 think?" 
 
 " It is as bad as it can be, Mr. Wilson. Mrs. Wil- 
 son, it's awfully good of you to have come, my 
 mother will be so grateful. If you will wait a minute, 
 I will let her know that you are here." 
 
 "And if there is anything I can do, dear Mr. 
 Matt, your mother knows you know I'm 'ere, 
 and I'm ready to be made use of," the good woman 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Thank you very much, Mrs. Wilson ; I will tell 
 her." 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Wilson to Matty, " what 
 'as 'appened? What caused it? The master was 
 all right this morning when 'e left the Works ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, he was quite fit," Mr. Wilson exclaimed. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Wilson, the fact is there was a tele- 
 gram my mother had, a telegram saying Rachel 
 was married this morning. I'm awfully afraid it's 
 upset my father more than we thought it would 
 do." 
 
 "To Mr. Barty?" 
 
 "Yes; they were married this morning in Lon- 
 don."
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 311 
 
 " Oh oh h h ! Then 'e took it to 'eart ? Dear 
 Miss Matty, I'm sorry for that, though I'm glad she's 
 married, you know ; but I'm sorry the master was 
 put about over it, I'm sorry 'e's taken it so sadly to 
 'eart, I am." 
 
 " I think my father did take things to heart, par- 
 ticularly when they went against him," said Matty. 
 " At all events, my mother showed him the telegram 
 after lunch, and William found him in the afternoon 
 sitting quite unconscious in his chair before the desk 
 in the library. Nothing seems to be any good that 
 they try. The doctor has been with him ever since, 
 and they've got two nurses, but he has not shown 
 any signs of returning consciousness so far." 
 
 " And your poor ma ?" 
 
 " Oh, poor mother she was devoted to my father, 
 you know, and she won't leave the room. Yes, he 
 is in the library still ; the doctor forbade his being 
 moved upstairs ; he said it was the only chance. So 
 they brought a bed down into the library, and my 
 mother is there now." 
 
 At this moment Matthew came back bringing his 
 mother with him. 
 
 " I have persuaded her to come out and have 
 something to eat. Matty dear, will you go and 
 stay there, and if there is the least sign of any 
 change come at once ?" 
 
 " Yes, yes, I will."
 
 312 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 Matty sped off like lightning, and Mrs. Gorman 
 came slowly into the room. At the sight of Mrs. 
 Wilson her face changed. 
 
 " How kind of you to come !" she said. 
 
 Mrs. Wilson made a rush towards her. 
 
 " My poor dear, my poor dear lady," she cried, 
 " of course we came, Wilson and me ! We were 
 'eart-broke to think of anything being amiss with the 
 dear master. You'll let me stay with you ? I'll not 
 be any worry. I've been through troubles, my 
 dear ; I know what it is." 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes, you are both so kind," said Mrs. 
 Gorman. " If only he comes to, if only he comes 
 to, just to speak just to say that he forgives the 
 child for going her own way, where her heart led 
 her. Oh, if only he forgives her, Mrs. Wilson, I 
 shall be happy. But there he lies, hour after hour, 
 never moving, knowing nothing, knowing nobody ! 
 It is dreadful dreadful." 
 
 " 'Ave you sent for the dear lamb ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ; we telegraphed, and we have had an 
 answer. They are on their way now. Oh, if only 
 he lives to know her and to forgive her !" 
 
 She suffered them to draw her to the table and 
 patiently tried to eat a little of what they set before 
 her. Then she pushed away her plate and declared 
 that she had had more than enough. 
 
 " I must go back," she said, half nervously. " Mrs.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 313 
 
 Wilson, you will come in you would like to see 
 him?" 
 
 " I will come with you, my poor dear," said Mrs. 
 Wilson. " And Wilson, too, you'll let 'im see the 
 master ? It may be for the last time." 
 
 As they crossed the hall towards the library they 
 saw William coming from the outer hall followed by 
 the pastor of the sanctuary. His white hair was 
 uncovered, and as he perceived the group coming 
 from the morning-room he put up one hand in bene- 
 diction. 
 
 "The Lord's peace be upon this house and all 
 within it," he said, raising his eyes solemnly to 
 heaven. 
 
 The words which fell from the lips of all who 
 heard him were involuntary. "The Lord grant 
 it." 
 
 It was Mrs. Gorman who first made a step forward. 
 
 " Dear friend," she said, putting out the hand 
 nearest to him, " dear friend, we have great need of 
 you. He lies very ill; I am afraid he will know 
 nobody again in this world ; and I am praying that 
 if he must pass into the Unknown, he may pass in 
 peace with all that love him. Dear friend, you know 
 the unhappy differences which have parted us as a 
 family these last days. Rachel was married this 
 morning in London. If he comes to, if you find that 
 he knows you, if there is a chance, will you not, for
 
 3H THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 my sake, press forgiveness upon him ? We have all 
 need of it, and she and I most of any." 
 
 She led him into the great, dimly lighted library 
 and up to the side of the bed where Mr. Gorman 
 still lay inert and unconscious. Without a word, 
 with no more than a look, the old pastor fell upon 
 his knees and prayed. 
 
 " Oh, dear Lord God," he said, " Thou hast brought 
 us face to face with one of Thy great mysteries. 
 Let us die as we have tried to live in peace with all 
 men. Be Thou strong where we are weak, and if 
 there be any who have wronged us, give us Thy 
 grace that we may leave them with perfect love and 
 forgiveness. Oh, dear Lord Jesus, who forgave them 
 that didst despitefully use Thee, so help us weak and 
 faltering ones that we may follow Thy blessed exam- 
 ple and say with Thee, 'Thy will be done,' and 
 ' Father, forgive them.' Let us die as we have lived, 
 certain that Thou hast seen and will aid our weak 
 endeavours. Let us be merciful as we hope and pray 
 Thou wilt be merciful to us, that we may pass from 
 this world of trouble, where only the reflection of 
 Thy perfect peace can ever shine, to that land above 
 where strife is unknown, and where the faithful made 
 perfect in love may ever abide in a glorious peace 
 which shall know no end, where the word forgiveness 
 is unknown because there is nothing to forgive, 
 where peace doth shine as the sun, and where Thou
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 315 
 
 art the fount and joy of all who have lived and died 
 in Thee. Dear Lord God, if our brother, who to- 
 night has set his feet upon the shore of the eternal 
 ocean, be destined to pass away from us, grant that 
 he may leave no trace behind of aught but that per- 
 fect love and peace which for many years it hath 
 been his pride and his joy to inculcate among those 
 around him here. Of Thine infinite mercy grant 
 that he depart not, if it be Thy will to take him, 
 without some word of farewell to his faithful wife. 
 Her desire, dear Lord, is not one of self, it is the 
 outcome of pure mother-love and honest faithful 
 wifehood. Oh, dear Lord God, give this faithful 
 heart a little of Thy Divine healing grace that she 
 may carry through the years which may be left 
 to her a blessed remembrance of Thy leniency 
 and mercy. And this we ask not of ourselves, 
 but by the human suffering and Divine tender- 
 ness of Thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 Amen." 
 
 Perhaps it was the impassioned words in the 
 wholly tender voice of the aged pastor that pierced 
 through the gloom which over-pressed the brain of 
 the sick man. At all events, as they all knelt around 
 the bed, he was roused from his stupor. His wife 
 was still kneeling beside the pastor, her clasped 
 hands stretched over the coverlet, her sad strained 
 face turned towards that of her husband, when his
 
 316 THE PEACEMAKERS. 
 
 eyes unclosed, and he fixed them upon her with a 
 gleam of recognition. 
 
 " Dear God, thou hast answered my prayer !" she 
 burst out. " Edward, Edward, speak to me, speak 
 to me, it is your wife !" 
 
 The doctor, who was still there, raised him a little, 
 and he smiled upon her. 
 
 " Little Annie," he said, in a sweet far-away voice, 
 " is it really you ? It is such a long time since I saw 
 you. I thought we should never meet again." 
 
 " Edward, it is I, your wife, Margaret !" 
 
 " Little Annie," he went on, still looking upon her 
 with that sweet mysterious smile, " I tried to keep 
 my promise; I did my best to give your boy his 
 happiness. They broke my heart Little Annie, we 
 meet again . . . Annie !" 
 
 The light in the dark burning eyes faded out ; the 
 head fell back against the doctor's shoulder; there 
 was a dead silence. 
 
 Then the voice of the old pastor broke the silence. 
 
 " May God, in His infinite mercy, receive his soul." 
 
 The tears were streaming down William Wilson's 
 face, his wife had hidden her eyes against the foot of 
 the bed, the three girls were clinging one to another, 
 and Flo was holding hard on to her husband's arm. 
 
 Then the new-made widow rose from her knees 
 and stood watching the doctor as he laid all that 
 was left of Edward Gorman back upon the pillows.
 
 THE PEACEMAKERS. 317 
 
 And so she stood, still as a statue, while not one, 
 even of her own children, dared to move a step to- 
 wards her, or put out a hand to touch her. 
 
 " I have waited thirty years," she said, in a hope- 
 less and desolate tone, " for ... this /" 
 
 She stretched out her arms to the still figure on 
 the bed, as if to show the dead blank that was left 
 after her years of waiting. Then she turned blindly 
 away and went out of the presence of death, to face 
 the rest of her life . . alone ! 
 
 THE END.
 
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 Chalmette. 
 
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 tained." Philadelphia Press. 
 
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