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 GERARD 
 
 THE ATORLD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEYTL 
 
 31 ^obel 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 LADY AUDLEY'S SECEET," ''YIXEX," ''ISHMAEL," 
 '^THE DAY WILL COME"' 
 
 ETC. 
 
 IX THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON 
 SIMPKIX, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO, 
 
 LnJITKD 
 
 STATIONEES' HALL COURT 
 1891 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 LONDON : 
 
 TRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 
 STAMFOKD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. *' I LOOK. DOWN TO HIS FfiET, BUT THAT's A 
 
 Fable" 1 
 
 II. " Oh, Pitiful Young Max, struck Blind with 
 
 Beauty" ... ... ... ... 25 
 
 III. "Through a Glass darkly" ... ... 34 
 
 IV. "We are such Stuff as Dreams are made of" G6 
 V. Life upox New Lines ... ... ... 100 
 
 VI. The Face in the Vision ... ... 136 
 
 VII. "It is an Oath," she said ... ... ... 152 
 
 VIII. A Shadow across the Path ... ... 171 
 
 IX. "I built 3IY Soul a Lordly Pleasure-House " 200 
 
 X, " Still one must lead some Life Beyond " 234 
 XI. "Earth being so Good, would Heaven seem 
 
 Best?" 259 
 
 XII. "For .such Things must begin some Day" ... 2G8 

 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/gerardorworldfle01brad
 
 G E R A R D ; 
 
 OB, 
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, ASD THE DEYIL. 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 '' I LOOK DOWX TO HIS FEET, BUT THAT's 
 A FABLE." 
 
 There were low brooding clouds and a feeling of 
 thunder in the air as Gerard Hillersdon's cab 
 rattled along the King's Eoad, past squalid 
 slums and shabby gentilities, towards quiet 
 lural Parson's Green. Only a few years ago 
 Parson's Green had still some pretension to 
 rusticity. Where now the speculating builders' 
 streets and terraces stretch right and left in 
 hollow squares and close battalions, there were 
 fine old Georgian and pre-Georgian mansions, 
 and stately sweeps of la\Yn and shrubbery, and 
 
 VOL. I. jj
 
 2 GKKARD; OE, 
 
 avenues of old-world growth, shutting out the 
 hum and hubbub of the great city. 
 
 To one of those respectable old mansions, that 
 one which was second only to Peterborough 
 House in the extent and dignity of its surround- 
 ings, Gerard Hillersdon was driving under the 
 heavy sky of a July afternoon, the lowering 
 close of a sunless and oppressive day. Never, 
 not even in mid-winter, had the smoke-curtain 
 hung lower over London than it hung to-day, and 
 if the idea of fog seemed impossible in July there 
 at least prevailed that mysterious condition of the 
 atmosphere, commonly known as "blight," a 
 thick yellow haze, unpierced by a single sun- 
 ray. 
 
 To Gerard Hillersdon, ordinarily the most 
 sensitive of men, the atmosphere on this par- 
 ticular afternoon made no difference. He had 
 got beyond that point in which atmosphere can 
 raise a man's spirits or depress them. He had 
 made up his mind upon the great question of life 
 or death; and this kind of day seemed as good 
 t3 him as any other, since he meant it to be his 
 Jast day upon earth. He had made up his mind 
 that life and he must part company ; that for
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 3 
 
 him at least life was not worth living : thus the 
 grey and yellow of the atmosphere, and the 
 threatening thunder-clouds to windward suited 
 his temper far better than the blue sky and west 
 wind which Lady Fridoline would have desired 
 for her garden-party. 
 
 Incongruous as the thing may seem the young 
 man was going to spend his last earthly after- 
 noon at Lady Fridoline's garden-party ; but for a 
 man utterly without religious feeling or hope in 
 the Hereafter such a finish to existence seemed 
 as good as any other. He could not devote his 
 last hours in preparing for the world that was to 
 come after death, as he had no belief in any such 
 world. To him the deed that was to be done 
 before midnight meant swift, sudden extinction, 
 the end of all things for him, Gerard Hillersdon. 
 The curtain which was to fall upon the tragedy 
 of his life to-night would rise upon no afterpiece. 
 The only question which he had taken into 
 serious consideration was the mode and manner 
 of his death. He had made up his mind about 
 that. His revolver was lying in its case in his 
 lodging-house bedroom, under the shadow of St. 
 James's Church, ready loaded — a six-shooter. H§
 
 4 GEEARD; OR, 
 
 had made no will, for he had nothing to leave 
 behind him, except a heavy burden of debt. He 
 had not yet made up his mind whether to write 
 an explanatory letter to the father he had sorely 
 tried, and a brief farewell to the mother who 
 fondly loved him, and whom he loved almost as 
 fondly ; or whether it were not better to leave 
 only silence. 
 
 Not in sheer frivolity was he rattling along 
 the road to Parson's Green. He had a stronger 
 motive in going to Fridoline House than the 
 desire to get rid of his last afternoon in the 
 bustle and excitement of a herd of idle people. 
 There would be some one there most likely whom 
 he ardently desired to meet, were it but to touch 
 her hand and say good night — good night for 
 ever— as she stepped into her carriage, or were it 
 but for one little smile across the crowd. 
 
 She had told him only the night before, sitting 
 out a waltz in the tropical heat of a staircase in 
 Grosvenor Square, that she meant to be at Lady 
 Fridoline's omnium gatherum. 
 
 " One meets such queer people," she said, with 
 the regulation insolence, *' I would not miss Lady 
 Fridoline's Zoological Varieties for worlds."
 
 THE \^ORLD, THE I'LESH, AS^D THE DEVIL. 5 
 
 A feather blown across her pathway miglit be 
 enough to divert her fancy into another channel. 
 He knew her well enongh to know that there was 
 no such thing as certainty where she was con- 
 cerned ; but on the off chance he went to Parson's 
 Green, and his eye ran eagerly along the double 
 line of carriages, looking for Mrs. Champion's 
 liveries. 
 
 Yes, it was there, the barouche with its sober 
 colouring, and the men in their dark brown coats, 
 black velvet breeches, and silk stockings, and the 
 fine upstanding Cleveland bays, strong enough to 
 pull a Carter-Patterson van, yet with enough 
 breeding for beauty. Wealth expressed itself 
 here in that chastened form which education has 
 imposed even upon the cit. The money that had 
 bought that perfect equipage had all been made 
 amidst the steam and din of the Stock Exchange, 
 but the carriage and its appointments were every 
 whit as perfect as those of her Grrace of Upland- 
 shire, which stood next in the rank. 
 
 She was there — the woman he wanted to see 
 anl speak with on this his last day. 
 
 "I am coming, my love, my sweet," he 
 muttered to himself, as he wrote his name in
 
 6 GERARD; OR, 
 
 the big book in the hall, the record by which 
 Lady Fridoline was able to find out how many 
 strangers and outsiders had been imposed upon 
 her hospitality in the shape of friends' friends. 
 
 The crowd was tremendous; the house and 
 grounds buzzed with voices, through which from 
 the bosquet yonder cut the sharp twanging notes 
 of a Tyrolese Yolkslied, accompanied on the 
 Streichzither ; while from an inner drawing- 
 room sounded the long-drawn chords of a violin 
 attacking a sonata by De Beriot. On the left of 
 the great square hall was the dining-room filled 
 with a gormandising crowd ; and on the lawn 
 outside there was a subsidiary buffet under a 
 pollarded Spanish chestnut which spread i(s 
 rugged venerable limbs over a wide circle of 
 turf, and made a low-roofed tent of leaves that 
 fluttered and shivered in the sultry atmosphere. 
 
 Every class was represented at Lady Fridoline's 
 garden-party; or rather it might be said that 
 everybody in London whom any one could care 
 to see was to be found on her ladyship's lawn or 
 was to be hunted for in her ladyship's extensive 
 shrubberies. Literature and the Stage were not 
 more conspicuous than Church and Bar — Church
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 7 
 
 represented by its most famous preachers, Bar 
 by its most notorious advocates, to say nothing 
 of a strong contingent of popular curates and 
 clever stuff gowns. 
 
 Every noteworthy arrival from the great world 
 of English-speaking people across the Atlantic 
 was to be seen at Lady Fridoline's, from the 
 scholar and enthusiast who had written seven 
 octavo volumes to prove that Don Juan was the 
 joint work of Byron's valet, Fletcher, and the 
 Countess Guiccioli, to the miniature soubrette, 
 the idol of New York, who had come to be seen 
 and to conquer upon the boards of a London 
 theatre. Everybody was there, for the afternoon 
 was late, and the throng was thickest just at this 
 hour. 
 
 Gerard Hillersdon went about from group to 
 group, everywhere received with cordiality and 
 empressementj but lingering nowhere — not even 
 when the tiny soubrette told him she was just 
 dying for another ice, and she reckoned he'd 
 take her to the tree over there to get one — 
 always in quest of that one somebody who made 
 it worth his while to run the gauntlet of every- 
 body. One of his oldest friends seized upon him,
 
 8 GEEAED; OR, 
 
 a man with whom he had been at Oxford eeven 
 years before, with whom he had maintained the 
 friendship begun in those days, and who was not 
 to be put off with the passing hand-shake which 
 served for other people. 
 
 "I want a talk with you, Hillersdon. Why 
 didn't you look me up last Tuesday ? We were 
 to have dined and done a theatre. Don't 
 apologise; I see you forgot all about it. By 
 Jove, old fellow, you are looking dreadfully 
 washed out. What have you been doing with 
 yourself?" 
 
 "Nothing beyond the usual mill-round. A 
 succession of late parties may have impaired tho 
 freshness of my complexion." 
 
 "Come up the river with me. Let me see, 
 to-morrow will be Saturday. We can go to 
 Oxford by the afternoon express, spend a couple 
 of nights at the Mitre, look up the dons whom 
 we knew as undergrads, and row down to Windsor 
 by^'uesday night." 
 
 "I should adore it; but it's impossible. I 
 have an engagement which will keep me in 
 London. I shall see you again presently." 
 
 He slipped out of the little group in which his
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AKD THE DEVIL. 9 
 
 friend figured. He had made the circuit of the 
 lawn, lookino^ riojht and left for that tall and 
 graceful form which his eye would have recognised 
 even afar olBf; and now he plunged into the 
 shrubberied labyrinth which lay between the 
 fine, broad lawn and the high walls which 
 secluded Lady Fridoline's domain from the 
 vulgar world. 
 
 He passed a good many couples sauntering 
 slowly in the leafy shade, and talking in those 
 subdued accents which seem to mean very much, 
 and generally mean very little. At last, in the 
 distance, he saw the form and face he was seek- 
 ing — a tall, dark woman, with proudly poised 
 head and splendid eyes, who walked with 
 leisurely step, and tossed her parasol to and 
 fro with a movement eminently expressive of 
 ennui. 
 
 She was walking with a young man who was 
 supposed to be a fast ascending star in the 
 heaven of literature — a young man who was 
 something of a journalist, and something of a 
 poet, who wrote short stories in the magazines, 
 was believed to contribute to Punch, and was 
 said to have written a three-volume novel. But
 
 10 GEKARB; OH, 
 
 however brilliantly this young gentleman may 
 have been talking, Edith Champion had evi- 
 dently had enough of him, for at sight of 
 Hillersdon her face lighted up, and she held 
 out her hand in eager welcome. 
 
 They clasped hands, and he turned back and 
 walked on her right in silence, while the journalist 
 prattled on her left. Presently they met another 
 trio of a mother and daughters, and the journalist 
 was absorbed and swept along by this female 
 brood, leaving Mrs. Champion and Hillersdon 
 tete-a-tete, 
 
 " I thought you were not coming," she said. 
 "Did you doubt I should be here after you 
 had told me I should see you ? I want to see as 
 much of you as possible to-day." 
 
 " Why to-day more than all other days ? " 
 " Because it is my last day in town." 
 "What, you are leaving so soon? Before 
 Goodwood ? " 
 
 " I don't care two straws for Goodwood." 
 
 "Nor do I. But why bury one's self in the 
 
 country or at some German bath too early in 
 
 the year? Autumn is always long enough. 
 
 One need not anticipate it. Is your doctor
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 11 
 
 sending you away? Are you going for your 
 cure ? " 
 
 " Yes, I am going for my cure." * 
 
 ''Where?" 
 
 " Immerschlafenbad," he answered, inventing a 
 name on the instant. 
 
 "I never heard of the place. One of those 
 new springs Avhich doctors are always developing, 
 no doubt. Every fashionable physician has his 
 particular fad in the way of a watering-place. 
 And you are really going to-morrow ? " 
 *' To-morrow I shall be gone." 
 "How shall I live without you ? " she sighed, 
 with the prettiest skin-deep sentiment, which 
 wounded him almost more than her disdain could 
 have done. "At least I must have all your 
 society till you are gone. You must dine with 
 me and share my opera-box. * Don Giovanni ' is 
 an opera of which one can never have too much, 
 and a new soprano is to be the Zerlina, a South 
 American girl of whom great things are 
 expected." 
 
 " Is Mr. Champion at home ? " 
 "No, he is in Antwerp. There is something 
 important going on there — something to do with
 
 12 GERARD; OR, 
 
 railways. You know how he rushes about. I 
 shall have no one but my cousin, Mrs. Gresham, 
 whom you know of old, the Suffolk vicar's lively 
 wife. We shall be almost tete-a-tete. I shall 
 expect you at eight o'clock." 
 
 " I will be punctual. What a threatening 
 day," he said, looking up at the gathering dark- 
 ness which gave a wintry air to the summer 
 foliage. *' There must be a storm coming." 
 
 "Evidently. I think I had better go home. 
 Will you take me to my carriage ? " 
 
 *' Let me get you some tea before you go." 
 
 They strolled across the grass to the leafy 
 tent. A good many people had gone, scared by 
 the thunder-clouds. Lady Fridoline had deserted 
 her post in the portico, tired of saying good-bye, 
 and was taking a hasty cup of tea amidst a little 
 knot of intimates. She was lamenting the non- 
 arrival of some one. 
 
 " So shameful to disappoint me, after distinctly 
 promising to be here," she said. 
 
 " Who is the defaulter, dear Lady Fridoline ? " 
 asked Mrs. Champion. 
 
 " Mr. Jermyn, the new thought-reader." 
 
 *'Jermyu!" echoed a middle-aged man, who
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 13 
 
 was attending to Lady Fridoline's tea, " Jermyn, 
 the mystery man. I should hardly call him by 
 the old name of thought-reader. He marks a 
 new departure in the region of the uncanny. He 
 is not content with picking up pins, or finding 
 unconsidered trifles. He unearths people's 
 secrets, reads their hidden lives in a most un- 
 comfortable way. I have seen a large party 
 reduced to gloom by half an hour of Mr. Jermyn. 
 I would as soon invite Mephistopheles to a 
 garden-party. But people are so morbid, they 
 will hazard anything for a new sensation." 
 
 " It is something to touch only the fringe of 
 other worlds," replied Lady Fridoline, " and 
 whatever Mr. Jermyn's power may be, it lies 
 beyond the plummet line of oicr thought or 
 touch. He told me of circumstances in my own 
 life that it was impossible for him to have dis- 
 covered except by absolute divination." 
 
 " Then you believe in his power of divina- 
 tion ? " asked Mrs. Champion, with languid 
 interest. 
 
 " I can't help believing." 
 
 " Yes, because you have not found out the 
 trick of the thing. There is always a trick in
 
 14 GERAED; OE, 
 
 these things, which is inevitably found out 
 sooner or later; and then people wonder that 
 they can have been so foolish as to believe," 
 said Mrs. Champion. 
 
 , The curtain of leaves parted as she spoke, and 
 a young man came through the opening— a 
 young man whom Lady Fridoline welcomed 
 eagerly. 
 
 "I was just telling my friends how dis- 
 appointed I should be if you did not come," she 
 said, and then, turning to Edith Champion, she 
 introduced the new-comer as Mr. Jermyn. 
 
 *' Lady Fridoline has been trying to make us 
 feel creepy by her description of your occult 
 powers, Mr. Jermyn," said Mrs. Champion, " but 
 you do not look a very alarming personage." 
 
 " Lady Fridoline exaggerated my poor gifts in 
 her infinite kindness," replied Jermyn, with a 
 laugh that had a gnome-like sound to Mrs, 
 Champion's ears. 
 
 Mr. Jermyn was a pleasant-looking young 
 man, tall, slim, and fair, with a broad, strongly 
 marked brow, whicli receded curiously above 
 the temples, and with hair and moustache of 
 that pale yellowish hue which seems mo§t
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 15 
 
 appropriate to the faun and satyr races. Some- 
 thing in the \vay this short curling hair was cut 
 about brow and ears, or in the shape of the ears 
 themselves, suggested the satyr type ; otherwise 
 there was nothing in the young man's physiog- 
 nomy, bearing, or dress which made him dififerent 
 from other well-bred and well-dressed men of 
 his age. His laugh had a fresh and joyous ring, 
 which made it agreeable to hear, and he laughed 
 often, looking at the commonest things in a 
 mirthful spirit. 
 
 Lady Fridoline insisted upon his taking some 
 refreshment, and when he had disposed of a 
 lemon-ice, she carried him off for a stroll round 
 the lawn, eager to let people see her latest 
 celebrity. There was a little buzz of talk, and 
 an obvious excitement in the air as he passed 
 group after group. He had shown himself 
 rarely in society, and his few performances had 
 been greatly discussed and written about. 
 Letters exalting him as a creature gifted with 
 superhuman powers had alternated with letters 
 denouncing him as an impostor in one of the 
 most popular daily papers. The people who 
 are always ready to believe in the impossible
 
 l(j GEEAED; OR, 
 
 were loud in the assertion of his good faith, and 
 would not hear of trickery or imposture. 
 
 There was an eager expectation of some mani- 
 festation of his powers this afternoon, as he 
 walked across the lawn with Lady Fridoline, and 
 people who had been on the point of departure 
 lingered in the hope of being thrilled and 
 frightened, as they bad heard of other people 
 being thrilled and frightened, by this amiable- 
 looking youth with the fair complexion and 
 yellow hair. The very incongruity of that fair 
 and youthful aspect with the ghastly or the 
 supernatural made Justin Jermyn so much the 
 more interesting. 
 
 He walked about the grounds with his hostess 
 for some time, all her duties of leave-taking 
 suspended, and she to all appearance absorbed 
 in earnest conversation with the Fate-Revealer, 
 every one watchful and expectant. Hillersdon 
 and Mrs. Champion were sitting side by side 
 upon a rustic bench, the lady no longer in a 
 hurry to depart. 
 
 " You don't believe in any nonsense of this 
 kind, I know," she said, in her low, listless voice, 
 \Y}thout looking at her companion.
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEVIL. 17 
 
 ** I believe iu notliing but disillusion, the false- 
 hood inherent in all things." 
 
 "You are in an unhappy mood to-day, I think," 
 she said, with a touch of interest. 
 
 " Atmospherical, perhaps," he answered, with a 
 laugh. " You can hardly expect anybody to feel 
 very happy under that leaden sky." 
 
 Lady Fridoline and her companion had 
 separated. He was walking towards the house ; 
 she was going rapidly from group to group, 
 talking and explaining with animated gestures. 
 
 "There is going to be a performance," said 
 Mrs. Champion, rising. " If there is any excite- 
 ment to be had let us have our share of it." 
 
 " You want the secrets of your life to be read ? " 
 asked Gerard. 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes. I want to see what modern 
 magic can do." 
 
 " And you are not afraid ? That is because 
 yours is only a surface life — an existence that 
 begins and ends in wealth and luxury, fine 
 clothes and fine horses. What have you to fear 
 from sorcery ? There are no more secrets in 
 your life than in a doll's life." 
 
 " You are very impertinent." 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 GEEARD; OR, 
 
 " I am going away, and I can afford to quarrel 
 with you. Would to God I could stir some kind 
 of feeling in you — yes, even make you angry 
 before I go." 
 
 "I am afraid you are an egotist," she said, 
 smiling at him with lovely, inscrutable eyes. 
 
 She went across the lawn to Lady Fridoline. 
 
 *'Are we going to have any magic?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " You must not utter that word before Mr. 
 Jermyn, unless you want to offend him. He has 
 a horror of any idea of that kind. He calls his 
 wonderful gift only insight, the power to look 
 through the face into the mind behind it, and 
 from the mind to the life which the mind has 
 shaped and guided. He claims no occult power 
 — only a keener vision than the common run of 
 mankind. He is going to sit in the library for 
 the next half-hour, and if anybody wants to 
 test his powers they can go in — one at a time — 
 and talk to him." 
 
 Anybody seemed likely to be everybody in 
 this case, for there was a general and hurried 
 movement towards the house. 
 
 "Come," said Edith Champion peremptorily,
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 19 
 
 and she and Hillersdon followed the crowd, 
 getting in advance of most people, with swift, 
 vigorous steps. 
 
 The library at Fridoline House was a large 
 room that occupied nearly the whole of one 
 wing. It was approached by a corridor, and 
 Mrs. Champion and her escort found this 
 corridor choked with people, all eager to inter- 
 view ]\[r. Jermyn. 
 
 The approach to the oracle was strongly 
 defended, however, by two gentlemen, who had 
 been told off for that purpose, one being a Colonel 
 of Engineers and the other a Professor of Natural 
 Science. 
 
 " We shall never get through this herd," said 
 Gerard, looking with infinite contempt at the 
 throng of smart people, all panting for a new 
 sensation. *' Let us try the other door." 
 
 He was an intimate at Fridoline House, and 
 knew his way to the small ante-room at the back 
 of the library. If the door of that room were 
 unguarded he and his companion might surprise 
 the wizard, and steal a march upon all that 
 expectant frivolity in the corridor. The whole 
 thing was beneath contempt, no doubt, and he,
 
 20 GERARD; OR, 
 
 Gerard Hillersdon, was not even faintly interested 
 in it, but it interested Edith Champion, and he 
 was anxious to gratify her whim. 
 
 He led her round by the hall and Lady Frido- 
 line's boudoir, to the room behind the library, 
 opened the door ever so gently, and listened to 
 the voices within, 
 
 " It is wonderful, positively wonderful," said a 
 voice in awe-stricken undertones. 
 
 '^ Are you satisfied, madam ? Have I told you 
 enough ? " asked Jermyn. 
 
 "More than enough. You have made me 
 utterly miserable." 
 
 Then came the flutter of a silken skirt, and 
 the opening and closing of a door, and then 
 Jermyn looked quickly towards that other door 
 which Hillersdon was holding ajar. 
 
 "Who's there?" he asked. 
 
 "A lady who would like to talk with you 
 before you are exhausted by that clamorous 
 herd in the corridor. May she come to you at 
 once ? " 
 
 '' It is Mrs. Champion," said Jermyn. " Yes, 
 let her come in." 
 
 "He could not possibly have seen me,"
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 21 
 
 whispered Edith Champion, who had been stand- 
 ing behind the door. 
 
 " He divined your presence. He is no more a 
 magician than I am in that matter," said Hillers- 
 don, as she passed him, and closed the door 
 behind her. 
 
 She came out after a five minutes* conference, 
 much paler than when she entered. 
 
 " Well, has he told the lovely doll her latest 
 secret, the mystery of a new gown from Felix or 
 Raunitz ? " asked Gerard. 
 
 " I will see you now, if you have anything to 
 say to me, Mr. Hillersdon," said Jermyn airily. 
 
 "I am with you in a moment," answered 
 Gerard, lingering on the threshold, and holding 
 Mrs. Champion's hand in both of his. " Edith, 
 what has he said to you; you look absolutely 
 frightened." 
 
 "Yes, he has frightened me — frightened me 
 by telling me my own thoughts. I did not know 
 I was so full of sin. Let me go, Gerard. He 
 has made me hate myself. He will do as much 
 for you, perhaps. He will make you odious in 
 your own eyes. Yes, go to him; hear all that 
 he can tell you."
 
 22 GERARD; OR, 
 
 She broke from him, and hurried away, he 
 looking after her anxiously. Then with a 
 troubled sigh, he went to hear what this new 
 adept of a doubtful science might haye to say 
 to him. 
 
 The library was always in shadow at this hour, 
 and now, with that grey threatening sky outside 
 the long narrow Queen Anne windows, the room 
 was wrapped in a wintry darkness, against which 
 the smiliug countenance of the diviner stood out 
 in luminous relief. 
 
 " Sit down, Mr. Hillersdon, I am not going to 
 hurry because of that mob outside,'* said Jermyn 
 gaily, throwing himself back in the capacious 
 arm-chair, and turning his beaming face towards 
 Hillersdon. '* I am interested in the lady who 
 has just left me, and I am still more interested 
 in you r 
 
 " I ought to feel honoured by that interest,*' 
 said Hillersdon, " but I confess to a doubt of its 
 reality. What can you know of a man whom 
 you have seen for the first time within the last 
 half-hour?" 
 
 " I am so sorry for you," said Jermyn, ignoring 
 the direct question, *' so sorry. A young man of
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 23 
 
 your natural gifts— clever, handsome, well-bred 
 — to be so tired of life already, so utterly de- 
 spondent of the future and its infinite chances, 
 that you are going to throw up the sponge, and 
 make an end of it all to-night. It is really too 
 sad." 
 
 Hillersdon stared at him in blank amazement. 
 Justin Jermyn made the statement as if it were 
 the most natural thing in the world that he 
 should have fathomed another man's intention. 
 
 "I cannot accept compassion from any one, 
 least of all from a total stranger," said Hillers- 
 don, after that moment of surprise. " Pray what 
 is there in my history or my appearance that 
 moves you to this wild conjecture ? " 
 
 " No matter by what indications I read your 
 mind," answered Jermyn lightly. " You know I 
 have read you right. You are one of my easiest 
 cases; everything about you is obvious — stares 
 me full in the face. The lady who has just left 
 us needed a subtler power of interpretation. She 
 does not wear her heart upon her sleeve ; and yet 
 I think she will admit that I startled her. As 
 for you, my dear fellow, I am particularly frank 
 with you because I want to prevent your carrying
 
 24 GEKAED; OR, 
 
 out that foolish notion of yours. The worst thing 
 that a man can do with his life is to throw it 
 away." 
 
 " I admit no man's right to offer me advice." 
 ^* You think that is out of my line. I am a 
 fortune-teller, and nothing else. Well, I will 
 tell you your fortune, Mr. Hillersdon, if you like. 
 You will not carry out your present intention- 
 yet awhile, or in the mode and manner you have 
 planned. Good afternoon." He dismissed his 
 visitor with a careless nod as he rose to open 
 the door communicating with the corridor, whence 
 came a buzz of eager voices, mixed with light 
 laughter. People were prepared to be startled, 
 yet could but regard the whole business in a 
 somewhat jocular spirit. It was only the select 
 few who gave Justin Jermyn credit for occult 
 power.
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 25 
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 "OH, PITIFUL YOUNG MAN, STRUCK BLIND 
 WITH BEAUTY." 
 
 Edith Champion was one of the handsomest 
 women in London, a woman whose progress was 
 followed at all great parties and public gather- 
 ings by the hum of an admiring multitude, 
 whispering her praises, or telling the uninformed 
 that the dark-eyed woman with the tall. Juno- 
 like form was the Mrs. Champion. Four years 
 ago she had been one of a trio of lovely sisters, 
 the daughters of an impecunious Yorkshire 
 squire, a man who had wasted a fine fortune on 
 the turf, and was ending his days in debt and 
 difiSculty at a moated grange in the West 
 Riding. The three lovely sisters were such 
 obviously marketable property that aunts and 
 uncles were quick to compassionate their forlorn 
 condition, and they were duly launched in Lon-
 
 26 GEEAED; OE, 
 
 don society. The two elder were young, women 
 of singular calmness and perspicuity, and got 
 themselves well married, the first to a wealthy 
 baronet, the second to a marquis, without giving 
 trouble to anybody concerned in the transaction ; 
 but the youngest girl, Edith, showed herself 
 wayward and wilful, and expressed an absurd 
 desire to marry Gerard Hillersdon, the man she 
 loved. This desire was frustrated, but not so 
 promptly as it should have been, and the young 
 lady contrived to make her attachment public 
 property before uncles or aunts could crush the 
 flowers of sentiment under the hoof of worldly 
 wisdom. But the sentiment was crushed some- 
 how, the world knew not with how many tears, 
 or with what girlish pleading for mercy, and the 
 season after this foolish entanglement Edith 
 'Champion accepted the addresses of an elderly 
 stockbroker and reputed millionaire, who made a 
 handsomer settlement than the middle-aged 
 marquis had made upon her elder sister. 
 
 Mr. Champion was good-natured and un- 
 suspicious, his mind being almost entirely 
 absorbed in that exciting race for wealth which 
 had been the business of his life from boyhood.
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 27 
 
 He wanted a beautiful wife as the solace of 
 his declining years, and the one thing needed 
 to complete the costly home which he had built 
 for himself on a heathy ridge among those 
 romantic hills where Surrey overlooks Sussex. 
 The wife was the final piece of furniture to be 
 chosen for this splendid mansion, and he had 
 chosen that crowning ornament in a deliberate 
 and leisurely manner. He was the last man to 
 plague himself by any subtle questionings as to 
 the sentiments of the lady so honoured, or to be 
 harassed by doubts of her fidelity. He had no 
 objection to seeing his wife surrounded by youth- 
 ful admirers. Was she not meant to be admired, 
 as much as his pictures and statues ? He found 
 no fault with the chosen band of " nice boys " 
 who attended her afternoon at home, or crowded 
 the back of her box when the curtain was down 
 at opera-house or theatre ; and if Gerard Hillers- 
 don were more constant than all the others in 
 his attendance, the fact never presented itself in 
 any unpleasant light to Mr. Champion. Had he 
 given himself the trouble to think about his 
 wife's relations with her cavaliere servente he 
 would most assuredly have told himself that she
 
 28 GERARD; OR, 
 
 was much too well placed to overstep the limits 
 of prudence, and that no woman in her right 
 senses would abandon a palace in Surrey and a 
 model house in Hertford Street for the caravan- 
 series that lodge the divorcee. He would have 
 remembered also with satisfaction that his wife's 
 settlement, liberal as it was, would be made null 
 and void by a divorce. 
 
 And thus for three years of his life — perhaps 
 the best and brightest years in a man's life, from 
 twenty-five to twenty-eight — Gerard Hillersdon 
 had given up all his thoughts, aspirations, and 
 dreams to the most hopeless of all love affairs, an 
 attachment to an irreproachable matron, a woman 
 who had accepted her lot as an unloving wife and 
 who meant to do her duty, in her own cold and 
 measured way, to an unloved husband ; yet who 
 clung to the memory of a girlish love and fostered 
 the passion of her lover, caring, or at least seem- 
 ing to care, nothing for his peace, and never 
 estimating the wrong she was doing him. 
 
 To this passion everything in the young man's 
 life had been sacrificed. He had begun his 
 career on fire with ambition, believing in his 
 capacity to succeed in more than one profession ;
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 29 
 
 and in the first flush of his manhood he had done 
 some really good work in imaginative literature, 
 had written a novel which took the town, and had 
 made his brief success as an original writer, 
 romantic, light of touch, unconventional ; but he 
 had been drifted into idleness by a woman who 
 treated him as some queen or princess in the 
 days of chivalry might have treated her page. 
 She spoilt his career, just when a lasting success 
 was within his reach, needing only earnestness 
 and industry on his part. She had wasted the 
 golden days of his youth, and had given him in 
 exchange only smiles and sweet words, and a 
 place at her dinner-table in a house where he 
 had lost all prestige from being seen too often, 
 the one inevitable guest whose presence counted 
 for nothing. He had been in all things her 
 slave, offending the people she disliked, and 
 wasting his attention and his substance on her 
 favourites, faithful to her caprice of the hour, 
 were it never so foolish. 
 
 And now after three years of this fond slavery 
 the end had come. He was ruined, and was 
 worse than ruined. He had been living from 
 hand to mouth, writing for magazines and news-
 
 80 GERARD; OR, 
 
 papers, earning a good deal of money in a casual 
 way, but never enough to keep him out of debt ; 
 and now he saw bankruptcy staring him in the 
 face, and with bankruptcy dishonour, for he had 
 gambling debts which, as the son of a country 
 parson, he ought never to have incurred, and 
 which it would be disgrace not to pay. 
 
 Had this dread of disgrace been his only 
 trouble, he might have treated it as other men 
 have treated such dark episodes. He might have 
 told himself that England is not the world, and 
 that there is always room for youth and daring 
 under the tropic stars, and that the name with 
 which a man has been labelled at starting in life 
 is not so interwoven with his being that he need 
 mind changing it for another, and giving him- 
 self a fresh start. He might have reasoned thus 
 had he still felt the delight in life which makes 
 the adventurer live down shame and set his face 
 to untrodden worlds across the sea. But he had 
 no such delight. The zest of life had gone out of 
 him. Love itself had lost all fervour. He hardly 
 knew whether he cared any more for the woman 
 to whom he had sacrificed his youth, whether 
 the flame of love had not expired altogether
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 31 
 
 amidst the vacuity of two conventional exist- 
 ences. The onlv thino^ which he knew for certain 
 was that he loved no other woman, and that he 
 took no interest in life adequate to the struggle 
 it would cost him to live through the crisis that 
 was coming. 
 
 And thus, with all serious consideration, he 
 had decided upon a sudden exit from a scene 
 which no longer interested him. Yet with a 
 curious inconsistency he wanted to spend his 
 last hours in Edith Champion's society, and 
 never had he seemed gayer or happier than he 
 seemed that evening at the triangular dinner in 
 Hertford Street. 
 
 They were dining in a little octagon room at 
 the back of the house, a room upholstered like 
 a tent, and furnished in so Oriental a fashion that 
 it seemed a solecism to be sitting upon chairs, 
 and not to be eating pillau or kibobs with one's 
 fingers. The clerical cousin was a veiy agreeable 
 personage — plump and rosy, strongly addicted 
 to good living, and looking upon the beautiful 
 Mrs. Champion as a being whose normal state 
 was to be adored by well-bred young men, and 
 to dispense hospitality to poor relations.
 
 32 GERAED; OR, 
 
 Not a word was said about Justin Jermyn 
 throughout the dinner, but while Gerard was 
 helping Mrs. Champion to put on her cloak, she 
 asked suddenly — 
 
 " How did you get on with the Fate-reader ? " 
 
 " Very badly. He struck me as an insolent 
 farceur. I wonder society can encourage such a 
 person." 
 
 " Yes, he is decidedly insolent. I was rather 
 scared by the things he said to me, but a few 
 minutes' thought showed me that his talk was 
 mere guess work. I shall never ask him to any 
 party of mine." 
 
 " You must have rushed away in a great hurry. 
 I was only five minutes closeted with the oracle, 
 but when I went to the hall you and your 
 carriage had vanished." 
 
 " I had an irresistible desire to get out of the 
 house. I felt as if I were escaping from Tophet ; 
 and then I had to call for Mrs. Gresham " — the 
 cousin— "at the Knightsbridge Kiding School, 
 where the poor thing had been slaving at Lady 
 Penniddock's refreshment stall." 
 
 "It was abject slavery," protested Mrs. 
 Gresham. "I'm afraid I shall detest tea and
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 33 
 
 coffee all the days of my life, and I was so fond 
 of them " — with profouad regret. " The very 
 look of a bath ban will make me ill," 
 
 " Depecho7iSj" said Mrs. Champion. " We shall 
 hear very little of the new Zerlina if we go on 
 dawdling here." 
 
 And so in a feverish hurry she led the way to 
 her carriage, where there was just room enough 
 for Gerard on the front seat. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 34 GERARD; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 "THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY." 
 
 The opeia house was not brilliantly filled. There 
 were a great many important functions going on 
 that evening, events thickening as the season 
 sloped towards its close, and it may be that the 
 new Zerlina had not been sufficiently puffed, or 
 that those enthusiasts who can never have too 
 much Mozart are only the minority among 
 opera-goers. There were a good many blank 
 spaces in the stalls, and a good many untenanted 
 boxe?, nor was the display of diamonds and beauty 
 as dazzling as it might have been. 
 
 In an audience at half power Mrs. Champion's 
 commanding loveliness and Mrs. Champion's tiara 
 of diamond stars shone conspicuous. She was 
 dressed with that careless air which was her 
 speciality, in some filmy fabric of daffodil colour,
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 35 
 
 which was arranged in loose folds across her bust 
 and shoulders, caught here and there, as if at 
 random, with a diamond star. A great cluster 
 of yellow orchids was fastened on one shoulder, 
 and there were yellow orchids pinned on her 
 black lace fan, while long black gloves gave a 
 touch of eccentricity to her toilette. Her one 
 object in dressing herself was to be different 
 from other women. She never wore the fashion- 
 able colour or the fashionable fabric, but gloried 
 in opposition, and took infinite pains to find 
 something in Paris or Vienna which nobody was 
 wearing in London. 
 
 The awe-inspiring music which closes the 
 second act, and seems to presage the horror of 
 the scenes that are coming, was hurrying to its 
 brilliant finish, when Gerard, looking idly down 
 upon the stalls, started at sight of the man who 
 had mystified him more than any other human 
 being had ever done. There, lounging in his 
 place between two unoccupied seats, he saw 
 Justin Jermyn, apparently enjoying the music 
 with that keen delight which only the real 
 music-lover can feel. His head was thrown 
 back, his thin pale lips were slightly parted,
 
 36 GEEARD; OR, 
 
 and his large blue eyes beamed with rapture. 
 Yes, a man who passionately loved music, or 
 else a consummate actor. 
 
 The very presence of the man recalled Gerard 
 Hillersdon to the business which was to be done 
 after the green curtain had fallen, and his fair 
 companions had been handed into their carriage. 
 Ten minutes in a hansom, and he would be in 
 his lodgings, and there would be no excuse for 
 delay. His time would have come before the 
 clock of St. James's Church struck midnight. He 
 had looked at his pistol-case involuntarily while 
 he was dressing for the evening. He knew 
 where it stood ready to his hand ; and close 
 beside the pistol-case was a business-like letter 
 from his landlord requesting the settlement of 
 a long account for rent and maintenance — only 
 such breakfasts and casual meals as a young man 
 of fashion takes at his lodgings — which had 
 mounted to formidable figures. And an ounce 
 of lead was to be the sole settlement. For the 
 first time in his life Mr. Hillersdon felt sorry for 
 those eminently respectable people, his landlord 
 and landlady. He began to consider whether he 
 ought not at least to shoot himself out of doors,
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 37 
 
 rather than to inflict upon an old-established 
 lodging-house the stigma of a suicide ; but the 
 inconvenience of self-destruction sub Jove was too 
 apparent to him, and he felt that he must be 
 selfish in this final act of a selfish life. 
 
 Yes, there sat Justin Jermyn, complacent, full 
 of enjoyment ; the man who had told him what 
 he was going to do. How the modern sorcerer 
 would pride himself upon that fore-knowledge 
 to-morrow when the evening papers told of the 
 deed that had been done. There would doubt- 
 less be a paragraph in the papers — three lines 
 at most — and perhaps a line on the contents 
 bill. Distressing Suicide of a Gentleman. 
 Suicides are always described as distressing when 
 the self-slaughterer is of gentle blood. 
 
 He felt angry with Jermyn for having con- 
 trived to haunt these closing hours of his life. 
 He sat watching the sorcerer all through the 
 last act of the opera, noting his elfin enjoyment 
 of all that was diabolical in the music and the 
 libretto. How he grinned at the discomfiture 
 of Don Giovanni, how he rocked himself with 
 laughter at the abject terror of Leperello. No 
 one approached him as an acquaintance. He
 
 38 GERARD; OR, 
 
 sat in complete isolation, but in supreme enjoy- 
 ment, apparently the happiest man in that great 
 theatre, the youngest and the freshest in the 
 capacity to enjoy. 
 
 " And that laughing fool read my purpose as 
 if my brain had been an open book,'* mused 
 Hillersdon savagely. 
 
 His anger was not lessened when he glanced 
 round while he was conducting Mrs. Champion 
 to her carriage, and saw the Fate-reader's slim, 
 supple iigure behind him, and the Fate-reader's 
 gnome-like countenance smiling at him under 
 an opera hat. 
 
 " I am so sorry you are leaving London so 
 soon," said Edith Champion, as he lingered at 
 the carriage-door for the one half-minute allowed 
 by the Jack in office at his elbow. 
 
 She gave him her hand, and even pressed the 
 hand which held hers, with more sentiment than 
 she was wont to show. 
 
 " Drive on, coachman," shouted the Com- 
 missionaire. " Now then, next carriage." 
 
 No time for sentimental partings there ! 
 
 Hillersdon walked away from the theatre, 
 meaning to pick up the first hansom that offered
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 39 
 
 itself. He had not gone three steps along the 
 Bow Street pavement when Jermyn was close 
 beside him. 
 
 " Are you going home, Mr. Hillersdon ? " he 
 asked, in a friendly tone. "Delightful opera, 
 ' Don Giovanni,' ain't it ? The best out and 
 away. * Faust' is my next favourite; but even 
 Gounod can't touch Mozart." 
 
 " I dare say not ; but I am no connoisseur. 
 Good night, Mr. Jermyn. I am going home 
 immediately." 
 
 "Don't. Come and have some supper with 
 me. I only half told your fortune this after- 
 noon, you were so infernally impatient. I have 
 a good deal more to tell you. Come and have 
 some supper in my chambers." 
 
 "Some other night, perhaps, Mr. Jermyn. I 
 am going straight home." 
 
 " And you mean there shall be no other nights 
 in your life ? " said Jermyn, in a low, silky voice 
 that made Hillersdon savage, for it jarred upon 
 his irritated nerves more than the harshest 
 accents could have done. 
 
 " Good night," he said curtly, turning on his 
 heel.
 
 40 GERARD; OR, 
 
 Jermyn was not to be repulsed. 
 
 " Come home with me," he said ; " I won't 
 leave you while you have the suicide's line on 
 your forehead. Come to supper with me, 
 Hillersdon. I have a brand of champagne that 
 will smooth out that ugly wrinkle, if you'll only 
 give the stuff a fair trial." 
 
 "I don't know where you live, and I don't 
 care a jot for your wines or anybody else's. I 
 am leaving town to-morrow morning, and I want 
 my last hours in London for my own purposes." 
 
 Jermyn put his arm through Hillersdon 's, 
 wheeled him round in the direction of Long-acre, 
 and quietly led him away. That was his answer 
 to Hillersdon's testy speech, and the young man 
 submitted, feeling a vis inertise, a languid in- 
 difference which made him consentient to a 
 stranger's will, having lost all will-power of his 
 own. 
 
 He was angry with Jermyn, yet even more 
 angry with himself, and in that perturbation of 
 mind, tempered curiously with supineness, he 
 took but little note of which way they went. He 
 remembered going by Lincoln's Inn Fields and 
 the Turnstile. He remembered crossing Holborn,
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 41 
 
 but knew not afterwards whether the shabby, 
 squalid looking Inn, beneath whose gloomy gate- 
 house Jermyn led him, did, or did not, open 
 directly out of the great thoroughfare. 
 
 He remembered always that it was a most 
 dismal assemblage of tall, shabby houses, forming 
 a quadrangle, in whose stony centre there was a 
 dilapidated basin, which might once have been 
 a fountain. The summer moon, ridino^ hio:h 
 and fast among wind-tossed clouds, shone full 
 into the stony yard, and lit up the shabby 
 fronts of the houses, but not one lamp-lit 
 window cheered with the suggestion of life and 
 occupation. 
 
 " Do you mean to say you live in this ghastly 
 hole ? " he exclaimed, speaking for the first time 
 since they left Bow Street ; " it looks as if it were 
 tenanted by a company of ghosts." 
 
 " A good many of the houses are empty, and I 
 dare say the ghosts of dead usurers and dishonest 
 lawyers and broken-hearted clients do have a 
 high time in the old rooms now and again," 
 answered Jermyn, with his irrepressible laugh ; 
 " but I have never seen any company but rats, 
 mice, and such small deer, as Bacon says. Of
 
 42 GERAED; OE, 
 
 course, lie was Bacon. We're all agreed upon 
 that." 
 
 Hillersdon ignored tins frivolity, and stood 
 dumbly, while Jermyn put his key into a door, 
 opened it, and led the way into a passage that 
 was pitch dark. ISTot a pleasant situation to be 
 alone in a dark passage at midnight in a sparely 
 inhabited block of buildings quite cut off from 
 the rest of the world, in company with a man 
 whose repute was decidedly diabolical. 
 
 Jermyn struck a match and lighted a small 
 hand-lamp, which improved the situation just a 
 little. 
 
 " My den is on the second floor," he said, " and 
 I've made the place pretty comfortable inside, 
 though it looks rather uncanny outside." 
 
 He led the way up an old oak staircase, narrow, 
 shabby, and unadorned, but oak-panelled, and 
 therefore precious in the eyes of those who cling 
 fondly to the past and to that old London which 
 is so swiftly vanishing off the face of the earth. 
 
 The little lamp gave but just light enough to 
 make the darkness of the staircase visible, till 
 they came to a landing where the moon looked in 
 through the murky panes of a tall window, and
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 43 
 
 anon to a higher landing, where a vivid streak of 
 lamplight under a door gave the first token of 
 habitation. Jermyn opened this door, and his 
 guest stood half-blinded by the brilliant light, 
 and not a little astonished by the elegant luxury 
 of those two rooms, opening into each other ^Yith 
 a wide archway, which Mr. Jermyn had de- 
 nominated his " den." 
 
 Hillersdon had been in many bachelor-rooms 
 within the precincts of The Alban}^ in Piccadilly, 
 St. James's, and Mayfair,but he had seen nothing 
 more studiously luxurious than the Fate-reader's 
 den. Heavy velvet curtains, of darkish green, 
 draped the shuttered windows. The ingle-nook 
 was quaint, artistic, comfortable; the glistening 
 tiles were decorated with storks and sea-birds, 
 which might have been painted by Stacey Marks 
 himself. The furniture was all that is most rare 
 and genuine in the relics of the Chippendale era. 
 The carpet was a marvel of Oriental undertones, 
 and Oriental richness of fabric. The few pieces 
 of pottery which made spots of vivid colour here 
 and there amidst the prevailing sombreness of 
 hue, were choicest specimens of Indian and Italian 
 ware. The pictures were few. A Judas, by
 
 44 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 Titian; a wood nymph, naked and unashamed, 
 against a background of dark foliage, by Guido ; 
 and three curious bits of the early German school, 
 made up the show of art, save for a bust of the 
 Fate-reader in black marble, a curiously faithful 
 likeness, in which the faun-like character of the 
 head, and the elfin smile, were but slightly ac- 
 centuated. This bust stood upon a pedestal of 
 dark red porphyry, and seemed to command' the 
 room. ^ 
 
 The inner room was furnished as a library. 
 There the lamps were shaded and the light sub- 
 dued. Here, under the centre lamp that hung 
 low over the small round table appeared all the 
 arrangements for a dainty little supper. Two 
 covered dishes on a chafing dish ; a truffled pullet 
 and a miniature York ham, a lobster salad, straw- 
 berries, peaches, champagne in a brazen ice-pail, 
 ornamented with Bacchanalian figures in repousse 
 work. 
 
 " My servant has gone to bed," said Jermyn, 
 " but he has left everything ready, and we can 
 wait upon each other. Cutlets, salmi aux olives," 
 he said, lifting the covers; "which will you 
 start with ? "
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 45 
 
 " Neither, thanks. I told you I had no 
 appetite." 
 
 "Discouraging to a man who is as huugry 
 as a hunter," retorted Jermyn, helping himself. 
 " Try that Madeira, it may give you an appetite." 
 
 Hillersdon seated himself opposite his host and 
 took a glass of wine. His curiosity was stimulated 
 by the Fate-reader's surroundings ; and, after all, 
 the thing which he had to do might remain un- 
 done for a few hours. He could not help being 
 interested in this young man, who, either by 
 instinct or by a subtle guess, had fathomed his 
 purpose. The luxury of these rooms piqued him, 
 so strikinor a contrast with the shabbiness of his 
 own ^Yest End lodging, albeit that lodgiug was 
 far from cheap. He was supposed to pay for 
 "situation." Of luxury he had nothing, of com- 
 fort very little. How did Jermyn contrive to be 
 so well off, he wondered? Did he live by fate - 
 reading, or had he means of his own ? 
 
 Jermyn was eating his supper all this time 
 with a fine appetite and an epicurean gusto. 
 After a couple of glasses of Madeira, his guest 
 helped himself to lobster salad, and when Jermyn 
 opened the champagne the two men were hob-
 
 46 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 nobbing comfortably, and, that wine being choice 
 of its kiad and admirably iced, Hillersdon drank 
 the best part of a bottle, and found himself 
 enjoying his supper more than he had enjoyed 
 anything in the way of meat and drink for a long 
 time. 
 
 The conversation daring supper was of the 
 lightest, Jermyn letting off his criticisms, mostly 
 unfavourable, upon people kiiovva to them both, 
 and laughing tremendously at his own wit. He 
 was careful not to mention Mrs. Champion, how- 
 ever, and Hillersdon had no objection to spatter 
 mud upon the ruck of his acquaintance. Sapper 
 over, and a box of cigars open between them, with 
 a silver spirit-lamp, shaped like a serpent offering 
 its flaming jaws for their use, the men grew more 
 serious. It was past one o'clock. They had been 
 a long time over their supper, and they seemed 
 no longer strangers — intimates, rather, not united 
 by any particular esteem for each other, but one 
 in their contempt for other people. 
 
 *'The champagne has wiped out that ugly 
 wrinkle already," said Jermyn, with his friendly 
 air ; " and now tell me what could induce you to 
 contemplate such a thing."
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 47 
 
 " What thing ? " asked Hillersdon, waxing 
 moody. 
 
 Jermyn's reply was pantomimic. He passed 
 his hand across his throat, significant of a razor ; 
 he turned his hand towards his open mouth, 
 suggestive of a pistol ; he tossed off an imaginary 
 poison draught. 
 
 "You insist upon suggesting " began 
 
 Hillersdon, angrily. 
 
 " I tell you I saw it in your face. The man 
 who contemplates suicide has a look which no 
 man who reads the human countenance can mis- 
 take. There is a fixed horror in the eyes, as of 
 one who stares into the unknown, and knows that 
 he is nearing the mystery of life and death. 
 There are perplexed lines about the brow, * shall 
 I, or shall I not ? ' and there is a nervous hurry, 
 as of one who wants to get a disagreeable business 
 over as soon as may be. I have never been mis- 
 taken yet in that look. Why, my dear fellow, 
 why ? Surely, life at eight and twenty is too 
 precious a thing to be frittered away for a trifle." 
 
 "'You take my life when you do take the 
 means by which I live,' " quoted Hillersdon. 
 
 " Bacon again ! That fellow has something to
 
 48 GEKAED; OR, 
 
 say about everything. You imply that you are 
 impecunious, and would rather be dead than 
 penniless." 
 
 " Take it so, if you please." 
 
 " Good. Now how can you tell that fortune is 
 not waiting for you at some turn in the road you 
 know not ; that road of the future which no man 
 knows till he treads it ? So long as a man is alive 
 he has always a chance of becoming a millionaire. 
 So long as a woman is unmarried there is always 
 the possibility of her marrying a duke." 
 
 *' The chance of fortune in my case is so remote 
 that it is not worth considering. I am the son of 
 a country parson. I have no relative living likely 
 to leave me the smallest legacy. Unless I could 
 make a fortune by literature, I have no chance 
 of making one by any exertion of my own, and 
 my second book was so dire a failure that I have 
 it not in me to write a third." 
 
 "Fortunes drop from the clouds sometimes. 
 Have you never done any rich man a service 
 which might prompt him — when distributing 
 superfluous thousands — to leave a few to you ? " 
 
 " Never, within my recollection." 
 
 " Come, now, looking back at your life, is there
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 49 
 
 no act in it of which you might fairly be proud, 
 no touch of the heroic, no deed worthy a para- 
 graph in the papers ? " 
 
 " None. I once saved an old man's life ; but I 
 doubt if the life were worth saving, since the old 
 wretch did not trouble himself to thank me for 
 having risked my own life in his service." 
 
 " You saved an old man's life, at hazard of your 
 own ! Come, that sounds heroic," cried Jermyn, 
 flinging his fair head back against the blackish 
 green of the velvet chair cover, and laughing with 
 all his might. The black bust showed a little to 
 the left, above the level of his head, and it seemed 
 to Hillersdon that the black face was laughing 
 as broadly as the white one. 
 
 " Tell me the whole story — pray now — it sounds 
 absolutely heroic," urged Jermyn. 
 
 " There is very little to tell," replied Hillers- 
 don, coolly. " Nothing either to laugh at or to 
 be thrilled by. I did only what any other active 
 young man would have done in my position, see- 
 ing a feeble old man in peril of immediate death. 
 It was at Nice. You know what a wilderness of 
 iron the railway station there is, and how one has 
 to hunt about for one's train. It was at carnival 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 60 GERARD; OR, 
 
 time, clusk, and a great many people were going 
 back to Cannes, I myself among them. The old 
 man had arrived from another train going east- 
 wards, and was making for the platform, when a 
 great high engine bore steadily down upon him, 
 by no means at express speed, but fast enough to 
 paralyse him, so that, instead of getting out of the 
 way, he stood staring, hesitating, helpless. An 
 instant more, and that vast mass of iron would 
 have cut him down and dashed the life out of him. 
 I had but time to drag him out of the track be- 
 fore the engine passed me, brushing my shoulder 
 as it went by. I took him to the platform. 
 Hardly any one had seen our adventure. I had a 
 friend with me at the station, with whom I had 
 lunched at the Cosmopolitan, and who had in- 
 sisted on seeing me off. I told him briefly what 
 had happened, left the old man in his care, and 
 rushed back to look for my own train, which I 
 caught by the skin of my teeth." 
 
 " And the old churl never thanked you ? " 
 
 " Not by one civil word. His only remark was 
 
 an inquiry about his umbrella, which had fallen 
 
 out of his hand when I plucked him from the jaws 
 
 of death. I believe he felt himself aggrieved be-
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEVIL. 51 
 
 cause I had not rescued bis umbrella as well as 
 himself." 
 
 " Was he English, do you think ? " 
 
 " Distinctly British. A Frenchman or Italian 
 would at least have been loquacious, if not 
 grateful." 
 
 " The shock may have made him speechless." 
 
 " He found speech to inquire after his um- 
 brella." 
 
 " True, that looked black ! " said Jermyn, 
 laughing; "I'm afraid he must have been a 
 thankless old dog. And you took no trouble 
 to find out who he was, I suppose — what 
 manner of man you had snatched from sudden 
 death ? " 
 
 "I had not the slightest interest in his 
 identity." 
 
 " So ! Well, now, let us talk still further of 
 
 yourself and your prospects. You know that 
 
 people call me the Fate-reader. Now I have a 
 
 fancy that your fortunes are on the threshold of 
 
 a great change — and that, apart from the folly 
 
 of anticipating Death, the inevitable enemy, in 
 
 your case it may be very much worth while to 
 
 live." 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 " You are vague and general. What form of 
 good fortune do you predict for me ? " 
 
 "I pretend to no gift of prophecy. I only 
 profess the power of insight. I can read what 
 men are — not what is going to happen to them ; 
 but as in many cases character is fate, I have 
 been able to hazard some shrewd guesses about 
 the future." 
 
 ** And in my case, what are your guesses ? " 
 
 " I would rather not tell you." 
 
 " The outlook is not satisfactory, then ? " 
 
 " Not altogether. The character of a man 
 who at eight and twenty can contemplate suicide 
 as the shortest way out of his embarrassments is 
 not a character that promises well. I am frank, 
 you see." 
 
 '' Vastly frank." 
 
 " Don't be angry," laughed Jermyn. " I pre- 
 tend to be no hero myself, and if I were very 
 hard up, or very much bored, I dare say I too 
 might think of a bullet or a dose of prussic acid. 
 Only that kind of idea argues a character at once 
 weak and selfish. The man who takes his own 
 life runs away from the universal battle, and 
 shows a selfish indifference to those he leaves
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 53 
 
 behind, in whose minds the memory of his death 
 will be a lasting pain." 
 
 " My poor mother," sighed Hillersdon, recog- 
 nising the truth of this assertion. 
 
 " You would have killed yourself because you 
 were ennuied and unhappy; because you have 
 wasted opportunities, and given the best years of 
 your life to a hopeless passion. Your reasons 
 were not strong enough ; and even if I were not 
 here to demonstrate your folly, I think your 
 hand must have faltered at the last moment, and 
 you would have asked yourself — Is the outlook 
 so very black after all ? Does not one gleam of 
 light pierce the darkness ? " 
 
 " The outlook is as black as pitch," answered 
 Hillersdon, expanding under the influence of the 
 wine he had been drinking so freely, ready now 
 to talk to this acquaintance of a day as if he 
 were his bosom friend and companion of years ; 
 "there is not a gleam of light, not one ! I have 
 wasted my chances ; I have frittered away what- 
 ever talent or capacity I may have possessed 
 when I left the University. I am a dependent 
 upon a father who can ill afford to support a son 
 in idleness, and to whom I ought to be a help
 
 54 GEKAED; OK, 
 
 rather tban a burden. I have been — and must 
 be as long as I live — the slave of a woman who 
 exacts servitude and gives nothing — whose heart 
 and mind after years of closest association are still 
 mysteries to me ; who will not own that she 
 loves me, yet will not let me go." 
 
 "Mrs. Champion is a remarkably clever 
 woman," said Jermyn, coolly ; " but there are 
 depths which you have never fathomed under 
 that calm and virtuous surface. Leave her for 
 another divinity, and you will see of what she is 
 capable. If that hopeless attachment is your 
 only trouble, I snap my fingers at the necessity 
 of suicide. A day, an hour may bring you face 
 to face with a woman whose influence will make 
 you forget Edith Champion." 
 
 "You have no right to make free with Mrs. 
 Champion's name. How do you know that she 
 has any influence over my life ? " 
 
 "I know what all the world knows — your 
 world of May fair and Belgravia, Hyde Park 
 and South Kensington — and I know what I read 
 in the lady's face. A dangerous woman for you, 
 Mr. Hillersdon ; witness these wasted years of 
 which you complain. But there are women as
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 00 
 
 fair, to love whom would be a less abject 
 servitude. Do you remember the yision that 
 Mephistopheles showed Faust in the witch's 
 kitchen ? " 
 
 " Gretchen at her spinning-wheel ! " 
 " Gretchen at her wheel belongs to the opera, 
 I fancy. The vision Faust saw in the witch's 
 lookino:-orlass was the vision of abstract beautv. 
 
 DO 
 
 You may remember that when he sees Gretchen 
 in the street there is no recognition of that 
 supernal face he had just seen in the glass. He 
 was only caught by a pretty girl tripping 
 modestly home from church. The vision may 
 have been Aphrodite or Helen, for aught we 
 know. A clever trick, no doubt, that vision in 
 the glass. Look yonder, Hillersdon, look at that 
 face there, known to you in the past — the face of 
 a girl steeped in poverty, beautiful as a dream, 
 yet no better off in this world for her loveliness. 
 Look at that fragile form bending over a sewing- 
 machine, our modern substitute for the spinning- 
 wheel. Look at me, Hillersdon," repeated 
 Jermyn, fixing him with those cold, calm, blue 
 eyes, from which there radiated a sudden in- 
 fluence tliat steeped Gerard Hillersdon's senses
 
 M GERAKD; OE, 
 
 in a dreamy light, as of another world and 
 atmosphere ; " and now look yonder." 
 
 He waved his hand carelessly towards the 
 inner room, where in the subdued light Hillers- 
 don saw the figure of a girl, shadowy, dim, and 
 vague at first, and then developing gradually 
 from pale grey shadow into luminous distinct- 
 ness. The face was turned to him, but the eyes 
 saw him not; they gazed sadly out into space, 
 full of hopeless melancholy, while the hands 
 moved monotonously backwards and forwards 
 across the table of a sewing-machine. A girl 
 in a grey cotton frock, sitting at work at a 
 sewing-machine. That was the vision Gerard 
 Hillersdon saw against the dark background of 
 Mr. Jermyn's library ; but the girl's pinched and 
 pallid face was as beautiful in form as the face of 
 Kaffaelle's loveliest Madonna, and in its profound 
 melancholy there was a sweetness that melted 
 his heart. Something, too, in that fair Gretchen- 
 like countenance struck him as strangely fami- 
 liar. He had seen the face before, not in a 
 picture or in a statue, but in commonplace 
 everyday life. When or where he knew not. 
 
 Jermyn threw his half-smoked cigar up into
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEVIL. 57 
 
 the air, and burst into his elfin laugh. The 
 vision faded on the instant, as if he had laughed 
 it away. 
 
 " There is your modern Gretchen," he said, " a 
 poor little sempstress, slaving from dawn to dark 
 for daily bread, as beautiful as a Greek goddess, 
 and virtuous enough to prefer poverty to degra- 
 dation. There is your true type of a nineteenth- 
 century Gretchen. How would you like to be 
 Faust?" 
 
 " I should like to possess Faust's power ; not 
 to betray Gretchen, but to secure my own hap- 
 piness." 
 
 "And what is your idea of happiness? " asked 
 Jermyn, lighting a fresh cigar. 
 
 " Wealth," answered Hillersdon quickly. " For 
 a man who has lived under the goad of poverty, 
 who has felt day by day, and hour by hour, the 
 torment of being poorer than his fellow-men, 
 there can be but one idea of bliss. Money, and 
 plenty of it. From my school days upwards I 
 have lived among men better off than myself. 
 At the University I got into trouble because I 
 exceeded my allowance. My father could just 
 afford to give me two hundred a year, I spent
 
 58 GERAED; OR, 
 
 from three to four hundred ; but the excess, 
 though it caused no end of trouble at home, left 
 me still a pauper among men who spent a thou- 
 sand. I had been sent to an expensive college, 
 and told to economise ; to enjoy all the privileges 
 of contact with men of rank and position, to be 
 among them but not of them. I happened to be 
 popular, and so could not altogether seclude 
 myself from my fellow-men. I was pinched and 
 harassed at every turn, and yet plunged in debt, 
 and a malefactor to my family. I came to 
 London, studied for the Bar, ate my dinners, 
 wasted my father's substance on fees, and never 
 got a brief. I wrote a book which won instan- 
 taneous success, and for the moment I was rich. 
 I thought I had opened a gold mine, bought my 
 mother a pair of diamond earrings which she did 
 not want, and sent my father a fine set of Jeremy 
 Taylor, which he had been longing for ever since 
 I could remember. I fell in love with a beauti- 
 ful girl, who reciprocated my affection, but was 
 not allowed to marry a man whose only resources 
 were in his inkstand. She was not inconsolable, 
 and our engagement was no sooner broken than 
 she married a man old enough to be her grand-
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 59 
 
 father, and rich enough to make her a personage 
 in the smart world. My next book, written 
 while I was writhing under the sting of this 
 disappointment, was a dead failure. I had no 
 heart to begin another book. I have lived since, 
 as a good many young men contrive to live in 
 this great city, from hand to mouth, and the 
 emptiness and hopelessness of my life have been 
 known to me for a long time. Do you wonder 
 that I began to think actual nothingness better 
 than this middle state between life and death — 
 this perpetual weariness of an inane and purpose- 
 less existence ! " 
 
 " And you think that wealth would open up a 
 new future, and that life would be no longer 
 aimless ? " 
 
 "Wealth means power," answered Hillersdon. 
 "With wealth and youth no man should be 
 unhappy, unless racked by physical pain. A rich 
 man is master of the universe." 
 
 " Yes, but while he enjoys the power wealth 
 gives, his life is ebbing. Every day of enjoy- 
 ment, every ardent hope satisfied, every extrava- 
 gant wish realised, is a nail in his coffin. The 
 men who live longest are men of moderate
 
 60 GERARD; OR, 
 
 means — not worried by poverty nor elated by 
 wealth — men in whose obscure and retired 
 lives society takes very little interest — scholars, 
 thinkers, inventors, some of them perhaps, whom 
 the world hears of only after they are dead — men 
 who think, and dream, and reason, but experi- 
 ence nothing of life's feverish movement or man's 
 fiercer passions. Do you remember Balzac's 
 story of the Peau de Chagrin ? " 
 
 "Not very clearly. It was one of the first 
 French novels I read; a kind of fairy tale, I 
 think." 
 
 " It is more an allegory than a fairy tale. A 
 young man, tired of life, like you, is on the brink 
 of suicide — has made up his mind to die, as you 
 made up your mind to-day — when, to beguile the 
 time betwixt afternoon and night, he goes into a 
 bric-a-brac shop and turns over the wonders of 
 worlds old and new. Here, amidst treasures of 
 art and relics of extinct civilizations, he finds the 
 queerest curio of all in the person of the bric-a- 
 brac dealer, a man who boasts of his century and 
 more of life, the quiet passionless life of the 
 thinker. This man shows him the Peau de 
 Chagrin, the skin of a wild ass, hanging against
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEVIL. 61 
 
 the wall. With that talisman he offers to make 
 the intending suicide richer, more powerful, and 
 more renowned than the king of the French. 
 *Kead,' he cries, and the yoimg man reads a 
 Sanscrit inscription whose letters are so inter- 
 woven in the metallic lustre of the skin that 
 no knife can eradicate the faintest line. The 
 Sanscrit translated runs thus : — 
 
 If you possess me you possess all, 
 
 But your life will be miae, Wish, 
 
 And your wishes will be fulfilled, 
 
 But rule your wishes by 
 
 Your life. At every wish 
 
 I shall dwindle like 
 
 Your days. Would'st 
 
 Have me, 
 
 Take. 
 
 "This inscription is the allegory of life. The 
 old man told the youth how he had offered the 
 talisman to many, but how, though one and all 
 laughed at its possible influence over their future 
 destinies, all had refused to traffic with that 
 unknown power. And for the owner of the 
 talisman, why had he never tested its value? 
 The old man answered that question by expound- 
 ing his theory of life." 
 
 " And what was his theory ? "
 
 62 GERAED; OE, 
 
 " ^ The mystery of human life lies in a nutshell/ 
 said the centenarian. * The life of action and the 
 life of passion drain the sources of existence. To 
 will, to do, to desire ardently, is to die. With 
 every quickening of the pulse above normal 
 health, with every tumult of the heart, with 
 every fever of the brain, fired by ardent hopes 
 and conflicting wishes, a shred is torn off the 
 fabric of a man's life. The men who live to age 
 like mine are the men whose passions and desires, 
 ambitions and greed of power have been rigidly 
 suppressed, the men of calm and contemplative 
 temperament, in whom mind rises superior to 
 heart and senses, who are content to reason, to 
 know, to see, and understand the world in which 
 they live.* And that old man was right. There 
 is a hidden meaning in that sentence of Holy 
 Writ — The race is not to the swift. If you would 
 live long take life largo, not presto." 
 
 '^ Who cares for length of years ? " exclaimed 
 Hillersdon. " What a man wants is to live, not to 
 crawl for a century on the face of this planet, 
 afraid to lift his head from the earth lest a 
 thunderbolt shouli strike him. I wish I could 
 stroll into a bric-a-brac shop and find the peau
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 63 
 
 de cliairrin. I would be content to see the talis- 
 man dwindle daily, if every diminution marked 
 an hour of happiness, a wish realised." 
 
 "Well, I suppose that is the only philosophy 
 of life corgenial to a young mind," said Jermyn 
 lightly. "The centenarian who never really 
 lived boasts of length of days, and cheats himself 
 with the idea that he has had the best of the 
 bargain ; but to live for ten joyous, reckless years 
 must be better than to vegetate for a century." 
 
 " Infinitely better," said Hillersdon, rising in a 
 fever of excitement, and beginning to walk about 
 the room, looking at this and that, the bronze 
 idols, the enamelled vases and old ivory carvings 
 in the niches and recesses of a Bombay black- 
 wood cabinet. 
 
 " You have the peau de chagrin hidden some- 
 where in yonr rooms, perhaps," he suggested, 
 laughingly, " or, at any rate, some talisman \yhich 
 enables you to make light of life — to see a jest 
 where other men see a problem only to be solved 
 by death." 
 
 " No, I have no talisman. I have nothing but 
 will — will strong enough to conquer passion — 
 and insight by which I can read the mystery of
 
 61 GERAED; OR, 
 
 mankind. You who have a stronger individuality 
 — a passionate, exacting personality, an intoler- 
 able ego which must be satisfied somehow — are 
 created to suffer. I am created to enjoy. For 
 me life, as you say, is a jest." 
 
 *' So it was for Goethe's Devil," answered Hil- 
 lersdon. " I believe there is a touch of the 
 diabolical in your composition, and that you 
 have about as much heart and conscience as 
 Mephistopheles. However, I am beholden to 
 you for your persistence in bringing me here 
 to-night, for you have amused me, mystified me, 
 stimulated my curiosity, and routed thoughts 
 which I confess were of the darkest." 
 
 " Didn't I tell you a supper and a bottle of 
 wine would be your best counsellor," exclaimed 
 Jermyn, laughing. 
 
 " But the dark thoughts w'ill return in a day or 
 two, no doubt, since you have no talisman to 
 offer me which will pour gold into empty pockets, 
 and you do not even propose to buy my shadow. 
 I would run the risk of being as conspicuous as 
 Peter Schlemihl, for the same power to create 
 illimitable heaps of sterling coin." 
 
 "Ah, those are old stories — allegories all, be
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 05 
 
 assured. If I were to say I saw the promise of 
 fortune on that perplexed brow of yours you 
 would laugh at me. All I ask is that if Fortune 
 does pour her gilts into your lap you will 
 remember that I bade you tarry at the gate of 
 death." 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 Qij GERAED; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " WE ARE SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE OF." 
 
 The domes and steeples of the great city, towers 
 and warehouses, roofs old and new, showed dark 
 against a saffron sky, as Gerard Hillersdon set 
 his face to the west in the freshness and quiet 
 of early morning. He had drunk enough and 
 talked enough to exalt his spirits with an un- 
 wonted elation, as if life and the world were new, 
 and all his troubles and perplexities cast off like 
 a slough, and flung behind him into the universal 
 dust-heap men call the Past. There is no 
 Nepenthe like a night's debauch for obliterating 
 worldly cares. Unhappily the effect is but tran- 
 sient, and Memory will resume her sway. In 
 this summer dawning Gerard walked through the 
 empty streets with a tread as light as if his 
 youth had never been shadowed by a care. In 
 this mood of his he accepted Justin Jermyn as a
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 67 
 
 serious fact, a man of unusual gifts and faculties ; 
 a man who by fair means or foul had plucked 
 him by the sleeve and held him back from the 
 brink of a dark gulf which he shuddered to think 
 upon. 
 
 " To be or not to be ? " he muttered, slacken- 
 ing his steps in the morning solitude of Lincoln's 
 Inn, where there were faint odours of foliage and 
 flowers freshened by the dews of night. "To be 
 or not to be ? I was a fool to think that my 
 choice was inevitable. Faust had the poison at 
 his lips, when the Easter joybells stayed his 
 hand. And after that burst of heavenly glad- 
 ness — and after that thrilling chorus, * Christ is 
 risen' — came the fiend with his worldly-wise 
 philosophy, and his gifts of wealth and power. 
 Is the influence that stayed my hand from heaven 
 or from hell, I wonder ? " 
 
 His thoughts reverted to the face of the girl at 
 the sewing-machine. He was in no mood to 
 trouble himself as to the nature of the vision he 
 had seen ; whether it were hypnotic, or some 
 juggler's trick produced by mechanical means. 
 It was of the face that he thought, for it was a 
 familiar face ; a face out of the long ago ; and he
 
 68 GEKAED; OR, 
 
 tried in vain to fix it in his memory. It floated 
 there, vaguely mixed with the vision of his 
 vanished boyhood — a dream of summer and 
 sunny days, of woods and waters, in the far-off 
 west, which seemed as another and half- forgotten 
 world in the midst of this grey, smoke-stained 
 city. 
 
 He let himself into the dark and airless lodg- 
 ing-house passage, with his latchkey, a privilege 
 he could scarcely hope to enjoy many days longer 
 unless he could comply with, or compromise, the 
 demand in his landlord's letter. Yet even the 
 possibility of being turned out of doors seemed 
 hardly to trouble him this morning. At the 
 worst he could go down to his father's rectory, 
 and bury himself among green leaves and village 
 faces. And if he must be bankrupt, see his 
 name in the Gazette^ shameful as the thing would 
 seem to the rural rector and his wife, he would 
 not be the first. Among the youthful scions of 
 the nobility bankruptcy is as common as scarlet- 
 fever; nay, almost as inevitable as measles. 
 
 His sitting-room and the adjoining bedroom 
 looked shabbier than usual in the clear morning 
 lightj after tliose luxurious rooms of Justin
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 69 
 
 Jermyn's. The furniture had been good enough 
 once upon a time, for its specific purpose — brass 
 bedstead, bird's-eye-maple wardrobe and dressing- 
 table in the bedroom, walnut-wood and cretonne 
 in the sitting-room — but everything in the rooms 
 had grown shabby and squalid with the wear and 
 tear of successive lodgers ; and the landlord, 
 crippled by bad debts, had never been rich 
 enough to renew the cretonne, or improve upon 
 the Philistinism of the walnut-wood. A sordid 
 den, repulsive to the eye of a man with any feel- 
 ing for the beautiful. 
 
 Hillersdon was tired and exhausted, but 
 slumber was far from his eyelids, and he knew it 
 was useless to go to bed while his brain was 
 working with a forty-horse power, and his temples 
 were racked with neuralgic pain. He flung him- 
 self into an arm-chair, lighted a cigar which 
 Jermyn had thrust upon him at parting, and 
 looked idly round the room. 
 
 There were some letters upon the table, at least 
 half a dozen, the usual thing no doubt ; bills and 
 threatening letters from lawyers of obscure 
 address, calling his attention to neglected appli- 
 cations from tradesmen. Common as such letters
 
 70 GEEARD; OE, 
 
 were, it was always a shock to him to find that 
 the bland and obliging purveyor had handed him 
 over to the iron hand of the solicitor. He was 
 in no haste to open those letters, which would 
 supply so many items in his schedule, per- 
 haps, a few days later. Insolvency had been 
 staring him in the face for a long time, and 
 there was no alternative between death and the 
 Gazette, 
 
 He finished his cigar, and then began to open 
 his letters, deliberately, and as it were with a 
 gloomy relish. 
 
 The first was from his hatter, piteously respect- 
 ful ; the second was from a solicitor in Blooms- 
 bury, calling attention to an account of three 
 years' standing with a Bond Street hairdresser ; 
 and the third and fourth were those uninforming 
 yet significant documents, bill delivered, bearing 
 date of the vanished years, and with a footnote 
 requesting his earliest attention. Bill delivered. 
 What value had he received for the sums de- 
 manded. A scarf, a pair of gloves, now and 
 again, bought casually jpour passer le temps, a set 
 of shirts, perhaps, ordered to please the trades- 
 man rather than from any need of his own, a
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 71 
 
 dressing-jacket or two, and behold the man was 
 clamouring for thirty-seven pounds odd shil- 
 lings and pence. 
 
 He opened the fifth letter, which announced 
 itself upon the envelope as from Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, and which, by the thickness of the paper 
 and style of the address, was at least from a 
 solicitor of position and respectability. Yet 
 doubtless the tune was only the old tune, played 
 upon a superior instrument. !N"o, by Heaven, it 
 was not the old formula. 
 
 " 190, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.O. 
 
 " July 17, 188—' 
 
 " SiK, 
 
 " If you are the same Mr. Gerard 
 Hillersdon who in 1879 rescued an old gentleman 
 from an approaching engine in the station at 
 Nice, we have the honour to inform you that our 
 late client, Mr. Milford, banker, of London, 
 Marseilles, and Nice, has bequeathed the bulk of 
 his large fortune to you, as residuary legatee. 
 Our client was of somewhat eccentric habits, but 
 we have no reason to doubt his disposing power 
 at the date of the will, nor do we at present
 
 72 GEEARD; OR, 
 
 apprehend any attempt to dispute the said will, 
 since Mr. Milford leaves no near relations. 
 
 " We shall be glad to see you, either here or at 
 your own residence, at your earliest convenience. 
 '* We have the honour to be, sir, 
 " Yours, etc., etc., 
 "Grafton and Cranberry." 
 
 Hillersdon turned the letter over and over in 
 his hands, as if expecting that solid sheet of paper 
 to change into a withered leaf under his touch. ; 
 and then he burst into a laugh, as loud but not 
 as joyous as Jermyn's gnome-like mirth. 
 
 " A trick," he cried, " a palpable trick, of the 
 fate-reader, hypnotist, whatever he may please to 
 call himself. A cruel jest, rather; to mock 
 parched lips with the promise of the fountain ; 
 to exercise his fancy upon a destitute man. 
 Well, I am not to be caught so easily. The 
 churl whose remnant of life I saved at Nice was 
 no wealthy banker, I'll be sworn, but some im- 
 pecunious nobody who was soured by losses at 
 Monte Carlo." 
 
 He looked at his watch. Half-past five. A 
 good many hours must pass before it would be
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 73 
 
 possible to discover the existence or non-exist- 
 ence of Crafton and Cranberry, and the authen- 
 ticity of the letter on the table there, where he 
 had flung it, a most respectable looking letter 
 assuredly, if looks were anything to the purpose. 
 
 " Easy enough for him to get a lawyer's clerk 
 to write on the firm's paper," he thought. Yet it 
 were a hazardous thing to be done by any clerk, 
 unless a discarded servant. 
 
 " How did he know ? " mused Hillersdon. *•' It 
 was after midnight I told him my adventure at 
 Kice, and this letter was delivered by the last 
 post at ten o'clock." 
 
 It was not impossible, though, for Jermyn to 
 have heard of the old hunks at the Nice Station 
 from Gilbert Watson, Hillersdon's friend, who 
 had seen the end of the adventure, and heard the 
 old man clamouring for his umbrella. Watson 
 was a man about town, and might have been in 
 contact with Jermyn, who was a season celebrity, 
 and went everywhere. 
 ^ Gerard threw himself dressed upon his bed, 
 slept a troubled sleep in briefest intervals, and lay 
 awake for the rest of the time between half-past 
 five and half-past eight, when his servant Dodd —
 
 74 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 an old retainer, who had married and outlived the 
 rectory nurse — brought him his early cup of tea 
 and prepared his bath. He was dressed and out 
 of doors by half-past nine, and a hansom took him 
 to Lincoln's Inn Fields before the stroke of ten. 
 
 The office was evidently just opened, a most 
 respectable office. An elderly clerk showed Mr. 
 Hillersdon into a handsome waiting-room, where 
 the newly-cut newspapers were systematically 
 arranged upon a massive mahogany office table. 
 Neither of the principals had arrived from their 
 West End houses. 
 
 Gerard's impatience could not brook delay. 
 
 " Do you know anything about this letter ? " 
 he asked, showing the open document. 
 
 **I ought, sir, for it was I who wrote it," 
 answered the grey-haired clerk. 
 
 " By way of a practical joke, I suppose," said 
 Hillersdon grimly, "to oblige a facetious friend." 
 
 " Messrs. Grafton and Cranberry do not deal in 
 practical jokes, sir," replied the clerk, with 
 dignity. "I wrote that letter at Mr. Grafton's 
 dictation, and if you are the Mr. Hillersdon there 
 referred to it really ought to be a very pleasant 
 letter for you to receive."
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. (D 
 
 " Very pleasant, if I could venture to take it 
 seriously." 
 
 "Why should you suspect a jest, sir, in so 
 grave a matter, and coming to you from a firm of 
 undoubted respectability ? " 
 
 Hillersdon sighed impatiently, and passed his 
 hand across his forehead with a troubled gesture. 
 How did he know that this scene of the lawyer's 
 office, the letter in his hand, the grey-haired, 
 grave old clerk talking to him, were not part and 
 parcel of some hypnotic vision, no more real than 
 the figure of the girl at the sewing-machine which 
 those same eyes of his had looked at last night. 
 He stood irresolute, incredulous, silent, while the 
 old clerk deferentially awaited his pleasure. 
 The outer door opened as he stood there, and 
 the measured footsteps of dignified middle-age 
 crossed the hall. 
 
 "Mr. Grafton," said the clerk. "He will be 
 able to assure you that there has been no jesting, 
 sir." 
 
 Mr. Grafton entered, tall, broad, bulky, im- 
 posing, faultlessly dressed for his role of man 
 of the world, not unaccustomed to society, and 
 trustworthy family lawyer.
 
 76 GERARD; OR, 
 
 "Mr. Hillersdon, sir," said the clerk. "He 
 has been disposed to think that the letter from 
 the firm was a practical joke." 
 
 "I am hardly surprised at your incredulity, 
 Mr. Hillersdon," said the solicitor, in an unctuous 
 and comfortable voice, calculated to reassure 
 desponding clients. " That letter may well take 
 your breath away. A romance of real life, isn't 
 it ? A young man does a plucky thing on the 
 spur of the moment, thinks no more about it, and 
 some years after wakes up one morning to find 
 himself — a very rich man," concluded Mr. Crafton, 
 pulling up suddenly, as if he might have used 
 a much bigger phrase. "Kindly step into my 
 private room. You can bring us the copy of 
 the will, Coxfield." 
 
 The clerk retired, and Mr. Crafton ushered his 
 visitor into a large front office, as imposing as his 
 own figure. 
 
 "Pray be seated, Mr. Hillersdon" — waving his 
 hand towards a spacious arm-chair. "Yes, the 
 whole story comes within the region of romance ; 
 yet it is not the first time in testamentary history 
 that a large fortune has been left to a stranger 
 as a reward for some service barely acknowledged
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEVIL. 77 
 
 when it was rendered. Our late client, Mr. 
 Milford, was a curious man. I'll warrant now 
 he took very little trouble to show his gratitude 
 when yon had hazarded your life in his service." 
 
 "The only trouble he took was about his 
 umbrella, which he was vociferously anxious to 
 recover." 
 
 " So like him, dear old man. A character, my 
 dear sir, a character. You wouldn't have given 
 twenty shillings for the clothes he wore that day, 
 I dare say — umbrella included." 
 
 "If clothes and umbrella had been on my 
 premises, I would have given ten shillings to get 
 them taken away." 
 
 "Precisely," exclaimed the lawyer, with his 
 genial chuckle. "A very remarkable man, I 
 doubt if he paid his tailor ten pound a year — or 
 five. Yet a man of large benevolence, a man 
 whose left hand knew not what his right hand 
 gave. But now we have to come to the crucial 
 question. Can you establish your identity with 
 the Gerard Hillersdon whose name our late client 
 took down from 3Ir. Gilbert Watson's dictation 
 in the station at Nice." 
 
 "Very easily, I think. In the first place, I
 
 78 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 doubt if there is any other Gerard Hillersdon in 
 the directory, as the name Gerard comes from 
 my mother's side of the house, and was not in 
 the Hillersdon family before I was christened. 
 Secondly, my friend Watson is now in London, 
 and will readily identify me as the man about 
 whose name your client inquired when I had left 
 the platform. Thirdly, it would be easy, were 
 further evidence needed, to establish the fact 
 that I was residing at the Hotel Mont Fleuri, 
 Cannes, at that date, and that I went to Nice on 
 the first day of the Carnival." 
 
 " I do not think there will be any difficulty 
 as to identity," Mr. Grafton replied suavely, 
 " Your present address is the same as that which 
 Mr. Watson gave our lamented client, and he 
 further described you as the son of the Kector 
 of Helmsleigh, Devon, a detail no doubt elicited 
 by Mr. Milford's inquiry. Here is a copy of the 
 will. You would like to hear it, perhaps," sug- 
 gested Mr. Grafton, as the clerk entered and laid 
 the document before him. 
 
 " Very much." 
 
 Mr. Grafton read in a clear, distinct voice and 
 with great unction. The will was dated six
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 79 
 
 months previously, and was made at Nice. It 
 opened with a long list of legacies, to old servants, 
 to the clerks in three banking-houses, in London, 
 Marseilles, Nice, to numerous charities, to Mr. 
 Crafton and his partner, Mr. Cranberry. Hillers- 
 don sat aghast as he heard thousands and fives 
 and tens of thousands, disposed of in this manner. 
 To the Hospital for Children, Great Ormond 
 Street, ten thousand; five thousand to St. 
 George's Hospital; a thousand each to ten 
 Orphanages ; five thousand to a Convalescent 
 Hospital; three thousand to an Asylum for the 
 Blind. Would there be anything left for him 
 after this lavish distribution? The passage in 
 the will which concerned himself came at last, 
 and was simple and brief. " Finally, I bequeath 
 the residue of my estate, real and personal, to 
 Gerard Hillersdon, younger son of the Eev. 
 Edward Hillersdon, Hector of Helmsleigh, Devon, 
 in recognition of his generosity and courage in 
 saving my life at the hazard of his own in the 
 railway station in this place, on the 14th of 
 February, 1879, and I appoint James Crafton, 
 Solicitor, of 190, Lincoln's Inn Fields, sole 
 executor of this my will."
 
 80 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 " It is a noble reward for an action to which 
 I never attached the slightest importance," said 
 Hillersdon, pale to the lips with suppressed 
 emotion. " I saw a young man at Newton Abbot 
 do almost as much to save a dog, which was 
 running up and down the line, scared by the 
 porters who shouted at him. That young man 
 jumped down upon the metals and picked up the 
 dog in front of the engine — somebody else's cur, 
 not even his own property. And I — because in 
 common humanity I plucked an old man from 
 instant death — yes, it was a near shave, I 
 know, and might have ended badly for me 
 — but it was only instinctive humanity, after 
 all — I am left a fortune. It is a fortune, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Hillersdon, a large fortune — some- 
 thing over two millions, consisting of lands, 
 houses, consols, bank stock, railway and other 
 shares, together with the sole interest in the firm 
 of Milford Brothers, Bankers, of London, Mar- 
 seilles, and Nice. 
 
 Hillersdon broke down utterly at this point. 
 He turned his face from the spectators, principal 
 and clerk, and fought hard with himself to keep
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 81 
 
 back a burst of hysterical tears mixed witli 
 hysterical laughter. 
 
 "It is too ridiculous," he said, when he had 
 recovered his speech. "Yesterday I was in the 
 depths of despair. It is real, isn't it ? " he asked 
 piteously. " You are not fooling me — you are real 
 men, you two, not shadows? This is not a dream ? " 
 
 He struck his hand on the table so heavily as 
 to produce severe pain. 
 
 " That is real, at any rate," he muttered. 
 
 Solicitor and clerk looked at each other 
 dubiously. They were afraid their news had 
 been too sudden, and that it had turned this 
 possible client's head. 
 
 " Advance me some money," asked Hillersdon 
 abruptly. "Come, Mr. Crafton, give me your 
 cheque for a good round sum, and when I have 
 cashed that cheque I shall begin to believe in 
 Mr. Milford's will and in your good faith. 1 am 
 up to my eyes in debt, and it will be a new 
 sensation to be able to pay the most pressing 
 of my creditors." 
 
 Mr. Crafton had his cheque-book open and his 
 pen dipped in the ink before this potential client 
 had done speaking. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 "How mucli would you like? " he asked. 
 
 "How much? Would five hundred be too 
 large an advance ? " 
 
 " A thousand, if you like." 
 
 " No, five hundred will do. You will act as 
 my solicitors, I suppose — carry through this 
 business for me. I am as ignorant of tlie law 
 as the sheep who provide your parchment. I 
 shall have to prove the will I suppose. I haven't 
 the faintest notion what that means." 
 
 "That will be my duty as executor. Our 
 firm will settle all details for you, if you have 
 no family lawyer whom you would prefer to 
 employ." 
 
 " I don't care a rap for our family lawyer. He 
 has never done anything to endear himself to me. 
 If you were good enough for Mr. Milford — my 
 benefactor — you are good enough for me. And 
 now I'll go and cash this cheque." 
 
 "Will you allow our messenger to do that 
 for you ? " 
 
 " Thanks, no. I like the sensation of a bank 
 counter when I have money to receive. How 
 will I have it ? A hundred in tens, the rest in 
 fifties. How I shall astonish my worthy land-
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 83 
 
 lord ! Good day. Send for me when you want 
 me to execute deeds, or sign documents." 
 
 He went out on to the sunny pavement where 
 the hansom was waiting for him ; went out with 
 a step so light he was scarcely conscious of the 
 pavement under his feet. Even yet he could 
 scarcely divest himself of the idea that he was 
 the sport of dreams, or of some strange jugglery 
 worked by the man with the light-blue eyes and 
 the uncanny laugh. 
 
 He drove to the Union Bank, in Chancery Lane 
 cashed his cheque, and then drove about the 
 West End, to tailor, hatter, hairdresser, hosier, 
 paying fifties on account. He had only a hundred 
 and fifty left when he got back to his lodgings, 
 and out of this he paid his landlord a hundred. 
 The remaining fifty was for pocket-money. It 
 was such a new sensation to have satisfied his 
 creditors, that he felt as if he were made of air. 
 He was convinced of the fact now. This thing 
 was a reality. Fortune had turned her wheel — 
 turned it so completely that he who had been at 
 the bottom was now at the top. What would 
 his own people think of this wonder that had 
 befallen him ? A millionaire ! he, the thriftless
 
 84 GEEAKD; OK, 
 
 son, who had until now been only a burden and 
 a care to father and mother. He would not 
 write. He would run down to Devonshire in 
 a day or two, and tell them this wonderful story 
 with his own lips. 
 
 And but for Justin Jermyn's interference he 
 would have shot himself last night, and would 
 have been lying stark and stiff this morning. 
 Yet, no, the letter was delivered at his lodgings 
 last night, at ten o'clock. Fortune had turned 
 her wheel. The tidings of her bounty were 
 waiting for him while he was fooling in the Fate- 
 reader's room, the sport of a shallow trickster. 
 
 " And yet he seemed to know," thought 
 Hillersdon ; "he hinted at a change of fortune — 
 he led me on to talk of the old man at Nice." 
 
 He felt a sudden desire to see Jermyn, to tell 
 him what had happened ; to talk over his 
 monstrous luck; to see what effect the news 
 would have upon the Fate-reader. There were 
 other people he wanted to see — most especially 
 Edith Champion — but the desire to see Jermyn 
 was the strongest of all. He got into a cab, and 
 told the man to drive to Holborn. 
 
 He hadn't the remotest idea whereabouts in
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 85 
 
 HolborQ that old Inn was situated, or ^vllethe^ 
 in any adjacent thoroughfare. He dismissed his 
 cab at Warwick Court, and went about on foot, 
 in and out of dingy old gateways, and in all the 
 "dusty purlieus of the law," as existent in the 
 neighbourhood of Holborn ; but nowhere could he 
 find gate-house, or semi-deserted inn that in any 
 wise resembled the place to which. Jermyn had 
 taken him last night. 
 
 After nearly two hours of ineffectual explora- 
 tion he gave up the search, and drove to the 
 West End, where, at the Sensorium, a smart 
 dilettante club of which he was a member, he 
 hoped to hear Jermyn's address. It was tea- 
 time, and there were a good many men in the 
 reading-room and adjacent smoke-room, and 
 among them several of Hillersdon's frieuds. 
 
 He sat down in the nndst of a little knot of 
 acquaintances, and ordered his tea at a table 
 where he was welcomed with marked cordiality — 
 welcomed by men who knew not that they were 
 welcoming a millionaire. 
 
 " You know everything that's going on, Yaue," 
 he said, to one of these ; " so of course you know 
 Jermyn, the Fate-reader ? "
 
 86 GEEAED; OE, 
 
 "Intimately. It was I who secured him for 
 Lady Fridoline yesterday. He doesn't, as a rule, 
 show himself at the common or garden-party, 
 but he went to Fridoline House to oblige me." 
 
 " Will you tell me where he lives ? " 
 
 " Nowhere. He is much too clever to put an 
 address on his card, like a commonplace individual. 
 He is to be heard of here, or at the Heptachord. 
 He is a member of both clubs, though he rarely 
 shows at either — but as to an address, a vulgar 
 lodging-house address, like yours or mine. Pas 
 si hete! If he put anything on his card it would 
 be Styx, or Orcus." 
 
 " My dear fellow, I supped with him last night 
 at his chambers." 
 
 " Then you know where they are ? " 
 
 " That is exactly what I do not know. Jermyn 
 insisted upon my going to supper with him last 
 night after the opera. We walked from Covent 
 Garden to his chambers. We were talking all 
 the time, and except that we passed through 
 Queen Street and Lincoln's Inn Fields, I haven't 
 an idea as to what direction we took, or where 
 the curious shabby old Inn is situated." 
 
 Youth's frank laughter greeted this avowal.
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 87 
 
 *'Then all I can say, my dear Hillersdon, is 
 that you were rather more *on' thau a man 
 generally is when he leaves the opera. You were 
 very lucky to get out of Bow Street." 
 
 "Would you be surprised to hear that I had 
 taken nothing stronger than Salutaris at dinner, 
 and nothing whatever after dinner? No, wine 
 had nothing to do with my mental condition. 
 Jermyn and I were talking. I was in a some- 
 what dreamy mood, and allowed myself to be 
 piloted without taking any notice of the way we 
 went. I will own that when I left him at four 
 o'clock this morning my head was not quite so 
 clear, and London might be Bagdad for all I 
 know of tlie streets and squares through which 
 I made tracks for Piccadilly." 
 
 "So Jermyn entertains, does he?" exclaimed 
 Eoger Larose, the sesthetic architect, and elegant 
 idler, a man who always looked as if he had just 
 stepped out of one of Marcus Stone's pictures, 
 "this must be inquired into. He has never 
 entertained me. Was your drunkenness a pleasant 
 intoxication ? Was his wine irreproachable ? " 
 
 " More, it was irresistible. He gave me some 
 old Madeira that was like melted gold, and his
 
 88 GEKAKD; OR, 
 
 champagne had the cool freshness of a wild rose, 
 an aroma as delicate as the perfume of the 
 flower." 
 
 "I believe he hypnotised you, and that there 
 was nothing; or perhaps bread and cheese and 
 porter," said Larose. "Where are you going, 
 and what are you going to do this afternoon ? 
 I've some Hurlingham vouchers in my pocket. 
 Shall we go and see the polo match, or shoot 
 pigeons, and dine on the lawn? " 
 
 A thrill went through Hillersdon's heart at 
 the thought that yesterday, had Larose made 
 such a proposition, he would have been obliged 
 to decline, with whatever excuse he might invent 
 on the spur of the moment. Yesterday the half- 
 guinea gate-money and the risk of being let in 
 to pay for the dinner would have made Hurling- 
 ham forbidden ground. To-day he was eager to 
 taste the new joy of spending money without one 
 agonising scruple, one pang of remorse for 
 extravagance that meant dishonesty. 
 
 " I am going to call on some ladies," he said. 
 " If you can give me a couple of ladies' tickets 
 and one for myself, I will meet you in time for 
 dinner."
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 89 
 
 '•Do I know the ladies? Is Mrs. Champion 
 one of them ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Delightful — a xx^vti carre. It is going to be 
 a piping night. We will dine on the lawn, hear 
 the chimes at midnight, stealing softly along the 
 river from the great bell at Westminster. We 
 will fancy we see fireflies and that Fulham is 
 Tuscany — fancy ourselves in the Cascine Garden?, 
 which are not half so pretty as Hurlingbam or 
 Barn Elms, when all is said and done. Get 
 along with you, Hillersdon. In spite of your 
 debauch you are looking as happy as if you had 
 just had a fortune left you." 
 
 Gerard Hillersdon laughed somewhat hysteri- 
 cally, and hurried out of the club. He had not 
 the courage to tell any one what had happened 
 to him — not yet. That word hypnotism fright- 
 ened him, even after this seemingly substantial 
 evidence of his good luck. The lawyer's office, 
 the bank, the notes, and tradesmen's receipts ! 
 Might not all these be part and parcel of the 
 same hypnotic trance. He pulled a bundle of 
 receipted accounts out of his pocket. Yes, those 
 were real, or as real as anything can be to a
 
 90 GEEAKD; OE, 
 
 man who dares not be sure that he is not 
 dreaming. 
 
 He drove to Hertford street. Mrs. Champion 
 "was at home, and alone. Her carriage was at 
 the door ready to take her to the Park. Mrs. 
 Gresham was again engaged in the cause of the 
 Anglican Orphans, serving tea and cake to the 
 shilling people on the second day of the bazaar 
 at the Eiding School, and was to be called for 
 at six o'clock. 
 
 Mrs. Champion was sitting in a darkened 
 drawing-room, in an atmosphere of tropical 
 flowers, dressed in India muslin, the room and 
 the lady alike suggestive of coolness and repose 
 after the glare and the traffic of the streets. 
 She looked up from her book with a start of 
 surprise at hearing Hillersdon's name. 
 
 " I thought you were half way to Germany by 
 this time," she said, evidently not ill-pleased at 
 his return, as it were a bird fluttering back to 
 the open door of his cage, "but perhaps you 
 missed your train and are going to-morrow." 
 
 "No, Mrs. Champion, I changed my mind, 
 and I am not going at all." 
 
 " How nice," she said sweetly, laying aside her
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 91 
 
 book and preparing to be confidential. " Was it 
 to please me you stayed ? " 
 
 He made up his mind that he must tell her 
 His mouth grew dry and hot at the very thought; 
 but he could not keep the knowledge of his 
 altered fate from this woman who had been, who 
 was still, perhaps, the other half of his soul. 
 
 " For once in my life," he said quietly, " or let 
 me say for once since I first met you — your wish 
 was not my only law. Something has happened 
 to me — to change my life altogether since 
 yesterday." 
 
 That hoarse broken voice and the intensity of 
 his look scared her. Imagination set off at a 
 gallop. 
 
 ''You are engaged to be married," she cried 
 rising suddenly out of her low chair, straight as 
 a dart, and deadly pale. " These things always 
 end so. You have been loyalto me for years, 
 and now you have grown weary, and you want a 
 wife — Elaine instead of Guinevere — and you 
 meant to run away to Germany and break the 
 thing to me in a letter — and then you changed 
 your mind and took courage to tell me with your 
 own false lips."
 
 92 GERAED; OE, 
 
 This burst of passion — her white face and 
 flashing eyes — were a revelation to him. He 
 had thought her as calm and cold as a snow 
 figure that children build in a garden; and 
 behold he had been playing with fire all this 
 time. 
 
 He was standing by her side in an instant, 
 holding her icy hands, drawing her nearer to 
 him. 
 
 "Edith, Edith, can you think so poorly of 
 me? Engaged! Why you know there is no 
 other woman I care for — have ever cared for. 
 Engaged, in a day, in an hour! Have I not 
 given you my life ? What more could I do ? " 
 
 " You are not ! Oh, thank God. I could bear 
 anything but that." 
 
 "And yet — and yet — you hold me at arm's 
 length," he said fondly, with his lips near hers. 
 
 She was the snow figure again in a moment, 
 standing before him in her matronly dignity, 
 cold, proud, unapproachable. 
 
 " I was foolish to put myself in a passion/' she 
 said, " and, after all, whenever you want to marry 
 I shall have no right to hinder you. Only I 
 should like to know your plans in good time, so
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEVIL. 93 
 
 that I may accustom myself to the idea. The 
 horses have been at the door ever so long, and 
 that hard working Eosa will be waiting for me. 
 Will you come for a drive round the Park ? " 
 
 " I shall be charmed ; but I want you and Mrs. 
 Gresham to dine with me at Hurlingham. We 
 can go on there when you have done your 
 Park." 
 
 " I don't care a straw for the Park. Let us go 
 straight to Hurlingham and see the Polo. But I 
 am so carelessly dressed ; shall I do, do you 
 think, or must I put on a smarter gown? " 
 
 She stood up before him in a cloud of muslin 
 and lace, a gown so flowing and graceful in its 
 draping over bust and hips, that it might have 
 been a cloud of spray clothing a nymph at a 
 fountain. 
 
 " Your careless costume is simply perfection. 
 Only be sure and bring a warm wrap, for we may 
 be sitting late upon the lawn." 
 
 She touched a spring bell, and her maid 
 appeared with a white Gainsborough hat and a 
 pair of long suede gloves. Wraps were sent for, 
 the butler was informed that his mistress would 
 not dine at home, and the barouche drove off
 
 94 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 with Gerard on the front seat, opposite Mrs. 
 Champion. 
 
 " What can have happened to change your life, 
 if you are not going to be married ? " she asked, 
 as they turned into Piccadilly. " You mystify 
 me. I hope it is nothing bad — no misfortune to 
 any of your people ? " 
 
 "No, it is something distinctly good. An 
 eccentric old man, whom I was once so fortunate 
 as to oblige, has left me the bulk of his fortune." 
 
 " I congratulate you," she said ; but there was 
 a troubled look in her face that surprised him. 
 
 Surely she ought to be glad. 
 
 " Does that mean that you are a rich man ? " 
 she asked, after a pause. 
 
 *' Yes, I am a rich man." 
 
 " How rich ? " 
 
 " As rich as anybody need care to be. I am 
 told that the fortune left me is something over 
 two millions." 
 
 " Two millions of francs ? " 
 
 " Two millions sterling." 
 
 " Good heavens ! Why Champion is a pauper 
 compared with you. This is too absurd ! " 
 
 " It does savour of the ridiculous, I admit," said
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 95 
 
 Hillersdon, somewhat piqued by her manner of 
 treating the subject. " Poverty was my metier 
 no doubt. I was born to be a hanger-on upon 
 the great world; to taste its pleasures by the 
 favour of other people ; to visit in smart houses 
 on sufferance ; to live in a shabby lodging and 
 find my warmest welcome at a club." 
 
 " Two millions ! " repeated Edith. " I am sure 
 James has not as much. Two millions ! You 
 will have to marry now% of course." 
 
 " Have to ! Why should I be constrained to 
 marry just when I have the means of enjoying a 
 bachelor's life ? " 
 
 " You will be made to marry, I tell you," she 
 answered impatiently. " You don't know what 
 women are who have daughters to marry. You 
 don't know what girls are — hardened worldly 
 girls, in their third or fourth season — who want 
 to secure a rich husband. You can't possibly 
 estimate the influences that will be brought to 
 bear upon you. All the spinsters in London will 
 be at your feet." 
 
 " For the sake of my two millions. Are women 
 so mercenary ? " 
 
 *' They are obliged to be," answered Edith
 
 96 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 Champion. " We live in an age in which poverty- 
 is utterly intolerable. One must be rich or 
 miserable. Do you think I would have con- 
 sented to marry Mr. Champion, in spite of all the 
 pressure my family put upon me, if I had been 
 brave enough to bear poverty with you. No, to 
 be well born means the necessity of wealth. 
 One's birthright is to belong to the smart world, 
 and to be poor in that world is to be a social 
 martyr. I have often envied the women born at 
 Camberwell or Islington ; the women who go to 
 the butcher's to buy the dinner, and who wear 
 cotton gloves." 
 
 " Yes, there is an independence in those lower 
 depths. One can be poor and unashamed, if one 
 belongs to the proletariat. But be assured, my 
 dear Mrs. Champion, that I shall not fall a victim 
 to a manoeuvring mother or an enterprising young 
 lady. I shall know how to enjoy wealth and 
 freedom." 
 
 Edith sighed. Would not the independence 
 of unlimited wealth tempt her slave to throw off 
 the yoke? Could he ever be again — he the 
 millionaire — what he had been to her? Would 
 he be content to dance attendance upon her, to be
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 97 
 
 at her beck and call, an inevitable guest at all 
 her parties, to hand tea-cups at her afternoons 
 when he was perhaps the only man present, to 
 fetch and carry for her, find her the newest books 
 in French and German, taste them for her before 
 she took the trouble to read them, keep her 
 posted in the gossip of the clubs, so far as such 
 gossip was fitting for a lady to know ? For the 
 last three years he had been her second self, 
 had supplemented her intellect and amused her 
 leisure. But would he be content to play the 
 satellite now that wealth would give him power 
 to be a planet, with moons and satellites of his 
 own ? 
 
 " He will marry," she told herself. " There is 
 no use talking about it. It was easy to keep him 
 in leading-strings while he was too poor to be 
 worth any marriageable girl's attention. But 
 now he will be forced into marriage. The thing 
 is inevitable." 
 
 The carriage stopped at the Biding School, 
 and the footman went in to look for Eosa 
 Gresham, who came tripping out presently, airily 
 dressed as befitted the summer solstice, and some- 
 what purple as to complexion. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 GERARD; OR, 
 
 "We are going to take you to dine at Hur- 
 lingham," said Edith. 
 
 " How awfully good of you. I am dead beat. 
 The shilling people were too horrid — staring, and 
 pushing, and squabbling for their right change, 
 and gobbling cake in a revolting manner. I 
 don't think our stall can have cleared its expenses. 
 How well you are looking this afternoon, Mr. 
 Hillersdon, and yesterday I thought you looked 
 dreadful, so hollow under the eyes, so pale and 
 haggard." 
 
 " I thought I was going away, to part company 
 with all I cared for," said Gerard. 
 
 " And now you are not going ? " 
 
 " No," Edith answered, with a laugh which was 
 not altogether joyous. " He may well look 
 different. Though form and feature are un- 
 changed he is a different man. Kosa, you are 
 sitting opposite a millionaire." 
 
 " Heavens ! Do you really mean it, or is it a 
 joke?" 
 
 " I hope and believe that it is serious. I have 
 the assurance of a dry-as-dust solicitor that there 
 is as much money in the world, and that it 
 belongs to me. And I cannot even thank the
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 99 
 
 man who gave it me, for the hand that gave it is 
 in the dust." 
 
 "And to think that you never came to our 
 Bazaar, never gave one thought, in the midst of 
 your prosperity, to the Anglican Orphans ! " ex- 
 claimed Eosa.
 
 100 GERARD; OR, 
 
 CHAPTEK y. 
 
 LIFE UPON NEW LINES. 
 
 The nightingales were gone, but the roses were 
 left, and it was pleasant to sit on the lawn and 
 hear the plash of the tide, and see the stars come 
 slowly out, large and red in the smoke-tainted 
 atmosphere, above the tufted elms of Hurling- 
 ham. Koger Larose talked his best in that dim 
 light, and Gerard, who had been silent and 
 moody at the little dinner in Hertford Street 
 yesterday, was to-night as joyous as the thrushes 
 that were singing their evening hymn in the 
 cool dusk of deserted shrubberies. And all the 
 difference — the difference between despair and 
 gladness, between gloom and mirth, between 
 eager delight in life and dull disgust, had been 
 brought about by the most sordid factor in the 
 sum of man's existence — filthy lucre.
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 101 
 
 No matter the cause when the effect was so 
 enchanting. Gerard's elation communicated itself 
 to his companions. More champagne was con- 
 sumed at that little table in the garden than at 
 any other party of four in the club, and yet the 
 house was crowded with diners, and there were 
 other groups scattered here and there, banquet- 
 ing under the roof of heaven. Lightest talk aud 
 gladdest laughter beguiled the hours till nearly 
 midnight, when Mrs. Gresham remembered an 
 early celebration at a ritualistic temple in 
 Holborn, and entreated to be taken home at 
 once, so that she might secure certain hours of 
 pious seclusion before dawn. 
 
 Gerard had requested that no word of hia 
 altered fortunes should be spoken before Eoger 
 Larose. Koger and the rest of the world would 
 liear all about his good luck in due course; but 
 he shrank from the idea of endless congratular 
 tions, very few of them cordial and disinterested. 
 Time enough when the inexorable Illustrated 
 London News had acquainted society with the 
 particulars of Mr. Milford's will. 
 
 The two women behaved with discretion, and 
 although Larose wondered a little at the superb
 
 102 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 indifference with which Hillersdon paid for the 
 dinner, and left the change of a ten-pound note 
 to the waiter, knowdng that of late his friend 
 had suffered from youth's common malady of 
 impecuniousness, he ascribed this freedom only 
 to some windfall which afforded temporary 
 relief. 
 
 On their way to the carriage Mrs. Gresham 
 contrived to get Hillersdon all to herself, while 
 Larose and Mrs. Champion walked in advance 
 of them. 
 
 "Dear Mr. Hillersdon, a fortune such as yours 
 is a vast responsibility for a Christian/' she began 
 solemnly. 
 
 "I haven't looked at it in that light, Mrs. 
 Gresham; but I own that it will take a good 
 deal of spending." 
 
 " It will, and the grand thing will be to secure 
 good results for your outlay. There is one good 
 work I should like to introduce to your notice 
 before you are beset by appeals from strangers. 
 The chief desire of my husband's heart, and I 
 may say also of mine, is to enlarge our Parish 
 Church, now altogether unarchitectural and in- 
 adequate to the wants of the increased congrega-
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 103 
 
 tion which his eloquence and strength of cha- 
 racter have attracted. In the late incumbent's 
 time the church used to be half empty, and mice 
 ran about in the gallery. We want to do away 
 with that horrid gallery, build a transept which 
 would absorb the existing chancel, and add a 
 new and finer chancel. It will cost a great deal 
 of money, but we have many promises of help if 
 any benefactor would give a large donation — 
 say a thousand guineas — to start the fund in a 
 substantial manner." 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Gresham, you forget that I ani 
 a parson's son. Dog doesn't eat dog, you know. 
 I have no doubt my father's church needs en- 
 largement. I know it has a pervading mouldi- 
 ness which calls for restoration. I must think 
 of him before I start your fund." 
 
 "If you have not yet learnt how to spend 
 your fortune, you certainly seem to know how 
 to take care of it, Mr. Hillersdon," said Mrs. 
 Gresham, with some asperity ; and then recover- 
 ing herself, she continued airily, " It was rather 
 too bad of me perhaps to plague you so soon, 
 but in the cause of the Church one must ask in 
 season and out of season."
 
 104 GERARD; OR, 
 
 They went through the house and waited in 
 the vestibule while the carriage was brought to 
 the door, and they all went back to town together 
 in the barouche, and wound up with an after- 
 midnight cup of tea in Mrs. Champion's drawing- 
 room, a labyrinth of luxurious chairs, and palms, 
 and Indian screens, and many-shaped tables, 
 loaded with bric-a-brac of the costliest kind, 
 glimmering in the tempered light of amber- 
 shaded lamps. 
 
 " I like the French custom of midnight tea," 
 said Larose. " It stretches the thread of life and 
 shortens the night of the brain." 
 
 Mrs. Gresham slipped away with ostentatious 
 stealthiness after a hasty cup of tea; but the 
 others sat late, beguiled by the reposeful 
 atmosphere — they three alone in the spacious 
 room, with its perfume of tea-roses and shadow 
 of dark fan-shaped leaves. Edith Champion was 
 not a person of many accomplishments. She 
 neither played nor sang, she neither painted 
 pictures nor wrote verses, preferring that such 
 things should be done for her by those who 
 made it the business of their lives to do them 
 well. But she was past-mistress of the decora-
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 105 
 
 tive art, and there were few women in London 
 or Paris who could approach her in the arrange- 
 ment of a drawing-room. 
 
 *' My drawing-room is part of myself," she 
 said ; " it reflects every shade of my character, 
 and changes as I change." 
 
 It was past one o'clock when Hillersdon and 
 Larose left Hertford Street. Piccadilly and the 
 Park looked almost romantic in the moonlight. 
 That cup of strong Indian tea had worked the 
 usual effect of such potions, and both men 
 were disinclined to go home to the uninviting 
 seclusion of a lodging-house bedroom. 
 
 " Shall we go to the Petunia ? " asked Larose, 
 suggesting one of those after-midnight clubs 
 where the society is decidedly mixed, and where 
 the champagne costs twice as much as at the 
 Carlton or the Keform." 
 
 " I detest the Petunia." 
 
 "The Small Hours, then? They are giving 
 really good music now, and we can get devilled 
 bones or a lobster to our supper." 
 
 " Thanks, no ; I have had enough of society — 
 even yours, which is always delightful. I am 
 going for a long walk."
 
 106 GEKAKD; OE, 
 
 " That is a safe way of getting rid of me," 
 answered Larose. " I never walk a furlong 
 further than I am absolutely obliged. Hansom." 
 
 His lodgings were in George Street, Hanover 
 Square, hardly a profitable shilling's worth, but 
 it was not in Larose's temperament to consider 
 shillings, until he had spent his last. There 
 were intervals when he was without even the 
 indispensable shilling for a hansom. 
 
 **And a good thing, too," said one of his 
 friends, on hearing that hansoms were impossible, 
 " for then you are obliged to walk." 
 
 "Obliged !" cried Larose. "Marry! what should 
 oblige me to do anything I don't like doing. No 
 lesser person than *the blind fury with the 
 abhorred shears.' When I can't afford cabs I 
 take to my bed, lie a-bed all day reading Kuskin, 
 or dreaming of Coptic churches and Moorish 
 interiors, and get up at dusk and make a ground 
 plan or sketch a fapade, in my dressing-gown, 
 while the housemaid arranges my room. In 
 these intervals I live upon biscuits and soda- 
 water, like Byron, and I emerge from my retire- 
 ment a renovated and rejuvenated man. Thus 
 do I make necessity my nurse, and profit by
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 107 
 
 propulsion," concluded the architect, who had a 
 knack of sham quotation. 
 
 Hillersdon was glad to see the cab go swinging 
 round into Bond Street with his vivacious friend. 
 He wanted to be alone. He had taken a curious 
 fancy into his head, which was to renew his 
 search for the curious old Inn where he had 
 supped last night. He fancied that he might be 
 able to hit upon the place if he approached, it 
 under the same conditions of darkness and the 
 comparative solitude of night. He had failed. 
 utterly to find the old gate-way in the glare of 
 day ; yet the fabric must exist somewhere within 
 narrow limits. The whole thing — the house to 
 which he was taken — the room in which he sat — 
 the wine he drank — could not be a vision of the 
 night. Granted that the face of the girl was a 
 hallucination put upon him by a clever mesmerist, 
 other things must have been real. He could not 
 have wandered in the streets of London for three 
 or four hours in a mesmeric trance, full of vain 
 imaginings. No, his memory of every detail, of 
 every word they two had spoken, was too distinct 
 to be only the memory of a dream. 
 
 He walked to Bow Street, and from Bow Street
 
 108 GERARD; OR, 
 
 went in the direction in which he had gone on 
 the night before with Justin Jermyn. After he 
 left Lincoln's Inn Fields he tried to abstract his 
 mind and to walk without thought of the way- 
 he was going, hoping that instinct might direct 
 his steps in the way they had gone last night, 
 the same instinct by which a horse who has 
 travelled a road only once will make every turn 
 accurately upon a second journey. 
 
 Instinct gave him no help. He wandered up 
 and down Holborn, he explored the side streets 
 that lie right and left of Gray's Inn Lane, he 
 threaded narrow courts and emerged into Hatton 
 Garden, he went back to the Lane and hugged 
 the dingy wall of Verulam Buildings ; but no- 
 where did he see gate-house or archway that 
 bore the faintest resemblance to the gate-house 
 beneath which he passed la&t night. He began 
 to think that he had been verily upon enchanted 
 ground, and that the champagne he had drunk 
 with Justin Jermyn was akin to that juice of the 
 grape which Mephistopheles drew from an augur 
 hole in a wooden table. There was devilry in 
 last night's business somewhere or somehow. 
 
 He went back to his lodgings mystified and
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 109 
 
 dispirited. He forgot that he was a millionaire, 
 and over the scene of life there crept once again 
 that dreary neutral hue which it had worn when 
 lie contemplated making a sudden irrevocable 
 exit from the stage. It was three o'clock before 
 he got to Church Court, half-past three before 
 he flung himself wearily upon his jingling brazen 
 bed. 
 
 " I must move into better rooms on Monday," 
 he said to himself, "and I must think about 
 getting a house of my own. What is the use 
 of wealth if one doesn't enjoy it ? " 
 
 There was very little enjoyment in him this 
 summer morning, when the clear bright light 
 stole into his room, and accentuated the shabbi- 
 ness of the well-worn furniture, the hideous 
 Philistinism of the maple wardrobe, with its 
 Corinthian columns and tall strip of looking- 
 glass, glass in which he had critically surveyed 
 his dress-suit the other evening, wondering how 
 long it would hold out against the want of con- 
 fidence among west-end tailors. He could have 
 as many dress suits as he liked now, and could 
 pay as much as the most egregious tailor cared 
 to demand. He could live where he liked, start
 
 110 GERAED; OR, 
 
 his house and his stable on a footing worthy of 
 Nero or Domitian. He could do what he liked 
 with his life, and the world would call it good, 
 would wink at his delinquencies and flatter his 
 follies. All that the world has of good lay in 
 the hollow of his hand, for are not all the world's 
 good things for sale to the highest bidder ? He 
 reflected upon this wondrous change in his 
 fortunes, and yet in this morning hour of solitude 
 and silence the consciousness of illimitable wealth 
 could not bring him happiness. 
 
 There had always been a vein of superstition 
 in his nature, perhaps; or superstitious fears 
 would scarcely have troubled him in the midst 
 of his prosperity. His double attempt to find 
 Jermyn's chambers and his double failure had 
 disconcerted him more than such a thing should 
 have done. The adventure gave a suggestion of 
 diablerie to his whole history since the moment 
 when Jermyn read his secret design in the 
 library at Fridoline House. 
 
 He could not sleep, so he took down the " Peau 
 de Chagrin" from the bookcase which held his 
 limited library, composed of only that which he 
 held choicest in literature. One could have read
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. Ill 
 
 the bent of his mind by looking at the titles of 
 those thirty or forty books. Goethe's Faust, 
 Heine's poetry and prose, Alfred de Musset, Owen 
 Meredith, Villon, Gautier, Balzac, Baudelaire, 
 Richepin ; the literature of despair. 
 
 He read how when the lawyer brought Raphael 
 the news of his fortune, his first thought was to 
 take the " Peau de Chagrin " from his pocket and 
 measure it against the tracing he had made upon 
 a table-napkin the night before. 
 
 The skin had shrunk perceptibly. So much 
 had gone from his life in the emotions of a single 
 night of riot, in the shock of a sudden change in 
 his fortunes. 
 
 "An allegory," mused Hillersdon. "l[y life 
 has been wasting rapidly since the night before 
 last. I have been living faster, two heart-throbs 
 for one." 
 
 He breakfasted early after two or three hours 
 of broken sleep, and dawdled over his breakfast, 
 taking up one volume after another with a painful 
 inability to fix his mind upon any subject, until 
 the inexorable church bells began their clangour 
 close at hand, and made all thought impossible. 
 
 Then only did he remember that it was Sunday
 
 112 GEEAKD; OK, 
 
 morning. He changed his coat hurriedly, brushed 
 his hat, and set out for that fashionable temple 
 in which Edith Champion was wont to hear the 
 eloquent sermons of a " delicate, dilletante, white- 
 handed priest," in an atmosphere heavy with 
 Ess bouquet, and the warm breath of closely- 
 packed humanity. 
 
 The choir was chanting the " Te Deum " when 
 he went in, and secured one of the last rush- 
 bottomed chairs available in the crowded nave. 
 His night wanderings had fatigued him more 
 than he knew, and he slept profoundly through 
 one of the choicest discourses of the season, and 
 was not a little embarrassed when Mrs. Champion 
 and Mrs. Gresham insisted upon discussing every 
 point the preacher had made. Happily, both 
 ladies were too eager to state their own opinions 
 to discover his ignorance, or to guess that for 
 him that thrilling sermon had been as the 
 booming of a bumble bee in the heart of an 
 over-blown rose — a sound of soothing and 
 pleasantness. 
 
 *'He goes to the Kiviera every winter," said 
 Mrs. Champion, slipping from the sermon to the 
 preacher ; *' he is more popular there than in
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 113 
 
 London. You should hear his thrilling denuncia- 
 tion of Monte Carlo, and his a^ful warnings to 
 the people who go there. There is hardly stand- 
 ing room in any church where he preaches." 
 
 Hillersdon walked in the Park with the two 
 ladies, patiently enduring that customary church 
 parade which always bored him, even in Edith 
 Champion's company, and even although his 
 pride was stimulated by being seen in attendance 
 upon one of the handsomest women in London. 
 
 The Park looked lovely in the summer noon- 
 tide, the people were smart, well-dressed, ad- 
 mirable; but the park and the people were the 
 same as last year, and they would be the same 
 next year — the same and always the same. 
 
 "It is the constant reyoluticn stale 
 And tasteless, of the same repeated joys, 
 That palls and satiates, and makes languid life 
 A pedlar's pack, that bows the bearer down." 
 
 He dined with Mrs. Champion, and went to a 
 musical party with her, and that Sunday seemed 
 to him one of the longest he had ever spent, 
 longer even than the Sabbath days of his boy- 
 hood, when he was allowed to read only good 
 books, and forbidden all transactions with rat- 
 catchers and ferrets. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 He was glad when he had handed Mrs. Champion 
 to her carriage under an awning in Grosvenor 
 Place, glad to go back to his bachelor loneliness, 
 and impatient of Monday morning. He was up 
 betimes, and hurried off to Lincoln's Inn Fields 
 as soon as it was reasonable to expect Mr. Crafton 
 at his ofiSce. He wanted again to assure himself 
 that Ebenezer Milford's fortune was a reality, 
 and not a dream. 
 
 The solicitor received him with unimpaired 
 graciousness, and was ready with offers of assist- 
 ance in any plans of his client. All that had to 
 be done about the inheritance was in progress ; 
 but as all processes of law are lengthy it would 
 be some little time before Mr. Hillersdon would 
 be in actual possession of his wealth. 
 
 "The succession duties will be very heavy," 
 said Crafton, shaking his head; and Hillersdon 
 felt that in this respect his was a hard case. 
 
 "Have you communicated with your friend, 
 Mr. Watson ? " the lawyer asked presently. 
 
 "No, I forgot to do that." 
 
 " It would be as well that you should look him 
 up at once, and test his memory of the occurrence 
 in the railway station," suggested Crafton. " His
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 115 
 
 evidence would he very useful in the — most un- 
 likely — contingency of any attempt to upset the 
 will." 
 
 This remark had the effect of a douche of cold 
 water upon Hillersdon. 
 
 " You don't apprehend " he faltered. 
 
 "No, I have not the slightest apprehension. 
 Poor old Milford was an isolated being. If he 
 had any relations I never heard of them. But, 
 as a precautionary measure, I advise you to see 
 your friend." 
 
 "Yes, yes, I will go to him at once," said 
 Hillersdon feverishly, getting up and making for 
 the door. 
 
 " There is no need for hurry. Is there nothing 
 that I can do for you ? " 
 
 " Nothing. I have been thinking of changing 
 my lodgings — but that can stand over for a few 
 days. I must see Watson — and then I must go 
 down to the country to see my own people. It 
 wouldn't do for them to hear of my good luck 
 from any one else. I may tell them, I suppose ? 
 I am not likely to find myself thrust out of this 
 inheritance after a few weeks' possession ? I am 
 not going to be a kind of Lady Jane Grey among 
 legatees ? "
 
 116 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 " No, no ; there is really no danger. The will 
 is a splendid will. It would be very difficult for 
 any one to attack it, even the nearest blood rela- 
 tion. I have not the slightest fear." 
 
 " Give me your cheque for another five hun- 
 dred, by way of backing your opinion," said 
 Hillersdon, still feverishly, and with a shade of 
 fretfulness. 
 
 He was irritated by the mere suggestion 
 that a will is an instrument that may be 
 impeached. 
 
 "With pleasure," replied Mr. Grafton, ready 
 with his cheque book ; " shall I make it a thou- 
 sand?" 
 
 " No, no, a monkey will do. I really don't 
 want the money, only I like to see you part with 
 it freely. Thanks ; good day." 
 
 His hansom was waiting for him. He told the 
 man to drive to the Albany, where he might 
 utilise his call upon Watson by making inquiries 
 about any eligible rooms. 
 
 It was early in the day, and Watson was 
 lingering over his breakfast, which had been 
 lengthened out by the skimming of half-a-dozen 
 morning papers. He had not seen Hillersdon
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DE^aL. 117 
 
 for some time, and welcomed liim with frank 
 cordiality. 
 
 " What have you been doing with yourself all 
 this time ? " he asked, as he rang for fresh coffee. 
 " You've been moving in 3Irs. Champion's 
 charmed circle, I suppose, and as her orbit ain't 
 mine we don't often meet, and now we do meet I 
 can't compliment you on your appearance. You 
 are looking uncommonly seedy." 
 
 " I have been sleeping badly for the last few 
 nights. That's my only ailment. Do you re- 
 member that evening at Nice when you went to 
 the station with me after the battle of flowers ? " 
 
 " And when you picked a churlish old fellow 
 from the front of an advancing engine, and to all 
 intents and purposes saved his life. Of course I 
 remember. A curious old man, that. I believe 
 he means to leave you a legacy of some kind. 
 Nineteen pounds nineteen, perhaps, to buy a 
 mourning ring. He was monstrously particular 
 in his inquiries about — your name and parentage, 
 and usual place of abode. He walked half the 
 length of the Avenue de la Gare with me, and 
 he was very much troubled in mind about his 
 umbrella."
 
 118 GERARD; OR, 
 
 " Did he tell you his name ? " 
 
 " He gave me his card at parting, but I lost 
 the card and forgot the name. 
 
 "And you really believe that I saved his 
 life ? " 
 
 " I don't think there's the slightest doubt about 
 it. The thing was as near as a toucher. I 
 expected to see you killed in an unsuccessful 
 attempt to save him." 
 
 " And you would put as much as that in an 
 affidavit, or say as much in the witness-box ? " 
 
 ^' In a dozen affidavits, or in a dozen witness- 
 boxes. But why these questions ? " 
 
 Hillersdon told him the motive, and the for- 
 tune that was at stake. 
 
 " Then the legacy comes to two millions," 
 cried Watson, " By Jove, you are a lucky fellow, 
 and upon my honour you deserve it. You 
 hazarded your life, and what can any man do 
 more than that, and for an unknown traveller. 
 Tbe good Samaritan goes clown to posterity on 
 the strength of a little kindly feeling and two- 
 pence. You did a great deal more than the 
 Samaritan. Why cannot I pluck a shabby 
 Croesus out of the iron way, or rescue a million-
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 119 
 
 aire from drowniDg ? Why sliould this one lucky 
 chance come your way and not mine ? You 
 were only ten paces in advance of me when the 
 crucial moment came. ^Yell, I won't grumble at 
 your good fortune. After all, the accession of 
 one's bosom friend to millions makes one's self no 
 poorer. Yet there is always a feeling of being 
 reduced to abject poverty when a friend tumbles 
 into unexpected wealth. It will take me months 
 to reconcile myself to the idea of you as a 
 millionaire. And now what are you going to do 
 with your life ? " 
 
 " Enjoy it if I can, having the means of enjoy- 
 ment given me." 
 
 "All that money can do you can do," said 
 ^Vatson, with a philosophic air. " You will now 
 have the opportunity of testing the power of 
 wealth, its limitations, its strictly finite nature." 
 
 " I will not moan if I find there are some 
 things gold cannot buy," said Hillersdon. " There 
 are so many things it can buy which I have been 
 wanting all my life." 
 
 "Well, you are a lucky fellow, and you 
 deserve your luck, because you did a plucky 
 thing without thought or fear of consequences.
 
 120 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 If you had paused to consider your own peril 
 that old man would have been smashed." 
 
 The servant came in with the coffee, a wel- 
 come interruption to Hillersdon, who was tired 
 of being complimented on his pluck. His early 
 breakfast had been only a cup of tea, and he was 
 not sorry to begin again with Watson, who 
 prided himself upon living well, and was a con- 
 noisseur of perigord pies and York hams, and 
 took infinite pains to get the freshest eggs and 
 best butter that London could supply. 
 
 " Well, you are going to enj oy your life ; that 
 is understood. Imprimis, I suppose you will 
 marry ? " said Watson, cheerily. 
 
 " I told you, I meant to enjoy my life," 
 answered Hillersdon. " The first element of 
 happiness is liberty. And you suggest that I 
 should start by surrendering it to a wife ? " 
 
 " Oh, that's all bosh. A man with a big 
 income does not lose his freedom by taking a 
 wife. In a millionaire's household a wife is 
 only an ornament. She has neither control nor 
 ascendancy over his existence. You remember 
 what Beckford said of the Venetian nobility at 
 the close of the eighteenth century. Every great
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL, 121 
 
 man in that enchanting city had his secret taber- 
 nacle — a snug little nest in the labyrinth of 
 narrow streets, or in some shadowy bend of a 
 rio, known only to himself and his intimates, 
 where he might live his own life, while his 
 ostensible existence as Grand Seigneur was con- 
 ducted with regal pomp and publicity in his 
 palace on the Grand Canal. Do you suppose 
 the Venetian nobleman of that golden ago was 
 governed by his wife ? Pas si hete." 
 
 "I shall never marry till I can marry the 
 woman I love," answered Hillersdon. 
 
 Watson shrugged his shoulders significantly, 
 and went on with his breakfast. He knew all 
 about Mrs. Champion, and that romantic attach- 
 ment which had been going on for years, and 
 which seemed as hopeless and almost as unpro- 
 fitable upon Gerard Hillersdon's side as Don 
 Quixote's worship of Dulcinea del Toboso. Wat- 
 son, who was strictly practical, could not enter 
 into the mind of a man who sacrificed his life 
 for a virtuous woman. He could understand the 
 other thing — life and honour, fortune and good 
 name, flung at the feet of Venus Pandemos. He 
 had seen too much of the influence of base
 
 122 GERARD; OR, 
 
 women and ignoble love to doubt the power of 
 evil over the hearts of men. It vvas the namby- 
 pamby devotion, this lap-dog love, the desire of 
 the moth for the star, in which he could not 
 believe. 
 
 Hillersdon left him in time to catch the 
 Exeter express at Waterloo. He had made up 
 his mind that he must no longer keep his own 
 people in ignorance of the change in his fortunes. 
 He had given the hard- worked father and the 
 long-suffering mother too much trouble in the 
 past, and now the hour of compensation must be 
 no longer delayed. Yes, his father's church 
 should be restored, and the dear old tumble- 
 down Eectory renovated from garret to cellar 
 without injury to its tumble-downness, which 
 was of all things beautiful — a long, low house, 
 with bow windows bellying out unexpectedly ; a 
 house so smothered with banksia roses, myrtle, 
 flowering ash, and wistaria that it was not easy 
 to discover whether its walls were brick or stone, 
 rough-cast or cob. 
 
 It was a relief to Gerard Hillersdon to turn his 
 back upon London, to feel that his face was set 
 towards green pastures and summer woods, to see
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEVIL. 123 
 
 the white fleeces of rural sheep instead of the 
 darklings of the Park, and the frolics of joyous 
 foals in the meadows instead of smart young 
 women bucketting along the Row. 
 
 "God made the country and man made the 
 town," he said to himself, quoting a poet whom 
 his father loved and often quoted. 
 
 It was still early in the afternoon when he 
 went in at the open gate of the Rectory garden. 
 The estuary of the Exe lay before him, with 
 crisp wavelets dancing in the sun. His father's 
 parish was midway between Exeter and Exmouth, 
 a place of quietness and fertile meadows, gardens 
 brimming over with flowers, thatched cottages 
 smothered with roses and honeysuckle, beehives, 
 poultry yards, and all rustic sights and sounds ; 
 a village in which a rector is a kind of king, 
 exercising more influence than parliaments and 
 potentates afar off". 
 
 Two girls were playing tennis on the lawn to 
 the right of the long low verandah that screened 
 the drawing-room windows, two glancing figures 
 in white gowns that caught the sunlight. One 
 he knew for his sister Lilian ; the other was a 
 stranger.
 
 124 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 Lilian faced the carriage-drive by which he 
 approached, recognised him, flung down her 
 racquet with a joyful exclamation, and ran to 
 meet him, heedless of her antagonist. 
 
 "I thought you were never coming near us 
 again," she said, when they had kissed. " Mother 
 has been full of anxieties about you. It was 
 time you came; yes, high time, for you are 
 looking dreadfully ill." 
 
 " Every one seems bent upon telling me that," 
 he said, with a vexed air. 
 
 " You have been ill, I believe, and you never 
 let us know." 
 
 " I am as well as I ever was in my life, and 
 I have not been ill. Two or three bad nights 
 seem to have played havoc with my looks." 
 
 "It is the horrid life you lead in London — 
 parties every day and every night; no respite, 
 no repose. I hear of your doings, you see, 
 though you so seldom write to any of us. Miss 
 Yere, who is staying with me, knows all about 
 
 you." 
 
 "Then Miss Yere possesses all knowledge 
 worth having — from my point of view. I dare 
 say she knows more about me than I know of
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 125 
 
 myself. You shall introduce me to her, after I 
 have seen my mother." 
 
 " You shall see mother without one moment's 
 waste of time. Poor mother, she has so pined 
 for you. Mother," called Lilian, addressing her 
 fresh young voice to the verandah, " Mother, 
 come out and be startled and delighted in a 
 breath." 
 
 Gerard and his sister were moving towards the 
 house as she called. A tall matronly figure 
 emerged from the verandah, and a cry of glad- 
 ness welcomed the prodigal son. In the next 
 minute he was clasped to his mother's heart. 
 
 " My dearest boy." 
 
 " My ever dear mother." 
 
 " I have been so anxious about you, Gerard." 
 
 " Not without cause, dear mother. I was in very 
 low spirits, altogether at odds with fortune a few 
 days ago. But since then I have had a stroke 
 of luck. I have come to tell you good news." 
 
 "You have written another book," she cried 
 delightfully. 
 
 " Better than that." 
 
 "Nothing could be better than that, to my 
 mind."
 
 126 GERARD; OR, 
 
 "What would you say if a good old man, 
 whom I only saw once in my life, had left me a 
 fortune ? " 
 
 " I should say it was like a fairy tale." 
 "It is like a fairy tale, but I believe it is 
 reality. I believe, because a London solicitor 
 has advanced me a thousand pounds with no 
 better security than my expectations. I have 
 not sold my shadow, and I have not accepted 
 the Feau de chagrin. I am substantially and 
 realistically rich, and I can do anything in 
 the world that money can do to make you and 
 father and Lilian happy for the rest of your 
 lives." 
 
 " You can give me a new racquet," said his 
 sister. "It is a misery to play with this, and 
 Barbara has the very latest improvement in 
 racquets." 
 
 " * My mother had a maid called Barbara,' " 
 quoted Gerard laughing. "Miss Vere is your 
 Barbara, I suppose ? " 
 
 He went into the drawing-room with his 
 mother, while Lilian ran to apologise to Miss 
 Vere for her sudden desertion. Mother and son 
 sat side by side, hand clasped in hand, and
 
 THE TTOPtLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 127 
 
 Gerard told her the strange history of his altered 
 fortunes. He told her of his debts and of his 
 despair, his utter weariness of life; but he did 
 not tell her that he had contemplated suicide ; 
 nor did he fling across her simple thoughts the 
 cloudy mysticism which has become a factor in 
 modern life. He did not tell her of the sceue in 
 Jermyii's chambers, or of his vain endeavours to 
 discover the whereabouts of those chambers ; nor 
 did he talk to her of Edith Champion, albeit she 
 had some inkling of that romantic phase of his 
 life. 
 
 She was enraptured at the thought of his good 
 fortune, without one selfish consideration of the 
 prosperity it would bring to her. In the midst 
 of her rejoicing she began to talk to him about 
 his health. 
 
 "You are not looking well, dearest," she said 
 earnestly. " To those who love you your health 
 is of far more importance than your fortune." 
 
 This harping on an unpleasant strain irritated 
 him. This was the third time within the day 
 that he had been told he looked ill. 
 
 " You women are all morbid," he said. " You 
 poison your lives with unrealised apprehensions.
 
 128 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 If any one gave you the Koh-i-noor you would 
 make yourselves miserable by the suspicion that 
 it was only a bit of glass. You would want to 
 break it up in order to be sure of its value. 
 Suppose I have a headache — suppose I have had 
 two or three bad nights, and am looking haggard 
 and pale, what is that against two millions ? " 
 
 " Two millions ! Oh, Gerard, is your fortune 
 anything like that?" asked his mother, in an 
 awe-stricken voice. 
 
 " I am told that it is very much like that." 
 
 " It sounds like a dream. There is something 
 awful in the idea of such wealth in the possession 
 of one young man. And oh, Gerard, think of 
 the thousands and tens of thousands who are 
 almost starving." 
 
 "I suppose everybody will tell me that," 
 exclaimed her son irritably. "Why should I 
 think of the starving thousands? Why, just 
 because I have the means of enjoying life, am I 
 to make myself miserable by brooding upon the 
 miseries of others? If it comes to that a man 
 ought never to be happy while there is a single 
 ill-used cab-horse in the world. Just think of 
 all the horses in London and Paris that are under-
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 129 
 
 fed and over-driven, and have galled shoulders 
 and cracked heels. There is madness in it. 
 Think of the ill-treated children, the little 
 children, the gutter martyrs, whose lives are a 
 burden. If we are to think of these things our 
 choicest luxuries, our most exalted pleasures, 
 must turn to gall and wormwood. For every 
 pair of happy lovers there are women in degrada- 
 tion and despair, and men whose lightest touch 
 is defilement. If we stop to consider how this 
 world we live in — so full of exquisite beauty and 
 eager joyous life — is just as full of want and 
 misery and crime, the sharp anguish of physical 
 pain, and the dull agony of patient, joyless lives, 
 there can be no such thing as pleasure. We 
 must not give way to pity, mother. Since we 
 cannot heal all these gaping wounds — since there 
 is no possible panacea for the sufferings of a 
 universe, we must narrow our thoughts and 
 hopes to the limits of home and family, and say 
 * Kismet, Allah is good.' But for you, dearest, 
 for you and all whom you want to help, my 
 wealth shall be as potent as the four-leaved 
 shamrock. You shall be my almoner. You 
 shall find out which among all the never-ending 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 schemes for helping the helpless are really good, 
 and sound, and honest, and I will aid them with 
 open hand." 
 
 " My dear son, I knew your heart was full of 
 pity," murmured his mother tenderly. 
 
 " Oh, but I don't want to pity any one. I want 
 you, with your clear, calm mind, to think and 
 act for me. Everybody tells me I am looking 
 haggard and ill, now just when life is worth 
 cherishing. I want to avoid overmuch agitation. 
 Let us talk of happier things. How is the dear 
 governor, or the Eector, as he prefers to be called ? " 
 
 "He has not been very well of late. Last 
 winter tried him severely." 
 
 " He must spend next winter at San Kemo or 
 Sorrento. It will be only for you both to choose 
 your locality." 
 
 "And I may see Italy before I die," gasped 
 the Kector's wife, whose peregrinations hitherto 
 had rarely gone beyond Boscastle on the one 
 side and Bath on the other, with a fortnight in 
 London once in two years. 
 
 "Yes, you shall see all that is fairest in this 
 world," answered Gerard. 
 
 "Your father is spending the day in Exeter.
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 1 3 1 
 
 What a delightful surprise for him when he 
 comes home to dinner. But you must not wait 
 for eight o'clock, Gerard. You must have some- 
 thing after your journey. Shall I order a chop, 
 or a grilled chicken ? " 
 
 "No, dear mother, I am too happy in your 
 company to want such substantial food. I think 
 I saw cups and saucers in the garden, under our 
 favourite tree — 
 
 'And thou in all thy breadth and height 
 Of foliage, towering sycamore.' " 
 
 " Oh, Gerard, it is a tulip-tree. Tour father 
 would be dreadfully offended to hear it called a 
 sycamore. Yes, you shall have some tea, dearest." 
 She rang the bell, and ordered new-laid eggs, 
 hot cakes, a regular Yorkshire tea, to be taken 
 out to the garden. "What happiness to be 
 sitting there with you once again. It is ages 
 since you have been with us, except for just that 
 hurried visit last Christmas." 
 
 Gerard sighed as he acknowledged the force of 
 this reproach. All his summers of late years had 
 been spent far afield. In the Tyrol, in Scotland, 
 in Sweden, in Westmoreland, at Carlsbad, any- 
 where whither Mrs. Champion's caprices or Air.
 
 132 GEEAKD; OK, 
 
 Champion's " cure " led the lady and her satellite. 
 He had enjoyed no more independent existence 
 than one of Jupiter's moons, but had been con- 
 strained to revolve in the orbit of his planet. 
 
 He went into the garden with his mother. 
 Every shrub was a reproach, for all had grown 
 with the growth of years since he had seen 
 them in their summer glory. A flying visit at 
 Christmas or the New Year had been as much as 
 his goddess allowed hira. And now — albeit his 
 chain was unbroken — he had a feeling that it was 
 lengthened, and that he was going to do as he 
 liked henceforward. 
 
 The stout, comfortable-looking butler, whom 
 he remembered a lad in buttons, brought tea, 
 and toasted cakes, and poached eggs, and clouted 
 cream, and other rustic luxuries; and the tennis 
 players, who had taken one tea at four o'clock, 
 were very glad to take another at six. Gerard 
 was introduced to Miss Vere, otherwise Barbara 
 — a girl with a handsome face and a commanding 
 figure, but who looked as if she had vecu, Gerard 
 thought, and who at once began to talk of the 
 houses at which they had met in London, which 
 were all the smartest houses, be it remarked.
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 133 
 
 The young lady sunk any lesser mansions at 
 which they might have rubbed shoulders. 
 
 "I think you know Mrs. Champion," Miss 
 Vere remarked innocently. " She and my cousin, 
 Mrs. Harper, are great chums." 
 
 *' Mrs. Theodore Harper ? " 
 
 *' Yes, Mrs. Theodore." 
 
 " I know her well, a very pretty woman." 
 
 "Yes, she is by way of being a beauty," said 
 Miss Yere, who was much handsomer, and no 
 doubt was fully aware of her superiority; "but 
 don't you think she's rather silly about that boy 
 of hers — taking him everywhere ? " 
 
 "Upon that point I consider her positively 
 imbecile. A child in an Eton jacket should not 
 be obtruded upon the society of reasonable men 
 and women. I believe she only takes him about 
 with her in order that people may exclaim, 
 * Your son, Mrs. Harper ? Impossible ! How 
 could you have a son of twelve years old, when 
 you can be at most two-and-twenty ? " 
 
 "And then she smiles— carefully — through her 
 magnolia bloom, and is perfectly happy for the rest 
 of the afternoon, while the boy sits turning over 
 illustrated books, and boring himself to death."
 
 134 GERARD; OR, 
 
 "Or sucking surreptitious lollipops, till some 
 prosy old Etonian goes and sits beside him, and 
 talks about the playing fields and the river," said 
 Gerard. 
 
 Lilian and her mother sat smiling at this con- 
 versation, happily unconscious of its artificiality. 
 Lilian, who was lily-fair and guileless as a child, 
 looked up to Barbara Yere with eyes of admiring 
 wonder. Miss Vere's exquisitely fitting gowns, 
 her aplomb, and her knowledge of the side scenes 
 of life commanded the village maiden's respect. 
 To talk to a girl who had the peerage at her 
 fingers' ends, knew to a shade every important 
 person's political opinions, was familiar with all 
 the society scandals and all the approaching 
 alliances, was a privilege for the Eector's daughter. 
 She wondered how the brilliant Barbara could 
 endure the jog-trot domesticity of the Eectory, 
 and it had never occurred to her that Barbara 
 Vere put in for repairs at this quiet little harbour 
 after the wear and tear of her annual voyage on 
 the high seas of London society. 
 
 "I feel so fresh and so happy when I am 
 with you," said Barbara. "I leave my French 
 maid and my powder-box in London, and
 
 TUB WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 135 
 
 steep myself in the atmosphere of Milton's 
 'Allegro.'" 
 
 She might have added that in this clerical 
 seclusion she did not trouble to make up her 
 eyebrows, or to put on just that one artistic touch 
 of rouge upon the cheek-bone, which in London 
 drawing-rooms gave lustre to her fine dark eyes. 
 Here her life was spent for the most part in a 
 garden, and she was wise enough to know how 
 ghastly all artificial embellishments become under 
 such conditions.
 
 136 GERARD: OR, 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 THE FACE IN THE VISION. 
 
 The little party of four sat long at the tea-table 
 under the leafy branches of the tulip-tree. The 
 Eectory garden was on a level stretch of ground ; 
 but beyond the shrubbery that girdled lawn and 
 parterre, the glebe meadows sloped towards the 
 low, irregular cliff; and below the undulating 
 line of the cliff danced the bright wavelets of the 
 estuary. The garden and its surroundings were 
 alike lovely, fertile, smiling — not the grand 
 scenery of North Devon, nor the still bolder 
 coast-line of North Cornwall, by that steep rock 
 where once uprose Tintagel's crown of towers, but 
 a placid and pastoral region which seems to invite 
 restfulness and content with things that be, rather 
 than soaring aspirations or heroic endeavour. 
 Landward of the Eectory garden and orchard
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 137 
 
 there rose a wooded hill, whose summit com- 
 manded a fine view of the channel, and the 
 white-winged ships sailing away towards Start 
 Point. That hill, with its wood and coppice, had 
 been Gerard's delight in the summer holidays of 
 boyhood. He had read there in his long vacations 
 — and there were spots which to this hour recalled 
 certain passages in Homer and Yirgil, and certain 
 difiSculties in higher mathematics. 
 
 He thought of that far-off time as he sat, sip- 
 ping a third cup of tea, in a dreamy mood, after 
 having done scanty justice to the plethora of 
 rustic fare. The two girls had gone indoors, 
 leaving mother and son tete-a-tete, Mrs. Hillersdon 
 sitting silent, plying those busy needles which 
 knitted socks for half the old men and children 
 in the parish, and Gerard lost in reverie. He was 
 the first to break the silence. 
 
 " Mother, I saw a face the other day which re- 
 minded me of home — and of — ever so many years 
 ago — five or six years, at least — and yet I can't 
 associate the face with any one in this parish. I 
 can't tell you how familiar it seemed, or how I 
 have worried my brains to find out where and 
 how I saw it."
 
 138 GERAED; OR, 
 
 " A man's face, or a woman's ? " 
 
 '*A girl's face — or rather say the face of a 
 woman of three or four and twenty — a woman 
 in humble life. It must have been one of your 
 cottagers, but I can't identify her. It is a very 
 lovely face." 
 
 "But where did you see this young woman? 
 Why didn't you question her ? " 
 
 "The face flashed upon me and was gone. 
 There was no time for asking questions. I want 
 you to help me, if you can. So lovely a face 
 must have made some impression upon you. 
 Think of the prettiest girls you have known in 
 this village and the surrounding neighbourhood." 
 
 " There are so many pretty girls. Devon is 
 famous for beauty. A good many of the cottagers 
 about here have given me their photographs. 
 People are very fond of being photographed now 
 that the luxury is so cheap. I have an album 
 that I keep on purpose for my parish friends. 
 You can look through it this evening, if you 
 like, and see if you can identify your young 
 woman." 
 
 " She would not be one among a herd," Gerard 
 answered irritably. "I know what Devonian
 
 THE \N'ORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 139 
 
 beauty means — bright blue eyes, fine carnations. 
 This girl is utterly unlike the type. Surely you 
 can remember a girl of exceptional beauty, with 
 whom we had some kind of association any time 
 within the last ten years, but whom I must have 
 seen seldom, or I should be able to identify her ? " 
 
 *' Exceptional beauty ! " repeated Mrs. Hillers- 
 don, thoughtfully. " I can recall nobody in the 
 parish whom I should call exceptionally beautiful. 
 But men have such odd notions about beauty. 
 I have heard a girl with a snub nose and a wide 
 mouth extolled as if she were Venus. Why are 
 you so anxious to know more about this young 
 woman ? " 
 
 " I have reason to think she is in distress, and 
 I should like to help her — now that I am rich 
 enough to do foolish things." 
 
 " It would not be foolish if she is a good girl — 
 but beware of exquisite beauty in humble life, 
 Gerard. It would make me miserable if " 
 
 " Oh, my dear mother, we have all read * David 
 Copperfield.' I am not going to imitate Steer- 
 forth in his treatment of little Emily. I am 
 mystified about this girl, and I want to learn who 
 she is and whence she came."
 
 140 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 "Not from this parish, Gerard, I am sure, 
 unless you can find her in my album." 
 
 " Let me see your album, this minute," cried 
 Gerard. 
 
 The parlourmaid approached as he spoke, and 
 began to clear the tea-table. 
 
 " Kun to my room and bring me the big brown 
 photograph album," said Mrs. Hillersdon, and the 
 brisk young parlourmaid tripped away and pre- 
 sently returned with a brown quarto which had 
 seen long service. Gerard turned the leaves 
 eagerly. He beheld a curious collection of old- 
 fashioned finery, mushroom hats, crinolines. 
 Garibaldi shirts, festoons, flounces, and Maria - 
 folds, polonaises, jackets, mantles, of every style 
 that has been worn within the last thirty years — 
 old men and maidens, fathers, mothers, children, 
 babies in abundance. 
 
 There were plenty of pretty faces — faces which 
 even the rustic photographer could not spoil ; 
 but there was not one which offered the faintest 
 resemblance to the face he had seen in Justin 
 Jermyn's chambers. 
 
 "No!" he exclaimed, flinging the book upon 
 the table in disgust, "there is no sign of her 
 among your bumpkins."
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEVIL. 141 
 
 " Please don't sneer at my bumpkins. You 
 don't know what good, bright, patient, hard- 
 working creatures there are among them, or how 
 proud I am to know that they are fond of me." 
 
 "The girl I saw has an ethereal face — not 
 flesh, but spirit — dreaming eyes, large and soft, 
 shadowed by long dark lashes — fair hair, not 
 golden, mark you — but distinctly fair, a pale soft 
 brown, like the coat of a fallow deer. Her features 
 are exquisitely delicate, modelling of nose and 
 chin like a Madonna by Eaffaelle — yes, it is a 
 Rafifaelle face, so soft in colouring, so spiritual — 
 but sad, unutterably sad." 
 
 " Hester Davenport," exclaimed Mrs. Hillers- 
 don, suddenly. " You have described her to the 
 life. Poor girl. \Yhere did you meet her ? I 
 thought she was in Australia." 
 
 " Perhaps only in a dream. But who is Hester 
 Davenport ? " 
 
 "Don't you remember the curate, Nicholas 
 Davenport, the man whom your father engaged 
 without adequate scrutiny into antecedents or 
 character, on the strength of his fine manner and 
 appearance, and his evident superiority to the 
 common run of Churchmen — a man of great
 
 142 GEEARD; OR, 
 
 theological learning, your father told me. He 
 had been tutor to Lord Kaynfield's son — in 
 Cumberland — and he gave your father a letter of 
 recommendation from Lord Raynfield, dated some 
 seven years before he came to us. You know how- 
 unsuspicious your father is. It never occurred to 
 him that the man's character might have changed 
 since that letter was written. He was with us a 
 year and a half, and towards the end of that time 
 his daughter came from Hanover, where she had 
 been sent for a year or so to learn G-erman. We 
 were all struck with her beauty, and sweet gentle 
 manners." 
 
 "Yes, yes, I remember now. I was at home 
 when she arrived. How could I forget? She 
 came to tea with Lilian one afternoon when I 
 was loafing about the garden, and I talked to 
 her for five minutes or so, not more, for I had 
 to hurry off to catch the train for Exeter. I 
 saw her once after that — met her on the sands 
 one morning. Yes, the face comes back to 
 me as it was then — in all the freshness of 
 girlhood." 
 
 "She was only seventeen when she came from 
 Germany,"
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 143 
 
 "And Davenport went wrong, turned out an 
 incorrigible drunkard, did he not ? " 
 
 "Yes; it was unspeakably sad. He used to 
 have occasional lapses — never during his church 
 work — but when he was about in the parish. 
 He told your father that he suffered from slight 
 attacks of epilepsy; so slight as to be of no 
 hindrance to his duty. This went on for over 
 a year, and then, on All Saints' Day, he had 
 an attack in the reading-desk — a lapse of con- 
 sciousness as your father called it. He seemed 
 very strange. We were puzzled — but none of 
 us guessed the dreadful truth, till one Sunday 
 evening, about a month after his poor daughter 
 came home from Germany, he went up into the 
 pulpit, reeling, and clutching at the balustrade, 
 and began to preach in the wildest language, 
 uttering dreadful blasphemies, and bursting into 
 hysterical laughter. Your father had to go up 
 into the pulpit with one of the churchwardens 
 and bring him down by main force. He was 
 perfectly mad; but it was drink, Gerard, drink, 
 that had caused all the evil. He had been 
 taking brandy or chloral for years — sometimes 
 one, sometimes the other. He was a secret
 
 144 GEEARD; OR, 
 
 drinker — that learned, intellectual man, a man 
 who had taken the highest honours at Oxford, 
 a man whom Oxford men remembered as a light 
 among them." 
 
 " What became of him after that ? " 
 *' He had to leave us, of course, and as your 
 father dared not recommend him to anybody, 
 and as the scandal of his behaviour had been 
 heard of throughout the diocese, there was no 
 hope of his getting any further employment in 
 the Church. Your father was very sorry for 
 him, and gave him a little money to help him 
 to emigrate. His old pupil. Lord Wolverley, 
 helped him, and old college friends contributed, 
 and he and his daughter sailed for Melbourne. 
 I went to Plymouth to see them off, for I was 
 very sorry for the poor motherless girl, in her 
 deep distress, and your father and others wanted 
 to be sure that they really got off, as Davenport 
 was a shifty kind of man, and might have let 
 the ship sail without him. They went out in 
 a sailing vessel, crowded with first, second, and 
 third-class emigrants. They went second-class, 
 and I can see her now as I saw her that day, 
 standing in the bows with her hand through her
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 145 
 
 father's arm, while he waved his handkerchief 
 to me. She was white and wan, poor child, but 
 exquisitely lovely. I could not help thinking 
 of what her life might have been if she had 
 had good and prosperous parents; yet I know 
 she adored that unhappy father." 
 
 "Exquisitely lovely, yes," mused Gerard, "and 
 going out to a new world in an emigrant ship, 
 and with a drunken old man for her only 
 guardian and stay. A hard fate for exquisite 
 loveliness, is it not, mother? And now, I 
 believe she is in London, working: at a sewinsr- 
 machine for starvation wages." 
 
 " But how came you to learn so much, and 
 yet not to know more ? " 
 
 " Did I not tell you that it was a dream ? " 
 he asked, with a mocking smile ! " But I mean 
 to know more, mother ; I mean to find this girl 
 by hook or by crook, and to help her ! " 
 
 " You must not mix yourself in her life, 
 Gerard," said Mrs. Hillersdon, gravely; "that 
 might end badly." 
 
 " Oh, mother, you are full of fears ! One 
 would think I were Mephistopheles, or Faust ; 
 while all I want is that my money may be of 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 GERARD; OR, 
 
 some use to a friendless girl. Hester Davenport ! 
 I remember how lovely I thought her, but I 
 was no more in love with her than with the 
 Venus of the Capitol. Strange that I should 
 have failed to identify the face, till you helped 
 me!" 
 
 He went indoors with his mother, and found 
 his room — the room which had been his ever 
 since he left the nursery — ready for occupation. 
 The old nursemaid, whom he had teased and 
 joked with in the old Marlborough holidays, 
 had bustled and hurried to get Mr. Gerard's 
 room aired and dusted, and his portmanteau 
 unpacked, and all things arranged before the 
 dressing-bell rang out from the old wooden 
 cupola that crowned the low roof. Everything 
 had the odour he knew so well — a perfume of 
 lavender and dried rose leaves, mixed with some 
 strange Indian scent which was an inheritance 
 from his mother's side of the house, her people 
 having been civilians of good standing in Bengal 
 for half a century. It was a curious composite 
 perfume, which for him meant the atmosphere of 
 home, and brought back memories of childhood. 
 
 The Kector received the news of his son's
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 147 
 
 altered fortunes at first with incredulity, and 
 then with gladness mingled with awe. 
 
 "The whole business seems too wonderful to 
 be true, Gerard," he said ; " but if it really is 
 true, you are just the luckiest fellow I ever 
 heard of — to inherit an old man's wealth without 
 ever having cringed to him or fawned upon him 
 while he was alive — to receive two millions 
 sterling, without having to say thank you, except 
 to Providence ! " 
 
 The Kector was by no means a selfish man, 
 and he had been an indulgent father, bearing 
 with a good deal of extravagance and some 
 perversity on the part of his son, but he was 
 not slow to see that this fortune must needs 
 mean comfort and luxury for him in his declin- 
 ing years, and a freedom from financial cares 
 which would be new to himself and his wife, 
 liberally as the Kectory was administered. His 
 living was worth seven hundred a year, and he 
 and his wife between them had about four 
 hundred of independent income; and it is not 
 easy for a man of good family and with refined 
 tastes to live within an income of eleven hundred 
 a year, especially when he is rector of a rural
 
 148 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 parish in which the lower orders look to him 
 for aid in all their necessities, while the sur- 
 rounding gentry expect him to play an equal 
 part in all their sports and hospitalities. 
 
 G-erard stayed with his people just two days. 
 That was as much time as he could spare for 
 inaction, since there was upon him the natural 
 restlessness of a man whose fortunes have under- 
 gone a sudden and wondrous change, and who 
 is eager to put newly acquired power to the test. 
 Father, mother, and sister would gladly have 
 kept him longer in that rural paradise, and 
 Barbara Vere, having got wind of his inherit- 
 ance, exercised all her blandishments, her spells 
 of woven paces and of weaving hands, to bind 
 him to her side. Garden, and hills, and rustic 
 lanes, and summer sea, were all suggestive of 
 restfulness and oblivion of the busy world ; — but 
 a young man who has just come into a fortune 
 is no more to be satisfied with indolence in a 
 garden than Eve was. He too, like Eve, longs 
 to taste the fruit of the fatal tree. 
 
 "I have seen what life is like to a man who 
 never has a spare five-pound note," Gerard told
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 149 
 
 his sister ; " I want to find out how life tastes to 
 a millionaire. And when I have furnished rooms 
 or a house, and have settled down a little, you 
 must come and keep house for me, Lilian " 
 
 "Nonsense, dear! You will be marrying 
 before the year is out." 
 
 "I have no idea of marrying. There is 
 nothing so unlikely as my marriage. You shall 
 be mistress of my house." 
 
 "I couldn't leave mother — at least, not for 
 ever so long," said Lilian. 
 
 " In years to come she will need you more than 
 she needs you now. I begin to understand you, 
 Lilian. That tall ill-looking curate — Mr. Cum- 
 berland — has something to do with your hesi- 
 tations." 
 
 " Do you think him so very ugly ? " asked 
 Lilian, with a distressed look. ' 
 
 " I didn't say very ugly ; but I certainly don't 
 think him handsome. That knotted and bulging: 
 brow means brains, I suppose." 
 
 " He was fifth wrangler, and he is a splendid 
 musician," said his sister. " I wish you would 
 stop till Sunday to hear what he has made of the 
 choir."
 
 150 GEEAKD; OR, 
 
 " If he has made them sing in tune he must be 
 a wonderful man. And so he is the person whose 
 merits and fortunes are to colour your future, 
 Lilian. I had no idea of it when I saw him 
 hanging over your piano last night. I thought 
 he was only a pis-aller. I suppose he is just the 
 type of man girls in country parsonages admire — 
 tall, athletic, with fine eyes, and dark overhang- 
 ing brows, large strong hands, thick wavy hair, 
 and a powerful baritone voice. I can quite under- 
 stand your liking Mr. Cumberland; but what 
 does the governor think of it all ? " 
 
 " Father does not mind," Lilian answered 
 naively, *' Jack is of very good family, but he will 
 have to get a living before we are married." 
 
 " He shall have a living — if he is worthy of my 
 sister," said Gerard. " Money will buy livings — 
 he shall be a pluralist if he likes." 
 
 ** Oh, Gerard, he is the last man to like that. 
 He has such a strong idea of duty. He would 
 like a big parish in a sea-port, I think, with 
 plenty of work. His best gifts are wasted in such 
 a place as this, but all our people adore him. 
 Father owns that he never had such a helper." 
 
 " My sweet enthusiast, we will look out for a
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 151 
 
 big sea-port. You shall be a ministering angel 
 to sailors and sailors' wives — you shall temper 
 the cruelties of life in a crowded city — and, 
 perhaps, by way of reward I shall hear some day 
 that my sister's husband has been struck down by 
 a malignant feyer and that she has done herself 
 to death while nursing him,"
 
 152 GERARD; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 "it is an oath," she said. 
 
 Gerard went back to London, but eager as he 
 was to return he felt a pang of regret as he bade 
 kis mother good-bye in the fresh early morning, 
 and turned his face towards the great city. His 
 brief visit to the old home had been an interval 
 of rest in a life that lately had been all unrest. 
 He fancied that ^eau de chagrin could hardly 
 have shrunk by a hair's breadth during those 
 hours of calm affection, of interchange of thought 
 and feeling, without vehemence or excitement. 
 To go back to Mrs. Champion and her set was 
 like going back to the crust of a volcano. The 
 rage of spending was upon him. He wanted to 
 do something with the money which he had 
 scarcely dared to calculate. He drove straight 
 from Waterloo Station to Lincoln's Inn, and went 
 through the schedule of his possessions with Mr.
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 153 
 
 Cranberry, who was a little dry old maD, like the 
 Princess Ida's father, and had none of the prestige 
 and unctuousness of his junior partner 31 r. Graf- 
 ton. One could divine easily that while Mr. 
 Crafton lived in a handsome ''place" at Surbiton, 
 grew pines and peaches, and prided himself upon 
 his stable and garden, 3Ir. Cranberry was content 
 with a dingy house in one of the Bloomsbury 
 Squares, and restricted his pride of life to a few 
 Dutch pictures, a good plain cook, and a cellar of 
 comet port and old East Indian sherry. 
 
 From this gentleman Gerard Hillersdon elicited 
 — toD:ether with much detail — the main fact that 
 his capital, in and out of the banking-house of 
 Milford and Co., summed up to a little over two 
 millions, and might be taken to yield an average 
 four aud a half per cent., whereby his annual 
 income amounted to ninety thousand pounds. 
 
 His cheek paled at the mere mention of the 
 sum. It was too much undoubtedly, almost an 
 evil thing to acquire such riches with a sudden- 
 ness as of an earthquake or an apoplectic stroke. 
 The magnitude of his wealth overawed him ; and 
 yet he bad no desire to lessen it by any large act 
 of benevolence or philanthropy. He had no
 
 154 GEKAED; OK, 
 
 inclination to give the London slums another 
 breathing ground, or to sink a hundred thousand 
 pounds upon a block of dwellings for the abjects 
 of the great city. He was at once scared and 
 elated. 
 
 " Let me have a few thousands immediately," 
 he said; "open an account for me at Milford's 
 bank. Let me feel that I am rich ! " 
 
 " It shall be done," replied Mr. Cranberry ; and 
 then he explained that there were certain for- 
 malities to be gone through, which could be 
 completed without delay, if his client would give 
 his mind to the business. 
 
 The two men drove round to the bank together. 
 Cranberry opened his client's account with his 
 own cheque for ^ve thousand pounds, and a 
 clerk handed Mr. Hillersdon a cheque-book. His 
 first act on returning to his lodgings was to write 
 a cheque for a thousand pounds, payable to the 
 Eev. Edward Hillersdon, and this he enclosed 
 in a brief scrawl to his mother : 
 
 " Ask the Eector to buy Lilian a new pony 
 to replace poor Tiny Tim, who has taken to 
 stumbling rather badly," he wrote, "and beg 
 him to do just what he likes with the rest of the
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 155 
 
 money. I shall send you ray little gift upon 
 your birthday next week. Alas ! I let the date 
 slip by last year, unmarked by so much as a card." 
 
 It was too late to begin his search for a new 
 domicile that afternoon, so he called on Mrs. 
 Champion, who had gone to Charing Cross 
 Station to meet her husband on his return 
 from the Continent, and then he went on to the 
 pretty little Sensorium, with its old-fashioned 
 low-ceiled rooms, and bow windows looking into 
 Birdcage Walk, and there he took tea with Koger 
 Larose, who was generally to be found there at 
 tea-time. 
 
 " I hear you have come into a fortune," said 
 Larose, with his easy languor. " You have been 
 trying to keep the fact dark, I know, but these 
 things always ooze out." 
 
 " Who told you ? " 
 
 "Nobody. It is in the air. I think I read a 
 paragraph in the Sesperus. There are always 
 paragraphs. I congratulate you upon your 
 wealth. Is it much ? " 
 
 "Yes; it is a good deal. My old friends 
 needn't be afraid of borrowing a few pounds of 
 me when they are hard up."
 
 156 GERARD; OR, 
 
 *' Thanks, my dear Gerard. I will bear it in 
 mind. And what are you going to do? Shall 
 you really be content to live among us, and know 
 us still?" 
 
 "^The world and the people I know are quite 
 the best world and people I have ever imagined ; 
 only I mean to have pleasant surroundings. 
 Give me your counsel, Larose, as an architect 
 and a man of taste. Shall I have chambers in 
 the Albany, or a house and garden of my own ? " 
 
 " A house, by all means ! The Albany is old- 
 fashioned ; it savours of Pelham and Coningsby. 
 You must have a house near the south side of 
 Hyde Park, — a house in a walled garden. There 
 are few such houses left now, and yours will be 
 fabulously dear. That, of course, is a necessity. 
 You must get an K.A. to decorate your walls. 
 The President won't do it, but you must have 
 an K.A." 
 
 *' Thanks, I have my own ideas about decora- 
 tion and furniture." 
 
 " And you don't want an R.A. ? Extraordinary 
 young man ! However, your garden will be the 
 grand point, — a garden in which you can enter- 
 tain, a garden in which you can breakfast or dine
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 157 
 
 tete-a-tete with your chosen friend, or with the 
 select few. In London there is nothing like a 
 garden for distinction. The costliness of it 
 always tells. Sit down and write to a house- 
 agent, at once : some one near the Park. Messrs. 
 Barley and Mennet ? Yes, they will do. Tell 
 them exactly what you want." 
 
 The letter was written at Larose's dictation— 
 a house of such and such elevation; between 
 Knightsbridge and the Albert Hall; stabling 
 ample, but not too near the house ; garden of at 
 least an acre indispensable. 
 
 Messrs. Barley and Mennet's answer came by 
 the eleven o'clock post on the following morning. 
 They were pleased to state that by a happy con- 
 junction of events — namely, the sudden death of 
 a client, and his widow's ^\ithdrawal to the Con- 
 tinent — they had now at their disposal just such 
 a house and grounds as Mr. Hillersdon required. 
 Such houses Messrs. B. and M. begged to remind 
 Mr. H., were seldom in the market; they were 
 as precious and as rare in their line as the 
 Koh-i-noor or the Pitt diamond. The price 
 asked for the beneficial lease of seventy-three and 
 a quarter years was thirty thousand pounds, a
 
 158 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 very reasonable amount under the circumstances. 
 The annual ground rent was two hundred and 
 fifty pounds. The auctioneers enclosed a card 
 to view, and Hillersdon set off at once, eager 
 to see if the house realised their description. 
 When he found himself in Piccadilly he thought 
 he would ask Edith Champion to go and look 
 at the house with him. The attention would 
 please her, no doubt; and he had a vague 
 feeling of remorse on her account, as if — although 
 he had called on her yesterday — he had neg- 
 lected her. Certainly under the old conditions 
 he would have gone back to Hertford Street in 
 the evening, instead of wandering from theatre 
 to music-hall, and from music-hall to post- 
 midnight club, with Koger Larose. 
 
 There were two carriages, a victoria and 
 a pair-horse brougham, standing before Mr. 
 Champion's house: a curious circumstance at 
 that early hour. It occurred to Gerard that 
 they looked like doctors' carriages, and the idea 
 struck him with a sudden dread. Could any- 
 thing evil have happened ? Could she, whom 
 he last saw splendid in health and beauty, have 
 been stricken with sudden illness ?
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 159 
 
 He asked the servant who answered his ring 
 if Mrs. Champion was ill. 
 
 "No, sir, not Mrs. Champion," the man 
 answered promptly ; " Mr. Champion came 'ome 
 out of 'ealth, and there's been two doctors with 
 'im for the last 'arf-hour. Will you step up 
 to the drawing-room, sir ? My mistress is in the 
 libery with the doctors, but I dare say she'll see 
 you presently." 
 
 " Yes, I'll wait. I hope Mr. Champion is not 
 seriously ill ? " 
 
 "No, sir. Only a general derangement, I 
 believe. He has been complaining for some 
 time. Master is getting on in years, you see, 
 sir," added the butler, with the privilege of an 
 upper servant. 
 
 Getting on in years ? Yes, James Champion 
 was no doubt upon the downward slope of the 
 hill, but until this moment Gerard had never 
 thought of him as mortal, as a factor that might 
 some day vanish out of the sum of Edith's life. 
 The man seemed fenced round and protected by 
 his wealth, and no more subject to sickness or 
 death than a money-bag. 
 
 He was shown into the drawing-room, where
 
 160 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 the palms and flowers and innumerable pretti- 
 nesses scattered about the tables were dimly seen 
 in the tempered light. No broad sunshine ever 
 glared into Mrs. Champion's rooms. Only under 
 the lower edge of the festooned silken blinds 
 was the brightness of the summer day allowed 
 to filter through a screen of yellow marguerites 
 that quivered and glanced in the noon-day light. 
 
 Gerard had the room to himself for nearly 
 twenty minutes by the clock, and was beginning 
 to lose patience, and to contemplate departure, 
 when the portiere was pushed aside and Edith 
 Champion came into the room, dressed in a white 
 muslin breakfast-gown, and with a face that 
 matched her gown. 
 
 She came slowly towards him, as he advanced 
 to meet her, looking at him with a curious 
 earnestness. 
 
 " How pale you are," he said. " I was shocked 
 to hear that Mr. Champion was ill. I hope it 
 is nothing serious ? " 
 
 ** It is serious ; very serious ! " she said, and 
 then she put up her hands before her face, and 
 tears streamed from between her jewelled fingers. 
 " I am thinking how good he has been to
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 161 
 
 me — how liberal, how indulgent, and how little 
 I have ever done for him in return," she said, 
 with unaffected emotion. " I am full of remorse 
 when I think of my married life." 
 
 " My dear Edith," he said, taking her hand ; 
 *' Indeed you wrong yourself. You have done 
 nothing of which you need be ashamed." 
 
 "I have always tried to think that, on my 
 knees in church," she said. *' I have taught 
 myself to believe that there was no guilt in my 
 life. Indeed, it seemed blameless compared with 
 the lives of women I know ; women with whom 
 the world finds no fault. But I know now that 
 I have been a wicked wife." 
 
 " But, Edith," returning naturally to the habit 
 of a former time in his compassion for her grief, 
 " you have never failed in your duty. There 
 has been no shame in our friendship. It was 
 natural that you and I, who are young, and 
 who were once lovers, should take pleasure in 
 each other's society. Mr. Champion has seen us 
 together; he has never suspected evil." 
 
 "No; he is utterly without jealousy or sus- 
 picion. Perhaps that is because he has never 
 really cared for me," she said, as if reasoning 
 
 VOL. 1. M
 
 162 GEKAKD; OK, 
 
 with herself. "But he has been always kind 
 and indulgent, ready to gratify my lightest 
 whim. And now I feel that I have been cold 
 and ungrateful, indifferent to his feelings and 
 inclinations, going my own way in blind self- 
 indulgence." 
 
 " My dear Edith, be assured this remorse is 
 uncalled-for. You have been an excellent wife 
 for Mr. Champion, who — who is not an emotional 
 person, and would be only bored by a romantic 
 affection. But is the case really so bad? Is 
 your husband dangerously ill ? " 
 
 " The case is hopeless. He cannot live long 
 — perhaps a year, at most two years. He has 
 known for some time that he was out of health. 
 He consulted a doctor in Brussels, who rather 
 scared him by his hints of evil. He came home 
 out of spirits, very desponding about himself, 
 and last night he sent for his doctor, and arranged 
 a consultation with a specialist for this morning. 
 Both doctors have been with me, telling me much 
 more than they dared tell my husband. They 
 have spoken fair words to him, poor dear man, 
 but they have told me the truth. He cannot 
 last more than two years. All that their science
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 163 
 
 can do, all that healing springs and mountain 
 air, and severe regimen, and careful nursing can 
 do, is to spin out the weak thread of life for a 
 year or two at most. He is only fifty-nine, Gerard, 
 and he has toiled hard for his wealth. It seems 
 cruel for him to be taken away so soon." 
 
 " Death is always cruel," Gerard answered 
 vaguely. '* I never thought of Mr. Champion as 
 a man likely to die before the Scriptural three- 
 score and ten." 
 
 "Nor I," said Edith. "God knows, I have 
 never calculated upon his death." 
 
 There was a silence, as they sat side by side, 
 her pale cheeks wet with tears, her hands clasped 
 upon her knee, he sorely embarrassed, feeling all 
 that was painful in their position. 
 
 " Is it true about this fortune of yours ? " she 
 asked, after a long pause. 
 
 "Yes, the thing is a reality. I am beginning 
 to believe in it myself. I came to you this 
 morning to ask you to help me choose a house." 
 
 "You are going to take a house," she ex- 
 claimed. " That means you are going to be 
 married." 
 
 "Nothing of the kind. Why should not a
 
 164 GERAED; OR, 
 
 bachelor, who can afford it, amuse himself by- 
 creating a home and a fireside ? " 
 
 " Oh, I am afraid, I am afraid," she murmured. 
 "I know all the women will run after you. I 
 know how desperate they are when a rich 
 marriage is the prize for which they are com- 
 peting. Gerard, I think you have cared for 
 me always — a little — in all these years." 
 
 " You know that I have been your slave," he 
 answered. " Without any pretensions that could 
 wrong Mr. Champion, I have gone on blindly 
 adoring you — as much your lover as I was before 
 you jilted me." 
 
 " Oh, Gerard, I was not a jilt. I was made to 
 marry Mr. Champion. You can't imagine what 
 influences are brought to bear upon a girl who 
 is the youngest member of a large family — the 
 preaching of mother and father, and aunts and 
 uncles, and worldly-wise cousins, and elder 
 sisters. It is the constant dropping that wears 
 out a stone, the everlasting iteration. They told 
 me I should spoil your life as well as my own. 
 They painted such awful pictures of our future — 
 cheap lodgings — exile — and then perhaps the 
 workhouse — or worse, even — suicide. I thought
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 165 
 
 of that picture in Fritli's ' Eoad to Euin ' — the 
 wretched husband alone in a garret, preparing 
 to shoot himself. Gerard, I thought of you 
 ruined and penniless like that man, contem- 
 plating suicide." 
 
 Gerard smiled curiously, remembering how 
 only a few days ago he had contemplated, and 
 even resolved, upon that last act in the tragedy 
 of failure. 
 
 Edith Champion had risen in her agitation, 
 and was moving restlessly about the room. She 
 turned suddenly in her pacing to and fro, and 
 came towards Gerard, who had taken up his hat 
 and stick, preparatory to departure. 
 
 "Tell me once more that you do not mean 
 to marry — yet awhile," she said, with feverish 
 intensity. 
 
 " Believe me, there is nothing further from my 
 thoughts." 
 
 " And you are not weary of me ? I am still as 
 much to you as I was years ago when we were 
 engaged ? " 
 
 **You are and have been all the world to me 
 since first we met," he answered tenderly. 
 
 " Then you can promise me something, Gerard.
 
 166 GERARD; OR, 
 
 If that is true — if I am indeed your only love — 
 it cannot hurt you to promise," she faltered, 
 drawing nearer to him, laying a tremulous hand 
 upon his shoulder, and looking at him with 
 tearful eyes. 
 
 " To promise what, dearest ? " 
 
 " That you will not marry any one else — that 
 you will wait till — till I am free. Oh, Gerard, 
 don't think me cruel because I count upon that 
 which must be. I mean to do my duty to my 
 husband ; I mean to be a better wife to him than 
 I have ever been; less selfish, less given over 
 to worldly pleasures, luxury, and show — more 
 thoughtful of him and his comfort. But the end 
 must come before very long. The doctors told 
 me to be prepared. It may come soon and 
 suddenly — it must come before I am two years 
 older. I shall not be an old woman even then, 
 Gerard," she said, smiling through her tears, 
 knowing herself his junior by a year or so, " and 
 I hope I shall not be an ugly woman. Will you 
 promise to wait ? " 
 
 " Willingly, Edith, were the years ten instead 
 of two." 
 
 " Will you promise ? "
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 167 
 
 " Yes, I promise." 
 
 " It is an oath," she said. " Say that you will 
 be true to me by all you hold most sacred in this 
 world and the next, as you are a man of honour." 
 
 " As I am a man of honour, I will marry you, 
 and none other. Will that satisfy you ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " she cried hysterically ; " I am 
 content. Nothing else would have given me 
 peace. I have been tormenting myself ever 
 since I heard of your fortune. I hated the poor 
 old man whose gratitude enriched you. But 
 now I can be at rest ; I can trust implicitly iu 
 your honour. I can trust you now, Gerard, and 
 I can do my duty to my husband, undisturbed 
 by cares and anxieties about the future. We 
 shall not meet so often as we have done, perhaps. 
 I shall go less into society ; my life will be less 
 frivolous, but you will still be Vami de la maison, 
 won't you ? I shall see you oftener than any one 
 else ? " 
 
 "You shall see me as often as you and Mr« 
 Champion choose to invite me. But tell me 
 more about him. Is it the heart that is wrong ? " 
 
 " Oh, it is a complication — weak heart, over- 
 worked brain, gouty tendency, and other com-
 
 168 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 plications. You know how strong he looks, 
 what a solid block of a man. Well, he is like 
 a citadel that has been long undermined, which 
 may fall at any time, perhaps without warning, 
 or may crumble slowly, inch by inch. The doctors 
 told me much that I could not understand, but 
 the main fact is only too clear. He is doomed." 
 
 " Does he know ? Have they told him ? " 
 
 " Not half what they told me. He is not to be 
 alarmed. Most of the evil has arisen from over- 
 work — the strain and fever of the race for wealth 
 — and while he has been wasting his life in the 
 effort to make money, I have been spending it, 
 oh, how recklessly ! I am full of remorse when 
 I think that I have been spending, not money, 
 but my husband's life." 
 
 "My dear Edith, it is his metier, his one 
 amusement and desire to make money, and as 
 for your extravagance, it has been after his own 
 heart. A less costly wife would not have suited 
 him." 
 
 " Yes, that is quite true. He has always en- 
 couraged me to spend money. But it is sad, all 
 the same. He did not know that money meant 
 his heart's blood. It has been going drop by drop."
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 169 
 
 " We spend our lives as we live them, Edith," 
 Gerard answered gloomily. " All strong passion 
 means so much loss. We cannot live intensely 
 and yet live long. You know Balzac's story, 
 ' La Peau de Chagrin.' " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; a terribly sad story." 
 
 *' Only an allegory, Edith. We are all living 
 as Eaphael de Yalentin lived, although we have 
 no talisman to mark the waste of our years. 
 Good-bye. You will come and help me to 
 choose my house, in a few days, will you not ? " 
 
 " Yes, in a few days. When I have recovered 
 from the shock of this morning." 
 
 He went out into the broad bright sunshine, 
 agitated, but by no means unhappy. 
 
 It was a relief to see the end of that dubious 
 and not altogether delightful road along which 
 he had been travelling, that primrose path of 
 dalliance which had seemed to lead no whither. 
 
 He had pledged himself for life, as surely as if 
 he had vowed the marriage vow before the altar, 
 or allowed himself to be booked and docketted 
 in a registrar's office. For a man of honour there 
 could be no retreat from such a vow. Nothing 
 but shame or death could cancel the promise he
 
 170 GERAED; OR, 
 
 had given. But he had no regret for having so 
 promised. He had no foreshadowing of future 
 evil He had only confirmed by a vow the 
 bondage into which he had entered years ago, 
 when all life lay new and untried before him. 
 This woman was still to him the dearest of all 
 women, and he was willing to be bound to her.
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 171 
 
 CHAPTEK VIII. 
 
 A SHADOW ACROSS THE PATH. 
 
 The house-agents had been more truthful than 
 their kind are wont to be, and the house which 
 Mr. Hillersdon had been invited to inspect more 
 nearly realised their description than houses 
 generally do. Of course it was not all that he 
 wanted ; but it possessed capabilities ; and it 
 stood in grounds which are becoming daily more 
 difficult to find on the south side of Hyde Park. 
 It was an old bouse, and somewhat dismal of 
 aspect, the garden being shut in by high walls, 
 and overshadowed by timber ; but Gerard was 
 pleased with that air of seclusion which would 
 have repelled many people, and he saw ample 
 scope for improvement in both house and grounds. 
 He closed with the owner of the lease on the 
 following day ; and he had Eoger Larose at
 
 172 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 work upon plan and specification without an 
 hour's delay. The house belonged to the period 
 when all fapades of important houses were 
 Italian, and Gerard insisted upon the Italian 
 idea being strictly carried out in the improved 
 front and added wings. 
 
 " Let there be no mixture of styles," he said, 
 *' that is anathema maranatha in my mind. 
 Above all, be neither Flemish nor Jacobean — 
 the school has been overdone. Let your portico 
 be light and graceful, yet severe ; and give me 
 a spacious loggia upon the first floor, between 
 your new wings, which will consist each of a 
 single room — billiard room on one side and 
 music-room on the other. 
 
 The delighted Larose assured his client that 
 the Italian school was his passion, and that he, 
 too, was weary of the oriels and bays, the turrets 
 and angles, cupolas and quaintness of the flam- 
 boyant Flemish, mis-called Queen Anne. He 
 took his designs to Mr. Hillersdon within twenty- 
 four hours after their inspection of the premises, 
 and the new front and wings looked charming 
 upon paper. There was no question of compe- 
 tition, which would involve delay. Gerard
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 173 
 
 begged that the designs might be given to the 
 best builder in London, and carried out with the 
 utmost rapidity compatible with good work. 
 
 "I must have everything finished before 
 November," he said. 
 
 Eoger Larose urged that it was hardly possible 
 that two large rooms, and a new facade, with 
 portico, loggia, and classic pediment, to say 
 nothing of various minor improvements, could be 
 completed in so short a time. 
 
 "Nothing is impossible to a man of energy, 
 with ample funds at his disposal," answered 
 Gerard. "If your plans cannot be carried out 
 in four months, my dear Larose, they are useless, 
 and I will occupy the house as it now stands." 
 
 The commission was too good to be lost, and 
 Larose promised to achieve the impossible. 
 
 " I don't believe such a thing was ever done 
 before, except for Aladdin," he said. 
 
 " Consider me Aladdin, if you like ; but do 
 what I want." 
 
 The garden was Gerard's own peculiar care. 
 The landscape gardener whom he called in 
 wanted to cut down at least half the trees — limes 
 and chestnuts of more than a century's growth —
 
 174 GEKAKD; OR, 
 
 upon the pretence that they darkened the house, 
 and that a smooth lawn and geometrical flower 
 beds were to be preferred to spreading branches 
 under which no turf could live. Gerard would 
 not sacrifice a tree. 
 
 " You will lay down fresh turf early in April 
 every year," he said, "and with care we must 
 make it last till the end of July." 
 
 The nurseryman booked the order, and felt 
 that this was a customer who deserved his best 
 consideration, 
 
 "And you will supply me with palms and 
 orange trees, standard rhododendrons, and other 
 ornamental plants every season. It will be your 
 business to see that they do well while the season 
 lasts." 
 
 "Exactly, sir, I perfectly understand your 
 views. The lawn is considerably contracted by 
 that belt of timber, but we can make a fine show 
 of oranges in tubs, standard rhododendrons, and 
 hardy palms in the portico and on the lawn, and 
 you will retain your lime grove, which is, no 
 doubt, an enjoyable feature of the grounds, a 
 remarkable feature in grounds so near London." 
 
 For the furnishing of his house Mr. Hillersdon
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 175 
 
 consulted the man who had dictated her taste 
 to Mrs. Champion. The source of a lady's taste 
 and knowledge becomes forgotten after a year 
 or two, and she takes credit to herself for having 
 evolved her surroundings from her inner con- 
 sciousness. But on being asked about her views 
 as to furniture, Mrs. Champion suggested the 
 employment of Mr. Callander, a gentleman who 
 made it his business to create homes of taste 
 for those who could afford to carry out his ideal. 
 
 " One has ideas of one's own, of course," said 
 Edith Champion. "I was full of original ideas 
 for my drawing-rooms and morning-room, but I 
 found it very difficult to get them carried out. 
 Tradespeople are so stupid. Mr. Callander 
 helped me immensely with drawings and sugges- 
 tions. In your case I should certainly go to 
 him." 
 
 Gerard took her advice, and went to Mr. 
 Callander, of whom Larose declared that he was 
 the only man in London who had any taste in 
 furniture. 
 
 To this gentleman the millionaire explained 
 his desires very briefly. 
 
 " My house is to be severely Italian," he said
 
 176 GERARD; OR, 
 
 " and I want you to furnish it as if it were a 
 villa between Florence and Fiesole, and as if 
 I were Leonardo di Medici." 
 
 "And is expense to be no more considered 
 than if you were one of the Medici ? " 
 
 " You can spend as much as you like, but you 
 must not make any display of wealth. I have 
 come unexpectedly into a fortune, and I don't 
 want people to point to me as a nouveau riche'* 
 
 "Your house shall be furnished with a sub- 
 dued splendour which shall make people think 
 that your surroundings have descended to you 
 from a Florentine ancestor. There shall be 
 nothing to suggest newness, or the display of 
 unaccustomed wealth." 
 
 "You are evidently an artist, Mr. Callander. 
 Try to realise the artistic ideal in all its purity. 
 But remember, if you please, there are two rooms 
 on the first floor, to the left of the staircase, 
 which I mean to furnish myself, and for which 
 you need not provide anything." 
 
 It was now the third week in July, and London 
 was beginning to put on its deserted aspect. 
 Three weeks ago it had been a work of difficulty
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 177 
 
 to cross from one side of Bond Street to the 
 other; but now crossing the most fashionable 
 thoroughfares was as easy and leisurely a matter 
 as a stroll in daisied meads. Everybody was 
 leaving town or talking of leaving, and dinners 
 and balls were becoming a memory of the past, 
 except such small dinners as may be given to the 
 chosen few during a period of transition. Good- 
 wood was over, and after Goodwood the tocsin of 
 retreat is sounded. 
 
 Gerard dined in a party of four in Hertford 
 Street. Mrs. Gresham had returned for a final 
 glimpse of London, after a fortnight's severe 
 duties in her husband's parish. He was Vicar of 
 a curious old settlement in Suffolk, a little town 
 which had been a seaport, but from which the 
 sea had long since retired, perhaps disgusted with 
 the dulness of the place. 
 
 She was delighted to see Mr. Hillersdon again, 
 and he could but note the increased fervour of 
 her manner since his improved fortunes. 
 
 " I hope you have forgiven me for my prema- 
 ture application about the chancel," she said, 
 plumping herself down upon the causeuse where 
 he had seated himself after talking for a few 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 GERAED; OR, 
 
 minutes with his host. " It was dreadfully pre- 
 mature, I know ; but if you could see our dear, 
 quaint, old church, with its long narrow nave 
 and lofty roof, I'm sure you would be interested. 
 Do you know anything about church architecture 
 in Suffolk?" 
 
 " I blush to say it is one of the numerous 
 branches of my education which have been 
 neglected." 
 
 "What a pity! Our East Anglian churches 
 are so truly interesting. Perhaps you will 
 come down and see us at Sandyholme some 
 day?" 
 
 " Is Sandyholme Mr. Gresham's parish ? " 
 
 " Yes ; we have the dearest old Vicarage, with 
 only one objection — there are a good many ear- 
 wigs in summer. But then our earwigs are more 
 than counterbalanced by our roses. We are on 
 a clay soil, don't you know? I do hope you 
 will come some Saturday and spend Sunday with 
 us. You would like Alec's sermon, I know ; and 
 for a little Suffolk town our choir is not so very 
 bad. I give up two evenings a week to practice 
 with them. You will think about it, now, ]\Ir. 
 Hillersdon, won't yon ? "
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 179 
 
 " Yes, certainly I will think about it," 
 answered Gerard, meaning never to do more. 
 
 He had not been very attentive to the lady's 
 discourse, for his thoughts had been engrossed 
 by Mr. Champion, who was standing on the 
 hearthrug, with his back to an arrangement of 
 orchids which filled the fireplace, and which for 
 a man of chilly temperament poorly replaced the 
 cheery fire. He was indeed what his wife had 
 called him — a solid block of a man, short, sturdy, 
 with massive shoulders and broad chest, large 
 head and bull-neck, sandy-haired, thick-featured, 
 with the indications of vulgar lineage in every 
 detail. A man who had made his own career, 
 evidently, and who had sacrificed length of years 
 in the endeavour to push his way ahead of his 
 fellow-men; a resolute, self-sufficient, self-con- 
 tained man, proud of his success, confident of 
 his own merits, not easily jealous, but, it might 
 be, a terrible man if betrayed. Not a man 
 to shut his eyes to a wife's treachery, once 
 suspected. 
 
 Of ill-health the tokens were of the slightest. 
 A livid tinge under the eyes and about the 
 coarsely moulded mouth, a flaccid ity of the
 
 180 GERARD; OR, 
 
 muscles of the face, and a dulaess in the tarnished 
 eyeballs, were all the marks of that slow and 
 subtle change which had been creeping over the 
 doomed victim during the last few years, unnoted 
 by himself or those about him. 
 
 At dinner the talk was chiefly of the approach- 
 ing departure. Mr. and Mrs. Champion were 
 going to Mont Oriol. 
 
 " You'll look us up there, I suppose, Hillers- 
 don," said Champion ; " my wife could hardly 
 get on without you ; you are almost as necessary 
 to her as her dachshunds." 
 
 " Yes, I dare say I shall find my way to Mont 
 Oriol. I am by nature irresolute. You and 
 Mrs. Champion have often saved me the trouble 
 of deciding on holiday haunts." 
 
 "And now that you are rich I suppose you 
 will be idler than ever," suggested Champion. 
 
 "Upon my word, no. My case seemed too 
 hopeless for improvement while I was poor, and 
 the stern necessity to earn money benumbed any 
 small capacity I may have had for writing a 
 readable story." 
 
 "You wrote one that delighted everybody," 
 interposed Mrs. Gresham, who but dimly remem-
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEVIL. 181 
 
 bered the subject of his book, and was hardly- 
 sure of the title. 
 
 " But now that I need no longer write for 
 bread my fancy may have a new birth. At any 
 rate, it need not dance in fetters." 
 
 Mr. Champion went off to his whist club after 
 dinner. He played whist at the same club every 
 evening during the London season, unless peremp- 
 torily called upon to accompany his wife to some 
 festive gathering. He was a very silent man, 
 and had never been fond of society, though he 
 liked to have a fine house and a handsome wife, 
 and to give dinners which very respectable, and 
 even smart people, considered it a privilege to 
 eat. His greatest pleasure was found in the 
 city, his chief relaxation at the whist table. 
 
 '' Don't be late, James," his wife said to him 
 kindly, as he muttered something about stepping 
 round to the club. " Your doctor makes such 
 a strong point of your getting a long night's 
 rest." 
 
 " If my doctor could give me the capacity to 
 sleep, I should set a higher value on his advice," 
 said Champion, " but you need not be afraid, I 
 shall be home at eleven."
 
 182 GERARD; OR, 
 
 When Mr. Champion was gone Mrs. Greshain 
 was sent to the piano in the inner drawing-room, 
 and Edith and Gerard were practically tete-a-tete. 
 Cousin Rosa was very fond of music, and still 
 fonder of her own playing. 
 
 She at once attacked Mendelssohn's Capriccio, 
 while the other two drew nearer to the verandah, 
 and the perfume of the flowers, and the cool, 
 starlit street, and began to talk. 
 
 " I have been thinking a great deal about you 
 lately," said Edith, and there was the sound of 
 anxiety in her voice. 
 
 " It is very good of you to keep me in your 
 thoughts." 
 
 "Good of me! I cannot help myself. If I 
 did not care for you more than I care for any one 
 else in the world, the strangeness of our position 
 would make me think about you. I have been 
 full of such curious thoughts ; but perhaps that 
 is only because I have been reading * La Peau de 
 Chagrin' again, after having almost forgotten the 
 story. It is a horrid story." 
 
 "No, no, Edith, a magnificent story, full of 
 the profoundest philosophy." 
 
 " No, it is only full of gloom. Why is that
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 183 
 
 young man to die, simply beoause he has in- 
 herited a fortune ? The story is dreadful, like 
 a haunting, horrible dream. I can see that 
 unhappy young man — so gifted, so handsome — 
 sitting face to face with that hideous talisman, 
 which diminishes with his every wish, and marks 
 how his young life is wasting away. I have not 
 been able to get the story out of my mind." 
 
 " You are too impressionable, my dear Edith ; 
 but I own the story has a gloomy fascination 
 which makes it difficult to forget. It was the 
 book which established Honore de Balzac's fame, 
 and it seems to me that the hero is only a highly 
 coloured image of the author, who wasted life 
 and genius as feverishly as Kaphael de Valentin 
 — living with the same eager intensity, working 
 with the same fervid concentration, and dying in 
 the zenith of his power, though by no means in 
 the bloom of his youth." 
 
 " Was not Alfred de Musset of the same type ? " 
 " Undoubtedly. The type was common to the 
 epoch. Byron set the example, and it was the 
 fashion for men of genius to court untimely 
 death. Musset, the greatest poet France has 
 ever had, son of the morning, elegant, aristocratic
 
 184: GEEARD; OR, 
 
 born to love and to be loved, after a youth of 
 surpassing brilliance, wasted the ripest years of 
 manhood in the wine shops of the Quartier Latin, 
 and was forgotten like a light blown out, long 
 before the end of his life. Our geniuses of to-day 
 know better how to husband their resources. 
 They are as careful of their brain-power as an 
 elderly spinster of her Sunday gown." 
 
 '* How much better for them and for posterity," 
 said Mrs. Champion. " Please go on, Eosa/' as 
 Mrs. Gresham made a show of rising from the 
 piano, *' Chopin is always delightful." 
 
 *^ So he is ; but I have been playing Kubin- 
 stein," replied Kosa, severely. 
 
 "Then do play that sweet prelude of Chopin's 
 in A flat major." 
 
 " Why, I played it ten minutes ago," answered 
 the lady at the piano. 
 
 "How sweet of you. You know how I wor- 
 ship Chopin," answered Edith, unabashed, and 
 immediately went on talking. 
 
 " I dare say it is only the effect of that horrible 
 story," she said, ** but I have been feeling 
 absurdly morbid of late, and I can't help tor- 
 menting myself about your health."
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEVIL. 185 
 
 " A most futile torment, since I am perfectly 
 well," Gerard answered irritably. 
 
 "No doubt, no doubt; but my husband 
 seemed perfectly well last year, and yet there 
 was all manner of organic mischief. I know 
 you are not strong, and since you came into 
 your fortune you have been looking dreadfully 
 ill." 
 
 ^' So my mother told me. Gold has evidently 
 a bad effect upon the complexion, and yet the 
 seventeenth century physicians considered it a 
 fine tonic, boiled in broth." 
 
 " I want you to do me a favour, Gerard." 
 
 " Command my devotion in all things, great 
 and small." 
 
 *' Oh, it is not a great thing. You will come 
 to Mont Oriol, of course ? " 
 
 "Yes. If that is all you were going to 
 ask " 
 
 " It is something more than that. Before you 
 leave London I want you to consult the cleverest 
 physician you can find. The man who knows 
 most about brain, and heart, and lungs." 
 
 " A wide field for scientific exploration. I 
 suppose you really mean the man who has con-
 
 186 GERARD; OR, 
 
 trived to make himself the fashion — the man to 
 whom it is the right thing to go." 
 
 "No, no. I am not the slave of fashion. Go 
 to some one who will understand you — who will 
 be able to advise you how to enjoy your life, 
 without wasting it as Balzac and Musset did." 
 
 "Have no fear. I am no Balzac or Musset. 
 I have no Byronic fire consuming me ; and be 
 assured I mean to husband my life — for the sake 
 of the years to come — which should be very 
 happy.'* 
 
 He took up the hand lying loose in her lap, 
 the beautiful, carefully cherished hand which the 
 winds of heaven never visited too roughly, and 
 bent down to kiss it, just as the Moonlight Sonata 
 came to a close. 
 
 *' Oh, do go on, Kosa. Some more Mendelssohn, 
 please." 
 
 With perhaps the faintest touch of malice 
 Mrs. Gresham attacked the Wedding March, 
 with a crash that made the lamp glasses shiver. 
 
 " Do you know of any clever physician ? " 
 asked Edith. 
 
 " I have never needed a physician since I was 
 eleven years old, and the only famous doctor I
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 187 
 
 know is the man who saved my life then, Dr. 
 South, the children's doctor. I have half a mind 
 to go to him." 
 
 " A child's doctor," said Edith, shrugging her 
 shoulders. 
 
 " Children have hearts, and brains, and lungs. 
 I dare say Dr. South knows something about 
 those organs, even in adults." 
 
 " You will go to him to-morrow morning, then 
 — and if he is not satisfied he will advise another 
 opinion. I should have preferred the new 
 German doctor, whom everybody is consulting, 
 and who does such wonders with hypnotism — 
 Dr. Geistrauber. They say he is a most wonderful 
 man." 
 
 " * They ' are an authority not always to be 
 relied upon. I would rather go to Dr. South, 
 who saved my life when I was in knickerbockers." 
 
 "Were you so very ill then?" asked Mrs. 
 Champion, tenderly interested even in a crisis of 
 seventeen years ago. 
 
 " Yes ; I believe I was as bad as a little lad 
 can be, and yet live. When I try to remember 
 my illness it seems only a troubled dream, 
 through which Dr. South's kindly face looms
 
 188 GERARD; OR, 
 
 large and distinct. My complaint was inflamma- 
 tion of the lungs, a malady which Dr. South said 
 most children take rather kindly; but in my 
 case there were complications. I was like Mrs. 
 Gummidge, and the disease was worse for me 
 than for other children, I was as near death's 
 door as any one can go without crossing the 
 threshold ; and my people believe to this day 
 that bat for Dr. South I should have entered at 
 that fatal door. It was a pull for a man of my 
 father's means to bring down the famous children's 
 doctor, but the dear old dad never regretted the 
 heavy fee; and here I am to tell the story, of 
 which I knew very little at the time, for I was 
 off my head all through the worst of my illness, 
 and I believe there was one stage of delirium 
 during which I associated Dr. South's fine grey 
 head — prematurely grey — with a great white 
 elephant of Siam of which I had been reading 
 in * Peter Parley's Annual.' " 
 
 "Poor dear little fellow!" sighed Edith 
 Champion, with retrospective affection. 
 
 " How sweet of you to pity me ! I find myself 
 pitying my own small image in that dim and 
 troubled time, as if it were anybody's child. The
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 189 
 
 complications were dreadful — pleurisy, pneu- 
 monia; I believe the local doctor found a new 
 name for my complaint nearly every day, till 
 Dr. South gave his decisive verdict, and then 
 pulled me through by his heroic treatment. 
 Yes, I will go to him to-morrow ; not because I 
 want medical advice, but because I should like 
 to see my old friend again." 
 
 " Go to him ; pray go to him," urged Edith, 
 " and tell him everything about yourself." 
 
 ** My dear Edith, I have no medical confession 
 to make. I am not ill." 
 
 Mrs. Gresham had played herself out, for the 
 time being, and came into the front drawing- 
 room as the footman appeared with tea a la 
 Frangaise — tea that knits up the ragged sleeve 
 of care, tired Nature's nurse, for Duchesses as 
 well as for washerwomen. 
 
 The talk became general, or became, rather, 
 a lively monologue on the part of Rosa Gresham, 
 who loved her own interpretation of Chopin or 
 Charvenka, but loved the sound of her own 
 voice better than any music that ever was 
 composed. 
 
 Mr. Champion reappeared a few minutes after
 
 190 GERARD; OR, 
 
 eleven, lookiog tired and white after an hour 
 and a half at the whist club, and Hillersdon 
 went out as his host came in — went out, but not 
 home. He walked eastward, and looked in at 
 two late clubs, chiefly impelled by his desire to 
 meet Justin Jermyn, but there was no sign of 
 the Fate-reader either at the Petunia or the 
 Small-Hours, and no one whom Hillersdon 
 questioned about him had seen him since Lady 
 Fridoline's party. 
 
 " He has gone to some Bad in Bohemia," said 
 Larose ; "a Bad with a crackjaw name. I believe 
 he invents a name and a Bad every summer, and 
 then goes quietly and lives up the country 
 between Broadstairs and Birchington, and basks 
 all day upon some solitary stretch of sand, or on 
 the edge of some lonely cliff, where the North 
 Sea breezes blow above the rippling ripeness of 
 the wheat; and lies in the sunshine, and plans 
 fresh impostures for the winter season. No one 
 will see him or hear of him any more till 
 November, and then he will come back and tell 
 us what a marvellous place Kumpelstiltzkinbad 
 is for shattered nerves ; and he will describe the 
 scenery, and the hotel, and the hot springs, and
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 191 
 
 the people — ay, almost as picturesquely as I 
 could myself," concluded Larose, with his low, 
 unctuous chuckle, which was quite different from 
 Jermyu's elfin laughter, and as characteristic of 
 the man himself. 
 
 Hillersdon stayed late at the Small Hours, and 
 drank just a little more dry champagne than his 
 mother or Mrs. Champion would have approved, 
 women having narrow notions about the men 
 they love, notions which seem hardly ever to pass 
 the restrictions of the nursery. He did not drink 
 because he liked the wine, nor even for joviality's 
 sake ; but from a desire to get away from himself 
 and from a sense of irritation which had been 
 caused by Mrs. Champion's suggestions of ill- 
 health. 
 
 " I shall be hypnotised into an invalid if people 
 persist in telling me I am ill," he said to himself, 
 dwelling needlessly upon Edith Champion's 
 anxieties. 
 
 The market carts were lumbering into Covent 
 Garden when he went home, and as the natural 
 result of a late night, and an unusual amount of 
 champagne, he slept ill and woke with a headache. 
 He breakfasted upon a devilled biscuit and a cup
 
 192 GERARD; OR, 
 
 of green tea, and was in Harley Street before 
 eleven o'clock. 
 
 Having made no appointment, Mr. Hillersdon 
 had to undergo the purgatory of the waiting- 
 room, where an anxious and somewhat dowdy 
 mother was trying to beguile the impatience of 
 a rickety son with picture books, and, in her 
 gentle solicitude, offering a curious contrast to 
 a much smarter mother, whose thoughts seemed 
 to be rather with an absent dressmaker than with 
 her sickly, overgrown girl, to whom she spoke 
 occasionally in accents of reproof, or in lachry- 
 mose complaint at having to wait so long for 
 Dr. South, while Madame Yiola was no doubt 
 waiting for her — " and when I do get to Bruton 
 Street very likely she won't see me," lamented 
 the lady, in an undertone. " It's all your fault, 
 Clara, for catching cold. You are so idiotic 
 about yourself. I dare say you will be ordered 
 off to some expensive place in Switzerland. 
 Doctors have no consideration for one." 
 
 The girl's only reply to this maternal wailing 
 was a little hacking cough, which recurred as 
 often as a comma. Her wan face and rather 
 shabby frock contrasted with the mother's artistic
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 193 
 
 bloom and perfect tailor gown. Hillersdon felt 
 a sense of relief when the man in black looked 
 in at the door, and summoned mother and 
 daughter with a mysterious nod, which seemed 
 pregnant with mournful augury, although it 
 meant nothing but " your turn." 
 
 The anxious lady impressed him so much more 
 pleasantly that, as time hung heavy, he made 
 friends with the boy, helped to entertain him by 
 presenting the illustrations of a zoological book 
 in a new light for the next quarter of an hour ; 
 and then the rickety boy and his mother w^ere 
 summoned, and more patients came in, and 
 Hillersdon tried to lose his consciousness of the 
 passing moments in the pages of a stale Saturday 
 BevieWy — moments too distinctly measured by 
 the ticking of a very fine Sherraton clock, which 
 stood sentinel in a niche by the sideboard. 
 
 The man in black came for him at last, as it 
 were the fatal ferryman ready for a new passenger, 
 and he was ushered into the presence of Dr. 
 South, whom he found in a spacious room at the 
 back of the house, lighted by a large window, 
 which commanded a metropolitan garden, shut 
 in by ivy-covered walls. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 GERAED; OR, 
 
 The grey hair and genial smile brought back 
 a vision of a little bed near a sunny window, and 
 summer breezes blowing over a head that seemed 
 to scorch the pillow where it lay. 
 
 He recalled the childish illness and the 
 Devonian Eectory to Dr. South, who remem- 
 bered his journey by the night mail, and his 
 arrival at daybreak in the stillness of a summer 
 Sabbath morning — no labourer going out to the 
 fields, only the song of the lark high up in 
 the infinite blue above the ripening wheat. Dr. 
 South had not forgotten that long summer day, 
 in which, like many another medical Alcides, 
 he had fought with death, wrestled with and 
 thrown the grisly shade, and had gone back 
 to his hospital, and his London patients, leaving 
 hope and comfort behind him. 
 
 "I know I was very much interested in the 
 case," he said. " Your mother was such a sweet 
 woman. She has been spared to you, I hope." 
 
 " Yes, thank God, she is in excellent health — 
 a young woman still in mind and habits." 
 
 And then he told Dr. South how, being just 
 a little uneasy about his own constitution — 
 though with no consciousness of any evil — he
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 195 
 
 had come to be overhauled by the physician 
 whose skill he knew by experience. 
 
 "Please consider me a little lad again," he 
 said lightly, " and knock my chest about as you 
 did when I was lying in a troubled dream, making 
 nonsense-pictures of all my surroundings." 
 
 " We shall not find much amiss, I hope," 
 replied the doctor, with his kindly smile. *• Take 
 off your coat and waistcoat, if you please." 
 
 The auscultation was careful and prolonged. 
 There was none of that pleasantly perfunctory 
 air with which the physician dismisses a good 
 case. Dr. South seemed bent upon exploring 
 every square inch of that well set-up frame, 
 from shoulders to waist, with bent head and 
 stethoscope at his ears. He concluded his ex- 
 amination with a faint sigh, which might mean 
 only fatigue. 
 
 " Do you find anything amiss ? " asked the 
 patient, rather anxiously. 
 
 *'I cannot detect absolute organic mischief, 
 but there is a certain amount of weakness in 
 both heart and lungs. You have had some 
 painful shock very lately, have you not ? Your 
 nerves have been greatly shaken."
 
 196 GEKAKD; OR, 
 
 "I have had a great surprise, but it was 
 pleasant rather than painful." 
 
 "I rejoice to hear it, but the fact that a 
 pleasant surprise should have so unhinged yon 
 is in itself a warning." 
 
 " How so ? " 
 
 " It denotes highly strung nerves and a certain 
 want of stamina. To be frank with you, Mr. 
 Hillersdon, yours is not what we call a good 
 life ; but many men of your constitution live 
 to old age. It is a question of husbanding your 
 resources. With care, and a studious avoidance of 
 all excesses, moral or physical, you may live long.'* 
 
 Gerard thought of the jpea% de chagrin. A 
 studious avoidance of excess — in other words, a 
 constant watch upon that red line upon the sheet 
 of white paper which showed the shrinking of 
 the talisman. Little by little, with every hour 
 of agitated existence, with every passionate heart- 
 throb, and every eager wish, the sum total of his 
 days would dwindle. 
 
 "I have just come into a large fortune, and 
 am only beginning to live," he said fretfully. 
 " It is hard to be told at this juncture that 1 
 have not a good life."
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 197 
 
 "I cannot prophesy smooth things, Mr. Hil- 
 lersdon. You come to me for the truth ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know ; and I am grateful to you 
 for your candour ; but still it is hard lines, you 
 must allow." 
 
 " It would be harder if you were a struggling 
 professional man, and saw your career blighted 
 at the outset. I am very glad to hear of your 
 good fortune. With the resources and expedients 
 of modern science — which are all ac the com- 
 mand of wealth — you ought to live to be 
 eighty." 
 
 " Yes, but at the price of an unemotional life. 
 I am to vegetate, not to live ! " 
 
 He slipped the neatly papered guineas into 
 the doctor's hand, and then turning on 'the 
 threshold he asked nervously — 
 
 " Do you forbid me to marry, lest I should 
 become the father of a consumptive progeny ? " 
 
 "By no means. I find no organic mischief, 
 as I told you. I would strongly advise you to 
 marry. In a happy domestic life you would find 
 the best possible environment for a man of your 
 somewhat fragile physique and highly nervous 
 temperament."
 
 198 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 "Thanks; that is encouraging, at any rate. 
 Good day." 
 
 After leaving the doctor Hillersdon strolled 
 across Portland Place and into the Portland 
 Koad, where he made an exploration of the 
 second-hand furniture shops, in search of certain 
 objects which were to assist in realising his idea 
 as to those two rooms in his Italian villa which 
 he had taken upon himself to furnish. 
 
 As hour's peregrination from shop to shop 
 resulted only in the purchase of one piece of 
 furniture, a black oak cabinet, ostensibly of the 
 sixteenth century, possibly a clever piece of 
 patchwork put together last year. It satisfied 
 Gerard Hillersdon because it closely resembled 
 another black oak cabinet which he had seen 
 lately. 
 
 He had taken it into his head to reproduce 
 for his own private den those two rooms in which 
 he had sat at supper with Justin Jermyn, and 
 where he had seen the vision of Hester Daven- 
 port; rooms which perhaps had no tangible 
 existence, dream-rooms, the shadow-pictures of a 
 hypnotic trance. It pleased him to think that 
 he could reproduce in solid oak and brass, in old
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 199 
 
 Venetian glass and quaint Dutch pottery, the 
 scene which might have been made up of 
 shadows, since his failure to discover the house 
 or the locality of the house where he had supped 
 with Jermyn had given a tinge of unreality to 
 all his memories of that eventful night.
 
 200 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 "I BUILT MY SOUL A LORDLY PLEASURE-HOUSE." 
 
 For those who were not bound by their doctors 
 to some constraining regimen of bathing and 
 self-denial, life at Mont Oriol was one perpetual 
 holiday. Such visitors as Edith Champion lived 
 only to amuse themselves — to drive to distant 
 ruins — ride in the early morning when the sun- 
 baked grass was cooled with dew, play cards or 
 billiards, and dance in the evening. For Mr. 
 Champion Mont Oriol meant daily baths, a severe 
 regimen as to meat and drink, and a strict avoid- 
 ance of all business transactions, such transactions 
 being the very delight of his life, the salt which 
 gave life its savour, and without which the man 
 felt himself already dead. 
 
 '* There are men who are dead from the waist 
 downwards," he said one day, " and who have to
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVU.. 201 
 
 be dragged about in bath chairs, or lifted in and 
 out of a carriage. I don't pity them, as long as 
 they are allowed to write their own business 
 letters. I am dead from the waist upwards." 
 
 He had his secretary with him at Mont Oriol, 
 and in spite of all prohibitions, that falcon eye of 
 his was never off the changes of the money market. 
 He had telegrams from the Stock Exchange daily, 
 in his own particular cypher, which was at once 
 secret and economical. There were days when 
 tens of thousands trembled in the balance, while 
 he sat taking his sun-bath on the terrace in front 
 of the hotel, and when the going down of the sun 
 interested him only because it was to bring him 
 tidings of loss or gain. 
 
 "^Tould you like a set of opals, Edith ? " he 
 asked, one day at afternoon tea, crumpling up 
 the little bit of blue paper which bad just been 
 brought to him. " I have made some money by 
 a rise in Patagonian Street Railways." 
 
 "A thousand thanks, but you forget the opals 
 you gave me two years ago. I don't think you 
 could improve upon those." 
 
 " Yes, I had forgotten them. They belonged 
 to a Eussian Princess. I got them for about half
 
 202 GERARD; OR, 
 
 their value. Then I suppose there is nothing I 
 can give you ? " he asked, with a faint sigh, as if 
 her indifference had suggested the impotence of 
 riches. 
 
 "You are too good. I think not. I have 
 everything in the world I care for." 
 
 Mr. Champion and his wife had the handsomest 
 suite of rooms in the hotel, and Gerard had taken 
 the next best. Between them they absorbed an 
 entire floor in one wing of the great white barrack.' 
 Tbey were thus in a manner secluded from the 
 vulgar herd, and Gerard seemed as if staying on 
 a visit with the Champions, since he was invited 
 to use their salon as freely as his own, while he 
 dined with them five days out of seven. He had 
 his own servants with him, valet and groom, and 
 he began to think that he too wanted a secretary, 
 if it were only to write every day to architect or 
 builder, urging them to expedite their work. He 
 was eager to be installed in his own house — 
 eager to accumulate pictures and statuary, curios, 
 books, plate — to taste the feverish rapture of 
 spending his money. If, as Dr. South had hinted, 
 his life was likely to be shorter than the average 
 life, there was all the more reason why he should
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 203 
 
 spend his money freely, \vliy lie should crowd 
 into a few years all the enjoyment that wealth 
 can buy. Yet even here there was peril. He 
 had been warned against all fierce emotions. To 
 prolong that feeble life of his he must live 
 temperately, and never pass the limits of tranquil 
 domestic life. 
 
 It seemed to him that with this view he could 
 hardly have done better for himself than in that 
 compact which he had made with Edith Champion. 
 In his relations with her there was no fiery agita- 
 tions, no passionate impatience. He loved her, 
 and had loved her long — perhaps a little more 
 passionately when his love was a new thing, but 
 not, he assured himself, more devotedly than he 
 loved her now. He was secure of her love, secure 
 also of her virtue, for had she not known how to 
 maintain her self-respect during this long appren- 
 ticeship to platonic affection ? Their lives would 
 glide smoothly on, till James Champion, cared 
 for and kindly treated to the last hour of his 
 existence, should drop gently into the grave, 
 decently mourned for such space of time and in 
 such manner as the world exacts of well-bred 
 widows. And then Edith and he would be
 
 204 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 married, and would assume that commanding 
 position in London and continental society which 
 only a husband and wife whose views and culture 
 exactly harmonise can ever attain. The prospect 
 was in every way agreeable, and he could look 
 forward to it without any quickened throbbing of 
 his tired heart. Dr. South had called it a tired 
 heart — a heart with which there was nothing 
 organically wrong, only the languor left by the 
 strain of over-work. He could sit in the hotel 
 garden taking his sun-bath, and placidly admiring 
 the perfection of Edith's profile, shadowed by the 
 broad-leaved Leghorn hat, or the delicate arch of 
 her instep in the high- heeled Parisian shoe, so 
 eminently adapted for sitting still. 
 
 And thus the days went by at Mont Oriol, and 
 nothing broke the monotony of luxurious idleness 
 — a life such as Guinevere and her knights and 
 ladies may have led at Camelot, when things 
 were beginning to go rather badly at the Court 
 of King Arthur, a life of sensuous pleasures and 
 dormant intellectuality — a life in which people 
 talked about books, but rarely read, affected a 
 profound interest in advanced philanthropy, yet 
 would have hardly risen from an easy-chair to
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 205 
 
 save a fellow-man from ruin, a life in which heart 
 and brain were only half awake, while the desire 
 of the eye and the delight of the ear were para- 
 mount. 
 
 Pleasant as this holiday time was, Gerard re- 
 joiced when it came to an end and he was free to 
 return to London and look after his architect and 
 builder. October was half gone when he arrived 
 in his old shabby quarters near the church, at 
 which his new valet — vice Dodd, superannuated 
 — looked with contempt. The builders were 
 hard at work in the house near the Park — 
 Stamford House it had been called, but it was 
 to be known henceforward by the name of its new 
 owner. The builders were working by night as 
 well as by day, by the aid of the electric light 
 which was already installed. Gerard went to see 
 them at work on the night after his return, and 
 to his fancy there seemed something demoniac in 
 the vision of these men swarming up and down 
 ladders and balancing themselves upon narrow 
 cornices in the cold clear light, and amidst the 
 noise of many hammers. 
 
 They were a little behind with their work, the 
 clerk of the works admitted, but there had been
 
 206 GERARD; OR, 
 
 a difficulty in getting good men, and he was 
 determined only to have first-rate workmen upon 
 a job of such importance." 
 
 " Depend upon it, you'll be satisfied with the 
 result, sir," he said. " The alteration of the 
 fa9ade has been a very difficult job, I can assure 
 you. It isn't like beginning fair, you see. We 
 have had to adapt the loggia to the existing front, 
 and to avoid all appearance of patchwork. You'll 
 be pleased when it's done." 
 
 " Perhaps I shall, if I live long enough to see 
 it," answered Gerard, fretfully. " But judging by 
 the present aspect of the house, I may be in my 
 grave before it is finished." 
 
 " Oh, indeed, sir, we are more forward than 
 you may think. The interior decorations are 
 going on simultaneously. Things will come to- 
 gether in a day. The architect is thoroughly 
 satisfied with the way the work is being done." 
 
 " No doubt ; but the architect is not waiting to 
 occupy the house, as I am." 
 
 He stayed there for nearly two hours betwixt 
 midnight and morning, going about with the 
 clerk of the works amidst all the litter and 
 confusion of painters and carpenters, glaziers and
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 207 
 
 plumbers, a veritable pandemonium, in which 
 fiends were passing to and fro with cauldrons of 
 boiling lead, and pots of acrid-smelling paint, a 
 scene of discordant noises, shrill whistling from 
 divers whistlers, sounds of plane and hammer, 
 chisel, and augur. It was out of this chaos his 
 ideal mansion was to come, fresh as the world 
 when the Creator saw that it was well. 
 
 He went there again next day with Mrs. 
 Champion and her niece. She had at least a 
 dozen nieces, and took up one or another as 
 capriciously as she chose her gloves. Eoger 
 Larose and the furniture-mau were there to meet 
 them, and they all went over the house by day- 
 light, peering into every corner, and discussing 
 every detail, the mantelpieces, the stoves, the 
 windows and window-seats, moulding, panelling, 
 painting, carving, glass stained, and glass Vene- 
 tian, Bohemian, Belgian. 
 
 Aunt and niece were both agreed that house 
 and decorations would be quite too lovely. They 
 did not attempt any more technical opinion. The 
 niece. Miss Flora Bellinger, went about with her 
 petticoats held up and her shoulders and elbows 
 contracted, murmuring, " Lovely, lovely," to
 
 208 GEKAED; OK, 
 
 everything, even the sink in the housemaid's 
 pantry, and in deadly fear of wet paint. 
 
 One suggestion Mrs. Champion ventured to 
 make: 
 
 *' Be sure you have plenty of corners," she said 
 to Mr. Larose ; " quaint, odd angles, don't you 
 know — pretty little nooks that can be made 
 Moorish, or Japanese, or Dutch, or Old Engh'sh, 
 just as one's fancy may suggest." 
 
 " My dear lady, you see the rooms," replied the 
 architect gravely, " and you see the angles. I 
 cannot alter the shape of rooms that are practi- 
 cally finished." 
 
 "That's a pity. I thought you could have 
 thrown in corners. The rooms are utterly lovely 
 — but there are no cosy nooks." 
 
 " I see, Mrs. Champion, that you hanker after 
 a Flemish style, which has now become the 
 property of the restaurants. Were you ever in 
 the Kicardi Palace at Florence ? " 
 
 " Yes, I know it well." 
 
 "I don't think you saw any quaint nooks or 
 odd angles there, although you may find as many 
 as you like in Earl's Court." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose they are getting common,"
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 209 
 
 sighed Mrs. Champion ; " everything becomes 
 common — everything pretty and fantastical, at 
 least." 
 
 After that searching inspection, which involved 
 certain small emendations and final decisions, 
 Gerard Hillersdon told himself that he would 
 look no more upon his house until it was finished, 
 except those two rooms which he was to furnish 
 after his own devices. It would worry him too 
 much to go there day after day only to see how 
 slowly the British workman can work. Mrs. 
 Champion and her husband were to spend 
 November and December at Brighton, so Gerard 
 went down to the Eectory, where mother and 
 sister were full of delight when he told them that 
 he had come to stay for at least a month. 
 
 He found his family rejoicing over the good 
 fortune of Mr. Cumberland, who had been pro- 
 moted from a rural curacy to a London living. 
 The stipend was modest, but the parish was 
 extensive, and included one of the poorest 
 districts in the great city — a labyrinth of narrow 
 streets and alleys lying between the churches of 
 St. Anne and St. Giles. It was in just such a 
 parish as this that John Cumberland desired to 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 GERARD; OR, 
 
 labour. He was at heart a Socialist. He 
 believed in the stringent rights of the poor 
 and the responsibilities of the rich, and saw in 
 the increasing luxury and costliness which 
 marked the existence of the upper classes the 
 sign of a degenerate people and a profligate age. 
 In his new parish of St. Lawrence, Wardour 
 Street, there were all those elements of life which 
 most deeply interested him. It was a parish of 
 mixed classes and divers nationalities, the chosen 
 haunt of the impecunious exile, the Nihilist and 
 the Fenian, the Carbonaro and the Karl Marxian. 
 It was a parish peopled by the intelligent British 
 workman, the self-educated and self-sufficient 
 mechanic. Great blocks of buildings, erected at 
 different periods, and showing different stages of 
 architectural and sanitary improvement, cast 
 their mighty shadows over the lower level of 
 slates and tiles that roofed the courts and alleys 
 of the past. These huge edifices were model 
 lodging-houses, more or less admirable in their 
 arrangements, and at their worst a considerable 
 advance upon the hovels that surrounded them. 
 
 Here, too, in the parish of St. Lawrence the 
 Martyr, was the well-known club for women who
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 211 
 
 earned their bread by the sweat of their brow — 
 needlewomen of all kinds, factory girls of divers 
 industries, from jam and pickle making in Soho 
 to filling cartridges in the Gray's Inn Eoad — a 
 club which was the centre of civilisation, im- 
 provement, and all refining influences, for 
 hundreds of hard-working girls and women, and 
 which had flourished exceedingly under the 
 fostering care of Lady Jane Blenheim, a woman 
 who devoted her life to good works. John Cum- 
 berland was delighted at the prospect of having 
 Lady Jane for his counsellor and ally ; nor was 
 he in any way disheartened by the knowledge 
 that he and his vouno: wife were to be^in their 
 wedded life in a district which smart people 
 would call "impossible." The Vicarage of St. 
 Lawrence was a substantially built early Georgian 
 house, in Greek Street, a street which was occupied 
 by the very cream of modish society in the days 
 of Chesterfield and Bolingbroke, but which is now 
 chiefly distinguished by French laundries and 
 restaurants, Italian grocery, and foreign con- 
 spirators of various types and nationalities. 
 
 The living was worth something under five 
 hundred a year, but the Eector of Helmsleigh
 
 212 GERARD; OR, 
 
 knew by experience how much of a clergyman's 
 income has to be sacrificed to the claims of his 
 parish, and how little may be left for his own 
 maintenance. He had, therefore, questioned the 
 wisdom of allowing his daughter to marry a man 
 whose only independent means consisted of a 
 legacy of railway shares from a spinster aunt, 
 which shares produced about a hundred and 
 twenty pounds a year. He was also averse from 
 the idea of Lilian's lines being set in the smoky 
 atmosphere of Soho. 
 
 "Let Jack Cumberland dree his weird under 
 the shadow of Cross and Blackwell, and take his 
 fill of work in a poor parish for the next two or 
 three years," said the Eector, with his genial air, 
 cheerily disposing of other people's lives. " By 
 that time he will have made himself a reputation 
 as a powerful preacher, and something better will 
 turn up— a fat living in a nice part of the country, 
 where my pet can have her garden and glebe 
 meadows." 
 
 " Indeed, father, I don't want a garden, and a 
 sleepy, idle life, such as — as the very best people 
 are content to lead in the country," answered 
 Lilian, eagerly. " I would much rather work
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEVIL. 213 
 
 hard with Jack in a poor parish like St. 
 Lawrence." 
 
 " Ah, that is the way with young people," 
 sighed the Eector, whose favourite maxim for 
 the last twenty years had been that of Parson 
 Dale, Quieta non movere, " they are always 
 wanting to go out and fight dragons. If they 
 are not rampant for pleasure, tennis, dances, 
 hunting, why then they are rampant for work. 
 The girls want to be hospital nurses, the boys 
 want to be East-end curates, or to go to Africa, 
 or, at the first whisper of some purposeless un- 
 necessary war, they rush off to enlist. Young 
 people have no idea how good it is to take life 
 quietly, and make the most of one's allotted 
 span." 
 
 The young people in this instance were so 
 resolute, and their elders so yielding, that it 
 was finally agreed that Lilian and Jack should 
 be married a year after he had read himself in 
 at the church of St. Lawrence. A year would 
 give him time to settle down in his parish, to 
 put a good many crooked things straight, and 
 get into a groove in which his life and Lilian's 
 might move quietly along, without over much
 
 214 GERARD; OR, 
 
 worry or emotioD. He would have time to 
 furnish those gloomy old panelled rooms which 
 to Lilian's eyes were beautiful, fraught with 
 delightful memories of patch and powder, lovely 
 ladies in rustling brocade sacques, daintily 
 emerging from their sedan chairs to trip lightly 
 up the stone steps, while their running foot- 
 men quenched their torches under the iron 
 extinguishers. The panelled walls, the iron 
 extinguishers were left, but who now has a 
 running footman ? Duchess Georgina had six, 
 six splendid over-fed creatures in plush and 
 bullion, silk stockinged, powdered, beautiful, 
 six to run in the mud beside her chair, and 
 hover about her and protect her when she 
 alighted. Lilian was charmed at the thought 
 of the old-fashioned London house, and the 
 rapture of picking up quaint old cabinets and 
 secretaires, and tables with claw and ball feet, 
 to furnish withal. She was in no wise depressed 
 by the notion of a year's engagement. This time 
 of courtship was such a happy time— a season of 
 tenderest chivalry, and pretty trivial gifts, and 
 small innocent pleasures which needed much 
 planning beforehand, season of letters perpetual
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 215 
 
 and unending, letters about nothing, vet so 
 delightful to the recipient, letters written at 
 midDight, letters pencilled hastily in the early 
 morning — nay, one letter written in the vestry, 
 which seemed a kind of sacrilege, but was not 
 less esteemed on that account. 
 
 " There are hours in which you are my religion, 
 and I almost forget that I have any other," said 
 Jack, when his sweetheart reproached him for 
 that vestry letter. 
 
 Mr. Cumberland was still doing duty as curate 
 at Helmsleigh when Gerard came on the scene. 
 He was to assume his new duties shortly after 
 Christmas. 
 
 " Then Lilian can come and keep house for 
 me," said Gerard, "and then she will be able to 
 see her lover every day, and I can help in the 
 furnishing." 
 
 " Oh, please don't," cried his sister. " You 
 would spoil all our fun. You have too much 
 money. You would just say to an upholsterer, 
 * furnish,' and he would come with his men and 
 take possession of — our house," with a shy smile, 
 and a blushing glance at her lover, " and every- 
 thing would be done splendidly, expensively, and
 
 216 GERARD; OR, 
 
 as the upholsterer liked, not as we like. No, 
 dear Gerard, we are going to pick up our furni- 
 ture bit by bit, and it is to be all as old as that 
 wicked old George who shut up his poor wife in 
 the Castle at Alden. We have begun already. 
 We bought a walnut- wood bureau with brass 
 handles, in Exeter, the other day — so old — oh, so 
 old — and all genuine." 
 
 "Except the handles," said Cumberland, 
 laughing ; " I shouldn't like to answer for the 
 handles. They look very like having been put 
 on last week." 
 
 "They have been newly lacquered, sir. You 
 are dreadfully ignorant. The dear old drawers 
 and pigeon holes and secret recesses smell of old 
 papers — lost wills — marriage certificates upon 
 which great fortunes depend — love letters — 
 sermons preached a hundred and fifty years ago. 
 That bureau is a romance in walnut-wood, and if 
 you could see the dirty old shop in which we 
 found it " 
 
 " I am answered," said Gerard ; " the wealth of 
 the Indies cannot give you half the pleasure you 
 will find in bargain-hunting in dirty shops. Per- 
 haps when you have found that most of your
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 217 
 
 treasures are spurious, and that you could have 
 got better and truer antiques for less money at 
 a West Ead upholsterer's, your bargain hunting 
 will lose some of its zest. I bide my time." 
 
 It amused him a little, and interested him 
 deeply to see how small a significance his wealth 
 had in the eyes of his sister, as compared with 
 her lover and her own outlook of genteel poverty 
 in a crowded London parish. For this girl, deep 
 in love with an enthusiast, and sharing his en- 
 thusiasm, wealth had no fascination. 
 
 *' You are too good," she told her brother, 
 when they two were alone, and he pressed her 
 to accept a handsome dowry, *^but I shouldn't 
 care to have money settled upon me, for fear 
 Jack should feel humiliated. He cannot afford 
 to settle anything; and I shouldn't like the 
 settlement to be onesided." 
 
 " But, my dear girl, that is all nonsense." 
 
 "Perhaps it is, only please let me have my 
 own way. We are sure to want your help by 
 and by, to build schools, or to improve the 
 church, perhaps. There is sure to be some press- 
 ing want in the parish, and then we will appeal 
 to you. And in the meantime, as we are to live
 
 218 GERAKD; OE, 
 
 among poor people, it is good for us to be poor. 
 We shall be able to sympathise with them, and 
 understand them all the better." 
 
 Gerard argued no longer, but he meant that 
 his sister should be dowered by him, all the 
 same. She should not be poor, while he was 
 inordinately rich. The settlement would have 
 to be made. In the meantime he was glad that 
 the marriage was delayed a year, so that he 
 might have this bright young creature for his 
 companion in the new home whose splendour he 
 tliought of sometimes with a thrill of apprehen- 
 sion. Would he not feel lonely in that large 
 house until he could bring a wife home, and all 
 his wife's feminine surroundings of cousins and 
 bosom friends, with their flutter, and fuss, and 
 life, and movement. A house occupied only by 
 men has always a gloomy atmosphere. There 
 lacks the colour and frou-frou of women's brighter 
 raiment. 
 
 He pleaded with his mother that she should 
 spare Lilian to him, until she should be claimed 
 by a husband, and the mother, who dearly loved 
 this wayward son — her poet as she had called 
 him in the fond exaggeration of maternal love.
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 219 
 
 intoxicated by his juvenile success in literature — 
 could refuse him nothing. She would have to 
 part with her only daughter in a little time. 
 That was inevitable. The light-liearted daughter 
 of the house, she whose heaviest task hitherto 
 had been the making of a new frock for a smart 
 garden-party, she whose only sorrows had been 
 the sorrows of others, was now to go out into the 
 thick of the fight, and bear her own burdens as 
 wife and mother, and carry on her shoulders and 
 in her heart the care of a man's life, his mistakes 
 and disappointments, his failures and difficulties, 
 all his frailties and feebleness, physical and 
 mental. These were to be her burden, and these 
 she must carry patiently to the end, or else go 
 out into the dismal company of faithless, dis- 
 honoured wives. The Rector of Helmsleigh had 
 been a good husband, as husbands go, yet his 
 wife looked at her fair young daughter, sitting 
 at the piano under the soft lamp-light, ac- 
 companying her lover's song, very much as 
 Abraham may have looked at Isaac on the eve 
 of the intended sacrifice. 
 
 " It will not be a parting for you and Lilian," 
 pursued Gerard, intent upon his purpose, "for I
 
 220 GEKAED; OR, 
 
 shall expect you to spend all the best part of 
 the year at Hillersdon House. We will do the 
 London season together. We will drink the cup 
 of pleasure to the dregs." 
 
 "My dearest boy, what do I know of the 
 season. I should be out of my element among 
 the people you call smart. When Barbara Vere 
 rattled on about her great parties, and her lords 
 and ladies, I felt as if she was talking an un- 
 known language. I can get on very well with 
 our county people here — we are county ourselves, 
 you know — but I dare say I should hardly feel 
 comfortable with them if I met them in London, 
 in all their London finery." 
 
 " Dear mother, you underrate the adaptability 
 of your plastic sex. I can conceive my father 
 feeling bored by town gaieties, and pining for his 
 poultry yard, his county papers, and his infallible 
 barometer. He has got into the rustic groove, 
 and might suffer by transplantation — but you 
 would enjoy the quick, eager existence, and 
 intellectual friction." 
 
 *' I certainly should delight in meeting intel- 
 lectual people — Tennyson, Browning, Tyndall, and 
 Owen for instance," said Mrs. Hillersdon, as if a
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 221 
 
 little group of that kind were to be met at every 
 eyening party in the season." 
 
 "And the music and the pictures," suggested 
 Gerard. 
 
 " Yes, indeed, there is so much to see and to 
 hear in London. When we have gone up to 
 Limmer's for a fortnight the time has been all 
 too short. A Greenwich dinner, which I shall 
 always consider a sad waste of time and money, 
 an afternoon at Kichmond, perhaps &, day at 
 Ascot, and luncheon parties in London wdth too 
 hospitable friends. The fortnight goes by in a 
 rush, and one seems to have seen nothing." 
 
 " It shall be otherwise when you are with me, 
 mother. We will go about in a leisurely way, 
 and see everything. I know my little London, 
 all that she is, and all that she is not, and I will 
 teach you how to get the best she can give you. 
 I wonder what you will think of my house." 
 
 " I am sure it will be perfect. You have such 
 good taste." 
 
 "Fond flatterer. I have nothing but money, 
 which can buy the educated taste of other people." 
 * * * * 
 
 Gerard spent Christmas at the Kectory, partly
 
 222 GERARD; OR, 
 
 because bis motber was especially anxious that 
 be sbould be witb ber at tbat season of family 
 gatberings, and partly because bis latest letters 
 from builder, arcbitect, and furniture man pro- 
 mised tbe completion of tbe bouse on tbe last 
 day of tbe year. Tbere bad been a good deal 
 of prevarication in former letters, and tbere bad 
 been various excuses for delay — excuses cbiefly 
 of a climatic nature, tbe elements seeming to 
 bave conspired against tbe completion of tbat 
 particular bouse. Frost may bave told Fog tbat 
 tbe bouse belonged to a new man, and tbat tbe 
 new man ougbt to wait. Could be not be content 
 witb tbe dog-kennel in wbicb be bad lived 
 bitberto, forsootb ? 
 
 But Eoger's last letter was specific. Tbe 
 builder pledged bimself tbat bis men sbould 
 clear out of tbe bouse on tbe morning of tbe 
 31st. Decorators, carpet-layers, needlewomen 
 sbould vanisb from tbe scene, silently as goblins 
 at cockcrow, and on New Year's Eve men and 
 women, builders' minions and upbolsterers' 
 minions, were to feast togetber on a grand supper 
 at tbe " Bell and Horns," in tbe Brompton Koad. 
 
 Editb Cbampion bad undertaken wbat sbe
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 223 
 
 called the mounting of the establishment. She 
 had secured an all-accomplished housekeeper, 
 and a clever man cook, who did not accept the 
 situation until assured of three underlings in the 
 kitchen, a private sitting-room, and the use of a 
 brougham for his marketing. She had chosen 
 butlers and footmen, and had devised a livery 
 for the latter — darkest green, with black velvet 
 collar and facings, black velvet small clothes and 
 black silk stockings. "It is a sombre livery," 
 she wrote; ''but the powder relieves it, and I 
 think you will like the effect. Your men will 
 wear silk stockings always, that is a point, and 
 I have told your housekeeper to be very particular 
 about their shoe-buckles. Their shoes will be 
 made in Bond Street, and will cost thirty 
 shillings a pair. Forgive me for troubling you 
 with these details; but with your wealth your 
 only chance of distinction is by nicety in minor 
 points. Your house will be simply perfect. I 
 went through the reception-rooms yesterday. 
 The ceilings are painted in the style of the 
 Kicardi Palace — a banquet in Olympus. Cobalt 
 predominates in the drapery of the goddesses, 
 who, although Kubensesque, are quite unobjec-
 
 224 GERARD; OR, 
 
 tionable. The effect is brilliant, and harmonises 
 admirably with the subdued amber and russet of 
 the brocade hangings and chair covers. I long 
 for you to see your house now all is coming 
 together. I engaged your Major Domo yesterday 
 — a chance such as rarely falls in the way of a 
 nouveau ricJie. He was fifteen years with Lord 
 Hamperdonne, to whom he was guide, philosopher, 
 and friend, rather than servant. It was he who 
 rescued Hamperdonne from that odious engage- 
 ment with Dolores Drumio, the Spanish dancer. 
 He has a genius for organising every kind of 
 entertainment; and if he and your chef can 
 only work harmoniously your establishment will 
 go on velvet. You will see that I am not en- 
 gaging many servants. Parton will be house 
 steward, groom of the chambers, and butler, with 
 an under-butler and two footmen, a lad for cellar 
 work, and a house messenger, so that your stable- 
 men may never be called away from their work. 
 For a bachelor, I think this personnel, with half 
 a dozen women, quite sufficient. Anything 
 further would mean display, rather than useful- 
 ness, and I'm sure you don't desire that." 
 
 " How wise she is," thought Gerard, as he read
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH^ AND THE DEVIL. 225 
 
 tliis letter for the second time. " How delightful 
 to have to deal with an accomplished woman of 
 the world instead of a sentimental girl ; and what 
 a wife she will make for a man in my position, 
 by and by, when poor Champion's time has come. 
 Beautiful, well-born, and full of tact and social 
 knowledge. Could any man desire a more de- 
 lightful companion?" Of her husband, Mrs. 
 Champion wrote in a melancholy strain. Mont 
 Oriol had done him very little good. He had 
 allowed his work and his worries to follow him 
 to the valleys of Auvergne. He had not taken 
 that absolute rest which the doctors had so 
 strenuously urged, and he was considerably 
 worse than he had been in the summer. The 
 specialist who had seen him then now talked of 
 " stock exchange spine," which Edith feared was 
 some kind of mental ailment. Her husband was 
 depressed and restless, and there was an idea of 
 sending him to St. Leonards till the end of the 
 winter with a trained attendant, as well as his 
 valet. 
 
 "If he goes, I shall go with him," Mrs. 
 Champion concluded, with the air of a Eoman 
 wife. "I must not allow pleasure or inclination 
 
 VOL, r, (^
 
 226 GERAED; OR, 
 
 to interfere with my duty to him. I should have 
 infinitely preferred any part of the Eiviera — even 
 Mentone — to St. Leonards, which I detest ; but it 
 will be some advantage to be near you, as I dare 
 say you will be too much taken up with your new 
 house to go to the South this year. By the way, 
 have you any idea of the other House ? A seat 
 in Parliament would give you hudos^ and our 
 party wants all the strength it can get." 
 
 ^^ Fas si Mte^' thought Gerard. *'I am not 
 going to waste any portion of my scanty life iu 
 an ill-ventilated, malodorous, over-crowded bear- 
 garden ! " 
 
 He was to go to London on New Year's Day, 
 his sister accompanying him, delighted at the 
 idea of the journey, and all the more delighted 
 since John Cumberland had made it convenient 
 to travel on the same day, and by the same train. 
 He preached his farewell sermon on St. Stephen's 
 Day, and drew tears from many of his hearers by 
 the pathos of his farewell. His congregation 
 knew that the pathos was real, and that he had 
 really loved them, and worked for them as only 
 love can work. Gerard had been glad to spend 
 Christmas at home, for bis mother's sake; but
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 227 
 
 despite his affection for both parents, and his 
 tender regard for the associations of childhood 
 and early youth, the small domestic pleasures, 
 and twaddling recurrences to past years, the fuss 
 about the home-grown turkey and the home- 
 cured ham — ham cut from a pig of which the 
 Eector talked as of a departed friend — the church 
 decorations, the parochial festivities, the mothers* 
 meetings, coal and blanket distributions, and ex- 
 hibition of Christmas cards bored him excessively. 
 In the country life goes round like a wheel, and 
 nothing but death or calamity can change the 
 circle of infinitesimal events. In London there 
 is always something new to be done or to be 
 heard of — new fashions, new scandals, the un- 
 expected in some form or other. 
 
 Gerard was consumed by the feverish impatience 
 of the "child who has new robes and mar not 
 wear them." That last week at the Eectory 
 seemed illimitable. He wanted to be on the 
 strong tide of life — to feel the swift river carrying 
 him along — and here he seemed to be sitting on 
 a vast stretch of level sand, from which he but 
 faintly saw the distant flood. Yet this was 
 precisely the kind of existence he had bee^
 
 228 GEEARD; OR, 
 
 advised to lead — a life of placid monotony, 
 passionless, uneventful. 
 
 On his last night at the Kectory, and in one of 
 his last talks with his mother, she asked him in 
 a casual way if he had seen or heard anything 
 more of Hester Davenport. 
 
 "No; I have not tried to find her. The 
 attempt seemed too hopeless; and after all, the 
 face I saw was more a dream than a reality ; yet 
 I know it was Miss Davenport's face." 
 
 " I don't understand, Gerard " 
 
 " No, dearest," interrupted her son. " I must 
 say to you as Hamlet said to his fellow-student, 
 
 * There are more things in heaven and earth than ' 
 you— or I — can quite account for. You must 
 come to London, mother. London is full of 
 revelations for any one who has been buried alive 
 for half a lifetime in a rustic Kectory. You will 
 hear of new sciences, new religions. You will 
 find Buddha placed shoulder to shoulder with 
 Christ. You will find people discrediting the 
 four evangelists and pinning their faith upon 
 
 * materializations.' You will find the cultured 
 classes despising Dickens and making light of 
 Thackeray, in favour of the last smart young
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DETIL. 229 
 
 man who has written a smart story of three or 
 four pages in a smart magazine. The old order 
 is always changing. London is for ever new, for 
 ever young. You will feel twenty years younger 
 there than you do here." 
 
 '* Younger under a smoky sky, Gerard ! Younger 
 in a place where one must put on one's gloves 
 before one can venture to pick a rose. Younger 
 among crowds of rushing people and over- worked 
 cab-horses, and sickly town babies, whose poor 
 little faces make one miserable. I shall be glad 
 to be with you, dear ; but 1 love this sleepy old 
 Rectory better than the finest house in Park 
 Lane or Grosvenor Square." 
 
 Gerard did not try to combat these benighted 
 notions. His own face was set Londonwards 
 early next morning, and he and Lilian were 
 installed in the new house before afternoon tea. 
 They had explored every room, and were ready 
 to receive Mr. Cumberland and Mrs. Champion 
 at eight o'clock to a friendly New Year dinner — 
 a snug parti carre at a round table in the 
 breakfast-room, one side of which was all window, 
 opening into a winter-garden, where a fountain 
 played in a low marble basin, encircled with 
 camellias and palms.
 
 230 GEHARD; 01?, 
 
 The shaded lamps gave a soft and tempered 
 light. The colouring in this room was subdued 
 and cool, pale bluisli green for the most part, 
 the walls the colour of a hedge-sparrow's egg, 
 relieved by the warm sepia and Indian red of a 
 few choice etchings. These, with a wonderful 
 arrangement of peacock's feathers and celadon 
 Sevres vases over the chimney-piece, were the 
 only ornaments. 
 
 "No quaint corners or ingle-nook, nothing 
 Moorish or Japanese in all the house ; no copper 
 or brass, or any one of the things I delight in," 
 sighed Mrs. Champion. ''Mr. Larose has been 
 horridly tyrannical. Yet I must confess he has 
 succeeded. Your house is a creation." 
 
 The service was perfection, every servant eager 
 to please the new master, and the dinner was 
 worthy of a company of gourmets, rather than of 
 these four, who cared very little what tliey ate, 
 and who were, some of them, too much absorbed 
 in their own thoughts and feelings to know what 
 they were eating. An oyster souffle which would 
 have evoked praises from Lucullus or Lord 
 Alvanley, went round without comment or com- 
 mendation. But if Mr. Hillersdon's friends did
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, ANT) THE DEVIL. 231 
 
 not talk about the dinner there was plenty of 
 talk about other things. Edith Champion was 
 full of offers to take Lilian to her particular 
 friends and her favourite tradespeople, during 
 the few days she had left before going to St. 
 Leonard's with her invalid husband. 
 
 " I want you to go to Madame St. Evremonde 
 for your gowns," said Mrs. Champion. "She is 
 the only woman in Loudon who knows where a 
 waist ought to begin and end — excuse my talking 
 chiffons, Mr. Cumberland, we ought to keep that 
 kind of thin or for after dinner — but it is such a 
 treat for a battered woman of the world like me 
 to have a neophyte to instruct. I should like to 
 take you to my shoemaker, too, for he is rather 
 a difficult person to deal with; and if he don't 
 take to you he won't even try to fit your foot." 
 
 "If that is the way of London shoemakers I 
 should buy my boots ready-made at the Stores," 
 said Cumberland, grimly. 
 
 "Are there ready-made shoes? " Mrs. Champion 
 asked innocently. " How terrible. I know some 
 people buy gloves in shops ready-made ; but 
 ready-made shoes must be too dreadful. They 
 can't fit anybody."
 
 232 GEKAKD; OK, 
 
 " Their particular merit is that they fit every- 
 body," said Cumberland. " It is only a question 
 of size." 
 
 *' Oh, if people don't care about shape or style, 
 or whether they have an instep or not, I suppose 
 a ready-made boot or shoe would do," said Mrs. 
 Champion, taking a philosophical tone. "They 
 would keep out the wet. Only if one is to take 
 a proper pride in one's clothes one must have 
 them from the best makers. I could be content 
 to go through life in a tweed gown ; but it must 
 be made by Kedfern or Felix." 
 
 " I'm afraid your dressmaker would be a great 
 deal too smart and too expensive for me, Mrs. 
 Champion," Lilian answered quietly. 
 
 "Too smart, too expensive — for Mr. Hillersdon's 
 sister. Why, you will be expected to dress as 
 well as the Princess of Wales. Your toilette 
 will be under the fierce light that beats upon a 
 millionaire. You will have to dress up to this 
 house." 
 
 " I should be sorry to dress in a way that would 
 be unsuited to a country clergyman's daughter." 
 
 " Or to a London clergyman's promised wife," 
 said John Cumberland, stealing a tender look
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 233 
 
 at the fair yoiiDg face from under his strongly- 
 marked brows. Those brief looks meant a world 
 of love to Lilian. 
 
 *' Let her dress as plainly or as smartly as she 
 pleases, Mrs. Champion," said Gerard, gaily ; 
 "but if Madame St. Evremonde is the best 
 dressmaker in London to Madame St. Evremonde 
 she must go. While you are in this house, 
 Lilian, you must look your prettiest for my sake ; 
 but when you migrate to Greek Street you may 
 wear a Quakeress's poke bonnet, or a Sister of 
 Charity's hood." 
 
 "Greek Street," exclaimed Mrs. Champion, in 
 her most childish manner. "AVhere is Greek 
 Street?"
 
 234 GEEAED; OE, 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "STTLL~ONE MUST LEAD SOME LIFE BEYOND." 
 
 The dull beginning of the year, before the 
 opening of Parliament and the gradual awaken- 
 ing of London, passed like a dream. The delight 
 of installation in the home that he had created 
 for himself, and the novel sensation of squander- 
 ing money were enough to keep Gerard Hil- 
 lersdon occupied and happy ; while Lilian was 
 divided between two absorbing duties. On the 
 one side she had her brother, whom she dearly 
 loved, and all the pomps and vanities of this 
 wicked world ; and on the other side she had her 
 future husband, now fully established as Vicar 
 of St. Lawrence's, and wanting her counsel and 
 co-operation in every undertaking. " I want the 
 parish to be as much your parish as mine,
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 235 
 
 Lilian," he said. *^ I ^yant your mind and your 
 hand to be in all things, great and small." 
 
 So on one day Lilian was trudging up and 
 down some of the dirtiest alleys in West Central 
 London, deliberating and advising as to a Night 
 Kefuge for women and children, and on the next 
 she was with her brother at Christie's, giving her 
 opinion about a Eeynolds or a Kaffaelle. 
 
 Gerard was profuse in his offers of money, 
 would, indeed, from his own purse have supplied 
 all the needs of St. Lawrence's; but Jack 
 Cumberland exercised a restraining influence, 
 and would only accept moderate benefactions — 
 a hundred pounds for the new Eefuge, a hundred 
 for the Working Man's Institute, and fifty each 
 for the Magdalen Eescue Society and Dispen- 
 sary, two hundred for the schools ; five hundred 
 pounds in all. 
 
 " It seems absurd that you should want money 
 for anything while I have ever so much more 
 than I w^ant," remonstrated Gerard, toying with 
 his open cheque-book. 
 
 " You shall do something more for us a year 
 or two hence, when you have familiarised your- 
 self with your fortune, and have acquired a
 
 236 GERARD; OR, 
 
 sense of proportion," said Cumberland, smiling 
 at his eagerness. "At present you are like a 
 child with a new box of toys, who thinks that 
 he can distribute them among his playfellows 
 and yet have the boxful for himself. When 
 you better know what money means you shall 
 be our benefactor on a larger scale — always 
 supposing you are still in the humour. In the 
 meantime that five hundred pounds is a pro- 
 digious God-send, and will help us along 
 capitally. I never hoped for such an excellent 
 start." 
 
 " I believe the fellow wants to keep his parish 
 poor," Gerard said afterwards, in a confidential 
 talk with his sister. 
 
 " He doesn't want to sponge upon your fortune, 
 Gerard, and he is afraid of pauperising his 
 people by doing too much." 
 
 " Pauperising ? Ah, that's always the cry 
 nowadays ; but it would take as long a head 
 as Henry Brougham's to find out where help 
 ends and pauperisation begins. If the State 
 were to feed the Board School children, yea, 
 even with one substantial meal per diem, we 
 are told that we should be teaching the parents
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 237 
 
 to look to State aid, and to squander their wages 
 on drink. I dare say it might work that way 
 in a good many cases ; but if, on the other 
 hand, we could succeed in rearing a healthy 
 race the craving for drink might be lessened 
 in the next generation." 
 
 Hillersdon House was a success. Society 
 flocked to the millionaire as flies go to the 
 honey-pot. The Northern farmer's advice to 
 his son is one of the chief points in social ethics. 
 We all like to go where money is. There is 
 a fascination in wealth and the luxury it can 
 buy that only a Socrates can resist, and even 
 Socrates went to rich men's houses, and smartened 
 his rough attire for the feast. Society, which 
 had always approved of Gerard Hillersdon, was 
 on tiptoe to know what he would do with his 
 money; that portion which envied him his 
 wealth opining that he would run through this 
 vast fortune in a year or two, while everybody 
 had his own theory as to how he ought to 
 spend it. 
 
 As a social adviser there could be no one 
 better than Koger Larose, architect, poet, painter.
 
 238 GERARD; OR, 
 
 and man of fashion ; a man who seemed to have 
 founded his style and manners upon the long- 
 forgotten bucks of those golden days before the 
 Eegency, when George, Prince of Wales, was 
 young. 
 
 "I call Eoger Larose the Sleeping Beauty," 
 said Eeuben Gambler, "for he looks as if he 
 had fallen asleep in some corner of the Cocoa 
 Tree Club, at the close of the eighteenth 
 century, in a bag-wig, a puce coat, and a frilled 
 shirt, and as if he had never become reconciled 
 to modern costume." 
 
 Larose was an amiable enthusiast, full of 
 pleasant whimsicalities, and Gerard, who was 
 naturally indolent, allowed him full scope as a 
 counsellor. 
 
 "You must give parties," said Larose; "it 
 is useless having a fine house if you bury your- 
 self alive in it! You had better have built 
 yourself a mausoleum — not half a bad idea, by 
 the by. If any dear old gentleman ever leaves 
 me a few millions, I will build myself a 
 pyramid, like Cheops, and live in it till I am 
 ready for the embalmers — a pyramid in which 
 I will receive only a few chosen friends — ei
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 239 
 
 pyramid in which I will give choice little dinners 
 to those chosen ones. Yes, my dear Gerard, 
 you must give parties — breakfasts, luncheons, 
 dinners, musical evenings. It is written in the 
 stars that you are to provide a good many of 
 the amusements of this ensuing season. I hope 
 you like the notion of being a social centre, 
 Miss Hillersdon ?" said Eoger, turning to Lilian, 
 with an insinuating smile. Not a handsome 
 man, by any means, this Larose, but with a deli- 
 cate pallor, attenuated features, and a languid 
 smile which women pronounced sympathetic. 
 
 " It is rather alarming, but I want Gerard to 
 be happy and amused," Lilian replied brightly ; 
 "and Mr. Cumberland will help us to receive 
 people. He was immensely popular in Devon- 
 shire." 
 
 "My dear young lady, Devonshire isn't 
 London — but, of course, Mr. Cumberland is 
 charming, and I hear people are going to St. 
 Lawrence's to hear his sermons." 
 
 " People ! " exclaimed Lilian ; " why, the 
 church is crammed every Sunday at all the 
 services." 
 
 "Ah; but I mean people— people like Lord
 
 240 GERAED; OR, 
 
 Wordsworth, and Mr. Lemaitre, the actor; 
 people like Lady Hyacinth Pulteney — people 
 who criticise and talk. If that goes on, Mr. 
 Cumberland will be an acquisition at your 
 parties. But, my dear Gerard," pursued Koger 
 solemnly, " the great point is food. People will 
 go to you to be fed. Feed them. You will 
 have a luxury of flowers, of course ; Mrs. Smith 
 — the Mrs. Smith — will decorate your rooms and 
 dinner-table. People expect the lust of the eye 
 to be gratified; but that is, after all, a minor 
 point. Your iced asparagus, ortolans, quails, 
 plovers' eggs — those are the essentials." 
 
 "And, as a reward for my hospitality, my 
 house will be called the Eestaurant Hillersdon, 
 or Cafe Gerard. People will eat, drink, and be 
 merry — all at my expense." 
 
 " No, my dear fellow. You will not be laughed 
 at. You have not made your money out of 
 Eussian hides, or American manures. You do 
 not come to us with inadequate aspirates, fresh 
 from the Australian backwoods. You are not 
 laboriously conning the alphabet of civilised 
 life. You are one of us. You have graduated 
 in all our fqllies an4 vices. You are an adept
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 241 
 
 in all our couventionalities — our mispronuncia- 
 tions, affectations, and jargon of all kinds. You 
 will do. You are not a new man. You are 
 only that nice boy, Gerard Hillersdon, plus two 
 millions." 
 
 Hillersdon, perhaps, hardly needed this assur- 
 ance. He might affect the misanthrope, and 
 preach as bitterly as Timon in his cave. He 
 loved his fellow-men just well enough to enjoy 
 bringing them about him, and to feel that 
 splendour would be a poor thing if there were 
 nobody to admire it. Again, the science of 
 entertaining was in itself full of interest. Every 
 man who has mixed ever so little in society 
 believes that he can give a dinner — assort his 
 guests and revise a menu — better than any one 
 else. Hillersdon was not without that delusion, 
 and society fostered it by praise and apprecia- 
 tion. His luncheons, which were more frequent 
 at Hillersdon House than any other form of 
 entertainment, were voted perfect — perfect as to 
 the choice of guests, the harmonious blending 
 of divers opinions, professions, crazes — perfect as 
 to all material elements — the menu never too 
 elaborate or too long — the choicest luxuries 
 
 VOL. I. Pv
 
 242 GERARD; OR, 
 
 given with an air of simplicity which disguised 
 their costliness. The popularity of his luncheons 
 encouraged Mr. Hillersdon to revive a somewhat 
 exploded form of hospitality. He began a series 
 of Sunday breakfasts, to which only those were 
 bidden whose wider and less orthodox views 
 made the morning service of the Anglican 
 Church a purely optional matter — to go or not 
 to go, as the trained choir or the sensational 
 preacher might invite; — unholy breakfasts, at 
 which the literary agnostic or the disciple of 
 the latest fad aired his or her opinions ; break- 
 fasts, the very thought of which made Lilian 
 shudder, as she passed the breakfast-room door 
 on her way to the victoria, which was to carry her 
 to that little heaven below, where Jack Cumber- 
 land's choir of working-men, trained by himself, 
 were to sing, and where Jack was to preach one 
 of his heart-stirring sermons. She heard the 
 voices and laughter of her brother's friends as 
 she passed the breakfast-room door, and her 
 heart sank within her at the thought of what 
 small significance Sunday now had in the life 
 of that brother. She loved him, and she began 
 to fear that he had cast in his lot among the
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 243 
 
 unbelievers, among men who ridicule the idea 
 of a Personal God, who can discover nowhere 
 in this universe the necessity for any higher 
 form of being than their own, who think that 
 through illimitable cycles of years creation has 
 been climbing upwards to its ultimate outcome, 
 Man. 
 
 " Gerard, dear, is Sunday after Sunday to go 
 by without your going to church ? " Lilian asked, 
 one sunny April morning, when she found her 
 brother smoking a cigarette in the winter-garden, 
 and looking idly at the Marechal Niel roses, 
 while the servants in the adjoining room were 
 putting their finishing touches to a breakfast- 
 table laid for eight. 
 
 " My darling, I shouldn't be any the better for 
 church, or the church any the better for me. I 
 am a little out of harmony with the Christian 
 idea, just now. Either I have outgrown it, or I 
 am passing through a phase of doubt ; but if you 
 really want me to sacrifice to the respectabilities 
 I will go to St. Lawrence with you next Sun- 
 day. One of Jack's rousing sermons will do me 
 good. They are capital tonics for a relaxed 
 brain ! "
 
 244 GERARD; OR, 
 
 " Years ago you used to go to church every 
 Sunday, and sometimes twice on a Sunday." 
 
 " Years ago I was very young, Lilian. I went 
 to church for various reasons — first, to please my 
 mother; and next, because the Eector would 
 have made unpleasant remarks at luncheon if he 
 had missed me from the family pew ; next again, 
 because I liked the sleepy old church and the 
 sleepy service, and the familiar faces, and my 
 father's short sensible sermon ; and last of all, 
 because I had not begun to think of how much 
 or how little faith in spiritual things there was 
 in me." 
 
 " And all that the cleverest people in London 
 can teach you is not to believe," said Lilian, 
 sadly, 
 
 "My dear girl, the clever people have very 
 little to do with my disbelief. The change is in 
 myself. It came about as spontaneously and 
 mysteriously as cotton blight on an apple-tree. 
 One day you see the tree flourishing, the leaves 
 clean and full of sap ; and the next day they are 
 all curled up and withered, as if a fire had passed 
 over them, and the incipient fiuit is eaten of 
 worms."
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLE^^H, AND THE DEVIL. 245 
 
 " The carriage is at the door, ma'ara," announced 
 one of those perfectly matched footmen whom Mrs. 
 Champion had selected, magnificent, impassible 
 beings, who looked and moved and spoke as if they 
 had been cradled amidst patrician surroundings. 
 
 Lilian drove away in the sunshine, heavy at 
 heart for the brother she loved. She saw him 
 with the illimitable power of wealth, surrounded 
 by all the snares and temptations of a world in 
 which whim and pleasure are the only laws 
 that govern mankind. She saw him cut adrift 
 from the anchor in which she believed, sailing 
 away from the safe harbour of the Christian faith, 
 to the bleak and barren sea of scornful and sullen 
 materialism ; a gloomy agnosticism which looks 
 with contempt upon every spiritual instinct, and 
 laughs at every Heavenward aspiration as the 
 delusion of children and fools. 
 
 While Lilian drove along Piccadilly, to the 
 sound of various church bells, and past a popula- 
 tion setting churchward, Mr. Hillersdon's Sunday 
 visitors were slowly dropping in to the eleven 
 o'clock breakfast — a meal which had but one 
 drawback, according to Roger Larose. It made 
 luncheon an impossibility.
 
 246 GERARD; OR, 
 
 One of the guests of the day, Mr. Keuben 
 Gambier, was a youthful novelist, who had made 
 all vice his province, and whose delight was to 
 shock the susceptibilities of the circulating library. 
 His books were naturally popular, and as in the 
 case of a nervous rider with a restive horse, 
 people were impressed more by the idea of what 
 he might do than of what he had actually done. 
 He was lively and eccentric, and a favourite with 
 Hillersdon and his circle. 
 
 " I've brought a particular friend of mine, who 
 tells me he knows you well enough to come 
 without an invitation," said Gambier, entering 
 the winter-garden unannounced, from the adjoin- 
 ing drawing-room into which he had been duly 
 ushered. A low unctuous laugh sounded from 
 the other side of the half-raised portiere as he 
 spoke, a laugh which Gerard instantly recognised. 
 *' Your friend is Mr. Jermyn," he said quickly. 
 " Yes — how^ did you guess ? " 
 " I heard him laugh ; there is nobody else on 
 earth who laughs like that." 
 
 " But you think there is some one down there 
 who does," said Gambier, pointing significantly 
 to the ground. " A strange laugh, ain't it ?
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 247 
 
 but Tery cheery — sounds as if mankind were a 
 stupendous joke, and as if Jermyn were in the 
 secret of all the springs that work this little 
 world, and knew when it was going to burst up. 
 I believe he knows more about it all than Sir 
 William Thomson, or any of those scientific swells 
 who tell us what the sun is made of, and how 
 long they can warrant the earth to last," 
 
 Jermyn's head appeared under the old brocade 
 curtain — a curtain made from the vestments of 
 Italian priests, the rich spoil of a mediaeval 
 sacristy — a curious face seen against the back- 
 ground of purple and gold, clear cut, brilliant in 
 colouring, high narrow brow receding curiously, 
 sharp nose, light grey eyes, and smiling mouth, 
 displaying regular white teeth. 
 
 He paused for a moment or two, with the 
 curtain in his hand, looking out of the purple 
 and gold, then with a little gush of laughter, 
 came across the marble floor and shook hands 
 with his host. 
 
 " Surprised to see me, ain't you, Hillersdon ? " 
 
 "No; I have only been surprised not to see 
 you. And now answer me a question. AYhere 
 the devil are those rooms of yours in which you
 
 248 GERARD; OR, 
 
 gave me supper on the night after Lady Frido- 
 line's party?" 
 
 "What! Have you been hunting me up 
 there?" 
 
 " Hunting ! Yes, it was a decided case of 
 hunting. I don't think the shrewdest detective 
 in London could find those rooms of yours." 
 
 " I dare say not, unless he knew where to look 
 for them. I never tell anybody my address, but 
 I sometimes take a friend home to supper — a 
 man who is too full of himself and his own affairs 
 to observe the way by which he goes." 
 
 Another visitor came into the winter-garden, 
 and then Hillersdon went into the next room 
 to receive the rest of the party, which was soon 
 complete. 
 
 The ninth guest proved a success. Most people 
 were interested in the Fate-reader, although 
 most people pretended to make very light of his 
 art. That searching gaze of his, looking into a 
 man's soul through his face, had an uncanny 
 influence that fascinated as much as it repelled. 
 He had made such strange hits by those fate- 
 reading prophecies of his, and foretold changes 
 and events in the lives of men, of which those
 
 THE AVOIJLP, THE FLESH. AXD THE DEVIL. 249 
 
 men had themselves no foreshadowing. What 
 was this power which enabled him thus to 
 prognosticate? He called it insight; but the 
 word, though both vague and comprehensive, was 
 not sufficient to explain a gift hitherto the peculiar 
 property of the necromancer and the charlatan — 
 never before exercised airily and gratuitously, 
 by a man who was received in society. What- 
 ever Mr. Jermyn's means might be, whether 
 large or small, he had never been known to make 
 money by the exercise of his occult power. 
 
 He was leaving with the rest of Hillersdon's 
 friends before one o'clock, when his host detained 
 him. 
 
 " I want to have a quiet talk with you," said 
 Gerard, "we have not met since my altered 
 fortunes." 
 
 " True," answered Jermyn, lightly, " but I 
 prophesied the turn in your luck, did I not, old 
 fellow?" 
 
 "You hinted at possibilities — you set me on 
 the track of an old memory — that scene in the 
 railway station at Nice." 
 
 " Lucky dog. Half the young men in London 
 are green with envy when they talk about you.
 
 250 GERARD; OR, 
 
 An instant's peril — and a lifetime of boundless 
 wealth." 
 
 " There is no such thing as boundless wealth 
 except in America," said Gerard. " It is a phrase 
 to be used only about a man who owns a silver 
 mine. My income is fixed, and- " 
 
 "Limited," cried Jermyn, interrupting; "a 
 decidedly limited income. Is it eighty or ninety 
 thousand a year, or does it run to a hundred? 
 1 believe were I in your shoes I should be think- 
 ing about economising. I should have a holy 
 horror of the workhouse. One loses all sense of 
 proportion under the weight of two millions." 
 
 " There is a good deal of spending in it, cer- 
 tainly, if a man knows how to spend judiciously. 
 Do you like my house ? " 
 
 "I consider it perfect. You have had the 
 discretion not to follow the prevailing fashion. 
 That is your strong point. You have not gone 
 too far, either, in expense or splendour. You 
 have put on the brake at the right moment." 
 
 " Come and see my den," said Gerard. 
 
 He led the way to the upper floor, opened a 
 door at the back of the house, and ushered Jermyn 
 into a room with folding doors, opening into a
 
 THE AVORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 251 
 
 second room. The two rooms exactly reproduced 
 those Inn chambers where he had seen the vision 
 of Hester Davenport. Colour, form, material — 
 all had been carefully copied, Gerard's memory 
 of that night and its surroundings being more 
 vivid than any other memory of his past life. 
 There were the same curtains of sombre velvet, 
 darkest green in the lights, and black in the 
 shadows, the same Oriental carpet, of rich, but 
 chastened, hues, the same, or almost the same, 
 Italian pictures — a Judas by Titian — a wood- 
 nymph by Guido, the same delicately-carved 
 Chippendale secretaire and old oak cabinets, the 
 same touches of colour amidst the gloom. 
 
 " My very rooms ! by all that's wonderful ! " 
 cried Jerm}T3. "What a close observer of still 
 life you must be. You have got everything — 
 except me." 
 
 "The black marble bust? Yes, that is want- 
 ing; but I mean to have that before I have 
 done." 
 
 "Well, my dear Hillersdon, imitation is the 
 sincerest flattery, and I feel intensely flattered." 
 
 "A whim — a fancy that pleased me for a 
 moment — that is all it means. Those after-
 
 252 GERARD; OR, 
 
 midnight hours in your chambers marked the 
 turning-point in my life. I had made up my 
 mind to shoot myself that very night. The 
 pistol was ready loaded in my pistol-case. I had 
 thought it all out, and had made up my mind. 
 God knows how you guessed my secret so 
 readily.'* 
 
 "My dear fellow, your mind was steeped in 
 suicide. There was no secret in the matter — to 
 an observer with the slightest claim to insight. 
 I saw despair, defiance, recklessness, and the 
 gloom which means only one thing — self-destruc- 
 tion." 
 
 ^'And while I was at the opera, listening to 
 the doom of Don Juan, the everlasting type of 
 spendthrift and profligate — while I was sitting 
 in your chambers, the lawyer's letter was lying 
 on my table, within a few feet of the pistol-case 
 — the letter that heralded the announcement of 
 millions. That night was like a bad dream — and 
 it was not until many days afterwards that I was 
 able to shake off that dream-feeling, and realise 
 my good luck." 
 
 " Good luck, with a vengeance," laughed Jer- 
 myn. " You have been lucky in more ways than
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 253 
 
 one — lucky in love as well as in gold ; lucky iu 
 the fast coming release of the woman you love." 
 
 " I don't quite follow you," Gerard said coldly, 
 resenting this allusion, even from a man who 
 professed to know everybody's business. 
 
 "Don't pretend to be angry with me for 
 touching upon an open secret. Everybody knows 
 of your devotion to one bright particular star; 
 and everybody will be inclined to congratulate 
 you when the worthy stockbroker gets his order 
 of release. Life can be of very little value to 
 him, poor fellow. I saw him dragged about in 
 a bath-chair on the parade at St. Leonards a 
 month ago, a dismal wreck, and now I am told 
 he is iu retreat at Finchley — the beginning of 
 the end." 
 
 Gerard smoked his cigarette in silence. The 
 conversation was evidently displeasing to him. 
 
 The beginning of the end ? Yes, it might be 
 that the end was near; and if it were so, what 
 better could he desire than to marry the woman 
 he had so ardently desired to marry just four 
 years ago; the capable, accomplished woman 
 whom all the town admired, and who was rich 
 enough to be in no wise influenced by his wealth.
 
 254 GERARD; OR, 
 
 She was not less beautiful than she had been in 
 her girlhood — more beautiful, rather, with a 
 beauty which was only now ripening to its perfect 
 development — a ruddier gold upon her hair, a 
 finer curve of cheek and throat. People were 
 never tired of telling him that Mrs. Champion 
 was the handsomest woman in London. 
 
 " I want to ask you another question," Gerard 
 began, when he had smoked out the cigarette. 
 *'Was I utterly mad that night in your rooms, 
 or did I see a vision of a girl at a sewing- 
 machine ? " 
 
 " You were not mad by any means. Your con- 
 versation was both rational and logical. It is 
 quite possible that you saw a vision." 
 
 "Produced by some trickery of yours, no 
 doubt. How was it done ? " 
 
 " If I were master of any of the black arts, do 
 you think I would tell you the secrets of my 
 trade ? What if I willed that you should recall 
 the loveliest face you had ever seen? Would 
 that account for the phenomenon, do you think? " 
 
 "I don't know; the face was certainly one I 
 had seen before ; but I was quite unable to 
 identify it without assistance, therefore one would
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 255 
 
 suppose it had faded out of my mind, and could 
 hardly be willed into vivid actuality by you." 
 
 "You make no allowance for the submerged 
 identity — that inner ego beneath the outer husk 
 of existence — that hidden nature which keeps its 
 fancies and thoughts locked in darkness, perhaps 
 for years, to start into light at a touch of a 
 kindred spirit — that mysterious being dormant 
 in us from the dawn of manhood, which only 
 awakens at the call of love, and which is at the 
 root of that other mystery we call love at first 
 sight — love, passionate, all-absorbing, strong as 
 death, born in an hour." 
 
 " If not an Adam at his birth he is no love at 
 all," quoted Gerard. 
 
 And then he remembered how in the beaten 
 track of life his love of Edith Champion had 
 grown up ; how he had met her at dinners, and 
 tennis-parties, and cricket matches, and afternoon 
 teas, and had danced with her three nights a 
 week, and heard her praised by men and women ; 
 until gradually, out of these commonplace elements 
 he had come to think her the first necessity of 
 his existence, and to follow her, and devote 
 himself to her. No, there had been nothing
 
 256 GERARD; OR, 
 
 romantic there — no mysterious flame, wrapping 
 him round in an instant, sudden, invincible. He 
 loved as men and women love in wliat is called 
 good society — reasonably, with a love that does 
 not burst bonds, or even violate conventionalities. 
 
 He thought a good deal about Edith Champion 
 during that April afternoon, long after Jermyn 
 had left him, and when he was sauntering and 
 dreaming alone in his little grove of lime and 
 chestnut, where the purple leaf buds and newly 
 opening leaves were faintly fanned by a soft 
 west wind, and where, above the interwoven 
 branches, the sky showed deeply blue — one of 
 those peerless spring afternoons which bring 
 with them, in their own fresh youthfulness, a 
 sense of reviving youth in the frame and mind 
 of man— factitious, but delightful while it lasts. 
 
 He thought of the woman to whom he had 
 bound himself, and for the first time since he 
 had given her his solemn promise of fidelity he 
 felt the shadow of doubt creeping across that 
 sunlit path which an indulgent Fate, granting 
 him all things to be desired of man, had marked 
 out for him. He told himself that he was one 
 of the spoilt children of Fortune ; and he hated
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 257 
 
 himself because, like the spoilt child of nursery 
 story-books, he was inclined to quarrel with 
 his toys. 
 
 He had been living amongst men whose master 
 is the spirit that always denies. He had steeped 
 himself in that pessimism of small minds which 
 pervades society, and which is the chosen gospel 
 of the men who profess to be in advance of their 
 fellow-men. A dull, dead hopelessness came 
 down upon him, like a dark cloud, in the midst 
 of this palace of art which he had built for his 
 soul, and the palace seemed no better than a 
 prison-house. 
 
 He and Mrs. Champion had met less frequently 
 during the last month, for Edith, who was warm- 
 hearted and kindly natured, despite her essen- 
 tially modern estimate of life, had deemed it 
 her duty to withdraw in some measure from 
 society, now that her husband was the inmate 
 of a private lunatic asylum. She drove to 
 Finchley three times a week, and spent an hour 
 or two with the invalid, sometimes driving with 
 him in the doctor's capacious landau, while her 
 own horses rested, sometimes walking beside 
 his wheel-chair in the garden, and listening 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 GERARD; OR, 
 
 patiently while he rambled confusedly through 
 the Stock Exchange list, from Berthas and 
 Buenos Ayres First Preference to Electric 
 Lighting Companies and Papafuego Loans; the 
 shattered mind retracing trodden paths, and 
 finding pleasure in familiar sounds, though 
 memory was almost a blank. Mr. Champion 
 was placable, satisfied with his surroundings, 
 and expressed no impatience of restraint, nor 
 desire to be taken back to his own house. In- 
 deed, it seemed to his wife that he had forgotten 
 every detail of his past existence, except the 
 shibboleth of the Money Market. 
 
 In this dismal state it would have been less 
 than charity to pray for the prolongation of his 
 life. Edith did all in her power, by frequent 
 supervision and by undeviating interest, to secure 
 the patient's well-being. He had his old and 
 trusted servant with him, as a check upon the 
 service of the doctor's attendants. A wife who 
 had loved him passionately could have done no 
 more than Edith was doing.
 
 THE WOKLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 259 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 " EARTH BEING SO GOOD, WOULD HEAVEN 
 SEEM BEST ? " 
 
 Perhaps in every life there is one perfect inter- 
 lude — one long sweet interval set somewhere in 
 the midst of the cares and tribulations of common- 
 place existence, a period in which trouble and 
 sorrow are unknown, and all the colours of earth 
 and sky are deepened into supernatural beauty. 
 The period of a young girl's engagement to the 
 man of her choice — if she be only single-minded 
 and free from jealous fears — is one of these 
 halcyon days — a time of peace and happiness, 
 the winds and waves of trouble all lying at 
 rest, while the sea-birds, joy and hope, are 
 hatching. 
 
 Lilian Hillersdon was steeped in the sunlight 
 and the music of that enchanting time. The
 
 260 GEEARD; OR, 
 
 man to whom she had plighted her life seemed 
 to realise her highest ideal of manly excellence. 
 He satisfied every need of her nature. 
 
 She was deeply religious, and she found in her 
 future husband a faith that could apprehend and 
 discuss every theory and doubt of the age, and 
 yet stand strong as a tower. She was tender- 
 hearted, benevolent, sympathetic, taking the 
 sufferings of humanity as a portion of her own 
 life, an ever-present sorrow in the midst of her 
 own joy, and she found in John Cumberland a 
 pity as tender as her own, and a benevolence of 
 a far wider grasp. She could look up to him 
 with meek reverence, as the women of old looked 
 up to their mailed warriors, the men who went 
 out to the unknown land to fight for the 
 sepulchre of their Lord. She could revere him, 
 and yet be utterly happy and light-hearted in 
 his companionship, for his religion was, like 
 Kingsley's, the gospel of cheerfulness, and his 
 most ardent desire was to get the greatest sum 
 of happiness out of this world for himself and 
 others. 
 
 The one shadow on her life was the fact that 
 her brother had wantonly shut himself outside
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 261 
 
 that fold where she would have gathered him, 
 with all the precious things of her life; but 
 when she told Jack Cumberland her fears and 
 regrets, he smiled them away and comforted her 
 with his broad view of a young man's foolishness. 
 
 *' He is only going through that phase of un- 
 belief which most men have to suffer at some 
 period of their lives," he said. " He will not be 
 prayed or preached into happier ideas. The 
 best thing you and I can do is to leave him alone 
 with his opinions till he finds out how barren 
 and joyless this world is while it means the 
 whole, and how much more comprehensible 
 when we accept it for what it is — a single round 
 upon the ladder of everlasting life. In the mean- 
 time, if we can interest him in philanthropic 
 schemes, and the making of Christian England, 
 we shall do a good deal." 
 
 **He has promised to make the round of our 
 parish with mother next week," said Lilian. 
 
 Mrs. Hillersdon's much-talked-of visit to her 
 son's house had been deferred from one cause 
 and another until April was nearly over; but 
 when that pleasant month was at its best she 
 appeared upon the scene, fresh and smiling as
 
 262 GEKARD ; OR, 
 
 one of the glebe meadows on a sunny morning, 
 and escorted by the Kector, who was to spend 
 only three days in town, before returning west- 
 ward to visit old friends, and to preach charity 
 sermons at Stroud and at Bath on his way 
 home. 
 
 The mother was full of admiration of her son's 
 surroundings, and of the pretty rooms allotted 
 to Lilian, in whose future home she was even 
 more keenly interested. While the Kector was 
 in London, the time was devoted to picture- 
 galleries, concerts, the Park, and society, with 
 the exception of a somewhat hurried survey of 
 Mr. Cumberland's church, vicarage, and schools ; 
 but when Mr. Hillersdon had departed upon his 
 round of visits, Lilian took complete possession 
 of her mother, and most of their time was spent 
 in the neighbourhood of Soho, both mother and 
 daughter preferring the simple luncheon pro- 
 vided by Jack Cumberland's plain cook and 
 middle-aged house-maid, in the sober oak- 
 panelled dining-room in Greek Street, to the 
 elaborate inventions of the chef at Hillersdon 
 House. The mother was never tired of inspect- 
 ing her daughter's future home, or of discussing
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 263 
 
 that important question of household linen, with 
 all its scope for variety of material and fine sew- 
 ing. Most delightful was it also to join Lilian 
 and ber lover in their rambles after furniture, 
 books, and curios, wherewith to make the new 
 home more and more homelike — the long drives 
 to queer old brokers' shops to examine some gem 
 of the Chippendale or Sheraton period, entangled 
 in a dusty labyrinth of rubbish. It was curious 
 how to these two women there was more real 
 rapture in a couple of shield-backed chairs of the 
 wheat-ear pattern, unearthed at a remote broker's, 
 than in all the chastened splendour and carefully 
 thought out luxury of Hillersdon House ; indeed, 
 there was to Mrs. Hillersdon's simple mind — 
 chastened by long years of tranquil inactivity, 
 sobered by the sorrows of a country parish — some 
 latent feeling of distrust which saddened her in 
 the midst of her son's brilliant surroundino^s. 
 The change in his fortunes was too sudden and 
 too intense. Unconsciously she echoed the fore- 
 boding of Solon when Croesus exhibited his 
 magnificence before the calm gaze of wisdom. 
 She looked at her son, radiant, animated, lead- 
 ing the conversation at a table where all the
 
 264 GERARD ; OR, 
 
 guests were men of mark, and all the women 
 beauties or wits, and the flush upon his cheek 
 seemed the hectic of disease, the light in his 
 eye too restless for health. She questioned him 
 with keenest anxiety after one of these brilliant 
 dinners. 
 
 " Are you not doing too much, Gerard ? " she 
 asked tenderly, " burning the candle of life at 
 both ends ? " 
 
 *' My dear mother, candles were made to burn. 
 If one must be either a flame or a lump of tallow 
 I would rather be the flame — though, no doubt, 
 the unlighted tallow would last a great deal 
 longer. I dare say we seem to be taking life 
 prestissimo after your gentle andante movement 
 in Devonshire. But a man who has no financial 
 cares can stand a little racketing. I used to 
 take a great deal more out of myself in the days 
 when the thought of my tailor's bill, or the 
 image of my landlord's sullen face scowling at 
 me from the half-open door of his back parlour, 
 would come between me and the roses and rap- 
 tures of a Belgravian ball-room." 
 
 " But you have financial cares of another kind, 
 Gerard," answered his mother, in her grave, sweet
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 265 
 
 voice. " You have tlie disposal of a great for- 
 tune — talents for which you must account by 
 and by." 
 
 " At least, admit that I have not buried them 
 in a napkin — unless it is a dinner napkin/' 
 laughed Gerard. " What did you think of that 
 chaufroid of quails ? commonplace, I fear ; every- 
 body gives quails at this season ; the London 
 menu becomes as monotonous as that of the 
 Israelites in the wilderness ; but the lobster 
 souffle was iced to perfection." 
 
 '* Well, I won't try to talk seriously to you to- 
 night ; you will only laugh at my old-fashioned 
 ideas. I was brought up to think of riches as 
 something held in trust for one's fellow-crea- 
 tures." 
 
 " You were brought up by the ideal squire and 
 squiress. Yes, I remember my grandfather, who 
 spent every sixpence he could spare from the 
 mere bread and cheese of this life, upon building 
 cottages for his farm labourers and improving the 
 drainage of old-fashioned homesteads, and who 
 was considered a tyrannical landlord by way of 
 recompense — and my grandmother, who tramped 
 up and down muddy lanes and penetrated foul-
 
 266 GEEARD; OR, 
 
 smelling cabins, and dressed sore legs, and read 
 to the sick and the blind, and was generally- 
 spoken of as an officious domineering person. 
 Is that the kind of life you want me to lead, 
 mother ? " 
 
 "No, dear; that was charity upon a small 
 scale, and under difficulties. You can do some 
 great work." 
 
 *' Only show me what there is for me to do, 
 mother, and I will do it. There is Jack Cumber- 
 land yonder, who knows that my surplus income 
 is at his service, but who is too proud to be 
 helped, except in the most insignificant way. 
 Shall I build him a church, or shall I endow an 
 almshouse vast enough to hold all the elderly 
 paupers in his parish ? I am ready to give any- 
 thing or to do anything. If I had any treasure 
 specially dear to my heart, I would surrender it, 
 as Polycrates threw his ring into the sea." 
 
 "Ah, dearest, I know your heart is in the 
 right place," said the mother, drawing nearer to 
 the low chair in which her son was reclining, 
 his head lying back upon the amber cushions, 
 his cheek pale with the exhaustion of an animated 
 evening, "but I am grieved to think that in a
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 267 
 
 life which might be so happy — and so useful — 
 there is one sad want." 
 
 " What is that, mother ? " 
 
 ** The want of religious convictions. Your 
 sister tells me that you never go to church now, 
 that Christ is no longer your master and your 
 guide, but that you and your friends talk of 
 our blessed Lord as a village philosopher in 
 advance of his age, who unconsciously reproduced 
 the aspirations of Plato, and the morals of 
 Buddha. You used to be such a firm believer, 
 Gerard, in the days when you came home from 
 Eton, so fresh, and frank, and joyous, and when 
 you and I used to have such long Sunday talks 
 together in the woods between luncheon and 
 evening service." 
 
 "Ah, mother, those were the days when life 
 was a picture and not a problem ; the days before 
 I began to think. I dare say I shall be just as 
 good a believer again by and by, when I am 
 old enough to leave off thinking."
 
 268 GERARD; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Mr. Cumberland's most energetic coadjutor in 
 the improvement of his new parish was Lady- 
 Jane Blenheim, who had worked in that parish 
 for many years, and who was the head and front 
 of a club and home for working women, that 
 stood almost within the shadow of the old church 
 of St. Lawrence. Lady Jane had seen vicars and 
 curates come and go. She had seen good and 
 faithful shepherds ; she had seen those who 
 scarce knew how to hold a sheep-hook ; and she 
 was quick to recognise the right stamp of man in 
 the new incumbent. She entered heartily into 
 all his projected improvements, and gave the 
 hand of friendship to his intended wife ; while 
 the Vicar on his side ardently espoused all the 
 enthusiasms of the lady, and lent his musical
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 269 
 
 gifts to those social evenings at the club which 
 it was Lady Jane's delight to inaugurate and 
 superintend. To have as head of the parish a 
 man with a strong brain and a fine baritone voice, 
 supported by an extensive repertoire from both 
 oratorio and opera, was more than she had ever 
 hoped, and she gave the new Yicar her friendship 
 and her counsel in unstinted measure. She was 
 a familiar visitor in the dreariest ground-floor 
 dens, and in the most miserable garrets within 
 the district, and she could tell him a great deal 
 about his neediest parishioners, who, although 
 they frequently shifted from one wretched lodging 
 to another, did not often wander far afield, indeed 
 for the most part revolved within a Earrow circle, 
 keeping the old burial-ground of St. Lawrence as 
 their centre, and the church tower as their land- 
 mark, a land-mark which sometimes served to 
 guide the feet of the Saturday night reveller, too 
 far gone in liquor to read the names of the streets, 
 or recognise minor indications. 
 
 To please his sister and her betrothed, Gerard 
 interested himself in Lady Jane's club, and ex- 
 cused himself from an engagement at one of the 
 most distinguished houses in London, where
 
 270 GERARD; OR, 
 
 hospitality was a fine art, and where Cabinet 
 Ministers were as common as strawberries in July, 
 in order to eat boiled salmon and roast lamb in 
 Jack Cumberland's dining-room, where Lady 
 Jane and his sister made up the party of four. 
 His mother had gone back to Devonshire, satiated 
 with the sights of London, and loaded with gifts 
 from her millionaire son, costly trifles and new 
 inventions for the comfort or decoration of 
 drawing-room and morning-room, as yet unknown 
 and undreamed of by the shopkeepers of Exeter. 
 He was not sorry to give up a ducal dinner- 
 party, albeit his card of invitation bristled with 
 Koyalties. He had been tolerably familiar with 
 all that London can offer in the way of pleasure 
 and dissipation before he came into his fortune. 
 He stood now upon a higher grade of the steps 
 that approach the throne, but the palace was the 
 same palace, the lights, music, flowers, lovely 
 women were the same that he had looked upon 
 for half a dozen seasons, when he was a nobody. 
 He would have liked to have had a new world — 
 to have had a gate open for him into a land 
 where all things were new. If he had been able 
 to walk more than half a dozen miles without
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AXD THE DEVIL. 271 
 
 feeling tireJ, he would have started for Central 
 Africa. He had serious thoughts of Japan, Cey- 
 lon, or even Burmah — but while an inner self 
 yearned for untrodden lands, the commonplace, 
 work-a-day self clung to Mayfair and its civilisa- 
 tion — to the great city in which for the man with 
 any pretension to be " smart " there is only one 
 hatter, one boot-maker, tailor, carriage-builder, 
 one kind of letter-paper, one club, and one per- 
 fume possible ; for be it observed that although 
 the really smart man may be a member of twenty 
 clubs there is only one that he considers worthy 
 of him, that one from which the black ball has 
 excluded the majority of his particular friends. 
 
 This little dinner in Soho, served by the neat 
 parlour-maid, in the sombre oak-panelled parlour, 
 this talk with Lady Jane of the ways and works 
 of girls who made jam, and girls who made tailors' 
 trimmings, was almost as good as a glimpse of a 
 new country. All things here were new to the 
 man who since he left the University had lived 
 only amongst people who either were or pretended 
 to be of the mode, modish. 
 
 The stories he heard to-night of sin and sorrow, 
 good and bad, brutal crime, heroic efifort, tender
 
 272 GERAED; OR, 
 
 self-sacrifice, in a world given over to abject 
 poverty, with all the lights and shadows of these 
 lowly lives, touched and interested him more 
 than he could have supposed possible. His heart 
 and his fancy had not been brought so near the 
 lives of the masses since he read, with choking 
 throat and tear-dimmed eyes, Zola's story of the 
 lower deeps in that brilliant Paris of which he, 
 Gsrard Hillersdon, knew only the outward glitter 
 and garish colouring. Behind the boulevards and 
 the cafes, the theatres and the music halls, there 
 is always this other world where everybody whose 
 eyes open on the light of God's day is foredoomed 
 a " lifer," sentenced to hard labour, and with but 
 faintest hope of a ticket-of-leave after years of 
 patient work. To Gerard, conscious of wealth in 
 superabundance, these stories of sordid miseries, 
 agonies which a five-pound note might cure, 
 or fatal diseases, incurable for ever, which a little 
 ease and a little comfort might have averted, 
 seemed doubly dreadful — dreadful as a reproach 
 to every rich man in the city of London. And 
 yet to try and alter these things, he told himself, 
 would be like trying to turn the_t ide of t he ^. 
 Lawrence, above the falls of Niagara. Were he
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 273 
 
 to cast all his fortune into this great gulf of 
 poverty, there would ba one millionaire the less, 
 and for the masses an almost imperceptible gain. 
 But he resolved, sitting in this sombre parlour, 
 with the sunset of a fine May evening glowing on 
 the polished oak panel?, as on deep water — ^he 
 resolved that these stories of hard lives should 
 not have been told him in vain — that he would 
 do some great thing, when once he could decide 
 upon the thing that was most needed — to lessen 
 the measure of perpetual want. Whether lodging- 
 house or hospital, club or refuge, reformatory or 
 orphanage, something would he create ; something 
 which should soothe his own conscience and satisfy 
 his mother's piety. 
 
 The dinner was all over before eight o'clock, and 
 the little party left the Vicarage on foot to go to 
 a hall in the neighbourhood which had been lent 
 for a meeting of the choirs formed by the various 
 women's clubs in London. The concert and com- 
 petition had begun when the Vicar's party entered 
 the lighted hall, and the building was crowded in 
 every part ; but seats had been kept for Mr. Cum- 
 berland and his friends in a central position in 
 front of the platform. 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 GERAKD; OR, 
 
 The choirs were ranged in a semi-circle, like 
 the spectators in a Greek theatre. There were 
 eight choirs, numbering in all something over 
 two hundred girls, and each choir wore a sash of 
 a particular colour from shoulder to waist. These 
 bright scarves across the sombre dresses, all 
 following the same line, gave an appearance of 
 uniformity to the whole costume. The eye hardly 
 noted the dingy browns, or rusty blacks, the well- 
 worn olives, or neutral greys of cheap, hard- 
 wearing gowns. The bright faces, the neatly 
 dressed hair — with its varied colouring, from 
 raven black, through all the shades of brown and 
 ruddy gold, to palest flaxen — the blue, and yellow, 
 and green, and rose, and violet sashes filled the 
 hall with life and colour. 
 
 Seen thus in a mass of smiling humanity the 
 clubs of London seemed to have sent out a bevy 
 of beauties. The general effect was excellent ; 
 and when all the voices burst forth in a great 
 gush of melody, as the united choirs attacked 
 Mendelssohn's " Greeting," Gerald felt the sudden 
 thrill of sympathy which brings unbidden tears 
 to the eyes. 
 
 After that burst of harmony, in which all the
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 275 
 
 choirs sang together, there came other part-songs 
 by separate choirs. One of these by the members 
 of a club at Chelsea, which called itself somewhat 
 ambitiously the St. Cecilia, struck Gerard as a 
 marked advance upon the others. They sang 
 Schubert's " Wanderer," arranged as a part-song, 
 with English words, and among the many voices 
 there were tones of purest quality which went to 
 Gerard Hillersdon's heart, and moved him more 
 than the new tenors and much heralded sopranos 
 from Italy, America, and Australia had been able 
 to do of late. Indeed, there had been nights at 
 the opera when he, who was passionately fond of 
 music, had begun to fancy that he had left off 
 caring for it ; that one may get beyond music as 
 one gets beyond so many other pleasures ; that 
 even to that pure and perfect enjoyment there 
 may come a season of satiety. 
 
 To-night those familiar notes thrilled him ; 
 those fresh young voices pealing out over the 
 crowded hall awakened in him a rapture of 
 humanity, a longing to be one with this world of 
 Immble toilers, this world of struggles and of cares, 
 in which the pleasures were so simple and so few. 
 This was a gala night, no doubt, for all these
 
 276 GERARD; OR, 
 
 girk. To stand on yonder platform, to wear those 
 bright-coloured sashes, and mingle their voices in 
 tuneful harmonies, meant a festival. He thought 
 of the girls he met in society, the girls steeped to 
 the lips in worldliness and social intrigue ; girls 
 who calculated the cost of every entertainment, 
 appraised its value, social and financial ; sneered if 
 the floral decorations at a ball were sparely done ; 
 sneered even more contemptuously when Trans- 
 atlantic or newly-made wealth obtruded itself 
 upon the eye in a too lavish magnificence ; girls 
 who were gourmets upon leaving the nursery, 
 and who passed at once from the schoolroom 
 bread and butter to a nice discrimination in 
 quails, ortolans, and perigord pie; girls who 
 went gaily flirting and dancing through the 
 flowery groves of a London June, all freshness 
 and infantine candour under the tempered in- 
 candescent lamps, yet having one eye always 
 steadily directed to the main chance of an 
 eligible husband and a handsome establishment. 
 
 While he idly philosophised, gazing somewhat 
 dreamily at the wall of faces, rising in a semi- 
 circle in front of him, till the topmost rank 
 seemed to touch the roof of the hall, his eye
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 277 
 
 suddenly fastened upon one face in the middle 
 distance, a delicate and pensive face, far paler 
 than the majority of those faces, though pallor is 
 the predominant note in the complexions of 
 London work girls. That one face, having once 
 been perceived by him, shone out from the mass 
 of faces, separate and distinct, and held his gaze. 
 It was the face that had haunted his mind since 
 that strange night in Justin Jermyn's chambers, 
 the face of the girl at the sewing-machine. Line 
 for line it was the face he had seen in a vision, 
 distinct in its identity as the living face he was 
 looking at to-night. 
 
 When the singing ceased he questioned Lady 
 Jane, who sat next him. 
 
 " There is a girl in the Chelsea choir, a very 
 lovely girl, but with a look of care in her face," 
 he said. " Do you know who she is ? " 
 
 *' I think I know whom you mean. Can yon 
 point her out to me ? " 
 
 He counted the rows and the heads, and indi- 
 cated the exact position of the girl whose face 
 attracted him. 
 
 *' Do tell me what yuu know about her," he 
 said earnestly.
 
 278 GEKARD; OR, 
 
 " Very little. She is not in my parish or in my 
 club. I believe she is a good girl. She lives 
 with her father " 
 
 *' Who was once a gentleman and a scholar, but 
 who is now nothing but a drunkard," interrupted 
 Gerard. 
 
 " You know her then ? " exclaimed Lady Jane. 
 
 " Is that her history ? " 
 
 " I fear it is. She came once to a social even- 
 ing at our club, and I talked to her, but she was 
 very reticent, and it is from other girls I have 
 heard the little I know of her story. The father 
 was in the church, but disgraced himself by in- 
 temperate habits. The girl who told me this 
 heard it from him, not from his daughter. 
 Hester is a brave, good girl, and bears the 
 burden of her father's past follies, and works 
 very hard to maintain him in comfort. She is 
 a very clever hand at braiding upon cloth. 
 You may have noticed the braided gowns and 
 jackets that have been worn of late years. Hester 
 Dale does that kind of work for the fashionable 
 tailors." 
 
 " Is it hand work or done by the sewing- 
 machine ? "
 
 THE WOELD. THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL 279 
 
 " The greater part is machiue work. Hester is 
 very expert — a really exquisite worker by hand 
 or machine — but it is a hard life at best. I wish 
 we could do more to brighten it for her. We 
 could give her many little treats, and pleasant 
 excursions in the country, if she could only forget 
 that she is a gentleman's daughter, and mix with 
 our girls upon an equal footing. She would find 
 a good deal of natural refinement among them, 
 common as their surroundings are. But she 
 does not care to join in anything but the singing 
 classes. Music is her only pleasure." 
 
 " Is not London a place of terrible tempta- 
 tions for so lovely a girl, under such adverse 
 circumstances ? " asked Gerard, in the pause 
 that followed the next part-song, by an East 
 End choir. 
 
 " Oh, Hester is not that kind of girl," answered 
 Lady Jane, quickly; "she is too pure-minded to 
 be approached by any evil influences." 
 
 Another choir burst into Mendelssohnic melody, 
 " The Maybells and the Flowers," a choral song 
 that sounded gay and fresh as May itself — and 
 Gerard was again constrained to silence, but he 
 never took his eyes from the pure oval of that
 
 280 GERARD; OR, 
 
 pale, pensive face, with its lovely violet eyes, full 
 of a dreamy sweetness, gentle, trustful, innocent 
 as the eyes of a child. Verily, this was a loveli- 
 ness exempt from the snares and lures that lie in 
 wait for vulgar beauty. A girl with such a face 
 as that would not be easily tempted. 
 
 His mind went back to those two occasions 
 upon which he had met Hester Davenport. He 
 remembered that autumn afternoon at the Rectory, 
 when he went into the drawing-room to bid Lilian 
 good-bye, and found a strange young lady sitting 
 with her — a young lady in a plain alpaca gown 
 and a neat straw hat, and with the loveliest face 
 he had seen for many a long day. He remem- 
 bered the few words interchanged with the 
 curate's daughter — the commonplace inquiries 
 as to how she liked Hanover, and Hanover's 
 ways and manners, and whether she had studied 
 music or painting — and then a hurried adieu, as 
 he ran off to the station. He remembered that 
 other meeting by the sea, and a somewhat longer 
 conversation — a little talk about her favourite 
 walks, and her favourite books. He recalled the 
 sweet face in its youthful freshness — fair as the 
 face of the holy bride in Raffaelle's " Spozalizio "
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 281 
 
 — and then be thought of the girls he had known 
 in the smart world, girls who had made magnifi- 
 cent marriages on the strength of a beauty less 
 exquisite — who were now queens of society, 
 treading lightly upon pathways strewn with the 
 roses of life — worshipped, feted, royal in their 
 supremacy. 
 
 And it was just the starting point, the entourage 
 that made all the difference. This girl might 
 sit at her sewing-machine till her loveliness 
 faded to the pale shadow of the beauty that has 
 been. 
 
 He hardly heard the rest of the concert, though 
 the voices were sufficiently loud. He was in a 
 troubled dream of a life, which, after all, con- 
 cerned him very little. What was Hecuba to 
 bim, or he to Hecuba ? Yet, in his eagerness to 
 find out more about Hester Davenport he bade 
 Lady Jane a hurried good night, and put his 
 sister into her carriage to be driven home alone. 
 
 "I am going for a stroll in the moonlight," he 
 said. "Don't sit up for me. I may go to my 
 club for half an hour afterwards." 
 
 It was early yet, not quite ten o'clock, and the 
 young May moon was shining over the chimneys
 
 282 GEKARD; OE, 
 
 of Soho, a tempting night for a walk, and Gerard 
 was given to nocturnal perambulations, so Lilian 
 hardly wondered at being sent home alone." 
 
 He watched the brougham till it disappeared 
 round a corner, and then watched the doors of 
 the hall till the audience had all passed out, and 
 had melted away into the infinite space of 
 London; and then he watched the girls who 
 composed the different choirs as they departed, 
 mostly in talkative clusters, full of gaiety after 
 the evening's amusement. Among so many girls, 
 all dressed in much the same fashion, it was not 
 an easy task to single out one — but his eye was 
 keen to distinguish that one girl for whom he 
 waited, as she crossed the street, separating 
 herself from the herd, and walking rapidly 
 westward, he following. She walked with the 
 resolute pace of a woman accustomed to thread 
 her way through the streets of a great city, 
 uncaring for the faces that passed her by, uncon- 
 scious of observers, intent on her own business, 
 self-contained and self-reliant. Gerard Hillers- 
 don followed on the opposite side of the way, 
 waiting for some quieter spot in which he might 
 address her. They walked in this fashion as far
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 283 
 
 as St. James's Park, and there, under the shelter 
 of spring foliage, beneath Carlton House Terrace, 
 he overtook and accosted her. 
 
 " Good evening. Miss Davenport. I hope you 
 have not forgotten me — Gerard Hillersdon, son 
 of the Kector of Helmsleigh ? " 
 
 He stood bareheaded in the faint evening light 
 — half dusk, half moonlight — holding out his 
 hand to her; but she did not take the extended 
 hand, and she was evidently anxious to pass on 
 without any conversation with him. 
 
 "No, I have not forgotten — but I am hurry- 
 ing home to my father. Good night, Mr. 
 Hillersdon." 
 
 He would not let her go. 
 
 " Spare me a few minutes — only a few 
 minutes?" he pleaded. "I won't delay your 
 return. Let me walk by your side ? My sister, 
 your old friend Lilian, is living in London with 
 me. She would like to call upon you if you will 
 let her?" 
 
 "She was always kind — but it is impossible. 
 My father and I have done with the world in 
 which your sister lives. We are living very 
 humbly, but not unhappily — at least, I have only
 
 284 GERAED; OR, 
 
 one anxiety, and that would be worse if we were 
 living in a palace." 
 
 " Do you think my sister would value or love 
 you less because you are working to maintain 
 your father ? Oh, Miss Davenport, you cannot 
 think so meanly of an old friend ? " 
 
 " No, no ; I am sure she would be as kind as 
 ever — but I would rather not see her. It would 
 recall past miseries. I have tried to blot out 
 all memory of my past life — to exist only in the 
 present. I get on very well " — with a sad little 
 smile, — " while I can do that. Please don't make 
 it more difficult for me ? Good night." 
 
 She stopped, and this time it was she who 
 held out her hand in friendly farewell. 
 
 He took the poor little hand, so small, so 
 delicately fashioned, in its shabby cotton glove — 
 a grey cotton glove that had been washed and 
 neatly darned. He took her hand, and held it 
 gently, but with no intention of accepting his 
 dismissal. 
 
 " Let me walk home with you ? " he said. " I 
 have so much to say to you." 
 
 *' I would rather uot. I am used to being 
 alone."
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 285 
 
 "A part of the way — at least, just a little 
 way ? I want to tell you of all the changes that 
 have happened since you left Helmsleigh." 
 
 " They cannot concern me. I tell you again 
 I have done with all that life. I have no interest 
 in it." 
 
 " Not even in my sister's fate ? She was your 
 friend." 
 
 " She was, and a very dear friend, but all that 
 is past and gone. I want to know nothing about 
 her, except that she is well and happy." 
 
 "She is both — happier than when you knew 
 her. She is in that exalted condition of happi- 
 ness which seems common to girls who are 
 engaged to be married — curious when one con- 
 siders their opportunities of appraising the joys 
 of domestic life in the persons of their fathers 
 and mothers." 
 
 " She is engaged ? " mused Hester, forgetful at 
 once of her resolve not to be interested, and all 
 a woman in her quick sympathies. "Is her 
 fiance any one I knew at Helmsleigh ? " 
 
 " No : he did not come to Helmsleiorh until 
 after you left. He succeeded your father as 
 curate ; but he is now in London. He is the
 
 286 GEBAKD; OR, 
 
 Vicar of St. Lawrence's. You may have seen him 
 at Lady Jane's club." 
 
 " No ; I very seldom go to the club. I give 
 most of my leisure to my father." 
 
 '*Mr. Davenport is pretty well, I hope?" 
 inquired Gerard, hardly knowing how to avoid 
 giving her pain in any allusion to her father. 
 
 " Yes, thank you. He has tolerable health ; 
 only — there is no use in hiding it from you — 
 there is always the old trouble to fear. It does 
 not come often, but it is a constant fear." 
 
 " He is not cured ? He still gives way to the 
 old temptation ? " 
 
 " Sometimes. He is very good. He struggles 
 against that dreadful inclination ; but there are 
 times when it is stronger than himself. He 
 fought a hard battle with himself while we were 
 in Australia — tried to gain his self-iespect and 
 the respect of his fellow-men. He succeeded in 
 getting profitable employment as a clerk. We 
 were doing quite well ; but the evil hour came. 
 He was tempted by foolish friendly people, who 
 laughed at my anxieties about him — and — the 
 end was madness. He was dismissed from the 
 office where he was a gentleman and a person
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 287 
 
 of importance, with a good salary, and he was 
 glad to drop into a lower form of employment ; 
 and he sank and sank to almost the lowest in 
 the city of Melbourne. His friends ceased to 
 care for him. They called him irretrievable. 
 So then I took the care of his life upon my own 
 shoulders. I was able to earn a little money 
 by giving lessons in a depot for sewing-machines, 
 where I learnt a good many improvements in 
 machine work — improvements that are not yet 
 common in England — and I saved just enough 
 to pay our passage home — a steerage passage. 
 I brought him home, a sad wreck, hopeless, 
 broken in body and mind, and we found lodgings 
 in Chelsea — very cheap and very humble, but 
 clean and wholesome. x\ distant relation of mv 
 father's pays the rent. We have lived there 
 ever since. I thought at first that I should be 
 able to find pupils for the pianoforte or singing, 
 and that my German education would help me 
 in that way ; but I found very soon how hopeless 
 that is, especially when one is living in a poor 
 neighbourhood and wearing a threadbare gown. 
 And then I was lucky enough to discover a 
 mantle-maker in Knightsbrido:e who wanted
 
 288 GEEAED; OE, 
 
 what is called a braiding hand, and as my know- 
 ledge of the latest sewing-machine enabled me 
 to do this kind of work better than most girls, 
 I soon got regular employment, and I have been 
 able to make my living ever since." 
 
 " A poor living and a hard life, I fear," said 
 Gerard. 
 
 " Oh, we have enough. We are just com- 
 fortable, father and I ; and he is so fond of me 
 and so good to me that I ought to be thankful 
 and happy." 
 
 **And have you no recreation, no variety in 
 your existence ? Is it all hard work ? " 
 
 " T have the choir practice. That makes a 
 little change now and then, only I don't like to 
 leave my father too often." ' 
 
 ** Does he do nothing ? " 
 
 *' He reads the papers at the free library, and 
 in fine weather he does a little gardening." 
 
 " But he does nothing to help you —he earns 
 nothing ? " 
 
 "No, he is past all that. If he could earn 
 money evil would come of it. As it is his 
 pockets are always empty, poor dear, and he 
 cannot pay for the dreadful stuff that would
 
 THE AVOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 289 
 
 madden his brain. Brandy and chloral cost 
 money, luckily for him and for me." 
 
 " Will you let Lilian help you ? " asked 
 Gerard. " We are rich now, ridiculously rich. 
 We hold our wealth in trust for all who need it. 
 Let my sister do something to make your life 
 lighter. She shall put a sum of money into the 
 Knightsbridge Bank to your credit, open an 
 account for you, and you can draw the money 
 as you want it. She shall do that to-morrow. 
 Consider the thing done." 
 
 "Do not dream of it, Mr. Hillersdon," she 
 answered indignantly. " I would never tout-h a 
 sixpence of any such money. Do you suppose 
 I would take alms from you or any one else 
 while I am young and strong, and am able to 
 get regular work? I wonder you can think so 
 poorly of me." 
 
 " I wonder you can be so cruel as to refuse my 
 friendship — for in refusing my help you deny me 
 the privilege of a friend. It is mere stubborn- 
 ness to rt-ject a small share in Lilian's good 
 fortune. I tell you again we are absurdly 
 rich." 
 
 " If you were twice as rich as the richest of 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 GERARD; OR, 
 
 tlie Kothschilds I would not sacrifice my indepen- 
 dence. If I were penniless and my father ill 
 the case might be diflferent. I might ask your 
 sister to help me." 
 
 '^And must I do nothing to lighten your 
 burden, to soften your hard life ? " 
 
 "It is not a hard life. It is the life of thou- 
 sands of girls in this great city — girls who are 
 contented with their lot, and are bright and 
 happy. I am luckier than many of them, for 
 my work is better paid." 
 
 "But you were not born to this lot ! " 
 
 "Perhaps not; but I hardly think that makes 
 it any worse to bear. I have lived the life long 
 enough to be accustomed to it." 
 
 They were in Eaton Square by this time, the 
 long and rather dreary square, with its tall, 
 barn-like church, which even Fashion cannot 
 make beautiful. When they were about half- 
 way between the church and the western end 
 of the square Hester stopped abruptly. 
 
 "I must beg you to come no further," she 
 said, and there was a resolute look in the pale 
 proud face under the light of the street lamp 
 that commanded obedience.
 
 ' THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYIL. 291 
 
 " Good night, then," he said moodily. " You 
 will at least tell me where you live ? " 
 
 "No there would be nothing gained. My 
 father and I wish to be forgotten." 
 
 She hurried away from him, and he stood there 
 in moonlight and gaslight, in the dull level 
 square, thinking how strange life is. 
 
 Should he follow her and find out where she 
 lived? No; that would be a base and vulgar 
 act, and he might obtain her address without 
 that sacrifice of self-respect and risk of her con- 
 tempt. He could find out at the club, of whose 
 choir she was a member. She fancied herself 
 safely hidden under her assumed name, no 
 doubt ; but he had heard that alias from Lady 
 Jane, and it would be easy enough to discover 
 the dwelling-place of Hester Dale. 
 
 He walked home melancholy, and yet elated. 
 He was so glad to hare found her. It seemed 
 as if a new life were beginning for him that 
 night. 
 
 He did not go to any of the haunts which invite 
 the footsteps of youth betwixt midnight and 
 morning. Dancing tempted him not, neither 
 music nor cards. He was out of tune with all
 
 292 GERAED; OR, 
 
 such common amusements, and tlie commonplace 
 emotions which they produce. He felt as Eu- 
 dymion felt after the mystery of the cavern ; 
 felt as if in that walk in the dim evening 
 shadows and in the bri^^ht moonlidit he had 
 been in another world, and now was back in the 
 old world again, and found it passing dull. 
 
 All was silent in his house when he went in, 
 but through an open window in the lofty hall 
 a chilling wind crept in and stirred the palm 
 leaves, and awakened weird harmonies in an 
 iEolian harp that hung near the casement. His 
 favourite reading-lamp was burning on the table 
 in his study, that room which owed its existence 
 to Justin Jermyn's taste rather than his own, and 
 was yet in all things as his own taste would have 
 chosen. 
 
 The valet who was waiting up for him received 
 his orders and retired, and as his footsteps slowly 
 died away in the corridor, Gerard Hillersdon felt 
 the oppression of an intolerable solitude. 
 
 There were letters on a side table. Of all the 
 numerous deliveries in the district none ever 
 failed to bring a heap of letters for the million- 
 aire — invitations, letters of introduction, begging
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 293 
 
 letters, circulars, prospectuses of every imagin- 
 able mode and manner of scheme engendered in 
 the wild dreams of the speculator. He only- 
 glanced at these things, and then flung them 
 into a basket which his secretary cleared every 
 morning. His secretary replied to the invita- 
 tions ; he had neatly engraved cards expressive 
 of every phase of circumstances — the pleasure in 
 accepting — the honour of dining — the regret in 
 declining — and all the rest. The chief thing 
 which money had done for Gerard Hillersdon 
 was to lessen the labour of life — to shunt all his 
 burdens upon other shoulders. 
 
 This is what wealth can do. If it cannot 
 always buy happiness, it can generally buy ease. 
 It seems a hard thing to the millionaire that he 
 must endure his own gout, and that he cannot hire 
 some one to get up early in the morning for him. 
 
 Among all the letters which had accumulated 
 since six o'clock, there was only one that in- 
 terested him, a long letter from Edith Champion, 
 who had the feminine passion for writing 
 lengthily to the man she loved, albeit of late 
 he had rarely replied in any more impassioned 
 form than a teleo:ram.
 
 294 GERARD; OR, 
 
 " It is SO much nicer to talk," lie told her 
 when she reproached bim, "and there is nothing 
 to prevent our meeting." 
 
 "But there is. There are whole days on 
 which we don't meet — my Finchley days." 
 
 "True. But then we are so fresh to each 
 other the day after. Why discount our emotions 
 by writing abuut them ? I love to get your 
 letters, all the same," he added kindly. "Your 
 pen is so eloquent." 
 
 " I can say more with my pen than I ever 
 dare to say with my lips," she answered. 
 
 Her letter to-night was graver than usual. 
 
 "I have been at Finchley all day — such a 
 trying day. I think the end is coming — at least, 
 the doctors have told me they do not give him 
 much longer. I cannot say I fear he is dying, 
 since you know that his death will mean the 
 beginning of a new existence for me, with all 
 the hope and gladness of my girlhood ; and yet 
 my mind is full of fear when I think of him 
 and of you, and of what my life has been for 
 the last three years. I do not think I have 
 failed in any duty to him. I know that I have 
 never thwarted him, that I have studied his
 
 THE WOELD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEYH.. 295 
 
 wishes ia the arrangement of our lives, have 
 never complained of the dull people he brought 
 about me, or refused to send a card to any of 
 his city friends. If he had objected to your 
 visits I should have given up your acquaintance. 
 I have never disobeyed him. But he liked to 
 see you in his house ; he never felt the faintest 
 pang of jealousy, though he must have known 
 that you were more to me tlian any common 
 friend. I have done my duty, Gerard ; and yet 
 I feel myself disgraced somehow by those three 
 years of my married life. I was sold like a 
 slave in the market-place, and though such 
 bargains are the fashion nowadays, and every- 
 body approves of the market and the barter, yet 
 a woman who has consented to be bought by 
 the highest bidder caunot feel very proud of 
 herself in after life. It is nearly over, Gerard, 
 and by and by you must teach me to forget. 
 You must give me back my girlhood. You can, 
 and you only. There is no one else who can — 
 no one — no one." 
 
 He sat brooding, with that letter open before 
 him. Yes, he was bound as fast as ever man was 
 bound — bound by every obligation that could
 
 296 GERARD; OR, 
 
 constrain an honest man. Conscience, feeling, 
 honour alike constrained him. This was the 
 woman to whom he gave his heart four years 
 ago, in the fresh morning of a young man's 
 life — in that one bright year of youth when all 
 pleasure*, hopes, and fancies are new and vivid, 
 and when the feet that tread this workaday earth 
 move as lightly as if they wore Mercury's pinions. 
 What a happy year it had been ! What a bright, 
 laughing love ! Though he might look back 
 now and sneer at his first love as commonplace 
 and conventional, he could but remember how 
 sunny the world had been, how light his heart, 
 how keen his enjoyment of life in those thought- 
 less days — before he had learnt to think ! Yes ; 
 that had been the charm of existence — he had 
 lived in the present. He must try to live in 
 the present now — to look neither backward nor 
 forward — to enjoy, as the butterflies enjoy — 
 without memory, without forecast. 
 
 He had not forgotten the opening chapter of 
 the " Peau de Chagrin" — the dismal centenarian 
 in the bric-a-brac shop, the man with a face like 
 a death's head, tlie dreary stoic who had existed 
 for a hundred years, and yet had never lived.
 
 THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. 207 
 
 He hal the novel on the table before h'm — an 
 edition cle luxe, richly illustrate!, with duplicate 
 engravings on India paper. The story had a 
 carious fascination for him, aul he could not 
 rid himself of the idea that the consumptive 
 Valentin was his own prototype. In a curious 
 fanciful indulgence of this grim notion, he ha I 
 nailed a large sheet of drawing-paper on the 
 panelled wall that faced his writing-table. He 
 had no enchanted skin to hang on the white 
 paper, to indicate by its gradual contraction the 
 wasting of his own life — the hurrying feet of 
 Death; but he had invented f 'r himself a gauge 
 of his strength and nervine vitality. Upon the 
 elephantine sheet Le had drawn with a bold and 
 rapid pen the irregular outline of an imaginary 
 chagrin skin, and from time to time he liad 
 drawn other lines within this outline, aiwa}"s 
 following the original form. In the steadiness 
 and force of the line his pen made he saw an 
 indication of the steadiness of his nerves, the 
 soundness of his physical health. Of the five 
 lines upon the white paper the innermost showed 
 weakest and most uncertain. There had been a 
 gradual deterioration from the first line to the filth.
 
 298 GERARD. 
 
 To-night, after a long interval of melancholy 
 thought, he rose suddenly, dipped a broad-nibbed 
 pen deep into a capacious ink-pot, and with slow 
 uncertain hand traced the sixth line — traced it 
 with a hand so tremulous that this last line 
 differed more markedly from the line imme- 
 diately before it than that fifth line differed from 
 the first bold outline. Yet between the first 
 and the fifth line there had been an interval 
 of nearly six months, while between the fifth and 
 the sixth the interval w^as but three days. 
 
 The element of passion, with its fever of 
 hope and expectancy, had newly entered into 
 his life. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 STAMFOKD STKEET AND CHARING CROSS.
 
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