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 DEC 1 9 1 
 
 MAY 25 2 
 
 NOV 1 ' - 
 
 L161— O-1096
 
 DEAD MEN'S SHOES.
 
 
 DEAD MEN'S SHOES 
 
 % 8»i'>i 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET' 
 
 ETC. BTC. ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHX MAX^YELL AXD CO 
 
 4, SHOE LAXE, FLEET STREET 
 
 1876 
 
 \_AU rights reserred.'\

 
 To Sir J. CORDY BURROWS, J.P, 
 BRIGHTON. 
 
 fy 
 
 2 
 
 J Deae Sir Cordy Burrows, 
 
 If anything can justify the dedication 
 > 
 ^ of a book to any one, it surely must be a friend- 
 
 ^ ship that has lasted nearly twenty years; marked 
 
 •^'on your side by many acts of care and kindness, 
 
 and on mine by a most sincere appreciation of 
 
 your genial and generous nature. I have therefore 
 
 great pleasure in recording this fact, and I have 
 
 still greater pleasure in dedicating this story to you. 
 
 4 
 
 BeHeve me, 
 
 Dear Sir Cordy Burrows, 
 /s Very sincerely yours. 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
 ^ ElCHMOXD, 
 
 ^ February, 1876.
 
 CONTEXTS TO VOL. I. 
 
 CHAP. 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 YI. 
 
 YII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Plunged in the depth of helpless poverty' i 
 
 *0 World, thy slippery tqrns! 
 
 The True Metal 
 
 *Had the chance been with us that has not 
 been ' . . . . 
 
 Sibyl Faunthorpe's Diary 
 
 The Elite op Kedcastle . 
 
 Drifting into Haven. 
 
 The Eeturn of the Prodigal 
 
 Uncle Trenchard 
 
 Sibyl takes the Lead 
 
 How Stephen Trenchard Forgives . 
 
 Love, then, had Hope of Eicher Store 
 
 The Sweets of Life . 
 
 Making Eeady for Victory 
 
 Town and County 
 
 A Mysterious Visitor 
 
 The Wanderer's Eeturn . 
 
 At Arm's Length 
 
 24 
 39 
 
 47 
 60 
 
 94 
 104 
 117 
 
 131 
 140 
 152 
 171 
 
 195 
 208 
 221 
 246 
 
 273 
 287
 
 DEAD MEN'S SHOES, 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 'PLUNGED IX THE DEPTH OF HELPLESS POVERTY.' 
 
 A GIRL-WOMAX alone on Battersea Bridge, reading a 
 letter in the December sunset — one of those mild 
 autumnal afternoons which hang upon the skirts of 
 winter. A girl in years — a woman in cares. Dark 
 brown eyes set in a pale, sharply set face ; mouth 
 rosy and beautiful in form, but too firm in its lines 
 to be altogether lovely in a woman. A girl whom 
 the passers by look at interrogatively, wondering 
 that so much beauty should go alone, and so poorly 
 clad. Her clothes are not common, but shabby — 
 a black silk dress that has once been handsome and 
 VOL. I. B
 
 ^ DEAD MEN S SHOES. 
 
 fasliionable ; a black felt hat trimmed with thread- 
 bare velvet ; a sealskin jacket worn bald at the 
 edges, and dull with exposure to hard weather ; 
 gloves which indicate that to be gloved at all has 
 cost the wearer a struggle; boots whose decay is 
 no less evident than the symmetry of the slender 
 feet they cover. She walks listlessly up and down 
 the pavement of the bridge — just the one quiet 
 promenade to be found in this neighbourhood — 
 reading a letter from home, or the place which 
 was her home two years ago. She has seen much 
 of the world during these two years, — in her own 
 opinion too much, for she has seen not the fair and 
 shinins^ fabric in life's loom, but the ra^ojed sleave 
 thereof 
 
 This is the letter which she reads, not once, but 
 three times over, with deepest attention, as she 
 paces up and down the quiet old bridge, while the 
 sunset fades from the cold gray river, and from 
 that Dutch picture of old red roofs and water-side 
 shanties on the Middlesex shore, which painters 
 have loved, and which the Thames Embankment 
 may perchance have blotted out by this time : —
 
 ' PLUXGED IN THE DEPTH OF HELPLESS POVEETY.' 3 
 
 ^ Eedcastle, Decemher 11th, 186—. 
 'My dear Sibyl, 
 
 'An event has happened which I think 
 likely to exercise a wonderful iofluence for good 
 upon all our lives. Stephen Trenchard, yonr 
 mother s brother, the uncle Stephen you hare all 
 talked about as children, and whose wealth was 
 your poor mother's boast, has returned to England, 
 after nearly thirty years' absence, yellow, wrinkLed, 
 withered, and eccentric in manners and habits, but 
 I think not unkindly disposed to any of nsL He 
 has taken a house at Eedcastle, and is anxious to 
 have his nieces about Mm, as he calls it. Marion 
 has already exchanged the discomforts mid 
 deprivations of a parish doctor's household for the 
 Oriental luxuries of Lancaster Lodge. I dare say 
 you remember the house, a square stone building 
 with two tall iron gates, and two lodges within 
 thirty yards of the hall door. Some people will 
 have grandeur at the sacrifice of consistency. He 
 seems — I mean your uncle Stephen — ^to hare taken 
 a great fancy to Marion. I meet her lolling in his 
 barouche, tryiag to look as if she had
 
 4 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 accustomed to ride in a three hundred guinea 
 carriage all her life, and really doing it very well. 
 Jenny has also been to see her uncle, but he 
 thought her rough and uncultivated, and I fear 
 that, with her present deficiency of manners, she 
 has little chance of pleasing him. I have sent her 
 to Miss Mercer's, as a day scholar, since Michaelmas, 
 but as she will talk to the boys going and returning, 
 I really think the change is doing her more harm 
 than good. I have dined with Mr. Trenchard, and 
 can assure you that the splendour of his table is 
 something to remember. I don't pretend to be a 
 judge of wines, though I could give you a lecture 
 upon tannic acid, alcohol, and so on — experience, to 
 my mind, being better than theory, and my oppor- 
 tunities of the rarest — but I know that after dining 
 with Stephen Trenchard I felt as if my veins ran 
 quicksilver. Well, my dear, I want you to have 
 your chance as well as Marion, and I think the 
 best and wisest course for you will be to beg a 
 month's holiday from your employer, Mrs. Hazleton, 
 and come to spend Christmas with your poor old 
 uncle Eobert. No doubt if you do, your rich old
 
 ' PLUGGED IN THE DEPTH OF HELPLESS POVERTY.' 5 
 
 uncle Stephen will ask you to transfer your society 
 to Lancaster Lodge, and then you and Marion will 
 have equal chances. I dare say it will end by liis 
 asking one or both of you to live with him and 
 keep his house. He has, I believe, something 
 like a million to leave behind him, and you three 
 girls are his nearest relations, and his natuial 
 heirs. He has spoken very kindly of your mother. 
 ' Let me know what Mrs. Hazleton says about 
 a holiday. If a month is too much you might ask 
 for a fortnight. I should think it most unlikely 
 that you need ever retarn to her. With such a man 
 as old Trenchard for your uncle, and well disposed 
 towards you, your teaching days ought to be over. 
 'Your affectionate Uncle, 
 
 ' PiOBERT FaUXTHORPE.' 
 
 ' My teaching days,' repeats the young woman, 
 bitterly. * He little knows that they were the height 
 of luxury compared to what has come after them/ 
 The letter is addressed to — 
 
 MISS FAUNTHOEPE, 
 At Mrs. Hazleton's, 19, Lowther Street, 
 EccLESTOX Square.
 
 b DEAD MEN S SHOES. 
 
 It has been re-addressed by an humble friend of 
 Miss Faunthorpe's, in the person of Mrs. Hazleton's 
 housemaid, who has enclosed the letter in an 
 envelope directed to — 
 
 MKS. STANMOEE, 
 
 At Mrs. Bonny's, 11, Dixon Street, 
 Chelsea. 
 
 An address which indicates a descent in the social 
 scale from the semi-Belgravian gentility of Lowther 
 Street, Eccleston Square. And how comes Miss 
 Faunthorpe to be Mrs. Stanmore, while her affec- 
 tionate uncle, Eobert Faunthorpe, remains unaware 
 of a transmutation which must needs have some in- 
 fluence for good or evil on his niece's future career ? 
 Marriage is one of those inadvertences which can 
 hardly go for nothing even in the easiest life. 
 
 ' So Marion is exhibitinsj herself about Ptcdcastle 
 in a three hundred guinea barouche,' says Mrs. 
 Stanmore, putting the letter in her pocket, * while 
 I have hardly shoes to my feet. I — who w^as 
 supposed to be the handsome sister, and the clever 
 sister, and the lucky sister ! And 1 dare not show 
 my face in Eedcastle, not even if half a million of
 
 'PLUNGED IX THE DEPTH OF HELPLESS POVERTY. / 
 
 money is to "be lost by my absence. To think that 
 uncle Stephen should choose just this particular 
 time for his return ; to think that he should return 
 at all, when Marion and I made up our minds 
 ever so long ago that he was little better than a 
 myth, and was sure to have married a begum 
 without telling anybody, and to die in India, 
 leaving all his money to horrid copper-coloured 
 children. Lucky for ]\Iarion ! ' 
 
 Then, after a pause, leaving the bridge and 
 entering the shabby street leading to Cheyne Walk, 
 she continues her self-communing thus : — 
 
 ' What shall I say to uncle Eobert ? Suppose 
 he were to come to town and call at Mrs. Hazleton's. 
 He may have money now to pay for the journey. 
 It was safe enough before. Poor uncle Eobert 
 never had a spare pound, or ever wasted a shilling, 
 except the shillings he had to pay for summonses 
 because of being behindhand with the taxes. If 
 he should come up to London ? Or if uncle Stephen 
 should be in town and call in Lowther Street ? 
 More lilvely that. Anglo-Indians are such active 
 creatures. What am I to do ? '
 
 8 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Thus disjointedly run her thoughts, as she walks 
 — very quickly now — along the narrow, shabby 
 street, past the fried-fish shop, and the pork 
 butcher's, and the emporium for second-hand goods 
 — from a picture of the Holy Family, after Eaffaelle, 
 very much framed, to a flat iron, or a pair of 
 bluchers — the greengrocer's, also coal merchant, the 
 cook-shop, with its steam- tarnished windows and 
 reeking odour of boiled beef and stick-jaw pudding. 
 
 ' That reminds me,' Mrs. Stanmore says to her- 
 self, as the reek of cooked provisions salutes her 
 nostrils, 'there's nothing for dinner.' 
 
 She pauses and takes counsel with herself. Her 
 eye wanders from the cook-shop to the fishmonger's, 
 thence ranges to the pork butcher's. Her election 
 lies among these. Cambridge sausages are savoury, 
 but dear ; and Mrs. Bonny, the landlady, has a trick 
 of overdoing all things entrusted to her culinary 
 art. A pound of Cambridge sausages, reduced to 
 grounds and grease, are hardly worth the shilling 
 they cost. Boiled beef is expensive and weighs 
 heavy. For a cheap relish, a zest which shall make 
 bread and butter supply the place of dinner, your
 
 'PLUNGED IX THE DEPTH OF HELPLESS POTELTY.' 9 
 
 fishmonger is your best friend. Mrs. Stanmore 
 patronizes the finny tribe. She selects an eight- 
 penny haddock, dried and salted, from the mer- 
 chant's store, and carries it home with her, rolled 
 up in brown paper. She stops at the cheap baker's 
 for a half-quartern loaf, with which the bit over is 
 not unacceptable. ' I wonder what Marion would 
 think if she could see me now ? ' she asks herself ; 
 ' Marion who always complained of my pride, and 
 called herself the Ciuderella of the family. Her 
 Cinderella-ship never brought her so low as this.' 
 
 Home ! bitter mockery of a sweet word. She 
 turns out of the shabby street into a street still 
 shabbier, narrow, dirty, and out at elbows. Yet 
 at its worst not quite so bad as a modern street 
 under the same conditions, for the red brick houses 
 are substantial and roomy, and the worm-eaten 
 oaken window-frames shut out the wind better than 
 the speculative builder's warped and shrunken deal. 
 
 The house which Mrs. Stanmore enters is dark 
 and gloomy. The wail of a fretful child sounds 
 from the basement as she lets herself in at the 
 street door with a convenient latch-key. A
 
 10 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 glimmer from the kitchen stairs is the only light 
 visible, and to this glimmer Mrs. Stanmore seems 
 to address herself. 
 
 * I've brought home a haddock, Mrs. Bonny. 
 "Will you be kind enough to broil it at six o'clock ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, very well,' answers a querulous voice from 
 unseen depths below. ' You can put the 'addock 
 on the window-sill. I'll come and fetch it when 
 I've got time ; but I can't say nothink about its 
 being done by six, for my fire's got low after ironin'. 
 The parlour has gone out to tea.' • 
 
 This last remark has a reproachful sound, as 
 who should say, ' You never spare me trouble by 
 going out visiting.' 
 
 Mrs. Stanmore deposits the dried fish, and 
 ascends the dark, old-fashioned staircase, smelling 
 of mice, whose hurried scamper is audible behind 
 the mouldering wainscot. One room, the first 
 floor front, comprises Mr. and Mrs. Stanmore's share 
 of number eleven, Dixon Street. It is happily a 
 rather large room, with three windows, provided 
 with old-fashioned window-seats. The furniture is 
 old like the house, worn and dingy, but solid furni-
 
 'PLUNGED IX THE DEPTH OF HELPLESS POVERTY.' 11 
 
 ture that has served several generations of house- 
 keepers and a ragged regiment of lodgers. In the 
 glow of a cheery little fire the dim old room has 
 a homely, not unfriendly look. The old tent bed- 
 stead has been pushed into the most obscure corner. 
 There are two arm-chairs, with faded chintz covers, 
 a sofa, large and ponderous. There is a round table 
 opposite the wide old fireplace, and another table 
 against the wall, surmounted by a japanned iron tea- 
 tray of a bright red ground with a landscape in the 
 middle, a rosewood tea-caddy, a pair of blown glass 
 decanters, empty, a family Bible — the landlady's — 
 a ragged copy of Byron's ' Don Juan,' and two 
 odd duodecimo volumes of ' Tom Jones,' in brown 
 calf — the lodger's. 
 
 ^Irs. Stanmore lights a small paraffine lamp, 
 takes off jacket and hat, and proceeds to prepare 
 the evenimr meal. She has tea-thinp;s and tea- 
 kettle to her hand in the roomy and mousey old 
 closet beside the fireplace — such a closet as is 
 only to be found in old houses, large enough for 
 half a dozen burglars to hide in, or a whole nursery 
 of children to play in, and with all manner of odd
 
 12 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 corners and shelves, and perchance an inner cup- 
 board lurking mysteriously in its panelled recesses. 
 
 Mrs. Stanmore fills the kettle, and sets out the 
 tea-things on the red japanned tray, and cuts a 
 plate of bread and butter, and makes a round of 
 toast deftly enough, though a year ago she was 
 about the least handy of her sex in such small 
 domestic offices. That stern schoolmistress, ne- 
 cessity, has taught her many things. How young 
 she looks in the ruddy light of the fire, as she kneels 
 on the hearth-rug toasting that round of bread for 
 the poor meal that is to be dinner, tea, and supper, 
 all in one for Mrs. Eonny's first-floor lodgers ! — 
 how young and how pretty ! every feature so daintily 
 fashioned, eyes so darkly lustrous, colouring so de- 
 licate ; young, and with much need of love and 
 sympathy, of comfort and careful tendance. 
 
 'And so uncle Stephen has really come home 
 — richer than we ever made him in our dreams 
 when we were children — and Marion is tasting all 
 tho pleasures his wealth can buy for her, Marion 
 whom I pitied so when I left her behind me at 
 Eedcastle. She might pity me now, from the depth
 
 ' PLUNGED IX THE DEPTH OF HELPLESS POVERTY.' 13 
 
 of her heart, if she coiild see me. She raight have 
 written to tell me the change in her fortunes — 
 selfish thing. I suppose it is on account of my not 
 answering her last two letters — such stupid letters 
 as they were too — full of " I hope you are free 
 from cold," and " I trust you are enjoying the nice 
 autumn weather " — and Uncle Eobert's rheumatic 
 gout.' 
 
 She lapses into deeper meditation, looking into a 
 red cavern in the heart of the fire, forgetful of the 
 toast which hangs despondently upon the twopenny 
 tin toasting-fork, shaped like Xeptune's trident. 
 Meditation full of rue, for she has done the most 
 foolish thmg a woman can do, except one, which 
 is to repent too late of her folly; and she is fast 
 coming to that ultimate stage of foolishness, vain 
 regret for an irrevocable act. 
 
 She is still kneeling in front of the fire, 
 absent-minded, absorbed, when the door opens, and 
 a young man comes in, slowly, heavily, like one who 
 brings no gladness with him, and has no hope of 
 finding comfort at home. He comes quietly to the 
 hearth, lays his hand upon Sibyl's shoulder, and
 
 14 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 addresses her not unkindly, but with little warmth 
 in his tone. 
 
 * Well, little old woman, brooding over the fire 
 as usual ? What's the matter now ? ' 
 
 * Not much more than usual,' his wife answers, 
 without looking up. ' You've had your customary 
 luck, I suppose ? ' she inquires, after a pause, during 
 which her husband has taken off his shabby over- 
 coat, and fluncf himself into one of the arm-chairs. 
 
 * Yes, the wheel of fortune hasn't turned the 
 other way yet. It revolves persistently, but always 
 — like the planets — in the same direction. The 
 immutable laws of bad luck are not to be abrogated 
 in my favour. The fellows I wanted to see — but- 
 terfly friends of the past, who might lend me a 
 fiver if I could catch them in the right humour — 
 were all out. The situation I applied for has been 
 given to somebody else. They had a hundred and 
 thirty-nine applicants, the principal told me, and 
 gave the berth to the applicant who dotted his i's 
 with the nearest approach to mathematical precision. 
 "We take a man's handwriting as the physical 
 expression of his mental bias," said the principal,
 
 'PLUXGED IX THE DEPTH OF HELPLESS PO^T:r.TY.' 15 
 
 " and what we want is precision." Xow you know 
 I never dot my i's at all, or if I do the dot is so far 
 from the letter as to make my meaning all the more 
 unintelligible. So much for the clerkship. The 
 commission agency we saw advertised turns out 
 a "do." Agent required to put down fifty pounds 
 as a guarantee of hona fides. I applied for an agency 
 in the wine trade, offered to a young gentleman 
 moving in good society and able to push a new 
 brand of champagne ; but when the wine merchant 
 saw me, he asked, rather pertinently, if I moved in 
 good society in this coat. I told him I was a 
 gentleman by birth and education, and knew some 
 of the best people in London. "Very likely, my 
 dear sir," replies the grape-doctor, '' but you don't 
 visit them. We want young men who dress well, 
 and look as if they could afford to drink the wine 
 they recommend ; men who have the appearance 
 of wealth with the unscrupulousness of poverty." 
 Rather neatly put by our friend the gooseberry- 
 fermenter, wasn't it ? ' 
 
 * And you have done nothing, earned nothing, 
 are no nearer earning anything than you were
 
 16 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 yesterday ? ' asks Sibyl, without lifting her eyes 
 to his face. 
 
 Yet the time was, not a year ago, when to 
 gaze upon that countenance seemed to her like 
 reading a poem, when every turn of the hand- 
 some head, every sparkle of the dark eyes — eyes 
 ever of uncertain hue but always dark — was a 
 thing to remember and dream about ; — when to 
 watch him across a crowded room was quiet 
 happiness, all-sufficing for an exacting love — 
 when to hear his voice, gay or grave, was 
 sweeter than music. 
 
 And now he sits a few paces from her, worn 
 out, weary, dispirited, in sore need of comfort, 
 and she cannot raise her eyes from moody con- 
 templation of the fire. The difference is marked, 
 the reason obvious. A year ago he was an 
 undeclared lover — to-day he is an actual husband. 
 Then there was not a many-petalled flower which 
 did not suggest the question, *' Loves me, loves 
 me not ? ' Now he has loved her and won her, 
 and they have essayed to sail along the river 
 of life together, and found the navigation difficult
 
 'PLUNGED IX THE DEPTH OF HELPLESS POVERTY.' 17 
 
 — ay, hard and bitter as that weedy swamp 
 through which Sir Samuel Baker's craft was toil- 
 fully dragged under Afric's torrid sky. 
 
 * You couldn't give a neater definition of my 
 position,' replies Alex Secretan, otherwise Stan- 
 more. He has striven to hide his destitution under 
 an assumed name, just as his wife has kept the 
 secret of an imprudent marriage by retaining a 
 false address. Either mystery may be discovered at 
 any moment, so various are the accidents of life. 
 
 ' Don't consider me frivolous if I remind you 
 that I haven't eaten anything since half-past eight 
 this morning, and the perambulation of stony- 
 hearted London is conducive to an inward 
 craving. I won't call the feeling by so healthy 
 a name as hunger. It's a compound sensation 
 of sickness and emptiness. Is there anything to 
 eat except bread and butter ? It's a very nice 
 thing in its way, but one comes to object to it 
 on the same gTOund that Louis the Fourteenth's 
 confessor took about partridges.' 
 
 'Mrs. Bonny is broiling a haddock,' replies 
 Sibyl, listlessly. 
 
 VOL. L C
 
 18 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ' What good Catholics we are ! keepmg Advent 
 all the week through. We had bloaters yesterday, 
 and dried sprats the day before. All our days 
 are Ember days.' 
 
 'Fish is the cheapest thing I can get, Alex.' 
 
 ' 'No doubt, but it generally entails after expense 
 in the way of an extra half-pint of beer. No 
 matter. Let Mrs. Bonny bring forth the haddock,' 
 exclaimed Alexis, applying himself diligently to 
 the toast, which Sibyl has just buttered. 
 
 She tinkles the bell gently, as a polite hint 
 to Mrs. Bonny. She dare not give a peremp- 
 tory ring, as she might for a servant whose 
 w^ages she paid. Mrs. Bonny — when letting her 
 lodgings — professes to give attendance to her 
 lodgers, but that attendance is scanty, and yielded 
 as a favour rather than a ridit. A lodcjer who 
 wants extra luxuries, such as onion sauce with 
 a shoulder of mutton, or fried liver and bacon 
 for supper, must make things very sweet to Mrs. 
 Bonny. An order for the theatre, or even an 
 occasional tumbler of grog, has a mollifying 
 effect on her disposition, the loan of a newspaper 
 soothes her sensitive mind. The Stanmores are
 
 'PLUXGED IN THE DEPTH OF HELPLESS POYEKTY.' 19 
 
 too poor to offer even these small attentions, and 
 are sometimes backward in the payment of their 
 rent, and thus receive stinted service grudgingly 
 given. Sibyl pours out the tea languidly, and 
 with the air of a person out of health. She eats 
 a little bread and butter, but without appetite, 
 and when the haddock appears at last, borne by 
 a slipshod girl, ]Mr. Stanmore has that fish all 
 to himself, Sibyl refusing any portion thereof 
 
 Alexis contemplates her pityingly — tenderly 
 even ; — that haggard, sickly look in the delicate 
 face touches him. 
 
 ' Poor girl, how pale and ill you look ! Xo 
 appetite too. That's a bad sign. I wish I could 
 have brought you home something more tempting 
 than this old finnan. A bird, a sweetbread, or 
 something of that kind.' 
 
 ' I could not eat the most exquisite dinner that 
 was ever cooked, Alex, so you needn't trouble 
 yourself to regret that. But I do wish for 
 something, very much.' 
 
 ' What is it, darling ? You ought to have every 
 wish gratified just now. You would, if you had 
 married a rich cheesemonger, or a wharfinger, or a
 
 20 PEAD men's shoes. 
 
 packer, or a cotton-spinner, or a brass-founder, 
 anything except that lowest animal in the scale 
 of creation, a broken-down swell. What is it, 
 Sibyl?' 
 
 * I want ten pounds, Alex,' she answers, intently, 
 her elbow on the table, her chin supported by her 
 hand, her eyes upon his face, attitude and expression 
 alike earnest. 
 
 * Ten pounds, my dearest ! We have been 
 wanting ten pounds ever since our honeymoon.' 
 
 ' Don't speak of our honeymoon,' exclaimed 
 Sibyl, fretfully. * It maddens me when I think how 
 you squandered money that might have kept us in 
 comfort for a year.' 
 
 ' My love, you are so easily maddened,' remon- 
 strates Alexis, placidly — he has never been seen out 
 of temper. ' I dare say it was foolish to go the pace 
 quite as fast as we did, but you had never seen 
 Paris, and April in Paris with the woman one loves 
 is the nearest approach that I can imagine to paradise.' 
 
 'You speak as if you had tried it often,' says 
 Sibyl, with a sneer. 
 
 * Bah, child, a mere fagon de parler. Do yon 
 remember our drives to the Cascade, in the balmy
 
 ' PLUXGED IN THE DEPTH OF HELPLESS POVEETY.' 21 
 
 spring nights, when the stars were shining on the 
 Bois, and how we used to sit in the lamp-lit 
 gardens of the cofe^ eating ices and making love ? 
 If ever we grow rich, Sibyl, we'll go back to Paris 
 and have another honeymoon. But how about 
 these ten pounds, little woman? What can you 
 want with ten pounds ? ' 
 
 The young wife rises, glides behind her husband's 
 chair, and, leaning on his shoulder, whispers some- 
 thing in his ear, a something at which he smiles 
 tenderly, sadly, and turning in his chair, draws 
 the young face — so wan and yet so fair — down 
 to his lips. 
 
 ' By Jove ! ' he exclaims, * poor little woman, I 
 am a brute, never to have thought of it. You want 
 to buy clothes for the poor little beggar who is to 
 make his first appearance upon the stage of life, 
 before the innocent lambkins have begun to bleat in 
 the meadows, undisputed heir to his father's impecu- 
 niosity. The lower animals have the advantage 
 of us in that respect, by the by. The lambkins 
 come into the world amply provided. You shall 
 have the money, Sibyl. Yes, if I have to borrow, 
 beg, rob for it. You shall have it somehow, even if
 
 22 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 I were driven to beg of my bitterest foe, ay, of 
 Stephen Trenchard himself.' 
 
 His arm is round her and he feels her start at 
 the name. 
 
 ' Don't be frightened, little woman. That's only 
 a figure of speech. I never saw Stephen Trenchard 
 in my life, and as to begging of him, there's nothing 
 more unlikely, since he is, to the best of my 
 knowledge, an inhabitant of the city of palaces, 
 otherwise Calcutta.' 
 
 * He might have come back to England, Alex, 
 without your knowing anything about it,' suggests 
 Sibyl. 
 
 'Ay, that might he have done easily, child, 
 seeing that he is a very insignificant person in this 
 big busy world, and that I know nothing whatever 
 about him, except that he did me deadly wrong 
 before I was born.' 
 
 ' And you were taught to hate him ? ' 
 
 'Yes verily, before I learned my catechism I 
 learned to hate Stephen Trenchard with a righteous 
 and a godly hate, for was he not the falsest and 
 meanest of men ? and the Scripture does not forbid 
 us to hate falsehood and meanness. If Eve had
 
 ' PLUNGED IN THE DEPTH OF HELPLESS POVERTY.' 23 
 
 hated the serpent a little, humanity in general 
 would not have gone wrong. Trenchard was like 
 the serpent, a creature that crawled, a wriggling 
 worm in the guise of a man. He wriggled and 
 wormed himself into the fortune that should have 
 been my father's ; he wriggled and wormed himself 
 into the heart of my father s first love ; and he did 
 all this wrong, — deliberate wrong, mark you, basely 
 conceived, the study of his days and nights, with a 
 smiling face, clasping his victim's hand in friendship 
 all the while, so that no thunderbolt falling from 
 the skies could have surprised my father more than 
 the discovery that his arch enemy was thcrc^ hiding 
 under the mask of his humble friend.' 
 
 Alexis has risen, and paces the room, fired by 
 this memory of a lesson learned in earliest boyhood. 
 As deeply as he loved his dead father, so deeply 
 does he hate his father's enemy and betrayer. 
 Sibyl watches him, thoughtful and perplexed. Of 
 all things difficult to impossibility, nothing could 
 seem more so than to reconcile her love and duty to 
 her husband, and her desire to win her uncle's 
 fortune.
 
 CHAPTEE 11. 
 
 ' WORLD, THY SLIPPERY TURNS ! ' 
 
 Given a ten-pound note which must be had. 
 Query, where to get it? A problem not over-easy 
 of solution for a man who has exhausted the 
 generosity of those few friends who are generous, 
 and discovered the hoUowness of those numerous 
 acquaintances who, not ill-natured in the beaten 
 way of friendship, will do anything for a friend 
 except open their purse-strings. 
 
 A sharp December morning. The wind has 
 changed in the night from south-west to due east, 
 and there has been a light fall of snow, which is 
 whitening the various and picturesque roofs of 
 Chelsea, and hangs on the ragged elm branches on 
 Cheyne Walk, The river is dun colour, the sky iron- 
 gray, as if the atmosphere were heavily charged with 
 snow. Butchers' boys, cabmen, and those denizens 
 of the street who seem to get through their daily 
 round of labour with an ample margin of leisure for
 
 ^ AVOELD, THY SLIPPERY TURNS ! ' 25 
 
 gossip and standing about at corners, look up at the 
 darkened vault of heaven and opino that there will 
 be a heavy fall of snow before night. 
 
 This is the cold world which Alexis Secretan 
 faces, leaving his wife asleep in the old tent bed at 
 number eleven, Dixon Street. She has fallen into 
 slothful habits of late, pleading as her excuse that 
 there is so little to get up for, now-a-days. 
 Certainly not pleasure or prosperity, not even so 
 much as a new book to read, for does not that 
 ragged old ' Don Juan,' whose bitterest verses Alexis 
 gloats over in his gloomiest moods, constitute, with 
 graceless 'Tom Jones,' the entire stock of literature 
 in Sibyl Secretan's reach ? 
 
 Ten pounds. He faces the bitter blast blowing 
 up the river from Plumstead and Woolwich and all 
 the chilly eastern marshes, and seeming to con- 
 centrate its biting power upon innocent Cheyne 
 Walk, he faces the rasping wind moodily, puzzling 
 out this insolvable problem, where to get ten 
 pounds 1 Where to get it ? that is the only 
 question. The how to get it has been settled 
 from the beginnins:. He must borrow it. He has
 
 2Q DEAD men's shoes. ^ 
 
 almost outgrown the sense of degradation which 
 accompanies the earlier stages of the borrower's 
 piteous career, — he has almost reached the lower 
 depth of the hardy and habitual borrower. He has 
 but to settle with himself upon whom he shall make 
 his demand. For himself he might perchance never 
 have stooped to borrow. He would have emigrated 
 rather, and lived by the sweat of his brow in some 
 new country where men are equal, and poverty less 
 than a crime ; or, his heart failing him, he might 
 have flung himself and his difficulties off Waterloo 
 Bridge, and so made an easy end of them ; but with 
 a young and beloved wife dependent on him for 
 daily bread he has sacrificed pride and independence, 
 manhood and honesty even, he sometimes thinks, 
 and for the last six months has lived a wretched 
 hand-to-mouth existence, trying to get employment 
 all the time, and occasionally earning a fortuitous 
 five-pound note, but supporting the burden of life 
 for the most part by the aid of loans obtained from 
 the associates of happier days. He is not a man 
 upon whom so pitiful a position sits lightly ; 
 though — being gifted by nature with a peculiarly
 
 '0 WOELD, THY SLIPPERY TURNS!' 27 
 
 sweet and easy temper — he has a way . of taking 
 his troubles placidly, especially in the presence of 
 his wife, and his railings at Fate and Fortune, 
 though frequent, are philosophical rather than 
 angry or vindictive. He is a man who, if Nature's 
 bounties are to be counted as a heritage, is not 
 undowered. Eminently handsome, of a noble 
 presence, athletic, with a constitution to which 
 illness and disease are unknown — with a voice that 
 can soothe or charm, threaten or command — an eye 
 that dominates man and the lesser animals alike — 
 a quick, bright intellect — a wondrous power of 
 endurance — that noble quality which in a horse 
 we call 'stay,' which in man is perhaps the 
 crowning characteristic of manhood, — with such 
 gifts as these, Alexis Secretan should hardly count 
 himself ill furnished for the battle of life. Un- 
 happily, the old fairy story of the Princess's 
 christening gifts repeats itself more or less in every 
 man's life. Among the numerous good fairies who 
 were invisible guests at Alexis Secretan's baptismal 
 feast two evil fairies slipped in unawares. These 
 were Poverty and Unthrift.
 
 28 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ' He shall have little of this world's goods,' said 
 the first. 
 
 'And he shall squander that little/ added the 
 second. 
 
 This baptismal curse has been fulfilled. The 
 only son of a disinherited father, Alexis has yet 
 escaped the chastening influence of that sharp 
 schoolmaster. Poverty. His mother's fortune was 
 enough to support father and son in luxurious 
 idleness, and in a happy-go-lucky, easy kind of life 
 in foreign cities, where life is cheaper, gayer, and 
 brighter than at home. At seventeen his father's 
 influence was sufficient to obtain him a commission 
 in a crack regiment. Father and mother died 
 within a year of each other, and soon after Alexis 
 had put on his epaulettes. The remnant of his 
 mother's fortune — the bulk thereof having been 
 anticipated, and made away with from year to year as 
 necessity impelled — served to keep the young man 
 going in an expensive profession for about five 
 years, during which he had the good fortune to see 
 some active service, distinguish himself by various 
 displays of reckless daring, and obtain a captaincy.
 
 * '^ORLD, THY SLIPPERY TURNS 1 ' 29 
 
 At the end of the fifth year he had spent the last 
 shilling of his capital, and was in debt. Knowing 
 the impossibility of living on his pay, he sold out- 
 and for some time — about a year and a half — 
 contrived to live upon the proceeds of his com- 
 mission, having thus sacrificed his military career 
 to the necessities of eighteen months' idleness, and 
 to that miserable condition of a noble profession 
 which makes it impossible that a gentleman should 
 live by his sword. 
 
 Alexis reviews the ranks of his acquaintances as 
 he walks Londonwards. He has exhausted the 
 bounty of his easy-going, and, in some cases, open- 
 handed brother ofiicers. No hope of help there. 
 His foreign education has left him without school 
 friends near at hand. Honest Max, or jovial Fritz 
 of Heidelberg might advance him a thaler — or a 
 handful of groschen — were they within reach, but 
 their normal state is impecuniosity. 
 
 There is but one source left undrained. Even 
 in this depth of destitution he has not yet appealed 
 to his mother's sole surviving sister, his aunt 
 Louisa, co-heiress with his mother of a rich
 
 30 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Manchester manufacturer, and more fortunately 
 married than his mother. Aunt Louisa is the wife 
 of Dudley Gorsuch, barrister, in large practice, and 
 member for Glaseford, in the Potteries, a self-made 
 man, self-important, and worshipping rank and 
 mammon, as the Ammonites worshipped Moloch. 
 On this bleak December morning it occurs to Alexis 
 that aunt Louisa, being of his mother's kin, must 
 have some green spot in her nature, some place in 
 her heart accessible to softer feeling, were it but the 
 size of a pin's point, and that he, her nephew, 
 destitute and forlorn, ought to be able to find that 
 place. 
 
 He has dined at her house when he was a 
 dashing young officer, well dressed, well surrounded ; 
 has been entertained bounteously by her, made 
 much of, presented to her friends with some touch 
 of pride, being verily a young man for women to be 
 proud of in his prosperous days. At that happier 
 time aunt Louisa appeared to him worldly, but 
 good-natured, hospitable, benevolent even. 
 
 He is at the bottom of Grosvenor Place by this 
 time, and has made up his mind to try aunt Louisa.
 
 ' WORLD, THY SLIPPERY TUEXS ! ' 31 
 
 Mr. and ^Irs. Gorsucli live in a street out of 
 Grosvenor Place, too expensive a street for Mr. 
 Gorsuch's means, which are larger in appear- 
 ance than reality; but a fine house in a fine 
 neighbourhood is a standing evidence of wealth, 
 and as such is worth all it costs. There are 
 so many things in which prudent careful people 
 can save money ; notably in their meals and the 
 food they give their ser^-ants, since these matters 
 appertain to the inner economy of a household, and 
 are secrets to the outer world. Mrs. Gorsuch 
 pinches in all domestic details, even down to 
 scouriug-paper. Mr. Gorsuch gives three state 
 dinners in the season, supplied by Gunter, banquets 
 of imposing appearance, but washed down with 
 wines that range from half a crown to four and 
 sixpence per bottle. 
 
 Alexis, fully aware of his broken-down appear- 
 ance, is too wise to put forward his relationship as 
 a claim to be admitted, despite the footman's 
 suspicious look. 
 
 He simply asks to see ^Mrs. Gorsuch, but he 
 gives his real name, Mr. Secretan.
 
 32 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 He is left Id the hall while the footman 
 communicates with his mistress, whose voice is 
 heard in the library at the back of the hall. 
 
 ' She can hardly deny herself when I can hear 
 her talking,' thinks Alexis. 
 
 She does not deny herself. The man ushers him 
 into the library — a square apartment with a gloomy 
 outlook, and two pompous bookcases, containing 
 law books, and a few of those classic authors whose 
 works are more largely bought than read. 
 
 A fire burns frostily and cheerily in the bright 
 steel grate. Mrs. Gorsuch sits at the table, with a 
 row of tradesmen's books and a ponderous plated 
 inkstand before her. She has been trying to 
 reconcile discrepancies between the butcher's 
 account of meat delivered and her own idea of the 
 meat that ought to have been consumed. Threa 
 pounds of rump steak sit heavily upon her soul. 
 She cannot see how those three pounds of butcher's 
 meat can have been honestly eaten, and she is 
 haunted by the image of an all-devouring policeman 
 — or those bloodsuckers, the cook's relatives. 
 
 She is a little dried-up looking woman, with stiff
 
 ' WORLD, THY SLIPPERY TURNS ! ' 33 
 
 bands of light aaburn hair, pepper-castored with 
 gray ; a brown merino gown, a pinched-looking lace 
 cap, and a double eye-glass attached to a chain 
 which glitters in the rosy light of the fire, as she 
 turns to look at her visitor, glass in hand. 
 
 ' Alex ! ' she exclaims, ' Good heavens, w^hat a 
 change ! " 
 
 She saw him last as a guest at one of her state 
 dinners, elegant, prosperous-looking, with the easy 
 self-assured air of a man certain of success in life. 
 She sees him now reduced to the lowest ebb in 
 the tide of man's existence. He comes to her as 
 a beggar. Mendicancy is written on his face. 
 
 ' Yes, there's a marked decadence from the 
 young man about town, is there not ? ' he replies. 
 ' You see the brand which Destitution stamps upon 
 her children. I have fallen very low in the world 
 since I used to come to your swell parties. You were 
 very kind to me in those da3^s, aunt,' — Mrs. Gorsuch 
 winces, knowing so well what is coming, — ' so kind 
 that I have made up my mind to sue for a small 
 kindness to-day. It goes against the grain, but " 
 
 ' Before we talk about kindnesses, Alexis, per- 
 
 VOL. L D
 
 34 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 haps you will be good enough to explain how you 
 have sunk to this absolutely disreputable condition ? ' 
 asked Mrs. Gorsuch, looking at her nephew's boots. 
 
 * The easiest thing in the world,' answers Alexis, 
 with agreeable recklessness. ' I have spent all my 
 money, and have not yet acquired the knack of 
 earning more.' 
 
 He sees, dimly, that there is little to be hoped 
 from this flesh and blood of his, and that placid 
 despair which is his normal condition enables him 
 to take things easily. 
 
 'Earning!' echoes aunt Louisa, with a bitter 
 sneer. ' It isn't in any of your race to earn the bread 
 they eat. My father made his fortune by honest 
 industry, your father thought he honoured our family 
 when he exchanged his landless gentility for my 
 sister's thirty thousand pounds. Poor Maud 1 it was 
 a luckless day that brought him across her path.' 
 
 'Eeserve your pity, aunt Louisa. My mother's 
 married life was a happy one. I can bear witness 
 to that.' 
 
 ' Happy ! ' exclaims Mrs. Gorsuch, contemp- 
 uously. ' Was she in society ? '
 
 '0 WORLD, THY SLIPPERY TURNS ! ' 35 
 
 This question she evidently considers unanswer- 
 able. Alexis respects her opinion, and makes no reply. 
 
 ' Can you compare her position with mine ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly not. You have a handsome house 
 in a fashionable street, a bishop for your right-hand 
 neighbour, an earl on your left hand. You have the 
 orthodox establishment of a lady, and all the cares 
 that accompany it. My mother lived a roving life 
 in some of the loveliest places of this earth, and 
 had no servant but the maid who waited on her 
 when she was well and nursed her when she was 
 ill, and loved her dearly always. My mother's 
 society consisted of the few friends who were faith- 
 ful to her through all changes of fortune. Those do 
 not count, of course. No, she was not in society ; 
 but perhaps when you and she compare notes as 
 to your earthly experiences in a wiser world you 
 may find that the balance has been more evenly 
 adjusted than you suppose now.' 
 
 Mrs. Gorsuch has hardly heard him. Her mind 
 is troubled by a grave doubt. 
 
 * I hope you did not tell the butler that you are 
 my nephew,' she says, anxiously.
 
 36 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ' I had too much discretion for that. And now, 
 aunt, not wishing to intrude myself or my boots 
 (lie has perceived her uneasy glances at those 
 patched offenders against the decencies of life) upon 
 you longer than is absolutely necessary, I will come 
 to the point. AVill you lend me, or give me, ten 
 pounds ? If Fate is against me you may call it a 
 gift, but if Fortune favour me it shall be repaid 
 tenfold. I needn't tell you how badly I want money. 
 My appearance testifies to my necessities, but it 
 is not for myself that I am a beggar. It is for 
 my wife, soon to become a mother.* 
 
 ' What ? ' almost shrieks Mrs. Gorsuch. ' Mar- 
 ried! Without income or profession, you have 
 linked yourself to some unhappy creature ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, we have taken the liberty to unite our 
 destitution. If the worst comes to the worst the 
 same pan of charcoal that serves for one will 
 accommodate the other.' 
 
 ' Your impiety shocks but does not surprise me,' 
 says Mrs. Gorsuch. * Such sinful imprudence could 
 hardly be found in a man of religious prin- 
 ciples.'
 
 37 
 
 '"No, prudence and piety generally go in double 
 harness. Well, aunt, I have my answer. You 
 won't lend or give me the money ? ' 
 
 * In the first place, I have not such a sum to 
 lend. Mr. Gorsuch's position demands the ex- 
 penditure of our income. We are never in 
 debt,' with a shudder, ' but we have never anything 
 to spare. I had to strain every nerve in order 
 to pay our annual contribution to the Society 
 for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
 Parts.' 
 
 '^nd you have nothing left for a starving 
 nephew at home.' 
 
 * Even if I were in a position to advance you 
 this money — which I repeat I am not — I cannot 
 see that your condition would be materally im- 
 proved by the loan. Where would you be when 
 the money was spent ? ' 
 
 'Exactly where I am now. The money is not 
 for myseK, but for my wife. I should not touch 
 a sixpence of it.' 
 
 'Who was this unfortunate young woman when 
 you married her ? '
 
 38 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ' Will you lend me ten pounds ? ' asks Alexis, 
 ignoring the question. 
 
 ' Sadly to be pitied, poor creature, whoever she was. 
 Some young person of inferior position, I dare say.' 
 
 * Will you lend me ten pounds ? ' 
 
 ' I have already told you that I have no such 
 sum at my disposal, Alexis,' replies Mrs. Gorsuch. 
 And then, hesitatingly, reluctantly extracting a coin 
 from a plethoric-looking Eussia leather purse, she 
 adds, ' If half a sovereign will be of some small 
 assistance ' 
 
 ' It won't,' answered her nephew, abruptly. * I 
 dare say I could make as much in a day by sweeping 
 a crossing, and I shouldn't feel myself so degraded 
 as if I took the money from you. Good-bye, aunt.' 
 
 * He has opened the door before he concludes, 
 and Aunt Louisa endures agonies for the rest of 
 the day, fearful that the butler, or man of all work, 
 heard that last address. Eemorse for her treatment 
 of her nephew troubles her not at all. 
 
 'He cannot say that I sent him away empty- 
 handed,' she reflects. ' I offered him half a sove-
 
 s 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE TRUE METAL. 
 
 Alexis Secretax turns his back upon the solemn 
 'responsibilites of Tubal Street, Grosvenor Place, sick 
 with anger and despair. He is angry with himself 
 rather than with his aunt. He loathes himself 
 for having invited such humiliation. 
 
 ' I ought to have known her better,' he muses. 
 'A woman who gives showy dinners and cheap 
 wines, and talks of her friend the Duchess of 
 Landsend, or the Countess of John-o'-Groat ; a 
 woman whose name appears in the subscription 
 list of all the orthodox charities, just under the 
 nobility, and who never keeps a servant six months. 
 And yet she is my mother's sister, of the same 
 race ; my mother, whose nature was all kindness, 
 and with whom to give was as natural as to 
 breathe.'
 
 40 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 He stands at Hy^e Park Corner, indifferent to 
 the east wind and the falling snow, — fine small 
 snow-flakes that lie unmelted where they fall. 
 
 * Now which way shall I turn myself in search 
 of a friendly soul ? ' he asks. 
 
 He turns south-westward, perhaps to escape 
 that biting easterly blast, and walks towards 
 Brompton, listlessly, hopelessly, walking fast bo 
 keep himself warm, but with no settled purpose. 
 
 Past the Bell and Horns Tavern he stops and 
 looks up at one of the houses in the high road, a 
 house with a front garden — or railed enclosure, 
 which courtesy calls garden — a snowy parallelo- 
 gram, in which flourish four melancholy bushes, 
 like dwarf cypresses in a graveyard. The house is 
 neat and bright-looking, and a bill in the parlour 
 window announces that apartments are to be let 
 within. 
 
 Alexis opens the gate as if familiar with its 
 structure, goes up to the door hesitatingly, knocks, 
 and asks to see Mr. Plowden. He is ushered forth- 
 with into the back parlour, where a man of about 
 his own age, pale and thoughtful-looking, sits by
 
 THE TEUE METAL. 41 
 
 an indifferent fire painting a map. A pile of un- 
 painted maps, a battered old tin paint-box and 
 brushes lie on tlie table before him. The thin white 
 hand travels dexterously, rapidly over the paper, 
 leaving a delicate line of colour behind it. 
 
 The map-painter looks up at Alexis, brush in 
 hand, surveys him from head to foot, wonderingly, 
 and drops the brush full of colour, on the map. 
 
 ^ Captain Secretan ! ' he exclaims, ' Is it pos- 
 sible ? ' 
 
 'It's true, at any rate,' answers Alexis, holding 
 out his hand, which the other grasps affectionately. 
 'Theoretically impossible, perhaps, but absolutely 
 true. Just wash off that splash of cobalt, Dick. 
 I shouldn't like you to spoil one of your maps 
 on my account.' 
 
 ' I'm so glad to see you,' says Richard Plowden, 
 dabbing the map with a sponge rather nervously. 
 ' I was afraid you'd quite forgotten me, and that 
 we should never see you here again, either as a 
 lodger or a friend. However, here you are, and 
 I'm heartily glad to see you,' poking the dingy 
 Little fire vigorously, and then holding out his
 
 42 . DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 hand again to Alexis; 'but I'm afraid things 
 haven't been going so well with you as they 
 ought. You look * 
 
 'Poor/ interjects Alexis. 'You're not far out. 
 Poverty and small-pox are unmistakable diseases. 
 You can see them in a man's face. Before you 
 say another kind word to me, Dick, I must tell 
 you the truth — the naked, unpleasant truth. I 
 come to you as a beggar. Knowing how hard 
 you work for every shilling you earn — knowing 
 what a good fellow you are — good son, good friend, 
 good Christian — I am mean enough to come here 
 and ask you to help me. The worthless drone 
 appeals to the honest, independent bee.' 
 
 * So far as I can help you,' replies Mr. Plowden, 
 with undiminished kindliness, ' I am at your 
 service. You were a profitable lodger to my mother, 
 and a kind friend to me. It isn't many gentlemen 
 in your position who would have condescended to 
 associate with a lame invalid, who gets his living by 
 painting maps. I know those evenings when you 
 used to come and smoke your pipe down here were 
 some of the happiest in my life.'
 
 THE TRUE JIETAL. 43 
 
 He walks about the room as he speaks, drags a 
 chair to the fireside for Alexis, takes a loaf of bread, 
 a bottle of anchovies, a pat of butter, and a bottle of 
 ginger wine out of the chiffonier, spreads a napkin, 
 and arranges this temperate refreshment on one side 
 of the table, pushing his maps and colour-box to 
 the other. He walks lame, but is active and 
 hardy notwithstanding. 
 
 ^Do you suppose I should have spent many 
 evenings with you if I had not found your company 
 pleasant, Dick ? ' says Alexis, lightly. ' I found that 
 you had read more and thought more than any 
 fellow of my acquaintance, and it was refreshing to 
 me to hear your ideas upon all manner of subjects. 
 And then I flattered myself that you liked me, and 
 were pleased with my talk of the gay world ; above 
 all, about that stage you love so well and see so 
 little of Do you remember how we used to discuss 
 the actors of the day, Dick, and settle how 
 Shakespeare ought to be interpreted ? ' 
 
 ' Do you think I can ever forget ? ' asks Eichard 
 Plowden. 'I've not so many friends that I can 
 afford to forget the one who was the first to tell me
 
 44 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 I had a mind. Do you know, Captain Secretan, 
 that IVe had the impertinence to write a book since 
 then ? Do peg into those anchovies, captain, and 
 don't mind cutting the knobs off the loaf. I like 
 crumb as well as crust.^ 
 
 'A book, Dick. An essay on the genius of 
 Shakespeare ! ' 
 
 'Nothing so ambitious, or so unlikely to sell. 
 A geography for schools, on a new system. It is 
 not published yet, but I have reason to believe that 
 it will be, and that I shall make a little money by 
 it. So you may have less compunction in borrowing 
 a pound or two.' 
 
 * Dear old Dick ! ' exclaims Alexis, who has been 
 doing ample justice to the anchovies and bread and 
 butter, and warming himself with a glass of ginger 
 wine. ' Unhappily, it is not a question of a pound 
 or two. I want ten pounds.' 
 
 Eichard Plowden's countenance falls. It is not 
 that he would measure his friendship, but ten 
 pounds is an awful sum. 
 
 ' If I ever can repay it I will, and with interest 
 at a more than usurious rate. But it is almost a
 
 THE TRUE METAL. 45 
 
 mockery to talk of repayment in my present 
 condition.' 
 
 Eichard limps to the chiffonier without a word, 
 takes out a little japanned cash-box, unlocks it, 
 and extracts therefrom a five-pound note and five 
 sovereims. 
 
 ' I had the money ready for the Christmas rent,' 
 he says, ' but you are welcome to it. We shall be 
 able to rub along without it, I dare say." 
 
 What pinching and deprivation this rubbing 
 along process will cost, Alexis can pretty well guess, 
 for he has seen how the widow Plowden and her 
 son live at the best of times. 
 
 He takes the money with a faltering hand, and 
 turns away his face to hide the tears that disfigure 
 it, the first that he has shed since he wept for his 
 mother's death. 
 
 Presently he grows cheerful again, resumes his 
 seat, finishes his luncheon, and then tells Richard 
 Plowden the story of his decadence, an unvarnished 
 tale which his humble friend hears with deepest 
 interest. 
 
 * If you could put me in the way of earning a
 
 46 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 few shillings a week by any kind of labour, 
 however humble, you would be doing me even a 
 greater favour than you have done me this day ; and 
 yet, knowing your circumstances as I do, I feel as 
 if you had given me ten years of your life instead 
 of ten pounds.' 
 
 Eichard Plowden promises that he will turn the 
 matter over in his mind, and see what he can do, 
 and so the two young men part, as firm friends as 
 in the days when Mrs. Plowden's first-fioor lodger, 
 the dashing young captain, was the object of her 
 son's affectionate admiration, his ideal of all that is 
 noble and splendid in manhood.
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 'HAD THE CHAXCE BEEN WITH US THAT HAS NOT 
 BEEN.' 
 
 Alexis speeds homeward joyously, elate as if he 
 had conquered fortune. He has borrowed money 
 from a social inferior, and yet does not feel hu- 
 miliated. That interview with Pdchard Plowden 
 has cheered him wondrously. The patient, gentle 
 soul working at monotonous task-work in a gloomy 
 back parlour, with no outlook save blank wall and 
 cistern, working uncomplainingly, nay, even cheer- 
 fully, has read him a lesson. There must be work 
 for a strong, healthy fellow like himself when a 
 cripple in a back room can earn his living. Alexis 
 begins to think he has tried life at the wrong end, 
 that in striving for some shabby-genteel, reduced- 
 gentleman's occupation, he has overlooked those 
 lowlier and less sophisticated avocations which offer 
 themselves to every honest man.
 
 48 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 'We'll emigrate as soon as the little woman 
 is strong enough for a sea voyage/ he tells him- 
 self, 'and I'll turn shepherd on the Australian 
 downs/ 
 
 Sibyl receives him with an eager look, full of 
 questioning. She is sitting on the hearth-rug as 
 he comes into the room, in her favourite attitude, 
 looking into the fire, her ruffled hair golden in 
 the ruddy light, her eyes heavy with thought or 
 care. 
 
 His elated aspect tells her that he has been 
 successful. She rises and runs to him, trembling 
 with anxiety. 
 
 ' Have you got the money ? * 
 
 ' Yes, Sibyl. Of all my friends, the one who 
 could least afford to lose it was the only one to 
 lend it. Here it is, little one. You must make it 
 go a long way, for it has cost me sore humiliation." 
 
 * It was lent grudgingly, then ? ' 
 
 * No ; but it was refused heartlessly by the 
 wrong person before I hit upon the right one. 
 Make the most of it, my love, now you've got it.' 
 
 His wife takes the little parcel of money from
 
 * HAD THE CHANCE BEEN WITH US.* 49 
 
 his hand, slowly, looking downward, and without 
 a word. 
 
 ' You are pleased, little woman ? ' 
 
 ' It was very good of you to try so hard,' she 
 answers in a low voice. 
 
 She begins to busy herself about her husband's 
 dinner without another word. This evening she 
 gives him half a pound of rump-steak, an unwonted 
 feast, at which his soul rejoices. 
 
 'I am faring sumptuously to-day,' he says, as 
 she sits opposite to him, pouring out the tea wdth 
 a listless, absent air, which he takes for physical 
 languor. 'I have had a superb luncheon already.' 
 
 All that evening Sibyl is unwontedly silent, 
 and Alexis, not caring to describe his interview 
 with Mrs. Gorsuch, has not much to tell her after 
 he has related Eichard Plowden's generosity. He 
 has recourse to the tattered leaves of ' Don Juan,' 
 and sits sniggering over his favourite passages, and 
 feeling as if he and the poet were both outside 
 the human race generally, and could afford to ridi- 
 cule and despise it. 
 
 He sallies forth early next morning, despite 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 the snow, which now clothes the land as a gar- 
 ment, and goes straight to Brompton, to have 
 another cheery talk with Dick Plowden, and to 
 inquire whether that back parlour philosopher has 
 hit upon any method by which he, Alexis, may 
 earn his daily bread. 
 
 Eichard is hopeful. He has an uncle engaged 
 in a large shipping agent's office, an uncle who 
 would have obtained employment for Eichard him- 
 self, had Eichard's legs been more serviceable in 
 active life. To this uncle, Mr. Sampson Plowden, 
 Dick writes a long letter, setting forth his friend's 
 capacities and desire for employment; and, armed 
 with this recommendation, Alexis speeds to the 
 offices of Messrs. Keel and Skrew, in a narrow 
 alley out of Fenchurch Street. He sees Sampson 
 Plowden, an active little elderly man, who asks 
 him if he can write a good hand, and if he is 
 quick at accounts. Alexis asks for a sheet of 
 paper, and writes a few lines in a clerk-like hand, 
 taking care to dot his i's this time, and then 
 volunteers to solve any arithmetical puzzle that 
 Mr. Plowden likes to set him.
 
 ' HAD THE CHANCE BEEX WITH US.' 51 
 
 ' Well, I'll take your word and Dick's as to the 
 book-keeping/ replies Mr. Plowden. ' AVe employ 
 a good many cleiks, and sometimes have to send 
 one to Australia, which makes a vacancy. The 
 next time this occurs you shall hear of it. The 
 junior clerks are in my department, and it's in my 
 province to engage or dismiss them. I'U bear you 
 in mind, Mr. Stanmore.' 
 
 * If you could send me to Australia/ hazards 
 Alexis, glowing with hope, ' it would suit me ad- 
 mirably.' 
 
 'Well, well, that would be a matter involving 
 much consideration. However, you shall hear from 
 me at the first opportunity.' 
 
 This is not much, but it is something; for 
 Mr. Plowden looks like a man who means what he 
 says, and Dick has given him a high character for 
 integrity and kindness of heart. Alexis plods home- 
 wards, cheered and sustained by sorrow's pole-star, 
 Hope. 
 
 He lets himself in at number eleven, Dixon 
 Street, the door being on the latch, and goes up- 
 stairs, prepared to find Sibyl in a brighter frame 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF »LU'*Ofr
 
 62 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 of mind than usual, busy at her needlework most 
 likely, the lamp burning, the hearth swept, the 
 evening meal set out, with neatness which lends 
 its charm even to poverty. 
 
 The room looks curiously blank and dreary as 
 he enters it. The lire has gone out ; cheerless sight, 
 with that white world ontside, and the thermo- 
 meter below freezing-point. There is no tea-tray, 
 no white cloth on the table, no lamp burning. 
 The dusk is just light enough to show him that 
 the room is empty, and that no preparation has 
 been made for his refreshment. 
 
 He goes back to the landing and calls over the 
 balusters to his landlady : ' Has my wife been 
 out long, Mrs. Bonny ? ' 
 
 ' She went out just before dinner-time,' screams 
 a voice from below. 
 
 Dinner-time with Mrs. Bonny means one 
 o'clock. 
 
 ' She has gone to buy things, I dare say,' thinks 
 Alexis, 'gone to London most likely. She ought 
 to have been home by half-past four, though, if 
 she went as early as one. Did she leave any mes-
 
 ' HAD THE CHANCE BEEN WITH US.' 53 
 
 sage, Mrs. Bonny ? ' he asks, calling over the bal- 
 usters again. 
 
 ' No,' replies the landlady, curtly, ' she didn't 
 leave no message, but she took a carpet bag.' 
 
 *A carpet bag,' repeats Alexis, with a puzzled 
 air, as he goes back to the blank, cold room. ' What 
 could she want with a carpet bag ? To bring the 
 things home, perhaps, — foolish little thing! As if 
 a parcel wasn't lighter to carry than a carpet bag.' 
 
 He gi'opes for wood and coals in the bottom of 
 the roomy cupboard, and lights a fire, patiently, toil- 
 fully, not unskilfully, with hands which have learned 
 many offices unknown to the elegant Captain Secretan. 
 
 He is dispirited by his wife's absence, but not 
 angry. That placid, easy temper of his is full of 
 tenderness and indulgence for the ' little woman ' 
 whose brief married life has been so full of care, 
 who approaches the mystery of maternity under 
 such sorrowful conditions. He lights his fire, brings 
 out a loaf, a starveling slice of cheese, and some 
 small-beer in a bottle, and sits by the hearth to 
 eat his meal in the firelight. As he eats and 
 drinks his eyes wander thoughtfully round the
 
 54 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 firelit room, jets of flame flashing and twinkling 
 on the wainscot. 
 
 ' Not a bad old room by any means,' he thinks, 
 * if one had just enough money to live in it com- 
 fortably ? ' 
 
 He fancies that in Sampson Plowden's friendship 
 he has found the clue that shall extricate him from 
 the maze of adversity. How happy Sibyl and he 
 might be in this humble old room were he but 
 employed as clerk at Messrs. Keel and Skrew's 
 with a salary of say thirty shillings a week ! Not 
 an ambitious desire, surely, in a young man whose 
 family history is set forth with some flourish in 
 Burke's ' Landed Gentry.' 
 
 'I shall have something pleasant to tell the 
 little woman when she comes home, at any rate,' 
 thinks Alexis, as he sips the flat fourpenny ale, 
 put carefully away after last night's supper. 
 
 A pert little flame spurts out of a knob of coal 
 just at this moment, brightening the whole room, 
 and Secretan's eye, wandering idly as he muses, is 
 attracted by a spot of white upon the sideboard. 
 
 ' A letter, by Jove ! ' he exclaims. * Who the
 
 ' HAD THE CHANCE BEEN WITH US.' 55 
 
 deuce can have written to me, when not a mortal 
 knows my address ? ' 
 
 He rises — listlessly — apprehending no advantage 
 from the letter, lights the lamp, and goes over to 
 the sideboard. The letter is from his wife. 
 
 'Dear Alexis, 
 ' Our misery of the last few months has opened 
 my eyes to the sad truth that it would have been 
 far better for both of us had we never met, or had 
 we been wise enough to defer our marriage till we 
 had some settled means of living. What am I but 
 a burden to you? How many situations there 
 are in which you could get your living were you 
 alone and unfettered ! while I could at least return 
 to the dull drudgery of teaching, and escape 
 the pinch of absolute poverty. Do not think me 
 cold-hearted, dear Alexis, when I tell you that I 
 am weary of our continual struggle, and that I 
 have resolved to end it by an act which may 
 provoke your indignation, but which, I feel assured, 
 will result in your advantage. I set you free from 
 the burden of a wife whom you have found it too
 
 56 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 bitter a task to support. You have rarely uttered 
 a complaint, but I have seen despair in your face 
 often enough to learn that it has settled in your 
 heart. Without me you may begin the world 
 afresh. Apart from you I shall have opportu- 
 nities of prosperity as Miss Faunthorpe, which I 
 could never have as Mrs. Secretan. If my lot 
 changes, and fortune smiles, as I dare to hope it 
 will, you shall hear of me ; and even if you blame 
 me for a separation which your anger may call a 
 desertion, believe at least that in severance, as in 
 union, I shall be ever your true and loyal wife, 
 
 ' Sibyl.' 
 
 Alexis reads and re-reads' this letter like a man 
 who hast lost the power of understanding his mother 
 tongue, and pores over familiar words as though they 
 were the hieroglyphics of an Assyrian inscription. 
 
 So cold, so heartless, so deliberate. His heart 
 sickens at the thought of such cruelty. In all his 
 adversity, with starvation staring him in the face, 
 he has thought of his wife as part of himself; has 
 never considered the responsibility of providing for
 
 * HAD THE CHANCE BEEN WITH US.' 57 
 
 her as doubling the difficulty of existence ; has 
 never for a moment remembered that life might 
 be easier to him without her. He has been sorry 
 for her, has thought of her deprivations, her 
 endurance, but of the burden upon himself — never. 
 All hopes and dreams of a happier future have 
 centred themselves in her. To win a brighter home 
 for her, to surround her with comfort, has been his 
 one ambition. Eeckless as his marriage was, he 
 has never repented it. Fettered hand and foot as 
 he has found himself by that iU-considered act, he 
 has never wished the tie loosened. 
 
 He stands with the letter in his hand, repeating 
 the words to himself incredulously. It must be a 
 jest — a trick to test his love — anything but the 
 base and bitter truth. 
 
 He puts the letter in his pocket at last, goes 
 downstairs, and penetrates the sacred domain of 
 Mrs. Bonny ; namely, the front kitchen, which is 
 at once the parlour or living-room, where Mr. Bonny, 
 employed as a railway porter, tastes the sweets of 
 domestic leisure, and the apartment in which Mrs. 
 Bonny cooks for her lodgers. The back kitchen
 
 58 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 makes a cheerful bedroom, and in summer-time, 
 when Mr. Bonny trains scarlet runners over the 
 window, enjoys a rustic outlook. 
 
 Alexis is received somewhat coldly by Mrs. 
 Bonny, that lady being intent upon frying sausages 
 for the railway porter's evening repast, and resenting 
 all intrusion upon her private domain on principle. 
 He questions her closely as to the mode and manner 
 of his wife's departure, but she can tell him no 
 more than she has told him already. Mrs. 
 Stanmore went out between twelve and one o'clock, 
 carrying a small carpet bag. 
 
 *I shouldn't have known anything about it if 
 I hadn't happened to meet her as I was fetching 
 of the dinner beer, our Mary Ann being washing, 
 and no one else to fetch it.' 
 
 * Did she say nothing to you ? * 
 
 'Not a word; she just gives me a nod, in her 
 off-hand way, and walks on.' 
 
 That is all. Alexis goes upstairs again, heavily, 
 slowly, and paces the deserted room. By-and-by he 
 pauses before a rickety old chest of drawers with 
 brass handles and locks, opens a drawer, and finds
 
 * HAD THE CHANCE BEEX WITH US.' 59 
 
 it empty. It is the drawer that contained his 
 wife's poor remains of a wardrobe that had never 
 been richly furnished, a few under garments, a 
 collar or two, and so on. These she has evidently 
 taken with her. Nothing could have been more 
 deliberate than her departure. 
 
 Presently a curious idea occurs to him, improba- 
 ble, but it takes a strong hold upon him nevei-theless. 
 
 Has she gone to make away with herself ? and 
 is this heartless letter of hers a tender device to 
 save him the pain of knowing that she had been 
 driven by despair to suicide ? 
 
 Tliis seems to him more likely, more natural 
 than that the wife he loves can desert him; can, 
 with coldest calculation, barter love and truth 
 against the chances of prosperity. 
 
 What those chances are he knows not. He is 
 so ignorant of his wife's family and surroundings 
 as not to know that Sibyl Faunthorpe is the niece 
 of Stephen Trenchard. 
 
 Why he is thus unenlightened is a question that 
 can be only answered by a retrospect, and will be 
 best answered in Sibyl's own words.
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 SIBYL FAUNTHORPE's DIAEY. 
 
 LowTHER Street, November 14, 186- I suppose 
 to keep a diary is about as' foolish a thing as any 
 one can do — waste of time in the present, and self- 
 abasement in the future. I dare say I shall hate 
 myself when I read over these pages in years to 
 come, and see what a stupid creature I was at 
 nineteen years of age. However, I am driven to 
 scribble about myself and my feelings for want of 
 anything better to do in the long, lonely evenings, 
 when the children are gone to bed, and Mrs. 
 Hazleton is out, and I have the dreary schoolroom 
 all to myself. I used to read any novel I could Und 
 lying about downstairs, and bring up here for an 
 evening, till Mrs. Hazleton found me out and 
 forbade it. * Novels, my dear Miss Faunthorpe,* 
 she preached, 'are the worst possible reading for 
 a young woman in your position — enervating the
 
 SIBYL FAUNTHORPE'S DIAEY. 61 
 
 mind, weakening the logical faculty, which in your 
 brain I regret to say is sorely deficient.' I felt 
 inclined to ask her why she reads novels if they are 
 so injurious. She has a knack of reading one's 
 thoughts, and answered my objection before I could 
 give it expression. Tor the head of a household, 
 who must always have some portion of care and 
 anxiety, novel-reading is an innocent relaxation ; but 
 the instructor of youth should employ her leisure 
 in widening her circle of knowledge. The books 
 in the study bookcase are quite at your service. 
 Miss Faunthorpe, whenever you like to avail 
 yourself of them,' and then she sailed out of the 
 room to go to a dinner party, dressed in maroon 
 velvet and old Brussels lace, and looking very 
 handsome — for an old woman. She must be five- 
 and-forty at the least. 
 
 Perhaps I ought not to complain of my bondage, 
 for I might be worse off than I am. Mrs. Hazleton 
 is fond of preaching, but she is not unkind to me. 
 She has no grown-up daughters, and whenever she 
 has company I am asked down to the drawing-room 
 to play and sing and make myself generally useful ;
 
 62 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 and as she has a good deal of company, this happens 
 tolerably often. Luckily, music is my strong point. 
 When Mrs. Hazleton is in a good humour she takes 
 me for a drive in the park, and I see the world and 
 hear what is going on. I go to a fashionable church 
 with the children on Sundays and Saints' days, and 
 am altogether much better off than in my uncle 
 Robert's poverty-stricken household, in dull old 
 Eedcastle, where I knew no one worth knowing, 
 and where life is only another name for vegetation. 
 I am sure the cabbages in uncle's wretched kitchen- 
 garden had quite as much enjoyment of life as 
 Marion and I — more indeed, for they had sunshine 
 and perpetual idleness, and bees and butterflies 
 buzzing and skimming about them, while we had 
 old house-linen to patch and darn, and the 
 tradesmen's books to puzzle over, and Jenny to 
 teach, and mend for, and scold, and puddings to 
 make, and buttons to sew on from January to 
 December. I think there never was such a man as 
 uncle Robert for wrenching the buttons off his 
 shirts, and pushing his toes through his socks. 
 So, at the worst, though I have to grind French,
 
 SIBYL FAUNTHORPE'S DIARY. 63 
 
 Italian, and German verbs in a mill all the week 
 through, and listen to those wretched children 
 strumming Kalkbrenner's exercises three hours a 
 day, I am better off than Marion. I have forty 
 pounds a year to spend upon clothes, and I see 
 a great many nice people. Mrs. Hazleton boasts 
 that she only knows the best people. 'I am no 
 tuft-hunter, my dear,' she tells me when she is in 
 one of her expansive moods. ' You will see very 
 few titles in my card-basket ; but the people I know 
 belong to some of the best families in England.' 
 
 December 3. — Such a tiresome, dreary week^ 
 Mrs. Hazleton has dined out four evenings out of 
 six, and now on the fifth she has taken off the 
 children to see the new actor at the Hay market. 
 ' I am sorry there won't be room for you in the box, 
 Miss Faunthorpe,' she said, with her chilly polite- 
 ness, after I had been toiling for an hour helping 
 Moyson, the children's maid, to tie Lucinda's 
 ribbons, and brush Laura's hair, and sew on a 
 tucker for Magdalen. So here I am at half-past 
 seven o'clock, my hearth swept, and my fire
 
 64 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 made up, as solitary as an old maid with a small 
 annuity. 
 
 I have been down to the study, and chosen a 
 couple of volumes, the best I could find in a dry- 
 as-dust collection of antiquities — the ' Citizen of 
 the World ' and a volume of the Spectator , — but I 
 don't feel equal to reading either. It suits my 
 present humour better to scribble my complaints 
 against fortune in this ridiculous book of mine. 
 What a lucky woman Mrs. Hazleton is ! Married 
 to a wealthy Indian judge, and left a widow six 
 years ago with an ample fortune ; too old to care 
 about marrying again, but not too old to be admired 
 and made much of by her friends ; her children 
 young enough to be kept in the schoolroom for the 
 next four years. Impossible to imagine a more 
 independent position. What a contrast between her 
 fate and mine ! I have never known what it is to 
 have my own way, and yet, when I was a child, I 
 thought I had only to be ' grown up ' in order to 
 taste all the sweets of life. Perhaps that was 
 because of the nonsense people talked about my 
 good looks. I can fancy no greater misfortune for
 
 SIBYL FAUNTHORPE'S DIARY. 65 
 
 a giii in my position than to be brought up with the 
 idea of being a beauty. When I was a little thing 
 people were always drawing comparisons between 
 Marion and me to Clarion's disadvantage ; and 
 before I was twelve I knew quite well that I was 
 the pretty Miss Faunthorpe. Even old Hester, 
 who never had a civil word for me at the best of 
 times, used to feed my vanity with her taunts about 
 my pretty face and my uselessness. ' Handsome is 
 that handsome does,' she used to say, by which I 
 knew very well that she thought me handsome. 
 Then came school, and I was set up as a beauty, 
 and courted and petted by one-half of the girls, 
 and detested by the other half, and nagged at by 
 Marion, who was set against me by the disagreeable 
 comparisons people were always making between us. 
 What was the consequence of all this ? I grew up 
 with the idea that as soon as I left school, some 
 rich young man, handsome and agreeable into the 
 bargain, would fall in love with me at first sight, 
 and that I should be married in grand style at the 
 parish church — six bridesmaids and ever so many 
 carriages and pairs — before the admiring eyes of all 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 6Q DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Redcastle. I came home to uncle Robert's dull red 
 house, prepared for conquest. Life would be like a 
 fairy tale. Some fine summer morning the hand- 
 some young prince would appear, and I should 
 be raised at once from Cinderella's obscurity to 
 Cinderella's high fortune. Foolish creature that I 
 was ! I used to lie awake at night telling Marion 
 the grand things I would do for her when I was 
 married. 
 
 ^ Where is the prince to come from, Sib ? ' she 
 asked me once, rather maliciously. 'You know 
 there are not above three such young men in 
 Eedcastle — young Taylor, the lawyer's son; Mr. 
 Lacy, the biscuit manufacturer ; and George Pins- 
 ford, the coachmaker.' 
 
 ' Biscuit manufacturer ! ' I exclaimed. ' Do you 
 suppose I would marry a low tradesman ? Aren't 
 there the county families, stupid ? ' 
 
 Well, here I am, after two weary years' home 
 life with uncle Eobert, who I must say is the dearest 
 old thing in the world. Here I am, nearly twenty, 
 and no nearer finding the prince of fairy lore than 
 when I left Miss Worrie's establishment for young
 
 SIBYL FAUNTHOKPE S DIAEY. 67 
 
 ladies at Kilmorden, after three years' experience as 
 pupil-teacher. Here I am, a poor drudge of a 
 governess, at just ten pounds a quarter, thankful for 
 being asked down to the drawing-room, where my 
 beauty goes for very little. All Mrs. Hazleton's 
 friends have found out by this time that I am ' only 
 the governess/ and have left off asking one another 
 who I am, as they used to do at first with some 
 show of interest. I sing, or play, and some one 
 who has been chattering the whole time says 
 languidly, 'Yeiy nice, really. Tliank you. Miss 
 Paunthorpe.' And I sit in the angle between the 
 back drawing-room fireplace and the window- 
 curtain for the rest of the evening, watching and 
 listening, with no more part in what is going on 
 than if I were at a theatre. 
 
 Let me look in the glass and see what this 
 lauded beauty is which has brought me so little 
 luck. A small straight nose very sharply cut, a 
 short upper lip, under lip a thought too full, teeth 
 good, cliin round and dimpled, face a perfect oval, 
 eyes darkest brown ; the sort of eyes which, I 
 believe, are usually called black. Hair dark brown,
 
 68 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 with a tinge of gold where it ripples — the colour 
 usually called chestnut. Present expression discon- 
 tent and a tendency to ill temper. 
 
 I have given up that foolish notion of a rich 
 husband, but I sometimes indulge in another day- 
 dream, perhaps just as foolish. What if my rich 
 uncle, Stephen Trenchard, were to come home, take 
 a fancy to me, and leave me a fortune ? Such things 
 have happened. I remember how my poor mother 
 used to talk of her brother Stephen, the Indian 
 merchant, and of the ship that was coming home to 
 bring her ease and comfort, and which never came. 
 Will the ship come home for me, I wonder, now 
 that my poor mother has been lying ten years in 
 iier quiet grave ? 
 
 December 13. — The most wonderful thing has 
 happened — the most unlooked-for, the most extra- 
 ordinary. My heart beats so fast at the mere 
 thought of it, that I am almost breathless as I write 
 these lines. My hand trembles, and the letters look 
 blurred and dim before my eyes. 
 
 I have seen the son of Philip Secretan, my uncle
 
 SIBYL FAUXTHOKPE'S DIARY. 69 
 
 Stephen's deadly enemy — the man whom he sup- 
 planted in the affections of a weak old father — for 
 surely any father must be weak who would dis- 
 inherit his son in favour of a dependant, the man 
 from whom he received the injury that lamed him for 
 life. How often have I heard my mother tell the 
 story, always putting her brother's conduct in the 
 most favourable li^ht ! He was honest, indefati- 
 gable, steady — a favourite clerk in the firm of 
 Secretan Brothers, Manchester merchants. He fully 
 deserved the unexpected fortune that came to him, 
 while Philip's dissipation and, extravagance were 
 justly rewarded by disinheritance. Yet somehow 
 in spite of poor mamma's special pleading, my 
 sympathy was always with this unfortunate Mr. 
 Secretan, who saw his father's w^ealth pass into the 
 possession of his father's confidential clerk. 
 
 I once asked mamma what kind of a man this 
 Philip Secretan \A'as. She told me that she had only 
 seen him once in her life, but that he impressed her 
 as being remarkably handsome and a perfect 
 gentleman. 
 
 And now I have seen his son, Captain Secretan.
 
 70 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 He was at Mrs. Hazleton's party last niglit. I had 
 no idea who he was till afterwards. He was 
 standing before the fireplace in the back drawing- 
 room when I went back to my corner after singing 
 'Porghi Amor/ standing with his back to the fire 
 talking to old Colonel Syceman. He is tall and 
 strong-looking, and has, to my mind, a most 
 beautiful countenance. I never called a man beau- 
 tiful before, and I dare say I shall laugh at the 
 expression when I read over this stupid diary some 
 day ; but I cannot call his face less than beautiful. 
 It is such a nobl^ face, with just the grand 
 look I could fancy in Achilles. I was reading 
 Pope's ' Iliad ' to the children this afternoon, and 
 I thought of Captain Secretan every time Achilles 
 spoke. It seemed to me almost as if I could 
 see him standing up before me, confronting 
 Agamemnon. He is dark, with boldly cut features, 
 a good-humoured expression about the mouth, and 
 a somewhat dreamy look in the dark gray eyes. I 
 have seen handsomer faces, but none that ever 
 interested me as deeply. He is a man I should 
 believe in with all my soul if he were my friend ;
 
 SIBYL FAUNTHOKPE'S DIAKY. 71 
 
 a man I should lean upon as on a rock of defence 
 if lie were of my kindred. But he is nothing to 
 me, and I am hardly likely to see him again. 
 
 Mrs. Hazleton spoke of him at luncheon to-day 
 as a foolish young fellow who has sold his com- 
 mission, and whose future career must be disastrous 
 unless some distant relations were to die and leave 
 him their property. As a rule, distant relations are 
 not so obliging. She spoke with her reverential 
 tone of his family, which is one of the oldest in 
 Hampshire, although his grandfather w^as a ^lan- 
 chester merchant ; and she informed me that his 
 first cousin, once removed, is a baronet, Sir Douglas 
 Secretan, with a large estate in somewhere or other. 
 
 I wonder whether I shall ever see him again. 
 
 December 30.— I have seen him again, three, 
 four, five, six, seven times. Three times in Mrs. 
 Hazleton's drawing-room, three times in the park, 
 when I was out walking with the children ; and 
 once in Desmond Street when I had gone out alone 
 to post a letter. 
 
 I dare say it was very wrong, and that I shall be
 
 72 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ashamed of myself when I read over this dreadful 
 diary, but when Captain Secretan asked me whether 
 I ever walked in the park with the children, I said 
 yes ; and when he asked me what time, I said 
 between three and five; and after that, when he 
 asked me if I ever went out alone, I told him yes, 
 sometimes, just before half-past five, to post my 
 home letter. 
 
 How kind he is ! how clever ! how interesting ! 
 and how well we seem to know each other, though 
 we have only met seven times ! There is evidently 
 no association for him in the name of Faunthorpe. 
 This is only natural, as my mother did not marry 
 till some years after her brother's quarrel with 
 Philip Secretan. How much I regret, now, that I 
 did not learn the exact particulars of that quarrel ! 
 I have only a vague idea of the circumstances ; but 
 from what my mother told me, I know that, 
 although Philip Secretan was the sufferer, my uncle 
 Stephen was as vindictive as if he also had been 
 injured. 
 
 Perhaps the injurer is sometimes more angry 
 than the injured.
 
 SIBYL FAUNTHORPE S DIARY. 76 
 
 My mother always declared that her brother was 
 innocent of guile or wrong-doing from first to last, 
 but now that I know Mr. Secretan's son I feel stiU. 
 more inclined to side with my uncle's enemy. 
 
 He, Captain Secretan, has told me the history of 
 his life, his careless happy youth spent abroad, with 
 a father and mother whom he idolized. He was 
 educated at Heidelberg, came from Heidelberg to 
 Woolwich, to an army tutor, joined his regiment at 
 twenty, and sold out after five years' ser\dce, a few 
 months ago. He has now all the woild before him, 
 he says, and has only to choose a career. He is 
 energetic and clever, and can hardly miss success in 
 anything he may attempt. 
 
 How changed our walks seem, now that there is 
 always the chance of meeting him ! As I see him 
 coming to meet us along the wintry avenue, the 
 familiar scene seems to grow beautiful, the sun shines 
 brighter, the birds break out into singing. They 
 may have been singing [before, perhaps, and I too 
 absorbed to hear them ; but it seems as if they 
 began a glad chorus at his coming. I did not think 
 that winter afternoons could be so beautiful ; the
 
 74 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 calm still air, the blue-gray sky, the black tracery of 
 the tall elm trees against the yellow sunset. 
 
 He told me yesterday that his father would have 
 been a rich man, but for the treachery of a friend 
 whom he had loved and trusted. A cold sick feeling 
 came over me, just as if the treachery had been 
 mine, and I had suddenly come face to face with my 
 victim. 
 
 ' The only lesson my father ever taught me was 
 to revile that man's name, and to carry my hatred 
 of him with me to the grave. An evil lesson for a 
 kind-hearted man to teach, you'll say ; but for all 
 that, I don't believe there ever beat a kinder heart 
 than my father's.' 
 
 I can easily believe this. Kindness and sweet 
 temper are Captain Secretan's chief characteristics ; 
 a bright good humour which cheers one like sun- 
 shine. A way of looking at life on the pleasantest 
 side which would inspire hopefulness in the most 
 dismal mind. I know how low-spirited, discontent- 
 ed, and wretched I was growing just before I knew 
 him, and how changed and brightened life seems to 
 me now.
 
 SIBYL FAUNTHOKPES DIAEY. 7o 
 
 The children doat upon him, and are as pleased a? 
 I am to meet him in our walks. He talks to them 
 about all their small pleasures, and is able to inte- 
 rest himself in their ideas much better than I, who 
 spend my life wdth them. Sometimes he paces up 
 and down the broad walk with the three girls 
 hanging about him, telling them one of the fairy 
 tales we all know so well, and he has a way of 
 giving a new charm and interest to the old stories, 
 while his little touches of modern slang come in 
 here and there with the funniest effect, and set us 
 off laughing till the tree-tops seem to shake with 
 our laughter. 
 
 ' How odd that we should meet you again to-day, 
 Captain Secretan !' cried Magdalen the day before 
 yesterday, when we found him at the entrance of 
 the broad walk. 
 
 ' Not at all odd, if you insist on coming this way, 
 little one,' he said. * This is my afternoon con- 
 stitutional. But if you very much object I'll take 
 the other side of the park.' 
 
 ' Oh, no, no, please come always,' shouted the 
 three ; and then they asked for Cinderella, Captain
 
 76 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Secretan's modernized Cinderella, wliose ball dress 
 was made in New Bond Street, and whose cruel 
 step-mother had a box on the second tier at Covent 
 Garden. 
 
 It was yesterday afternoon that I met him in 
 Desmond Street, a dreary drizzling afternoon, which 
 made me think the sooner the year came to an end 
 the better. I had been feeling rather depressed and 
 disheartened all the morning. The children had all 
 gone to a morning performance of the pantomime at 
 Drury Lane, and I had the day to myself, as Mrs. 
 Hazleton graciously informed me. I don't think 
 leisure is an unalloyed good for those who have few 
 pleasant thoughts to brighten their solitude. I sat 
 mending my clothes, and thinking about Captain 
 Secretan. My thoughts were not happy ones. I 
 was shocked to find what a hold this stranger had 
 taken upon my mind, and how difficult it was for 
 me to think of any one else, or to imagine my life 
 without him. Yet I knew that he was nothing, 
 and never could be anything to me. Poor, but 
 proud, and of good birth, moving in what Mrs. 
 Hazleton calls the best society, he will naturally
 
 SIBYL FAUXTHOEPLS DIARY. 77 
 
 select a woman of fortune for his wife. He is 
 handsome, agreeable, has many gifts which dis- 
 tinguish him from the common run of young men, 
 and will have no difficulty in making an advan- 
 tageous marriage. Of an obscure littlt; pauper like 
 me he would never think seriously for a moment, 
 unless his thoughts were dishonourable ; and I know 
 him and trust him well enough already to wager my 
 life against that. ^Vhat has he to do with me, then, 
 or I with him ? Absolutely nothing. AYe are only 
 fooling each other by this friendship, which is so 
 sweet to me, and which must needs have some 
 charm for him, since he takes the trouble to cul- 
 tivate it. Better for both of us that we should see 
 each other no more, or only upon the public stage 
 of Mrs. Hazleton's drawing-room. I will tell him 
 so seriously and honestly the next time we are 
 alone together for a minute or two, while the three 
 girls march on before us. This doesn't often happen, 
 for I think Lucinda is more deeply in love with the 
 
 captain than ! What was I going to write ? 
 
 Than a girl of twelve ought to be. This is the 
 lecture which I read myself yesterday while I
 
 78 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 worked at that tiresome mending. All my 
 Christmas quarter's salary will go for a black silk 
 dress, as I must have one good and fashionably 
 made gown to wear downstairs. I wanted so much 
 to have sent uncle Robert a little present, and I 
 should have liked to buy Marion a winter hat ; but 
 that is out of the question. Shall I have my dress 
 made with flounces, or a trained skirt ? 
 
 It was dark when I went out to post my letter ; 
 dark, and wet, and uncomfortable, and there was 
 nothing farther from my thoughts than the idea of 
 meeting Captain Secretan between Lowther Street 
 and the post office, though I am bound to confess 
 that the captain himself was not very far from my 
 thoughts. I had posted my letter, and was coming 
 away from the office, when a tall man, looking very 
 big in a great rough overcoat, crossed the road and 
 came towards me. I knew him in a moment, but a 
 strange shy feeling came over me, and I walked on 
 ever so fast, pretending not to know him. The 
 street is quiet and lonely, and I heard his footsteps 
 hurrying after me. 
 
 ' Do you always walk like a sporting pedestrian
 
 SIBYL fa^u^^thokpe's diaky. 79 
 
 when you are alone, Miss Faunthorpe ? ' he asked, 
 coming by my side. 
 
 I started a little at the sound of his voice, 
 although I knew so well that he was there. 
 Yesterday was one of my nervous days, I suppose. 
 I said something about its being such a disagree- 
 able evening. 
 
 ' Yes/ he answered, with his good-tempered 
 laugh, ' the old year is making himself as obnoxious 
 as he can in order that we may not regret him. It 
 is rather unpleasant weather. You dislike this 
 drizzling rain I dare say. I rather like it, for it 
 reminds me of grouse-shooting in the Higiilands. 
 I was even going to ask you to take a little walk 
 round Eccleston Square before you go back to your 
 
 schoolroom.' 
 
 ' I couldn't think of such a thing,' I answered, 
 
 sharply, feeling that the proposal was an im- 
 pertinence. 
 
 ' Couldn't you ? Then it wasn't right in me to 
 propose it, I suppose,' he replied, placidly. 'And 
 yet I should be so glad of half an hour's quiet talk 
 with you. It's very nice telling the children fairy
 
 80 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 stories, but rather a hindrance to conversation. 
 Well, we'll postpone tlie walk round the square till 
 we've pleasanter weather and you know me better. 
 Do you know I have been thinking of you so much 
 in the last few days." 
 
 Had he ? There must be something sympathetic 
 in our thousjhts then, for he has never been out of 
 mine. 
 
 We had turned into Lowther Street by this time, 
 and I was weak enough to be glad that it is such a 
 long street. I would not have gone three yards out 
 of my way with him if the happiness of my life 
 had depended on it, but there was no harm in letting 
 him walk as far as Mrs. Hazleton's door with me. 
 
 * Yes, I have been thinking about you a good deal, 
 Miss Faunthorpe,' he said, after a pause. ' I have 
 been thinking what might have happened if I had 
 been a rich man and free to follow my own incli- 
 nation. ' 
 
 This was telling me plainly that he was neither 
 rich nor free. 
 
 * Can you guess what I fancied would have hap- 
 pened in that case ? '
 
 SIBYL FAUNTHORPE'S DIARY. 81 
 
 * No, indeed.' 
 
 ' I thought it just possible that I might have been 
 tempted to ask jou to be my wife.' 
 
 He waited for my reply, but I was dumb, I 
 felt choking, and could not find a word to answer 
 him. 
 
 ' What would you have said in that case ? ' 
 
 Some diabolical counsellor suggested a flippant 
 answer instead of a serious one. 
 
 'Isn't your question rather like Lord Dundreary's ? 
 I asked. ' If you had had a brother, do you think 
 lie would have liked cheese ? ' 
 
 * I see,' he said, with a disappointed tone, ' I am 
 not to expect a serious answer to a hypothetical 
 question. I dare say you are right, Miss Faunthorpe. 
 In all life's delicate questions women are always 
 wiser than men.' 
 
 I thought that he had taken the easiest way of 
 telling me that his circumstances forbade him Ui 
 think of manying me. 
 
 * In that case,' I said to myself, ' he has no right 
 to waylay me as I come from the post ; ' and I tried 
 to feel very angry with him. 
 
 VOL. 1. G
 
 82 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ' So you didn't go liome to spend your Christmas 
 holidays ? ' he said presently. 
 
 * Home ! Do you suppose I could afford to travel 
 to Yorkshire and back for a week's pleasure ? Be- 
 sides, I have no real home. My sisters and I are 
 dependent on my uncle's bounty, and he is only a 
 parish doctor, v^ho finds it a hard thing to pay his 
 butcher and baker.' 
 
 I was determined to let him know how poor I am, 
 and how wise he has been in coming to the conclu- 
 sion that I am no wife for him. 
 
 ' Poor little thing.' he said compassionately, and 
 his pity did me good somehow. It did not gall, as 
 most people's pity does. 
 
 ' Poor little girl,' he said again, after a few mo- 
 ments' silence. 'An orphan, and sent out into the 
 world to bear the burden of servitude and all ill- 
 usage " that patient merit from the unworthy takes." 
 One would suppose that you could hardly be worse 
 off than you are at present ? ' 
 
 This was not very cheering, but I said nothing. 
 We were near Mrs. Hazleton's door by this time, 
 and yet we had been walking slowly.
 
 SIBYL FAUXTHOKPE's DIARY. 83 
 
 ' Any change would be for the better, one would 
 think,' he said, musingly. 'A change that would 
 give this poor little waif a sworn protector and 
 defender,— a husband pledged to toil for her and 
 cherish her. But a poor husband — a man at war 
 with fortune — bah I 111 tell you what it is, Miss 
 Faunthorpe,' he burst out suddenly, 'with your 
 lovely face you ought to make a brilliant marriage.' 
 
 ' So I was told when I was sixteen,' said I, ' but 
 I'm almost twenty, and the fairy prince in the shape 
 of a rich husband hasn't appeared yet.' 
 
 * You wouldn't despise an eligible opportunity of 
 exchansinor Mrs. Hazleton's schoolroom for a house 
 in Kensington Palace Gardens, I suppose ? You 
 have a feminine inclination for fine clothes, servants 
 with powdered heads, carriages and horses, and a 
 box at the opera ? ' 
 
 " I am human, and I don't pretend to be superior 
 to the weaknesses of humanity,' I answered, feeling 
 that I was making myself intensely disagreeable. 
 
 He provoked me, somehow, by his nonchalant 
 manner of discussing my position and prospects. 
 Luckily, we were quite at the door now, and I was
 
 84 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 able to beat a retreat before anything still more 
 unpleasant had been said upon either side. 
 
 * Good afternoon. Captain Secretan,' I said. 
 
 ' It must be good-bye,' he answered, ' I am going 
 into Norfolk to-morrow for a month's shooting.' 
 
 I felt as if he had said that he was going to Aus- 
 tralia, but I only answered ' Oh, in that case, good- 
 bye;' and so we shook hands again, and then he 
 lifted his hat and went away, while I gave the bell 
 a good sharp pull that insured its being answered 
 promptly. 
 
 I don't quite know whether I like him or hate 
 him ; but whichever feeling it is, it must be rather 
 strong of its kind, as I cannot get him out of my 
 thoughts. I am inclined to think that it is hatred. 
 What could be more disagreeable or humiliating 
 than his way of speaking about me before my 
 face, as if I had been miles away? 'Poor thing, 
 poor little waif ! ' 
 
 I grow hot and red when I think of it. 
 
 Jan. 14. — The year is just a fortnight old. There 
 has been snow, but bright clear weather, a blue sky.
 
 SIBYL fauxthorpe's diaey. 85 
 
 and sunshine. We walk in Kensincrton Gardens 
 every day, and meet him every day. He makes the 
 three girls run races with their hoops, he being 
 umpire, and during the race he and I are able to 
 talk without restraint. He only stopped four days 
 in Norfolk. He told me that the shooting was very 
 good, but that he was bored to death after the second 
 day, and yet it was in a pleasant country house that 
 he was staying at, according to his own account. 
 There was to be a ball the very day after he came 
 away, but he did not care to stay for it. Curious 
 man ! 
 
 ]\Iy black silk dress has come, and is a great 
 success. I dread to see the dressmaker's bill, as I 
 have only reserved a sovereign for the making, and 
 I am afraid she will charfTe me somethincr nearer 
 
 o o 
 
 three. The dress certainly fits to perfection, and is 
 beautifully finished ; the trimmings simple, but of the 
 best quality. At home, Marion and I used to make 
 our own dresses, but after going nearly out of my 
 mind for a week over piping-cord and button-holes, 
 I always felt myself a dowdy at the last. 
 
 Mrs. Hazleton has a dinner party to-morrow,
 
 86 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Captain Secretan is coming in the evening, and I 
 shall wear my new dress. Have I made np my 
 mind yet whether I like him or hate him? 
 
 Yes. I do neither. I love him — love him — 
 love him. 
 
 There, it is written at last. Foolish old diary, how 
 I shall despise you and myself some day when I 
 read over this wretched page ! 
 
 Jan. 16. — Such a delicious party last night ! Cap- 
 tain Secretan was the first person I saw when I 
 slipped quietly in at the back drawing-room door. 
 He was watching the door, and those dark eyes 
 brightened at sight of me. I sang to him, I played 
 to him, I talked to him, the party was all him. The 
 rest of the people were only the medium through 
 which I saw him, — or they were like trees in a land- 
 scape, and he the living figure in the foreground. I 
 know he likes to talk to me, and to hear me sing or 
 play ; but I wonder whether he loves me, 
 
 Feb. 3. — It has come at last. He has aked me 
 plainly, straightforwardly, anxiously, earnestly, to be 
 his wife.
 
 SIBYL fauxthokpe's diaey. 87 
 
 He has told me that he is poor, that he is living 
 just now on the money he got for his commission. 
 He has nothing else, but he has youth, health, and 
 strength, some talents, and he is willing to work. 
 With a wife whom he fondly loved he would have a 
 motive for beginning a new career. 
 
 ' I'm such a happy-go-lucky fellow,' he said, in 
 his bright, cheery way, 'that I can hardly bring 
 myseK to put my shoulder to the wheel for my own 
 sake, but if I had you to work for, pet, I should 
 slave like a Goliath.' 
 
 1 don't like to remind him that the Philistine 
 soldier was more remarkable for strength than 
 industry. 
 
 He made me say yes, and promise whatever he 
 liked. How could I resist him, when I love him 
 so dearly that the lightest touch of his hand makes 
 me tremble ? and there seems to me more pathos in 
 his voice than in the tenderest phrase of Mozart's. 
 He is so straightforward, so candid, so noble. He 
 wanted to take Mrs. Hazleton into his confidence 
 immediately, so that I might be married very quietly 
 from her house.
 
 88 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ' We have nothing to wait for, darling/ he said, 
 ' nnless we were to wait till I have made a fortune, 
 which would mean at least half a dozen years of 
 severance, — ^just the brightest, happiest years of life 
 sacrificed to a sordid scruple, an unworthy doubt of 
 Providence. If you love me, Sibyl, you will not talk 
 of waiting.' 
 
 'I should like to be wise and prudent,' I told 
 him, ' but your impetuosity carries me along like a 
 torrent.' 
 
 ' Love is a torrent,' answered he, ' do not oppose 
 so poor a thing as reason against its sacred might.' 
 
 I entreated him to say nothing to Mrs. Hazleton. 
 An idea had occurred to me which made me hesitate, 
 even with my lover's hand clasping mine, as to the 
 wisdom of yielding to his prayer. 
 
 I remembered a strange fact, which had almost 
 slipped out of my mind lately. I remembered that 
 Alexis Secretan is the natural inheritor of his father's 
 hatred, the natural enemy of my rich uncle, Stephen 
 Trenchard, the uncle from whom I have been taught 
 to expect a fortune. If I marry Captain Secretan, 
 I surrender all hope of favour from my uncle.
 
 SIBYL fauxthorpe's diaey. 89 
 
 I begged Alex — he has taught me to call him 
 Alex — to say nothing to Mrs. Hazleton yet awhile. 
 I wanted time to think. 
 
 After all, this hope of fortune from my uncle 
 Stephen may be only a dream, vain as that idea of a 
 rich husband with which I used to delude myself 
 when I was a school girl. On the other hand, I have 
 the knowledge from my poor mother that my uncle 
 was a very rich man twenty years ago (I have the 
 knowledge from his last letter to my uncle Robert, 
 enclosing a twenty-pound bank bill as a present for 
 Marion and me) ; that he has never married, and has 
 no intention of marrying ; that he looks forward to 
 returning to his native country in a few years and 
 making the acquaintance of his nieces. Too good a 
 chance in all this, surely, to be thrown away. It 
 would be rather a bitter thing for me to see Marion 
 chosen for her uncle's heiress, while I was left a 
 pauper. 
 
 What am I to do ? How am I to choose 
 between Alexis and the possibility of a large for- 
 tune ? 
 
 Prudence suggests that I should only pledge
 
 90 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 myself to Alexis on condition that our marriage 
 shall be deferred for some years. 
 
 We are both young. We can afford to wait 
 a few years, and yet have a good deal of the bright- 
 ness of life before us. My uncle Stephen is an 
 old man, older no doubt at his age than men 
 who have spent their lives in Europe. Whether 
 I am to inherit any portion of his wealth is 
 a question that must be decided in a few years. 
 I must tell Alex that he must wait. If his 
 love is real and earnest it cannot be lessened by 
 time. 
 
 Feh. 5. I have told him my decision. Vain, 
 hopeless, to talk of reason with a man whose in- 
 clination is his only law. He tells me that if I 
 really cared for him I could not propose dreary 
 years of separation. My statement that I have 
 rich relatives who may leave me money if I marry 
 to please them, and are sure to leave me nothing 
 if I marry without their consent, fell on ears ob- 
 stinately deaf to reason. Love like this is worse 
 than a torrent — it is a maelstrom. Prudence,
 
 SIBYL FAUXTHOEPE'S DIAKY. 91 
 
 reason, worldly wisdom, are mere straws in the 
 whirlpool. I must see him no more. 
 
 Feb. 7. I have seen him again. Poor Alex ! 
 He looks so unhappy. How sweet to know that 
 I have such power over him ! — I, to whom he 
 seemed such a far-off creature two months ago. 
 Is the chance of fortune w^orth such a love as 
 his? 
 
 Feb. 8. Stephen Trenchard may live to be as 
 old as Old Parr, and leave his money to the Asylum 
 for Idiots, after I have sacrificed youth and love 
 and all that is sweetest in life to the sordid hope 
 of fortune. 
 
 Feb. 9. A hopelessly w^et day. I have seen 
 him walk up and down the street three times in 
 the rain. I know his dear umbrella. 
 
 Feb. 11. In the Broad Walk again yesterday. 
 It is all settled. I am to give Mrs, Hazleton a 
 month's notice to-morrow — our agreement is a 
 month's notice on either side — in the event of my
 
 92 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 proving inefficient, she said. Not in the event of my 
 not liking the situation. Oh dear no, of course not. 
 
 I am so agitated that I can hardly write. This 
 day month I am to have my boxes packed, and 
 go quietly away in a cab at ten o'clock in the 
 morning, drive to the station and deposit my lug- 
 gage, and then meet Alexis, with whom I shall 
 drive back to the quietest little church in Eccles- 
 tonia, where we are to be married, No witnesses 
 but the pew-opener and the clerk ; no announce- 
 ment in the Times. The secret of our marriage 
 kept from everybody who knows us, at the outset, 
 at any rate, so that if Stephen Trenchard dies in 
 India — a likely thing after all — I may still inherit 
 my share of his fortune. Dear old uncle Eobert 
 is such an easy-going man, that as long as I tell 
 iiim I am comfortably situated with my employer 
 he will never put himself out of the way to know 
 more. He has not an acquaintance in London 
 whom he could ask to call upon me at Mrs. 
 Hazleton's. There is no such isolation as poverty. 
 
 I have arranged Avith Jane Dimond, the under 
 housemaid, about my letters. She will receive any
 
 SIBYL FAUXTHORPE'S DIARY. 93 
 
 that come to Lowther Street for me, and post any 
 that I send her to be posted. I have given her 
 quite a heap of things, the weeding out of my 
 wardrobe, and made her my friend for life. 
 
 March 11. To-morrow is to be my wedding day. 
 Oh fearful day I on which hangs all my life to 
 come. WiU the future be blessed or accursed for 
 to-morrow's vows ? 
 
 I wish Marion and uncle Eobert could have 
 been with me. It would all have seemed more 
 real. I remember my foolish fancies — my castles 
 in the air. The grand wedding at which I used 
 to see myself figuring as chief performer ; my white 
 satin dress and Brussels flounces ; the carriages ; 
 the favours ; the crowd ; Mendelssohn's Wedding 
 March; the joyous peal of beUs. Those beUs are 
 sounding in my ears to-night. 
 
 To-morrow, to-morrow, to-morrow ! Before noon 
 to-morrow I shall have ceased to be Sibyl Faun- 
 thorpe. My name will be Sibyl Secretan — name 
 of all others most abhorrent to my uncle, Stephen 
 Trenchard.
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE ELITE OF REDCASTLE. 
 
 Eedcastle is a country town. It is not a manu- 
 facturing town, or a seaport, or a garrison town, or 
 a settlement in any manner designed to be of 
 wide and general use to society. It exists for 
 itself alone, and is exclusive to a fault. It is on 
 the high road to nowhere. Erase it from the map 
 of England to-morrow, and nobody but its own 
 inhabitants would be the worse off for its evanish- 
 ment. It produces nothing but elderly people with 
 limited incomes, and scandal. For the cultivation 
 of this last article Eedcastle is like a mushroom 
 bed in a cellar, a dark corner of the land in which 
 fungi abound and flourish. 
 
 It is not a bad town in which to enjoy a brief 
 span of repose from the turmoil and bustle of the 
 industrial and commercial world ; — the world of 
 labour and pleasure, profit, loss, and pain. Not a
 
 THE ELITE OF EEDCASTLE. 95 
 
 bad old town in which to dream away a joyless, 
 painless old age. But to live in Eedcastle, to 
 bound one's hopes within its brick and mortar 
 confines, to regulate one's life by its petty pro- 
 prieties and narrow creed ! Heaven pity that wretch 
 to whom destiny flings the lot of life-long bondage 
 in Eedcastle. 
 
 It is a clean old town. Scarcely in laborious 
 Holland, where the servant maids scrub the chim- 
 ney-pots and pipe clay the gutters, would you 
 find a cleaner. A rainy day, which makes mud 
 and slush in busier places, only washes down and 
 renovates Eedcastle. The one wide street, with 
 its massive old brick houses, square, and strong, 
 and substantial — the historic gateway, which 
 divides the one street into two. Below Bar and 
 Above Bar — and the fine old Coach and Horses 
 Inn, where seldom coaches or horses are seen to 
 stop, the inn which, save for the mildest indulgence 
 in billiards, and brandy and soda among the youth 
 of the town, seems to exist rather as a part and 
 parcel of Eedcastle, an institution essential to the 
 honour and glory of the town, than for any com-
 
 96 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 mercial purpose, since it appears morally impossible 
 that the establishment can be self-supporting, — all 
 these are the pink of cleanliness. The pretty little 
 minster, more architecturally perfect than many a 
 grander fane, looks as if it were kept under a glass 
 shade. The market-place presents on off days a 
 broad expanse of spotless pavement blinking and 
 smiling up at the sun. The turnpike road on 
 which Eedcastle lies is one of the best in 
 Yorkshire; the narrow lanes and by-streets 
 leading up to that broad stretch of common land 
 known as Eedcastle Woods, apparently for the 
 sole reason that it is barren of anything taller than 
 a hazel-bush, are innocent of mud or smoke. The 
 scanty suburbs of the town present a sprinkling of 
 smallish houses, for the most part uninteresting of 
 aspect, but all scrupulously clean. Those modern 
 edifices, the Wesley an Chapel, the Independent 
 Chapel, and that masonic temple the Athena 
 Lodge, are of whitest freestone, with shining 
 windows, and hearthstoned steps embellishing 
 their classic porticoes. 
 
 Eedcastle, producing nothing, and offering no
 
 THE ELITE OF REDCASTLE. 97 
 
 attraction to visitors, is naturally not a wealthy 
 settlement. The rich inhabitants of Redcastle can 
 be counted on the fingers of a single hand. Yet 
 there is perhaps no town in England in which 
 respect for wealth is more deeply implanted in the 
 human mind. It is a saying of the profane that 
 twopence halfpenny will not consort with twopence 
 in Eedcastle, but this is not a true saying, for more 
 than it worships wealth does Eedcastle worship 
 appearances, and if A, with twopence, can put on 
 the semblance of threepence, he shall be assuredly 
 held higher than C, who lacks the art to obtain as 
 much show out of twopence halfpenny. 
 
 The elite of Eedcastle — that is to say, persons 
 of fixed income or established professional earn- 
 ing, ranging from eight to eighteen hundred per 
 annum — live within a narrow circle. The houses 
 immediately below Bar, and the houses immediately 
 above Bar, shelter the aristocracy of the town. 
 Below Bar, grave old red-brick houses of the early 
 Georgian period, roomy, and comfortable within, 
 respectable of aspect without ; above Bar, houses 
 of a more modern date, stone facades, French 
 
 VOL. L H
 
 98 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 windows, porches, verandalis, larger gardens, and 
 ostentatious stabling, rarely used, save for the 
 accommodation of a pony chaise, like one of 
 Falstaff's buck baskets. 
 
 Within this charmed circle, in the largest of 
 the stone-fronted houses above Bar, resides Colonel 
 Stormont, who enjoys the privileges of retirement 
 and half-pay, cheered by the society of his wife and 
 family, the family consisting of a grown-up son 
 and two grown-up daughters who, of various views 
 upon other questions, are at one in the opinion 
 that Eedcastle was called into being for their 
 especial behoof, and who regulate their conduct by 
 that idea. 
 
 Colonel and Mrs. Stormont take the lead in 
 Eedcastle society. Their names are at the head of 
 the croquet and archery club, which black-balls 
 every one who is suspected of having once had a 
 cousin connected with trade. They are chief 
 patrons of the assize and masonic balls. They 
 sanctify the more chaste and classic of the 
 Eedcastle concerts with their august presence, or, 
 at least, Mrs. Stormont allows her name to grace
 
 THE ELITE OF REDCASTLE. 99 
 
 the list of patronesses, and add a lustre to the 
 programme of the evening's harmony. If St. 
 Cecilia had come to life again she could hardly 
 have been in more request among the concert - 
 givers than Mrs. Stormont, who scarcely knows 
 Mozart from Offenbach, or Beethoven from Brinley 
 Eichards. 
 
 To offend Colonel and Mrs. Stormont would be 
 to be at war with Eedcastle ; and it is doubtful if 
 any one so unfortunately placed could continue to 
 reside in the town. He would be obliged to depart, 
 exiled by that awful ban ; like Ovid from Eome, 
 or Dante from Florence. 
 
 In the large stucco-fronted house with the 
 Norman turret resides Mr. Marlin Spyke, the great 
 shipbuilder of Krampston-on-Tybur. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Spyke live with some splendour, but a self- 
 contained kind of life, not conducive to wide 
 popularity. They receive very little company, their 
 names grace the subscription list of no local charity, 
 they patronize no local entertainment, they attend 
 no masonic or benevolent ball. They are negatively 
 great, and will be remembered when they are
 
 100 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 dead for the many noble deeds they have not 
 done. • 
 
 After the Storraonts and the Marlin Spykes 
 come the professional classes below Bar; Mr. Jew- 
 son, the chief local solicitor and vestry clerk; Dr. 
 Mitsand, an elderly man of some distinction, being 
 one of the army surgeons who endured and ame- 
 liorated the miseries of the Crimean war; Mr. 
 Groshen, the banker; Mr. Farrer, the curate; and 
 a few others, whom it is needless to particularize. 
 On the outskirts of the town reside three or four 
 gentlemen who derive their income from houses or 
 lands, are more rustic in their bearing and attire 
 than the inhabitants of the citadel, and in a gene- 
 ral way give themselves airs, as affecting to belong 
 to the county families. Afar off in their various 
 fastnesses, isolated, inaccessible, unapproachable, live 
 the county families. A few of them are on visiting 
 terms with the Stormonts, Dr. Mitsand, and the 
 clergy of Eedcastle; but they regard the town 
 otherwise as a depot for groceries and draperies, and 
 a centre of Radicalism for the lower classes. Their 
 big family landaus, with tall, slab-sided horses and
 
 THE ELITE OF EEDCASTLE. 101 
 
 brass harness, pervade the street on fine afternoons ; 
 their sons trot briskly through the quiet to^Yn on 
 hunting mornings in well-worn pink. They turn out 
 occasionally for a concert, and take care to testify 
 l)y loud talk and laughter among themselves, and 
 a supercilious contemplation of the rest of the 
 audience through eye-glasses, that they hold them- 
 selves as creatures apart from the townspeople. 
 
 Within ten miles of Eedcastle is that thriving 
 seaport, Krampston-on-Tybur, famous for ship-build- 
 ing, ropemaking, linseed crushing, sugar baking, 
 and general exportation and importation. Kramp- 
 ston has noisy, busthng streets, miles of quays, 
 labyrinths of docks, drawbridges that arrest the 
 pedestrian at every turn, so intersected is the 
 land by narrow inlets of water. Krampston 
 has very little * society,' in the Eedcastle sense of 
 that word, but it has commercial activity, the 
 vigorously throbbing pulse of active and useful 
 life, name, and place and power in the world. The 
 word ' KJrampston ' branded on bale or packing-case 
 is familiar in Buenos Ayres or Sierra Leone, in 
 Pernambuco or Timbuctoo, while the name of
 
 102 DEAD men's shoes, 
 
 Eedcastle is hardly known out of the post office 
 or British Gazetteer. 
 
 Among the elite of Eedcastle — the archons — the 
 equestrian order — Eobert Faunthorpe, surgeon and 
 parish doctor, has no place. The elite give him 
 good-day when they meet him trudging toilfully 
 above or below Bar, or trotting meekly along one 
 of the lanes on his unkempt pony. Good, easy- 
 going little man, ever ready to help the helpless to 
 whom he ministers, often squeezing a shilling or a 
 sixpence out of his ill-furnished purse where he 
 feels that drugs alone are of no avail. Kindly 
 gentleman though he is, the elite of Eedcastle 
 cannot recognise him as a member of their order. 
 He lives in a shabby red house at the fag-end of 
 the town, grooms his pony, digs in the garden, 
 keeps one old woman-servant of eccentric aspect; 
 he takes snuff inordinately — perhaps it is his only 
 consolation — and the normal shabbiness of his 
 clothes is enhanced by the process. His existence 
 is altogether unorthodox. He is beyond the pale. 
 
 True that he has reared three orphan nieces, 
 the children of a brother who died penniless ten
 
 THE ELITE OF EEDCASTLE. 103 
 
 years ago ; and it is hardly to be supposed that 
 this act of benevolence has not cost him as much 
 as the maintenance of a groom and gardener. But 
 Eedcastle cannot recognise these small charities. 
 They judge a man as they judge his house, by the 
 front which he presents to the world. They would 
 recognise the groom and gardener as elements of 
 social status. They smile gently at the idea of 
 the three orphan nieces as a harmless eccentricity 
 of that eccentric little man, Dr. Faunthorpe. 
 
 Happily Eobert Faunthorpe, M.R.C.S., and Dr. 
 by courtesy, is of all men the last to regret that 
 social heaven to which he has never ascended. He 
 sees Colonel and Mrs. Stormont, Dr. Mitsand, and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Groshen revolving in their orbits as he 
 sees the planets, and envies them no more. The 
 idea that they do him any unkindness by not in- 
 viting him to their dinner parties, by not extending 
 the hand of friendship to his fatherless nieces, never 
 enters his mind. He is so simple-minded a little 
 man that he is content to go his way and let other 
 people go theirs. 
 
 An eccentric, evidently, as Eedcastle opines.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DRIFTING INTO HAVEN. 
 
 It is a soft, calm evening, early in April, and Br. 
 Faunthorpe's shabby old house is as much bright- 
 ened by the westering sunlight as it can be bright- 
 ened by anything less than the three coats of paint 
 for which its worm-eaten woodwork has been lan- 
 guishing for the last twenty years. There has not 
 been a five- pound note expended upon the repair 
 or the beautification of Eobert Faunthorpe's house 
 within the memory of the oldest inhabitant of Eed- 
 castle. It is scrupulously clean, and that is the best 
 that can be said of it. There is a small garden in 
 front, where flourish those homely perennials which 
 demand little care and no artificial nutriment, — 
 lupins, Canterbury bells, flags, London pride, poly- 
 anthuses, primroses, and wall-flowers. Behind the 
 house there is a long strip of ground where the 
 surgeon cultivates cabbages and potatoes, leeks and
 
 DRIFTING IN'TO HAVEN. 105 
 
 potherhs, leaving only two narrow borders for flori- 
 culture. Happily there are ancient rose bushes in 
 these neglected borders, — rose bushes from which 
 Beauty's father might have gathered those large red 
 cup-shaped cabbage roses that grow in a child's pic- 
 ture book. The borders are edged with box, tall and 
 thick, — box that has been growing for a century. 
 The low red walls, crumbling into hollows where the 
 birds have pecked at the brickwork, crowned with 
 dragon's-mouth, stonecrop, and houseleek, would be 
 delicious in a picture, and are not unlovely in reality. 
 At the bottom of this long narrow garden there is a 
 patch of ground set apart for the benefit of Scrub, 
 the pony, upon which grow purple-flowered tares, 
 three crops in a twelvemonth sometimes. 
 
 Within, the house has a certain air of homely 
 comfort. The shabby old furnitui-e has that well- 
 w^orn look which in some wise endears goods and 
 chattels to their owners. Beeswax and labour have 
 done their best to brighten and beautify the ancient 
 mahogany bureaus, the clumsy walnutwood bed- 
 steads and tables, — made at a time when walnut- 
 wood was almost as cheap as deal. Cracked old jars
 
 106 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 and bottles of common blue delf adorn the tall 
 narrow wooden mantelpieces; curtains of watered 
 moreen, once crimson, but faded to a tawny brown, 
 drape the deeply recessed windows of parlour and 
 surgery. The rooms are spacious, but low ; the ceil- 
 ings sustained by massive beams painted black. The 
 walls are for the most part paneled, and the pan- 
 eling has been painted a dingy pink or a dirty 
 drab. To keep this paneling spotless is the old 
 servant's anxious care, and much house-flannel and 
 soft soap are expended thereupon to Dr. Faun- 
 thorpe's aggravation, — that good easy man having 
 no passion for cleanliness in the abstract. 
 
 A wide stone passage leads from the front door to 
 the half-glass door opening into the back garden, 
 thus letting light and air through the old house. A 
 clumsy mahogany-framed barometer, a row of hat- 
 pegs, and a faded map of England are the only furni- 
 ture of this passage, or hall, as a modern house-agent 
 would call it. A roomy, solid old staircase, with 
 shallow treads, and ponderous balusters, leads to 
 the upper chambers, which are numerous and of fair 
 size. To the right of the front door is the parlour,
 
 DRIFTING INTO HAVEN. 107 
 
 on the left the surgery. Behind the surgery is the 
 best parlour; behind the every-day parlour is the 
 large stone-paved kitchen. 
 
 For this house, with its acre of garden, Dr. Faun- 
 thorpe pays twenty pounds a year ; so there is some 
 saving of house-rent in residence at Eedcastle, if 
 your soul aspires not after any higher state than 
 comfortable vegetation, and you are content to in- 
 habit the inferior end of the town. 
 
 Dr. Faunthorpe paces his front garden on this 
 calm April evening, smoking his pipe. He is a 
 smoker as well as a snuffer, and finds solace in 
 tobacco after his daily round. This is his hour of 
 rest and leisure. True that it may be broken in upon 
 at any moment by some sudden call for his services, 
 but his regular daily labour, his measured grind 
 at life's mill, is over. 
 
 He prefers the small front garden for his evening 
 pipe to the larger ground at the back, — first, because 
 he is to the fore if wanted ; and secondly, because, 
 his house being on the high road, it is just possible 
 that something may go by, vehicle or passenger, to 
 the enlivenment of his leisure.
 
 108 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 He is meditative and silent, but not alone. His 
 niece Marion, a tall girl with wavy light liair, and 
 a pre-Eaphaelite figure, stands in a listless attitude 
 by the gate. His niece Jenny, an overgrown girl of 
 twelve, with a very short frock and stalwart legs, 
 encased in brown worsted stockings, is watering the 
 flowers, and making as much mess as it is possible to 
 make in the operation. 
 
 ' Just look what puddles you are making in the 
 path, stupid,' exclaims the elder sister, peevishly 
 regarding the efforts of her junior. ' I do wish you'd 
 leave things alone. You're always up to some mis- 
 chief or other.' 
 
 * I suppose I shouldn't be mischievous if I let the 
 primroses die for want of water,' remonstrates the 
 junior, in no wise abashed. * That's what you'd do, 
 with your laziness and fine-lady ways. You were 
 bad enough before you went to stay with uncle 
 Stephen, but you're ever so much worse now. I'm 
 sure I wish he'd kept you there instead of sending 
 you back, like a bad penny. Uncle Eobert and I 
 were as jolly as sandboys while you were away.' 
 
 The young person sets down her water-pot and
 
 DKIFTIXG INTO HAVEX. 109 
 
 delivers this diatribe with arms akimbo, like Madame 
 Aaofot's daughter. Marion shudders. 
 
 * Sandboys ! What an expression for a young 
 lady ! ' she ejaculates. 
 
 ' Pray where's the harm in sandboys ? ' demands 
 the incorrigible Jenny. 'They're more respectable 
 than you, as far as I can see, for they get their own 
 living.' 
 
 ' My dear/ remonstrates uncle Eobert mildly, 
 * that is not the way to address your elder sister.' 
 
 ' Why does she come and loaf about here, then, 
 with her stuckupishness ? Why doesn't she go and 
 be a governess like Sibyl ? If she heard what Hester 
 says of her she'd be ashamed of herself.' 
 
 ' My love, you have no right to quote Hester.' 
 
 ' Hester is an impertinent, mischief-making crea- 
 ture/ exclaims Marion. 
 
 * And as to your sister going out as a governess, 
 my dear,' continues uncle Eobert mildly, ' with her 
 expectations it would be about the most foolish 
 thing she could do.' 
 
 ' Expectations, — dead men's shoes ! ' exclaims the 
 terrible child, twirling the watering-can so that its
 
 110 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 last drops sprinkle Marion's pretty blue dress. ' I 
 should hate myself if / was mean enough to calcu- 
 late upon what any one would leave me.' 
 
 ' Quite right of you,' says Marion, with a super- 
 cilious laugh — that sneering schoolgirl laugh, which 
 we all remember to have been crushed by occasion- 
 ally in our youth, — ' for certainly no one is likely to 
 leave you money.' 
 
 ' I dare say not, with you in the way,' answers 
 the irrepressible Jenny. They'd feel they were doing 
 an act of charity bestowing their fortune on you, for 
 it would be the same as leaving it to the Asylum for 
 Idiots. One simpleton provided for, at any rate.' 
 
 With this the imp swings round upon her heels 
 as on a pivot, brandishes the watering-pot as an 
 Indian savage his club, and gallops into the house. 
 Jane Faunthorpe never walks. She has the action 
 of an unbroken colt, and seems, when in motion, to 
 have as many legs as that animal. When she comes 
 downstairs there is a sound as of a sack of coals 
 flung from the upper story. How the old house sus- 
 tains itself under her youthful vigour is a mystery to 
 the parish doctor.
 
 DRIFTING INTO HAVEN. Ill 
 
 ' I'd run after her and give her a good box on the 
 ears/ says Marion, viciously, ' if I didn't want to see 
 the omnibus go by.' 
 
 Tlie omnibus is a stunted covered vehicle, like a 
 carrier's cart garnished with glazed windows, which 
 plies between the station and the outskirts of Eed- 
 castle, and it is nearly time for this conveyance to 
 pass with its evening freight. There are sometimes 
 as many as five people arrive by the six o'clock train 
 from Krampston, — nay, the Krampston train some- 
 times brings that rare bird, a passenger from London. 
 
 ' It's a pity you ever sent that child to a day 
 school, uncle Eobert,' Marion remarks presently, 
 wiping the waterspots daintily from her dress. ' She 
 was bad enough before, but now she is simply in- 
 tolerable.' 
 
 ' My love, I couldn't afford a boarding school, and 
 I was obliged to send her somewhere,' replies the 
 surgeon, in his longsuffering way. 'At home she 
 was learning only to dig potatoes and to whistle, 
 neither of which pursuits is an attractive accom- 
 plishment in a young lady. The child is not bad at 
 bottom.'
 
 112 DEAD men's shoes. • 
 
 ' Perhaps not/ answers Marion, snappishly, ' but 
 the bottom mlast be a long way down. I've never 
 come to it yet.' 
 
 ' She is very warm-hearted.' 
 
 * Yes, if warmth of heart consists in rushing at 
 one like an avalanche, hugging one round the neck 
 like a bear, and rumpling one's collar atrociously, 
 without the faintest provocation.' 
 
 * She is not of an idle disposition,' remonstrates 
 the uncle. * I found her cleaning the back kitchen 
 windows at half-past six this morning. JSTo one had 
 asked her to do it.' 
 
 ' Of course not. That's just the reason she did it.' 
 
 * If you would take a little more pains with her, 
 Marion/ suggests Dr. Faunthorpe, timidly 
 
 'Pains! I might take agonies, and without the 
 
 least effect. Didn't I begin to teach her music ' 
 
 ' Yes, my dear, but you didn't go on.' 
 ' Well, you just try to teach her anything, uncle 
 Eobert — just try — that's all,' says Marion, with 
 awful significance, and then breaks out with a sigh, 
 'Oh dear, is this precious old omnibus never 
 coming ? '
 
 DRTFTING INTO HAVEX. 113 
 
 * It is ratlier late, my dear. But as it isn't 
 going to bring us any one we care about, we needn't 
 worry ourselves about it.' 
 
 ' It would be something to- look at just for a 
 minute. If you only knew what a difference there 
 is between the look-out down here and above Bar. 
 There there's almost always something going by — 
 Mrs. Stormont's basket carriage, or Master Groshen's 
 pony, or the butcher's cart.' 
 
 'Ah, my dear, I'm afraid that long visit to 
 your uncle Trenchard has spoiled you for my 
 quiet home.' 
 
 ' No, it hasn't, uncle,' answers the girl, with a 
 little gush of feeling in the midst of her petulance, 
 just strong enough to show the better side of her 
 nature — 'no, it hasn't, for this is home and that 
 isn't. I should always feel that if I spent the 
 rest of my life with uncle Stephen. Of all the 
 
 old fidgets ! Well, I suppose I oughtn't to 
 
 say anything against him, for he has been very 
 kind to me in his way. He has given me a good 
 deal of money from first to last, though I must 
 say he doled it out stingily, as if he liked the 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 money better than me ; and it is nice staying at hi s 
 house — one feels one's self somebody. Only think 
 of the Stormonts, and the Groshens, and the 
 Marlin Spykes calling on him before he had 
 been three weeks in Eedcastle, while you've lived 
 here thirty years and they've never called upon 
 you.' 
 
 ' People at this end of the town are not visited, 
 my dear/ replies the doctor, mildly, as one who 
 bows to the mysterious ways of Providence and 
 questions not. 'I dare say the 4lite of Eedcastle 
 called upon your uncle out of kindness, he being 
 a stranger.' 
 
 ' He being a millionaire, uncle, that's what you 
 mean. Very much they'd have called upon him 
 if he'd been a stranger who wanted to get his living. 
 Think of the Stormonts giving a dinner party on 
 purpose for him, and inviting me — after ignoring 
 me for the last four years — staring me in the face, 
 after church, for two hundred Sundays, and taking 
 no more interest in me than if I were a stone cherub 
 on a tablet in the minster, and now, all of a sudden, 
 beino- so fond of me. It's too ridiculous. If I was
 
 DRIFTING INTO HAVEN. 115 
 
 as worldly as they are, I'd take a little more pains 
 not to show it.' 
 
 'The world is worldly, my love/ replies uncle 
 Eobert, with his resigned air. ' You can hardly 
 expect it to be otherwise. For my part, I am very 
 glad to think that the Stormonts have taken notice 
 of you, and that you've been invited out with 
 Mr. Trenchard. It may lead to your making a good 
 marriage, though you needn't set your mind upon 
 that now, as it is tolerably certain your uncle will 
 leave you an independence. I only wish Sibyl w^ere 
 at home to have her share of good fortune.' 
 
 ' It's her own fault if she isn't,' says Marion. 
 
 * Say rather her conscientiousness, my dear. She 
 doesn't like to leave Mrs. Hazleton in a difficulty 
 about her children ; and very right too. But I hope 
 Mrs. Hazleton will suit herself with a new governess 
 very soon, and let Sibyl come home. Mr. Trenchard 
 has asked for her so often, and it really seems 
 flying in the face of Providence for her to be out 
 of the way.' 
 
 'If she wasn't a stupid, she wouldn't be at 
 Mrs. Hazleton's beck and call,' says Marion, and
 
 116 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 then exclaims, shrilly, ' Here's the omnibus, and lots 
 of people inside. Why, there's some one nodding 
 to us — a lady in a gray hat — and — I declare, the 
 'bus is stopping. Why, it's Sibyl.' 
 
 The blundering vehicle stops before Dr. Faun- 
 thorpe's gate ; a shabby carpet bag — only a carpet 
 bag — is handed down from the roof, and in the next 
 instant Sibyl is in the homely little garden, sobbing 
 hysterically on her uncle's shoulder. 
 
 He presses her to his breast tenderly, and looks 
 in the pale, wan face. 
 
 'Why, my darling, how ill you look — how 
 changed — how thin ! ' 
 
 ' I've had so much hard work, uncle,' she 
 answers, faintly, 'but, thank God, I am at home 
 at last.'
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE EETUEN OF THE PEODIGAL. 
 
 ' Home at last,' cries the wanderer, with glad thank- 
 fulness. 
 
 This is a night of rejoicing in Dr. Faunthorpe's 
 modest dwelling. The prodigal daughter has re- 
 turned, and the fatted calf, or at least so much of 
 him as a cutlet, fried as only Hester can fry a veal 
 cutlet, is served up in her honour. How cheery and 
 homely the common parlour, with its shabby old 
 furniture, dimly illuminated by two composite 
 candles which leave the paneled corners in densest 
 shadow, seems to those tired eyes ! 
 
 * It is so nice to be at home again, uncle,' says 
 Sibyl lovingly, as she draws her chair a little nearer 
 the doctor's at supper-time. * What an old dear 
 Hester is ! and how deliciously she cooks ! ' 
 
 ' If you're so fond of home, I wonder you stayed 
 away so long,' remarks Marion, who cannot help 
 being occasionally disagreeable in her petty way.
 
 118 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 There was nothing large-minded about Marion, Sibyl 
 used to complain. She would never commit a big 
 sin, but would forfeit heaven by a multitude of 
 infinitesimal faults. 
 
 'Marion's faults are like the animalculse in a 
 glass of water,' remarked Sibyl on another occasion, 
 ' too minute to be seen without a microscope, but 
 making the water unwholesome all the same.' 
 
 * I had to stop away to suit other people's con- 
 venience,' replies the prodigal, looking downward as 
 she squeezes lemon juice upon her cutlet. 
 
 ' How altered you must be ! ' says that odious 
 Marion. ' Other people's convenience used to be 
 the last thing you thought about. When is your 
 luggage coming ? ' 
 
 ' My luggage ? I brought it with me.' 
 
 ' I mean the rest of your luggage. The omnibus 
 man brought in nothing but a carpet bag.' 
 
 'That is my luggage,' answers Sibyl, colouring 
 to the roots of her hair. It is the first tinge of red 
 that has warmed her delicate cheek since her 
 arrival. 'I gave one of Mrs. Hazleton's servants 
 that horrid old heavy trunk of mine.'
 
 THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL. 119 
 
 * But your dresses, your linen, you can't get them 
 all into that carpet bag/ cries Marion, almost in a 
 shriek. To be without variety of clothes is the last 
 calamity she can conceive among the miseries of 
 humanity. 
 
 * I have not one dress besides this. You can't 
 have any notion how one's dresses wear out in a 
 schoolroom — mischievous romping girls pulling one 
 about all day long, ink spilt in every direction, 
 candle-grease on all the tables, cups of tea per- 
 petually turned over. I was determined to buy 
 nothing during the last quarter, so I wore my old 
 dresses till they were almost in rags, and gave them 
 to my favourite housemaid when I came away.' 
 
 ^ I dare say it was an excellent plan,' says 
 Marion, shrugging her thin shoulders, 'but you 
 won't be in a condition to make a very good 
 appearance in Redcastle till you've new things. 
 People will expect you to bring down the London 
 fashions too. They come out on the first of March, 
 don't they ? ' 
 
 ' ^Tiat a pity Fate made you a gentleman's 
 daughter Marion/ remarks Sibyl, with a cold sneer.
 
 120 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ' You would have made such a capital milliner. 
 Your soul would have been in your work.' 
 
 Dr. Faunthorpe sits back in his chair, reposeful, 
 after that little bit of hot supper, which is not an 
 every-day luxury. The small snappings and snarl- 
 ings of his nieces hardly discompose him, he is so 
 used to their sisterly talk. He is glad to have his 
 handsome niece at home again, seated close to his 
 chair, with all those familiar winning ways which 
 have won her the first place in his heart; small 
 gushings of loving speech, tender little smiles, gentle 
 touches of a white fluttering hand — graces of 
 manner which may mean very little, but are very 
 sweet ; petty Circean arts which have beguiled 
 honest men to ruin and death before to-day. 
 
 ' My darling,' he says presently, as the dark 
 brown eyes smile upon him, brightening in the 
 candlelight, 'I am so glad you have come back. It 
 wasn't wise to stay away so long at the risk of 
 vexing your uncle Trenchard : but I'll say no more 
 about that. You are here, and all is well. You 
 must go and see him to-morrow.' 
 
 ' How can she,' exclaims Marion, * in that
 
 THE EETUEX OF THE PEODIGAX. 121 
 
 gown ? ' pointing contemptuously to Sibyl's shabby 
 alpaca, an alpaca which has seen much service, 
 cockled by the rain, and frayed at the edges of the 
 cuffs, and with that shrunken and dwindled ap- 
 pearance that ill-used garments are apt to assume. 
 'Pshaw, what does her gown matter? You can 
 lend her a gown. You have gowns enough and to 
 spare.' 
 
 * Xone that will fit Sibyl,' replies Marion, who 
 prides herself on her superior height. 'She's 
 welcome to wear one, but it '11 be two inches on the 
 ground.' 
 
 ' Can't she run a tuck, or cut a bit off ? ' argues 
 uncle Eobert. 
 
 * I shall have to give you a tonic, my love,' he 
 adds, contemplating his elder niece anxiously, ' you 
 are looking so fagged and worn.' 
 
 * I am at home with you, uncle Eobert ; that is 
 the best tonic for me,' replies the girl fondly. 
 
 She is fond of him to-night. This shabby old 
 home, which she abandoned in sheer discontent two 
 years ago, seems very dear to her just now. It is 
 a h aven for a storm-beaten soul.
 
 122 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ' You will have a better home than this, my pet, 
 I hope, for the greater part of your time,' answers 
 the doctor, cheerily. ' I've no doubt your uncle 
 Trenchard will ask you to stay with him as he did 
 Marion. She was quite three months at Lancaster 
 Lodge, and is to go back again by and by. I look 
 upon her as little more than a visitor here ; but she 
 is kind enough to make the best of her old uncle 
 Eobert's humdrum house.' 
 
 'It is a great relief to be here for a change, 
 uncle,' answers Marion. ' I felt a fine lady at uncle 
 Trenchard's, but I feel my own mistress here. If it 
 wasn't for that tyrannical old Hester your house 
 would be liberty hall ; and I can forgive even Hester 
 when she is in a good humour and makes hot cakes 
 for breakfast.' 
 
 An hour later and uncle Robert has smoked 
 his after-supper pipe, and the girls are in their 
 bedroom, the old room which Sibyl knows so well, 
 with its ridiculous flowered paper, low ceiling, and 
 high painted dado, and curious brass safety bolts 
 upon the door, as if burglars were a contingency 
 to be provided against in that humble dwelling.
 
 THE EETURX OF THE PRODIGAL. 123 
 
 How well she remembers the long narrow chimney- 
 piece, the basket-shaped grate with its wide hobs, 
 the open-work brass fender, the painted four-post 
 bedstead, drab and green, with skim^py dimity 
 valance, and two starveling curtains. The rickety 
 deal dressing-table, the streaky looking-glass, which 
 used to reflect ?. fair gii-l's face wondering at its own 
 beauty. The tall mahogany wardrobe that never 
 was opened without threatening to topple over and 
 wreak destruction on its violator. The scanty strips 
 of bedside carpet, dull in colour and perplexing in 
 pattern. How often she has pored and puzzled over 
 those interwoven scrolls, in sheer idleness of 
 thoucrht. All tinners are unchancred. There are the 
 
 D O O 
 
 wretched old ornaments on the mantelpiece. The 
 pasteboard spill-boxes, adorned with faded gold 
 paper, ancient works of art by fingers that have long 
 been dust. Tlie little black AVedLiwood vases, 
 urn-shaped, funereal. The hand screens with 
 lithographs of Dr. Syntax pasted thereupon, 
 and more paper gilding. Tlie two black profile 
 miniatures of dead and forgotten relatives. 
 
 It seems a dear old room somehow to Sibyl to-
 
 124 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 night, for it brings back the feelings of her innocent 
 girlish days, when life, if it had few pleasures, had 
 no cares. Now life means perplexity. Existence is 
 an entanglement from which only some happy turn 
 of fortune can extricate her. 
 
 She sits in her old place on the window-seat, and 
 loosens the long twisted roll of rich brown hair, 
 which falls over her bare shoulders like shining 
 drapery. 
 
 ' Goodness ! ' cries Marion, ' how skinny your 
 shoulders have grown ! ' 
 
 ' Have they ? ' says Sibyl, coolly, glancing down- 
 wards at a white neck and arms in which the bones 
 are too sharply defined for beauty. ' Then we shall 
 look more like sisters when we wear low dresses. 
 Your shoulders were always skinny.' 
 
 Marion is silenced for the moment, and proceeds 
 with the destruction of that elaborate edifice of hair 
 and hair-pads which she constructs with infinite 
 pains every morning, even though no one outside 
 her own small family circle is likely to be gratified 
 by the sight thereof. Marion's hair has been 
 washed and doctored to the fashionable pre-
 
 THE EETURN OF THE PEODIGAL. 125 
 
 Eaphaelite colour. It is thick and fluffy, and short, 
 only just covering the points of her bony shoulders, 
 and standing out round her head like an exaggerated 
 nimbus. It is not bad hair altogether, and Marion 
 thinks it one of her strong points, like her pre- 
 Eaphaelite figure, her long narrow foot, eighteen- 
 inch waist, arched eyebrows, white teeth, and other 
 small graces, some of which are the praiseworthy 
 result of patient training. 
 
 'Do let me see your pretty things, Sibyl,' the 
 younger sister exclaims presently, twisting one of 
 her yellow tresses in and out of a hair-pin. 
 
 The elder looks up, startled out of a profound 
 reverie. 
 
 ' What pretty things ? ' 
 
 'Well, you must have something to show me 
 — presents — things you have bought out of your 
 salary. I'm sure I should have a lot to show out of 
 forty pounds a year for two years. Glove-boxes, 
 sealskin purses, card-cases, neck-ties, lace, gloves, 
 and so on. I dare say that carpet bag is bursting 
 with them.' 
 
 ' It is doing nothing of the kind. I found that
 
 126 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 it was as lauch as I could do to dress myself 
 decently for Mrs. Hazleton's parties and pay my 
 laundress. Evening dresses are so unprofitable.' 
 
 ' They must be, if you have nothing to show out 
 of eighty pounds. I never thought you could bring 
 yourself to wear such a dress as that alpaca thing,' 
 adds Marion, pointing contemptuously to Sibyl's 
 shabby gown hanging on a peg upon the door. ' I 
 expected to see you come home quite a woman of 
 fashion.' 
 
 * People who teach unruly children, and have to 
 take them out walking in all weathers, have not 
 much chance of being fashionably dressed,' answers 
 Sibyl, wearily. ' Perhaps if you could contrive to 
 put dress out of your mind for five minutes or so, 
 Marion, we might have a little rational conversation.' 
 
 ' Oh, very well ; of course I know what an in- 
 ferior mind mine is. You used to tell me so often 
 enough. But you were once rather fond of talking 
 about dress, and I thought, perhaps, if you've 
 nothing to show me you might like to see my 
 dresses — not home-made. Miss Eylett has made 
 every one, and a pretty price she lias charged me.'
 
 THE EETUEN OF THE PRODIGAL. 127 
 
 Marion wrenches open the refractory door of the 
 wardrobe, and displays three calico-shrouded gar- 
 ments, hanging in a row, like sheeted ghosts. One 
 by one she brings forth these treasures, whisking off 
 their covering, and displaying each to Sibyl with a 
 dexterous twirl of her arm. A bronze brown silk ; 
 a pale gray, with elaborate ruchings of satin; a 
 black silk, which stands on end for very richness of 
 fabric. 
 
 ' There,' she exclaims, swelling with pride, ' I 
 wore the gray — new — at Colonel Stormont's.' 
 
 ' At Colonel Stormont's I Is the world coming 
 to an end, or what convulsion of nature brought 
 you and the Stormonts together ? " 
 
 ' I was asked to dinner with uncle Trenchard.' 
 
 'And uncle Trenchard gave you the money to 
 buy those dresses, of course.' 
 
 *Yes. He said, 'Well, my dear, I suppose you'll 
 want a new gown ; ' and then 'he gave a heavy sigh, 
 and took a bank note out of an old-fashioned red 
 pocket-book, and then he looked at the note so long 
 that I was afraid he was going to change his mind, 
 and then he gave another sigh, deeper than the first,
 
 128 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 and handed me the note — a ten- pound note. I 
 tried to kiss him the first time, but he didn't seem 
 to like that, for he gave me a little peevish push, 
 and said ' There, my dear, that '11 do. " 
 
 * Funny old man ! How many ten-pound notes 
 has he given you ? ' 
 
 ' Four altogether. He always sighs just in the 
 same way, as if every note was a wrench. He's 
 inordinately rich, of course, but it seems to hurt 
 him so to part with his money that I can't help 
 thinking of that dreadful story of Douglas Jerrold's, 
 " The Man made of Money," and fancying that 
 uncle Trenchard is unrolling a bit of himself when 
 he gives away a bank note.' 
 
 ' It's only such people who get inordinately rich,' 
 replies Sibyl, plaiting her long thick hair into one 
 massive tail for the night. ' And how did you get 
 on with uncle Trenchard, upon the whole ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, very well indeed. It was so nice driving 
 about in his new barouche, with a lovely pair of 
 chestnuts, and feeling one's self looked up to by all 
 Eedcastls ; and I had a splendid bedroom and 
 dressing-room, and we dined at half-past seven
 
 THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL. 129 
 
 every day, with two men waiting upon us. I used 
 to feel afraid of them just at first, especially the 
 butler, who looks the image of ]\Ir. Groshen the 
 banker, and that took away from the grandeur ; but 
 I soon got accustomed to them, and learned to speak 
 to them in an offhand way, just like Mrs. Stormont.' 
 
 * Marion,' says Sibyl, earnestly, ' do you think 
 uncle Trenchard intends to leave us his money ? ' 
 
 ' Well, I should think he must leave it to us or to 
 hospitals ; and if we can manage to please him ' 
 
 'We must please him, Marion, and wind our- 
 selves into his withered old heart somehow. It 
 would be ridiculous, abominable, shameful, for the 
 money to be left to hospitals when we want it so 
 badly- It's no use to enjoy the luxuries of his 
 house, to take a ten-pound note from him now and 
 then. That kind of thing will only make poverty 
 seem worse to us afterwards. We must have his 
 fortune.' 
 
 Her eyes dilate and brighten, her lips tremble 
 faintly as she leaves off speaking, and then her face 
 changes in a moment, and tears run down her wan 
 cheeks. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 * Gracious, Sibyl ! ' cries Marion, rushing at her 
 with a bottle of eau de Cologne and a towel, and 
 dabbing her forehead with the perfume. ' I declare 
 you're quite hysterical. Of course we must have 
 his money — if we can get it. What has the 
 fidgety old thing come home to England for except 
 to make our acquaintance and leave us his fortune ? 
 He has as good as said so ever so many times.' 
 
 Marion's sisterly attentions check that hysterical 
 attack of Sibyl's, and the two girls lie down side by 
 side affectionately, after a brief formula in the way 
 of evening prayer. 
 
 Deep in the chill spring night Sibyl's head tosses 
 restlessly on the pillow, and the sleeper's lips 
 murmur sorrowfully in troubled dreams, — 
 
 * Alex, Alex — don't be so cruel, Alex. Forgive 
 — you know — your sake — yes, yes — as much as 
 for my own.' 
 
 So pleads the sinner's vexed soul ; self-excusing, 
 self-accusing, even in dreams.
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 UNCLE TRENCHARD. 
 
 Stephen Trenchaed paces his smooth gravel 
 walk in the April sunshine, after tiffin, looking 
 at the sparrows, and blackbirds, and thrushes 
 disporting blithely on his velvet lawn, or hopping 
 away into the shadow of evergreens — great masses 
 of laurel and laurustinus, rhododendron and bay, 
 which surround the smooth expanse of grass in a 
 semicircular sweep. 
 
 Very perfect is the order of Mr. Trenchard's 
 garden — not a yellow leaf on the laurels, not a 
 daisy peeping pertly, silver-white, from the lawn, 
 not a branch that grows awry. In the kitchen- 
 garden yonder, far away behind the shrubbery, the 
 fan-shaped fruit-trees look Like geometrical patterns 
 on the yellow brick waUs. The apples and pears 
 are all wired into exactest growth, and not a twig is 
 allowed its own way. Mr. Trenchard is in his
 
 132 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 garden by six o'clock every morning, and his severe 
 eye interrogates the smallest sprig of groundsel, and 
 rebukes the very slugs that vie with him in* early 
 rising. Mr. Trenchard is not a master to be trifled 
 with, and his gardeners know it. For every shilling 
 he expends he will have twelve pennyworth of 
 labour — nay, thirteen or fourteen pennyworth if he 
 can get it, Woe be to the wTetch who tries to put 
 him off with elevenpence halfpenny worth of 
 industry ! 
 
 ' I've had to work for my money,' says Mr. 
 Trenchard, 'and I expect value for my money 
 from other people.' 
 
 5e walks briskly up and down, looking to the 
 right and left with an eye bright and quick as a 
 bird's, a small black eye, which looks the blacker 
 for its whitened lashes. He is of middle height, 
 very thin, very yellow. He has sharply cut fea- 
 tures ; nose thin, pointed, and aggressive-looking; 
 lips also thin, and of a disagreeable pallid hue ; 
 eyebrows iron-gray, thick and bushy ; brow narrow ; 
 perceptive ridge strongly marked, upper head 
 receding ; hair thick, short, and iron-gray, like the
 
 UNCLE TRENCHARD. 133 
 
 eyebrows, brushed into two sharp points, like a 
 terrier's ears. 
 
 Mr. Trenchard wears nankeen waistcoat and 
 trousers, very loose for his lean limbs, and a glossy 
 black frock coat, also loose, a black satin scarf with 
 a gold pin, and high shirt collars ; a double gold eye- 
 glass dangles on his breast, a glass which he wears 
 for show rather than use, but which intensifies 
 the severity of his countenance when he reproves 
 his gardeners, or lectures his butler. 
 
 He is a man who has toiled early and late, until 
 the other day, when he took it into his head to give 
 up his counting-house to a junior partner, and come 
 back to England and enjoy the evening of his life at 
 his ease. He has been a man of one idea all his 
 days, and the single object of his existence has been 
 the accumulation of money. The process of money- 
 making, the honour and homage which the world 
 renders the reputed millionaire — these have been so 
 sweet to him that the question of what he is to do 
 with his wealth has rarely presented itself seriously 
 to his mind. 
 
 On his sixty-ninth birthday he awoke suddenly
 
 134 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 to the consciousness that whatever personal enjoy- 
 ment he meant to have out of his wealth must be 
 obtained within the next ten, twelve, or fifteen years. 
 Even with his vigorous constitution he could hardly 
 hope to live beyond the age of eighty-five. Forty 
 years in India must take something out of a man, 
 be he never so temperate, and abstemiousness has 
 been one of Stephen Trenchard's virtues. 
 
 So at sixty-nine he said to himself, ' It is time 
 for me to go back to England ; let the world see 
 what a position I have made for myself, and take all 
 the good I can out of life.' 
 
 His seventieth birthday has not yet arrived, and 
 he has built for his soul a lordly treasure-house, or 
 in other words^ he has taken upon lease, decorated, 
 and furnished Lancaster Lodge, one of the best 
 houses in his father's native town of Eedcastle : he 
 has hired servants, purchased carriages and horses, 
 and begun a plain-sailing English gentleman's life 
 on a very liberal scale. The result so far has been 
 eminently satisfactory His house to him a kingdom 
 is, he rules his servants, indoor and outdoor, with a 
 rod of iron, and feels himself a potentate.
 
 UNCLE TRENCH AKD. 135 
 
 Very pleasant to him is tlie incense which 
 Eedcastle offers to his wealth. People whose 
 fathers and grandfathers snubbed or ignored his 
 father, the struggling solicitor, bow down and 
 worship the Anglo-Indian Plutocrat. He accepts 
 their adoration with supreme coolness, and a quiet 
 arrogance which his admirers extol as innate 
 aristocracy of mind. 
 
 It has pleased him to permit his niece Marion 
 Faunthorpe to bask in the sunshine of his favour. 
 She is not handsome enough to charm his eye, 
 which is critical in the matter of feminine beauty, 
 nor is she clever enough to amuse him ; but she is 
 rather a pretty thing to have about his house, and 
 she does very well for a listener when he is in the 
 humour to teU his prosy old stories of dead and 
 gone Calcutta scandals. She knows how to hold 
 her tongue when he is inclined to be silent, is 
 solicitous for his small comforts, quiet as a mouse 
 when he takes his after-dinner nap. She behaves 
 gracefully at table, neither eats nor drinks too 
 much, looks stylish when fashionably dressed, moves 
 about the house quietly, and is not altogether
 
 136 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 deficient in tact. He is content, therefore, to 
 tolerate her as a frequent guest, but does not 
 appreciate her warmly enough to ask her to take 
 up her permanent abode with him. 
 
 He has made many inquiries about Sibyl, and 
 has been vexed by her non-appearance. The 
 Stormonts, the Groshens, and other notabilities have 
 praised the absent girl's beauty, having found out 
 all at once that a young person whose existence 
 they never troubled themselves to acknowledge was 
 the loveliest girl in Eedcastle. ' Quite the belle 
 of the place, I assure you, Mr. Trenchard,' says 
 Mrs. Stormont. 
 
 * Indeed,' remarks Stephen Trenchard. ' She 
 was invited out very much, I suppose ? ' 
 
 *Well, no, dear Mr. Trenchard, she was too 
 young, you know — almost a child. And then your 
 brother-in-law is so retiring. We could never have 
 got him out of his shell.' 
 
 If there is one thing in that region of trifles 
 outside the money market which Mr. Trenchard 
 appreciates it is beauty in woman. Having heard 
 his eldest niece so enthusiastically praised, he is
 
 UNCLE TRENCHAKD. 137 
 
 particularly anxious to see her, ever so much the 
 more anxious because her indifference has thwarted 
 him/ 
 
 * She must be a queer kind of girl/ he tells him- 
 self, 'to hang back from a rich uncle, to prefer 
 drudging as a governess to sponging upon me. 
 Marion is glad enough to take all she can get, 
 and would kneel down and kiss my shoe-string if 
 I asked her. Her feelings are transparent enough. 
 This other one must be something out of the 
 common.' 
 
 A wonderful advantage this for Sibyl at start- 
 ing ; though it is an advantage she has gained 
 accidentally. 
 
 The great lodge bell clangs out, while Mr. 
 Trenchard paces up and down, and startles the 
 respectable tranquilKty of Above Bar with its 
 clamour. He takes out his watch. Too early for 
 a ceremonious visit. Mr. Trenchard walks round 
 by the side windows of his large square mansion, 
 and comes within view of the gate. Two ladies 
 enter, both young and slim, both tall, but one 
 rather shorter than the other. The taller gives a
 
 138 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 little eager cry and runs forward to him, the second 
 advances more slowly. 
 
 *Dear uncle Stephen,' cries Marion, pursing up 
 her lips to be kissed, an operation which uncle 
 Stephen performs with a slightly reluctant air, 
 ' Sibyl has come home quite unexpectedly,' Marion 
 is always out of breath at the beginning of a visit, 
 a pretty gushing way which some people call 
 charming, *and I thought I might bring her — to 
 — see you — dear uncle John.' 
 
 ' Thought you might bring her. Of course you 
 might bring her. Haven't I been asking to see her 
 ever since Christmas? So that is Sibyl, is it?' 
 looking at the graceful figure lingering on the sun- 
 lit grass a few yards away from him. The bright 
 face is flushed with palest rose, the dark full 
 eyes are looking slily at him, the dark brown hair 
 is burnished by the sun. A fair picture of peer- 
 less youth for crabbed age to admire. 
 
 ' So that is Sibyl ! Yes, she is very lovely. 
 Those sycophants haven't exaggerated. Come here, 
 my love, come to 3^our old uncle. Naughty child, 
 why did you stay away so long ? '
 
 UXCLE TREXCHAED. 189 
 
 He holds out his lean old arms, he folds her 
 to his breast, he kisses her lovingly, paternally, 
 as he has never yet kissed Marion, despite her 
 affectionate blandishments. 
 
 *Well, I never!' Marion exclaims inwardly, 
 standing a little aloof, and feeling that her reign 
 is over.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SIBYL TAKES THE LEAD. 
 
 The favourable impression which Sibyl makes on 
 her uncle Stephen Trenchard is a fact too obvious 
 for diversity of opinion. 
 
 Marion reluctantly, sullenly even, admits that 
 truth, with many sneers and inuendos about win- 
 ning manners and hoUow-heartedness. 
 
 'I have never laid myself out to please uncle 
 Stephen as Sibyl lays herself out,' murmurs the 
 injured maiden. ' I can't flatter people with my 
 looks. I haven't Sibyl's caressing ways. I can't 
 pretend more affection than I feel ; and I must say 
 that uncle Stephen's dry little jerky ways of 
 speaking and looking at one are not calculated to 
 develop affection.' 
 
 Thus argues Marion in the easy atniosphere of 
 uncle Eobert's every-day parlour. The girls are 
 seated at supper with Dr. Faunthorpe, trifling with
 
 SIBYL TAKES THE LEAD. 141 
 
 morsels of bread and cheese, after having dined 
 with Mr. Trenchard. 
 
 ' I did not find him hard or dry/ replies Sibyl. 
 * He seems really kind and affectionate, and I was 
 grateful to him for his warm welcome. I don't 
 know what you mean by my lapng myself out 
 to please him. I remembered that he was poor 
 mamma's only brother, and our own flesh and blood, 
 the uncle I had heard so much about years ago, 
 and I was naturally touched by our meeting.' 
 
 ' Ah,' says Marion, ' what an advantage it is 
 for a woman to be able to cry when she likes ! 
 How do you manage it. Sib ? ' 
 
 ' If the tears came into my eyes to-day it was 
 because I am not very strong just now, Marion/ 
 answers Sibyl, reddening. ' You are really the most 
 horrid girl I ever met with.' 
 
 * However horrid I am, I am not double-faced,' 
 replies the other, promptly. * I should be ashamed 
 to court uncle Trenchard if I were you, when I 
 remember the things you've said about him.' 
 
 'What things?' 
 
 ' What a convenient memory yours is ! Haven't
 
 142 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 you said that you despised him for his meanness 
 as a young man — that he won his way in the 
 world by double dealing, by base flattery of his 
 patron — that all your sympathy was with the young 
 man he supplanted, Mr. Secretan ? ' 
 
 At that name Sibyl flushes crimson, and then 
 grows ashy pale. 
 
 *Ah, I see you do remember,' cries Marion, 
 triumphantly. 
 
 ' Marion,' exclaims the mild little surgeon, with 
 a rare flash of anger, ' I will not have your sister 
 teased in this manner. How dare you accuse her 
 of falsehood or hypocrisy ? She has as good a 
 right to Stephen Trenchard's favour as you have.' 
 
 *Yes, and to his fortune. Let her have it all,' 
 cries Marion, tempted to go into hysterics, but 
 thinking better of it immediately. 'She is to go 
 and stay with him, and keep house for him, directly 
 she can get her things ready, which, considering 
 she came home without a rag, must take some time. 
 She is to pay him a long visit. I'm nobody now.' 
 
 'My love, you have had your innings,' pleads 
 the pacific doctor.
 
 SIBYL TAKES THE LEAD. 143 
 
 ' Oh, of course, and just as I have got to un- 
 derstand his ways and know how to please him 
 I am pushed aside.' 
 
 ' My dear, his sense of justice will induce him 
 to distribute his bounty fairly.' 
 
 ' His sense of justice did not prevent his kissing 
 Sibyl more affectionately than he has ever kissed 
 me.' 
 
 'Mere fancy on your part, I have no doubt/ 
 says the doctor. 
 
 After this little burst of temper Marion calms 
 down and is tolerably placable. She even discusses 
 her sister's outfit with some show of interest. Mr. 
 Trenchard has given Sibyl five-and-twenty pounds. 
 * I suppose you are pretty well provided with cash, 
 little one,' he said, just before she wished him 
 good-night, 'an independent-minded young woman 
 like you who goes out into the world to get her 
 own living is sure to have a well-lined purse.' 
 
 Sibyl blushed, and owned that her purse had 
 no lining at aU. 
 
 * Ah, I see, sent help home to the old doctor,' 
 muttered Mr. Trenchard, fortunately not loud enough
 
 144 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 for Marion to hear, or that sharp-tongued young 
 person would inevitably have set him right. ' Well, 
 well, very right, very proper.' 
 
 And then the crimson pocket-book was slowly 
 brought forth, and Mr. Trenchard sighed a despond- 
 ing sigh as he opened it, a sigh that was like a 
 funeral gun for his departed bank notes. Sibyl 
 went back to the dingy old house at the bottom 
 of the town richer by five-and-twenty pounds than 
 when she left it at mid-day. 
 
 The girls go out gaily enough next morning 
 to Carmichael's, the haberdashery, linendrapery, and 
 silk mercery establishment of Eedcastle, to supply 
 the void in Sibyl's wardrobe. Five-and-twenty 
 pounds is not much for a young lady of large ideas, 
 but Sibyl, schooled in the philosophy of small 
 means, makes the most of that sum. She spends 
 all her money at Carmichael's, and trusts to Provi- 
 dence and Stephen Trenchard for means to pay 
 Miss Eylett for the making up of her dresses, and 
 Mr. Korksoll, the bootmaker, for the equipment 
 of her pretty little feet. It is astonishing how far 
 away from the thoughts of Miss Eylett and Mr.
 
 SIBYL TAKES THE LEAD. 145 
 
 Korksoll seems the notion of payment now that 
 Miss Faunthorpe's rich uncle has returned from the 
 Indies. 'You are to send the things home to me 
 at Lancaster Lodge,' says Sibyl, and that seems as 
 good as paying for them. 
 
 Sibyl has asked for a week in which to prepare 
 herself for this important visit, and that week is 
 occupied in the stitching, hemming, sewing, felling, 
 gathering, and trimming of underclothing — the 
 fashion of ready-made linen not having yet vitiated 
 the housewifely habits of Eedcastle. The lower mid- 
 dle classes make their own garments, laboriously, 
 and are proud of their toil ; the upper classes em- 
 ploy school children, reduced widows, or virtuous 
 orphans for the labour, and contrive thereby to 
 exercise a good deal of patronage at a very small 
 expenditure. 
 
 Sibyl revives considerably during this week of 
 preparation. She manages to rest a good deal, 
 other people taking the chief burden of getting her 
 clothes made on their shoulders. She lies on the 
 sofa in the shabby old parlour, staring idly at 
 the white and yellow spring flowers that brighten 
 VOL. 1. L
 
 146 DEAD men's shoes.. 
 
 the dull brown beds yonder in the familiar garden, 
 the white pear blossoms tossing gaily in the light 
 April wind, the jonquils peeping over the tall box 
 border, the sword-shaped lily of the valley leaves 
 cleaving the damp mould in the shadow of the 
 bulging moss-grown wall, summer's harbinger in the 
 shape of a butterfly skimming over the tender rose 
 leaves. A dull old house verily — a limited prospect, 
 this long strip of walled garden, yet sweet and 
 soothing to one who has suffered. Sweet to lie at 
 rest on the slumberous sofa, with no thought or care 
 for the day, and with but vaguest thought of the 
 morrow. 
 
 'If uncle Trenchard leaves me a fortune life 
 will be made so easy,' Sibyl muses, her arms 
 folded above her head, her eyes fixed dreamily on 
 the waving white pear-bloom, * I shall have but 
 to call Alex back to me, and we can be happy 
 together again, and taste the sweets of life again, 
 as we did in our brief bright honeymoon. Poverty 
 and love cannot live long together; but love with 
 plenty of money — that means paradise.' 
 
 The future, dimly veiled though it is, seems
 
 SIBYL TAKES THE LEAD. 147 
 
 very easy to her just now. She is elated by her 
 uncle's evident admiration of her. She has made 
 just the impression that she would have wished to 
 make upon that fate-disposing relative. To follow 
 up that impression will be simple enough. Has she 
 not been told of her winning ways, of those small 
 fascinations which make a woman powerful for 
 good or evil ? Has she not been always her uncle 
 Robert's favourite, everybody's favourite, without 
 effort on her own part? while Marion, painfully 
 anxious to please, has been looked on rather as a 
 nuisance, a vivacious nonenity of whom one might 
 easily have too much. 
 
 Mr. Trenchard's carriage calls every afternoon, 
 with its coachman and footman in respectable 
 Puritan drab liveries, to take the two young ladies 
 for an airing ; Mr. Trenchard himself rarely making 
 any use of the equipage, which he keeps rather 
 as an appanage of his state than for pleasure or 
 convenience. It is very agreeable to Sibyl to drive 
 up the long street, with its ascending scale of social 
 importance, from the shabby old houses at uncle 
 Robert's end of the town to the stately stone man-
 
 148 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 sions above Bar. Very agreeable to pass the 4lite 
 whom Marion has just begun to know, and salutes 
 with delighted becks and bows, but whom Sibyl 
 surveys with a stony stare, affecting to have not the 
 faintest notion who they are, 
 
 ' That Faunthorpe girl is handsomer than ever,' 
 says Colonel Stormont to his wife, whom he is 
 driving in a pony carriage a size or two larger than 
 a washing basket. 'She's pretty sure to come in 
 for a tidy share of the old fellow's money, I should 
 think. Not a bad match for Frederick.' 
 
 Frederick is the hope of the Stormonts — great 
 at cricket, croquet, and athletics, fire brigade and 
 volunteer rifle corps ; a youth with very thin legs, 
 and not much body, who wears a cutaway coat 
 that just clears his hips, and has never been seen 
 in an overcoat, or without a flower in his button- 
 hole. 
 
 'No family,' says Mrs. Stormont, pursing up 
 her lips. 
 
 ' Family be bothered ! ' remarks the colonel. ' Old 
 Trenchard is rolling in money. What's the good of 
 family ? It won't keep a roof over your head, or pay
 
 SIBYL TAKES THE LEAD. 149 
 
 the tax-gatherer. Commerce is the thing now-a- 
 days. If Fred doesn't marry a rich woman pretty 
 soon he'll have to go into commerce. You ought 
 to take notice of those Faunthorpe girls.' 
 
 ' I'll caU next week,' replies Mrs. Stormont, 
 obediently. 
 
 Sibyl's beauty is the talk of the town. Ked- 
 castle is suddenly awakened to the consciousness 
 of loveliness that scarcely moved it to admiration 
 two years ago, although the girl's beauty had then 
 the bloom and freshness of unchastened youth. 
 Perhaps she is really lovelier now. Sorrow and 
 passion have passed there, and left the exalted 
 look of an awakened soul, where there was before 
 only girlish innocence, curious and wondering 
 about a world of which it knew nothing. She has 
 eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 
 The mystery of life has been revealed to her. Be 
 sure that Eve's beauty had a deeper meaning 
 after she came out by the fatal gate where the 
 angel with the flaming sword kept watch and 
 ward. 
 
 The cdLTvia^Q comes at the week's end to fetch
 
 150 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Miss Faunthorpe and her belongings, to the tribu- 
 lation of her young sister Jenny, who has had so 
 much of Marion lately that she is deeply grieved 
 to lose Sibyl. 
 
 ' It will be ever so much worse for me when 
 you're gone,' she says. 'You do stand up for a 
 fellow sometimes. She'll be sending me upstairs 
 for her handkerchief or her keys three times an 
 hour, and making me crimp her hair till my 
 fingers ache, and unpick her old dresses. I wish 
 uncle Trenchard would let me go with you. I 
 shouldn't cost much or be in his way. And 
 now uncle Eobert says I'm not to go to school 
 any more, because it makes me vulgar, and Marion 
 is to go on with my education. A nice educa- 
 tion it will be ! I don't believe she knows when 
 William the Conqueror came over, or who invented 
 potatoes.' 
 
 Sibyl tears herself from the lamenting damsel, 
 kisses uncle Eobert with a plaintive little look 
 more expressive of gratitude than many a lengthy 
 oration, and takes her place in the barouche, which 
 becomes her as a frame does a picture, and seems
 
 SIBYL TAKES THE LEAD. 151 
 
 as much her attribute as Juno's car to the 
 goddess. 
 
 'Good-bye, Poverty/ she says to herself as the 
 chestnuts throw up their fore-legs as if they were 
 playing cup and ball, and dash off towards the 
 Bar. * It shall go hard with me if my name is 
 not written in uncle Trenchard's will before long.'
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 HOW STEPHEN TRENCHAKD FORGIVES. 
 
 The new life at Lancaster Lodge suits Sibyl as 
 if she had been created for no other purpose than 
 to sit at her uncle's table, pour out his coffee, 
 air his newspapers, play or sing to him in the 
 evenings, and take her own pleasure for the rest 
 of the day. Housekeeping is an easy burden in 
 so well-ordered an establishment. The trained 
 servants perform their duties, light for the most 
 part, with mechanical precision. The service is too 
 good to be forfeited by scamped work, or forget- 
 fulness of the master's wishes. Stephen Tren chard 
 has let his servants understand that he will have 
 fullest value for his money, that there must 
 be no talents stowed away in napkins in his 
 household. He has contrived to inspire them with 
 wholesome fear, and is served to the utmost of 
 their power.
 
 HOW STEPHEN TREXCHARD FORGIVES. 153 
 
 Sibyl is not afflicted with a genius for domestic 
 matters. She remembers with a shudder those 
 days in Dixon Street when she had to cater for 
 a penniless husband, and make ninepence do the 
 work of a shilling. She remembers this weary 
 time, and reposes in her low easy chair, novel in 
 hand, the garden smiling at her through the open 
 French window, horses and carriages at her dis- 
 posal, luxury around her, all Eedcastle subjugated 
 and more or less prostrated at her feet, — she 
 keenly remembers the past, and deems her present 
 life worthy some sacrifice, more especially as the 
 present is made still brighter by vague hopes of 
 happiness, and a reconciliation of all life's perplexi- 
 ties in the future. ^ 
 
 She has her dark moments, naturally, "^'hat 
 life is without shadow ? There are moments when 
 she thinks of one she has fondly loved — fondly 
 loves still, perhaps, in some sealed chamber of 
 her heart. There are hours in which she wonders, 
 with remorseful wonder, how he fares whom she 
 so ruthlessly abandoned. 
 
 Tor his future advantage,' she tells herself; 'as
 
 154 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Mrs. Secretan I should have forfeited my uncle's 
 fortune — as Miss .Faunthorpe I may win it and 
 share it with my husband.' 
 
 Established as Stephen Trenchard's favourite 
 niece, Sibyl finds herself an object of unbounded 
 interest and admiration with the elite. Mrs. 
 Stormont, although overflowing with kindness, at 
 first shows some disposition to patronize, but finding 
 this eldest Miss Faunthorpe a young woman not 
 amenable to patronage, changes her note and accepts 
 Mr. Trenchard's niece as *one of ourselves,' elected 
 and chosen to sit in the high places of Eedcastle. 
 
 'The girl has a wonderful air,' argues Mrs. 
 Stormont, 'when you consider that she is totally 
 without family.' 
 
 * Talking of family,' muses the colonel, ' I hope 
 it's all right about old Trenchard's money, and that 
 he hasn't left any niggers over in Calcutta to 
 whom he may leave his fortune.' 
 
 *My dear Eeginald, I'm surprised at you,' 
 exclaims the lady, with a look of horror. 'Mr. 
 Trenchard goes to church every Sunday, and is 
 altogether a most correct person.'
 
 HO^V STEPHEN TEENCHARD FORGIVES. 155 
 
 *We don't know what he may have been in 
 India, though,' says the colonel. ' He may have 
 been a devil-worshipper, and danced an exaggerated 
 highland fling at devil-dances ; or a Mahometan, 
 or a Brahmin, or a Thug. He seems to have plenty 
 of money, and that's about all we know of 
 him.' 
 
 Notwithstanding which ignorance as to Stephen 
 Trenchard's antecedents the colonel and his wife 
 continue to court and cherish him, arranging the 
 nicest little dinners for him, with Mr. Groshen to 
 sit opposite to him and discourse upon the money 
 market; lavishing affection on Sibyl, inquiring 
 kindly about the exiled Marion — as remote at the 
 UDvisited end of the town as if she had been 
 removed to another hemisphere — and making them- 
 selves generally subservient and agreeable. Fred- 
 erick Stormont, with his cutaway coat and legs like 
 sticks of sealing wax, calls frequently at Lancaster 
 Lodge, and is 'deeply interested in everything that 
 interests Sibyl, — the flower-garden, the horses; he 
 even volunteers to be interested in the poultry, but 
 bottles his enthusiasm upon finding that Miss
 
 156 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 raunthorpe has no taste for Dorkings, Spaniards, or 
 Cochin-Chinas. 
 
 There is a billiard-room at Lancaster Lodge, and 
 Frederick is great at billiards. He drops in of an 
 evening, and plays with Mr. Trenchard ; he teaches 
 Sibyl how to handle her cue, and discourses wisely 
 on the theory of angles. 
 
 ' Well, pretty one,* says Mr. Trenchard one night, 
 when Fred has taken his departure with obvious 
 reluctance, and uncle and niece are loitering by the 
 billiard- table, Sibyl leaning over the green cloth to 
 aim at the distant red, dressed in pale gray silk, 
 with innumerable flounces, and knots of mauve 
 ribbon dotted about among them, a masterpiece of 
 Miss Eylett's art. ' Well, my pet, I think it's pretty 
 clear what that young gentleman comes here for.' 
 
 * Billiards, I should think,' replies Sibyl, pushing 
 her cue gently backwards and forwards as she 
 meditates her aim. ' They have no table at the 
 Stormonts, and it is cheaper for him to play here 
 than at the " Coach and Horses." ' 
 
 'The billiard-table is a very good excuse, my 
 dear, but the gentleman comes to see you.'
 
 HOW STEPHEN TREXCHARD FORGIVES. 157 
 
 'Poor thread-paper!' exclaims Sibyl, with a con- 
 temptuous laugh. ' For his own sake — if the thing 
 can feel — I hope not.' 
 
 'Why, he'd be a very good match for you, 
 wouldn't he ? ' asks her uncle, looking keenly at 
 her from under his penthouse brows. 'These 
 Stormonts are great people, the leaders of Eedcastle 
 society. You could hardly do better than marry 
 into their set.' 
 
 ' If I were likely ever to marry, which I'm not,' 
 says Sibyl, pocketing her ball triumphantly off the 
 red, 'I'd marry a man! 
 
 ' Xever likely to marry ! what do you mean by 
 that ? ' 
 
 * Simply that I'm quite happy as I am, and that 
 I mean to stop with you, and take care of you, 
 please uncle Stephen, until you get tired of me.' 
 
 She has been living with her rich uncle nearly 
 three months, and there is no more talk of her 
 being a visitor at Lancaster Lodge. It is her home. 
 Marion may come and go, but Sibyl remains. 
 Stephen Trenchard cannot do without her. 
 
 *I shan't get tired of you in a hurry,' answers
 
 158 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Mr. Trenchard, ' but I think for your own sake you 
 ought to marry when you get a good opportunity. 
 I was only joking about that whipper-snapper, who 
 walks about the place as if the very paving stones 
 were his property, and couldn't give you change for 
 a five-pound note if you asked him for it. He's 
 not the man for you. But with your pretty face 
 you are sure to find the right kind of man before 
 long, a man with brains and money, and when you 
 do I hope you'll be wise enough to marry him. 
 It's all very well while I'm here to take care of 
 you, but when I'm dead and gone " 
 
 * When you are dead and gone I shall have your 
 money, you dear old thing,' thinks Sibyl, but says 
 not a v/ord. Slie only goes to her uncle's side, and 
 lays her face upon his shoulder, and gives him 
 one of those gentle little caresses which Marion 
 would as soon have offered to the Zoological 
 Garden's tiger as to her Anglo-Indian uncle. 
 
 * Yes, pretty one, I should like to see you well 
 married before my time comes,' says Stephen 
 Trenchard. 
 
 'Now you know, uncle, that you are under a
 
 HOW STEPHEN TRENCHARD FORGIVES. 159 
 
 solemn agreement with me to live till you are 
 ninety,' replies Sibyl, shaking her finger at him 
 with playful menace. 
 
 She has grown very intimate with her nncle 
 in these three months, her playing, her singing, 
 her bright talk, her sparkling, vivacious little ways 
 have won the old man's confidence. Stern to all 
 the rest of the world, implacable in all his deal- 
 ing with men, suspicious alike of equals and 
 inferiors, tyrannical to his servants, he is yet won- 
 drously gentle to Sibyl. His inherent meanness, 
 his mental incapacity to give, cannot be wholly 
 subjugated even by her influence, but what money 
 he bestows upon her he gives less grudgingly than 
 to Marion. He feels the loss of so many pounds 
 a shade less keenly when Sibyl's pleasure is in 
 question, and though he grumbles sorely at the 
 costliness of a woman's toilet he is pleased to see 
 his niece expensively dressed, and may in time 
 come to regard her costume as one of the acces- 
 sories of his own grandeur, like his stables or hot- 
 houses. 
 
 Earely, despite the confidence that is established
 
 160 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 between tliem, has Mr. Tren chard talked to Sibyl 
 of his past life, of his youth never. He tells her 
 his prosy old stories of Calcutta society, of men 
 with whom he has had commercial dealings, of 
 clever frauds and chicaneries which he chuckles 
 over as the coups cVetat of the trading world, but 
 of himself he speaks very little. Never, above all, 
 has the fatal name of Secretan crossed his lips ; 
 and Sibyl is longing to find out the state of his 
 feelings now, after this lapse of time, in relation 
 to that name. 
 
 If he had learned, in the lapse of years, to 
 forgive the man he injured and over-reached, if 
 he had grown to feel some touch of remorseful 
 pity for the supplanted son, what a happiness it 
 would be to fall on her knees at his feet and 
 confess the secret of her life, to be pardoned for 
 her duplicity, set free from the toil and trouble of 
 falsehood, able to call her proud young husband 
 back to her side, and to begin life again, honest 
 in the sight of man and at peace with God! 
 
 She is continually musing upon this question, 
 and would give much for an opportunity of
 
 HOW STEPHEN TKEXCHARD FOEGIYES. 161 
 
 soimding her uncle's feelings. It comes one day 
 unawares, and she has no longer need to speculate 
 or wonder about Stephen Trenchard's sentiments 
 upon the subject of an old enemy. 
 
 It is a drowsy July afternoon. The summer is 
 at its hottest, and Mr. Trenchard and his niece 
 are sitting on the lawn after that elaborate meal, 
 half breakfast, half luncheon, which the Anglo- 
 Indian caUs tiffin. The lawn behind Lancaster 
 Lodge is a delightful place on a warm summer 
 day. Three or four old elms, a spreading cedar, a 
 Spanish chestnut, and a couple of noble plane 
 trees afford abundant shade. The grass is smooth 
 as velvet. Garden chairs, low and luxurious, are 
 dotted about under the trees. Newspapers, and 
 Sibyl's work-basket, bestrew the light iron table. 
 Changing lights and shadows flit and flicker among 
 the leaves, and Stephen Trenchard's lean figure, 
 stretched to its full length, reposes at ease 
 on a bamboo reclining chair, a glass of potash 
 water on one side of him, a cigar-case on the 
 other. 
 
 Sibyl is reading to him out of yesterday's Times, 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 when lie interrupts her with a sudden sigh, 
 which is almost a groan. 
 
 '^What is the matter, uncle Stephen ? ' 
 
 ' You had better leave off, — even your soft voice 
 irritates me.' 
 
 'Your nervous headache not gone yet, uncle 
 Stephen ? ' 
 
 ' Gone ! It's worse than ever. This English 
 summer is more oppressive than Indian heat, or 
 it seems so to me at any rate.' 
 
 Sibyl searches in the little work-basket lined 
 with blue satin, fishes out a silver-stoppered 
 scent-bottle, and is on her knees by her uncle's 
 side in a moment, dabbing his yellow fore- 
 head with her handkerchief steeped in eau de 
 Cologne. 
 
 'Thank you, my dear, that will do. I don't 
 care about it.' 
 
 He gives her an impatient little push, as dis- 
 approving so much fuss, but not before she has 
 disarranged one of those terrier-ear wisps of iron- 
 gray hair, and been startled by a scar which dis- 
 figures the forehead beneath it, a long narrow seam,
 
 HOW STEPHEN TREXCHARD FORGR^ES. 163 
 
 which crosses the temple diagonally just below the 
 roots of the hair. 
 
 * Uncle Stephen, were you ever in battle ? * 
 
 * Battle, child ? What nonsense ! Of course 
 not/ 
 
 ' Or in a mutiny — or anything ? How did you 
 get this dreadful scar ? ' 
 
 'From the foul blow of a scoundrel,' answers 
 Stephen Trenchard, deadly pale. 'From the man 
 who lamed me for life. Did you never hear youi- 
 mother speak of Philip Secretan ? ' 
 
 * Yes, uncle Stephen, I have heard her say that 
 he treated you very badly.' 
 
 * Oh, she owned as much, did she ? The world 
 in general would have it that I used him badly 
 that I had no right to the money his father left 
 me — a paltry thirty thousand; that I ought to 
 have stood on one side and said, " No, blood is 
 thicker than water. You've been an idler and a 
 profligate — a bad son, the business would have 
 gone to wreck and ruin if it had been left to you 
 to save it. I've toiled, I've slaved, I've planned 
 and plotted, I've borne the heat and burden of
 
 164 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 the day; but still you are the son, and you've a 
 right to come in at the eleventh hour and rob 
 me of my just reward, simply because you are 
 the son," That's what the world would have had 
 me do, in the high and mighty justice it is so 
 good at dealing out for other people, and so bad 
 at yielding on its own account. Some went so far 
 as to say that the will was forged, and I was 
 the forger. Luckily for me, old Mr. Secretan had 
 published his intention of disinheriting his son, 
 and making me his heir, the year of the great 
 Manchester failures, when his house tottered, and 
 I had the luck to save it by a desperate stroke 
 of business.' 
 
 'He was very fond of you, I suppose, this old 
 Mr. Secretan ? ' asks Sibyl, breathlessly. 
 
 * Fond of me ? Yes, perhaps as much as it was 
 in his nature to be fond of anything, except 
 money. He hated his son, knowing that he was 
 a spendthrift, and would squander every shilling 
 the old man had toiled for. He trusted me — he 
 looked up to me. " If you were my son," he used 
 to say, " I shouldn't be tortured by the thought
 
 HOW STEPHEX TREXCHARD FORGIVES. 165 
 
 that this business would go to ruin when I'm in 
 my grave." The day he said that for the first 
 time I made up my mind that I was to be his 
 heir. Philip's follies and vices helped me, but 
 my own patience and industry were the chief 
 agents.' 
 
 'And there was a quarrel between you and 
 Philip Secretan?' asks Sibyl, seated on the grass 
 and plucking up little tufts of it nervously, as 
 she watches her uncle's vindictive face with eager 
 eyes, reading doom there. 
 
 'Yes, when the will had been read, and he 
 knew the worst — he ought to have expected it if 
 he had a grain of sense, — Philip Secretan followed 
 me out into the grounds. His father's house was 
 a few miles outside Manchester, a fine old place 
 enough, but neglected, — the old man was too fond 
 of money to spend much on house or gardens. 
 Philip followed me to the back of the grounds, 
 where there was a wild bit of shrubbery and a 
 hollow that had once been a stone quarry, and 
 which had been left, either because people didn't 
 care about the expense of filling it, or because
 
 166 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 tliey fancied it was picturesque. In any case it 
 was dangerous, and an abomination that ought to 
 liave been done away with. Well, I was close to 
 the edge of this hollow — there being a short cut 
 to the Manchester road just beyond it — when 
 Philip overtook me. He didn't spare me, I can 
 tell you, for, apart from the money question, there 
 was an old sore between us. The girl he wanted 
 to marry had done me the honour to prefer his 
 father's confidential clerk. She was a sensible 
 girl, and saw the point to which our lives were 
 drifting. When he had called me reptile, and a 
 few other equally agreeable names, finding that he 
 couldn't sting me into retaliation by abuse of that 
 kind, he came close up to me and struck me across 
 the face with his open hand. " There, cur," he 
 cried, " and let's see if that will warm your fish's 
 blood into manly feeling." I had been in a burn- 
 ing rage all the time at his insolence,' but had held 
 myself in check, in pity for his disappointment, 
 which was hard to bear, no doubt, richly as he 
 had deserved it. I was a man, and the shame of 
 a blow was too much even for my sluggish. temper,
 
 HOW STEPHEN TREXCHAHD FORGIVES. 167 
 
 trained to patience by long servitude. I closed 
 with him, and we wrestled together on that path 
 by the quarry. Now mark the cowardice of this 
 fine gentleman, who boasted of his honour, and 
 called me a sneak and reptile 1 He was twice 
 my match in weight and size, three times my 
 match in training, a practised athlete, a skilled 
 boxer, every muscle developed by exercise. To use 
 his force against mine was simply murder. I was 
 the shuttlecock, and he the battledore. I had a 
 confused sense of blows raining on my head, as 
 from a Nasmyth's hammer, coloured sparks dancing 
 before my eyes, fire shooting out of my brain, 
 and then I was hurled bodil}' into the air, and 
 fell crashinf; through the brushwood into the 
 quarry. It seemed like falling from the highest 
 cliff that breasts the Atlantic' 
 
 ' How dreadful ! ' says Sibyl, with a gasp. 
 
 ' It was deep in the night when I awoke, 
 and the stars were shining. I wondered where 
 I was, and how I came to see the pole-star 
 looking straight down at me. Pain came before 
 memory, acute, agonizing pain, and then I knew
 
 .168 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 that my leg liad been shattered somehow. I lay 
 in the quarry till past eight o'clock next morning, 
 suffering indescribable torture. At last, however, 
 some labourers heard my faint cries for help, 
 found me, and carried me to the nearest road- 
 side inn, whence I was conveyed to the Man- 
 chester Infirmary. Here I lay for five months — 
 ths most miserable months of my life — while the 
 fractured bones united. It was a compound frac- 
 ture, and for some time I was threatened with 
 amputation. When I rose from the hospital bed 
 I was lame for life. The broken leg had con- 
 tracted in the process of healing. Surgery had 
 done its best for me, and had saved my leg; 
 but surgery left me a cripple ; for which life- 
 long injury I had to thank Philip Secretan. I 
 had to thank him for somethinsj else too, for the 
 girl who had pretended to love me chose this 
 time for throwing me over, and making a better 
 match.' 
 
 'And in those weary months, lying on your 
 bed of pain, you learned to forgive your enemy,' 
 suggests Sibyl, very gently.
 
 HOW STEPHEN TRENCHARD FORGIVES. 169 
 
 ' Learned to forgive him ! Yes, if forgiveness 
 means undying hatred; if forgiveness means the 
 rankling memory of an unatonable wrong ; if 
 forgiveness means to remember him and curse 
 him every time a change of wind brings back 
 the old grinding pain in this crippled limb. If 
 that means forgiveness, Philip Secretan and his 
 race are forsjiven.' 
 
 * His race ? ' falters Sibyl. * You could feel no 
 rancour af^ainst his children.' 
 
 ' I could. I do,' answers the old man, vindic- 
 tively. 'Let no viper of that blood cross my 
 path. " The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and 
 the children's teeth are set on edge." There's 
 Scripture for you. I believe in that good old 
 heathen creed one reads of in Greek legends, of 
 an accursed race. Of Philip Secretan's after career 
 I know little or nothing. He had the devil's 
 luck as well as his own, and married a woman 
 with money, soon after his father's death, but I 
 never heard what became of him. He may be 
 living or dead. If he lives, let him keep out of 
 my way. If he has left children, my dearest
 
 170 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 hope is that they are penniless, homeless, street 
 Arabs, whose playground is the gutter, whose 
 ultimate destiny is the gallows/ 
 
 ' Uncle, for mercy's sake ' 
 
 ' My curse light on him and his seed to the 
 third generation! There, child, don't cry. You 
 should have known better than to tempt me to 
 talk of Philip Secretan.'
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 LOVE, THEX, HAD HOPE OF KICHER STORE. 
 
 After that summer day under the plane trees, 
 Sibyl utters the name of Secretan no more. Hope 
 of relenting on her uncle's part there is none. If 
 Alexis could forgive the man who in his version of 
 the story came basely between father and son to 
 cheat the son of his heritage, and tricked the lover 
 out of his mistress, Stephen Trenchard's stubborn 
 soul would still remain unsoftened. Eeconciliation 
 between these two was impossible. To retain 
 her uncle's favour, and inherit a portion of his 
 wealth, Sibyl must keep the secret of her marriage. 
 A painful part to play even for a mind not untrained 
 in deceit ; but a necessary part, Sibyl tells herself. 
 A difificult game, but for a stake well worth the 
 winning. She has no exact measure of her uncle's 
 possessions. He has never talked to her of his in- 
 vestments, or told her his income, but she has a
 
 172 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 fixed idea that his wealth is almost without limit, 
 that, like the Eothschilds or the Duke of West- 
 minster, he could scarcely state the sum-total of his 
 riches if he were asked for exact figures. His for- 
 tune is a rolling mass of gold, she supposes, which 
 grows larger at every turn, like a snowball. The 
 respect she sees paid to him by the elect of 
 Eedcastle establishes her in this conviction of 
 Stephen Trenchard's importance, for she knows that 
 in this case importance can only mean money. 
 
 Lancaster Lodge is one of those handsomely 
 finished, solidly built houses which adorn the out- 
 skirts of every country town, and are like temples 
 dedicated to the genius of commonplace ; houses in 
 which the butler's pantry has been as carefully con- 
 sidered as the drawing-room, and in which my lady's 
 boudoir is just as unlovely as John Thomas's attic 
 under the leads. All the principal rooms are large 
 and square and lofty. The passages are broad and 
 straight. The staircase is well proportioned, ven- 
 tilated and lighted to perfection. Impossible to 
 find fault with a house which, as the house agent 
 proudly puts it, possesses all the requirements for a
 
 LOVE, THEN, HAD HOPE OF RICHER STORE. 173 
 
 gentleman's family. Equally impossible to feel the 
 slightest interest in a mansion which neither awes 
 by its splendour nor attracts by its eccentricity, nor 
 charms by the lowlier graces of homeliness and 
 simplicity. A coffin descending that mathematical 
 staircase would lose its awfulness in the pervading 
 atmosphere of commonplace. A cradle in any of 
 those rooms would seem to have lost its way, and 
 wandered into a desert, where baby-life could not 
 endure. Xo sadly sweet fancies of domestic joys 
 that are no more entwine themselves about this 
 dwelling of Stephen Trenchard's. It looks like 
 what it is — an old bachelor's house, — and Mr, 
 Trenchard could hardly have chosen a habitation 
 more completely in harmony with his own character. 
 The Eedcastle upholsterer, a man whose stock 
 in trade appears to consist of two easy chairs and a 
 sideboard — but who can do great things at a push, — 
 has furnished Lancaster Lodge with appropriate 
 splendour. All is solid and grandiose ; dark 
 crimson draperies — velvet in the dining-room and 
 library, satin brocade in the drawing-room — subdue 
 the garish light and give a sombre grandeur to the
 
 174 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 rooms. Heavy oak furniture, thickest Turkey and 
 Persian carpets ; varied spoil of carved black wood, 
 ivory, porcelain, and Bombay inlaid work, which 
 Mr. Trenchard has brought home with him from 
 India, — everywhere the evidence of wealth. 
 
 To Sibyl the house seems simply perfect. Its 
 luxury, its soft silent splendour, contrast so plea- 
 santly with the humble homeliness of her uncle 
 Robert's old-fashioned, low-ceiled rooms ; the 
 stealthy-footed footman, who spends so much of his 
 time looking at nothing particular out of the hall 
 window, that he grows sedentary in his habits, and 
 fancies he has disease of the heart ; the ponderous 
 butler in his glossy black suit and irreproachable 
 white tie ; the smart maid-servants, in crisp starched 
 cambric, tight-waisted, prim, supercilious, as if 
 Mr. Trenchard's importance as the richest man in 
 Redcastle shed reflected glory upon them. The 
 household has an air of quiet dignity which im- 
 presses Sibyl wonderfully. Her soul reposes itself 
 in this land of fatness. She looks back at her life in 
 Dixon Street, its one room, its manifold privations, 
 veritable starvation hoverinq; near like the wan
 
 LOVE, THEX, HAD HOPE OF EICHER STORE. 175 
 
 spectre of approaching doom, and the change seems 
 too wonderful for anything but a dream. Does she 
 think of the husband who shared her poverty, 
 whom she abandoned to endure misfortune alone, 
 deserted in the darkest hour of their wedded life ? 
 AVhen does she not think of him ? Memory and 
 regret are interwoven with the fabric of her life. 
 She consoles herself — ^justifies her desertion of 
 Alexis — by the idea that life must have been made 
 easy to him by their separation. As a married man 
 with a helpless wife to provide for, he was like a 
 vessel waterlogged ; relieved of that burden, he is the 
 same ship free to sail for any port in quest of fortune. 
 One night, in the solitude of her prettily 
 furnished bedroom, all rose-coloured chintz and 
 shining maple, furnished especially for a young 
 lady's occupation at Mr. Trenchard's order, Sibyl 
 takes out an insignificant paper-covered book from 
 among her most sacred possessions, and opens it 
 with a hand that trembles a little as she sits alone 
 in the lampHght. It is like opening the grave of 
 the past. That little sixpenny book is the diary she 
 kept at Mrs. Hazleton's — her brief love story.
 
 176 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Tearfully, sorrowfully, she reads tliat record of 
 her first and only love, the story of a time when in 
 singleness of mind and simplicity she surrendered 
 her heart to its conquerer. 
 
 'I love him, I love him, I love him,' she reads, 
 almost blinded by tears. She remembers the gush 
 of passionate feeling with which those foolish words 
 were written. 'And one little year after I wrote 
 that line I deserted him,' she says to herself, 
 wondering at her own hardness of heart. 
 
 * What a fool I must have been when I wrote 
 this book ! ' This is her verdict as she closes the 
 volume ; yet she feels as if it were the best and 
 brightest part of her life in which those foolish 
 pages were written, and that she was happier in 
 those days than she is now, although she has 
 become a personage in Eedcastle. 
 
 She looks round her room wonderingly, glancing 
 at the maple wardrobe which contains so many 
 pretty dresses, such a treasury of ribbons and lace, 
 and the frivolities women love. 
 
 * Would I exchange all this, and the hope of a 
 fortune from my uncle, for the dismal second-floor
 
 LOVE, THEN, HAD HOPE OF RICHER STORE. 177 
 
 schoolroom at Mrs. Hazleton's, and the freshness 
 and sweetness of first love ? ' she asks herself ; and 
 for a moment it seems to her that could a good fairy 
 give her back the days that are no more, she would 
 be a gainer by the exchange. 
 
 If she could know that her husband was safe 
 and well, that he had prospered since she left 
 him, or that things had gone tolerably well with 
 him, she might feel more at ease than she does. 
 But she knows nothing of what has happened to 
 him since the beginning of the year, when he was 
 seen at Eed castle, a dismal apparition ; and of this 
 appearance of his she only hears by chance, a few 
 days after her perusal of her diary, from no less a 
 person than her younger sister Jane, otherwise 
 Jenny. 
 
 Sibyl is spending the day with her uncle Eobert, 
 a visit which ranks as a condescension now that she 
 is on intimate terms with the Stormonts, the 
 Groshens, Dr. Mitsand, and, in a word, the elite 
 of Redcastle. She is received by her indulgent old 
 uncle with all honour. Hester prepares an extra 
 good dinner, a dainty little loin of veal, and a currie 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 of yesterday's roast mutton, followed by tlie "un- 
 wonted extravagance of a tart and a pudding. 
 Marion sees this relaxation of the economic bow 
 with certain sniffings and bridlings, indicative of 
 suppressed indignation. 
 
 ' I never knew such a time-server as Hester/ she 
 remarks, as she surveys the table, laid as for a feast, 
 a clean tablecloth in the middle of the week, 
 almonds and raisins for dessert, an altogether ruinous 
 expenditure. ' She didn't make this fuss about you 
 when you were at home, but now she pays her 
 court to the heiress elect.' 
 
 ' ]^o more an heiress elect than you or Jenny, I 
 should imagine,' replies Sibyl, lightly. ' I think it 
 is pretty clear that uncle Trenchard means to leave 
 his money among us, though he has not said as 
 much.' 
 
 'Yes, and the lion's share to you, no doubt, 
 though he has known me longest,' says Marion, 
 snappishly. 
 
 * A precious sight of his money I'm likely to get, 
 when he never so much as asks me to go and see 
 him,' observes Jenny, whereupon both sisters swoop
 
 LOVE, THEX, HAD HOPE OF ETCHER STORE. 179 
 
 down upon her in denunciation of such a noun of 
 quantity as ' a precious sight.' 
 
 * AVhere do you pick up your language, child ? ' 
 cries SibyL * Xot in the streets surely, since Marion 
 teaches you, and you have no occasion to be running 
 about.' 
 
 * A fat lot Marion teaches me \ ' says the incor- 
 ricjible child. ' She naG^s at rae for an hour and a 
 half by the kitchen clock every morning, and calls 
 that education.' 
 
 ' Pray, in what edition of Lindley ^lurray do you 
 find the verb " to nacr " ? ' demands Marion, with the 
 air of a pedagogue. 
 
 ' It's as good a verb as any other. I nag, thou 
 naggest, he or she nags, generally she ; or take it in 
 Latin if you like, Nago, nagas, nagat, nagamus, 
 nagatis, nagant; first conjugation; perfect, nagavi.' 
 
 ' I'm afraid that Jane has rather an unruly 
 temper,' remarks Dr. Faunthorpe, mildly. 
 
 * Oh, of course it's Jane. Marion is never ag- 
 gravating. You don't find me unruly, do you, 
 uncle ? ' Jane adds coaxingly, as she sidles up to 
 the gentle, easy-tempered little doctor, who has gone
 
 180 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 through life placidly bearing other people's burdens, 
 and has never murmured against a destiny that has 
 weighted him with three orphan nieces. 
 
 Later in the afternoon Sibyl and Jane are alone 
 together in the garden, Marion having lost her 
 temper at croquet, and left them to themselves. 
 
 The little bit of grass upon which they play is 
 not many sizes bigger than the billiard-table at 
 Lancaster House. The balls and mallets are in 
 the last stage of shabbiness, and chipped into icosa- 
 hedrons. 
 
 * You must both come to afternoon tea to- 
 morrow, if it's fine, and play croquet on uncle 
 Trenchard's lawn,' says Sibyl, condescendingly, as 
 if she were inviting them to her own house. Per- 
 haps this patronizing invitation has something to 
 do with Marion's loss of temper five minutes after- 
 wards, when Jenny sends her ball into a distant 
 cabbage bed. The sources of bad humour are more 
 often complex than simple. 
 
 It is a warm September afternoon, one of those 
 days in which people incline to sitting in gardens 
 rather than walking on dusty high roads. Sibyl
 
 LOVE, THEN, HAD HOPE OF RICHER STORE. 181 
 
 sits on the grass as she was wont to do three years 
 ago, before she was anybody's heiress. Jenny 
 sprawls, with an appalling display of legs and boots 
 and rusty bootlaces, at her sister's side. 
 
 ' Now, Sibyl' she says, eagerly, ' tell us about 
 the parties you go to.' 
 
 * Pray, who is your companion ? ' inquires Sibyl, 
 with a contemptuous droop of her heavy eyelids. 
 '^I see no one here but yourself.' 
 
 * I don't know what you mean,' says Jane, 
 staring. 
 
 '^0 more do I when you say tell us* 
 ' Oh, lor, as if it mattered 1 You're as bad as 
 Marion. Now do be nice, Sib, for once in a way, 
 and teU me what it's like going to the Stormonts. 
 Only fancy you're being asked there ever so many 
 times ; and to think how often I've passed their 
 door when we've been out for walks, and the inside 
 of it has seemed as far off as heaven ; further, in- 
 deed, for they say we're sure to go to heaven if 
 we're good, but we're not sure of going to the 
 Stormonts unless we're rich. What's it like, Sib? 
 do teU.'
 
 182 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ' Well, they live in a house, as you know, since 
 you've seen the outside of it, and they eat their 
 dinner at a table, just as we do, and they are rather 
 stupid after dinner, and the ladies go up into the 
 drawing-room and talk about other people who are 
 not there, and a little about the minster,, and the 
 clergymen, and the schools, and look at one another's 
 dresses. I can see them count the flounces on my 
 dress sometimes, and actually take the pattern of it 
 under my nose, which I consider an impertinence.' 
 
 ' Is it nice going to grand dinners ? ' asks Jane, 
 breathlessly. 
 
 'Yes, I suppose so. It's rather a mild kind of 
 enjoyment. It doesn't quicken one's pulse by a 
 single throb. It isn't like riding a good horse, or 
 seeing a race, or hearing a great singer, or even 
 gettincr a crood break at billiards. There's no excite- 
 ment, no elation; but one feels one is doing the 
 right kind of thing, that this is what one was born 
 for.' 
 
 ' Are the dinners nice ? ' inquires Jenny, licking 
 her lips gluttonously. 
 
 ' They are very grand,' replies Sibyl. ' I don't
 
 LOVE, THEX, HAD HOPE OF EICHER STORE. 183 
 
 know tliat I should care about vol-au-vcnt a la 
 Fmanciere, or pdites timhales de gihier for a con- 
 tinuance, and with so many made dishes one has 
 the idea that one is eating up all the cold meat 
 that has accumulated in the last week ; and one gets 
 rather tired of seeing saddle of mutton and boiled 
 fowls everywhere, — for whether you call fowls ]poulets 
 a la BecJmmelle, or chapons en demi-deuil, they are 
 very much the same birds.' 
 
 ' Capons in half-mourning 1 That is funny. Do 
 you know what my favourite dinner is, Sib ? Bul- 
 lock's heart with veal stuffing and currant jelly. Do 
 you ever have that at Colonel Stormont's ? ' 
 
 ' You must never mention such a dish, Jenny. 
 It's positively revolting/ 
 
 'But you used to like it, and liver and bacon, 
 and sheep's head with parsley and butter. But 
 never mind your dinners, tell me about your beaux. 
 Marion says that young Mr. Stormont was in love 
 with her until you lured him away.' 
 
 * Marion is a fool.' 
 
 * You must have lots of lovers now that you go 
 into such grand society, Sib, because you are the
 
 184 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 beauty of the family, you know. We all know that, 
 and that's what makes Marion so cross sometimes. 
 '' I'm nobody," she says ; and then she squeezes her 
 waist in another half-inch, and fancies she has got 
 the better of you. She's awfully proud of her figure, 
 you know.' 
 
 'You mustn't talk disrespectfully of your elder 
 sister, Jenny,' remonstrates Sibyl, yawning. The 
 plebeian two o'clock dinner and the game of croquet 
 in the afternoon sun have made her sleepy. 
 
 ' Then I won't talk of her at all. Tell me about 
 your lovers, Sib, that's a deal more interesting.* 
 
 * Nonsense, child ! I have no lovers.' 
 
 ' But you had one once. Yes, I saw somebody 
 who was in love with you once, though he must 
 have gone down in the world dreadfully since you 
 had had anything to say to him, for he looked 
 little better than a beggar when I saw him.* 
 
 Sibyl has sunk into a reclining attitude, with 
 half-closed eyes, and is dropping into a gentle doze, 
 but at this speech of Jane's she starts into a sitting 
 posture again, and looks intently at her sister, very 
 pale.
 
 lo\t:, then, had hope of eicher store. 185 
 
 ' What do you mean ? * she cries. ' What was 
 he like ? Where did you see him ? ^Tieri ? Tell 
 me all about it this instant/ 
 
 'Ah, I see you know the person I speak of. 
 You wouldn't be in such a way if you didn't. How 
 pale you are, Sibyl ! Do you care for him very much ?' 
 
 'Will you tell me what you are talking about, 
 child ? ' exclaims Sibyl, passionately. 
 
 Jane begins her story with deliberation and im- 
 portance. 
 
 * I have always kept it a secret,' she prefaces, 
 ' feeling that it might get you into a row with uncle 
 and Marion, and I've wanted to tell you about it 
 ever since you came home, but have never had a 
 chance of being alone with you till this afternoon.' 
 
 ' For goodness' sake go on. What was the man 
 like ? ' 
 
 * Very handsome and noble-looking, though his 
 clothes were dreadfully shabby. His coat was shab- 
 bier than uncle's, snuff and all, but it looked as if 
 it had been a more gentlemanly coat in its day ; and 
 as for his poor boots, it made my heart bleed to see 
 them. I wanted to give him my new shilling, one
 
 186 "DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 uncle Eobert gave me on Christmas Day, for it was 
 the day after New Year's Day that I saw the 
 
 man, you know ' 
 
 ' I know nothing. Never mind how you came 
 by the shilling.' 
 
 ' But he pushed away my hand gently, and said, 
 " No, my dear, I'm not a beggar, though I dare say I 
 look like one." ' 
 
 * Poor fellow,' sighs Sibyl. 
 
 * Oh, Sibyl, I did feel so ashamed of myself for 
 having offered him that shilling, — ever so much 
 ashameder than he did,' adds Jenn}^, coining a com- 
 parative in the impetuosity of her speech. 
 
 ' Can't you tell me about it straight — beginning 
 at the beginning ? ' demands Sibyl, impatiently. 
 
 * Well, it was the day after New Year's Day. I 
 detest New Year's Day. Church in the morning, 
 and dulness in the afternoon — and I came into the 
 garden to have a run all by myself, and to get out 
 of Marion's way. It was a little after four, between 
 the lights, you know, and a wretchedly cold after- 
 noon. Well, you know the lane at the bottom of 
 the garden *
 
 LOVE, THEX, HAD HOPE OF RICHER STORE. 187 
 
 ' Of course/ says Sibyl, with an involuntary 
 glance in that direction. Beyond the plot of 
 lucerne there is a low wall, and on the other side 
 of the wall an accommodation road leading to a 
 neighbouring farm. . 
 
 'Well, he was there, looking over the wall, and 
 he beckoned to me. I was afraid at first, thinking 
 he might be a robber, but as I had nothing but my 
 hoop to be robbed of I went up to the wall to look 
 at him, and then I saw somehow in a moment that 
 he was a gentleman, though I am sure you wouldn't 
 have given twopence for his hat/ 
 
 ' What did he say ? ' 
 
 ' He asked me if my name was Faunthorpe, and 
 then if I had a sister called Sibyl. " Yes,'' says I, 
 " but she's away in London.'*' " Where ? " says he. 
 " At Mrs. Hazleton's, Lowther Street, Eccleston 
 Square," says I. " Is that all you know about her ? " 
 says he. ** What more can I know about her ? '"' says 
 I. " She's very happy, I believe, and 'she's very 
 well, — at least, she was when uncle heard from her 
 last." " When was that? " says he. " About throe 
 weeks ago," says I. And then he sighed heavily,
 
 188 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 and he looked so white and tired that I pitied him 
 with all my heart.' 
 
 * Poor fellow/ sighed Sibyl again. 
 
 ' Ah, you do know him then ? ' cries Jane. 
 
 ' How can I tell ? He didn't tell you his name, 
 I suppose.' 
 
 ' Not a bit of it. He asked me a lot of questions 
 about you. Did we expect you home soon ? and so 
 on, but I could tell him no more than I had told 
 him at first. You were at Mrs. Hazleton's, and you 
 were likely to stay there, for anything I knew. I 
 didn't know that uncle Eobert wanted you to come 
 home at that time. They don't take me into their 
 confidence.' 
 
 ' You didn't mention uncle Trenchard ? ' asks 
 Sibyl, with a scared look. 
 
 ' Of course not ; why should I go and mention 
 our rich uncle to a wandering tramp that might go 
 and steal his plate ? At least, I don't mean that, for 
 when once I had heard the poor thing speak it 
 never entered my mind that he was anything but a 
 gentleman. Who is he, Sibyl ? Do tell me. Some 
 one who fell in love with you in London ; saw you
 
 LOVE, THEX, HAD HOPE OF EICHER STORE. 189 
 
 go in by Mrs. Hazleton's carriage perhaps, and fell in 
 love with you at first sight, and followed you about 
 everywhere, and neglected his profession, and went 
 to the dogs for your sake. Do tell me all about him.' 
 
 ' How do I know who the man was ? ' says Sibyl, 
 absently. There is no shadow of doubt in her mind. 
 This wanderer was her husband, who had come to 
 Eedcastle in quest of her. 
 
 ' I'll describe him if you like. I can see him 
 before me at this moment. He is tall and dark, 
 with rather large features, regular features, but 
 striking, not one of those straight-nosed waxwork 
 faces one sees in a hairdresser's shop. His lower 
 lip projects a little, which gives him rather a 
 scornful look till he smiles, and then he has the 
 kindest expression. "Dear child," he said, and 
 patted my shoulder so kindly, " you are just a little 
 like your sister when you look up at me as you are 
 looking now." You won't think that a compliment, 
 I know, Sib, but he said it. Who is he, Sib ? Do 
 tell me.' 
 
 * I have not the remotest idea,' replies Sibyl, 
 with provoking indifference.
 
 190 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ' Come now, you wouldn't have been so agitated 
 when I spoke about him if you hadn't guessed who 
 he was.' 
 
 ' I was not agitated,' says Sibyl, pretending to 
 yawn. 
 
 ' Oh, very well, if you like to tell crammers, of 
 course I can't help it. My experience of elder 
 sisters is that they may break all the command- 
 ments with impunity, and drive a coach and six 
 through the Catechism. I think they wash their 
 hands of Christianity when they're confirmed.' 
 
 ' Jane, you are not only bhisphemous, but you're 
 extremely impertinent, to me' exclaims Sibyl. 
 
 ' Well, if that's all I get for keeping your secrets ! ' 
 
 ' That was wise of you at any rate, Jenny,' says 
 Sibyl, making haste to relent. ' Marion would have 
 made no end of mischief out of nothing. Never 
 mind the man in the lane, dear. We'll forget all 
 about him. He was some foolish fellow, no doubt. 
 And if you'd like a new frock for Sunday, Jenny^ 
 you shall have that pretty checked peach-coloured 
 silk of mine, and I'll get Miss Eylett to make it up 
 for you.'
 
 LOVE, THEX, HAD HOPE OF PJCHER STORE. 191 
 
 ' Oil you dear ! ' cries Jane, crimsoning with 
 rapture. ' That lovely peach-colour ! How sweet I 
 shall look, if — '. with a doubtful look at her well- 
 worn boots — '• if uncle Eobert will only give me 
 new boots.' 
 
 ' If he won't, I know somebody else who will. 
 And, Jenny, if you could contrive to keep your hair 
 a little smoother, and your hands a shade cleaner, 
 you wouldn't be the worst-looking child in Eed- 
 castle,' says Sibyl, drawing her younger sister 
 towards her, and bestowing a condescending kiss 
 upon that young person's forehead. 'Xow mind 
 when you come to afternoon tea with me to-morrow 
 you make yourself look as nice as ever you can.' 
 
 'I'll do my best. Sib, but I know I shall feel 
 shabby before those stuck-up servants. When is 
 uncle Trenchaid going to have Clarion to stay with 
 him again, do you think ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know. That's a question I can't ask 
 him, you see.' 
 
 ' I suppose not ; but Marion's rather cut up at 
 his not inviting her, you know. I say, Sib, I fancy 
 Marion's nose is out of joint since you've come home.'
 
 192 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Sibyl smiles — a self-satisfied smile. She is very 
 sure of her uncle's preference — knows quite well 
 that he considers Marion something of a simpleton, 
 and not a little of a bore. 
 
 ' It isn't my fault, Jenny, if uncle Trenchard 
 likes me best,' she says, complacently. 
 
 The sisters go in to tea after this, Jenny with her 
 arm round Sibyl's waist. 
 
 'I say, Sib, when you're married, and have a 
 beautiful house of your own, you'll have me to stay 
 with you sometimes, won't you ? I'll be good, and 
 keep my hair tidy.' 
 
 * I mean never to marry, Jane ; at least, not 
 during uncle Trenchard's lifetime. I mean to keep 
 his house for him, always.' 
 
 ' But he may live to be ninety — twenty years to 
 come, — and a nice old woman you'd be by that time. 
 Who'd have you then ? You ought to marry now, 
 Sib, while you have such advantages ; that's what 
 uncle Eobert says. Do be married soon, that's a 
 dear, and let me be your bridesmaid — in white 
 muslin over pink silk. Is Frederick Stormont very 
 nice ? '
 
 LOVE, THEN, HAD HOPE OF RICHER STORE. 193 
 
 * He's absolutely detestable/ replies Sibyl, and 
 irnmediately without rhyme or reason bursts into 
 tears. She is thinking of the fond and faithful 
 husband who came to Eedcastle in quest of her, and 
 departed hopeless. ' 
 
 Where is he? what is he doing? how has he fared 
 since that bleak January afternoon when he found 
 his journey had been useless ? Starving, perhaps ; 
 or worse — dead. Slain by his own hand in some 
 dark hour of despair. Has she not reason to fear 
 the worst of one she left without hope ? 
 
 Three days later, by the help of her old ally, 
 Mrs. Hazleton's housemaid, Jane Dimond, Sibyl 
 contrives to insert the following advertisement in 
 the second column of the Times supplement : — 
 
 * S. S. to Alexis. — You are not forgotten. In all 
 I do I am faithful to you and your interests. I 
 look forward to our reunion. Wait and hope, as I 
 do. Write and tell me where you are, and what you 
 are doing, — Address, S. S., Post Office, Hale Street, 
 Pimlico/ 
 
 This advertisement is inserted three times, and 
 the housemaid inquires diligently at the Hale Street 
 VOL. L O
 
 194 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Post Office during the following fortnight for a 
 letter addressed to S. S. No such letter comes, and 
 Sibyl's vague fears of evil are intensified by this 
 ominous silence.
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 THE SWEETS OF LIFE. 
 
 XoT a word has been said by Mr. Trenchard as 
 to bis testamentary intentions in reference to his 
 three nieces, but in the niiod of Eedcastle it is 
 an established fact that Sibyl is to inherit the bulk 
 of her uncle's property. The other two girls will 
 get something, no doubt, ^Irs. Stormont remarks 
 obligingly to Mrs. Groshen, the banker's wife^ as 
 those two ladies take their afternoon tea together, 
 ceremoniously, in the Stormont drawing-room, a 
 spacious apartment with a good deal of white 
 paneling, gold moulding, and looking-glass, and not 
 much besides in the way of furniture, a barren tract 
 of Brussels carpet, with an islet here and there in 
 the shape of sofa, ottoman, or coffee-table. 
 
 'The other two girls will get something, of 
 course — two hundred a year each, perhaps : and a 
 very nice income too, for young women not Kkely
 
 196 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 to marry. But mark my words, Mrs. Groshen, Sibyl 
 is the heiress. Mr. Trenchard positively doats 
 upon her.' 
 
 'Do you think her pretty V asked the banker's 
 wife, languidly. She has been esteemed a beauty 
 in her time, on the strength of an aquiline nose and 
 a large pale blue eye, and she does not particularly 
 approve of these new lights. 
 
 ' Well, yes, decidedly pretty — in her peculiar 
 style. Features rather too sharp, perhaps, and a 
 sad want of colour.' The Miss Stormonts rejoice 
 in vivid complexions. ' But she has fine eyes.' 
 
 'Yes, fine eyes,' assents Mrs. Groshen. 
 
 ' Though I cannot say I like their expression. 
 
 * No more do I,' says Mrs. Groshen, warmly. 
 
 'Perhaps the nicest thing about her is her 
 manner. She has really charming manners.' 
 
 'Ye-es, very agreeable manners,' drawls Mrs. 
 Groshen. 
 
 'If they were not so painfully a,rtificial.' 
 
 'That's the very thing that struck me,' says 
 Mrs. Groshen, brightening. 
 
 The banker's wife rustles home in her silk
 
 THE SWEETS OF LIFE. 197 
 
 attire, and tells Mr. Groshen at dinner liow the 
 Stormonts are trying their uttermost to catch 
 Mr. Trenchard's niece for their empty-headed son 
 Frederick. 
 
 * This Mr. Trenchard is very rich, I suppose ? ' 
 she says, interrogatively. 
 
 * Enormously. I wish he'd keep an account with 
 us,' replies the banker. 
 
 Sibyl accepts all the homage Eedcastle can 
 offer her, with a tranquillity which raises her not 
 a little in the estimation of the elite. She takes 
 Mrs. Stormont's somewhat oppressive kindness as 
 a matter of course, and is unawed ^oy the splendour 
 of the Groshens' dinner-table, which for plate, china, 
 glass, floral decoration, and hothouse fruit, takes 
 precedence of other tables in Eedcastle. 
 
 *1 don't pretend to do things as Mrs. Groshen 
 does,' the Eedcastle matrons inform one another 
 apologetically. 'We can't all be bankers.' 
 
 Mrs Stormont volunteers her services in escort- 
 ing Sibyl to concerts, and other local entertainments 
 which a man of Mr. Trenchard's age may not care 
 to patronize. Stephen Trenchard is quite willing
 
 198 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 that Sibyl should take advantage of these friendly 
 offers, but, to his surprise, and perhaps gratification, 
 the girl refuses. 
 
 ' I am very fond of music, uncle Trenchard,' 
 she says, 'but I shall not go out of an evening 
 without you. That would be a pretty way of 
 keeping you company.' 
 
 * But, my dear, there is some difference be- 
 tween seventy and twenty. Crabbed age and youth 
 cannot dwell together; or if they do, youth must 
 have a holiday now and then.' 
 
 'You are not crabbed, and I am very happy 
 with you/ answers Sibyl. 
 
 'Flatterer,' exclaims Stephen Trenchard, not the 
 less pleased. 
 
 'Artful hussy,' thinks Mrs. Stormont, and by- 
 and-by in the course of that cutting and wounding 
 which passes for conversation in Eedcastle, that lady 
 informs Mrs. Groshen that Sibyl Faunthorpe is 
 one of the deepest girls it was ever her fate to 
 encounter. 
 
 'She'll have that old man's money, my dear, 
 every sixpence,' says Mrs. Stormont, emphatically.
 
 THE s^^^:ETS of life. 199 
 
 ' Then your Fred ought to have her.' 
 
 ' Why, you see, my dear, these Faunthorpes are 
 people of no family.' 
 
 'You mean that he has asked her and been 
 refused,' remarks Mrs. Groshen, astutely. 
 
 * I don't think a Stormont is likely to find him- 
 self rejected by a parish doctor's niece,' replies the 
 colonel's wife, with suppressed indignation. 'As to 
 ]Mr. Trenchard's fortune, it is nothing to boast of 
 after all. It has all come from trade.' 
 
 This is a thrust at the banking business. 
 
 ' I fancy that is the source of most people's 
 money now-a-days,' returns Mrs. Groshen, blandly. 
 ' Professional men seldom seem to have much.' 
 
 Hereupon the two ladies, having indulged in 
 a few friendly passes on their own account, return 
 to the slaughter of the absent, and kiss each other 
 affectionately at parting. 
 
 Sibyl's dissipations are therefore, by her own 
 desire, confined to those festivities to which Mr. 
 Trenchard is bidden, and which take the dignified 
 and substantive form of dinners. No one could 
 think of inviting the master of Lancaster Lodge to
 
 200 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 * come in ' in the evening. Dinners of first quality, 
 Al at Lloyd's, are those to which Mr. Trenchard 
 is bidden, and very splendid are the banquets 
 with which at longish intervals he gratifies his 
 friends in return. Wonderful is the regard which 
 Eedcastle has for Mr. Trenchard, and its eagerness 
 to win and retain his friendship. It is not to be 
 supposed that the elite have any expectation of 
 profiting in a direct manner by his wealth. They 
 have none. But they like to adorn their table with 
 a rich man. They like to put him forward as one 
 of their best friends, and to know that less privileged 
 people are smitten with envy. They invite him 
 very much for the same reason that they buy costly 
 fruit out of season, and waxen blossoms from the 
 hothouse instead of homely roses ripened in the sun. 
 He reflects honour and glory upon themselves. It 
 is a distinction to be on intimate terms with so 
 much money. Mr. Trenchard's Eedcastle friends 
 brag about his wealth as if it were their own, smack 
 their lips as they tell each other his income, and 
 that he has never less than fifty thousand at call, 
 in case some sudden opportunity for a stroke of
 
 THE SWEETS OF LIFE. 201 
 
 business should crop up in Calcutta. Has Stephen 
 Trenchard told his new friends the amount of his 
 income, or the sum he keeps uninvested ? Hardly, 
 for he is the most reticent of men as to his own 
 affairs. But Eedcastle has a knack of evolving facts 
 about other people's business out of its inner 
 consciousness. 
 
 A year has slipped away, unawares almost it 
 seems to Sibyl, despite lurking pangs of remorse, 
 silent hours given to regret. Life at Lancaster 
 Lodge is such an easy thing. It is so pleasant to 
 have everything one desires, to be praised and 
 petted, and invited here, there, and everywhere, and 
 to refuse the most flattering invitations upon the 
 last fashionable absurdity in note-paper. Pleasant, 
 in a word, to be Miss Faunthorpe of Lancaster 
 Lodge, instead of Miss Faunthorpe of nowhere. 
 There is something of the lotus-eater's dreamy 
 idlesse assuredly in this reposeful existence at 
 Lancaster Lodge. 
 
 Conscience has been lapped to sleep before the 
 year is out, and Sibyl has persuaded herself that 
 Alexis Secretan has carved his way to independence
 
 202 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 somehow or other, and is getting on very well 
 indeed in some distant quarter of the globe, whence 
 he will doubtless return by some happy conjuncture 
 of events soon after uncle Trenchard's death, which 
 calamity in the course of nature will come to pass 
 in a few years. 
 
 ' And then we shall both be amply rewarded 
 for the sacrifice we have made in this separation/ 
 muses Sibyl, as if the separation had been a 
 voluntary one on her husband's side as well as her 
 own. 
 
 Mr. Trenchard takes life tolerably easily con- 
 sidering that he has his own way in everything, an 
 indulgence which acts as an irritant upon some 
 dispositions. He is feared and obeyed in his own 
 house, flattered and caressed out of it. His 
 servants work for him as no other man's servants 
 work, and obey, and tremble at his footstep. He 
 accepts all that Eedcastle can give him, dines out 
 a good deal among the elite, tells his prosy old 
 Indian stories again and again, to listeners who 
 always laugh in the right places. He enjoys the 
 homage offered to his wealth, and chuckles over the
 
 THE SWEETS OF LIFE. 203 
 
 weakness of his flatterers as lie drives home with 
 his niece. 
 
 ' If my name were in the Gazette next Wednesday 
 morning, before Wednesday night I should be friend- 
 less/ he says ; ' and the people we have dined with 
 this evening would be gloating over my downfall.' 
 
 ' Oh, uncle ! they would be sorry, surely,' 
 exclaims Sibyl, more for the sake of conversation 
 than from any belief in the good-heartedness of her 
 friends. 
 
 'Sorry that they had been taken in — that they 
 had mistaken a poor man for a rich one, no doubt ; 
 but for me, not a whit. Society in a place like 
 Eedcastle is made up on the co-operative system — 
 is a club to which a man is admitted upon certain 
 understood conditions. The first of these is that 
 he should be well off.' 
 
 ' Luckily you are never likely to put our friends 
 to the test,' says Sibyl. 
 
 ' Of course not. And in the meanwhile there's 
 no harm in calling them friends. One name does 
 as well as another when you are talking of un- 
 realities.'
 
 204 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 The year lias gone, and Marion has not been 
 asked to stay with her uncle Trenchard — a fact 
 which she resents bitterly, and ascribes to double- 
 dealing on the part of Sibyl. She has been at 
 Lancaster Lodge tolerably often, but only as Sibyl's 
 visitor, and although she accepts all Sibyl's invi- 
 tations, it is almost unbearable to be invited and 
 patronized by a sister. Sibyl has established herself 
 as Mr. Trenchard's adopted daughter. He coolly 
 declares that she suits him better than Marion, and 
 that she is to keep his house till she marries. 
 
 ' I suppose I must have made myself very dis- 
 agreeable to him in the three months I spent 
 here,' remarks Marion one bright April afternoon, 
 digging her croquet ball into the ground with mis- 
 used energy. She has come to spend the afternoon 
 with Sibyl. 
 
 'No, dear, I don't think it was so bad as that,' 
 replies Sibyl, graciously ; ' but you didn't succeed in 
 making yourself agreeable to him.' 
 
 * I know I made myself a perfect slave,' 
 complains the injured Marion; 'toasting his news- 
 papers, and running for his slippers, and peeling
 
 THE SWEETS OF LIFE. 205 
 
 walnuts for hini till my fingers were black. I'm 
 sure I don't know what he wants — the nasty old 
 thing ! ' 
 
 • Now really, Marion, I can't consent to hear the 
 best of uncles called names, — on his own croquet 
 lawn, too.' 
 
 ' Very much the best of uncles for you, but give 
 me uncle Eobert/ 
 
 *Well, my dear, you've got him. Haven't I 
 left you in undisturbed possession of our paternal 
 uncle ? ' 
 
 * All I can say is that it is positive injustice, 
 murmurs Marion, as the game proceeds. 
 
 Frederick Stormont strolls in five minutes after- 
 wards and takes a mallet, whereupon the sisters 
 become all smiles and graciousness. He goes in to 
 afternoon tea with them, and they sit on the crimson 
 brocade sofas sipping orange pekoe out of Indian tea- 
 cups, waited on by the most accomplished of foot- 
 men, and discussing the petty gossip of Above and 
 Below Bar. An empty life assuredly. But it is 
 pleasant to sit in a handsome room, almost an 
 indoor garden in its abundance of choicest flowers,
 
 206 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 a sunlit lawn beyond the open windows ; pleasant 
 to be dressed in the last fashion; pleasant to be 
 admired, even though the eyes of the admirer are 
 pale in hue and porcine in shape ; pleasant to feel 
 that in life's eager race one has shot ever so far 
 ahead of one's younger sister. So, at least, feels 
 Sibyl as she accepts Mr. Stormont's vapid homage, 
 and allows Marion to be useful as her foil. 
 
 Mrs. Groshen is strictly incorrect in her con- 
 jecture about this young man's wooing. Frederick 
 has not been rejected by Mr. Trenchard's niece. He 
 has not yet ventured to propose to her, and when 
 pushed hard upon the subject by his father, he 
 always asks for time. 
 
 'I think she likes me,' he says complacently, 
 * but, by Jove, you know it doesn't do for a man to 
 hurry that kind of thing ; you're so impatient, you 
 see, you want a fellow to round the Cape before he's 
 got across the Bay of Biscay. Miss Faunthorpe has 
 a good deal of reserve about her and that kind of 
 thing, and she's just the sort of girl to throw over 
 a fellow who proposed to her before she'd quite 
 made up her mind about liking him.'
 
 THE SWEETS OP LIFE. 207 
 
 ' She's a long time making up lier mind about 
 you/ replies the colonel, pensively. ' And upon 
 my word, you know, Fred, if you don't marry a 
 woman with money you'll have to do something for 
 yourseK. Things can't go on like this much longer. 
 By Jove, you know, you'll have to emigrate. I don't 
 see that there's anything you could do in England, 
 You're too old for the army, or the navy, or the civil 
 service ; you'll have to try the colonies.' 
 
 ' I might do something, kangaroo-shooting in 
 New Zealand,' says Frederick, meditatively. 
 
 * Hang it, sir ! a man can't get his livin' 
 kangaroo-shootin', ' roars the colonel. ' You'd better 
 marry Trenchard's niece.' 
 
 ' She's a very jolly girl,' says Fred, vaguely. 
 He would have called Electra or Antigone, Joan of 
 Arc or Mary Stuart, jolly. He knows no higher 
 praise to bestow on the woman of his choice.
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 MAKING EEADY FOR VICTORY. 
 
 The fair spring days flit by ; the violets and prim- 
 roses, bluebells and wind-flowers, fade in the copses, 
 unseen, unknown, uncared for, save by a few peasant 
 children ; the white blossoms of the pears — the 
 pinky bloom of the apples — have drifted away on 
 the light west winds like summer snow ; ferns 
 uncurl their tender fronds in thicket and lane, and 
 stand up to hail the summer. The cuckoo's last call 
 dies in the silence of the wood, the skylark's clear 
 carol rings out above the tall green corn. Summer 
 has come — summer has come — and the little 
 children of Eedcastle — the children of the com- 
 monality, at least — wander far afield under the mid- 
 day sun, and lose themselves in distant woods, and 
 drain the cup of summer joys to the dregs. The 
 children of the elite regard summer as a period in 
 which they wear starched frocks, find French and
 
 MAKIXG KEADY FOR VICTORY. 209 
 
 German grammar more than usually oppressive, and 
 entertain hopes of going to the sea-side. 
 
 Sibyl welcomes June and the roses with a languic^ 
 greeting. That smooth, easy life has begun to pall a 
 little on Stephen Trenchard's niece. Despite its 
 pleasantness, it is at best a monotonous existence, 
 and youth's eager spirit revolts against monotony. 
 Xot willingly would Sibyl confess even to herself 
 that she is tired of Lancaster Lodge and Eedcastle 
 dinner parties, Eedcastle compliments, Eedcastle life 
 altogether. 
 
 She wishes that her uncle would extend the 
 circle of his acquaintance, yet is obliged to admit 
 that it would not be easy for him to do so at Eed- 
 castle. The county people have not called upon 
 Mr. Trenchard. Aloof in their fastnesses among 
 the hills and moors, the county people refuse to bow 
 to the golden calf, hug themselves in their social 
 privileges, and do not recognise the fact of an old 
 gentleman having made money in India as a reason 
 why they should go out of the beaten track to take 
 notice of him. From their lofty region of territorial 
 estate they look down with an equal disdain upon 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 professional and commercial people wlio live in a 
 town and call five acres of garden and paddock land. 
 Stephen Trenchard's million is nothing to them, or 
 if they think of his wealth at all, it is with resent- 
 ment, as a sign of the times, and an irrefutable 
 proof that England is going to the dogs. 
 
 Perhaps it is the very fact of the county people's 
 exclusiveness which makes Sibyl regard them with 
 a certain amount of interest. Those big broad- 
 shouldered young men she has seen ride past her 
 window in the hunting season, sitting their horses 
 much more easily than Frederick Stormont sits his 
 chair, glorious in ' pink ' and buckskins, loud voiced, 
 large whiskered, seem to her of a different race from 
 young Groshen, or young Stormont, or Dr. Mitsand's 
 pale-faced spectacled son, whose manly vigour has 
 degenerated into brains, Mr. T wells the curate, 
 or Mr. Jewson the lawyer. To her fancy there is 
 something grand about these sons of the soil, a rough 
 nobility, an outspoken contempt for the petty con- 
 ventionalities which constitute the small despotism 
 of Eedcastle society. Ccesar est swpra grammaticam. 
 The county people are above good manners — that
 
 MAKING READY FOR VICTORY. 211 
 
 is to say, good manners as understood in Eed- 
 castle. 
 
 The town and the county meet occasionally 
 in the hunting-field, where the county looks on 
 with a smile at some of the town's feats in horse- 
 manship, leaves the town three fields behind 
 for the most part, and now and then deposits the 
 town in ditches or hangs it out to dry on a stiff 
 bullfinch. 
 
 Twice in every year town and county meet on 
 equal ground. Eedcastle, small and obscure as it is 
 in the eyes of the outer world, boasts a racecourse, 
 and as pretty a course in a small way as any in 
 England. Less than a mile out of the to^\Tl, on that 
 broad open common known as Eedcastle Woods, 
 gleam the white posts of the course, and the white 
 walls of the stand, a permanent and substantial 
 building. Eedcastle has its spring and summer 
 meeting, two days on each occasion — and just the 
 merriest two days in that part of the world. 
 Granted that horses of much weight or prestige 
 rarely appear at Eedcastle ; the fact only leaves 
 the ground open to the horses of the local
 
 212 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 aristocracy, and makes the races so much the more 
 interesting to Eedcastle itself. 
 
 Sibyl has never seen a race in her life, and 
 it was not without a struggle that she declined 
 Mrs. Stormont's invitation to join her party at the 
 spring meeting. Now comes the summer meeting, 
 and another invitation from the leader of Eedcastle 
 society. 
 
 ' Eose and Violet,' the dear girls are named after 
 those favourite flowers — five feet ten each of them, 
 and with the complexions of cookmaids ; — ' Eose 
 and Violet will be so disappointed if you refuse to 
 join our party, my dear Sibyl. Of course I say 
 nothing of Fred's feelings.' 
 
 ' Why don't you go with them, child ? ' asks 
 Mr. Trenchard, when Sibyl reads him the letter, 
 laughing as she reads. 
 
 ' I don't care for pleasures that you cannot share, 
 uncle.' 
 
 ' Nonsense, my dear ! I could share this if I 
 liked. For my part, I could never understand what 
 people could see in a race, unless as a hazardous 
 investment with the possibility of enormous returns.
 
 MAKING EEADY FOR ^^CTOEY. 213 
 
 I can fancy a bookman enjoying the races in a 
 business-like way ; but for people to sit in their 
 carriages to look on at other people winning or 
 losing, and call it pleasure, that passes my compre- 
 hension.' 
 
 ' I should like to see a race for once in my life/ 
 says Sibyl, languishing for any novel sensation that 
 may ruffle the mUl-pond of her existence. 
 
 'Then write and accept Mrs. Stormont's in- 
 vitation, my dear.' 
 
 'You won't think me unkind for going without 
 you?' 
 
 * I should think you much more unkind if you 
 wanted me to go with you.' 
 
 So it is settled. Sibyl tells her dear Mrs. 
 Stormont that she is charmed to accept her kind 
 invitation, and summons Miss Eylett to immediate 
 counsel. She has ever so many pretty dresses in 
 her wardrobe, but she must have something new for 
 this occasion, with a view to crushing dear Violet 
 and Rose by the exhibition of a dress they have 
 never seen before. The invitation has been given a 
 week before the races, so there is time for
 
 214 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 preparation. The council is a solemn one, and by 
 the intensity of Sibyl's desire to look her best may 
 be measured her hatred of dear Eose and Violet. 
 
 'Now mind, Miss Eylett,' she begins, after she 
 has looked through Le Follet and pronounced all the 
 illustrations 'hideous,' 'I must have nothing that 
 can possibly look like a shopkeeper's wife's Sunday 
 gown — no flaming pink or blue that people can see 
 a mile off ' 
 
 * Mauve, or a rich voylet, now,' suggests Miss 
 Eylett, in her persuasive voice. 
 
 'My dear Eylett, mauve and violet are the 
 colours vulgar people choose when they want to be 
 genteel.' 
 
 * A sweet French grey.' 
 
 ' Give me a housemaid's afternoon gown at 
 once.' 
 
 * A cinnamon brown.' 
 
 'A doctor's wife's dinner dress. No, I must 
 have some pale indistinct colour softened with a 
 cloud of India muslin. A dress which looks nothing 
 particular at a distance, but which is fit for a 
 princess when you come to look into it. Mr.
 
 MAKING READY FOR ^^CTORY. 215 
 
 Trenchard gave me an embroidered Indian mnslin, 
 which will be just the thing, over a pale maize 
 corded silk, — you know the shade I mean, straw- 
 colour shot with apricot.' 
 
 Sibyl opens a huge camphor chest, in which 
 she keeps her treasures, and displays a muslin 
 dress fine as a cobweb, and covered with em- 
 broidery. 
 
 'Exquisite !' exclaims Miss Eylett ; 'what taste 
 you have, Miss Faunthorpe ! ' 
 
 She would have been just as enthusiastic had 
 Sibyl suggested pickled-cabbage colour, picked out 
 with pea-green. 
 
 'And you must make me a bonnet exactly to 
 match the dress.' 
 
 ' Of course, Miss Faunthorpe, I'll go round to 
 Carmichael's at once, and see if they've got the 
 colour ; and if they haven't I'll take the three o'clock 
 train to Krampston.' 
 
 This question settled, Sibyl feels easy in her 
 mind, and looks forward to next week with pleasure. 
 The summer is at its hei^^ht — mid Julv, — and a 
 delicious July, warm, dry, ripening roses and
 
 216 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ripening corn, swelling the peaches on the wall, and 
 reddening the apples in the orchard — all the land 
 basking in the sun, and Eedcastle High Street a 
 place to look at blinkingly between two and five 
 in the afternoon, and a burning ploughshare to 
 walk upon. Marion and Jenny come toiling along 
 the sun-baked pavement in the very hottest hour 
 of the afternoon to visit their prosperous sister, — 
 Jane splendid in the peach-coloured silk and new 
 boots, and a hat that is too small for her large round 
 head, with its thick brown hair in curls that no 
 application of the hair-brush will reduce from their 
 disorder to the smoothness of civilization. 
 
 Sibyl receives her sisters languidly, under the 
 plane trees, exhausted by her interview with Miss 
 Eylett, Marion's temper is not improved by the 
 warm walk, or by the labour of getting Jenny up 
 in a style befitting Lancaster Lodge. 
 
 ' There never was such a troublesome child,' she 
 complains as she sinks into a rustic arm-chair, 
 conscious that her face is the colour of a boiled 
 lobster, while Sibyl, in cream-coloured Indian silk, 
 and a turquoise blue sash, is looking divinely pale.
 
 M\KIXG EEADY FOR VICTOKY. 217 
 
 ' Look at her lesfs. She has orrown out of that frock 
 already; and as for ever keeping her decently 
 dressed, I defy you. There's the print of a slice of 
 bread and butter on the front breadth, and smears of 
 marmalade all over the sleeves, thoucrh she's onlv 
 worn the frock on Sundays.' 
 
 * Let her wear it every day find wear it out, 
 says Sibyl, generously ; * she shall have another for 
 best.' 
 
 ' Oh, you dear ! ' cries Jenny ; ' but if you knew 
 what a life Marion leads me when IVe a good frock 
 on you might think it a greater charity never to give 
 me one.' 
 
 'You ungrateful minx,' exclaims Marion, 'didn't 
 I stand half an hour this broiling afternoon doing 
 your hair ? ' 
 
 * PuUing it, you mean,' responds Jenny. ' If 
 you'd combed it with a hay-fork and brushed it 
 with a bush harrow you couldn't have hurt me 
 more.' 
 
 'There's gratitude ! ' ejaculates Marion, pointing 
 to the offender. 
 
 ' My idea of gratitude is thankfulness for things
 
 218 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 we want,' reasons Jenny, who is good at argument. 
 ' I didn't want my hair pulled.' 
 
 ' Well, Sibyl,' says Marion, ' is uncle Trenchard. 
 going to the races ? ' 
 
 Everybody thinks and talks of the races at this 
 time. It is the one subject of conversation in 
 Redcastle. A rare thing for Eedcastle to have so 
 much as one subject of conversation; as a rule, 
 the town contrives to be conversational about 
 nothing. 
 
 ' No, uncle Trenchard hates races. I am going 
 with the Stormonts.' 
 
 'Indeed! I thought you wouldn't go anywhere 
 without your uncle.* 
 
 ' No more I would in an ordinary way, but I felt 
 a kind of interest in the races. One hears so much 
 of them.' 
 
 'I feel a kind of interest in them too,' says 
 Marion, with an injured air. * I've been hearing 
 about Eedcastle races ever since I left school, and 
 yet, living so near, I've never seen them. Uncle 
 Robert has got a pony that would take us, but he 
 has not got the spirit. You might have asked uncle
 
 MAKING READY FOR VICTORY. 219 
 
 Trenchard to let you take us all in his barouche. I 
 dare say uncle Eobert would have gone if you'd 
 taken him.' 
 
 Sibyl looks doubtful as to the delight of such a 
 family party. 
 
 *I've accepted Mrs. Stormont's invitation, you 
 see,' she replies, apologetically. 
 
 ' Oh yes, of course, catch you putting yourself 
 out of the way for anybody ! Another girl in your 
 position might have thought of her poor relations. 
 What are you going to wear ? ' 
 
 Sibyl describes the costume which she and Miss 
 Eylett have arranged that morning. Poor Marion 
 listens in an agony of envy. 
 
 'What a lot of money uncle Trenchard must 
 give you!' she exclaims. 
 
 ' No, he doesn't give me much, but he allows me 
 to keep an account at Carmichael's.' 
 
 ' Well,' sighs Marion, * I would give a year of my 
 life to go to the races this day week.' 
 
 * What a pity our lives are not transferable like 
 railway stock/ says Sibyl, airily. She is not deeply 
 moved by Marion's piteous condition. Her mind
 
 220 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 is occupied with a prophetic vision of her triumphs 
 next Wednesday. She will see and be seen by the 
 county. That idea is more inspiring than the 
 prospect of a day spent with the Stormonts, whom 
 she knows by heart, or even the privilege of behold- 
 ing Mrs. Groshen's raiment, which is sure to be 
 resplendent and of the very latest fashion, however 
 hideous in the abstract and individually unbecoming 
 that fashion may be.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TOWN AND COUNTY. 
 
 A CURIOUS thing happens that evening after 
 dinner. It is Mr. Trenchard's habit to read the 
 daily papers at his ease in the drawing-room as 
 soon as he has withdrawn from the dinner-table ; 
 or, if he is idly disposed, Sibyl reads to him, and 
 beguiles him into placid slumber. This evening he 
 reads the papers for himself, beginning, as usual, 
 with the Times, which he studies profoundly. He 
 sits in his easy chaii^ by one open window. Sibyl 
 yawns over a novel at another. Eather drear}- 
 these summer evenings at Lancaster Lodge, when 
 twilight's purple shadows rise ghost-like among the 
 trees on the lawn, and the gates are closed upon the 
 outer world. Welcome even such commonplace in- 
 terruption as the advent of Frederick Stormont, and 
 an adjournment to the billiard-room. 
 
 Sibyl looks up from her book with a start at a
 
 222 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 sudden movement of her uncle's. What was that 
 half-stifled exclamation which sounded so like an 
 oath ? Stephen Trenchard is standing up, with the 
 paper crumpled in his right hand, staring blankly at 
 his niece. She goes to him, looks at him in 
 frightened interrogation; but he neither sees nor 
 hears her. Is this some kind of seizure, — epileptic, 
 paralytic? She thinks so, tremblingly, for a 
 moment, before Mr. Trenchard's keen black eyes 
 resume their power of vision and look into hers. 
 ' Dearest uncle, what is the matter ? ' 
 * Nothing that need concern you, Sibyl. A friend, 
 an old friend of mine, dead in India. The an- 
 nouncement of his death shocked me, that's all. I 
 ought not to have been surprised. At my age a 
 man must expect old friends to drop off. Go back 
 to your book, my dear. There is no reason for you 
 to be agitated.' 
 
 Sibyl looks wonderingly at the paper in her 
 uncle's hand. It is not the supplement. That, 
 with its births, marriages, and deaths, lies on the 
 carpet imopened. She remembers that the deaths 
 of distinguished people are sometimes recorded in
 
 TOWN AND COUNTY, 223 
 
 the body of the paper, and this friend of her uncle's 
 is doubtless a person worthy of an obituary 
 paragraph. 
 
 •I am so sorry,' she says sympathetically. 
 
 ' So am I. But it was to be expected. Go back 
 to your book, child.' 
 
 Perceiving that sympathy is not required, Sibyl 
 returns to her seat by the distant window. Marion 
 would have hung about her uncle for a quarter of 
 an hour bemoaning his loss and offering stale 
 crumbs of consolation. 
 
 Sibyl hears the door shut ten minutes after- 
 wards, and looking up, sees that Stephen Trenchard 
 has vanished. She hastens to look for the news- 
 papers, eager to find out all she can about her 
 uncle's departed friend ; but Mr. Trenchard has 
 taken the papers with him, and when she searches 
 for them next day in his study and in other likely 
 places, they are not to be found. Xor does Mr. 
 Trenchard reappear that evening. The butler brings 
 Sibyl a message at tea-time to the effect that his 
 master has letters to write, and will take tea in his 
 study. So that particular infusion of hyson with
 
 224 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 which Mr. Trenchard is in the habit of irritating his 
 nerves is carried to the study on a salver, and Sibyl 
 is left to spend her evening alone. 
 
 There are times, on just such an evening as this, 
 when memory recalls that one room in Dixon Street, 
 Chelsea, and his company whose easy temper and 
 natural gaiety of heart could brighten deepest 
 poverty with an occasional ray of light. 
 
 ' If T could have borne poverty as well as he, we 
 might have struggled on together to the end,' she 
 thinks, with a touch of remorse. * But then what a 
 pity it would have been to lose uncle Trenchard's 
 fortune ! How ghastly pale he looked to-night, poor 
 dear man ! ' 
 
 Mr. Trenchard seems a little out of sorts for the 
 next few days, not quite so keen and far-seeing, so 
 exacting or high-handed in his household as it is 
 his wont to be. He has a preoccupied air, a 
 thoughtful look, and is evidently much concerned 
 by the loss of that departed friend whose name he 
 has not mentioned. 
 
 Sibyl wonders at this a little, never having heard 
 Mr. Trenchard talk of any intimate friend in India.
 
 TOWN AXD COUNTY. 225 
 
 He has told numerous stories of Calcutta society, of 
 trade and chicanery in that palatial city ; but of 
 friendship, of intimate congenial companions, he has 
 not breathed a word. Nor in the year and a half of 
 his residence at Eedcastle has a single Anglo-Indian 
 acquaintance visited him. Impossible to imagine a 
 man more independent of friendship, yet he seems 
 cut to the quick by the death of this distant friend, 
 and is slow to recover his equanimity. 
 
 Mrs. Stormont calls about three days before the 
 races, and finds Mr. Trenchard and his niece on the 
 lawn, the gentleman asleep, or meditating, his coun- 
 tenance shrouded by an orange-coloured bandanna, 
 like a new veiled prophet, the lady working point 
 lace at the rate of a stitch a minute. 
 
 The kind soul has come to talk about the races. 
 
 ' I wish you could be induced to join us, dear 
 Mr. Trenchard.' 
 
 'You're very good, my dear madam, but the thing 
 is not in my way. I hardly know whether a horse 
 should have four legs or six. If you were to show 
 me a six-legged animal I doubt if I should remark 
 the redundancy.' 
 
 VOL. T. o
 
 226 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ' And yet you have the finest carriage horses in 
 Eedcastle.' 
 
 ' Because I did not choose them myself, madam.' 
 
 'I shall call for you at half-past twelve, my 
 dear,' says Mrs. Stormont, turning to Sibyl. 'Fred 
 is going to ride. I shall hire Shrub's landau and 
 pair. My poor dear ponies would be frightened to 
 death on a racecourse.' 
 
 Shrub is the proprietor of the George Hotel and 
 livery stables^ and has the honour of ministering to 
 the Mite on all state occasions. 
 
 * Why hire Shrub's landau when my barouche is 
 at your service ? ' asks Mr. Trenchard. ' I shall be 
 glad to give that idle coachman of mine a day's 
 work.' 
 
 'My dear Mr. Trenchard, you are too kind. 
 Such an idea never entered my head.' 
 
 ' Odd if it didn't,' thinks Sibyl, * when you are 
 always making use of the carriage in some way or 
 other.' 
 
 The S torments have allowed Sibyl to drive them 
 a good deal during the last few months, to the in- 
 finite relief of the ponies and the buck-bai^et, both
 
 TOWN AND COUNTY. 227 
 
 of which institutions are slightly the worse for 
 wear. You may get fifteen years' good work out 
 of a pony, but when he approaches his majority 
 his powers are apt to wane. 
 
 Mrs. Stormont allows herself to be entreated, 
 and finally yields gracefully, and with an airy 
 coquetry, but only on condition that Mr. Trench- 
 ard shall dine with them on the race day. This 
 he promises, with certain reservations. 
 
 'If I feel myself up to the mark, I'll come,' 
 he says, 'but I have not been particularly well 
 lately.' 
 
 ' Uncle Trenchard has lost an old friend in 
 India,' explains Sibyl, and seeing her uncle's 
 impatient frown, is sorry she has made the 
 remark. 
 
 'Indeed!' exclaims Mrs. Stormont, thirsting for 
 information. ' In the civil service or the army ? 
 The colonel has so many old Indian friends.' 
 
 * My friend was neither in the civil service nor 
 
 the army,' says Mr. Trenchard, and says no more. 
 
 Mrs. Stormont is disappointed, but she has got 
 
 the carriage, which was the object of her visit, so
 
 228 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 she drifts off into the usual Eedcastle talk. ' Have 
 you seen the Groshens lately V and 'Did you hear 
 that Dr. Mitsand has been very ill V and so on ; 
 with which interesting discourse she beguiles the 
 next half-hour. 
 
 The race day conies with the calendar, and a 
 glorious day, hot blue sky, roads white with dust, 
 grass brown and slippery, bad for the horses, opine 
 the learned in such matters. The grand stand is 
 gleaming in the sun, flags are flying, the town is all 
 astir, flies are driving to and fro between station and 
 racecourse, with visitors from Krampston, people who 
 smell of commerce and dockyard, oakum and tar, a 
 rough lot in the estimation of genteel Eedcastle. At 
 half-past twelve the Trenchard barouche calls for 
 Mrs. Stormont and her two daughters ; Sibyl has 
 taken her place in it already. She wishes to sit with 
 her back to the horses, but this Mrs. Stormont will 
 not allow, and after a little polite skirmishing she 
 takes her place next that lady, the Miss Stormonts 
 side by side on the opposite seat, which they fill 
 to overflowing. On the way to the course the 
 ladies have time for a silent review of each other's
 
 TOWN AND COUNTY. 229 
 
 apparel. Eose and Violet are in washed musKns 
 and home-made bonnets. Mrs. Stormont wears her 
 dove-coloured moire, wdiich is an institution in Eed- 
 castle, and as well known as the town clock. 
 
 ' Here comes Mrs. Groshen's carriage. I suppose 
 she is going to crush us with some new finery,' 
 says Eose, with a venomous look at the maize silk 
 and India muslin. 
 
 'I hope it will be in a little better taste than 
 usual/ remarks Violet, wlio is of a more calculating 
 temper than her sister. ' What lovely embroidery 
 that is of yours, Sibyl! I can't help noticmg it.' 
 
 Frederick joins the party presently, on a brute 
 of a gray horse, whose ownership he participates 
 with young Jewson, the lawyer's son. The joint 
 animal, having very little mouth to speak of at 
 the best, and being ridden on opposite principles by 
 his two proprietors, is about as manageable as a 
 watering-place donkey. Frank Jewson, w^ho is the 
 better equestrian of the co-owners, boasts that he 
 rides with his knees. Fred Stormont hangs on by 
 the reins, and makes the wretched quadruped's 
 mouth his fulcrum. He is not happy on horseback
 
 230 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 himself, or the cause of happiness to his steed, and 
 the joint proprietorship is an extravagance which 
 he can ill afford. But he feels that the horse gives 
 him social status, and endures bravely. The beast 
 is consistent, and starting with a fixed idea that 
 the sooner he gets back to his stables the better for 
 his own well-being, tugs desperately at every turn- 
 ing in the endeavour to make a short cut home, and 
 if confronted in his straight course with any object 
 which he dislikes, wheels sharp round, and sets off 
 at a lively trot stable-wards. The first half-hour of 
 Mr. Stormont's ride is one prolonged tussle with the 
 gray, which, in the pride of their hearts, the joint 
 proprietors have christened Flying Dutchman. 
 
 'The Dutchman is awfully fresh to-day, Fred,* 
 remonstrates Eose, when the gray has backed into 
 the landau half a dozen times, in his efforts to go 
 up every side street or alley ; ' hadn't you better try 
 him on the curb ? ' 
 
 'I think I am riding him on the curb,' says 
 Fred, looking doubtfully at his reins, which are in 
 an inextricable muddle, ' the fact is Jewson spoils 
 his mouth. Yah, you beast, what's the matter
 
 TOWN AND COl^STY. 281 
 
 now ? ' as the Dutchman, taking ohjection to a very 
 small child in a white pinafore, gathers all his legs 
 together, collapses, and scrambles frantically across 
 the street, with a noise as of a detachment of 
 cavalry. 
 
 * Is that a fit ? ' asks Sibyl, when Mr. Trenchard's 
 horses have recovered from their consternation at 
 this manoeuvre. 
 
 * No, it's only a shy. He cannot stand a 
 perambulator.' 
 
 'Nor a woman in a red cloak, nor a baker's cart, 
 nor a washing-basket, nor a chimney sweep, nor a 
 heap of stones, nor an organ,' says Rose, indig- 
 nantly ; ' I never knew such a beast. He'll have 
 your life some day, Fred, I feel convinced.' 
 
 * He's more than half thoroughbred,' says Fred- 
 erick, leaning over to pat the animal's neck — an 
 attention which the Dutchman resents by a sudden 
 slouch forward, and a furious shake of his head, 
 whereby he all but precipitates Fred upon the 
 paving stones. 
 
 'Are you fond of riding?' asks Sibyl, as the 
 horseman pulls himself together, scarlet after his
 
 232 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 struggles with his steed, and settles into a jolting 
 trot beside the barouche. 
 
 *r — p — passion — ate — ly/ says Fred, the syl- 
 lables jerked out of him piecemeal by the gray. 
 
 ' But that seems rather an uncomfortable horse 
 to ride.' 
 
 'He's a little fidgety in the town, but he's 
 splendid when you get him on the turf. You 
 should see him in a stretching gallop across the 
 grass/ 
 
 Mr. Stormont omits to state that in these 
 stretching gallops he is entirely at the Dutchman's 
 mercy, and suffers abject terror. 
 
 They turn out of the Market-place presently, 
 into a broad lane leading to the woods — a lane 
 in which there are nice old houses on one side, 
 and orchards on the other, and at the top of this 
 lane they come out upon that open stretch of 
 greensward, with a hollow full of hazel bushes, 
 hawthorn, and blackberry here and there, which 
 is dignified with the name of Redcastle Woods. 
 
 Youder towers the stand, white in the sun- 
 shine, flags blue, red, and yellow, fluttering gaily.
 
 TOWN AND COUNTY. 233 
 
 the oval course on the southern side of a slope, 
 and a fringe of carriages and smartly dressed people 
 — a simple rustic racecourse, with its local gentry, 
 and sprinkling of citizens from busy Krampston. 
 
 The Stormont barouche takes its position among 
 the great ones of the land, and by good luck finds it- 
 self in the very lap of the county. The magnates of 
 Kedcastle are six, carriages off, Mrs. Groshen becking 
 and nodding at her friends, gorgeously arrayed in 
 a brilliant mauve silk, which glistens in the sun, 
 and a bonnet loaded with feathers. 
 
 There are many greetings between Mrs. Stor- 
 mont and her neighbours — for the Stormonts occupy 
 the border line of Eedcastle society, and are gra- 
 ciously regarded by the county families. Loud ' how 
 d'ye do's ' are uttered by the occupants of a tall 
 coach next door to the barouche, two young men 
 and two young women are seated on the box — the 
 men in homespun tweed, the women in brown 
 holland and brown straw hats. Two grooms in 
 dark green, and mahogany tops, are in attendance. 
 
 •Are we going to have some good racing. Sir 
 Wilford ? ' asks Mrs. Stormont, radiant at finding
 
 234 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 herself in such good company, and Mrs. Groshen 
 afar off like Dives. The bigger of the gray men 
 answers in a loud good natured voice, dropping 
 lightly down from his perch, and coming close to 
 the barouche. 
 
 ' Not much fun, I'm afraid ; wretched lot of 
 leather platers. Going to speculate, Miss Stormont? 
 Better put something on Stagheen for the Cup. 
 Sure to win.' 
 
 He addresses himself to the fair Eose, shaking 
 hands with her the while, but he looks at Sibyl. 
 That delicate clear-cut face, with its brown eyes, is 
 strange to him, and in a place where everybody knows 
 everybody else that is enough to awaken interest. 
 
 Sibyl remembers him as one of the hunters she 
 has seen ride past the walls of Lancaster Lodge, 
 clad in weather-stained scarlet. 
 
 He is tall — six feet two — broad shouldered, with 
 the frame of an athlete. He has shaggy brown hair, 
 shaggy brown moustache, good-humoured gray eyes, 
 a common-place nose, a good, firm mouth, and 
 strong square chin, large hands in well-worn tan 
 "loves.
 
 TOWX AND COUNTY. 235 
 
 'Sir Wilford Cardonnel, Miss Fauntliorpe,' says 
 Mrs. Stormont, graciously. 
 
 Sir Wilford takes off his hat and looks pleased, 
 but is . little wiser than ^before. This name of 
 Faunthorpe means nothing for him. 
 
 ' Fond of racing ? ' he inquires, following up the 
 introduction. 
 
 'This is the first time I was ever at a race/ 
 replies Sibyl. 'But I think I shall enjoy it very 
 much. 
 
 *Then you don't belong to this part of the 
 country, I suppose ? We Yorkshire folks are 
 always going to races.' 
 
 'Yes, I have lived in Eedcastle ever since — or 
 almost ever since, I left school.' 
 
 ' And have never come to the races ? ' 
 
 *I couldn't get anybody to bring me/ replies 
 Sibyl, frankly. ' Neither of my uncles care about 
 races. Good gracious ! ' 
 
 This exclamation is evoked by a most startling 
 apparition on the other side of the course, exactly 
 opposite the barouche. A shabby old pony carriage, 
 quite the most ancient vehicle of its kind in Ked-
 
 236 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 castle, a dilapidated, unkempt pony, with his nose 
 in a nose-bag, an elderly gentleman in a discoloured 
 white hat, a young woman in pink muslin, and a 
 girl of nondescript appearance, in short petticoats, 
 standing on the back seat of the pony carriage, in 
 order the better to survey the brilliant scene, and 
 making a positively awful exhibition of her legs. 
 
 These are uncle Eobert, Marion, and Jenny. 
 Sibyl beholds them with unmitigated consternation. 
 She will be obliged to acknowledge them presently, 
 to avow her relationship to that wretched chaise, 
 that odious pony, in the face of the county 
 families, nay, the highest and mightiest of the 
 high and mighty — the Cardonnels of the How, 
 people she has heard the Stormonts talk about 
 with as much reverence as if they had the pros- 
 perity of the county in their keeping, wound up 
 the sun like a clock, and turned on the rain 
 from a tap in their custody. 
 
 'This is Marion's doing,' thinks Sibyl, indig- 
 nantly. 'That girl is capable of anything. To 
 think that they must needs come and perch 
 themselves exactly opposite us ! '
 
 TOWN AXD COUNTY. 237 
 
 There seems deliberate malice in the act. A 
 few minutes ago there was only empty space where 
 the pony-chaise stands now. The chaise has been 
 placed there since the arrival of the barouche. 
 
 Dr. Faunthorpe surveys his niece's party mildly 
 through his spectacles ; ]\Iarion nods and kisses her 
 hand ; but Sibyl, once having seen her danger, looks 
 every way except towards the doctor's chaise. 
 Jenny, more energetic than her elders, is not to be 
 baffled. Finding nods and hand-kissing unnoticed, 
 she raises her shrill young voice, and screams, 
 * Sibyl, Sibyl ! Look this way, Sibyl.' 
 
 ' Who is that leggy child calling ? ' asks Sir 
 Wilford, looking at Jenny through his race-glass, 
 which brings her to the end of his nose. ' What an 
 excitable young person ! And what a funny party ! 
 A little old man in spectacles and a white hat, a tall 
 young woman with ginger hair, and that leggy child 
 dancing about upon the cushions. And what a 
 pony ! The very one Xoah had in the ark, I should 
 think." 
 
 Sibyl grows crimson. Can she acknowledge her 
 kith and kin after this ? While she hesitates, ^Irs.
 
 238 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Stormont raises her gold-rimmed binoculars, and 
 scrutinizes the opposite party. 
 
 ' Why, my dear/ she exclaims, not sorry to set 
 off any obligation involved in the loan of the 
 barouche by the humiliation of its owner, ' it's that 
 dear, good little man, Dr. Faunthorpe, and your 
 sisters. I wonder you didn't recognise the pony; 
 there's not another like him in Kedcastle.' 
 
 ' Is that little girl your sister ?' says Sir Wilford. 
 * I beg your pardon and hers if I said anything 
 impertinent. She seems a fine, high-spirited girl, 
 but in an awful state of excitement. Shall I bring 
 her across to you ? She wants to speak to you, I 
 fancy.' 
 
 ' Oh, pray leave her where she is,' replies Sibyl. 
 'She's a dreadful nuisance. There, there, child,' 
 nodding to the obnoxious hoyden ; ' won't that do ? ' 
 
 Jane kisses her hand again vehemently, and 
 having succeeded in attracting her sister's attention, 
 seems tolerably resigned. 
 
 Sibyl feels that her maize- coloured silk and India 
 muslin, the barouche, and all things are a failure 
 after this. And there are the Miss Cardonnels in
 
 TOWN AND COUXTY. 239 
 
 their plain hoUand gowns, with satchels at their 
 waists, brown hats, brown feathers, brown hollaud 
 umbrellas — singularly plain attire, which looks in 
 better form for a racecourse than Sibyl's flower-show 
 costume. 
 
 Sir Wilford stands by the barouche for an hour 
 or more, and tells Sibyl all about the horses. He 
 devotes himself to her almost exclusively before the 
 face of Eedcastle. Fred Stormont, pounding rest- 
 lessly about upon the gray, and bringing that excited 
 animal to anchor beside the barouche, when he can, 
 feels that he is nowhere, and begins to think that he 
 has erred on the side of caution and hesitancy in 
 his wooing of Stephen Trenchard's niece. 
 
 The races may not be good races from a profes- 
 sional point of view, — the horses may be the very 
 refuse of famous stables, but the excitement and 
 exhilaration of the crowd are not lessened by that 
 fact. No weighty stakes are lost or won, but every 
 one seems happy. Broad grins are the only w^ear. 
 There is a great deal of picnicking between the 
 races, and people who would have lived through the 
 day at home on a biscuit and a glass of sherry, do
 
 240 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 wild things in the consumption of lobster salad, 
 chicken, mayonnaise, and pigeon pie. 
 
 Mrs. Stormont has provided the most refined of 
 baskets, — delicate papers of anchovy and chicken 
 sandwiches, fragile biscuits, some choice fruit, and a 
 bottle of dry sherry. These favours she dispenses 
 to her iDarty, while Sir Wilford and his people are 
 devouring their lobster salad on the roof of the drag, 
 enlivened by a running fire of champagne corks. 
 
 Fred, roving to and fro on the gray, declines the 
 maternal sherry. 
 
 'No thanks, mother; when I'm dry myself I 
 don't want my wine dry. Ill go and do a bitter at 
 the stand presently.' 
 
 Sibyl has gradually recovered that death-blow 
 of the pony carriage. Sir Wilford Cardonnel's 
 attentions have put her in good humour. It is as if 
 some prince of the blood-royal had paid her homage 
 in the presence of his subjects, and she knows that 
 Mrs. Groshen and Mrs. Marlin Spyke, the Miss 
 Jewsons, and above all dearest Eose and Violet, will 
 be provoked to envy by the distinction thus con- 
 ferred upon her. Indeed, dear Eose's brow has a
 
 TO^TT AND COrXTY. 241 
 
 cloudy look already, and Violet is snappish. Only 
 Mrs. Stormont preserves her equanimity, and smiles 
 upon the baronet when he re- descends from the drag 
 and takes up his position again beside the barouche. 
 
 Sibyl's ignorance of racing matters is curiously 
 attractive to him from its novelty, his sisters being 
 learned in the minutest details of the turf, and as 
 well up in stable talk as their brother's stud groom, 
 under whom they have graduated. He lingers by 
 her side till the races are nearly over, and his 
 grooms go to fetch the horses. The important duty 
 of seeing these animals put to distracts him a little, 
 but he comes back again at the last to say good-bye 
 to ^Irs. Stormont and her daughters and to Sibyl. 
 
 ' I should like you to know my sisters,' he says, 
 * I am sure you'd suit each other,' — a mendacious 
 assertion inspired by the exigencies of the situation, 
 Sir WiKord knowing very well that town and 
 county have seldom an idea in common. He has 
 not ventured to bring about an introduction on the 
 course, his sisters being at an inconvenient altitude, 
 and of an uncertain temper. But he feels that he 
 must contrive to see more of ]\Iiss Faunthorpe some- 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 242 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 how or other. Who can she be ? She is too richly- 
 dressed for a governess, and the Stormonts are too 
 civil to her. Yet she must be a nobody, or Mrs. 
 Stormont would have taken care to parade her 
 people. He resolves to call on the Stormonts in a 
 day or two, and find out all about their protegee ; 
 and sustained by this resolution, he takes his 
 reluctant leave. How splendid his coach looks to 
 Sibyl ! the four broad-chested bays, with their honest 
 English-looking heads, horses that mean work, the 
 steel chains, the black harness, austerely simple in 
 its mounting, the grooms in Lincoln green, the two 
 girls in brown holland nodding good-bye to the Stor- 
 monts as Sir Wilford drives away, making a wide 
 sweep upon the turf, his horses going as if this was 
 the happiest moment of their lives, his grooms 
 climbing into their places after the team has started, 
 with some hazard of life and limb, but with honaur 
 to themselves. 
 
 ' Charming man, Sir Wilford Cardonnel,' says Mrs. 
 Stormont. * The Cardonnels are one of the oldest of 
 our county families. How do you like him, Sibyl ? ' 
 
 * He seems good-natured,' replies Sibyl, carelessly.
 
 TOWX A^D COUNTY. 243 
 
 ^Miat are the Cardonnels to her ? and what avails 
 this young man's admiration, save to flaunt in the 
 face of her acquaintance ? Her name is written 
 in the Book of Fate, and in the registers of 
 St. Apollonius, Pimlico. 
 
 ' The soul of good nature. His sisters are 
 charming too ; great friends of Eose and Violet's.' 
 
 * Uncommon intimate,' says Fred, who has 
 dragged that unyielding gray np to the carriage once 
 more. * They see one another twice a year, I should 
 think. For my part, I detest the county people. 
 They're a parcel of narrow-minded snobs, who think 
 the beginning and end of life is to ride straight to 
 hounds.' 
 
 Having relieved his jealous pangs by this 
 vindictive burst, Fred goes to look after Mr. Tren- 
 chard's horses, and presently the barouche falls in 
 with the line of vehicles driving towards the town, 
 Fred and the gray in attendance, that animal 
 suddenly amenable to reason now that he is going 
 back to his stable. 
 
 Sibyl drives home with the Stormont?, with 
 whom she is to dine.
 
 244 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 *I do hope your dear uncle will join us at 
 dinner/ says Mrs. Stormont. 
 
 That hope is nipped in the bud, for among the 
 day's letters Mrs. Stormont finds a note from 
 Stephen Tren chard: — 
 
 'Dear Mrs. Stormont, 
 
 * I do not feel well enough to avail myself of 
 your] kind invitation for this evening, so must ask 
 you to excuse me. I will send the carriage for Sibyl 
 at half-past ten. 
 
 * Yours very truly, 
 
 'Stephen Trenchard.' 
 
 * I'm afraid your uncle is breaking up, my dear,' 
 remarks Mrs. Stormont with a sigh. 'I saw a 
 change in him when I called the other day.' 
 
 ' That is strange,' says Sibyl, ' for he has not been 
 actually ill. He has not kept his room for a single 
 day.' 
 
 * He is a man of iron nerves, my love, and would 
 be reluctant to give way to illness, but I feel sure 
 that he is declining. At his age, and after a life in
 
 TOWN AND COUNTY. 245 
 
 India, you cannot expect to have him with you 
 many years.' 
 
 Sibyl looks grave. No, she has not counted on 
 her uncle living many years, or at least when she 
 deserted her husband she told herself that the old 
 man's life could be but brief, and that a few years of 
 patience would be rewarded by fortune and inde- 
 pendence for all her life to come. But since she has 
 lived with uncle Trenchard she has been inclined to 
 think differently. In his wiry frame and active 
 habits, his temperance, his iron nerves, there seems 
 the promise of life prolonged to its utmost limits. 
 He may live to be ninety, and she be almost an old 
 woman ere she reap the wages of her toil ; and in 
 that case what is to become of Alexis ? 
 
 Mrs. Stormont's remark inspires a new hope. 
 The end may not be so far off after all. She is not 
 ungrateful to her uncle, she is not without some 
 kind of affection for him, but the hope of reunion 
 with her husband, of forgiveness and atonement, is 
 sweet.
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 A MYSTEEIOUS VISITOE. 
 
 The dinner at the Stormonts is as other dinners in 
 the same house. The guests are Mr. and Mrs. 
 Groshen, Dr. and Mrs. Mitsand, and one Miss 
 Mitsand, the ugliest, as Fred remarks with a sense of 
 injury. The flower-pots on the table, the silver 
 dishes, the ruby hock glasses, the finger-glasses en- 
 graved with the Greek key pattern, the talk, the 
 twaddle, Mrs. Groshen's Honiton lace, how well 
 Sibyl knows them all ! She breathes a sigh for the 
 days that are gone, before that slow, pompous 
 banquet is ended, and thinks that after all there was 
 more pleasure in a haddock and a cup of tea in 
 Dixon Street than in all this provincial splendour. 
 The talk is chiefly of the races, who was there 
 and who was not there. The county families are 
 brought on the table, and discussed fully, together 
 with their genealogies, which are as well known and
 
 A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. 247 
 
 as complicated as if they were Greek heroes or 
 demigods. 
 
 Mrs. Stormont praises Sir Wilford Cardonnel, 
 and those dear girls his sisters, and talks of the 
 rose-garden and ferneries at the How ; whereby she 
 bears down rather heavily upon Mrs. Groshen, who 
 has never been bidden to that earthly paradise. Mr. 
 Groshen opines that Sir Wilford is better off than 
 most of the county people, whom he disparages as a 
 shabby lot, but adds that at the rate Sir Wilford is 
 going on wdth his drags and hunters he is likely to 
 outrun the constable before he is many years older. 
 
 That the evening entertainment which follows 
 the feast is dull, not even Mrs. Stormont's dearest 
 friend Mrs. Groshen could deny, were her views 
 taken on the subject. 
 
 Sibyl knows every piece of furniture in the 
 drawing-room by heart, every photograph in the 
 album. She knows the Miss Stormonts' favourite 
 fantasias better than those performers themselves, 
 or they would play more correctly. She knows 
 exactly how she will be asked to play one of her 
 lovely pieces, or to sing one of her sweet songs, and
 
 248 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 how the young ladies will pretend to delight in 
 Chopin, and the elders praise her wonderful 
 ' fingering/ and how stifled yawns will at intervals 
 prevail among the company. She knows how Violet 
 will tell her about some new fern she has discovered, 
 'such a darling '; and how Rose will ask her if she is 
 gomg on the Continent this year,' and will then 
 favour her with some interesting facts about her 
 Swiss tour with papa three years ago. 
 
 What a blessed relief when the clock on the 
 mantelpiece strikes eleven ! Sibyl has been wonder- 
 ing for ever so long why her carriage has not been 
 announced. 
 
 * Dear Mrs. Stormont, I think they must have 
 forgotten me,' she says. *But we are such near 
 neighbours, I can walk home easily.' 
 
 *My love, it is quite early; don't talk of going ; 
 the carriage will come for you, I am sure. We want 
 another of those delicious sonatas. Not going, 
 surely, Mrs. Groshen,' cries Mrs. Stormont, re- 
 joicing in her soul to see the banker and his wife 
 advancing to her, stately and smiling, to tell her 
 that they have spent * a most enjoyable evening.'
 
 A MYSTEKIOUS VISITOE. 249 
 
 Every one discovers that it is friglitfully late. 
 No one would have supposed it for an instant. 
 How swift are the pinions of Time when pleasure 
 quickens them ! 
 
 IVIrs. Stormont, pressed by Sibyl, makes an 
 inquiry about Mr. Trenchard's carriage. It has not 
 come. 
 
 * We walked here,' says Mr. Groshen. 'Matilda 
 grumbled about her dress, but I wouldn't have my 
 horses harnessed again after they had come from the 
 racecourse, and I couldn't have them standing in 
 harness while she changed her dress. It is no use 
 having fine horses if you don't study them a little. 
 And we're such near neighbours. We'U take care of 
 you, Miss Faunthorpe, if you don't mind walking.' 
 
 *I should like it,' says Sibyl, with a longing 
 look at the cool purple night beyond the open 
 window of the gaslit room. 
 
 Fred springs up eagerly from the ottoman on 
 which he has been sitting in patient attendance on 
 the unattractive Miss Mitsand. 
 
 *Let me see you home, Miss Faunthorpe. I 
 shall be delighted.'
 
 250 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 Sibyl runs away to put on her bonnet, and tbe 
 guests issue forth in a bevy. Dr. Mitsand's useful 
 brougham is waiting, the others walk home in the 
 tranquil perfumed air. Fred offers his arm, which 
 Sibyl accepts with the infinite ease of indifference. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Groshen make themselves agreeable 
 by walking on briskly. 
 
 'Isn't it a lovely night?' gasps Fred, rapturously. 
 
 * Yes, it's very fine. We generally have nice 
 evenings in June.' 
 
 *Ye-es,' replies Fred, after judicious consider- 
 ation. ' I think we do. Nice long evenings, at any 
 rate. The twenty-first being the longest day, of 
 course, is a reason. Nice month for races, too ; 
 but rather rainy sometimes, don't you think ? ' 
 
 Sibyl concedes the point. 
 
 'I remember one wet June — poured all the 
 month — regular cats and dogs. The racecourse was 
 a morass; of course the heaviest timbered horse 
 won. Here we are, I declare, close to Lancaster 
 Lodge ! How I wish it was further off ! ' 
 
 * Not very flattering to me to wish us less near 
 neighbours/ says Sibyl, laughing.
 
 A MYSTERIOUS YISITOE. 251 
 
 ' Oh, come now, Miss Faunthorpe, you know I 
 don't mean that ; but just for to-night, for the sake 
 of prolonging this delightful walk.' 
 
 * Don't talk nonsense, please/ says Sibyl. ' And 
 be kind enough to ring the bell.' 
 
 They are standing at the gate by this time, and 
 Fred lingers, as if loth to perform that necessary 
 duty. 
 
 He rings, and the lodgekeeper opens the side 
 gate. Sibyl offers Mr. Stormont her hand on the 
 threshold, but gives him no invitation to enter the 
 domain. 
 
 * Good night,' she says, and then cries suddenly, 
 * Do you hear that ? ' 
 
 It is a most melodious jng-jugging from a dark 
 clump of chestnuts near the gate. 
 
 *I hear something chirping,' replies Fred, 
 dubiously. 
 
 ' It's the nightingale. It sings every night just 
 at tliis time. Isn't it exquisite ? ' 
 
 * Ptather throaty,' says Fred. 
 
 * Good night,' repeats Sibyl, shutting the gate in 
 his face.
 
 252 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 'Horrid young man ! ' she ejaculates. 
 
 How dark, and cool, and silent, save for those 
 nightingales, the grounds are to-night ! She is in no 
 hurry to go into the house. The dewy turf, the tall 
 black trees standing out against a sky of mixed light 
 and colour, the moon rising grandly above the elms 
 yonder, just where the Lancaster Lodge grounds 
 meet the edge of Redcastle Park, Sir John Boldero's 
 domain — all is beautiful, 
 
 Sibyl walks slowly along the shrubberied drive, 
 and round to the lawn behind the house, that wide 
 sweep of velvet grass upon which she and her uncle 
 spend the summer afternoons. Mr. Trenchard's 
 study is on this side of the house. The lighted 
 windows inform Sibyl that he has not yet retired for 
 the night. 
 
 The study opens on the lawn by a half-glass 
 door. She can go into the house this way, and 
 surprise her forgetful uncle by her return, and tell 
 him all about her day, about Sir Wilford Cardonnel's 
 attentions, of which she is proud. She thinks it 
 will please her uncle to know that one of the 
 magnates of the land has admired her.
 
 A MYSTEKIOUS VISITOR. 253 
 
 She goes towards this glass door, but makes a 
 dead stop before one of the study windows, startled 
 by what she sees there. It is nothing very remark- 
 able, perhaps, at the first showing, only uncle 
 Stephen and a stranger; but the stranger is no 
 ordinaiy person, and there is that in Stephen 
 Trenchard's face which makes the scene remarkable. 
 
 The lamp burns brightly on the of&cial-looking 
 table, which is spread with papers — formidable- 
 looking papers, bristling with figures, ruled with red 
 ink. They are laid open, as if for inspection, and 
 among them lies an open ledger. 
 
 Sibyl has no experience which can teach her the 
 exact nature of these papers, but she knows instinc- 
 tively that they must have some relation to 
 commerce. 
 
 Stephen Trenchard's face is black as thunder. 
 His left hand lies on that open ledger ; with the 
 right he points to a column of figures, running his 
 square forefinger down the column with a vicious 
 dig of the nail here and there, as much as to say, 
 * Look at that, sir, and at that ! ' and * What do you 
 say to that ? '
 
 254 DEAD MEN'S SHOES. 
 
 The stranger stands at Mr. Trenchard's elbow. 
 He is a foreigner — an Oriental — Sibyl thinks, 
 though his plain and faultless clothes are perfectly 
 English. He has a dark olive skin, eyes black as 
 night, an aquiline nose, a narrow oval face, and silky 
 blue-black hair. He is something less than middle 
 height, stout, and sleek. His lips move softly, and 
 his plump yellow hand seems to expostulate as 
 Stephen Trenchard scowls at the figures. 
 
 * Who can he be ? ' wonders Sibyl, abandoning 
 all intention of seeing her uncle to-night. *Some 
 Indian friend of uncle Stephen's, I suppose. But 
 what can all those papers mean, and why does uncle 
 Stephen look so angry ? He looked just like that 
 when he spoke of Philip Secretan.' 
 
 She goes round to the front of the house. The 
 hall door is open, and the footman is airing himself 
 on the threshold, listening to the nightingales. 
 
 * Why wasn't the carriage sent for me ? ' asks 
 Sibyl. 
 
 * Indeed, ma'am, I don't know. Was it ^ordered ? ' 
 ' I suppose so. Mr. Trenchard said he would 
 
 send it.'
 
 A MYSTERIOUS YISITOR. 55 
 
 'I'm afraid master must have forgotten, 
 ma'am. I didn't take no message to the coachman. 
 Perhaps it was the gentleman coming to see him 
 that put it out of his mind.' 
 
 'I suppose so. Who is the gentleman? Do 
 you know ? ' 
 
 ' No, ma'am, there was no name given. The 
 gentleman came after dinner, about nine o'clock. 
 He came from London, I believe. The London 
 train hadn't been long in when he came, and he's 
 been with Mr. Trenchard ever since.' 
 
 *Is he going to stay here to-night?' 
 
 'I don't know, ma'am. There's been nothing 
 said, but Mrs. Skinner had the Blue Eoom got 
 ready in case it should be wanted, as a premonitory 
 measure.' 
 
 Sibyl yawns languidly, and goes upstairs to her 
 own room, puzzled, but not seriously disturbed. This 
 stranger has come on some business errand evidently. 
 She knows that her uncle's temper is not par- 
 ticularly placid, and concludes that he has been 
 irritated by some vexation of a commercial character. 
 Yet she cannot understand how this can be, since
 
 256 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 she has been taught to believe that Mr. Trenchard 
 has retired from business. 
 
 Curiosity would impel her to await the stranger's 
 departure in the drawing-room, or to discover 
 whether he is to remain for the night ; but she does 
 not care to encounter her uncle in his present 
 temper, and he would doubtless be offended by 
 anything that could look like espionage. 
 
 It is nearly midnight when she goes to her 
 room. Her windows open on the garden, and are 
 above those of the study. She seats herself by an 
 open window, and looks out into the cool, shadowy 
 garden. Presently she hears a voice raised in anger, 
 her uncle's voice, she knows ; but the stranger's 
 tones never reach her ear. 
 
 ' His voice is like his looks, I dare say,' she 
 thinks, ' soft, and silky, and cunning. I shouldn't 
 think he was the kind of man uncle Trenchard 
 would trust.' 
 
 She wastes more than an hour in undressing, 
 brushing her hair, putting away her finery. The 
 clocks strike one, but those lighted windows still 
 shine upon the dark turf below.
 
 A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. 257 
 
 * What a long interview ! ' she thinks. ' This 
 Indian gentleman must surely be going to stay all 
 night. He would never leave the house at such an 
 hour as this.' 
 
 She falls asleep at last, worn out by the fatigues 
 of the day, but at the last moment hears that angry 
 voice of her uncle's suddenly raised in a gust of 
 passion. 
 
 She wakes next morning with an uneasy sense 
 of somethinc^ havinq- aone wrongj • but it is some 
 moments before that scene in the room beneath 
 flashes back upon her. 
 
 ' Who can that man be ? ' she asks herself again, 
 ' and why was uncle Trenchard so angry ? Some 
 Indian merchant, perhaps, to whom he has lent 
 money. The loss of a few thousands ought not to 
 make him so angry. It must be like a drop in the 
 ocean compared with his immense wealtL But 
 then I know he is fond of money, and that it pains 
 him to part even with a ten-pound note.' 
 
 She dresses, and goes down to the dining-room, 
 looking as fresh as the newly opened roses, to which 
 the nightingale sings at sundown. Mr. Trenchard is 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 in his accustomed seat, the big crimson morocco 
 arm-chair drawn into the bay-window. The sashes 
 are up, and the sweet morning air comes in across 
 the flower-beds. Eight o'clock is the hour for 
 breakfast, winter and summer, at Lancaster Lodge, 
 and unpunctuality is little less than a crime in the 
 eyes of Stephen Trenchard, who is usually dressed 
 in his blue frock coat and nankeen waistcoat and 
 trousers by six, and prowling about the grounds to 
 the discomfiture of his gardeners. 
 
 He is a shade paler than usual, and has purple 
 shadows under his eyes. His hand shakes a little, 
 Sibyl thinks, as he turns the leaves of the Man- 
 chester daily, which he reads every morning before 
 breakfast. The face he turns to her as she bends 
 over him to administer her morning kiss has an 
 old and wan look in the sunshine. Can it be that 
 Mrs. Stormont is right, and that Stephen Trenchard 
 is breaking up ? ' 
 
 There are no early prayers at Lancaster Lodge. 
 Mr. Trenchard has his ideas upon religion, and his 
 own particular creed by which he is to stand or fall, 
 no doubt ; but whatever these are, he keeps them
 
 A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. 259 
 
 strictly to himself. He never goes to church, a 
 neglect of duty which in a person of Mr. Trenchard's 
 consequence Redcastle regards as an eccentricity, 
 but which would make a social outlaw of a small 
 butcher or baker. He has no objection to Sibyl's 
 attendance at the minster, where she exhibits the 
 latest fashions on Sunday mornings. He is no 
 declared infidel. He simply ignores religion, as a 
 thing he has been able to dispense with all his life. 
 Sibyl takes her place before the silver urn, and 
 begins the business of tea-making. Mr. Trenchard 
 drinks green tea unmixed with black, and is very 
 particular about the preparation of the beverage. 
 Marion has never succeeded in pleasing him in this 
 matter. Sibyl has never failed. 
 
 * You are looking so tired this morning, dear 
 uncle ! ' she says, in her soft winning voice. ' You 
 were up very late last night, were you not ? ' 
 
 * How do you know that ? You were in bed, I 
 suppose ? ' 
 
 ' Not till twelve o'clock. I stayed rather late at 
 the Stormonts, thinking you would send the carriage 
 for me.'
 
 260 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 ' The carriage ? ah, to be sure. I forgot.' 
 
 ' It didn't matter in the least. I walked home. 
 That horrid Fred brought me. Such a lovely night, 
 the walk would have been delightful with any one 
 else.' 
 
 * Ah, you don't like young Stormont ? ' says Mr. 
 Trenchard, looking sharply at her. ' I'm glad of it, 
 child. He's a genteel pauper at best. You must 
 marry some one better than that.' 
 
 Sibyl pales at the mention of marriage. 
 
 ' I don't mean to marry at all, uncle. I'm much 
 happier as I am, with you.' 
 
 ' Stuff and nonsense, my dear ! Marriage is a 
 woman's mission, and with your pretty face you are 
 sure to get a rich husband.' 
 
 ' You wouldn't have me marry for money, uncle 
 Trenchard ! ' cries Sibyl, with a horrified look. 
 
 Here is this old man, rolling in wealth, and yet 
 counselling a mercenary marriage. 
 
 ' I wouldn't ^^have you marry without money. 
 You are no girl to play at love in a cottage. That's 
 a game you'd soon grow tired of 
 
 Sibyl starts as if she had been stung.
 
 A MYSTERIOUS VTSITOE. 261 
 
 ' Don't talk of marriage, uncle Trenchard. The 
 subject is hateful to me. There is no one in Eed- 
 castle that I care for, or am ever likely to care for.' 
 
 ' I am sorry to hear it,' replies Mr. Trenchard, 
 with a moody look, as he resumes his newspaper. 
 
 Stephen Trenchard is not a man who riots in 
 the 2ood things of this life. His breakfast consists 
 of a cup of green tea and a little bit of dry toast. 
 His other meals are of the simplest. But there is 
 considerable epicureanism in his simplicity, and he 
 resents a bad dinner as a personal injury. 
 
 ' I expected to find a visitor here this morning,' 
 Sibyl says presently, too curious to be silent on the 
 subject of that nocturnal interview in Mr. Trench- 
 ard's study. 
 
 ' Indeed ! Have you invited any one ? ' 
 
 ' I should not take such a liberty without your 
 permission — unless it were Marion or Jenny. I 
 thought the gentleman who was with you last 
 night would stay .' 
 
 Her uncle looks at her with a darker frown 
 than she has ever provoked before. 
 
 *The gentleman came on business, and left as
 
 262 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 soon as his business was concluded/ replies Mr. 
 Trenchard, in chilling tones. ' The less you trouble 
 yourself about my affairs, Sibyl, the better for our 
 mutual happiness.' 
 
 * I only wondered ' falters Sibyl. 
 
 ' Don't wonder. It's a most unprofitable occupa- 
 tion of the mind. Who told you there was any one 
 with me last night?' 
 
 ' I saw him.' 
 
 'Saw him? How?' 
 
 ' The night was so lovely, that I walked round 
 the garden after Fred Stormont left me at the gate, 
 and I was coming in at your study door, seeing 
 your lamp burning, when I saw that you were not 
 alone.' 
 
 ' The gentleman you saw is a Calcutta merchant, 
 an old acquaintance, who wanted my advice in a 
 critical turn of his affairs. And now you know all 
 that there is to be known, and may leave off won- 
 dering.' 
 
 Mr. Trenchard sips his tea and nibbles his dry 
 toast in silence, and presently disappears altogether 
 behind the county pa er.
 
 A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. 268 
 
 Sibyl is disappointed. She expected to be 
 questioned about yesterday, to be asked if she had 
 made any conquests, to be able to describe Sir 
 Wilford Cardonnel's obvious subjugation, and the 
 effect which it produced on the Stormonts, — Rose's 
 envious looks, Violet's constrained civility, Fred's 
 anffuish of mind as he curveted on the unmauafje- 
 able gray. 
 
 Finding her uncle indisposed for conversation, 
 Sibyl leaves the dining-room as soon as decency 
 permits, and flits away to her favourite retreat — the 
 garden. Life which is all a summer holiday is 
 pleasant enough, doubtless ; but oh, how monoto- 
 nous ! and, in Sibyl's case, how lonely ! 
 
 This morning, exhausted with yesterday's excite- 
 ment, she throws herself back in her low wicker 
 chair wearily, and sighs two or three times in a 
 quarter of an hour without knowing why, — sighs 
 for the days that are gone — for poverty and Alexis, 
 perhaps, though she would hardly confess as much. 
 
 The roses glorify the garden, the trees cast 
 their deep cool shadows on the sunny grass ; the 
 house yonder, with all its windows shining in the
 
 264 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 sun, its Venetians, its flower-boxes, its prosperous 
 air, as of a habitation for which wealth has done 
 its uttermost, — all these things remind her that her 
 lot has fallen in a pleasant place. Yet she yearns 
 for something more. 
 
 How soon will it come ? How soon will the 
 heritage for which she waits be hers ? Mrs. Stor- 
 mont has noticed a change in Stephen Trenchard, 
 and that change has been very obvious to Sibyl's 
 eyes this morning. 
 
 She struggles against sordid, mercenary thoughts, 
 but they are too strong for her. She cannot help 
 speculating about the future which seems drawing 
 nearer, that future which is to reunite her to Alexis 
 — to open the door of a new glad world, to release 
 her from this dull bondage in the narrow paths of 
 provincial pretence and respectability. 
 
 She knows that she is her uncle's favourite niece. 
 Marion is suffered to come and go, but is rarely 
 favoured with so much as a civil vrord or a kindly 
 glance from Mr. Trenchard. Jenny he openly 
 abominates. Her noisy bouncing ways distress him 
 beyond measure, and she is rarely admitted to his
 
 A MYSTERIOUS HSITOE. 265 
 
 presence. Sibyl therefore concludes that — although 
 Mr. Trenchard, out of kindly feeling, may leave a 
 few thousands to Marion and Jenny, just enough to 
 secure them a competence — the bulk of his fortune 
 will be hers. That vast wealth which has made 
 Eedcastle bow down before him will be hers ; and 
 Eedcastle, which already fawns upon her — honour- 
 ing her prospective riches — will fall prostrate and 
 worship her. 
 
 * Poor uncle Trenchard,' she thinks, compas- 
 sionately. ' ^Yhat is the good of money to the old ? 
 His prosperity comes at the w^^ong end of life. 
 What can his wealth give him ? A fine house, 
 where he lives alone, a splendid solitude. Horses 
 which he rarely uses. For all the personal gratifi- 
 cation he has out of his wealth he would be as well 
 off with six hundred a year. But he has the 
 homage of Eedcastle, which would not be given to 
 a man of limited income, even though he devoted 
 half his revenue to acts of charity ' 
 
 Sibyl sees the end of her bondage coming near, 
 and thinks of Alexis with tender loDdno- for re- 
 
 o o 
 
 union. Will he come back to her ? Will he
 
 266 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 forgive her ? Yes, a thousand times yes. He loves 
 her too well to be obdurate. Whatever anger he 
 may have felt at her a^bandonment of him will 
 melt away before her smiles. 
 
 It is a trial to be so ignorant of his fate, not 
 to know where he is or what he is doing, whether 
 fortune has been kind or cruel to him. 
 
 Great heaven ! if he should be dead ! If the 
 fight should have been too hard, and he fallen ! 
 
 Her heart grows cold at the mere thought that 
 such a thing is possible. She shudders, clasps her 
 hands over her eyes as if to shut out the horrid 
 spectacle. If he were dead; hope's airy palace 
 built on a fatal quicksand ; and the future she has 
 looked forward to a future never to be realized ! 
 No, she will not think of anything so hideous. 
 Tate must be kind to true love, and she has loved her 
 husband truly, even when deserting him to secure 
 fortune. She remembers how often she has heard 
 him say that it is easy for a single man to fight 
 the battle of life, that alone he could have struggled 
 on somehow, could have obtained employment, 
 could have roamed the world till he found just
 
 A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. 267 
 
 the one spot where he could prosper. He has never 
 said it reproachfully. He was too fond of her for 
 that. But he has said it ; and the memory of that 
 speech is a consoling thought to Sibyl just now. 
 
 * He has emigrated, I dare say,' she thinks. ' He 
 had a longing to try his luck in Australia. He is on 
 the other side of the world, most likely, and when I 
 am free to call him back to me, I shall have to wait 
 ever so lono; before he can come.' 
 
 She is aroused from this reverie, from the deepest 
 deep of thought, by the mellifluous soprano of Mrs. 
 Stormont, raised inquiringly — that society voice in 
 which a comedy actress makes some trivial inquiry 
 at the wing before she appears on the stage. 
 
 ' In the garden ? ' screams Mrs. Stormont. ' Dear 
 child ! I will find her.' 
 
 Mrs. Stormont emerges from the shrubbery, 
 rustling in a flounced cambric morning dress. She 
 wears a black lace shawl, her last summer's bonnet 
 ' done up ' inexpensively by her maid, and in honest 
 truth has been * up tuwn ' to pay her tradesmen's 
 weekly accounts. The Stormonts, though near, are 
 good pay.
 
 268 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 'Old Mother Stormont will haggle about the 
 bone in a bit of brisket, and she will worry about 
 her Sunday sirloin/ says Mr, Heffer, the butcher, 
 'but she do pay uncommon reglar, I will say that 
 for the old gal/ 
 
 Familiarity, induced by Mrs. Stormont's frequent 
 personal visits of complaint or inspection at Mr. 
 Heffer's shop, has bred contempt in that citizen's 
 mind. The customers he respects are those who 
 never cross his threshold or weigh his meat. 
 
 Mrs. Stormont is followed by a tall stranger in 
 gray, who looks about him admiringly, and whom 
 Sibyl hardly recognises at the first glance. 
 
 'Charming place — kept so well, too — garden 
 much neater than my fellows keep the How. How- 
 d'ye-do, Miss Faunthorpe ? Hope you weren't tired 
 by the races yesterday.' 
 
 Sibyl blushes becomingly, startled by this sudden 
 appearance of the mighty Sir Wilford Cardonnel — 
 startled out of all sad thoughts, and gratified by this 
 proof of her power. 
 
 ' I met this tiresome Sir Wilford in the market- 
 place, Sibyl,' says Mrs. Stormont with juvenile play-
 
 A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. 269 
 
 fulness — which sits upon her portly middle age 
 about as becomingly as the airy gauze bonnet on 
 her pepper-and-salt chignon, — ' and he insisted upon 
 my bringing him to call on you. I hope you are 
 not shocked with us for invadinc{ vou at such a 
 barbarous hour.' 
 
 Sibyl Assures Mrs. Stormont that the hour is a 
 matter of no importance. 
 
 * You are just as glad to see us as if we had come 
 in proper visiting hours,' exclaims the lady. ' What 
 a dear candid child she is ! I don't know what 
 you did with my poor Fred last night, Sibyl, but you 
 sent him home quite low-spirited.' 
 
 This is said with meaningr, and Sir Wilford looks 
 at the speaker curiously. 
 
 ' Poor Fred,' he cries in his loud voice, " I think 
 it mi^st have been the bumping he got on that bony 
 gray that made him low-spirited.' 
 
 ' I'm afraid I said good night rather abruptly,' 
 says Sibyl, ' which was very ungrateful of me after 
 his kindness in seeing me home. But I was vexed 
 with him for not appreciating our nightingales.' 
 
 ' Not appreciate the nightingales ! How odd ! '
 
 270 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 exclaims Mrs. Stormont. ' Fred has sucli an ear for 
 music.'' 
 
 ' Shouldn't have thought it from his trotting/ 
 remarks the candid Sir Wilford. ' Man with a good 
 ear always keeps time in the saddle. So you've 
 nightingales here, Miss Faunthorpe ? Shouldn't 
 have thought it, so near the town. We've no end 
 of 'em at the How. Jug-jug-jug from sundown till 
 midnight. I should like to show you our gardens 
 at the How, by the by. Mrs. Stormont might drive 
 you over some day.' 
 
 Mrs. Stormont, divided between her desire to be 
 intimate with the best of the county families, and 
 her maternal solicitude for Fred, whose interests are 
 evidently in peril, can only smile blandly and assent- 
 ingly. To drive over to the How in a friendly way 
 is to take the highest rank in Eedcastle society. 
 Mrs. Groshen will feel absolutely crushed when she 
 is told of such a visit. And after all, poor Fred's 
 courtship hangs on hand dismally, and may never 
 come to anything. Sibyl, although courted by the 
 whole family, has given no token of preference for 
 the eldest hope. Sibyl with Stephen Trenchard's
 
 A MYSTERIOUS VISITOE. 271 
 
 foiiiune, and exalted into Lady Cardonnel, would be 
 a splendid person to know. The dear girls, Eose 
 and Violet, would be asked to stay at the How, no 
 doubt; might make splendid matches, marry into 
 the county. 
 
 The conversation meanders on in the same 
 elevated strain for half an hour while Sibyl and her 
 visitors walk round the crarden, Sir Wilford admirinij 
 everything ' monstrously,' to use his own phrase, and 
 grumbling a good deal about those 'fellows' of his 
 at the How. 
 
 ' I never saw such flower-beds,' he says ; ' there's 
 not a dead leaf among 'em.' 
 
 ' My uncle is very particular about the garden,' 
 says Sibyl. 
 
 * That reminds me that I must ask to be intro- 
 duced to your uncle.' 
 
 ' I dare say he is in his study,' replies Sibyl. 
 ' I'll run and see.' 
 
 She has an idea that it would hardly do to take 
 Sir Wilford to her uncle without some note of 
 preparation, Mr. Trenchard being somewhat out of 
 sorts to-day.
 
 272 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 She is saved the trouble of going to the study, 
 however, for Stephen Trenchard is seen coming 
 across the lawn in his Panama hat, and they all 
 three 2:0 to meet him. He receives Mrs. Stormont 
 and Sir Wilford graciously, and, the luncheon bell 
 ringing while he is conversing with them, insists 
 upon their staying to luncheon. So they all go to- 
 gether to the dining-room, Mrs. Stormont protesting 
 that her absence will be the cause of consternation 
 at home. 
 
 Sibyl is fluttered and a little pleased at the idea 
 of having made such an important conquest, — a 
 useless triumph, of course, for a woman in her 
 position, but one that flatters womanly vanity.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE wanderer's RETURN. 
 
 The great city lies seething like some uuholy 
 caldron under the blazing August sun, when a 
 lonely wayfarer returns to it after two years' exile 
 on the other side of the world. Rank and fashion* 
 middle-class wealth, professional respectability, have 
 deserted the airy western squares and streets for 
 English watering-places, Welsh mountains, Scottish 
 moors, Irish lakes, or broiling Continental espla- 
 nades, spas, conversation-houses, Rhine steamers, and 
 so on ; but from this eastern end of the city there 
 is no such exodus; here life holds on patiently 
 through the dog days, here labour knows no 
 respite, and the grinding of the universal mill 
 slackens not. 
 
 Alexis Secretan, just disembarked from the 
 famous clipper ship Oronoko, surveys the ding}'- 
 street, the driving crowd, with wonder, not unmin- 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 gled with loathing. What a weary city it seems to 
 this man, who walked its stony ways two years ago 
 a seeker for bread, and for the most part found only 
 the natural product of the soil — a stone ! He has 
 found fortune kinder at tlie antipodes, man more 
 friendly, Nature more liberal of her smiles, less shut 
 out and constrained by brick and mortar. He has 
 achieved no sudden prosperity, he has worked hard 
 and honestly, and has done well ; so well as to be 
 able to come back to this sophisticated, unfriendly 
 city, whither fate draws him as a magnet. 
 
 It is not possible for a man to feel more lonely 
 than this returning wayfarer. In all the vast city 
 which spreads itself about and around him there 
 lives only one person from whom he can hope for 
 a friendly smile of welcome. His humble friend 
 Dick Plowden is the only being to whom he can 
 go with any certaintj" of not being considered a 
 bore and an intruder. His old brother officers 
 — the companions of his brief day of prosperity, — 
 alas ! he wore out the friendship of those when he 
 sank to that lowest grade in the animal creation 
 — the borrowing animal.
 
 THE waxderer's eeturx. 275 
 
 Dear old Dick ! honest, friendly Dick, to 
 whom he has long since repaid that ten-pound 
 note borrowed for the false wife who ^deserted 
 him — it is to Dick he goes naturally to-day, as 
 brother goes to brother. It is to Dick's recom- 
 mendation to Messrs. Keel and Skrew he owes 
 the honourable independence of the last two 
 years. But for Dick's influence he would never 
 have got that fair start in a new world which has 
 enabled him to keep his head above water, and 
 do Messrs. Keel and Skrew honourable service 
 on the other side of the globe. 
 
 He can afford to take a hansom, and drive 
 down to the Brompton Eoad as fast as a broken- 
 down thorough-bred can take him. Dear old Dick 
 is in the little back parlour hard at work, as ou 
 that snowy day when desperation guided Alexis to 
 that last resource of the desperate — the humble 
 friend of better days. But Dick is not occupied 
 to-day in the mechanical drudgery of map-painting ; 
 he is writing a book, a little book on astronomy, 
 for the use of schools, — that elementary geograph\- 
 of his having been a success.
 
 276 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 He starts up at sight of Alexis, who has pushed 
 by the maid -of- all- work and entered unannounced. 
 The two men greet each other heartily. 
 
 ' Captain Secretan ! What a delightful surprise I 
 and looking so well too, so handsome, just like 
 my original captain, who took mother's first floor.' 
 ' Dear old Dick ! ' 
 
 'But I did not expect you home for ever so 
 long. I thought you were going to stop at Sidney, 
 working for the firm until you had made your 
 fortune.' 
 
 * Fortune is all very well, Dick — and the firm 
 is all very well. They have been liberal employers, 
 and I have worked honestly for them, and been 
 luclcy in my dealings for them. But the soul 
 of man needs something more than fifteen per cent, 
 commission upon all his dealings. There was an 
 emptiness in my heart, Dick, out yonder — a cavity 
 that needed filling somehow, — so I took the first 
 opportunity to slip across to the old world, though 
 God knows there's little chance of filling the 
 vacuum here. However, I shall only stop a month 
 or so, and then go back again. The firm has been
 
 THE wanderer's returx. 277 
 
 very kind about the matter. I told them my 
 health was failing, and that the voyage home was 
 my only hope of getting strong again, so they gave 
 me a free passage both ways, and I'm to hold counsel 
 with them about the opening of a new branch of 
 the business out yonder.' 
 
 ' And were you really ill ? ' asks Eichard 
 Plowden, sympathetically. 
 
 'What I told the firm was not much more than 
 the truth, old fellow. When heart-sickness sets in, 
 bodily sickness is pretty sure to follow. My nights 
 were growing sleepless, full of bad thoughts. Well, 
 Dick, you can guess my first question. Any news 
 —of her ? ' 
 
 Eichard Plowden shakes his head despondingly. 
 
 ' I am the last to hear of her,' he says, — ' I who 
 live as much out of the world as if I were a hermit 
 in a cave.' 
 
 * She might have come to you to inquire about 
 my fate, knowing you were the only friend 
 adversity had left me.' 
 
 'She has never come.' 
 
 ' Nor written ? '
 
 278 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 'Not a line. Forgive me if I wound you, 
 Captain Secretan .' 
 
 'Call me Alex, Dick, or we shall quarrel.' 
 
 'Eorgive me if I seem to speak hardly of her, 
 but upon my honour, Alex, it seems to me that 
 you have nothing to do but to forget her. She 
 deserted you when you had the most need of her 
 love, when, if she had been a true vv^oman, she 
 would have clung to you most fondly.' 
 
 * Granted, Dick. She was selfish, base, cowardly. 
 "We had sunk together into the slough of despond, 
 and she contrived to scramble out of it and leave 
 me in the mire. She was clever enough to make 
 use of me to accomplish her escape, sent me out 
 among hard-hearted humanity to borrow, beg, or 
 steal the means by which she meant to separate 
 herself from my fallen fortunes. Do you think I 
 came across the world to seek, for her ? 'No, Dick, 
 I am not such a fool. I have been cheated once. 
 I shall never be her dupe again. Do you think 
 I could ever trust her any more ? — that if fortune 
 smiled upon us, and she pretended to love me, 
 I could feel any confidence in her truth, any
 
 THE wanderer's returx. 279 
 
 security in her iiffection ? The void in my lieart 
 is to be filled, but not by her. I came back to 
 the old world to look for my child, — the child 
 that was to be born to me when my cruel wife 
 left me.' 
 
 * You do not even know that the child survived 
 its birth ? ' 
 
 'What a Job's comforter you are, Dick ! I 
 know nothing except that I am going to hunt 
 for the mother in order that I may iind the 
 child.' 
 
 'The law would give the custody of so young 
 a child to the mother.' 
 
 'I snap my fingers at the law. Truth is great 
 and shall prevail. So base a wife must be an 
 unworthy mother. I will find her price for the 
 child. She will sell that as she sold me — for a 
 mess of pottage. When I left England I was 
 desperate — mad, perhaps, or I should not have left 
 the land that held my child. My loneliness in that 
 strange world yonder awakened a father's feelings, 
 I found out how dreary a prospect life is to a 
 man who stands alone — a blank and barren desert.
 
 280 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 with no green oasis — no distant city to which he 
 may direct his steps — a lonely pilgrimage leading 
 nowhere.' 
 
 * How shall you commence your search ? ' 
 ' I have thought of that question many a time 
 on board the Oronoko. There is little choice of 
 plan left open to me. You remember that before 
 Messrs. Keel and Skrew took me into their employ- 
 ment, I went to Eedcastle, the place my wife came 
 from when she came to London as Mrs. Hazleton's 
 governess. I saw Sibyl's younger sister, made my 
 inquiries, and found that Sibyl had not been heard 
 of at Eedcastle. She had not gone straight home 
 to her uncle, the parish doctor, as I had supposed 
 it probable she would, and flung herself and her 
 troubles upon his shoulders. No, she was too artful 
 for that. She had some deeper game in view — 
 some rich relative from whom she had expectations, 
 as I gathered dimly from her letter. I could find 
 out nothing more from the girl than that Sibyl 
 was supposed still to be in Mrs. Hazleton's employ- 
 ment — that her marriage was not known to her 
 family, that she had not reappeared at Eedcastle, or
 
 THE wanderer's RETURN. 281 
 
 received any help from her uncle the doctor. 
 Where could she be, and how could she be living ? 
 She must have found the wealthy friend whose 
 existence I inferred from her letter, and this wealthy 
 friend or relative was evidently not an inhabitant of 
 Eedcastle. She must have found a safe haven 
 somewhere. I made no further attempt to trace 
 her. I was too deeply stung by her abandonment. 
 " Let her go," I said to myself, as I crawled wearily 
 away from that dismal country town, through the 
 January weather, " she and I have done with each 
 other." I did not foresee that the hour would 
 come in which the thought of my child would 
 be more precious to me than my false wife's love 
 had ever been. But in my lonely days in a 
 strange land — lonely in spite of what the world 
 calls friendship — I have suffered my hopes to build 
 themselves round that one image — the child whose 
 face I have never seen. Xow, Dick, there seem 
 to be only two sources of information open to me. 
 I can go down to Eedcastle again, and renew my 
 inquiries at Dr. Faunthorpe's ; or, before doing 
 that, I can hunt up an honest creature who used
 
 282 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 to be housemaid at Mrs. Hazleton's, and who 
 made herself useful to my wife in sending her 
 letters, and so helping her to sustain the falsehood 
 which she chose to practise upon her uncle, for 
 quite inadequate reasons, as they always seemed 
 to me. But there are minds to which double- 
 dealing is an absolute pleasure, and hers may be 
 of that order,' adds Alexis, bitterly. 
 
 'You have not dined,' says Eichard Plowden, 
 by way of changing the conversation. ' I'll order 
 a steak and potatoes. You'll enjoy an English 
 rumpsteak after ship fare, and you know mother's 
 a first-rate cook. You'll take up your quarters 
 with us, of course, while you are in London ? ' 
 
 'I shall go to Eedcastle to-morrow, Dick, if 
 I can find Jane Dimond, the housemaid, this 
 evening. But if you can give me a bed for to-night, 
 I will accept it with all gratitude. Don't trouble 
 about dinner. I had a substantial lunch on board 
 the Oronoko. I'll go to Lowther Street at once, 
 and we can smoke our pipes together when I 
 come back, and talk over old times, when I was 
 a careless, thriftless bachelor. How selfish I am,
 
 THE waxderek's ueturx. 283 
 
 talkini? of mv own affairs all this time, and never 
 so much as congratulating you on your success as 
 an author!' 
 
 * Don't call me an author,' protests Dick, 
 blushing. 'That's putting me too much upon a 
 level with Scott and Bulwer, and geniuses of that 
 kind. I was lucky enough to hit upon an easy, 
 simple way of stating hard facts — making informa- 
 tion a little more attractive than it has been made 
 for young minds, and the style took with the 
 schools and teachers. My little handbook of 
 geography has gone through fifteen editions, and 
 has been quite a fortune to me, and I'm now 
 doing the sixth in a series of handbooks, all more 
 or less geographical, up to the present one, in 
 which I venture upon astronomy. So you see 
 map-painting led to something, after all.' 
 
 * Intelligence and industry always lead to some- 
 thing, Dick. There would be a screw loose in the 
 scheme of the universe if they could ever lead 
 to nothing.' 
 
 ' Those little books have done wonders for us,' 
 exclaims Dick, with harmless pride. * Mother
 
 284 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 doesn't work half so hard as she used, though she 
 will stick to the cooking ; and she has a silk 
 gown to wear on Sundays, — doesn't it rustle, too ! 
 you can hear it at the very top of the staircase, 
 — none of your soft silks for mother, but a silk 
 that stands alone and lets you know that it's 
 there. And I've got a garden. See ! ' 
 
 The Duke of Devonshire could feel no loftier 
 pride in the possession of Chatsworth than swells 
 Eichard Plowden's breast to-day, as he draws up 
 the Venetian blind and allows his cherished garden 
 to burst upon Alexis Secretan's admiring gaze. 
 
 It is a quadrangle of fifteen feet square, shut in 
 by whitewashed walls, overshadowed by leaden 
 cisterns, bounded by the slated roofs of a mews, 
 but Dick has built rockeries in the corners, 
 rockeries where ferns flourish greenly. He has 
 trained ivy over one wall — that blessed parasite 
 which is so fair and quick.growing a screen for 
 brick and mortar abominations — Virginia creeper 
 over another. The grass is soft and green, and in 
 the middle of the little plot there is a stone 
 basin — a timeworn old basin which Dick has
 
 THE waxdekee's eetuen. 285 
 
 picked up for half a sovereign in a builder's yard, 
 but a basin in which a slender jet of water 
 actually plays. Scarlet geraniums in green tubs 
 give colour to the picture ; an old stone bench, 
 also a bargain of Dick's, offers repose to the idler 
 in this narrow pleasaunce. Shut in as it is by 
 mews and back kitchens, — overshadowed as it is 
 by cisterns, — Eichard Plowden's garden is abso- 
 lutely pretty. Alexis accords it his unmeasured 
 approbation. 
 
 * It's the first English garden I've seen for the 
 last two years, Dick, and it smiles at me like a 
 welcome home. Yes, I'll come back in time to 
 smoke a cigar on that stone bench of yours under 
 the summer stars.' 
 
 *^\'e drink tea out there on fine Simday after- 
 noons in the warm weather,' says Dick, smiling 
 at the ferns and rockwork, ' and you can't imagine 
 how proud mother is. I've got the real Osmuiida 
 regalis, or flowering fern, in that corner, though 
 you'd hardly believe it ; and there's a Polypodiitm 
 over there that a friendly lodger of ours brought 
 me from Ilfracombe.'
 
 286 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 'Well, Dick, I must go and look for Jane 
 Dimond, but I'll be back in a couple of hours 
 at latest.' 
 
 Dick limps to tlie door with his friend, and 
 follows his figure with admiring eyes till it vanishes 
 in the current of wayfarers. 
 
 ' What a fine fellow he is ! and to think that 
 a wife could desert him ! I'll ask mother to get 
 a bit of something nice for supper, a veal cutlet 
 and a few peas, or a chicken and a slice of broiled 
 ham.'
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 AT arm's length. 
 
 There are some people whose houses never change ; 
 people whose habitations are in a manner symbolical 
 of their lives, and whose even tenor of existence 
 nothing less than the undertaker can overthrow. 
 Mrs. Hazleton is one of these eminently respectable 
 personages. She has occupied the house in Lowther 
 Street for the last ten years. She has gone to 
 the sea-side every year of those ten, and at exactly 
 the same period, has returned after the same 
 interval, has given her great parties at the same 
 seasons, and has lived a methodical and prosperous 
 existence, with satisfaction to herself and her neigh- 
 bours, and with considerable profit to the surround- 
 ing shopkeepers. When the London season is over, 
 Mrs. Hazleton goes to the sea-side, not because she 
 belongs to that flight of fashionable swallows who 
 follow pleasure's summer from clime to clime, but
 
 288 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 simply because London in August is unendurable, — 
 baking pavements, scorched verdure, dust and grime 
 on everything, and a sense of desertion in all those 
 regions which the upper ten thousand and a con- 
 siderable portion of the lower million inhabit. 
 
 There could not be a better time for Alexis 
 to make his inquiry without having to present 
 himself in a formal manner to his old acquaintance. 
 Mrs. Hazleton is at Scarborouo^h, with children, 
 governess, and femme de ckamhre. The blinds are 
 all down, save one of the Venetians in the dining- 
 room, which is drawn up about halfway, and in the 
 space thus exposed to view the comfortable round 
 face of Mrs. Hazleton's cook, and the lanky coun- 
 tenance of Mrs. Hazleton's sandy-haired footman — 
 a footman whose visage is happily unfamiliar to 
 Alexis — exhibit themselves. Cook and footman 
 are en^Tasjed in looking out of the window. There 
 is not much for them to see in Lowther Street on 
 this August evening, but it is a relief to be above 
 ground for a little while, after the twilight of those 
 underground dungeons to which the London do- 
 mestic is confined.
 
 AT arm's length. 289 
 
 Alexis mounts the steps, and knocks and rings, 
 under the calm survey of those two pair of eyes. 
 The sandy-haired footman is not impressed by 
 Mr. Secretan's appearance. Alexis is carelessly 
 dressed in garments of a colonial cut, a velveteen 
 shooting jacket, a soft felt hat, clothes chosen for 
 ease and hard wear rather than for fashion. The 
 footman yawns audibly, and when reminded of his 
 duties by a nudge from cook's plump elbow, mutters 
 contemptuously, ' Oh, hang it ! that fellow can wait, 
 you know ; ' and then withdraws himself lazily from 
 his post of observation, and anon opens the street 
 door a little way, filHng the opening with his person. 
 
 'Is there a young woman called Dimond in 
 service here now ? ' asks Alexis. 
 
 * Dun know, I'm shaw,' replies the flunkey, with 
 another yawn. ' What do you want with her ? ' 
 
 * We won't go into particulars till you find 
 out whether she's still here,' answers Alexis, cooUy. 
 * Perhaps you wiU condescend so far as to inquire of 
 your feUow-servant ? ' 
 
 'Hi, cooky/ bawls the footman, 'what's our 
 Jane's name? Dimond, ain't it?' 
 
 VOL. 1, u
 
 290 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 *0f course it is. You might have known/ 
 answers cook, who has come into the hall, and now 
 contemplates Alexis over the youth's shoulder. 
 
 * What do you want with Jane Dimond ? ' she in- 
 quires, sharply. * There's no followers allowed here.' 
 
 ' I'm not a follower,' answers Alexis, ' but I want 
 to see Jane Dimond alone for five minutes, on 
 business.' 
 
 The countenances of cook and footman plainly 
 express an apprehension that this is the begin- 
 ning of a deep-laid scheme against the family plate. 
 
 ' I'll teU you what, young man,' says the cook, 
 with asperity, * my missus is out of town, and we 
 don't want no airy sneaks loafing about while 
 she's away.' 
 
 * And it ain't no good for them to loaf,' adds 
 the sandy-haired young man, who has not shaved 
 for the last day or two, and whose chin is adorned 
 with a tawny stubble like a newly- cut wheat 
 field. 'The plate has all been sent to the bank.' 
 
 Alexis fairly bursts out laughing. 
 ' Is there so much difference between a chimney- 
 pot Imt and a wide awake ? between Poole and
 
 AT arm's length. 291 
 
 a colonial tailor ? ' he says to himself, and then 
 he adds aloud. 'If one of you simpletons will 
 take the trouble to call Jane Dimond, she will 
 be able to tell you that I'm a gentleman, and 
 that I have not come after the tea-spoons or the 
 umbrellas. I'll wait in the street for her. You 
 can tell her that a gentleman from Australia 
 wants a few words with her.' 
 
 Cook and footman whisper doubtfully for half a 
 minute, and then shut the door upon Mr. Secretan, 
 leaving him to infer their acquiescence with his 
 request. 
 
 He paces the pavement for five minutes or so, 
 and then the good-natured Jane Dimond comes 
 down the steps, while cook and footman stand in 
 the doorway to watch the proceedings. 
 
 They see Jane gesticulate as in extreme surprise 
 at sight of Alexis, and then the two walk a little 
 further off, quite out of earshot, to the aggravation 
 of Jane's feUow-servants, whose curiosity is by this 
 time raised to the highest pitch. 
 
 * I shouldn't wonder if he was some h aristocratic 
 arf-brother of ers,' says cook, who is a devoted
 
 292 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 student of "Eeynolds's Mysteries of London." 
 'Life is full of family secrets and such like.' 
 
 'Lor, sir,' says Jane Dimond, when she has 
 recovered the shock of surprise ; ' I thought you 
 was dead and gone/ 
 
 'Did you, Jane. Why?' 
 
 ' Because I fancied if you was in the land of the 
 livin* you wouldn't have turned a deaf ear to that 
 advertisement.' 
 
 ' What advertisement ? ' 
 
 ' The advertisement as Miss Faunthorpe — I heg 
 pardon, Mrs. ' 
 
 ' Never mind the name, girl. Tell me all about 
 the advertisement.* 
 
 Jane explains herself in a roundabout way, but 
 in due course Alexis knows all that Jane knows, 
 except his wife's present abode. That the girl 
 refuses to tell even to him. 
 
 'She told me to keep it a secret, and I'm not 
 going to tell no one without her permission,' says 
 Jane resolutely. 
 
 This resolve the husband combats, but in vain. 
 
 ' I'll arst her leaf to tell you, and when I've got
 
 AT arm's length. 293 
 
 her leaf I'll tell you/ answers Jane. ' Wild horses 
 wouldn't move me from that' 
 
 'Telegraph to her then directly/ cries Alexis, 
 taking out a handful of silver. ' Come with me to 
 the nearest telegraph office, and I'll write the mes- 
 sage for you. You can put in the address yourself.' 
 
 ' No, I won't send her no telegrafts, lest I should 
 get her into trouble with her friends. I'U write to 
 her/ 
 
 * Inexorable girl ! Is she in the country ? ' 
 'Yes/ 
 
 ' And the country post is gone ever so long. I 
 shall have to wait twenty-four hours before you can 
 get her answer/ 
 
 ' I can't help that,' says Jane, with an inflexible 
 air. ' She's trusted 'me, and I'U do my dooty by her. 
 As you've stayed away so long it can't hurt you to 
 stay a little longer.' 
 
 * Stayed away so long, cruel girl ! Don't you 
 know that it was she who left me ? ' 
 
 ' Whatever she did, I make no doubt she did it 
 for the best,' answers Jane, true to the fair young 
 governess whose donations of lace and ribbon, soiled
 
 294 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 gloves, darned stockings, and friendly smiles, had 
 won her heart years ago. 
 
 'See here, Jane,' says Alexis, unfolding a five- 
 pound note. * Here's something to buy you a silk 
 gown for Sundays. Now don't you think that you 
 could contrive to tell me the address at once ? You 
 know my wife wishes to see me. The advertisement 
 says that.' 
 
 ' No, it don't,' answers Jane, taking a tiny slip of 
 paper out of her shabby old portemonnaie. * The 
 advertisement says nothing of the kind.' 
 
 She reads as follows : — 
 
 ' S. S. to Alexis. You are not forgotten. In all 
 I do I am faithful to your interests. I look forward 
 to our reunion. Wait and hope, as I do. Write 
 and tell me where you are, and what you are doing. 
 — Address, S. S., Post Office, Hale Street, Pimlico.' 
 
 'There, you see,' exclaims Jane, triumphant. 
 ' There's not a word about wanting to see you. She 
 only wants to hear from you.' 
 
 * Heartless woman ! ' mutters Alexis. * Yet I'm 
 glad she was just a little anxious to know my fate. 
 I'll go to a coffee-house, and write to her, and bring
 
 AT aem's length. 295 
 
 the letter to you to post. There's the silk gown 
 for you all the same, Jane, to show that I bear no 
 malice. 
 
 ' Oh, sir ! ' cries the housemaid, overcome by this 
 generosity, * I couldn' think ' 
 
 'You needn't think about it. You've only to 
 take the money and buy your gown. I'll go and 
 write my letter.' 
 
 He goes to the nearest coffee-house and wTites to 
 Sibyl. There is a touch of bitterness in the compo- 
 sition, though his wounded heart is full of love for 
 her all the time. Neither exile nor the sense of her 
 ^nkindness have been strong enough to exclude her 
 from his heart. He may pretend to himself and to 
 his friend Dick Plowden that he has ceased to love 
 his wife, that he seeks his child alone ; but the mere 
 fact that she has souGjht to obtain tidings of him is 
 enough to melt his heart, to change pride and anger 
 to love and pardon. 
 
 ' Whatever the exalted sphere in which you now 
 move,' he writes, 'you may be glad to know that 
 your desertion has not quite been the death of me. 
 I have contrived to live, somehow, though indigna-
 
 296 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 tion against your cruelty has lacerated my heart, 
 and love for the wife who deserted me has proved 
 an incurable disease. I have not starved or been 
 driven to hang myself, and I have come back from 
 the other side of the world because I have a foolish 
 hankering to know the fate of the woman who swore 
 at the altar to love, honour, and obey me, and kept 
 her vow by abandoning me in my darkest hour of 
 need. Where are you, Sibyl ? and with whom ? 
 What has been your reward for deserting me ? Has 
 your scheme of life been a wise one ? Have your 
 hopes prospered ? 
 
 * Write and answer all these questions freely and 
 fully if you recognise the tie which, in the sight of 
 God and man, makes us two one. Tell me about 
 our child, the infant I have never seen, yet whose 
 baby face has haunted my dreams. You have given 
 your babe to the care of strangers perhaps, but I 
 conclude you have watched over its welfare. 
 
 'Tell me further if there are in your life — 
 prosperous as it may be — some few weaker moments 
 when your heart yearns for reunion with the 
 husband you once loved. But no, love, I will show
 
 AT arm's length. 297 
 
 you an easier way. Do not stop to answer one of 
 these questions. 
 
 * Write, Sibyl, from your heart to mine. Tell me 
 in three words to come to you, and I will come. I 
 will come, dear, and all [the past, all that you have 
 made me suffer, shall be forgotten and forgiven in 
 the rapture of our reunion. — Yours for ever, if you 
 will have it so, — Alexis.' 
 
 He is swayed to and fro by diverse passions as 
 he writes this letter, now all bitterness, now fond 
 unreasoning love. He has not the courage to read 
 over his effusion, but seals and addresses it hastily^ 
 and hurries back to Lowther Street. There is no 
 difficulty about admittance this time. Jane 
 Dimond opens the door, receives the letter, and 
 promises to post it that evening. 
 
 It is too late for any of the provincial mails, but 
 it is something to be assured that there shall be no 
 needless delay. 
 
 ' I shall call for the answer the day after to- 
 morrow, in the evening. You ought to have it by 
 that time,' says Alexis, and it seems to him that the 
 interval will be an unendurable space of time.
 
 298 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 He thinks about that advertisement as he goes 
 back to the Brompton Road. Sibyl must have cared 
 for him a little, despite her heartless abandonment 
 of him, or she would not have felt this anxiety to 
 be informed of his fate. She would not have 
 committed herself by an act likely to entangle her 
 fate with his. Once having released herself from 
 him she would have held herself altogether aloof — 
 she would have stretched no friendly hand across 
 the gulf if she had not loved him. Her heart was 
 still his, he tells himself, when she made that appeal 
 to him. Whatever her scheme of life — whatever 
 game she was playing — her heart was true to him. 
 
 Comforted by this assurance he is inclined to be 
 wondrously indulgent, to forgive much, should she 
 but prove herself worthy to be forgiven. 
 
 He tries to occupy himself with hard-headed 
 business during that weary interval in which he 
 waits for Sibyl's reply. He goes down to Messrs. 
 Keel and Skrew's office, and enters upon the discus- 
 sion of certain extensions and improvements in the 
 Australian branch of the business, improvements 
 which his experience of the colony has suggested to
 
 AT arm's lexgth. 299 
 
 him. He is well received, and his views approved by- 
 Mr. Keel, the senior partner — a gentleman with large 
 ideas, a palatial villa on Clapham Common, vineries, 
 pineries, succession houses, and a stable which is 
 a perennial source of profit to the horse dealers 
 and the veterinary surgeon, and a well-spring 
 of heart-burning and annoyance to its proprietor. 
 Mr. Keel is a gentleman who talks of thousands as 
 meaner people talk of sixpences, and is rumoured to 
 have started in life thirty years ago as a stevedore, 
 and to have founded his fortunes^upon the ill-gotten 
 gains supposed to be inseparable from that function. 
 
 Mr. Keel is pleased with Mr. Secretan's sugges- 
 tions. 
 
 * You're about the only fellow I ever sent out 
 who seems to understand the Australian trade,' he 
 says approvingly, ^ and .1 shall push you, young man, 
 mark my words, I shall push you.' 
 
 Cheered by this assurance, Alexis thinks what a 
 nice thing it will be for him to go back to Sidney 
 with his wife and child for his companions, if Sibyl 
 will but show herself true metal after all, and if his 
 child lives. Two formidable ' ifs.'
 
 300 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 He builds a delightful castle in the air, and looks 
 so well, fed upon this nutriment of hope, that 
 Samuel Plowden scrutinizes him with a serio-comic 
 expression when he returns to the outer office after 
 his interview with Mr. Keel. 
 
 ' Why, I thought you came home on sick leave, 
 youngster/ says the kindly clerk. ' By Jupiter, I 
 never saw any one looking better.' 
 
 *A11 the effect of the voyage, Mr. Plowden, I 
 assure you. I was a shadow when I went on board 
 at Sidney.' 
 
 The second day after Mr.Secretan's interview with 
 Jane Dimond has come, and in the evening Alexis 
 knocks at the familiar door in Lowther Street, with 
 a heart that seems to beat louder than the knocker. 
 
 Jane Dimond appears promptly, and divining 
 his impatience, gives him the expected letter 
 without a word. He wrings her hand in speechless 
 gratitude, as if the letter were a boon from her ; 
 bids her a brief good night, and goes away with his 
 prize. He would rather read the letter in the 
 street, unwatched, than open it in Mrs. Hazleton's 
 hall, under the housemaid's friendly eyes.
 
 AT arm's length. 301 
 
 Yes, it is from Sibyl, in the hand he knows so 
 well. The last letter he received from her was that 
 cruel renunciation, that most heartless farewell — 
 the loosening, nay, the severing of every link 
 between them. She writes to him again. There is 
 communion between them once more. The thought 
 thrills him. 
 
 She begins well at aU events : — 
 
 ' DeAEEST — DEAEEST — DEAEEST ! ' 
 
 There is love's fooHsh rapture in a gush of pen 
 and ink. 
 
 ' Thank God for your dear letter, though it is not 
 altogether kind. Still it promises forgiveness for 
 my wrong-doing, and that is much. Thank God for 
 the knowledge that you are living and weU. My 
 heart grew very heavy when that advertisement of 
 mine remained unanswered. 
 
 ' You ask me if my scheme of life has realized 
 what I coimted upon, if my hopes have prospered. 
 I can say yes to both those questions. I am on the 
 road to high fortime, fortune which you and I wiU 
 share in happy days to come if you are as true 
 to me as I am to you, though seeming estranged.
 
 302 DEAD men's shoes. 
 
 In a very little while, dear, my most anxious hopes 
 will be realized. The realization is so near that 
 it would be worse than folly to sacrifice those hopes 
 now, as I must sacrifice them if I were to obey you, 
 and say come to me. 
 
 ' I long to see you, my heart aches, my soul 
 sickens at the thought that we must wait for the 
 hour of reunion. But I am not so weak a slave 
 to impulse as to abandon my prize, just as it is 
 almost won. We must wait, dearest. I ask from 
 you patience and trust. I give you my daily 
 prayers, my nightly dreams. There is no wrong- 
 doing in my scheme of life. I injure no one, least 
 of all do I wrong you. I only forego the happiness 
 of sharing your life for a little while in order to 
 make it brighter afterwards. 
 
 ' Write to me, dear husband, from time to time, 
 and let me write to you, but let our correspondence 
 pass through the hands of that good girl, Jane 
 Dimond. I know your impulsive nature, and I 
 cannot trust you with my address, for fear you 
 should come here and destroy all my plans. I am 
 known in my present circle only as Miss Faun-
 
 AT arm's length. 303 
 
 thorpe. All my hopes would be shipwrecked if 
 I stood confessed as Mrs. Secretan. Yet, believe 
 me, there is no shadow of wrong to you in this 
 concealment. It is for our mutual welfare. You 
 ask me about our child, Alexis. Our child, our 
 son, is safe and well. I dare tell you no more 
 than that. 
 
 ' Ever, through all changes and dangers, your 
 true and loving wife, ' Sibyl.' 
 
 ' Is she mad ? ' Alexis asks himself, indignantly, 
 after reading this letter. 'Does she think I am 
 to be put off with loving words and assurances of 
 constancy ? Does she suppose that she can keep 
 me at a distance by concealing her address and 
 writing to me under cover to a housemaid? 
 Wherever she may have hidden herself, my business 
 shall be to find her, and my first visit shall be 
 to Eedcastle. I'll go straight to her uncle, the 
 doctor, and unearth this mystery.' 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 tONDON: 
 
 J. AND W, RIDBE, PBIITTEBS, 
 
 BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE. 
 
 m
 
 -— - Mi 
 
 IGHTOWV,' 
 
 ON AND /, ;