'L'l E> HAHY 
 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 S23 
 H47p 
 
The person charging this material is re- 
 sponsible for its return to the library from 
 which it was withdrawn on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons 
 for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from 
 the University. 
 To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 JAN 1 3 1983 
 

T'aul Nugent — ^Materialist. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
Books to ask for at the Libraries. 
 
 At all Libraries, 2 Vols. Crown 8vo., price lis. 
 BRIARS ; Or, On Dangerous Ground. By the Author o 
 ' Crane Court.' 
 
 ' The plot is admirably handled, all the persons are realistically as well as artistic 
 ally drawn. . . . Wrought out with unmistakable force.' — Scottish Leader. ' The 
 story is well written.' — Manchester Guardian. ' There is an indefinable charm 
 about it.' — Life. The story flows easily and pleasantly, and never wearies' — 
 Whitehall Review. 
 
 At all Libraries, Crown 8vo, Cloth, price 6s. 
 GLENATHOLE. By Cyril Grey. 
 
 • It abounds in strong and startling situations, is written with great ability, and 
 contains several finely-drawn characters.' — Newcastle Chronicle. 
 
 In 2 Vols. 8vo, with Numerous Illustrations, price £2, 2s. 
 THE DIARIES OF SIR MOSES MONTEFIORE AND 
 LADY MONTEFIORE, comprising their Life and Work 
 as recorded therein, from 181 2 to 1883. Edited by the 
 late Dr. L. Leowe. 
 
 Crown 82/0, Cloth, price 6s. 
 LETTERS FROM DOROTHY OSBORNE TO SIR 
 WILLIAM TEMPLE, 1652-54. Edited by E. A. Parry, 
 
 with Photographs and Autographs. 
 
 ' We can point to no contemporary book in which social life in England under the 
 Commonwealth is so fully described. The letters are far more than billets-doux. 
 written, as Macaulay suggested, by a virtuous, amiable and sensible girl and in- 
 tended for the eye of her lover alone. — Athenceum. 
 
 LON DON : , 
 GRIFFITH FARRAN OKEDEN & WELSH. 
 
Paul Nugent — 
 
 Materialist 
 
 BY 
 
 HELEN F. HETHERINGTON (GULLIFER) 
 
 AND THE 
 
 Rev. H. DARWIN BURTON 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GRIFFITH FARRAN OKEDEN & WELSH 
 
 NEWBERY HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD 
 
 AND AT SYDNEY 
 
8£2> 
 
 V.l 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 -o — 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAUE 
 
 A LOVE MATCH, I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DISAPPOINTMENT, 12 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 '' DISILLUSION, 24 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A CATASTROPHE, 35 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ORTHODOX VILLAGE OF ELMSFIELD, . . . 50 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 6l 
 
 
 A NEW LIFE IN A NEW HOME, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A FIRST INTRODUCTION, . . • ■ 71 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 (J) THE CURATES OF ST JOHN'S, 82 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A DINNER AT BEECHWOOD, 93 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SIR THOMAS'S PRACTICAL JOKE, 107 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PREJUDICE, I20 
 
 CHAPTER VII I. 
 
 IS RELIGION SUPERSTITION ? 1 29 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A ROW IN HART'S ALLEY, 141 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE MISS SINGLETONS, 1 53 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A BALL AT THE CASTLE, 171 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ' i would rather dte than rob you of an 
 
 illusion!' 183 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A MODERN PRODIGAL, 1 93 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PROVED BY THE SCALPEL AND THE MICROSCOPE, . 207 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AN UNEXPECTED MEETING, 220 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 LOVEL ON ' ROBERT ELSMERE,' 234 
 
Taul Nugent— Materialist. 
 
Paul Nugent— Materialist. 
 
 THE PROLOG U E. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A LOVE MATCH. 
 
 A SMALL golden ring, as is well known, can be a 
 more unbearable fetter than a pair of iron hand- 
 cuffs ; and marriage under some aspects may be 
 an infinitely worse fate than the famous mill at 
 Marseilles, in which the Emperor Maximian's 
 satellites used to grind obdurate Christians to 
 powder. 
 
 It was no comfort to Paul Nugent to know 
 that he had brought this detestable fate upon 
 himself. On the contrary, it exasperated him 
 to be obliged to confess that he, in all the pride 
 and strength of his manhood, had been as weak 
 as any schoolboy fresh from the pleasant laxities 
 VOL. I. A 
 
2 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 of Eton. He met Perdita Verschoyle at Hurling- 
 ham, when they were both supposed to be looking 
 on at a polo match between the ioth Lancers 
 and the nth Hussars; but he was looking at her 
 — and she, with blue eyes full of lazy interest, was 
 looking at — some one else, and therein lay her 
 charm. Her careless bow when her fussy mother 
 introduced him surprised and nettled him into 
 sudden interest, for he was tired of the quick, 
 admiring glances which his beauty always won 
 for him before he had time to speak a word. He 
 was as fond of being appreciated as any other man, 
 but it seemed to him that the cast of his features 
 mattered little, compared with the cast of his 
 character or his intellect. He had no personal 
 conceit, but he held his head high, and was proud 
 to think there was a good deal in it. 
 
 And yet Paul Nugent fell in love with silken 
 lashes drooping over marvellous blue eyes, and 
 coral lips which smiled as sweetly as possible, but 
 never said anything worth hearing. Perhaps it 
 was the consciousness that he would have to fight 
 against a dozen rivals which led him on, for Miss 
 Verschcyle had crowds of admirers, and he was 
 
A LOVE MATCH. 3 
 
 never so happy as when engaged in an arduous 
 struggle. His love took possession of him like a 
 summer madness, and, wild with the longing for 
 possession, he lived for a few months in a fevered 
 dream, like any poor lunatic in Bedlam, who sits 
 on a bench in the sun, and dreams himself a Lord 
 Chancellor on the woolsack. His passionate 
 wooing bewildered her, and overpowered all her 
 capacities for resistance. She was rather glad to 
 think that her lover was considered clever by the 
 rest of her small world ; but, unlike him in every 
 respect, her chief source of pride in Paul Nugent 
 was the faultless line of features, which made his 
 the most noted face in the Row. She was incap- 
 able of the smallest appreciation of his higher 
 qualities, and she considered herself on a perfect 
 equality with one of the first scholars of the day, 
 because of the trivial fact that the girls of her 
 acquaintance looked after him, as the men with 
 more audacity ran after her. 
 
 And to such a woman as this Paul Nugent gave 
 his whole heart. 
 
 It was a pitiful satire on the rest of his life, for 
 the intellect on which he prided himself more 
 
4 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 than on any other possession was dethroned from 
 its seat of power, and, as it were, shunted igno- 
 minously into the background, whilst all the softer 
 feelings, which he generally considered of so small 
 account, were allowed full play. He would take 
 no answer but * yes,' and when that cheerful mono- 
 syllable was whispered on his shoulder, he felt 
 prouder of his prize than Columbus when he 
 discovered a new world. 
 
 He was so sure of his happiness, that he was 
 not afraid to take his bride straight home to The 
 Thickets, a small property near by in Essex, which 
 came to him through his mother. It was a pretty 
 place, near the small town of Z., and he had flown 
 to it eagerly, as the only spot on earth where he 
 could be sure of an uninterrupted tete-a-tete with 
 his lovely wife. Could any folly be greater ? 
 
 Perdita's highest ambition had been to have 
 a prettier frock than any other girl of her ac- 
 quaintance, and she had taken care to provide 
 herself with a vast quantity of fascinating toilettes 
 in her trousseau. But what is the good of the 
 most entrancing gown that was ever conceived 
 by the imagination of a first-rate milliner, if there 
 
A LOVE MATCH. 5 
 
 is nobody to die of envy ? There was absolutely 
 no society in Z. A few carts rattled up and 
 down its one long street, but it was generally 
 so intensely and funereally silent, that a dog's 
 bark sounded like an impertinence. 
 
 1 Will nobody come to call ? ' asked Perdita, as 
 she stood at the breakfast-room window, forming 
 a pretty picture, with her yellow hair and her 
 pale blue gown, a pretty, wistful look in her forget- 
 me-not eyes, and an ugly weed of discontent 
 growing up within her bosom. 
 
 1 No, thank heaven, not a chance,' said Paul 
 fervently, though he had no belief in the heaven 
 he so casually invoked. ' In this snug little place 
 of ours there isn't a soul to drop in except Mr 
 Whittaker the parson, who would shudder himself 
 into a blue ague if he had to enter the house, 
 or the doctor, who knows I am too confoundedly 
 healthy to be any good to his pocket.' 
 
 ' But are there no girls — no ladies of any sort, 
 however old ? ' she asked in dismay, as she thought 
 of all her finery wasted in this desert. 
 
 6 None,' with a cheerful smile, ' unless you call 
 Dr Goodwin's sister a lady. She's a fearful female, 
 
6 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 with shiny black love-locks plastered across her 
 forehead.' 
 
 Perdita shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 1 There will be no good in changing my dress. 
 I shall keep this one on,' her heart sinking in cold 
 despair. She leant her head against the frame- 
 work of the window, as she thought of those gay 
 little teas at Hurlingham, when the men crowded 
 round her like the bees round their queen, and the 
 women were nearly mad with jealousy at the 
 beauty of her frocks ; or that other day at 
 Henley, when she floated down the river, with 
 some one whom she rather liked, talking non- 
 sense to her in the moonlight, and little Jack 
 Mosely singing, ' Be queen of my heart to-night,' 
 as he shot past her in his canoe. 
 
 She could hear the boyish tenor dying away 
 in the distance; she could see the lights of the 
 numberless house-boats flashing across the waters. 
 She was in the full enjoyment of the life — the 
 fun, the undercurrent of excitement, and she 
 woke with a start to find herself alone with 
 Paul Nugent, in the dullest house in the world ! 
 
 'What shall we do to-day?' he was asking, 
 
A LOVE MATCH. 7 
 
 in a cheerful, matter-of-fact way, as if he had a 
 host of things to propose. 
 
 ' There is nothing to do,' not caring to raise her 
 eyes to his, but stretching out her hand to pick a 
 rosebud, and then chewing the stalk to pieces with 
 her small white teeth. 
 
 4 My dear child, how can you say so? I could 
 drive you over Horsley Common, and round by 
 Fellday Woods ; or else we could take the lower 
 road, cross the river by Bolton Bridge, and catch 
 the finest view of the castle, with the hills as a 
 background.' 
 
 The programme seemed a splendid one to him, 
 especially with that golden head close to his side, 
 as a very charming adjunct to the beautiful 
 scenery. 
 
 But there was no rapture in Perdita's face as 
 she drew her brows together, and threw away the 
 rose that she had so wantonly spoiled. 
 
 4 1 wish you would understand, once for all,' she 
 began petulantly, ' that one or two fellow-creatures 
 would be a thousand times more interesting to 
 me than all the castles in the world.' 
 
 A shade crossed Paul's face, but he laid his 
 
8 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 hand upon her shoulder with an indulgent 
 smile. 
 
 ' You prefer common clay to the stones of by- 
 gone centuries? Well, shall we stroll down to 
 the village ? I might carry a basket, and you 
 should play Lady Bountiful. 
 
 ' Thanks ; where would be the fun ? By fellow- 
 creatures I mean the people who wear good 
 coats on their backs, or pretty gowns, who can 
 talk of the things that interest me, and laugh, 
 and have fun. I've nothing in common with 
 paupers,' she added, with a toss of her head, and 
 a spiteful flash from her lovely eyes. 
 
 ' The people here are not paupers,' he said 
 indignantly. 'They are honest, hard-working 
 creatures. They would slave themselves to death 
 rather than go into the workhouse, and be sup- 
 ported for nothing.' 
 
 1 I daresay,' with a cold smile. ' Rob a poor 
 man of his beer, and is there anything left him 
 to live for ? ' 
 
 ' They are not a set of barrels,' he answered 
 gravely. 'They have no minds, perhaps, but 
 they've hearts, like you and me, Per,' his voice 
 
A LOVE MATCH. 9 
 
 softening. ' And do you think, if we were forced 
 to live apart, our first thought would be if they 
 would put a stopper on our liquor ? ' 
 
 1 No, of course not ; but we are different,' draw- 
 ing herself up, as if she were a superior being. 
 ' Have you no friends, Paul ? ' 
 
 1 Yes, plenty, only I don't want them just yet,' 
 his face flushing ; ' and they live at a distance.' 
 
 ' They don't seem in a hurry to find you out' 
 
 1 They haven't an idea that we are here.' 
 
 1 It's all your fault, because you don't go to 
 church,' she said, as if she had made a discovery. 
 1 1 know down at home we never used to know 
 if the Castle people were back, until we saw them 
 in their pew. I shall go to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Don't,' drawing her to his side. ' I shall have 
 such a dull morning. You never used to go in 
 London.' 
 
 1 Yes, I did — sometimes. Here I shall go 
 regularly ; it will be something to do.' 
 
 The words jarred upon Paul, unbeliever as he was. 
 
 ' Sit here, and talk to me ; there will be no 
 hypocrisy about that,' he said, as he kissed her 
 soft white forehead. 
 
IO PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 She drew herself away brusquely, and looked 
 up into his face with an offended air. It was 
 the first home-truth he had ever spoken to her, 
 and she did not approve of it at all. 
 
 ' Hypocrisy, Paul ! ' she exclaimed, drawing 
 down the corners of her mouth. 
 
 ' Yes, I mean it, J softening the words with a 
 smile, but too innately honest to be able to with- 
 draw them. ' You are supposed to go to church 
 for some religious sort of service, I believe, and 
 if you go from any other motive, there is a certain 
 amount of hypocrisy, isn't there ? ' 
 
 1 You know nothing about it at all,' she said, 
 with supreme contempt, glad to find some subject 
 on which she could assert her superiority to her 
 husband. ' You are nothing but an atheist,' and 
 she flounced out of the room, quite forgetful of 
 the fact that she generally took care to make 
 a graceful exit. 
 
 Paul shrugged his shoulders and went off to the 
 library, where he promptly found consolation for 
 his temporary sense of disappointment and aliena- 
 tion in his beloved books. The old charm fell 
 upon him as soon as he found himself in his wonted 
 
A LOVE MATCH. II 
 
 chair ; but when the luncheon gong roused him to 
 the duties of everyday life, he remembered with 
 a pang of surprise that he had quite forgotten 
 his wife's existence for at least two hours. As he 
 walked to the door with a slow, reluctant step, he 
 might have guessed that the scales were already 
 falling "from his eyes, and that his love-dream was 
 over. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 DISAPPOINTMENT. 
 
 MRS PAUL NUGENT was rightly called Perdita, 
 for she gravitated downwards like the lost souls 
 in Dante's Inferno. When her husband discovered 
 that she could sympathise in nothing that interested 
 him most, he took to shutting himself up in the 
 library for gradually increasing intervals. As soon 
 as the period had gone by for a conversation con- 
 sisting chiefly of terms of endearment, he began 
 to find that he and his wife had not one thought 
 in common. If he had been awake to the duties 
 of his position as a married man, he would have 
 taken care to provide some sort of entertainment 
 for her, as soon as he found that his own society 
 was not all sufficiency ; but, manlike, he engrossed 
 himself in his own pursuits, and then wondered why 
 she had so little to say to him when they met at 
 meals. Poor Perdita had nothing to do, and 
 nothing to think of but a past which was gone out 
 
DISAPPOINTMENT. 1 3 
 
 of reach, like a child's shoe washed away by the 
 tide. The county families were very slow in call- 
 ing, and Perdita, accustomed to the sauce piquante 
 of fashionable life, thought them 'deadly slow' in 
 every other way. Still she brightened up a little 
 when Paul, with the air of a martyr, drove her 
 about the country in his high mail-phaeton to 
 return their visits. If there were a few men in 
 the room, the conversation was kept up briskly, 
 and Perdita was the life and soul of the party ; 
 but if not, it dwindled into a series of exhaustive 
 platitudes, till Paul would get up in despair and 
 say they could not keep the horses waiting any 
 longer. 
 
 ' Per, my dear girl, why can't you talk to the 
 women ? ' he said one day, as they were driving 
 home in the gathering dusk, and he was feeling 
 especially mortified because he knew that his wife 
 had made a bad impression on Lady Morgan, who 
 was considered the oracle of the county. 
 
 1 It's not my metier} she said affectedly, as she 
 drew her sable boa closer round her soft white 
 throat. ' Men have always understood me — 
 women never.' 
 
14 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 Paul frowned. There was something in the 
 little speech which irritated and offended him 
 exceedingly. He had never objected to Miss 
 Verschoyle's turning the cold shoulder on any 
 amount of women, and devoting her whole atten- 
 tion to Paul Nugent; but he wished to be the 
 only man with whom she could get on so very 
 easily, and he knew that the women of the neigh- 
 bourhood would soon pass sentence on her, and 
 refuse to admit this pretty, coquettish little bride 
 into the inner sanctum of their intimacy. 
 
 ' You open like an oyster as soon as a man 
 comes near you,' he said testily, ' and you never 
 give the women a chance. Do you know that 
 sort of thing is not considered good form down 
 here ? ' 
 
 'As if I cared what a parcel of old women 
 thought of me/ she answered rather shrilly, as the 
 hues of the sunset gathered in her cheeks. ' They 
 are horrid, stiff, sour old cats, and I don't want 
 to see any of them again.' 
 
 ' But you will feel rather dull without any of 
 them,' he said gravely, for it had been borne in 
 upon him by that crucial test — personal experi- 
 
DISAPPOINTMENT. 1 5 
 
 ence — that dulness was possible even with the 
 prettiest wife in England for your companion ; 
 and, having gone so far on his own account, he 
 was kind enough to think that she might have 
 made a step in the same direction. 
 
 1 Captain Mayhew said he would ride over to 
 see what is the matter with the little pug,' she 
 answered, with a smile of conscious pride, 'and that 
 long-legged Mr Ashton said he would be charmed 
 to mark out our tennis-lawn. He is going to 
 lunch with us to-morrow.' 
 
 Paul gave the chestnuts a savage cut with the 
 whip, which sent them down the road at a ma 1 
 pace. They nearly dislocated his wrists, but he 
 managed to get them under control. At the 
 same time he was trying to regain a thorough 
 mastery over himself. When he was sure that he 
 could speak without passion — and the horses had 
 subsided into a moderate trot — he turned to his 
 wife, with an expression in his eyes that she had 
 never seen there before. 
 
 'What is the matter with Bogie?' he asked 
 quietly. 
 
 * Oh, nothing, nothing,' she stammered in con- 
 
l6 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 fusion, ' only I didn't think the darling was quite 
 the thing.' 
 
 1 You never said a word about it to me ? ' 
 ' No, of course not ; the dog might have died 
 and you would never have noticed it,' recovering 
 her composure as well as her combative instinct. 
 
 'As if I weren't desperately interested in any- 
 thing that concerned you ! I will have a look at 
 the little brute to-night, and if he isn't well we'll 
 send for the vet to-morrow.' 
 
 I Captain Mayhew says he is as good as a vet, 
 and we shouldn't have to pay him anything,' she 
 said, very quietly. 
 
 I I never knew you think of expense before/ not 
 at all pleased by this peculiar style of economy. 
 
 ' I am profiting by your lessons,' pursing up her 
 lips. 
 
 ' You talk as if I were a screw.' 
 
 1 You talked as if we were paupers,' with an 
 indignant flash from her eyes. 
 
 1 Just because I wouldn't go to Monte 
 Carlo ? ' 
 
 1 Yes — and that was horrid of you. Don't you 
 know that I'm moped to death ; and you grudge 
 
DISAPPOINTMENT. 1 7 
 
 me the only two people who will take the trouble 
 to come over?' trembling with excitement, and 
 almost frightened at her own words. 
 
 * So you ask a fool and a puppy to console 
 you?' his upper lip curling scornfully. 
 
 1 They are better than nothing/ sullenly. 
 
 ' Do you call me " nothing ? " ' very quietly. 
 
 ' No, but you can't talk of anything but books 
 and politics, and I hate them both.' 
 
 ' Good gracious, child, do you know what you 
 are saying ? If I bore you already, after only two 
 months of it, what is to become of us both ? ' he 
 asked tragically. 
 
 She gave her shoulders an insolent shrug. 
 
 ' You will have your books, and your shooting, 
 hunting, everything you want, and I — ' 
 
 ' Yes — you ? ' he interposed eagerly, as she 
 paused. 'Do you think I'm such a selfish brute 
 that I could be happy if you weren't?' 
 
 ' I'm sure you could,' she said coldly, ' so I shall 
 look out for myself.' 
 
 1 Perdita ! ' 
 
 Not another word passed between them as they 
 
 turned in at the gate of ' The Thickets,' and the 
 VOL. I. B 
 
1 8 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 chestnuts brought them up to the front door in 
 splendid style. 
 
 Paul handed out his wife, but as she turned into 
 the drawing-room with an exclamation of delight 
 at the fire which had been lighted by her husband's 
 orders, he went into the library, and closed the 
 heavy door behind him, with something like a groan. 
 
 1 Was it his fault ? ' he asked himself, over and 
 over again, as he paced up and down the darken- 
 ing room ; and, subjecting his conduct to a search- 
 ing analysis, he came to the conclusion that it was. 
 He had never given her much choice as to whether 
 she would have him or no. He had wanted her so 
 madly that he had constrained her to come to him 
 by the power of his will, and — good heavens ! — 
 was it true that he ' wanted ' her no longer ? 
 
 The room seemed to stifle him, and, walking to 
 the window, he threw it open and raised his face to 
 the chill east wind and the darkened sky. He 
 watched the branches of the larches tossing up 
 and down with every gust, and frowned with pain 
 as he remembered that, just in the same way, only 
 a short time ago, he had been tossed here and 
 there on the wild winds of a passion, a mere 
 
DISAPPOINTMENT. 1 9 
 
 shuttlecock in the hands of his feelings. It was a 
 despicable thing for a man who prided himself on 
 the power of his intellect and his strength of will 
 to find that he had no more real power of resist- 
 ance to his passions than the merest sensualist. He 
 had loved Perdita Verschoyle for the sake of her 
 beauty. Her cheeks were just as softly-rounded, 
 her eyes were just as deeply, darkly blue, but her 
 loveliness had already lost the power to satisfy 
 him. He had taken her into his heart without 
 first finding out if she were suited to the position, 
 and it was like placing a statue of Venus in a 
 cathedral. Every day, with a cruel clear-sighted- 
 ness, he found out points of dissimilarity between 
 them. Mentally weighing her small personality in 
 the balance, 'Found wanting' was the constant 
 sentence, and the discovery only afforded him a 
 fresh sense of defeat every time. 
 
 It seemed to him that he had studied every- 
 thing in nature except ' Woman/ and yet it was 
 a more important subject than any other, for a 
 woman could make or mar his life, whilst any of 
 the neglected ologies would only have left one 
 blank space in his mind. 
 
20 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 But idle regrets were of no possible use. She 
 was his property, to be looked after and taken 
 care of in a higher degree than corn-fields, or 
 pasture lands, or the inmates of his stables and 
 kennels. He could not get rid of her except by 
 >ome violent disruption ; he must keep her by 
 his side, to see that no temptation reached her. 
 He had promised before men to cherish her, and 
 he would never break that promise, though no 
 extra binding force had been lent to it by re- 
 ligion. Under these circumstances, he knew 
 that he must do the best he could, and make 
 her life as bearable to her as possible. ' But what 
 will be the end of it ? ' he asked, with a groan, as 
 the level stretch of constant, futile endeavour 
 seemed to unfold itself before his despairing 
 eyes, and the sunshine which might have gilded 
 it was hidden behind the gloomy clouds of dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 Disappointment is an unpleasant word in 
 itself, when associated with a child's tear-stained 
 cheeks, and a party deferred to another day, or 
 lost through a shower of rain ; but it becomes 
 almost unbearable in its wretchedness when it 
 
DISAPPOINTMENT. 21 
 
 applies to a life-time, and its consequences spread 
 from youth to old age. 
 
 The dressing-bell roused Paul from his abstrac- 
 tion, and, cold at heart as well as chilled to the 
 bone, he shut the window, and groped his way 
 through the unlighted room to the door. It was 
 a shock to him to find Perdita just the same as 
 usual, as if she were not aware of the rocks on 
 which they both were stranded. She looked 
 particularly well in a pale blue tea-gown, and 
 she was standing before a tall mirror, draped 
 with Algerian curtains, when Paul came into the 
 drawing-room, looking as solemn as a hired 
 mute. 
 
 ' Why, Paul, you look as if you were attending 
 your own funeral ! ' she cried out, as soon as she 
 saw him. ' Come here and admire me. There's 
 nobody else, or I would save you the trouble/ 
 
 He looked down at her with grave eyes, and 
 then, with a sudden pang of pity, drew her to 
 him, and kissed her on the full, red lips. 
 
 ' Don't,' she said pettishly. ' You'll ruin my 
 dress before any one else has seen it' 
 
 His face hardened. 
 
22 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ' Come, or the soup will be cold,' he said 
 shortly, as he held out his arm. 
 
 'You might at least have said that you liked 
 my dress,' and she pouted like an offended 
 child. 
 
 4 As if you cared a straw whether I did or no,' 
 the colour rushing to his cheeks. 
 
 ' Why shouldn't I ? ' raising her pencilled eye- 
 brows ; ' you are a man/ 
 
 1 Yes, but only a husband,' with withering 
 scorn ; and then they went into dinner. 
 
 The bitterness of his mood passed off, and was 
 succeeded by an interval of comparative indiffer- 
 ence. He became engrossed in shooting his 
 partridges, and as he invited some of the best 
 1 guns ' in the neighbourhood to join him, and as 
 they often stayed to dinner, Perdita was happier. 
 He disliked her evident appreciation of their ad- 
 miration, but he told himself that he was a 
 jealous fool, and that flattery was the breath of 
 life to a woman. 
 
 Her flirtations became the talk of the neigh- 
 bourhood, but, of course, he was the last man to 
 hear of them, and, to do Perdita justice, she was 
 
DISAPPOINTMENT. 23 
 
 only bent on amusing herself. She saw no reason 
 why she should not have a man lounging in her 
 boudoir, and telling her all the empty chit-chat of 
 the neighbourhood, whilst Paul was forgetting 
 a November fog, and all the unpleasantnesses of 
 life, as well as his pretty wife, over a musty 
 volume- in the library. 
 
 This sort of thing could not go on for long 
 without coming to some sort of crisis. Sir Samuel 
 Morgan took it upon himself to warn Mr Nugent 
 that young Ashton was always hanging about 
 his house. Paul thanked the old squire very 
 coldly, but the next time Mr Ashton presented 
 himself, ' Not at home ' was said to him by the 
 butler, who seemed in a hurry to shut the door, 
 and a few days later he heard that the Nugents 
 had gone abroad for three weeks. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 DISILLUSION. 
 
 ' Now look here, Per,' said Paul, leaning his back 
 against the mantel-shelf in the drawing-room one 
 cold, bleak, January day, when the fireside was 
 the only place for comfort, 'you've only got to 
 say what you want. I'll give up hunting,' with 
 an inward groan, ' if you want me to take you 
 for a walk or a drive, only don't turn down the 
 corners of your mouth and look like an in- 
 voluntary martyr.' 
 
 ' 1 am a martyr, and you know it,' looking into 
 the fire with angry eyes, as she leant her chin on 
 her hand, and her elbows on her knees. ' I hate 
 the country, and it is brutal of you to make me 
 live here.' 
 
 ' You know very well that I can't help it,' he 
 said quietly, as a weary look crept over his young, 
 good-looking face. ' If we shut up this place, 
 and took a decent house in London, I should like 
 
DISILLUSION. 2 5 
 
 to know who would pay the damage. I know 
 I couldn't/ 
 
 'You could sell it, and then we could take a 
 house in Mayfair on the proceeds.' She stooped 
 to pick up Bogie, an obese, surly little pug, and 
 buried her face on its broad back, for she scarcely 
 dared to glance at her husband. 
 
 1 Sell The Thickets ! ' he exclaimed in amaze- 
 ment, feeling as if the proposition were nothing 
 short of an outrage. ' Do you know that my 
 people have lived here for five centuries ? ' 
 
 I Then I'm sure it's time for you to give it up. 
 Change is the order of the day, and you would 
 be quite a different man if you lived in London.' 
 
 I I should prefer penal servitude,' and, though it 
 was folly, he looked as if he meant it. 
 
 ' Then you are only fit for Bedlam,' she decided, 
 in a tone of equal conviction. 
 
 He took no notice of the remark, but leant 
 his elbow on the mantel-shelf and frowned at 
 the fire. Presently he gave a short laugh. 
 
 ' I wonder what you would think of me if I 
 told you that my only 'haven of refuge would be 
 the reading-room of the British Museum?' 
 
26 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 1 1 should wish you were a mummy, and could 
 never get out/ throwing Bogie off her lap, and 
 starting up, for she was always spasmodic in her 
 movements. ' Oh, why did I ever come across 
 you/ drawing her brows together angrily. ' I 
 used to be the jolliest girl in London, and now 
 I envy the crossing-sweepers.' 
 
 1 Perdita/ and he caught her by the shoulder 
 as she was turning away, ' do you tell me to my 
 face that you want to be free ? ' 
 
 ' Of course I do/ turning upon him with flashing 
 eyes, as her pent-up discontent broke forth in a 
 wave of bitterness. ' I hate the place — I hate my 
 life — and I hate you.' 
 
 For one minute she stood facing him, her bosom 
 heaving, her lips quivering, her hands twitching 
 convulsively, her whole being rising up against 
 him in sudden wild rebellion. Oh, how proud she 
 felt of having a soul above this quiet, humdrum life, 
 how she despised those poor benighted creatures 
 who could endure it with phlegmatic content ! 
 How she revelled in the consciousness that she 
 was only fitted for a bright and brilliant 
 sphere. 
 
DISILLUSION. 27 
 
 All the colour faded from Paul's face as his 
 grasp relaxed. 
 
 ' And you are my wife,' he said slowly, as if 
 measuring the immensity of the calamity which 
 had fallen upon him. Their eyes met, hers bright, 
 hard, and defiant, his grave as death with stern 
 reproach. 
 
 'Well, don't you believe me?' she asked, with 
 a nervous little laugh. 
 
 1 Yes, for once in your life, I believe you im- 
 plicitly,' he said coldly, and then he went out of 
 the room and shut himself up in the library. 
 Such an overpowering rage possessed him that he 
 was terrified at the violence of his own feelings. 
 As he had stood opposite to her in all her beauty, 
 and heard her tell him with such heartless effrontery 
 that she hated him, as he realised in one long 
 minute the utter hopelessness of his position, and 
 knew that there was no remedy, he had felt as 
 if he could seize her by that soft white throat of 
 hers, and throttle her without pity or remorse. 
 This was the girl whom he had fancied so superior 
 to all other girls that he must have her for his 
 own — a creature without a mind or a heart — with 
 
28 PAUL NUGENT— MATERIALIST. 
 
 no capacity for appreciating the deeper or the 
 higher interests of life, no thought beyond the 
 gowns on her back, and the compliments they 
 could extract from the men of her acquaintance. 
 She professed herself a churchwoman, and yet 
 religion had no active influence on her empty 
 life. She could be almost brutal in her candour 
 when irritation won the day over prudence, and 
 yet a false excuse or a downright fib came glibly 
 to her tongue whenever she wished to make a 
 good impression. He was a man of most fastidious 
 taste, and her outward appearance had satisfied 
 him completely ; but to his constant disgust, when 
 she was no longer acting a part after careful 
 study, he found that she was absolutely vulgar 
 in thought and feeling, and that her charming 
 refinement was only skin deep. Before her God 
 she had sworn to love him, and now she told him 
 to his face that the vow was broken, without one 
 single blush of shame, without one quiver of pain 
 or compunction in her triumphant voice. As he 
 paced up and down the room, he smiled scornfully 
 at the thought of that one religious ceremony in 
 which he had been forced to take a part. The 
 
DISILLUSION. 29 
 
 white-robed priest had made no impression upon 
 him, nor the altar before which so many of the 
 congregation reverently bowed their heads, but as 
 a man of honour he considered himself morally 
 bound by the promise he then made, and he had 
 intended to be true to it as long as life lasted. 
 Perdita had looked so sweetly devout, as she re- 
 peated the words 'to love and obey,' as if she 
 had thought the angels were watching her, and 
 that heaven's blessing was falling on her golden 
 head; and yet that promise was broken as lightly 
 as if she considered the whole ceremony a sham 
 or a farce. 
 
 What would be the end of it ? he asked, with a 
 dreary sigh, but in his darkest hour of conscious 
 defeat he never guessed the awful answer. He 
 thought it was inevitable that they should drift 
 further and further apart, living under the same 
 roof with a cold neutrality existing between them ; 
 and he knew that, much as he loved his books, 
 or a capital gallop across country on his favourite 
 hunter, none of these things would make up to 
 him for the shadow on his home. But there 
 should be no scandal — nothing to make the world 
 
30 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 jeer or bring a stain on the proud old name. 
 They would both live their sinless lives without 
 crying out for the sympathy of their neighbours, 
 or giving occasion for gossiping tongues to wag ; 
 and perhaps they would grow accustomed to it 
 all, and wonder why they had ever been senti- 
 mental enough to wish for anything more. 
 
 'There is no remedy/ he said to himself; 'there- 
 fore, of course, I must live it down. Perdita shall 
 have nothing to complain of.' But his youth cried 
 out within him, and the cold philosophy of his 
 resignation seemed more fitted for passionless old 
 age. 
 
 Paul determined to do his duty by his wife, 
 and after a few days proposed that she should 
 take to following the hounds. 
 
 1 Do you want to kill me ? ' she asked ungraci- 
 ously ; but she was pleased with the idea of 
 hunting, and kindly allowed him to buy her a 
 horse. She was still more pleased when she found 
 Mayhew at the meet, and he politely offered to 
 give her a lead. Perdita had been accustomed to 
 ride in the Row, but she had never faced such a 
 thing as a five-barred gate or a bullfinch, so she 
 
DISILLUSION. 31 
 
 clung to the roads with unabashed persistency. 
 Captain Mayhew was one of those men who are 
 ready to flirt with a pretty woman at all times and 
 all seasons, but to give up a run for her sake was 
 beyond him. Cunningly he persuaded her to try 
 this or that, gradually rousing her vanity into 
 eager rivalry with the other ladies of the neighbour- 
 hood, till she put her eager horse at a very low 
 fence, gave him his head, shut her eyes, and hoped 
 for the best. She flew out of the saddle like a bird 
 from a branch, and alighted on a mud-heap ; and 
 when Paul came up with a white face to ask if 
 she were hurt, she raised her golden head from 
 close proximity to Mayhew's shoulder, and said, 
 with a sarcastic smile, — 
 
 ' Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not dead yet.' 
 Paul dug his spurs savagely into his chestnut's 
 flanks, and dashed off after the hounds, inwardly 
 vowing that he would never let anxiety for his wife 
 interfere with a run again. But he did, and the 
 knowledge that she was probably floundering in 
 the mud a few fields off took away half of his 
 enjoyment. When he offered to give her a lead, 
 she said, — 
 
32 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 1 No, thank you, I don't want to break all my 
 bones.' 
 
 And as she generally made these acrid speeches 
 in a particularly distinct voice, before a large 
 audience, many people began to look askance at 
 Paul, fearing that he bullied his pretty wife. 
 
 The weather changed, and became so rainy that 
 Perdita was forced to give up hunting, and, for 
 want of anything better to do, she struck up a 
 friendship with Miss Goodwin, the sister of the 
 parish doctor. Julia Goodwin was a spinster of 
 thirty-two, and for several years had fed her senti- 
 mentality on an imaginary passion for the good- 
 looking owner of The Thickets. To meet him 
 riding through the village was the hope of each 
 day, and the news of his marriage, she thought, 
 would be her death-blow. She managed to sur- 
 vive it, however, and, strange to say, transferred, 
 or seemed to transfer, her affections from Paul to 
 Paul's wife. Perdita ridiculed her antiquated dress, 
 the shiny black ringlets on her lemon-coloured 
 forehead, the simper which seemed to be a part 
 of her company manners ; but the one thing she 
 did not laugh at was the stream of flattery which 
 
DISILLUSION. 33 
 
 poured from Miss Goodwin's lips whenever they 
 met, and which was soft as cold cream to Perdita's 
 irritated feelings. She began to regard Miss Good- 
 win as a useful and sympathetic confidante, and 
 listened with approval as the spinster rhapsodised 
 about 'Woman's Rights,' which was a favourite 
 theme with her, though she would have acknow- 
 ledged ' Man's Rights ' with the greatest eagerness, 
 if she could have found any male mad enough 
 to propose to her. Her influence was a lowering 
 one, and Perdita's grievances always seemed to 
 increase after a chat in the would-be-aesthetic 
 drawing-room of the White House. 
 
 1 Men were brutes ' according to Miss Goodwin ; 
 who would trample any woman under foot, if she 
 did not get on their backs and ride them. 
 
 Perdita remembered this when Paul remon- 
 strated gravely, but very gently, about her flirta- 
 tions. She flew out at him, and told him fiercely 
 to mind his own business, adding that she should 
 certainly do as she pleased, without consulting a 
 godless atheist. 
 
 1 You are a delightful example of Christianity,' 
 he said with a bitter smile. ' Alter your whole 
 VOL. I. C 
 
34 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 course of life, or you will never make me a 
 proselyte.' 
 
 'Thanks, I'm not a parson,' tossing her head in 
 scorn, as if she thought the clerical profession far 
 beneath her own position ; ' go and hear Mr 
 Whittaker preach — he might convert you.' 
 
 ' I'd be very much obliged to him if he could 
 convert you! 
 
 1 What do you mean ? ' opening her blue eyes to 
 their widest extent. ' I'm a Christian already.' 
 
 1 Then defend me from being another,' he said 
 with energy, as he thought of his own elevated 
 standard of morality, and compared it with the 
 little pennon dragged in the dust by his Christian 
 wife. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A CATASTROPHE. 
 
 ' I MUST go in, indeed I must. He will be as 
 savage as a bear already.' 
 
 ' Poor little thing, it's very rough on you,' in a 
 masculine voice. ' I'll drop in to-morrow, to see 
 if you are in pieces. Ta-ta ! ' 
 
 These few sentences caught Paul's ear as he 
 crossed the hall, and went into the library. Lady 
 Morgan had been worrying him that very after- 
 noon about his wife, and he had loyally denied 
 all the accusations which had been brought against 
 her ; but his pride revolted at the consciousness 
 that Mrs Paul Nugent had conducted herself 
 with so little womanly dignity, that she had be- 
 come the favourite topic of conversation amongst 
 all the dowagers of the neighbourhood. 
 
 The hall door shut, and in the dead silence 
 he could hear the sound of cautious footsteps go- 
 ing towards the dining-room. Then a fierce con- 
 
36 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 tempt flashed from his eyes, and he clenched his 
 hands tightly as if he would have gladly knocked 
 some one down with a blow from the shoulder. 
 For one minute the pugilistic instinct was strong 
 within him, and he longed for this despicable 
 woman to be a man, that he might deal with her 
 as she deserved. For a long time he had noticed 
 a strange incoherency in her manner, but he had 
 attributed it to any cause but the right one. Of 
 course he had heard of sad cases of feminine ex- 
 cess, even amongst the creme de la crime, but it 
 had never seemed possible that his wife could 
 fall into it — a woman without an anxiety or a 
 trouble, who was in want of no Lethe in which 
 to drown her cares. He listened, though he hated 
 himself for the mere suspicion, and all the doors 
 being open, heard the chink of a decanter, held 
 by an unsteady hand, against the brim of a wine- 
 glass. A pause, and then it came again and 
 again. Was she so afraid of him that she must 
 fortify herself in some manner before she could 
 face an interview ? Impossible ! for of late a 
 fatal callousness had possessed him, and he had 
 let her go her own frivolous way unchecked. No, 
 
A CATASTROPHE. 37 
 
 there was no excuse for her. It was as if she 
 had set before her the fiendish purpose of tortur- 
 ing her husband in every way she could possibly 
 imagine. 
 
 Although he had restrained himself with a 
 
 marvellous patience, she did not scruple to talk 
 
 of him to her admirers 'as a savage bear.' Though 
 
 he had left her free as air, only driven to gentle 
 
 remonstrance when her conduct was even in worse 
 
 taste than usual, he knew that he was spoken of 
 
 constantly as a bully. And now, if she took to 
 
 drinking out of sheer perversity, the sin and the 
 
 shame would be laid at his door ! As to that, 
 
 he cared less than most men, but he bent his 
 
 head down on the mantel-shelf in the bitterness 
 
 of his spirit, as he shuddered at the thought of 
 
 his whole future life becoming one long, tortured 
 
 nightmare. No, no ! it shouldn't be. He would 
 
 watch her night and day ; he would never leave 
 
 her alone; he would speak to her gently but 
 
 strongly ; he would represent to her that even 
 
 those friends who seemed to delight in her society 
 
 now, would cast her off in disgust ; he would 
 
 promise to take her up to town for the season ; 
 
38 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 he would let ' The Thickets ' for the whole 
 summer, and banish himself from it in its time of 
 greatest beauty. He would do any mortal thing 
 she liked, or leave undone anything she disliked, 
 if she would only give it up. As he was planning 
 with the determined hopefulness of youth, he 
 heard the rustle of her dress, and, with a strong 
 feeling of repulsion, raised his head, and turned 
 round to greet her. 
 
 'You are very late, Perdita,' he said hoarsely, 
 and fixed his eyes upon her swaying figure. 
 
 What a lie her whole appearance was — that 
 dainty dress of softest grey, with fur to match, 
 so fitted for a bright, innocent girl ; that delicate, 
 refined beauty, and the beautiful lips that were 
 so fatally unsteady. 
 
 1 Late ? Oh dear, no ! It's quite early — quite,' 
 talking quickly, with a sort of nervous excitement; 
 ' I've been at the White House. The charming 
 Julia walked home with me.' 
 
 1 Did the charming Julia say she would come to- 
 morrow to see if you were in pieces ? ' he asked, 
 with an inflection of scorn in his voice that passed 
 her by unhurt. 
 
A CATASTROPHE. 39 
 
 She looked puzzled as she drew her long grey 
 gloves through her small hands. 
 
 1 1 don't remember.' Then she came close to 
 him, and peered up into his face with the puzzled 
 look still in her eyes. Hesitatingly, she laid her 
 hand upon his coat sleeve. ' Why are you angry 
 with me, dear ? Julia walked home with me — I 
 vow she did, and no one else.' 
 
 He had borne it all so far with wonderful self- 
 restraint, but the lie acted as the match to a 
 slumbering fire. 
 
 ' Don't touch me — don't speak to me ! ' he cried, 
 with a shudder of disgust, as he shook off her 
 hand. ' I despise you from the bottom of my 
 heart' 
 
 With a little inarticulate cry, she tottered, over- 
 balanced, and fell down in a small heap on the 
 Turkey carpet, hitting her head against the marble 
 coping of the fireplace, as he found out later. 
 
 1 Get up,' he said hastily, ' get up for goodness 
 sake, before the servants come.' 
 
 And then he bent over her, and tried to see her 
 face, but the room was never very light, and down 
 there on the floor, at half-past seven, it was almost 
 
40 PAUL NUGENT— MATERIALIST. 
 
 dark. Suddenly the rage died out of his heart, 
 and a cold chill crept over him, and a fear of he 
 knew not what. He stretched out his hand from 
 where he was kneeling, and rang a peal. It was 
 answered at once by Marston the butler, who 
 looked round the room in perplexity and saw no 
 one. 
 
 ' Bring lights at once, your mistress has had a 
 fall/ came from out of the twilight in his master's 
 voice. 
 
 Lights were brought. Paul never forgot the 
 scene that followed. The deathly stillness settling 
 down on the pretty, girlish features — the small 
 hands still clasping the gloves they would never 
 wear again — the delicate limbs, so full of life and 
 activity but half an hour before, stiffening into an 
 attitude of forced repose — repose that never would 
 be broken. Was it a ghastly dream, or reality, 
 worse than anything his imagination had ever 
 figured ? The servants stood round with scared 
 faces and smothered ejaculations of horror. Chris- 
 tine, the maid, proffered a salts bottle, as if salts 
 had power to recall a soul that had spread its wings 
 and departed. Marston sent a groom for Dr 
 
A CATASTROPHE. 4 1 
 
 Goodwin ; but Paul knelt there as if petrified into 
 stone, with the golden head and the cold dead face 
 on his knee. She was gone where neither reproach 
 nor entreaty could follow her. Alone and unaided, 
 she had faced the mystery of death, and if there 
 were a world beyond she knew it now. After an 
 interval — he never knew whether it was short or 
 long — the doctor arrived. The groom had met 
 him on the high road driving with his sister, and, 
 horrified at the news of Mrs Nugent's death, he 
 had come straight to the house without any delay. 
 The servants stole from the room as Marston 
 silently ushered in the doctor, while Julia Good- 
 win peered in at the door with an ashen face. She 
 was not stunned like the wretched husband, but 
 her restless brain was already busy in seeking 
 some cause for the catastrophe which had robbed 
 her of her friend. Only an hour ago full of life 
 and frivolity,. her chief topic of conversation the 
 new dress she was going to order for the ball at 
 the close of the hunting-season, and now — dead ! 
 How had it come about ? What had happened ? 
 Had there been a quarrel ? Had she fallen 
 downstairs ? Had Mr Nugent heard anything 
 
42 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 about the walk home with Captain Mayhew ? 
 All these questions and surmises fluttered through 
 her mind as they drove up to the silent hou^e, 
 and came back in full force as she stood furtively 
 watching and listening, her limbs quivering, her 
 breath panting, her whole being shaking and 
 shivering, by the library door. 
 
 Then suddenly, through the stillness, rang out 
 Paul's voice — wild with a bitter agony — as he 
 cried : ' I've killed her ! I've killed her ! ' 
 
 Miss Goodwin shrank back, but her eyes flashed 
 strangely. Though she did not know it, it was 
 what she had been waiting for. This put the 
 climax to the horror, and, groping her way to a 
 chair in the hall, she sat down to collect her 
 thoughts. She had lost her friend ; that was a 
 grief which she would have plenty of time to think 
 over and digest — plenty of time when one dull 
 day would come after the other without bringing 
 the excitement of a visit from Mrs Nugent. But 
 as to this other horror — it was so immense and so 
 appalling, it seemed to fill her mind and leave no 
 space for anything else. Paul Nugent, the man 
 who had despised her, was a murderer ! He, who 
 
A CATASTROPHE. 43 
 
 had held his head so high that he had scarcely 
 seemed to see her as he passed, had sunk to the 
 deepest depths. He was lower than she was — im- 
 measurably lower. His pride and over-fastidious- 
 ness had brought him to this — a lower level than 
 that of a crossing-sweeper with shoeless feet and 
 uncombed hair ! 
 
 She did not hear her brother's shocked re- 
 monstrance, and, to do her justice, she did not 
 know that Paul's self-accusation was a morbid 
 exaggeration of the actual circumstance ; but down 
 in the depths of her heart she felt sure that Dr 
 Goodwin would somehow explain all the horror 
 away, and find a plausible excuse for this sudden 
 death which would save Mr Nugent's neck, and rob 
 the neighbourhood of a tragic sensation. 
 
 And Julia Goodwin was right. There was no 
 fuss at the inquest, for Dr Goodwin made the most 
 of the fact that he had been attending Mrs Nugent 
 for some trifling ailment, and declared that an 
 inquiry was unnecessary. He wrote a certificate 
 without the smallest qualm of conscience, for he 
 was certain that no provocation under the sun 
 could induce Paul Nugent to forget that he was a 
 
44 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 gentleman, and lift his hand against a woman. 
 He received a true account of the accident when 
 Paul was in a less excited condition, and he 
 believed it implicitly. So the unfortunate Perdita 
 was laid to rest in the churchyard, with no tragic 
 story attached to her name, and those who had 
 scorned her in every day life, sent their carriages 
 to follow her poor corpse to its last resting-place, 
 thereby throwing a decent veil over the past, and 
 showing respect for the widower. 
 
 It was all over, and Paul had escaped from 
 would-be sympathisers with a hurried shake of the 
 hand, or a grave nod. He had a horror of the 
 house, for he could not stay in the library without 
 going over every detail of that dreadful scene ; 
 he could not pass through the hall without seeing 
 that small coffin which had lain in state — a 
 mound of white flowers — on the large mahogany 
 table in the centre. 
 
 He paced up and down a terrace walk, with a 
 view on one side, over wide - spreading pasture 
 lands and stately elms, to the statelier hills beyond ; 
 and on the other, a shelving bank led down to 
 the smooth tennis-lawn, and the comfortable pic- 
 
A CATASTROPHE. 45 
 
 turesque house, surrounded by bright spring annuals 
 in the flower-beds. 
 
 Paul's life was in his own hands to do what he 
 liked with. He was perfectly free, but the liberty 
 he had sighed for brought no sense of pleasure. 
 A feeling of utter desolation was upon him. That 
 year and a half of married life seemed to have 
 alienated him from all his friends, and he had 
 never felt more alone than when standing by his 
 wife's grave, surrounded by the kindly country 
 squires, who had gathered round him in his trouble. 
 He scarcely listened to the beautiful words of St 
 Paul, which could bring no comfort to his empty 
 heart. Poor, faulty, frivolous Perdita was gone 
 for ever ; sown indeed in corruption, but never 
 to be raised in glory. She had played her part, 
 and played it amiss, but it was all over now. 
 Perhaps his rigid face expressed his want of 
 sympathy with his surroundings, for he caught the 
 Rev. Amos Whittaker's eyes fixed upon him in 
 grave rebuke. All these men believed in a resur- 
 rection of the dead, and that made a gulf between 
 him and them. Strange that they should not keep 
 their lives a little straighter, if they thought they 
 
46 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 had to take them up again on the other side of the 
 grave. 
 
 He was idly speculating on their unconscious 
 inconsistency when a turn in the path brought him 
 face to face with the Vicar. Mr Whittaker was 
 tall and broad-shouldered, with a grey beard, 
 which effectually concealed his white tie, a pleasant 
 face, with snub features, and large, rather vacuous 
 blue eyes. He was evidently suffering from nervous- 
 ness as he planted himself before Paul, with his 
 hands resting on the silver knob of his walking-stick. 
 He felt like a prophet with a message to deliver, 
 but Paul did not look like a promising recipient. 
 
 'Mr Nugent, I don't often trouble you/ he began 
 hurriedly, 'but the time has come when longer 
 silence would be criminal.' 
 
 Paul bowed, with an air of polite sufferance, but 
 said nothing. 
 
 ' The hand of God is upon you, Mr Nugent. 
 You have had one terrible warning. A young and 
 lovely woman — ' 
 
 ' I won't discuss my wife with any man,' he inter- 
 posed hurriedly; 'bar that, I'll be offended at 
 nothing/ 
 
A CATASTROPHE. 47 
 
 Mr Whittaker flushed. 
 
 ' That is callousness, not patience. You open 
 your ears, and you shut your heart ; but it won't 
 be for ever, sir. There will come a time,' raising 
 his right hand, and speaking with energy, 'when 
 you will cry, and God will not answer, when you 
 will knock, and the door won't open ; a time when 
 the terrors of death will be upon you, and you 
 will know the tortures of the damned. Wait till 
 then, and you are lost.' 
 
 1 I'm afraid I must wait till I die, for nobody 
 has ever come back to tell me ; but I refuse to 
 consider myself damned without some proof,' he 
 said gravely. 
 
 ' " Whosoever denieth Me before men, him will 
 I also deny before My Father which is in heaven,' " 
 said the vicar solemnly. ' Those are the words of 
 our blessed Lord, and as sure as you stand there, 
 in the pride of your intellect, which you have 
 made your God, in that day when penitent sinners 
 are accepted — and there is forgiveness for so 
 many — you will be rejected with the vilest of the 
 human race, and see hell-fire.' 
 
 ' You are very candid, but you don't frighten 
 
48 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 me. Tell me of something terrible that will happen 
 to me in this life,' Paul said, with a weary smile, 
 1 and I'll get out of it as quickly as I can.' 
 
 'Oh, blind! blind! blind!' exclaimed the vicar, 
 striking the path with his stick. ( You would give 
 up this life, with all the luxuries you've gathered 
 round you, and face another for which you had 
 made no preparation whatever ? What would you 
 think of a man who threw up a house in Belgravia, 
 and a princely fortune, and started for Australia 
 as a pauper? ' 
 
 1 1 should imagine that he considered work, and 
 not idleness, as a penance for the ills of life.' 
 
 ' But he might get no work, or he might starve 
 before he got into harbour.' 
 
 1 True ; but I should never give up a reality for 
 an idea.' 
 
 ' You are mistaken, Mr Nugent, you do. You 
 expend yourself on the shams and fleeting shows 
 of this world, and neglect the lasting realities of 
 the next.' 
 
 ' Prove them to be realities, then the whole 
 question's solved/ very quietly. 
 
 1 It has been proved again and again ; but I wish 
 
A CATASTROPHE. 49 
 
 you good-evening,' hurriedly raising his hat. ' I 
 came in all charity, and I don't wish to say any- 
 thing harsh this day, but the old Adam is strong 
 within me. I shall come again, and drive the nail 
 home, for God's hand is upon you, and you must 
 repent, or be damned.' 
 
 Mr Whittaker walked away in a hurry, hoping 
 that he had done some good, feeling sure, at least, 
 that he had done no harm, and turning over in his 
 mind some telling arguments for the next meeting, 
 which were to break down the barriers of scepticism 
 with an overwhelming flood, and pour in the waters 
 of the Gospel. But, unhappily, there was to be no 
 next time. 
 
 That very evening Paul Nugent started for 
 town, and turned his back on ' The Thickets ' for 
 ever. The new life was to begin in a new place ; 
 but he was forced to take his old self away with 
 him, and, in spite of the Vicar's threats of eternal 
 damnation, he was no nearer Christianity than he 
 was before Perdita's death. 
 
 END OF PROLOGUE. 
 VOL. I. D 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 'THE ORTHODOX VILLAGE OF ELMSFIELD.' 
 
 ELMSFIELD prided itself on being the prettiest 
 village in England, and the pride was founded on 
 something better than self-deception, for the old- 
 fashioned cottages were nearly smothered in a 
 wealth of creepers, and the small grey church, with 
 its weather-beaten tower, was set like a jewel 
 framed in varied foliage at the foot of a wooded 
 hill. 
 
 A very pretty girl, with a piquante face and 
 a small, well-rounded figure, tilted her sailor hat 
 a little lower over her blue eyes, and watched 
 with a smile for somebody who was sure to come. 
 Evensong was just over, and she distributed smiles 
 and nods with lavish bounty on all the various 
 members of the departing congregation. The 
 two Miss Singletons, elderly spinsters whose name 
 afforded opportunities for juvenile puns, remarked 
 with great originality that it was a fine day, and 
 
I THE ORTHODOX VILLAGE OF ELMSFIELD.' 5 1 
 
 then ambled off to Ivy Cottage, a small abode 
 just outside the low, grey wall of the churchyard, 
 where they lived on about twopence halfpenny a 
 year in abundant content. 
 
 Here he is at last — a man below the average 
 height, but with an air of distinction that made 
 him seem taller, with a pleasant, kindly, good- 
 looking face, and a pair of honest blue eyes very 
 prone to twinkle with mundane fun, in spite of 
 the severely clerical cut of his garments. 
 
 * Where is Mr Lovel ? ' inquired Miss Nellie 
 Dashwood, in order to make it seem that she 
 had been waiting for the absent one who was 
 not there. 
 
 'Lovel? Oh, he's about somewhere,' rather 
 disappointedly. 'Did you want him, Miss Dash- 
 wood ? ' 
 
 I I did, and I do. You must get hold of him 
 somehow, Mr Conway. Tea and tennis are 
 waiting for you both, and we are in a hurry 
 to begin.' 
 
 ' Lovel shall be produced, but I won't wait for 
 him. I'll get into my flannels and be with you 
 like a shot' 
 
52 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 Miss Dashwood gave a nod of approval, and, 
 jumping into a pony-cart which was waiting for 
 her, drove off at a breathless pace. The Rev. 
 Charles Conway, junior curate of St John's, hurried 
 away to the red-brick house with a rustic porch, 
 and many eccentricities of architecture, in which 
 he and his fidus achates and fellow-curate, the 
 Rev. Herbert Lovel, had taken up their abode. 
 It was called Elmsfield Lodge, and was on the left- 
 hand side of the church, whilst the Miss Singleton's 
 bower of bliss was on the right. The spinsters 
 had a fine view of all that went on in the road, 
 because their garden followed its outward curve, 
 and from its extremity they could watch every 
 visitor that called at the Lodge, and every tete- 
 a-tete held under the lilacs. 
 
 They made no mischief, but they spun the most 
 charming romances out of the scantiest materials, 
 and in the privacy of their tiny drawing-room 
 discussed eventualities with the eagerness of a 
 pair of sporting-men over their betting-books. 
 Beechwood Hall was the centre of interest, and 
 the two Miss Dashwoods its culminating point. 
 If the Miss Singletons had followed their fancies, 
 
'THE ORTHODOX VILLAGE OF ELMSFIELD.' 53 
 
 they would have been seated under the gigantic 
 cedar-tree which sheltered one side of the Squire's 
 lawn, and joined in the conversation kept up by- 
 Maude, her father, and her aunt, whilst Nellie 
 was flirting alternately with Charlie Conway and 
 Captain Fitzgerald, in order to show that she was 
 quite impartial. Captain Fitzgerald, who was 
 unlike the typical guardsman, because he was 
 plain, and his swagger was only put on, and 
 not a part of his being, listened to Miss Nellie 
 Dashwood's sallies with lazy indulgence, whilst 
 Charlie Conway received them with fervent 
 appreciation. 
 
 1 Now mind,' she remarked, with uplifted finger, 
 as she caught sight of a tall figure in irreproach- 
 able flannels advancing from the shrubbery, ' I 
 am to be the first person to tell him the important 
 news.' 
 
 1 Lovel won't raise a hair about it,' remarked the 
 guardsman languidly. 
 
 I Not he. He'll take ten times more interest in 
 a broken-kneed pauper than in a well-to-do 
 baronet. Poverty is his line.' 
 
 I I hope he won't pursue it in person. Now, 
 
54 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 watch the effect — it will be a shock. Mr Lovel, 
 so glad to see you,' holding out her hand and 
 looking up into his grave face with her merry blue 
 eyes. ( Do you know that the interesting widower 
 is actually coming to The Chase ? ' 
 
 The effect was instantaneous. His courteous 
 smile vanished, and he turned to the Squire with 
 the most sepulchral gravity. 
 1 Is this true, Mr Dashwood ? ' 
 1 Quite true. I'm rather sorry, it puts one in a 
 hole,' said the Squire, knitting his brows. ' I must 
 have the fellow here, and be civil to him for his 
 uncle's sake.' 
 
 1 Certainly, certainly,' put in Aunt Tabitha, who 
 had always an eye to the main chance, for which 
 few people gave her credit. 'The Chase is a 
 splendid property, and the neighbourhood couldn't 
 be so unkind to a poor young man as to turn the 
 cold shoulder on him.' 
 
 ' No/ said Nellie meditatively ; ' it would be very 
 unkind, wouldn't it, to turn a cold shoulder on a 
 " splendid-propertied " young man.' 
 
 ' I bet that you wouldn't get any neighbourhood 
 to do it,' remarked Charlie Conway. 
 
THE ORTHODOX VILLAGE OF ELMSFIELD.' 55 
 
 1 No, loaves and' fishes always weigh in a man's 
 favour. It's we poor beggars of soldiers who go to 
 the wall — isn't it, Nell ? ' asked Fitzgerald, who 
 was a third cousin, and exacted all the privileges 
 given by that obscure relationship. 
 
 ' Yes ; when the peaches are ripe/ with a flash 
 from her blue eyes. 
 
 'When they grow too high for you to reach 
 them ? ' with a fine disregard to her personal 
 allusion. 
 
 1 No, sir, when the peaches are there, and I'm not.' 
 
 ' Now, Mr Lovel, will you tell me what you think 
 about it ? ' Maude Dashwood asked, with an upward 
 glance which might have set any man's pulses 
 quivering. ' Am I bound to be civil to a wretch 
 who doesn't believe in anything but himself ? ' 
 
 Lovel's pale intellectual face grew a shade 
 whiter as he said slowly, — 
 
 ' He probably believes in some sort of Supreme 
 Being, or " First Cause," as they like to phrase it. 
 But is there any hope of turning him into a Chris- 
 tian, if we don't behave like Christians towards 
 him ? That's the point.' 
 
 ' I was so sure you would have nothing to do 
 
56 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 with him,' she said almost petulantly. ' I hate the 
 thought of his coming ; I should like to make him 
 feel like a pariah and an outcast.' 
 
 'If you admit him into Paradise you can't do 
 that.' 
 
 1 No, of course not,' put in Nellie, who had a 
 marvellous love of expressing her opinion. ' I 
 mean him to give balls and tennis-tournaments, 
 and all sorts of delightful things, and it would be 
 mean to expect anything of him if we did not 
 treat him well.' 
 
 1 Yes, we'll get as much out of him as we can ; 
 but if he tries the friendship dodge, we'll say we 
 don't pal with atheists, we are such orthodox people 
 in Elmsfield,' and Charlie Conway sprang to his 
 feet, and caught up a racquet as if to end the dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 1 Is that sarcasm ? ' asked Nellie, as she stretched 
 out her hand for a ball. 
 
 1 No, but I think it's rather rough on a fellow 
 to pull him to pieces before we know. We've only 
 got public report to go upon.' 
 
 4 If he comes to church, I'll shake hands ; if not, 
 I'll bow, and nothing more.' 
 
"THE ORTHODOX VILLAGE OF ELMSFIELD.' S7 
 
 6 Announce that publicly, and we sha'n't have 
 standing room.' 
 
 1 You'd have to alter the system, and say " No 
 admittance except by ticket," put in Fitzgerald, 
 as he raised a tankard of red claret to his blonde 
 moustaches, and emptied it slowly, but with infinite 
 relish. 
 
 'You are going to play, Fitz?' inquired Miss 
 Dashwood, in a doubtful tone, which gave him the 
 cue for his answer. 
 
 k Thanks, I'm warm enough as I am. Don't ask 
 me to exert myself further.' 
 
 ' Have a game of bowls,' suggested the Squire, 
 after watching the first set of tennis, which was 
 won by the younger Miss Dashwood and Charlie 
 Conway. The guardsman assented, and they 
 strolled off together to a charming piece of very level 
 grass, as smooth as a billiard-table, round by the 
 left side of the Hall, opposite the library windows. 
 
 The Hall was a fine old castellated building, 
 composed of grey stone, which sparkled like 
 granite, with a broad terrace walk in front of it. 
 Leaning on the balustrade, you looked down on 
 the lawn, which was twelve feet below, through a 
 
58 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 maze of creeping plants of every kind and variety. 
 Roses, magnolias, jessamines, vied with each other 
 in scenting the air, and a ribbon border of red 
 geraniums, contrasted with dark colises, edged the 
 grass with a band of brilliant colour. The lawn 
 was only divided from the park by a ha-ha, so there 
 was an uninterrupted view over fern-clad slopes, 
 studded here and there with magnificent timber, 
 beyond which rose the Surrey hills in all their 
 wealth of beauty. 
 
 The house was sheltered by planes and beeches 
 on either side, and at the back by its own particu- 
 lar hill, called ' The Mount,' which was clothed in 
 verdure all the year round, and in the spring was 
 radiant with clumps of rhododendron. There the 
 nightingale sang its song of peace day and night ; 
 and thither Nellie used to take her troubles, and, 
 being of a passionate, unrestrained nature, sobbed 
 out her rages with her pretty face buried in the 
 soft green mosses, her small hands clutching at 
 the roots of primroses or wild grasses with uncon- 
 scious vindictive energy, all the joys of life for- 
 gotten in the trifling sorrow of the moment. 
 
 She was Maude Dashwood's first cousin by 
 
'THE ORTHODOX VILLAGE OF ELMSFIELD.' 59 
 
 birth, but sister by adoption and love, the Squire's 
 pet plaything and sworn ally, Miss Tabitha Wyn- 
 gate's secret object of jealousy. In all that house- 
 hold of kindly people, that home of comfort, love, 
 and tenderest consideration, Miss Wyngate, the 
 sister of Maude's dead mother, was the only 
 person who tried to impress upon Nellie that 
 she was an orphan and an intruder, who ought 
 to stand on a very different level to the heiress 
 of Beechwood. She did this in an underhand 
 manner, always taking her opportunity for an 
 unpleasant speech when Maude was out of the 
 room. If Maude had ever guessed the truth, Miss 
 Wyngate's stay at the Hall would have come to 
 an abrupt conclusion ; but Nellie always put her- 
 self in the wrong by flying into a rage, and Miss 
 Dashwood could only regret with a sigh that dear 
 old Nell and Aunt Tabby couldn't hit it off better. 
 Nellie had a small fortune of her own, and, 
 therefore, could be independent of her relations, 
 but the Squire, in the goodness of his heart, thought 
 this fortune so small that it had better be left to 
 accumulate, and insisted upon treating her like a 
 daughter. The allowance did not come out of 
 
CO PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 Miss Wyngate's pocket, and yet she regarded it 
 as a grievance, and made it a basis of frequent 
 quarrels. She wore out her temper with continual 
 attempts to make Nellie ' keep her place/ which 
 was difficult, as ' the place ' she had in her mind 
 was that of a humble dependent, and nothing 
 would have induced the girl to occupy it. She 
 looked up to her cousin with the most enthusiastic 
 admiration, and thought her a miracle of loveliness 
 and excellence, but she in no wise considered her 
 as her social superior, and saw no reason why she 
 should walk meekly through life as if possessed of 
 nothing, not even of her own opinion. 
 
 This very afternoon she had the audacity to win 
 every set, and Miss Wyngate congratulated her on 
 her success with a scarcely veiled expression of 
 wonder. 
 
 'There's nothing to be proud of/ said Maude, 
 with her sweet smile. ' I played disgracefully, and 
 Mr Lovel was too evidently thinking of something 
 else.' 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 A NEW LIFE IN A NEW HOME. 
 
 PERDITA had scandalised her husband by sug- 
 gesting that The Thickets should be sold ; but 
 after her death the place became so distasteful 
 to him that he put it into an agent's hands, and 
 let it to a retired corn-merchant, who thought, if 
 he settled on another man's acres, he might learn 
 in time to play the part of a country gentleman. 
 Disgusted with life in general, and himself in 
 particular, his mind too disturbed for the enjoy- 
 ment of quiet study, too miserable to wish for 
 the society of acquaintances or even friends, Paul 
 started on his travels. He was so anxious to 
 get out of England that he scarcely waited to 
 consider where he was going; and his move- 
 ments were so uncertain, that a black-edged letter 
 followed him for several weeks without falling 
 into his hands. When he opened it at last, he 
 found to his surprise that his eccentric uncle Sir 
 
62 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 Thomas Nugent, who had forgotten him persist- 
 ently during his life, had remembered him most 
 satisfactorily just before his death. The baronetcy 
 came to Paul as a matter of course, as well as 
 The Chase, with all the many acres attached to 
 it: but he had never expected that Sir Thomas 
 would leave him the large fortune which he had 
 amassed during the last years of his miserly 
 existence. Instead of being left to found a 
 second college, after the pattern of Keble, at 
 Oxford, as he had supposed to be probable, or 
 to endow a home for inebriates, as he had known 
 to be possible, it was all bequeathed to the 
 nephew whom the old man would not receive 
 within his doors on account of his unorthodox 
 opinions. The will was a flat contradiction of 
 all Sir Thomas's avowed intentions, and was 
 only weighted with the one condition — that the 
 new owner should take up his abode at The 
 Chase at once, and make it his usual place of 
 residence. Paul puzzled over it, and failed en- 
 tirely to understand his uncle's motive. It seemed 
 so paradoxical to mistrust a man, to suspect him 
 of a fiendish capacity for evil, and a commen- 
 
A NEW LIFE IN A NEW HOME. 6$ 
 
 surate incapacity for good, to regard him as be- 
 yond the pale of ordinary humanity, to treat him 
 as the veriest scum of the earth, and yet to load 
 him with a vast fortune to be spent well or ill 
 according to his wicked will. There was only 
 one man in the world who could have understood 
 the working of the dead man's mind, or guessed 
 why the new owner was not left with a fine 
 property on his hands, and too small a rental 
 to keep it in proper condition. This was Dr 
 Abbott, the Rector of Elmsfield, who was gener- 
 ally occupied in taking care of his health in the 
 most delightful places on the Continent, whilst 
 his parochial work was done for him by the 
 united efforts of his two curates. He was the 
 friend to whom Sir Thomas confided the desire 
 of his life, and he had shaken his head over it as 
 convincingly as he could, but to no purpose, for 
 the baronet, having once made up his mind, was 
 as firmly seated on his resolution as The Chase 
 on its solid foundations. Dr Abbott aired his 
 pet projects only to have them all derided in 
 turn, and then he resigned himself and went 
 away. He had always this plan of action open 
 
64 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 to him ; and when anything disagreeable hap- 
 pened in the parish, the rector started off in the 
 next train, leaving his blessing behind him for 
 the benefit of his flock. 
 
 It was two years after his wife's death when 
 his uncle died, and Paul found himself a baronet, 
 with a deer-park and a trout-stream, a magnifi- 
 cent house and a well-stored library, the finest 
 shooting in Blankshire, and a fortune that many 
 a prince might have envied — even after a grant 
 from the Commons. And yet he found some- 
 thing to grumble at. He did not object to 
 changing his home, because his unhappy wife had 
 lived in it, and made it hateful to him ; but he 
 hated returning to England, and settling down 
 once more to the life of a country squire. The 
 quiet, placid existence had lost its charm ever 
 since the mental earthquake caused by his wife's 
 sudden death. He felt himself braced for 
 struggle, in a mood for any sort of excitement, 
 and by the adverse force of circumstances he was 
 condemned to lead a bucolic life, in the midst of 
 tranquil, idyllic surroundings. 
 
 The library at The Chase was a magnificent 
 
A NEW LIFE IN A NEW HOME. 65 
 
 room, whose walls were literally clothed in the 
 best literature of the past as well as the present. 
 It was a feast for a scholarly eye, a paradise for 
 a student, a haven of delight for the bibliophile. 
 There was a Polyglot Bible in seven tongues, 
 brought out by Plantin, the great Catholic printer, 
 dated 1555 ; a Pliny of Elzevir's, his great Pro- 
 testant rival of the following century, which 
 would have made any collector's mouth water; 
 an Aldine, with which there were few to com- 
 pare in England. There were examples of every 
 type from the ' brevier,' or ' philosophic ' (in plainer 
 parlance, the ' small pica '), to the ' paragon ' or 
 'perfect pattern,' and the well-ordered exuber- 
 ance of the ' pearl ' or ' fancy letter ; ' and down 
 in the darkest corner were yellow-backed novels 
 by Georges Sand and Balzac, which had only cost 
 the purchaser a couple of francs, but had pro- 
 bably brought him many hours of pleasure. 
 There were labels at the top of every compart- 
 ment of the book-cases ; and under the head of 
 theology, Paul smiled to see the works of 
 Newman, Manning, Pusey and Keble, as he 
 remembered the hot interest which his uncle was 
 VOL. I. E 
 
66 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 said to have taken in the Tractarian movement, 
 when an enthusiastic undergraduate at Christ- 
 church. He was dead, and all his enthusiasms 
 had died with him, for his successor looked 
 coldly at the books which had no message for 
 him. It seemed to him so strange that men 
 could agonise and break their hearts over a few 
 details of creed, which each man could believe 
 or disbelieve at his pleasure, without making 
 himself amenable to the laws of his country. 
 Why could they not live and let live ? he asked, 
 with the broad tolerance of indifference. The 
 world was wide enough for every shade of 
 doctrine. There were the realities of life to 
 fight about, why make a scrimmage about an 
 idea? 
 
 His uncle, on the other hand, had thrown him- 
 self heart and soul into the struggle for the best 
 traditions of his Church, turning upon all who 
 opposed him with a fierce contempt and hatred ; 
 for any one who could not repeat his Shibboleth 
 was to him ' Anathema Marenatha.' He never 
 had the smallest tolerance for those who dis- 
 agreed with him either in politics or theology, 
 
A NEW LIFE IN A NEW HOME. 67 
 
 and he was so intensely bigoted, that it was with 
 the greatest difficulty that he could be persuaded 
 to invite either a Low Churchman or a Radical 
 to dinner. Still, with all his one-sidedness, there 
 was something to admire in a man who was 
 ready to live and die for his convictions ; for in 
 these days there is a fatal spirit abroad which 
 some men call charity, and others indifference, 
 which takes the backbone out of life, and makes 
 all the muscles numb and inert. The baronet 
 considered that if a faith weren't worth fighting 
 for, that faith was already dead, and he was not 
 far wrong ; for to cry ' peace ' when there is no 
 peace is the traitor's part, and betrays some 
 hidden rottenness at the core. 
 
 Sir Thomas had no ascetic proclivities. He 
 liked to have a thick pile carpet under his feet, a 
 lofty ceiling over his head, with rafters of Spanish 
 oak most exquisitely carved by a cunning master 
 in the art; to keep the draughts out by stamped 
 velvet curtains, which draped the recesses in the 
 five tall windows, and shrouded the doors ; to 
 pursue his studies, whether light or heavy, in 
 the depths of a comfortable chair, which might 
 
68 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 have figured in the studio of the luxurious 
 Titian ; and to shelter himself from intrusion be- 
 hind a screen, which had probably been pillaged 
 from an Indian palace. He was not the sort of 
 man to enjoy the exquisite diamond type of an 
 Elzevir by the light of a farthing dip in a carpet- 
 less attic, for his books were only an adjunct to 
 his life, and not his whole existence. But he 
 had made this room his hobby, and lavished any 
 amount of money on it with a taste that was 
 surprising in an Englishman of forty years ago. 
 His miserly ways did not come upon him till 
 the fire of his intellect had waned, and the limits 
 of his interests had shrunk to his newspaper, 
 dinner, bottle of old port, and his favourite arm- 
 chair. 
 
 Paul admired the stately hall, with the marble 
 columns and the great wide staircase copied 
 from Versailles, the endless drawing-rooms, with 
 their white walls pannelled in gold, and gold- 
 coloured draperies, sofas and chairs ; the large 
 dining-room, where the whole county might have 
 been feasted ; the gallery, where blue china was 
 well set off against a crimson background ; the 
 
A NEW LIFE IN A NEW HOME. 6g 
 
 billiard-room, where every accessory was in its 
 highest perfection ; the picture gallery, with its 
 1 old masters ' placed in pleasant rivalry side by 
 side with the ' new,' and the Nugents of past 
 generations looking down with smile or frown, ac- 
 cording to the fancy of the artist, on their degener- 
 ate descendant ; but the room he liked best was 
 the library, with all his old favourites against the 
 walls, a lovely view of a pine-clad hill from the 
 windows, and the cosiest of nooks in one especial 
 corner where he could sit, 'the world forgetting, 
 by the world forgot.' 
 
 The world had not forgotten him just yet, 
 however, for Seton the butler came in with Mr 
 Dashwood's card, and the card was promptly 
 followed by the Squire himself. 
 
 At the first grasp of that kindly hand, Paul 
 felt no longer friendless. There had been no 
 demonstrations on his arrival, because no one 
 knew the exact day he was likely to come, and 
 he had, consequently, taken possession of his new 
 property without one triumphal arch, or one 
 cheer from the throats of his tenants. Therefore 
 he had made up his mind that he was not 
 
70 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 welcome to anybody ; and that Elmsfield had 
 determined to turn its orthodox back upon him. 
 Mr Dashwood's call showed that he was mis- 
 taken, and he was glad of it, for, to live in a 
 place where no one cared to know him would 
 have been insupportable to a man of his sociable 
 disposition. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 A FIRST INTRODUCTION. 
 
 'What an utter fool I was not to bring an 
 umbrella ! ' exclaimed the younger Miss Dash- 
 wood, gathering her pink skirts closely round her 
 slight figure, and gazing up at the pattering rain- 
 drops and the pitiless sky with an expression 
 that ought to have softened the heart of the 
 clerk of the weather, if he had been like a clerk 
 of anything else. ' I'm dying of thirst, and the 
 tea will soon be ready, and Maude won't know 
 what has become of me, and, of course, Mr Con- 
 way won't come this way just because I want 
 him.' 
 
 This was hard on Charlie Conway, because he 
 would have done many things for most people, 
 and he certainly would have done almost anything 
 for Nellie Dashwood ; but at that moment he 
 was hard at work in his private den preparing 
 a lecture for the next Friday evening, and had no 
 
J 2 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 thoughts to spare for the poor little girl standing 
 under an emaciated thorn in Willow Lane. 
 
 Down came the rain as if it never meant to 
 stop, and pools began to form in every hollow 
 of the road. Soon her little oasis would be in- 
 vaded, and she saw no means of obtaining drier 
 footing on the bank, as it was defended by an 
 uncompromising hedge of prickles. She heard 
 the scream of the engine as the 4.50 train from 
 Victoria steamed into the little station behind the 
 hill, and looked with reviving hope up the lane. 
 Even vulgar Farmer Gedge, with his florid face 
 and tawdry whiskers, would be dearly welcome, 
 for the most unsightly objects have an intrinsic 
 value as soon as they can serve a useful purpose ; 
 and it would be a decidedly useful purpose to 
 relieve a young lady from such an unpleasant 
 position. The dogcart flashed by with umbrellas 
 held so low that poor Nellie was not seen at all, 
 and the little appealing cry she ventured on was 
 lost in the rattle of the wheels and the splashing 
 of the rain. She was just beginning to feel strung 
 up to the worst, and ready to make a desperate 
 rush homewards, when a man came round the 
 
A FIRST INTRODUCTION. Jl 
 
 corner whom she recognised at once as the new 
 owner of The Chase. He had evidently just come 
 down from town, for he was in a frock coat and 
 tall hat ; and he looked a very fair example of an 
 English gentleman, with his tall, upright figure, 
 and his good-looking face, though Nellie was 
 sorry to have to admire him. She had never 
 been introduced to him, so she turned her shoulder 
 towards him, and tried to look as if she were 
 blind enough not to see him ; but she heard his 
 steps coming nearer, and when they came to an 
 abrupt stop, a sudden shyness kept her eyes 
 down, and sent a rich wave of colour up into her 
 cheeks. 
 
 ' Will you allow me to offer you my umbrella ? ' 
 Paul asked, with his usual directness, and an air 
 of the greatest deference. 
 
 Nellie was struck by his magnanimity, as she 
 thought of his best hat. The most orthodox man 
 in Elmsfield could have gone no further than this ! 
 With a quick revulsion of feeling, she looked 
 up at him with a smile. 
 
 ' But you haven't another ! ' 
 
 ' No,' with an answering smile ; ' I never carry 
 
74 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 two. But that doesn't matter in the least,' 
 hastily. ' Please take it ! ' trying to put the 
 ponderous handle into her small hand. 
 
 She drew back. 
 
 1 1 couldn't, really.' 
 
 A cloud came over his face, and his back 
 stiffened. Even a child in the rain would not 
 take an umbrella from an unbeliever's hand ! 
 This was a reductio ad absurdam with a ven- 
 geance. 
 
 'Perhaps you will allow me to go to the Hall 
 and order a carriage ? ' he said coldly. 
 
 'No, thank you,' with vigour, as she pictured 
 Miss Wyngate's anger. ' It would take too long 
 — and — and — make such a fuss.' 
 
 ' Then I must insist upon leaving my umbrella 
 with you.' 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 He looked at her, his anger rising rapidly. 
 
 ' I know what you are thinking of,' he began 
 hotly. 
 
 'I was thinking of your hat,' she answered 
 quietly, but with a gleam of fun from under her 
 lone lashes. 
 
A FIRST INTRODUCTION. 75 
 
 * My hat ? ' and he laughed outright, a load 
 lifted from his spirits. ■ Doesn't it strike you 
 that a line to Lincoln & Bennett will get me 
 another, but there would be no more Miss Dash- 
 woods for love or money, if — ' 
 
 'Yes there would,' she interrupted quickly. 
 1 My cousin is ever so much better than I.' 
 
 'Perfection is awe-striking, but whilst we dis- 
 cuss it, might we not as well be moving on ? ' 
 he suggested, as he held out the umbrella as 
 a compromise, and she crept under its wing by 
 his side, feeling rather small, but elated at her 
 escape. 
 
 Paul enjoyed that walk through the rain 
 immensely. The girl's freshness and simplicity 
 were a revelation to him, accustomed as he had 
 been to his own wife's affectations and absur- 
 dities. Nellie talked with a veil of seriousness 
 over all her fun, though the latter would peep 
 out every now and then in spite of her decorous 
 efforts to repress it. She was full of youthful 
 light-heartedness, which lent a charm and a viva- 
 city to her conversation, and broke down the 
 intended barrier of reserve. In fact, it was quite 
 
j6 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 a shock to her to find how far she had gone on 
 the road to friendship, when they reached the 
 open doors of the Hall, and he raised his poor 
 soaked hat in courteous, but reserved farewell. 
 
 ' But, indeed, you must come in,' she said ear- 
 nestly, all her hospitable instincts intent on the 
 duty of detaining him. ' My uncle would never 
 forgive me if I let you go.' 
 
 ' Your uncle must be made of very different 
 stuff to what I credit him with. But good after- 
 noon, Miss Dashwood, I mustn't keep you here 
 in those wet things.' 
 
 ( Oh, I'm all right. But do come in. You can't 
 go off in that horrid rain.' 
 
 1 Don't abuse the rain. I owe it a debt,' he 
 said gravely, and then he smiled, raised his hat 
 a second time, and walked off. 
 
 1 Then good-bye, and thank you so very, very 
 much.' 
 
 Nellie's sweet voice followed him through the 
 rain, and the thought of her girlish personality 
 was a pleasant one to carry home with him. He 
 had felt a strong desire to make one of the 
 family party at tea, but it did not accord with 
 
A FIRST INTRODUCTION. JJ 
 
 his own feelings of delicacy to presume on the 
 small service he had rendered one of the house- 
 hold, in order to get an entree into the Squire's 
 house. They were all out when he returned Mr 
 Dashwood's call ; but he had been shown into 
 the drawing-room through a mistake, and had 
 taken stock of the cheerful, home-like room, be- 
 fore the footman came back to show him out 
 with many apologies. As he splashed through 
 the mud he pictured the scene, and, as usually 
 happens, his idea was as far as possible from the 
 reality. Instead of a peaceful party gathered 
 round a silver kettle on a small table covered 
 with a spotless cloth, each member of which 
 made remarks as sweet as the cakes, or as playful 
 as the kitten, a storm ensued as soon as Nellie 
 made her appearance and detailed her adventures. 
 Maude, with flashing eyes, abused her for ac- 
 cepting the smallest service from a man like the 
 new baronet. 
 
 Nellie said, with unusual meekness, — 
 ' But, Maude, dear, I couldn't stay there any 
 longer, and if I had come away without him, I 
 should have got wet through.' 
 
y8 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 1 I would rather have been drenched,' cried 
 Maude, coming down upon her cousin with the 
 decision of a sledge-hammer. 
 
 Miss Wyngate shook her head solemnly. 
 
 'You might at least have waited till your 
 cousin and myself had made his acquaintance.' 
 
 1 That would have meant waiting till to-morrow, 
 at least, under the thorn,' Nell retorted with a 
 little laugh, ' and I wasn't quite equal to that' 
 
 Aunt Tabitha frowned, but said nothing, for 
 she never attacked any but the defenceless, and 
 in this case the enemy had two allies in the camp. 
 
 ■ What beats me,' exclaimed the Squire, as he 
 pushed up his cup for some more tea, ' is your 
 letting the fellow go back in the rain. He must 
 think us nice hospitable people in Elmsfield ! ' 
 
 1 But I besought him to come in. He must 
 have aquatic tastes,' demurely, ' for he liked the 
 rain.' 
 
 1 When you were in it,' suggested Fitzgerald 
 maliciously, and Nell's cheeks were flaming. 
 
 Maude saw the blush, drew her own conclu- 
 sions, and thought she had a right to be angry ; 
 and when a girl comes to this decision she enjoys 
 
A FIRST INTRODUCTION. jg 
 
 her own passion intensely. It is so nice to do 
 anything which is usually wrong, but accidently 
 right, on principle. 
 
 Mr Dashwood was still in a state of fume and 
 fuss. He was the most hospitable man under 
 the sun, and he considered that Nell had cast a 
 slur on his favourite virtue. That a ' fellow ' 
 should be allowed to turn away from his door in 
 a deluge was more than he could bear with any 
 sort of equanimity, and the more he thought 
 over it, the more irate he grew. 
 
 c He must think us a set of savages,' he 
 grumbled, as he disdainfully refused a piece of 
 buttered toast proffered as a peace-offering by 
 his niece. ' I shall write and ask him to dine 
 with us on Tuesday. No use looking daggers. 
 I'll have my own way in this if in nothing else,' 
 and he marched off to the library with the air of 
 a Caesar. 
 
 1 See what you have brought on us ! ' exclaimed 
 Maude, as soon as the two girls were left alone, 
 looking at her cousin with indignant eyes. 
 
 ' He's very nice, and very gentlemanly, and I 
 rather like him,' said Nell audaciously. 
 
80 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 1 All because he has a Greek profile and saucer 
 eyes,' exclaimed Maude, in withering contempt. 
 ( For the sake of these trumpery things you'd 
 forget his horrible opinions!' 
 
 ' I can't forget them, for I've never learnt them. 
 We didn't talk theology under an umbrella in the 
 rain ! ' her rosebud mouth twitching. 
 
 1 I hope you didn't talk at all,' severely. 
 
 ' But we did. Is there anything on earth which 
 could have kept me silent for a mile and a half, 
 short of a respirator?' 
 
 ' I don't think there is,' very drily. ' Well, you 
 shall have him to yourself on Tuesday. I shall 
 have nothing to do with him,' throwing back 
 her head with exaggerated pride. ' I hate the 
 thought of his coming to the house. I feel as if 
 he would bring some awful misfortune upon us ! ' 
 
 1 What nonsense ! ' opening her eyes in amaze- 
 ment at the agitated look on her cousin's face. 
 ' What harm could he possibly do us ? ' 
 
 'Wouldn't it be harm if he stole you from me?' 
 her voice unsteady, her lips quivering. ' I know, 
 if you married him it would break my heart' 
 
 1 You ridiculous old goose ! ' throwing her arms 
 
A FIRST INTRODUCTION. 8 1 
 
 round her cousin and giving her a passionate hug. 
 1 I — I never want to speak to him again, and I 
 shall always take an umbrella now, even if the 
 glass says " Set fair." ' 
 
 Maude began to laugh, and the incident ended, 
 as the French say ; but the scene made a deep 
 impression on Nellie's mind, and in after years 
 she had bitter cause to remember it. 
 
 Paul found his great big house particularly 
 lonely that evening, and it occurred to him that 
 there was no reason on earth why he should not 
 write to some of his Oxford friends and ask them 
 to stay with him. Few men would care to turn 
 into a fossil at twenty-seven, and yet he felt that 
 there was great danger of his becoming one if 
 nobody came to revive him. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CURATES OF ST JOHN'S. 
 
 It was eight o'clock on a lovely morning, when 
 every thicket thrilled with the songs of the birds, 
 and every spray was weighted with its burden 
 of heavy dew, when Nature put on its freshest, 
 most Arcadian aspect, and it seemed hard to 
 realise that the peaceful village nestling at the 
 foot of the sun-tipped hills had anything in 
 common with a sin-stained world. Maude Dash- 
 wood walked slowly down the sunny road with 
 Lovel by her side, lifting grave eyes to his 
 thoughtful face, as she talked of serious topics 
 in the low, sweet voice which was one of her 
 most charming attributes. The Miss Singletons 
 had not come down to breakfast, so there were 
 no eager eyes to watch as Lovel stopped by the 
 Jittle gate in the park paling, and traced patterns 
 
THE CURATES OF ST JOHN'S. 8$ 
 
 with his stick in the chalky soil at his feet, 
 instead of opening it for Miss Dashwood to pass 
 through. 
 
 1 The great thing is to keep our motives clear,' 
 he said slowly. ' If the man were a pauper, there 
 would be no difficulty/ 
 
 ' I don't see why that should make any differ- 
 ence,' said Maude, almost reproachfully. ' To me 
 it would be so much easier to snub a millionaire 
 than a poverty-stricken wretch, and I know it 
 would to you.' 
 
 ' I don't think it's a question of snubbing,' with 
 a half-impatient sigh. ' If Conway and I make 
 the smallest advances, don't you see what will 
 happen ? He will be asking us to tennis, dinner, 
 billiards, and all sorts of things. If we refuse 
 and keep him at arm's-length, would that be 
 consistent with Christian charity? If we don't, 
 we have our people to think of. They might 
 say we thought lightly of his errors/ 
 
 1 Refuse ! I could not bear to think you were 
 eating his bread, or using his lawn, or having 
 anything on earth to do with him/ 
 
 She raised her eyes, glowing with defiance, 
 
84 PAUL NUGENT— MATERIALIST. 
 
 and threw back her head with a gesture of in- 
 dignant scorn. 
 
 Just then Paul rode by on his beautiful 
 thoroughbred, and turned in surprise at meeting 
 any of the upper class out at such an early hour 
 of the morning. He met the indignant flash of 
 the girl's eyes, and felt the blood tingle in his 
 veins. He had an instinctive feeling that all the 
 scorn and the anger were meant for him, and 
 rode on, conscious that in that moment of time 
 he had found a new interest in life. He would 
 have no friends to bother him or get in his way, 
 but he would set himself to work, with all the 
 energy of his disposition, to conquer that girl's 
 hatred. He would never rest till he had forced 
 her to receive him as an equal and a friend. 
 That for the present should be the object of his 
 life ; and he had no doubt of the victory, for a 
 man's strong will had every chance in its favour 
 against a girl's caprice. 
 
 The colour rushed up into Maude's cheeks ; 
 and perhaps that exquisite blush had more effect 
 on Lovel's determination than he was himself 
 conscious of, for, after all, he was mortal. 
 
THE CURATES OF ST JOHN'S. 85 
 
 'Yes, you are right/ he said gravely, almost 
 sadly ; ' those who are about the sanctuary are 
 bound to be more careful than the rest of the 
 world. I will have no more to do with him 
 than I can help.' 
 
 'And what am I to do, if my father will ask 
 him to the house?' 
 
 The temptation was great to tell her to follow 
 his own example. The fellow was so fatally 
 well endowed by Nature, as well as Fortune, as 
 to make him more dangerous than most men. 
 And was he to be cast loose in such a house as 
 Beechwood, to fascinate, perhaps, the sweetest, 
 purest girl against her will, when by one wed 
 he could make the danger so infinitely less? 
 
 ' You must do as your father wishes,' with 
 a visible effort to constrain himself to speak 
 those words instead of others far different in 
 their tenor. ' It would be a mistake to let him 
 think that we have prejudged him.' 
 
 'We needn't be uneasy about that. I expect be- 
 fore we have finished our soup he will tell us that 
 Christianity is a fable, and that we only believe in 
 it because we are not all so well-read as himself.' 
 
86 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ' He won't do that. If he were such an under- 
 bred brute, we should be spared all further 
 trouble about him ; but he isn't, from what I 
 hear.' 
 
 ' You will be able to judge for yourself 
 to-night.' 
 
 And then, with a slight bend of the head, she 
 passed through the gate, and he was left out- 
 side. He felt as if it were a parable of his life. 
 Only he had closed the gate upon himself, and 
 shut himself out from the garden of earthly love, 
 turned his back voluntarily on the pathway of 
 pleasure, and chosen the narrow road of denial, 
 long before he saw Maude Dashwood. He would 
 not watch her as she walked with a light, grace- 
 ful carriage over the dewy grass, with the fresh- 
 ness of the spring in her youth, and the glory 
 of the summer in her beauty. She realised his 
 dream of all that was noblest and sweetest in 
 woman, she was the fruition, as it were, of his 
 long cherished ideal ; but he schooled himself to 
 repress that part of his nature to which she 
 most appealed, and tried to think of her only as 
 one of the members of his flock. He succeeded 
 
THE CURATES OF ST JOHN'S. 87 
 
 so far as to make the girl herself regard him 
 in the light of her one particular counsellor in 
 all questions of faith or duty. She appealed to 
 him frankly for advice in every difficulty, and 
 never found him wanting. Of course their 
 opinions clashed occasionally, but, although she 
 would maintain her own with a charming wilful- 
 ness so long as he was present, she would gener- 
 ally yield to his, on sober reflection, when his 
 back was turned. They did each other good, 
 and influenced each other's ways of thought 
 more than either was aware of. He had such 
 a lofty standard for himself, such an ardent, en- 
 thusiastic nature, so eager for self-sacrifice, that 
 he might easily have fallen into the extreme of 
 a stern ascetism, without the girl's sweet influ- 
 ence to soften and restrain. And she might, as 
 easily, have lost her habit of deep and serious 
 thought in the whirlpool of a London season, 
 if she had not known that her truest friend was 
 waiting for her to come back just the same as 
 when she left him. 
 
 Lovel's face was so white and drawn when 
 he walked into the small dining-room at the 
 
88 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 Lodge, that Charlie Conway exclaimed wrath- 
 fully,- 
 
 ' I believe you've been visiting half the old 
 women in the parish, and hadn't the sense to 
 remember that you'd had no breakfast. I've sent 
 out your coffee, and eaten your egg to prevent 
 it from getting cold.' 
 
 ' Never mind, I'll have some bacon,' drawing 
 a chair to the table. 
 
 ' No, you sha'n't be a martyr before your 
 time.' 
 
 He rang the bell, and Mrs Clowser, their widowed 
 factotum, presently appeared with the coffee-pot, 
 and another egg fresh from its three minutes of 
 boiling water. She had a pleasant face, with 
 smooth fair hair turning grey, and a long nose 
 nearly meeting the up-turned point of her chin. 
 She had buried her husband just in time to under- 
 take the housekeeping for Dr Abbott's two 
 curates, and she was admirably fitted for the 
 position. When either of them had a bad cold, 
 she enjoyed herself exceedingly, as long as he 
 would consent to be nursed, and to swallow the 
 decoctions prepared for him. Now she looked 
 
THE CURATES OF ST JOHN'S. 89 
 
 with grave reproach at Lovel's pale face, and 
 said sententiously, — 
 
 ' If you'd only come home straight after the 
 service like Mr Conway does, you wouldn't be 
 having them headaches, and good victuals wouldn't 
 be wasted.' 
 
 ' But I haven't the ghost of a headache,' Level 
 protested in self-defence ; whilst Conway exclaimed, 
 ' The victuals weren't wasted, for I ate them.' 
 
 ' Ah, but what I say is quite right,' she re- 
 joined, with a solemn shake of her head. 'And 
 you'll be finding it out for yourselves one day, 
 when I'm no longer here to worrit about you.' 
 
 1 My dear Clowsie, we couldn't do without you. 
 If you talk of being "no longer here," I shall 
 look out for another curacy.' 
 
 ' Now, Mr Conway, there you are with your 
 nonsense. It drats me how you can preach them 
 solemn and beautiful words as soon as you get 
 into the pulpit, yet talk no better than the ordin- 
 ariest man in the parlour.' 
 
 ' One for you, Charlie,' exclaimed Lovel, his 
 eyes twinkling with fun as the widow retired. 
 
 ' No good trying to be a hero to your own 
 
90 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 housekeeper,' he answered, with resignation; 'but 
 I say, Lovel, what do you mean to do about the 
 night-school at Elmersbridge ? Taylor has given 
 up, Miss Bright is ill with typhoid fever, and the 
 attendance is worse than ever.' 
 
 'We must work them up as well as we can. 
 I'll mention the subject at the Bible-class, and I 
 must take Taylor's place till we find a substitute.' 
 
 ' No, hang it all ! you won't have an evening 
 left. I'll go ; I daresay I have a gift for teaching 
 which will astonish the natives.' 
 
 ' You've a gift for society which astonishes no- 
 body,' said Lovel, with a smile. ' But I had 
 better see after this myself. Nothing will make 
 Taylor come forward again, except showing him 
 that he isn't wanted.' 
 
 'Taylor's a brute, and wants kicking.' 
 
 1 It's a treatment that would suit many people, 
 but we can't undertake it ; muscular Christianity 
 has gone out of fashion.' 
 
 1 St Paul had a fine opportunity for displaying 
 it when he fought with those lions,' meditatively. 
 
 1 Yes, and I feel as if we had a lion to fight 
 now.' 
 
THE CURATES OF ST JOHNS. 9 1 
 
 1 Why should this confounded atheist come and 
 upset us all?' grumbled Charlie, as he pushed 
 back his chair and lit his pipe. ' I'm sure we 
 don't want him.' 
 
 ' Perhaps we do. Everything was going too 
 easily. We must pull ourselves together, and see 
 that we don't get lax.' 
 
 ' Well, I must be off,' moving towards the door. 
 ' I'm going to all the most disgusting holes in 
 Elmersbridge, then I shall be able to enjoy my 
 dinner with a good conscience.' 
 
 ' But not a good appetite, I'm afraid. Shall 
 you be back for luncheon ? ' 
 
 ' Don't wait. You didn't happen to hear why 
 Miss Dashwood was alone to-day?' with an 
 elaborate air of indifference. 
 
 ' Her cousin had a headache,' said Lovel briefly, 
 as he rang for the breakfast things to be taken 
 away, and then stepped into the garden to escape 
 Mrs Clowser's stream of talk, and to meditate over 
 his next sermon. 
 
 Conway came round the corner, when Lovel 
 thought he was gone, to remark, — 
 
 1 Don't forget to keep a day free for the Oxford 
 
92 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 and Cambridge. We mustn't be done out of 
 that.' 
 
 1 1 won't give it up if I can help it.' 
 
 1 You must help it. The Dashwoods are going, 
 and I've promised for us both.' 
 
 ' You are always ready to be my sponsor/ with 
 a smile. 
 
 * Lucky for you/ with a nod, and then he started 
 off at a brisk pace for his morning's work. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 A DINNER AT BEECHWOOD. 
 
 A GOODLY company of the best county people 
 assembled in the long low drawing-room of the 
 Hall. The scent of innumerable roses and the 
 hum of bees came in through the wide-open 
 windows, and the beauty of the summer evening 
 provided a thoroughly English topic for some 
 halting tongues. 
 
 Maude Dashwood reigned supreme on these 
 occasions, and Miss Wyngate retired into vice- 
 royalty, in spite of a very smart head-dress of 
 white laces and feathers, and a black satin dress, 
 which grew shorter year by year as the hem wore 
 out and had to be turned up. Nelly was a sun- 
 beam, flitting here and there with a pleasant little 
 speech, and a glance from her deceitful blue 
 eyes which seemed to make everyone especially 
 
94 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 welcome ; but Maude received her guests with 
 a quiet dignity which sat exceedingly well on 
 her youthful beauty. 
 
 She made no difference in her manner whether 
 she spoke to the Countess of Mortimer or to the 
 dowdy wife of a neighbouring rector, except, 
 perhaps, that there was a slight increase of de- 
 ference because the latter was old and very shy. 
 She was dressed more simply than anyone else 
 in the room, but the lines of the bodice followed 
 those of a perfect figure, and the long severe 
 train looked in accord with her style. Her brown 
 hair was coiled on the top of her well-shaped 
 head without a jewel or a flower, and the diamond 
 cross, hanging from a solid gold necklet, was her 
 only ornament. 
 
 1 Your Nugent diamonds remind me of the new 
 atrocity in baronet's,' began Lady Mortimer, after 
 a glance round the room through her double- 
 barrelled eye-glasses. She affected a youthful ex- 
 travagance both in her speech and her dress — 
 which was waste of trouble, for the date of her 
 birth, more than four decades ago, appeared in 
 every peerage. 
 
A DINNER AT BEECHWOOD. 95 
 
 'What is he? A Buddhist, a Spencerite, or a 
 Mormon ? ' 
 
 1 Not a Mormon, for he hasn't a female belong- 
 ing to him/ looking supremely indifferent to the 
 fact, as she unfurled her feather fan. 
 
 ' What a pity ! When I think of all the good 
 material wasted for lack of a proper amount of 
 men. A good - looking Mormon might work 
 wonders in a place. Are you terribly shocked, 
 Mr Lovell?' 
 
 1 Not at all/ with a smile, for he knew that she 
 wished him to be. ' There's no chance of the idea 
 spreading, for one wife is enough for any man to 
 manage, and nobody but a lunatic would want a 
 dozen.' 
 
 ' Oh ! if you attempt to manage a woman of 
 course you'll fail/ with a shrug of her ample 
 shoulders. ■ Women of the nineteenth century 
 are born to something better than to be helots 
 of man/ 
 
 1 And yet, if you go to Utah for your ideas, any 
 woman may be content with the tenth fraction of 
 that despised animal.' 
 
 The countess looked at his thoughtful face with 
 
g6 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 a glance of approval, surprised to find that a curate 
 could withstand her as well as any bishop. 
 
 Just then the butler threw open the door and 
 announced ' Sir Paul Nugent' 
 
 A sudden silence fell on the buzz of talk, as 
 every eye but Miss Dashwood's turned with eager 
 curiosity towards the door. Paul came in with a 
 quiet air of unconcern, as if too much occupied with 
 some grave subject of thought to take much heed of 
 his surroundings. He bowed low over the hand 
 which Maude extended to him, in her most chilling 
 manner, but if he were frozen by it, he showed no 
 sign of it as he turned to his host. 
 
 ' Glad to see you/ said the Squire, in his hearti- 
 est fashion, for he thought the poor fellow looked 
 ' down in the mouth ' as he afterwards explained, 
 and he wanted to cheer him up. ' Let me intro- 
 duce you to Lord Mortimer, Colonel Ponsonby, 
 and Mr Sutherland, all near neighbours and old 
 friends of your uncle's.' 
 
 They shook hands with the new man, and made 
 him welcome, but with a certain reserve, for, as the 
 Colonel confided to a friend, t It was never wise to 
 put too much money on a dark horse.' 
 
A DINNER AT BEECHWOOD. 97 
 
 Paul had a curious way of seeing through people 
 at a glance ; and he knew as well as possible that 
 these cautious country gentlemen were bent on 
 watching him closely before they meant to recog- 
 nise him as a neighbour, and were rather taken 
 aback at Mr Dashwood's rash friendliness. 
 
 Dinner was announced, and fortunately prevented 
 any awkwardness. Paul had just assumed his 
 sternest air, when Nellie came up to him, smiling, 
 and carried him off to introduce him to Miss 
 Seldon, a younger sister of Lady Mortimer's, who 
 had as many brains as the Countess, but none of 
 her personal attractions. By the Squire's special 
 desire, the Baronet occupied a seat at Maude's left 
 hand ; and as she seemed entirely engrossed with 
 the Earl on her other side, he had plenty of oppor- 
 tunities of studying her profile, though none of 
 improving her acquaintance till far on through the 
 courses. At last Lord Mortimer threw a remark 
 across the table which sounded rather like a 
 challenge, and made Nellie, at least, look up in 
 alarm, whilst Maude turned for the first time 
 with any show of interest to her neighbour on the 
 left. 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
98 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ' Your uncle had a splendid library, Sir Paul/ 
 began the Earl in rather a gruff voice. 'There's 
 nothing to equal it in the county. His father, 
 and his grandfather before him, made great ad- 
 ditions to it, but it was Sir Thomas, year after 
 year, who filled up all the blank spaces. Nothing 
 much in your line, I fancy ? ' 
 
 'On the contrary, I prize that library far more 
 than anything else I possess,' said Paul very 
 quietly, though inwardly annoyed at the slur on 
 his scholarship. 
 
 1 Yes ; but you misunderstand me,' leaning for- 
 ward with a half-malicious look in his shrewd eyes. 
 ' Your uncle was a churchman to the backbone ; 
 and the books he collected round him would be 
 wasted on you.' 
 
 ' My uncle was not so narrow-minded as to 
 confine his purchases to one school of thought,' 
 rather haughtily ; ' and it is useless for any man 
 to attempt to advocate his own cause without some 
 analysis of his opponent's.' 
 
 'You didn't know Sir Thomas as well as I 
 did. He would have kicked a volume of Renan's. 
 Bauer's, or Strauss's down his marble steps.' 
 
A DINNER AT BEECHWOOD. 99 
 
 ' Excuse me, he left them on his shelves — but 
 with the leaves uncut.' 
 
 c Ah ! the leaves uncut,' drawing in his lips as if 
 that admission were delightful to him. — ' The only 
 way to deal with a spiritual nihilist.' 
 
 ' Yes, if you are afraid of him,' said Lovel, quietly 
 joining in the conversation as soon as he saw that 
 Lord Mortimer was making a mess of it. ' But 
 you would never conquer doubt by stifling it.' 
 
 1 I don't know that,' said Paul, thinking, perhaps, 
 of his own experience in the past. ' If you study 
 it, and analyse it, it is sure to spread, for it is as 
 infectious as the small-pox.' 
 
 ' Yes, but if we fled from disease it would only 
 follow us, and run us into a corner at last. The 
 only sensible way is to find the cure, and stamp 
 it out.' 
 
 1 Yes, if there be a cure,' in a low voice, as if half 
 to himself, but Lovel caught the words, and his 
 face flushed. 
 
 * There is a cure, if you look for it, but you 
 won't find it in the works of the negative specu- 
 latists. If doubt had never lifted its hydra-head 
 before the nineteenth century, we might have been 
 
100 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 at a loss how to meet it. Now we have our 
 weapons ready,' his eyes lighting up as if eager 
 for battle. 
 
 I But the nineteenth century has proved an 
 awkward customer,' said Paul, with a quiet smile, 
 as he thought of the rough attack which had been 
 made on the Hexateuch. ' I suppose you will allow 
 that ? ' 
 
 ' On the contrary, it has been of the greatest 
 service to us, for every attack has only taught us 
 how to make our footing secure.' 
 
 ' Evolution was a blow, I presume ? ' 
 
 I I don't acknowledge that for a moment,' 
 stimulated by an eager look from Maude, though 
 reluctant to continue what he considered an ill- 
 timed discussion. 'We take our stand on truth, 
 nothing else. If there is truth in evolution, it must 
 be an explanation of revelation. If there is not, 
 it may be a flat denial, but it can do us no harm.' 
 
 ' I consider Darwin a most disappointing man,' 
 struck in Lady Mortimer. ' I took an immensity 
 of trouble in order to get him up ; but where's the 
 good of telling us what we all come from ? It's 
 past and gone. Very disagreeable to think we 
 
A DTNNER AT BEECHWOOD. IOI 
 
 descend from a hideous ape — instead of Adam — 
 but—' 
 
 ' Take Adam for your standpoint, Lady Mor- 
 timer,' suggested Conway, ' and let the ape remain 
 in his primary insignificance.' 
 
 ' I think I will,' with a smile, as if she were 
 making a gracious concession to our common 
 ancestor. ' But to return to what I was saying. If 
 Darwin could only tell us what was going to be- 
 come of us in the future, or what would happen 
 to our children and our children's children, I 
 should see some good in him, and I should de- 
 vour his books from morning to night.' 
 
 1 It would be very awkward if he could,' said the 
 Squire, looking amused. ' Fancy how it would 
 cloud your life if you found out that your little 
 Lady Rose would run away with a shoe- 
 maker.' 
 
 ' I would rather see her in her grave,' cried the 
 Countess indignantly. 
 
 1 Yes,' with a mischievous twinkle in his eye ; 
 1 but she couldn't get there till her marriage was 
 an accomplished fact — supposing that it were in 
 her destiny.' 
 
102 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 1 It seems strange that we should know what a 
 comet is going to do a century hence/ said Maude 
 thoughtfully, * and yet be in the dark about to- 
 morrow in all that concerns ourselves.' 
 
 1 If man were under the same fixed laws as 
 the stars, there would not be much room for 
 Providence,' answered Lovel, who always caught 
 every word that dropped from her lovely lips, and 
 often by some short sentence raised her unspoken 
 thoughts to a higher level. 
 
 ' No wonder that you are wishing for fixed laws, 
 Miss Dashwood, at a time when every law is only 
 made to be upset/ interposed Lord Mortimer, 
 trying to turn the conversation to a more mundane 
 topic. ' I pity judge and jury ; for directly a 
 criminal is condemned there is a hue and cry 
 against them both ; and women are always the 
 worst offenders in that line.' 
 
 ' Because sure justice, like cold reason, never 
 appealed to a woman yet/ said Paul quietly, want- 
 ing to rouse Maude to a retort. 
 
 In this he partly succeeded, for she turned and 
 looked him straight in the face for the first time, 
 as she said coldly, — 
 
A DINNER AT BEECHWOOD. IO3 
 
 1 I don't agree with you. Justice is all that I 
 should ever wish to claim.' 
 
 ' For yourself, perhaps, but not for your friends ? ' 
 inquiringly. ' Cannot you conceive a case when 
 justice would be the acme of cold comfort ? ' 
 
 A slight shade passed over her expression, and 
 she gave him one swift glance of anxious question- 
 ing, as if to see if there were any hidden intention 
 in his speech ; but it was evidently a shot delivered 
 at random. The refined beauty of his face struck 
 her with surprise, for she had never studied it 
 before ; but there was no malice in the thoughtful 
 eyes, and, with a sense of relief, she answered 
 proudly, — 
 
 1 I should be sorry to own a friend who could 
 wish for more.' 
 
 'You forget that justice is pitiless, or else you 
 have an inordinately high idea of human nature,' 
 he persisted, anxious to draw her out, for he 
 thought he saw signs of a wish to withdraw into 
 her shell. 
 
 ' God knows I haven't that,' she said hurriedly, 
 as if the words were forced from her against her 
 will ; and for an instant it seemed to him as if he 
 
104 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 caught a glimpse of her inner nature, where trouble 
 and pain, and passionate longing, were hidden from 
 the outside world under a bearing of cold indiffer- 
 ence. If Maude Dashwood, the heiress of Beech- 
 wood, surrounded by love and comfort, and all the 
 pleasures of life, in splendid health, in the happiest 
 of homes, had some secret sorrow like the worm 
 in the root of a rose-tree, who was safe? The 
 problem interested him so much that he forgot to 
 answer ; but Colonel Ponsonby, who had been 
 unusually silent, struck in with a sarcastic smile : 
 " Lives there the man with soul so dead, who never 
 to himself hath said, my own — my hateful race ? 
 Talk of a high idea of human nature, I don't 
 know where you are to get it from. Instead of 
 looking forward to a millenium of perfected 
 humanity, such as Comte raved about, I can only 
 see that we are tending towards an age when vice 
 and degradation will reach their apotheosis.' 
 
 ' Too bad of you, Ponsonby,' said Lord Mortimer, 
 with a short laugh, for he always derived a fund 
 of amusement from the morbid speeches of his 
 pessimistic old friend. 'You shouldn't talk like 
 that in an age when philanthropy is positively 
 
A DINNER AT BEECHWOOD. 105 
 
 rampant, and every chit of eighteen, with a musi- 
 cal talent or a pretty face, thinks it her mission 
 to elevate the masses.' 
 
 I Yes, but how about the classes ? ' asked the 
 Colonel, with bushy eyebrows drawn down over his 
 double eyeglasses . ' Who talks of elevating them ? ' 
 
 I I leave that gigantic task to the Church, and 
 I'm sure that Lovel, for one, will be equal to the 
 attempt,' with a laughing bow to the curate. 
 1 Come and dine with me next — when shall I say ? 
 you are such a fearfully busy man ! ' 
 
 'You see our Rector is absent,' began Lovel 
 hesitatingly, for he did not wish to bring out a list 
 of his engagements — night-schools, evening ser- 
 vices, etc., etc., for he was the last man to make 
 a parade of his duties. 
 
 1 His normal condition, so that makes no differ- 
 ence,' said the Earl, with a dash of contempt for 
 the absent man ; and then he turned to Sir Paul 
 with a smile, and, quite forgetful of his opinions, 
 said, ' Curious how hard it is to make these priests 
 understand that we are as much members of their 
 flock, as Polly or Jemima in the back slums of 
 Elmersbridge ! ' 
 
106 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 Paul looked surprised, but at the same moment 
 Maude rose, and gave the signal for the ladies to 
 retire, and the remark remained unanswered. 
 
 'More "fox" than "lamb,"' whispered Lady 
 Mortimer, with a quizzical look, as she passed 
 Lovel. 
 
 A shrug of the shoulders was the only reply he 
 had time for. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SIR THOMAS'S PRACTICAL JOKE. 
 
 1 We have one taste in common, Miss Dashwood ! ' 
 remarked Sir Paul with a smile, as he stood by 
 the piano, ready to turn over the leaves as soon 
 as she decided on her song. 
 
 The slender white fingers stopped abruptly. 
 
 1 I suppose you mean music, a taste which is 
 also shared by the savages?' 
 
 ' No, though I do share that taste with other 
 people besides the savages. I was alluding to 
 early rising.' 
 
 'Then you are mistaken,' with an accent of 
 relief, as if she disdained to acknowledge any 
 chord of sympathy with her new neighbour. ' As 
 a fact, I hate it ; as a means to an end, I — almost 
 love it,' flushing slightly. 
 
 ' Isn't that a paradox ? ' 
 
 ' Not at all ; the means towards the noblest 
 
108 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ends have generally been rather trying to self- 
 indulgence.' 
 
 ' Is it self-indulgence to lie in bed till a reason- 
 able hour?' he asked tentatively, feeling that he 
 was in the dark as to her real motives. 
 
 ' Yes, on a Saint's day, when — But what is 
 the good of discussing it with you ? ' she added, 
 with some impatience in her voice as well as her 
 hands, as she placed the piece of music on its 
 stand. 'You could lie in bed from morning till 
 night without any pangs of conscience, of course.' 
 
 His face flushed, and his straight brows drew 
 together, whilst his voice took a tone of concen- 
 trated anger which rather appalled her, as he 
 answered scornfully, — 
 
 I Yes, and I could lie, and rob, and murder. 
 I could commit every vice known to man, just 
 because I'm more honest than half society, and 
 don't feign a belief I cannot feel ! ' 
 
 I I don't want to offend you,' she said, looking 
 up at him with a puzzled look in her soft grey 
 eyes, ' but I cannot see what is to restrain you.' 
 
 1 1 can't admire virtue, because I haven't been 
 taught it in a catechism?' 
 
SIR THOMAS'S PRACTICAL JOKE. 1 09 
 
 'Yes, you would admire it,' she said thought- 
 fully, * as you might a beautiful picture. But I 
 should have thought it as hard for you to practise 
 it, as it would be impossible for you to paint the 
 picture if you weren't an artist.' 
 
 1 Can any one throw a stone at Huxley, 
 Tyndall, or Hackel, and say they were monsters 
 of iniquity ? ' he asked quickly. ' People can 
 keep their lives fairly straight, I can assure you, 
 even when they are fettered by no dogmas.' 
 
 ' Yes, and a rudderless boat may sometimes 
 come to port,' with a provoking smile. 
 
 ' And the rudder may fail in the storm,' he 
 said briefly. 
 
 Without answering, she began her song, and 
 poured forth such a flow of melody that he was 
 forced to listen in almost unwilling admiration, 
 though his veins were tingling with the com- 
 bative instinct, and his heart was hot with sup- 
 pressed indignation, Maude had chosen a song 
 which expressed her mood — the mood into which 
 she had worked herself when in contact with 
 cold materialism. Angry, defiant, reckless, and 
 triumphant, the music seemed to wake uneasy 
 
110 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 echoes in the hearts of some of those who listened ; 
 and Nellie looked anxious, as if she were puzzled 
 to know the reason of it. 
 
 ' Maude never sings that except when she is 
 angry,' she said to Lovel, as he leant against the 
 wall, his clearly-cut features looking like a cameo 
 against the dark background of a Murillo. ' Do 
 go and deliver her from that horrid man. He 
 must have been saying something very aggressive.' 
 
 ' ' ' They say that a lion will turn and flee 
 From a maid in the pride of her purity," 
 
 to quote Byron for the second time to-night. 
 How surprised he must be if he hears me, for he 
 has gone so completely out of fashion.' 
 
 'Yes, and he's so much more easy to under- 
 stand than the later ones,' with a sigh, as if she 
 had been asked to stretch her mental faculties 
 too far over the subtleties of our modern bards. 
 ' But what was your idea ? ' 
 
 1 It struck me that the rankest heretic would 
 look on Miss Dashwood's face, and have the grace 
 to hold his tongue.' 
 
 Then he roused himself with a sudden sigh, and 
 went towards the piano, whilst Nellie looked after 
 
SIR THOMAS'S PRACTICAL JOKE. Ill 
 
 him with a sort of wistful kindness in her blue 
 eyes. 
 
 Captain Fitzgerald slipped into the seat by 
 her side, and implored her to talk him back into 
 sanity. 
 
 1 If you don't, I shall have a nightmare of Lady 
 Mortimer. The woman thinks she can talk, and 
 so she goes at it with a vengeance. The strike- 
 question she would have settled in half a minute. 
 If the English labourers chose to grumble, she 
 would have Germans. Germans go anywhere, do 
 anything, live on nothing, and are always con- 
 tent. Then came a fling at the Bishop because 
 he went away, and left the Cardinal to settle up. 
 Finally, she went hammer and tongs at vice in 
 the east end, and I verily believe she considers 
 murder as a wholesome corrective.' 
 
 'Would she like it tried on herself? Do you 
 know I'm such a goose, Fitz,' with a deprecatory 
 glance up into his irritated face, 'that I can't 
 talk about any of those big questions.' 
 
 1 Thank Heaven ! Leave them to the ugly and 
 elderly. Take a basket on your arm, by all 
 means, to the poor starving wretches at Elmers- 
 
112 PAUL NUGENT— MATERIALIST. 
 
 bridge ; but, for Heaven's sake, don't call yourself 
 a philanthropist' 
 
 1 No, that would be rather too large a word 
 to tack on to a mould of jelly, or a scrap of 
 pudding,' with a merry little laugh. ' But do go 
 and talk to Sir Paul ! ' casting an anxious look 
 in the Baronet's direction, for he was standing 
 alone, as it were, amongst a knot of men, who 
 were talking eagerly with each other, but without 
 a word for him. Englishmen, as a rule, are not 
 catholic in their sympathies, and the new man was 
 not supposed to be interested in questions concern- 
 ing the people of the place; so he was left out in the 
 cold, to chew the cud of his own bitter reflections, 
 whilst they were discussing the case of Job Warner, 
 who was caught poaching trout by the river. 
 
 Charlie Conway was not the kind of man to 
 let any prejudice of any sort hinder him from 
 an act of courtesy. He had as firm a faith as 
 the veriest bigot, and as great a horror of scepti- 
 cism as the truest Churchman ; but he separated 
 Sir Paul's opinions from Sir Paul's personality, 
 and, whilst the former repelled him, the latter 
 attracted him magnetically. 
 
SIR THOMAS'S PRACTICAL JOKE. 113 
 
 1 You were in Munich a few months ago, 
 I believe?' he asked, as a harmless beginning 
 which could not offend the tenderest suscepti- 
 bilities. 'What did you think of the disputed 
 Murillos?' 
 
 ' I never went near them,' curtly, and then 
 his face brightened as he noticed the other man's 
 expression of kindly courtesy. ' Do you care 
 for fishing ? ' he asked, seized with a sudden wish 
 to make friends. 
 
 ' Care for it ? I've a perfect craze.' 
 
 1 Then come whenever you like.' 
 
 1 If you knew me better, you would be afraid 
 of my taking you at your word.' 
 
 'No, I'm not exactly run after down here,' 
 bitterness flooding his heart as he thought of 
 Maude and her evident hostility. ' My uncle's 
 will puzzled me immensely, but in the welcome I 
 receive from my neighbours I find its solution.' 
 
 ( Yes, with all its faults, Elmsfield is decidedly 
 hospitable,' said Conway, wilfully misunderstand- 
 ing him. 
 
 1 No, Elmsfield is entirely faultless. I don't 
 suppose a man would dare to get drunk within 
 VOL. I. H 
 
114 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 the sound of its church bells ; but cordiality to 
 strangers, if you understand hospitality to mean 
 that, is not one of its many virtues. My uncle 
 had lived here all his life, he knew the place 
 and its prejudices, and he meant me to do pen- 
 ance for all my sins of omission.' 
 
 ' You really believe this ? ' looking up at his 
 stern face in surprise, his easy-going nature 
 staggered by Nugent's morbidity. ' Public opinion 
 assigned a far more romantic reason for that 
 one condition.' 
 
 ' Revenge was nearer the mark than romance 
 But tell me what they say ? ' in a tone of care- 
 less indifference. 
 
 ' I can't do that,' very decidedly, for Conway 
 was already beginning to be sorry that he had 
 ever broached the subject. ' You may find it 
 out for yourself one day ; but I hope to Heaven 
 you never will ! ' he added mentally. 
 
 Just then Lady Mortimer looked over her 
 shoulder, and beckoned Sir Paul with her grey 
 feather fan. She was very civil to him, for she 
 had just made up her mind that he would 
 make a suitable match for her sister. It would 
 
SIR THOMAS S PRACTICAL JOKE. 1 1 5 
 
 give such an interest to Josephine Seldon's life 
 to marry a man with materialistic or atheistic 
 views. She was always in need of a vent for her 
 superabundant energies, and Sir Paul might afford 
 her a field of endless effort. It did not matter 
 to Lady Mortimer in the least that Miss Seldon 
 was probably several years older than the Baronet. 
 He was surprisingly old for his age, and Joe was 
 unusually young, so that the two might easily 
 meet on a hypothetical level. Miss Seldon was 
 a worthy individual, with sound views on the 
 majority of the questions of the day, and (still 
 greater virtue) without the modern craze for ex- 
 pounding them to the first comer ; and, though 
 she was without personal attraction, she would be 
 an eminently satisfactory helpmate for any man 
 who was wise enough to appreciate her. 
 
 Lady Mortimer, having considered the situa- 
 tion, and decided that it was a first-rate chance 
 for her sister, made a dash at Paul Nugent in her 
 usual spasmodic fashion. She was not vulgar 
 enough to throw her sister at his head, but she 
 made herself as agreeable as she could ; and 
 allowed him to perceive that she considered him 
 
1 16 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 specially interesting because he did not run in 
 the same groove as all ' the dear old-fashioned 
 people' at Elmsfield. During the conversation, 
 she startled him by alluding to the cross which 
 Miss Dashwood wore, as the finest specimen of 
 the Nugent diamonds. 
 
 1 But you must have known it,' she said, as 
 he expressed his surprise. ' It was in the will, 
 and you were there, of course, when it was read.' 
 1 No. I came as soon as I could, but I was too 
 late. Of course Mr Blake read me the will after- 
 wards, but I was not interested in the details.' 
 
 ' How disdainfully you talk of those diamonds, as 
 if they were jewels from the Lowther Arcade. Do 
 you know that they once belonged to Marie An- 
 toinette, and that they are worth a fabulous sum ? ' 
 1 They did not save their former owner from 
 the guillotine. If they had, I should have valued 
 them more.' 
 
 ' No. Diamonds never saved a woman from 
 destruction — yet. It has rather been the other 
 way. But don't you think it was cruel of the 
 old man to separate them from the rest of the 
 family jewels ? ' 
 
SIR THOMAS'S PRACTICAL JOKE. 117 
 
 1 Not a bit. Jewels are made for pretty 
 women ; and Miss Dashwood can wear them 
 when I can't. Unless you would like me to 
 go about like a pawnbroker ? ' he added, with 
 a smile. 
 
 ' I told Maude she ought to have had the 
 stones taken out. They would have been too 
 deliciously lovely in the form of a toad or 
 a monkey.' 
 
 'You had the courage to say that to Miss 
 Dashwood ? ' raising his eyebrows. 
 
 ' Oh, yes ! I've all the audacity suitable to 
 the woman of the day,' she said, as proudly as if 
 she were claiming the highest virtue ; ' but dear 
 Maude is so very bomee. She walks in one 
 straight line, with her head, so to speak, amongst 
 the stars. It's all very well to have a high 
 standard, but it needn't reach to the top of the 
 Eiffel Tower.' 
 
 ' I shall be content to grovel at the foot.' 
 
 'You will have me for a companion, as well 
 as Joe,' with a would-be-fascinating smile. ' A too 
 utterly rarified atmosphere is too much for us, 
 either mentally or bodily.' 
 
Il8 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ' You are not afraid of being lost among the 
 crowd of the commonplace ? ' with a slight curl 
 at the corners of his mouth. 
 
 ' The commonplace ! Frightful idea, enough 
 to drive me into a balloon, or on to the wings of 
 a parachute.' As she spoke, she rose from the 
 causeuse on which she had been lounging. ' I am 
 going now, but I hope before long we shall meet 
 again ; and I shall try to convince you that we 
 encourage anything and everything at the Castle 
 but "the commonplace.'" 
 
 ' I claim to be nothing more and nothing less, 
 Lady Mortimer,' Paul said, as he bowed low over 
 the well-gloved but thin, unattractive hand she 
 gave him, 'so I am afraid your doors must be 
 shut against me.' 
 
 4 By claiming nothing, you prove yourself an 
 original at once, and the doors will be opened 
 wide.' 
 
 With a gracious bend of her head, she moved 
 on, and presently the party broke up. 
 
 As Sir Paul drove home through the moonlit 
 lanes, he was absorbed in his own reflections, 
 which were not of the most exhilarating descrip- 
 
SIR THOMAS'S PRACTICAL JOKE. 119 
 
 tion. He felt that he had not made any way 
 with the people whom he was most capable of 
 appreciating. The Squire had been kind, simply 
 because it was his duty to be so to a guest ; but 
 Miss Nellie Dashwood had gone back from the 
 friendliness begotten under the shade of a shared 
 umbrella, and Miss Dashwood had been distinctly 
 inimical. Before his marriage, he had plunged 
 into the thick of London society, and his face 
 was as well-known in the Row as in the pigeon- 
 shooting enclosure at Hurlingham. Women 
 always received him graciously, and men were 
 generally ready to chum with him. Nobody 
 made it his or her business to ask him after 
 his form of faith ; and no charming girl ever 
 refused to dance with him because she had 
 never seen him in St Peter's or St Paul's on 
 Sunday morning. It was a cruel practical joke 
 on the part of his uncle to plant him like a note 
 of exclamation in a pious parish, where the 
 church bell was going twice a day, and religion 
 seemed a living reality, and not the ghost of 
 a dead idea, as Paul had been accustomed to 
 consider it. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PREJUDICE. 
 
 SIR PAUL NUGENT, as far as outward appearances 
 were concerned, settled down comfortably into his 
 role of a country squire. He rode or walked over 
 the whole estate, judging of everything with his 
 own eyes, instead of trusting to those of his agent. 
 In this he was acting from no high sense of virtue, 
 because he found a pleasure in busying himself 
 about anything, for time hung heavily on his hands. 
 If it had been dull, wintry weather, he could have 
 shut himself up in his library, and been perfectly 
 content with his favourite authors ; but his youth 
 was too strong within him to allow of his staying 
 indoors when the sunshine was flooding the lawn, 
 and the roses were waiting for someone beside the 
 bees to admire them. The tenants considered him 
 a model landlord, for he listened patiently to all 
 their complaints, noting down every roof that had 
 
PREJUDICE. 121 
 
 to be repaired, every room that had to be white- 
 washed, every gate or paling that had to be mended, 
 in his note-book. The builders and carpenters of 
 the neighbourhood thought there was no one to 
 compare to him ; for, in his eagerness to put every- 
 thing to rights, he found jobs for all those who had 
 been out of work. 
 
 It had been very hard for Mr Harcourt, the 
 agent, to squeeze the requisite amount of money 
 out of Sir Thomas Nugent's pocket during the 
 last years of his life, and much of the fencing had 
 given way, and gates were often firmly fastened 
 at one end, which had broken away from their 
 hinges at the other. Paul gave his orders in an 
 imperial style, for he found himself possessed of a 
 large fortune with no one to spend it on except 
 himself and his tenants ; and it seemed to him that 
 he could never get to the end of it. But he was 
 a man of firm, unyielding disposition, uninfluenced 
 by grumbling or abuse, and he was neither to be 
 talked out of a project on which he had set his 
 heart, or talked into a so-called improvement 
 which failed to meet with his approbation. There- 
 fore he had many conflicts with his agent, in which 
 
122 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 his will was always triumphant, but which left a 
 residuum of discontent behind. Mr Harcourt was 
 foolish enough to have an opinion of his own, which 
 he was in the habit of considering as good as his 
 master's ; but he soon discovered that he had to 
 give in to every order, or go, and he chose the 
 pleasanter alternative of the two. It is doubtful 
 if he ever disliked any man more than the new 
 Baronet, although, if brought to book, he would 
 have been obliged to acknowledge that he had 
 really nothing to complain of. But most people 
 prefer their own way to that of their neighbour ; 
 and Harcourt was so self-opinionated that he 
 preferred it to anything else. It gave him no 
 satisfaction to see a new roof put on to a cottage 
 if he had recommended that it should be only 
 patched ; and he was disgusted at another being 
 painted on the outside, when he had only advised 
 a coating of whitewash on the inside. He thought 
 Sir Paul was mad on the subject of improvements, 
 and shook his head solemnly over what he con- 
 sidered his reckless expenditure. But, if the agent 
 was annoyed, the tenants were delighted, and 
 vowed that they would not change landlords with 
 
PREJUDICE. 123 
 
 any one else in the county. A stream of gold 
 seemed to be flowing over the place, and the man 
 who set it going was the man for them. 
 
 Paul was not elated by the popularity which he 
 had bought by means of a miser's hoarded riches. 
 He gauged its worth at its true value, and would 
 have sold it all for one friendly look from Maude 
 Dashwood's grey eyes, or one kindly grasp of the 
 hand from the Rev. Herbert Lovel. He felt cer- 
 tain that these two were especially inimical to 
 him ; and yet, by a strange perversity, their friend- 
 ship seemed more valuable than that of all the rest. 
 
 Charlie Conway often came for a stroll by the 
 river side, fishing-rod in hand, and Paul Nugent 
 was delighted to see him. They had many pleasant 
 talks together, and sometimes on an ' off night/ 
 when there was no class and no service, he pre- 
 vailed on the younger curate to stay to dinner. 
 They were both young, and they enjoyed a chat 
 about their Oxford days, and told each other all 
 the good stories they could remember of fellow- 
 undergraduates ; but Paul recognised in Lovel a 
 man of unusual intellectual power, and he longed 
 to measure his strength with him. Nothing he 
 
124 PAUL NUGENT— MATERIALIST. 
 
 would have liked better than to get him into a 
 quiet corner of the library, and entangle him in an 
 earnest discussion on natural science, or to probe 
 his scholarship, and see if he was well grounded 
 in anything besides patristic theology. There was 
 certain to be much common ground on which they 
 could debate and argue, for ever, without seriously 
 offending a priest's prejudices. 
 
 But Lovel rarely came to the house ; and even 
 when he came, his visits were so short, that there 
 was no opportunity for anything but the most 
 casual and conventional conversation. Lovel was 
 not conscious of any coldness of manner when 
 talking to Paul Nugent ; but the latter, who was 
 more sensitive than he appeared to be, felt as if 
 the curate were determined to keep him outside 
 his life, and never to admit him within the charmed 
 circle of his intimacy. 
 
 It was the same with Maude Dashwood. Ever 
 since that first evening at the Hall, she seemed 
 averse to talking to him except on the lightest of 
 subjects. She would ask him about the last step 
 in dancing, or that queer sensational novel just 
 fresh from the press. She would tell him her views 
 
PREJUDICE. 125 
 
 about the school feast, and discuss the rival merits 
 of rounders and cricket, and then she would turn 
 to Lovel, if he happened to be near her ; her whole 
 manner would change, and in less than a minute 
 they would be deep in a conversation in which the 
 highest interests of life were engaged. 
 
 It was inexpressibly galling to Nugent to be 
 confined to trivial chit-chat such as a schoolboy 
 might have enjoyed, when he knew that he could 
 say something worth hearing, if she would only 
 have cared to listen. He often took refuge with 
 Nellie, and after a while they seemed to get on 
 famously together ; for she was of a kindly, soci- 
 able disposition, and her stand-offish manner slipped 
 from her like a mackintosh when it is no longer 
 wanted. He knew that she was charming, and 
 her low, happy laugh was like music to his ears ; 
 but in the midst of a war of words, when witticisms 
 were bandied from one to the other, one look from 
 Maude's grave eyes was enough to dry up his 
 unusual flow of gaiety, and all his old bitterness 
 settled down upon him like a cloud. He told 
 himself that Miss Dashwood was ridiculously stuck 
 up, that her nature was as unresponsive as that of 
 
126 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 a jelly-fish, that her mind was warped by supersti- 
 tion, and narrowed by prejudice ; and yet it seemed 
 to him that she was placed on some high pinnacle 
 which shadowed his life. He could not get away 
 from it, for even at The Chase he seemed to live 
 in its shadow — a shadow unlike any other, for it 
 was there in the light as well as the darkness ; an 
 absolute chimera, perhaps, but in its effects as real 
 as the old grey house of his forefathers, or the 
 balance stored at his bankers. 
 
 Mentally he could not help drawing comparisons 
 between Maude Dashwood and Perdita. Maude's 
 beauty, in its pale, proud purity, might belong 
 to a saint ; her hopes, her deepest interests were 
 centred in the higher life of which the noblest 
 and the best have dreamt ; and with a sweet un- 
 selfishness she devoted herself to the sick and the 
 sorry, and all who had stumbled on the weary 
 road of life; whilst Perdita had never had a 
 thought beyond the present, a hope beyond her 
 personal enjoyment ; and the loveliness which 
 had been bestowed upon her so abundantly, would 
 never have raised a man to a higher level than her 
 own — down amongst the worldlings, where every 
 
PREJUDICE. 127 
 
 high aspiration was stifled in the frivolous race 
 after pleasure. The two women were as far apart 
 as possible, though much alike as to the accidents 
 of birth and position. 
 
 By contact with the one, Paul had embittered 
 his nature and darkened his past. It remained 
 to be seen what the other would bring him in the 
 course of the coming years. Their paths must 
 necessarily lie close together. Accident, if not 
 design, would often bring them under the same 
 roof. He could not avoid her, even if hej^would ; 
 in truth, he felt an overpowering force of attraction 
 which drove him towards her, a force that he could 
 not resist, even when he knew from the bruised 
 state of his feelings, that it would have been wiser 
 to be repelled. 
 
 Suddenly he roused himself into a state of re- 
 bellion. In common respect to his uncle's memory, 
 he had been forced to keep quiet during the first few 
 months of his stay, but when the end of August 
 came round, he determined to remain no longer 
 alone in his large house, like a hermit in a cave 
 as big as Aladdin's. He called about him some 
 of his friends whom he had dropped on account 
 
128 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 of his marriage, and most of them were only too 
 glad to escape from the dust and heat of London 
 to the cool, sweet shade of the immemorial elms 
 at The Chase. 
 
 Edward Landon had distinguished himself at 
 Balliol, and was beginning to make his mark at the 
 Bar. Mark Ferrol had written a few clever articles 
 for the Nineteenth Century, and was now thinking 
 of starting a review on his own account. Whilst 
 Edwin Montgomery was engaged on some im- 
 portant work which he kept very much to himself. 
 They were all eager sportsmen, and were looking 
 forward to the 1st of September to sign the 
 death-warrant of countless partridges. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IS RELIGION SUPERSTITION ? 
 
 1 I SHOULD think you might live like a patriarch 
 in this quiet corner of the world, thinking of no- 
 thing but your flocks and herds, your crops and 
 your produce, till you turned into a vegetable, 
 without more mind than a potato,' Mark Ferrol re- 
 marked, as he lounged at his ease on the cushioned 
 sill of one of the library windows, and knocked 
 the ash off the tip of his cigar on to the smooth 
 gravel of the terrace. He was rather plain, with 
 a thoughtful forehead, and an earnest look in his 
 eyes, which contrasted oddly with the smile which 
 hung about his mobile lips. 
 
 ' Not a bit of it. Fancy turning into a vegetable 
 within half-an-hour or so of the teeming life of 
 London ! ' exclaimed Paul indignantly. ' You must 
 get out of reach of post, paper, or telegram ; and 
 then I doubt if you could manage it in this over- 
 VOL. I. I 
 
130 PAUL NUGENT— MATERIALIST. 
 
 crowded island. You would be sure to come in 
 contact with a neighbour in your first walk or ride.' 
 
 ' Talk of neighbours, how do you get on with 
 the parsons of the place ? ' inquired Landon, as he 
 threw down the Virgil he had been looking through 
 for a quotation. ' Do they go over to the other 
 side of the road when they pass you, or do they 
 pocket their principles for the sake of your sub- 
 scriptions ? ' 
 
 1 Bad policy to quarrel with a man who has a 
 house like this over his head,' suggested Ferrol, 
 gazing up at the beautifully-carved ceiling with 
 genuine admiration. 
 
 1 I should get more attention from them if I 
 lived in a hovel,' said Paul, flushing slightly. 
 ' There's no humbug about them. I verily believe 
 they would rather have a halfpenny from a pauper, 
 who was one of themselves, than a hundred pounds 
 from one of us.' 
 
 'The funds of Elmsfield parish must be in a 
 most flourishing condition,' said Landon drily, ' or 
 else your parsons must be very different to the 
 usual run of human beings. "Take everything 
 you can get," is the general maxim.' 
 
IS RELIGION SUPERSTITION? 13 1 
 
 1 Not with every one. You can't believe that, or 
 you must be as great a pessimist as an old Colonel 
 in this neighbourhood.' 
 
 ' I should like to make his acquaintance. This 
 is an age of universal self-satisfaction, and a man 
 who was pleased with nothing would be quite re- 
 freshing.' 
 
 'As refreshing as a November fog,' laughed 
 Ferrol, ' and about as exhilarating. A pessimist 
 draws a curtain of gloom round everything, and 
 tries to stifle himself as well as his neighbours.' 
 
 1 Whilst we throw open the windows and doors, 
 and let the daylight stream in wherever it likes. 
 Those who fetter themselves with a creed are, after 
 all, no better than fools who handcuff themselves 
 when the police would let them off/ said Paul com- 
 batively, although there was nobody to oppose him. 
 
 It was more as if he were contradicting a thought 
 of his own, than throwing a bone of contention 
 before the others. Landon gave him a searching 
 glance, and said quietly, — 
 
 ■ The question is, does it make a man happier 
 or better to believe too much ? Superstition — by 
 which I mean all cognate form of religion — is 
 
I32 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 bound to be swept away in the course of time by 
 the broom of knowledge ; and I bet you that man 
 will be just as happy and just as moral when the 
 process is complete.' 
 
 ' I doubt it/ said Paul, looking out of the 
 window, across the undulating park, to where the 
 spire of St John's church pointed heavenwards 
 amongst a sea of foliage. His thoughts flew to 
 Herbert Lovel and Maude Dashwood, whose lives 
 seemed beautiful even to his wondering eyes as he 
 watched them from outside the pale. ' If religion 
 be only superstition, why has it made so many 
 angels upon earth ? ' 
 
 1 I've never met any myself,' said Landon, with a 
 smile. ' Science does not recognise their existence ; 
 evolution can't go further than man, and there's 
 precious little of the angel in him! 
 
 ' Bah ! you only judge by what you see in the 
 law-courts,' with an expression of disgust ; ' but 
 you can't deny — no one can deny — that both men 
 and women have risen to the noblest heights 
 through this same thing that we call superstition.' 
 
 1 Certainly, there is a proneness to self-sacrifice 
 in some natures ; they positively enjoy it, but they 
 
IS RELIGION SUPERSTITION? I 33 
 
 must be drunk to do it, — drunk with enthusiasm 
 I mean,' Landon added quickly, as the others 
 looked up, either in horror or surprise. 
 
 * Or with bhang, as the sepoys when they spitted 
 themselves on the points of our bayonets,' sug- 
 gested Ferrol. 
 
 1 There will be no enthusiasm left when science 
 takes the place of superstition/ said Paul, with a 
 sudden realisation of the future dreariness that 
 would come upon the world, such as had never 
 struck him before. ' We can't enthuse, as the 
 Americans say about force or matter, and no one 
 would give away his life for the sake of the 
 Bathybian theory.' 
 
 ' Do you want him to ? ' quickly, as if he were 
 trying to confuse a witness, and hurry him into 
 a dangerous admission. ' Think of the thousands 
 who have died for an idea, the terrible waste of 
 life during the days of Nero and Domitian, and. 
 later on, under the Inquisition. Do you want them 
 back again ? ' 
 
 ' No, but we shall become detestably prosaic 
 when we clear away all the mists, and leave nothing 
 to the imagination.' 
 
134 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ' Bosh ! all ^the misery in the world is due to 
 imagination,' rejoined the barrister contemptuously. 
 * Give me a good solid fact, there's nothing half 
 so satisfactory. You can grasp it ; you can 
 pommel it ; you can try your strength on it ; it 
 can't slip through your fingers, and leave you 
 beating the air.' 
 
 ' I wish you would beat a retreat,' suggested 
 Edwin Montgomery, from the depths of an arm- 
 chair, in which he was studying a tome half as big 
 as himself. ' You fellows talk so much that I can't 
 get anything into my head. A library is meant, I 
 believe, for study and silence.' 
 
 'Yes, like the reading-room of the British 
 Museum,' laughed Ferrol. ' I was trying to get 
 some data to go upon for my next little effort. The 
 whole subject required an immense amount of 
 thought, and I could not get on a bit because of 
 two girls whispering together about the last deli- 
 cious thing in frocks ; disgusting ! as if a reading- 
 room were made for a set of giggling inanities.' 
 
 1 It is only meant for Woman, with a capital W,' 
 and Paul smiled as the remembrance of a quaint 
 figure came before his mental vision. ' Woman, 
 
IS RELIGION SUPERSTITION? 1 35 
 
 with towzled hair, blue spectacles, and a gown that 
 would have been too much for a Venus.' 
 
 ' Very much too much, I hope/said Landon quietly, 
 1 for her garments, as usually depicted, wouldn't take 
 yards of stuff. Now look here, Nugent, before we 
 degenerate into absolute twaddle, let us go out and 
 stretch our legs, and leave Montgomery to do the 
 same by the thing he calls his mind.' 
 
 1 All right, I'll take you through Elmsfield, as 
 well conducted a village as you ever saw, where the 
 cottages are as spick and span as if they belonged 
 to a child's toy ; the women never quarrel, the men 
 never get drunk, the children never fight in the 
 one straggling street, and then — ' 
 
 ' Ah, I thought there was to be a contrast ; such 
 a foreground of virtue ought to have a perspec- 
 tive of vice/ put in Ferrol, who was always on the 
 look-out for copy. 
 
 ' You've hit it ; for a worse place than Elmers- 
 bridge, 'pon my word, I believe, never existed. One 
 suburb of it is poked in like a slice of naughtiness 
 into the Elmsfield cake ; but you shall see it, and 
 judge for yourselves ; Montgomery is dying to 
 set rid of us.' 
 
136 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 1 I'm coming with you,' murmured Montgomery, 
 indulging in a stretch after he had replaced the 
 heavy volume in its hole on the shelf. 'You've 
 addled my brains between you, so that I can't 
 understand Porphyry's arguments a bit. I'm 
 wasting my time.' 
 
 1 Do you ever do anything else ? ' asked Ferrol, 
 with the brutality of old friendship. 
 
 ' Yes, sometimes,' with a sigh ; ' but not when 
 you are in it' 
 
 It was a chilly day, when invalids would have 
 shivered, and drawn their wraps closer round their 
 shrinking necks, but the four men found nothing 
 the matter with the weather as they made their 
 way over the soft green turf, and breasted the tall 
 ferns which had spread like a flood of verdure over 
 the picturesque slopes of the park, wherever the 
 elms left them standing-room. Sir Paul Nugent 
 fully appreciated their admiration of the park, 
 and good-natured envy of its owner ; but he was 
 conscious of an element of discontent in the depths 
 of his heart, which no property in the world could 
 satisfy. He did not guess its origin, and therefore 
 could not tell what it meant ; but his own lot, 
 
IS RELIGION SUPERSTITION? 1 37 
 
 when he compared it with that of most of his 
 friends, seemed so highly favoured that he had no 
 resource but to call himself the most dissatisfied 
 fellow under the sun. The sight of the little 
 church nestling amongst the trees, with the 
 curates' house close at hand, like a treasure 
 with its guardians, always raised a feeling of 
 bitterness within him that he could not account 
 for. 
 
 1 A very good specimen of the attempt to revive 
 old Gothic,' said Ferrol, with his head on one side, 
 as he surveyed the square tower critically. ' Don't 
 often see it done so well. I suppose we can go 
 inside ?' 
 
 1 1 think we had better not,' said Paul hurriedly. 
 4 There will be a service presently.' 
 
 1 Why, to-day's nothing in particular, is it ? ' 
 opening his eyes. 
 
 ' But they have it twice every day, and I don't 
 know how many times on Sundays.' 
 
 1 Good heavens ! Do they expect a congregation 
 to keep up with them ? ' 
 
 ' They not only expect it, but they get it. Come 
 on, or it will be getting late before we reach 
 
138 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 Elmersbridge, and I want you to see it in all 
 its beauty.' 
 
 Paul strode on determinedly, for he had a 
 strange distaste to being found hanging about the 
 church by either Lovel or Conway. 
 
 'Halloa! "House to let,'" exclaimed Landon. 
 ' Montgomery, here's just the little place to suit 
 you. Your clerical neighbours would have nothing 
 to do with you,' glancing from the Lodge to a 
 small white house beyond ; ' and you could medi- 
 tate at your ease over " the great work " with which 
 you are to astonish the world by-and-by.' 
 
 1 Thanks,' said Montgomery placidly. ' Great 
 works don't get on in little houses. They want a 
 library as large as Nugent's.' 
 
 1 There's a hint for you, Paul. Adopt him as a 
 brother on the spot.' 
 
 Paul smiled, but gave no other answer, for his 
 attention was riveted by a feminine figure which 
 appeared for one minute at the door of the white 
 house. It was but a glimpse that he caught of a 
 perky hat, with a nodding plume, a little black 
 mantle, and a plaid skirt; but a cold, sickening 
 feeling of disgust crept over him, and in a moment 
 
IS RELIGION SUPERSTITION? 1 39 
 
 the library at ' The Thickets ' rose before his eyes. 
 He saw Perdita lying at his feet, with a strand of 
 yellow hair across the cold, dead beauty of her 
 face. He saw the servants standing round, their 
 homely countenances altered by the scared ques- 
 tioning of their gaze. He saw Dr Goodwin come 
 in with heavy solemnity, in place of the usual 
 cheery greeting — and then through the silence came 
 the sentence of death ! He felt the horror of it in 
 the icy chill which crept through his veins, and he 
 set his teeth in the old agony of mind. Was he a 
 brute to have forgotten it, when it would only be 
 three years ago that autumn ? 
 
 The other men went on talking, but he heard 
 not a scrap of their conversation, staggered out of 
 his usual indifference by the vividness of that de- 
 testable memory. What had called it up with that 
 terrible distinctness, as if it were happening now, 
 this very day ? Surely it could not be that insig- 
 nificant looking figure at the door of that little 
 white house ? And then with a shock it came 
 across him that it had reminded him of Julia 
 Goodwin, the woman who had bothered him by 
 her senseless attentions when he was a bachelor 
 
I40 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 and who had afterwards developed into the friend 
 and confidante of his faulty little wife. He con- 
 soled himself by thinking that it was only a fancied 
 resemblance. There could be no reason why Miss 
 Goodwin should transplant herself from the home 
 in which she delighted, and where she was intimate 
 with a large circle of middle-class friends, to a 
 strange place where there would be no one for her 
 to consort with, and where she would sink into a 
 still lower position than that from which she had 
 sprung. No, Julia Goodwin, with her vulgar pro- 
 clivities, would vote Elmsfield the dullest hole in 
 the world, and all its charms would be lost to her. 
 She would never come here to worry him, and re- 
 vive all the ghosts of the past ; and, as he came 
 to this conclusion, he found the towers and steeples 
 of Elmersbridge just emerging into view, and 
 called his friends' attention to the picturesque site 
 of the town, lying like a jewel at the foot of a 
 wooded hill, as if it had dropped from its lap. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A ROW IN HART'S ALLEY. 
 
 As the four friends were pursuing their way up 
 the High Street, and criticising the buildings on 
 either side, a smart pony-phaeton dashed out of 
 a small side street, and just as Paul Nugent re- 
 cognised Miss Dashwood, and wondered at her 
 being quite alone, she pulled up her ponies and 
 called to him with most unusual eagerness. 
 
 He ran up, and, taking off his hat, asked, — 
 
 1 What is it?' for he knew that something must 
 be the matter, and it flashed across him that some 
 accident had probably happened to her cousin. 
 
 1 A horrid row in Hart's Alley,' she said breath- 
 lessly, ' and Mr Lovel's in the thick of it. One 
 against them all.' 
 
 Her lovely lips trembled as she spoke, and her 
 grey eyes were bright with terror as she looked 
 appealingly at Paul. 
 
 'There are four of us here, he'll be all right,' 
 
142 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 he said reassuringly. 'You needn't be in the 
 least alarmed.' 
 
 Then, fancying there was no time to be lost, 
 he stepped back and explained the matter to his 
 friends, whilst Maude, with a bend of the head 
 and a tremulous smile of gratitude, drove off to 
 fetch the police. 
 
 Hart's Alley was after the pattern of one of 
 the many slums near Clare Market. A narrow 
 roadway, with the dingiest of tenements on each 
 side, separated by little more than two gutters of 
 filth. Most of the hands who worked for Mr 
 Smith's paper-mill lodged here, and the males 
 found an opportunity of spending their week's 
 wage at the ' Black Monk,' a very low beer-shop 
 at the corner, before their half-starved wives and 
 children could get a sixpence for food or rent. 
 It was a mean, sordid-looking place at the best 
 of times, but now it looked like a third-rate 
 Gehenna. A surging mob occupied the alley about 
 half-way up, babies yelled, women screamed, men 
 fought and swore, whilst on the outskirts hung 
 the Dashwoods' coachman in a state of comical 
 perplexity, having been sent there by his mistress 
 
A ROW IN HART'S ALLEY. 1 43 
 
 to give Mr Lovel a helping hand, but having too 
 much regard for his livery coat to think of offer- 
 ing the curate, as it were, more than the tips of 
 his fingers. Paul at first could not make out the 
 cause of the disturbance, though his superior 
 height enabled him to look over the rough heads 
 in front of him. 
 
 1 Grey, where's Mr Lovel ? ' he asked eagerly, as 
 soon as he caught sight of the Dashwood livery, 
 which was green, with a slight yellow cord at the 
 edge. 
 
 1 Can't make out, sir, but they say he's kicked 
 a man out of Mrs Ward's house, and he's been 
 a-punishing of him ever since,' said the coachman, 
 craning his neck to see over a woman's shoulder. 
 
 The woman turned round quickly. 
 
 ' If yer'd got the sperrit of a mouse you 
 wouldn't stand there a-savin' o' yer precious skin,' 
 with keen contempt in her blue-black eyes, ' and 
 let th' mon who's worth the whole pack o' yer be 
 killed afore your eyes.' 
 
 'Only tell me where he is,' said Paul, seizing 
 hold of her shawl. 
 
 4 See that winder with th' drawn blind ? ' — 
 
144 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 pointing with a crooked ringer where the crowd 
 was the thickest ; ' that's where 'ittle Tom lies 
 dead, and parson's jist agen th' door.' , 
 
 c Good Heavens, I see — the brute ! ' he exclaimed, 
 in a fierce ejaculation, as he saw Lovel's pale, 
 refined face swaying to and fro, and a broad- 
 shouldered, short-throated, ruffian, with a shock 
 head of black hair, using all his strength to oust 
 him from his position by the closed door. Press- 
 ing round were a lot of men who were too drunk 
 to understand the rights of the case, and only 
 anxious to add their quota of obscene language 
 and brute force to help on the row. Lovel had 
 nothing in his hand but a broken stick, but no 
 one was able to get through the door so long as 
 he stood there, opposing the slight barrier of his 
 slender but well-knit figure to all the mad in- 
 sensate wrath raging round him. 
 
 'You infernal scoundrel, I'll give you a lesson !' 
 shouted Nugent, as he forced his way through 
 the crowd by sheer muscular strength, his friends 
 following in his train. Such a rage possessed him 
 that he felt as if he could tear Lovel's assailant 
 limb from limb, if he only could get at him. 
 
A ROW IN HARTS ALLEY. 1 45 
 
 With a mighty shove he sent one man staggering 
 against his neighbour ; and then, working with 
 both arms, got only one yard from the Wards' 
 door. Lovel looked at him, and their eyes met, 
 but the next moment a brutal blow came down 
 on his uncovered head ; he reeled, and would have 
 fallen down on the step, to be trampled under 
 foot by Ward's heavy boots, if Nugent, by a 
 supreme effort, had not sprung forward to catch 
 him. At the same time Landon seized Ward by 
 the collar, and dragged him backwards, whilst 
 Paul, with a fierce oath ground between his teeth, 
 gave him a vicious blow acrossj his bloodshot 
 eyes with his stick. Then there was a general 
 scrimmage, for some one raised a derisive howl at 
 the swells, and made a mad rush at them, in which 
 his comrades joined, as Ferrol said, 'out of pure 
 cussedness ; ' whilst Mr James Ward lay on his back 
 in the gutter, cursing huskily in an almost inaudi- 
 ble voice, as his prostrate body was unconsciously 
 kicked by friends as well as foes. Just as the police 
 arrived, Paul felt the disputed door open gently 
 behind him, and, looking round, saw a woman stand- 
 ing in the opening with a weary, wasted face. 
 VOL. I. K 
 
I46 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ' Bring 'im in, sir. It's all along o' me he's 
 gotten a broken 'ead,' she said, in a low, flat 
 voice, out of which heartache had taken all tone. 
 
 With Montgomery's help, Nugent got Lovel 
 into a room, which was dimly lighted by a tallow 
 candle stuck in a gallipot. 
 
 The first object that struck 'his eyes was a small 
 brown coffin, which occupied the centre of the floor. 
 
 1 Don't be afeard, sir,' she said, as she saw his 
 involuntary start. * Its only 'ittle Tom, who niver 
 did a craythur one ha'porth of hurt in all his 
 blessed days, and he's not loikly to begin that 
 sort of game when he's safe in glory.' 
 
 As she spoke, she pulled forward a chair, and 
 Lovel was placed in it, with his long legs strag- 
 gling limply towards the coffin. Then she fetched 
 some water from a jug in the corner, and Nugent 
 dipped his handkerchief in it, and bathed the 
 bruised forehead. Neither he nor Julian Mont- 
 gomery spoke a word, for they were both so im- 
 pressed by their surroundings ; but Mrs Ward 
 was accustomed to sorrow in all its forms, and 
 death in Hart's Alley seemed more like a de- 
 livering angel than the King of Terrors. As she 
 
A ROW IN HARTS ALLEY. 1 47 
 
 sat on a broken stool, sewing a piece of black 
 ribbon on to a straw bonnet, which had done 
 duty at so many funerals that it had quite worn 
 out its trimmings, she told them how her hus- 
 band, who was like ' one possessed when he got 
 the drink in 'im, though a dacent kind o' mon 
 when he was sober/ was giving her a thrashing 
 because she had got no firing to boil the kettle, 
 ' when in comes parson, and takes 'im by the two 
 shoulders of 'im and turns 'im out. I'd as lief he'd 
 let him alone, but there now, he meant well, the poor 
 gent. And he didn't know as 'ow one thrashin' 
 more nor less ain't o' much account, and Bill ain't 
 a bad chap as mates go about here, and he'll niver 
 spake till parson again, more's the pity.' 
 
 'Was this your only child?' asked Mont- 
 gomery, nodding his head towards the brown 
 box in which ' little Tom ' was lying. 
 
 'Ay, sir, last o' nine. Th' world bain't nice 
 enough for the childer in Elmsbridge, so God 
 takes 'em, parson says, an' I'd as lief follow 'em 
 pretty sharp, now Tom's gone.' 
 
 Paul looked at her wasted figure with reverent 
 curiosity. 
 
148 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 1 How do you feel so sure that it's better 
 where they've gone ? ' he said slowly. 
 
 Mrs Ward gave him one quick look of sur- 
 prise, and then her eyes fell back on her work. 
 
 'Stands to reason, in fair play, them as has 
 a hard tussle here to keep body an' soul together 
 'as th' best o' toimes yonder. That's as certain 
 sure as that I sit here.' 
 
 Paul was silent, but the woman's words struck 
 him with amazement. Her faith, shining like a 
 lamp in the midst of Egyptian darkness, seemed 
 to him the strongest anomaly — her words con- 
 tained the most evident paradox. The God who 
 had placed her in this poverty-stricken room, who 
 had given her a brute for a husband, who had 
 taken her children from her one by one, still was 
 the God of her love and trust, the one star shin- 
 ing through the gloom of the future. If any man 
 had behaved to her after such a cruel, heartless 
 fashion, she would have execrated his name, or 
 appealed to the first powers in her little world for 
 vengeance. But not the smallest trace of such 
 a feeling was to be found in her words. Tom 
 had gone to ' glory,' as she chose to phrase it, and 
 
A ROW IN HART'S ALLEY. 1 49 
 
 she was ready to follow him ; though that meant, 
 according to her ideas, dwelling with a Being 
 who had made her the miserable wretch she was. 
 He looked at Montgomery, who shrugged his 
 shoulders, at if he meant to imply, ■ She's a hope- 
 less idiot, not worth discussing.' 
 
 And then Lovel revived, and was helped into 
 the fly which Conway had brought for him, Miss 
 Dashwood having called at the Lodge on her way 
 home to tell him what had happened. Charlie 
 came into the room with his fair head uncovered, 
 and a look of unusual solemnity on his young 
 face. Paul watched him as he spoke a few kind 
 words in a low voice to the heart-broken mother. 
 The hard look went from her face, and tears 
 came pouring down her thin cheeks. 
 
 * He warn't like other chaps, he warn't,' she 
 said, with a sob, ' an' he went off with the lady's 
 flowers in his hand. " Maybe Jesus likes 'em too," 
 he says, and with that his 'ead falls on my breast, 
 an' I knew that I'd lost 'im too — my last' 
 
 Paul stole out of the room with a queer sort 
 of feeling in his throat. But before he went, he 
 looked for some safe spot on which to deposit 
 
150 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 the sovereign which he meant to procure food and 
 firing for the poor mother. It was the only com- 
 fort he had to give, and the coffin seemed the only- 
 place where there was a clear space to make its pre- 
 sence evident. With a shudder he put the shining 
 bit of gold on the shabby wooden box, which con- 
 tained the one lost treasure of that miserable home. 
 Lovel was looking out of the fly-window as 
 he came out. 
 
 1 Conway will be here directly,' said Paul 
 
 Nugent, and would have passed on, but found the 
 
 curate's slender fingers catching at his coat sleeve. 
 
 * I was waiting to thank you. They tell me 
 
 you saved my life.' 
 
 Their hands met in a cordial grasp, and the 
 two men seemed to be nearer to each other than 
 ever before. 
 
 ' I did nothing,' said Paul simply. ' That brute 
 was an awkward customer, and you had him 
 all to yourself. I hope he's safe in quod.' 
 Lovel drew his brows together as if in pain. 
 ' I was much to blame,' he said sadly, * but 
 I can't wait to talk of that now. I must speak 
 to the inspector.' 
 
A ROW IN HART'S ALLEY. 151 
 
 * Nonsense,' said Paul eagerly ; ' go home at 
 once, or you may be laid up for a fortnight.' 
 Lovel shook his head. ' Oh, of course,' in a 
 different tone, ' I've no influence with you. 1 
 ought to have asked you to go. But it's mad- 
 ness, the act of an utter lunatic' 
 
 ' You are quite right,' said the curate suddenly. 
 fc Rest will be the best policy. Would you ask 
 Conway to go instead, and say what he can ? 
 After all, I provoked the fellow. Good evening, 
 and thank you all so much.' 
 
 He conjured up a smile in the midst of his aches 
 and pains — a smile which gave a rare beauty to 
 his usually grave face — ere he sank back into the 
 corner of the carriage, with a deep sigh. 
 
 * That fellow's the right sort,' said Felton, with 
 a grave nod, as the fly drove off, ' but he's born 
 a few centuries after his time. The stake has 
 gone out of fashion, but martyrdom is his only fit 
 apotheosis.' 
 
 1 Did you hear what Ward said as the bobbies 
 
 were taking him off? " Lock up that parson 
 
 'stead o' me. Kick's a feller off his own doorstep. 
 B'lieve he was that drunk he couldn't see t'other 
 
152 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 from which." Good that, wasn't it ? ' Landon 
 asked, with a short laugh. 
 
 Conway came out just at that moment, so Paul 
 delivered his message, and then they all walked 
 together to the end of the alley. Their footsteps 
 were the only sound in it, for the crowd had 
 melted away directly the police appeared, and a 
 preternatural quiet settled down on the seething 
 passions of fear, revenge, and brutal rage as the 
 various excited units dispersed to their different 
 homes. A row was such a common thing in 
 Hart's Alley that, in another hour, it would be 
 forgotten by all except the wives who were able 
 to get on with their work because their husbands 
 were in the lock-up. 
 
 1 Julian,' said Paul, in a low voice, ' that woman 
 would have cut her throat if it had not been for 
 her belief in a life after this.' 
 
 ' True,' said Montgomery, with a slight smile ; 
 ' but if she had cut her throat she would have 
 been out of all her misery, and her amiable hus- 
 band would not have had any one to bully.' 
 
 Nugent said nothing, but the answer jarred with 
 his then state of mind, and he retired into himself. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE MISS SINGLETONS. 
 
 ' DAPHNE, Mr Lovel has been half killed by 
 those dreadful Hart's Alley people, and Labur- 
 num Lodge has got a tenant,' exclaimed the elder 
 Miss Singleton, in breathless excitement, with a 
 silver spoon in one hand, and the tea-caddy in 
 the other. 
 
 ' Good gracious, Priscilla, it can't be true ! ' and 
 the younger Miss Singleton stopped half way on 
 her road to her chair, unable to proceed any further 
 because of her agitated feelings. ' He's such a 
 perfect gentleman. No one would dare to lay a 
 hand on him.' 
 
 'But they did. Short's boy told Mary Ann, 
 and she says she's been watching all the morning, 
 and only seen one of them about. It's a sad 
 thing, but there's no doubt about the truth of it,' 
 pouring hot water into the teapot from an old- 
 fashioned silver urn. 
 
154 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 * Dear, dear, dear ! ' relapsing into her chair, 
 whilst her two little bemittened hands dropped 
 helplessly into her lap. ' What a disgraceful thing, 
 what a fearful outrage ! I feel as if I could go 
 to Hart's Alley and thrash them with my own 
 hands. But is he very much hurt ? ' 
 
 'We shall know more when we've been to in- 
 quire, but the blinds of the sitting-room are up, 
 so that nothing fatal has happened. Drink your 
 tea, dear,' handing a fragile teacup with a shaky 
 hand ; ' we shall both feel better when we've had 
 some breakfast.' 
 
 1 Oh, Priscilla, think of that poor girl.' 
 
 1 Hush, Daphne, we must not breathe a word. 
 We may have our hopes about it, we may turn 
 it over in our thoughts, but to mention it would 
 scarcely be delicate. If it ever comes to anything, 
 how thankful we shall be that we never said a 
 word,' buttering a piece of toast with slow precision. 
 
 ' I suppose there was a disturbance, and Mr 
 Lovel was hurt by mistake. He is so adven- 
 turous, I always tremble when I think of it. 
 The dear Rector told me he never ventured 
 there since they sent a brickbat at his hat.' 
 
THE MISS SINGLETONS. 1 55 
 
 'No, but, Daphne, just think, how could their 
 souls be saved unless these two good young 
 men risked their bodies ? ' asked Miss Priscilla, 
 bringing the whole force of her mind, and her 
 pink-beribboned cap, to bear on the subject. 
 
 ' I don't know, I'm sure,' said Miss Daphne 
 with a plaintive sigh, 'unless the Government 
 think of giving Bibles to the policemen. They 
 might just as well read out a chapter or two 
 whilst they are standing about. It would be 
 such a nice employment for them/ 
 
 1 My dear Daphne, how can you talk such 
 nonsense ! It would be better for Mr Lovel and 
 Mr Conway to have a policeman on either side 
 of them whenever they go to such places,' sug- 
 gested the practical elder sister. 
 
 * They would never consent to that. But, Pris, 
 dear, after we've inquired at the Lodge, don't 
 you think we might extend our walk to Beech- 
 wood ? ' said Daphne, with a slight blush. 
 
 Miss Singleton looked doubtful, but began to 
 consider that nobody need connect their visit 
 with the fact of Mr Lovel's accident, so that, 
 perhaps, after all, they might venture. 
 
156 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 'But mind, Daphne, we must ask Miss 
 Wyngate after the poor young man ; and on no 
 account say one word to Maude or Nellie, as if 
 we connected them with him in any way. There 
 is nothing to my mind so vulgar and improper 
 as to say that young girls go to church for the 
 sake of the clergy. If they happen to have good 
 looks and a gentlemanly appearance, it's a sort 
 of Providential blessing thrown in, but it doesn't 
 do to let it make any difference to the prayers ; 
 and I'm sure that Maude, with her heavenly 
 mind, would not know if it were a bald-headed 
 gentleman or a young one that read them, and 
 she would make no difference in her sweet little 
 Amens.' 
 
 c No, that she wouldn't, I'm sure,' rejoined 
 Daphne confidently, 'and I always think the 
 angels in heaven couldn't have a sweeter voice. 
 I wonder it doesn't convert that Sir Paul only 
 to hear her speak.' 
 
 ' I wouldn't mention it to a soul, but I've 
 sometimes fancied that it would be a pity if that 
 fine property hadn't a nice mistress to look after it; 
 and you know, Daphne, the worst men change.' 
 
THE MISS SINGLETONS. 1 57 
 
 1 No, Pris, not on any account ! ' exclaimed Miss 
 Daphne excitedly. ' I wouldn't have it for a 
 moment. The Church ought to come first, and 
 we won't have one of those dear girls thrown 
 away on a cold-blooded wretch of an unbeliever, 
 no, that we won't ! ' 
 
 ' Hush, Daphne, your language is very strong, 
 and Mary Ann might overhear you. Of course Mr 
 Lovel is my favourite, but we sha'n't be consulted, 
 so that we may as well make up our minds to be 
 vexed. Did you hear me say that Laburnum 
 Lodge is let?' changing the subject abruptly, as 
 she rose from her chair and locked the tea-caddy. 
 
 1 You don't mean it, really ? How very surpris- 
 ing ! It will be delightful to have a new neigh- 
 bour,' she answered pleasantly, after smoothing 
 her ruffled feathers. 
 
 ' That will depend upon the neighbour,' sedately. 
 * And I don't even know her name. It would be 
 nice to have somebody close at hand whom we 
 could ask in to tea for a friendly chat. That 
 would give us a little more society, with very little 
 expense, but we shall see. Shall we read the 
 psalms and lessons before I order dinner?' 
 
158 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 'Yes, and then we sha'n't be disturbed.' 
 This question and answer were always inter- 
 changed on every morning except Sunday, and 
 it never occurred to the two sisters that they might 
 take them both for granted, for when they had 
 once started in a groove they kept to it. When 
 Herbert Lovel first came to be curate at St John's, 
 Elmsfield, they impulsively fixed upon him as the 
 very husband for Maude Dashwood when she was 
 grown up; and then, when Charlie Conway appeared, 
 they paired him off at once with little saucy Nellie, 
 and looked forward with simple-hearted glee to 
 watching the two love affairs progress under their 
 noses. It gave a great interest to their lives, and 
 did no one any harm, for the idea of chaffing 
 either of the girls about their conquests would have 
 seemed like sacrilege to their old-fashioned, high- 
 bred notions. 
 
 When they reached Beechwood, about half-past 
 three, they found Miss Wyngate in sole enjoyment 
 of the drawing-room fire. This was a disappoint- 
 ment to them ; for they were always made much 
 of by the two girls, who loved them both for auld 
 acquaintance sake. Miss Wyngate was very glad 
 
THE MISS SINGLETONS. I 59 
 
 to see them, because she could break out on her 
 favourite topic without any chance of interruption, 
 so she welcomed them pleasantly, and tried to be 
 very polite. 
 
 Miss Singleton, after asking after everybody's 
 health, said, in her soft, purring voice, — 
 
 ' I hear that Mr Lovel has been the hero of a very 
 sad accident. I hope it is nothing very serious ? ' 
 
 ' Mr Lovel has met with an accident — that is 
 to say, he foolishly interfered between a man and 
 his wife, and had to take the consequences,' said 
 Miss Wyngate, in a hard, matter-of-fact tone ; 
 ' but the hero of the affair was Sir Paul Nugent, 
 who nobly went to his rescue, as if he had been 
 the greatest friend he had on earth, and that 
 you know, is very far from being the case.' 
 
 ' Really ! ' rejoined Miss Daphne, ' it is more 
 than I should have expected of him.' 
 
 ' Indeed ! ' with an offended air. ' What right 
 had you to think that Sir Paul was a coward ? ' 
 
 ' I assure you, I knew nothing about him/ 
 hastily, for the gentle little spinster was not at all 
 inclined to spar, unless a special favourite were 
 attacked. 
 
160 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 1 No ; I don't suppose you do ; but let me tell 
 you that he is one of the most gentlemanly men 
 about here, with a fund of information on all 
 topics. He has three friends staying with him 
 now, who would be perfect acquisitions at a dinner- 
 party ; but I don't suppose it will occur to Maude 
 to ask them, and they are sure to have them at 
 the Castle.' 
 
 ' A pity these friends were not with Sir Paul 
 yesterday,' suggested Miss Priscilla, who did not 
 want to discuss Maude with her aggrieved aunt. 
 
 ' But they were ; and I believe they had much 
 more effect in Hart's Alley than any amount of 
 policemen. I don't approve of visiting all these 
 off-scourings of Elmersbridge. They don't deserve 
 it, and if they were left quite alone, they couldn't 
 be worse ; and it would be much better for my 
 nieces.' 
 
 ' But I hear they do so much good,' said Miss 
 Daphne softly. 'That dreadful man Ward pro- 
 mised to give up gin, and take to coffee.' 
 
 1 Was it coffee that made him beat his wife, 
 and give Mr Lovel that knock on his head ? ' 
 asked Miss Wyngate, with a malicious smile. 
 
THE MISS SINGLETONS. l6l 
 
 1 Philanthropy is thrown away on Ward, and the 
 only argument he understands at all is brute force. 
 If his wife were only two inches taller than he, 
 she would be all right. He would not dare to 
 touch her.' 
 
 ' Then it was Ward ? ' both sisters exclaimed 
 in chorus. ' Oh, dear, what a dreadful dis- 
 appointment ! ' 
 
 1 Of course it was Ward, the black sheep who 
 will never turn into a white one. The Dissenters 
 tried their hands on him, and gave him up 
 because he set fire to their chapel ; the Salva- 
 tionists thought they had managed him, and they 
 marched him up one street and down another 
 with a drum ; but something happened to offend 
 him, and he broke the captain's head with the 
 drumstick — so they said good-bye to him ; and 
 now the Church is trying to get hold of him, 
 with just the same luck. He has half killed Mr 
 Lovel, and when he has wholly killed Mr Conway, 
 sworn at Maude, and frightened Nellie out of her 
 senses, they will let him alone as the others have 
 done, and Mr Ward might die in the gutter 
 
 before I would stretch a hand to help him out,' 
 VOL. I. L 
 
l62 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 Miss Wyngate concluded, with as much self- 
 satisfaction as if she had been guilty of a noble 
 sentiment. 
 
 * Oh, but think of his soul/ sighed Miss 
 Priscilla, who had always some pity in her 
 gentle heart, even for the greatest outcast. 
 
 Miss Wyngate laughed. 
 
 1 Do you really think I'm going to trouble my- 
 self about it? If he has one, which I almost 
 doubt, for he seems no better than a wild beast, 
 I should think it was in a bad way, and when 
 he's dead, it will be in a worse ; but it won't keep 
 me awake, I promise you. I've enough to think 
 of without troubling myself about Mr Ward's 
 soul ! ' and she laughed again. 
 
 Just then the door was thrown open, and Sir 
 Paul Nugent was announced. It caused a great 
 flutter in the breasts of the two old ladies, and 
 they both came to the conclusion that they had 
 better go ; but Miss Wyngate insisted upon their 
 staying to tea, and declared that it would be 
 a delightful partie carree. Paul, after one dis- 
 appointed look round the room, sat down, and 
 made himself very agreeable. He was at his 
 
THE MISS SINGLETONS. 163 
 
 best when he felt himself no longer on the 
 defensive ; and with the gentle old ladies he was 
 as different a Paul Nugent as possible to any 
 that Maude Dashwood had ever seen. He was 
 so pleasant and so good-looking, and he waited 
 upon them so courteously, that their prejudices 
 vanished as fast as the bread and butter. 
 
 Miss Wyngate would have petted him in open 
 defiance of her brother-in-law and niece, only 
 Paul was not the sort of man to like it. He 
 did not object to her evident appreciation of 
 him, for he was glad to have a single ally in 
 Beechwood Hall, but he would rather have had 
 any other. He had sufficient penetration to 
 see that, under an exterior of kindliness, she con- 
 cealed a considerable amount of malevolence. 
 And, in the midst of her pretty speeches and 
 cordial smiles, he knew that if it had not been 
 for his position in the social world, he would 
 have received but a chilly welcome. He did 
 not trust her; but there was no reason why he 
 should tell her so, and she never suspected it. 
 
 Miss Daphne wondered why he raised his head 
 with such eagerness, when Miss Wyngate asked 
 
164 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 if it was true that Laburnum Lodge was let to 
 a widow ? Miss Priscilla could not say that it 
 was let to a widow, but she had heard that 
 some lady had taken it. All the brightness 
 went out of Paul's face as he thought of Julia 
 Goodwin ; and a sudden pause followed, which 
 was not broken till Miss Wyngate asked him 
 if he were going to take his friends to the ball 
 at the Castle. 
 
 4 Yes, I've Lady Mortimer's orders to that 
 effect. I suppose your whole party are going ? ' 
 he asked, with an air of indifference. 
 
 ' Yes ; we shall all be there. No more tea ? 
 Really ! how abstemious you are ! What do you 
 think of Miss Seldon ? ' eyeing his good-looking 
 face with interest. 
 
 1 A nice girl, but no beauty,' and then he pulled 
 out his watch, and said that he must be going. 
 
 1 Girl ? I don't call her a girl,' exclaimed Miss 
 Wyngate, who was rather afraid lest Paul might 
 be caught by Lady Mortimer for her sister. 
 1 She is thirty-five if she's a day (which was 
 a wilful exaggeration), and such a terrible blue- 
 stocking that all the men are afraid of her.' 
 
THE MISS SINGLETONS. 165 
 
 ' That is better than knowing too little. The 
 girls of the present day get up the catch-words 
 of some of the sciences, and then think them- 
 selves capable of discussing everything under the 
 sun. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for 
 that delightful cup of tea.' 
 
 He was already at the door when he heard 
 the Miss Singletons lamenting that they would 
 be too late for something, which he did not catch 
 — unless they walked very fast. He immediately 
 offered them a lift in his dog-cart, which they 
 would probably have refused if Miss Wyngate 
 had not insisted upon their accepting it. She 
 knew their prejudice against the Baronet, and 
 thought it was the greatest joke in the world to 
 pack them off in his cart. When Miss Singleton 
 was comfortably installed on the front seat, and 
 Miss Daphne on the back, Paul asked where they 
 wanted to go. 
 
 Miss Priscilla's delicate pink and white face 
 grew absolutely crimson. ' Church,' she said 
 laconically, and was afraid to look at him for 
 ten minutes afterwards. Miss Daphne thought 
 of nothing but keeping in. She gave a little 
 
1 66 PAUL NUGENT— MATERIALIST. 
 
 scream at every corner they whisked round, and 
 was quite breathless when, to her great relief, 
 Paul pulled up his high-stepper at the lych-gate. 
 Getting down was another difficulty which she 
 managed to survive ; but as she walked up the 
 pathway to the porch, she resolved that her first 
 prayer on entering the church should be one of 
 thanksgiving for her own and her sister's safety. 
 They were in time, but as she thought it was a 
 miracle that they got there at all without broken 
 necks, she would have preferred a smaller amount 
 of punctuality with less anxiety. 
 
 The bell was just tolling in, the Dashwoods' 
 carriage was waiting at the corner ; and, as Paul 
 drove off, Charlie Conway came flying out of the 
 Lodge just as the last stroke ceased. What a 
 contrast between this place and Z — in Essex ! 
 Here the church seemed to be the centre of life ; 
 there nobody ever thought of it at all, except on 
 Sunday. And yet that thick-headed parson, who 
 t ilked of nothing but the damnatory clauses of 
 his creed, was supposed to preach the same gospel 
 as Lovel, who still kept his charity towards the 
 sinner, even when he had broken his head. Paul 
 
THE MISS SINGLETONS. 1 67 
 
 drove home thoughtfully, giving one quick glance 
 of interest at Laburnum Lodge, which looked dark, 
 and cold, and empty, and stopping to inquire after 
 Lovel, who was keeping quiet according to the 
 doctor's orders, as Mrs Clowser informed him with 
 great decision, as if she defied him to come in 
 after that Although there was nothing to make 
 a fuss about, he knew that he had saved Lovel's 
 life. If he had not been in front, Landon might 
 have done as well ; but it was horrible to think 
 what would have happened if they had been one 
 minute later. Ward was too intoxicated to know 
 a man's head from his heels ; and if his hobnailed 
 boots had ever come in contact with the curate's 
 delicate features, it would have been all over with 
 him. All over with his untiring labours in the 
 parish, all over with his passionate pleadings in 
 the pulpit, all over with his patient struggles 
 against the vice and misery of the world ; his body 
 would have been laid in the grave, and the burial- 
 service would have been read over him, and that 
 would have been the end ! It seemed a terrible 
 thought that a drunkard's brutality could reduce 
 a splendid intellect, an indomitable will, a purified 
 
1 68 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 and beautiful nature — to nothingness. The wicked 
 died, and it was a satisfaction to think that they 
 could do no further harm in the world ; but the 
 good ? What pitiless waste it seemed to put an 
 arbitrary end to an existence which was pro- 
 lific of good to its surroundings ! Why should 
 noble endeavours be crushed before they enjoyed 
 fruition ? Why should kind and philanthropic 
 works be so often brought to a standstill, whilst 
 evil flourished, deriving nourishment from actual 
 corruption ? There never could be an answer to 
 these questions, which have been asked ever since 
 the creation of man, without Mrs Ward's land of 
 consolation and compensation. There is no 
 satisfaction in the ' Now ' without the ' Hereafter,' 
 and Paul Nugent felt the bitterness of dis- 
 satisfaction in the midst of his present medley 
 of enjoyment and disappointment, because he 
 would not look beyond the first, and turned his 
 back on the other, with the pride of the scientist 
 who knows a great deal, and fancies that he 
 knows all. 
 
 Mark Ferrol was cleaning his ' patent ejector ' 
 when Paul Nugent reached the Chase. He looked 
 
THE MISS SINGLETONS. 1 69 
 
 up as the other came into the gun-room, and asked 
 him what luck he had had with the two beauties 
 of Elmsfield. 
 
 * I drove the two ladies from the Hall to the 
 church. What do you think of that?' he said, 
 with a smile. 
 
 I By Jove, what a fraud ! You said they were 
 sure tc be out.' 
 
 I I said the odds were against their being in. 
 But you needn't be jealous. They had neither 
 ever been in a two-wheeled thing before, and 
 they clung on to the side in the deadliest fright' 
 
 ' What muffs ! but I say, Paul, never been in a 
 dog-cart before? They must have been chaffing 
 you, old man, and you never found it out.' 
 
 ' I'd take my oath they weren't. But they were 
 wonderfully game, considering their age.' 
 
 ' 1 should think they were just at the right age 
 for pluck,' looking up in surprise. 
 
 1 Ah, but then, you see, my dear fellow, you've 
 got the Miss Dashwoods in your head, and I had 
 the Miss Singletons in my cart,' said Paul quietly. 
 
 1 The pair of pious, propriety-loving, peripatetic 
 twins ! ' exclaimed Ferrol, in amazement. ' No, no, 
 
I JO PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 Paul, you've taken me in once, perhaps, but you 
 won't do it again. The Miss Singlepets, or what- 
 ever you call them, perched up in your dog-cart 
 would have been quite too much for Robin Hood. 
 He'd have bolted as sure as a — gun,' putting 
 down the Purdy which he had just cleaned up 
 to his own satisfaction. 
 
 ' You can call there to-morrow and inquire.' 
 ' Thanks, an old maid of a hundred and fifty is 
 not my idea of the survival of the fittest ; and I 
 don't want anything to do with her.' 
 
 1 1 wish the girls were half as easy to get on 
 with,' rejoined Paul, with a half-comical sigh, as 
 he took his own particular gun and examined it 
 closely. ' I hope the birds won't be as shy as I'm 
 growing.' 
 
CHAPTER X ; ;i. 
 
 A BALL AT THE CASTLE. 
 
 IT was always Lady Mortimer's great wish to out- 
 do her neighbours. For instance, when she was 
 proposing to give a ball, she recollected that Mrs 
 So-and-so had a hundred rose trees planted in an 
 artificial bed constructed in the centre of the hall ; 
 and immediately determined to have a thousand 
 lilies not only in the hall, but up the whole stair- 
 case, and in the gallery above, so that her guests 
 might feel as if they were walking in a veritable 
 garden, and say, ' How superior this is to Mrs So- 
 and-so's.' 
 
 The Castle was built on too magnificent a scale to 
 be readily turned into an imitation of the Health- 
 eries, or some other metropolitan playground, but 
 the Countess exerted her peculiar talents, and the 
 effect was extraordinary, if not altogether lovely 
 The electric light occurred to her as a most service- 
 able instrument, and the superb hall was hung with 
 
172 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 pendant pear-shaped lamps ; whilst the solemn 
 marble columns were draped with festoons of gold- 
 coloured silk, all meeting together in the centre, 
 like the equestrians with their ' banderoles,' in the 
 familiar figure of a circus. The lilies were either 
 white or gold, and everything that could be tied up 
 was secured with streamers of yellow ribbon. Lady 
 Mortimer wore a dress of tawny brown velvet, with 
 a gold-coloured front, and carried a splendid 
 bouquet of yellow lilies. Miss Seldon looked 
 unusually well in black and gold ; and the thirty- 
 five years with which Miss Wyngate had credited 
 her were evidently a fabrication of that lady's 
 active brain. The two sisters stood together just 
 inside the door of the first reception-room, and had 
 little to do but to smile and shake hands whilst the 
 guests poured in, in one continuous stream. As 
 soon as Sir Paul Nugent and his friends arrived, 
 however, Miss Seldon discontinued her automatic 
 performance, and forgot all about her duties as 
 sister of the hostess, whilst she listened to one 
 alone amongst the concourse of less interesting 
 units. Paul leant against the wall, his dark, well- 
 shaped head resting against a gold embossed panel, 
 
A BALL AT THE CASTLE. 1 73 
 
 his large eyes with unusual eagerness watching 
 every girl that came through the doorway. He 
 did not know that his presence made all the 
 difference in the world to the woman beside him, 
 or that the remarks he dropped so carelessly were 
 gathered up as if they were served with the finest 
 Attic salt. 
 
 ' Is this what is called an omnium gatherum ? ' 
 he inquired, as a remarkable-looking female in 
 green satin and ermine passed by, with an anxious 
 look in her eyes, as if asking everybody to admire 
 her best frock. 
 
 ' Yes, Lucilla hates it, but Mortimer is going to 
 stand for the county council. Now you know why 
 the dear old hall looks like South Kensington 
 gone mad/ with a deprecatory glance that was 
 lost upon him. 
 
 ' We owe more to the county council than I 
 imagined/ he said, with a slight smile ; ' but if the 
 Gold King, General South, were here, he would 
 be sure to take the decorations as a compliment 
 to himself. Such is human vanity.' 
 
 1 He is here, but Lucilla never thought of it/ 
 exclaimed Miss Seldon, with sparkling eyes. ' She 
 
174 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 wants him to rebuild Hart's Alley, and all the 
 worst places in E mersbridge.' 
 
 ' If Lady Mortimer means to get anything out 
 of him, now's the time. How could a man have 
 the face to refuse anything when w all these scarves 
 are waving delicate allusions, and the lilies are 
 standing inuendoes ? ' He stopped abruptly. 
 
 The Beechwood party had just arrived, and 
 Maude Dashwood, looking like one of the white 
 lilies stepped from its row of lovely companions, 
 was standing close by him. Very quietly he 
 greeted her, and said some platitude about the 
 crowd ; but he was conscious through every pulse 
 in his body that her manner was more gracious, 
 her smile sweeter than ever she had favoured him 
 with before. And yet, although he could not help 
 expanding under the genial influences, he was 
 bitterly aware that he knew the cause of it. If 
 he had not chanced to be of service to that fellow 
 Lovel, Miss Dashwood would have treated him 
 with the self-same coldness as before, he told 
 himself angrily ; and yet he asked her for the next 
 waltz, and led her off with a feeling of triumph as 
 the band struck up ' Ma Cherie? 
 
A BALL AT THE CASTLE. 1 75 
 
 Maude was very particular as to her partners, 
 but she could find no fault with Paul, for his step 
 suited hers exactly, and their combined action, as 
 they went slowly round the vast room, was the 
 very poetry of motion. The girl forgot her re- 
 solute repugnance, and let herself enjoy her youth 
 in its fulness. She was charming in her serious 
 moods, but still more captivating in her unwonted 
 playfulness. Paul, infected by her gaiety, felt 
 happier than he had been for years, and yielded 
 himself without reservation to the full power of her 
 charm. All bitterness and sternness melted from 
 him, and he felt as young as when he first met 
 Perdita Verschoyle under the elms at Hurlingham. 
 For the first time they seem to meet on equal terms, 
 with all unpleasant barriers thrown down by mutual 
 consent ; and each felt a higher appreciation of the 
 other. He would have sworn that he had never 
 thought of her as a narrow-minded bigot ; and she 
 quite forgot that she considered him a cold-blooded 
 materialist. When the dance was over they had 
 a quiet talk in a corner of the hall, where there 
 was a low couch framed in lilies and ferns. The 
 scent of the lilies, the softness of the music, the 
 
176 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 comparative seclusion within touch of a brilliant 
 throng, gave a charm to their position ; and, as he 
 sat by her side, his dark eyes quietly feasting on 
 the beauty of her pale, sweet face, the grace of 
 her drooping neck, he felt the magnetic attraction 
 of a kindred spirit added to that other attraction 
 which was purely personal. Before she had finished 
 the ice which he had fetched her, a partner, half- 
 wild after a prolonged search in every spot but 
 the right one, came and took her away ; but not 
 till Paul had inscribed his name on her programme 
 for another waltz towards the end of the evening. 
 
 He did not care much about dancing, so resolved 
 not to seek another partner before it was time for 
 that other waltz with Miss Dashwood. Just as he 
 had returned to his former position near the door- 
 way, and was watching the animated scene with 
 some interest, Lady Mortimer came up to him and 
 accused him of shocking laziness. 
 
 1 You should not make your rooms so lovely, if 
 you don't mean them to be looked at,' he said 
 diplomatically. 
 
 ' You needn't stand still the whole evening to 
 enjoy a coup d'ceil] she said remonstratively, at the 
 
A BALL AT THE CASTLE. 1 77 
 
 same time, that it struck her that he looked remark- 
 ably well in his present careless, but graceful pose, 
 against the golden background. ' It is an age of 
 progress, and we must always be moving on.' 
 
 ' Would it be progress to desert Lady Mortimer, 
 and move on to the lady in that startling costume, 
 which looks as if it had been borrowed from 
 Nathan's ? ' he asked, with a mischievous smile, as 
 his eyes followed a striking figure with a towering 
 chevelure, and a garment of crimson velvet and pale 
 blue satin. 
 
 'The sort of progress that the democrats wish 
 for, which is going backwards as far as you can/ 
 she answered, with a shrug of her shoulders. ' But 
 what would you have ? My husband has a craze 
 for exertion ; the House of Lords and Quarter- 
 Sessions are not enough for him ; but he must try 
 a county council as well. Simply to oblige him, 
 I sent out invitations to all the little people who 
 wanted to be considered big, and you see the 
 result.' 
 
 ' At this rate, by the time your little rosebud has 
 developed into a full-blown rose, she will be danc- 
 ing with the young grocer of High Street, Elmers- 
 VOL. I. m 
 
178 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 bridge, whilst you go in to supper on the arm of 
 his retired, but not retiring father.' 
 
 ' Never ! ' she exclaimed energetically. ' Apres moi 
 le deluge; but it sha'n't be as long as I want stand- 
 ing room on terra firma. How sweet Miss Dash- 
 wood looks to-night/ she added, as Maude passed, 
 and threw her a fleeting smile. ' I offered her my 
 bouquet, but she wouldn' t take it ; her own she 
 left on her dressing-table. I fancy my lilies would 
 have given her the touch of colour that she wants, 
 but she always goes in for innocence in white.' 
 Then she caught sight of rather an imposing-look- 
 ing man, with a tall, erect figure, a good head, fine 
 forehead, and grey moustache. He looked like a 
 man of action, who would probably distinguish 
 himself if he had a wide enough field. ' There's 
 the General, I must go after him ; I've a thousand 
 things to ask him.' 
 
 1 Gold is the one thing that a woman thinks she 
 may go after without waiting for it to come to 
 her,' said Paul, with his cynical smile ; and then he 
 pulled out his watch surreptitiously and vanished. 
 
 Lady Mortimer wanted to introduce him to the 
 Gold King, but when she turned round he was 
 
A BALL AT THE CASTLE. 1 79 
 
 gone. Then she pounced upon Mr Conway, and, 
 with an eye to business in the midst of pleasure, 
 introduced him as one of the curates of the parish ; 
 and launched him, much against his will, into a 
 conversation on the poverty-stricken dwellings in 
 the suburbs of Elmersbridge. The millionaire de- 
 tected the Countess's object at once, and rather 
 enjoyed the joke of appearing to fall into the trap, 
 whilst quietly stepping over it. He asked for 
 statistics as to the hours of labour, wages, etc., and 
 discussed the subject in all its length and breadth, 
 carefully concealing the fact that he had to make 
 a speech on the ' labour question ' the following 
 week, and he was rather glad to have the data 
 provided for him in a ball-room, where he usually 
 wasted his time. 
 
 Charlie Conway was a very bad beggar, and. 
 moreover, objected to worrying strangers about a 
 parish in which they had no concern. It was a 
 relief to him when Nellie Dashwood came up on 
 her partner's arm, gave the latter his conge, and held 
 out her hand with her merry smile to the General. 
 Charlie gave her a quizzical look, intended to show 
 that it was 'no go,' but Nellie was not to be 
 
l8o PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 daunted. She pursued a very different cue to the 
 others, and talked of Elmersbridge as a place where 
 there was a fine opening for any sort of enterprise ; 
 and then, with a grave face, wondered if any one 
 would bring forward a bill in Parliament to oblige 
 husbands to give half their wages to their wives, 
 before they were allowed to enter a public-house. 
 
 The General was delighted to find that so pretty 
 a girl could be practical, and told her that if she 
 wished to start either a coffee-room or a hospital, 
 she might count upon him for a substantial cheque. 
 She thanked him in her prettiest manner, and 
 wrote down the name of his club on her fan, 
 scarcely waiting for him to go away before she 
 turned round to Conway to claim his applause. 
 
 * There, see what I've done for you ! ' she cried, 
 bubbling over with delight. 
 
 ' Will it please you to be told that women make 
 much better beggars than men ? ' 
 
 * Yes ; because, whatever we do, sir, it is good to 
 do well.' 
 
 'Then, when youallowme the honour of taking you 
 into supper, mind you make a good one/ and they 
 both laughed, in the exuberance of their glad delight. 
 
A BALL AT THE CASTLE. l3l 
 
 I Have you happened to see Nugent anywhere ? ' 
 inquired Mark Ferrol, interrupting the tete-a-tete 
 intentionally, for he had come to the conclusion 
 that the younger Miss Dashwood was quite too 
 charming to be thrown away on a parson. ' He 
 has grown so eccentric since his sojourn in Elmers- 
 field that I get nervous if he is out of sight.' 
 
 ' Then I'm afraid your nerves will be severely 
 tried to-night, for it is impossible to keep any one 
 in view. Besides, if Sir Paul wants to be lost, why 
 not leave him alone ?' she asked, rather pertinently. 
 
 I I shall forget him entirely if you will remember 
 that you owe me this dance,' he said promptly. 
 
 ' I can't remember a promise I never made ; but 
 as my proper partner — ' 
 
 ' You will dance with " improper me ? " I don't 
 know why you laid such a stress on that adjective, 
 or why you've such a bad opinion of me, Miss 
 Dashwood,' he said, as he put his arm round her 
 small waist and began to waltz. 
 
 1 I've no opinion of you at all/ she replied, with a 
 laugh. ' Ask me when I've seen you more than 
 once.' 
 
 ' Will you give me an honest answer ? ' 
 
1 82 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 1 Yes. Honesty is my failing.' 
 
 1 You might have called it your strength,' and 
 then the pace quickened, and breath was wanted 
 for something else than conversation. 
 
 Mark Ferrol was enjoying himself immensely 
 and had forgotten ' copy ' and everything else as 
 soon as he came into contact with a fresh, young 
 girl, who had the gentle refinement of a high-bred 
 nature, unspoilt by the affectations of conventional 
 society. She was a new study for him, and he 
 felt it his duty to make the most of it. When duty 
 takes the form of a pleasure, then no man is above, 
 or below, yielding to its charms ; and Mark Ferrol 
 gave Nellie so many chances of forming an opinion 
 of him, that he might well have asked his question 
 before the end of the evening. 
 
 Landon found a pleasant companion in Miss 
 Seldon, who let him air his views on any subject 
 that he liked, and discussed them with vivacity and 
 without temper. They danced a little and talked 
 a great deal ; but she was not too engrossed to see 
 Paul Nugent re-appear just as the room had begun 
 to clear a little for supper, or to wonder where he 
 had hidden himself so long. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ' I WOULD RATHER DIE THAN ROB YOU OF 
 AN ILLUSION !' 
 
 WHILST pretty cheeks were growing flushed, and 
 flirtations waxing warmer ; whilst youth had 
 its fling, and beauty its triumphs, middle age its 
 satisfactions, and old age its consolations; whilst 
 Landon was sharpening his wit in order to cope 
 with Miss Seldon's, and Mark Ferrol was losing his 
 head, if not his heart, under the influence of Nellie 
 Dashwood's bright eyes, Sir Paul Nugent was 
 driving through the fresh night air with a bunch 
 of white roses on the seat beside him. He had 
 started off in obedience to a sudden impulse, but, 
 now that impulse had resulted in action, he began to 
 doubt if he had not been a fool for his pains. Miss 
 Dashwood might very likely regaid his officious 
 service as a liberty. He had no right to pose 
 as a special friend — no right to interpret her 
 wishes without asking for her consent ; and, 
 
1 84 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 although he had been all the way over to Beech- 
 wood to fetch them, he gave them to a foot- 
 man, in a fit of schoolboy shyness, and instructed 
 him to tell Miss Dashwood that they had been 
 sent from the Hall. The flowers had been 
 wrapped up in cotton wool as carefully as if 
 they had been a small speck of humanity, and 
 the smile which crossed Maude's face as she 
 bent her head to enjoy their unspoilt sweetness 
 fully repaid him for the trouble he had taken. 
 Not for anything would he have spoiled her con- 
 tent by telling her that he had a hand in pro- 
 ducing it ; and yet he found a secret satisfaction 
 in doing her a service of which she was ignorant. 
 
 He crossed the large expanse of parqueted 
 floor, and, bowing low, claimed the promised 
 waltz. Captain Fitzgerald looked as if he would 
 like to kill him, but Maude rose with a smile, 
 saying, — 
 
 ' I thought you had gone, Sir Paul.' 
 
 1 You might have known that I should not 
 let you off.' 
 
 1 Confess that a ball bores you ? ' 
 
 * Not to-night' Then he added quickly, lest 
 
'I WOULD RATHER DIE,' ETC. 1 85 
 
 it should seem like a fatuous compliment, ' I've 
 been out of society for so long that it seems quite 
 a refreshing novelty.' 
 
 Paul flattered himself that he was steadily 
 making way, when Maude consented, as soon as 
 the waltz was over, to step out of the heated ball- 
 room into the refreshing sweetness of the starlit 
 night. He confessed to no further object than 
 conquering her aversion, which had offended his 
 pride and wounded his self-love from the first. 
 He asked no more than ordinary friendship, such 
 as ought to exist between neighbours in the 
 country in order to make the life palatable ; and 
 he thought that he was on the road to win it, as 
 she let him talk to her for some delicious minutes 
 under the stars, without exhibiting any of her 
 usual combativeness in her replies. 
 
 She was leaning against the balustrade of the 
 terrace, her eyes roaming thoughtfully over the 
 view before her, trying to pick out its familiar 
 points from the subtle mystery of the night. 
 Here and there a light twinkled like a glow-worm 
 on a bank, which told where the cottage houses 
 of Elmsfield were lying snugly under the shelter 
 
1 86 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 of the hill, like birds in their nests. Close by, the 
 grey tower of St John's stood out against the dark 
 foliage behind it, as the light of the church shone 
 out like^a lamp that needed no refreshing, through 
 the mental darkness of mediaeval ignorance. 
 
 Paul turned his back on gardens, hills, and trees, 
 his face towards Maude Dashwood ; his voice took 
 a softer tone, his heart felt tender as a child's. 
 Her gentle, gracious womanliness seemed like a 
 new revelation in Nature; and he felt almost afraid 
 to speak lest he might say something to jar on the 
 tenderness of her present mood. 
 
 ' Pain has its bright side, which people too often 
 forget,' she said thoughtfully, in answer to his last 
 remark, as her eyes wandered to where a vague 
 light in the clouds showed where the gas-lamps 
 of Elmersbridge were illumining the vice and the 
 misery, as well as the comfort and prosperity, of 
 that fast developing town. ' It would be a very 
 prosaic world without it' 
 
 ' And yet, if I were going to make a world, I 
 should take the greatest pains to leave it out,' he 
 said slowly. ' Our span is not so very long after all 
 Why shouldn't we be happy whilst we are here ? ' 
 
I WOULD RATHER DIE,' ETC. 1 87 
 
 1 Because we should grow hard, and cold, and 
 detestable. There would be no room for sym- 
 pathy, no field for tenderness. Our noblest char- 
 acteristics would be lost or wasted, and women 
 would break their hearts for want of a mission.' 
 
 * I don't see that. Don't you think a woman's 
 friendship would be worth having if she had 
 never cured you of a toothache ? ' 
 
 * Ah ! but you would not think a woman's friend- 
 ship worth having, if you knew you would not have 
 her sympathy when you were ill or in trouble.' 
 
 1 It would be worth while to be ill in order 
 to get it,' he said, in a low voice. ' It is 
 horribly unpleasant to walk the world with a 
 park-paling always round you.' 
 
 She raised her beautiful eyes to his. 
 
 * I hope there are very wide gates to all the 
 palings in Elmsfield,' she said gently, struck 
 by the sadness of his tone. 
 
 1 Oh, yes, wide gates for all the world, except 
 me,' he answered, with an undercurrent of pro- 
 test and offence under his outward composure. 
 * As for myself, I always find them locked, and 
 it requires some cheek to climb over them.' 
 
188 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ' I am very sorry,' softly, as she realised per- 
 haps for the first time, that a materialist could 
 have feelings just like other people ; though he 
 might say with Tyndall that 'emotion, intellect, 
 will, and all their phenomena, were once latent 
 in a fiery cloud.' Wherever they came from, 
 she saw that they had the same effect as her 
 own. 'But, after all, is it our fault?' she asked, 
 as the old feeling of anger rose in her heart. 
 1 Is it possible to make a man your friend when 
 all your noblest aspirations, all your earnest 
 efforts after a higher life, are things for him to 
 scoff at ? ' 
 
 ' It's not true, I don't scoff. All I want is 
 for people to be true. If you believe, act up 
 to your belief; but if you have no faith, don't 
 be a hypocrite and pretend you have,' he broke 
 out, with suppressed excitement, for he felt what 
 he considered the injustice of his treatment, most 
 keenly. 
 
 ' I agree with you ; but oh ! Sir Paul,' her voice 
 softening as well as her eyes, ' is it possible to 
 go through life, and not feel that we are all 
 under a guiding hand?' 
 
'I WOULD RATHER DIE,' ETC. 1 89 
 
 'How can I say? The whole world of Nature 
 is under the rule of law ; but as to who made 
 the law, I cannot tell any more than I can see 
 the germ of life in any organic substance.' 
 
 ' No, and all you clever people, with your 
 theories of evolution, you have to start without 
 a beginning, and end paradoxically, with an 
 abrupt full stop ; whilst we have something to 
 go upon from the very first, something I defy 
 you to take from us/ her eyes flashing defiance. 
 
 ' I would rather die than rob you of a single illu- 
 sion/ he said passionately ; ' but, pity a man who 
 was born and bred in the region of cold, hard fact I 
 The boys I was with at Eton, the men I saw most 
 of at Oxford, the friends I was thrown with in 
 London, — they had no faith and no religion, and 
 all they knew of God was — that he was unfathom- 
 able. My mother died when I was six years old, 
 my father out-darwined Darwin, and was an evolu 
 tionist of the school of Buchner and Moleschott — 
 that means an avowed atheist.' 
 
 Maude shuddered involuntarily. 
 
 1 You see there is no hope for me,' he said, after 
 a pause, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. 
 
190 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ' I should be sorry to say that.' 
 1 No, but you think it. I hear it in the tone of 
 your voice. To you I am worse than a leper, but 
 you refuse to play the part of a Father Damien.' 
 
 ' You are mistaken. There is nothing that I 
 wouldn't do.' 
 
 The tears rushed to her eyes, her soft voice 
 shook. A strong tide of emotion caught them 
 both ; and before they were conscious of what they 
 were doing, they were standing, hand clasped in 
 hand, straining to look into each other's eyes in 
 the twilight. 
 
 1 You will help me ? ' he said hoarsely, carried 
 away by the impulse of the moment. 
 ' Oh, God, if I only could ! ' 
 
 She bent her head, and a deep silence fell over 
 them both ; a silence which might have been prayer 
 in the one, and self-consecration in the other. 
 
 A number of couples came out of the drawing- 
 room windows, bringing with them a gust of 
 frivolity from the outer world. Maude started 
 and stepped back; but Paul quietly drew her hand 
 through his arm and then waited, his heart throb- 
 bing wildly to see what she would do. His own 
 
' I WOULD RATHER DIE,' ETC. 191 
 
 mind felt in a chaos, and reason entirely subjugate 
 to feeling. He scarcely knew if he had pledged 
 himself to anything or nothing ; but he felt as if 
 he had no will at all, as if wherever Maude 
 Dashwood chose to lead he must needs follow. 
 
 The girl herself was confused, and shaken to 
 the very core of her being. She looked round for 
 Captain Fitzgerald, or Charlie Conway, longing 
 for some old friend to come and take her away, 
 that somewhere, in some quiet corner, she might 
 get back her usual composure. But she saw no- 
 thing but strange faces round her ; and, feeling 
 that she could not cast off Paul and leave herself 
 stranded, she let him take her in silence to the 
 drawing-room. All she hoped was that he would 
 not speak to her, for she felt as if she could not 
 bear a word. 
 
 Fortunately Lord Mortimer met them as they 
 came up the steps into the drawing-room, and 
 insisted upon carrying her off to have some 
 supper. He said that he had been doing his duty 
 all the evening, and now he meant to have some 
 pleasure, and he could wish for nothing better 
 than a ten minutes' chat with Miss Dashwood. 
 
I92 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 Maude willingly consented, but gave a little shiver 
 as she took his arm. 
 
 ' That careless fellow has given you a chill/ he 
 said angrily. 
 
 ' No, it was only somebody or something walk- 
 ing over my grave,' she answered quietly, and her 
 voice sounded as if she were tired out. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A MODERN PRODIGAL. 
 
 ' WELL, darling, and how did you enjoy yourself?' 
 asked Nellie, as she came into her cousin's room, 
 despoiled of her finery, but looking as bright as 
 a bird. The chat after any festivity was a time- 
 honoured institution ; and she would as soon have 
 thought of not going to bed at all, as of going to 
 bed without it. For once in her life, Maude was 
 unresponsive; but Nellie chatted away merrily 
 whilst she combed out her bright brown hair. 
 1 Never saw Fitz in such a temper before. He was 
 a walking thunderstorm.' 
 
 ' Didn't you dance with him ? ' trying to rouse 
 herself to some appearance of interest. 
 
 ' Nothing to do with me. I talked to him till 
 
 I felt quite flattened, as if I had been sitting under 
 
 a steam-hammer,' with a comical grimace. ' I told 
 
 him that he looked more like a soldier than I had 
 VOL. I. N 
 
194 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ever seen him manage before, because he looked 
 quite ready for slaughter.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you chaffed him too much,' clasping 
 her hands behind her head as she lay on the sofa, 
 the picture of physical repose, whilst the victim of 
 mental unrest. 
 
 1 Do you know what upset him ? ' pausing, brush 
 in hand, to see the effect of her words. ' He said 
 that you had been spooning for half-an-hour on 
 the terrace with that " confounded outsider," and 
 it was time somebody interfered.' 
 
 If Nellie could have told how Maude writhed, 
 as if with bodily pain, at Fitzgerald's words, she 
 would have bitten her tongue out rather than 
 repeat them. There was a pause which made 
 her rather nervous, but Maude made a supreme 
 effort, and, taking hold of that part of the speech 
 which hurt her least, she said slowly, — 
 
 1 Fitz is detestable. An outsider is a snob, and 
 I talked to nobody of that sort, though there were 
 plenty of them about' 
 
 ' But, Maude, do you like him ? ' hesitating, but 
 driven on by overpowering curiosity. Fitz had 
 hinted at all sorts of absurdities, and she was 
 
A MODERN PRODIGAL. 1 95 
 
 anxious to know if there was one grain of truth 
 in them. Maude put her feet to the ground, rested 
 her elbow on her knee, her cheek on her hand. 
 
 'Whether I like him or not,' she said impres- 
 sively, whilst a fever spot burned on each cheek, 
 1 1 never wish to speak to him again.' 
 
 1 But isn't that too bad ? ' cried Nellie, opening 
 her eyes. ' They say he saved Mr Lovel's life.' 
 
 ' I see nothing in that. He had an opportunity 
 of showing his pluck, and he took it. Any man 
 worthy of the name is glad to do that. And now, 
 Nell, go to bed. I'm too tired to do anything but 
 yawn ; and that,' with a weary smile, ' is not over 
 polite.' 
 
 Nellie felt quenched, and went off in a subdued 
 state of mind, conscious of a vague uneasiness for 
 which she could not account; whilst Maude lay 
 awake from hour to hour wondering what Sir Paul 
 had thought of her conduct. If he were a man of 
 no refined or subtle instinct, he might have mis- 
 taken her impulse of pity for something far lower ; 
 and burning blushes scorched her cheeks, whilst 
 her pride felt levelled to the dust. Looking back, 
 it seemed impossible that she should have been 
 
196 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 carried so completely out of herself by the hope of 
 bringing him into the Church. In that one moment 
 of excitement, when heart spoke to heart, and their 
 spirits seemed to rush together, all had appeared 
 possible. The iron was hot, and she only had to 
 strike it. She had felt like a prophetess fired by 
 holy zeal, capable, if need were, of a miracle ; 
 but now her hope, her enthusiasm died away, 
 and a terrible reaction set i-n. 
 
 Was it possible that he mistook her ? What if 
 he were thinking it over with a cynical smile ? A 
 smile seemed like an outrage, like a blister to a 
 raw wound ; and yet it was quite possible. He 
 knew nothing of religious fervour. He might 
 exert his strength, even risk his life to save a 
 man's body, but he would not utter one word to 
 save a man's soul. The soul was nothing to him, 
 so how could he gauge her interest ? How could 
 he imagine that she valued it far beyond The 
 Chase, the Nugent diamonds, or the balance lying 
 at his banker's? He would not understand, and 
 she could never explain ; so he would only set her 
 down amongst the other girls of the neighbour- 
 hood, who were willing to condone his opinions 
 
A MODERN PRODIGAL. 1 97 
 
 for the sake of a Greek profile, and for deep dark 
 eyes which expressed perhaps more than their 
 owner was aware of. 
 
 Paul Nugent's mind would have been a satis- 
 faction to her, if she had only been able to see 
 into it. He was as free from personal coxcombry 
 as it was possible for any man to be ; and, instead 
 of priding himself on the conquest he had made, 
 he was only supremely grateful to Miss Dashwood 
 for stooping from her pride of orthodoxy to offer 
 sympathy to one outside the pale. He was not 
 only touched, but bewildered and shaken off his 
 balance. He knew that his heart had throbbed as 
 if it would burst from his breast, and he felt as if 
 the blood were still leaping in his veins. But he 
 could not call back the feeling which had prompted 
 him to say, ' You will help me ? ' It had been 
 born of the impulse of the moment, and it had 
 gone as completely as the moment itself. He 
 told himself that he was an impressionable fool, 
 but he was not going to change the standpoint of 
 his life, or give up the fruits of years of thought, 
 and literary as well as scientific research, because 
 a lovely girl looked at him with tears in her eyes, 
 
I98 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 and his opinions cast an instant's cloud over her 
 peace. He could not be untrue to his convictions, 
 however cold and unsatisfying they might seem to 
 him at times, and a mind that was saturated with 
 the teachings of Huxley, Tyndall, and Spencer, 
 could not be emasculated sufficiently to stoop to 
 receive any fact as an accepted truth that could 
 not be verified by science. 
 
 His friends did not notice his silence as he 
 drove them home, for driving was rather difficult 
 work when the lanes were narrow and dark as 
 Erebus, and might naturally be supposed to en- 
 gross his attention. As they turned a corner into 
 the high road which ran between the palings of 
 Beechwood and The Chase, they were all very 
 nearly pitched out of the cart, as Robin Hood 
 swerved violently to the left, and then stood stock 
 still, with quivering flanks. Paul threw the reins 
 to Landon, and jumped down. 
 
 ' Jove, that was a shave ! ' he exclaimed in 
 horror. f A man right across the road, as if death 
 on being run over ! ' 
 
 Ferrol also jumped down, and helped to raise 
 the man up, whilst Paul Nugent lighted a match 
 
A MODERN PRODIGAL. 1 99 
 
 and held its flickering flame to his face. It was 
 deadly pale, with long lashes lying on wasted 
 cheeks. The features were delicate and refined ; 
 a dark moustache drooped over a mouth as 
 pretty and weak as any woman's, soft dark hair 
 hung over a smooth white forehead, with straight 
 brows. It struck Paul as strangely familiar to 
 him, and he looked at him with a puzzled air. 
 
 ' I can't make out what's the matter with him, 
 or who he is ; but I'm certain I've seen him 
 before.' 
 
 ' Drunk ? ' asked Landon laconically. 
 
 ' I don't think so.' 
 
 * Expect he is,' said Ferrol. ' Heart going all 
 right ; I'd drive him to the nearest pub. It's 
 where he would naturally gravitate to.' 
 
 1 I shall take him home,' said Paul briefly. 
 
 ' Don't be rash. He may prove an awkward 
 customer when he wakes,' suggested Landon. 
 
 ' If you insist upon it, I'll walk on,' said Ferrol, 
 lighting a cigarette. ' I've a thought I want to 
 work out' 
 
 ' Hang your confounded cynicism ! ' exclaimed 
 Paul angrily. ' We don't know if the fellow's dead 
 
200 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 or alive, and you talk of working out a thought ! 
 Here, lend a hand, Julian ! ' 
 
 With Montgomery's assistance, he lifted the 
 slight limp body into the cart ; and, taking his 
 own place, drove off in a hurry. 
 
 Ferrol looked after the retreating cart with a 
 quiet smile. ' First act of the drama ! Wonder 
 if he saw the same likeness that I did. Very 
 down on my poor thought ! I'd like to know 
 what his own is.' Then he thrust his hands into 
 his pocket, and walked on at a good pace. He 
 intended to meditate profoundly, but the events of 
 the evening were still uppermost in his mind, and, 
 instead of dissecting a new system of philosophy, 
 he found himself calculating the charm of a girl's 
 smile, and the depth of her apparent sincerity. 
 His intellect was no longer the prominent part of 
 his being ; and his heart told him plainly that it 
 had other functions besides acting as a sort of 
 reservoir to the blood-system of his body. It had 
 the same properties as that of a schoolboy, but 
 Ferrol, engrossed in his ologies, had allowed it to 
 get into an almost fossilised condition. Nellie 
 Dashwood's sweet personality had stirred it into 
 
A MODERN PRODIGAL. 201 
 
 activity, but it was doubtful whether a newly- 
 awakened sentiment would have strength to break 
 the rusty chain of habit. 
 
 Whilst Ferrol was working out these most 
 unusual thoughts in the quiet stillness of the grey 
 morning ; the rest of the party had reached The 
 Chase, and the stranger had been put to bed. 
 
 Seton the butler gave it as his opinion that the 
 gentleman had met with no violence, but had 
 taken a drop too much, and stumbled when he 
 was walking. That would account for the bruise 
 on his head, and also for his comatose state. His 
 clothes were shabby, but looked as if they might 
 have come originally from a good tailor. The 
 small feet and hands, and the refined face, asserted 
 that their owner was a gentleman once, by birth, 
 and possibly by position, but it was evident that 
 he had sunk to the lowest strata of society. 
 
 ' Ought to be ashamed of himself, sir, that's my 
 opinion,' said the butler, with a disdainful shake of 
 his head. 'Just the sort to break a mother's heart, 
 and bring shame on an honest name ! ' 
 
 ' Hold your tongue,' said Paul sternly, ' he hears 
 you.' Then he sent him out of the room to fetch 
 
202 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 some brandy and water, and went up to the side 
 of the bed. 'Are you ill? Can I do anything 
 for you ? ' 
 
 The stranger's large grey eyes looked up at him, 
 startled and puzzled. 
 
 1 Is this Beechwood ? I don't know the room.' 
 
 A thrill of horror and surprise ran through Paul 
 as the idea, which he had been trying to stifle, 
 sprang into life. It was Maude Dashwood that 
 this wretched fellow reminded him of. He was as 
 like her as a man could be to a woman, only with 
 a wide difference ; the strength and the elevation 
 of her expression were both wanting, though the 
 sweetness remained in the play of the facile mouth, 
 and in the glance of the eye. Instinctively he 
 knew that he was on the edge of a secret — a secret 
 that she would have kept from him at any cost — 
 and he was afraid of asking a question, lest he 
 should be told it against her will. 
 
 1 This is The Chase. Were you going to Beech- 
 wood ? Shall I send them word ? ' 
 
 ' What's your name ? ' 
 
 This turning of the tables rather amused him, 
 and he answered shortly, — 
 
A MODERN PRODIGAL. 203 
 
 ' Nugent.' 
 
 Again the puzzled look came back to the grey 
 eyes. 
 
 I Nugent was an old fellow. I don't remember 
 you.' 
 
 I I am his nephew. Sir Thomas is dead.' 
 
 ' You look a good sort,' boyishly. Then a flush 
 spread over his white cheeks. ' I am Gerald 
 Dashwood.' 
 
 * Her brother ! ' exclaimed Paul, stepping back 
 as if recoiling from the unpleasantness of the 
 thought. ' I never knew she had one/ 
 
 ' No, they keep it dark. They are not altogether 
 proud of me,' with a mixture of sadness and dis- 
 content in his tone, as if he knew the reason was 
 good, and yet he could not help feeling injured. 
 ' You had better call me " Dynevor," my second 
 name. I don't tell every one who I am — don't 
 want to drag Dashwood in the dirt. But look 
 here, I told you because I wanted to send a 
 message to Maude. You understand ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, I understand.' Oh ! what a gulf of trouble, 
 pain, and bitter humiliation seemed to open before 
 the eyes of his mental vision as he thought of 
 
204 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 Maude Dashwood. To a girl, high-minded and 
 strong in will and principle, a brother like this 
 wreck before him must be like a poisoned thorn 
 in her side. He was the reason and the cause of 
 that look of trouble in her glorious eyes when they 
 talked of 'cold, pitiless justice.' Why, justice to 
 such men as Gerald Dashwood meant annihila- 
 tion ! There is a weakness which leads to wicked- 
 ness, as October damp to November fog, and it 
 was written on every line of his face. ' You were 
 going home?' he asked, with a feeling of rising 
 wrath as he pictured the effect of such an addition 
 as this to that home of pride, as well as tenderness 
 — the Squire's only son ! 
 
 ' I don't know,' passing his thin hand over his 
 forehead. ' I wanted to see Maude before I slipped 
 the hooks.' 
 
 Paul looked at him, with some compassion strug- 
 gling to life through his overwhelming disgust. 
 
 1 Are you ill ? Shall I send for a doctor ? ' 
 
 'Doctor? no; where's the good? I'm warranted 
 to die.' 
 
 ' Here, drink this,' in a gentler tone, giving him 
 the glass of brandy and water which Seton had 
 
A MODERN PRODIGAL. 205 
 
 brought. ' And for goodness' sake eat a sandwich ; 
 you've run down to nothing. 
 
 Gerald drank feverishly, then he leant his head 
 back on his pillow, and began to eat obediently, 
 but with evident reluctance. 
 
 ' That's my proper level,' with a smile, as if 
 the power of being amused at his own mis-' 
 fortunes had not yet deserted him. ' When I get 
 to it every one will be satisfied, and so shall I.' 
 
 Almost before he had finished speaking, he fell 
 asleep, and Paul stood looking down at the beauty 
 and the weakness of the wasted face, with a strange 
 complication of feelings in his heart. 
 
 1 Excuse me, sir, but you had better go to bed,' 
 remarked the butler, in a stage-whisper. ' I'll en- 
 gage not to leave the room till George comes to 
 take my place.' 
 
 ' No necessity for you to sit up with him. He's 
 not ill enough for that' 
 
 1 Lor', Sir Paul, I wasn't troubling about his 
 poor carcase,' he rejoined, with ineffable contempt. 
 1 I was thinking of all the silver and the valuable 
 nick-nacks about the house. We might find the 
 gentleman gone, and half the plate as well.' 
 
206 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 Good heavens ! Maude Dashwood's brother to 
 be watched in case he should steal the spoons 1 
 Paul turned on the man as if he would have eaten 
 him. 
 
 ' He's a gentleman, and I know his family.' 
 1 Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, but you will allow 
 the circumstances was suspicious,' said Seton, not 
 at all abashed. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PROVED BY THE SCALPEL AND THE MICROSCOPE. 
 
 Gerald Dashwood found lying in the road like 
 a common, drunken tramp, and picked up by Sir 
 Paul Nugent. The news was brought to Maude 
 Dashwood in all its crudeness, and filled her cup 
 of bitterness to overflowing. The mere fact of 
 the doors of his home being shut against him was 
 bad enough, but that he should be installed in the 
 best bedroom of The Chase seemed to make it 
 infinitely worse. Would not Sir Paul be justified 
 in sneering at the Christian who turned his out- 
 cast son from his door, whilst the materialist gave 
 him the shelter that he needed ? What would he 
 say of a religion that turned its respectable back 
 on the prodigal ? 
 
 Gerald was the one blot on the page of her life. 
 He was weak as water, she was strong as the best 
 old wine ; he had never done anything that was good, 
 but had done much that was remarkably wrong ; 
 
208 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 her record was almost stainless, and any girl might 
 have been glad to have one half as good ; he was 
 a bad son, she was the best of daughters ; he was 
 a selfish, exacting brother, she was the most un- 
 selfish of sisters ; and yet, womanlike, in spite of 
 his faults, or because of them, she loved him, as the 
 bad men of this world have invariably been loved 
 by the best of women. 
 
 His father gave him a liberal allowance, and yet, 
 from the first, he was always preying on her pocket- 
 money ; and, with the splendid folly of misplaced 
 devotion, she would have given him her heart's 
 blood if he had asked for it. His boyish beauty 
 was the joy of her eyes, his happy laugh the delight 
 of her ears ; when the elders shook their heads over 
 his levity, she rejoiced in his continual brightness ; 
 and, when he sinned, she cried her heart out in secret, 
 but left it to others to scold. He was fatally popular 
 at Eton and Christchurch ; at both he did as little 
 work as he could, and threw himself heart and soul 
 into any pleasure that came in his way. Every one 
 found it hard to be angry with him, for he owned 
 himself wrong with a charming smile, and took 
 every scolding with the outward meekness which 
 
PROVED BY THE SCALPEL, ETC. 209 
 
 springs from inward indifference. His mother died 
 long before the climax came — the climax that 
 turned the kindest of fathers into a stern judge, 
 and nearly broke Maude's heart. They could for- 
 give him for rushing to one race-meeting after 
 another, till his face was better known in the ring 
 than anywhere else ; his bets and gambling debts 
 had been paid again and again, sometimes with 
 remonstrance and just indignation, but always paid, 
 so that, in spite of his rashness and constant im- 
 pecuniosity, his name had never been posted as a 
 defaulter ; but when he gave that name to a well- 
 known golden-haired beauty, whom he could never 
 have the audacity to introduce to his sister, then his 
 father's wrath burst out like a flame, and the doors 
 of his insulted home were closed against him for 
 ever. Even Maude bent her head in sorrow and 
 submission, feeling that he had brought dishonour 
 into a stainless family ; but the joy of her life 
 seemed dead. No one mentioned him ; every now 
 and then a whisper reached their ears, and they 
 guessed that he was leading just the same gay, 
 useless, reckless life as ever. There was nothing to 
 be done ; he had cut himself adrift, and the family 
 VOL. I. O 
 
2IO PAUL NUGENT— MATERIALIST. 
 
 ship would sail on without him. Not a word nor 
 a sign'came to Maude till she received a letter from 
 Gerald, written, to her dismay, from The Chase. 
 
 He was ill, and her heart bled for him. With 
 the tenderness of a true woman, she forgot all his 
 sins, and wanted to fly to him, but how could she 
 go to The Chase ? Anywhere but there. She put 
 his letter into the Squire's hand, and saw his face 
 darken as he read it. There was a long pause, 
 whilst her heart throbbed fast. 
 
 * Will you go to him ? ' she asked, with her large 
 eyes raised appealingly to his stern face. 
 
 'No.' 
 
 1 Have you nothing to say to him ? ' 
 
 * Nothing.' 
 
 * But, father, he may die,' with a sob in her throat. 
 
 * He won't do anything so respectable,' with a 
 cynical curl of his lips. 
 
 Maude went gently out of the room. It was no 
 use to dash herself against a stone wall ; and she 
 saw that the Squire was inexorable. She penned 
 a loving letter to her brother, her heart yearning 
 over him as a mother's for her child ; and into it 
 she packed all the remainder of that quarter's 
 
PROVED BY THE SCALPEL, ETC. 211 
 
 allowance. She told him that she longed to see 
 him, and begged him to leave the The Chase at 
 once. She would come to him if he were really 
 ill ; in the poorest lodgings or a hospital, nothing 
 should keep her from him. She told him not to 
 masquerade under the name of Dynevor, every one 
 would know him for a Dashwood, and it would 
 only make people talk. ' But go from this neigh- 
 bourhood, darling, for it kills me that you should 
 be so near to your own home, and not in it. Oh, 
 if you knew how I loved you still ! — Your devoted 
 
 1 Maude.' 
 
 Paul took the letter up to the invalid, and felt 
 the crackle of bank-notes under the cover. 
 
 ' Preying on his sister, the mean-spirited hound ! ' 
 he exclaimed indignantly, and went into the room 
 in a fit of disgust. 
 
 Gerald Dashwood was lying in bed, propped up 
 by pillows, looking more like a beautiful ghost than 
 a man of flesh and blood. 
 
 * Oh, give it me,' he cried, his cheeks flushing with 
 eagerness, a touching smile spreading over his face. 
 
 Paul watched his shaky fingers struggling with 
 
212 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 the thickness of the envelope, and determined not 
 to be mollified. He knew nothing of the fellow's 
 history, but he was certain that he was one of those 
 men who go about the world as veritable blood- 
 suckers, and nothing could exceed his contempt 
 for them. 
 
 ' Maude is the best sister that ever lived ! ' 
 * And what sort of brother are you ? ' with great 
 severity. 
 
 ' The worst possible/ with the most engaging 
 humility. ' I tell you that it ought to make a man 
 better only to know her.' 
 
 'Then how do you account for yourself? ' 
 ' I suppose I was originally cast for a sinner ; ' 
 with a shrug of his shoulders, as if he regretted it } 
 but it had never been within his power to help it. 
 
 Paul looked at him as if he were a curious study, 
 but he felt that argument was hopeless. Nothing 
 could undo the past, whatever that past might be, 
 and as to the present, nothing could abash Gerald 
 Dashwood. He would have been capable of smil- 
 ing if a judge had sentenced him to be hanged, and 
 he would certainly have tried a small joke with the 
 Calcraft of the moment when the noose was being 
 
PROVED BY THE SCALPEL, ETC. 21 3 
 
 adjusted round his neck ; not that he was ever that 
 truly objectionable being, a comic man, only he had 
 a keen sense of humour to begin with, and a firm 
 resolution not to let himself feel uncomfortable to 
 end with. Therefore he got out of all difficult 
 situations with a smile, and took in himself as well 
 as other people. 
 
 Paul Nugent, being uneasy as to his health, 
 sent for Dr Hicks, a clever medical man who 
 had lately settled in Elmersbridge. He had 
 passed every examination with flying colours, and 
 won the gold medal ; so his opinion was treated 
 with respect, and his skill was taken for granted. 
 He was a gentlemanly man, with a broad, in- 
 tellectual forehead, a look of deep thought in his 
 dark eyes, and a grave, reticent manner. 
 
 He did not say much to Dashwood himself, 
 but he admitted to Sir Paul that his case was 
 hopeless. One lung was entirely useless, and the 
 other in bad condition. He could never face the 
 cold of another winter. The first shower of snow 
 would be his shroud, and he had better make his 
 preparations for another world, as he would not be 
 much longer in this. 
 
214 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ' I don't suppose he will be much cut up,' said 
 Paul composedly, 'so I think I had better tell 
 him.' 
 
 ' It will startle him, of course,' and the doctor 
 looked at Nugent in grave surprise. 
 
 * Nobody but a coward is afraid of it.' 
 
 ' I don't agree with you. The bravest man may 
 feel a fear — and ought to feel it. He knows 
 nothing of where he is going. He does not know 
 what will be expected of him — he cannot tell if he 
 would be able to fulfil it' 
 
 'You talk just as if we stepped from one boat 
 into another, instead of into darkness and nothing- 
 ness,' Paul said, on purpose to induce the doctor to 
 air his views. His friends had gone out shooting 
 without him, and it was now pouring with rain, so 
 that he did not feel inclined to join them, and 
 he was very glad to have a clever man for his 
 companion. 
 
 ' And so we do,' leaning forward to take a cigar 
 from the case which his host offered him. ' We 
 know nothing of the build of the boat, but we 
 know it will be there.' 
 
 1 I see you believe in the immortality of the 
 
PROVED BY THE SCALPEL, ETC. 215 
 
 soul ; but you know/ with a smile, ' you can never 
 prove it till you die, and then it will be too late to 
 tell any of us.' 
 
 1 I can, and I will,' exclaimed Dr Hicks, warming 
 with his subject. ' By the scalpel and the micro- 
 scope I can prove it, without reference to revela- 
 tion. But first tell me how you account for the 
 unity of consciousness? The latest science tells 
 us that every part of the body changes in the 
 course of the year ; but in all this flux of the 
 body your sense of personal identity never alters.' 
 
 ' No, I can't say anything against that,' drawing 
 his brows together as if he would find an objection 
 if he could. 
 
 ' The cause of this sense of personal identity is 
 not to be found in the matter of your organism, or 
 it would exhibit the same changes ; therefore the 
 cause must be an immaterial agent, and that agent 
 is the soul,' and the doctor brought his closed 
 fist down on the table as if he were driving a 
 nail home. 
 
 ' Call the soul the mind, and I'm with you there,' 
 said Nugent quietly. ' Matter is a double-faced 
 unity — physical and mental, and, of course, the 
 
216 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 mental must be, to a certain extent, independent of 
 the other.' 
 
 { But if it does not change with the body, it must 
 be entirely independent of it ; and, if independent, 
 why shouldn't it outlast it ? ' 
 
 * Because they make one substance between them ; 
 so that, if the body dies, the mind is bound to die 
 with it' 
 
 Dr Hicks shook his head. 
 
 1 Does the light die, because the eye which made 
 use of it is blind ? Does sound cease, because the 
 ear which heard it is deaf? If not, why should the 
 soul die because the brain which it worked has lost 
 its power ? ' 
 
 * Because the physical and mental parts of our 
 being are inriissolubly linked.' 
 
 1 But the unity of consciousness proves that they 
 are not. As Hermann Lotze says, " I know that I 
 am I, and not you ; and I know this to my very 
 finger tips." ' 
 
 1 I take it that the relation of the soul to the 
 body is that of music to the piano. When the 
 piano is broken up, the music ceases,' said Paul 
 conclusively, as he leant back in his chair, and 
 
PROVED BY THE SCALPEL, ETC. 2\J 
 
 wondered what his uncle would think of the dis- 
 cussion if, as a disembodied soul, he were capable 
 of being present in that library. 
 
 1 And I maintain, on the contrary, that the rela- 
 tion of the soul to the body is that of the musician 
 to the piano/ said the doctor, his eyes flashing with 
 the intensity of his conviction. ' Smash the piano 
 to a thousand fragments, but the musician still 
 lives, ready to play on another instrument, if wanted.' 
 
 ' And you undertake to prove this by the micros- 
 cope ? ' Paul asked, after a pause. 
 
 I Well, I can advance a very strong argument in 
 its favour/ with a smile of conscious power. ' Did 
 you ever go in for anatomy ? ' 
 
 I I took it up to a certain extent when I went in 
 for natural science, but I didn't go very far/ as his 
 mind flew back to his Oxford days, when he made 
 a brave struggle for success, shot past most of his 
 friends, won the highest university honours, and 
 went back to a home where there was no one to 
 congratulate him. 
 
 * My brother is Professor of Anatomy at , 
 
 and possesses one of the finest microscopes in 
 Europe, equal to Lionel Beale's, which is called 
 
218 PAUL NUGENT— MATERIALIST. 
 
 one-fiftieth objective. I have seen bioplasm in 
 movement, seen it weave the subtlest fibres of the 
 human system, and, having seen, I can say with 
 Beale, " Bioplasm prepares for far-off events." Fore- 
 cast is not an attribute of matter, but an immaterial 
 agent in living organisms,' said the doctor impres- 
 sively. * And, again, I've studied living tissues of 
 the brain under the microscope. .You know the 
 difference between the influential and the automatic 
 arcs ? ' Paul nodded assent. ' You know that the 
 localisation of functions in the brain is no longer 
 disputed, that the anterofrontal lobes are the seat 
 of the intellect ? We tried electrical stimulation 
 on these influential arcs, but it produced no motion. 
 They were dead, inert, because the only agent that 
 can work this part of the brain is the soul. I give 
 you that as a fact established by science/ rising 
 hastily after looking at his watch, ' but I suppose 
 you will explain, it away if it comes in collision 
 with your favourite theory.' 
 
 ' I don't know what I shall do with it, till I've 
 thought it over,' said Paul, shaking hands cordially. 
 k But I've enjoyed our discussion immensely, and I 
 hope we shall soon have another.' 
 
PROVED BY THE SCALPEL, ETC. 219 
 
 I With all my heart. There's nothing I like better 
 than meeting a man who allows himself time to 
 think. Everybody talks, crowds of people write, 
 but the thinkers are in the smallest minority. But, 
 one word about my patient/ stopping in the door- 
 way. ' If you don't want him on your hands — till 
 the end, you must send him away at once.' 
 
 I I can't send him away,' Paul said briefly, as the 
 doctor hurried across the hall, and into his cart, in 
 haste to get to another patient, at whose house he 
 was more than due. 'No, whatever happens, I 
 can't do that,' he repeated to himself, as he returned 
 to the library. ' Whether she will thank me or 
 not, I will do my best for her brother.' 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 
 
 ' I SUPPOSE Miss Dashwood's first thought would 
 be, send for a priest ; her second, fetch a doctor ; 
 I've reversed the proposition,' Paul reflected, ' but 
 I've half a mind to ask Lovel to come up. Dash- 
 wood would like to talk to him ; and they could 
 not accuse me afterwards of influencing his mind 
 in the wrong direction.' 
 
 Paul Nugent had never troubled himself much 
 about his neighbours' opinion of him. He would 
 go so far as to respect their prejudices within 
 certain limits ; for instance, he would not shoot, on 
 Sunday, because it would be an outrage to their 
 feelings ; but he never thought it necessary, until he 
 came to The Chase, to rule his conduct by any 
 standard but his own. 
 
 Lately he had fallen into the habit of wondering 
 what they would think of this or that at Beechwood, 
 as if he had selected the Dashwoods to be his 
 
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 221 
 
 censors ; and it was with a pleasant sense of their 
 approval, that he started for his walk the following 
 morning. Mark Ferrol accompanied him, but the 
 others had gone off with their guns, intending to 
 have a shot at the rabbits which abounded in 
 swarms at The Chase, and did a good deal of 
 damage to roots. The keepers were delighted that 
 anyone should help to exterminate them, and the 
 two Londoners enjoyed a tramp over the fern-clad 
 undulations of the park, even if the contents of the 
 bag were not very heavy at the end of it. 
 
 It was a pleasant day for a walk, with an autum- 
 nal crispness in the air ; and Paul Nugent and Mark 
 Ferrol had plenty of subjects to discuss on their 
 way to Elmsfield. When they neared the village, 
 a tall clerical figure came striding along the road 
 to meet them. Paul recognised Lovel at a glance, 
 and when they came up to him, expressed his sur- 
 prise at finding him out and about so soon. 
 
 'Yes, I'm off to see Ward/ he said cheerfully. 
 ' He is to be let out to-day.' 
 
 ' What do you want with him ? ' 
 
 ' I'm going to shake hands,' with a quiet smile. 
 
 ' Shake hands ! ' they both exclaimed, in angry 
 
222 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 surprise, whilst Paul suggested that the fellow 
 needed a thrashing more than anything, and he 
 would gladly undertake the job. 
 
 Lovel shook his head. 
 
 ' No, he has been sufficiently punished ; now's the 
 time to reconcile him with himself.' 
 
 1 1 don't see that/ said Paul argumentatively. 
 ' His moral being would be grovelling in the dust 
 if he were contented with his disgusting self.' 
 
 ' But as long as he is at war with himself, he will 
 be at peace with no one else. If I don't get over 
 him to-day, he will never speak to me again.' 
 
 1 I shall be curious to know if your method 
 answers,' said Ferrol cynically, ' but with nine men 
 out of ten it would have a disastrous effect. Ward 
 may be that tenth, but it's stretching charity (he was 
 going to say Credulity') to its utmost limits to 
 suppose so.' 
 
 1 If you want a man to climb a ladder, you must 
 point to the rung above him — not to the one be- 
 low,' said Lovel quietly. ' But I must push on, 
 or Ward will be there before me.' 
 
 ' One moment,' said Paul earnestly. * I've a 
 poor fellow up at my house — ' 
 
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 223 
 
 ' Yes, I know/ said Lovel, with a look of pain. 
 1 1 was coming up to see him.' 
 
 ' Do ; I was just going to ask you. You 
 wouldn't stop and dine ? ' throwing out the 
 question with affected carelessness, but watch- 
 ing with keen eyes, half hidden under long lashes, 
 for the slightest sign of hesitation, and ready, in 
 the present sensitive state of his feelings, to take 
 offence at it directly he saw it. 
 
 Lovel had an intuitive consciousness of all that 
 depended on his answer, so paused before he 
 gave it. It would have been a treat to him to 
 have some intellectual talk about the chief ques- 
 tions of the day, and a relief to get away from the 
 continual pressure of parish business ; but he dared 
 not put off his visit to Gerald Dashwood further 
 than to-morrow, and that evening he had promised 
 to give a lecture in a schoolroom near Hart's 
 Alley. His lectures were very popular, and he 
 was sure that the room would be packed and the 
 audience attentive. No, he could not disappoint 
 them and after all it might only be a question of 
 personal enjoyment, and he did not mean to be 
 a friend of Sir Paul Nugent's, though he would 
 
224 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 gladly have been on most intimate terms with 
 all the scum of the earth in the alleys. 
 
 ' 1 was coming to-morrow, if that will suit you/ 
 he said slowly. ' It's very good of you to ask 
 me to stay on ; and I needn't say how much I 
 should have liked it, but — ' 
 
 ' Oh ! of course you've got an engagement,' 
 with an offended air. ' I quite understand. You 
 won't risk a dinner with les antes damnees. Good 
 morning ; ' and before Lovel could explain the 
 reality of his engagement, Nugent marched Ferrol 
 off at a pace which would have done credit to 
 the champion-walker of England. 
 
 The curate of St John's walked on with a 
 frown of vexation. ' I don't want to annoy 
 Nugent, but he's such a fellow for going off at 
 a tangent. God knows, if I could do him any 
 good, I would stick to him like a leech, but 
 what am I, that I should influence him? A 
 woman might, if she attacked him on the side 
 of the affections.' Ah ! what a pang the thought 
 cost him as it took the shape of Maude Dash- 
 wood. He would not dwell on it, he cast it 
 resolutely out of his mind, but he had heard 
 
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 225 
 
 enough of what occurred at Lady Mortimer's 
 ball to know that the danger he had feared from 
 the first was no longer imaginary. Conway, who 
 never made mischief or indulged in foolish gossip, 
 had told him that, when she came back to the 
 drawing-room, after a long talk with Nugent 
 on the terrace, she looked as if she were waking 
 from a dream. What had produced the sudden 
 change from her rooted aversion ? He could only 
 ascribe it to that unlucky day of the riot in Hart's 
 Alley. Nugent had showed a certain amount of 
 pluck ; and, after all, that is the virtue which 
 women most admire, because they have so little of 
 it themselves. But if he had only been given the 
 choice, he would rather ten thousand times have 
 died that day, than that Nugent should win his 
 way into Miss Dashwood's favour through saving 
 his life. What was death compared to her misery? 
 — for miserable she would be, he knew for a 
 certainty, if she gave her heart to Sir Paul. 
 The text about being yoked with an unbeliever 
 would haunt her night and day. She would 
 find her duty to God on one side, her love to 
 man on the other ; and though she was not the 
 VOL. I. P 
 
226 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 woman to hesitate between the two, the choice 
 must ruin her happiness for the sake of her 
 peace. 
 
 Lovel knew that to watch the conflict going on 
 would be almost too much for his self-control, 
 and yet he would have to bear it, and make no 
 sign. No man would have a right to interfere, 
 unless, after ' Cast him off/ he could add, ' and 
 come to me.' Even supposing that he wished to 
 give a more mundane turn to the tie which 
 existed between them, he could not do it, for 
 he had bound himself by a vow of celibacy for 
 ten years, and only three of them had already 
 gone by. And perhaps it was better so. The 
 friendship which was possible on a higher level 
 was infinitely precious to him, and in many an 
 hour of worry and disappointment the thought 
 of it had braced, as well as cheered, his failing 
 spirits. 
 
 Paul was hurrying along under his sense of in- 
 jury, when his mood changed as well as his pace 
 at the sight of a slight figure clothed in softest 
 grey, coming out of Miss Singleton's cottage. 
 
 ' Just slip into the churchyard, and hunt up any 
 
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 227 
 
 amount of curious epitaphs, whilst I speak to Miss 
 Dashwood about her brother/ he said hastily. 
 
 Ferrol looked amused, but, having no wish to 
 * spoil sport/ as he expressed it, turned in under the 
 lych-gate, and sauntered up the trim gravel path- 
 way. The grass was closely cut, the flowers were 
 carefully tended, and every detail showed that 
 the dead were not forgotten by the living. He 
 looked round with a glance of approval, for the 
 place, with its shadowing beeches, looked like a 
 retired nook sacred to peace as well as sorrow. 
 
 Maude only hesitated for an instant, when she 
 saw who was coming towards her. Then she 
 forgot herself entirely, and all sense of embar- 
 rassment left her in her longing to hear of her 
 brother. 
 
 1 Oh, Sir Paul, I am so thankful to see you/ she 
 said earnestly, as he held her hand for an instant, 
 and looked down gravely into her lovely, agitated 
 face. He was complete master of himself at the 
 moment, and no one would have guessed that he 
 felt a strange thrill through his senses as she ex- 
 pressed her pleasure at meeting him. ■ Tell me 
 about Gerald. How is he ? Is he better ? ' 
 
228 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 He looked away from her, and made a hole in 
 the pathway with his stick. 
 
 ' Dr Hicks saw him this morning, and his report 
 was not very encouraging,' he said slowly. 
 
 The colour rushed into her cheeks. 
 
 1 Don't say that it was very bad. There's no 
 danger ? ' she asked, with a wild appeal in her eyes, 
 as she fought against the possibility of her fear 
 being true. 
 
 ' Perhaps, if you saw him, you would judge 
 better,' he said, with an out-rush of sympathy in 
 his eyes and tones, though his words were simple 
 in the extreme. 
 
 She clasped her hands tight together. 
 
 ' Oh, if I only could.' 
 
 * Why not ? To-morrow morning, for instance, 
 my friends are leaving early to shoot at a distance, 
 the house will be practically empty, and you shall 
 see no one except my housekeeper, Mrs Walters, 
 who shall take you straight to your brother's 
 room.' 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 1 Not to-morrow. You don't know what dif- 
 ficulties stand in the way.' 
 
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 229 
 
 1 I suppose I'm the worst,' he said, with a touch 
 of bitterness. 'Can't you fancy for a^few hours 
 that The Chase belongs to somebody else ? ' 
 
 1 I don't want to,' she replied, with one charming 
 upward glance of gratitude that made his pulses 
 quicken. 'You have been kind to him when all 
 turned their backs; you opened your door,' her 
 voice indescribably sad, ' when ours was shut.' 
 
 ' I should have been the barbarian you took me 
 for, if I hadn't. But you can't tell what a com- 
 panion he is to me,' his face brightening, though 
 he was saying what seemed to him a gigantic, 
 though perhaps colourless, lie. ' It makes all the 
 difference in the world to know, that there is some 
 one waiting and looking for me in that great lonely 
 barrack.' 
 
 ' You should have said that when you hadn't any 
 number of friends staying with you/ with a slight 
 smile which stole, like a pale sunbeam, over the 
 sorrow of her face. 
 
 1 I asked Mr Lovel to come up and see him,' 
 quickly changing the subject. 
 
 1 That was the best thing you could have done,' 
 with a sudden light in her eyes, which brought a 
 
23O PAUL NUGENT— MATERIALIST. 
 
 shadow into his. ' Mr Lovel will tell us exactly how 
 he finds him, and, perhaps, my father will consent 
 to see him. You know what — what Gerald did ? ' 
 in a low voice. 
 
 'Yes, and he has paid for it. An ill-assorted 
 marriage is the greatest curse that a man can 
 bring upon himself.' 
 
 Oh, how the past rose up before him, that miser- 
 able time of constant jarring, when every day 
 brought its burden of certain humiliation, and un- 
 certain dread. And now, just as the remembrance 
 with its sickening disgust swept over him, and 
 showed itself in the vibrating tones of his voice, a 
 cheerful ' How d'ye do, Sir Paul Nugent ? ' sent the 
 blood surging back to his heart. 
 
 There stood Julia Goodwin before him. with the 
 same expression of simpering affectation, the same 
 frizzled black curls on her shiny forehead, he could 
 have sworn the same pink and brown plaid dress, 
 coarse brown jacket, and outrageous green hat. 
 Mechanically he took off his hat, as she went on 
 to say, — 
 
 * I hope you haven't forgotten an old friend 
 amongst new faces,' but the hand which she out- 
 
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 23 1 
 
 stretched remained unnoticed, and he drew himself 
 up till he looked as stiff and unresponsive as a 
 sentinel. 
 
 Julia giggled, tossed her head, and jerked out 
 the uncalled-for remark that she begged pardon 
 for interrupting. 
 
 Maude gave her one cold look of surprise, and 
 then, opening the gate in the palings, with a slight 
 bow to Sir Paul, disappeared into the park. 
 
 When she was out of sight and hearing, Paul 
 turned on Miss Goodwin with a look that showed 
 that he did not mean to be trifled with. He was 
 exasperated with her for coming to disturb his 
 peace, and he saw no reason why he should not let 
 her know it. 
 
 ' I never forget an old friend,' he said coldly, ' but 
 I find it the most comfortable plan to ignore a 
 secret enemy. What has brought you to Elmsfield, 
 I'm at a loss to imagine.' 
 
 1 1 suppose I was at liberty to come if I chose ? ' 
 shrilly. 
 
 1 Certainly. But you will find yourself without 
 any congenial society.' 
 
 ' I'm not good enough for the places you visit ? * 
 
232 PAUL NUGENT— MATERIALIST. 
 
 1 That is not for me to say, but I shall not expect 
 to meet you there.' 
 
 ' There's one place where I sha'n't meet you, and 
 that's church/ with a malevolent sneer. ' I can at 
 least pray in peace without your being there to 
 scoff at me.' 
 
 f You can, and much good may it do you ! ' he 
 said, with an unmistakable fierceness ; and then he 
 left her, walking on with long, determined strides, 
 though he had not an idea where he was going. 
 
 He forgot Mark Ferrol completely. The sight 
 of this odious woman upset him so entirely, that 
 he could think of nothing else. To be always 
 liable to meeting her on the road would be torture 
 to him ; but he was thankful to think that her 
 vulgarity was so patent, that she must always 
 be on a lower social level than himself, so that 
 he would not find her waiting for him in any of 
 the drawing-rooms of the neighbourhood. 
 
 What had she come for? That puzzled him. 
 Her kind, good-natured brother was dead, so that 
 her only tie with Essex was broken. It could not 
 be that old infatuation for himself which had 
 brought her, for that had long ago changed into 
 
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 233 
 
 bitter aversion. Then there flashed across him the 
 remembrance of a conversation with Dr Goodwin, 
 in which he had mentioned with regret that his 
 sister had overheard his hasty exclamation, ' I've 
 killed her ! ' and that it had made such an impres- 
 sion on her shallow mind, that she had cherished a 
 rooted conviction ever since that Paul had murdered 
 his wife. Exceedingly pleasant it would be if she 
 spread the report here in Elmersfield, where there 
 would be no plucky little doctor to refute it ! The 
 next time he met Miss Dashwood she might turn 
 from him in horror and loathing ; Lovel would offer 
 up his prayers for the sinner, but turn his back on 
 him with colder scorn than ever ; even Charlie 
 Conway's cordial friendliness would wither and 
 shrivel up. His life at The Chase would become 
 intolerable to him, and what had he to fall back 
 upon ? Only a cold, unsatisfying system of philo- 
 sophy, which might serve as a fitting exercise for 
 his intellect, but which would never be a support 
 to him in any season of trouble, or save a troubled 
 mind from despair ! 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 LOVEL ON 'ROBERT ELSMERE.' 
 
 ' Landon, I wish you could have a talk with that 
 fellow Hicks,' said Paul, as he leant against the 
 mantelpiece in the dining-room with a cigar in his 
 mouth. ' It's a curious fact, you know, that elec- 
 tricity has no effect on the antero-frontal lobes of 
 the brain.' 
 
 1 It's a fact about which I'm not going to bother 
 mine,' replied the barrister, with a short laugh. 
 1 If it could, don't you see what it might lead to ? 
 The next murderer might start a new theory for 
 defence, and say, " I'm not responsible for the 
 crime. It was put into my head by means of 
 electricity. Find out the man who applied the 
 stimulus. He's the murderer, and not I. I'm as 
 innocent as a new-born lamb."' 
 
 * I'd start a battery to-morrow, and innoculate 
 myself with some new ideas,' exclaimed Ferrol, 
 whilst Montgomery looked up with a dreamy 
 
LOVEL ON 'ROBERT ELSMERE.' 235 
 
 smile. ' Fancy thoughts generated by an electric 
 current whirling through one's addled brain ! That 
 would be insanity with a vengeance.' 
 
 * Would it be harder to believe than to say with 
 Tyndall'that emotion is latent in a cloud, or to 
 assert that we must recast our definitions of Matter 
 and Force, " as life and thought are the flower of 
 both?"' asked Paul thoughtfully. 
 
 ' Ah ! but I think he acknowledged that the 
 connection between mind and matter was unknow- 
 able,' suggested Landon. 
 
 I But we are always exacting positive proofs 
 from the other side, whilst we leave a very wide 
 margin for conjecture ourselves.' 
 
 ' Of course we do, because our knowledge is 
 finite, like our lives. If Comte's dream of a 
 Perfected Humanity were to be realised, then 
 perhaps knowledge might be commensurate with 
 the world itself.' 
 
 Montgomery leant his elbow on the table, and 
 bent forward. 
 
 I I think the only sane thing that Comte ever 
 said, was to discourage research into matters re- 
 mote from obvious human knowledge as inimical 
 
236 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 to the Positive faith. As some one said not long 
 ago, " the man who would sacrifice the good of the 
 next generation for the greater good of the next 
 but one, dubs himself a fool," and it is no wonder 
 that Comte ended as he did.' 
 
 * I wonder that he did not think that " next but 
 one generation " remote from obvious knowledge. 
 We made a great fuss about him in England, but 
 the only notice they took of him in Paris was to 
 turn him out of the Ecole Polytechnique. I don't 
 know that his doctrines would have done much 
 harm to the youthful mind, for a good Comtist 
 would make a good sort of man.' 
 
 'Yes, Ferrol, but not after the right pattern,' 
 Paul remarked, with a decidedly cynical smile. 
 ' If you and I fed the starving, nursed the sick, 
 and spent our lives in benefiting our neighbours, 
 do you suppose that the Jesuit or the Anglican 
 priest would have a good word to say for us ? ' 
 
 ' The Anglican might. Think of Lovel going 
 to shake hands with that brute.' 
 
 ' Yes, absurdly quixotic. I don't admire a 
 sentimental charity that glosses over actual sin.' 
 
 ' You are hard on the fellow, for he certainly 
 
LOVEL ON 'ROBERT ELSMERE.' 237 
 
 showed no sentimental charity, when he kicked 
 the ruffian out of his house and held the door 
 against him.' 
 
 ' Ah ! he's good at holding a door against 
 any one. I thought it was a province of religion 
 to open a door for every one to come in ; but I 
 find I was mistaken. Shall we adjourn to the 
 smoking-room ? ' 
 
 Landon looked at him meditatively, and, as 
 they were making their way through the hall, 
 he said quietly, — 
 
 ' Elmsfield seems to have an unsettling effect 
 upon you ; you are losing all your philosophic 
 calm, and ready to become the prey of some 
 effete superstition. I don't know what will 
 happen to you if you stay here much longer. 
 Come to Scotland and be braced.' 
 
 1 Don't be afraid, I'm man enough to hold 
 to my own opinion when I know it to be 
 founded on fact. But I wish you weren't going 
 to desert me to-morrow,' with a sigh. 'We've 
 had a good time together, haven't we?' 
 
 ' Yes, and capital sport,' they all agreed, and 
 the conversation for the rest of the evening 
 
238 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 turned on the rival merits of Blanch and Purdy, 
 and the bags they made in the south, and 
 which they were going to boast of when they 
 reached the Northern moors. 
 
 Paul Nugent felt rather dull when they had 
 left him ; but even if Gerald Dashwood had not 
 been there to detain him, he had no wish to 
 tack himself on to their party, as they suggested. 
 His mind was disturbed and unquiet, for the 
 questions which he had looked upon as settled 
 once for all he found were still unsolved. The 
 old difficulties, which had satisfied him com- 
 pletely, seemed to require fresh examination ; 
 and the ground which he had gone over so 
 often in his younger days had to be re-trod. 
 He got no help from Gerald Dashwood, who 
 struck him more and more as a grown-up boy, 
 in spite of his dark moustache and the lines on 
 his delicate face. He had a strong dash of con- 
 tempt for him, when he stopped to dissect his 
 character, or to analyse his life ; but he could not 
 help being drawn to him by a softer feeling, as 
 he lay there in his helplessness, with that smile in 
 his large grey eyes. 
 
LOVEL ON ' ROBERT ELSMERE.' 239 
 
 * Well, and how have you been getting on ? ' 
 Paul asked, as he came into the blue bedroom 
 after a day's shooting at The Castle. He threw 
 himself down into a deep arm-chair in close 
 proximity to the bed, and looked at the invalid 
 with kindly interest. 
 
 1 Oh, first class ! You hit upon one book I liked. 
 " London Life " touches up the fellows of the pre- 
 sent day, but the girl carries on a little too much ! 
 
 1 And you didn't care for the other ? ' said 
 Nugent, as his eyes rested with a certain amount 
 of scorn on the large-typed, broad-margined novel, 
 which had suited Dashwood's taste so well. 
 
 ' What, " Robert Elsmere ? " No, thanks,' with 
 an amused look. ' Not my style exactly.' 
 
 ' Too serious, eh ? ' wondering when a man would 
 be serious if not on what might be his death-bed. 
 
 1 By a long way. It's a powder, you know, all 
 the while, though it's served in a spoonful of rasp- 
 berry jam.' 
 
 ' But powders are good in their way, and — and,' 
 hesitatingly. 
 
 ' You want to stuff one down my throat ? ' with 
 a smile. ' Don't ; it wouldn't digest' 
 
240 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ' Oh, here you are, Lovel,' looking up eagerly as 
 the curate was shown in. ' Come and talk " Robert 
 Elsmere" with Nugent. It will be good fun to 
 listen to you.' 
 
 Lovel, having shaken hands with Sir Paul, leant 
 over the invalid, with an expression of yearning 
 tenderness on his weary face. He had never quite 
 recovered from Ward's violence ; and it was always 
 a trial to him to see Maude Dashwood's brother 
 here, or, indeed, anywhere else. He felt so deeply 
 for all the rest of the family, that he could not 
 help being indignant with the man who had 
 brought such trouble on his home. But when 
 he came face to face with the evil-doer, felt the 
 charm of his beauty, and the claim of his helpless- 
 ness, all his anger melted in deep, heart-felt sorrow. 
 
 Paul would have slipped away, but Dashwood, 
 who had a horror of being left alone with a priest, 
 implored him to stay. He ordered tea, because 
 he knew Lovel liked it, and sat down again, 
 having placed his guest in the arm-chair. 
 
 'What do you think of the book?' after 
 a pause. 
 
 ' Clever and interesting, with a fine power of 
 
LOVEL ON 'ROBERT ELSMERE.' 24 1 
 
 description, but wrong in logic, as well as in 
 doctrine. A book that may do much harm to 
 those who never think at all for themselves, and 
 take everything written in black and white for 
 granted ; but a man would have a very poor pinch 
 of faith who could be misled by it,' leaning back 
 in his chair, as if too tired to sit up. 
 
 1 1 fancied that you church-people were in a 
 white fury about it,' Paul said, as he poured out 
 the tea, and found the antiquated silver - pot 
 apparently as asthmatic as any old woman. 
 A feminine office never suited him ; but Gerald 
 would have performed it gracefully, for one was 
 a thorough man, and the other half a woman. 
 
 ' I don't Jfcink we need take the trouble. No 
 sugar, thanks. From beginning to end no argu- 
 ments are advanced to carry conviction. Elsmere 
 knocks under, and throws down his arms, without 
 dealing a single stroke. He may be lovable, but 
 he strikes me as contemptible,' frowning at the 
 plate of bread and butter as if it were the unhappy 
 cleric personified. 
 
 < But I thought he went through a tremendous 
 struggle ? ' looking up in surprise. 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
242 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 ' He made fuss enough about it, I'm sure/ said 
 Gerald, with a groan. He had never thought any- 
 thing worth a struggle in his life. Even his 
 marriage — he would not have fought for — it had 
 come upon him, as it were, and he had given way, 
 as he always would under any sort of pressure. 
 A man like Elsmere was beyond his comprehen- 
 sion ; but he liked to listen to a discussion if it did 
 not affect him personally. 
 
 'You can scarcely call it a struggle, when the 
 man throws up the sponge before the first round. 
 He feels the disease of unbelief creeping into his 
 veins, and what does he do to be cured of it ? He 
 does not consult with any of the men who were 
 likely to be pillars of the faith. When everything 
 that he held most dear is slipping from him in the 
 agonies of a dying faith, he goes to those who first 
 began the undermining process. Under these cir- 
 cumstances, the result is inevitable, and Elsmere 
 naturally ceases to be a Christian.' 
 
 1 And yet he calls his new religion, " The Chris- 
 tian Brotherhood." ' 
 
 * Yes, and to complete the paradox still carries 
 his New Testament in his pocket ! ' with an ex- 
 
LOVEL ON ' ROBERT ELSMERE.' 243 
 
 pression of intense disgust on his refined face. 
 ' Could anything be more monstrous ? ' 
 
 ' I wondered at that, myself/ said Paul thought- 
 fully. * I could not follow the authoress's train of 
 reasoning. If Elsmere degrades his Christ from 
 the Godhead to a manhood not superior to his 
 own, how could he find anything but a sting and a 
 reproach in the book which exalts Him to the 
 highest heaven ? In his place I should have locked 
 it up, and never looked at it again.' 
 
 ' And you would have acted logically. The 
 sight of the gospels should have been most obnoxi- 
 ous to him, for they breathe the Divinity that he 
 denies in every page. He could not have borne 
 to refer to them, because they would have risen up 
 in judgment against him. The authoress fights for 
 " her own hand," as the Scotch say, and, having 
 given her opponent no weapon, he falls down 
 before her vigorous onslaught; but in real life, 
 Elsmere's scholarship would not be allowed to be 
 latent, or his ignorance so patent. He would have 
 had something to fall back upon. He must have 
 got up Christian Evidences before his ordination ; 
 and he ought to have already grappled with all 
 
244 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 the difficulties which the Squire presented him 
 with, later on, before he took Holy Orders. 
 There is nothing new in what Wendover says ; 
 and most of the questions he started, which 
 seemed like crushing thunderbolts to Elsmere, 
 have already received their answers.' 
 
 'You could have met them without flinching?' 
 his eyes resting with a sense of admiration on the 
 priest's face, thin, delicate, but glowing with the 
 fire of an unconquered soul, an undaunted courage. 
 1 I could,' said Lovel, with quiet confidence, ' but 
 to do that I must have read not only the works of 
 negative speculists, but the Christian apologists, 
 from Eusebius downwards, as well. There happens 
 to be a vast field of literature and learning abso- 
 lutely necessary for a true judgment of the case, 
 which the authoress skips over with an airy bound. 
 Whilst, as to Elsmere himself, there was nothing 
 left for him to do but to die ; for, if he had lived, 
 the course he was taking would inevitably have 
 brought him back to Christianity, at least, if not 
 to the Church.' 
 
 1 You consider Paul, I believe, as one of your 
 intellectual giants. What do you say to her de- 
 
LOVEL ON 'ROBERT ELSMERE. 245 
 
 scription of him as " strong in poetry, but weak in 
 logic?'" asked Nugent, with a smile. 
 
 1 She might just as well say that Leonidas was 
 a coward. St Paul was surrounded by the poetical 
 mythology of the Greeks. With the spread of the 
 Greek language, it had covered the East like a 
 flood, but he stood out boldly to stem the tide. 
 When he came to Athens and faced the Areo- 
 pagites, men of acutest intellect, he conquered 
 poetry by solid fact. He sketched no Olympus 
 for them, but he pointed to their altar of the 
 " Unknown God," and said, " Whom therefore ye 
 ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you." 
 These things were not done in a corner, for the 
 fierce light of Greek criticism beat upon them from 
 the onset. It was patent to all who heard him that 
 this was no mythology differing simply in form 
 from their own. St Paul could point to Jerusalem, 
 and defy the world to contradict him. There 
 Jesus Christ had died, and there He had risen. 
 If the resurrection was a fraud, St Paul knew it 
 for a fraud, and preached a lie ! Can you believe 
 that a lie could stride triumphant through the 
 centuries — that the empires of the world would 
 
246 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 bow down before it — that the greatest intellects 
 would give in to it — that it would spread from one 
 end of Europe to the other like a mighty wave ? 
 If you believe that, you can believe anything,' 
 Lovel ended abruptly. 
 
 Paul felt a strange emotion stirring him to his 
 very heart's depths ; but he made a desperate 
 effort to preserve the coolness of his reason, and 
 to remember all the theories which were the 
 sheet anchors of his convictions. 
 
 1 You must remember that it was the tendency 
 of the age to wish for something new,' he said, 
 with an effort after the cool reasoning which had 
 satisfied him for so many years. ' The heathen 
 were mortally tired of their gods, and the Jews 
 were on the look-out for their Messiah. Given 
 such a tendency, and it was easy to invest the 
 first man who appeared to be superior to his 
 fellows, with divine attributes.' 
 
 • I quite agree with you so far,' said Lovel 
 calmly, as he rested his elbow on the arm of his 
 chair, and his head on his hand. ' It would have 
 been perfectly natural for them to take the first 
 popular hero that turned up, invest him with the 
 
LOVEL ON 'ROBERT ELSMERE.' 247 
 
 purple, and declare war against Rome. But it would 
 have been an impossibility for these bigoted, narrow- 
 minded Jews to invent a Christ. Can't you see that 
 He went dead against their dearest prejudices ? ' 
 
 1 Yes, He went against their prejudices, and they, 
 being the most revengeful people under the sun, 
 crucified Him ; for it was infinitely safer to murder, 
 like Barabbas, than to attack the Jewish faith. 
 Christ was grand in His courage, grand in the 
 unselfishness and innocency of His life, but after 
 all, you know/ with a deprecating smile, ' I can't 
 consider Him anything but a failure.' 
 
 Lovel's face lit up, his eyes shone as he raised 
 his head eagerly. 
 
 'You call that a failure which transformed the 
 world of thought and action ? Man's failure is God's 
 success, and you ought to see this for yourself. 
 Christ died that He might draw all men unto Him, 
 and the conversion of the world was the result.' 
 
 1 Of course, if you get to believe in the resurrec- 
 tion, nothing can be incredible after that,' said 
 Paul, resting his arm on the mantelpiece. 
 
 1 My dear fellow, that's begging the question. I 
 believe in the resurrection, of course, but I do not 
 
248 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 need it to prove the indisputable fact that, whereas 
 the world was once pagan, it became Christian in 
 an astonishingly short space of time. If the re- 
 ligion preached by the twelve apostles had been 
 false, it could not possibly have outlived them. 
 Nero would have stamped it out with the greatest 
 ease, and there would have been no necessity for 
 the persecutions of either Decius or Diocletian. 
 But it lived, and that is an incontrovertible fact. It 
 opposed virtue to vice, self-restraint to self-indul- 
 gence, meekness to pride ; it trod on the prejudices 
 of one nation after another, it was attacked by the 
 scholarship as well as by the ignorance of the 
 time, it lived through the dark ages, and gained 
 new life in the revival of learning, till it became 
 the acknowledged religion of the whole civilised 
 world. From the moment when the soul of Jesus 
 
 " Paused at the Body's wounded Side, 
 Bright flashed the cave, and upward rose 
 The living Jesus glorified," 
 
 to this present time, the course of Christianity, 
 founded in what you please to call " failure," has 
 been one long record of glorious success. Voltaire 
 may vainly boast, " I am tired of hearing that it 
 
LOVEL ON 'ROBERT ELSMERE.' 249 
 
 took twelve men to set up Christianity in the 
 world, I will show that it needs but one man to 
 destroy it." The Church's answer to this is the 
 same as it has ever been in the darker and more 
 dangerous ages past, " In spite of all this, I shall 
 not die but live, and declare the works of the 
 Lord." Contradict me if you can ! ' said Lovel, 
 turning round with a direct challenge in his eyes. 
 
 ' I can't as to results, for they are self-evident,' 
 Paul admitted reluctantly, ' though we might differ 
 — as to causes. You are sure of the Divinity of 
 Christ, sure of the Resurrection, sure of every- 
 thing, but / cry out for proofs.' 
 
 'And they are close to hand,' said Lovel 
 promptly. ' The Divinity of Christ is the founda- 
 tion stone of our Faith ; and not its stumbling- 
 block, as Robert Elsmere would have us believe. 
 As Son of God He was able to redeem the world 
 by His death, as Son of God He rose again, and 
 the Church is His living witness to this day. Is 
 there any other society which has lasted through 
 so many centuries ? ' 
 
 ' No, you are desperately long-lived,' and 
 
 Nugent smiled, 'but I don't know that you can 
 VOL. I. r 
 
250 PAUL NUGENT— MATERIALIST. 
 
 boast of being in a particularly healthy condition 
 at present.' 
 
 1 I think we can. The disastrous influence of 
 the Puritan movement is passing away, the Church 
 has woke from her temporary stagnation, and her 
 priests were never more zealous in the perform- 
 ance of their mission. Whatever may be said to 
 the contrary, there has been a great revival of faith 
 since the first attacks of German freethought' 
 
 1 Strauss made short work with your gospels.' 
 
 ' At first sight. Yes. But he never frightened 
 me. The Resurrection baffled him, and he was 
 reduced to acknowledging it to be " an enigma." 
 He cannot explain it away, any more than the Jews.' 
 
 ' The Jews always maintain that the body was 
 stolen.' 
 
 ' But that was an impossibility. It disappeared, 
 and they were obliged to account for the empty 
 tomb after any fashion that came into their heads. 
 It was a very awkward fact for them to face, and 
 they knew that, if it got abroad, the new doctrines 
 would spread like wildfire. It was impossible for 
 the body to be stolen, because it was guarded by 
 Roman soldiers ; but in their first bewilderment 
 
LOVEL ON 'ROBERT ELSMERE.' 25 1 
 
 and dismay they were glad to seize upon any lie 
 that could assuage the popular tumult and unrest. 
 They had no other alternative, for to believe in 
 the resurrection of the dead Jesus, was to confess 
 to the surging crowds, as well as to their own 
 consciences, that they had slain the long-promised 
 Messiah. And that was too awful a thought for 
 any mortal to bear.' Covering his face with his 
 hand, as if to shut out a horrible vision which was 
 too much for brain or heart. There was a pause 
 which no one seemed inclined to break, until Lovel 
 pulled out his watch, and hurriedly rose from his 
 seat. He glanced towards the bed, and saw that 
 Gerald had fallen asleep. His expression was 
 perfectly tranquil, but the bedclothes rose and fell 
 with every hard- drawn breath, and his face, now 
 that it was not brightened by his frequent smile, 
 looked sadly worn and thin. 
 
 1 Poor fellow, much good I've been to him, to- 
 day,' said the curate regretfully. 
 
 'His father has been with me half the day 
 shooting up at the Castle, but he never asked 
 after his son,' Paul remarked, as he conducted his 
 visitor downstairs. 
 
252 PAUL NUGENT — MATERIALIST. 
 
 'No, and yet he is breaking his heart over him. 
 It is a sad business from beginning to end, but 
 they must be reconciled before he dies. Good- 
 night,' shaking hands in the hall, ' I don't know 
 what induced me to talk to you as I have to-day. 
 I must have bored you horribly, though you kept 
 awake.' 
 
 ' Then come and bore me again,' said Paul, with 
 sudden cordiality. ' There is much in that book 
 which I don't understand, and I should like to 
 have explained.' 
 
 Lovel gave him one earnest look, then stepped 
 out into the twilight. Now that the discussion 
 was over, and his enthusiasm gone from him, he 
 felt as if he had done no good ; and yet, whilst he 
 was speaking and feeling the truth of every word 
 to the very core of his being, it seemed to him 
 that the truths which were so impossible of con- 
 tradiction must work their way into Nugent's 
 brain, even against his will. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 COLSTON AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.