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KISSES OF FATE 
 
 (A Study of mere Human Nature) 
 
 EDWARD HERON-ALLEN 
 
 It is Life's Law^ that when Fate comes with kisses 
 She gives thejii on the eyes^ so biindifig us ; 
 
 And we look up again^ but just in time 
 To catch the glint o' th' blade she stabs us witht 
 Not to prevent it . 
 
 — Amelie Rivbs. 
 
 Chicago, New York, and San Francisco 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO. 
 iSS8 
 
Copyright, 1888. 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO. 
 
5^3 
 
 Debication 
 
 lln flDemoriam 
 
To Thee, — dear Friend of mine, — I dedicate 
 This little Book that has been wholly Thine 
 Since long before Twas written, for these Tales 
 Were told to Thee, invented for Thine ear 
 Alone. If aught of Purity there be, 
 
 Or any Truths be found, amid my Lines, 
 
 ’Tis Thine alone the Glory of their Good, 
 
 For, — telling them, through the long Winter 
 nights, — 
 
 I watched Thine Eyes, all-fearful lest a sign 
 Of Thy Displeasure should shine out from them 
 At aught I said. And when I took the Pen 
 In hand to tell these Tales of mine once more, 
 Mine only thought was of the moment when 
 Thine Eyes should con my little Book and learn, 
 — Taught by whatever Good there be in it, — 
 That, writing it, I laboured but for Thee. 
 
 E. H-A. 
 
 New Yorky 1887, 
 
To Thee once more I dedicate these Tales 
 Of mine, — more worthy now, since more com- 
 plete ; 
 
 And, blazoning anew Thy Name upon 
 
 The fore-front of my Book, men's , eyes to greet, 
 
 I lay a perfect— yet imperfect — whole 
 
 At Thy dear feet. 
 
 Yet there are those who have declared it all 
 Unworthy Thine acceptance. — Ah, my Sweet I 
 Could I but make a Story worthy Thee, 
 
 None then would dare my page to criticise, 
 
 For then my Tale would be so pure, and free 
 From any blemish, — ev'n in Thy dear eyes, — 
 That none less lovely could condemn, nor see 
 The merest shadow of a thought ill-said 
 In all Thy book: — [for surely it would be 
 
 Not mine, but Thine !] 
 
 E. H-A. 
 
 New York, 1888. 
 
Foreword by Way of Explanation. 
 
 4 
 
 At the moment that these sheets are ready to 
 leave the printer’s hands, I am told that my title, 
 like that under which these stories were announced, 
 and “Sylvester Gray” was published, requires a 
 word of explanation. 
 
 A recent writer has said : “The roses fade fastest 
 when the sun is brightest, and when, on returning 
 to the garden at evening, we find their fallen petals 
 strewn upon the ground, we shall be sorry that we 
 did not gather more of them at midday.” The fallen 
 petals of the Roses that promised such a wealth of 
 fragrance for the morrow — the broken promises of 
 Youth which heralded such brilliancy in Age, may 
 be called “The Kisses of Fate.” The Love of 
 To-day becomes too often the Memory — the Regret 
 — of To-morrow. Happy the man who can say — 
 “The Future for which I strove has become the 
 Present in which I exult ! ” — to such this Cycle of 
 Stories is not addressed, but to the infinitely larger 
 section of humanity who have plucked the Dead- 
 Sea Fruit of Hope. 
 
 The reader is referred to Mr. Edgar Saltus’ 
 “Philosophy of Disenchantment.” 
 
 EDWARD HERON^ALLEN, 
 
 New York, U. S. A. 
 
 May, 1 888 . 
 
"the arrow which is shot 
 
 COMES NO-r BACK." 
 
 The worldly Hope fnen set their hearts upon 
 Turns ASHES^ or it prospers^ and anon 
 ( Like Snow upon the Deserfs dusty face y, 
 Lighting a little hour or two — is gone ! 
 
 Ah! Love^ could You and I with Hmi conspire,^ 
 To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things — entire. 
 Would we not shatter it to bits^ and the7i 
 
 Remould it nearer to the Hearfs Desire ? 
 
 / / 
 
 OMAR-i^KHA YYAM 
 
THE SUIKIDE OF SYLVESTER SRAY. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 False? Ah ! no — hardly that. Dear heart, you are 
 not to blame. 
 
 (Who carps at the sun, or the fleeting rain, or the 
 transient evening dew ?) 
 
 And I cavil not at your fair young soul that would 
 fain — but could not — be true. 
 
 And I love you, aye, the same ! 
 
 I. 
 
 We were at Harrow together. I remember 
 so well the first time I ever saw, or spoke to 
 him ! It seems like yester-year instead of a 
 quarter of a century ago. The summer term 
 of the year of grace i8 — was two days old. 
 For two days past the historic hill wheron 
 ‘‘ Lyon of Preston, yeoman John, full many 
 a year ago,” built his school, had been 
 alive with a merry swarm of boys ranging 
 in age from fourteen years upwards, clad 
 
lO 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 in the jacket of the lower, or the swallow- 
 tails of the upper school, and all hatted 
 alike .with the shallow, broad-brimmed straw, 
 kept securely in its place by an elastic be- 
 hind the head, — the whole constituting the 
 quaint costume in which the authorities and 
 scholars of Harrow-on-the-Hill see nothing 
 ridiculous. The whole place seemed to laugh, 
 as it always did in the early days of a new term, 
 as if amused at its sudden awakening from 
 the quiet weeks of the holidays; and the heat 
 of the young spring sun striking the red brick 
 of the old schools, of the Fourth Form Room, 
 where malefactors received condign punish- 
 ment, and of Speecher ” (the new speech- 
 room had not then been built), was reflected 
 upon the asphalt of the “ school-yard,” 
 causing it to bubble up and stick to the feet 
 of the enthusiasts who followed one another 
 in a long queue^ bowling yard-balls ” at 
 some champion of the school-yard cricket 
 wicket. 
 
 I had walked up the hill, past Sam's,” to 
 the school-yard, with my hands in my pockets 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 1 1 
 
 — a Harrow boy never under any circum- 
 stances takes his hands out of his pockets ; — I 
 had read the first notice-slips of the term 
 fluttering upon the notice-board at the gates; 
 had peered into the cloisters under the old 
 speech-room, and had wandered away to the 
 low wall at the top of the steps leading to 
 the gymnasium, leaning upon which one 
 looks over the disused Milling-ground ” 
 and the racquet-courts, and away, away, 
 away over the fields, past Harrow Weald to 
 Pinner, and Oxhey, and Bushey, and Wat- 
 ford, twenty miles into the blue distance 
 towards great cities in which many of us were 
 destined to play our parts in the drama of 
 life, and towards vast oceans which we 
 should many of us cross before Jong in 
 search of wealth and fame. And whilst I 
 leaned upon the wall and fidgeted with 
 the leaves that peeped inquisitively over the 
 coping, deliberating whether it was worth 
 while to walk down the steps to the gymna- 
 sium or no, I became aware of the presence, 
 a few paces distant, of a small boy. 
 
12 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 When I say a small boy ” I do not mean 
 that his stature was less than mine ; he was 
 about my height. Nor do I mean that he 
 was younger than I ; indeed, I subsequently 
 knew that we were of an equal age. I say a 
 small ” boy because I had been a Har- 
 rovian ” for two terms already, and felt a 
 veteran — and a gigantic one to boot — by the 
 side of the new fellow ” who stood at ray 
 side. He was of the ordinary height of a 
 boy of his age, neither stunted nor run to 
 seed, as is so frequently the case among 
 school-boys of fourteen. Boy as he was, I 
 remember that he was beautifully made, thin 
 in the flank, deep in the chest, flat in the 
 back, and straight and erect from the lines of 
 the legs to the carriage of the head. He 
 was very decidedly a juvenile swell.” His 
 clothes fitted him with a perfection rare 
 among children at the age when they ‘‘ grow 
 visibly ; ” they were cut after the latest 
 fashion for boys; and I remember that I, 
 who was always an outrageously slovenly 
 person, felt for his attire a mixture of envy 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 13 
 
 and contempt ; but his face conquered me — 
 it was beautiful. His broad, white forehead 
 and deep, violet eyes were thrown into 
 shadow by the broad brim of his Harrow 
 hat, from beneath which there escaped the 
 wavy masses of his hair, whose glossy black- 
 ness had a tinge of deep purple brown in it 
 which gave to it an effect of wonderful 
 warmth and life. A straight, Greek nose and 
 finely-cut mouth completed the face, which 
 was of a yellowish delicate tint — a perfect 
 ‘‘ blanc mat'" complexion. Young as I was, 
 I was charmed by this juvenile Adonis; and 
 edging along the low, red-brick wall so as to 
 get close up to him, I said : 
 
 ‘‘ Are you a new fellow ? ” 
 
 Yes.’^ 
 
 What’s your name ? ” 
 
 ‘‘ Sylvester Gray.” 
 
 ‘‘ Sylvester Gray,” thought I, what a 
 delightful name ! ” All my life I had longed 
 for such an one, and had envied the “ Ronceval 
 de Courcy’s,” the “ Plantagenet Fitzjames’s,” 
 and the other high-sounding sponsorials and 
 
14 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 patronymics owned by the heroes of inexpen- 
 sive fiction. My father^s name was Tompkins, 
 and my godfathers and godmothers in my 
 baptism had prefixed thereto the unassuming 
 prenomen of ‘‘John,” an insult which J felt 
 that death alone — my death — could wipe out. 
 I hold firmly to a theory that a man is 
 heavily handicapped, as regards his individu- 
 ality, by his Christian name. Thus, all the 
 Toms I have known have been good-natured, 
 and rather commonplace. All the Charlies 
 have been delightful “ bad lots,” all the 
 Freds have been rowdy, all the Georges 
 practical, all the Franks prigs, all the Archies 
 good, all the Edwards artistic, and so on. 
 Therefore, to give a boy one of these charac- 
 teristic names weights him from the start 
 with a certain prescribed individuality. But 
 call a boy Sylvester, or some name of that 
 kind, he has the chance of moulding himself 
 on an unique pattern ; — and his mother has a 
 chance of helping him. 
 
 Thus everything about him, save the fact 
 that he had taken on entering the school a 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 5 
 
 form above the one I had reached after two 
 terms’ work, attracted me to Sylvester Gray ; 
 and just as the most dissimilar persons often 
 voluntarily cast in their lots in life together, 
 so Sylvester and I swore an eternal friendship 
 in the old school-yard on this sunny after- 
 noon, and strolled oft, arm-in-arm, down the 
 zig-zag pathway of our lives. 
 
 Nobody liked me when I was a boy; and 
 looking back at myself after the lapse of 
 never-mind-how-many years, I am really not 
 surprised. In the first place, I was very 
 ugly, and that makes a great deal of differ- 
 ence in the life of a boy ; secondly, I was 
 rather a fiend; I was quiet, morose, taci-. 
 turn ; I hated people of my own age, and 
 got on much better with the masters than 
 with the fellows at school. I didn’t care 
 about games. The hideous combination of 
 colors worn by the Football Team had no 
 attraction for me ; the dark-colored hat of the 
 Cricket Eleven, the badge of the Rifle Team, 
 and the certificate of gymnastic proficiency 
 were not, for me, objects of envy. On half- 
 
6 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 holidays I preferred the cool and quiet of the 
 Vaughan library to the tumult of the cricket- 
 fields and the racquet-courts, or better still — 
 as I could always get a master to ‘‘ sign me 
 for bill ” (i. e., to excuse my attendance at 
 the four o’clock calling-over of the school- 
 list), I loved to wander far afield, to Pinner, 
 and Oxhey, and Sudbury, and Wembley, to 
 Stanmore and Elstree, in search of flowers 
 and ferns, and butterflies, and solitude ; and 
 oftentimes Sylvester Gray would give up the 
 joys of the courts and playing-fields, where he 
 soon became a welcome habitue.^ to accom- 
 pany me, and then we would talk of home, 
 and of the past and the future. 
 
 I was to be a doctor, like my father before 
 me. Sylvester was the orphan son of an officer, 
 who had been an old Harrovian, and who had 
 fallen for his queen and country at Balaclava. 
 I remember Sylvester Gray bursting into tears 
 one day in the school-chapel, as, for the first 
 time, he read his father’s name on the tablets 
 in the south aisle, erected in commemoration 
 of the Harrow boys who had fallen in the 
 
Ashes of the Ftdure. 
 
 1 
 
 Crimea. His future would be one of dignified 
 ease, and his mind was divided between going 
 into the army, on the one hand, and being 
 called to the bar and then spending his life 
 travelling about and seeing the world, on the 
 other. 
 
 Bright hopes ! Happy future ! Sylvester 
 Gray killed himself one warm spring night in 
 Rome, when he was only thirty ; and I alone, 
 of his countless friends, have ever known the 
 sequence of events that led to this catastro- 
 phe, which has been one of the profoundest 
 sorrows of my life. 
 
 II. 
 
 Sylvester Gray and I began at Harrow a 
 friendship that lasted all his life. He became, 
 at school, the periodical companion of my 
 youthful solitude, and took a kind of half- 
 timorous, half-contemptuous interest in my 
 scientific and quasi-scientific manias. He 
 would sit in the reclining-chair in my room, 
 his hands nervously grasping its arms, and 
 watch me with grave, deep eyes whilst I mixed 
 
i8 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 strange chemicals in a glass mortar or gradu- 
 ated measure, preparatory to the production 
 of some perfume or explosion, destined to 
 surpass all previous efforts in virulence and 
 destructiveness. He would take a queer, 
 puzzled pleasure in looking over my butter- 
 flies and dried flowers. He would even 
 bring himself to poke my imprisoned snakes, 
 through the bars of their cage, with a pen- 
 holder; and, as a result, I confess that, over 
 and above my personal adoration of him, 
 
 I was flattered by his interest in my pursuits, 
 for he was popular and a swell ” in the 
 school, whilst I was distinctly the reverse. 
 After school hours it was, as I have said, far 
 more delightful for me to hide myself in the“ 
 Vaughan library, or in my own room, to 
 explore the mysteries of Rees’ Encyclopaedia, 
 or to concoct the experiments aforesaid, 
 than to mix with my fellow-creatures; and 
 this kind of thing does not tend to increase 
 a fellow’s popularity, even if he is a member 
 of the Upper School, ready to give cons” 
 (Anglice: translations) to indolent athletes of 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 ^9 
 
 the Shells and Fourth Form; and such ap- 
 preciation of my schoolfellows as I enjoyed 
 at Harrow was due practically in its entirety 
 to the efforts of Sylvester. 
 
 He would carry about in his pockets, and 
 exhibit, the successful results of my more 
 showy experiments ; he would appeal to me 
 as to an authority on matters recondite and 
 abstruse, and would ask my advice on any mat- 
 ters deeper than the ordinary problems of a 
 schoolboy^s existence, that might arise in con- 
 versation with ‘‘ his set and in this way I 
 became an object of a certain respect, and 
 went through life rejoicing in the nickname 
 of Professor.’' I was naturally impressed 
 with a kind of gratitude — the gratitude of the 
 physically superior beast,” for the fragile but 
 more popular “ beauty,” and I did my best 
 to share such joys as life possessed . for me 
 with young Gray, whom I was inclined to 
 envy and admire in a public, and patronize 
 in a private, capacity. 
 
 I have said that I was more popular with 
 the masters than with the fellows. I had al- 
 
20 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 so many acquaintances among the residents 
 of Harrow, whom I had met at the masters’ 
 houses, and none were greater friends ot 
 mine than the Woosters. In my first conver- 
 sation with Mrs. Wooster I found that we 
 were in some abstruse way connected with 
 one another ; and whether it was that I adored 
 Mrs. Wooster, or whether it was that I loved 
 to sit and talk to her golden-haired daughter 
 Evelyn, I used to look forward with the live- 
 liest anticipation to tea-time on Thursdays, 
 when, as a regular thing, I used to find my 
 way to their pretty little house, which looked 
 out over the southern slope of the hill towards 
 Edgware and London. 
 
 I made their acquaintance during my second 
 term at Harrow, and never knew till many 
 years afterwards why, after my last term at 
 school, our friendship cooled oft, and practi- 
 cally ceased. It is a terrible story, I am afraid, 
 but it is very necessary to the development of 
 this narrative that I should sketch in the main 
 outlines, which outlines it is equally necessary 
 that I should leave my readers to fill in. 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 21 
 
 When first I knew her, Evelyn Wooster 
 was a blue-eyed child of fourteen, rather old 
 for her age, as only-children are apt to be, 
 with a glory of sunny hair that fell in a tan- 
 gled mass far below her waist ; and I sup- 
 pose she holds in my life the elevated posi- 
 tion of my first love. That she should care 
 about me was, I knew, a ridiculous idea ; but 
 the joy of finding a white example of the frit- 
 illaria meleagris in a field near Pinner, and 
 the delight of catching a humming-bird hawk- 
 moth on the terrace behind the Chapel and 
 the Vaughan, were increased a thousand-fold 
 by her appreciation of my trouvailles.^ and by 
 her borrowing them for a week to show to 
 her ‘^greatest girl-friend” (how my heart leapt 
 at that qualification, girl-friend ”), and by 
 her repeated subsequent allusions to these 
 feats of prowess in the collecting line. But I 
 never felt so proud of any specimen that I 
 had submitted to her for inspection and ap- 
 proval as I did of Sylvester Gray, whom I 
 took up there to tea one sunny afternoon of 
 his first term at Harrow. 
 
22 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 He cut me out completely. When it was 
 a question of what has been justly called the 
 softer, and unjustly the weaker, sex, he always 
 cut everybody out. But I did not mind; I 
 never thought anything could be too good 
 for either him or her, and I gave them to one 
 another without a murmur, and was quite 
 content to sit and talk to Mrs. Wooster, or 
 help her to tend her flowers, whilst Sylvester 
 and Evelyn sat together and talked on the 
 verandah that ran round the house, or, in 
 winter, at the piano in their cosy little drawing- 
 room. 
 
 And so the best part of five years crept by. 
 It was our last term at Harrow. We were 
 both in the Sixth Form, and I was a monitor. 
 Sylvester wasn’t, but he was in the Cricket 
 Eleven and the Shooting Team, and he 
 played racquets for the school, and helped us 
 materially to beat Eton at Lord’s cricket 
 ground, and to win the Ashburton Shield and 
 the Racquet Cup at Wimbledon and Prince’s. 
 Evelyn Wooster was a lovely young woman 
 of eighteen, and she and Sylvester Gray were 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 23 
 
 reciprocally “ hard hit.” Well, well ! he was 
 eminently ^‘eligible,” and my nineteen-year- 
 old experience enabled me to detect a dis- 
 tinct satisfaction in the glances which Mrs. 
 Wooster occasionally directed at the hand- 
 some pair, whilst we — she and I — walked 
 about the garden as we had done for four 
 years past, and talked horticulture and home. 
 
 I ? Ah, what of that ? So long as Syl- 
 vester and Evelyn were happy, what did my 
 feelings on the subject matter ? Nothing to 
 anybody but myself, did they? Very well, 
 then ! They are both dead now, and I am 
 still a miserable, buttonless bachelor ! 
 
 Nearly five years ! And during that time 
 we had seen a good deal of one another — 
 Sylvester, Evelyn, and I. Sylvester had been 
 a beautiful boy — now he was a superlatively 
 handsome young man. A silky, sable mous- 
 tache decorated his upper lip, and his whole 
 bearing was full of that graceful strength 
 which signalizes the healthy, pure-bred gen- 
 tleman. The more hypercritical used to ob- 
 ject that his face was somewhat too delicately 
 
24 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 formed; that it was too womanish in the 
 softness of its outlines, with its languorous 
 violet eyes and long lashes. To me, as to 
 all men who were not envious, he was always 
 an object of unquestioning admiration ; whilst 
 among women he was always a kind of Ad- 
 mirable Crichton. Almost without exception 
 they fell in love with him, and he would ac- 
 cept their homage quite as though it were a 
 matter of course. Entre deux amants, il 
 y a toujours I’un qui baise et I’autre qui tend 
 la joue;” and Sylvester was always the one 
 “ qui tendait la joue.” The only woman I 
 ever knew him to worry himself about was 
 Evelyn Wooster, and her he simply adored. 
 
 His friendship for the Woosters had com- 
 municated itself to his sole relations, an aunt 
 and a sister, who lived in a beautiful old 
 Tudor mansion belonging to Sylvester by in- 
 heritance, near Staplehurst, in the County of 
 Kent. During the summer of the year i8 — 
 Mrs. Wooster, Evelyn, and I were all spend- 
 ing a few weeks with them at his beautiful 
 old home before we should severally part to 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 25 
 
 pursue our ways along the different paths 
 marked out for us in life. Sylvester and I 
 had left Harrow a few weeks before, and on 
 the last Thursday before the school broke 
 up we had met as usual at the little cottage 
 on tke hill ; and, as it had been a rather 
 affecting little meeting, we had to get up our 
 spirits by projecting this visit to Idlesse — such 
 was the old-world name of Sylvester’s Kent- 
 ish home. 
 
 I had been there more than once during 
 the five y^ars of our school days, but I 
 thought it had never looked so pretty as it 
 did when, at the close of a summer afternoon, 
 I drove up to the house through the wind- 
 ing grounds that hid it from the Staplehurst 
 road, and saw it bathed in the splendour of 
 an August sunset, with Sylvester, in the most 
 neglige of attitudes and costumes, and Evelyn, 
 in the freshest and prettiest of frocks, stand- 
 ing in the porch to welcome me. Sylvester’s 
 fox terrier, who sat in front of them, making 
 good practice at the flies that investigated 
 him — a grave dog, who rejoiced in the fas- 
 
26 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 cinating name of Mr. Smith ’’ — gave me 
 one searching glance to satisfy himself of my 
 identity, and then went into hysterics over 
 me as I sprang from the dog-cart. The air 
 was heavy with the perfume of the evening 
 primroses that grew round the porch, and 
 the Marechale Niel roses that straggled all 
 over it ; and as I shook Sylvester and Evelyn 
 by the hand I was overwhelmed by a sensa- 
 tion which I could not understand at the 
 time, but which, looking back at that August 
 evening, I know now was simply pure hap- 
 piness. 
 
 Then there followed three perfect weeks 
 spent among the orchards and the hop- 
 gardens of the neighborhood. The five 
 years that had passed since my story had 
 opened had not altered my disposition very 
 materially, and I was still disposed to be 
 quiet. Besides, I had my preliminary medi- 
 cal examination to look forward to ; and 
 with the enthusiasm that we all of us feel, 
 when first we leave school, to reach as 
 quickly as possible the dignity of a “ profes- 
 
Ashes oj the Future. 
 
 27 
 
 sion,” I had brought down with me some 
 of my bran-new medical books to read up. 
 They were not much read, but they lay 
 about a good deal, and when one day Syl- 
 vester’s aunt looked into one of them and 
 nearly frightened herself into fits, I felt that 
 the troubles of transportation were, in a 
 measure, compensated for. At any rate, I 
 studied botany with Sybil Gray, Sylvester’s 
 pretty sister, and really we gathered a lot of 
 flowers together, and I dried some of them — 
 that ^he found; but when I congratulated 
 her, and indirectly myself, on the progress of 
 our botanical studies, it was horrid of her to 
 ask me what were the toxicological proper- 
 ties of Marechale Niel roses, and what was 
 the active alkaloid principle of the forget-me- 
 not. 
 
 Meanwhile Sylvester and Evelyn lived in 
 a fool’s paradise of their own. They disap- 
 peared usually after breakfast, and turned up 
 at lunch, with an appearance of unconscious 
 virtue, to talk volubly of plans for the after- 
 noon, embracing the entire party. After 
 
28 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 lunch they disappeared again, to return in 
 time to dress for dinner, looking supremely 
 foolish, but assuring us all that they had not 
 been outside the grounds, and — Heaven 
 forgive them ! — that they had been looking 
 for us everywhere. We used to laugh at 
 them — it was an understood thing” — but 
 they were both young enough in all con- 
 science. The future before them was as 
 bright as it was long. Sometimes Sylvester 
 would allude to it vaguely in the smoking- 
 room before we went to bed. What aTuture 
 it would be ! 
 
 Well, well ! She died long ago, and Syl- 
 vester Gray killed himself in Rome ten years 
 later. Ah — yi! 
 
 III. 
 
 The three weeks ran by like a summer 
 afternoon. The Woosters were to leave in 
 two days, and Evelyn and Sylvester seemed 
 to forget that we others even existed. They 
 ran about together, or walked up and down 
 the terrace arm-in-arm nearly all the time. 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 29 
 
 The last but one was one of those frightfully 
 hot days that we have sometimes in England 
 at the end of August. It had been sultry 
 and oppressive since early morning ; the 
 lovers had been away all day, wandering in 
 the woods at the back of the house, and had 
 arrived home at tea-time, flushed, silent, pre- 
 occupied, it seemed to me. During the in- 
 terval before dinner and during the meal 
 they scarcely took their eyes off one another, 
 and I confess that their silent, constrained 
 manner gave me an undefined sensation of 
 uneasiness, which I could not have accounted 
 for even to myself 
 
 After dinner we — that is, Sybil and I, and 
 Evelyn and Sylvester — went out on to the 
 terrace, and wandered up and down in the 
 stifling heat, which even the dew had been 
 powerless to moderate. At intervals we 
 would stop and stand at the terrace wall to 
 watch the summer lightning in the horizon — 
 lightning which was almost incessant, and 
 more vivid than I ever remember to have 
 seen it before or since. Sybil and I kept up 
 
30 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 a continual chatter, as we always did ; but 
 the other two were strangely silent, and 
 would stand for ten minutes at a time 
 against the wall, looking into the distance 
 without saying a word, their fingers closely 
 intertwined as their hands hung listlessly by 
 their sides. There was, after all, something 
 peculiarly unrefreshing in the air of this 
 summer night, and presently, Evelyn's white 
 frock having turned a corner at the end ot 
 the terrace and disappeared in the direction 
 of the rose garden, Sybil and I turned to 
 enter the house. As we did so she turned to 
 me suddenly, and said : 
 
 ‘^Jack, I don’t know why, but I feel so 
 uneasy about those two. It’s a dreadful 
 idea to have, but you have been our best 
 friend for so long that you’re the only person 
 I can talk to about it. Sylvester is so im- 
 pulsive and wild-hearted, and Evelyn adores 
 him so absolutely, that I’m dreadfully fright- 
 ened. Do go down to the rosery and tell 
 them to come in and have some music.” 
 
 She had noticed it too ! I walked rapidly 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 31 
 
 down the gravelled terrace, and turned off on 
 to the soft grass walks of the rose garden. I 
 could not see the lovers anywhere, and 
 started to walk rapidly round the beds in 
 search of them. I found them suddenly — 
 — too suddenly — as I turned a corner, be- 
 neath a trellised archway. They were stand- 
 ing motionless, locked in one another’s arms. 
 Her head lay upon his shoulder, and she 
 seemed to have lost consciousness of the 
 whole world beneath the spell of his kiss. I 
 sprang back and retraced my steps some 
 twenty yards, and then advanced once more, 
 whistling to apprise them of my approach. 
 They turned the corner arm-in-arm and ad- 
 vanced to meet me. I delivered my mes- 
 sage, and we regained the house in silence. 
 
 The ladies retired early, and as Sylvester 
 did not want to smoke, we went to our rooms 
 also. I looked in on Sylvester on my way 
 to mine, and talked with him for a few min- 
 utes — no longer, for he evidently did not 
 want me to remain. His face "was whiter 
 than usual, but his hand, as we said Good- 
 
32 
 
 Ashes of the F^^ture. 
 
 night/’ was burning hot. I looked into his 
 eyes^ and said : 
 
 Syl, old fellow, there’s something wrong. 
 What is it ?” 
 
 Wrong!” he exclaimed, wrong ! How 
 can anything be wrong with a man who is 
 loved as I am, and by such a woman ? Why 
 Jack, old man, I am so deliriously happy 
 that I don’t know what to do. We love 
 one another so passionately that it is almost 
 more than we can bear. Don’t be uneasy 
 on my account; if anything is wrong it is 
 a case of extremes meeting, of my being so 
 happy that I don’t know what to do with 
 myself.” 
 
 ‘‘ Sylvester,” I cried, “ for God’s sake, take 
 care! You are not going to marry for a 
 couple of years at least. Is it right for 
 you two to be so much alone together as you 
 have been ? — to separate yourselves so en- 
 tirely from the world as you do ? Surely not.” 
 
 My dear Jack, don’t worry yourself 
 about me— or us; we can take care of our- 
 selves. And now — good-night !” 
 
Ashes of the F^iiure, 
 
 33 
 
 And with that I left him. 
 
 * * * # # 
 
 What a night it was ! I felt suffocated, 
 though I had opened all my windows. At 
 last I got up and opened my door, and, 
 cooled a little by the draught, fell into an 
 uneasy slumber. Suddenly I woke. Surely 
 I heard a footstep passing my open door — a 
 stealthy, gliding footstep, like that of a rob- 
 ber ; and the idea of burglars instantly oc- 
 curred to my city-bred mind, as I thought of 
 the massive Queen Anne plate which lay 
 about on the sideboard in the dining-room, 
 day and night. I lay still for a few moments, 
 and then quietly rising and putting on a 
 dressing-gown, felt my way down the cor- 
 ridor to Sylvester’s room. The moon had 
 hidden herself behind a cloud, and it was 
 pitch dark. As I crept along, the clock in 
 the hall struck half past two ; I turned the 
 handle of Sylvester’s door, and went in. 
 
 He was out of bed, standing at the win- 
 dow, also in a dressing-gown. He turned 
 upon me and said, in a voice which seemed 
 
34 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 to me to be choking with suppressed fury : 
 ‘‘ In God’s name, what are you prowling 
 about the place for ?” 
 
 Sylvester,” I replied, 1 heard footsteps 
 in the house, and thought you were being 
 robbed, and might not have been wakened 
 up. I see you were, though. Is everything 
 all right ?” 
 
 His face was in the shadow, but his voice 
 was natural again as he replied, 
 
 ‘‘Yes, yes, all right! I heard footsteps 
 myself, or fancied I did, and went out to 
 investigate. I found everything safe; if I 
 hadn’t I should have come to rouse you. It 
 was probably me that you heard coming 
 back to my room.” 
 
 Undoubtedly that was it. I regained my 
 room and went back to bed to fall into a 
 feverish, confused sleep, in which I dreamed 
 a ghastly dream, wherein Sylvester and 
 Evelyn were engaged struggling with a 
 loathsome monster, which crushed her in its 
 iron jaws, despite the efforts of Sylvester to 
 save her, whilst I was paralyzed a few 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 35 
 
 paces off, powerless to raise a finger in his 
 assistance. When I awoke it was broad day- 
 light. 
 
 # # * * * 
 
 Evelyn did not come down to breakfast. 
 Mrs. Wooster said that her daughter had 
 passed a bad night and was feverish ; the 
 frightful heat of the day before had been too 
 much for her. Sylvester was in despair; it 
 seemed so hard that she should be unwell 
 her last day at Idlesse, and after breakfast 
 he fidgeted around the house waiting for her 
 to come down. We were sitting together 
 on the terrace when she made her appear- 
 ance at the drawing-room window, looking 
 very pale and fragile in her white morning- 
 wrapper. We rose to go to her at once, and 
 it seemed to me that there was something 
 singularly subdued in her manner as she 
 answered our anxious enquiries. She was 
 still suffering a little ; she had a headache, 
 and was generally not up to the mark f 
 but she had made a point of coming down 
 for her last day in the country. 
 
36 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 I left them together and trotted off to find 
 Sybil and Mrs. Wooster, and the two lovers 
 spent the morning together as usual. I saw 
 them walking up and down the terrace, al- 
 ways in sight of the house, and from the grav- 
 ity with which they conversed I knew that the 
 all-important future ” was the subject of 
 their conversation. Lunch was rather a silent 
 meal — the last meals together of a country- 
 house party are always rather dismal func- 
 tions, I think — and after lunch we all sat to- 
 gether on the grass in the rose-garden, and 
 read and talked quietly. 
 
 Evelyn had recovered from her indisposition 
 entirely, and was the most chirpy of us all; 
 Sylvester, on the other hand, seemed, as the 
 Americans say, all broken up ” by his im- 
 pending separation, and hardly opened his 
 lips, or took his eyes off Evelyn’s face. It 
 made me unhappy to see him suffer so, and 
 I made many efforts to leave them together, 
 which Evelyn, for some reason or other, 
 quietly frustrated. 
 
 They disappeared after dinner, however. 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 37 
 
 ‘‘ to say good-bye with variations/^ as Sybil 
 said laughingly. She and I went down the 
 terrace and sat on the rustic seat at the end, 
 and were mildly sentimental, when she gave 
 me a dreadful fright. I had taken her hand 
 in mine, and was playing with her fingers, 
 when suddenly I said to her : What fun it 
 would be if you and I were to fall as badly 
 in love with one another as those two simple 
 things walking up and down there.’^ 
 
 She shuddered, and said in the most terror- 
 stricken voice I have ever heard, 
 
 ‘‘ Oh Jack, Jack! Don’t think me an utter 
 fool, but unless I tell somebody I shall die, 
 I think. I’m so awfully frightened about 
 Syl and Eva; they’ve had a quarrel or 
 something, and whenever I look at her, 
 though she’s just the same as she always was. 
 I’ve the most dreadful feeling here;” and 
 she pressed her left hand to her throat. The 
 one I held trembled violently. 
 
 A kind of pall seemed to fall over the 
 whole world. An icy feeling of horror crept 
 over me. Heaven only knows why, for, after 
 
38 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 all, what is there so serious about a lover’s 
 tiff? I rose and said : 
 
 It’s getting chilly, Syb ; let’s go in.” 
 
 As we passed them on the terrace, they 
 were walking silently side-by-side. He was 
 playing with his moustache, and she had her 
 eyes fixed on the gravel in front of her. 
 
 That night, in the smoking-room, I said to 
 Sylvester: ‘‘ Have you and Eva had a row ?” 
 
 Good gracious, no! What an idea! 
 We’re the best friends in the world. I am 
 awfully sorry they’re leaving to-morrow. The 
 place will seem so dull by comparison for 
 Aunty and Sybil when we’re all gone.” 
 
 ‘‘All gone? How do you mean? You 
 are not going away, are you ?” 
 
 “ Why, haven’t I told you ? ” said he ; 
 “ I’m going to Bellagio next week, and 
 then I shall spend the winter in Rome, e7i 
 route^ as it were, for Constantinople and the 
 East. I’ve always wanted to travel, and I 
 think a couple of years of it will amuse me.” 
 
 “ And then you’ll return and marry Eva, 
 I suppose.” 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 39 
 
 I don't know ; I hope so. For God's 
 sake don't talk to me about it, old man ; I 
 can't bear it." 
 
 The same feeling of horror took possession 
 of me again, and we said little more before 
 we took our candles and made our way up- 
 stairs to bed. 
 
 The Woosters left next morning by the ten 
 o'clock train from Staplehurst. The carriage 
 which took them took my luggage to the 
 station, and in the cool of the afternoon Syl- 
 vester and I walked over, that I might take 
 the 6.30 train to town. We talked by the 
 way of indifferent matters. He never men- 
 tioned the Woosters, and it was only when we 
 were at the station, waiting for the train, that 
 he referred to his own approaching departure. 
 The train was in sight when I said to him : 
 
 I can’t see why you, who have all that 
 can make life lovely here in England, should 
 go and bury yourself in Palestine, and Syria, 
 and Persia." 
 
 Can't you ?" he replied, in a dry, cut 
 voice ; then I’ll tell you. I am going away 
 
40 
 
 Ashes of the Fuhire. 
 
 because I’m not fit to remain with decent 
 people. I’m a thing so loathsome, so con- 
 temptible, that I shudder at the sight of my- 
 self in a looking-glass. You say I’m rich. 
 Well, my money has been my curse. Good- 
 looking ? Yes. The beauty of some painted, 
 venomous insect, which an humanitarian 
 would crush beneath his heel ! Don’t pity 
 'me, old fellow ; I deserve all my misery ; and 
 I am miserable, God knows ! Good-bye, 
 Jack! When we meet again I shall feel 
 better, I hope.” 
 
 The guard whistled, and the train bore me 
 away. Goodness me !” thought I ; “he has 
 indeed had a tiff with Eva. Just fancy the 
 debonnair Sylvester taking anything so to 
 heart, and admitting that he is in the wrong.” 
 
 And so I reached London, and Guy’s Hos- 
 pital, and the College of Surgeons, and my 
 work ; and my life became full of distractions. 
 But I often wondered what Sylvester could 
 have said to Eva that had made such a 
 breach between them, and had produced 
 such an effect upon one of them at least. 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 41 
 
 PART 11. 
 
 I. 
 
 Eleven years have passed, and the scene 
 has changed. The lives of the actors in the 
 drama, of which we have read the prologue, 
 have developed with the years ; people have 
 married and died, and we two, Sylvester 
 Gray and I, have remained. I have been 
 sufficiently attached to my profession to suc- 
 ceed in it, and John Tompkins, M.D., has 
 become one of the fortunate medicos who 
 can afford to take a well-earned holiday after 
 ten years of hard work. He is taking it at 
 the moment when his story reopens. 
 
 I was in Rome, and it was the spring of 
 the year of grace, 18 — . In the autumn of the 
 year before, having returned to Park Lane 
 from a medical Congress held at Vienna, I 
 was busily engaged re-writing the concluding 
 chapters of my work upon the Conario-hypo- 
 
42 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 physial tract, when, one day, meeting an old 
 friend in the park, I could not for the life of 
 me remember his name. An hour later I 
 had to look in my address-book for the direc- 
 tion of a letter to an old patient, and that 
 evening I fell fast asleep over my manuscript. 
 I was a little alarmed, but fought against my 
 fears, until one day, in the middle of a lec- 
 ture at St. Augustine's Hospital, I suddenly 
 found that my mind was a blank, and plead- 
 ing illness, had been obliged to dismiss the 
 students and leave the lecture-theatre. Dr. 
 George Ayers, the principal consulting phy- 
 sician to the hospital, sent for me in the after- 
 noon, and after a few questions said to me : 
 
 “ Tompkins, you're overdoing it ; you're 
 playing the fool with yourself, and this hos- 
 pital can't afford it. If you belonged to 
 Guy's or St. Bartholomew's I shouldn't have 
 the least objection to your killing yourself, - 
 but you're on my staff, and I can't allow it. 
 You will finish the notes for your new book, 
 and you will cart them off to Rome with you ; 
 you will return here in April next, and be- 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 43 
 
 tween this and then I forbid you officially to 
 do any other work.” 
 
 And so, after a short discussion, it was de- 
 cided ; and the end of November saw me in- 
 stalled in the prettiest of rooms in the Tem- 
 pietta, at the top of the steps of the Trinita 
 de Monti. From my windows I looked 
 down upon the Piazza di Spagna and the 
 steps of the Trinita, where artists’ models do 
 congregate. A little further on I caught a 
 glimpse of the Piazza, and the Porta del Pop- 
 olo, with the Borghese and the Monte Parioli 
 beyond them, and beyond that, the Cam- 
 pagna and the yellow Tiber stretching to 
 the sea. 
 
 I am of opinion that my rooms com- 
 manded the most beautiful view in Rome, 
 and in this opinion the majority of my ac- 
 quaintances, who climbed the Via Sistina to 
 call upon me, cordially agreed. 
 
 So much for myself. What about the 
 others ? Sylvester Gray seemed absolutely 
 to have disappeared out of my life. I heard 
 sometimes from his sister, who seldom knew 
 
44 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 anything definite about his movements, and 
 I kept up a desultory correspondence with 
 Mrs. Wooster. About two years after our 
 last meeting at Idlesse, Evelyn, to our in- 
 tense astonishment, married a commonplace 
 young man, a local lawyer of Harrow ; and 
 a year after died in childbirth. I went down 
 to see her grief- stricken mother, but could 
 learn but little from her. From the day that 
 Evelyn had parted from Sylvester Gray she 
 had never mentioned his name of her own 
 accord, and she had never prolonged any 
 conversation of which Mrs. Wooster made 
 him the subject. Her mother had never 
 penetrated the mystery that shrouded their 
 estrangement. All that Evelyn had said 
 was that they quite understood one another, 
 and that she had quite made up her mind 
 that it would be a grave mistake for them to 
 marry one another. A few days after they 
 had left Idlesse, Sylvester had written her a 
 long, imploring letter, begging her to recon- 
 sider her decision, and this letter Mrs. Woos- 
 ter had only found after Evelyn's death. 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 45 
 
 What her answer had been, if she had ever 
 answered it, her mother did not know. 
 
 That was all. 
 
 Of Sylvester himself our news was scanty 
 and vague. I heard from him once, about 
 six months after he left England. He wrote 
 from Constantinople, and sent me his will to 
 take care of, preparatory to his departure for 
 Syria, Palestine, and Persia ; and in the let- 
 ter that accompanied the document he told 
 me that he might not return for a long, 
 long time. From his bankers I heard that 
 he had communicated with them from Jer- 
 usalem and from Mecca, and this was all we 
 heard of him for five years. At the end of 
 that time I came across him suddenly in the 
 court-yard of the Hotel Continental in Paris. 
 
 I was sitting, wondering vaguely whether 
 the indigenous Parisian could find anything 
 interesting in the pages of ‘‘ La Vie Parisi- 
 enne,’^ when the quiet, musical voice I knew 
 so well said suddenly behind me, 
 
 “ Tompkins, if I mistake not ! How are 
 you ?” 
 
46 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 I started to my feet as if I had been elec- 
 trified — to find the old Sylvester standing at 
 my side, holding out his hand with an 
 amused look on his handsome face. It was 
 undoubtedly the same old Sylvester, looking 
 not a day older than he had looked the 
 afternoon I shook him by the hand for the 
 last time at Staplehurst station. He was as 
 calm and quiet as he always had been, a 
 little harder, perhaps, in his manner, and 
 tanned to a rich olive pallor that made him, 
 if possible, handsomer than ever ; but beyond 
 that, absolutely unchanged. 
 
 He sat down by my side and gave me a 
 short outline of his doings. He had spent 
 the winter of i8 — in Rome, as he had in- 
 tended, and had gone to Istamboul in the 
 spring; there he had studied the languages 
 and customs of the East, and had set out on 
 a comprehensive tour of the Orient. He 
 had joined a caravan, and in the guise of a 
 renegade ” had performed as much of the 
 Hadjj Pilgrimage to Mecca as a renegade is 
 ever allowed to'perform. He had wandered 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 47 
 
 through the Holy Land to Damascus, and 
 had spent rich, lazy months in the hanging- 
 gardens of Baghdad. He had lived the lux- 
 urious life of an Eastern Pacha, and had 
 made himself familiar with Asia Minor ; he 
 knew Samsoun and Sinope and Batoum and 
 Erzeroum and Kars as well as he knew 
 London or Paris or Rome, and had he taken 
 any interest in anything so dry as politics he 
 would have been an authority on the Eastern 
 Question. 
 
 From there he had traversed the deserts 
 of Persia, and had been a familiar figure 
 in the streets of Teheran and Ispahan. From 
 his button-hole hung a little bunch of mi- 
 crosopic decorations, among which I could 
 distinguish the Annunziata, the San Lazaro, 
 the Redeemer of Greece, the Medjidieh, the 
 Osmanieh, and the Portrait of the Shah. In 
 a word, Sylvester Gray had become the most 
 fascinatingly interesting and accomplished 
 vagabond in Europe. He spoke of his wan- 
 derings with the hisouciance of a gypsy. He 
 looked upon our meeting as a matter of 
 
48 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 course, though he had only arrived in Paris 
 by the Orient Express three days before. He 
 had no plans in particular — he never had ; 
 he would probably remain in Paris a few 
 weeks and then return to London. He was 
 not in a particular hurry to go anywhere or 
 to do anything. 
 
 I spoke to him of England, and he looked 
 bored ; of Idlesse, and he changed the sub- 
 ject. He had heard of his aunt’s death, and 
 of his sister’s marriage ; he had sent her from 
 Smyrna a bale of Oriental curiosities worth 
 many thousands of piastres; he had heard 
 of Evelyn’s marriage and death, which he 
 regretted sincerely but conventionally. He 
 had but one object in life — to amuse himself ; 
 and his efforts in that direction met, appar- 
 ently, with the completest success ; and I con- 
 gratulated him upon the attainment of his 
 desires and his freedom from care. As I did 
 so, a queer, cynical look came into his face, 
 and he said, in his soft, languorous voice : 
 
 ‘‘ You congratulate me, old fellow ? — envy 
 me, perhaps? Don’t do it. Don’t do it. I’ve 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 49 
 
 got everything a man can want on the ma- 
 terial plane ; everyone I come across wishes 
 he were me, whilst I ! — do you see that young 
 mechanic, standing looking in on this court- 
 yard, with his honest face and careless eyes ? — 
 rd give twenty years of my life and my right 
 hand to change places with him. Hush ! no 
 answer required! What are you doing to- 
 night ? Dine with me at the Cafe Anglais, 
 and we’ll go to the Princesse de Cziquemine’s 
 together afterwards. I’ll take you ; she is 
 one of my greatest friends. I helped her to 
 buy some embroideries for less than ten times 
 their value in the Bezesten at Istamboul two 
 years ago.” 
 
 And so, during the fortnight that I re- 
 mained in Paris, I saw a good deal of Sylves- 
 ter Gray, and had ample opportunities of 
 studying the life he led. What a life it was ! 
 Never was there such a butterfly in this 
 world ; he was here, there, and everywhere. 
 Everyone, save only the married man, was in 
 love with him ; his approval was the hall- 
 mark of excellence, whether it were stamped 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 50 
 
 upon a horse, a cravat, or a woman. At re- 
 ceptions he might always be found in the 
 nookiest nook available, with the most beau- 
 tiful woman in the room ; and the stories of 
 Sylvester’s affaires and of his belles fortunes.^ 
 of his prowess in the Camp of Mars and the 
 Court of Venus, were, as the sand on the sea- 
 shore, innumerable. 
 
 “ Quel gargon said the old men. “ Quel 
 pschutt I'' said the young ones. Quel ad- 
 orable enfant said the young women. ‘‘ Quel 
 frileuxl'"^ said the old ones. “ Quel brute. F said 
 the husbands; but these last kept their 
 opinions to themselves. 
 
 ‘‘ One of these days,” said I to him, ‘‘ you’ll 
 burn your fingers, and fall in love or get into 
 trouble.” 
 
 “The good Lord forbid!” he replied, with 
 holy fervour. “ My mental fingers are made 
 of asbestos ; I haven’t the capacity to fall in 
 love, and I can’t get into trouble because my 
 memory is good and I keep my wits about me. 
 Vogue la galere F and he skipped off to keep 
 some assignation or other, croodling a fragment 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 51 
 
 of some song of the Ambassadeurs, some 
 echo of the Eden or of the Folies Bergeres. 
 
 There was no doubt about the fact that he 
 led a gay life of it. He was the veriest Bo- 
 hemian that ever walked this earth, and a 
 Bohemian of the best sort. He never drank, 
 or gambled, or affected any of the lower vices 
 of the Quartier Latin ; and whilst he was a 
 little tin god on wheels in the Faubourg and 
 the Champs Elysees, he was adored by hordes 
 of impecunious artists whom he mainly 
 supported by his purchases of works of art 
 that he did not want, and by other delicate 
 and indirect forms of a practically boundless 
 charity. 
 
 My time was up, and I returned to Lon- 
 don. Sylvester Gray saw me off at the Gare 
 du Nord, and we made an appointment to 
 meet again at my rooms in Park Street be- 
 fore the London season should have come to 
 its timely end. 
 
 II. 
 
 Sylvester Gray came to London, and 
 his rooms in Jermyn Street, St. James, were the 
 
5 ^ 
 
 Ashes of the Fuhire. 
 
 envy of half the men in town. A man more 
 eminently clubable ” never looked out of a 
 bay-window in Piccadilly ; a man more emi- 
 nently companionable never walked down 
 “ the Row ” with the beauty of the year 
 a more charming conversationalist never suf- 
 fered from an embarras de choix among his 
 invitations to the smartest dinners in town, 
 or to the most delightful country-houses in 
 the kingdom. It therefore caused me the 
 same sort of feeling of appreciation as I had 
 experienced when he took me up ” at Har- 
 row, to know that, with a fortnight’s previous 
 notice, I could always count upon him to 
 dine with me, either tete-a-tete or otherwise. 
 
 He took an intense interest in a little book 
 I was preparing at the time, a “ Practical 
 Handbook of the Vegetable Poisons ” ; and 
 his intimate knowledge of Oriental toxicology 
 was often of the greatest service to me in 
 making my notes and experiments upon the 
 lesser known Oriental alkaloids. His love 
 for abstruse information of this kind, and his 
 store thereof, were infinite and extraordinary. 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 53 
 
 He had brought with him from the East a 
 collection of drugs and plants that he had 
 made over there with a view to giving them 
 to me ; and their value, with his notes upon 
 them, was, to me, inestimable ; and he often 
 startled me with the Borgia-like 7ionchalance 
 with which he would discuss the effects of, 
 and experiment on himself with, the most 
 deadly drugs. 
 
 He would sit with me far into the early 
 hours of the morning, working with me at 
 my manuscripts and my analyses ; and the 
 Medical Times,^ in subsequently reviewing my 
 book, remarked that “ Dr. Tompkins’s data 
 upon Asiatic drugs are the most minute and 
 valuable to be found in medical literature.” 
 But he never referred to the past. It -was 
 only after our companionship had lasted thus 
 for a couple of years that one day, our con- 
 versation having turned upon conscience and 
 remorse and so on, he startled me again by 
 suddenly saying : 
 
 ‘‘ I tell you, Jack, now, as I told you when 
 we first met in Paris, I hardly ever see an 
 
54 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 artizan or a careless clerk strolling in the 
 park on Sunday but I envy him with my 
 whole soul. You are quite right when you 
 say that nobody knows anything about my 
 past life, either in England or abroad. Well, 
 old man. I’ll tell you this. There is some- 
 thing in my life so horrible to remember, that 
 it clouds my enjoyment of every moment of 
 my existence. I can't tell you what it is, but it 
 closes the doors of happiness upon me, and I 
 can never hope to offer a thing so vile as my- 
 self to any woman who may honor me with 
 her love. No matter where the events to 
 which I refer took place, whether here or 
 abroad, whether in the east or in the west ! 
 They hang like a pall over my whole exist- 
 ence , and not only do they prevent my al- 
 lowing myself to lay my worship at the feet 
 of a pure woman, not only do they condemn 
 me to fritter away the sterling coinage of 
 my love in the small change of flirtation, as 
 somebody says in a play somewhere, but 
 my past horror has actually rendered me in- 
 capable of lovirg. I shudder at the very 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 55 
 
 thought of a deep passion ; my heart is dry 
 and sterile, and no woman may ever quicken 
 it into life by the magic of her touch. 
 
 But, my dear Syl, this is dreadful. I 
 guessed that there might be something of 
 this sort on your mind ; now I am a medical 
 man, and though a young one, I am admitted 
 to have had some experience with mental 
 troubles — can’t you bring yourself to tell any 
 one about it ? Surely it would ease your mind.” 
 
 No,” he replied, it is at the same time 
 my curse and my safeguard. If ever, by any 
 horrible chance, I should fall really in love, I 
 should lay my past bare before the woman I 
 cared about, to prevent her, if possible, from 
 loving me; at any rate to show her the real 
 Sylvester Gray that lies hidden under an ex- 
 terior which, fortunately, is not disagreeable 
 to people.” 
 
 I thought over the matter for some time in 
 silence, and when next I spoke it was to 
 deliver to him what, in after times, he always 
 would laughingly refer to as my celebrated 
 oration 
 
56 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 On the Advantages of Confessional 
 Familiarity f 
 
 I believe that the name of the philoso- 
 pher who first formulated the axiom that 
 ‘ Familiarity breeds contempt’ is lost in the 
 roll-call of the crowd that populates the Wal- 
 halla of forgotten dogmatists and proverb- 
 makers. 
 
 “ When we were boys at Harrow together, 
 you remember that there was a dear old gen- 
 tleman, one of the masters of the fourth 
 form — he is dead long ago, God rest his 
 soul! — who used quaintly to observe, when 
 there occurred in the day’s portion of Homer 
 or Virgil a passage of which the meaning 
 was obscure to a depth beyond the reach 
 of even his profound scholarship, ‘ Never 
 mind, laddie ; if I ever meet the author in the 
 future life, I’ll ask him what he meant; never 
 mind about it now.’ I have always felt 
 much the same with regard to this unknown 
 proverbial philosopher. What did he mean ? 
 Did he mean that to be familiar with a sub- 
 ject or object, whether on the physical or on 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 57 
 
 the mental plane, leads one to despise it ? 
 Undoubtedly he did — we may start by ad- 
 mitting thus much. But I would have him 
 tell me the nature of this despite upon which 
 he spoke so oracularly. 
 
 Was it the despite that the gladiator in 
 the coliseum felt for the pampered, plethoric 
 potentate who sat above him on his chrys- 
 elephantine throne, surrounded by his syco- 
 phants and concubines, to laugh when the 
 blood flowed from the wounds torn in his 
 quivering flesh by the savage beasts trained 
 to rend him for the amusement of a Roman 
 emperor ? Or was it the despite he felt for 
 the brute that had wounded him, when it 
 lay writhing in its death agony at his feet, 
 ploughing up the gold dust and cinnabar of 
 the arena, whilst the sweating, brutal mob 
 upon the benches rent the air with their 
 shrieks of ^ Habet ! Habet Was it the 
 contempt that the circus gymnast feels for 
 the danger that he courts for a livelihood, 
 or that which he feels for himself as he 
 prostitutes his manhood in making an exhibi- 
 
58 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 tion of its power ? On what plane must we 
 seek the sentiment that the dogmatist wished 
 to express ? Who can tell ? Shall we not 
 rest content in accepting the proverb as it 
 stands, and let each take from it for himself 
 the meaning that suggests itself to him, and 
 then, when we have interpreted it for our- 
 selves metaphysically, or rather (if I may 
 be allowed the polysyllable) met-egotistico- 
 physically, and we ask ourselves what it all 
 comes to, we have only to repeat, but to 
 repeat with an inflection of voice which 
 conveys its significance only to ourselves, 
 
 ^ Familiarity breeds contempt ! ’ 
 
 “ By this time you will be wondering what 
 I am leading up to. My own interpretation 
 of the axiom, of course ; but what is that ? 
 Do not say my ^ interpretation^ say, rather, 
 my ^application' thereof; and that is as follows 
 — if you will allow me an illustration, instead 
 of the more difficult ‘ definition.' 
 
 “ I am a person who never confides in 
 anybody. I presume that this is the reason 
 why people continually confide in me. Withr 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 59 
 
 out this tendency, however, on the part of 
 my fellow-men, there is no doubt that I 
 should never have arrived at my application 
 of our axiom, and I arrived at it as follows : 
 
 Can anything be more terrible than re- 
 morse, if the remorse is genuine ? Some- 
 times we know it to be purely theatrical, and 
 then it excites contempt rather than sym- 
 pathy ; but when it is real.^ those who have 
 
 seen it are not likely soon to forget the 
 % 
 
 impression that it made upon them. I have 
 seen it — once. And its victim was a woman. 
 
 She was the whole world to a friend of 
 mine; he had no thought that was not hers 
 alone ; the air was purer for him because she 
 breathed it, the sun was brighter for him 
 because it shone upon her — in a word he 
 loved her with that absolute all-absorbing 
 worship that comes to some men once, and 
 to most men never. I had seen a good deal 
 of the girl from her childhood, and she did 
 me the honor of creating me her chief con- 
 fidant. When, therefore, I realized that she 
 was, for some inexplicable reason, making 
 
6o 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 herself and the man to whom I have alluded 
 as my friend, miserable beyond all reasonable 
 limits, by her steadfast refusal to listen to his 
 supplications on his own behalf, I took it 
 upon myself to ask her why she pursued this 
 course with such unbending relentlessness. 
 She answered me that she loved the man from 
 the bottom of her soul, but that her whole 
 life was stained by a past history so black 
 that she would account herself a vile gift to 
 be laid at the feet of the man that she held 
 to be the king among human beings. 
 
 Now, if a counterbalancing axiom were 
 required to go with the proverb we have been 
 discussing, we might take for it, ‘ Confession 
 eases the soul.’ That the two accompany, and 
 are inseparable from one another, I propose at 
 this present to show ; and it was following the 
 line of argument that I am now laying down 
 that I asked my girl-friend to follow her es- 
 tablished precedent and ‘tell me all about 
 it’ 
 
 “‘No,’ said she, ‘the crime, the horror 
 which overshadows my life is too ghastly. 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 6i 
 
 too terrible for me to be able to whisper a 
 word of it to a living soul.’ 
 
 Now, this was absurd; or at any rate 
 there was a strong presumption that it was 
 absurd. I would not for one moment admit 
 the possibility of the literal, actual truth of 
 her statement in her own case — she, a girl of 
 nineteen, the carefully nurtured and only 
 daughter of one of the noblest families in 
 England ! Therefore, there were two ex- 
 planations for this statement of hers, which 
 was made in all good faith, with pale face, 
 wide-stricken eyes, and white lips, which 
 gave testimony to the genuineness of her 
 words, from her own mental standpoint at 
 any rate. 
 
 In the first place, let us admit — let us 
 suppose, for the sake of argument, — that 
 there had been in her life some boy-and-girl 
 ‘ affair ’ ; let us suppose it had terminated in 
 a manner which to a highly-strung, sensitive 
 girl had seemed highly tragic, whereas it had 
 probably ended after a fashion merely mod- 
 erately dramatic. Supposing, I say, for the 
 
62 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 sake of argument, this to have been the case, 
 we have to allow for natural exaggeration. 
 The Turks have a proverb to the effect that 
 ‘ A little hill in a low place fancies itself a 
 mountain ’ ; it is a saying which, like much of 
 the Turkish proverbial philosophy, is founded 
 on a keen appreciation of human nature, and 
 it probably explains my young friend’s mag- 
 nified opinion on the subject of her Past 
 (with a capital ^ P’). It reminds one of the 
 gigantic helmet that creates such an excite- 
 ment in Dryden’s ‘ Battle of the Books,’ in 
 the remotest corner of which, on calm exam- 
 ination, there turns out to be concealed an 
 atrophied head no bigger than a walnut ! 
 It need hardly be said that I did not suggest 
 these ideas to her by way of an invitation of 
 confidence. 
 
 Again, we have to consider the element 
 of hysteria ; and here we tread on the most 
 delicate ground in dealing with an impression- 
 able girl of nineteen ! Excepting to the 
 severely pathological mind, there is something 
 intensely insulting about the idea of events 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 63 
 
 which have profoundly impressed us, never 
 having happened at all ! Once, when I was 
 very much younger, I was nearly garrotted on 
 Chelsea Embankment, opposite Cheyne Walk, 
 on my return from an evening at Carlyle’s. 
 I escaped with difficulty, and only by means 
 of the prompt use of a weapon which I habit- 
 ually carry. A few weeks later, at a dinner- 
 party in the same neighborhood, a medical 
 man was expatiating on the absurdity of 
 stigmatizing the Thames Embankment after 
 nightfall as ‘ dangerous,’ and by way of 
 counter-argument I cited my own experience 
 with the Chelsea desperado. The doctor 
 looked across the table and remarked, ‘ I 
 hope you will not misunderstand me if I say 
 that I don’t believe that the incident you 
 relate ever happened. Your studies in psy- 
 chology, my dear Mr. Tompkins, show you to 
 be endowed with a vivid, analytical imagina- 
 tion. Now, I think — as a medical man — that 
 this experience of yours exists only in that 
 imagination, and its reality to yourself results 
 from an hysterical tendency to which I should 
 
64 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 think you were, like most analytical psy- 
 chologists, singularly subject . It is on the same 
 principle that half-a-dozen innocent persons 
 surrender themselves to justice as the per- 
 petrators of every murder whose real author 
 remains undiscovered/ 
 
 I am free to confess that I felt extremely 
 annoyed ; and the remembrance of that an- 
 noyance was sufficiently strong to prevent 
 my suggesting the same explanation of her 
 Past (with a capital ‘ P ’) to the young per- 
 son whose case I am discussing. 
 
 I therefore urged her to confide to me 
 the story which blackened her soul in her 
 own estimation with such a Cimmerian sable 
 — on the unexpressed principle that, firstly : 
 Confession eases the soul; and secondly: 
 Familiarity (brought about by such con- 
 fession) breeds contempt — contempt for the 
 circumstances which it is advisable to forget ; 
 for we can never forget anything for which 
 we do not feel that unexpressed contempt 
 which prevents our taking the trouble to im- 
 press it on our memories. And this is the 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 65 
 
 despite which the gladiator feels for the dying 
 animal at his feet, a despite born of an appre- 
 ciation of our own physical or mental super- 
 iority over the circumstances which, before 
 we encountered and conquered them, in- 
 spired us with an uneasy apprehension, if not 
 with a positive alarm. 
 
 We have now arrived back once more at 
 the point whence we originally started, and 
 are in a position to ‘ start fresh,’ as it were, 
 with the continuation of the same story. 
 
 ‘‘The young person, whose name I have 
 omitted to mention, having therefore refused 
 absolutely to share her trouble with me by 
 way of confession, I changed the subject of 
 conversation, and presently left her. I took 
 counsel on her case from the ever-ready-to- 
 advise pages of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius 
 Antoninus and from the herb nicotian, and 
 as a result wrote her that evening the follow- 
 ing letter : 
 
 “ I asked you to-day to tell me of your trouble ; 
 1 asked you to confide to my ear the story which, 
 blackening your whole life which is past, stands. 
 
66 
 
 Ash^s of the Future. 
 
 as you say, an insurmountable barrier in the 
 way of your happiness in the future. You re- 
 fused, and no doubt your reasons for doing so 
 were just ; but my reasons for inviting your 
 confidence were none the less cogent, and it is 
 because I wish to suggest to you a substitute for 
 that confidence that I write to you now. I said 
 to you, in inviting the recital, that ‘ Confession 
 eases the soul.^ I should rather have said, 
 ^Familiarity breeds contempt.’ In your case 
 the two proverbs have the same significance and 
 application. I suggest — and I trust that you 
 will act upon my suggestion — that you should 
 write out your story — your confession — call it 
 what you will, for your own eyes alone : that 
 you should, in this written narrative, pay the 
 closest attention to the minute details of your 
 case, and that you should give as much literary 
 completeness thereto as possible ; that you 
 should endeavor to make your story a model of 
 literary ‘form;’ in a phrase, that it should 
 be complete as a ‘word-picture,’ as a faithful 
 verbal representation of your Past. Nothing 
 extenuate, nothing hide ; if any points of your 
 relation redound to your discredit, if any of its 
 circumstances put you to shame, elaborate them 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 67 
 
 to the fullest point. My object in advising 
 this course is as follows: ‘Familiarity breeds 
 contempt;’ conversely ‘Mystery inspires re- 
 spect;’ the unknown is always alarming; but 
 the most awful thoughts, stated in bald English, 
 lose half their terror. So long as you brood 
 upon the events of your Past they will hold you 
 with a morbid, unspeakable interest. You will 
 be a problem to yourself, and you will be contin- 
 ually picturing to yourself the supreme moment 
 when, to some chosen individual, you will lay 
 bare, willingly or unwillingly (either mode is 
 equally dramatic), this cherished secret of your 
 soul. 
 
 “ But follow my advice. Degrade your Past 
 from its altitude as a great dramatico-psycho- 
 logical study to the level of an ordinary word- 
 picture, a vulgar romance, a novelette in fact. 
 You will then find yourself in a position to 
 criticise it from the ordinary artistic point of 
 view ; you will find yourself noting inartistic 
 touches in the relation ; you will find places 
 where your esprit de Vescalier will suggest that 
 you might have adopted a course far superior to 
 the one you actually did adopt ; in fact you will 
 find that your drama was in many respects con- 
 
68 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 temptible. In a word, in familiarizing yourself 
 with this story of yours, which, as it stands at 
 present, is panoplied in the dim magnificence 
 of the unexpressed, you will awaken in your 
 mind a certain contempt for the picture you are 
 criticising; and when once we become critical, 
 illusion is necessarily at an end. Such is man : 
 so long as he admires from a distance he is 
 awed; the moment he touches he is in a position 
 to insult. The beneficial effect of this course 
 in your own case hardly needs, I think, to be 
 pointed out. Your own history, viewed and 
 criticised merely as a work of art, will lose its 
 importance, its horrors, for you ; and when this 
 end has been attained, the remaining gradient 
 — the one which leads to peace of mind — will be 
 easily climbed, and you will reach the broad 
 table-land of contentment, where your life may 
 once more run smoothly and in quiet places.” 
 
 I ceased there. I do not know whether 
 she took my advice or no. From the fact 
 that she never referred to my letter I con- 
 cluded that she did ; at least she subsequently 
 married the friend in whose behalf I had 
 pleaded. 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 69 
 
 Than the illustration which I have intro- 
 duced by the above story, I hardly think that 
 I can give a more complete exposition of my 
 meaning in coupling together the two pro- 
 verbs which stand as the text of my sermon. 
 What I have endeavoured to emphasize is the 
 psychological fact that, to express a thought 
 familiarizes it, and that to familiarize ourselves 
 with a subject which has had any terrors for 
 us, inspires us with a contempt for those ter- 
 rors. Therefore, though I should be very 
 loath to have it quoted as my advice that 
 people should confide in one another the 
 darker chapters of their life’s histories, still, if 
 such gloomy periods of life stand out with 
 undue prominence in the scheme of one’s ex- 
 istence, and throw into shadow the brighter 
 passages, why, then I say that to state the 
 case pictorially robs it of half its solemnity, 
 that familiarity with the subject breeds in us 
 a contempt for it, and that, in this manner, 
 confession — even though it be made only to 
 yourself — eases the soul.” 
 
 I ceased, rather astonished at my own 
 
70 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 volubility and earnestness. Sylvester was 
 lying in the position he had taken up on 
 my sofa when I began, and I was relieved to 
 observe by the regularity with which the 
 smoke from his cigar rose into the air that 
 he had not gone to sleep. When he found 
 that I had really stopped haranguing him, 
 he looked up at me and said seriously : 
 
 Do you know, old man, you’ve quite 
 astonished me; I didn’t think you were 
 such a philosopher. I’ll say this for your 
 sermon, that I quite understand and appre- 
 ciate your point ; but I can’t take your 
 advice. My horror of myself for what is 
 past is due to neither exaggeration nor 
 imagination. Thank God, I have sufficient 
 control over my mind to prevent myself 
 brooding over my story ; but I verily believe 
 that, if I were to concentrate my mind upon 
 it as you suggest, and go over it all again 
 minutely, I should go mad! No, no. Jack; 
 let It lie, let it lie. I don’t suppose for a 
 moment that the occasion will ever arise for 
 me to say anything to anybody about it. 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 71 
 
 Let it die with me when I die, old man. 
 Believe me that, in this case, no amount of 
 familiarity could ever breed contempt, and 
 no amount of confession could ever ease the 
 soul. Now leBs change the subject.” 
 
 We did so, and I never broached the 
 matter to him again. 
 
 III. 
 
 When first, on looking from my window in 
 Rome, this year, I saw the trees on the Monte 
 Pincio bursting into leaf, and the landscape 
 beyond taking a shade of green where before 
 all had been gray and black, I shut up my 
 books, and, rolling up my proof-slips, went 
 out into the warm spring afternoon for my 
 first drive of the year in the Borghese. I 
 found that this happy thought of mine was 
 hardly unique ; the allees^ tho’ not by any 
 means crowded, were very fairly lined with 
 carriages ; and I had not been in the gardens 
 long, before the startling crimson of the 
 Royal liveries, seen in the distance, warned 
 me to be ready to uncover to the beautiful 
 
72 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 Queen Margherita, and a few moments later 
 the same ceremony had to be gone through 
 for His Majesty Umberto U. as he drove his 
 four-in-hand round the villa paths, with the 
 little Prince of Naples, Vittorio Emmanuele, 
 at his side on the box seat. And I lazily 
 wondered, as hundreds have done before 
 me, how the king ever acquired the amazing 
 art of holding the reins of his team in one 
 hand, and his hat, which oscillated in inces- 
 sant salutation, in the other. 
 
 Though I had only been in Rome a little 
 over three months, my acquaintance in the 
 Eternal City had become promiscuous and 
 extensive; and finding that almost every one 
 I knew was in the Burghese, I directed the 
 coachman to seek the less-frequented allees,, 
 and the comparatively deserted outskirts of 
 the park. I had been driving in solitary 
 state for a few moments, when suddenly a 
 victoria met mine in which reclined a singu- 
 larly beautiful, golden-haired woman, who 
 was laughing and chattering gaily with her 
 attendant cavalier. I looked to see who this 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 73 
 
 favoured individual might be ; it was, of 
 course, Sylvester Gray, handsome, insougiant^ 
 calm as ever. He had been in Rome three 
 days, having arrived, bored with himself and 
 everything else, from the Riviera. He saw 
 me, and without the least hesitation or 
 shame hailed me to stop. I did so, and he 
 jumped out and brought me to be presented 
 to his companion, who proved to be an 
 American lady, the wife of a prominent 
 member of the American colony in Rome. 
 We chatted and congratulated ourselves for 
 a few moments, and then drove on our re- 
 spective ways, having noted our respective 
 addresses with a view to a proximate re- 
 encounter. 
 
 After that, for about a fortnight, I saw a 
 good deal of Sylvester, who was still, at the 
 age of thirty, the same incorrigible butterfly 
 that he had always been. Never a reception 
 in the city but he was there, never was a 
 party complete without him ; and certainly a 
 more delightful companion it was impossible 
 to conceive ; he knew everything and every- 
 
74 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 body. From the Coliseum by way of the 
 Capitoline to the Vatican, and from San 
 Paolo fuori dei Porti to the Catacombs of 
 St. Calixtus, he seemed to know the history 
 of every stone in Rome ; and so Sylvester 
 never suffered for want of companionship. 
 His life, aimless as it was, was not without 
 its charms, an ideal existence of laissez aller, 
 as Anthony Trollope used to say of his 
 brother Thomas, ^‘a life of active indolence.” 
 
 An afternoon that shall ever be marked 
 with a crimson stone in the calendar of my 
 life was that on which our ambassador. Sir 
 John Savile Lumley, gave one of the most 
 charming receptions of the year i8 — . I had 
 picked up Sylvester Gray at the Hotel 
 Quirinale, where he had a charming suite of 
 rooms “ in perpetuity,” and had strolled up 
 with him to the Embassy, where the fine 
 fleur of Roman society, aboriginal, colonial, 
 and passagere^ was assembled under the trees 
 on Sir John’s finely-kept lawns. It was a 
 lovely afternoon, and Dame Nature was en- 
 gaged in an active competition with her 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 75 
 
 handmaid, Art, to make the scene as bright 
 and beautiful as it was possible for it to be ; 
 and that is saying a good deal in the full 
 glory of a Roman spring. 
 
 Sylvester and I had been strolling from 
 group to group, and, as of yore, I had felt ab- 
 solutely proud of him as I noted the smiles 
 with which he was greeted by every knot 
 of people whom he approached. We had 
 made the complete round of the garden, 
 when suddenly we came face-to-face with a 
 woman. And Sylvester did a thing I never 
 knew^him to do before; he stopped dead and 
 looked at her. 
 
 She was just stepping out into the garden, 
 the fingers of her left hand lightly resting on 
 the arm of one of the Secretaries of Legation. 
 There is only one word that in any adequate 
 manner describes her, — she was superb. 
 
 She was of medium height, but the mag- 
 nificent dignity of her carriage was such that 
 she gave one the impression of a tall woman. 
 Her dress, an arrangement in black moire 
 and beads, hung in straight lines about her 
 
76 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 supple figure, and showed all its perfections 
 with a fidelity that only such perfection could 
 bear with impunity. Her small, arched foot, 
 in its low slipper, and black silk stocking, 
 arrested the eye as it advanced from be- 
 neath her swaying skirts to step down into 
 the garden, for it seemed ablaze with light as 
 the sun struck the beaded embroidery of the 
 slipper; a broad sash of soft, watered silk 
 seemed, as it were, wrapped round her 
 exquisite waist, and appeared reluctant to 
 allow the curves of her figure to escape from 
 its folds. One of her gloves, whose buff 
 peau de sue'de formed the one point of colour 
 about her, was tucked under this sash with 
 her handkerchief, and revealed by its absence 
 the beauty of the wax-white hand that at the 
 moment was raised to her throat. Her face 
 was almost indescribable, but my first 
 impression was of a hard, almost repel- 
 lent beauty, and of a complexion abso- 
 lutely colorless, of the most perfect blanc-mat 
 hue. The jaw was rather square, and the 
 mouth (accentuated perhaps — but of this a 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 77 
 
 man cannot be sure — by a touch of crimson 
 lip-salve) was straight, calm, and cold. The 
 nose perfectly Greek, the eyes full, but 
 rather deeply set, of a profound brown that 
 most people called black. These were over- 
 shadowed by a pair of straight, fine eyebrows, 
 forming, as it were, the southern boundary of 
 a high, pale forehead, which was surrounded 
 by the tiny curls of her raven black hair, 
 curls that framed her pretty, white ears, as they 
 escaped from beneath the broad brim of a 
 hat turned up on one side a la Gainsborough. 
 She paused on the steps to finish a remark 
 that she was making to the Secretary, and as 
 she stepped into the garden she looked up 
 and caught Sylvester's eyes fixed upon her. 
 
 A great wave of crimson surged up from 
 the beautiful throat to the marble brow, and 
 as instantly died away, leaving the dead 
 white of her complexion as it had been 
 before. 
 
 The Secretary looked up, and, seeing Syl- 
 vester, exclaimed : 
 
 ‘‘ Ah ! Gray !” and then, turning to his 
 
78 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 companion, he said in Italian: Princesse, I 
 beg your permission to present to you a 
 great friend of ours.” And then, indicating 
 Sylvester, who stood bareheaded in the sun- 
 shine, he made the presentation in form : 
 ‘‘ Mr. Sylvester Gray — Madame la Princesse 
 Pamphila-Severi.” 
 
 There is an hour in the life of man that 
 strikes his fate, says some one in an old play ; 
 and Sylvester Gray’s struck at five o’clock on 
 this beautiful March afternoon. 
 
 # * * # * 
 
 It’s not only a hit, it’s a bull’s-eye,” said 
 the Secretary to me, half an hour later, as 
 we passed Sylvester and the Princess Pam- 
 phila-Severi walking slowly round the lawn. 
 They were conversing in Italian. He was 
 talking volubly, with his little conquering 
 air, and she, her eyes fixed on the ground 
 before her, listened to him, the hardness of 
 her expression softened by the half-smile that 
 flickered round her mouth, and by the little 
 spark which illuminated her eyes beneath 
 their long lashes. 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 79 
 
 Who is she ?” I asked. 
 
 ‘‘ Great Heaven ! fancy a man asking 
 who she is ! Ah ! but you’re a stranger, and, 
 in a manner, a recluse. Well, here is her 
 whole history for you. She was the only 
 daughter of the beautiful Marchesa di Santo- 
 Moriani, and on the death of her mother, six 
 years ago, finding herself alone in the world 
 and a beautiful heiress of nineteen, married 
 the young Prince Pamphila-Severi. He was 
 a charming fellow, but jealous as the Moor 
 of Venice, and one day was idiotic enough 
 to grossly insult Vicomte de Brissac, second 
 secretary of the French Embassy, because he 
 had laughingly remarked, before a room-full 
 of people at Prince Torlonia’s, that he would 
 sooner wear in his boutonniere a gardenia 
 given him by the princess than the highest 
 grade of the Legion of Honour ; and as the 
 princess accepted the challenge and held out 
 to him a gardenia from her bouquet, he took 
 the rosette of the Legion from his buttonhole 
 and threw it in her lap. Five minutes after- 
 ward Pamphila-Severi stamped on his toe. 
 
8o 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 and when the Frenchman expostulated he 
 struck him across the face with his glove. 
 De Brissac killed him next morning in the 
 Borghese, and was transferred to St. Peters- 
 burg ; and the princess, six months only 
 after her marriage, became the coldest and 
 most beautiful widow in Rome. But she's 
 badly hit at last, if I mistake not, and you 
 and I are lucky in being here to see the fun, 
 my dear doctor." 
 
 I made up my mind that I had better find 
 my way home alone, and so I took leave of 
 our amiable host and left the Embassy. 
 
 Sylvester, at the door, was putting the beau- 
 tiful Italian into her victoria, and as he did so 
 I heard him say, interrogatively : 
 
 A rivederla^ prmcipina 
 
 A rivederla^ signore; si faccia vedere 
 presto di nuovoP 
 
 La ringrazio, principina^ non mane hero. 
 Andate 'stasera al palazzo?'' 
 
 A moment’s hesitation and a quick blush ; 
 then shortly : 
 
 Si:' 
 
A shes of the Future. 
 
 And the victoria whirled off over the 
 Roman pavement. I took Sylvester by the 
 arm, and said : 
 
 Come and dine with me,” 
 
 ‘‘ Dine?” he replied; not exactly !” But 
 he came all the same. 
 
 ‘‘Are you going to the ball at the Quirinal 
 to-night ?” said he, during the dinner. 
 
 “ No,” I replied. 
 
 “ I must,” said he ; “ she will be there.” 
 
 Until this moment he had not referred to 
 the beautiful princess, and I knew him too 
 well to broach the subject. 
 
 “ Is she pleasant ?” I asked, unconcern- 
 edly. 
 
 “ Pleasant ! She's the most superlatively 
 beautiful, the most maddeningly fascinating 
 woman I ever met !” 
 
 I had heard Sylvester say this of fifty other 
 women, but I never saw such serious symp- 
 toms developed in him before. His silence 
 and evident preoccupation were ominous, 
 and I caught myself wondering, after he had 
 left me to dress for the ball at the palace, 
 
82 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 whether the butterfly had been snared at 
 last. Upon my soul, I hoped so ; but as I 
 lay back in my chair and pushed away my 
 neglected proof-sheets, I found that my mind 
 had wandered back to Harrow and to the 
 little cottage that looked towards London, to 
 Idlesse, to its terraces and rose garden, and 
 a sharp pain flew across my chest and 
 seemed to settle on my throat as, in my 
 mind’s eye, the Princess Stella Pamphila- 
 Severi stood before me, and by her side, 
 radiant in the holy purity of her girlish 
 beauty, there came and stood the wraith of 
 Evelyn Wooster. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Of the progress of this narrative to its 
 terrible termination, I know by personal ob- 
 servation next to nothing. Until the last 
 leaf of this chapter of life had been turned, I 
 counted for nothing in the pages of the 
 story; indeed, I never knew the Princess 
 Pamphila-Severi save by sight and from 
 hearsay, until I had played my part in the 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 83 
 
 last act of the drama whose denouement was 
 so rapidly approaching when Sylvester left 
 my rooms in that cool March evening to 
 dress for the State Ball at the Quirinal. But 
 he frequently spoke to me of his love, of his 
 happiness, and of his misery; and from these 
 confessions, joined to those of the princess, 
 whose intimate friend I had afterward the 
 honour of becoming, and with whom I fre- 
 quently held long, long conversations on the 
 subject of our dear Sylvester, 1 have col- 
 lected, and in a manner compiled, this sec- 
 tion of my story — a section which is, in fact, 
 my story itself. 
 
 ♦ ♦ 5 !^ ♦ * 
 
 Sylvester was not by any means a ‘‘dandy,” 
 but he dressed always with an attention to 
 detail which, to a keen observer, revealed 
 the real man to a very great extent, and was 
 infinitely pleasing. He had a theory on the 
 subject which always struck me, careless 
 though I always was in such matters, as ex- 
 cellent. 
 
 “ A man or a woman can only appear at 
 
84 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 his best intellectually, when he knows that his 
 appearance is beyond criticism,^’ he used to 
 say. ‘‘ I have seen a charming man and a 
 brilliant conversationalist put absolutely hors 
 de combat by the knowledge that he had been 
 splashed with mud on his way to a reception. 
 I have seen a woman entirely lose her sense 
 of dignity and repose by a terrible fear that 
 her hair was coming down ; and I have 
 seen a lecturer lose the whole thread of his 
 discourse in consequence of his cravat becom- 
 ing disarranged. It is therefore one^s duty 
 to oneself and to the world at large to be 
 perfectly ‘ turned out ^ at all points.’^ 
 
 Sylvester’s court dress was a sartorial tri- 
 umph. His coat and breeches were of the 
 darkest blue velvet, and innocent of the 
 slightest wrinkle ; his buttons and the hilt of 
 his sword were of the most exquisite work- 
 manship ; and as he entered the ball-room of 
 the Palazzo on this eventful evening, dressed 
 with the supremest care, and with the Order 
 of the Annunziata hanging below his cravat, 
 he was well worthy of the silent homage that 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 8s 
 
 was paid him in the admiring scrutiny of the 
 throng that circulated in all directions. In- 
 deed, it would have been difficult to have 
 found a more perfect specimen of the genus 
 homo as he stood out from the crowd in an- 
 swer to a summons from one of the Queen's 
 gentlemen-in-waiting, to engage in a short 
 conversation with her Majesty, to whom, 
 as an old habitue of the Eternal City, he was 
 well known. 
 
 The ball was at its height when, leaning on 
 the arm of her uncle, the old Prince Marcel- 
 lini, the Princess Stella Pamphila-Severi made 
 her appearance. There was a slight move- 
 ment at the principal entry as she stepped 
 into the room, dressed, as usual, in swaying 
 black, embroidered in jet, her sole ornaments 
 a band of diamonds encircling her wrist, and 
 a diamond crescent set amid the raven masses 
 of her hair. As she made her obeisance to 
 Queen Margherita, no eyes were more fasci- 
 nated by the dignity and beauty of her pres- 
 ence than those of Sylvester Gray, as he stood 
 against a pillar at the end of the room, 
 
86 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 waiting for the signal that should call him to 
 her side. 
 
 It came at length, when she had dismissed 
 . the last of the more eager candidates for rec- 
 ognition, and Sylvester advanced and took 
 his place at her side with the little imperious 
 and almost proprietary air that was natural to 
 him and seemed offensive to no one. A 
 moment later an aide-de-camp spoke a few 
 words to Prince Marcellini, and, having smil- 
 ingly dismissed her escort with a little inclina- 
 tion of the head, the Princess Stella found her- 
 self alone in the crowd with Sylvester Gray. 
 
 “ And how have you spent the time since 
 we met this afternoon. Signor Gray ?” asked 
 she, turning her eyes full upon him. 
 
 “ I have been with my friend, the English 
 Dr. Tompkins, Princesse. He had not the 
 honour of an introduction to you at Sir John’s, 
 and so I had an eager listener, for whose 
 benefit I could put my thoughts continuously 
 into words.” 
 
 Ah ?” — this with a little ironical inflect- 
 ion — “ they were pleasant ones, I hope.” 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 87 
 
 They were exclusively of you, Princesse.” 
 
 Of course ! And of what else ?” 
 
 Of myself, naturally.” 
 
 Yes, naturally. At that point ot the con- 
 versation, or rather of the monologue, you 
 must have been really interesting and elo- 
 quent, Signor Gray.” 
 
 “ You are pleased to be sarcastic, Prin- 
 cesse. I wish I could flatter myself that the 
 most eloquent recital of the doings and say- 
 ings of Sylvester Gray could awaken an inter- 
 est, however slight, in the mind of the Prin- 
 cess Pamphila-Severi.” 
 
 Do you really ? See, is it not close and 
 crowded here ? Let us be seated a few mo- 
 ments in this ante-room. Do I keep you 
 from your friends ?” 
 
 I have no friends, Princesse, when I am 
 with you. Indeed, I have no interest in life, 
 nothing, save to be by your side, to hear you 
 speak, and when I dare, to answer you.” 
 
 Ah ?” as before. 
 
 All this had been said on either side half- 
 laughingly, half-seriously. Sylvester was con 
 
88 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 scious of a nervous curl at the corners of his 
 mouth, and felt himself growing more and 
 more grave, as the Princess Stella, in smil- 
 ing, displayed her exquisite, snowy teeth, and 
 her eyes blazed with the genuine amusement 
 of a beautiful woman who knows her power 
 and uses it boldly, half fearful the while of 
 its effects, and of its possible ‘‘ boomerang ” 
 qualities. 
 
 They had taken a couple of arm-chairs 
 in the little ante-room. In one of them the 
 Princess Stella had thrown herself in a 
 graceful, easy pose, and shading her eyes 
 from the light with her black feather fan, was 
 looking out from underneath it with an 
 amused expression at Sylvester, who, seated 
 opposite her, with his elbows on his knees, 
 and playing nervously — for him — with the 
 lace of his cocked hat, was looking back at 
 her, his eyebrows slightly contracted, as if he 
 hardly knew what to make of the beautiful 
 woman before him. Hitherto he had found 
 them all the same, varying only in rapidity 
 r.nd degree of conquest; this was anew va- 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 89 
 
 riety. There was something infinitely allur- 
 ing in the parted, crimson lips and exquisite 
 teeth, that was strangely modified by the 
 bafilkig, almost repellent, look which shone 
 out of the deep-brown eyes, even when 
 they sparkled with the intensest amusement. 
 
 “ Here is a woman,” thought he, who 
 would lure a man to the verge of destruction 
 and leave him there, and be as cold as ice 
 through it all. And yet, only to look at her 
 makes my heart beat as if I were a boy of 
 sixteen.” 
 
 ‘‘Well,” said the Princess, breaking the 
 silence at length, “ you were going to tell me 
 about yourself.” 
 
 “ Was I ?” 
 
 “You as good as said you were; and I 
 want you to. There’s a confession to lead 
 olf with. Now, be equally frank with me. 
 Come! Avanti T 
 
 “ Really, Princesse, you are flattering in- 
 deed. What do you want to know about me ?” 
 
 “ Everything — from the beginning.” Still 
 the same little mocking smile. 
 
90 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 “ Well, I was born of poor but honest par- 
 ents, not a hundred miles from 
 
 What ! I was being serious, for once in a 
 while, Signore/' 
 
 And I also.” 
 
 ‘‘Very well, then; it is quite obvious that 
 we are both out of our element at a ball* 
 Will you take me back ? I must find my 
 good uncle, who will be wanting to leave.” 
 
 “ Ah ! do not go, I beg of you. Come, 
 be seated, Princesse, and I will tell you 
 everything that I have ever done that is likely 
 to interest you.” 
 
 “ Cielo I Signor Gray. Why, I am sure I 
 should be here until next year if I were to 
 yield to the maddening temptation which I 
 feel to accept your offer. Come, it is late, 
 and I must fly. Ah ! how can you utter such 
 a banalite? The word ‘ angel’ would have 
 risen to the lips of every other man in the 
 room; I did not expect it of you. Do you 
 know,” she added, as Sylvester rose reluct- 
 antly to escort her back to the ball-room, 
 “ you are very different from most English- 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 91 
 
 men I have met. In fact, you are really in- 
 teresting to me, and I am hard to interest. I 
 checked your confidences just now; you 
 shall make them to me to-morrow, at four, if 
 you will. Ah ! Prince, I was looking for 
 you.” 
 
 And transferring her hand from Sylvester’s 
 arm to that of her uncle, who gravely saluted 
 her late cavalier, the Princess Stella was 
 gone. 
 
 A few minutes later, wrapping his cloak 
 around him. Gray left the Quirinal, and, turn- 
 ing to the right instead of to the left, reached 
 the Porta Pia, which he passed in spite of 
 the remonstrance of the sentinel, who warned 
 him that the Campagna was unsafe after night- 
 fall, and struck out across country to be alone 
 with his thoughts. 
 
 What they were, it would have been diffi- 
 cult even for himself to say. Of one thing he 
 was certain ; he had never been so fascinated, 
 so violently attracted by any woman before. 
 He could not understand her, and, priding 
 himself on an intimate knowledge of the ways 
 
92 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 of woman, gathered from a wide experience 
 of the sex, he was filled with an unreasoning 
 anger against himself, against her, and against 
 the world at large, at finding himself baffled 
 absolutely and completely by this enigmatical 
 specimen. Honestly, he was at fault. He 
 could not account for her, and for her man- 
 ner of treating him. He felt, he knew that 
 she was attracted by him, and yet she re- 
 pelled him, at once, by her wilfully transparent 
 misunderstanding of his words, and by the 
 calm dignity with which she seemed to treat 
 him as a spoiled child. Her very frankness 
 was galling to him, and yet she must care for 
 him beyond a mere acquaintanceship or she 
 would not have defied Italian social etiquette 
 by singling him out for a tete-a-tHe in the 
 midst of the gossiping crowd at the Palazzo 
 Quirinale. If she didn^t^ she was a heartless 
 coquette. At this moment something inside 
 himself said very rudely and distinctly, 
 “You’re another.” 
 
 This was a new aspect of the case. Did 
 he want her to care for him more than 
 
Ashes of the Futtire. 
 
 ' 93 
 
 merely as an acquaintance? Yes, a thou- 
 sand times, yes ! Well, and what then? Was 
 he prepared calmly and deliberately to flirt 
 with her, to make love to her as he had 
 done, and with complete success, to a hun- 
 dred women before her ? No, the idea was 
 revolting. Could he imagine her as his wife? 
 The cold glitter of those wonderful eyes rose 
 before him in the darkness, and he felt some- 
 thing of the terror that one feels for some 
 beautiful wild beast that one longs to caress 
 and to fondle, but which one pets very 
 watchfully, and then carefully locks back in 
 its cage before turning one's attention to 
 something else. As the fever of his imagina- 
 tion increased, he pictured her to himself 
 throwing herself into his arms and looking 
 up into his eyes, and as in his waking dream 
 he bent to kiss them, those wonderful lips, 
 with their delicate, artificial touch of crimson, 
 parted in a little mocking smile, and revealed 
 the clinched white teeth within them, whilst 
 he could almost hear the low soft laugh that 
 rippled from them, as he thrust the beautiful 
 
94 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 head away from him, repelled by something 
 essentially indefinable, essentially fiendish. 
 
 No, certainly, no. He was not in love 
 with her in the ordinary sense of the term. 
 It would have seemed horrid to him if she 
 had been in love with him; there was nothing 
 gross, nothing material in his feeling for her, 
 but he knew that to sit near her, to talk to 
 her, to watch the varying expression of her 
 matchless, proud face, to inhale the exquisite 
 fragrance that she spread around her as she 
 moved — all this was a sensuous ecstasy in 
 which there was nothing earthly, nothing 
 sordid. Then he flew into a violent temper 
 with himself for having paid her empty com- 
 pliments, instead of talking seriously during 
 that little tete-a-tete. It was his own cursed 
 folly that had cut their conversation short. 
 Why did he treat her as an ordinary woman, 
 when he had felt that she was unique from 
 the instant he had first laid his eyes upon her? 
 Great Heavens ! It was only this after- 
 noon! 
 
 He would see her to-morrow — to-morrow 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 95 
 
 — in the afternoon. Well, he had plenty to 
 do between this and then ; the time would 
 fly. (Oh! Sylvester, Sylvester!) How would 
 she receive him ? He felt that if she should be 
 as tempting and repellent, kind and sarcastic 
 as she had been to-day, he would be irritated, 
 angry. Diable ! he was not a child, was he ? 
 Very well then. If she, so to speak, hauled 
 down her colours and came like a lamb to the 
 slaughter, he knew that she would fall forever 
 in his estimation ; he would hate her. What 
 did he want? Never mind, he would go 
 there and — 
 
 Carita, signore, per amore di Dio.’’ 
 
 A vile-looking lazzarone of the Campagna, 
 in filthy contadino costume, stood before him 
 with outstretched hand, asking for alms. 
 He passed on, angry at the interruption. 
 
 “ Carita, signore, carita ! ” 
 
 The beggar was keeping up alongside, 
 and the demand had something of a threat 
 in it. Sylvester Gray looked down at the 
 revolting creature trotting by his side, noted 
 the tremendous muscles of the chest and of 
 
96 
 
 Ashes of the Future, 
 
 the extended arm, the covetous leer in the 
 wicked eyes, and the grin which illuminated 
 his face in the moonlight, as the blackguard 
 eyed the sparkling buttons on Sylvester’s 
 court dress and the jewel of the Annunziata 
 hanging at his neck. Gray suddenly awoke 
 to the fact that he was probably a coupje 
 of miles beyond the walls of Rome, and that 
 he had carelessly let his cloak swing open, 
 allowing the cut steel facets and the gems of 
 his ornaments to sparkle in the moonlight. 
 He put his hand into his pocket. As 
 is usual under such circumstances and in 
 such costume, he had not a centime with 
 him. 
 
 ‘‘ I have no money,” said he shortly, in 
 Italian. 
 
 ‘‘ Oh yes, you have, signore.” 
 
 “ I have not.” 
 
 Then give me that,” and the lazzarone 
 pointed to the order of the Annunziata. 
 
 Take care,” cried Sylvester, springing 
 back a couple of yards. 
 
 “ Take care yourself,” said the bandit, and 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 97 
 
 drawing a long stiletto from his sheepskin he 
 sprang forward. 
 
 Quick as thought, Sylvester whipped his 
 rapier from its sheath, presenting the point 
 at the bosom of the man, who had not imag- 
 ined that his opponent was armed, and could 
 not check the impetus with which he had 
 sprung forward. 
 
 The sword passed through his body and 
 stuck out at his back. As he fell with a sob 
 to the ground, the narrow blade snapped, 
 and Sylvester stood with the remaining frag- 
 ment in his hand, looking at the wretch lying 
 at his feet. The blade had passed through 
 his heart — in a moment it was over — he was 
 quite dead. 
 
 He lay there in the moonlight, his gray- 
 white face turned up to the sky, and Sylves- 
 ter, as he looked at him, found himself 
 vaguely wondering what this man’s history 
 might be. Had he any relations waiting in 
 some cabin of the Campagna for his return 
 laden with the spoils of the night’s work, or 
 was he some solitary drunken vagabond. 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 living alone on the proceeds of his vagabond- 
 age? — who could tell? Not Sylvester. At 
 that moment something sparkled in the dust 
 close to the dead man’s head. Gray stooped 
 to pick it up ; it was simply a common peb- 
 ble with a drop of dew upon it that had 
 reflected a moonbeam like a gem. He tossed 
 it from him, slightly irritated at having 
 troubled himself to pick it up ; then he thrust 
 the broken sword into his scabbard. How 
 queerly the empty lower part of the scabbard 
 wobbled as he shook it, almost like the flexi- 
 ble top of a fishing rod ; it felt dead. Then 
 be turned and walked back to the Porta Pia 
 and so, down past the Piazza Aldobrandini, 
 to the Via Nazionale and his hotel. Wearied 
 out, he retired at once to bed, and fell asleep 
 almost immediately. 
 
 He dreamt that once more he walked down 
 the solitary road leading out onto the Cam- 
 pagna. The Princess Stella walked a few 
 paces in front of him, and despite his most 
 agonized eflbrts he could not overtake her. 
 At last they came to a kind of Chapelle 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 99 
 
 Ardente., in which were ranged three biers, 
 two only of which were occupied by corpses. 
 On the first lay Evelyn Wooster, on the 
 second the lazzarone whom he had killed a 
 few hours since, and whom, in the obsession 
 of his mind, he seemed already to have for- 
 gotten ; the Princess stood at the head of 
 the third, and he at its feet . 
 
 ‘‘Well, Signor Gray,” said she, with her 
 mocking smile, showing her exquisite teeth, 
 “ is this for you or for me ?” 
 
 A wild fury seemed to seize him as he 
 strove to catch her to thrust her down upon 
 the empty bier; but she escaped him, dodg- 
 ing in between and around the two corpses, 
 over which she ran her fingers, as if over the 
 keys of a piano, as she skipped round them. 
 At last, just as he thought to hold her, he 
 caught his foot upon the end trestle of the 
 vacant bier and fell extended upon it. Once 
 there, he was powerless to move a finger, and 
 he lay watching the princess as she advanced 
 towards him ; then she stooped still lower — 
 and kissed him — 
 
100 
 
 Askes of the Future. 
 
 # # # # # 
 
 Sylvester woke, trembling in every limb. 
 It was -late, and he rose and dressed himself 
 carefully to go about the occupations of the 
 day. 
 
 # * * * * 
 
 Four o’clock came, and almost on the 
 stroke of the hour he passed beneath the 
 porte cochere of the Palazzo Sever!. On the 
 rim of the basin into which the water fell 
 from the faucets of a Renaissance fountain, sat 
 two cats, the one snow-white, the other spot- 
 lessly black. Both wore golden collars round 
 their necks, and both watched the water with 
 unblinking, emerald eyes. As Sylvester ap- 
 proached, one of them — the white one — rose 
 lazily and stretched himself, closing his eyes 
 luxuriously, so as to enjoy the operation to 
 the utmost, the extended claws of his fore- 
 feet giving him a firm hold of the roughened 
 stone. Sylvester Gray passed on ; he didn’t 
 like cats. 
 
 The grave mditre cV hotel showed him into 
 a gorgeous salon at the top of a flight of 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 lOI 
 
 massive steps, and a feeling of sacramental 
 gloom came over him at the idea of meeting 
 the princess amid such surroundings. Next 
 moment a smiling Parisian maid entered the 
 salon by a portiere at the farther end, and 
 summoned him to the presence of her mis- 
 tress. 
 
 The Princess Stella’s boudoir was hung with 
 embroidered curtains of a pinkish yellow — of a 
 faded Gloire de Dijon rose-color ; a few cab- 
 inets of Venetian Renaissance carving were 
 strewn with gold and silver knick-nacks of 
 all kinds. A brazen candelabrum of Venetian 
 workmanship hung from the ceiling, and the 
 floor was strewn with skins of animals. In 
 one corner, on an easel, stood a small Meis- 
 sonnier; in another stood a second easel 
 bearing an exquisite Greuze. A book-case 
 of carved ebony occupied the space between 
 the windows, which were filled with the most 
 delicately tinted Murano glass; and on an 
 occasional-table stood a Chinese idol grinning 
 with smug self-satisfaction at his own superla- 
 tive ugliness. A door, concealed by a portiere^ 
 
102 
 
 A shes of the Future, 
 
 led into an inner room, and on a low divan 
 covered entirely by a bear-skin of the deepest 
 black, lay the Princess Stella. 
 
 She was wrapped, rather than clothed, in 
 the loose folds of a light murrey -colored cash- 
 mere ; her feet, clad in striped silk, were thrust 
 carelessly into oriental slippers; and she raised 
 herself upon one arm as she extended the 
 other to shake Sylvester by the hand. 
 
 So you have come — really come. Signor 
 Gray, in spite of all your other engage- 
 ments 
 
 I would, Princesse, that it were possible 
 for me to stay away; but when you have said 
 ‘ come,^ I have no longer any engagements.” 
 
 ‘‘ Ah ! Ah ! Ah ! Voila que ga recom- 
 mence I Do not, I beg of you. Let us be 
 sensible; sit down. Seriously, I am glad to 
 see you: — I have looked forward all day to 
 your coming, and now you are here, you 
 must not waste time in banalith and compli- 
 ments. And what have you been doing since 
 we parted last night ?” 
 
 Oh ! the usual things. I spent the morn- 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 103 
 
 ing in calling and writing, the afternoon in 
 writing and calling. Nothing of any interest 
 disturbs the even current of my life.” 
 
 And he is afraid to tell me that he has 
 killed a man with those handsome white hands 
 of his !” This lightly and without looking at 
 him. 
 
 Princesse !” 
 
 You are astonished ? That is not right. 
 Emotions do not come well to Signor Syl- 
 vester Gray ; they cause wrinkles and gray 
 hairs, and are bad. Besides, you must never 
 be astonished at anything I say to you. Ah !’’ 
 as he was about to interrupt her, I know 
 many things, and you must not seek to know 
 how.” 
 
 “ But, Princesse, I know I was alone on 
 the Campagna. There were no witnesses to 
 his death but the stars above us.” 
 
 Ah ! then you did kill him ?” 
 
 In Heaven^s name, what does this mean ?” 
 
 “ It means, Signor Gray, that I saw you, 
 as you left the palace, turn up towards the 
 Porta Pia. I knew the dangers of the Cam- 
 
104 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 pagna, and I was frightened — yes, frightened 
 for you; and when I arrived here I sent a 
 servant to follow you, but he only heard from 
 a contadino.^ who was entering the gates, that 
 a lazzarone had been killed some distance 
 from the city. Oh ! my friend, but I was 
 frightened, and have been wretched for fear 
 that you also were hurt.” 
 
 “ And you have taken the pains to inquire 
 about me ?” 
 
 Yes. Are you surprised ?” 
 
 Surprised ! 1 am overwhelmed. What 
 
 can I be to you, that you should care what 
 becomes of me ?” 
 
 ‘‘ Only this. Signore, that you are the only 
 man that has ever attracted — has ever inter- 
 ested me. Do you think it very wrong that 
 I should indulge myself thus, for the first time 
 in my life ?” 
 
 “ And I — what shall I say to you — what 
 shall I say to you ?” He sank upon his knees 
 by her side, and covered her exquisite hands 
 with kisses. How I love you !” he mur- 
 mured; how I love you !” 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 105 
 
 For a moment she did not stir. He looked 
 up at the grand, dark eyes that were fixed 
 upon his in a gaze of infinite tenderness; and 
 even as he looked, his thoughts wandered, in 
 rebellion against his will, to the other women 
 at whose side he had knelt in just such a 
 manner, and to whom he had spoken just 
 such words oftentimes before. His thought 
 seemed to communicate itself to her. She 
 grew a shade paler, as she bade him rise with 
 a little imperious gesture. 
 
 ‘‘ Do not talk to me like that, I beg of you,’^ 
 she said. “ Keep such idle words for the 
 other women. I do not ask them of you. 
 It is enough for me that I care for you, and 
 that it is a delight for me that you should 
 come and sit here and talk to me. Never 
 tell me that you love me. Signor Gray. I 
 shall not believe it.” 
 
 But I tell you it is true, true, true. You 
 must, you believe it.” 
 
 She looked at him for a moment almost 
 mournfully, and then, her lips wreathing 
 themselves into the well-known mocking 
 
io6 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 smile that he had learned already to dread, she 
 slowly shook her head and murmured, No, 
 no, no. It is not true.” 
 
 Sylvester started to his feet, and began 
 pacing to and fro across the skins strewn upon 
 the floor. He stood still, at last, a few paces 
 from her, and said, in a dry, choking voice, 
 
 God help me ! I do not know what to 
 say to you.” 
 
 No,” she replied, you have said it all so 
 often that it has become mechanical, a mere 
 theatrical pose.^ a mise-en-scene. You cannot 
 think of anything new to say to me, of any- 
 thing that you have not continually said to 
 your other victims. Ah ! my friend, do not 
 imagine that I am going to swell the number, 
 am going to write my name at the foot of the 
 list. No, no!” 
 
 Princesse, angela mia^ do not be so cruel 
 to me. Look at me as I stand before you. 
 Supposing I confess to you, what you know 
 already, that I have laid my homage at the 
 feet of other women ; granted that all this 
 has made me a crawling, abject wretch, not 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 107 
 
 fit to lay my worthless self in the dust before 
 you ; can you not believe me when I tell 
 you that I have never known love till now, 
 that I adore you ?” 
 
 No,” said she slowly, “ I cannot believe 
 you. You must have said all this to others 
 before me, and much more. Why should I 
 flatter myself that at last you are telling the 
 truth ?” 
 
 But if I am not, why should I be here ?” 
 
 “ For two reasons: first, you know that I 
 love you — aye, love you, Signor Gray, but it 
 is a confession of strength and not of weak- 
 ness — and you are flattered and would will- 
 ingly add the Princess Stella Pamphila- 
 Severi to your conquests ; and secondly, you 
 think it pleases me to hear you say, ‘ I love 
 you.’ But it does not, it does not. I hate 
 to hear you say it. I would give my soul to 
 be able to believe you, but I cannot. You 
 are playing with me as you have always 
 played with women, and always will ; and I — 
 well, it is enough for me to know that I 
 value your companionship, your friendship — 
 
io8 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 do not mistake me — above anything else in 
 the world. Oh, how I wish you would be a 
 brother to me ! I should not care for what 
 the world would say of us. Is this impossible, 
 think you?” 
 
 He paused for a moment, and then, in a 
 half-mocking tone, he replied : 
 
 Not at all, Princesse. I will be a 
 brother to you. I will come and talk to you 
 of my plans, of my pleasures, of my triumphs 
 in the camp of Mars and the court of Venus^ 
 and when I marry — when I marry ^ I say — you 
 shall be the first to wish me joy. Vi piace 
 cosi?"' He laughed a little, hard, dry laugh, 
 and flung himself into a chair at a little dis- 
 tance, watching her as she became white and 
 crimson by turns, and then he added, ‘‘ You 
 see, Princesse, it is hardly the same thing, is 
 it ? hardly the same ?” 
 
 No,” she said, covering her face with her 
 hands, ‘‘ it is not the same thing.” 
 
 And yet you would fain believe me ; tell 
 me why you cannot do so.” 
 
 ‘‘ Answer me, rather, why can you not 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 109 
 
 fnake me believe you, if it is true, this that 
 you say, that you love me 
 
 ‘‘ I do not know. I cannot tell,” 
 
 And even as he said the words, the reason 
 stood out clearly in his mind. He could not 
 impart a tone of sincerity to the words he 
 had said so often, sincere, agonizingly sin- 
 cere, though they were at this moment. At 
 last he loved — loved truly, deeply, passion- 
 ately; but between him and his love there 
 rose the impassable barrier of his past life, 
 that stood like a wall of ice between them. 
 
 And so he turned to go, sick at heart, 
 overwhelmed by this calamity with which he 
 knew not how to grapple, how to contend. 
 
 ‘‘ You will come again soon ?” she said. 
 
 “ Whenever you will.” 
 
 Then to-morrow ?” 
 
 To-morrow,” he said, reflectively, search- 
 ing his mind for the engagements he had 
 made. 
 
 She saw his hesitation, and exclaimed, 
 petulantly : 
 
 There, there, go ! and come when you 
 
I lO 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 have time to spare. I will not burden your 
 mind with thoughts of me. Go, go !” 
 
 ‘‘ To-morrow, then,’’ he exclaimed, reck- 
 lessly, to-morrow be it, and so a rivederla, 
 Princesse. To-morrow at this time.” 
 
 He kissed the hand that she extended to 
 him, and then gazed into her eyes, a mute, 
 longing appeal for permission to kiss the lips 
 closed in such rigid determination. She 
 divined his thought and answered : 
 
 “ No, no; you must leave me.’* 
 
 So he left her; every pulse beating wildly, 
 tumultuously, the blood coursing through his 
 veins like a torrent of flame. The position 
 was new, overwhelming, agonizing. He 
 could hardly think; at every moment he saw 
 the beautiful face before him, and his dream 
 of last night returned to his mind with a 
 vividness that was appalling. 
 
 v. 
 
 On leaving the Palazzo Severi, Sylvester 
 turned into the Corso, hardly noticing the 
 direction in which his steps were leading him. 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 crossed the Via Nazionale, and reaching the 
 foot of the Capitoline, scaled the steps lead- 
 to the Piazza del Campidoglio, and leaning 
 on the parapet, looked out over the Forum. 
 Far away in the twilight he could see the 
 wooded space stretching out beyond the 
 Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine, and 
 crossing the Forum and taking the Via Gre* 
 goriana almost unconsciously, he was soon 
 beyond the gates and strolling along the 
 Appian Way in the direction of the catacombs 
 of St. Calixtus. At the catacombs he turned 
 on his footsteps and returned to the city. 
 He reached the Hotel Quirinale at about 
 eight, wearied out with the strain upon his 
 mind, and flung himself into an arm-chair to 
 continue the thread of thought that he had 
 been spinning ever since he had left the 
 Princess Pamphila-Severi. 
 
 What was the note missing from the chord 
 he had tried in vain to strike in chaunting his 
 song of worship to the Princess Stella. He 
 had never failed before in persuading women 
 that he loved them ; why should the moment 
 
I 12 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 of his defeat be postponed until the very 
 moment when the thought of failure was an 
 agony too great to be borne ? Something 
 told him that it was for the very reason that 
 he had hitherto been acting a part, that he 
 could not throw his whole soul into his words 
 when at last the curtain fell upon the comedy, 
 and a scene of the drama of real life began to 
 be enacted behind it. 
 
 ‘‘ If I tell her,'’ thought he, that I love 
 but her, the thought of this woman or that 
 woman who has believed it before this, will 
 come between us like a barrier of brass. I 
 have said all there is to be said so often, so 
 thoughtlessly, so unmeaningly, that now, in 
 her presence, it seems sacrilege even to think 
 these worn-out platitudes of experimental 
 love. I must find some means of proving 
 my love to her, of laying open before her the 
 truth that lies at the bottom of my soul. The 
 truth! My God! what am I dreaming of? 
 Do I propose to myself to go in cold blood 
 to her and tell her that whole horrible story ? 
 No, a thousand times no ! I would rather kill 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 113 
 
 myself. But how can I go to her and say : I 
 love you ; I love you, and I cannot live with- 
 out you !” with that horrible crime on the soul 
 that I fling at her feet ? If I could succeed 
 in convincing her and in making her my 
 own, how could I live with between us? 
 And suppose that, having given me her 
 love, some day she should learn about it ? 
 She knows the life, the careless, cruel life 
 that I have led ; but she can never guess 
 that it is that terrible fragment of a past, in 
 other respects forgotten, that has prevented 
 my marrying, has till now extinguished even 
 my power to love. To tell her or not to 
 tell her — what shall I do ? Surely she will 
 believe me when I have torn out my soul for 
 her in recalling all the ghastly horror of ten 
 years ago, so that she may know how vile a 
 thing it is that grovels in the dust before her ; 
 and yet, when it is told — and what greater 
 proof of my love can I offer her than the 
 telling? — what if the horror of it should make 
 her loathe me, and 1 should never see her 
 again ? Oh God ! what a punishment is this ! 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 1 14 
 
 what a punishment ! How richly I have 
 deserved it all ; and yet, had you lived, oh 
 my sweet, first Love, how you would have 
 pardoned me, and spared me the agony of 
 these ten years !” 
 
 And as he thought of Evelyn Wooster, the 
 dream-face that he conjured up was oblit- 
 erated by a reclining figure with laughing 
 black-brown eyes, with crimson lips and teeth 
 of driven snow, which held up a dainty, white 
 hand for him to kiss, and said in a half-re- 
 gretful tone : 
 
 How I wish I could believe you. Signor 
 Gray ; how I wish I could believe you !” 
 
 # # # # # 
 
 He rose at last, and having changed his 
 dress, issued forth in the direction of the new 
 quarter that has raised its pallid house-fronts 
 against the blue Italian sky, round the pre- 
 cincts of St. John of the Lateran, to call 
 upon the friend with whom I had seen him 
 driving that first day in the Borghese, a pro- 
 minent member of the American colony that 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 115 
 
 has always kept, and always will keep, things 
 lively in the Eternal City. 
 
 As good luck would have it, he found her 
 in and alone, and after the first greetings 
 were over he opened his case with the ques- 
 tion : 
 
 ‘‘ Have you read Dostoievski’s ‘ Le Crime 
 et le Chatiment ?’ 
 
 ‘‘ Yes — what of it ?” 
 
 ‘‘ Oh, nothing ! only I was thinking of it 
 to-day. It is a book which gives one a 
 good deal of food for thought, does it not ?” 
 
 Well, yes. But what particular passage 
 has made so profound an impression upon 
 the placid and unimpressionable Sylvester 
 Gray ?” 
 
 Several passages ; but particularly the 
 one where Rodia tells Sonia that it was he 
 who murdered the old woman. Do you 
 think he ought to have told her ? That it 
 was either his duty, or expedient to do so ?” 
 
 Well, the circumstances were peculiar. 
 Sonia being a woman of the town, for whom 
 his feelings were not so much love as an in- 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 1 16 
 
 describable and almost morbid attraction, he 
 could not expect that his confession would 
 have such an effect upon her as it would on 
 an innocent and pure-minded woman. And 
 again, you see he did not confess to her as a 
 proof of his love, but was rather actuated by 
 the selfish motive of relieving his own mind 
 of half of the burden, and, by confessing to 
 her, of making her carry half of it. It was 
 as necessary for his enfeebled mind to tell 
 somebody his secret as it was for the barber 
 of King Midas ; and she, in her degraded 
 condition, was the only creature he felt fit to 
 associate with. It was the sympathy of 
 infamy, not the confidence of love.” 
 
 ‘‘ Then you do not think that had they been 
 truly />/ love with, one another he would equally 
 have confessed, and that had she been ‘ an 
 ideal woman,’ he ought to have done so ?” 
 
 ‘‘ Certainly not! No man has any right 
 to -shatter the confidence of a woman by the 
 confession of his previous follies — well, crimes 
 if you will. If the thing is long past and 
 forgotten, it is his duty to die keeping his 
 
A shes of the Future. 
 
 117 
 
 secret ; his wife can never guess it alone, and 
 to confess it to her before or after marriage 
 is purely cowardly. It is not the result of 
 a high-souled honesty, it is simply a selfish 
 horror of paying the penalty of a sin in the 
 past by keeping the secret to oneself and 
 being the only sufferer in the present.” 
 
 And supposing there is always a pos- 
 sibility of the man's sin being discovered ? 
 Do you not think that the constant dread 
 must dwarf his love, and paralyze his efforts 
 to devote his whole soul to his wife ?” 
 
 Not necessarily ; but if that were really 
 the case, as might happen in the instance of 
 a super-sensitive man, let him tell her after 
 they are married.” 
 
 And lay himself open to the reproach 
 that he has married her under false pretences ? 
 My God ! how awful !” 
 
 ‘‘ Not at all, my good man. A little 
 ‘scene’ might follow, it is true; but you 
 men attach far less importance to ‘ scenes ’ 
 than we do ; you go away to the club and 
 smoke it off We, on the contrary, have no 
 
ii8 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 soothing resource but tears, which, in their 
 soothing effects, are far behind e^^pletives 
 and nicotine. But the scene blows over, 
 and though it should be avoided, if possible 
 — that^s why I say dorCi confess, for there is 
 always a little tender spot left behind — a 
 man’s crimes, which a woman forgives most 
 easily, are those he has committed against 
 another woman. It sounds odd, doesn’t it ? 
 but it’s the case. At first a young wife 
 fancies that her husband has never loved ♦ 
 anyone but her, but this belief soon gives 
 way to another, which is, that he has never 
 loved anyone else as much as her. And 
 the latter thought is an excellent substitute 
 for the former, and is more lasting ! ” 
 
 But, my dear friend, we are straying far 
 from the subject. Rodia’s crime was not a 
 prior attachment, it was the treacherous mur- 
 der of a defenceless old woman. Now sup- 
 posing a man has done something like that, 
 or even worse — had done something lache.^ 
 infame^ disgraceful — has he any right to take 
 the love of a pure woman without telling her 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 119 
 
 what she is doing in loving him ? Surely 
 not. 
 
 Ethically, ideally, no. But actually, prac- 
 tically, yes. She loves him and he loves her ; 
 that is enough. The crime may never be 
 discovered, may never cloud the horizon of 
 their married happiness ; but if it does come 
 out one day, though the woman may be 
 shocked, stunned for a moment, if he has 
 been a good husband to her, and more especi- 
 ally if she be a mother, all he has to say to 
 her is, ^Yes, I did this thing, but I loved 
 you so dearly that I could not bring myself 
 to tell you of it, for fear that it would cloud 
 your happiness as it has clouded mine. I 
 prayed that you might never know, and 
 would have guarded the secret from you with 
 my life; but now it’s too late, and I have 
 only one excuse ; I loved you then, I love 
 you now more dearly still; the purity you 
 have brought into my life has driven the 
 sharper agony of remorse from my soul ; can 
 you not look into my eyes and love me only 
 as you have known me ? ’ ” 
 
120 
 
 Ashes of the Future » 
 
 And you don’t think that the knowledge 
 that they know will rankle in the minds of 
 both, but in hers especially ? ” 
 
 Not seriously, so long as he behaves 
 himself well ; but to a certain extent it must, 
 of course, and for that reason — now I am 
 going to shock you — I consider it a brave 
 and honourable man’s duty to sink his own 
 feelings and lie boldly if there is no chance of 
 his being found out. He ought, if there are 
 no actual witnesses who can give him the lie, 
 to deny the fact and defy the world to pro- 
 duce its proofs. A loving woman will believe 
 her husband against the world, and if by any 
 chance his lie is discovered he has always the 
 resource I mentioned first, he can plead his 
 love, and I, as a woman of some experience, 
 say that he would have nothing to fear.” 
 
 Sylvester rose to go. 
 
 I am immensely obliged to you,” said 
 he ; I have learnt a most interesting lesson 
 this evening which I shall not easily forget. 
 However, there is one final question which I 
 should like to ask you. Supposing the 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 I2I 
 
 whilome criminal loves a woman of excep- 
 tional intelligence and strength of mind — do 
 you not think that if he were to bare his 
 soul to her, and confess his crime to her 
 before marrying her, actuated thereto by a 
 genuine feeling of honor, she would take his 
 confession to be the most convincing proof 
 of his love, and love him with all the greater 
 strength ? ’’ 
 
 She might; but I should consider it an 
 exceedingly dangerous experiment.’^ 
 
 VI. 
 
 On the following day at four, and on many 
 days after, Sylvester found himself either 
 seated opposite the Princess Stella in the 
 little quaint boudoir, or pacing feverishly up 
 and down the room across the tiger skins, 
 stopping now and then to turn and answer 
 some laughing remark of hers with a little 
 impatient; dramatic gesture. 
 
 Their bond of sympathy never ripened 
 into anything closer. When he would im- 
 plore her to believe in his love for her, she 
 
122 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 would shake her head half-mournfully, and 
 compliment him on his histrionic talents ; 
 and he, alas! could not entirely clear his 
 mind of the suspicion that she spoke what 
 was in a great measure the truth. In the 
 midst of his most impassioned utterances, 
 when he would fall on his knees by her side 
 and beg her to look through his eyes into his 
 soul which was all hers, there would flash 
 across him a pang of memory for his past life, 
 and he would ask himself why should this 
 woman believe in him more than the others, 
 and he would suddenly remember having 
 used the same words to others before her. 
 Then these thoughts would seem to commu- 
 nicate themselves to her, and she would push 
 him away with a little contraction of her 
 brows and an expression almost of repulsion, 
 and the next moment their conversation 
 would have resumed its accustomed tone, 
 and they would speak of books, of pictures, 
 and of his travels, but never of himself. 
 Often she used to say to him : 
 
 ‘‘ I wonder if I shall ever know anything 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 123 
 
 about the real you^ Signor Gray ? How I 
 wish you would tell me your real history — I 
 mean all that happened before you began to 
 travel — for of course there is the story of 
 Sylvester Gray.” 
 
 Heaven forbid ! ” he would reply, and 
 walking to the window would look out into 
 the cortile where the Princess’s cats remained 
 faithful to their hopes of some-day catching 
 one of the gold-fish that wandered round 
 below them in the basin of the fountain. 
 
 Yes,” the Princess used to answer; the 
 tone and gesture are most dramatic, and 
 would have impressed those other women ; 
 but they don’t impress me. I want history 
 and not theatricals. Come! why do you not 
 some day throw off that handsome impene- 
 trable mask of yours, and if you really love 
 me as you say you do, do what I ask, and 
 tell me something about yourself ? ” 
 
 There is nothing to tell, Princesse,” he 
 would say half-bitterly. I have wandered 
 about the world and have acquired the art of 
 impressing the weak-minded by means of what 
 
124 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 you are pleased to call my histrionic talent ; 
 but it is nothing, and need not disturb you so 
 long as you are not deceived by it. Story — 
 God bless you — like Canning’s knife-grinder, 
 I have none to tell you.” 
 
 Ah ! Bah ! I am tired of all that. Stop, 
 I beg of you.” 
 
 And so it would go on. It seemed as if 
 each were matched against the other in a 
 contest of badinage, in which neither would 
 give in, and neither would confess to defeat ; 
 and this strange friendship continued until 
 the end — the end which came so tragically, 
 so unexpectedly. 
 
 Early one morning Sylvester rose and 
 made his way to St. Peter’s to listen to the 
 mass in the Capella del Coro. His* heart 
 was full to breaking with his love for the 
 Princess Stella, and his despair of ever con- 
 vincing her of its existence. Throughout 
 the service he sat revolving in his mind the 
 problem which had led to the conversation 
 I have recorded with his American friend — 
 should he tell her that history of his or no ? 
 
Ashes of the Future. 
 
 125 
 
 It was the only thing left, his disease was 
 desperate and required a remedy like unto it. 
 At any rate it would have one of two effects : 
 either she would pity and love him, at last 
 understanding the motive of his strange no- 
 mad life ; or else the sympathy she felt for 
 him now, would be turned to hate, into de- 
 spite, and it would all be over — this uncer- 
 tainty, this heart-breaking struggle to con- 
 vince her of a love that she would fain, but 
 could not, believe in. 
 
 He came to a decision suddenly that after- 
 noon, whilst he stood before her in her dainty 
 boudoir, engaged in the old, hopeless effort. 
 
 “ Why can’t you convince me ?” she had 
 said for the hundredth time. 
 
 “ I will tell you,” said he, turning sud- 
 denly and standing over her; I will tell 
 you. It is because my love is pollution to a 
 woman so fair, so pure, as you, and though 
 you cannot tell why^ you feel it to be so ; 
 your womanly flair tells you of it. Listen ! 
 I — I, Sylvester Gray, the gay, the insouciant ^ 
 the debonnair^ am a coward, a scoundrel, a 
 
126 
 
 Ashes of the Future » 
 
 criminal too vile for expression. I told you 
 one day, that I have loved one woman before 
 you, only one, and that was ten years ago. 
 Well, I loved her wildly, passionately ; and she 
 trusted me with her very soul. As a return, 
 the trust she reposed in me I betrayed. I 
 shattered her belief in manhood, in honor, in 
 myself, and we parted, not in hatred, but in 
 dull, cold disillusionment on her part, in pas- 
 sionate remorse on mine. She never recov- 
 ered from the shock; she died soon after, and 
 left me behind to wander through the world, 
 to continue as I had begun, a destroying 
 fiend. And it is the knowledge of this that 
 you instinctively have, that holds you from 
 me ; the face of that dead girl stands between 
 us, and it is only your sweet hands that can 
 lay those reproachful eyes at rest.” 
 
 Go on, tell me everything — ^just as it 
 happened.” 
 
 “ So be it.” 
 
 * * # * ♦ 
 
 And he told her of our schoolboy days at 
 Harrow, of his love for Evelyn Wooster, and 
 
Ashgs of the Future, 
 
 127 
 
 of her stay at Idlesse ; told her the events of 
 that stay which I had only been able to sur- 
 mise dimly, as some horrible nightmare, and 
 which I never knew till I heard them from 
 the lips of the Princess Stella. 
 
 He told his story to the bitter end, exten- 
 uating nothing, excusing nothing, told it with 
 a dramatic force that was terrific, with a 
 pathos that was infinite, and at the end sank 
 into a low fauteuil before her, watching her 
 to see the effect it had produced upon her. 
 
 She had hidden her face in her hands dur- 
 ing the recital, and when he became silent, 
 she slowly lowered them and looked up ; he 
 was lying before her in one of the old theat- 
 rical attitudes she knew so well, a strained 
 look of pleading in his eyes, his hands con- 
 vulsively clasped before him. 
 
 And suddenly, in the midst of her horror, 
 and pity, and grief for the man before her, as 
 she gazed at him, there came over her, like a 
 wave, the revolting thought that even this 
 was all a pose^ a superb dramatic effort, con- 
 jured up as a last resource to impress her 
 
128 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 and persuade her, against her better judgment 
 that he loved her. As the idea took posses- 
 sion other mind, her face gradually hardened 
 once more, and at last the lips began to 
 wreath themselves into the little mocking 
 smile. He was watching her ; — turning white 
 to the roots of his hair, he started to his feet 
 and exclaimed : 
 
 Well! what do you think of me now 
 
 ‘‘What do I think of you now^ Signor 
 Gray ? Why, as a man, exactly what I did 
 before ; but as a raconteur^ as an improvisa- 
 tore of the most harrowing dramatic narra- 
 tives, my opinion of you is, if possible, vastly 
 increased.” 
 
 “ Good God 1 what do you mean ?” 
 
 “ Why — I mean that you have rivetted my 
 attention for a couple of hours with one of 
 the most thrilling romances I have ever 
 heard ; but you don’t suppose, do you, that I 
 believe it ? Cielo ! Signor Gray, I know you 
 too well. Ah, mo7i ami, mo7i ami, how you 
 waste your talents 1” 
 
 And she rose and turned away, and then 
 
Ashes of the Future, 
 
 129 
 
 walking to the window, looked out into the 
 court-yard. 
 
 The brass rings of her portiere rattled, and 
 .she turned suddenly. Sylvester Gray was 
 gone. She turned once more to the window 
 and saw him stride through the cortile^ and 
 disappear through the porte-cochere. 
 
 The Princess Pamphila-Severi laughed 
 softly. 
 
 “ What a boy it is !” said she to herself. 
 
 At this time to-morrow he will come and 
 begin all over again. How I love him ! and 
 how I wish he loved me as he declares he 
 does !’' 
 
 # * # # * 
 
 Sylvester did not return next day. Early 
 on the following morning I wrote her the 
 following note from the Albergo Quirin^le, 
 whither, in the dual capacity of friend and 
 doctor, I had been hastily summoned by 
 Sylvester’s body-servant : 
 
 “ Madame la Princesse : — I have a duty to 
 perform by the direction of our friend, Sylvester 
 Gray, in writing to inform you of his death, 
 
130 
 
 Ashes of the Future. 
 
 which occurred during the night. He left in- 
 structions that you should be informed imme- 
 diately, and it is in obedience to those instruc- 
 tions that I hasten to apprise you of this sad 
 intelligence. Aggredite Vassicuranza., etc. 
 
 John Tompkins, M. D.*' 
 
 Half an hour later, as I sat by the side of 
 my poor, dead Sylvester, the Princess arrived. 
 She stooped over and kissed the pale lips? 
 stroking them gently with her fingers, and 
 then, turning to me, she said : 
 
 ‘‘Tell me the absolute truth, doctor; this 
 death was — premeditated?” 
 
 “ Madame,” I replied, “ death resulted 
 from an overdose of morphine, which Signor 
 Gray had been taking for some nights to 
 procure sleep. It may have been accidental, 
 or it may have been premeditated ; a letter 
 which was delivered to me this morning, 
 containing his last instructions in case at any 
 time he should die suddenly, and evidently 
 written last night before he retired, points 
 with terrible distinctness to the latter hypo- 
 thesis.” 
 
THE ^T0!(Y of 4 Y0DII1||EI^ gOfl. 
 

THE STORY OF A YODNGER SON. 
 
 A Commonplace Romance. 
 
 I. 
 
 Gervase Braycrooke was a younger 
 son. True; but he did not look it. 
 
 To see him scouring the country on his 
 crow-black mare, Dynamite,” both man 
 and beast groomed to perfection, stopping 
 here and there to exchange a few gracious 
 remarks for the greetings of the cottagers 
 and “retainers” of his father’s estate, you 
 would have said that he was some benevo- 
 lent young Russian noble, paying a circular 
 visit of princely patronage among his serfs 
 
134 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 and other chattels. He was only twenty 
 when I saw him first, but he had already 
 that air of genial command that character- 
 ized him in after life, a manner which drew 
 all hearts to him, but forbade the slightest 
 approach to that familiarity which breeds 
 contempt. 
 
 Sir Eric Braybrooke's place was in War- 
 wickshire, and I am one of the enthusias- 
 tics who declare that Warwickshire is one 
 of the most beautiful of the midland coun- 
 ties of England. Consequently, when my 
 old school and college friend. Sir Eric, 
 wrote to me, pressing roe to sport my 
 oak’* in Lincoln’s Inn and, leaving the law 
 behind, to come and vegetate in Warwick- 
 shire and recuperate my wasted tissues 
 after an unusually hard session, I wrote 
 back and told him that the moment the 
 courts rose at the termination of the great 
 case of Willoughby versus Willoughby (a 
 cause In Lunacy,” which ended by nearly 
 sending all parties concerned to keep the 
 unconscious plaintiff company in his private 
 
The Story of a Younger Son, 135 
 
 madhouse), I should bid farewell to Briefs, 
 Cases for Opinion, Special Pleadings, and 
 Drafts, and jump into the first train that 
 left Euston for the Midlands, for Warwick- 
 shire, and for Kineton. 
 
 In all Warwickshire, rich as it is in his- 
 torical associations, with the birthplace of 
 William Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon 
 and the home of the Washingtons at Sul- 
 grave, few villages are more interesting 
 than Kineton, which is situated within an 
 easy walk of the field of battle at Edgehill, 
 and is the hamlet where his sacred Majesty, 
 King Charles, the martyr, remained for a 
 while before and after that memorable 
 fight. I had explored the whole country 
 round, pretty thoroughly, with Eric Bray- 
 brooke, when we were boys at school to- 
 gether, and I had been invited to spend 
 my summer holidays on one never-to-be- 
 forgotten occasion at Braybrooke Hall. I 
 had not been into Warwickshire since, and 
 I looked forward to my visit to the old 
 place every bit as much, now, looking ab- 
 
1^6 The Story of a Younger So7t. 
 
 sently out of the window of my chambers 
 in Lincoln’s Inn, with polished sconce and 
 silver side whiskers, as I had, a quarter of a 
 century before, when Eric and I walked 
 up and down the towing-path at Eton, or 
 discussed the glories of Braybrooke Hall, 
 as we dressed after our matutinal swim at 
 “Athens.” 
 
 When, therefore, I had at last bidden 
 my clerk “God speed ” in starting for our 
 respective holidays — well earned on both 
 sides — and had reached Kineton after 
 a somewhat complicated collection of 
 “changes” on the London and North- 
 Western Railway, it seemed to me on 
 leaving the quaint little station that all the 
 old landmarks were familiar to me; I went 
 back twenty-five years at a bound, and, 
 telling Sir Eric’s coachman to take charge 
 of my luggage, I set forth to walk the 
 three miles which intervened between 
 Kineton village and Braybrooke Hall. 
 
 About half a mile from the lodge gates of 
 the Hall there was, I remembered, a gate 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 137 
 
 which opened upon a road that wound round 
 among the Braybrooke woods. I determined 
 to pass through it, and reach the Hall by the 
 garden side, a way I remembered of old. 
 As I approached it I heard the sound of a 
 horse’s hoofs coming up behind me, and 
 iust before I reached it, a solitary horse- 
 man passed me. As he reached the gate, 
 ha reined in his animal, a superb black 
 mare, with some difficulty, and turning half 
 round in the road, waited for me to come 
 up with him. Thus I had an excellent 
 opportunity of noting his appearance — 
 wnich was that of the most prepossessing 
 young man that I had ever seen. He was 
 fair, with a young, boyish face that was 
 singularly frank in its expression. His eyes 
 struck me as being blue. His lithe young 
 figure was shown off to advantage by his 
 tightly-fitting riding suit of dark blue cord, 
 and as he sat on his horse, I could not help 
 feeling proud of him as an English boy, 
 and almost wished that I had married all 
 those years ago when — but never mind. 
 
138 The Story of a Younger Son, 
 
 As I came up he saluted me military-fash- 
 ion with the butt of his riding whip and 
 said in a soft musical voice: — 
 
 “ Might I trouble you, sir, to open this 
 gate for me; my mare is having a great 
 game at my expense and won’t let me get 
 off and open it for myself.” 
 
 “Certainly,” I replied, and as I did so, I 
 added, “ Does not this gate lead through 
 the Braybrooke woods? ” 
 
 “Yes,” replied the boy, “and if you’re 
 going to Elverly, you’ll find it a short cut 
 and a pretty walk, but bear to the right or 
 you’ll not get to the house. Thank you 
 very much; Good day, sir.” And with the 
 words he lifted his hat and bowed in his 
 saddle as if to a woman, gripped his mare 
 with his knees, and swept off into the woods. 
 I couldn’t help hoping as I walked through 
 the old woods where I had rambled as a 
 boy, that I should find out who the young 
 fellow was. He was good to look at and I 
 was glad I had met him. 
 
 Sir Eric Braybrooke was waiting for me 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 139 
 
 on the piazza in front of the drawing-room 
 windows of the Hall. He made me wel- 
 come to his old Tudor mansion, and it was 
 with a feeling of the most genuine satis- 
 faction that I sat down with him, in the 
 cosy room that had been set apart for my 
 use, to indulge in a little chat on old times 
 before dinner. We were to be a compara- 
 tively small gathering that evening; the ma- 
 jority of the guests were to arrive the next 
 day; at present the house party consisted 
 of Sir Eric and Lady Braybrooke and their 
 sons Eric and Gervase, their daughter Miss 
 Constance Braybrooke, Miss Rosamund Gil- 
 bert (a distant relation of the family, a prote- 
 gee of Sir Eric’s who had been educated with 
 his children) Lord George Wilmyngton, and 
 myself. Next day we were to be invaded 
 by half-a-dozen others, so, as Sir Eric grim- 
 ly remarked, we must make the best of our 
 one quiet evening together. Thus posted, 
 he left me to dress for dinner. 
 
 As a bachelor and a hard worker I dress 
 quickly, and when I came downstairs, I 
 
140 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 found myself alone in the drawing-room 
 with a strange young woman, and a self- 
 possessed withal. She was tall and dark, 
 with the freshest of complexions and the 
 most wonderful wondering eyes. She 
 arose as I came into the room and looked 
 an interrogation point at me. I concluded 
 that she must be Miss Braybrooke, so I re- 
 marked: — 
 
 “Miss Bra3^brooke, I presume.” 
 
 “ No,” replied she, “my name is Gilbert. 
 I am related to the Braybrookes in a com- 
 plicated manner which I could explain to 
 you by means of a diagram, but I am afraid 
 hardly without.” 
 
 “ Pray, do not trouble on my account, 
 Miss Gilbert, ” I rejoined, and in two 
 minutes we were the best friends in the 
 world. 
 
 In a word, she was charming, and I was 
 quite sorry when two young m.en m super- 
 lative evening dress entered the room, 
 whom Miss Gilbert introduced as Mr. 
 Gervase Braybrooke and Lord George 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 141 
 
 Wiimyngton. His lordship bowed and 
 dropped into a seat beside Miss Gilbert; 
 in Gervase Braybrooke as he extended his 
 hand, I recognized my young cavalier of 
 the afternoon. 
 
 “ Surely, we have met before," said he, 
 ‘‘and I must apologize for my unconcious 
 discourtesy. Had I dreamt for an instant 
 that you would walk up, instead of driving 
 from the station, I might have guessed 
 your identity, and should have walked up 
 with you. As it was, my mare Dynamite 
 was giving me momentary proof of my dis- 
 cernment in my choice of a name for her, 
 and I was only conscious of having begged 
 a gentleman to act as lodge-keeper for me, 
 and of having ridden on." 
 
 I was delighted to find him so soor\ ea, 
 pecially as I found that he would bea\ a 
 closer inspection. The next moment Lady 
 Braybrooke and her daughter, a beautiful 
 blonde of nineteen, came into the room, 
 followed by Sir Eric and his eldest son, 
 who were apparently engaged in close con- 
 
142 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 fabulation on some matter of importance; — 
 and then we filed in to dinner. 
 
 It did not require much legal discern- 
 ment to see how matters lay among the 
 party assembled in the oak-panelled 
 dining-room of Braybrooke Hall. Evi- 
 dently the family were all on the most 
 friendly terms with one another, and from 
 Sir Eric down to Constance, were as light- 
 hearted a crew as could be imagined — with 
 the exception perhaps of the elder son, 
 Eric, who struck me as being reserved al- 
 most to the verge of gloom. Miss Rosa- 
 mund Gilbert was the brightest perhaps of 
 us all, but it was plain from the way she 
 continually flung the ball of conversation 
 into his lap, that Gervase was her favorite, 
 a fact which, not escaping the observation 
 of Lord George Wilmyngton, seemed to 
 cause that gentleman no small annoyance. 
 
 After the ladies had left the table, the 
 three young men immediately excused 
 themselves and strolled out through the 
 open windows of the dining-room to 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 143 
 
 smoke a cigarette, with the permission of 
 the ladies, on the verandah. Sir Eric and 
 I remained behind to talk over old 
 times together. From the past, we grad- 
 ually came to the present, and from gener- 
 alities we arrived at particulars. It seemed 
 that there had been a boy and girl attach- 
 ment between Gervase and Rosamund Gil- 
 bert all their lives. They had been 
 brought up together, and Sir Eric only 
 awaited the time when Gervase should have 
 hewn out a position for himself in the In- 
 dian Civil service, to receive his beautiful 
 protegee into even more close relationship 
 with his family. It was not an engage- 
 ment; oh, no! nothing formal or definite^ 
 but an understood thing — an understood 
 thing. But the Braybrooke estates were 
 strictly entailed, and descended with the 
 title to the eldest son, the serious Eric, a 
 young man of whom I am inclined to think 
 his father stood somewhat in awe — anyhow 
 I fancied I detected a regretful ring in the 
 worthy baronet’s voice when he told me 
 
144 Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 the time was drawing near when Gervase 
 must join the Civil Service Corps in India 
 and be away from Braybrooke for four or 
 five years. 
 
 Somehow / felt sorry too, but I was glad 
 that these two young people who had indi- 
 vidually created such a favorable impres- 
 sion upon me, were united by a bond so 
 tender as that of the understanding” that 
 existed between them. 
 
 We two old gentlemen did not go out on 
 the verandah, but rejoined the ladies by 
 way of the drawing-room. Eric Bray- 
 brooke was sitting by his mother. Lord 
 George Wilmyngton stood by the piano lis- 
 tening to Constance Braybrooke, as she 
 dreamily touched the keys, and crooned 
 snatches of old English ballads. The 
 other two were nowhere to be seen. 
 
 Where are Gervase and Rosamund?” 
 inquired Sir Eric. 
 
 ‘^Oh! they’re walking round and round 
 as usual,” answered Miss Braybrooke 
 from the piano, 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 145 
 
 The next moment the pair in question 
 appeared arm-in-arm in the open window, 
 the girl’s white frock standing out against 
 the blackness of the garden beyond, and 
 the boy rendered the more conspicuous as 
 he stood by her side, his black dress suit 
 thrown up by the whiteness of his waist- 
 coat and shirt-front. What a handsome 
 picture they made, to be sure, as they stood 
 there! She had thrown a white goat-wool 
 shawl, such as the women weave on the 
 Pyrennean slopes, round her shoulders and 
 over her head, and it made a charming 
 framework for her lovely face. They stood 
 there looking in at us, as if they were defy- 
 ing critical examination, and indeed well 
 they might, for it would, 1 think, have been 
 hard to find in all humanity a more per- 
 fectly matched couple. I glanced round 
 the room to see what was the impression 
 that the picture made on the rest of the 
 company. In Lady Braybrooke’s expres- 
 sionThere was an air of conscious pride, in 
 that of her daughter the most genuine 
 
146 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 admiration and affection; Lord George 
 Wilmyngton had turned a shade paler, and 
 was nervously biting the end of his mous- 
 tache; Eric Braybrooke alone looked on as 
 if he was amused by the scene; as for me, 
 I turned and looked at Sir Eric — he caught 
 my glance of enquiry and smiled affirma- 
 tively. 
 
 I was glad — very glad that it was so. 
 
 ‘‘Well,” said Gervase after a pause, 
 “why don’t you ask us to come in? we’ll 
 come if we’re invited, otherwise we shall 
 continue our promenade and philosophical 
 confab’. We’ve been discussing a most 
 intricate point; and that is, supposing the 
 existence of two people who are as much 
 in love with one another as Rosa and I are, 
 in the event of the girl going off and mar- 
 rying some other fellow, can they remain 
 as good friends as ever, afterwards, with- 
 out making fools of themselves and one 
 another? Now I say they could, and 
 Rosa says they couldn’t. I say that if 
 Rosa goes and marries my hated rival, 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 147 
 
 whoever he is, I shall come and live with 
 them and be just as jolly as ever; and she 
 says she would leave orders with the ser- 
 vants to say ^^Not at home” whenever I 
 called, and that if I was always about the 
 place, it would end in our falling in love in 
 real earnest. What do you think, Wil- 
 myngton? ” 
 
 *‘Well,” replied his lordship, think 
 there is very little doubt that you would 
 end by falling in love with Miss Gilbert, 
 but I don’t see that it need necessarily be 
 reciprocal! ” 
 
 ^‘But I think,” said Lady Braybrooke, 
 ^‘that you might do something better than 
 waste your time talking such nonsense. 
 Anyhow you are not going to walk about 
 any more to-night in the damp.” 
 
 *‘You, none of you, ask me my opinion, 
 I observe!” said the elder brother, putting 
 down the book he had taken up, ^^and as 
 you don’t seem to want it, here it is: I 
 think that if a man sees too much of a 
 woman he has been in love with before she 
 
14S The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 married some other fellow, either they will 
 fall in love over again, only more so, or 
 else familiarity will breed contempt, and 
 they will come to the conclusion that they 
 can’t imagine what they ever saw in one 
 another.” 
 
 And amid the silence which followed, 
 Eric Braybrooke got up and left the room. 
 
 Your elder boy is no fool,” remarked I 
 sotto voce to Sir Eric. 
 
 *‘No, indeed!” replied his father drily. 
 
 And then the conversation became gen- 
 eral on other subjects. Lord George took 
 a seat next to Miss Gilbert, and Gervase 
 came over to persuade his sister to play 
 some favorite tunes for him. 
 
 I retired comparatively early that even- 
 ing, and did not join the rest of the men in 
 the smoking-room; consequently I was 
 down early next morning, and stepping 
 out into the garden, the first object that 
 met my eyes was Gervase dressed in white 
 flannel, superintending the marking out of 
 the tennis court. Close by, in a hammock 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 149 
 
 swung between two trees, lay Rosamund 
 Gilbert, clad also in the whitest and fresh- 
 est of frocks, swinging lazily to and fro in 
 the morning sun, while she kept up a brisk 
 fire of conversation, chaff, and repartee 
 with Gervase. 
 
 As I made my appearance Gervase ad- 
 vanced across the lawn to greet me, and 
 Rosamund cried out across the court: — 
 
 “ Good morning, Mr. Cornell, do you 
 mind my not scrambling out? It is so un- 
 graceful. Come and be poetical; here you 
 see milk in a tin bowl — only one bowl for the 
 three of us — with the dust and hairs and 
 leaves and things not strained off; goose- 
 berries, peaches, and grapes, with earwigs 
 crawling about them. Peter and I — I 
 always call Gervase, Peter, because he’s the 
 only person who carries keys of all the gates 
 about with him — Peter and I always do this, 
 we get so awfully hungry before breakfast. 
 You can sit on the end of the hammock if 
 you think it is safe, but 7 should advise you 
 to take Peter’s coat,” and so saying, she 
 
150 The Story of a Younger Son, 
 
 flung me Gervase’s white flannel coat, 
 which she had been using as a pillow, and 
 which I spread out on the grass and sat 
 down upon. 
 
 To cut along story short everything that 
 I saw of this inseparable couple, I liked 
 more and more. Whenever the girl was 
 not with Gervase, Lord George was her 
 devoted cavalier, and it was plain that she 
 only had to say “yes” to become Lady 
 George Wilmyngton; but it was equally 
 plain that she was not going to say “yes,” 
 and often when I saw his lordship biting his 
 moustache as he watched the pair go off 
 demurely arm-in-arm to lose themselves in 
 the woods, I used really to pity the young 
 fellow, who loved Rosamund Gilbert so 
 deeply and so hopelessly. 
 
 One day I had a talk to Sir Eric about 
 it; he seemed to take it all as a matter of 
 course, and was inclined, as so many coun- 
 try gentlemen seem to be, to bother very 
 little about the affairs of other people so 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 15 1 
 
 long as they did not directly and person- 
 ally concern himself. 
 
 *^Oh! ” replied he, in answer to a ques- 
 tion of mine, “ Gervase and Rosa under- 
 stand one another perfectly, and when he 
 comes back from India they’ll be married 
 — they’ve plenty of time before them; she’s 
 only seventeen — yes, he is twenty — I shall 
 be glad to see them married, for she’s a 
 sweet girl, and he’s as good as gold, I be- 
 lieve.” 
 
 I was almost annoyed that the engagement 
 was not formally expressed between them; 
 I had seen so many young hearts separated 
 by a misunderstanding which could not 
 have occurred had they been bound to- 
 gether by a definite promise given and re- 
 ceived. Alas! I believe it occurs every 
 day. A boy and girl are thrown together, 
 brought up together, are “the best friends 
 in the world ” — the very freedom with 
 which they avow to the world and to them- 
 selves their unclouded affection for one 
 another, the matter-of-course nature of 
 
152 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 their companionship seems to forbid the 
 suggestion of anything deeper, tenderer, 
 warmer. Then, one day, they suddenly 
 discover that there is something unex- 
 pressed between them; in a word, that 
 though it is not blazoned forth to the 
 world, they do love one another, and then, 
 though, as before, nothing is said on the 
 subject, their friends say, “ they understand 
 one another.*’ It is the girl who finds this 
 out first, as a rule, and it is her sudden 
 new consciousness of manner, a word in a 
 conversation that suggests the tru^ state of 
 affairs to the boy, and then — though as be- 
 fore, no actual word of love passes between 
 them — their sympathy becomes more ten- 
 der, more delicate, more conscious of its 
 own existence; they assume little proprie- 
 tary airs with regard to one another, and 
 everything seems wrapped in an indolent, 
 treacherous calm. 
 
 Whenever I see a little drama of this 
 kind being played between two young 
 people, I am reminded of some verses that 
 
The Story of a Younger Son, 153 
 
 were written once under similar circum- 
 stances by a young poet of my acquaint- 
 ance, which are entitled “ Sympathy,” and 
 which run as follows: — 
 
 “ Hush! do not speak, lest the spell that enthralls uy 
 Break like the smouldering spark into flame. 
 
 Still! — Make no sign, lest the small voice that calls us 
 Fill this whole planet, for me, with your name. 
 
 “ Absence is death, to be near you is madness, 
 Madness or death? which of these will yoti choose 
 Say, what is death to the anguish, the sadness 
 Of finding a life which we find but to lose. 
 
 “ Hush! if you speak, you’ll drag down to existence 
 A spirit that hovers o’er our twin souls above; 
 Which will make us its own with a tender persistence, 
 That wakes us at last, but to say: — ‘ This is love.' ” 
 
 And so it goes on, this deadening, Ji- 
 ing thing known as “ an understan-^.i.^/ 
 until one of two things happens. Either, 
 something calls the boy or the girl away; — 
 if it is the girl, it is generally another lover, 
 and this brings matters to a head, their love 
 becomes expressed and consummated; if 
 
154 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 it is the boy, it is generally a call to his 
 work in the world, and too often he goes 
 off with a smile on his lips and words of 
 hope on his tongue, to a life full of incident 
 and occupation, and leaves her to what: — 
 to her own lonely thoughts, and to wonder 
 if he ever really loved her. 
 
 Or, the more subtle, the more insiduous, 
 the more deadly poison of familiarity — of 
 custom ^ — of satiety — creeps into the cup of 
 their contentment, and unless they are sep- 
 arated at once, the sweets of sympathy be- 
 become changed into the acids of antip- 
 athy, and they part coldly, by common con- 
 sent, with an uneasy feeling of relief which 
 neither can account for, and of which both 
 feel ashamed. An understanding ” is like 
 a pinch of powdered sugar flung into a 
 goblet of champagne — at first it froths up 
 with the excitement of chemical combina- 
 tion, but with each successive pinch the 
 evervescence is less and less pro- 
 nounced, till at last the surface becomes 
 clear, and the sugar which has been thrown 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 155 
 
 in lies a sticky cloying mass at the 
 bottom of the cup. 
 
 Or, again — since we are analyzing the 
 matter — let us take another simile which 
 too often illustrates the termination of a 
 boy-and-girl attachment, or of what is mis- 
 called, for want of a better term, a “ pla- 
 tonic friendship.” Have you ever seen an 
 insulated metal globe, highly charged with 
 positive electricity placed close to another 
 charged negatively in a locality where the 
 air is dry? So long as the atmosphere re- 
 mains as it was, the globes remain highly 
 charged with mutually attractive electrici- 
 ties. Presently, however, the air becomes 
 warmer and moister, and, acting inductively 
 upon one another, the globes become grad- 
 ually ‘discharged” by one another’s prox- 
 imity. No spark, no report, but impercep- 
 tibly each has taken from the other all that 
 it can give, and when the electrician turns 
 his attention to them, he finds them abso- 
 lutely normal; neither of them attracting 
 or being influenced by the other. And so, 
 
156 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 alas! too many of these pure boy-and-girl 
 loves come to imperceptible and untimely 
 grief. Let them be brought together, say 
 I! let us hear the ^‘snap!” as the spark 
 flies, let their affection be acknowledged 
 honestly, before God and before man! 
 
 Pardon me this digression — but it has 
 been germane to my story, believe me. 
 Thoughts such as these continually oc- 
 curred to me during the bright summer 
 weeks which I spent at Braybrooke Hall, 
 and one morning, coming down early, I 
 found Gervase standing on the gravel walk 
 throwing pebbles at Rosamund’s window 
 to awake her. As I reached him, a white 
 arm waving a handkerchief appeared from 
 behind the curtains. ‘‘All right,” shouted 
 he, and then turning to me, he said, 
 “That’s the signal by which I know that 
 she’s not only awake, but out of bed.” 
 
 “What friends you are! ” said I, and he 
 replied enthusiastically: 
 
 “Yes — we are. She’s the sweetest and 
 the cleverest and the handsomest girl I 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 157 
 
 ever knew, and I don’t know what my life 
 would have been without her.” 
 
 And when are you going to be married 
 to one another? ” I asked. 
 
 ‘‘Oh! that won’t be till I come back from 
 India. Until I’m ‘ something’ over there, I 
 can’t afford a wife, you know; but she’ll 
 wait for me, Mr. Cornell, she’ll wait for 
 me.” 
 
 “But it is not a definite, absolute, 
 gagement^ I think I heard your father say?” 
 
 “No, because, you see. I’m very young 
 and so is she, and she’s never seen any 
 other fellow hardly. I should be very 
 sorry to tie her down by any promise to 
 me, before she’s had an opportunity of see- 
 ing if she likes another fellow better; but 
 if she’s the girl I think and know she is, I 
 don’t believe anyone could make her hap- 
 pier than I could, and she knows it.” 
 
 “ Do you ever talk together of your 
 future lives? ” 
 
 “No; it isn’t necessary. The present is 
 so good and lovely, that all we care to know 
 
158 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 about the future is that it will be just like 
 the present. I haven’t a thought in the 
 world, Mr. Cornell, that isn’t of her or 
 that she doesn’t share, and she knows it; 
 what more can a man want? ” 
 
 I couldn’t help thinking that as a true 
 friend of both of them, I should have 
 wanted a good deal more, but it was un- 
 necessary to say it, and I merely replied: — 
 ^‘Well, my boy, I agree with you that 
 she’s a sweet and a charming girl, and 
 I wish you every happiness for the future. 
 If ever you want any other friend than 
 your father — which Heaven forbid — re- 
 member that William Cornell of 50 Old 
 Square, Lincoln’s Inn, is ready and willing 
 to do anything he can for you.” 
 
 Thank you,” replied the boy, “thank 
 you, Mr. Cornell. I hope the only claim 
 I shall ever make on your friendship will 
 be to ask you to rejoice with me in the 
 happiness of my future. Do you see this 
 half-opened rose? It is lovely as it is, is it 
 not? Well that’s our present;' when it 
 
The Story of a Younger Son, 159 
 
 opens fully, it will still be lovely, but in a 
 different way — like this.’' 
 
 And he spread open the unfolding petals 
 with his fingers. A common mishap had 
 befallen the poor rose; a second calyx and 
 set of petals had sprouted inside the first. 
 The rose would bloom, yes, and the inner 
 rose would rival the outer one in sweetness; 
 but neither could ever become perfect, 
 though the imperfection would not become 
 visible until the rose had become mature. 
 A sharp contraction of the features revealed 
 the sudden pang that shot through the 
 boyish heart at my side, as he flung the im- 
 perfect flower into a rubbish-basket at 
 his feet. 
 
 At that moment Rosamund Gilbert joined 
 us, her freshness and loveliness putting to 
 shame the clematis she had stuck carelessly 
 into her waist-belt. Gervase glanced at 
 me with a curious, almost aged look, and 
 then took the hand I extended to him and 
 shook it silently. Next moment Rosamund 
 had taken me by one arm, and him by the 
 
i6o The Story of a Younger Son, 
 
 other, and together we strolled down to the 
 stream for a row before breakfast. 
 
 II. 
 
 Hullo! Gervase,’' said Sir Eric, as we 
 took our seats at the breakfast table, here’s 
 an evil-looking letter for you from the Civil 
 Service Commission; it looks suspiciously 
 to me, as if it meant that you’ve got to go 
 up to town and ‘try again ’ for your exami- 
 nation.” 
 
 “ Indeed,” said Rosamund, with quick 
 indignation, “there’s no possibility of any- 
 thing of the kind. It is to say that Peter’s 
 come out at the head of the list. Ploughed 
 indeed! — the idea! ” 
 
 Meanwhile the boy had opened the letter 
 and was reading it. I was not the only per- 
 son at the table who anxiously watched his 
 face as he did so, and whose heart sunk 
 within him as he noticed the hardening of 
 his features, and the sudden pallor which 
 overspread them. I could see an anxious 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. i6i 
 
 look come into Sir Eric’s and Rosamund’s 
 face, as the former said cheerfully: — 
 
 Well lad, what is it? ‘pass’ or ‘plough,’ 
 eh?” 
 
 “ Pass,” said the boy drily, and did not 
 add another word as he pocketed the en- 
 velope. 
 
 Rosamund had turned and was talking at 
 the moment to Lord George Wilmyngton, 
 and without looking round at Gervase who 
 sat on the other side of her, held out her 
 left hand for the letter. She had a little 
 imperious way of demanding his letters 
 when they were interesting, and he always 
 handed them over at once if she wanted 
 them. This morning he did not do so, and 
 with a little impatient contraction of the 
 eyebrows, she half turned her head and 
 said: — 
 
 “Give it me directly.” 
 
 “ No,” — quite shortly. 
 
 “Peter!” she exclaimed in mock warn- 
 ing, “how dare you?” 
 
 “I don’t want to show it to you, that’s 
 all,” he replied. 
 
1 62 The Story of a Younger Son, 
 
 She turned her lovely eyes full* on him, 
 and with almost atone of annoyance in her 
 voice — for no woman likes a sudden mu- 
 tiny against her acknowledged authority in 
 public, especially when the public ’’means 
 other women — remarked gravely: — 
 
 Peter, I believe that letter says you’ve 
 been ^ ploughed,’ and you’re ashamed to 
 confess it before everybody;” and with 
 these thoughtless words she turned and 
 continued her conversation with Lord 
 George. 
 
 Gervase Braybrooke flushed scarlet, and 
 then turned deathly white. I expect that 
 this was the first time in his life that any 
 one had ever suggested the possibility of 
 his telling a lie. Thoughtless words in- 
 deed! but in that second of time the whole 
 drama of Gervase Braybrooke’s life in the 
 future was plotted out, and the curtain fell 
 on the first act. 
 
 ^ 
 
 He talked on indifferent subjects for the 
 rest of breakfast time, but I felt that there 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 163 
 
 was something on the boy’s mind. After 
 breakfast he and I walked out together, 
 and were immediately joined by his father. 
 As Sir Eric came up, Rosamund and Lord 
 George Wilmyngton passed us and disap- 
 peared in the direction of the conserva- 
 tories. 
 
 Well,” said his father, “ what is it, my 
 boy? ” 
 
 ‘‘Why, look here, governor; this is 
 rather unexpected; the notice of my quali- 
 fication is accompanied by a letter from 
 the civil service commission which says 
 that a rather good appointment has sud- 
 denly fallen vacant on the vice-regal 
 staff in Bombay. The Duke of West- 
 hampton has asked for it for me, and has 
 got it; they want to know if I will take it 
 up and report for service at once. It’s a 
 glorious chance, isn’t it, but it means leav- 
 ing you and home — and all of you — so 
 suddenly — what shall I do? ” 
 
 “ Why, my dear boy,” replied Sir Eric, 
 as he finished reading the letter, “ there 
 
164 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 can’t be two ideas on the subject. You 
 have one of the finest openings any young 
 fellow has ever had. Of course we must 
 accept it, and we will both of us write letters 
 to the Duke, thanking him for his inter- 
 ference on our behalf. I’ll just go in and 
 talk to your mother about it.” And the 
 worthy baronet went into the house. 
 
 At this moment Rosamund came run- 
 ning back to the house; — alone. She was 
 passing us without stopping, when Gervase 
 said to her: — 
 
 Do you want to know what my letter 
 from the Chief said, Rosa?” 
 
 Thank you, I wouldn’t pry into your 
 private affairs for the world. Besides, I 
 can’t wait now, I want some scissors, and 
 Lord George is waiting for me in the con- 
 servatory.” 
 
 And with that she skipped into the 
 house. A look of intense pain came over 
 Gervase’s face as he looked in the direction 
 in which she had disappeared. 
 
 “Go after her,” said I to him, “and tell 
 her your news.” 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 165 
 
 ^^No, I don’t see why I should; if she 
 doesn’t choose to wait, she can’t want to 
 know.” 
 
 ^^But Gervase,” I insisted, ‘‘surely she 
 has a right to know; you won’t let her suffer 
 my boy, — as she will suffer — for any fool- 
 ish mistake, even if she herself has com- 
 mitted it.” 
 
 A softer light came into his eyes and he 
 made a half movement as if to turn and go 
 into the house after her, when suddenly 
 she tripped out by another window further 
 down the verandah and disappeared once 
 more in the direction of the conservatories. 
 Gervase’s face hardened again as he re- 
 plied to my remark: — 
 
 “ No, Mr. Cornell, she has no rights you 
 know we are not engaged formally to one 
 another — she has a loophole of escape;” he 
 added bitterly, “ and if she chooses to take 
 advantage of it in favor of Lord George, 
 you don’t suppose that I — I, her best 
 friejid — would seek to stand in her way.” 
 
 “ But, my dear boy,” I began, but he 
 
1 66 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 stopped me with a little gesture of his 
 hand, and a little proud toss of his head. 
 
 Pardon me,” said he, if I say, Mr. 
 Cornell, that the subject is not one which I 
 am in a position to discuss. Excuse me, 
 will you? I have to spend the day in mak- 
 ing arrangements for my departure. 
 
 But goodness me, you are surely not off 
 in such a hurry as that.” 
 
 I am afraid so, the Civil Service is a 
 kind of Pool of Bethesda, you know. It is 
 seldom troubled, and when it is, the man 
 who has anyone to help him to take advan- 
 tage of the opportunity, is the man who 
 reaps the benefit — but he must be on the 
 spot to take his place the moment he has 
 his chance. Au revoirT' 
 
 And so he left me. 
 
 My thoughts were none of the pleasant- 
 est as I walked down to the river-side. It 
 was hardly a river, perhaps; more properly 
 speaking, it was a rivulet which wandered 
 through the grounds and disappeared into 
 the Braybrooke woods, to join the Avon 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 167 
 
 somewhere far beyond them. When I 
 reached it, I found Constance Braybrooke 
 and a young artist, who was one of the 
 house-party, making sketches of a bend 
 where the pollard willows bowed down in 
 homage to the Naiads of the stream, as an 
 occasional kingfisher would dart out of the 
 scented rushes in pursuit of the too ven- 
 turesome minnow. 
 
 ‘‘Where is everybody?” I demanded 
 comprehensively of Miss Braybrooke. 
 
 “Oh!” replied she, “most of them are 
 off to Warwick to see the castle and its 
 peacocks. Eric and Professor Whitridge 
 have started for Edgehill, where the Pro- 
 fessor, I believe, fancies he will find Round- 
 head helmets and Cavalier buckles lying 
 about; Rosa and Lord George have gone 
 off fishing in the boat; and as Gervase isn’t 
 with Rosa — for a wonder! — I can’t tell you 
 where he is.” 
 
 “ I thought Gervase was going fishing 
 with Miss Gilbert,” said I. 
 
 “So did I,” replied the girl; “but they’ve 
 
1 68 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 had a tiff, I think. They’re always having 
 them, though the effects are not lasting. I 
 always tell them that one of these days 
 they’ll hurt one another in real earnest, 
 and not get over it.” 
 
 ‘‘Heaven forbid!” I ejaculated involun- 
 tarily. 
 
 And then I wandered away down the 
 side of the stream into the wood, where I 
 lost myself till lunch-time. After lunch I 
 settled myself in the Hbrary with Marcus 
 Aurelius, and saw no more of Gervase — or 
 indeed of any of them — till dinner-time. 
 
 The party had assembled in the drawing- 
 room, and dinner had been announced, 
 when Lady Braybrooke suddenly said: — 
 
 “ Why, where are Rosa and Lord 
 George? ” 
 
 The missing couple answered the ques- 
 tion by suddenly appearing in our midst, 
 dressed as we had seen them last at break- 
 fast. 
 
 “We just looked in,” said Miss Gilbert, 
 “to say ‘don’t wait dinner’; we’ll be down 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 169 
 
 directly; we lost ourselves, or we should 
 have been home hours ago! ” 
 
 And they disappeared again, leaving us 
 bewildered at their sudden apparition. 
 The fish had hardly been served when the 
 girl appeared en toilette and as she took 
 her place by Gervase, with Lord George 
 Wilmyngton’s empty seat on the other side 
 of her, broke into a voluble explanation of 
 their truancy. They had sculled down 
 stream, having glorious sport all the way, 
 and it was long past lunch-time before they 
 thought of turning back. Then they had 
 missed their way at a fork of the stream, 
 had taken the wrong side, and had finally 
 landed miles away from home, and had 
 walked across to Braybrooke Hall, hungry, 
 tired, and crowned with piscatorial victory. 
 As the girl finished her recital. Lord 
 George entered and took his seat, and as 
 he did so Gervase broke the silence for the 
 first time by saying: — 
 
 ‘‘You seem to have had a hard day, 
 Wilmyngton, but 1 don’t pity you, for Rosa 
 
1 70 The Story of a Younger Son, 
 
 keeps one up to the mark and makes the 
 time fly, doesn’t she? ” 
 
 “Yes,” replied his lordship, “I congratu- 
 late myself on our mistake; for my part I 
 never passed a pleasanter day in my life.” 
 
 “Nor I either,” said Rosamund, a little 
 defiantly, I fancied. 
 
 And then the conversation became gen- 
 eral. Rosamund and Gervase talked to- 
 gether most of dinner time, but it was not 
 the merry confidential chatter that they 
 usually kept up right through the meal. 
 At dessert. Sir Eric surprised us by tapping 
 the table with the handle of his knife, and 
 saying suddenly: — 
 
 “ I think we ought to drink Gervase’s 
 health — he is on the high road to fame and 
 fortune — but I am sorry to say he leaves 
 us to-morrow.” 
 
 I saw Rosamund Gilbert turn white for 
 an instant! and I saw too that Gervase, 
 glancing quickly in her direction, also noted 
 her change of color; but his face did not 
 soften as he nodded all round the table at 
 
The Story of a Younger Son, 17 1 
 
 the various members of the party as they 
 wished him ‘‘good luck.” 
 
 Rosamund alone did not participate in 
 the toast; she merely played with her glass 
 and smiled as if she had been assisting at 
 a little comedy; only I noticed, as she lifted 
 her menu to look at it by way of a diver- 
 sion, that the leaf of card-board shook as 
 if it had been a living leaf in an autumn 
 breeze. Soon after the ladies had retired, 
 Gervase rose and left the rest of us alone, 
 leaving the dining-room by the window and 
 disappearing across the lawn into the black- 
 ness of the night. As soon as Sir Eric 
 made a move, I followed in the direction 
 the boy had taken, and presently seeing the 
 tiny p hare'' of a lighted cigarette across 
 the rosery, I strolled round the grass walks 
 between the rose-beds to join him. As I 
 turned a corner and approached the seat 
 where I knew Gervase was sitting, there 
 was a sudden froufrou of skirts, and he 
 was joined by Miss Rosamund, who ex- 
 claimed: — 
 
172 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 Oh! Peter, why didnt you tell me about 
 
 it?*’ 
 
 My dear child,” replied Gervase, “I 
 don’t want to bore you with my private 
 affairs, and you don’t care about knowing 
 them — you said so yourself this morning. 
 I thought, of course, you knew by this even- 
 ing — I should have thought that this would 
 have been part of the brilliant flow of Lord 
 George’s conversation during eight hours 
 He can probably tell you more about it 
 than I can, as it is his father who has cleared 
 me o ut of the way for his son, by getting me 
 this appointment. — No, my girl, there’s 
 nothing more to be said on the subject; 
 do you object to my cigarette?” 
 
 There was an instant’s pause, and then 
 the girl answered icily: No, I don’t mind 
 tobacco, but it’s too cold for me to stay 
 here. No! don’t come back to the house 
 with me; I’d rather go alone — as I came— 
 and you must have a good deal to think 
 about. Good-bye for the present.” 
 
 And so she left him. 
 
The Story of a Younger Son, 173 
 
 1 sprang forward and exclaimed: Go 
 
 after her, Gervase, remember what I said 
 this morning — you are making a dreadful 
 mistake which may ruin your whole lives; 
 go after her, my boy.” 
 
 “No,” replied he, with his little proud 
 toss of the head, “ I refuse to cringe to any 
 woman that treats me as if I were a child 
 of seven. She has had eight hours of 
 Wilmyngton, — let her get the full par- 
 ticulars from him.” 
 
 He was immovable, and presently he left 
 me and I returned to the drawing-room. 
 Miss Gilbert, I was told, had retired to her 
 room, as she was tired after her long day 
 in the open air. The rest of the party were 
 sitting around — as country-house parties 
 will do — in groups, chatting and telling 
 stories. Gervase and his father were clos- 
 eted together, going over papers of one 
 kind and another connected with his ap- 
 pointment, and I did not see them again 
 till they joined us in the smoking-room 
 after the ladies had retired. The conver- 
 
174 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 sation not unnaturally turned on Gervase’s 
 departure, which was to take place early 
 next day, the nature of his future occupa- 
 tions, and the date of his probable ' return. 
 It seemed that in all probability four or 
 five years at least must elapse before he 
 saw England again. He spoke of his ab- 
 sence seriously and unreservedly, but with 
 a quick cheerfulness that showed that at 
 any rate he appreciated the opportunity 
 that had been offered him of winning his 
 spurs in the employ of his government. 
 
 Bright hopes! Happy future! Ah, it is 
 good to be a man! Who was it that said 
 that the next best thing after not having 
 been born at all, would have been to have 
 been born a woman? He was mad or spoke 
 heedlessly. Gervase Braybrooke was 
 twenty, handsome, and a gentleman to the 
 backbone; he had passed all the examina- 
 tions which had been his betes mires 
 throughout his school days, and which had 
 earned for him the pity of his female rela- 
 tions, whose immunity from exams he 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 175 
 
 had so heartily envied; and now, by the ac- 
 cident of his birth, not being like his elder 
 brother, an independent gentleman, the 
 Duke had interested himself to obtain for 
 the younger son of his old friend, a staff 
 appointment of importance close to the per- 
 son of Her Majesty’s Viceroy. Laurels to 
 win, a position to conquer, a reputation to 
 earn, and glory and renown in the future a 
 visible goal. Ah! it is good to be a man! 
 And Rosamund Gilbert — matchless speci- 
 men of womanhood, as he of his own sex, 
 having the same, — nay, on the ground of 
 her prospective motherhood of men as 
 good as he, having better claims on human- 
 ity at large, — what had she in the imme- 
 diate future, whilst he was away fighting 
 the battle of life on the stage of govern- 
 ment? Nothing! She had only to sit down 
 and wait — to wait, whilst every day her 
 beauty became less fresh, less bright, and 
 her enjoyment of life became less keen and 
 less minute. Ah! it is good to be a man. 
 Woman! Woman! we bow before you, and 
 
176 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 kiss your hands in token of our submission 
 to your will; often — very often — our des- 
 tinies are moulded by you; sometimes for 
 evil, but more often for good; we strive to 
 please you in all the small things of life, 
 our going-out and our coming-in depend 
 upon your sovereign will and pleasure; the 
 fashion of our cravats and the intonation 
 of our voices; but how is it when the 
 world of men calls us to fill our allotted 
 space in the universe as thinkers and 
 workers? — how is it in the large events of 
 life? the things which mould the destinies 
 not only of ourselves as individuals, but of 
 Humanity? Ah! then! — these things are 
 not for women’s thoughts! Get you to 
 your needle-work, to your flower-garden, 
 to your book of fairy tales, and to your in- 
 struments of music. Maybe, when we have 
 settled the matter, we may speak to you of 
 it again, and tell you what we have done for 
 you. Ah! Ah! it is to be a man! 
 
 Next morning Rosamund Gilbert did not 
 come down to breakfast. She was not 
 
The Story of a Younger Son, 177 
 
 feeling well, Lady Braybrooke told us, but 
 would be down to see Gervase off. This 
 was a ceremony which took place at eleven 
 o’clock; we all assembled in the hall and 
 on the portico, and Gervase walked about 
 seeing to the final embarkation of his lug- 
 gage and talking to us all in turn. Rosa- 
 mund was there, and as bright and cheer- 
 ful as any of us, keeping up a constant 
 ripple of chaff and repartee with “Peter,” as 
 he went from group to group. At last the 
 supreme moment arrived. Gervase looked 
 very grey and determined, but got through 
 it manfully. He said “good-bye ” to Rosa- 
 mund last — with the exception of his 
 father, who saw him off at the station — and 
 when he reached her, he took both her 
 hands in his and raised them in turn to his 
 lips. She was deathly pale, but she merely 
 leaned forward and said: — 
 
 “ Kiss me, Peter.” 
 
 And putting one hand on her shoulder, 
 he leant over and kissed the white lips that 
 were turned up to his. I believe it was the 
 
178 The Story of a Younger Son, 
 
 first time he ever kissed her — and the last. 
 Then, with a sparkle in his eyes and a little 
 husky tone in his voice, he turned, and 
 waving his hat at us as we stood on the 
 steps, he cried out: — 
 
 ‘‘Good-bye, all of you; good-bye, Bray- 
 brooke!” and as the dog-cart started down 
 the drive, he turned and kissed his hand to 
 one of the upper windows where Lady Bray- 
 brooke and Constance had probably sta- 
 tioned themselves to see the last of him, 
 and to shed their tears together, unseen by 
 the merry crowd in the hall. 
 
 When the dog-cart had disappeared, and 
 I turned back into the hall, Rosamund Gil- 
 bert was no longer there, nor did I see her 
 again until after lunch, when she came 
 down looking a trifle pale but as cheerful 
 as ever. It seemed to me that Lord George 
 Wilmyngton was in better spirits this after- 
 noon than I had ever seen him him before. 
 He threw himself eagerly into every plan 
 that was proposed, and at last, when his 
 good-humor had communicated itself to the 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 179 
 
 rest of us, and had dissipated, to some ex- 
 tent, the cloud which Gervase’s departure 
 had cast over us, it was with a strange sink- 
 ing of the heart that I saw him and Rosa- 
 mund stroll away down to the hammock 
 where I had seen her the morning after my 
 arrival, and arrange themselves to chat, she 
 in the hammock and he on the ground, as 
 Gervase had been wont to sit. I felt some- 
 how — stranger though I was — that I had 
 been left guardian of Gervase’s interests, 
 and after a while I strolled over in their 
 direction. As I approached, Rosamund 
 cried out: — 
 
 “Oh, Mr. Cornell, Lord George says 
 Peter’s going to be away for five years at 
 least; it isn’t true, is .it?” 
 
 “ Certainly it is true. Did you not know 
 it — did he not tell you?” 
 
 “ No, he didn’t choose to tell me anything 
 about his plans, and I didn’t choose to ask 
 him — or anybody else.” 
 
 “I should have thought,” remarked Lord 
 George quickly, but meaningly, “that you 
 
The Story of a Younger Son, i8o 
 
 would have been the first person he would 
 have come to tell all about them, Miss 
 Gilbert.” 
 
 Gervase had something else to do,” said 
 she, flaming up immediately, as a woman 
 always does if any man presumes to agree 
 with her in abusing another of his sex, 
 
 than to loaf about all day talking to us 
 girls about things we shouldn’t understand. 
 You don’t quite see. Lord George, Gervase 
 is not an ‘ idle man,’ and has something to 
 think about and to do in the world besides 
 amuse himself. Help me out of the ham- 
 mock, please, Mr. Cornell, I’m going to see 
 what all the others are doing.” 
 
 And with that she walked slowly across 
 the lawn and disappeared into the house. 
 In the drawing-room before dinner, I said 
 to her: — 
 
 “Now that Peter’s gone, the rest of us 
 have a chance, I suppose. Will you waste 
 half an hour after dinner walking with an 
 old fellow like me?” 
 
 “Of course I will,” replied she; and ac- 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. i8i 
 
 cordingly, as soon as I could get away after 
 dessert, I came and found her waiting for 
 me in the drawing-room. 
 
 We went out together into the early 
 moonlight and walked slowly round the 
 lawn, talking seriously as we went. I for- 
 get the arguments I used in begging her 
 not to think ill of Gervase for having left 
 her thus. I pointed out that the faults had 
 been on both sides, that he had good rea- 
 sons for not telling her of his departure in 
 the presence of the company assembled at 
 breakfast the morning before, that her re- 
 fusal to listen when he had offered her his 
 confidence on the verandah must necessa- 
 rily have hurt him, and that the wound had 
 hardly been healed by her excursion with 
 Lord George, which had occupied the 
 whole of the single, only, day which had 
 elapsed prior to his departure. I told her 
 that I thought he had had fair reason for 
 what he had said in the evening in the 
 rose-garden, and I begged her to write him 
 a letter at once to the India Office, explain- 
 
1 82 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 ing all the circumstances of the case, and 
 asking his forgiveness for her fault whilst 
 she freely pardoned his. She met all my 
 reasoning with a woman’s unreasonable 
 but unanswerable objections, and finally, as 
 we drew near the drawing-room windows 
 for the last time, she said: 
 
 No, Mr. Cornell, it is of no use; it is 
 not as if we were engaged to one another. 
 If we had been, he would not have treated 
 me — and possibly I should not have treated 
 him — in such a manner. I had no idea of 
 the contents of his letter, and what I said 
 at breakfast was merely angry chaff at his 
 having mortified me before all the others, 
 I was angry, but I would have given any- 
 thing not to have been so horrid — but then 
 — when I went after him — just fancy my do- 
 ing such a thing — in the rose-garden, he 
 was cruel and unkind, and it is he who 
 ought to ask me to forgive him. I will not 
 write to him unless he writes to me — and 
 perhaps not then. He has his way to make 
 in the world— he doesn’t want to be 
 
The Storys of a Younger Son. 183 
 
 hampered by me and my feelings. It was 
 all very well when he had nothing to do; I 
 was all very well to amuse an idle hour or 
 two, but you will see how it is — now his life 
 is full, how much shall /hear of him? A mes- 
 sage in a letter to his mother, a newspaper 
 paragraph if he distinguishes himself — as of 
 course he will — and that will be enough 
 for Rosamund Gilbert. Well, Fm not the 
 first woman who has been in my position, 
 Mr. Cornell — don’t persuade me any 
 more, my mind is quite made up. You are 
 very good to have interested yourself in 
 my affairs, and now I must go in, so au re- 
 voir Mr. Cornell, au revoir!' 
 
 I was at Braybrooke for another fort- 
 night and my visit was drawing to a close. 
 
 The evening before my departure I was 
 sitting next to Miss Gilbert at dinner. 
 Gervase Braybrooke had left London for 
 Bombay the day before, and we all felt a 
 little depressed by our sympathy with Sir 
 Eric and Lady Braybrooke. Tov/ards the 
 end of dinner I said to her: — 
 
184 The Story of a Younger Son, 
 
 Did you write to him?” 
 
 “ No,” replied she. 
 
 “ He has not written to you?” 
 
 ^^No.” 
 
 Nor sent any message?” 
 
 “ He only asked Lady Braybrooke how. I 
 was, and said he hoped that if ever I could 
 find a moment when I was not fishing and 
 going long walks, I would remember his 
 existence and write him a line to tell him 
 what l am doing.” 
 
 I returned to town next day. 
 
 III. 
 
 Three years passed during which I 
 often met the Braybrookes and Miss Gil- 
 bert in London society. She never asked 
 after Gervase, and it seemed strange to me 
 that she did not, for the boy distin- 
 guished himself, as we all expected he 
 would, and many of the daily and society 
 papers spoke periodically of the good ser- 
 vice he was doing his government as the 
 right-hand man of the Viceroy, a position 
 
,Thc Story of a Younger Son. 185 
 
 he had acquired, notwithstanding his youth, 
 by the charm of his manner and by his 
 moral character, as much as by the energy 
 and enthusiasm with which he entered into 
 his work. Still, Miss Gilbert knew that I 
 corresponded with him, for I told her so. 
 Only once, however, had I led the conver- 
 sation in the direction of Gervase and his 
 work, and the girl had looked bored and 
 uninterested, and finally had rather point- 
 edly changed the conversation. I did not 
 recur to the subject. 
 
 So beautiful a woman as Rosamund 
 Gilbert suffered naturally from a super- 
 fluity rather than from a lack of cavaliers, 
 and whether at afternoon receptions, in the 
 Park, at Hurlingham, or at ‘‘ crushes, ” the 
 man who principally monopolized the at- 
 tention of Miss Gilbert was generally a 
 marked individual. Of all her white slaves, 
 however, none was more assiduous in his 
 attentions or more constant in his attend- 
 ance than Lord George Wilrnyngton; and 
 really, when I think about it calmly, I do 
 
1 86 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 not blame Rosamund for her toleration of 
 his unflagging service. Setting aside his 
 title and his wealth, Lord George was an 
 English gentleman in the loftiest accepta- 
 tion of the term; he was well-built and 
 handsome, not troubled by a superfluity of 
 brains — in fact Rosamund once confessed 
 to me that she found him dull — but then 
 he was supremely “good form, ” and loved 
 her honestly and humbly. Therefore, 
 though it pained me terribly, for I was 
 really fond of Gervase — I was hardly sur- 
 prised when I read one day in the Morn- 
 ing Post that “ a marriage had been ar- 
 ranged between Lord George Wilmyngton, 
 third son of the Duke of Westhampton, 
 and Rosamund, daughter of the late 
 Erskine Gilbert, Esquire, and niece of Sir 
 Eric Braybrooke, Batf of Braybrooke 
 Hall, Warwickshire.” Three days after- 
 wards the Indian mail brought a letter 
 from Gervase announcing his intention of 
 applying for leave, and of coming home 
 the following summer for a few months. 
 
The Story of a Younger Son, 187 
 
 I wrote back, warmly seconding his prop- 
 osition, but in the same letter I sent him 
 the cutting from the Tost, and a little ac- 
 count of the engaged couple which I 
 hoped would soften the blow to him — if 
 blow it was to be. I hoped my letter 
 would get to him before the account that 
 was bound to reach him from home — and 
 I believe it did. Meantime, whilst the 
 preparations for the “ Marriage in High 
 Life ” proceeded, his answer to my letter 
 came swiftly across the hemisphere that 
 divided us. " 
 
 The young people had known one an- 
 other for years, so there was no reason why 
 the marriage should be postponed, and 
 Gervase's answer arrived about a week be- 
 fore it was to take place. It was short and 
 to the point. 
 
 His plans had undergone a change since 
 writing last. His Excellency had offered 
 to send him on a mission of importance to 
 Mandalay, and he had accepted the offer. 
 It was a great chance for so young a man, 
 
1 88 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 and he had determined to take advantage 
 of it. He proposed to postpone his return 
 for a further period of three years. By 
 the time his letter reached me he was 
 probably on his way. to his post— if he 
 was not already there. 
 
 And a week after that Rosamund Gil- 
 bert became Lady George Wilmyngton. 
 
 IV. 
 
 What is it that Omar the Persian Tent- 
 maker says of Time? 
 
 The moving finger writes, and having 
 writ, moves on!” A hiatus of four years 
 occurred in my story, and Time, as is his 
 wont, had been quietly at work, making 
 changes in our lives. Personally, I had 
 stepped from the bar to the bench, and ex- 
 changed the curly wig of the Queen’s 
 Counsel for the fuzzy head-gear of the 
 Judge. Lord and Lady George Wilmyngton 
 in their beautiful house in Picadilly, were 
 among the most prominent members of 
 London society. A terrible tragedy- — the 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 189 
 
 simultaneous death in a railway accident of 
 Sir Eric Braybrooke and his eldest son — 
 had caused the baronetcy to devolve on 
 Gervase, and Sir Gervase Braybrooke of 
 Braybrooke Hall, Warwickshire, was one of 
 the most prominent actors on the stage o^ 
 Indian politics. He had accomplished his 
 mission in Mandalay in a manner which 
 had absolutely astonished the India office; 
 He had been publicly complimented by 
 both Houses of Parliament, and had as- 
 cended from the Companionship, to the 
 Knight-Commandership of the Star of In- 
 dia; and even before he became Sir Ger- 
 vase Braybrooke, Bart, he was already Sir 
 Gervase Braybrooke, K. C. S. I., and Eng- 
 land looked forward to a brilliant future 
 career for him, as Her Majesty’s Viceroy in 
 India. His sister Constance had married, 
 and was the proud mother of a baby-boy 
 and of a not-quite-so-baby girl, and Lady 
 Braybrooke had gone to live permanently 
 in strict retirement in Braybrooke Hall. 
 
 One evening I was seated in my study, 
 
190 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 busy revising the proof-sheets of a new 
 edition of my work on The Practice of the 
 Court of Appeal,” when my servant came 
 and told me that a gentleman wished to see 
 me who had refused to give his name, and 
 was waiting in the drawing-room. I was 
 somewhat annoyed at being disturbed, but 
 came down mmediately and found await- 
 ing me a tall, bronzed, and distinguished- 
 looking man, with rather grizzled blond 
 hair, and an erect commanding figure. I 
 bowed, and asked him to be seated. 
 
 “What!” exclaimed Gervase — for it was 
 he — “am I so changed in seven years that 
 you don’t recognize me?” 
 
 Ah! but how glad I was to see him! and 
 how I abused him for not having told me 
 that he was coming. He had arrived the 
 evening before and had determined to sur- 
 prise me by swooping down upon me with- 
 out a word of warning? I carried him 
 away up to my sarictum sanctorufn and after 
 reviling him for having dined alone at the 
 club, set him down in an arm-chair oppo- 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 19 1 
 
 site me, and for an hour we chatted and 
 laughed like school-boys, he, the rising 
 young Indian civilian whose habitual grav- 
 ity was far beyond his years, and I, the 
 grave Lord Justice of Her Majesty’s Su- 
 preme Court of Judicature, old enough to 
 be his father. I told him all the news that 
 I had not included in my letters to him, and 
 he gave me an outline of his adventures. I 
 told him all I knew of Rosamund Wilmyng- 
 ton and her husband, and he listened and 
 asked questions in the calm and indifferent 
 manner of a man who is dimly recalling 
 events of his boyhood — events which seemed 
 to him to be of paramount importance 
 when they occurred, and who feels a mild 
 surprise at the recollection of the effect 
 they had upon him in those half-forgotten 
 time’s. At last he said, in a reflective and 
 half-amused tone of voice: — 
 
 ^AVell, well, I know that I left Braybrooke, 
 and left England maddened, miserable, and 
 sore at heart, and it took the whole of the 
 first year that I never heard from her, to 
 
192 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 realize that she had never really cared 
 about me. It took the whole of the second 
 year to accustom myself to the idea that 
 the brilliant exquisite future I had mapped 
 out for myself with her, was nothing but a 
 boyish dream, and even during the third 
 year, when I had applied for leave and was 
 coming home, I knew that my love was not 
 quite dead, and I used sometimes, when I 
 sat in the Gardens at Bombay liste ing to 
 the band after dinner, to imagine myself 
 back in the old home, riding through the 
 Braybrooke Woods upon Dynamite, with 
 her at my side, touching an almost forgot- 
 ten chord, and offering her a devotion 
 which was no longer an outcome of the flat- 
 tered vanity of a school-boy. But then — 
 your letter came; — I knew that it was all 
 over, and that I had only my work out 
 there to fill the remainder of my life, and I 
 gave up my leave when Lord B. offered me 
 the residency at Mandalay, and have stifled 
 the thought of her ever since. But not- 
 withstanding all this. I’ve sometimes 
 
The Story of a Younger Son, 193 
 
 vaguely wondered what she has grown to 
 be — and now that I am in the old country 
 again, I should like to see Rosamund Gil- 
 bert again. Egad! I wonder whether she 
 would remember me!” 
 
 Why, my dear fellow,” I replied, if 
 you really have left off caring about her, 
 and if you really want to see her again, 
 you can do so this very moment if you like. 
 Mrs. Francis Jeune is giving one of her 
 historic parties to-night, and we can look in 
 for half an hour and then stroll down to 
 the club. Lord George and she are certain 
 to be there; all Diplomacy and all fashion- 
 able Bohemia meet there as regularly as 
 clock-work, and though I hadn't intended 
 to go myself. Ell take you there with 
 pleasure, and Mrs. Jeune will be delighted 
 to see you, both on your own account and 
 mine. I’ll call at Claridge’s for you in 
 half an hour, and we’ll go together.” 
 
 And so it was arranged. When I stopped 
 my cab at Claridge’s Hotel for him, I found 
 him ready for me, and certainly a more dis- 
 
194 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 tinguished-looking man I have never seen, 
 than Sir Gervase Braybrooke, with the Star 
 of India on his dress coat, and the jewel of 
 the order suspended by its ribbon beneath 
 his white cravat. 
 
 Our hostess cordially extended to him 
 the welcome that she always had ready for 
 any living creature whose position and 
 attainments rendered him worthy to be- 
 come a member of the brilliant throng that 
 habitually circulated from room to room in 
 her house in Harley street; and almost the 
 first person I saw as we entered the salon., 
 was Lady George Wilmyngton. She was 
 listening to Oscar Wilde’s latest paradoxi- 
 cal axiom when 1 touched her shoulder and 
 said: — 
 
 ‘^Lady George, I have brought an old 
 friend to claim acquaintance with you.” 
 
 She turned immediately, and, directing 
 one searching look at the tall figure stand- 
 ing by my side, flushed crimson, then 
 turned a shade paler than she had been be- 
 fore, put out both hands and exclaimed in 
 a voice that was almost strangled: — 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 195 
 
 ‘‘Why, Peter!’* 
 
 After that, a few commonplace words of 
 surprise and satisfaction on both sides, and 
 then Gervase offering her his arm, said: — 
 
 “ Let us find a comparatively quiet place 
 where we can talk.” 
 
 As they made their way to one of the 
 smaller rooms, they passed Lord George, 
 who was conversing with a member of the 
 diplomatic corps in the passage. As they 
 went by he turned an enquiring glance on 
 his wife’s escort, and she, looking up at 
 him, said: — 
 
 “ Don’t you remember Gervase Bray- 
 brooke? Come into the little room with us, 
 we are going to talk about old times.” 
 
 The two men greeted one anothej 
 warmly, and half an hour afterwards, as I 
 was gravitating in the direction of sand- 
 wiches and sherry with the Persian minis- 
 ter, I saw the three .sitting together en- 
 gaged in an animated confabulation. 
 
 Gervase Braybrooke and I, left together. 
 We walked almost in silence as far as Ox- 
 ford street, and then he said: — 
 
196 The Story of a Younger Son, 
 
 If you’ll excuse me, Sir William, I 
 won’t come down to the club; I’ve had a 
 hard day of it, and I think I’ll get home 
 and turn in. I’ll come and see you again 
 in a day or two. 
 
 And so he left me. A few days after- 
 wards he came down to the Royal Courts 
 of Justice late in the afternoon, and when 
 the court rose he drove home with me. I 
 couldn’t get him to stay to dinner. He 
 was dining at Wilmyngton House. 
 
 V. 
 
 Three or four days later I was dining 
 with Lord George Wilmyngton and his 
 wife, a partie carree of which Gervase was 
 the remaining member. He seemed quite 
 at home — quite one of the family — and, 
 knowing as much as I did of the earlier re- 
 lations of Gervase Braybrooke and Rosa- 
 mund Wilmyngton, the easy familiarity 
 which appeared to exist between them at 
 this time perplexed me. Knowing Lady 
 George to be a woman of the most ex- 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 197 
 
 quisite delicacy of mind and of the most 
 unimpeachable refinement, and knowing 
 Sir Gervase to be the very pink and 
 pattern of perfect gentlemanly feeling 
 and honor, I felt no uneasiness on the sub- 
 ject; but it seemed odd, after what he 
 had told me the first evening after his 
 return, that he could fall immediately 
 into so apparently close a friendship — 
 just as of yore — with his old sweetheart. 
 When we left the house on the evening of 
 which I am speaking, I said something to 
 this effect, and asked him if Lady George 
 had referred at all to the past. 
 
 Not a word,” replied he; we talk con- 
 tinually of the old days at Braybrooke, of 
 the place itself, and of our rambles and rides 
 together; but of our parting, never. She 
 does not wish it, nor do I — all that is at an 
 end henceforth and forever. I referred 
 once to my last day at Braybrooke, but she 
 silenced me coldly and peremptorily, and I 
 was glad she did ‘so, she evideny does 
 not look upon her conduct in the light that I 
 
198 The Story of a Younger Son, 
 
 did, and do, and it is perhaps as well. It 
 need not interfere with our friendship, 
 which is still what it always was. Only 
 those two days are out of our lives, and are 
 as if we had never lived them. 
 
 Then he told me that during the day he 
 had finished his official business at the In- 
 dia office for the present, and that early 
 next morning he should start for Warwick- 
 shire to see his mother. 
 
 At the end of a fortnight he was back 
 in town again. I did not see him for a 
 day or two, and at the end of that time he 
 told me that his plans were uncertain — that 
 he did not know how long he should re- 
 main away from his post in India, and that 
 his mother would most probably remain at 
 Braybrooke for the rest of her life. He 
 did not suppose that he would ever marry 
 — the baronetcy was not restricted in its 
 descent, and would devolve upon his 
 cousin. At present — for the season at any 
 rate — he should remain in London. 
 
 I knew that there was nothing to feel 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 199 
 
 uneasy about, but there was an uncertainty, 
 a restlessness about Sir Gervase that I did 
 not like. He seemed to be preoccupied, 
 without having anything in particular on 
 his mind, and I began to feel oppressed by 
 an idea that his thoughts were beginning ta 
 run — oh! the pity of it! — on the migh 
 have been." 
 
 One evening I was sitting at work — as 
 on that other occasion — when he was an- 
 nounced. The moment he came in, I knew 
 that there was something wrong, that some- 
 thing had happened. Appearances were 
 not deceptive. 
 
 “ I have been with Lady George Wil- 
 myngton this afternoon," began he, ‘‘and 
 we have had a talk over those two days." 
 
 “Great Heaven!" thought I, “what is he 
 going to tell me? " 
 
 “It was all a dreadful mistake. I mis- 
 understood her, and she misunderstood me; 
 she loved me as dearly as I loved her, only 
 she was too proud to confess it, and I was 
 to poor to ask it of her." 
 
200 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 ‘‘Go on.’' 
 
 If I had written from London, even 
 from India, it would have been all right, 
 but like an idiot I thought she was in love 
 with Lord George, and she imagined that 
 I thought of nothing but my future — my 
 brilliant future! Good God! how dearly I 
 have bought it!” 
 
 And you have explained these things 
 to one another?” 
 
 ^‘Yes.” 
 
 ^‘Gervase,” I said very gravely, ^^I know 
 you too well for a thought of the possibility 
 of a dishonorable action on your part ever 
 to cross my mind; but with all your knowl- 
 edge of the world and with an experience 
 of life such as few men have had at your 
 age, you must realize that your position 
 with regard to Lord George Wilmyngton’s 
 wife is a very difficult and a very strained 
 one. What are you going to do?” 
 
 ‘‘Nothing!” said he, raising from his 
 chair to pace backwards and forwards 
 across the room. “Rosamund and I have 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 201 
 
 talked the matter over calmly, deliberately, 
 dispassionately. We are both confident of 
 ourselves and of one another, and you may 
 be sure that no words of mine to her shall 
 ever be such as her husband might not 
 willingly hear. Our lives have been spoilt 
 by a cruel mistake, but though she is Wil- 
 myngton’s wife, she shall never cease to be 
 the dearest friend I have ever had, or shall 
 evej have, in the world.” 
 
 I felt that I was talking to a person very, 
 very different to the boy of seven years ago, 
 and I said but little more that evening. 
 From that time onward Sir Gervase became 
 Lady Wilmyngton’s most constant atten- 
 dant — whether at home or abroad. Lord 
 George knew very well that his honor was 
 in no sense in danger, and upon terms of 
 the most intimate friendship the house in 
 Picadilly became an ideal ^'‘menage a trois.'* 
 It was towards the end of the seavSon that, 
 'one evening at a reception at the Foreign 
 Office, I was chatting with one of the Col- 
 onial Secretaries of State, when Lady 
 George passed on Gervase’s arm. 
 
202 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 “Do you know Braybrooke?” asked the 
 Secretary. 
 
 “Very intimately/’ said I. 
 
 “ Then, if you have any influence with 
 him, get him back to India as fast as you 
 can. That’s a most rising young civilian 
 being checked in the last round of a bril- 
 liant career. What does he want dangling 
 after Lady George through a London 
 season, when Theebaw is stirring himself 
 up to give us trouble almost within walking 
 distance of his post out there? I’m inter- 
 ested in that young man, Cornell, and I 
 don’t like the look of it — I don’t like the 
 look of it.” 
 
 No more did 1 . And I determined to 
 have a talk with Gervase about it. The 
 end of the season was at hand, the festivi- 
 ties of the gay world were culminating in 
 Goodwood, and already here and there 
 one could see great houses whence the 
 glory was departed until next season, and 
 whose carefully closed and guarded win- 
 dows announced the absence of “ the 
 
The Story of a Younger Son, 203 
 
 family/' It was in the last days of July 
 that Gervase came to take a little quiet 
 dinner with me in my bachelor house in 
 Eaton Place. During dinner I said to 
 him : 
 
 ‘‘ I suppose you will spend August with 
 her ladyship at Braybrooke?" 
 
 “Well, no," he replied, “ I shall go there 
 later. Tve promised to go down to the’ 
 Wilmyngtons for August." 
 
 “ Oh!" 
 
 After dinner, when the conversation had 
 taken the confidential tone imparted by 
 arm-chairs and the incense of “ Henry 
 Clays," I remarked in the most offhand 
 manner in the world: 
 
 “And when do you return to India?" 
 
 “ Never;" answered he. 
 
 “Good God! my dear fellow, what do 
 you mean?" 
 
 “Well," said he, “ I’ve thought it all 
 over, and that’s my decision. I didn’t talk 
 to you about it. Sir William, because I 
 knew you’d argue the matter, and my mind 
 
204 Story of a You7iger Son. 
 
 was made up. I sent in my papers some 
 weeks ago, and by this time my successor 
 is on his way out. They raised no end of 
 a dust about it at the India Office; in fact, 
 they refused to gazette my resignation 
 until the other day, and even the Prince 
 had a talk to me about it at Ascot, but I 
 gave him my reasons, and H.R.H. was 
 satisfied and didn’t press the point. You 
 see, I should never have gone into the 
 Indian Civil Service if I had not been the 
 governor’s younger son; and now that the 
 poor old gentleman and Eric are both 
 gone, throwing the baronetcy on my 
 shoulders, I feel in a manner bound to 
 adopt the life which I should have taken 
 up if I had been born heir to the title and 
 estates; — only that I should have married 
 Rosamund Gilbert. Braybrooke requires a 
 master to look after it, and my mother is 
 an old lady now. Sir William, my father’s 
 and brother’s awful deaths aged her ter- 
 ribly, and Con’s marriage has left her all 
 alone in the world. So I shall keep my 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 205 
 
 rooms at the Albany and spend my time 
 between them and Braybrooke; there’s 
 plenty to occupy my time here. Of course 
 I know that I’m giving up a lot out in the 
 Empire, and that many people who don’t 
 know my reasons will blame me; but you 
 know them, and you know that they are 
 valid, don’t you?” 
 
 “ Yes,” I replied, “ I know them, though 
 you have kept silence as to the principal 
 one. Now, don’t answer me yet. As a 
 Lord Justice I am accustomed to formulat- 
 ing cases with brutal precision, and your 
 case is this: You — Sir Gervase Braybrooke, 
 Baronet, Knight Commander of the Star 
 of India, Her Majesty’s Commissioner for 
 the district of Bowghranee, in the province 
 of Bengal, almost at the head of your pro- 
 fession at the age of eight-and-twenty, 
 prospective Viceroy of the Empire of India, 
 and sure of a peerage — have thrown all 
 this to the winds and relegated yourself to 
 absolute insignificance because you are in 
 love with the wife of an old school chum,” 
 
2 o 6 The Story of a Younger Son, 
 
 the son of the man to whom you owe your 
 position. I am old enough to be your 
 father, I have watched your career as if 
 you were my son, for I’m very fond of you, 
 my boy, and I have been your father’s in- 
 timate friend since we were both fourteen 
 and went to Eton together. Therefore I 
 am the only living man who has a right to 
 hold the mirror for you to look at yourself 
 in it. How do you like the picture?” 
 
 He rose from his chair and walked to 
 the window. For a few moments he stood 
 there looking out into the late summer 
 twilight, at the people passing underneath 
 in the street, twisting up his slightly grizzled 
 moustache. At last he turned, and coming 
 back, dropped once more into his chair 
 opposite me. 
 
 ‘‘You have stated the case with startling 
 truth,” said he, “ but there is nothing more 
 to be said about it. The thing is done — 
 finally, irrevocably. But don’t imagine that 
 I am going to spoil her life with my own. 
 We are as good friends to-day as we were 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 207 
 
 in the old time at Braybrooke. Lord 
 George, thank God, appreciates his wife at 
 her true value, and trusts her as implicitly 
 as she and I trust one another. Don’t be 
 uneasy about us, old friend. This is my 
 life. I led off with a terrible mistake, the 
 past has been bitter, but the present makes 
 amends for it all, and I have no fear for 
 the future.” 
 
 The future! There was a certain grim 
 humor in the way he spoke, but there was 
 nothing to be gained by worrying him 
 about it. 
 
 I changed the conversation. 
 
 VI. 
 
 How unimportant the things which vitally 
 concern ourselves seem to other people! 
 It did not seem in the least to call for 
 comment from the world that wherever 
 Lady George Wilmyngton and her husband 
 were to be seen. Sir Gervase Braybrooke 
 was sure to be found not far off. Few re- 
 membered — and they only at rare intervals, 
 
2 o 8 The Story of a Youjiger Son. 
 
 when he appeared decorated with the star 
 and collar of the order — that the distin- 
 guished-looking young man was the hero 
 of the Bowghranee insurrection. More 
 than a year had passed since the conversa- 
 tion I have just recorded took place in my 
 dining-room, when, one November evening^ 
 on my return from Court, I found a note 
 from Gervase asking me if I could spare 
 him the evening, and apologizing for not 
 asking me to come to dinner. I had a 
 vague, uneasy feeling that something was 
 wrong, and I arrived at the Albany at 
 about nine. 
 
 Gervase was sitting in a low arm-chair 
 in front of the fire. On a little table beside 
 him stood a pile of letters, which he was 
 reading and burning as he read them one- 
 by-one. A cold spasm of apprehension 
 seized me, as I remarked cheerily: — 
 
 ‘‘Hullo! boy; burning love letters?’' 
 
 “ Yes; this kind of love letter: — ‘ Dear 
 Peter, Come and dine with us to-night; 
 seven punctually. Yours, Rosamund.’ 
 
The Story of a Youjiger Son. 209 
 
 Here’s another. ^ Dear Peter: George 
 has got a box for “Frou-Frou” to-night; 
 will you come? Yours, Rosa.’ Nothing 
 more than that, Sir William, but they are 
 the only kind of love letters I have ever 
 received.” And as he spoke he flung the 
 two notes he had read into the flames. 
 
 “ My dear Gervase, for Heaven’s sake 
 what has happened? ” 
 
 “Oh! Nothing much — nothing much. 
 Fm only burning records of the past, and 
 their ashes are the Ashes of the Future — 
 mine and hers. Ashes — cf the Future we 
 look forward to so joyfully together, canter- 
 ing through the Braybrooke Woods and 
 across the Kineton meadows; I on Dyna- 
 mite and she on Douchka. It’s happened 
 to a good many men before, and will hap- 
 pen to a good many again, to wake up and 
 find that the sacrifices they have made 
 have been in vain, and that all their plans 
 have been based on an initial error. This 
 life is like an astronomical calculation. 
 You reckon the arrival of a comet or the 
 
210 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 moment of an eclipse, and in stating the 
 problem, start with an unnoticed error of 
 a unit in a logarithm, or an accidental 
 transposition of the ninety-ninth and hun- 
 dreth decimal places in a fraction. The 
 error is not noticed, and you build your 
 calculation accordingly, and when your 
 phenomenon takes place you find that 
 there is a mistake of a million miles or so. 
 
 But, Gervase, by all that’s horrible, 
 please explain yourself.” 
 
 ‘‘Yes! — you of all people in the world 
 have a right to ask for an explanation. 
 What is it that your beloved Persian says: — 
 
 “ The worldly hope men set their hearts upon 
 Turn Ashes — or it prospers, and anon 
 (Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty face) 
 Lighting a little hour or two — is gone! ” 
 
 “ Well, well, that’s my case. I threw up 
 everything a little more than a year ago, 
 and devoted my life to a pure disinterested 
 friendship for Rosamund Wilmyngton, and 
 for a year I have been, as you know, her 
 almost constant companion — with the full 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 21 1 
 
 approval of Lord George, who, thank God! 
 has nothing to reproach his wife with. 
 This friendship of ours was enough forme, 
 it was my whole life — but with her it was 
 different, though the difference only began 
 to be dimly discernable at the beginning of 
 last season. Her friendship for me raised 
 the tone of my every thought, my friend- 
 ship for her had, alas! the contrary effect. 
 She ceased to require a friend, she wanted a 
 ‘tame man;’ next she grew tired of the 
 harmless necessary male, and insisted upon 
 a slavery, a serfdom, and then my manhood 
 revolted and I took a higher and more de- 
 cided tone, and then she came down from 
 the pedestal on which I had placed her, 
 and began to employ all a woman’s co- 
 quetries to bring me to her feet. 1 was 
 blind as long as I could be; deaf until the 
 heart-stricken cry of Human Nature 
 reached my ears, dumb until she ceased 
 her silent questioning and paused for a re- 
 ply, and got it! — a reply such as humbles a 
 woman to the dust. In vain she endeav- 
 
212 The Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 ored, and I too, to restore the footing of 
 friendship on the even table-land of com- 
 panionhood; but the conviction grew 
 stronger and more strong that the adaman- 
 tine polish of our friendship had been worn 
 off by the constant falling of the drop of 
 acid — custom — upon its placid surface. I 
 woke one morning from my peaceful dream 
 to realize the grisly commonplace of the 
 fact that I was bored. No sooner had I 
 made the discovery than I strove eagerly 
 by renewed attention to my ‘ duties ’ to 
 conceal it — but there is nothing, as you 
 know, that a woman’s unerring eye is 
 quicker to perceive. It ended in her mak- 
 ing ‘a scene’ — an ordinary vulgar scene, 
 like the heroine of a second-rate novel, or 
 of a transpontine drama. 
 
 In a word, we parted; parted not in an- 
 ger, but in dull, cold, insurmountable indif- 
 ference — and this heap of dusty ashes, 
 extinguishing the fire that warms these 
 lonely rooms of mine — the Ashes of our Fu- 
 ture — are all that is left to me. I cannot take 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 213 
 
 up my Indian life again, my place is filled, 
 and I cannot begin afresh. I go down to 
 Braybrooke to-morrow, and then I shall 
 spend the rest of my days as a plain, quiet 
 country squire, as all the Braybrooke bar- 
 onets have been. My work in life now is 
 to take care of my dear mother as long as 
 she is spared to me, and to try and forget 
 these wasted years.” 
 
 So this was the end. I sat with him for 
 a little while, and then left him. Save at 
 rare intervals, when he comes up to town, 
 I have never seen much of him since, and 
 he has never referred to his boyhood and 
 the years he passed by Rosamund Wil- 
 myngton’s side ; only — when ‘‘Violet Fane’s” 
 exquisite little volume of poems appeared, 
 he sent me a copy with the corner of the 
 page on which her “ May Song” occurs, 
 turned down. It is almost her prettiest 
 poem, and runs: — 
 
214 Story of a Younger Son. 
 
 “A little while my Love and I, 
 
 Before the mowing of the hay, 
 
 Twined daisy-chains and cowslip-balls, 
 
 And carrolled glees and madrigals. 
 
 Among the hay, beneath the may, 
 
 My Love (who loved me then!) and I. 
 
 “For long years now, my Love and I 
 
 Tread severed paths to different ends; 
 
 We sometimes meet and sometimes say 
 The trivial things of every day; 
 
 And meet as comrades, meet as friends. 
 My Love (who loved me once) and 1. 
 
 “ But never more, my Love and I 
 
 Will wander forth as once together. 
 
 Nor sing the songs we used to sing 
 
 In spring-time in the cloudless weather; 
 Some chord is mute that used to ring. 
 
 Some word forgot we used to say 
 Among the hay, beneath the may. 
 
 My Love (who loves me not) and L” 
 
 ******* 
 
 Lady George Wilmyngton is still one of 
 the most prominent leaders of London 
 society. She is never without one espe- 
 cially attentive and ever-attendant cavalier, 
 
The Story of a Younger Son. 215 
 
 but those who knoiv^ say that she never has 
 had again so unflagging and assiduous a 
 servant as her first. And that was Sir Ger- 
 vase Braybrooke. 
 
 ‘‘By-the-bye — whatever has become of 
 him?’^ 
 
 THE END. 
 
The ^ilencB of dheiiiton’^ 
 (}hildi>eq. 
 
Tie Sileece of Mrs. Cieritoo’s Ciilta 
 
 A Story with No Middle to It, 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE END OF THE STORY. 
 
 I. 
 
 ‘‘ But who was their mother, anyhow?’* 
 
 “My dear! How can I tell you what 
 nobody knows? Of course they say — 
 etc. — etc. — etc.” 
 
 “But was she really as bad as they say?” 
 
 “Well, we don’t know. She can’t have 
 lasted long, for I never met an Englishman 
 who could tell me anything about her, or 
 him, or them ” 
 
220 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 All I know about it,” broke in a fourth 
 lady, who had hitherto kept silence, is 
 what I’ve collected from a variety of 
 sources, and it’s all that is known by any- 
 one. It seems that when Mr. Cheriton 
 was quite a young man — etc., etc., etc.” 
 
 “Oh! how dreadful for those two poor 
 children!” was the comment of the chorus. 
 
 At this moment a stranger was an- 
 nounced, and a discreet silence fell upon 
 the occupants of Mrs. Van Talkin's 
 drawing-room. 
 
 II. 
 
 The gaieties of the winter season were 
 in full swing, and New York Society — with 
 a capital S — had for some months past 
 entirely ceased from any endeavor to save 
 the few moments necessary for serious re- 
 flection, from the wreck of time amid the 
 rapids of existence. We, that is to say 
 Society — with a capital S — worked hard. 
 We interviewed our tradesmen in the morn- 
 
Mrs. Cheritons Children. 
 
 22 1 
 
 ing, we lunched at Delmonico’s or at the 
 Sapphic function known as a ladies' 
 lunch,” we paid three or four calls and 
 looked in ” at two or three receptions in 
 the afternoon; then we dined and went to 
 the opera — not to listen to the music, or to 
 reward the hard-working mothers of fami- 
 lies who catered for our amusement under 
 the names of Mdlle. Des Trois-Etoiles — or 
 as the case might be — with our perfunctory 
 and inappreciative applause — but to chatter 
 the same irresponsible banalites to the same 
 uninteresting people whom we had met in 
 the afternoon three or four times, and 
 whom it was a matter of the complefhst 
 indifference to us if we never met again! 
 
 Day after day we walked or drove on 
 ‘‘ the Avenue,” and passed the same people 
 again, greeting them with the same un- 
 interested smile, or stopping to engage 
 them in that style of conversation which 
 Oscar Wilde has epigrammatically stigma- 
 tized as the last resource of people who 
 have nothing to say!” And, by-the-by, we 
 
222 
 
 The Sileiice of 
 
 called this “ Life.” It was, I believe, the 
 Bishop of Carlisle who defined life as ‘‘ a 
 potentiality for action, locomotion, and 
 change, without the assistance of any ex- 
 ternal cause.” This is a definition that 
 has often recurred to me during a “busy ” 
 winter’s day in New York, and I have often 
 caught myself wondering vaguely whether 
 the learned ecclesiastic founded his de- 
 finition on an observance of Society in 
 Gotham. 
 
 We — that is to say Society (with a capital 
 S) — had attended our dinner-party, and 
 had adjourned to the club for a quiet weed 
 and a meditative pool, whilst our wife had 
 got inside her ball-dress; and we had run 
 together again, like the Athenians of old, 
 in search of some new thing, to meet chez 
 Belmonico^ and play our parts in the little 
 realistic drama known as “ The Patriarch's 
 Ball.” I was a stray Englishman, and the 
 exquisite hospitality of the historic emin- 
 ence known as Murray Hill had provided 
 me with a ticket for the ball, and would 
 
Mrs. CJieriton s Children. 
 
 223 
 
 have furnished me with a partner, had I 
 desired one, for the cotillon. 
 
 Before that somewhat spasmodic dissi- 
 pation commenced, however, I had, as a 
 result of my recent arrival, been betraying 
 a tendency towards “ holding up the door- 
 way,” and therefore, when young .^selkopf 
 Van Spook came up and offered to present 
 me to somebody, I almost forgave him the 
 hybrid intensity of his aggressive Man- 
 hattan ancestry, and strolled off round the 
 room with him. 
 
 Sitting, for the moment alone, against a 
 background of cotillon bouquets, in an 
 angle of the room, I noticed, for the first 
 time that evening, as we pursued our way 
 round the floor, a young girl whose air of 
 innocent enjoyment, and fresh coloring, be- 
 spoke, no less surely than the unrelieved 
 snowiness of her costume, ‘‘ the ingenue^" 
 the debutante.^ in fact, the Bud.” She 
 arrested my attention while we were yet 
 some yards distant from her, and, gripping 
 Van Spook by the elbow, I said to him: 
 
224 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 Who is the fair maiden in white, over 
 there?” 
 
 Oh! that’s Miss Daphne Cheriton, and 
 the girl just sitting down by her side is her 
 twin-sister, Miss Josephine, ‘of that ilk.’ 
 They’re both debutantes of this year, and 
 this is their second ball. I’ll present you; 
 old Cheriton’s worth five millions if he’s 
 worth a cent, and you see before you his 
 entire family. If you want to call on them, 
 say you’ve heard of their father over here^ 
 and would like to make his acquaintance. 
 Whatever you do, don’t say a word about 
 Mrs. Cheriton, or in any way recognize 
 the possibility of their ever having had a 
 mother.” 
 
 “Goodness me! why ” 
 
 “Hush! — Miss Cheriton, will you allow 
 me to introduce an English friend, Mn 
 Lyster? Mr. Lyster; Miss Daphne Cheri- 
 ton;” and he was gone. 
 
 The Cheriton twins were dark and fair; 
 of the two I think Miss Josephine was the 
 more interesting. There was something in 
 
Jlfrs. Cheriton s Children. 
 
 225 
 
 the calm watchfulness of her grave, gloomy 
 eyes, something about the expression of 
 reserve that she habitually wore, which 
 seemed to intensify the delicate pallor of 
 her face, and produced an effect that was 
 essentially indescribable. I was therefore 
 more than pleased when, at the end of our 
 waltz, she suggested that we should ‘^sit 
 somewhere cool for a moment.” We chatted 
 of men and things, general and individual, 
 for a space — indeed time slipped by faster 
 than I knew; and we were interrupted in 
 our conversation by the sudden appearance 
 of Mr. Cheriton, with an inquiry as to his 
 daughter’s supper arrangements. I offered 
 myself with that true British promptitude 
 which has been known to the vulgar as 
 “cheek.” Miss Josephine Cheriton pre- 
 sented me to her father, and we three went 
 down to supper together. 
 
 Eugene Cheriton was a tall, dignified 
 man of perhaps forty-three or four; I 
 should have guessed his age at that from 
 the erectness of his carriage and the quick- 
 
226 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 ness of his manner and conversation, a 
 quickness in which there was at times 
 something almost brusque. At 'the first 
 glance you would have given him another 
 decade at least, for his hair was almost 
 white, and in the lines round his mouth 
 and eyes one could see the indications of 
 acute suffering, mental or physical, or per- 
 haps of dissipation. Still, beneath the af- 
 fability of his manner and conversation, 
 the cordiality with which he greeted me, 
 and, so to speak, took me to his heart, 1 
 fancied I could detect a certain watchful- 
 ness, and a suppressed irritation which 
 mieht be either the nervousness of the 
 hypochondriac or the subdued ferocity of 
 the caged brute. There are men who 
 always impress me thus, and Eugene 
 Cheriton was one of them. 
 
 We had been settled only a few moments 
 when Miss Daphne Cheriton, who was 
 seated at a neighboring table, cam.e over and 
 whispered a few words to her sister. Her 
 father took advantage of the circumstance 
 to say: 
 
Mrs. Cheriton s Children. 
 
 227 
 
 I say, you children, you’re not going to 
 stay for the cotillon.” 
 
 (Chorus) ‘‘ Oh Papa! ! ” 
 
 Well, I’m dead tired, and ought to 
 have been in bed hours ago.” 
 
 But, Papa,” said Miss Josephine, ^Mt’s 
 as much as our lives are worth not to stay; 
 we’ve been engaged for weeks. ” 
 
 And even girls should meet their en- 
 gagements,” added Miss Daphne. 
 
 ‘‘ But — ” began Cheriton. 
 
 ^‘There’s no ‘but ’about it,” said Miss 
 Daphne. “ The Miss Cheritons are just 
 going to stay right here,” and she skipped 
 off. 
 
 “ You see,” said Cheriton, turning to me 
 with benign paterfamiliarity, “what a thing 
 it is to be a father.” 
 
 “ I see, on the contrary,” said I, totally 
 forgetting Van Spook’s injunction, “ what a 
 thing it is to have such a father — or only a 
 father to deal with. My last partner was 
 taken home before supper by her stern 
 mamma, and I don’t think that even Miss 
 
228 
 
 The Silence of • 
 
 Daphne Cheriton would prevail under such 
 circumstances, once the chaperonial mind 
 was made up.” 
 
 In an instant what I had done flashed 
 across me. Miss Josephine turned a little 
 paler than usual, and looked across at her 
 father in a manner half anxious and — it 
 seemed to me — half contemptuous. Eu- 
 gene Cheriton had bitten his lip and risen 
 from the table, supporting himself by one 
 hand resting upon it, whilst the other was 
 pressed to his heart. Huskily stammering. 
 Excuse me,” and bowing, in a manner 
 which exhibited an effort of the supremest 
 self-control, he left us; as he disappeared 
 through the doorway, he passed his hand- 
 kerchief across his forehead, and the play 
 was over. I say the play,” because some- 
 how or other, in the whole scene, it struck 
 me that there was a false note somewhere 
 — that it was too dramatic — not good 
 
 form.” 
 
 Still, it was a very awkward thing to 
 have done, a most unpleasant position to 
 
Mrs. Cheritons Children. 
 
 229 
 
 have placed one’self in, and required some 
 spontaneous tact for its solution. The tact 
 of women comes out in rapid initiative, the 
 tact of man lies in inaction; and in cases like 
 the present — the man generally throws the 
 difficulty immediately on to the shoulders 
 of the woman — a tacit recognition of her 
 superior ethical powers. Manlike, on this 
 occasion, I merely looked across at Miss 
 Cheriton interrogatively, and she, rising 
 also, remarked: 
 
 “ Shall we get back upstairs? It is very 
 close here.” 
 
 As soon as we had left the elevator I 
 said to her: 
 
 ^‘You cannot conceive. Miss Cheriton, 
 how grieved I am that a blunder of mine 
 should have caused this contretonps. I 
 have evidently wounded your father deeply, 
 but I hope you will explain to him how in- 
 nocent I was of any intention to wound. 
 
 “ There is no need to discuss the matter, 
 Mr. Lyster,” replied the girl, a faint tinge 
 coming to her cheeks, and the pupils of 
 
230 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 her eyes slightly contracting. ‘‘ Of course 
 you are in no way to blame; as a stranger 
 to the city you could not know my father’s 
 peculiarity — his idiosyncracy — in this re- 
 spect. Any suggestion involving my 
 mother always has that effect upon him; it 
 is a subject on which the profoundest 
 silence reigns, not only in our family, but 
 among our friends. I am sorry to have to 
 tell you this myself, but I feel it is better 
 to get over it at once. Now, if you please, 
 we will talk of something else. 
 
 We did so, and presently her partner for 
 the cotillon came to claim her, and I went 
 in search of ^selkopf Van Spook and an 
 explanation. 
 
 ‘^Well, you see, my dear Mr. Lyster,” 
 said the young gentleman in question, in 
 answer to my query as we drew up easy- 
 chairs on either side of an anti-temperance 
 table, in front of the fire that we found 
 blazing in my rooms at the Everett House, 
 ‘‘you are asking for information on a subject 
 
Mrs. Cheritons Children. 
 
 231 
 
 about which I know as little as anybody else 
 in New York; but what everybody knows I 
 can tell you.” 
 
 ‘‘ Eugene Cheriton is an Englishman. 
 He arrived in New York thirteen years 
 ago with his twin daughters, who were 
 then six years old. Immediately on his 
 arrival the nurse who accompanied them 
 from England was sent back, and thus the 
 city was deprived of its only source of 
 definite information. Cheriton seemed 
 well off when he arrived — was so undoubt- 
 edly — and since his arrival the business to 
 which he has devoted himself with unflag- 
 ging enthusiasm has doubled or trebled his 
 capital. Who his wife was or is — for no 
 one knows whether she is alive or dead — - 
 is as much of a mystery to-day as it was on 
 the morning of his arrival in the new 
 world. It was understood that he had 
 been the petitioner in a divorce case-^not 
 a sensational divorce case, but an or- 
 dinary vulgar affair disposed of in four 
 lines by “ The Times,” and without any 
 
232 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 redeeming features, sensational or roman- 
 tic. Beyond this, thirteen years of as- 
 siduous female enquiry have only elicited 
 the shadowy information that Cheriton, 
 when very young, married a beautiful pau- 
 per over there: she was not, it appears, 
 duly grateful, and after a couple of years 
 or so, he was separated, leaving her the 
 children in the hope, it is said, that they 
 would reform her. They didn’t. She went 
 from bad to worse, and three years after- 
 wards he had finally to sue for a divorce and 
 take the children from her. The tragedy 
 aged him as you see — for he’s not much 
 over forty — and from the day he arrived 
 the word ‘wife’ or ‘mother ’ upsets him, 
 whilst if you allude to Mrs. Cheriton even 
 indirectly he has a kind of fit. I saw you 
 ‘ strike a snag,’ as we say over here, whilst 
 talking to him in the supper-room. Now 
 you understand the position.” 
 
 “Yes,” I replied, “I understand the 
 position,” but 1 don’t understand Cher- 
 iton.” 
 
Mrs. Cheriton s Children. 
 
 233 
 
 No, I should think not. No one does. 
 He’s about as deep as a well, and though 
 the water is pure enough that comes out of 
 it, in consequence of the fact that the 
 bucket never gets far below the surface, I 
 shouldn’t be surprised if it were precious 
 muddy down at the bottom.” 
 
 ‘‘Eh!” I exclaimed, astonished princi- 
 pally at discovering in young Van Spook a 
 penetration for which I had not given him 
 credit. 
 
 “ I mean,” said he, “ that entre nous, I 
 believe that Cheriton is an infernal fraud.” 
 
 “ Shake!” said I, d V A meric am. We un- 
 derstood one another, and changed the 
 conversation. 
 
 III. 
 
 Calling a few days later at No. 7 West 
 40th street, I was fortunate in finding the 
 Miss Cheritons at home; and, improving 
 an acquaintance which had promised, it 
 seemed to me, such a pleasant future at its 
 commencement, I soon became almost an 
 
234 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 hahitud in the Cheriton household. Cer- 
 tainly there was no house in which, during 
 my stay in New York, I felt' more thor- 
 oughly at home; and when I have said that, 
 
 I have said almost everything a confirmed 
 bachelor of six-and-thirty can say. 
 
 Of the twin girls. Miss Josephine was — if 
 one may apply the expression to a twin — the 
 elder. She seemed to be of a stronger 
 fibre than her sister, and gave me the im- 
 pression of being a charming whilst 
 
 Miss Daphne was nothing more or less 
 than a singularly attractive girl. It was 
 with the psychologically-elder twin there- 
 fore, that I felt most in sympathy, and I 
 used to hold long, serious conversations 
 with her whenever we found ourselves' 
 alone. I fancy that Mr. Cheriton encour- 
 aged our intimacy somewhat from a mis- 
 taken idea that we should eventually marry 
 one another, though I may confidently say 
 that such an idea never for one fleeting in- 
 stant entered either of our heads. With 
 Eugene Cheriton I never got below the 
 
Mrs. Cheriton s Children. 
 
 235 
 
 surface — the undisturbed and apparently 
 undisturbable surface — of his calm social 
 affability. He never alluded in any way to 
 our first unhappy conversation, and during 
 the five months that I frequented the 
 Cheritons’ house, I ne\^r heard the name 
 of the late (?) Mrs. Cheriton mentioned, or 
 her present or past existence even remotely 
 alluded to. Nothing in the house sug- 
 gested he: — nothing beyond young Van 
 Spook’s account, shadowy and unsatisfac- 
 tory as it was, could I ever learn about the 
 mother of the beautiful twins. 
 
 One day, the servant having admitted 
 me in No. 7 W. 40th Street and disappeared 
 incontinently (as had grown to be his 
 wont), I entered the inner drawing-room 
 unannounced, and caught Miss Josephine 
 standing in the bay of a window looking 
 intently at an open miniature-case which 
 she held in her hand. I was coming up 
 behind to surprise her, and discover 
 her tender secret, when suddenly, her 
 sharp ears catching my footfall, she turned, 
 
236 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 started violently at seeing me, and, blush- 
 ing crimson from her beautiful throat to 
 the roots of her hair, shut the miniature- 
 case with a snap. I held out my hand as if 
 to take it, saying laughingly, 
 
 ^^Give it up — who is he?’' 
 
 Quick as thought she put her hand be- 
 hind her back, exclaiming as she did so: 
 “Oh, Mr. Lyster, how you startled me!” 
 
 Her hand struck some piece of furniture, 
 the case flew from it, and opening as it 
 reached the floor, lay thus, face downwards. 
 I stooped to pick it up, and the girl ex- 
 claimed rapidly: 
 
 “ On your honor as a gentleman don’t 
 look at that picture, Mr. Lyster! ” 
 
 Of course I picked up the case, closing 
 it as I did so; but having restored it, I be- 
 gan to chaff the girl about the original, 
 wondering vaguely who the man could be 
 who would risk encountering the expres- 
 sion “No” in those dark, solemn eyes. I 
 saw that my badinage pained her, so I de- 
 sisted, and we turned to other topics. 
 
Mrs. Cherito7is Children. 
 
 237 
 
 As I rose to go I saw something white on 
 the floor, and stooping to pick it up, I saw 
 that it was a picture of a woman. A cry 
 of astonishment broke involuntarily from 
 my lips as I stood looking at it, transfixed 
 with amazement; the girl gave one look at 
 it, and snatched it from my hand with an 
 exclamation that seemed to vibrate with 
 agony. 
 
 ‘‘In God's name," said I, hardly above a 
 whisper, “ who is that woman? " 
 
 “ My mother." 
 
 IV. 
 
 Nearly fourteen years before the events 
 above recorded, Rex Stanhope, one of the 
 dearest friends I had ever had in the 
 world, an old school-fellow of mine, a gen- 
 tleman aiix bouts des angles, and the soul of 
 honor, went hopelessly, irretrievably, to the 
 devil. 
 
 There was a woman in the case, though 
 poor old Rex was as pure from any blame, 
 as far as she was concerned, as an unborn 
 
238 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 babe. She was an old, old love of his, and 
 had thrown him over to marry another 
 man. Had thrown him over, did I say? 
 Hardly that. She had been forced by her 
 people into an unwilling marriage with an 
 older and richer suitor, and Rex had con- 
 secrated his life to a, dumb, passionate re- 
 gret for the might have been.’* Five 
 years after her marriage, however, his idol 
 fell, shattered, stained, defiled; and Rex, 
 no longer having any hope in the world, 
 shocked out of all power of reflection, had 
 abandoned every tie that bound him to his 
 fair pure life, and, in trying to drown his 
 grief in the mad dissipations of three capi- 
 tals, fell from bad to worse, from worse to 
 vilest, and finally died insane, in a garret of 
 the Quartier Latin in Paris. 
 
 He had never told me the name of the 
 woman he had loved and lost, but he had 
 often shown me her picture, and this pic- 
 ture I found in the breast-pocket of the 
 tattered coat that was made over to me by 
 the conciei'ge of the maiso7i-meublce^ wither I 
 
Mrs. Cheriton s Children. 
 
 239 
 
 be-took myself, accompanied by his brother, 
 at the request of poor Rex’s people, to 
 bring the boy’s body home. The portrait 
 was a duplicate of the one I had just 
 returned to Miss Cheriton, the portrait of 
 her mother! 
 
 The whole story flashed across me again 
 as we stood in the gathering twilight of 
 the winter’s afternoon — that woman’s 
 daughter and I. My brain whirled, and I 
 could hardly remember where I was, so 
 vivid was the picture of the past that the 
 miniature had brought up to me. Jose- 
 phine Cheriton’s voice broke the silence, as 
 we stood looking at one another: 
 
 Mr. Lyster,” said she calmly, did you 
 know my mother?” 
 
 And as she spoke the light of a great 
 Fear seemed to blaze from her eyes, fear 
 for what my answer might be. For- 
 tunately I had recovered myself sufficiently 
 to reply: 
 
 <‘No, Miss Cheriton, I did not; upon 
 my honor, I never saw her. My astonish- 
 
240 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 ment was caused by the startling likeness 
 that your mother’s picture bears to that of 
 a woman who crossed the path of a dear 
 friend of mine — before your father was 
 married even. Please think no more about 
 it. I can imagine how painful this acci- 
 dent, and its impression upon you, must 
 have been. I was mistaken in the dim 
 light for a moment; believe me, I shall not 
 refer to it again, and you will favor me 
 very greatly by not doing so either. I 
 shall leave you now; when next we meet 
 I shall have forgotten all about it. You 
 understand, we must have forgotten all 
 about it. ” 
 
 And I left her, shaken for my part to 
 the soul by the sudden revelation of the 
 last act of the tragedy in which I had 
 played a minor part nearly fourteen years 
 before. 
 
 ^ )ic :ic 4: 4c jH ^ 
 
 A few nights afterwards I was dining 
 with the Cheritons. When the ladies had 
 left the table, the conversation turned on 
 
Ml'S. Cheriton s Children. 
 
 241 
 
 the modern taste for Russian novels, and 
 the analytical, almost morbid romances of 
 the Tolstoi and Dostoievski school. We 
 had been establishing comparisons and 
 contrasts between the Russian novelist and 
 Honore de Balzac and Emil Zola, and in 
 turn between their realism and psychology 
 and that of Baring Gould and Edgar 
 Saltus. Suddenly a young journalist re- 
 marked quite casually: 
 
 “ It simply comes to this. The merely 
 narrative form is practically a thing of the 
 past; and just as the French novelist of the 
 last half century has had but one direction 
 in which to exercise his originality and his 
 imagination, namely, the development and 
 de'nouement of what has been aptly called 
 reternel adutere^ so, the English novel 
 of to-day consists solely of a study of hu- 
 man nature, in which a woman’s life is 
 ruined by a man, or a man’s life is ruined 
 by a woman.” 
 
 As I fully expected, this was Eugene 
 Cheriton’s cue and he promptly began to 
 
The Silence of 
 
 242 
 
 go through his artistic histrionic agony of 
 recollection and remorse. I never believed 
 in the genuineness of this performance, 
 and after the revelation of a few days pre- 
 viously I felt disgusted by it, so I remarked 
 out loud and quite distinctly to him: 
 
 As, for instance, in the case of Rex 
 Stanhope.” 
 
 The effect was electrical. The “ perform- 
 ance” ceased abruptly, and for the rest 
 of the evening Cheriton’s eyes wandered 
 continually and nervously in my direction. 
 I carefully avoided his glance, however, 
 and as we rose to rejoin the ladies, young 
 Van Spook, who was of the party, whis- 
 pered to me: 
 
 By Jove! Mr. Lyster, you’ve harpooned 
 the fishing-frog this time!” 
 
 His remark requires explanation. I had, 
 whilst dining with Mr. Van Spook a few 
 weeks previously, elaborated to him my 
 theory of The Fishing-frog and the Flat- 
 Fish,” which is a favorite one of mine, and 
 is shortly as follows: 
 
Mrs. Cheritons Children. 
 
 243 
 
 Men who have anything in their past 
 lives or present occupations which, for 
 reasons of their own, they wish to conceal 
 — in a phrase, “ men with histories,’' 
 are, to me, the fishing-frogs and the flat- 
 fishes of society. 
 
 Both of these fishes are formed by na- 
 ture to conceal themselves whilst on the 
 war-path for either victims or food, but 
 their plans of campaign are essentially and 
 diametrically different.. The flat-fish sinks 
 upon the sand of the ocean-floor, a flap” 
 or two disturbs enough sand around him 
 to fall back and cover him up, with the ex- 
 ception of the one protruding eye which 
 looks like a tiny pebble on the sand, but 
 which watches for the unwary animalcule, 
 whilst attracting it to its alimentary fate. 
 The fishing-frog, on the other hand, lies 
 upon the mud at the bottom of the water, 
 and when anything approaches it, goes into 
 violent convulsions, which hide him in a 
 nebula of mud. If it is an enemy, the ani- 
 mal escapes under cover of the turgidity it 
 
244 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 has produced; if it is a fishlet available for 
 food, he throws out a multicolored ‘‘feeler,’ 
 which the ill-fated creature lays hold of 
 preliminary to being swallowed up; and if 
 it is neither, the fishing-frog — like Brer 
 Rabbit — merely “ lays low.” 
 
 Verb sap\ Eugene Cheriton had struck 
 me, the first time I saw him, as one of the 
 fishing-frogs of society, and the discovery 
 of his wife’s identity, and the history which 
 he concealed in theatrical mud — the his- 
 tory which I knew so well — confirmed me 
 in my opinion. 
 
 On the day following this dinner-party 
 Mr. Cheriton called upon me. It is need- 
 less to waste time and space in recording 
 the game of words we played with one 
 another, a game in which Cheriton had 
 much to lose, and in which I held the 
 winning cards. Be it sufficient to say that 
 I closed the confabulation with these 
 words: 
 
 “ Our position is this, Mr. Cheriton. 
 You have, for very obvious reasons, 
 
Mrs. Cheritons Childreji. 
 
 245 
 
 imposed a silence with regard to their 
 mother upon Mrs. Cheriton’s children. It 
 is not improbable that you and I are the 
 only people in America — perhaps in the 
 world — who know the true story of your 
 poor wife’s disgrace, and of the circum- 
 stances which led to and followed it. I 
 entertain too warm a regard for your 
 daughters, ever by any action or word of 
 mine, to enlighten their happy ignorance 
 of their mother’s fall, or to lay bare to the 
 world the deceit which you have practised 
 for so many years. Unfortunately, your 
 lie is not all a lie; but should it ever 
 become so, should your daughters or the 
 world ever come to know anything defin- 
 itely reflecting on their mother’s good 
 name, I give you fair warning that they 
 shall know to its minutest details the story 
 of Eugene Cheriton, of Ethel Fethrestone 
 — and of Rex Stanhope. This question is 
 now at an end between us; pardon me if I 
 refuse to enter into it any further, and 
 now, good-morning.” 
 
246 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 He saw that my mind was made up, and 
 he took his leave. A week later I started 
 for San Francisco, en route for Japan and 
 India and home. I kept myself informed, 
 however, upon the subject of the Cheri- 
 tons; and, as far as I can learn, Mr. 
 Eugene Cheriton has kept religously to his 
 part of the bargain. 
 
 I never saw either him or his daughters 
 
 again. 
 
Afrs. Chert to ns Children. 
 
 247 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE INTRODUCTION TO THE STORY. 
 
 I. 
 
 In all Oriel College, there was no greater, 
 no more universal favorite than Rex Stan- 
 hope. He was one of the best-looking 
 boys in the university, and one of the most 
 charming and insouciant. Among the wives 
 and daughters of the “ Dons ” he was a 
 sort of spoiled child, and, when, before 
 the beginning of the long vacation of the 
 year 18 — , it became understood and real- 
 ized that Rex, having taken his degree, 
 was going down,** and that Oxford would 
 know him no more, the expressions of re- 
 gret that echoed from all sides were emi- 
 nently sincere. 
 
 ‘‘ Down ** he went, however, flushed with 
 his successes in the schools, and with the 
 most exalted anticipations of his entry into 
 
248 The Silence of 
 
 the merry, dazzling life in London society, 
 to which, as youngest scion of one of the 
 oldest families in the country, he eagerly 
 looked forward. He knew by hearsay 
 enough of “ life ” to be unalterably of 
 opinion that the “bitters” thereof were 
 sweet, or at most only mildly pungent, 
 whilst its “sweets” were a matter of course! 
 Faites votre jeu^ messieurs et 'dames; c'est a 
 prendre ou a laisser! Trrrrwi! ! Zero! 
 It’s thirty-seven to one against it, but it’s 
 surprising how often it comes up in the 
 roulette oi “life.” Pardon this digressive 
 echo from Monte Carlo, and let us pro- 
 ceed. 
 
 Rex Stanhope made his entry into “ so- 
 ciety” at Lady Oswald’s ball. Lady Oswald 
 inhabited a beautiful old place in Fulham — 
 I am talking of twenty years ago— hidden 
 among giant elms and surrounded by a 
 carefully-kept, old-fashioned garden, the 
 whole protected by a high red-brick wall, 
 which, at the same time, formed a warm 
 back-ground for the giant hollyhocks and 
 
Ml'S. Cheriton s Children. 249 
 
 sunflowers, the lupins and the gilly-flowers, 
 which straggled in picturesque confusion 
 over the borders, and protected her lady- 
 ship’s old-time refuge from the gaze of the 
 curious, who were at this time just begin- 
 ning to seek light and air in the direction 
 of West Kensington, of Putney, and of 
 Barnes. Once a year Lady Oswald gave a 
 great ball to which “everybody” went, 
 and thither, panoplied in the magnificence 
 of his newest toilette., went the Hon- 
 orable Rex Stanhope, to make his first ap- 
 pearance in the “world,” just ten days 
 after he had bidden farewell as a scholar 
 to his Alma Mater and Oriel College. 
 
 As yet his acquaintance was small, and, 
 at the termination of a waltz, he stood, as 
 is the habit of the unknown young man, 
 in the great square hall, watching the long 
 procession of dancers seeking the cool of 
 the conservatories and the solitudes of the 
 garden, to re-appear — or not, as the case 
 might be — in time for the next dance. And 
 as he stood, there appeared in the door- 
 
250 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 way, leaning on the arm of her late part- 
 ner, his first love — Ethel Fethreston. He 
 had never seen her before; he had no idea 
 who she was, but it seemed to him that he 
 saw a woman ” for the first time. It was the 
 story of Manon Lescaut and the Chevalier 
 Des Grieux over again, and Rex Stanhope 
 followed the mistress of his soul ” into 
 the garden. For as she passed him their 
 eyes had met; in his, a great wondering 
 confusion, born of the new sensation of a 
 beating heart and a hot, strained feeling at 
 the throat; in hers, the calm triumph of a 
 woman in the knowledge of her own peer- 
 less beauty, and the half-uncomfortable 
 triumph of the not altogether heartless 
 flirt — for Ethel Fethreston had been the 
 most accomplished flirt of two seasons, 
 and her victims, whom she thoroughlv 
 understood how to manage, were to be 
 found in every drawing-room in London. 
 Rex Stanhope, however, knew nothing of 
 this — how should he, poor boy? — and as 
 she bowed to him in passing, a great wave 
 
Mj's. CheyHton s Childy'en. 
 
 251 
 
 of joyous triumph came over him, and he 
 followed her into the garden in answer to 
 her bow. 
 
 Ethel Fethreston was not very tall, nor 
 had ^e, in common with many medium- 
 sized women, the trick of holding herself 
 so as to give an impression of dignity, if 
 not of height. Her features were not very 
 regular, but she had great, wondering, 
 violet eyes, of the ingenious ingenue '' 
 description, and a grand, passionate mouth 
 and square, strong jaw that were strangely 
 belied by her almost impertinent tip-tilted 
 nose and her almost childishly enthusiastic 
 manner. The whole, framed by her Titian- 
 like burnt-sepia hair, produced an effect of 
 torrid beauty which had turned many a 
 head before Rex’s; and there is no deny- 
 ing the fact that, when the beautiful Ethel 
 flirted, she flirted with a will, and in a way 
 peculiarly her own. Rex had every cause 
 therefore to be as proud of his conquest 
 as she of hers, and the novelty of the 
 situation was essentially indescribable, as. 
 
252 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 when the music of the next dance com- 
 menced, he met her returning to the ball- 
 room, and, she transferring her arm to his, 
 they had wandered off together into the 
 discreet gloom of Lady Oswald’s pleas- 
 aunce, just as if they had known one 
 another for years. 
 
 ’Twas she who broke the silence. Rex 
 was too “ inexperienced ” to take up the 
 cue with the aplojnb which she had given it 
 to him. 
 
 You will think me very rude,” said she, 
 “ for what I am going to say, but I must 
 confess that though your face is perfectly 
 familiar to me, I can’t for the life of me 
 remember where I’ve met you before.” 
 
 “ I am sorry to say,” answered Rex, 
 gai/che-\yy that we nez’er met before.” 
 
 Oh, how dreadful! Please excuse my 
 most stupid mistake. Will you take me 
 back to the house ; I suppose I’ve got a 
 partner for the next dance, looking for me 
 somewhere.” 
 
 Ah, no! don’t go away. I know I’ve 
 
M 7 's. Cheritojts Children, 253 
 
 no right to ask it, and it’s awful cheek on 
 my part — but — won’t you let me introduce 
 myself. I’m Rex Stanhope; my governor’s 
 Lord Lorrimer, you know; and your name 
 
 Ethel Fethreston; but I ought not to 
 tell you, ought I ?” 
 
 Of course you ought. I’m so lonely 
 here; I don’t know anybody; won’t you 
 take pity on me.^” 
 
 Miss Ethel Fethreston’s partners were 
 always prepared to resign themselves to 
 her non-appearance when they had a right 
 to expect her, but on this eventful night 
 they had a more uniformly bad time than 
 usual. The butterfly was singed at last, 
 and both she and Rex found themselves 
 hopelessly in love with one another when 
 her sister and her brother-in-law found 
 them at last, still strolling round the 
 grounds, and with much sternness of man- 
 ner and acerbity of countenance, took her 
 home in the small hours of the morning. " 
 
254 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 Next day, impelled by a desire to revisit 
 the theatre of his joy of the night before, 
 Rex took a hansom and drove down to 
 call on Lady Oswald. Her ladyship greeted 
 him with the words: 
 
 “ Well, Mr. Stanhope, for a Lothario of 
 your age you are really du dernier chic^ 
 monopolizing the one unmonopolizable 
 beauty of my ball for the whole evening.*’ 
 Why, how do you mean. Lady Oswald?”* 
 
 ‘^Only this, my dear boy, that if Eugene 
 Cheriton hears of your performance of 
 last night, there will probably be trouble.” 
 And who is Eugene Cheriton?” 
 
 “Who is Eugene Cheriton? Why, bless 
 the boy! he’s only the man who is to marry 
 Ethel Fethreston this day fortnight!” 
 
 He Ht Hi * iic 
 
 Poor Rex! It was his first lesson, but 
 he learnt it with a rapidity that did him 
 credit. “ Does she — does she love him? ” 
 asked he, a trifle huskily. 
 
 “Well, I’m afraid not, poor child!” an- 
 swered Lady Oswald; “but he’s very well 
 
Afrs, Cheriton s Child?' en. 
 
 255 
 
 off, and the Fethrestons haven’t a penny to 
 bless themselves with. Ethel lives with her 
 sister and brother-in-lnw, and they treat 
 her as a kind of upper servant, and no 
 doubt, have made her accept Mr. Cheriton 
 to get rid of her. It’s a cruel thing, per- 
 haps for her at present, but it will be all 
 right in time; these Diarriages de convenancc 
 are generally the happiest after all. But 
 I tell you all about it so that you mayn’t 
 fall in love with her yourself.” 
 
 Well, well! He was a younger son, with- 
 out a chance against his rich rival, and he 
 got back to his rooms almost blind in his 
 agony of mind. He went to a florist’s and 
 bought a great bunch of Rucharis lilies, 
 which he sent to her with a note — a little 
 pathetic note — in which he told her he had 
 heard of her engagement, and hoped she 
 would be very, very happy, and would she 
 accept these lilies and remember a fellow 
 who was very grateful to her for the happy 
 hours she had contributed to his life? — and 
 
256 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 good-bye — he did not think it likely that 
 they would ever meet again. 
 
 A couple of hours later his flowers were 
 returned to him, and with them his note, 
 across which, in the handwriting of her 
 brother-in-law, was scribbled a hideous, in- 
 sulting message. 
 
 Flung brutally from the altitude of his 
 new-born hopes, Rex Stanhope for some 
 days went about as one suddenly awakened 
 from a dream half-ecstatic, half-nightmare, 
 striving to distinguish the one from the 
 other, and to recollect whether it had been 
 wholly the one or wholly the other. Dur- 
 ing those days he tottered on the brink of 
 a precipice, a precipice overhanging a 
 grisly gulf of wanton dissipation, in which 
 to seek to drown the memory of his false 
 first love. Then his resolution was taken. 
 He would become great, he would keep 
 himself unspotted from the world, and 
 make for himself a position that should 
 make her regret him — should make her re- 
 gret her hurry to marry the first rich man 
 
Airs. Cheritons Children. 
 
 257 
 
 who offered himself, regret the callous cru- 
 elty with which she had played with him 
 for an evening, and then flung him from 
 her as a disappointing toy. 
 
 II. 
 
 And so Rex Stanhope, to whose appear- 
 ance ‘‘in town” more than a few society 
 matrons had looked forward, became a 
 kind of hermit, devoting himself to his 
 books and his manuscripts, travelling with 
 avidity whenever the opportunity presented 
 itself, appearing but seldom in the places 
 where “ his world ” congregated to amuse 
 itself, and never anywhere where there was 
 the remotest possibility of his meeting Ethe 
 Fethreston. Meanwhile, in the columns of 
 “The Saturday Review” and “The Athe- 
 naeum,” in the pages of the “ Contemporary 
 Review” and the “Fortnightly,” his name 
 began to appear, until, four years after the 
 evening of Lady Oswald’s party, his was 
 one of the names most prominent among 
 those of the younger writers of the day. 
 
 Four years had, as I say, elapsed since 
 that eventful night, and during that time he 
 
The Silence of 
 
 258 
 
 had heard but seldom of Mrs. Cheriton, 
 and what he did hear made his heart ache. 
 Cheriton had not mar7Hed his wife — few 
 men do now-a-days; he had merely collected 
 her as he would have collected any other 
 specimen of bric-a-brac which nobody else 
 has got or possibly can get, and having 
 collected her, he was jealous, cold, calcu- 
 lating, cunning. Worse still, he was brutal, 
 unfaithful, cruel to her, developing, one-by- 
 one, all the meaner vices most likely to dis- 
 gust a sensitive, refined woman; and Ethel 
 Cheriton had ample opportunities of appre- 
 ciating the magnitude of the crime her 
 relations had committed in forcing her, and 
 of the mistake she had made in allowing 
 herself to be forced, into this unhallowed 
 marriage de convenance. During the sec- 
 ond year of their marriage she had become 
 the mother of twin daughters; and it was 
 this tender tie alone that kept her at the 
 side of the man to whom she was — already 
 — “ something dearer than his dog, a little 
 better than his horse.” 
 
Airs. Cheritons Children. 
 
 259 
 
 For, from a light-hearted — nay, frivolous 
 girl, Ethel Cheriton had become a high- 
 minded, chivalrous woman. The sudden 
 awakening in her soul of a genuine ideal 
 love for Rex Stanhope, when it was ^‘just 
 too late,” had sobered her charactei, and 
 made her steadfast in her determination to 
 do her duty to this man who had bought 
 the right to become the father of her chil- 
 dren — her children, in whom all the wild 
 love of her passionate nature had become 
 concentrated. She knew that Rex was 
 avoiding her, and she bowed her head be- 
 fore her punishment. She had never seen 
 him since the ball. Better so, she thought, 
 for after all what could an explanation have 
 done? None at all; indeed, it might be 
 dangerous; but this she never admitted, 
 even to herself. Meanwhile, her friends» 
 seeing her grow more miserable day-by- 
 day, in spite of her still matchless, devel- 
 oped womanly beauty, urged her to take 
 advantage of her ample cause for the step, 
 and divorce the man who w^as making her 
 
26 o 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 life a hell for her, before her children 
 should be old enough to realize the state 
 of affairs. But no; to their suggestions 
 she turned an ever-deaf ear for her very 
 children’s sake; for their sake she listened 
 in dull, cold resignation to the only too 
 well founded scandals that attached them- 
 selves to her husband’s name; and things 
 were in this state in the winter of the year 
 
 i8— . 
 
 One afternoon in early January, Rex 
 started out to call on a friend in Queen’s 
 Gate, started out in the midst of a driving 
 snow-storm, with many imprecations upon 
 the necessity that drove him forth. Un- 
 fortunately he had bound himself by a 
 promise to pay this call, which was one of 
 adieu^ and punctually at the hour he had 
 named, he rang the bell at his friend’s 
 house. In answer to his enquiry the grave 
 domestic replied: 
 
 “ Not at home.” 
 
 ‘‘But,” replied Rex, naturally irritated 
 that his comfortless expedition should have 
 
Mrs. Cheritons Children. 
 
 261 
 
 been made in vain, “Mrs. told me she 
 
 would be in at this time; will you tell her, if 
 you please, when she returns, that ?” 
 
 “Oh!” interrupted the servant, “Mrs. 
 
 is expected home every moment, and 
 
 left word that if any one called they were 
 to be asked to wait.” 
 
 Somewhat soothed by this assurance, 
 Rex decided to remain; and he made his 
 way upstairs to the drawing-room. Seated 
 in a low arm-chair before the fire, also evi- 
 dently waiting for Mrs. sat Ethel 
 
 Cheriton! How little changed! And yet, 
 how far more dazzlingly beautiful in her 
 mature woman-hood than when he parted 
 from her in those bygone years! After a 
 momentary stupefaction, a rush of blood 
 to the heart, an instant during which 
 neither of them could speak, they had 
 warmly shaken hands, and sitting on either 
 side of the fire-place, found themselves 
 calmly talking the banalites of every day as 
 if their meeting was an ordinary matter of 
 daily occurence. 
 
262 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 So it was you^ of all people in the 
 world,” said Mrs. Cheriton, ^‘whom Mrs. 
 
 was expecting. I came to call, more 
 
 to shelter from the storm than anything 
 
 else, and the butler told me that Mrs. 
 
 had left word that I was to wait. I was 
 surprised, but said nothing, half-glad not 
 to have to go away again, half-curious to 
 find out who the anxiously expected guest 
 was. So it is you who are the cavalih'e so 
 serviente that we leave messages that he is 
 not to be sent away!” 
 
 ^^No, Mrs. Cheriton, mine is merely a 
 conventional visit of adieu before starting 
 for Spain. As I am a hardworking son of 
 toil, you know, I only call on people I 
 really want to see, and therefore I let them 
 know when I am coming.” He paused 
 slightly, and then continued, You, of all 
 people on earth, should know that I am 
 never likely to be any woman’s cavalilre 
 sirviente.'' 
 
 She said nothing for a few moments, 
 but turned a shade paler, as, after what 
 
Mrs. Cher if on s Children. 
 
 263 
 
 seemed to be a momentary hesitation, she 
 said: 
 
 “ Mr. Stanhope, I am glad we have met 
 at last — after all this time; there has always 
 been something on my mind which I should 
 have been glad to have spoken to you 
 about. Before — before I was married- — you 
 were kind enough to send me some flowers 
 one day — at least I heard so afterwards; 
 and — my brother-in-law returned them to 
 you. I could’nt — I could’nt write an 
 apology for his rudeness, and — I always 
 hoped some day to meet you and tell you I 
 was sorry.” 
 
 ^‘You might have written one word to 
 answer my note, in addition to, or rather, 
 to soften, your brother-in-law’s comment 
 on it.” 
 
 “Your note! What note?” 
 
 “ Why, the one he returned with the 
 flowers.” 
 
 “I don’t understand you; what do you 
 mean?” 
 
 “Do you mean to say that you never 
 
264 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 knew that I had written you a note with 
 those flowers, conveying to you my wishes 
 for your happiness/' 
 
 ‘‘Never — never! Oh the cruelty of it! 
 Ah; why did I never receive it! I should 
 have prized it so.” And she bent her beau- 
 tiful head forward upon her hands. 
 
 Stanhope had risen, and had walked in 
 his agitation to the window. Now he 
 turned and advancing toward her drew his 
 letter-case from his pocket. Taking from it 
 a time-worn and oft-unfolded and refolded 
 letter, he held it out to her, saying: 
 
 “Well, here it is.” 
 
 She took it and said, hardly above a 
 whisper: “And you have kept it ever 
 since!” 
 
 “Yes,” he replied, in a dry, strained 
 voice, “ I have kept it ever since as a 
 lesson — as a punishment for my folly in 
 believing that there was any truth in 
 woman's love. Whenever I have been 
 speaking to any fair young girl, or when- 
 ever any friend of mine has married, I 
 
Airs. Cheriton s Children. 
 
 265 
 
 have taken it from my pocket-book, and said 
 to myself, ‘‘That is the fruit jwr love has 
 borne; you have pocketed that insult as its 
 reward. Beware! do not sin again!” 
 
 “Oh Rex!” 
 
 He seized the poor imploring hands that 
 were held out to him, and gazing deep 
 through her eyes into her soul, he said 
 sternly: 
 
 “ Do you swear to me that you never 
 knew I had written to you?” 
 
 “I swear it.” 
 
 * 
 
 When Mrs. came in ten minues later, 
 
 she was quite overjoyed at this strange 
 meeting of old friends, and when it was 
 time to go, she was sure Mr. Stanhope 
 would see Mrs. Cheriton safely home. 
 
 Ah Rex! why did you not keep that piti- 
 ful token of your great, faithful love hidden 
 away :n your pocket-book? Had you done so 
 you would have been now the brilliant man 
 you gave promise of being, and Ethel Cheri- 
 ton would have been home with her children. 
 
266 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 III. 
 
 Do not let the reader run away with any 
 evil interpretation of the last paragraph. 
 Specifically, Rex Stanhope had no hand in 
 the fall of Ethel Cheriton; but had they 
 never met she might have gone on in the old 
 painful groove, upheld by her stern sense 
 of duty. But alas! having refound her 
 old — her only love^ a man of refinement, 
 of cultivation — in a phrase, a scholar and a 
 gentleman, her loathing of the ignorant 
 sensualist .to whom she was tied became the 
 more intense, the more violent, by contrast. 
 Her new born, constant intercourse with 
 Rex Stanhope, an intercourse of sympathy 
 in which no word of love was ever breathed, 
 turned her thoughts continually in the di- 
 rection of the terrible future, as contrasted 
 with the exquisite ‘^might-have-been;” and 
 at last one day she announced to Rex her 
 intention of obtaining from her husband a 
 formal separation — not a divorce; that, 
 said she, would rebound in after years on 
 her children. 
 
Mrs. Cheritori s Children. 
 
 267 
 
 But she had quite made up her mind no 
 longer to bear the continued agony of a 
 life which, always revolting to her, had be- 
 come doubly so since that winter’s after- 
 noon. It was useless to attempt to dissuade 
 her; she had the right on her side un- 
 doubtedly; and one day, when, in the 
 course of a quarrel on some point concern- 
 ing the children, Eugene Cheriton had 
 struck her to the ground in his drunken 
 fury, she felt that the last straw had been 
 added td her load, and — separated form- 
 ally from the man who had ^‘collected” her, 
 she took a little flat in Kensington, and 
 devoted herself thenceforward to her chil- 
 dren — her children, on whose account 
 alone she had refrained from obtaining a 
 definitive divorce. 
 
 What of Rex Stanhope? He took the 
 only course possible under the circum- 
 stances. Sufficiently wise in the ways of 
 the world to know what he would bring 
 upon the woman he loved, if he allowed his 
 intimacy with her to continue, now that she 
 
268 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 no longer lived beneath her husband’s roof, 
 and knowing moreover the weakness of 
 human nature too well to exclude himself 
 and her from its penalties, he announced 
 his intention of travelling; and, in spite of 
 the entreaties of Ethel and the remon- 
 strances of his friends, he started on a 
 tour of the world that should occupy some 
 years at least. 
 
 No one knew the cause of his self-im- 
 posed exile, for in his horror of comprom- 
 ising Ethel, he had kept their affairs relig- 
 ously to himself, maintaining before the 
 world merely a footing of ordinary social 
 acquaintanceship. One man alone knew 
 anything at all about it, and even he did 
 not know the name of the woman who had 
 come thus into his friend’s life, though 
 Rex told him, step-by-step, the circumstan- 
 ces which had led him to the course he 
 had adopted. This man was myself, Dick 
 Lyster, a school and college friend who 
 was more than a brother to Rex, the only 
 man who was in a position to remonstrate 
 
Mrs. C her it 071 s Children. 
 
 269 
 
 with him on the step he was taking, in 
 severing all his newly-cemented ties to the 
 old country, in giving up his brilliant pros- 
 pects as a writer and politician, and in 
 expatriating himself at four-and-twenty 
 for the sake of some — to me, the mentor, 
 — unknown woman. 
 
 It's no use arguing, old man," Stan- 
 hope had said in answer to my remon- 
 strances; “ if I had not come back into her 
 life, if I had not committed the cursed 
 folly of showing her that her image had 
 never left my breast, she would never have 
 left her husband. Now that she has taken 
 the step, unless I efface myself we must be 
 thrown more intimately together than ever, 
 and then — well, we are only human crea- 
 tures after all! No! I shall go, and you 
 must admit that I am doing right. My 
 memory, and the memory of the sacrifice I 
 have made to her of my life, will be the 
 sheet-anchor of her womanly purity, and in 
 giving her an ideal, an ideal that I know 
 that I could not keep up if I were always 
 
2^0 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 by her side, I am making but a very mea- 
 gre reparation for the wrong I have done 
 her and her children, by causing indirectly 
 this separation.” 
 
 It was chivalrous, it was Quixotic, it was 
 absurd; but his mind was made up, and 
 Rex disappeared. People asked after him 
 sometimes, and the answer was always: 
 
 “ Oh, he’s still idling round the world. 
 He didn’t stick to his ambition long; no 
 doubt there’s a woman in it somewhere!” 
 
 IV 
 
 How continually, continually we hear 
 women envy the position of men. How 
 often it has occured to all of us to hear a 
 woman say, I wish I were a man!” and 
 though we smile and tell them they don’t 
 know what they are talking about, if we 
 stop to think for a moment, how absolutely 
 they have reason! And why should we 
 condone^ pardon, and, if the truth must be 
 told, rather admire in man, what we loathe 
 and condemn in woman? Is it worse in 
 
Mrs. Cheritons Children. 271 
 
 woman to be impure, than it is in man? Is 
 it worse in her than in him to be unchaste, 
 to be unsexed, to be contemptible? If, as 
 is generally admitted, woman is the weaker 
 vessel, in God’s name is it not a thousand- 
 fold more vile in man, whose intellect is 
 the stronger, as a rule, to yield to the weak- 
 ness of a moment, than it is in woman? 
 If a man and a woman sin equally to- 
 gether, why is it the woman alone who is 
 blamed, on whom alone a lasting stigma 
 rests? The sin has been born of the supe- 
 rior strength, mental and physical, of the 
 man over the woman. Is it not he that 
 should be chastised rather than she? for his 
 is the initative, and his, as a rule, is the action. 
 In a joint crime of whatever kind, it is always 
 the woman who is commanded and di- 
 rected by the man; but, in the subsequent 
 record, it is always he who had been 
 brought to grief by her and not her by him. 
 She is a ‘‘fiend,” an “adventuress,” whilst 
 he is only a weak man! Oh! it is horrible,' 
 it is Idchc., it is infdme\ 
 
272 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 And how infinitely worse than this is the 
 case which occurs every day, the case in 
 which the marital tie has been severed, 
 either by separation or by divorce. Is it not 
 always the woman — to our shame be it said 
 — on w^hom the blame invariably falls? A 
 man is cruel, brutal, unfaithful, to his wife; 
 she bears it as long as she can, and at last, 
 driven to the step in self-defence, or in de- 
 fence of her innocent children, she is com- 
 pelled — with the fullest approval of all who 
 know the circumstances of the case — to 
 sue for a separation, or even for a divorce. 
 For a week — perhaps, if she is lucky, for a 
 month — she is sympathized with and sup- 
 ported, and then people who know nothing 
 at all about it begin to whisper among 
 themselves. Who is she?’’ Oh, that’s 
 
 the beautiful Mrs. . Poor thing! you 
 
 know she had trouble with her husband.” 
 
 Second stage, ‘‘ That\ Oh! that’s Mrs. 
 
 ; she’s separated from her husband, 
 
 you know.” Oh!” 
 
 Third stage, “Ah! Mrs. 
 
 ? Yes; 
 
Mrs. Chei'itons ' Children. 
 
 273 
 
 Air. was a cousin of the So-and-so’s; 
 
 they don’t live together. Shall I introduce 
 you?” “Well, thanks, I think not. One has 
 to be so careful now-a-days.” 
 
 Fourth stage, “ Is that the Mrs. 
 
 who was separated from her husband?” 
 “Yes.” “How was it?” “Oh, he was a 
 happy-go-lucky sort of a fellow, and they 
 didn’t get on. No doubt there were faults 
 on both sides.” “Ah!” 
 
 Fifth stage, “Who's the man so devoted 
 
 to Mrs. , the one who was divorced, 
 
 or something, you know?” “ Well, I don’t 
 know, but a very old friend I believe.” 
 “Oh!” 
 
 Sixth stage, “Well, he couldn’t stand it 
 any longer, and had to get rid of her; they 
 say he’s never got over it.” 
 
 Seventh stage, “Why did he let her 
 keep her children with her?” “Well, you 
 know, he thought that they might perhaps 
 keep her straight, but I’m afraid, etc., etc., 
 etc.” 
 
 And so it goes on, on, on, vires que ac- 
 
274 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 quirit emtdOj like a snowball; and at last the 
 victim, forsaken by all the friends who, 
 greedy of some new sensation, espoused 
 her cause so warmly at the first, finds her- 
 self relegated to the society of fast men* 
 and declassees women, and in nine cases out 
 of ten takes up willingly the role that is 
 thrust upon her. The end comes in her 
 making a single slip, wearied out and sick 
 at heart at being pointed at as guilty of 
 sins of which she is spotlessly innocent. 
 She sees other women around her leading 
 happy, or apparently happy, and brilliant 
 lives; the ^‘set” into which she has become 
 transplanted, and in which she seems to 
 have taken root, think her unnecessary 
 ‘^principles" rather contemptible than 
 otherwise — like the fox who lost his tail; 
 she finds herself deserted and despised; 
 and one day, maddened by her hopeless 
 yearning for love and friendship 
 
 * * !|J 
 
 Such was the history of Ethel Cheriton. 
 Cheriton, after his wife left him, had, with 
 
Mrs. Cher it oris Children. 
 
 275 
 
 the cunning of the serpent, led a life that 
 was discretion itself, watching her the 
 while with a ceaseless vigilance, and keep- 
 ing himself informed of her every move- 
 ment. At last his opportunity came. For 
 the sake of her children she had not di- 
 vorced him\ now he turned upon her ruth- 
 lessly, and petitioned against her for the 
 divorce, the indignity of which she had 
 spared him; and one day, Rex Stanhope, 
 slowly accomplishing the last stages of his 
 journey round the world, took up the Times 
 in the English Club in the Rue de Pera at 
 Constantinople, and read: 
 
 PROBATE, DIVORCE AND ADMIRALTY 
 DIVISION. 
 
 BEFORE THE PRESIDENT. 
 
 Cheriton vs. Cheriton and De Torriano. 
 
 This was a suit by Eugene Cheriton, a 
 gentleman of independent means, for the 
 dissolution of his marriage with Ethel Cher- 
 iton, whose maiden name* was Fethrestone, 
 on account of her misconduct with Ippolito 
 
276 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 de Torriano. Dr. Bayard appeared for the 
 Petitioner. There was no defence. 
 
 The Petitioner was married to the res- 
 pondent in 18 — , and they lived together 
 up to May, 18 — . There are two children 
 of the marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Cheriton 
 lived happily in the earlier portion of their 
 married life, but in 18 — he had reason to 
 complain of her conduct and quarrels en- 
 sued between them. In May, 18 — , they 
 separated, he securing to her by deed an 
 
 annuity of , which he has since paid 
 
 quarterly. In June last, Mrs. Cheriton 
 and the correspondent, who is a singer, 
 were served with citations in this suit. 
 
 Decree nisi., with costs against the co- 
 respondent, the petitioner to have the custody 
 of the children of the marriageT 
 
 This is what Rex Stanhope, after two 
 years, during which he had heard no word 
 about the Cheritons, read in the Club at 
 Pera. That night, for the first time in his 
 life, he played high and drank recklessly. 
 In the early morning he was sent home to 
 
Mrs, Che ri to ns Children, 
 
 277 
 
 his rooms insensible; but for weeks he sank 
 lower and lower, striving in vain to drown 
 his agony in the worst, and to him hitherto 
 absolutely unknown, forms of disipation. 
 The sudden change shocked and alarmed 
 his friends in the English colony at Con- 
 stantinople; and at last, though with great 
 difficulty, they persuaded him to turn his 
 face homewards. He stopped in Vienna, 
 where the same thing re-commenced, and 
 he had to fly from the Austrian capital at 
 dead of night to escape the consequences 
 of the part he had taken in some drunken 
 riot, and arriving in Paris, he sank rapidly 
 to the nethermost abysses of infamy. Ail 
 this time we, in England, knew nothing of 
 it, for no one knew his address: we ex- 
 pected him home almost daily, but alas — 
 he never came! 
 
 One morning his eldest brother received 
 from Paris a dishevelled package contain- 
 ing an account of poor Rex's last days, and 
 an almost undecipherable letter addressed 
 to me by the dead boy, containing an ac- 
 
278 
 
 The Silence of 
 
 count of his first and last meeting with 
 Ethel Cheriton, whom still he did not name^ 
 bitterly reproaching himself with having 
 caused her fall, remorse for which crime 
 doubtless, had driven him to his terrible 
 end. During a lucid interval at Constanti- 
 nople, when he had been intending to kill 
 himself, he had made a will leaving what 
 little property he had to the woman, 
 who, forsaken by the man who had com- 
 pleted her fall, was living in misery abject 
 and shameful in one of the slums of Pim- 
 lico. This will, carefully sealed up, he en- 
 closed, that his brother might carry its pro- 
 visions into qperation; and, by the consent 
 of his father, who did not wish to court 
 publicity in the affair by contesting a will 
 made under such circumstances, this was 
 done by the family solicitors. 
 
 God help her, poor girl! Without this 
 meagre sustenance I tremble to think what 
 would have become of her. 
 
 I went over to Paris with his brother to 
 bring home his body, and there, for the 
 
Mrs^ Cheritons Children, 279 
 
 first time, I saw the picture, the duplicate 
 of which I recognized as being that of Mrs. 
 Cheriton, years after, in far away New York. 
 We hushed matters up so far as it was possi- 
 ble; and our task was rendered easier by the 
 fact that Mrs. Cheriton’s husband and chil- 
 dren had left for America, and the will was 
 made out in her maiden name of Fethres- 
 tone, a name which she had now resumed. 
 Thus it happened that, though I alone 
 knew the story of Rex Stanhope’s blasted 
 life, I never knew the name of the woman 
 more sinned against than sinning, but 
 whose story is, alasf such a common one. 
 
 With all his strength of character, Rex 
 Stanhope committed one folly, and it 
 ruined one of the most promising careers 
 in England: in the midst of all her self- 
 devotion and grand forbearance for her 
 children’s sake, Ethel Cheriton made one 
 slip, of which her dastardly husband took 
 advantage to found upon it his sham respec- 
 tability. There was only one way in which 
 to stifle all account of the ruin he had 
 
28 o The Silence of Mrs, Cheritons Children. 
 
 wrought in two lives, each a thousandfold 
 purer and better than his own, and that 
 was to impose a silence like that of the 
 grave upon Mrs. Cheriton's children. 
 
 THE END. 
 

 v. . 
 
 Wr: 
 

 ; »•••. . j, 
 
 If . . 
 
 ■v*