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 11
 
 THE YELLOW FLAG.
 
 LONDON : 
 BOBSON AND SONS, PB3NTEBS, PANCBAS BOAD,IS.
 
 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 % Intel. 
 
 By EDMUND YATES, 
 
 AUTHOR OP 'A WAITING RACE,' ' BROKEN TO HARNESS,' ETC. 
 
 • That single effort by which we stop short m the downhill path to 
 perdition is itself a greater exertion of virtue than an hundred acts of 
 justice.' Olives Goldsmith. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE ST. STRAND. 
 
 1872. 
 [The right of translation and reproduction is reserved.]
 
 
 ■ 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 f 
 
 (toirallg htsmktr 
 
 TO 
 
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 *V MY OLD FRIEND AND FELLOW- WORKER, 
 
 GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/yellowflagnovel01yate
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 i. Calverley's Agent 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 ii. Exit Tom Durham 
 
 
 
 ■ 13 
 
 hi. Home, sweet Home 
 
 
 
 . 28 
 
 iv. Pauline 
 
 
 
 . 50 
 
 v. A little Paradise 
 
 
 
 ■- 76 
 
 vi. A safe Investment 
 
 
 
 . 101 
 
 vii. In the City 
 
 
 
 . 124 
 
 viii. The Yicar of Lullington 
 
 
 
 • 152 
 
 ix. Tom Durham's Eriend . 
 
 
 
 . 179 
 
 x. Mr. Tatlow on the Track 
 
 
 
 . 207 
 
 xi. L'Amie de la Maison . 
 
 
 
 . 234 
 
 xn. When Doctors disagree 
 
 
 
 . 264
 
 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 calverley's agent. 
 
 c So you have conquered your dislike to 
 leaving England, Tom; I am very glad. I 
 felt certain you would give-in to our wishes, 
 and see the wisdom of what we suggested to 
 you.' 
 
 ' Well, I am not so certain about that, 
 Ally; I don't go-in for magnanimity; and I 
 believe there is just that touch of obstinacy in 
 my nature, which would induce me to run 
 counter to any proposition which was very 
 hardly pressed. But when the suggestion 
 was backed as it has been in this instance, 
 I could not possibly doubt the sincerity of 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 those who made it. Arid so, as you see, I 
 am off.' 
 
 The place where the conversation, of which 
 a fragment has just been given, occurred, 
 was a broad gravelled path, the favourite pro- 
 menade of such of the worthy townspeople of 
 Southampton as prefer the beauties of nature 
 to the attractions of the shops in the High- 
 street. On one side was the broad water 
 glistening in the bright, cheerful October 
 sun, on the other a large strip of greensward 
 fringed on the farther edge by a row of shin- 
 ing, white-faced lodging-houses and hotels. On 
 the promenade, the grim cannons — trophies 
 taken during the Russian war — were sur- 
 rounded by happy children, fearlessly climb- 
 ing upon the now innocuous engines of death, 
 within hailing distance of the shore a few boat- 
 men were lazily pulling about, some young men 
 were intent on watching the progress of two 
 doors who were making a neck-and-neck race 
 for a stick which had been thrown into the 
 water for them to fetch, and the whole scene 
 was one of pleasant cheerfulness.
 
 calverley's agent. 3 
 
 Not out of harmony with it were the two 
 persons whose words have been recorded. 
 The first speaker was a young woman about 
 two-and-twenty, of middle height, with a slight 
 and graceful figure, and with a face which, 
 while some would have called it pretty, would 
 have been pronounced agreeable by all. The 
 features were not regular, the nose was de- 
 cidedly not classical, the mouth was a little 
 too large, and the lips were a little too full; 
 but there was a wonderful charm in the white- 
 ness and regularity of the teeth, in the bright 
 flash of the hazel eyes, in the crisp ripples of 
 the dark brown hair, and in the clear, healthy 
 red and white of her complexion. She was very 
 becomingly dressed in a black silk gown, a 
 dark-gray jacket trimmed with velvet of the 
 same colour, and a coquettish little black 
 straw hat, and she wore perfectly -fit ting gloves 
 and boots. Her companion was some twelve 
 years older, a short, squarely-built man, whose 
 breadth of shoulders and length of arms showed 
 much muscular power. The lower part of his 
 face was covered with a thick copper-red
 
 4 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 beard, the heavy moustaches falling over his 
 mouth so completely as to defy any revela- 
 tion which might be made by the movements 
 of that tell-tale organ; but his eyes, small 
 and set close together, had a shifty expression, 
 and round them there was that strained, seared 
 look, which in some men is always indicative 
 of dissipation and late hours. He wore a 
 travelling suit of gray tweed, and a wide- 
 awake hat, and from under his beard the 
 ends of a loosely-tied red silk neckerchief flut- 
 tered in the wind. Lounging along with a 
 rolling gait, his hands buried in his jacket- 
 pockets, he seemed to take but little heed of 
 his companion or her conversation, but paid 
 particular attention to various nursemaids in 
 charge of the children who were playing about, 
 honouring each of them in turn with a long, 
 peculiar, and offensive stare. 
 
 He had half turned round to look after 
 a particularly attractive damsel, when his 
 companion, wishing to resume the conver- 
 sation, touched him on the arm, and said, 
 i You will get to Ceylon in — '
 
 CALVERLEY S AGENT. 
 
 ' yes, in so many weeks — what matters 
 one or two more or less? It will be jolly 
 enough on board ship, and when I arrive — I 
 arrive.' 
 
 ' I hope you have made up your mind to 
 be steady, Tom, and to work hard. You have 
 now the means for a capital start in life, and 
 for my sake, if for nothing else, you ought to 
 show yourself worthy of what has been done 
 for you.' 
 
 ' Look here, Ally, don't preach,' he said, 
 turning sharply round to her ; ' everybody 
 thinks they can have a fling at me, and it is, 
 " Tom Durham this, and Tom Durham 
 that," until I am sick enough of it without 
 being sermonised by my half-sister. Of course 
 it was very kind of old Claxton — I beg your 
 pardon,' he said with a sneer, as he saw a 
 shade pass over her face; 'I ought to speak 
 with more deference of your husband and my 
 benefactor — of course it was very kind of Mr. 
 Claxton to pay my passage out to Ceylon, and 
 give me two thousand pounds to set myself 
 up in business on my arrival there ; but he is
 
 6 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 a very long-headed fellow, and he knows I am 
 no fool, and if the agency turns out rightly, 
 he will get a very considerable profit on his 
 outlay.' 
 
 4 1 am sure John has no such notion in 
 doing this, Tom, and you have net right to im- 
 pute such a motive to him.' 
 
 'I impute nothing; I merely suggested; 
 and, after all, perhaps he only did it out of 
 love for you, Ally, whom he worships as the 
 apple of his eye, in order to give your reckless 
 half-brother a chance of reform — and to get 
 him out of his way,' he muttered under his 
 breath. 
 
 ' I am sure John is kindness itself,' said 
 Alice Claxton. ' If there were nothing to 
 prove that, it could be found in the fact of 
 his wishing me to come down here to see the 
 last of you.' 
 
 ' Nothing like giving the old — I mean your 
 husband, every possible credit, Ally. You 
 know just now he is away on one of his re- 
 gular tours, and that therefore he won't miss 
 you from Hendon.'
 
 calverley's agent. 
 
 4 1 know/ said the girl, half - pettishly, 
 4 these horrible business-tours are the bane of 
 my life, the only thing I have to complain 
 about. However, John says he hopes it will 
 not- be very long before they are over, and 
 then he will be always at home.' 
 
 c Does he?' said Tom Durham, looking at 
 her keenly ; ' I would not have you depend 
 upon that, Ally; I would not have you ask 
 him to give up the business which takes him 
 away. It is important for him that he should 
 attend to it for the present, and indeed until 
 there is no longer a necessity for him to do 
 
 so.' 
 
 4 You need not speak so earnestly, Tom/ 
 said Alice, with a half-laugh; c I assure you I 
 do not worry John about it; it is he who 
 speaks about it much oftener than I do. He 
 is constantly talking of the time when he 
 shall be able to retire altogether, and take me 
 away for a long foreign travel, perhaps to 
 settle entirely abroad, he said, in Florence 
 or Vienna, or some charming place of that 
 kind.'
 
 8 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 'Old idiot!' muttered Tom Durham ; 'why 
 can't he leave well alone ?' 
 
 'I told him,' said Alice, not hearing or 
 heeding the interruption, 'that - 1 am perfectly 
 content with Rose Cottage. All I wish is, 
 that he could be more there to enjoy it with 
 me.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Tom Durham, with a yawn. 
 '"Well, that will come all right, as I told you; 
 only don't you worry him about it, but leave 
 it alone, and let it come right in its own way. 
 Now look here, Ally. You had better go 
 back to London by the 11.15 train, so that 
 we have only half an hour more together.' 
 
 ' But you know, Tom, John told me I 
 might wait and see the Massilia start. In- 
 deed, he particularly wished me to do so.' 
 
 ' My dear child, the Massilia does not sail 
 until half-past two; and if you waited to see 
 me fairly off, you would not have time to get 
 over to the railway to catch the three o'clock 
 train. Even if you did, you would not get to 
 town until nearly six, and you would have a 
 long dreary drive in the dark to Hendon
 
 CALVERLEY S AGENT. V 
 
 • 
 
 Now, if you go by the quarter-past eleven 
 train, I shall see you off, and shall then be 
 able to come back to Radley's, and write a few 
 letters of importance before I go on board.' 
 
 'Very well, Tom,' said Alice; 'perhaps it 
 will be better ; only, John — ' 
 
 ' Never mind John on this occasion, Ally ; 
 
 he did not know at what time the Massilia 
 
 sailed. Now, Ally, let us take one final turn, 
 
 and finish our chat. I am not going to be 
 
 sentimental — it is not in my line — but I think 
 
 I like you better than anybody else in the 
 
 world, though I did not take to you much at 
 
 first. When I came back from sea, a boy of 
 
 fifteen, and went home and found my father 
 
 had married again, I was savage ; and when 
 
 he showed me a little baby lying in the cradle, 
 
 and told me it was my half-sister, I hated you. 
 
 But you were a sweet little child, and fended 
 
 off many a rough word, and many a blow for 
 
 the matter of that, which the governor would 
 
 have liked to have given me, and I took to 
 
 you ; and when you grew up, you did me a 
 
 good turn now and then, and of course it is
 
 10 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 owing to you, one way or the other, that I 
 have got John Claxton's two thousand pounds 
 in my pocket at this moment. So I love you, 
 and I leave you with regret, and I say this to 
 you at parting. Take this envelope, and lock 
 it away somewhere where it will be safe, and 
 where you can lay your hand upon it at any 
 moment. It contains the address of an old 
 pal of mine — a friend I mean — one of the right 
 sort, a staunch, tried, true, honest, upright 
 fellow. Hardworking and persevering too; 
 such a kind of man that you may be aston- 
 ished at his ever having been intimate with 
 me. But he was, and is, and I know that I 
 may reckon upon him to the utmost. If ever 
 you come to grief, if ever you are in trouble, 
 no matter of what kind, go to the address 
 which you will find there, and seek him out, 
 and tell him all about it; I will warrant he 
 will see you through it.' 
 
 c Thank you, dear Tom ; it is very kind 
 and thoughtful of you to say this, but you 
 know I have John and — ' 
 
 4 Yes, of course, you have John now ; but
 
 calverley's agent. 11 
 
 there may be a time when — however, that is 
 neither here nor there. There is the envelope, 
 take it, and don't forget what I say. Now 
 come round to the hotel and pack your bag ; 
 it is time for you to start.' 
 
 The bell rang, and with a scream the en- 
 gine attached to the eleven -fifteen train for 
 London forged slowly out of the Southampton 
 station. Tom Durham, with an unusual ex- 
 pression of emotion on his face, stood upon 
 the platform kissing his hand to Alice, who, 
 with the tears in her eyes, leant back in the 
 carriage and covered her face with her hand- 
 kerchief. In a second-class compartment next 
 to that which she occupied were two middle- 
 aged, plainly-dressed men, who had been ob- 
 serving the parting of the half-brother and 
 sister with some interest. 
 
 4 Was not that Tom Durham?' said one, as 
 the train sped on its way. 
 
 1 Right you are,' said the other; 4 I knew 
 his face, but could not put a name to it. What
 
 12 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 is he at now — working on the square or on the 
 cross ?' 
 
 'On the square, I believe/ said the first; 
 'leastways I saw him walking with Mr. Cal- 
 verley in the City the other day, and he would 
 not have been in such respectable company if 
 he had not been all right/ 
 
 C I suppose not,' said the other man, 'for 
 the time being ; but Tom Durham is a shaky 
 kind of customer anyways.'
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EXIT TOM DURHAM. 
 
 Mr. Durham remained watching the depart- 
 ing train until it had passed out of sight, when 
 he turned round and walked quietly out of the 
 station. The emotion he had shown — and 
 which, to his great astonishment, he had really 
 felt — had vanished, and left him in a deeply 
 contemplative state. He pushed his arms half 
 way up to his elbows in his pockets, and mut- 
 tered to himself as he strode along the street ; 
 but it was not until he found himself in the 
 sitting-room at Radley's Hotel, and had made 
 himself a stiff glass of brandy-and- water from 
 the bottle, duly included in the bill which 
 Alice had paid, that he gave his feelings much 
 vent. Then loading a short black pipe from 
 a capacious tobacco-pouch, he seated himself
 
 14 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 at the table, and as he went through his vari- 
 ous papers and memoranda thought aloud. 
 
 c This is a rum start, and no mistake ! 
 Twenty years ago, when I left this very same 
 place a 'prentice on board the old Gloucester- 
 shire, T never thought I should have the luck 
 to stay in this swell hotel, and, better still, not 
 to have to put my hand in my own pocket to 
 pay the bill. It is luck, no doubt ; a large 
 slice of luck, larded with talent and peppered 
 with experience. That's the sort of meal for 
 a man that wants to get on in the world, and 
 that's just what I have got before me. Now, 
 when I walk out of this hotel, I shall have 
 two thousand pounds in my pocket. In my 
 pocket! — not to be paid on my arrival at 
 Ceylon, as the old gentleman at first insisted. 
 Ally was of great assistance there. I wonder 
 why she backed me so energetically? I sup- 
 pose, because she thought it would have been 
 infra dig. for her brother to appear in the eyes 
 of those blessed natives, over whom he is to 
 exercise superintendence, as though he had 
 not been considered worthy of being trusted
 
 EXIT TOM DURHAM. 15 
 
 with the money, and she was delighted with 
 the notion of bringing it down here herself 
 and handing it to me. 
 
 ' If I hadn't touched the money until my 
 arrival at Ceylon, I should have had to wait 
 a pretty long time. You're a dear old gentle- 
 man, Mr. Claxton, and you mean well ; but I 
 don't quite see the fun of spending the rest 
 of my days in looking after a lot of niggers 
 under a sun that would dry the life-blood out 
 of me before my time. There is an old say- 
 ing, that everyone must eat a peck of dirt in 
 the course of their lives. Well, I ate mine 
 early, took it down at one gulp, and I don't 
 want any more of the same food. Besides, it 
 is all very well for Ally to talk about grati- 
 tude and that kind of thing ; but she does not 
 know what I do, and it is entirely because I 
 know what I do about my worthy brother-in- 
 law, that I have been enabled to put the screw 
 upon him, and to get out of him that very 
 respectable bundle of bank-notes. That was 
 just like my luck again, to find that out, and 
 be able to bring it home to him so pat; di-
 
 16 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 rectly I first got on the scent, I knew there 
 was money in it, and I followed it up until I 
 placed it chuck-a-block before him, and he 
 parted freely. In such a respectable way, 
 too. None of your extortion ; none of your 
 threatening letters; none of your "left till 
 called for," under initials, at the post-office; ^ 
 none of your hanging about London spending 
 money which nobody can imagine how you 
 get, and thereby starting suspicions of other 
 matters which might not come out quite so 
 nicely if looked into. "Agent at Ceylon to 
 the firm of Calverley and Company, brokers, 
 Mincing - lane, London ; iron - smelters and 
 boiler-makers, Swartmoor Foundry, Cumber- 
 land;" that's what Thomas D. will have en- 
 graved on his card when he gets there ; and 
 the two thousand pounds, as John gravely 
 remarked before Alice, were for fitting-up the 
 office, and other necessary expenses. I won- 
 der what that poor child thought the other 
 necessary expenses could possibly be, to take 
 such an amount of money ? 
 
 c No, dear sir, thank you very much. I
 
 EXIT TOM DURHAM. 17 
 
 am willing to allow that the whole thing was 
 done extremely well, and without causing the 
 smallest suspicion in the mind of little Ally ; 
 but you paid me the money because you could 
 not help it, and you will have to pay me a 
 great deal more for that very same reason. 
 You're a very great scoundrel, John Claxton, 
 Esquire; a much greater scoundrel than I am, 
 though I have taken your money, and have 
 not the remotest intention of becoming your 
 agent in Ceylon. You're a cold-blooded vil- 
 lain, sir, carrying out your own selfish ends, 
 and not, like myself, a generous creature, act- 
 ing upon impulse. Notwithstanding the fact 
 that I have your money in my pocket, I al- 
 most grudge you the satisfaction you will ex- 
 perience when, in the course of to-morrow or 
 the next day, you will hear the news which 
 will lead you to imagine that you are rid of 
 me for ever. But I console myself with the 
 reflection, that when I turn up again, as I 
 undoubtedly shall, your disgust will be pro- 
 portionately intensified. 
 
 1 There,' as he selected two or three papers 
 vol. i. c
 
 18 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 from a mass before him and carefully tore the 
 rest into pieces, 'there is the letter relating 
 to the document which has already done so 
 much for me, and which is to be my philoso- 
 pher's-stone. I must not run the chances of 
 wetting and spoiling that paper when I take 
 my midnight bath, so I shall hand it over to 
 Mrs. D. when I give her the money to take 
 care of. May as well put a seal on it though, 
 for Mrs. D. is naturally curious, and as jealous 
 as a female Othello. One o'clock; just the 
 time I promised to meet her. Now then, the 
 money in this pocket, the letter in that, and 
 the other papers torn up, and the brandy- 
 bottle emptied. What you may call a clean 
 sweep of the whole concern.' 
 
 After settling his hat to his satisfaction, 
 and looking at himself in the glass with great 
 complacency, Tom Durham strolled from the 
 room, leaving the door wide open behind him. 
 He nodded familiarly to a waiter whom he 
 passed in the passage, but who, instead of re- 
 turning the salutation, stared at him in wrath- 
 ful wonder — they were unaccustomed to such
 
 EXIT TOM DURHAM. 19 
 
 gentry at Radley's — and then he passed into 
 the street. Looking leisurely around him, he 
 made his way back again to the promenade 
 on which he had held his conversation with 
 Alice Claxton, and there, standing by one of 
 the cannon, was another woman, apparently 
 awaiting his arrival. A woman about thirty 
 years of age, with swarthy complexion, bright 
 beady black eyes, and dull blue-black hair. 
 French, without doubt. French in the fashion 
 of her inexpensive garments and the manner 
 in which they were put on ; undeniably French 
 in her boots and gloves, in her gait, in the 
 gesture and recognition which she made when 
 she saw Tom Durham approaching her. That 
 estimable gentleman, apparently, was dis- 
 pleased at this gesture, for he frowned when 
 he saw it, and when he arrived at the woman's 
 side, he said, l Don't be so infernally demon- 
 strative, Pauline ; I have told you of that be- 
 fore.' 
 
 1 Mais, should I stand like a stone or stock 
 when you come before me ?' said the woman, 
 with the slightest trace of a foreign accent.
 
 20 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 4 1 was longing to see you, and you came. Is 
 it, then, astonishing — ' 
 
 ' No, all right ; don't jaw,' said Tom Dur- 
 ham shortly. c Only, in our position it is not 
 advisable to attract more notice than neces- 
 sary. Well, here you are.' 
 
 ' Yes, I am here.' 
 
 4 All goes well ; I told you there was an 
 old gentleman — Claxton by name — connected 
 with Calverley's firm, for which I'm supposed 
 to be going out as agent, from whom I could 
 get a sum of money, and I have got it — he sent 
 it to me.' 
 
 4 Ah, ah, he sent it to you ?' 
 
 4 Yes, by — by a messenger whom he could 
 trust ; and this is not by any means the last 
 that I shall have from him. He thinks I am 
 off for the East, and that he is rid of me ; but 
 as soon as this sum is spent, he shall know the 
 difference.' 
 
 4 You have made the arrangements about 
 that ?' 
 
 4 1 have arranged everything. I saw the 
 pilot ; he told me it was blowing hard outside,
 
 SXIT TOM DURHAM. 21 
 
 and that he shall pass the night off the Hurst. 
 I have been on board, and seen exactly how 
 best to do what I intend; and now there is 
 nothing left but to give you your instruc- 
 tions.' 
 
 ' Stay,' said the woman, laying her hand 
 on his breast, and looking earnestly into his 
 face. ' You are certain you run no risk ; you 
 are certain that — ' 
 
 'Take your hand away,' he said; 'you will 
 never understand our English ways, Pauline ; 
 the people here cannot make out what you are 
 about. I am all right, depend upon it. I 
 could swim four times the distance in much 
 rougher weather ; and even if there were any 
 danger, the prize is much too great to chance 
 the loss of it for a little risk. Don't be afraid, 
 Pauline,' he added, with a little softening of 
 his voice, 'but clear that quick, clever brain 
 of yours and attend to me. Here is the bun- 
 dle of bank-notes, and here is a letter which 
 is almost as important ; place them both se- 
 curely in the bosom of your dress, and don't 
 take them out for one instant until you hand
 
 22 THE YELLOW ELAG. 
 
 them over to me to-morrow morning at Lym- 
 ington station — you understand ?' 
 
 'Perfectly,' said the woman, taking the 
 packets from him. 'What time will you be 
 there ? 
 
 'By half- past seven, when the first train 
 passes. We can loaf away the day on the 
 beach at Weymouth — we might go over to 
 Portland, if you have any fancy to see the 
 place ; I have not ; all in good time, say I — 
 and start for Guernsey by the midnight boat. 
 Now is there anything more to say ?' 
 
 ' No,' said Pauline ; then suddenly, ' Yes. 
 Apropos of Portland, Wetherall and Moger 
 were in this place to-day. I saw them at the 
 station, in the train going up to town. They 
 put their heads out of the window to look 
 after you.' 
 
 1 The devil !' cried Tom Durham ; ' they 
 were down here, were they, and you saw them? 
 Why, what on earth were you doing at the 
 station ?' 
 
 4 1 arrived here too soon, and walked up 
 there to pass the time.'
 
 EXIT TOM DURHAM. 23 
 
 4 Did you — did you see any one else ?' asked 
 Tom Durham, looking fixedly at her. 
 
 i Any one else ? Plenty — porters, passen- 
 gers, what not ; but of people that I knew, 
 not a soul,' answered the woman, raising her 
 eyes and meeting his gaze with perfect calm- 
 ness. 
 
 c That's all right,' he muttered ; then louder, 
 ' Now it's time for me to go on board. Good- 
 bye, Pauline ; make your way to Lymington, 
 and look out for me at the station at seven- 
 thirty to-morrow morning.' 
 
 As she stood looking after him, a hard, de- 
 fiant expression came over the woman's face. 
 4 Did I see any one else?' she said between 
 her set teeth ; ' yes, mon cher, I saw the pale, 
 white-faced girl whom you held in your arms 
 and kissed at parting, and who fell back into 
 the carriage and cried like a baby, as she is. 
 This, then, was the secret of your refusing to 
 go to India with the money of this old fool 
 whom you have robbed ! Or rather whom she 
 has robbed; for she was the messenger who 
 brought it to you, and it is doubtless she who
 
 24 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 has beguiled this dotard out of the bank-notes 
 which she handed over to you, her lover. 
 Peste ! If that slavish love I have for you were 
 not mixed with the dread and terror which I 
 have learnt from experience, I would escape 
 with this money to my own land, and leave 
 you and your mignonne to make it out as best 
 you might. But I am weak enough to love 
 you still, and my revenge on her must wait 
 for a more fitting opportunity.' 
 
 Her passion spent, Pauline gathered her 
 shawl tightly round her and walked away to- 
 wards the town. 
 
 On board the steam - ship Massilia matters 
 had happened pretty much as Tom Durham 
 had foreseen. That capital sample of the 
 Peninsular and Oriental Company's fleet 
 worked out of harbour at half-past two, and, 
 in charge of a pilot, made her way slowly 
 and steadily down Southampton Water. The 
 wind freshened, and darkness coming on, the 
 captain decided on anchoring off Hurst Castle 
 for the night, and proceeding on his voyage
 
 EXIT TOM DURHAM. 25 
 
 at daylight. This decision was greatly to the 
 delight of the passengers, who had not yet 
 shaken down into that pleasant companion- 
 ship which such a voyage frequently brings 
 about, and who, restless and strange in their 
 unaccustomed position, were glad to seek 
 their berths at a very early hour. During 
 the afternoon's run Tom Durham had suc- 
 ceeded in creating for himself a vast amount 
 of popularity. He chatted with the captain 
 about nautical matters, of which he had ob- 
 tained a smattering when he was apprentice 
 on board the old East Indiaman ; he talked to 
 the lady passengers, deprecating their dread 
 of sea -sickness, and paying them pleasant at- 
 tention, while he smoked with the gentlemen^ 
 and took care to let them all know the import- 
 ant position which he occupied, as the agent 
 of Calverley and Company. Never was there 
 so agreeable a man. 
 
 At about one in the morning, when per- 
 fect quiet reigned throughout the ship, the 
 passengers being asleep in their berths, the 
 men, save those on duty, sound in the fore-
 
 26 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 castle, and the echo of the watch-officer's foot- 
 steps dying away in the distance, Tom Dur- 
 ham suddenly appeared at the head of the 
 saloon companion, and made his way swiftly 
 towards the middle of the ship. He was 
 dressed as in the morning, save that he wore 
 no coat, and that instead of boots he had 
 on thin light slippers. When he arrived oppo- 
 site the huge half-circle of the paddle-box he 
 stopped, and groping with his hands speedily 
 found an iron ring, seizing which he pulled 
 open a door, which revolved on its hinges, 
 disclosing a wooden panel, which he slid back, 
 and stepping through the aperture found him- 
 self standing on one of the broad paddles of 
 the enormous wheel. In an instant he had 
 pulled the first door back to its previous posi- 
 tion, and stepping lightly from paddle to pad- 
 dle stood on the nethermost one just above 
 the surface of the water. He paused for a mo- 
 ment, bending down and peering out into the 
 darkness, then raising his hands high up above 
 his head and clasping them together, he dived 
 down into the water, scarcely making a splash.
 
 EXIT TOM DURHAM. 27 
 
 Ten minutes afterwards, one of the two 
 men always on duty in the little telegraph 
 hut under Hurst Castle, opened the door, 
 and accompanied by a big black retriever, who 
 was growling angrily, walked out into the 
 night. When he returned, his companion 
 hailed him from the little bedroom overhead. 
 
 4 What's the matter, Needham — what's the 
 dog growling about ?' 
 
 4 1 thought I heard a cry,' said the man 
 addressed ; c Nep must have thought so too, 
 by the way he's going on; but I can see no- 
 thing. When I was out a few minutes ago 
 I thought I saw something like a dog swim- 
 ming near the Massilia, lying at anchor there, 
 but it isn't there now. I doubt, after all, it 
 may have been my fancy.' 
 
 1 I wish you would keep your fancy to 
 yourself, and not let it rouse me up/ growled 
 his mate. 'One don't get too much rest in 
 this blessed place at the best of times.'
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME. 
 
 Fashion, amidst the innumerable changes 
 which she has insisted on, seems to have dealt 
 lightly with Great Walpole-street. It may be 
 that she has purposely left it untouched to 
 remain an example of the heavy, solemn, solid 
 style of a hundred years ago ; a striking con- 
 trast to the ' gardens,' ' crescents,' ' mansions,' 
 all stucco, plate-glass, and huge portico, of 
 modern days; or it may be that finding it 
 intractable, unalterable, unassailable, she has 
 looked upon it as a relic of barbarism, and de- 
 termined altogether to ignore its existence. 
 However that may be, the street is little changed 
 since the days of its erection; it still remains a 
 long, and, to those gazing down it from either 
 end, apparently interminable line of large, 
 substantial, three-storied, dull-coloured brick 
 houses, stretching from Chandos-square in the
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME. 29 
 
 south to Guelph Park in the north, so long, 
 so uniform, so unspeakably dreary, as to give 
 colour to the assertion of a celebrated wit, 
 who, on his death-bed moaning forth that 
 4 there is an end to all things,' added feebly, 
 except Great Walpole-street.' 
 
 In its precincts gravity and decorum have 
 set up their head-quarters; on many of its 
 door-plates the passers-by may read the names 
 of distinguished members of the faculty, old 
 in age and high in renown, pupils of Aber- 
 nethy and Astley Cooper, who with the first 
 few hundreds which they could scrape toge- 
 ther after their degrees were obtained, hired, 
 and furnished, as a first step to professional 
 status, the houses in which they still reside, 
 and in which they have since inspected so 
 many thousand tongues, and passed the ver- 
 dict of life or death upon so many thousand 
 patients. Youth must be resident here and 
 there in Great Walpole-street, as in other 
 places, but if so, it is never seen. No nurse- 
 maids with heads obstinately turned the other 
 way drive the pleasant perambulator against
 
 30 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 the legs of elderly people airing themselves in 
 the modified sunlight which occasionally visits 
 the locality; no merry children troop along 
 its pavement; from the long drawing-room 
 windows, hung with curtains of velvet and 
 muslin, issues no sound of piano or human 
 voice. Although there is no beadle to keep 
 inviolate its sanctity, the street-boy as he ap- 
 proaches its confines stops his shrill whistling, 
 and puts his tip-cat into his pocket ; the ' pat- 
 terers' of the second editions pass it by, con- 
 scious that the rumours of war, or of the 
 assassinations of eminent personages, will fall 
 flat upon the ears of the inhabitants; while 
 even the fragmentary announcement, c Elope- 
 ment — young lady — noble markis,' will fail in 
 extracting the pence from the pockets of the 
 denizens of the lower regions in this respectable 
 quarter. 
 
 It is essentially a carriage neighbourhood, 
 with ranges of mews branching out of, and 
 running parallel to it; and the vehicles are 
 quite in keeping with the street and with their 
 Owners. Besides the doctors' broughams, high
 
 31 
 
 swinging chariots, now scarcely ever seen save 
 on drawing-room days or in carriage bazaars, 
 with huge hammercloths and vast emblazoned 
 panels, are there common enough. Roomy 
 landaus, broad barouches, with fat> horses, the 
 leather of whose harness is almost invisible 
 beneath the heavy silver plating, coachmen in 
 curly white bob- wigs, and giant footmen gor- 
 geous in hair-powder ; all these are to be found 
 in Great Walpole-street. 
 
 Money, money, money ! it all seems to say. 
 We have money, and we will take care that 
 you shall know it. We will not pay enormous 
 rents for poky tenements in Mayfair, or strag- 
 gling caravanserais in Tyburnia; we do not 
 expend our substance in park-phaetons or 
 Victorias, any more than in giving ' drums' or 
 1 at homes.' We have, during the season, se- 
 veral dinner-parties, at which the wine set 
 before you does not come from the grocer's or 
 the publican's, but has been in our cellars for 
 years; several musical evenings, and one or 
 two balls. We go to the Opera three or four 
 times during the season, occasionally to the
 
 32 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 theatre, frequently to a classical concert, or 
 an oratorio; but we would as soon think of 
 attending a prize-fight as a pigeon-match, or 
 of prohibiting our womankind from going to 
 church, as of taking them to listen to comic 
 songs in a supper-room. We are rich, which 
 you may be; but we are respectable, which 
 you are not ! Vaunt your fashion as much as 
 you please, but the home of moneyed decency 
 and decorum is Great Walpole- street. 
 
 Six o'clock on an October evening, with a 
 chill damp wind howling at intervals through 
 the funnel made by the opposing lines of 
 houses, is not the time in which this locality 
 looks its best. If it is dreary in the spring 
 brightness, in the summer sunshine, it is 
 doubly dreary in the autumn decadence, when 
 the leaves torn from the trees in Guelph Park 
 mix with the dust and bits of straw and scraps 
 of paper which gather together in swerving 
 eddies in every possible corner, and when in 
 most of the houses the shutters are still closed, 
 and the blinds have not shed the newspaper 
 coverings in which they have been enwrapped
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME. 33 
 
 during the absence of the inhabitants. In one 
 of the largest houses of the street, on one 
 particular October evening, no such signs of 
 absenteeism were visible; the whiteness of 
 the broad door- step was unsullied, the plate - 
 glass windows were free from speck or spot, 
 the dwarf wire -blinds in the dining-room 
 stood rigidly defiant of all criticism, and the 
 muslin curtains in the drawing-room seemed 
 to have lost all the softness and pliancy of 
 their nature, and hung stiff, and white, and 
 rigid, as the gaunt and bony hands which 
 from time to time pushed them on one side, 
 as the blank and colourless face which 
 from time to time peered through them into 
 the street. These hands and that face be- 
 longed to Mrs. Calverley, the mistress of the 
 mansion. A thin, spare woman of fifty years of 
 age, with a figure in which were angles where 
 there should have been roundness, and straight- 
 ness of outline where there should have been 
 fulness. Her silk dress was of an undecided 
 fawn-colour, and in place of any relieving 
 white collar, she wore a wisp of black net 
 VOL. i. D
 
 34 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 round her throat. Her face was long, with a 
 large straight nose, prominent eyes of steely- 
 blue, and a long upper lip, between which and 
 its thin pallid companion there gleamed a row 
 of strong white teeth. Her thin scanty iron- 
 gray hair was taken off from her forehead 
 above the temples and gathered into a small 
 knot at the back. Such an expanse of colour- 
 less flesh, such a dull level waste of human 
 features unrelieved by the slightest scintilla 
 of interest or sympathy ! 
 
 In her prim, flat-soled creaking shoes, Mrs. 
 Calverley walked to the window, pushed back 
 the curtains, and looked out down the silent 
 street; then, with a sound which was some- 
 thing between a sigh of despair and a snort 
 of defiance, she returned to the low prie-dieu 
 chair worked in wool, but covered with a 
 shiny, crackling, yellow substance; and ar- 
 ranging her scanty drapery around her, inter- 
 wove her bony fingers in her lap and sat bolt 
 upright, staring rigidly before her. All the 
 furniture in the room which was capable of 
 being covered up was clad in a uniform of
 
 35 
 
 brown holland; the chairs were dressed in 
 pinafores, the big broad sofa had a loosely 
 cut greatcoat of the same material ; even the 
 chandeliers had on holland bags. There was 
 no light in the room, but the gas lamps in the 
 street were reflected from the bare shining 
 rosewood table, from the long grand piano- 
 forte, from the huge ormolu clock ticking 
 gravely on the mantelpiece, from the glass 
 shades enshrining wax flowers and fruit, which 
 made such a poor pretence of being real, and 
 from the old-fashioned handsomely-cut giran- 
 doles. By the chair in which Mrs. Calverley 
 was seated stood a frame of Berlin work ; in 
 the middle of the hearth-rug before the fire- 
 place — fireless now, and filled with a grim 
 pattern of cut coloured paper — lay a stuffed 
 white-haired dog, intently regarding his tail 
 through his glass eyes, and apparently won- 
 dering what he had done in life to be con- 
 signed to such a degraded position. 
 
 A quarter-past six, half-past, a quarter to 
 seven, ring out from the neighbouring church, 
 and at each sound of the chimes Mrs. Cal-
 
 36 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 verley rises to her feet, creaks across to the 
 window, looks forth, creaks back again, and 
 resumes her stony position. At length there 
 comes a half-timid ring of the bell, which 
 she recognises at once, straightens her back, 
 and settles herself more rigidly than ever. A 
 few minutes after, the drawing-room door 
 opens, and a voice, the owner of which cannot 
 be seen, is heard saying, ' Dear me, all in dark- 
 ness, Jane?' 
 
 Mrs. Calverley makes no reply, but rings 
 the bell, and when the servant appears, 
 says to him in a thin acid voice, 'You can 
 light the gas, James ; and now that your 
 master has come home at last, dinner can 
 be served.' 
 
 Upon this remark Mr. Calverley's only 
 comment is a repetition of c Dear me !' He is 
 a middle-sized, pleasant - looking man, with 
 fair hair slightly sprinkled with gray, gray 
 whiskers, light -blue eyes, and marvellous 
 pink-and- white complexion like a doll : a gen- 
 tlemanly-looking man in his plain black frock- 
 coat and waistcoat, gray trousers, black- silk
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME. 37 
 
 cravat and pearl pin, and neat buttoned boots. 
 He looks rather nervously to his wife, and 
 edges his way towards her round the table. 
 When he is within a few feet of her he pro- 
 duces a newspaper from his pocket, and makes 
 a feeble tender of it, saying, 'The evening 
 paper, my dear ; I thought you would like to 
 see — ' 
 
 ' I should like to see you attempt to relieve 
 the monotony of my life, Mr. Calverley, and 
 not to leave me here alone, while you were 
 doubtless enjoying yourself.' 
 
 'My dear, I assure you I have come 
 straight home.' 
 
 4 Did business detain you until after six 
 o'clock in Mincing-lane ?' 
 
 ' No, my dear, of course not till six o'clock; 
 I walked home, and on my way I just looked 
 in at the club, and — ' 
 
 1 At the club !' That was all Mrs. Calver- 
 ley said, but the manner in which she said it 
 had its due effect. Mr. Calverley opened the 
 leaves of a photograph album, with every por- 
 trait in which he was thoroughly familiar, and
 
 38 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 began to be extremely interested in its con- 
 tents. 
 
 1 Dinner will be ready directly,' said Mrs. 
 Calverley ; ' had yon not better wash your 
 hands ?' 
 
 i Thank you, my dear,' said the disconso- 
 late man ; ' but I washed them at the cl — ' 
 
 He pulled himself up just in time ; the ob- 
 noxious word had very nearly slipped out, but 
 the servant announcing dinner at the moment, 
 and Mrs. Calverley laying the tips of her bony 
 fingers in the hollow of her husband's arm, the 
 happy pair proceeded to the banquet. 
 
 It was a good dinner, handsomely served, 
 but Mr. Calverley can scarcely be said to have 
 enjoyed it. At first he audibly asked for wine, 
 but after he had been helped three or four 
 times, he glanced hurriedly across the long 
 table, at the other end of which his wife was 
 seated, and furtively motioned to the butler 
 by touching his glass. This pantomime and 
 its results were soon noticed by Mrs. Calver- 
 ley, who, after glaring at her husband for a 
 moment, gave a little shiver, and said :
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME. 39 
 
 'It is of no use paying Doctor Chipchase 
 his fees if his advice is to be scouted in this 
 manner ; you know what he said about your 
 drinking wine.' 
 
 1 My dear, I only — ' 
 
 c You only fly in the face of Providence, 
 Mr. Calverley, and behave unjustly to the of- 
 fice in which your life is insured. You only 
 add another to the long catalogue of weak- 
 nesses and moral cowardices, by the constant 
 display of which you render my life a burden 
 to me. I am sick of talking to you myself; 
 I shall write and ask Martin to come and stay 
 with us for a few weeks, and see what effect 
 his influence will have upon you.' 
 
 c I am sure I shall be very glad to see Mar- 
 tin, my dear, 7 said Mr. Calverley, after stand- 
 ing up reverently to say grace on the removal 
 of the cloth ; c he is a very good fellow, and—' 
 
 4 Don't talk of a clergyman of the Church 
 of England in that way, Mr. Calverley, if you 
 please. " Good fellow," indeed ! My son Mar- 
 tin is a good man, and an ornament to his 
 calling.' 

 
 40 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 4 Yes, my dear, of course he is ; preaches 
 an excellent sermon, does Martin, and intones 
 quite musically. I should like to see him a 
 little more cheerful, I mean a little less ascetic, 
 you know ; take his wine more freely, and 
 not look quite so much as if he was fed upon 
 parched peas and filtered water/ 
 
 4 You are profane, as usual,' said his wife. 
 'Whenever you touch upon any member of 
 my family, your temper gets the better of you, 
 and your uncontrollable tendency to scoffing 
 and scepticism breaks forth. Perhaps you 
 will not think it too much trouble to pass me 
 the biscuits.' 
 
 ' My dear Jane !' murmured the wretched 
 man; and after handing the silver biscuit- 
 barrel to his wife, he sat by, not daring to 
 help himself to another glass of wine from 
 the well-filled decanters before him, while the 
 mere fact of seeing her munching away at the 
 hard farinaceous food nearly drove him mad 
 with thirst, 
 
 When Mrs. Calverley had concluded this 
 succulent repast, she rose from her seat, and,
 
 HOxME, SWEET HOME. 41 
 
 without taking any notice of her husband, 
 creaked stiffly out of the room. John Calver- 
 ley, lover of ease and tranquillity as he was, 
 scarcely regretted this little conjugal dispute, 
 inasmuch as that if Mrs. Calverley had not, 
 in consequence of the words that had passed 
 between them, been on her dignified beha- 
 viour, she would have remained to lock up 
 the wine. Whereas John managed to swallow 
 two glasses of his favourite Madeira before he 
 joined her in the drawing-room. 
 
 It was not very cheerful in the drawing- 
 room. The gas had been turned low down, 
 and the principal light in the room, much 
 softened and shaded, came from a reading- 
 lamp placed immediately above the work- 
 frame at which Mrs. Calverley 's bony fingers 
 were busily engaged depicting the story of 
 Jael, with a very rugged profile, and Sisera, 
 the death-glare in whose eyes was represented 
 by a couple of steel beads. John Calverley, 
 furtively wiping his lips after the Madeira, 
 shambled awkwardly into the room, and could 
 scarcely repress a groan at the ghastliness of
 
 42 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 its appearance. But the generous wine which 
 he had drunk helped to cheer him a little ; 
 and after wandering to and fro in a pur- 
 poseless manner, he approached his wife, and 
 said: 
 
 4 Won't you play something, dear ?' 
 
 4 No, thank you,' replied Mrs. Calverley ; 
 4 1 wish to finish this work.' 
 
 4 It is rather a nice thing,' said John 3 bend- 
 ing over the production, and criticising it in 
 a connoisseur -like manner; 4 what is it all 
 about ?' 
 
 4 It is well that no one is here to hear this 
 lamentable display of ignorance,' said Mrs. 
 Calverley, with a snort. 4 It is a scriptural 
 story, Mr. Calverley, and is intended as a foot- 
 stool for the Church of St. Beowulph.' 
 
 4 yes,' said John, nodding his head ; 4 1 
 know — Bewsher's place.' 
 
 4 It would be more decent, as well as more 
 correct, to speak of it as the church in which 
 Mr. Bewsher is officiating minister, I think,' 
 said Mrs. Calverley with another snort. 
 
 4 To be sure, my dear ; quite correct,' said
 
 43 
 
 peace-loving John. 'By the way, talking about 
 officiating ministers, perhaps you had better 
 not ask Martin to come to us just yet ; I have 
 got to go down to that place in the North 
 next week.' 
 
 'What place in the North? said Mrs. Cal- 
 verley, looking up. 
 
 1 What place ? Why, my dear, Swartmoor, 
 of course — the foundry, you know; that's the 
 only place I go to in the North.' 
 
 'I don't know what place you do or do 
 not go to in the North, or anywhere else, Mr. 
 Calverley,' said his wife, sticking her needle 
 into the canvas, and interlacing her bony 
 fingers and sitting bolt upright, as she glared 
 straight at him ; c I only know this, that I am 
 determined not to stand this state of things 
 much longer.' 
 
 c But, my dear — ' 
 
 4 Don't " my dear" me, if you please, but 
 listen to what I have to say. When I married 
 you, Mr. Calverley, to my sorrow, now some 
 ten years ago, you were nothing more than 
 the head clerk in the house of Lorraine Bro-
 
 44 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 thers, which my grandfather had founded, 
 which my father and uncles had established, 
 and in which my late husband, Mr. Gurwood, 
 had been a sleeping partner.' 
 
 i I must say that — ' 
 
 1 Silence, if you please ; I will not be inter- 
 rupted. I took you from that inferior posi- 
 tion, and made you my husband. I made you 
 master of this house and my fortune. I raised 
 you, Mr. Calverley. I tell you, I raised you, 
 sir, from obscurity to position, from compara- 
 tive penury to wealth ; and what is my re- 
 ward? Day after day you are absent from 
 home at your counting-house in Mincing-lane. 
 I don't object to that ; I suppose it is necessary ; 
 but I know — yes, I know, Mr. Calverley — 
 this is not my first experience of men of busi- 
 ness; I have been a grand-daughter, a daugh- 
 ter, and a sister of the firm, and though lat- 
 terly Mr. Gurwood was not quite regular in 
 his attendance, at least at one time he was an 
 excellent man of business — so that I may say 
 also the wife of the firm, and I know that 
 business hours are over at five, and that my
 
 45 
 
 sainted father used then to come straight home 
 to Clapham by the omnibus.' 
 
 'I— ' 
 
 'You must allow me to speak, if you 
 please ; I will not be interrupted. Instead of 
 which, I find you going to your club and 
 dawdling there to the latest minute, often 
 keeping my dinner waiting; and when you 
 return home, your conversation is frivolous, 
 your manner light and flighty, and wanting 
 in repose; your tastes and habits evidently 
 unsuitable to a person in the position of my 
 husband. I have borne all this without com- 
 plaint ; I know that all of us mortals — sinful 
 mortals — have a cross to bear, and that you 
 have been bestowed upon me in that capacity. 
 But, be a lone deserted woman when I have 
 a husband whose legitimate business it is to 
 stay at home and take care of me, I will not. 
 These Swartmoor works are all very well, I 
 daresay, and I know you declare that they 
 bring in a vast deal of profit ; but there was 
 profit enough in my father's time without any 
 of your iron works ; and if you intend to con-
 
 46 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 tinue paying them a visit every fortnight, 
 and staying several days away, as you have 
 done lately, they shall be given up, Mr. Cal- 
 verley — they shall be given up, I say. I 
 may be of no more concern to you than a 
 chair or a table, but I will not be a deserted 
 woman, and these iron works shall be given 
 up.' 
 
 Those who had seen but little of the plea- 
 sant-faced John Calverley, would scarcely have 
 recognised him in the darkly -frowning man 
 who now strode forward, and crossing his 
 arms on the back of a chair immediately in 
 front of his wife, said in a very quiet but very 
 determined voice : 
 
 ' They shall not be given up. Understand 
 that once for all — they shall not be given up. 
 You may say what you like, but I am master 
 in my business, if not in my home, and they 
 shall not be given up. And now, Jane, you 
 must listen to me; must listen to words which 
 I never intended to have said, if the speech 
 you have just made had not rendered it ne- 
 cessary. You have told me what you have
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME. 47 
 
 pleased to call facts ; now I will give you my 
 version of them. When I married you ten 
 years ago — and God knows you cannot de- 
 plore that marriage more heartily than I do — 
 I was, as you say, the head clerk of the firm 
 which your father had established. But in 
 his latter days he had been ill and inattentive 
 to business ; and after his death your uncles, 
 to whom the concern was left, proved them- 
 selves utterly inadequate to its guidance ; and 
 if it had not been for me, the firm of Lorraine 
 and Company would have been in the Gazette. 
 You know this well enough ; you know that 
 I, as head clerk, took the whole affair on my 
 shoulders, reorganised it, opened out new 
 avenues for its commerce, and finally suc- 
 ceeded in making it what it was when you 
 first saw me. You taunt me with having 
 been raised by you from penury to position ; 
 but you know that the whole of your fortune 
 was embarked in the business, and that if it 
 had not been for my clear head and hard 
 work, you would have lost every penny of it. 
 You accuse me of being light and frivolous
 
 48 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 and unsuited to you, of being away from my 
 home ; though, except on these business expe- 
 ditions, not an evening do I pass out of your 
 society. In return, I ask you what sort of a 
 home you make for me? what sign of interest, 
 of comfort, of anything like womanly grace 
 and feeling is there about it? What reception 
 do I meet with on my return from business? 
 what communion, what reciprocity is there 
 between us? Every word I say, every re- 
 mark I make, you either sneer or snap at. 
 You are a hard, intolerant Pharisee, Jane 
 Calverley. By your hardness and intolerance, 
 by your perpetually nagging and worrying 
 at him, you tried to break the spirit of your 
 former husband, George Gurwood, one of the 
 kindest fellows that ever lived. But you 
 failed in that; you only drove him to drink 
 and to death. Now I have said my say, have 
 said what I never intended should pass my 
 lips, what never would have passed them, if 
 it had not been for your provocation. I wish 
 you good -night — I am now going to the 
 club/
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME. 49 
 
 So saying, John Calverley bowed his head 
 and passed from the room, leaving his wife 
 no longer rigid and defiant, but swaying her- 
 self to and fro, and moaning helplessly. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 PAULINE. 
 
 The cold gray morning light, shining through 
 the little window of a small bedroom in a 
 second-rate hotel at Lymington, made its way 
 through the aperture between the common 
 dimity curtains, which had been purposely 
 separated overnight, and fell on the slumber- 
 ing figure of Pauline. The poor and scanty 
 furniture of the room, with its dingy bed- 
 hangings, its wooden wash stand, two rush- 
 bottomed chairs, and rickety one-sided chest 
 of drawers, all painted a pale stone-colour, 
 were in strong contrast with the richness of 
 colouring observable in the sleeper, — observ- 
 able in her jet-black hair, now taken from 
 off her face and gathered into one large coil 
 at the back of her head; in her olive com- 
 plexion, sun-embrowned indeed, but yet show-
 
 PAULINE. 51 
 
 ing distinctly the ebb and flow of her southern 
 blood; and in the deep orange-hued handker- 
 chief daintily knotted round her neck. See, 
 now, how troubled are her slumbers; how 
 from between her parted lips comes a long 
 though scarcely audible moan ; how the strong 
 thin hand lying outside the coverlet clutches 
 convulsively at nothing; and how she seems 
 in her unrest to be struggling to free herself 
 from the thraldom of the troublous dream, 
 under the influence of which part of the tor- 
 ture suffered by her during the previous day 
 is again pressing upon her ! 
 
 Yes ; the woman with the pale tear- 
 blurred face is there once again. Once again 
 Tom Durham stands at the carriage-door, 
 whispering to her with evident earnestness, 
 until the guard touches him on the shoulder, 
 and the whistle shrieks, and then she bends 
 forward, and he holds her for a moment in his 
 outspread arms, and kisses her once, twice, 
 thrice on her lips, until he is pulled aside by 
 the porter coming to shut the door of the 
 already-moving carriage, and she falls back in 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ..Kin/CDCiiTY flF ILLINOIS
 
 52 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 an agony of grief. There is a moisture in his 
 eyes too; such as she, Pauline, with all her 
 experience of him, has never seen there. He 
 is the lover of this pale-faced woman, and 
 therefore he must die ! She will kill him 
 herself! She will kill him with the pearl- 
 handled knife which Gaetano, the mate of 
 the Italian ship, gave her, telling her that 
 all the Lombard girls wore such daggers in 
 their garters, ready for the heart of any Te- 
 desco who might insult them, or any other 
 girl who might prove their rival. The dagger 
 is upstairs, in the little bedroom at the top of 
 the house, overlooking the Cannebiere, Tvhich 
 she shares with Mademoiselle Mathilde. She 
 will fetch it at once ; and after it has served 
 its purpose she will carry it to the chapel of 
 Notre Dame de la Garde, and hang it up 
 among the votive offerings : the pictures of 
 shipwrecks, storms, sea-fights, and surgical 
 operations ; the models of vessels, the ostrich- 
 eggs, the crutches left by cripples no longer 
 lame, and the ends of the ropes by which men 
 have been saved from drowning. How clearly
 
 PAULINE. 53 
 
 she can see the place, and all its contents, 
 before her now ! She will leave the dagger 
 there : as the weapon by which a traitor and 
 an Englishman has been slain, it will not be 
 out of place, though Pere Gasselin shake his 
 head and lift his monitory finger. She will 
 fetch it at once. Ah, how delicious and yet 
 how strange seem to her the smell of the pot- 
 au-feu, and the warm aroma of the chocolate ! 
 How steep the stairs seem to have become ; 
 she will never be able to reach the top ! What 
 is this, Pierre and Jean are saying ? The sea 
 has swept away the breakwater at La Joliette, 
 and is rapidly rushing into the town ! It 
 is here; it is in the street below ! Figh ting- 
 madly with the boiling waters is one man — 
 she can catch a glimpse of his face now. 
 Grand Dieu, it is Tom ! She will save him— 
 no, too late, he is borne swiftly past, he is — 
 
 And with a short suppressed scream she 
 woke. 
 
 It was probably the rapping of the cham- 
 bermaid at the bedroom door which dissipated 
 Pauline's dream, and recalled her to herself,
 
 54 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 and it is certain that the chambermaid, whose 
 quick ears caught the scream, went down- 
 stairs more than ever impressed with terror 
 at the 'foreign person' whom she had scarcely 
 had sufficient courage to conduct to her room 
 on the previous evening. Notwithstanding 
 the bizarre shape which they had assumed, 
 these reminiscences of a portion of Pauline's 
 past life had been so vivid, that it was with 
 great difficulty she could clear her brain, and 
 arrive at an idea of why she found herself in 
 the dingy bedroom of a country inn, and of 
 what lay before her. Sitting upon the edge 
 of her bed, with her arms crossed upon her 
 bosom, she gradually recalled the occurrences . 
 of the previous day, and came to comprehend 
 what had been the key-note of her dream, and 
 who was the pale-faced woman whose presence 
 had so disturbed her. There was, however, 
 no time for reflection at that moment ; she 
 had been aroused in accordance with instruc- 
 tions given on the previous night, and there 
 was but little time for her to dress herself and 
 make her way to the station, where she was
 
 PAULINE. 55 
 
 to await the arrival of her husband. Her 
 toilet completed, she hurried downstairs, and 
 declining to taste any of the substantial break- 
 fast which the hearty Hampshire landlady was 
 then engaged in discussing, and to which she 
 invited her visitor, issued out into the broad 
 street of the quiet old town. 
 
 Past the low-windowed shops, where the 
 sleepy 'prentice-boys were taking down the 
 shutters, and indulging in such fragmentary 
 conversation as could be carried on under the 
 eyes of their masters, which they knew were 
 bent upon them from the upper rooms ; past 
 the neat little post-office, where the click of 
 the telegraph-needles was already audible, and 
 whence ^vere issuing the sturdy country post- 
 men, each with his huge well-filled leathern 
 wallet 02 his back ; past the yacht-builder's 
 yard, where the air was redolent of pitch and 
 tar, and newly-chipped wood, where through 
 the half- opened gates could be seen the slen- 
 der, tapering masts of many yachts already 
 laid up for the season in the creek, and where 
 a vast amount of hammering and sawing and
 
 56 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 planing was, as the neighbours thought in- 
 terminably, going on. Not but what the 
 yacht-building yard is one of the great fea- 
 tures of the place; for, were it not for the 
 yacht-owners, who first come down to give 
 orders about the building of their vessels; 
 then pay a visit to see how their instructions 
 are being carried out ; and finally, finding the 
 place comfortable, tolerably accessible, and 
 not too dear, bring their wives and families, 
 and make it their head-quarters for ths yacht- 
 ing season, what stranger would ever come to 
 Lymington ? what occupants would be found 
 for its lodging-houses and hotels ? 
 
 The clock struck seven as Pauline j>assed 
 through the booking-office at the railvay sta- 
 tion, and stepped out on to the platfojm. She 
 looked hastily round her in search for Tom 
 Durham, but did not see him. A sudden 
 chill fell upon her as the remembrance of her 
 dream flashed across her mind. The next 
 instant she was chiding herself for imagining 
 that he would be there. There was yet half 
 an hour before the arrival of the train by
 
 PAULINE. 57 
 
 which they were to proceed to Weymouth; 
 he would be tired by his long swim from the 
 ship to the shore, his clothes would of course 
 be saturated, and he would have to dry them ; 
 he would doubtless rest as long as he could 
 in the place where he had found shelter, and 
 only join her just in time to start. There 
 was no doubt about his finding shelter some- 
 where ; he was too clever not to do that ; he 
 was the cleverest man in all the world ; it was 
 for his talent she had chosen him from all the 
 others years ago ; it was for — and then Paul- 
 ine's face fell, remembering that Tom Durham 
 was as unscrupulous as he was clever, and 
 that if this pale-faced woman were really any- 
 thing to him, he would occupy his talent in 
 arranging how and when to meet her in se- 
 cret, in planning how to obtain farther sums 
 of money from the old man whose messenger 
 she had been. 
 
 How the thought of that woman haunted 
 her! How her whole life seemed to have 
 changed since she had witnessed that parting 
 at the railway station yesterday! She felt
 
 58 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 that it would be impossible for her to hide 
 from Tom the fact that she was labouring 
 under doubt and depression of some kind or 
 other. She knew his tact and determination 
 in learning whatever he thought it behoved 
 him to find out ; and she thought it would 
 be better to speak openly to him, to tell 
 him what she had seen, and to ask him 
 for some explanation. Yes, she would do 
 that. The train was then in sis 'lit ; he would 
 no longer delay putting in an appearance on 
 the platform, and in a few minutes they w r ould 
 be travelling away to soft air and lovely 
 scenery, with more than sufficient money for 
 their present wants, and for a time at least 
 with rest and peace before them. Then she 
 would tell him all; and he would doubtless 
 reassure her, showing her how silly and jeal- 
 ous she had been, but forgiving her because 
 she had suffered solely through her love for 
 him. 
 
 By this time a number of passengers had 
 gathered together on the platform, awaiting 
 the arrival of the train, and Pauline passed
 
 PAULINE. 59 
 
 hastily among them looking eagerly to the 
 right and left, and, retracing her steps through 
 the booking - office, opened the door and 
 glanced up the street leading to the station. 
 No sign of Tom Durham anywhere ! Perhaps 
 he had found a nearer station to a point at 
 which he had swum ashore, and would be in 
 the train now rapidly approaching, 
 
 The train stopped; two or three passen- 
 gers alighted, and were so soon mixed up 
 with the crowd of sailors, ship-carpenters, and 
 farm - labourers rushing to take their seats, 
 that Pauline could not distinguish them, but 
 she knew Tom was not amongst them; and 
 when she walked quickly down the line of 
 carriages, throwing a rapid but comprehensive 
 glance round each, she saw him not ; and the 
 train passed on, and she was left once more 
 alone upon the platform. 
 
 Then, with frowning brows and set rigid 
 lips, Pauline commenced walking up and 
 down, covering with her long striding foot- 
 steps, so different from her usual easy, swim- 
 ming gait, exactly the same amount of space
 
 60 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 at every turn, wheeling, apparently uncon- 
 sciously, at the same point, treading almost 
 in the same prints which she had previously 
 made, keeping her eyes steadfastly fixed on 
 the ground, and being totally unaware of all 
 that was passing around her. She was a 
 clear-headed as well as a strong-willed wo- 
 man, accustomed to look life and its realities 
 boldly in the face, and, unlike the majority of 
 her countrymen and women, swift to detect the 
 shallowness of sophistry when propounded by 
 others, and careful never even to attempt to 
 impose upon herself. Throughout her life, so 
 long as she could remember, she had been in 
 the habit of thinking-out any project of im- 
 portance which had arisen in her career while 
 walking to and fro, just as she was doing 
 then. It was perhaps the sameness of the ac- 
 tion, perhaps some reminiscence of her dream 
 still lingering in her mind, that turned her 
 memory to the last occasion when she had 
 taken such thoughtful exercise ; and the scene 
 exactly as it occurred rose before her. 
 
 The time, early morning, not much after
 
 PAULINE. 61 
 
 six o'clock ; the place, the Prado at Mar- 
 seilles ; the persons, a few belated blue- 
 bloused workmen hurrying to their work, a 
 few soldiers lounging about as only soldiers 
 always seem to lounge when they are not 
 on duty, a limonadiere with her temple de- 
 posited on the ground by her side, while she 
 washes the sparkling tin cups in a gurgling 
 drinking-fountain ; two or three water-carts 
 pounding along and refreshingly sprinkling 
 the white dusty road, two or three English 
 grooms exercising horses, and she, Pauline 
 Lunelle, dame du comptoir at the Restaurant 
 du Midi, in the Cannebiere, pacing up and 
 down the Prado, and turning over in her 
 mind a proposition on the acceptance or re- 
 jection of which depended her future happi- 
 ness or misery. That proposition was a pro- 
 position of marriage, not by any means the 
 first she had received. The handsome, black- 
 eyed, black -haired, olive - skinned dame du 
 comptoir was one of the reigning belles of the 
 town, and the Restaurant du Midi was such 
 a popular place of resort, that she never
 
 f)2 THE YELLOW ELAG. 
 
 lacked admirers. All the breakfast - eaters, 
 the smokers, the billiard - players, even the 
 decorated old gentlemen who dropped in as 
 regularly as clockwork every evening for a 
 game of dominoes or tric-trac, paid their court 
 to her, and in several cases this court was 
 something more than the mere conventional 
 hat-doffing or the few words of empty polite- 
 ness whispered to her as she attended to the 
 settlement of their accounts. Adolphe de 
 Noailles — only a sous-lieutenant of artillery, 
 to be sure, but a man of good family, and 
 who, it was said, was looked upon with favour 
 by Mademoiselle Krebs, daughter of old Mon- 
 sieur Krebs, the German banker, who was so 
 rich and who gave such splendid parties — had 
 asked Pauline Lunelle to become his wife, 
 had c ah-bah-d' when she talked about the 
 difference in their positions, and had insisted 
 that in appearance and manner she was equal 
 to any lady in the south of France. So had 
 Henrich Wetter, head clerk and cashier in 
 the bank of Monsieur Krebs aforesaid — a tall, 
 fair, lymphatic young man, who, until his
 
 PAULINE. 63 
 
 acquaintance with Pauline, had thought of 
 nothing but Vaterland and the first of ex- 
 change, but who professed himself ready to 
 become naturalised as a Frenchman, and to 
 take up his abode for life in Marseilles, if she 
 would only listen to his suit. So had Frank 
 Jenkins, attached to the British post-office, 
 and in that capacity bringing the Indian mails 
 from London to Marseilles, embarking them 
 on board the Peninsular and Oriental steamer, 
 and waiting the arrival of the return mail 
 which carried them back to England — a big, 
 jolly, massive creature, well known to every- 
 body in the town as Monsieur Jenkins, or the 
 * courrier anglais,' who had a bedroom at the 
 Hotel de Paradis, but who spent the whole 
 of his time at the Restaurant du Midi, drink- 
 ing beer or brandy or absinthe — it was all 
 the same to him — to keep the landlord 
 'square,' as he phrased it, but never taking 
 his eyes off the dame du comptoir, and never 
 losing an opportunity of paying her the most 
 outrageous compliments in the most outrage-
 
 64 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 ous French ever heard even in that city of 
 polyglot speech. 
 
 If Pauline Lunelle had a tenderness for 
 any of them, it .was for the sous - lieutenant ; 
 at the Englishman, and indeed at a great 
 many others — Frenchmen, commis-voyageurs, 
 tradesmen in the city, or clerks in the mer- 
 chants' offices on the Quai — she laughed un- 
 mercifully; not to their faces, indeed — that 
 would have been bad for business, and Pauline 
 throughout her life had the keenest eye to 
 her own benefit. Her worth as a decoy-duck 
 was so fully appreciated by Monsieur Etienne, 
 the proprietor of the restaurant, that she had 
 insisted upon receiving a commission on all 
 moneys paid by those whose visits thither 
 were unquestionably due to her attraction. 
 But when they had retired for the night, the 
 little top bedroom which she occupied in con- 
 junction with Mademoiselle Mathilde would 
 ring with laughter, caused by her repetition 
 of the sweet things which had been said to 
 her during the evening by her admirers, and 
 her imitations of the manner and accents in
 
 PAULINE. 65 
 
 which they had been delivered. So Adolphe 
 de Xoailles had it all his own way, and 
 Pauline had seriously debated within herself 
 whether she should not let him run the risk 
 of offending his family and marrying him out 
 of hand (the disappointment to be occasioned 
 thereby to Mademoiselle Krebs, a haughty 
 and purse-proud young lady, being one of her 
 keenest incentives to the act), when another 
 character appeared upon the scene. 
 
 This was another Englishman, but in 
 every way as different as possible to poor 
 Mr. Jenkins — not merely speaking French 
 like a Parisian, but salting; his conversation 
 with a vast amount of Parisian idiomatic 
 slang, full of fun and wild practical jokes, 
 impervious to ridicule, impossible to be put 
 down, and spending his money in the most 
 lavish and free-handed manner possible. This 
 was Tom Durham, who had suddenly turned 
 up in Marseilles, no one knew why. He had 
 been to Malta, he said, on a 'venture,' and 
 the venture had turned out favourably, and 
 he was going back to England, and had de- 
 
 YOL. I. F 

 
 66 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 terminecl to enjoy himself by the way. He 
 was constantly at the Restaurant du Midi, 
 paid immense attention to the dame du cornp- 
 toir, and she in her turn was fascinated by his 
 good temper, his generous ways, his strange 
 eccentric goings - on. But Tom Durham, 
 laughing, drinking, and spending his money, 
 was the same cool observant creature that he 
 had been ever since he shipped as 'prentice 
 on board the Gloucestershire, when he was 
 fifteen years of age. All the time of his so- 
 journ at the Restaurant du Midi he was care- 
 fully' ' taking stock,' as he called it, of Pauline 
 Lunelle. In his various schemes he had long 
 felt the want of a female accomplice, and he 
 thought he had at last found the person 
 whom he had for some time been seeking. 
 That she was worldly-wise he knew, or she 
 would never have achieved the position which 
 she held in Monsieur Etienne's establishment ; 
 that there was far more in her than she had 
 ever yet given proof of, he believed ; for Mr. 
 Tom Durham was a strong believer in phy- 
 siognomy, and had more than once found the
 
 PAULINE. 67 
 
 study of some use to him. Sipping his le- 
 monade-and-cognac and puffing at his cigar, 
 he sat night after night talking pleasantly 
 with any chance acquaintance, but inwardly 
 studying Pauline Lunelle ; and when his 
 studies were completed, he had made up his 
 mind that he saw in her a wonderful mixture 
 of headstrong passion and calm common sense, 
 unscrupulous, fearless, devoted, and capable 
 of carrying out anything, no matter what, 
 which she had once made up her mind to per- 
 form. 'A tameable tiger, in point of fact,' 
 said Tom Durham to himself as he stepped 
 out into the street and picked his way across 
 the filthy gutters towards his home ; i and if 
 only kept in proper subjection, capable of 
 being made anything of.' He knew there 
 was only one way by which Pauline could be 
 secured, and he made up his mind to propose 
 to her the next night. 
 
 He proposed accordingly ; but Pauline 
 begged for four-and-twenty hours to consider 
 her decision, and in the early morning went 
 out into the Praclo to think it all through,
 
 68 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 and deliberately to weigh the merits of the 
 propositions made respectively by Adolphe 
 de Noailles and Tom Durham; the result 
 being that the sous-lieutenant's hopes were 
 crushed for ever — or for fully a fortnight, 
 when they blossomed in another direction — 
 and that Pauline, dame du comptoir no longer, 
 linked her fate with that of Tom Durham. 
 Thenceforward they were all in all to each 
 other. She had no relatives, nor, as he told 
 her, had he. ' I have not seen Alice for five 
 years,' he said to himself; ' and from what I 
 recollect of her, she was a stuck-up, strait- 
 laced little minx, likely to look down upon 
 my young friend the tiger here, and give 
 herself airs which the tiger certainly would 
 not understand ; so, as they are not likely to 
 come together, it will be better to ignore 
 her existence altogether.' In all his crooked 
 schemes, and they were many and various, 
 Pauline took her share, unflagging, indefatig- 
 able, clear in council, prompt in action, jeal- 
 ous of every word, of every look he gave to 
 any other woman; at the same time the slave
 
 PAULINE. 69 
 
 of his love and the prop and mainstay of his 
 affairs. Tom Durham himself had not that 
 quality which he imputed to his half-sister; 
 he certainly was not strait - laced ; but his 
 escapades, if he had any, were carefully kept 
 in the background, and Pauline, suspicious 
 as she was, had never felt any real ground 
 for jealousy until she had witnessed the scene 
 at parting at the Southampton station. 
 
 The Prado and its associations had faded 
 out of her mind, and she was trying to picture 
 to herself the various chances which could 
 possibly have detained her husband, when a 
 porter halted before her, and civilly touching 
 his cap, asked for what train she was wait- 
 ing. 
 
 ' The train for Weymouth,' she replied. 
 
 c For Weymouth !' echoed the porter ; c the 
 train for Weymouth has just gone.' 
 
 4 Yes, I know that,' said Pauline ; c but I 
 was expecting some one — a gentleman — to 
 meet me. He will probably come in time for 
 the next.' 
 
 ' You will have a longish waiting bout,'
 
 70 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 said the man ; ' next train don't come till two- 
 forty-five, nigh upon three o'clock.' 
 
 'That is long,' said Pauline. ' And the 
 next ?' 
 
 1 Only one more after that,' said the por- 
 ter— 'eight forty — gets into "Weymouth some- 
 where between ten and eleven at night. 
 You'll never think of waiting here, ma'am, for 
 either of them. Better go into the town to 
 one of the hotels, or have a row on the river, 
 or something to pass the time.' 
 
 4 Thank you,' said Pauline, to whom a 
 sudden idea had occurred. ' How far is it 
 from here to — how do you call the place — 
 Hurstcastle ?' 
 
 'To where, ma'am? 0, Hurst Castle. I 
 didn't understand you, you see, at first — you 
 didn't make two words of it. It is Hurst 
 Castle, where the king was kept a prisoner — 
 him as had his head cut off — and where there's 
 a barracks and a telegraph station for the 
 ships now.' 
 
 ' Yes,' she said, c exactly; that's the place. 
 How far is it from here ?'
 
 PAULINE. 71 
 
 'Well, it's about seven mile, take it alto- 
 gether ; but you can't drive all the way. 
 You could have a fly to take you four miles, 
 and he'd bring you to a boat, and he'd take 
 you in and out down a little river through 
 the marshes, until you came to a beach, on 
 the other side of which the castle stands. 
 But, lor' bless me, miss, what's the use o' 
 going at all, there's nothing to see when you 
 get there ?' 
 
 'I wish to go,' said Pauline, smiling. 
 4 You see, I am a foreigner, and I want to see 
 where your British king was kept a prisoner. 
 Can I get a fly here ?' 
 
 The porter said he would find her one at 
 once, and speedily redeemed his promise. 
 
 Through neat villages and wooded lanes 
 Pauline was driven, until she came to a large, 
 bare, open tract of country, on the borders 
 of which the fly stopped, and the flyman de- 
 scending, handed her clown some steps cut 
 in the steep bank, and into an old broad-bot- 
 tomed boat, where a grizzled elderly man, 
 with his son, were busy mending an old duck-
 
 72 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 gun. They looked up with astonishment 
 when the flyman said, 'Lady wants to go 
 down to have a look at the castle, Jack. 
 I'll wait here, ma'am, until they bring you 
 back.' 
 
 They spread an old jacket for her in the 
 stern of the boat, and when she was seated, 
 took to their oars and pulled away with a 
 will. It was a narrow, intricate, winding 
 course, a mere thread of shallow sluggish 
 water, twisting in and out among the great 
 gray marshes fringed with tall flapping weeds ; 
 and Pauline, already over- excited and over- 
 wrought, was horribly depressed by the 
 scene. 
 
 ' Are you always plying in this boat ?' she 
 asked the old man. 
 
 ' Most days, ma'am, in case we should be 
 wanted up at the steps there,' he replied; 'but 
 night's our best time, we reckon.' 
 
 ' Night !' she echoed. ' Surely there are 
 no passengers at night-time ?' 
 
 ' No, ma'am, not passengers, but officers 
 and sportsmen: gentlemen coming out gun-
 
 PAULINE. 73 
 
 ning after the ducks and the wild-fowl,' he 
 added, seeing she looked puzzled, and point- 
 ing to a flock of birds feeding at some distance 
 from them. 
 
 4 And are you out every night?' she asked 
 eagerly. 
 
 1 Well, not every, but most nights, ma'am.' 
 
 ' Last night, for example ?' 
 
 ' Yes, miss, we was out, me and Harry 
 here, not with any customers, but by our- 
 selves; a main dark night it was too; but we 
 hadn't bad sport, considering. ' 
 
 4 Did you — did you meet any one else be- 
 tween this and Hurst Castle?' 
 
 ' Well, no, ma'am,' said the old man with 
 a low chuckle. 'It ain't a place where one 
 meets many people, I reckon. Besides the 
 ducks, a heron or two was about the strangest 
 visitors we saw last night. Now, miss, here 
 we are at the beach ; you go straight up there, 
 and you'll find the castle just the other side. 
 When you come back, please shape your 
 course for that black stump you see sticking 
 up there ; tide's falling, and we shan't be able
 
 74 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 to bide where we are now, but we will meet 
 you there.' 
 
 Lightly touching the old man's arm, Paul- 
 ine jumped from the boat, and rapidly ascend- 
 ing the sloping head, found herself, on gaining 
 the top, close by a one-storied, whitewashed 
 cottage, in a little bit of reclaimed land, half 
 garden, half yard, in which was a man in his 
 shirt-sleeves washing vegetables, with a big 
 black retriever dog lying at his feet. Accost- 
 ing him, Pauline learned that the house was 
 the telegraph station, whence the names of the 
 outgoing and incoming ships are telegraphed 
 to Lloyd's for the information of their owners. 
 In the course of farther conversation the man 
 said that the Masilia had anchored there dur- 
 ing the night, had got her steam up and was 
 off by daybreak ; he took watch and watch 
 with his comrade, and he turned out just in 
 time to see her start. 
 
 Pauline thanked him and returned to the 
 boat; but she did not speak to the old man 
 on her return passage ; and when^she reached 
 the fly which was waiting for her, she threw
 
 PAULINE. 75 
 
 herself into a corner and remained buried in 
 thought until she was deposited at the sta- 
 tion. 
 
 A few minutes after, the train bound for 
 Weymouth arrived. Through confusion simi- 
 lar to that of the morning she hurried along, 
 criticising the passengers on the platform and 
 in the carriages, and with the same vain re- 
 sult. The train proceeded on its way, and 
 Pauline walked towards the hotel with the 
 intention of getting some refreshment, which 
 she needed. Suddenly she paused, reeled, 
 and would have fallen, had she not leant 
 against a wall for support. A thought like 
 an arrow had passed through her brain — a 
 thought which found its utterance in these 
 words : 
 
 ' It is a trick, a vile trick from first to last ! 
 He has deceived me — he never intended to 
 meet me, to take me to Weymouth or to 
 Guernsey ! It was merely a trick to keep me 
 occupied and to put me off while he rejoined 
 that woman!'
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A LITTLE PAKADISE. 
 
 The place which Alice Claxton called her 
 home, of which she was sole mistress, and 
 which she dearly loved, was situate at Hen- 
 don. An old-fashioned, dreamy, by-gone 
 kind of village, which, in these latter days, 
 the Midland Railway has discovered to be 
 a metropolitan suburb, and, as such, has 
 brought it into vogue. Until within a very 
 few years, however, it was one of -the quiet- 
 est places in England, visited occasionally 
 in the summer by a few people from town, 
 who found that Hampstead had been already 
 almost swallowed up in bricks and mortar, 
 and who extended their outing to get a little 
 fresher air, and to enjoy the lovely view 
 from Hendon Church. But its inhabitants 
 generally were nothing-doing sort of people,
 
 A LITTLE PARADISE. 77 
 
 bred and born in the parish, who preferred 
 vegetating on an income which enabled them 
 to keep a pony-chaise, and gave them perpetual 
 leisure for pottering in their gardens, rather 
 than adventuring their little capital in specu- 
 lations which might be disastrous, and which 
 undoubtedly would be questionable. 
 
 The house where Alice Claxton lived was 
 on the right-hand side of the way as you turn 
 from the little main street of the village to- 
 wards the church. There is no use in looking 
 for it now ; it has been pulled down, and on 
 its site have been erected two brand-new stucco 
 villas, with plate-glass windows and brass 
 door-knockers, high flights of door- steps with 
 a stone pine-apple on either side, and long 
 strips of garden before and behind, which the 
 landscape-gardener's art has decorated with 
 beds in the shape of pears, and hearts, and 
 crosses, and various other elegant and appro- 
 priate designs. But in Alice's days it was a 
 long, low-roofed, one-storied house, built of 
 bricks of a comfortable warm ruddiness, with- 
 out being glaringly red, and covered all over
 
 78 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 with a splendid Virginia creeper, which at 
 this autumnal time was just assuming its 
 loveliest hue. The rooms on the ground-floor 
 were large, with rather low ceilings, and open- 
 ing with French windows on a little paved 
 terrace verandah-covered. It had been John 
 Claxton's delight to suit the fittings and the 
 furniture to the place for which they were 
 destined. No modern stoves were to be found 
 throughout it, but open fire-places inlaid with 
 tiles, and iron dogs ; the high-backed chairs, 
 the broad table, and the heavy sideboard of 
 the dining-room, were all in antique black 
 oak; but in the drawing-room he had endea- 
 voured to consult what he conjectured to be 
 his wife's fancy, and the Yenetian mirrors on 
 the walls reflected the sheen of green silk and 
 gold, with which the low quaint chairs and sofa 
 and ottoman were covered, and produced end- 
 less repetitions of numerous tasteful speci- 
 mens of glass and china with which the various 
 etageres and whatnots were liberally covered. 
 Alice, who before her marriage had been go- 
 verness to the children of a Quaker wine-mer.
 
 A LITTLE PARADISE. 79 
 
 chant in York, whose drab furniture had 
 done good service during three generations, 
 clapped her hands in childish delight at the 
 first glimpse of her new home, and immediately 
 afterwards turning round, reproved her hus- 
 band for his extravagance. But John Claxton, 
 catching her in his arms, declared that it was 
 only a little nest just fitted for his bright, 
 shining, sweet little bird, and he earnestly 
 prayed that she might be happy in it. 
 
 And she was happy; so happy that she 
 sometimes felt her happiness was too great to 
 be lasting, and that some reverse of fortune 
 must be in store for her. But these flights 
 of depression only happened when John was 
 away on his business tours, and then only 
 during the first half of his absence, for during 
 the second she was busy in contemplating his 
 return, and in devising all kinds of little ex- 
 pedients to show how welcome he was. See 
 her now on this bright October evening, so 
 neatly and becomingly dressed in her tightly- 
 fitting mouse-coloured velveteen gown, fas- 
 tened round the waist by a narrow black-
 
 80 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 leather belt and buckle, with a linen collar 
 round her pretty throat, and linen cuffs show- 
 ing off her small white hands. She had filled 
 every available ornament with the remnants 
 of the summer garden produce, the last of the 
 monthly roses, and the scarlet geraniums and 
 calceolarias, and the earliest of the autumnal 
 crop of dahlias, china-asters, and chrysanthe- 
 mums. The air was chill without, but within 
 the light from the wood logs flickered brightly 
 on the plate and glass set on the snowy table- 
 cloth, in anticipation of dinner, and the odour 
 of the burning beech -wood was home-like 
 and comforting. After giving a finishing touch 
 to her flowers in the drawing-room, and again 
 peeping into the dining-room to see that all 
 was right and ready, Alice would open the 
 glazed door and peer out into the darkness, 
 would bend her head in eager listening for the 
 sound of wheels entering the carriage-drive. 
 After two or three experiments her patience 
 was rewarded. First she heard the clanging 
 of the closing gate, then the sound of the
 
 A LITTLE PARADISE. 81 
 
 rapidly approaching carriage, and the next 
 minute she was in her husband's arms. 
 
 1 Now come in, John, at once, out of that 
 bitter wind,' she cried, as soon as she was re- 
 leased, which was not for a minute or two ; c it 
 is enough to cut you in two. It has been 
 sighing and moaning round the house all day, 
 and I am sure I was thankful that you were 
 coming home and hadn't to go any sea- voyages 
 or other dreadful things.' 
 
 4 Thank you, my darling, I am all right, I 
 shall do very well now,' said John Claxton, in 
 a chirping, cheery voice. 
 
 Why had Tom Durham called him old? 
 There was a round bald place on the crown of 
 his head to be sure, and such of his hair as re- 
 mained and his whiskers were streaked with 
 gray; the lines round his eyes and mouth 
 were somewhat deeply graven, and the brow 
 was heavy and thoughtful, but his bright blue 
 eyes were full of life and merriment, the tones 
 of his voice were blithe and musical, his slight 
 wiry figure, though a very little bowed and 
 stooping, was as iron in its hardness; and 
 
 vol. i. G
 
 82 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 when away from business he was as full of 
 animal spirits and fun as any boy. 
 
 4 1 am all right, my darling,' he repeated, 
 as, after taking off his hat and coat, he went 
 with her into the dining-room ; ' though I 
 know it is by no means prudent to stand in 
 draughts, especially for people of my age.' 
 
 'Now, John,' cried Alice, with uplifted 
 forefinger, l are you going to begin that non- 
 sense directly you come into the house ? You 
 know how often I have told you that subject 
 is tabooed, and yet you have scarcely opened 
 your lips before you mention it.' 
 
 c Well, my dear,' said John Claxton, pass- 
 ing his arm round her and drawing her closely 
 to him, 'you know I have an age as well as 
 other people, and a good deal more than a 
 great many, I am sorry to say ; talking of it 
 won't make it any worse, you know, Alley; 
 though you may argue that it won't make it 
 any better.' 
 
 4 Silence !' she cried, stopping his speech 
 by placing her hand upon his mouth. c I 
 don ? t care whether it makes it better or worse,
 
 A LITTLE PARADISE. 83 
 
 or whether it doesn't make it anything at all; 
 I only know I won't have it mentioned here. 
 Your age, indeed ! "What on earth should I 
 do with you if you were a dandy in a short 
 jacket, with a little cane; or a great hulking 
 fellow in a tawny beard, such as one reads 
 of in the novels?' 
 
 ' I have not the least idea, Alley ; but I 
 daresay you would manage to spare some of 
 your sweet love and kindness for me if I were 
 either of the specimens you have mentioned. 
 As I am neither, perhaps you will allow me to 
 change my coat and wash my hands before 
 dinner.' 
 
 4 That you shall do. You will find every- 
 thing ready for you ; and as you have had a 
 long journey, and it is the first time of your 
 return, I insist on your availing yourself of 
 the privilege which I gave you on such occa- 
 sions, and on your coming down in your shoot- 
 ing-coat and slippers, and making yourself 
 comfortable, John dear; and don't be long, 
 for we have your favourite dinner.' 
 
 When Mr. Claxton appeared in the dining-
 
 84 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 room, having changed his coat for a velvet 
 shooting-jacket, and his boots for a pair of 
 embroidered slippers, his wife's handiwork; 
 having washed his hands and brushed-up his 
 hair, and given himself quite a festive appear- 
 ance, he found the soup already on the table. 
 
 4 You are late, as usual, John,' cried Alice, 
 as he seated himself. 
 
 1 I went to speak to Bell, dear,' replied 
 John Claxton ; 'but nurse motioned to me 
 that she was asleep; so I crept up as lightly 
 as I could to her little bedside, and bent down 
 and kissed her cheek. She is quite well, I 
 hope, dear, but her face looked a little flushed 
 and feverish.' 
 
 c There is nothing the matter with her, 
 dear, beyond a little over -excitement and 
 fatigue. She has been with me all day, in the 
 greatest state of delight at the prospect of 
 your return, helping me to cut and arrange 
 the flowers, to get out the wine, and go through 
 all the little household duties. I promised 
 her she should sit up to see her papa; but little 
 fairies of three or four years of age have not
 
 A LITTLE PARADISE. 85 
 
 much stamina, and long before the time of 
 your return she was dropping with sleep.' 
 
 1 Poor little pet ! Sleep is more beneficial 
 to her than the sight of me would have been, 
 though I have not forgotten to bring the doll 
 and the chocolate creams I promised her. 
 However, the presentation of those will do 
 well enough to-morrow.' 
 
 The dinner was good, cosey, and delight- 
 ful. They did not keep the servant in the 
 room to wait upon them, but helped them- 
 selves and each other. When the cloth was 
 removed, Alice drew her chair close to her 
 husband, and according to regular prac- 
 tice poured out for him his first glass of 
 wine. 
 
 ' Your own particular Madeira, John,' she 
 said ; ' the wine that your old friend Mr. Cal- 
 verley sent you when we were first married. 
 By the way, John, I have often wanted to ask 
 you what you drink at the hotels and the hor- 
 rible places you go to when you are away — 
 not Madeira, I am certain.' 
 
 'No, dear, not Madeira,' said John Clax-
 
 86 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 ton, fondly patting her cheek ; i wine, beer, 
 grog — different things at different times.' 
 
 ' Yes, but you never get anything so good 
 as this, Confess that?' 
 
 'Nothing that I enjoy so much, certainly; 
 whether it is the wine, or the company in which 
 the wine is drunk, I leave you to guess.' 
 
 1 0, it is the wine, I am sure ! there is no 
 such other wine in the world, unless Mr. Cal- 
 verley has some himself. There now, talking 
 of Mr. Calverley reminds me that you never 
 have asked about Tom — about Tom, John — 
 are you attending to what I say ?' 
 
 4 1 beg your pardon, dear,' said John Clax- 
 ton, looking upward with rather a flushed 
 face, and emptying his glass at a draught. 1 1 
 confess my thoughts were wandering towards 
 a little matter of business which had just 
 flashed across me.' 
 
 c You must put aside all business when 
 you come here ; that was a rule which I laid 
 down at first, and I insist on its bein^ ad- 
 hered to. I was telling you about Tom, my 
 brother, you know.'
 
 A LITTLE PARADISE. 87 
 
 ' Yes, clear, yes, I know — you went to 
 Southampton to see him off.' 
 
 'Yes, John ; that is to say, I went to 
 Southampton and I saw him there, but I did 
 not actually see him off — that is, see him sail, 
 you know.' 
 
 4 Why, Alice, you went to Southampton 
 for the express purpose !' 
 
 'Yes, John, I know ; but, you see, the 
 trains did not suit, and Tom thought I had 
 better not wait; so I left him just an hour or 
 two before the steamer started.' 
 
 1 I suppose he did go,' said John Claxton 
 anxiously ; ' there is no doubt about that, I 
 hope ?' 
 
 ' Not the least in the world, not the small- 
 est doubt. To tell you the truth, John, I was 
 rather anxious about it myself, knowing that 
 Tom had the two thousand pounds which you 
 sent him by me, you dear, kind, good fellow, 
 and that he is — well, perhaps not quite so re- 
 liable as he might be — but I looked in the 
 newspaper the next day, and saw his name as
 
 88 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 agent to Calverley and Company among the 
 list of outgoing passengers.' 
 
 'Did he seem tolerably contented, Alice?' 
 1 0, yes, John ; he went away in great 
 spirits. I am in hopes that he will settle down 
 now, and become a steady and respectable 
 member of society. He has plenty of talent, 
 I think, John, don't you V 
 
 ' Your brother has plenty of sharp, shrewd 
 insight into character, and knowledge of the 
 wickedness of the world, Alice,' said Mr. 
 Claxton somewhat bitterly; 'these are not 
 bad as stock-in-trade for a man of his na- 
 ture, and I have no doubt they will serve his 
 turn.' 
 
 ' Why, John,' said Alice, with head up- 
 turned to look at him more closely, 'how 
 cynically you are speaking! Are you not 
 well, dear?' 
 
 \ Quite well, Alice. Why do you ask?' 
 
 'Your face is rather flushed, dear, and 
 
 there is a strange look in your eyes, such as I 
 
 have never noticed before. 0, John! I am 
 
 certain you work too hard, and all this travel-
 
 A LITTLE PAKADISE. 89 
 
 ling is too much for you. When will you give 
 it up?' 
 
 c When I see my way to settling down 
 here in peace and comfort with you, my dar- 
 ling, and little Bell. Depend upon it, when 
 that opportunity comes I shall grasp it eagerly 
 enough.' 
 
 1 And when will it come, John ?' 
 c That, my child, it is impossible to say ; 
 it may come sooner than we expect; I hope 
 it will, I'm sure. It is the one thing now, at 
 the close of my life, left me to look forward to.' 
 c Don't talk about the close of your life in 
 that wicked way, John. I am sure if you only 
 take care of yourself when you are away on 
 those journeys, and mind that your bed is 
 always aired, and see that you have proper 
 food, there is no question about the close of 
 your life until you have seen little Bell grown 
 up into a marriageable young woman.' 
 
 ' Poor little Bell,' said John Claxton, with 
 a grave smile ; c dear little Bell. I don't think 
 we did wrongly, Alice, in adopting this little 
 fatherless, motherless waif?'
 
 90 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 4 Wrong, indeed ! I should think not,' said 
 Alice quickly. ' Even from a selfish point of 
 view it was one of the best things we ever did 
 in our lives. See what a companion she is to 
 me while you are away; see how the time 
 which I have to spare after attending to the 
 house, and my garden, and my reading, and 
 my music, and all those things which you in- 
 sist upon my doing, John, and which I really 
 go through conscientiously every day ; see 
 how the spare time, which might be dull, is 
 filled up in dressing her, and teaching her, 
 and listening to her sweet little prattle. Do 
 you think we shall ever find out whose child 
 she was, John?' 
 
 1 No, dear, I should say not. You have 
 the clothes which she had on, and the little 
 gold cross that was found round the mother's 
 neck after her death; it is as well to keep 
 them in case any search should be made after 
 the child, though the probability of that is 
 very remote.' 
 
 'We should not give Bell up, whatever 
 search might be made, should we, John ?' said
 
 A LITTLE PARADISE. 91 
 
 Alice quickly. The poor mother is dead, and 
 the search could only originate with the fa- 
 ther, and it is not likely that after leaving the 
 mother of his child to die in a workhouse bed, 
 he will have any long-deferred stings of con- 
 science to make him inquire as to what has 
 become of her offspring. 0, John, when I 
 think of the wickedness that goes on in the 
 world, through men, John, through men 
 alone — for women are but what men choose 
 to make them — I am so thankful that it was 
 given to me to win the honest, noble love of 
 an honourable man, and to be removed in 
 good time from the temptations assailing a 
 girl in the position which I occupied. Now, 
 John, no more wine !' 
 
 c Yes,' he cried, c give it to me quickly, 
 full, full to the brim, Alice. There !' he said, 
 as he drained it; 'I am better now ; I wanted 
 some extra stimulant to-night ; I suppose I 
 am knocked-up by my journey.' 
 
 'Your face was as pale then as it was 
 flushed before, John. I shall take upon my- 
 self to nurse you ; and you shall not leave
 
 92 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 home again until you are quite recovered, 
 whatever Mr. Calverley may say. You should 
 have him here, some day, John, and let me 
 talk to him. I warrant I would soon bring 
 him round to my way of thinking.' 
 
 c Your ways are sufficiently coaxing to do 
 that with anybody, Alice/ said John Claxton, 
 with a faint smile ; ' but never mind Mr. Cal- 
 verley just now; what were we saying before?' 
 
 4 1 was saying how pleased I was to be re- 
 moved from the temptations to which a girl 
 in the position which I held is always ex- 
 posed.' 
 
 4 No,' said Claxton, 4 I don't mean that — 
 before.' 
 
 4 Yes, yes,' said Alice, 4 I insist upon talk- 
 ing about these old times, John; you never 
 will, and I have no one else who knows any- 
 thing about them, or can discuss them with 
 me. Now, do you recollect,' she continued, 
 nestling closer to him, 4 the first time you saw 
 me?' 
 
 4 Recollect it ! As you were then, I can 
 see you now. 7
 
 A LITTLE PARADISE. 93 
 
 1 And so can I you ; you are not altered an 
 atom. You were standing at a bookstall in 
 Low Ousegate, just beyond the bridge, look- 
 ing into a book ; and as I passed by with the 
 two little Prestons you raised your eyes from 
 the book, and stared at me so hard, and yet 
 so gravely, that I — ' 
 
 1 That you were quite delighted,' said John 
 Claxton, putting his arm round her ; ' you 
 know that ; so don't attempt a bashfulness 
 which is foreign to your nature, but confess 
 at once.' 
 
 4 I decline to confess any such thing,' said 
 Alice. i Of course I was in the habit of being 
 stared at by the officers and the young men 
 of the town. Come now, there is the return 
 blow for your impertinent hit just now ; but 
 one scarcely expects to create an impression 
 on people whom one finds glozing over book- 
 stalls.' 
 
 'Elderly people, you should have said, 
 Alice.' 
 
 'Elderly people, I will say, John, if it 
 pleases you. Much less does one expect to
 
 94 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 see them lay down the book, and come sailing 
 up the street after one in direct pursuit.' 
 
 f O, you saw that, did you, miss? You 
 never told me that before.' 
 
 c Saw it, of course I saw it ; what woman 
 ever misses anything of that kind ? At a 
 distance you tracked me straight to Mr. Pres- 
 ton's door; saw me and my little charges 
 safely inside ; and then turned on your heel 
 and walked away.' 
 
 'While you went up to your room and 
 sat down before your glass, admiring your 
 own charms, and thinking of the dashing 
 young cavalier whose attention you had just 
 attracted. Was that it?' said John. 
 
 i Nothing of the sort ; though I don't mind 
 confessing that I did wonder whether I should 
 ever see you again. And then, two days 
 after, when Mrs. Preston told me to take the 
 little girls into the drawing - room in the 
 evening, and to be sure that they practised 
 thoroughly some piece which they would be 
 called upon to play, as there was a gentle- 
 man coming to dinner who doated on little
 
 A LITTLE PARADISE. 95 
 
 children, how could I have the slightest idea 
 that this benevolent Mr. Claxton was to be 
 my friend of the Low Ousegate bookstall ? 
 And yet you scarcely spoke to me once dur- 
 ing that evening, I remember.' 
 
 ' That was my diplomacy, my child ; but 
 I paid great attention to Mrs. Preston, and 
 was very favourably received by her.' 
 
 1 Yes; I heard Mr. Preston say to Mr. 
 Arthur, as they stood behind the piano, " He's 
 of the house of Calverley and Company of 
 Mincing-lane. Thee hast heard of it? Its 
 transactions are enormous." ' 
 
 1 And I won Mr. Preston's heart by a good 
 order for wine,' said John Claxton ; ' and 
 then I threw off all disguise, and I am afraid 
 made it clear that I had only made his ac- 
 quaintance for the sake of paying court to his 
 governess.' 
 
 'You need have very little delicacy in 
 that matter, John,' said Alice. ; Xeither Mr. 
 nor Mrs. Preston had the slightest interest in 
 me, and when I left they cared not what be- 
 came of me. I suited them as a governess,
 
 96 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 and they were angry when I first told them 
 I was going away ; but when they saw that 
 I had fully made up my mind, their sole 
 thought was how best to supply my place. 
 As to what became of me, that was no con- 
 cern of theirs.' 
 
 'No,' said John Claxton, whose colour 
 had returned, and who seemed to have re- 
 gained his ordinary composure, 'no concern 
 perhaps of either Mr. or Mrs. Preston; but 
 what about the young gentleman you men- 
 tioned just now, Alice — Mr. Preston's nephew, 
 Mr. Arthur, as he was called? Your deci- 
 sion as to the future course of life you in- 
 tended to adopt was not quite so immaterial 
 to him, was it, child?' 
 
 'What do you mean, John?' said Alice, 
 looking down, as the blood began to mount 
 into her cheeks. 
 
 'You know well enough what I mean, 
 child — exactly what I say. Mr. Arthur Pres- 
 ton took great interest in you — was in love 
 with you, in point of fact. Is not that so ?' 
 
 ' He said so, John ; but his actions belied
 
 A LITTLE PARADISE. 97 
 
 his words. No man who had any real honest 
 l ove __ na y 7 more, I will go farther, and say re- 
 spect, for a girl — could have spoken or acted 
 towards rne as he did.' 
 
 4 Why, Alice/ said John Claxton, looking 
 with surprise at her flushed cheeks, 'you never 
 told me anything of this before. Why have 
 you kept it secret from me?' 
 
 4 Because I know, John,' said Alice, laying 
 her hand upon his shoulder, 'that, however 
 outwardly calm and quiet you may appear to 
 be, however sensible and practical you are in 
 most matters, you have a temper which, when 
 anything touching my honour or my dignity 
 is involved, is quite beyond your control. I 
 have seen its effects before, John, and I dreaded 
 any repetition of them.' 
 
 ' Then why do you tell me now?' 
 
 £ Because we are far away from York, John, 
 and from Arthur Preston and his friends, 
 and there is no likelihood of our seeing any 
 of them again; ao that I know your temper 
 can be trusted safely now, John ; for, however 
 
 vol. i. H
 
 08 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 much it may desire to break out, it will find 
 no object on which to vent itself.' 
 
 'This conversation and conduct, then, of 
 Mr. Arthur Preston were matters, I am to un- 
 derstand, in which your honour and dignity 
 were involved, Alice?' 
 
 ' To a certain extent, John, yes,' faltered 
 Alice. 
 
 4 1 should like to know what thev were,' 
 said John Claxton. 1 1 put no compulsion on 
 you to tell me. I have never asked you since 
 our marriage to tell me anything of your pre- 
 vious life ; but I confess I should like to know 
 about this/ 
 
 c I will tell you, John,' said Alice ; ' I al- 
 ways intended to do so. It is the only thing 
 I have kept back from you; and often and 
 often, while you have been away, have I 
 thought, if anything happened to you or to 
 me — if either of us were to die, I mean, John 
 — how grieved I should be that I had not 
 told you of this matter. Arthur Preston 
 pretended he loved me; but he could not 
 have done so really. No man who is wicked
 
 A LITTLE PARADISE. 99 
 
 and base can know what real love is, John ; 
 and Arthur Preston was both. Some little 
 time before I knew you, he made love to me 
 — fierce, violent love. I had not seen you 
 then, John ; I had scarcely seen any one. I 
 was an unsophisticated country girl, and I 
 judged of the reality of his love by the 
 warmth of his professions, and told him I 
 would marry him. I shall never forget that 
 scene. It was one summer's evening, on 
 the river bank just abreast of Bishopthorpe. 
 When I mentioned marriage he almost laughed, 
 and then he told me, in a cynical sneering 
 way, that he never intended to be married 
 unless he could find some one with a large 
 fortune, or with peculiar means of extending 
 his uncle's business when he inherited it; but 
 that meanwhile he would give me the pret- 
 tiest house within twenty miles. I need not 
 go on. He would not make me his wife, but 
 he offered to make me his mistress. Was it 
 not unmanly in him, John ? Was it not base 
 and cowardly?' 
 
 She stopped and looked at her husband.
 
 100 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 But John Claxton, whose face had become 
 pale again, his chin resting on his hand, and 
 his eyes glaring into the fire, made her no 
 reply.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A SAFE INVESTMENT. 
 
 1 The second-floor front have come in, Ben/ 
 said Mrs. Mogg, of 19a Poland- street, as she 
 opened the door to her husband on a wet and 
 windy autumnal evening; 'she have come 
 and brought her luggage — a green carpet-bag 
 with a poll-parrot worked on it, and a foreign- 
 looking bandbox tied up in a handkerchief. 
 She's French, Ben, that's what she is.' 
 
 'Is she?' said Mr. Mogg shortly. 'Well, 
 I'm hungry, that's what I am; so get me my 
 
 tea.' 
 
 He had had a long and dirty walk home 
 from the "West -India Docks, where he was 
 employed as a warehouseman, and chattering 
 in a windy passage about his wife's lodger 
 scarcely seemed to him the most desirable 
 way of employing his first moments at home.
 
 102 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 But after dispatching two large breakfast- 
 cups of tea, and several rounds of hot salt- 
 buttered toast, from which the crust had been 
 carefully cut away, Mr. Mogg was somewhat 
 mollified, and wiping his mouth and fingers 
 on the dirty tablecloth, felt himself in cue to 
 resume the conversation. 
 
 1 0, the new second-floor has come, Martha, 
 has she?' he commenced; i and she's French, 
 you think. Well,' continued Mr. Mogg, who 
 was naturally rather slow in bringing his 
 ideas into focus, ' Dickson may or may not be 
 a French name. That it's an English one, 
 we all know ; but that's no reason that it 
 should not be a French one too, there being, 
 as is well known, several words which are the 
 same in both languages.' 
 
 1 She wrote down " P. Dickson" when she 
 came to take the rooms this morning, and 
 I see P. D. worked on her purse when she 
 took it out to pay the first week's rent in 
 advance,' said Mrs. Mogg. 
 
 c Then it's clear enough her name is Dick- 
 son,' said Mr. Mogg, with a singular facility
 
 A SAFE INVESTMENT. 103 
 
 of reasoning. ' What should you say she was, 
 now, Martha — you're good at reckoning 'em 
 up, you are — what is the second-floor front, 
 should you say?' 
 
 1 Either a gov'ness or a lady's-maid out of 
 place,' said Mrs. Mogg decisively. ' I thought 
 she was a gov'ness until I see the sovereigns 
 in her purse, and then made up my mind 
 she was a lady's-maid as had given up her 
 place either through a death, or the family 
 going abroad or giving up housekeeping; and 
 these were the sovereigns which she had just 
 got from the wardrobe- shop for the perqui- 
 sites and etceteras which she had brought 
 away with her.' 
 
 'You're a clear-headed one, you are/ 
 said Mr. Mogg, looking at his wife with 
 great delight, 'Has she had anything to 
 eat ?' 
 
 '0 yes,' said Mrs. Mogg, giggling with 
 some asperity ; ' she brought a lettice in 
 with her, I suppose ; for when I went up to 
 ask her whether I should get -in any little 
 trifle for breakfast, I found her eating of it,
 
 104 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 and dropping some lumps of sugar into a 
 tumbler of water.' 
 
 'Well, that's beastly/ said Mr. Mogg. 
 ' These foreigners are disgusting in their ways, 
 one always heard ; but how did you make her 
 understand you about breakfast?' 
 
 ■ Lor' bless yer, man, she speaks English 
 first-rate — so well, that when I first see her, 
 I thought she was a countrywoman of mine 
 from Norfolk.' 
 
 c Well, so long as she pays regularly, and 
 don't stop out late at night, it don't matter to 
 us where she comes from,' said Mr. Mogg, 
 stretching out his arms and indulging in a 
 hearty yawn. 'Now, Martha, get me my 
 pipe ; and when you have cleared thes2 things 
 away, come and sit down, and let's have a 
 quiet talk about how we are to get rid of the 
 German teacher in the back attic' 
 
 The newly-arrived tenant of the second 
 floor, whom these worthies in the kitchen 
 were thus discussing, was walking up and 
 down her room in much the same manner as 
 she had paced the platform at Lymington or
 
 A SAFE INVESTMENT. 105 
 
 the Prado at Marseilles. It was very lucky 
 that the occupant of the drawing-room — a 
 gentleman who taught noblemen and senators 
 the art of declamation — had not on that even- 
 ing one of his usual classes, in which budding 
 orators were accustomed to deliver Mark An- 
 tony's speech over the sofa-pillow transformed 
 for the nonce into the dead body of Csesar, 
 and where, to encourage his pupils, the pro- 
 fessor would set forth that his name was Nor- 
 val, and proceed to bewail the bucolic dis- 
 position of his parent, or the grinding sound 
 of the heels above would have sadly interfered 
 with the lesson. It was well that Pauline 
 was not interrupted; for the demon of rage 
 and jealousy was at work within her. The 
 burning shame consequent on the belief that 
 she had been deceived and made a fool of, 
 nearly maddened her ; and as every phase of 
 the deceit to which she now imagined she had 
 fallen so ready a victim rose before her mind, 
 she clasped her arms above her head and 
 groaned aloud. 
 
 4 To think,' she cried, 'that I, who had
 
 106 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 known him so long and so intimately — I, who 
 had been his companion in his plottings and 
 intrigues, who had sat by, night after night 
 and day after day, watching the patience and 
 skill with which he prepared the pitfalls for 
 others, — that I should be so blind, so weak, so 
 besotted, as to fall into them myself! Lies 
 from the first, and lie upon lie ! A lie to the 
 man Calverley, whose agent he pretended he 
 would be ; a lie to the old man Claxton, who 
 obtained the place for him, and sent him the 
 money by the pale-faced woman ; then a lie 
 to me, — a cleverer kind of lie, a lie involving 
 some tracasserie, for I am not one to be de- 
 ceived in the ordinary manner. To me he 
 admitted he intended playing false with the 
 others; and now I am reckoned among those 
 whom he has hoodwinked and befooled ! 
 
 'The notion that came across me at that 
 place ! It must be true ! He never meant to 
 come there; he sent me on a fool's errand, 
 and he would never be within miles of the 
 spot. The whole thing was a trick, a well- 
 planned trick, from the first; well -planned,
 
 A SAFE INVESTMENT. 107 
 
 and so plausible too! The flight to Wey- 
 mouth, then to Guernsey ; hours of departure 
 of trains and steamer all noted and arranged. 
 What a cunning rogue ! What a long-headed 
 plausible rascal! And the money, the two 
 thousand pounds — many would be deceived 
 by that. He thought I would argue that if 
 he had intended to leave me, he never would 
 have handed over to me those bank-notes. 
 
 ' But I know him better. He is a vaurien, 
 swindler, liar; but though I suppose he never 
 loved me in the way that other people un- 
 derstand love, I have been useful to him, 
 and he has become used to me ; so used, that 
 he cannot bear to think of me in misery or 
 want. So he gave me the money to set his 
 mind at ease, that my reproachful figure 
 should not rise between him and his new- 
 found happiness. Does he think that money 
 can compensate me for the mental agony that 
 I shall suffer always, that I suffer now? Does 
 he think that it will salve my wounded pride, 
 that it will do away with the misery and de- 
 gradation I feel? And having been cheated
 
 108 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 by a shallow artifice, will money deprive me 
 of my memory, and stop the current of my 
 thoughts? Because I shall not starve, can 
 money bereave me of my fancies, or keep 
 away mental pictures it will drive me mad 
 to contemplate? I can see them all now; can 
 see him with her ; can hear the very phrases 
 he will use, and can imagine his manner 
 when he talks of love to her. How short a 
 time it seems since I listened to those burn- 
 ing words from the same lips ! How well I 
 remember each incident in the happy journey 
 from Marseilles, the pleasant days at Genoa, 
 the long stay at Florence! Where has he 
 gone now, I wonder? To what haunt of 
 luxury and ease has he taken his new toy? 
 Fool that I am to remain here dreaming and 
 speculating, when I want to know, when I 
 must know ! I must and will find out where 
 they are ; and then quickness, energy, perse- 
 verance — he has praised them more than once 
 when they served him — shall be brought into 
 play to work his ruin.' 
 
 At this point in her train of thought
 
 A SAFE INVESTMENT. 109 
 
 Pauline was interrupted by a knock at the 
 door of her room. Starting at the sound, she 
 raised her head and listened eagerly; but 
 whatever fancy she may have indulged in as 
 to the idea as to who might be her visitor, was 
 speedily dispelled by hearing the short sniff 
 and the apologetic cough with which Mrs. 
 Mogg was wont to herald her arrival; and 
 being bade to come in, that worthy woman 
 made her appearance, smiling graciously. It 
 was Mrs. Mogg's habit to fill up such leisure 
 as her own normal labour and active super- 
 intendence of the one domestic slave of the 
 household, known as 'Melia,' permitted her, 
 in paying complimentary calls upon her vari- 
 ous lodgers, apparently with the view of look- 
 ing after their comforts and tendering her 
 services, but really with the intention of 
 what she called 'taking stock' of their cir- 
 cumstances, and making herself acquainted 
 with any peculiarities likely, in her idea, to 
 affect the question of her rent. Having thor- 
 oughly discussed with her husband the possi- 
 bility of getting rid of the German teacher, and
 
 110 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 it being pleasantly arranged between them 
 that the unfortunate linguist was to be de- 
 coyed into the street at as early a period as 
 possible on the ensuing morning, and then 
 and there locked out, his one miserable little 
 portmanteau being detained as a hostage, 
 Mrs. Mogg was in excellent spirits, and de- 
 termined to make herself agreeable to her 
 new lodger. 
 
 4 Good evening, ma'am,' she commenced; 
 4 time being getting late, and this being your 
 first night under our humble roof, I took the 
 liberty of looking in to see if things was com- 
 fortable, or there was anything in the way of a 
 Child's night-light or that, you might require.' 
 
 Almost wearied out with the weight of the 
 wretched thoughts over which, for the last 
 forty -eight hours, she had been brooding, 
 Pauline felt the relief even of this interrup- 
 tion, and answered graciously and with as 
 much cheerfulness as she could assume. c The 
 room was comfortable,' she said, 'and there 
 was nothing she required ; but would not ma- 
 dame sit down? She seemed to be always
 
 A SAFE INVESTMENT. Ill 
 
 hard at work, and must be tired after climb- 
 ing those steep stairs. Perhaps she would 
 not object to a little refreshment?' 
 
 Mrs. Mogg's eyes gleamed as from her 
 neat hand-bag Pauline produced a small silver 
 flask, and pouring some of its contents into a 
 tumbler, handed the water-bottle to her land- 
 lady, to mix for herself. 
 
 1 Thank you, ma'am,' said Mrs. Mogg, 
 seating herself on one of the two rush-bot- 
 tomed chairs, and smoothing her apron over 
 her lap with both her hands. ' It is a pull up 
 the stairs after one's been hard ait it all day, 
 and a little drop of comfort like this does one 
 no harm, whatever they may say against it, 
 more especially when it's like this, and not 
 the vitriol and mahogany- shavings which they 
 sell by the quartern at the Goldsmith's Arms. 
 You didn't brin£ this from France with you, 
 did you, ma'am?' 
 
 c no,' said Pauline, with a half smile. 
 ' It is a long time since I left France.' 
 
 4 Ah, so I should think,' said Mrs. Mogg, 
 * by your civilised ways of going on, let alone
 
 112 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 your speaking our language so capital. Mogg, 
 meaning my husband, was in France once, at 
 Boolong, with the Foresters' excursion, and 
 thought very high of the living he got during 
 the two hours he was there.' 
 
 1 Ah, you have a husband,' said Pauline, 
 beginning to lapse into dreariness. 
 
 1 yes, ma'am, and as good a husband as 
 woman could wish, a hard-working man, and 
 taking no holidays save with the Foresters to 
 the Crystal Palace, Easter Mondays, and such- 
 like. He's in the docks is Mogg.' 
 
 \ In the docks,' said Pauline ; t he would 
 know, then, all about ships ?' 
 
 c O no, ma'am,' said Mrs. Mogg, with a 
 slight toss of the head ; ' that's the Katherine's 
 Docks you are thinking of, where the General 
 Steam goes from. Mogg is in the West-Injia 
 Docks: he's in the sale-room — horns and 
 hides, and other foreign produce.' 
 
 4 Then he has nothing to do with ships?' 
 
 ' Nothing at all, ma'am. It would be 
 easier work for him if he had, though more 
 outdoor work ; but his is terrible hard work,
 
 A SAFE INVESTMENT. 113 
 
 more especially on sale days. He's regular 
 tired out to-night, poor man; for to-day has 
 been a sale day, and Mogg was at it from 
 morning till night, attending to Mr. Calver- 
 ley's consignments. ' 
 
 4 Mr. Calverley !' cried Pauline, roused at 
 last ; ' do you know him?' 
 
 4 no, not I, ma'am,' said the landlady, 
 'only through hearing of him from Mogg. 
 He's one of the largest merchants in horns 
 and hides is Mr. Calverley, and there is never 
 a shipload comes in but he takes most of it. 
 Mogg has done business for him — leastways 
 for the house, for when Mogg knew it first 
 Mr. Calverley was only a clerk there — for the 
 last thirty years.' 
 
 'Is Mr. Calverley married?' 
 c O yes, ma'am. He married Mrs. Gar- 
 wood, which was Miss Lorraine before she 
 married Mr. Gurwood, who killed himself with 
 drink and carryings-on. A pious lady, Mrs. 
 Calverley, though haughty and stand-offish, 
 and, they do say, keeping Mr. C.'s nose to the 
 grindstone close.' 
 
 vol. l i
 
 114 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 1 And Mr. Calverley, what is he like?' 
 
 ' Not much to look at, ma'am, but the 
 kindest and the best of men. My nephew Joe 
 is light-porter in their house; and the way 
 in which Mr. Calverley behaves to him — half- 
 holiday here, half-a-crown there, Christmas- 
 boxes regular, and cold meat and beer when- 
 ever he goes up to the house — no tongue can 
 tell. Likewise most bountiful to Injuns and 
 foreigners of all kinds, Spaniards and that 
 like, providing for children and orphans, and 
 getting them into hospitals, or giving them 
 money to go back to their own country.' 
 
 ' Where is Mr. Calverley's address — his 
 business address ; his office I mean ?' 
 
 ' In Mincing-lane, in the City, ma'am. It's 
 as well known as the Bank of England, or the 
 West-Injia Docks themselves. May I make 
 so bold as to inquire what you want with 
 Mr. Calverley, ma'am ?' said Mrs. Mogg, whose 
 curiosity, stimulated b}^ the brandy-and- water, 
 was fast getting the better of her discretion ; 
 4 if it's anything in the horn and hide way,' 
 she added, as the notion of something to be
 
 A SAFE INVESTMENT. 115 
 
 made on commission crossed her mind, ' I am 
 sure anything that Mogg could do he would 
 be most happy.' 
 
 4 No, thank you,' said Pauline coldly ; 5 my 
 inquiry had nothing to do with business.' 
 
 And shortly after, Mrs. Mogg, seeing that 
 her lodger had relapsed into thought, and had 
 replaced the silver flask in her hand-bag, took 
 her departure. 
 
 c What that Frenchwoman can want with 
 Mr. Calverley,' said she to her husband, after 
 she had narrated to him the above conversa- 
 tion, c is more than I can think; his name 
 came up quite promiscuous, and she never 
 stopped talking about him while I was there. 
 She'd have gone on gossiping till now, but I 
 had my work to do, and told her so, and came 
 away.' 
 
 Mrs. Mogg's curiosity was not responded 
 to by her husband ; a man naturally reticent, 
 and given in the interval between his supper 
 and his bed to silent pipe- smoking. l They're 
 a rum lot, foreigners,' he said; and after that 
 he spoke no more.
 
 116 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 Meanwhile Pauline, left to herself, at once 
 resumed the tiger-like pacing of her room. 
 ' I must not lose sight,' she said, ' of any clue 
 which is likely to serve me. Where he is, she 
 will be; and until I have found them both, 
 and made them feel what it is to attempt 
 to play the fool with me, I shall not rest 
 satisfied. I must find means to become ac- 
 quainted with this Calverley ; for sooner or 
 later he must hear something of Tom Dur- 
 ham, whom he believes to have gone to Ceylon 
 as his agent, and whose non-arrival there will 
 of course be reported to him. So long as my 
 husband and the poor puny thing for whom 
 he has deserted me, can force money from 
 the old man Claxton, they will do so. But 
 in whatever relations she may stand to him, 
 when he discovers her flight he will stop the 
 supplies, and I should think Monsieur Dur- 
 ham will probably turn up with some cleverly- 
 concocted story to account for his quitting 
 the ship. They will learn that by telegraph 
 from Gibraltar, I suppose ; and he will again 
 seek for legitimate employment. Meanwhile
 
 A SAFE INVESTMENT. 117 
 
 I have the satisfaction of striking him with 
 his own whip and stabbing him with his own 
 dagger, by using the money which he gave 
 me to help me in my endeavours to hunt 
 him down. The money! It is there safe 
 enough !' 
 
 As she placed her hand within the bosom 
 of her dress, a curious expression, first of sur- 
 prise, then of triumph, swept across her face. 
 ' The letter !' she said, as she pulled it forth, — 
 'the letter, almost as important as the bank- 
 notes themselves, Tom Durham called it. It 
 is sealed ! Shall I open it ; but for what good ? 
 To find, perhaps, a confession that he loves 
 me no more, that he has taken this means to 
 end our connection, and that he has given me 
 the money to make amends for his betrayal 
 of me — shall I — Bah ! doubtless it is another 
 part of the fraud, and contains nothing of any 
 value.' 
 
 She broke the seal as she spoke, opened 
 the envelope, and took out its contents, a single 
 sheet of paper, on which was written :
 
 118 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 ' I have duly received the paper you sent 
 me, and have placed it intact in another en- 
 velope, marked " Akhbar K," which I have 
 deposited in the second draAver of my iron 
 safe. Besides myself no one but my confiden- 
 tial head-clerk knows even as much as this, 
 and I am glad that I declined to receive your 
 confidence in the matter, as my very ignor- 
 ance may at some future time be of service to 
 you, or — don't think me harsh, but I have 
 known you long enough to speak plainly to 
 you — may prevent my being compromised. 
 The packet will be given up to no one but 
 yourself in person, or to some one who can 
 describe the indorsement, as proof that they 
 are accredited by you. H. S.' 
 
 This letter Pauline read and re-read over 
 carefully ; then with a shoulder - shrug re- 
 turned it to its envelope, and replaced it in 
 her bosom. 
 
 'Mysterious,' she said, 'and unsatisfac- 
 tory, as is everything connected with Mon- 
 sieur Durham ! The paper to which this let-
 
 A SAFE INVESTMENT. Ill) 
 
 ter refers is of importance doubtless, but what 
 it may contain, and who " H. S." may be, 
 are equally unknown to me ; and without 
 that information I am helpless to make use of 
 it. Let it remain there ! A time may come 
 when it will be of service. Meanwhile I have 
 the txr> thousand pounds to work with, and 
 Monsieir Calverley to work upon; he is the 
 only lirk which I can see at present to con- 
 nect me with my fugitive husband. Through 
 him is ihe only means I have of obtaining 
 any information as to the whereabouts of 
 this traitorous pair. The clue is slight enough, 
 but it ma/ serve in default of a better, and 
 I must se1 my wits to work to make it use- 
 ful.' 
 
 So the night went on; and the Mo££ 
 household, the proprietors themselves in the 
 back-kitchei; the circulating librarian in the 
 parlours; t.e Italian nobleman, who dealt in 
 cameos anc coral and bric-a-brac jewelry, in 
 the drawin^room ; the Belgian basso, who 
 smoked sue) strong tobacco, and cleared his 
 throat with such alarming vehemence, in the
 
 120 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 second floor back ; and the German teacher, in 
 ignorance of his intended forcible change of 
 domicile, in the attic ; all these slept the 
 sleep of the just, and snored the snores of the 
 weary ; while Pauline, half undressed, lty on 
 her bed, with eyes indeed half closec 1 , but 
 with her brain active and at work, [n the 
 middle of the night, warned by the ra^id de- 
 crease of her candle that in a few liinutes 
 she would be in darkness, she rose fiom the 
 bed, and taking from her carpet-bag a small 
 neat blotting-book, she sat down at ip.e table, 
 and in a thin, clear, legible hand, to he prac- 
 tised eye eminently suggestive of btel bills, 
 wrote the following letter : 
 
 4 19a Poland-strk) Soho. 
 4 Monsieur, — As a Frenchwoman domi- 
 ciled in England, the name of M<psieur Cal- 
 verley has become familiar to me Is that of a 
 gentleman — ah, the true English jord ! — who 
 is renowned as one of the most cpstant and 
 liberal benefactors to all kinds of parities for 
 distressed foreigners. Do not Stan monsieur ;
 
 A SAFE INVESTMENT. 121 
 
 do not turn aside or put away this letter in 
 the idea that you have already arrived ex- 
 actly at its meaning and intention. Naturally 
 enough you think that the writer is about to 
 throw herself on your mercy, and to implore 
 you for money, or for admission into one of 
 those asylums towards the support of which 
 you do so much. It is not so, monsieur ; 
 though, were my circumstances different, it is 
 to you I should apply, knowing that your ear 
 is never deaf to such complaint. I have no 
 want of money, though my soul is crushed ) 
 and I am well and strong in body, though my 
 heart is wounded and bleeding, calamities for 
 which, even in England, there are no hospi- 
 tals nor doctors. Yet, monsieur, am I one of 
 that clientele which you have so nobly made 
 your own — the foreigners in distress. Do you 
 think that the only distressed foreigners are 
 the people who want to give lessons, or get 
 orders for wine and cigars, the poor gover- 
 nesses, the demoiselles de magasin, the emi- 
 gres of the Kepublic and the Empire? No, 
 there is another kind of distressed foreigner,
 
 122 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 — the woman with a small sum, on which she 
 must live for the rest of her clays, in penury 
 if she manages ill, in decent thrift if she man- 
 ages well. Who will guide her ? I am such 
 a woman, monsieur. To my own country, 
 where I have lost all ties, and where remain 
 to me but sad memories, I will not return. 
 In this land, where, if I have no ties, yet have 
 1 no sad memories, I will remain. I have a 
 small sum of money, on the interest of which 
 I must exist; and to you I apply, monsieur; 
 you, the merchant prince, the patron and 
 benefactor of my countrymen, to advise in the 
 investment of this poor sum, and keep me from 
 the hands of charlatans and swindlers, who 
 otherwise would rob me of it. I await your 
 gracious answer, 
 
 4 Monsieur ; and am 
 
 1 Your servant, 
 
 c Palmyre du Teethe.' 
 
 The next morning Pauline conveyed this 
 letter to the office in Mincing-lane, and asked 
 to see Mr. Calverley ; but on being told by a
 
 A SAFE INVESTMENT. 123 
 
 smart clerk that Mr. Calverley was out of 
 town, visiting the iron works in the North, 
 and would not be back for some days, she left 
 the letter in the clerk's hands, and begged for 
 an answer at his chief's convenience.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN THE CITY. 
 
 The descriptions of the great house of Calver- 
 ley and Company given respectively by Mr. 
 and Mrs. Calverley, though differing essentially 
 in many particulars, had each a substratum of 
 truth. The house had been founded half a 
 century before by John Lorraine, the eldest 
 son of a broken-down but ancient family in 
 the north of England, who in very early years 
 had been sent up to London to shift for him- 
 self, and arriving there with the conventional 
 half-crown in his pocket, was, of course, des- 
 tined to fame and fortune. Needless to say 
 that, like so many other merchant princes, 
 heroes of history far more veracious than this, 
 his first experiences were those of struggling 
 adversity. He kept the books, he ran the er- 
 rands, he fetched and carried for his master — 
 the old East-India agent in Great St. Helen's
 
 IN THE CITY. 125 
 
 — and by his intelligence and industry he 
 commended himself to the good graces of his 
 superiors; and was not only able to maintain 
 himself in a respectable position, but to pro- 
 vide for his two younger brothers, who were 
 sipping from the fount of learning at the 
 grammar-school of Penrith. These junior 
 scions being brought to town, and applying 
 themselves, not, indeed, with the same energy 
 as their elder brother, but with a passable 
 amount of interest and care to the duties set 
 before them, were taken into partnership by 
 John Lorraine when he went into business for 
 himself, and helped, in a certain degree, to es- 
 tablish the fortunes of the house. Of these 
 fortunes John Lorraine was the mainspring 
 and the principal producer. He had wonderful 
 powers of foresight, and uncommon shrewd- 
 ness in estimating the chances of any ven- 
 ture proposed to him ; and with all these 
 he was bold and lucky; "far too bold," his 
 old employers said, with shaldng heads, as 
 they saw him gradually but surely outstrip- 
 ping them in the race; "far too lucky," his
 
 126 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 detractors growled, when they saw specula- 
 tions, which had been offered to them and 
 promptly declined, prosper auriferously in 
 John Lorraine's hands. 
 
 As soon as John Lorraine saw the tide of 
 fortune strongly setting in, he took to himself 
 a wife, the daughter of one of his City friends, 
 a man of tolerable wealth and great experi- 
 ence, who in his early days had befriended the 
 struggling boy, and who thought his daugh- 
 ter could not have achieved higher honour or 
 greater happiness. AVhatever honour or hap- 
 piness may have accrued to the young lady 
 on her marriage did not last long, for, shortly 
 after giving birth to her first child, a daugh- 
 ter, she died ; and thenceforward John Lorraine 
 devoted his life to the little girl, and to the 
 increased fortune which she was to inherit. 
 When little Jane had arrived at a more than 
 marriageable age, and from a pretty fubsy 
 baby had grown into a thin, acidulated, opi- 
 niated woman (a result attributable to the 
 manner in which she had been spoiled by her 
 indulgent father), John Lorraine's mind was
 
 IN THE CITY. 127 
 
 mainly exercised as to what manner of man 
 would propose for her with a likelihood of suc- 
 cess. Hitherto, love-affairs had been things 
 almost unknown to his Jane, not from any un- 
 willingness on her part to make their acquaint- 
 ance, but principally because, notwithstanding 
 the fortune which it was known she would 
 bring to her husband, none of the few young 
 men who from time to time dined solemnly in 
 the old-fashioned house in Brunswick-square, 
 or acted as cavalier to its mistress to the An- 
 tient Concerts, or the King's Theatre, could 
 make up their minds to address her in anything 
 but the most common phrases. That Miss 
 Jane had a will of her own, and a tart manner 
 of expressing her intention of having that will 
 fulfilled, was also matter of common gossip. 
 Stories were current among the clerks at 
 Mincing-lane of the c wigging' which they had 
 heard her administering to her father, when 
 she drove down to fetch him away in her 
 chariot, and when he kept her unduly waiting ; 
 the household servants in Brunswick-square 
 had their opinion of Miss Jane's temper ; and
 
 128 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 the tradesmen in the neighbourhood looked for- 
 ward to the entrance of her thin, dark figure 
 into their shops every Tuesday morning, for 
 the performance of settling the books, with 
 fear and trembling. 
 
 Old John Lorraine, fully appreciating his 
 daughter's infirmities, though, partly from af- 
 fection, partly from fear, he never took upon 
 himself to rebuke them, began to think that 
 the fairy prince who was to wake this morally 
 slumbering virgin to a sense of something 
 better, to larger views and higher aims, to 
 domestic happiness and married bliss, would 
 never arrive. He came at last, however, in 
 the person of George Gurwood ; a big, broad- 
 shouldered, jovial fellow, who, as a son of 
 another of Lorraine's early friends, had some 
 time previously been admitted as a partner 
 into the house. Everybody liked good-look- 
 ing, jolly George Gurwood. Lambton Lor- 
 raine and Lowther Lorraine, who, though now 
 growing elderly men, had retained their ba- 
 chelor tastes and habits, and managed to get 
 through a great portion of the income accruing
 
 IN THE CITY. 129 
 
 to them from the business, were delighted with 
 his jovial manners, his sporting tendencies, his 
 convivial predilections. When the fact of 
 George's paying his addresses to their niece 
 was first promulgated, Lamb ton had a serious 
 talk with his genial partner, warning him 
 against tying himself for life to a woman with 
 whom he had no single feeling in common. 
 But George laughed at the caution, and de- 
 clined to be guided by it. 'Miss Lorraine 
 was not much in his line,' he said; 'perhaps a 
 little given to tea and psalm-smiting; but it 
 would come all right : he should get her into 
 a different way; and as the dear old guvnor' 
 (by which title George always affectionately 
 spoke of his senior partner) ' seemed to wish 
 it, he was not going to stand in the way. He 
 wanted a home, and Jane should make him a 
 jolly one, he'd take care of that.' 
 
 Jane Lorraine married George Gurwood, 
 but she did not make him a home. Her risfid 
 bearing and unyielding temper were too strong 
 for his plastic, pliable nature ; for many months 
 the struggle for mastery was carried on be- 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 tween them, but in the end George — jolly 
 George no longer — gave way. He had made 
 a tolerably good fight of it, and had used every 
 means in his power to induce her to be less 
 bitter, less furtive, less inexorable in the mat- 
 ter of his dinings-out, his sporting transactions, 
 his constant desire to see his table surrounded 
 by congenial company. ' I have tried to gen- 
 tle her,' he said to Lowther Lorraine one day, 
 4 as I would a horse, and there has never been 
 one of them yet that I could not coax and pet 
 into good temper; I'd spend any amount of 
 money on her, and let her have her own way 
 in most things if she would only just let me 
 have mine in a few. I have tried her with a 
 sharp bit and a pair of " persuaders,'' but that 
 was no more use than the gentling. She's as 
 hard as nails, Lowther, my boy, and I don't 
 see my way out of it, that's the truth. So 
 come along and have a B and S.' 
 
 If having a B and S — George's abbrevia- 
 tion for soda-water and brandy — would have 
 helped him to see his way out of his difficulties, 
 he would speedily have been able to perceive
 
 IN THE CITY. 131 
 
 it, for thenceforward his consumption of that 
 and many other kinds of liquids was enormous. 
 Wretched in his home, George Gurwood took 
 to drinking to drown care, but, as in most 
 similar cases, the demon proved himself far 
 too buoyant to be overwhelmed even by the 
 amount which George poured upon him. He 
 was drinking morning, noon, and night, and 
 was generally in a more or less muddled state. 
 When he went to business, which was now very 
 seldom, some of the clerks in the office laughed 
 at him, which was bad enough, while others 
 pitied him, which was worse. The story of 
 George's dissipation was carefully kept from 
 John Lorraine, who had virtually retired from 
 the business, and devoted himself to nursing 
 his rheumatism, and to superintending the 
 education of his grandson, a fine boy of five 
 or six years of age ; but Lamb ton and Low- 
 ther held many colloquies together, the end 
 of them all being that they agreed they could 
 not tell what was to be done with George 
 Gurwood. What was to be done with him 
 was soon settled by George Gurwood himself.
 
 132 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 Even his powerful constitution had been un- 
 able to withstand the ravages which constant 
 drinking had inflicted upon it. He was seized 
 with an attack of delirium tremens while at- 
 tending a race-meeting at Warwick, and during 
 the temporary absence of the night-nurse jolly 
 George Gurwood terminated his earthly career 
 by jumping from the bedroom window of the 
 hotel into the yard below. 
 
 Then it was that the investigation of the 
 affairs of the firm, consequent upon the death 
 of one of the partners, revealed the serious 
 state in which matters stood. All the name 
 and fame, the large fortune, the enormous 
 colonial business, the commercial credit which 
 John Lorraine had spent his life in building 
 up, had been gradually crumbling away. Two 
 years more of this decadence, such as the per- 
 usal of the firm's books exhibited had taken 
 place during the last ten years, and the great 
 house of Lorraine Brothers would be in the 
 Bankruptcy Court. Then it was that Mr. Cal- 
 verley, hitherto known only as a plodding 
 reliable head-clerk, thoroughly conversant with
 
 IN THE CITY. 133 
 
 all details of business, but never having shown 
 any peculiar capabilities, came forward and 
 made his mark. At the meeting of the cre- 
 ditors he expounded his views so lucidly, and 
 showed so plainly how, by reorganising the busi- 
 ness in every department, it could once more 
 be put on a safe and proper footing, and rein- 
 stated in its old position as one of the leading 
 houses in the City, that the helm was at once 
 put into his hands. So safely and so prosper- 
 ously did he steer the ship, that, before old 
 John Lorraine died, he saw the business in 
 Mincing-lane, though no longer conducted 
 under its old name (Mr. Calverley had made 
 a point of that, and had insisted on claiming 
 whatever was due to his ability and exer- 
 tions), more flourishing than in its best days; 
 while Lambton and Lowther, who had been 
 paid out at the reorganisation of affairs, and 
 had thought themselves very lucky at escap- 
 ing being sucked-in by the expected whirl- 
 pool, were disgusted at the triumphant results 
 of the operations of a man by whom they had
 
 134 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 set so little store, and complained indignantly 
 of their ill-treatment. 
 
 And then John Calverley, who, as one of 
 the necessities involved in carrying out his 
 business transactions, had been frequently 
 brought into communication with the widowed 
 Mrs. Gurwood, first conceived the idea of 
 making her an offer of marriage. Nearly 
 forty years of his life had been spent in a 
 state of bachelorhood, though he had not 
 been without the comforts of a home. He 
 was thoroughly domesticated by nature, sim- 
 ple in his tastes, shy and shrinking from so- 
 ciety, and so engrossed by his unceasing labour 
 during the day, that it was his happiness at 
 night to put aside from his mind everything 
 relating, however remotely, to his City toil, 
 and to sit drinking his tea, and placidly chat- 
 ting, reading, or listening to his old mother, 
 from whom since his childhood he had never 
 been separated. The first great grief of John 
 Calverley' s life, the death of this old lady, 
 took place very shortly after he had assumed 
 the reins of government in Mincing-lane, and
 
 IN THE CITY. 135 
 
 since then his home had been dull and cheer- 
 less. He sorely felt the want of a companion, 
 but he knew nobody whom he could ask to 
 share his lot. He had but rare opportunities 
 of making the acquaintance of any ladies, but 
 Mrs. Gurwood had been thrown in his way by 
 chance, and, after some little hesitation, he 
 ventured to propose to her. The proposition 
 was. not disagreeable to Jane Gurwood. For 
 some time past she had felt the loss of some 
 constantly present object on which to vent 
 her bile ; her tongue and her temper were 
 both becoming rusty by disuse; and in the 
 meek, pleasant little man, now rich and well- 
 to-do, she thought she saw a very fitting re- 
 cipient for both. So John Calverley and Jane 
 Gurwood were married, with what result we 
 have already seen. 
 
 The offices in Mincing - lane remained 
 pretty much in the same state as they had 
 been in old John Lorraine's day. They had 
 been painted, of course, many times since he 
 first entered upon their occupation, but in 
 the heart of the City the brilliancy of paint
 
 136 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 does not last very long, and in a very few 
 months after the ladders and the scaffoldings 
 had been removed, the outside woodwork re- 
 lapsed into its state of grubbiness. There was 
 a talk at one time of making some additions to 
 the building, to provide accommodation for 
 the increased staff of clerks which it had been 
 found necessary to engage; but Mr. Calverley 
 thought that the rooms originally occupied 
 by Lambton and Lowther Lorraine would do 
 very well for the newly-appointed young gen- 
 tlemen, and there accordingly they set up 
 their high desks and stools, their enormous 
 ledgers and day-books. The elderly men, wdio 
 had been John Lorraine's colleagues and sub- 
 ordinates in bygone days, still remained at- 
 tached to the business; but their employer, 
 not unmindful of the good services they had 
 rendered, and conscious, perhaps, that with- 
 out their aid he might have had some diffi- 
 culty in carrying out his reorganisation so 
 successfully, took means to lighten their duties 
 and to place them rather in the position of 
 overseers and superintendents, leaving the
 
 IN THE CITY. 137 
 
 grinding desk-work to be performed by their 
 juniors. Of these young gentlemen there 
 were several. They inhabited the lower floor 
 of the warehouse, and the most presentable of 
 them were told-off to see any stray customers 
 that might enter. The ships' captains, the 
 brokers, and the consignees, knew their way 
 about the premises, and passed in and out 
 unheeded; but occasionally strangers arrived 
 with letters of introduction, or foreign mer- 
 chants put in a fantastic appearance, and for 
 the benefit of these there was a small glazed 
 waiting-room set apart, with one or other of 
 the presentable clerks to attend to them. 
 
 About a fortnight after Pauline's first visit, 
 about the middle of the day, Mr. Walker, one 
 of the clerks, entered the large office and pro- 
 ceeded to hang up his hat and to doff his coat, 
 preparatory to putting on a sporting-looking 
 garment made of shepherd's-plaid, with ex- 
 tremely short tails, and liberally garnished 
 with ink-spots. Judging from his placid, sa- 
 tisfied appearance, and from the fact that he 
 carried a toothpick between his lips, which
 
 138 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 lie was elegantly chewing, one might have 
 guessed, without fear of contradiction, that 
 Mr. Walker had just returned from dinner. 
 
 ' You shouldn't hurry yourself in this way, 
 Postman, you really shouldn't,' said Mr. Bris- 
 coe, one of the presentable clerks aforenamed. 
 ' You will spoil your digestion if you do; and 
 fancy what a calamity that would be to a man 
 of your figure. You have only been out an 
 hour and a quarter, and I understand they 
 have sent round from Lake's to Newgate Mar- 
 ket for some more joints.' 
 
 'Don't you be funny, William,' said Mr. 
 Walker, wiping his lips, and slowly climbing 
 on to his stool ; ' it isn't in your line, and you 
 might hurt yourself.' 
 
 c Hurt myself!' echoed Mr. Briscoe. 4 1 
 will hurt you, and spoil your appetite too, 
 when I get the chance, keeping a fellow hang- 
 ing on here, waiting for his luncheon, while 
 you are gorging yourself to repletion for one 
 and ninepence. Only you wait till next week, 
 when it's my turn to go out at one, and you 
 will see what a twist I'll give you. However,
 
 IN THE CITY. 139 
 
 one comfort is, I'm off at last.' And Mr. 
 Briscoe jumped from his seat, and proceeded 
 towards the hat-pegs. 
 
 'No, you're not,' said Mr. Walker, who 
 had commenced a light dessert on a half-hun- 
 drecl of walnuts, which he had purchased at a 
 stall on his way ; i there's a party just come 
 into the private office, "William, and as you're 
 picked out for that berth on account of your 
 beauty and superior manners, you will have 
 to attend to her. A female party, do you 
 hear, William ; so, brush your hair, and pull 
 down your wristbands, and make a swell of 
 yourself.' 
 
 Mr. Briscoe looked with great disgust to- 
 wards the partition through the dulled glass, 
 on which he saw the outline of a female figure; 
 then, stepping across, he opened a pane in the 
 glass, and inquired what was wanted. 
 
 c I called here some time ago,' said Paul- 
 ine, for it was she, c and left a letter for Mr. 
 Calverley. I was told he was out of town, 
 but would return in a few days. Perhaps he 
 is now here ?'
 
 140 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 i Mr. Calverley has returned,' said Mr. 
 Briscoe, in his most fascinating manner, a 
 compound of the familiarity with which he 
 addressed the waitresses in the eating-houses 
 and the nonchalance with which he regarded 
 the duchesses in the Park. ' I believe he is 
 engaged just now, but I will let him know 
 you are here. What name shall I say?' 
 
 ' Say Madame Du Tertre, if you please,' 
 said Pauline ; c and mention that he has al- 
 ready had a letter from me.' 
 
 Mr. Briscoe bowed, and delivered his mess- 
 age through a speaking-tube which communi- 
 cated with Mr. Calverley's room. In reply he 
 was instructed to bring the lady upstairs ; and 
 bidding Pauline follow him, he at once intro- 
 duced her into the presence of his chief. 
 
 As his visitor entered, Mr. Calverley rose 
 from the desk at which he was seated, and 
 graciously motioned her to a chair, looking 
 hard at her from under his light eyebrows 
 meanwhile. 
 
 Pauline was the first to speak. After she 
 had seated herself, and Mr. Calverley had re-
 
 IN THE CITY. 141 
 
 sumed his place at his desk, she leaned for- 
 ward and said, C I have the pleasure of address- 
 ing Mr. Calverley?' 
 
 ' That is my name,' said John, with a bow 
 and a pleasant smile. ' In what way can I 
 have the pleasure of being of service to you T 
 
 ' You speak kindly, Mr. Calverley, and 
 your appearance is just what I had expected. 
 You received a letter from me — a strange 
 letter you thought it; is it not so?' 
 
 c Well,' said John, ' it was not the sort of 
 letter I have been in the habit of receiving : 
 it was not strictly a business kind of letter, 
 you know.' 
 
 c It was not addressed to you in your 
 strictly business capacity, Mr. Calverley; it 
 was written from the heart, a thing which 
 does not often enter into business matters, 
 I believe. It was written because I have 
 heard of you as a man of benevolence and 
 charity, interested in the fate of foreigners 
 and exiles, able, if willing, to do what I wish.' 
 
 ' My dear madam,' said John Calverley, 
 ' I fear you much exaggerate any good qua-
 
 142 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 lities I may possess. The very nature of 
 my business throws me into constant com- 
 munication with people from other countries, 
 and if they are unfortunate I endeavour to 
 help them to the best of my power. Such 
 power is limited to the giving away of small 
 sums of money, and helping them to return 
 to their native country, to getting them em- 
 ployment if they desire to remain here, or 
 recommending them to hospitals if they are 
 ill ; but yours is a peculiar case, if I recollect 
 your letter rightly. I have it here, and can 
 refer to it — ' 
 
 ' There is no occasion to do that. I can 
 explain more fully and more promptly by 
 word of mouth. Mine is, as you say, a pecu- 
 liar case. I am the daughter of a retired 
 officer of artillery, who lived at Lyons. At 
 his death I married Monsieur Du Tertre, who 
 was engaged as a traveller for one of the 
 large silk factories there. He was frequently 
 coming to England, and spoke the language 
 well. He taught it to me, and I, to aid an 
 income which was but small, taught it again 
 
 7 O O
 
 IN THE CITY. 143 
 
 to several pupils in my native city. My hus- 
 band, like most Frenchmen of his class, took 
 a vivid interest in politics, and was mixed up 
 in several of the more prominent Republican 
 societies. One day, immediately after his re- 
 turn from a foreign journey, he was arrested, 
 and since then, save on the day of his trial. 
 I have not set eyes upon him. I know not 
 where he is; he may be in the cachots of 
 Mont Saint Michele ; he may be kept an se- 
 cret in the Conciergerie ; he may be exiled 
 to Cayenne — I know not. All I know is, I 
 shall never see him again. " Avec ces gens- 
 la il faut en finir,'' was all the reply I could 
 get to my inquiries — they must be finished, 
 done with, stamped out, what you will. There,' 
 continued Pauline, brushing her eyes with 
 her handkerchief, l it is not often that I give 
 way, monsieur; my life is too stern and too 
 hard for that. After he was taken from me 
 I could remain in Lyons no longer. It is not 
 alone upon the heads of families that the Im- 
 perial Government revenges itself; so I came 
 away to England, bringing with me all that
 
 144 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 I had saved, all that I could scrape together, 
 after selling everything we possessed, and the 
 result is that I have, monsieur, a sum of two 
 thousand pounds, which I wish to place in 
 your hands, begging you to invest it in such 
 a manner as will enable me to live honestly, 
 and with something like decency, for the re- 
 mainder of my days.' 
 
 John Calverley had listened to this recital 
 with' great attention, and when Pauline ceased 
 speaking, he said to her with a half- grave 
 smile : 
 
 ' The remainder of your days, madam, is 
 likely, I hope, to be a tolerably long period ; 
 for you are evidently quite a young woman. 
 Now, with regard to your proposition, you 
 yourself say it is unbusiness-like, and I must 
 confess it strikes me as being so in the high- 
 est degree. You know nothing of me, beyond 
 seeing my name as a subscriber to certain 
 charities, or having heard it mentioned as 
 that of a man who takes some interest in as- 
 sisting foreigners in distress; and yet you 
 offer to place in my hands what constitutes
 
 IN THE CITY. 145 
 
 your entire fortune, and intrust me with the 
 disposal of it. I really do not think,' said 
 John Calverley, hesitating, 'I can possibly 
 undertake — ' 
 
 1 One moment, Mr. Calverley,' said Paul- 
 ine. ' The responsibility of declining to take 
 this money will be far greater than of accept- 
 ing it; for if you decline to act for me, I will 
 consult no one else; I will act on my own 
 impulse, and shall probably either invest the 
 sum in some swindling company, or squander 
 and spend it.' 
 
 ' You must not do that,' said John 
 promptly ; ' you must not think of doing that. 
 Two thousand pounds is not a very large sum 
 of money; but properly invested, a lady with- 
 out encumbrance,' said John, with a dim re- 
 collection of the formula of servants' adver- 
 tisements, 'might live very comfortably on 
 the interest, more especially if she had no 
 home to keep up.' 
 
 4 But, monsieur, I must always have a 
 home, a lodging, a something to live in/ said 
 Pauline with a shrug. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 THE YELLOW EL AG. 
 
 ' Yes, of course,' said John Calverley, ra- 
 ther absently ; for at that moment a notable 
 plan had suggested itself to him, and he was 
 revolving it in his mind. ' Where are you 
 living now, Madame Du Tertre ?' 
 
 • I have a lodging — a bed-room — in Po- 
 land-street,' she replied. 
 
 c Dear me/ said John Calverley, in horri- 
 fied amazement. l Poland-street ? 1 know, 
 of course ; back of the Pantheon — very stuffy 
 and grimy, children playing battledore and 
 shuttlecock in the street, organ-men and fish- 
 barrows, and all that kind of thing ; not at 
 all pleasant.' 
 
 c No,' said Pauline, with a repetition of 
 her shrus; ; ' but be^srars have no choice, as 
 the proverb says.' 
 
 'Did it ever occur to you,' said John 
 nervously, 'that you might become a com- 
 panion to a lady — quite comfortable, you 
 know, and well treated, made one of the 
 family, in point of fact?' he added, again re- 
 curring to the advertisement formula. 
 
 Pauline's eyes glistened at once, but her
 
 IN THE CITY. 147 
 
 voice was quite calm as she said : c I have 
 never thought of such a thing. I don't know 
 whether I should like it. It would, of course, 
 depend upon the family.' 
 
 1 Of course,' assented John. 'I was think- 
 ing of — Do you play the piano, Madame 
 Du Tertre?' 
 
 4 yes, sufficiently well.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said John unconsciously, ' some of it 
 does go a long way. Well, I was thinking 
 that perhaps — ' 
 
 'Mrs. Calverley, sir,' said Mr. Briscoe, 
 throwing open the door. 
 
 Mrs. Calverley walked into the room, look- 
 ing so stern and defiant that her husband saw 
 he must take immediate action to prevent the 
 outbreak of a storm. Since that evening in 
 Great Walpole- street, when John Calverley 
 had plucked up his spirit, and ventured to 
 assert himself, his wife, though cold and grim 
 as ever, had kept more outward control over 
 her temper, and had almost ceased to give 
 vent to the virulent raillery in which she for- 
 merly indulged. Lhk e most despots she had
 
 148 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 been paralysed when her meek slave rebelled 
 against her tyranny, and had stood in per- 
 petual fear of him ever since. 
 
 4 You come at a very opportune moment, 
 Jane/ said John Calverley. 
 
 1 It scarcely seems so,' said his wife, from 
 between her closed lips. ' I was afraid I 
 might be regarded as an unpleasant interrup- 
 tion to a private interview.' 
 
 ' It is I, madam,' said Pauline, rising, ' who 
 am the interrupter here. My business with 
 Mr. Calverley is ended, and I will now retire.' 
 
 4 Pray stay, Madame Du Tertre,' said 
 John, motioning her again to her chair. — 
 'This lady, Jane, is Madame Du Tertre, a 
 foreigner and a stranger in England.' 
 
 'But not a stranger to the history of 
 Madame Calverley,' said Pauline, rising grace- 
 fully ; ' not a stranger to the beneficence, the 
 charities, the piety of Mademoiselle Lorraine ; 
 not a stranger,' she added, in a lower tone, 
 4 to the sainted sufferings of Madame Gur- 
 wood. Ah, madame, though I have been but 
 a very short time in this great city of London,
 
 IN THE CITY. 149 
 
 I have heard of you, of your religion, and 
 your goodness, and I am honoured in the 
 opportunity of being able to kiss your hand.' 
 And suiting the action to the word, Pauline 
 took Jane Calverley's plum-coloured gauntlet 
 into her own neatly-gloved palm and pressed 
 it to her lips. 
 
 Mrs. Calverley was so taken aback at this 
 performance, that, beyond muttering ' not 
 worthy' and c too generous,' she said nothing. 
 But her husband marked the faint blush of 
 satisfaction which spread over her clay-col- 
 oured complexion, and took advantage of the 
 impression made to say : 
 
 c Madame Du Tertre, my dear Jane, is a 
 French lady, a widow with a small fortune, 
 which she wishes me to invest for her in the 
 best way possible. In the mean time she is a 
 stranger here in London, as I said before, and 
 she has no comfortable lodging and no friends. 
 I thought perhaps that, as I am compelled by 
 business to be frequently absent from home, 
 and am likely to continue to be so, it might 
 break the loneliness of your life if Madame
 
 150 THE YELLOW EL AG. 
 
 Du Tertre, who speaks our language well, and 
 plays the piano, and is no doubt generally ac- 
 complished, might come as your visitor for a 
 short time, and then if you found you suited 
 each other, one might make some more per- 
 manent arrangement.' 
 
 When Jane Calverley first entered the 
 room and saw a lady gossipping with her 
 husband, she thought she had discovered the 
 means of bringing him to shame, and making 
 his life a burden to him. Now in his visitor 
 she saw, as she thought, a woman possessing 
 qualities such as she admired, but for which 
 she never gave her husband credit, and one 
 who might render her efficient aid in her 
 life's campaign against him. Even if what 
 had been told her were false, and that this 
 woman were an old friend of his, as a visitor 
 in Great Walpole-street Mrs. Calverley would 
 have her under her own eye, and she believed 
 sufficiently in her own powers of penetration 
 to enable her to judge of the relations be- 
 tween them. So that, after a little more talk, 
 the visit was determined on, and it was ar-
 
 IN THE CITY. 151 
 
 ranged that the next day Madame Du Tertre 
 should remove to her new quarters. 
 
 1 And now,' said Pauline, as she knocked 
 at Mr. Mogg's door, whither the Calverley's 
 carriage had brought her, 'and now, Monsieur 
 Tom Durham, gave a vous! for this day I 
 have laid the beginning of the train which, 
 sooner or later, shall blow your newly-built 
 castle of happiness into the air !'
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 
 
 Jolly George Gurwoocl's only child, ths little 
 boy whom his grandfather, old John Lorraine, 
 made so much of during the latter years of his 
 life, after having been educated at Marlborough 
 and Oxford, was admitted into holy orders, 
 and, at the time of our story, was Vicar of 
 Lullington, a rural parish, about one hmdred 
 and twenty miles from London, on the great 
 Northern road. A pleasant place Lulington 
 for a lazy man. A quiet, sleepy little village 
 of half a hundred houses, scattered here and 
 there, with a chirpy little brook singing its 
 way through what was supposed to ]e the 
 principal street, and hurrying onwards through 
 great broad tracts of green pasturage, 
 
 vlier 
 
 in the summer time the reel-brown cattle Irank 
 
 .1 
 of it, and cooled their heated limbs in i;s re-
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 153 
 
 freshing tide, until it was finally swallowed up 
 in the silver Trent. 
 
 Lullington Church was not a particularly 
 picturesque edifice, for it resembled a large 
 barn, with a square, weather-beaten tower at 
 one end of it ; nor was the churchyard at all 
 likely to be provocative of an elegy, or of any- 
 thing but rheumatism, being a damp, dreary 
 little spot, with most of its tombstones covered 
 with green moss, and with a public footpath, 
 with a stile at either end, running through 
 the middle of it. But to the artists wandering 
 through that part of the country (they were 
 not numerous, for Notts and Lincoln have not 
 much to offer to the sketcher), the vicarage 
 made up for the shortcomings of the church. 
 It was a square, old-fashioned, red-bricked 
 house, standing in the midst of a garden full 
 of greenery ; and whereas the church looked 
 time-worn and cold, and had, even on the 
 brightest summer clay, a teeth - chattering, 
 gruesome appearance, the vicarage had a 
 jolly cheerful expression, and when the sun 
 gleamed on its little diamond-shaped win-
 
 154 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 dows, with their leaden casements, you were 
 inexplicably reminded of a red-faced, genial 
 old gentleman, whose eyes were twinkling in 
 delight at some funny story which he had just 
 heard. 
 
 It was just the home for a middle-aged 
 man with a wife and family ; for it had a large 
 number of rooms of all kinds and shapes, 
 square bed-chambers, triangular nooks, long 
 passages, large attics, wherein was accommo- 
 dation for half-a-dozen servants, and ram- 
 shackle stables, where as many horses could 
 be stowed away. It was just the house for a 
 man of large means, who would not object to 
 devoting a certain portion of his leisure to his 
 parochial duties, but whose principal occupa- 
 tion would be in his garden or his green- 
 houses. Such a man was Martin Gurwood's 
 predecessor, who had held the living for fifty 
 years, and had seen some half- score boys and 
 girls issue from the vicarage into the world 
 to marry and settle themselves in various 
 ways of life. The Reverend Anthony Camden 
 was known as a rose-grower throughout three
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 155 
 
 adjoining counties, and had even obtained 
 special prizes at Crystal-Palace and Botanical- 
 Garden shows. He was a bit of a fisherman 
 too, and had been in his younger days some- 
 thing of a shot. Not being much of a reader, 
 except of the Field and the Gardeners Chro- 
 nicle, he would have found the winter evenings 
 dull, had it not been for the excitement of 
 perpetually re-arranging his large collection 
 of moths and butterflies, renewing their corks 
 and pins, and putting fresh pieces of camphor 
 into the corners of the glazed drawers which 
 contained them. Mr. Camden knew all about 
 crops and manure, and sub-soiling and drain- 
 age ; the farmers for miles round used to come 
 to the vicarage to consult him, and he always 
 gave them beer and advice, both of the best 
 quality. He played long -whist and preached 
 short sermons; and when he died in a green 
 old age, it was universally voted in Lullington 
 and its neighbourhood, that it would be im- 
 possible to replace him. 
 
 Certainly, there could not have been a 
 more marked contrast than between him and
 
 156 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 his successor. Martin Gurwood was a man 
 of six-and-twenty, unmarried, with apparently 
 no thought in life beyond his sacred calling 
 and the duties appertaining to it. Only half 
 the rooms in the vicarage were furnished; and, 
 except on such rare occasions as his mother 
 or some of his friends coming to stay with 
 him, only two of them on the ground-floor, 
 one the vicar's study, the other his bed-cham- 
 ber, were used. The persistent entreaties of 
 his old housekeeper had induced him to re- 
 lent from his original intention of allowing 
 the garden to go to rack and ruin, and it was 
 accordingly handed over to the sexton, who in 
 so small a community had but little work in 
 his own particular line, and who kept up the 
 old-fashioned flowers and the smooth-shaven 
 lawns in which their late owner had so much 
 delighted. But Martin Gurwood took no in- 
 terest in the garden himself, and only entered 
 it occasionally of an evening, when he would 
 stroll up and down the lawn, or one of the 
 gravel walks, with his head bent forward and 
 his hands clasped behind him, deep in medi-
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 157 
 
 tation. He kept a horse, certainly — a powerful 
 big-boned Irish hunter — but he only rode her 
 by fits and starts, sometimes leaving her in 
 the stable for weeks together, dependent on 
 such exercise as she could obtain in the spare 
 moments of her groom, at other times per- 
 sistently riding her day after day, no matter 
 what might be the weather. On those occa- 
 sions the vicar did not merely go out for a 
 mild constitutional, to potter round the out- 
 skirts of his parish, or to trot over to the 
 market-town ; he was out for hours at a 
 stretch, and generally brought the mare home 
 heated and foam-flecked. Indeed, more than 
 one of his parishioners had seen their spiritual 
 guide riding across country, solitary indeed, 
 but straight, as though he were marking out 
 the line for a steeple-chase, stopping neither 
 for hedge, bank, nor brook, the Irish mare 
 flying all in her stride, her rider sitting with 
 his hands down on her withers, his lips com- 
 pressed, and his face deadly pale. ' Tekkin it 
 out of hisself, mebbe,' said Farmer Barford, 
 when his son described to him this si°;ht which
 
 158 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 he had seen that afternoon ; c for all he's so 
 close, and so meek and religious, there's a 
 spice of the devil in him as in every other 
 man; and, Bill, my boy, that's the way he 
 takes it out of hisself.' Thus Farmer Bar- 
 ford, and to this effect spoke several of the 
 parishioners in committee assembled over their 
 pipes and beer at the Dun Cow. 
 
 They did not hint anything of the kind to 
 the vicar himself, trust them for that ! Martin 
 Gurwood could not be called popular amongst 
 the community in which his lot was cast ; he 
 was charitable to a degree, lavish with his 
 money, thinking nothing of passing days and 
 nights by the bedside of the sick, contributing 
 more than half the funds necessary for the 
 maintenance of the village schools, accessible 
 at all times, and ready with such advice or 
 assistance as the occasion demanded ; but yet 
 they called him 'high and standoffish.' Old 
 Mr. Camden, making a house-to-house visita- 
 tion perhaps once a year, when the fit so 
 seized him, c going his rounds,' as he called it, 
 would sit down to dinner in a farm-house
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 159 
 
 kitchen, or take a mug of beer with the far- 
 mer while they talked about crops, and oc- 
 casionally would preside at a harvest-home 
 supper, or a Christmas gathering. Martin 
 Gurwood did nothing of this kind ; he was 
 always polite, invariably courteous, but he 
 never courted anything like fellowship or 
 bonhomie. He had joined the village cricket- 
 club on his first arrival, and showed himself 
 an excellent and energetic player; but the 
 familiarity engendered in the field seemed 
 displeasing to him, and though he continued 
 his subscription, he gradually withdrew from 
 active membership. Nor was his religious 
 ardour particularly pleasing to the parish- 
 ioners, who, under Mr. Camden's lax rule, 
 had thought it sufficient if they put-in an ap- 
 pearance at morning service, and thus cleared 
 off the debt of attendance until the succeeding 
 Sunday. They could not understand what 
 the parson meant by having prayers at eight 
 o'clock every morning : who did he expect 
 would go at such a time, they wondered ? Not 
 they, nor their men, who were far away in
 
 160 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 the fields before that time ; not the missuses, 
 who had the dairy and the house to attend to ; 
 not the girls, who were looking after the linen 
 and minding the younger children ; nor the 
 boys, who, if not at school, were out at farm- 
 work. It was all very well for the two Miss 
 Dyneleys, the two maiden ladies living at 
 Ivy Cottage, who had money coming in regu- 
 lar, paid them by the Government (the Lul- 
 lington idea of consols was not particularly 
 clear), and had naught to do from morning 
 till night ; it filled-up their time like, and 
 was a kind of amusement to them. All very 
 well for old Mr. Willis, who had made his 
 fortune, it was said, by being a tailor in 
 London, who had bought the Larches where 
 Squire Needham used to live in the good old 
 times, who could not ride, or drive, or shoot, 
 or fish, or do anything but walk about his 
 garden with a spud over his shoulders, and 
 who was said to be dying to get back to busi- 
 ness. These and some two or three of the 
 bigger girls from the Miss Gilks's seminary 
 for young ladies, were all that attended at
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 161 
 
 c Martins,' as the name of the morning service 
 stood in Early-english type on the index -board 
 in the churchyard ; but Martin Gurwood per- 
 severed and went through the service with as 
 much earnestness and devotion as though the 
 church had been full and the bishop of the 
 diocese seated in the vicar's pew. 
 
 There was the usual element of squire- 
 archy in the neighbourhood, and on Martin's 
 first introduction into its parish the squires' 
 wives drove over, leaving their own and their 
 husbands' cards, and invitations to dinner, 
 duly arranged for a time when the moon was 
 at its full. Mr. Gurwood responded to these 
 invitations, and made his appearance at the 
 various banquets. Accustomed to old Mr. 
 Camden with his red face, his bald head, his 
 white whiskers, and black suit cut in the 
 fashion of a quarter of a century ago, the 
 county people were at first rather impressed 
 with Martin Gurwood's thin handsome face, 
 and small well-dressed figure. It was a relief, 
 the women said, to see a gentleman amongst 
 them, and they were all certain that Mr. Gur- 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 wood would be an acquisition to the local 
 society ; but as the guests were driving home- 
 ward from the first of these feasts, several of 
 the male convives imparted to their wives 
 their idea that the new Vicar of Lullington 
 was not merely unfit to hold a candle to his 
 predecessor, but was likely to prove a meddle- 
 some, disagreeable fellow. It seemed that 
 after the ladies had retired, the conversation 
 becoming as usual rather free, Mr. Gurwood 
 had sat in blank, stony silence, keeping his 
 eyes steadily fixed upon the contents- of his 
 dessert plate, and neither by look nor word 
 giving the slightest intimation that he was 
 
 aware of what was goino; on. But when ral- 
 es ?5 
 
 lied from his silence by Mr. Lidstone, a man 
 of low tastes and small education, but enor- 
 mously wealthy, Mr. Gurwood had spoken out 
 and declared that if by indulging in such con- 
 versation, and telling such stories, they chose 
 to ignore the respect due to themselves, they 
 ought at least, while he was among them, to 
 recollect the respect due to him, and to the 
 calling which he represented. He had no
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 163 
 
 desire to assume the character of a wet blanket 
 or a kill-joy, but they must understand that 
 for the future they must chose between his 
 presence and the indulgence in such conversa- 
 tion ; and as they had evidently not expected 
 any such demonstration in the present in- 
 stance, he would relieve them of his company 
 at once, and leave them to decide whether or 
 not he should again come amongst them as a 
 guest. So saying, the parson had walked out 
 of the window on to the lawn as cool as a 
 cucumber, and left the squirearchy gaping in 
 astonishment. 
 
 They were Boeotian, these county people, 
 crass, ignorant, and rusted with prejudice from 
 want of contact with the world, but they were 
 by no means bad-hearted, and they took the 
 parson's remonstrance in very good part. Each 
 one who had already sent Martin Gurwood an 
 invitation, managed to grip his hand before 
 the evening was over, and took occasion to 
 renew it, declaring he should have no occa- 
 sion to reiterate the remarks which he had 
 just made, and which they perfectly under-
 
 164 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 stood. Nor had he; he went a round of 
 these solemn festivities, finding each one, both 
 during the presence of the ladies and after 
 their withdrawal, perfectly decorous, but un- 
 speakably dull. He had not been sufficiently 
 long in the neighbourhood for the local gossip 
 to possess the smallest interest to him ; he was 
 not sufficient of an agriculturist to discuss the 
 different methods of farming or the various 
 qualities of food ; he could talk about Oxford 
 indeed, where some of his hosts or their friends 
 had young relations whom he had known ; he 
 could and did sing well certain Italian songs 
 in a rich tenor voice ; and he discussed church 
 architecture and decorations with the young 
 ladies. But the old squires and the young- 
 squires cared for none of these things. They 
 remembered how old Anthony Camden would 
 sit by while the broadest stories were told, 
 looking, save from the twinkle in his eye and 
 the curling of his bulbous nether lip, as though 
 he heard them not; with what feeling he would 
 troll out a ballad of Dibdin's, or a bacchana- 
 lian ditty; and how the brewing of the bowl of
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 165 
 
 punch, the c stirrup-cup/ was always intrusted 
 to his practised hand. Martin Gurwood took 
 a glass of cold water before leaving; and if he 
 were dining out any distance always had the 
 one hired fly of the neighbourhood to convey 
 him back to the vicarage. No wonder that 
 the laughter-loving, roister ous squires shook 
 their heads when they thought of old Anthony 
 Camden, and mourned over the glories of those 
 departed days. 
 
 Martin Gurwood was not, however, at Lul- 
 lington just now. He had induced an old 
 college friend to look after the welfare of his 
 parishioners while he ran up, as he did once 
 or twice in the year, to stay for a fortnight 
 with his mother in Great Walpole-street. John 
 Calverley, who had a strong liking for Martin, 
 a feeling which the vicar cordially recipro- 
 cated, was anxious that his step-son should 
 come to them at Christmas ; being an old- 
 fashioned soul with a belief in holly and yule 
 logs, and kindly greetings and open-hearted 
 charities, at what he invariably spoke of as 
 that c festive season,' and having an intense
 
 166 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 desire to interpose at such a time a friendly 
 segis between him and the stony-faced Gorgon, 
 whom it was his lot through life to confront. 
 But Martin Gurwood, regarding the Christ- 
 mas season in a very different light, urged that 
 at such a time it would be impossible for him 
 to absent himself from his duties, and after 
 his own frigid manner refused to be tempted 
 by the convivial blandishments which John 
 held out to him, or to be scared by the picture 
 of the grim loneliness of the vicarage which 
 his stepfather drew for his edification. So, in 
 the early days of November, when the Lul- 
 lington farmers were getting well into their 
 hunting, and the London fogs, scarcely long 
 enough to embrace the entire length of Great 
 Walpole-street, blotted out its middle and its 
 lower end, leaving the upper part compara- 
 tively bright and airy, Martin Gurwood came 
 to town and took up his abode in Mrs. Calver- 
 ley's best spare bedroom. 
 
 The other spare bedroom in the house was 
 occupied by Madame Pauline Du Tertre, who 
 had for some time been installed there, and
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 167 
 
 had regularly taken up her position as the 
 friend of the family and confidential adviser 
 to the female head of the house. Immediately 
 on gaining her footing within the walls, Paul- 
 ine had succeeded in establishing herself in 
 the good graces of the self-contained, silent 
 woman, who hitherto had never known what 
 it was to have any one to share her confidences, 
 to listen patiently to her never-ceasing com- 
 plaints, and to be able and willing to make 
 little suggestions which chimed-in with Mrs. 
 Calverley's thoughts and wishes. Years ago, 
 before her first marriage, Jane Calverley had 
 had a surfeit of toadyism and flattery from 
 her poor relations and dependants, and from 
 the servants, who cringed to and fawned upon 
 the young girl as though they had been 
 southern slaves and she their owner. But in 
 George Gurwood's days, and since her mar- 
 riage with her second husband, Mrs. Calverley 
 had made no friends, and even those whose 
 interest it was to stand well with her had 
 found it impossible to break through the bar- 
 riers of icy reserve with which she surrounded
 
 168 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 herself. They did not approach her in the 
 proper manner perhaps, they did not go to 
 work in the right way. Commonly bred 
 _and ill-educated people as they were, they 
 imagined that the direct road to Jane Cal- 
 verley's favour lay in pitying her and speak- 
 ing against her husband, with whom she was 
 plainly at strife. As is usual with such peo- 
 ple, they overacted their parts ; they spoke 
 strongly and bitterly in their denunciation of 
 Mr. Calverley; they were coarse, and their 
 loud-trumpeted compassion for their mistress 
 jarred upon its recipient. Jane Calverley was 
 a proud as well as a hard woman, and her mind 
 revolted against the idea of being openly com- 
 passionated by her inferiors; so she kept her 
 confidences rigidly locked in her own breast, 
 and Pauline's was the first hand to press a 
 spring by which the casket was opened. 
 
 Before the Frenchwoman had been in the 
 house twenty-four hours, she had learned ex- 
 actly the relations of its inmates, and as much 
 as has been already set forth in these pages of 
 their family history. She had probed the
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 169 
 
 characters of the husband and the wife, had 
 listened to the mother's eulogies of her saintly 
 son, and had sighed and shaken her head in 
 seeming condolence over the vividly- described 
 shortcomings of Mr. Calverley. Without effu- 
 sion, and with only the dumb sympathy con- 
 veyed by her eloquent eyes and gestures, Paul- 
 ine managed to lead her new-found friend, 
 now that she comprehended her domestic 
 troubles, and would do her best to aid her 
 in getting rid of them, and in many other 
 ways she made herself useful and agreeable 
 to the cold, friendless woman who was her 
 hostess. She re-arranged the furniture of the 
 dreary drawing-room, lighting it up here and 
 there with such flowers as were procurable, 
 and with evergreens, which she bought her- 
 self; she covered the square formal chairs and 
 couches with muslin antimacassars, and gave 
 the room, what it had never hitherto had, the 
 semblance of a woman's presence. She accom- 
 plished what everybody had imagined to be an 
 impossibility, an alteration in the style of Mrs. 
 Calverley's costume; she made with her own
 
 170 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 hands a little elegant cap with soft blond fall- 
 ing from it, which took away from that rigid 
 outline of the chin ; and instead of the wisp of 
 black net round her throat, she induced Mrs. 
 Calverley to wear a neat white muslin hand- 
 kerchief across her chest. The piano, seldom 
 touched, save when Mrs. Calverley, in an ex- 
 traordinary good temper, would, for her hus- 
 band's edification, thump and strum away at 
 an overture in Semiramide and other set pieces, 
 which she had learned in her youth, was now 
 regularly brought into use, and in the evening 
 Pauline would seat herself at it, playing long 
 selections from Mendelssohn and Beethoven, 
 or singing religious songs by Mozart, the listen- 
 ing to which made John Calverley supremely 
 happy, and even brought something like mois- 
 ture into his wife's steely eyes. It is probable 
 that had Mrs. Calverley had any notion that 
 these songs were the composition of a Roman 
 Catholic, and were many of them used in what 
 she was accustomed to speak of as ' Popish 
 ceremonies,' she would never have been in- 
 duced even to listen to them; but with un-
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 171 
 
 erring judgment Pauline had at once divined 
 this phase in her employer's character, and, 
 while the particular sect to which she belonged 
 was of no importance to herself, had taken 
 care to make Mrs. Calverley understand that 
 Luther had no more devoted adherent. 
 
 c She is a Huguenot, my dear,' said Mrs. 
 Calverley to Martin Gurwood, shortly after 
 his arrival, and before she had presented him 
 to the new inmate of the house; c a Huguenot 
 of ancient family, who lost all their property 
 a long time ago by the revocation of the edict 
 of somebody — Xancy, I think, was the name. 
 You will find her a most amiable person, 
 richly endowed with good gifts, and calcu- 
 lated, should she not suffer from the evil 
 effects of Mr. Calverley's companionship, to 
 prove an inestimable blessing to me.' 
 * Martin Gurwood expressed himself well 
 pleased to hear this account of his mother's 
 new-found friend ; but, on being presented to 
 Pauline, he scarcely found the description 
 realised. His natural cleverness had been 
 sharpened by his public-school and university
 
 172 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 education; and, though during the last few 
 years of his life he had been buried in com- 
 parative obscurity, he retained sufficient know- 
 ledge of the world to perceive that a woman 
 like Madame Du Tertre, bright, clever, to a 
 certain degree accomplished, and possessing 
 immense energy and power of will, would not 
 have relegated herself to such a life as she 
 was then leading without having a strong aim 
 to gain. And what that aim was he was de- 
 termined to find out. 
 
 But, though these were Martin Gurwood's 
 thoughts, he never permitted a trace of them 
 to appear in his manner to Madame Du 
 Tertre, which was scrupulously courteous, if 
 nothing more. Perhaps it was from his mo- 
 ther that he inherited a certain cold propriety 
 of bearing and frigidity of demeanour, which 
 his acquaintances generally complained of. 
 The farmers of Lullington, comparing it with 
 the geniality of their previous pastor, found 
 it insufferable ; and his college friends, who 
 had come in contact with him of late years, 
 thought he was a totally changed being from
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 1 73 
 
 the high-spirited fellow who had been one of 
 the noisiest athletes of his day. Certain it 
 was that he was now pensive and reserved; 
 nay more, that when out of Lullington in 
 company — that is to say, either with any of 
 his former colleagues, or of a few persons who 
 were visitors at the house in Great Walpole- 
 street — he seemed desirous almost of shunning 
 observation, and of studiously keeping in the 
 back-ground, when his mother's pride in him 
 would have made him take a leading part 
 in any conversation that might be going on. 
 Before he had been two days in the house 
 Pauline's quick instinct had detected this 
 peculiarity, and she had mentally noted it 
 among the things which, properly worked, 
 might help her to the elucidation of the plan 
 to which she had devoted her life. She deter- 
 mined on making herself agreeable to this 
 young man, on forcing him into a certain 
 amount of intimacy and companionship ; and 
 so skilful were her tactics, that, without 
 absolute rudeness, Martin Gurwood found it
 
 174 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 impossible entirely to withdraw from her 
 advances. 
 
 One night she challenged him to ches3, 
 and during the intervals of the game she en- 
 deavoured to learn more of him than she had 
 hitherto been able to do in mere desultory- 
 conversation in the presence of others. 
 
 Mrs. Calverley was hard at work at the 
 Berlin-wool frame, putting the final touches 
 to Jael and Sisera ; John Calverley, with the 
 newspaper in his lap, was fast asleep in his 
 easy-chair; and the chess-players were at the 
 far end of the room, with a shaded lamp 
 between them. 
 
 They formed a strange contrast this cou- 
 ple : he, with his wavy chestnut hair, his thin 
 red-and-white, clear-cut, whiskerless face, his 
 shifting blue eyes, and his weak irresolute 
 mouth ; she, with her olive complexion, her 
 blue-black hair, her steady earnest gaze, her 
 square firm jaw, and the deep orange trim- 
 mings of her black silk dress, showing off 
 strangely against her companion's sable-hued 
 clerical dress.
 
 THE VICAK OF LULLINGTON. 175 
 
 * You are too strong for me, monsieur,' 
 said Pauline, at the conclusion of the first 
 game ; c but I will not yield you the victory 
 without a farther struggle.' 
 
 DO 
 
 1 1 was going to say you played an excel- 
 lent game, Madame Du Tertre ; but after 
 your remark, it would sound as though I 
 were complimenting myself,' said Martin. ' I 
 have but few opportunities for chess-playing 
 now, but it was a favourite game of mine at 
 college ; and I knew many a man who prided 
 himself on his play whose head for it was 
 certainly not so good as yours.' 
 
 ' You have not many persons in your — 
 what you call your parish — who play chess?' 
 
 c No, indeed,' said Martin ; ' cribbage I 
 believe to be the highest flight in that line 
 amongst the farmers.' 
 
 ■ Madame Calverley has explained to me the 
 style of place that it is. Is it not wearisome to 
 you to a degree to pass your existence in such 
 a locale amongst such a set of people ?' 
 
 c It is my duty, Madame Du Tertre,' said 
 Martin, ; and I do not repine.'
 
 176 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 c Ah, monsieur,' said Pauline, with an in- 
 clination of her head and downcast eyes, c I 
 am the last person in the world to rebel 
 against duty, or to allow that it should not 
 be undertaken in that spirit of Christianity 
 which you have shown. But are you sure, 
 Monsieur Martin, that you are acting rightly? 
 However good your intentions may be, with 
 your devotion to the cause you have espoused, 
 and with your great talents, you should be 
 taking a leading position in the great battle 
 of religion ; whereas, by burying yourself in 
 this hole, there you lose for yourself the op- 
 portunity of fame, while the Church loses a 
 brilliant leader.' 
 
 c I have no desire for fame, Madame Du 
 Tertre ; and if I can only do my duty dili- 
 gently, it is enough for me.' 
 
 1 Yes ; but there is another thing. Pardon 
 me, Monsieur Martin, I am a strange woman 
 and some years older than you, so that you 
 must not think me guilty of an impertinence 
 in speaking freely to you. Your Church — our 
 Church — does not condemn its ministers to
 
 THE VICAR OF LULLINGTON. 177 
 
 an ascetic or a celibate life — that is one of 
 the wildest errors of Romanism. Has it ne- 
 ver struck you that in consenting to remain 
 amongst persons with whom you have nothing 
 in common — where you are never likely to 
 meet a woman calculated so to excite your 
 admiration and affection as to induce you to 
 make her your wife, you are rather following 
 the Roman than the Protestant custom?' 
 
 A faint flush, duly marked by Pauline's 
 keen eyes, passed over Martin Gurwood's 
 , handsome features. i I have no intention of 
 marrying,' he said, in a low voice. 
 
 'Not now perhaps,' said Pauline, 'because 
 you have not yet seen anyone whom you 
 could love. A man of your taste and educa- 
 tion is always fastidious; but, depend upon 
 it, you will some day find some lovely girl of 
 ancient family who — ' 
 
 1 It will be time enough then to speak of 
 it, Madame Du Tertre, would it not?' said 
 Martin Gurwood, flushing again. ' Now, if 
 you please, we will resume our game.' 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 When Pauline went to her bedroom that 
 night she locked the door, threw herself into 
 an easy-chair in front of the fire, and remained 
 buried in contemplation. Then she rose, and 
 as she strolled towards the dressing-table, said 
 half aloud: 'That man is jealously guarding 
 a secret — and it is his own!'
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 tom Durham's friend. 
 
 On the morning after the Reverend Martin 
 Gurwood and Madame Du Tertre had had 
 their game at chess, and held the conver- 
 sation just recorded, a straggling sunbeam, 
 which had lost its way, turned by accident 
 into 'Change-alley, and fell straight on to the 
 bald head of a gentleman in the second-floor 
 of one of the houses there. This gentleman, 
 who, according to the inscription on the outer 
 door jamb, was Mr. Humphrey Statham, was 
 so astonished at the unexpected solar appari- 
 tion, that he laid down the bundle of red tape 
 with which he was knotting some papers to- 
 gether, and advancing to the grimy window, 
 rubbed a square inch of dirt off the pane, and 
 bending down, looked up at as much as he 
 could discern of the narrow strip of dun-
 
 180 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 coloured sky which does duty for the blue 
 empyrean to the inhabitants of 'Change-alley. 
 The sun but rarely visits 'Change-alley in 
 summer, and in winter scarcely ever puts in 
 an appearance ; the denizens endeavour to 
 compensate themselves for its absence by 
 hanging huge burnished tin reflectors outside 
 their windows, or giving up all attempts at 
 deception, and sitting under gaslight from 
 morning till eve. So that what Mr. Statham 
 saw when he looked up was as satisfactory as 
 it was unexpected, and he rubbed his hands 
 together in sheer geniality, as he muttered 
 something about having ' decent weather for 
 his trip.' 
 
 A tall, strongly-built man, and good-look- 
 ing after his fashion, with a fringe of dark- 
 brown hair round his bald crown, large regu- 
 lar features, piercing hazel eyes, somewhat 
 overhanging brows, a pleasant mobile mouth, 
 and a crisp brown beard. 
 
 Humphrey Statham was a ship-broker, 
 though, from a cursory glance at his office, it 
 w^ould have been difficult to guess what occu-
 
 tom Durham's friend. 181 
 
 pation he pursued, furnished as it was in the 
 ordinary business fashion. There was a large 
 leather-covered writing-table, at which he was 
 seated, a standing desk in the window, an old 
 worn stained leather easy-chair for clients, the 
 customary directories and commercial lists on 
 shelves against the wall, the usual Stationers' 
 Almanac hanging above the mantelpiece, the 
 usual worn carpet and cinder-browned hearth- 
 rug. In the outer office, where the four clerks 
 sat, and where the smaller owners and the 
 captains had to wait Mr. Statham's leisure 
 (large owners and underwriters being granted 
 immediate audience), the walls were covered 
 with printed bills, announcing the dates of 
 departure of certain ships, the approaching 
 sale of others ; the high desks were laden 
 with huge ledgers and files of Lloyd's lists; 
 and one of the clerks, who took a deep in- 
 terest in his business, gave quite a maritime 
 flavour to the place by invariably wearing a 
 particular short pea-jacket and a hard round 
 oilskin hat. 
 
 Xot much leisure had these clerks; they
 
 182 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 were, to use their own phrase, 'at it' from 
 morning till night, for Mr. Statham's business 
 was a large one, and though all the more im- 
 portant part of it was discharged by himself, 
 there was plenty of letter- writing and agree- 
 ment copying, ledger-entering, and running 
 backwards and forwards between the office 
 and Lloyd's when the l governor,' as they 
 called him, was busy with the underwriters. 
 This year had been a peculiarly busy one ; so 
 busy, that Mr. Statham had been unable to 
 take his usual autumnal holiday, a period of 
 relaxation which he always looked forward 
 to, and which, being fond of athletics, and still 
 in the very prime of life, he usually passed 
 among the Swiss Alps. This autumn he had 
 passed it at Teddington instead of Cour- 
 mayeur, and had substituted a couple of 
 hours' pull on the river in the evening for his 
 mountain climbing and hairbreadth escapes. 
 But the change had not been sufficient; his 
 head was dazed, he suffered under a great 
 sense of lassitude ; and his doctor had ordered 
 him to knock-off work, and to start immedi-
 
 tom Durham's friend. 183 
 
 ately for a clear month's vacation. Where he 
 was to go he had scarcely made up his mind. 
 Of course, Switzerland in November was im- 
 possible, and he was debating between the 
 attractions of a month's snipe-shooting in Ire- 
 land and the delight of passing his time on 
 board one of the Scilly Islands pilot -boats, 
 roughing it with the men, and thoroughly 
 enjoying the wild life and the dangerous 
 occupation. A grave, plain - mannered man 
 in his business — somewhat over cautious 
 and reserved they thought him at Lloyd's — 
 Humphrey Statham, when away for his holi- 
 day, had the high spirits of a boy, and never 
 was so happy as when he had thrown off all 
 the ordinary constraints of conventionality, 
 and was leading a life widely different from 
 that normally led by him, and associating 
 with persons widely different from those with 
 whom he was ordinarily brought into contact. 
 Mr. Statham was, however, in his business 
 just now, and had not thrown off his cautious 
 habits. By his side stood a large iron safe, 
 with one or two of its drawers open, and be-
 
 184 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 fore him lay a number of letters and papers, 
 which he read through one by one, or curi- 
 ously glanced at, duly docketed them, made 
 some memorandum regarding them in his 
 note-book, and stowed them away in a drawer 
 in the safe. As he read through some of 
 them, he smiled ; at others he glanced with an 
 angry frown or a shoulder-shrug of contempt ; 
 but there were one or two during the perusal 
 of which the lines in his face seemed to deepen 
 perceptibly, and before he laid them aside he 
 pondered long and deeply over their contents. 
 i What a queer lot it is ! ' said Humphrey 
 Statham wearily, throwing himself back in his 
 chair ; ' and how astonished people would be 
 if they only knew what a strange mass of 
 human interests these papers represent ! With 
 the exception of Collins, outside there, no one, 
 I suppose, comes into this room who does not 
 imagine that this safe contains nothing but 
 business memoranda, insurances, brokerages, 
 calculations, and commissions ; details con- 
 cerning the Lively Polly of Yarmouth, or the 
 Saucy Sally of Whitstable ; or who has the
 
 tom Durham's friend. 185 
 
 faintest idea that among the business docu- 
 ments there are papers and letters which 
 would form £ood stock-in-trade for a romance 
 writer ! Why on earth do those fellows spin 
 their brains, when for a very small investment 
 of cash they could get people to tell them their 
 own experiences, actual facts and occurrences, 
 infinitely more striking and interesting than 
 the nonsense which they invent ? Every man 
 who has seen anything of life must at one time 
 or other have had some strange experience : 
 the man who sells dog-collars and penknives 
 at the corner of the court; the old broken- 
 down hack in the outer office, who was a gen- 
 tleman once, and now copies letters and runs 
 errands for fifteen shillings a week ; and I, the 
 solemn, grave, trusted man of business — I, the 
 cautious and reserved Humphrey Statham — 
 perhaps I too have had my experiences which 
 would work into a strange story ! A story I 
 may have to tell some day — may have to tell 
 to a man, standing face to face with him, look- 
 ing straight into his eyes, and showing him 
 how he has been delivered into my hands.'
 
 186 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 And Humphrey Statham crossed his arms be- 
 fore him and let his chin sink upon his breast, 
 as he indulged in a profound reverie. 
 
 We will anticipate the story which Mr. 
 Statham imagined that he would some day 
 have to tell under such peculiar circumstances. 
 
 Humphrey Statham's father was a mer- 
 chant and a man of means, living in good 
 style in Russell-square; and, though of a 
 somewhat gloomy temperament and stern de- 
 meanour, in his way fond of his son, and 
 determined that the lad should be educated 
 and prepared for the position which he WT>uld 
 afterwards have to assume. Humphrey's mo- 
 ther was dead — had died soon after his birth 
 — he had no brothers or sisters; and as Mr. 
 Statham had never married again, the house- 
 hold was conducted by his sister, a meek long- 
 suffering maiden lady, to whom hebdomadal 
 attendance at the Foundling Chapel was the one 
 joy in life. It had first been intended that 
 the child should be educated at home ; but he 
 seemed so out of place in the big old-fashioned 
 house, so strange in the company of his grave
 
 TOM dueham's friend. 187 
 
 father or melancholy aunt, that, to prevent his 
 being given over entirely to the servants, 
 whom he liked very much, and with whom he 
 spent most of his time, he was sent at an early 
 age to a preparatory establishment, and then 
 transferred to a grammar-school oftrepute in 
 the neighbourhood of London. He was a 
 dare-devil boy, full of fun and mischief, capi- 
 tal at cricket and football, and though remark- 
 ably quick by nature, and undoubtedly possess- 
 ing plenty of appreciative common-sense and 
 savoir faire, yet taking no position in the 
 school, and held in very cheap estimation by 
 his master. The half-yearly reports which, 
 together with the bills for education and ex- 
 tras, were placed inside Master Humphrey's 
 box, on the top of his neatly-packed clothes, 
 and accompanied him home at every vacation 
 from Canehambury, did not tend to make Mr. 
 Statham any the less stern, or his manner to 
 his son any more indulgent. The boy knew — 
 he could not help knowing — that his father 
 was wealthy and influential, and he had looked 
 forward to his future without any fear, and,
 
 188 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 indeed, without very much concern. He 
 thought he should like to go into the army, 
 which meant to wear a handsome uniform and 
 do little or nothing, to be petted by the ladies, 
 of whose charms he had already shown himself 
 perfectly cognisant, and to lead a life of luxury 
 and ease. But Mr. Statham had widely differ- 
 ent views. Although he had succeeded to his 
 business, he had vastly improved it since he 
 became its master, and had no idea of sur- 
 rendering so lucrative a concern to a stranger, 
 or of letting it pass out of the family. As he 
 had worked, so should his son work in his 
 turn; and accordingly, Master Humphrey on 
 his removal from Canehambury was sent to a 
 tutor resident in one of the Rhineland towns, 
 with a view to his instruction in French and 
 German, and to his development from a care- 
 less, high-spirited lad into a man of business 
 and of the world. 
 
 The German tutor, a dreamy misty trans- 
 cendentalist, was eminently unfitted for the 
 charge intrusted to him. He gave the boy 
 certain books, and left him to read them or
 
 tom Durham's friend. 189 
 
 not, as lie chose ; he set him certain tasks, but 
 never took the trouble to see how they had 
 been performed, or, indeed, whether they had 
 been touched at all, till he was remarkably 
 astonished after a short time to find his pupil 
 speaking very excellent German, and once or 
 twice took the trouble to wonder how ' Hom- 
 frie,' as he called him, could have acquired 
 such a mastery of the language. Had an ex- 
 planation of the marvel ever been asked of 
 Humphrey himself, he could have explained it 
 very readily. The town selected for his domi- 
 cile was one of the celebrated art-academies of 
 Germany, a place where painters of all kinds 
 flocked from all parts to study under the re- 
 nowned professors therein resident. A jo- 
 vial, thriftless, kindly set of Bohemians these 
 painters, in the strict sense of the word, impe- 
 cunious to a degree, now working from morn 
 till eve for days together, now not touching 
 pencil or maulstick for weeks, living in a per- 
 petual fog of tobacco, and spending their 
 nights in beer-drinking and song-sinoing, in 
 cheap epicureanism and noisy philosophical
 
 190 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 discussions. To this society of careless con- 
 vives Humphrey Statham obtained a ready in- 
 troduction, and among them soon established 
 himself as a prime favourite. The bright face 
 and interminable spirits of l Gesellschap's Eng- 
 lander,' as he was called (Gesellschap was the 
 name of his tutor), made him welcome every- 
 where. He passed his days in lounging from 
 studio to studio, smoking pipes and exchanging 
 jokes with their denizens, occasionally stand- 
 ing for a model for his hosts, now with bare 
 neck and arms appearing as a Roman gladia- 
 tor, now with casque and morion as a young 
 Flemish burgher of Van Artevelde's guard, 
 always ready, always obliging, roaring at his 
 own linguistic mistakes, but never failing to 
 correct them ; while at night at the painters' 
 club, the Malkasten, or the less aristocratic 
 Kneipe, his voice was the cheeriest in the 
 chorus, his wit the readiest in suo- cresting 
 tableaux vivants, or in improvising practical 
 jokes. 
 
 A pleasant life truly, but not, perhaps, a 
 particularly reputable one. Certainly not one
 
 TOM DURHAM S FRIEND. 191 
 
 calculated for the formation of a City man of 
 business according to Mr. Statham's interpre- 
 tation of the term. When at the age of twenty 
 the young man tore himself away from his 
 Bohemian comrades, who kissed him fervently, 
 and wept beery tears at his departure, and, in 
 obedience to his father's commands, returned 
 to England and to respectability, to take up 
 his position in the paternal counting-house, 
 Mr. Statham was considerably more astonished 
 than gratified at the manner in which his son's 
 time had been passed, and at its too evident 
 results. About Humphrey there was nothing 
 which could be called slang in the English 
 sense of the term, certainly nothing vulgar ; 
 but there was a reckless abandon, a defiance of 
 set propriety, a superb scorn for the respect- 
 able conventionality regulating the movements 
 and the very thoughts of the circle in which 
 Mr. Statham moved, which that worthy gen- 
 tleman observed with horror, and which he 
 considered almost as loathsome as vice itself. 
 Previous to his presentation to the establish- 
 ment over which he was to rule, Humphrey's
 
 192 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 long locks were clipped away, his light downy 
 beard shaved off, his fantastic garments ex- 
 changed for sad-coloured soberly-cut clothes ; 
 and when this transformation had been accom- 
 plished, the young man was taken into the 
 City and placed in the hands of Mr. Mor- 
 rison the chief clerk, who was enjoined to 
 give a strict account of his business qualifica- 
 tions. Mr. Morrison's report did not tend to 
 dissipate the disappointment which had fallen 
 like a blow on the old man's mind. Humphrey 
 could talk German as glibly and with as good 
 an accent as any Rhinelander from Manheim 
 to Dlisseldorf ; he had picked up a vast amount 
 of conversational French from the French art- 
 ists who had formed part of his jolly society; 
 and had command of an amount of argot which 
 would have astonished Monsieur Philarete 
 Chasles himself; but he had never been in the 
 habit of either reading or writing anything but 
 the smallest scraps of notes; and when Mr. 
 Morrison placed before him a four- sided letter 
 from their agent at Hamburg, couched in com- 
 mercial German phraseology, and requested-
 
 tom Durham's friend. 193 
 
 him to re-translate and answer it, Humphrey's 
 expressive face looked so woe-begone and he 
 boggled so perceptibly over the manuscript, 
 that one of the junior clerks saw the state of 
 affairs at a glance, and confidentially informed 
 his neighbour at the next desk that ■ young S. 
 was up a tree.' 
 
 It was impossible to hide these shortcom- 
 ings from Mr. Statham, who was anxiously 
 awaiting Mr. Morrison's report ; and after read- 
 ing it, and assuring himself of its correctness 
 by a personal examination of his son, his 
 manner, which ever since Humphrey's return 
 had been frigid and reserved, grew harsh and 
 stern. He took an early opportunity of call- 
 ing Humphrey into his private room, and of in- 
 forming him that he should have one month's 
 probation, and that if he did not signally im- 
 prove by the end of that time, he would be 
 removed from the office, as his father did not 
 choose to have one of his name the laughing- 
 stock of those employed by him. The young 
 man winced under this speech, which he re- 
 ceived in silence, but in five minutes after 
 
 VCL. i. o
 
 194 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 leaving his father's presence his mind was 
 made up. He would go through the month's 
 probation, since it was expected of him, but 
 he would not make the smallest attempt to 
 improve himself, and he would leave his future 
 to chance. Punctually, on the very day that 
 the month expired, Mr. Statham again sent 
 for his son; told him he had discovered no 
 more interest in, or inclination for, the busi- 
 ness than he had shown on his first day of 
 joining the house, and that in consequence 
 he must give up all idea of becoming a part- 
 ner, or, indeed, of having anything farther to 
 do with the establishment. An allowance of 
 two hundred pounds a year would be paid to 
 him during his father's lifetime, and would be 
 bequeathed to him in his father's will ; he must 
 never expect to receive anything else, and Mr. 
 Statham broadly hinted, in conclusion, that it 
 would be far more agreeable to him if his son 
 would take up his residence anywhere than 
 in Russell-square, and that he should feel par- 
 ticularly relieved if he never saw him again. 
 This arrangement suited Humphrey Sta-
 
 TOM DURHAM'S FRIEND. 195 
 
 tham admirably. Two hundred a year to a 
 very young man, who has never had any com- 
 mand of money, is an important sum. He left 
 the counting-house ; and whatever respect and 
 regard he may have felt for his father had 
 been obliterated by the invariable sternness and 
 opposition with which all his advances had 
 been received. Two hundred a year! He 
 would be off back at once to Rhineland, where, 
 among the painters, he could live like a prince 
 with such an income; and he went — and in 
 six months came back again. The thing was 
 changed somehow : it was not as it used to be. 
 There were the same men, indeed, living the 
 same kind of life, equally glad to welcome 
 their English comrade, and to give him the 
 run of their studios and their clubs and 
 kneipes; but after a time this kind of life 
 seemed very flat and vapid to Humphrey 
 Statham. The truth is, that during his six 
 weeks' office experience he had seen some- 
 thing of London; and on reflection he made 
 up his mind that, after all, it was perhaps a 
 more amusing place than any of the Rhine-
 
 196 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 land towns. On his return to London he 
 took a neat lodging, and for four or five years 
 led a purposeless idle life, such a life as is led 
 by hundreds of young men who are burdened 
 with that curse — a bare sufficiency, scarcely 
 enough to keep them, more than enough to 
 prevent them from seeking employment, and 
 to dull any aspirations which they may possess. 
 It was during this period of his life that Hum- 
 phrey made the acquaintance of Tom Durham, 
 whose gaiety, recklessness, and charm of man- 
 ner, fascinated him at once; and he himself 
 took a liking to the frank, generous, high- 
 spirited young man. Tom Durham's know- 
 ledge of the world made him conscious that, 
 though indolent, and to a certain extent dissi- 
 pated, Humphrey Statham was by no means 
 depraved, and to his friend Mr. Durham there- 
 fore exhibited only the best side of his nature. 
 He was engaged in some wild speculations 
 just at that time, and it was while careering 
 over the country with Tom Durham in search 
 of a capitalist to float some marvellous inven- 
 tion of that fertile genius, that Humphrey
 
 tom Durham's friend. 197 
 
 Statham met with an adventure which com- 
 pletely altered the current of his life. 
 
 They were making Leeds their head- 
 quarters, but Tom Durham had gone over to 
 Batley for a day or two, to see the owner of 
 a shoddy mill, who was reported to be both 
 rich and speculative; and Humphrey was left 
 alone. He was strolling about in the evening, 
 thinking what a horrible place Leeds was, and 
 what a large sum of money a man ought to 
 be paid for living in it, when he was overtaken 
 and passed by a girl, walking rapidly in the 
 direction of Headingley. The glimpse he 
 caught of her face showed him that it was 
 more than ordinarily beautiful, and Humphrey 
 quickened his lazy pace, and followed her 
 until he saw her safely housed in a small neat 
 dwelling. The next day he made inquiries 
 about this girl, the transient glance of whose 
 face had made such an impression upon him, 
 and found that her name was Emily Mitchell ; 
 that her father, now dead, had been a booking- 
 clerk in one of the large factories ; that she 
 v/as employed in a draper's shop ; and that she
 
 198 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 lived with her uncle and aunt in the small 
 house to which Humphrey had tracked her. 
 Humphrey Statham speedily made Miss Mit- 
 chell's acquaintance, found her more beautiful 
 than he had imagined, and as fascinating as 
 she was lovely ; fascinating not in the ordinary 
 sense of the word, not by coquetry or bland- 
 ishment, but by innate refinement, grace, and 
 innocence. After seeing her and talking with 
 her a few times, Humphrey could no longer 
 control his feelings, and finding that he was 
 not indifferent to Emily — his good looks, his 
 frank nature, and his easy bearing, well quali- 
 fied him .to find favour in the eyes of such a 
 girl — he spoke out plainly to her uncle, and 
 told him how matters stood. He was in love 
 with Emily, he said, and most anxious to 
 marry, but his income was but 200/. a year, 
 not sufficient to maintain her, even in the 
 quiet way both he and she desired they should 
 live; but he was young, and though he had 
 been idle, now that he had an incentive to 
 work he would show what he could do. It 
 was possible that, seeing the difference in him,
 
 TOM DURHAM'S FRIEND. 199 
 
 his father might be inclined to relent, and pnt 
 something in his way, or some of his father's 
 friends might give him employment. He 
 would go to London and seek for it at once, 
 and so soon as he saw his way to earning 200/. 
 a year in addition to his annuity, he would 
 return and claim Emily for his wife. 
 
 In this view the uncle, a practical old 
 north- countryman, coincided; the young peo- 
 ple could not marry upon the income which 
 Mr. Humphrey possessed ; they had plenty of 
 life before them; and when the young man 
 came back and proved that he had carried out 
 his promise, no obstacle should be made by 
 Emily's friends. 
 
 Humphrey Statham returned to London, 
 and wrote at once to his father, telling him 
 that he had seen the errors of his youth, and 
 was prepared to apply himself to any sort of 
 business which his father could place in his 
 way. In reply he received a curt note from 
 Mr. Statham, stating that the writer did not 
 know of any position which Humphrey could 
 competently fulfil, reminding him of the agree-
 
 200 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 nient between them, and hinting dislike at the 
 reopening of any correspondence or communi- 
 cation. Foiled at this point, Humphrey Sta- 
 tham secretly took the advice of old Mr. Mor- 
 rison, the chief clerk in his father's office, a 
 kindly as well as a conscientious man, who 
 had endeavoured to soften the young man's 
 lot during the few weeks he had passed in the 
 dull counting-house, and at his recommenda- 
 tion Humphrey established himself as a ship- 
 broker, and for two years toiled on from 
 morning till night, doing a small and not very 
 remunerative business, but proving to such 
 as employed him that he possessed industry, 
 energy, and tact. During this period he ran 
 down to Leeds, at four distinct intervals, to 
 pass a couple of days with Emily, whose uncle 
 had died, and who remained in the house of 
 her helpless bed-ridden aunt. At the end of 
 this time Mr. Statham died, leaving in his will 
 a sum of 10,000/. to his son, c as a recognition 
 of his attempt to gain a livelihood for him- 
 self/ and bequeathing the rest of his fortune 
 to various charities.
 
 tom Durham's friexd. 201 
 
 So at last Humphrey Statham saw his way 
 to bringing Emily home in triumph as his 
 wife, and with this object he started for Leeds, 
 immediately after his father's funeral. He had 
 written to her to announce his arrival, and 
 was surprised not to find her awaiting him on 
 the platform. Then he jumped into a cab, 
 and hurried out to Headingley. On his ar- 
 rival at the little house, the stupid girl who 
 attended on the bed-ridden old woman seemed 
 astonished at seeing him, and answered his in- 
 quiries after Emily inconsequently, and with 
 manifest terror. With a sudden sinking of the 
 heart Humphrey made • his way to the old 
 lady's bedside, and from her quivering lips 
 learned that Emily had disappeared. 
 
 Yes ! Emily had fled from her home, so 
 said her aunt, and so said the few neighbours 
 who, roused at the sight of a cab, had come 
 crowding into- the cottage. About a week 
 ago, they told him, she had gone out in the 
 morning to her work as usual, and had never 
 returned. She left no letter of explanation, 
 and no trace of her flight had been discovered ;
 
 202 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 there was no slur upon her character, and, so 
 far as their knowledge went, she had made no 
 strange acquaintance. She received a number 
 of letters, which she had always said were 
 from Mr. Statham. What did he come down 
 there for speering after Emily, when, of all 
 persons in the world, he was the likeliest to 
 tell them where she had been ? 
 
 Humphrey Statham fell back like a man 
 stunned by a heavy blow. He had come 
 down there to carry out the wish of his life ; 
 to tell the woman whom, in the inmost depths 
 of his big manly heart he worshipped, that 
 the hope of his life was at last accomplished, 
 and that he was at length enabled to take her 
 away, to give her a good position, and to de- 
 vote the remainder of his existence to her ser- 
 vice. She was not there to hear his trium- 
 phant avowal she had fled, no one knew 
 
 where, and he saw plainly enough that, not 
 merely was all sympathy withheld from him, 
 but that he was suspected by the neighbours 
 to have been privy to, and probably the ac- 
 complice of, her flight, and that his arrival
 
 TOM DURHAM'S FRIEND. 203 
 
 there a few days afterwards with the apparent 
 view of making inquiries was merely an at- 
 tempt to hoodwink them, and to divert the 
 search which might possibly be made after her 
 into another direction. 
 
 Under such circumstances, an ordinary 
 man would have fallen into a fury, and burst 
 out into wild lamentation or passionate invec- 
 tive ; but Humphrey Statham was not an ordi- 
 nary man. He knew himself guiltless of the 
 crime of which by Emily's friends and neigh- 
 bours he was evidently suspected, but he also 
 knew that the mere fact of her elopement, or 
 at all events of her quitting her home without 
 consulting him on the subject, showed that 
 she had no love for him, and that therefore 
 he had no right to interfere with her actions. 
 He told the neighbours this in hard, measured 
 accents, with stony eyes and colourless cheeks. 
 But when he saw that even then they dis- 
 believed him, that even then they thought he 
 knew more of Emily Mitchell's whereabouts 
 than he cared to say, he instructed the local 
 authorities to make such inquiries as lay in
 
 204 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 their power, and offered a reward for Emily 
 Mitchell's discovery to the police. He re- 
 turned to London an altered man ; his one 
 hope in life had been rudely extinguished, 
 and there was nothing now left for him to 
 care fori He had a competency, but it was 
 valueless to him now; the only one way left 
 to him of temporarily putting aside his great 
 grief was- by plunging into work, and busying 
 his mind with those commercial details which 
 at one time he had so fervently abhorred, and 
 now, when it was no longer a necessity for 
 him, business came to him in galore, his name 
 and fame were established in the great City 
 community, and no man in his position was 
 more respected, or had a larger number of 
 clients. 
 
 'Too late comes this apple to me,' mut- 
 tered Humphrey Statham, quoting Owen Mere- 
 dith, as he shook himself out of the reverie 
 into which he had fallen. ' Nearly four 
 years ago since I paid my last visit to Leeds ; 
 more than three since, as a last resource, I 
 consulted the Scotland-yard people, and in-
 
 TOM DURHAM'S FRIEND. 205 
 
 structed them to do their best in elucidating 
 the mystery. The Scotland-yard people are 
 humbugs ; I have never heard of them since, 
 and shall never hear of Emily again. Good 
 God, how I loved her! how I love her still! 
 Was it that she stands out in my memory as 
 my first and only real love, lit up perhaps by 
 boyish fancy — the same fancy that makes me 
 imagine that my old bare cock-loft in the 
 Adelphi was better than my present comfort- 
 able rooms in Sackville-street. Dans un gre- 
 nier qtfon est Men a vingt ans. No, she was 
 more than that. She was the only woman 
 that ever inspired me with anything like real 
 affection, and I worship her — her memory I 
 suppose I must call it now — as I worshipped 
 her own sweet self an hour before I learned 
 of her flight. There, there is an end of that. 
 Now let me finish -up this lot, and leave all in 
 decent order, so that if I end my career in a 
 snipe -bog, or one of the Tresco pilot -boats 
 goes down while I am on board of her, old 
 Collins may have no difficulty in disposing of 
 the contents of the safe.'
 
 206 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 Out of the mass of papers which had ori- 
 ginally been lying before him, only two were 
 left. He took up one of them and read the 
 indorsement, ' T. Durham — to be delivered to 
 him or his written order (Akhbar K).' This 
 paper he threw into the second drawer of the 
 safe ; then he took up the last, inscribed 
 c Copy of instructions to Tatlow in regard to 
 
 e. m; 
 
 4 Instructions to Tatlow, indeed!' said 
 Humphrey Statham, with curling lip ; 4 it is 
 more than three years since those instructions 
 were given, but hitherto they have borne no 
 fruit. I have half a mind to destroy them ; 
 it is scarcely possible — ' 
 
 His reflections were interrupted by a 
 knock at the door. Bidden to come in, Mr. 
 Collins, the confidential clerk, put in his head, 
 and murmured, ' Mr. Tatlow, from Scotland- 
 yard.' 
 
 ' In the very nick of time,' said Humphrey 
 Statham, with a half-smile ; c send Mr. Tat- 
 low in at once/
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MR. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 
 
 ' Mr. Tatlow ?' said Humphrey Statham, as 
 his visitor entered. 
 
 ' Servant, sir,' said Mr. Tatlow, a somewhat 
 ordinary-looking man, dressed in black. 
 
 1 1 had no idea this case had been placed 
 in your hands, Mr. Tatlow,' said Humphrey. 
 ' I have heard of you, though I have never 
 met you before in business, and have always 
 understood you to be an experienced officer.' 
 
 'Thank you, sir,' said Mr. Tatlow, with a 
 short bow. 'What may have altered your 
 opinion in that respect now?' 
 
 ' The length of time which has elapsed 
 since I first mentioned this matter in Scotland- 
 yard. That was three years ago, and from that 
 day to this I have had no communication with 
 the authorities.' 
 
 'Well, sir, you see,' said Mr. Tatlow, 'dif-
 
 208 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 ferent people have different ways of doing 
 business ; and when the inspector put this case 
 into my hands, he said to me, " Tatlow," said 
 he, " this is a case which will most likely take 
 considerable time to unravel, and it's one in 
 which there will be a great many ups and 
 downs, and the scent will grow warm and the 
 scent will grow cold, and you will think you 
 have got the whole explanation of the story 
 at one moment, and the next you'll think you 
 know nothing at all about it. The young 
 woman is gone," the inspector says, " and 
 you'll hear of her here and you'll hear of 
 her there, and you'll be quite sure you've 
 got hold of the right party, and then you'll 
 find it's nothing of the sort, and be inclined 
 to give up the business in despair ; and then 
 suddenly, perhaps, when you're engaged on 
 something else, you'll strike into the right 
 track, and bring it home in the end. Now, 
 it's no good worrying the gentleman," said the 
 inspector, " with every little bit of news you 
 hear, or with anything that may happen to 
 strike you in the inquiry, for you'll be raising
 
 MR. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 209 
 
 his spirits at one time, and rendering him 
 more wretched in another; and my advice to 
 you is, not to go near him until you have got 
 something like a clear and complete case to lay 
 before him." Those were the inspector's words 
 to me, sir — upon which advice I acted.' 
 
 4 Very good counsel, Mr. Tatlow, and very 
 sensible of you to follow it,' said Humphrey 
 Statham. 'Am I to understand from this visit 
 that your case is now complete ?' 
 
 'Well, sir, as complete as I can make it at 
 present,' said Mr. Tatlow. 
 
 'You have found her?' cried Humphrey 
 Statham eagerly, the blood flushing into his 
 cheeks. 
 
 ' I know where the young woman is now,' 
 said Mr. Tatlow evasively ; ' but do not build 
 upon that, sir,' he added, as he marked his 
 questioner's look of anxiety. 'We were too 
 late, sir ; you will never see her again.' 
 
 4 Too late !' echoed Humphrey. ' What do 
 you mean? Where is she? I insist upon 
 knowing!' 
 
 4 In Hendon churchyard, sir,' said Mr. Tat- 
 
 VOL I. p
 
 210 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 low quietly ; ' that's where the young woman 
 is now.' 
 
 Humphrey Statham bowed his head, and 
 remained silent for some few moments ; then, 
 without raising his eyes, he said: 'Tell me 
 about it, Mr. Tatlow, please; I should like to 
 have all details from first to last.' 
 
 ' Don't you think,' said Mr. Tatlow kindly 
 — c don't you think I might look in some other 
 time, sir? — you don't seem very strong just 
 now ; and it's no use a man trying his nerves 
 when there is no occasion for it.' 
 
 'Thank you,' said Humphrey Statham, 'I 
 would sooner hear the story now. I have 
 been ill, and am going out of town, and it 
 may be some little time before I return, and I 
 should like, while I am away, to be able to 
 think over what has — to know about — tell me, 
 please, at once.' 
 
 c The story is not a long one, sir,' said Mr. 
 Tatlow; 'and when you see how plain and 
 clear it tells, I daresay you will think the 
 case was not a difficult one, for all it took so 
 long to work out ; but you see this is fancy-
 
 ME. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 211 
 
 work, as I may call it, that one has to take up 
 in the intervals of regular business, and to 
 lay aside again whenever a great robbery or a 
 murder crops up, and just as one is warm and 
 interested in it, one may be sent off to Paris 
 or New York, and when you come back you 
 have almost to begin again. There was one 
 advantage in this case, that I had it to myself 
 from the start, and hadn't to work up any- 
 body else's line. I began,' continued Mr. Tat- 
 low, after a momentary pause, taking a note- 
 book from his pocket and reading from its 
 pages, 'at the very beginning, and first saw 
 the draper people at Leeds, where Miss Mit- 
 chell was employed. They spoke very highly 
 of her, as a good, industrious girl, and were 
 very sorry when she went away. She gave 
 them a regular month's notice, stating that 
 she had an opportunity of bettering herself by 
 getting an engagement at a first-class house 
 in London. Did the Leeds drapers, Hodder 
 by name, say anything to Miss M.'s friends ? 
 No, they did not,' continued Mr. Tatlow, ans- 
 wering himself; ' most likely they would have
 
 212 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 mentioned it if the uncle had been alive — a 
 brisk, intelligent man — but he was dead at 
 that time, and no one was left but the bed- 
 ridden old woman. After her niece's flight 
 she sent down to Hodder and Company, and 
 they told her what Miss M. had told them, 
 though the old woman and her friends plainly 
 did not believe it. It was not until some 
 weeks afterwards that one of Hodder's girls 
 had a letter from a friend of hers, who had 
 previously been with their firm, bat was now 
 engaged at Mivenson's, the great drapers in 
 Oxford-street, London, to say that Emily Mit- 
 chell had joined their establishment ; she was 
 passing under the name of Moore, but this 
 girl knew her at once, and agreed to keep her 
 confidence. Now to page forty-nine. That's 
 only a private memorandum for my own in- 
 formation,' said Mr. Tatlow, turning over the 
 leaves of his book. c Page forty -nine. Here 
 you are ! Mivenson's, in Oxford-street — old 
 gentleman out of town — laid up with the gout 
 — saw eldest son, partner in the house — recol- 
 lected Miss Moore perfectly, and had come to
 
 MP. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 213 
 
 them with some recommendation — never took 
 young persons into their house unless they 
 were properly recommended, and always kept 
 register of reference. Looking into register 
 found Emily M. had been recommended by 
 Mrs. Calverley, one of their customers, most 
 respectable lady, living in Great Walpole-street. 
 Made inquiry myself about Mrs. C, and made 
 her out to be a prim, elderly, evangelical party, 
 wife of City man in large way of business. 
 Emily M. did not remain long at Mivenson's. 
 Not a strong girl; had had a fainting fit or 
 two while in their employ, and one day she 
 wrote to say she was too ill to come to work, 
 and they never saw her again. Could they 
 give him the address from which she wrote ? 
 Certainly. Address-book sent for; 143 Great 
 College-street, Camden Town. Go to page 
 sixty. Landlady at Great College-street per- 
 fectly recollected Miss Moore. Quiet, delicate 
 girl, regular in her habits; never out later 
 than ten at night; keeping no company, and 
 giving no trouble. Used to be brought home 
 regular every night by a gentleman — always
 
 214 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 the same gentleman, landlady thought, but 
 couldn't swear, as she had never made him out 
 properly, though she had often tried. Seen 
 from the area, landlady remarked, people looked 
 so different. Gentleman always took leave 
 of Miss Moore at the door, and was never 
 seen again in the neighbourhood until he 
 brought her back the next night. Landlady 
 recollected Miss Moore's going away. When 
 she gave notice about leaving, explained to 
 landlady that she was ill and was ordered 
 change of air; didn't seem to be any worse 
 than she had been all along, but, of course, it 
 was not her (the landlady's) place to make 
 any objection. At the end of the week a cab 
 was sent for, Miss Moore's boxes were put 
 into it, and she drove away. Did the landlady 
 hear the address given to the cabman? She 
 did. "Waterloo Station, Richmond line." 
 That answer seemed to me to screw up the 
 whole proceedings; trying to find the clue to 
 a person, who, months before, had gone away 
 from the Waterloo Station, seemed as likely as 
 feeling for a threepenny-piece in a corn-sack.
 
 MR. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 215 
 
 I made one or two inquiries, but heard no- 
 thing, and had given the whole thing up for 
 as good as lost, when — let me see, page two 
 hundred and one. 
 
 ' Here you are ! Memoranda in the case of 
 Benjamin Biggs, cashier in the Limpid Water 
 Company, charged with embezzlement. Fine 
 game he kept up, did Mr. Biggs. Salary 
 about two hundred a year, and lived at the 
 rate of ten thousand. Beautiful place out of 
 town, just opposite Bobbington Lock, horses, 
 carriages, and what you please. I was en- 
 gaged in Biggs' matter, and I had been up to 
 Bobbington one afternoon — for there was a 
 notion just then that Biggs hadn't got clear 
 off and might come home again — so I thought 
 I'd take a lodging and hang about the village 
 for a week or two. It was pleasant summer 
 weather, and I've a liking for the river and 
 for such a place as Bushey Park, though not 
 with many opportunities of seeing much of 
 either. I had been through Biggs' house, and 
 was standing in Messenger's boat-yard, look- 
 ing at the parties putting off in the water,
 
 216 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 when a voice close to my ear says, "Hallo, 
 Tatlow! What's up?" and looking round I saw 
 Mr. Netherton Whiffle, the leading junior at 
 the Bailey, and the most rising man at the 
 C.C.C. I scarcely knew him at first, for he 
 had got on a round straw hat instead of his 
 wig, and a tight-fitting jersey instead of his 
 gown; and when I recognised him and told 
 him what business I had come down upon, he 
 only laughed, and said that Biggs knew more 
 than me and all Scotland-yard put together; 
 and the best thing that I could do was to go 
 into the "Anglers" and put my name to what 
 I liked at his expense. He's a very pleasant 
 fellow, Mr. Whiffle ; and while I was drinking 
 something iced I told him about my wanting 
 a lodging, and he recommended me to a very 
 respectable little cottage kept by the mother 
 of his gardener. A pretty place it was too, 
 not looking on the river, but standing in a 
 nice neatly-kept garden, with the big trees of 
 Bushey Park at the back of you, and the 
 birds singing beautiful. I fancy, when I am 
 superannuated I should like a place of that
 
 ME. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 217 
 
 sort for myself and Mrs. T. Nice rooms too ; 
 the lodgings, a bedroom and sitting-room, but 
 a cut above my means. I was saying so to 
 the old woman — motherly old creature she 
 was — as we were looking round the bedroom, 
 when I caught sight of something which fixed 
 my attention at once. It was an old black 
 box, like a child's school-trunk, with on the 
 outside lid " E. M." in brass letters, and a rail- 
 way label of the G.N.E., " Leeds to London/' 
 still sticking on it. Something told me I had 
 11 struck ile," as the Yankees say; and I asked 
 the old woman to whom that box belonged, 
 "To her,'' she said, she supposed.; "leastways 
 it had been there for many months, left behind 
 by a lodger who had gone away and never 
 sent for it." It took a little hot rum-and- 
 water to get the lodger's story out of that old 
 lady, sir; not a refreshing drink on a sum- 
 mer's day, but required to be gone through in 
 the course of duty, and it was worth it, as 
 you will see. 
 
 4 In the previous summer the rooms had 
 been taken by a gentleman who gave the name
 
 218 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 of Smith, and who the next day brought down 
 the young lady and her boxes. She was pretty 
 but very delicate-looking, and seemed to have 
 very bad health. He came down three or 
 four times a week, and then she brightened 
 up a bit, and seemed a little more cheerful; 
 but when she was alone she was dreadfully 
 down, and the landlady had seen her crying 
 by the hour together. They lived very quietly ; 
 no going out, no water-parties, no people to 
 see them, bills of lodging paid for every week; 
 quite the regular thing. This went on for two 
 or three months; then the gentleman's visits 
 grew less frequent, he only came down once 
 or twice a week, and, on more than one oc- 
 casion, the old woman sitting in the kitchen 
 thought she heard high words between them. 
 One Saturday afternoon, when Mr. Smith had 
 gone away, about an hour after his departure 
 the lady packed all her things, paid up the 
 few shillings which remained after his settle- 
 ment, and ordered a fly to take her to the 
 station. There was no room on the fly for 
 the little box which I had seen, and she said
 
 MK. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 219 
 
 she would send an address to which it could 
 be forwarded. On the Monday evening Mr. 
 Smith came down as usual ; he was very much 
 astonished to find the lady gone, but, after 
 reading a letter which she bad left for him, 
 he seemed very much agitated, and sent out 
 for some brandy ; then, he paid the week's 
 rent, which was demanded instead of the no- 
 tice, and left the place. The box had never 
 been sent for, nor had the old woman ever 
 heard anything farther of the lady or the 
 gentleman, 
 
 1 The story hangs together pretty well, 
 don't it, sir? E. M. and the railway ticket 
 on the box (I forgot to say that I looked in- 
 side, and saw the maker's name, " Hudspeth, 
 of Boar-lane, Leeds) looked pretty much like 
 Emily Mitchell, and the old' woman's descrip- 
 tion of Mr. Smith tallied tolerably with that 
 given by the lodging-house keeper in Camden 
 Town, who used to notice the gentleman from 
 the area. But there we were shut up tight 
 again. The flyman recollected taking the lady
 
 220 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 to the station, but no one saw her take her 
 ticket ; and there was I at a standstill. 
 
 ' It is not above a fortnight ago, sir,' said 
 Mr. Tatlow, in continuation, ' that I struck on 
 the scent again; not that I had forgotten it, or 
 hadn't taken the trouble to pull at anything 
 which I thought might be one of its threads 
 when it came in my way. A twelvemonth ago 
 I was down at Leeds, after a light-hearted 
 chap who had forgotten his own name, and 
 •written his master's across the back of a three- 
 and-sixpenny bill-stamp; and I thought I'd 
 take the opportunity of looking in at Hodder 
 the draper's, and ask whether anything had 
 been heard of Miss M. The firm hadn't heard 
 of her, and was rather grumpy about being 
 asked ; but I saw the girl from whom I had got 
 some information before — she, you recollect, 
 sir, who had a friend at Mivenson's in Oxford- 
 •street, and told me about E. M. being there — 
 and I asked her and her young man to tea, 
 and set the pumps agoing. But she was very 
 .bashful and shamefaced, and would not say a 
 word, though evidently she knew something;
 
 MR. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 221 
 
 and it was only when she had gone up to put 
 her bonnet on, that I got out of the young 
 man that Emily Mitchell had been down there, 
 and had been seen in the dusk of the evening 
 going up to the old cottage at Headingley, and 
 carrying a baby in her arms/ 
 
 1 A baby !' cried Humphrey Statham. 
 
 c Yes, sir, r said Mr. Tatlow, 'a female child 
 a few weeks old. She was going up to her 
 aunt, no doubt, but the old woman was dead. 
 When they heard at Hodder's that Emily was 
 about the place, and with a child too, the firm 
 was furious, and gave orders that none of their 
 people should speak to or have any communi- 
 cation with her; but this girl — Mary Keith 
 she's called; I made a note of her name, sir, 
 thinking you would like to know it — she found 
 out where the poor creature was, and offered 
 to share her wages with her and the child to 
 save them from starvation.' 
 
 4 Good God ! ' groaned Humphrey Statham ; 
 'was she in want, then?' 
 
 4 Pretty nearly destitute, sir,' said Tatlow ; 
 4 would have starved probably, if it had not
 
 222 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 been for Mary Keith. She owned up to that 
 girl, sir, all her story^ told her everything, 
 except the name of the child's father, and that 
 she could not get out of her anyhow. She 
 spoke about you too, and said you were the 
 only person in the world who had really loved 
 her, and that she had treated you shamefully. 
 Miss Keith wanted her to write to the child's 
 father, and tell him how badly off she was; 
 but she said she would sooner die in the 
 streets than ask him for money. What she 
 would do, she said, would be to go to you — 
 she wanted to see you once more before she 
 died — and to ask you to be a friend to her 
 child! She knew you would do it, she said 
 — though she had behaved to you so badly — for 
 the sake of old days. 
 
 ' I sha'n't have to try you with very much 
 more, sir,' said Tatlow kindly, as he heard a 
 deep groan break from Humphrey Statham's 
 lips, and saw his head sink deeper on his breast. 
 'Miss Keith advised E. M. to write to you; 
 but she said no — she wanted to look upon your 
 face again before she died, she said, and she
 
 MR. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 223 
 
 knew that event was not far off. So she parted 
 with her old friend, taking a little money, just 
 enough to pay her fare up to town. She must 
 have changed her mind about that, from what 
 I learned afterwards. I made inquiries here 
 and there for her in London in what I thought 
 likely places, but I could hear nothing of her, 
 so the scent grew cold, and still my case was 
 incomplete. I settled it up at last, as I say, 
 about a fortnight ago. I had occasion to make 
 some inquiries at Hendon workhouse about a 
 young man who was out on the tramp, and 
 who, as I learned, had slept there for a night 
 or two in the previous week ; and I was talk- 
 ing matters over with the master, an affable 
 kind of man, with more common-sense than 
 one usually finds in officials of his sort, who 
 are for the most part pig-headed and bad- 
 tempered. The chap that I was after had been 
 shopman to a grocer in the City, and had run 
 away with his master's daughter, having all 
 the time another wife; and this I suppose led 
 the conversation to such matters ; and I, always 
 with your case floating in my head, asked him
 
 224 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 whether there were many instances of found- 
 lings and suchlike being left upon their hands? 
 He said no ; that they had been very lucky — 
 only had one since he had been master 
 there, and that one they had been fortunate 
 enough to get rid of. How was that, I asked 
 him ; what was the case ? Case of a party' — 
 and here Mr. Tatlow referred to his note-book 
 again — ' found the winter before last by Squire 
 Mullins' hind lying against a haystack in the 
 four-acre meadow, pressing her baby to her 
 breast — both of them half-frozen. She was 
 taken to the workhouse, but only lived two 
 days, and never spoke during that time. Her 
 shoes were worn very thin, and she had parted 
 with most of her clothing, though what she 
 kept had been good, and still was decent. No 
 wedding-ring, of course. One thing she hadn't 
 parted with; the master's wife saw the old 
 woman try to crib it from the dead body 
 round whose neck it hung, and took it from 
 her hand. It was a tiny gold cross — yes, sir, 
 I see you know it all now — inscribed ''H. 
 to E., 30th March 1864 "— the very trinket
 
 MR. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 225 
 
 which you had described to our people; and 
 when I heard that, I knew I had tracked Emily 
 Mitchell home at last.' 
 
 Mr. Tatlow ceased speaking; but it was 
 some minutes before Humphrey Statham raised 
 his head. When at length he looked up, there 
 were traces of tears on his cheeks, and his 
 voice was broken with emotion as he said, 
 1 The child — what about it ? did it live T 
 
 1 Yes, sir,' replied Tatlow, c the child lived, 
 and fell very comfortably upon its legs. It 
 was a bright, pretty little creature, and one 
 clay it attracted the notice of a lady who had 
 no children of her own, and, after some inqui- 
 ries, persuaded her husband to adopt it.' 
 
 'What is her name, and where does she 
 live?' asked Mr. Statham. 
 
 1 She lives at Hendon, sir, and her name is 
 Claxton. Mr. Claxton is, oddly enough, a 
 sleeping partner in the house of Mr. Calver- 
 ley, whose good lady first recommended E. M. 
 to Mivenson's, as you may recollect.' 
 
 There was silence for full ten minutes — 
 a period which Mr. Tatlow occupied in a deep 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 consultation with his note-book, in looking out 
 of window, at the tips of his boots, at the wall 
 in front of him ; anywhere rather than at the 
 bowed head of Humphrey Statham, who re- 
 mained motionless, with his chin buried in his 
 chest. Mr. Tatlow had seen a good deal of 
 suffering in his time, and as he noticed, with- 
 out apparently looking at the tremulous emo- 
 tion of Mr. Statham's hands, tremulous despite 
 their closely -interlaced fingers, and the shud- 
 der which from time to time ran through his 
 massive frame, he knew what silent anguish 
 was being bravely undergone, and would on 
 no account have allowed the sufferer to ima- 
 gine that his mental tortures were either seen 
 or understood. When Humphrey Statham at 
 length raised his head, he found his visitor in- 
 tently watching the feeble gyrations of a be- 
 lated fly, and apparently perfectly astonished 
 at hearing his name mentioned. 
 
 'Mr. Tatlow,' said Humphrey, in a voice 
 which, despite his exertions to raise it, sounded 
 low and muffled, 'I am very much your debtor; 
 what I said at the commencement of our inter-
 
 MR. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 227 
 
 view about the delay which, as I imagined, 
 had occurred in clearing-up this mystery, was 
 spoken in ignorance, and without any know- 
 ledge of the facts. I now see the difficulties 
 attendant upon the inquiry, and I am only 
 astonished that they should have been so suc- 
 cessfully surmounted, and that you should 
 have been enabled to clear- up the case as per- 
 fectly as you have done. That the result of 
 your inquiries has been to arouse in me the 
 most painful memories, and to — and to reduce 
 me in fact to the state in which you see me — 
 is no fault of yours. You have discharged your 
 duty with great ability and wondrous perse- 
 verance, and I have to thank you more than 
 all for the delicacy which you have shown dur- 
 ing the inquiry, and during the narration to 
 me of its results.' 
 
 Mr. Tatlow bowed, but said" nothing. 
 
 4 For the ordinary charges of the investi- 
 gation,' continued Humphrey Statham, c your 
 travelling expenses and suchlike, I settle, I be- 
 lieve, with the people at Scotland-yard; but,' 
 he added, as he took his cheque-book from the
 
 228 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 right-hand drawer of his desk, ' I wish you to 
 accept for yourself this cheque for fifty pounds, 
 together with my hearty thanks. 7 
 
 He filled-up the cheque, tore it from the 
 book, and pushed it over to the detective as 
 he spoke, at the same time holding out his 
 hand. 
 
 Mr. Tatlow rose to his feet, looking some- 
 what embarrassed. It had often been his good 
 fortune to be well paid for his services, but to 
 be shaken hands with by a man in the position 
 of Mr. Statham, had not previously come in 
 his way. He was confused for an instant, but 
 compromised the matter by gravely saluting 
 after the military fashion with his left hand, 
 while he gave his right to his employer. 
 
 1 Proud, sir, and grateful,' he said. c It has 
 been a long case, though net a particularly 
 stiff one, and I think it has been worked clean 
 out to the end. I could have wished — but, 
 however, that is neither here nor there,' said 
 Mr. Tatlow, checking himself with a cough. 
 1 About the child, sir; don't you wish any far- 
 ther particulars about the child?'
 
 MR. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 229 
 
 c Xo,' said Humphrey Statham, who was 
 fast relapsing into his moody state; 'no, no- 
 thing now, at all events. If I want any far- 
 ther information, I shall send to you, Tatlow, 
 direct ; you may depend upon that. Now, 
 once more, thanks, and good-bye.' 
 
 Half an hour had elapsed since Mr. Tatlow 
 had taken his departure, and still Humphrey 
 Statham sat at his desk buried in profound re- 
 verie, his chin resting on his breast, his arms 
 plunged almost elbow-deep into his pockets. 
 At length he roused himself, locked away the 
 cheque-book which lay fluttering open before 
 him, and passing his hand dreamily through 
 the fringe of hair on his temples, mattered to 
 himself: 
 
 1 And so there is an end of it. To die 
 numbed and frozen in a workhouse-bed. To 
 bear a child to a man for whom she ruined my 
 life, and who in his turn ruined hers. My 
 Emily perishing with cold and want ! I shall 
 meet him yet, I know I shall. Long before 
 I heard of this story, when I looked upon him
 
 230 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 only as a successful rival, who was living with 
 her in comfort and luxury, and laughing over 
 my disappointment, even then I felt convinced 
 that the hour would come when I should hold 
 him by the throat and make him beg his miser- 
 able life at my hands. Now, when I know 
 that his treatment of her has been worse even 
 than his treatment of me, he will need to beg 
 hard indeed for mercy, if I once come across 
 his path. Calverley, eh?' he continued, after 
 a moment's pause, and in a softer voice, ' the 
 husband of the lady who has adopted the child, 
 is a partner in Calverley's house, Tatlow said. 
 That is the house for which Tom Durham has 
 gone out as agent. How strangely things 
 come about ! for surely Mrs. Calverley, doubt- 
 less the wife of the senior partner of the firm, 
 is the mother of my old friend Martin Gur- 
 wood ? What two totally different men 1 
 Without doubt unacquainted with each other, 
 and yet with this curious link of association 
 in my mind. Her child ! Emily's child within 
 a couple of hours' ride ! I could easily find 
 some excuse to introduce myself to this Mrs.
 
 MR. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 231 
 
 Claxton, and to get a glimpse of the girl — she 
 is Emily's flesh and blood, and most probably 
 would be like her. I have half a mind to — 
 No, I am not well enough for any extra ex- 
 citement or exertion, and the child, Tatlow 
 says, is happy and well -cared for; I can see 
 her on my return — I can then manage the in- 
 troduction in a more proper and formal man- 
 ner ; I can hunt-up Martin Gurwood, and 
 through him and his mother I can obtain an 
 introduction to this partner in Calverley's 
 house, and must trust to my own powers of 
 making myself agreeable to continue the ac- 
 quaintance on a footing of intimacy, which 
 will give me constant opportunities of seeing 
 Emily's child. Now there is more than ever 
 necessity to get out of this at once. All clear 
 now, except those two packets; one Tom Dur- 
 ham's memorandum, which must be kept any- 
 how, so in it goes into the safe. The other, 
 the instructions for Tatlow — that can be de- 
 stroyed — no, there is no harm in keeping that 
 for a little ; one never knows how things may 
 turn out — in it goes too.' And as he spoke he
 
 232 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 placed the two packets in the drawer, closed 
 and locked the safe. 4 Collins!' he called; and 
 the confidential clerk appeared. 'You have 
 all that you want — the cheques, the duplicate 
 key of the safe, the pass-book ? 
 
 c Yes, sir/ said Collins ; ; everything except 
 your address.' 
 
 ' By Jove,' said Humphrey Statham, ' I 
 had forgotten that ! even now I am undecided. 
 Tossing shall do it. Heads the Drumnovara 
 snipe-bog ; tails the Tresco pilot-boat. Tails it 
 is! the pilot-boat has won. So, Collins, my 
 address — never to be used except in most ur- 
 gent necessity — is, " P.O., Tresco, Scilly," left 
 till called for. Now you have my traps in the 
 outer office; tell them to put them on a han- 
 som cab, and you will see no more of me for 
 six weeks.' 
 
 As the four-fifty 'galloper' for Exeter glided 
 out of the Paddington Station, Humphrey Sta- 
 tham was seated in it, leisurely cutting the 
 leaves of the evening paper which he had just
 
 MR. TATLOW ON THE TRACK. 233 
 
 purchased. The first paragraph which met his 
 eye ran as follows : 
 
 '(reuter's telegram.) 
 
 'Gibraltar. 
 
 4 The captain of the Peninsular and Orien- 
 tal Company's steam-ship Masillia, just arrived 
 here, announces the supposed death, by drown- 
 ing, of a passenger named Durham, agent to 
 Messrs. Calverley and Company, of Mincing- 
 lane, who was proceeding to Ceylon. The un- 
 fortunate gentleman retired to bed on the first 
 night of the vessel's sailing from Southampton, 
 and as he was never seen afterwards, it is sup- 
 posed he must have fallen overboard during 
 the night, when the Masillia was at anchor off 
 Hurst Castle.'
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 l'amie de la maison. 
 
 The breakfasts in Great Walpolc- street, looked 
 upon as meals, were neither satisfactory nor 
 satisfying. Of all social gatherings a break- 
 fast is perhaps the one most difficult to make 
 agreeable to yourself and your guests. There 
 are men, at other periods of the day bright, 
 sociable, and chatty, who insist upon breakfast- 
 ing by themselves, who glower over their tea 
 and toast, and growl audibly if their solitude 
 is broken in upon; there are women capable 
 of everything in the way of self-sacrifice and 
 devotion except getting up to breakfast. A 
 breakfast after the Scotch fashion, with enor- 
 mous quantities of Finnan-had dy, chops, steaks, 
 eggs and ham, jam and marmalade, tea and 
 coffee, is a good thing ; so is a French break- 
 fast, with two delicate cutlets, or a succulent
 
 235 
 
 filet, a savoury omelette, a pint bottle of Nuits, 
 a chasse, and a cigarette. But the morning 
 meals in Great Walpole-street were not after 
 either of these fashions. After the servants 
 had risen from their knees, and shuffled out of 
 the room in Indian file at the conclusion of 
 morning prayers, the butler re-entered bearing 
 a hissing silver urn, behind which Mrs. Cal- 
 verley took up her position, and proceeded to 
 brew a tepid amber- coloured fluid, which she 
 afterwards dispensed to her guests. The foot- 
 man had followed the butler, bearing, in his 
 turn, a dish containing four thin greasy strips 
 of bacon, laid out side by side in meek resigna- 
 tion, with a portion of kidney keeping guard 
 over them at either end. There was a rack 
 filled with dry toast, which looked and tasted 
 like the cover of an old Latin dictionary; there 
 was a huge bread-platter, with a scriptural 
 text round its margin, and a huge bread-knife 
 with a scriptural text on its blade ; and on the 
 sideboard, far away in the distance, was the 
 shadowy outline of what had once been a ham, 
 and a mountain and a promontory of flesh,
 
 236 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 with the connecting link between them almost 
 cut away, representing what had once been a 
 tongue. On two or three occasions, shortly 
 after Madame Du Tertre had first joined the 
 household, she mentioned to Mrs. Calverley 
 that she was subject to headaches, which were 
 only to be gotten rid of by taking a sharp half- 
 hour's walk in the air immediately after break- 
 fast; the fact being that Pauline was simply 
 starved, and that if she had been followed she 
 would have been found in the small room of 
 Monsieur Verrey's cafe in Regent- street en- 
 gaged with a cutlet, a pint of Beaune, and the 
 Steele newspaper. To John Calverley, also, 
 these gruesome repasts were most detestable, 
 but he made up for his enforced starvation 
 by a substantial and early luncheon in the 
 City. 
 
 On the morning after Humphrey Statham's 
 departure for Cornwall, the breakfast-party 
 was assembled in Great Walpole-street. But 
 the host was not among them. He had gone 
 away to his ironworks in the North, as he told 
 his guest : c on his own vagaries/ as his wife
 
 l'amie de la maisox. 237 
 
 had phrased it, with a defiant snort : and Mrs. 
 Calverley, Madame Du Tertre, and Martin 
 Gurwood were gathered round the festive 
 board. The two ladies were sipping the doubt- 
 ful tea, and nibbling the leathery toast, while 
 Mr. Gurwood, who was an early riser, and 
 who, before taking his morning constitutional 
 in Guelph Park, had solaced himself with a 
 bowl of bread-and-milk, had pushed aside his 
 plate, and was reading out from the Times 
 such scraps of intelligence as he thought might 
 prove interesting. On a sudden he stopped, 
 the aspect of his face growing rather grave, as 
 he said: 
 
 4 Here is some news, mother, which I am 
 sure will prove distressing to Mr. Calverley, 
 even if his interests do not suffer from the 
 event which it records.' 
 
 c I can guess what it is,' said Mrs. Calver- 
 ley, in her thin acid voice ; ' I have an intui- 
 tive idea of what has occurred. I always 
 predicted it, and I took care to let Mr. Cal- 
 verley kuow my opinion — the Swartmoor Iron ■ 
 works have failed?'
 
 238 THE YELLOW ELAG. 
 
 ' No, not so bad as that,' said Mr. Gur- 
 wood, l nor, indeed, is it any question of the 
 Swartmoor Ironworks. I will tell you what 
 is said, and you will be able to judge for your- 
 self how far Mr. Calverley may be interested.' 
 And in the calm, measured tone habitual to 
 him from constant pulpit practice, Martin 
 Gurwood read out the paragraph which had 
 so startled Humphrey Statham on the pre- 
 vious evening. 
 
 When Martin Gurwood finished reading, 
 Madame Du Tertre, who had listened at- 
 tentively, wheeled round in her chair and 
 looked hard at Mrs. Calverley. That lady's 
 placidity was, however, perfectly undisturbed. 
 With her thin bony hand she still continued 
 her employment of arranging into fantastic 
 shapes the crumbs on the table-cloth, nor 
 did she seem inclined to speak until Pauline 
 said : 
 
 'To me this seems a sad and terrible 
 calamity. If I, knowing nothing of this un- 
 fortunate gentleman, am grieved at what I 
 hear, surely you, madame, to whom he was
 
 l'amie de la maison". 239 
 
 doubtless well known, must feel the shock 
 acutely.' 
 
 'I am glad to say,' said Mrs. Calverley 
 coldly, 'that I am not called upon to exhibit 
 any emotion in the present instance. So little 
 does Mr. Calverley think fit to acquaint me 
 with the details of his business, that I was not 
 aware that it was in contemplation to estab- 
 lish an agency at Ceylon, nor did I ever hear 
 of the name of the person who, doubtless by 
 his own imprudence, seems to have lost his 
 life.' 
 
 ' You never saw Mr. — Mr. — how is he 
 called, Monsieur Gurwood?' 
 
 'Durham is the name given here,' said 
 Martin, referring to the newspaper. 
 
 i Ah, you never saw Mr. Durham, ma- 
 dame ?' 
 
 1 1 never saw him ; I never even heard 
 Mr. Calverley mention his name.' 
 
 c Poor man, poor man !' murmured Madame 
 Du Tertre with downcast eyes ; c lost so sud- 
 denly, as your Shakespeare says — " sent to his 
 account with all his imperfections on his head."
 
 240 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 It is terrible to think of, is it not Monsieur 
 Martin? 
 
 1 To be cut off with our sins yet inexpi- 
 ated/ said Martin Gurwood, not meeting the 
 searching glance riveted upon him, ' is, as 
 you say, Madame Du Tertre, a terrible thing. 
 Let us trust this unfortunate man was not 
 wholly unprepared.' 
 
 ' If he were a friend of Mr. Calverley's/ 
 hissed the lady at the end of the table, ' and 
 he must have been to have been placed in a 
 positon of trust, it is, I should say, most im- 
 probable that he was fitted for the sudden 
 change.' 
 
 That morning Madame Du Tertre, al- 
 though her breakfast had been of the scantiest, 
 did not find it necessary to repair to Verrey's. 
 When the party broke up she retired to her 
 room, took the precaution of locking the door, 
 and having something to think out, at once 
 adopted her old resource of walking up and 
 down. 
 
 She said to herself: c The news has arrived, 
 and just at the time that I expected it. He
 
 l'amie de la maison. 241 
 
 has been bold, and everything has turned out 
 exactly as he could have wished. People will 
 speak kindly of him and mourn over his fate, 
 while he is far away and living happily, and 
 lauo-hhw in his sleeve at the fools whose com- 
 passion he evokes. What would I give to be 
 there with him on the same terms as those of 
 the old days ! I hate this dull British life, this 
 ghastly house, these people, precise, exact, and 
 terrible. I loathe the state of formality in 
 which I live, the restraint and reticence I am 
 obliged to observe ! What is it to me to ride 
 in a carriage by the side of that puppet down- 
 stairs, to sit in the huge dull rooms, to be 
 waited upon by the silent solemn servants?' 
 And her eyes blazed with fire as she sang in a 
 soft low voice : 
 
 ' Les gueux, les gueux 
 Sont les gens heureux ; 
 lis s'aiment entre eux. 
 Yivent les gueux !' 
 
 As she ceased singing she stopped suddenly 
 in her walk, and said, ' What a fool I am to 
 think of such things, to dream of what might 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 have been, when all my hope and desire is to 
 destroy what is, to discover the scene of Tom 
 Durham's retreat, and to drive him from the 
 enchanted land where he and she are now re- 
 siding ! And this can only be done by steady 
 continuance in my present life, by passive en- 
 durance, by never-flagging energy and per- 
 petual observation. Tiens ! Have I not done 
 some good this morning, even in listening to 
 the betise talk of that silly woman and her 
 sombre son? l She had never seen Tom Dur- 
 ham,' she said, ' had never heard of him, he 
 has never been brought to the house:' this, 
 then, gives colour to all that I have suspected. 
 It is, as I imagined, through the influence of 
 the old man Claxton that Tom was nominated 
 as agent of the house of Calverley. Mr. Cal- 
 verley himself probably knows nothing of him, 
 or he would most assuredly have mentioned 
 the name to his wife, have asked him to din- 
 ner, after the English fashion, before sending 
 him out to such a position. But no, his very 
 name is unknown to her, and it is evident that 
 he is the sole protege of Monsieur Claxton —
 
 l'amie de la maison. 243 
 
 Claxton, from whom the pale-faced woman 
 who is his wife, his mistress — what do I know 
 or care — obtained the money with which Tom 
 Durham thought to buy my silence and his 
 freedom. Not yet, my dear friend, not yet! 
 The game between us promises to be long, 
 and to play it properly with a chance of suc- 
 cess will require all my brains and all my 
 patience. But the cards are already begin- 
 ning to get shuffled into their places, and the 
 luck has already declared on my side.' 
 
 A few mornings afterwards Mrs. Calverley, 
 on coming down to breakfast, held an open 
 paper in her hand ; laying it on the table and 
 pointing at it with her bony finger, when the 
 servants had left the room, she said, ' I have 
 an intimation here that Mr. Calverley will re- 
 turn this evening. He has not thought fit to 
 write to me, but a telegram has been received 
 from him at the office; and the head-clerk, 
 who, I am thankful to say, still preserves some 
 notion of what is due to me, has forwarded 
 the information.' 
 
 'Is not this return somewhat unexpected?'
 
 244 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 asked Pauline, looking inquisitively at her 
 hostess. 
 
 1 Mr. Calverley's return is never either un- 
 expected or expected by me,' said the lady; 
 'he is immersed in business, which I trust 
 may pro^e as profitable as he expects, though 
 in my father's time — ' 
 
 ' Perhaps,' interrupted Martin Gurwood, 
 cutting in to prevent the repetition of that 
 wail over the decadence of the ancient firm 
 which he had heard a thousand times, 'per- 
 haps Mr. Calverley's return has on this occa- 
 sion been hastened by the news of the loss of 
 his agent, which I read out to you the other 
 day. There is more about it in the paper this 
 morning.' 
 
 'More! What more?' cried Pauline, ea- 
 gerly. 
 
 'Nothing satisfactory, I am sorry to say. 
 The body has not been found, nor is there 
 any credible account of how the accident hap- 
 pened; the farther news is contained in a 
 letter from one of the passengers. It seems 
 that this unfortunate gentleman, Mr. Durham,
 
 l'amie de la maison. 245 
 
 had, even during the short time which he was 
 on board the ship, succeeded in making him- 
 self very popular with the passengers. He had 
 talked to some of them of the importance of 
 the position which he was going out to fill, of 
 his devotion to business and to his employer; 
 and it is agreed on all sides that the well- 
 known firm of which he was the agent will 
 find it difficult to replace him, so zealous and 
 so interested in their behalf did he show him- 
 self. He was one of the last who retired to 
 rest ; and when in the morning he did not put 
 in an appearance, nothing was thought of it, as 
 it was imagined — not that he had succumbed 
 to sea-sickness, as he had described himself 
 as an old sailor, who had made many voyages 
 — but that he was fatigued bv the exertions 
 of the previous day. Late in the evening, as 
 nothing had been heard of him, ihe captain 
 resolved to send the steward to his cabin ; and 
 the man returned with the report that the 
 door was unlocked, the berth unoccupied, and 
 Mr. Durham not to be found. An inquiry 
 was at once set on foot, and a search made
 
 246 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 throughout the ship ; but without any result. 
 The only idea that could be arrived at was, 
 that, finding the heat oppressive, or being un- 
 able to sleep, he made his way to the deck, 
 and, in the darkness of the night, had missed 
 his footing and fallen overboard. Against this 
 supposition was the fact that Mr. Durham was 
 not in the least the worse for liquor when last 
 seen, and that neither the officers nor the 
 men on duty throughout the night had heard 
 any splash in the water or any cry for help. 
 The one thing certain was, that the man was 
 gone; and all that could now be done was to 
 transship his baggage at Gibraltar, that it 
 might be returned to England, and to make 
 public the circumstances for the information 
 of his friends.' 
 
 c It seems to me,' said Martin Gurwood, as 
 he finished reading, 'that unless the drowning 
 of this poor man had actually been witnessed, 
 nothing could be much clearer. He is seen to 
 retire to rest in the night ; he is never heard 
 of again; there is no reason why he should at- 
 tempt self-destruction; on the contrary, he is
 
 l'amie de la maison. 247 
 
 represented as glorying in the position to 
 which he had been appointed, and full of life, 
 health, and spirits.' 
 
 c There is one point,' said Mrs. Calverley, 
 4 to which I think exception may be taken, 
 and that is, that he was sober. These sort 
 of persons have, I am given to understand, a 
 great tendency to drink and vice of every de- 
 scription, and the fact that he was probably a 
 boon companion of Mr. Calverley 's, and on 
 that account appointed to this agency, makes 
 me tiling it more than likely that he had a 
 private store of liquor, and was drowned when 
 in a state of intoxication.' 
 
 4 There is nothing in the evidence which 
 has been made public,' said Martin Gurwood, 
 in a hard caustic tone, 'to warrant any sup- 
 position of that kind. In any case, it is not 
 for us to judge the dead and — ' 
 
 'Perhaps,' said Pauline, interposing, to 
 avert the storm which she saw gathering in 
 Mrs. Calverley 's knitted brows, 'perhaps when 
 Mr. Calverley returns to-night, he will be able 
 to give us some information on the subject.
 
 248 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 A man so trusted, and appointed to such a 
 position, must naturally be well known to his 
 employer.' 
 
 The lamps were lit in the drawing-room, 
 and the solemn servants were handing round 
 the tea, when a cab rattled up to the door, 
 and immediately afterwards John Calverley, 
 enveloped in his travelling-coat and many 
 wrappers, burst into the apartment. He made 
 his way to his wife, who was seated at the 
 Berlin- wool frame, on which the Jael and 
 Sisera had been supplanted by a new and 
 equally interesting subject, and bending down 
 offered her a salute, which she received on the 
 tip of her ear ; he shook hands heartily with 
 Martin Garwood, politely with Pauline, and 
 then discarding his outer garments, planted 
 himself in the middle of the room, ■ smiling 
 pleasantly, and inquired, 'Well, what's the 
 news?' 
 
 1 There is no news here,' said Mrs. Calver- 
 ley, looking across the top of the Berlin-wool 
 frame with stony glance ; 4 those who have been 
 careering about the country are most likely
 
 l'amie de la maison. 249 
 
 to gather light and frivolous gossip. Do you 
 desire any refreshment, Mr. Calverley?' 
 
 ' No, thank you, my dear,' said John. ' I 
 had dinner at six o'clock, at Peterborough — 
 swallowed it standing — cold meat, roll, glass 
 of ale. Yon know the sort of thing, Martin 
 — hurried, but not bad, you know — not bad.' 
 
 'Bui: after such a slight refreshment, Mon- 
 sieur Calverley,' said Pauline, rising and going 
 towards him, ' you would surely like some tea?' 
 
 ' No, thank you, Madame Du Tertre; 'no 
 tea for me. I will have a little — a little some- 
 thing hot later on, perhaps — and you too, 
 Martin, eh ? — no, I forgot, you are no good at 
 that sort of thing. And so,' he added, turning 
 to his wife, 'yoa have, yod say, no news?' 
 
 ' Mrs. Calverley does herself injustice in 
 saying any such thing,' said Pauline, inter- 
 posing; 'the interests of the husband are the 
 interests of the wife, and, when it is permitted, 
 of the wife's friends ; and we have all been 
 distressed beyond measure to hear of the sad 
 fate which has befallen your trusted agent.' 
 
 'Eh/ said John Calverley, looking at her
 
 250 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 blankly, ' my trusted agent ? I don't under- 
 stand you.' 
 
 c These celebrated Swartmoor Ironworks 
 are not beyond the reach of the post-office, I 
 presume?' said Mrs. Calverley, with a vicious 
 chuckle. 
 
 ' Certainly not,' said John. 
 
 'And telegrams occasionally find their way 
 there, I suppose?' 
 
 ' Undoubtedly.' 
 
 ' How is it, then, Mr. Calverley, that you 
 have not heard what has been in all the news- 
 papers, that some man named Durham, calling 
 himself your agent, has been drowned on his 
 way to India, where he was going in your 
 employ ?' 
 
 'Drowned!' said John Calverley, turning 
 very pale, 'Tom Durham drowned! Is it 
 possible ?' 
 
 ' Not merely possible, but strictly true,' 
 said his wife. 'And what I want to know is, 
 how is it that you, buried down at your Swart- 
 moors, or whatever you call them, have not 
 heard of it before?'
 
 l'amie de la maison. 251 
 
 I It is precisely because I was buried down 
 there that the news failed to reach me. When 
 I am at the ironworks I have so short a time 
 at my disposal that I never look at the news- 
 papers, and the people at Mincing-lane have 
 strict instructions never to communicate with 
 me by letter or telegram except in the most 
 pressing cases; and Mr. Jeffreys, I imagine, 
 with that shrewdness which distinguishes him, 
 saw that the reception of such news as this 
 would only distress me, while I could be of no 
 possible assistance, and so wisely kept it back 
 until my return.' 
 
 I I am sure I don't see why you should be 
 so distressed because one of your clerks got 
 drunk and fell overboard,' said Mrs. Calver- 
 ley. ' I know that in my father's time — ' 
 
 4 This Mr. Durham must have been an 
 especially gifted man, I suppose, or you would 
 scarcely have appointed him to such an im- 
 portant berth ? Was it not so ?' asked Pauline. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mr. Calverley, hesitating. c Tom 
 Durham was a smart fellow enough.' 
 
 4 What I told you,' said Mrs. Calverley,
 
 252 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 looking round. 'A smart fellow, indeed! but 
 not company for his employer's wife, whatever 
 he may have been for — ' 
 
 ' He was a man whom I knew but little 
 of, Jane,' said John Calverley, with a certain 
 amount of sternness in his voice; 'but he was 
 introduced to me by a person of whom I have 
 the highest opinion, and whom I wished to 
 serve. On this recommendation I took Mr. 
 Durham, and the little I saw of him was cer- 
 tainly in favour of his zeal and brightness. 
 Now, if you please, we will change the con- 
 versation.' 
 
 That night, again, Madame Du Tertre 
 might have been seen pacing her room. l The 
 more I see of these people,' she said to herself, 
 ' the more I learn of the events with which my 
 life is bound up, so much the more am I con- 
 vinced that my first theory was the right one. 
 This Monseiur Calverley, the master of this 
 house — what was his reason for being annoyed, 
 contraries as he evidently was, at being ques- 
 tioned about Durham? Simply because he 
 himself knew nothing about him, and could
 
 l'amie de la maison. 253 
 
 not truthfully reply to the pestering inquiries 
 of that anatomie vivante, his wife, as to who 
 he was, and why he had not been presented 
 to her, the reigning queen of the great firm. 
 Was I not right there in my anticipations? 
 " He was introduced to me," he said, "by a 
 person of whom I have the highest opinion, 
 and whom I wished to serve;" that person, 
 without doubt, was Claxton — Claxton, the old 
 man, who, in his turn, was the slave of the 
 pale-faced woman, whom Tom Durham had 
 befooled! A bon chat, bon rat! They are 
 well suited, these others, and Messrs. Calverley 
 and Claxton are the dupes, though perhaps' 
 — and she stopped pondering, with knitted 
 brow — 'Mr. Calverley knows all, or rather 
 half, and is helping his friend and partner in 
 the matter. I will take advantage of the first 
 opportunity to press this subject farther home 
 with Monsieur Calverley, who is a sufficiently 
 simple bon homme ; and perhaps I may learn 
 something that may be useful to me from 
 him.' 
 
 The opportunity which Pauline sought oc-
 
 254 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 curred sooner than she expected. On the very 
 next evening, Martin Gurwood being away 
 from home, attending some public meeting on 
 a religious question, and Mrs. Calverley being 
 detained in her room finishing some letters 
 which she was anxious to dispatch, Pauline 
 found herself in the drawing-room before din- 
 ner, with her host as her sole companion. 
 
 When she entered she saw that Mr. Cal- 
 verley had the newspaper in his hand, but his 
 eyes were half closed and his head was nod- 
 ding desperately. ' You are fatigued, mon- 
 sieur, by the toils of the day,' she said. ' I fear 
 I interrupted you?' 
 
 c No,' said John Calverley, jumping up, 
 4 not at all, Madame Du Tertre ; I was having 
 just forty winks, as we say in English; but I 
 am quite refreshed and all right now, and am 
 very glad to see you.' 
 
 c It must be hard work for you, having all 
 the responsibility of that great establishment 
 in the City on your shoulders.' 
 
 ( Well, you see, Madame Du Tertre,' said 
 John, with a pleasant smile, c the fact is I am
 
 l'amie de LA MAI SOX. 255 
 
 not so young as I used to be, and though I 
 work no more, indeed considerably less, I 
 find myself more tired at the end of the 
 day.' 
 
 ' Ah, monsieur,' said Pauline, c that is the 
 great difference between the French and Eng- 
 lish commerce, as it appears to me. In France 
 our negociants have not merely trusted clerks 
 such as you have here, but they have partners 
 who enjoy their utmost confidence, who are 
 as themselves, in fact, in all matters of their 
 business.' 
 
 c Yes, madame, but that is not confined to 
 France ; we have exactly the same thing in 
 England. My house is Calverley and Co. ; 
 Co. stands for "company," vous savvy,' said 
 John, with a great dash at airing his French. 
 
 ' Ah, you have partners ?' asked Pauline. 
 
 4 Well, no, not exactly,' said John evasively, 
 looking over her head, and rattling the keys 
 in his trousers -pockets. 
 
 'I think I heard of one Monsieur Claxton.' 
 
 4 Eh,' said John, looking at her disconcert- 
 edly, ' Claxton, eh ? yes, of course.'
 
 256 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 'And yet it is strange that, intimate, lie, 
 bound up as this Monsieur Claxton must be 
 with you in your affairs, you have never 
 brought him to this house — Madame Calver- 
 ley has never seen him. I should like to 
 see this Monsieur Claxton, do you know ? I 
 should — ' 
 
 But John Calverley stepped hurriedly for- 
 ward and laid his hand upon her arm. ' Stay, 
 for God's sake,' he said, with an expression of 
 terror in every feature ; c I hear Mrs. Calver- 
 ley's step on the stairs. Do not mention Mr. 
 Claxton's name in this house ; I will tell you 
 why some other time — only — don't mention 
 it!' 
 
 4 1 understand,' said Pauline quietly; and 
 when Mrs. Calverley entered the room, she 
 found her guest deeply absorbed in the photo- 
 graphic album. 
 
 That night the party broke up early. Mr. 
 Calverley, though he used every means in his 
 power to disguise the agitation into which his 
 conversation with Pauline had thrown him, 
 was absent and embarrassed; while Pauline
 
 L'AMIE DE LA MAISON. 257 
 
 herself was so occupied in thought over what 
 had occurred, and so desirous to be alone, in 
 order that she might have the opportunity for 
 full reflection, that she did not, as usual, en- 
 courage her hostess in the small and spiteful 
 talk in which that lady delighted, and none 
 were sorry when the clock, striking ten, gave 
 them an excuse for an adjournment. 
 
 i Allons done,' said Pauline, when she had 
 once more regained her own chamber, 1 1 have 
 made a great success to-night, by mere chance- 
 work too, arising from my keeping my eyes 
 and ears always open. See now ! It is evid- 
 ent, from some cause or other — why, I cannot 
 at present comprehend — that this man, Mon- 
 sieur Calverley, is frightened to death lest his 
 wife should see his partner! What does it 
 matter to me, the why or the wherefore ? The 
 mere fact of its being so is sufficient to give 
 me power over him. He is no fool ; he sees 
 the influence which I have already acquired 
 over Mrs. Calverley, and he knows that were 
 I just to drop a hint to that querulous being, 
 that jealous wretch, she would insist on being 
 
 vol. i. s
 
 258 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 made known to C lax ton, and having all the 
 business transactions between them explained 
 to her. Threaten Monsieur Calverley with that, 
 and I can obtain from him what I will, can be 
 put on Tom Durham's track, and then left to 
 myself to work out my revenge in my own way! 
 Ah, Monsieur and Madame Mogg, of Poland- 
 street, how can I ever be sufficiently grateful 
 for the chance which sent me to lodge in your 
 mansarde, and first gave me the idea of mak- 
 ing the acquaintance of the head of the great 
 firm of Calverley and Company P 
 
 The next morning, when, after breakfast, 
 and before starting for the City, Mr. Calverley 
 went into the dull square apartment behind 
 the dining-room, dimly lighted by a window, 
 overlooking the leads, which he called his 
 study, where some score of unreadable books 
 lay half reclining against each other on 
 shelves, but the most used objects in which 
 were a hat and clothes-brush, some walking- 
 canes and umbrellas, he was surprised to find 
 himself closely followed by Madame Du Ter- 
 tre ; more surprised when that lady closed the
 
 l'amie de la maison. 259 
 
 door quietly, and turning to him said, with 
 meaning : 
 
 ' Now, monsieur, five words with you.' 
 
 'Certainly, madame,' said John very much 
 taken aback ; 'but is not this rather an odd 
 place — would not Mrs. Calverley think — ?' 
 
 ' Ah, bah,' said Pauline, with a shrug and 
 a gesture very much more reminiscent of the 
 dame du comptoir than of the dame de com. 
 pagnie. ' Mrs. Calverley has gone down-stairs 
 to battle with those wretched servants, and 
 she is, as you know, safe to be there for half 
 an hour. What I have to say will not take 
 ten minutes — shall I speak ?' 
 
 John bowed in silence, looking at the 
 same time anxiously towards the study-door. 
 
 ' You do not know much of me, Monsieur 
 Calverley, but you will before I have done. 
 I am at present — and am, I fancy, likely to 
 remain — an inmate of your house ; I have 
 established myself in Mrs.' Calverley' s good 
 graces, and have, as you must know very well, 
 a certain amount of influence with her ; but 
 it was you to whom I made my original ap-
 
 260 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 peal ; it is you whom I wish to retain as my 
 friend.' 
 
 John Calverley, with flushing cheeks, and 
 constantly-recurring glance towards the door, 
 said, ' that he was very proud, and that if he 
 only knew what Madame Du Tertre de- 
 sired — ' 
 
 ' You shall know at once, Monsieur Cal- 
 verley : I want you to accept me as your 
 friend, and to prove that you do so by giving 
 me your confidence.' 
 
 John Calverley started. 
 
 c Yes, your confidence,' continued Pauline. 
 ' I have talent and energy, and, when I am 
 trusted, could prove myself a friend worth 
 having ; but I am too proud to accept half- 
 confidences, and where no trust is reposed in 
 me I am apt to ally myself with the opposite 
 faction. Why not trust in me, Monsieur Cal- 
 verley — why not tell me all ?' 
 
 ' All — what all, madame ?' 
 
 1 About your partner, Monsieur Claxton, 
 and the reason why you do not bring him — ' 
 
 'Hush! pray be silent, I implore you!'
 
 l'amie de la maison. 261 
 
 said John Calverley, stepping towards her 
 and taking both her hands in his. ' I cannot 
 imagine,' he said, after a moment's pause, 
 4 what interest my business affairs can have 
 for you ; but since you seem to wish it, you 
 shall know them all ; only not here and not 
 now.' 
 
 'Yes,' said Pauline, with provoking calm- 
 ness, ' in the City, perhaps ?' 
 
 c Yes ; at my office in Mincing-lane.' 
 
 4 And when?' 
 
 1 To-morrow week, at four o'clock ; come 
 down there then, and I will tell you all you 
 wish to know.' 
 
 1 Right,' said Pauline, slipping out of the 
 room in an instant. And before John Calver- 
 ley let himself out at the street-door, he heard 
 the drawing-room piano ringing out the grand 
 march from the Projihete under her skilful 
 hands. 
 
 Three days afterwards a man came up 
 from the office with a letter for Mrs. Calver- 
 ley. It was from her husband, stating he
 
 262 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 had a telegram calling him down to Swart- 
 moor at once, and requesting that his port- 
 manteau might be packed and given to the 
 messenger. This worthy was seen and inter- 
 rogated by the mistress of the house. c He 
 knew nothing about the telegram/ he said, 
 1 but when his master gave him the letter he 
 looked bothered and dazed-like.' 
 
 Mrs. Calverley shook her head, and opined 
 that her prophecies anent the downfall of 
 the Swartmoor Ironworks were about to be 
 realised. But Pauline did not seem to be 
 much put out at the news. c It is important, 
 doubtless,' she said to herself, 'and he must 
 go ; but he will return in time to keep his 
 appointment with me.' 
 
 The day arrived and the hour, and Paul- 
 ine was punctual to her appointment, but Mr. 
 Calverley had not arrived, though one of the 
 clerks said he had left word that it was pro- 
 bable he might return on that day. That was 
 enough for Pauline ; she would await his 
 arrival. 
 
 An hour passed.
 
 l'amie de la maison. 263 
 
 Then tliere was a great tearing up and 
 down stairs, and hurrying to and fro, and 
 presently, when a white-faced clerk came in 
 to get his hat, he stared to see her there. He 
 had forgotten her, though it was he who 
 had ushered her into the waiting-room. 
 
 4 There was no use in her remaining there 
 any longer,' he said; c the head-clerk, Mr. 
 Jeffreys, had been sent for to Great Walpole- 
 street ; and though nobody knew anything 
 positive, everybody felt that something dread- 
 ful had occurred.'
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 c WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE. ' 
 
 When Alice first heard the news of Tom Dur- 
 ham's death, she was deeply and seriously 
 grieved. Not that she had seen much of her 
 half-brother at any period of her life, not that 
 there was any special bond of sympathy be- 
 tween them, nor that the shifty, thriftless 
 ne'er-do-well possessed any qualities likely to 
 find much favour with a person of Alice's up- 
 rightness and rectitude of conduct. But the 
 girl could not forget the old days when Tom, 
 as a big ■ strong lad, just returned from his 
 first rough introduction to the world, would 
 take her, a little delicate mite, and carry her 
 aloft on his shoulders round the garden, and 
 even deprive himself of the huge pipe and the 
 strong tobacco which he took such pride in
 
 ' WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE.' 265 
 
 smoking, because the smell was offensive to 
 her. She could not forget that whenever he 
 returned from his wanderings, short as his 
 stay in England might be, he made a point of 
 coming to see her, always bringing some little 
 present, some quaint bit of foreign art -manu- 
 facture, which he knew would please her fancy ; 
 and though his purse was generally meagrely 
 stocked, always asking her whether she was 
 in want of money, and offering to share its 
 contents with her. More vividly than all she 
 recalled to mind his softness of manner and 
 gentleness of tone, on the occasion of their last 
 parting ; she recollected how he had clasped 
 her to his breast at the station, and how she 
 had seen the tears falling down his cheeks as 
 the train moved away ; she remembered his 
 very words : ' I am not going to be sentimental, 
 it isn't in my line ; but I think I like you better 
 than anybody else in the world, though I 
 didn't take to you much at first.' And again: 
 ' So I love you, and I leave you with regret.' 
 Poor Tom, poor dear Tom! such was the 
 theme of Alice's daily reflection, invariably
 
 266 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 ending in her breaking down and comforting 
 herself with a good cry. 
 
 But, in addition to the loss of her brother, 
 Alice Claxton had great cause for anxiety and 
 mental disturbance. John had returned from 
 his last business tour weary, dispirited, and 
 obviously very much out of health. The 
 brightness had faded from his blue eyes, the 
 lines round them and his mouth seemed to 
 have doubled both in number and depth, his 
 stoop was considerably increased, and instead 
 of his frank hearty bearing, he crept about, 
 when he thought he was unobserved, with 
 dawdling footsteps, and with an air of lassi- 
 tude pervading his every movement. He 
 strove his best to disguise his condition from 
 Alice ; he struggled hard to talk to her in 
 his old cheerful way, to take interest in the 
 details of her management of the house and 
 garden, to hear little Bell her lessons, and to 
 play about with the child on days when the 
 weather rendered it possible for him to go 
 into the shrubbery. But even during the 
 time when Alice was talking or reading to
 
 267 
 
 him, or when he was romping with the child, 
 he would suddenly subside into a kind of half- 
 dazed state, his eyes staring blankly before 
 him, his hands dropped listlessly by his side ; 
 he would not reply until he had been spoken 
 to twice or thrice, and would then look up as 
 though he had either not heard or not under- 
 stood the question addressed to him. If it 
 was painful to Alice to see her husband in 
 that state, it was far more distressing to ob- 
 serve his struggles to recover his conscious- 
 ness, and his attempts at being more like his 
 old self. In his endeavours to talk and laugh, 
 to rally his young wife after his usual fashion, 
 and to comprehend and be interested in the 
 playful babble of the child, there was a ghastly 
 galvanised vivacity most painful to behold. 
 
 Watching her husband day by day with 
 the greatest interest and care, studying him 
 so closely that she was enabled to anticipate 
 his various changes of manner, and almost to 
 foretell the next expression of his face, Alice 
 Claxton became convinced that there was 
 something seriously the matter with him, and
 
 268 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 it was her duty, whether he wished it or not, 
 to call in medical advice. Mr. Broadbent, the 
 village apothecary, had had a great deal of 
 experience, and was invariably spoken of as 
 a clever, kind-hearted man. When the Clax- 
 tons first established themselves at Rose Cot- 
 tage, the old-fashioned residents in the neigh- 
 bourhood duly called and left their cards ; 
 but after John had consulted with Alice, tell- 
 ing her that he left her to do entirely as she 
 thought fit in the matter, but that for his own 
 part he had no desire to commence a new 
 series of acquaintance, it was agreed between 
 them that it would be sufficient to deliver 
 cards in return, and all farther attempts at 
 social intercourse were politely put aside and 
 ignored. In such a village as Hendon was 
 a few years ago, it was, however, impossible 
 without actual rudeness to avoid the acquaint- 
 ance of the vicar and the doctor, and conse- 
 quently the Reverend Mr. Tomlinson and his 
 wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Broadbent, were on 
 visiting terms at Rose Cottage. 
 
 Visiting terms, so far as the Tomlinsons
 
 'when doctors disagree.' 269 
 
 were concerned, meant an interchange of din- 
 ners twice in the year ; but Mr. Broadbent 
 was seen, by Mrs. Claxton at least, far more 
 frequently. The story of little Bell's adoption 
 had got wind throughout the neighbourhood, 
 and the spinsters and the gushing young ladies, 
 who thought it ' so romantic,' unable to effect 
 an entrance for themselves into the enchanted 
 bower, anxiously sought information from Mr. 
 Broadbent, who was, as they kuew, a privi- 
 leged person. The apothecary was by no 
 means backward in purveying gossip for the 
 edification of his fair hearers, and his eulogies 
 of Mrs. Claxton's good looks, and his detailed 
 descriptions of little Bell's infantile maladies, 
 were received with much delight at nearly all 
 the tea-tables in the neighbourhood. Whether 
 John Claxton had heard of this, whether he 
 had taken any personal dislike to Mr. Broad- 
 bent, or whether it was merely owing to his 
 natural shyness and reserve, that he absented 
 himself from the room on nearly every occa- 
 sion of the doctor's visits, Alice could not tell; 
 but such was the case. When they did meet,
 
 270 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 they talked politely, and seemed on the best 
 of terms; but John seemed to take care that 
 their meetings should be as few as possible. 
 
 What was to be done? John had now 
 been home three days, and was visibly worse 
 than on his arrival. Alice had spoken to him 
 once or twice, seriously imploring him to tell 
 her what was the matter with him, but had 
 been received the first time with a half-laugh, 
 the second time with a grave frown. He was 
 quite Avell, he said, quite well, so far as his 
 bodily health was concerned ; a little worried, 
 he allowed; business worries, which a woman 
 could not understand, matters connected with 
 the firm which gave him a certain amount of 
 anxiety — nothing more. Alice thought that 
 this was not the whole truth, and that John, 
 in his love for her, and desire to spare her 
 any grief, had made light of what was really 
 serious suffering. The more she thought 
 over it, the more anxious and alarmed she 
 became, and at length, when on the fourth 
 morning after John's return, she had peeped 
 into the little library and seen her husband
 
 ' WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE.' 271 
 
 sitting there at the window, not heeding the 
 glorious prospect before him, not heeding the 
 book which lay upon his lap, but lying back- 
 wards in his chair, with his hands clasped 
 behind his head, his eyes closed, his complex- 
 ion a dull sodden red, she determined on at 
 once sending for Mr. Broadbent, without say- 
 ing a word to John about it. An excuse could 
 easily be found ; little Bell had a cold and 
 was slightly feverish, and the doctor had been 
 sent for to prescribe for her ; and though he 
 could see Mr. Claxton and have a talk with 
 him, Alice would take care that John should 
 not suspect that he was the object of Mr. 
 Broadbent's visit. 
 
 Mr. Broadbent came, pleasant and chatty 
 at first, imagining he had been sent for to see 
 the little girl in one of the ordinary illnesses 
 of childhood ; graver and much less voluble 
 as, on their way up to the nursery, Mrs. Clax- 
 ton confided to him her real object in request- 
 ing his presence. Little Bell duly visited, 
 the conspiring pair came down stairs again, 
 and Alice going first, opened the door and dis-
 
 272 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 covered Mr. Claxton in the attitude in which 
 she had last seen him, fast asleep and breath- 
 ing heavily. He roused himself at the noise 
 on their entrance, rubbed his eyes, and rose 
 wearily to his feet, covered with confusion 
 as soon as he made out that Alice had a com- 
 panion. 
 
 'Well, John,' cried Alice, with a well- 
 feigned liveliness, c you were asleep, I declare ! 
 See, here is Mr. Broadbent come to shake 
 hands with you. He was good enough to 
 come round and look at little Bell, who has a 
 bad cold, poor child, and a little flushing in 
 the skin, which frightened me ; but Mr. Broad- 
 bent says it's nothing.' 
 
 ' Nothing at all, Mr. Claxton, take my 
 word for it,' said the doctor, who had by this 
 time advanced into the room, and by a little 
 skilful manoeuvring had got his back to the 
 window, while he had turned John Claxton, 
 whose hand he held, with his face to the light; 
 'nothing at all, the merest nothing ; but ladies, 
 as you know, are even frightened at that, 
 particularly where little ones are concerned.
 
 ' WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE.' 273 
 
 Well, Mr. Claxton,' continued the doctor, 
 who was a big jolly man, with a red face, 
 a pair of black bushy whiskers, and a deep 
 voice, 'and how do you find yourself, sir?' 
 
 'I am quite well, thank you, doctor,' said 
 John Claxton, plucking up and striving to do 
 his best; ' I may say quite well.' 
 
 'Lucky man not to find all your travelling 
 knock you about,' said the doctor. ' I have 
 known several men — commercials — who say 
 they cannot stand the railway half so well as 
 they used to do the old coaches — shakes them, 
 jars them altogether. By the way, there is 
 renewed talk about our having a railway here. 
 Have you heard anything about it?' 
 
 'Not I,' said John Claxton, 'and I fer- 
 vently hope it will not come in my time. I 
 am content with old Davis's coach.' 
 
 'Ah,' said the doctor with a laugh, 'you 
 must find old Davis's coach rather a contrast 
 to some of the railways you are in the habit 
 of scouring the country in, both in regard to 
 speed and comfort. However, T must be off ; 
 glad to see you looking so well. Good-morn- 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 ing. Now, Mrs. Claxton,' added the doctor^ 
 as he shook hands with John, 'if you will just 
 come with me, I should like to look at that 
 last prescription I wrote for the little lady up- 
 stairs.' 
 
 No sooner were they in the dining-room, 
 with the door closed behind them, than Alice 
 laid her hand upon the doctor's arm, and 
 looked up into his face pale and eager with 
 anxiety. 
 
 'Well,' she said, 'how does he look? what 
 do you think ? Tell me at once.' 
 
 'It is impossible, my dear Mrs. Claxton,' 
 said the good-natured apothecary, looking at 
 her kindly, and speaking in a softened voice ; 
 ' it is impossible for me to judge of Mr. Clax- 
 ton' s state from a mere cursory glance and 
 casual talk ; but I am bound to say that, from 
 what I could observe, I fancy he must be con- 
 siderably out of health.' 
 
 c So I thought,' said Alice; 'so I feared.' 
 And her tears fell fast. 
 
 ' You must not give way, my dear ma- 
 dam,' said Mr. Broadbent. ' What I say may
 
 ' WHEN" DOCTOES DISAGREE.' 275 
 
 be entirely unfounded. I am, recollect, only 
 giving you my impression after a conversation 
 with your husband, in Tvhich, at your express 
 wish, I refrained from asking him anything 
 about himself.' 
 
 c If I could manage to persuade him to see 
 you, would you come in this afternoon or to- 
 morrow morning, Mr. Broadbent?' 
 
 1 1 would, of course, do anything you 
 wished; but as Mr. Claxton has never hi- 
 therto done me the honour to consult me pro- 
 fessionally, and as it seems to me to be a case 
 the diagnosis of which should be very care- 
 fully gone into, I would recommend that he 
 should consult some physician of eminence. 
 Possibly he knows such a one.' 
 
 1 No,' said Alice, i I have never heard him 
 mention any physician since our marriage.' 
 
 c If that be the case, I would strongly ad- 
 vise you to call in Doctor Haughton. He is 
 a man of the greatest eminence ; and, as it 
 happens, I see him every day just now, as we 
 have a regular consultation at the Rookery — 
 }T>u know, the large place on the other side of
 
 276 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 the village, where poor Mr. Piggott is lying 
 dangerously ill. If you like, I will mention 
 the case to Doctor Haughton when I see him 
 to-morrow.' 
 
 c Thank you, Mr. Broaclbent ; I am deeply 
 obliged to you, but I must speak to John first. 
 I should not like to do anything without his 
 knowledge. I will speak to him this after- 
 noon, and send a note round to you in the 
 evening.' And Mr. Broadbent, much graver 
 and much less boisterous than usual, took his 
 departure. 
 
 John Claxton remained pretty much in 
 the same dozing kind of state during the day. 
 He came in to luncheon, and made an effort 
 to talk cheerfully upon the contents of the 
 newspaper and suchlike topics, and afterwards 
 he had a romp in the hall with little Bell, the 
 weather bein^ too raw for the child to &o out 
 of doors. But two or three turns at the bat- 
 tledore and shuttlecock, two or three spin- 
 nings of the big humming-top, two or three 
 hidings behind the greatcoats, seemed to be 
 enough for him, and he rang for the nurse to
 
 'when doctors disagree.' 277 
 
 take the child to her room just as the little 
 one was beginning to enter into the sport of 
 the various games. Alice had been in and out 
 through the hall during the pastime, and saw 
 the child go quietly off, bearing her disappoint- 
 ment bravely, and saw her husband turn list- 
 lessly into the library, his hands buried in the 
 pockets of his shooting -jacket and his head 
 sunk upon his breast. Poor little Alice ! Her 
 life for the last few years had been so bright 
 and so full of sunshine ; her whole being was 
 so bound up with that of her kind thought- 
 ful husband, who had taken her from almost 
 menial drudgery and made her the star and 
 idol of his existence, that when she saw him 
 lighting bravely against the illness which was 
 bearing him down, and ever striving to hide 
 it from her, she could not make head against 
 the trouble, but retired into a corner of her 
 pretty little drawing-room and wept bitterly. 
 Then when the fit of weeping was over, 
 she roused herself, her brain cleared and her 
 determination renewed. 'It is impossible that 
 this can go on,' she said to herself; ' I have a
 
 278 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 part and share in John's life now ; it belongs 
 to me almost as much as to him, and it is my 
 duty to see that it is not endangered. He 
 will be angry, I know, but I must bear his 
 anger. After what Mr. Broadbent said this 
 morning, it is impossible that I can allow mat- 
 ters to remain in their present state without 
 acting upon the advice which he gave me ; and 
 be the result what it may, I will do so.' 
 
 The autumn twilight had fallen upon the 
 garden, wrapping it in its dim grey folds, the 
 heavy mists were beginning to rise from the 
 damp earth, and the whole aspect outside was 
 dreary and chilly. But when Alice entered 
 the little library she found John Claxton 
 standing at the window, with his head lying 
 against the pane, and apparently rapt in the 
 contemplation of the cheerless landscape. 
 
 1 John,' she said, creeping close to him, and 
 laying her hand upon his shoulder, l John.' 
 
 4 Yes, dear,' he replied, passing his arm 
 round 'her and drawing her closely to him. 
 4 You wondered what had become of me ; you
 
 ' WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE.' 279 
 
 came to reproach me for leaving you so long 
 to yourself?' 
 
 ' No, John, not that,' said Alice ; ' there is 
 notain£ in the wide world for which I have 
 to reproach you ; there has been nothing since 
 you first made me mistress of your house.' 
 
 'Ajid of my heart, Alice; don't forget 
 that,' said her husband, tenderly ; 'of my 
 heart.' 
 
 ' And of your heart,' she repeated. 'But 
 when you gave me that position you expected 
 me to tab. with it its responsibilities as well 
 as its happness, did you not ? You did not 
 bring me hre to be merely a toy or a play- 
 thing — no, idon't mean that exactly; I mean 
 not merely t be something for your petting 
 and your amusement — you meant me to be 
 your wife, Jem ; to share with you your 
 troubles and aixieties, and to have a voice of 
 my own, a ver t little one, in the regulation 
 of all things in inch you were concerned ?' 
 
 'Certainly, Ace,' said her husband; 'have 
 I not shown this 
 
 ' Always befoi 5 John, always up to within
 
 280 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 the last few days. And if you are not doing 
 so now, it is, I know, from no lack of lore, 
 but rather out of care and thoughtfulne^sfor 
 me.' 
 
 c Why, Alice,' said John, with a struggle 
 to revive his old playful manner, 'whit is 
 the matter with you ? How grave the little 
 woman is to-night.' 
 
 c Yes, John ; I am grave, because I know 
 you are ill, and that you are striviig to hide 
 it from me lest I should be alarmeo That is 
 not the way it should be, John ; you know 
 we swore to be loyal to each othej in sickness 
 as well as in health, and it would be my pride 
 as well as my duty to take up my place by 
 you in sickness and be your nu£e.' 
 
 4 1 want no nurse, little wtfaan,' he said, 
 bending tenderly over her. As I told you 
 this morning, I am quite well/ only a little — ' 
 And then his brain reeled, sid his legs tot- 
 tered beneath him, aud had h/not caught hold 
 of the chair standing at hi/ elbow, he would 
 have fallen to the ground. / 
 
 'You are ill, John; fere is the proof,'
 
 'when doctors disagree.' 281 
 
 Alice cried, after he had seated himself and 
 thrown himself heavily back in the chair. 
 She knelt by his side, bathing his forehead 
 with eau -de -cologne. 4 You are ill, and must 
 be attended to at once. Now listen; do you 
 understand me ?' 
 
 A feeble pressure of her hand intimated 
 assent. 
 
 'Well, then, Mr. Broadbent mentioned 
 quite by accident this morning that a cele- 
 brated London physician, a Doctor Haughton 
 I think he called him, was in the habit of 
 coming up here every day just now to visit 
 Mr. Piggott at the Rookery ; and it struck me 
 at the time that it would be a very good plan 
 if we could send round to the Rookery and 
 ask this Doctor Haughton to call in as he was 
 passing and see you.' 
 
 4 No !' cried John Claxton in a loud voice, 
 as he started up in his chair ; ' no, I forbid 
 you distinctly to do anything of the kind. I 
 will have no strange doctor admitted into 
 this house. Understand, Alice, these are my 
 orders, and I insist on their being obeyed.'
 
 282 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 ' That is quite enough, John,' said Alice ; 
 4 you know that your will is my law; still I 
 hope to make you think better of it for your 
 own sake and for mine.' 
 
 They said no more about it just then. 
 Alice remained kneeling by her husband, 
 holding his hand in hers, and softly smooth- 
 ing his hair, and bathing his forehead, until 
 the dinner was announced. The threat of 
 calling in Doctor Haughton seemed to have 
 had an inspiriting effect on the invalid. He 
 ate and drank more than he had done on the 
 three previous days, and talked more freely 
 and with greater gaiety. So comparatively 
 lively was he, that Alice began to hope that 
 he had been merely suffering, as he had said, 
 under an accumulation of business worries, 
 and that with a little rest and quiet he would 
 recover his ordinary health and spirits. 
 
 Quite late in the evening, as they were 
 sitting together in the library, John began 
 talking to his wife about Tom Durham. He 
 had scarcely touched upon the subject since 
 the news of the unfortunate man's death had
 
 c WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE.' 
 
 arrived in England, and even now he intro- 
 duced it cautiously and with becoming rever- 
 ence. 
 
 I Of course it was a sad blow,' he said, 
 'and just now it seems very hard for you to 
 bear ; but don't think I have failed to notice, 
 Alice, how, in your love and care for me, you 
 have set aside your own grief lest the sight of 
 your sorrow should distress me.' 
 
 I I don't know that I deserve any grati- 
 tude for that, John ; my care for you is so 
 very much greater than any other feeling 
 which can possibly enter into my mind, that 
 it stands apart and alone, and I cannot mea- 
 sure others by it. And yet I was very fond 
 of poor Tom,' she said, pensively. 
 
 ' It will be a comfort for us to think, not 
 now so much as hereafter, that we did our 
 best to start him in an honest career, and to 
 give him the chance of achieving a good posi- 
 tion,' said John Claxton. ' He had seen a 
 great many of the ups and downs of life, had 
 poor Tom Durham.' 
 
 1 He was a strange mixture of good and
 
 
 284 THE YELLOW EL AG. 
 
 evil,' said Alice ; ' but to me he was always 
 uniformly kind and affectionate. He had a 
 strange regard for me, as being, I suppose, 
 something totally different from what he was 
 usually brought in contact with; he took care 
 that I should see nothing but the best and 
 brightest side of him, though of course I knew 
 from others that he was full of faults.' 
 
 ' And you loved him all the same ? 
 
 c And yet, as you say, I loved him all the 
 same.' 
 
 c And nothing you could hear now would 
 alter your opinion of him ?' 
 
 c No, John, I think — I am sure not. I 
 am a strange being, and this is one of my 
 characteristics, that no fault known at the 
 time or discovered afterwards, could in the 
 slightest degree influence my feelings towards 
 one whom I had really loved.' 
 
 1 You are sure of that, Alice ?' said John 
 Claxton, bending down and looking earnestly 
 at her. 
 
 ' Quite sure,' she replied. 
 
 ' That is one of the sweetest traits in your
 
 'when doctors disagree.' 285 
 
 sweet self,' said her husband, kissing her fer- 
 vently. 
 
 The next morning Mr. Claxton's improve- 
 ment seemed to continue. He was up toler- 
 ably early, ate a good breakfast, and talked 
 with all his accustomed spirit. Alice began 
 to think that she had been precipitate in her 
 idea of calling in medical advice, particularly 
 in sending for a stranger like Doctor Haugh- 
 ton, and was glad that John had overruled 
 her in the matter. Later in the morning, the 
 air being tolerably mild, and the sun shining, 
 he went with little Bell into the garden, first 
 walking quietly round the paths, and after- 
 wards, in compliance with the child's request, 
 giving himself up for a romping game at play. 
 It was while engaged in this game that John 
 Claxton felt as though he had suddenly lost 
 his intellect, that everything was whirling 
 round him in wild chaotic disorder, then that 
 he was stricken blind and deaf, then that with 
 one great blow depriving him almost of life, 
 he was smitten to the earth. On the earth 
 he lay; while the child, conceiving this to be
 
 286 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 a part of the game, ran off with shrieks of de- 
 light to some new hiding-place. On the earth 
 he lay, how long he knew not, having only 
 the consciousness, when he came to himself, 
 of being dazed and stunned, and sore all over, 
 as though he had been severely beaten. 
 
 John Claxton knew what this meant. He 
 felt it would be almost impossible any longer 
 to hide the state in which he was from the 
 eager anxious eyes of his wife. He would 
 make one more attempt, however; so, bracing 
 himself together, he managed to proceed with 
 tolerable steadiness towards the house. Alice 
 came out to meet him, beaming with happi- 
 ness. 
 
 4 What has become of you, you silly John ?' 
 she cried. ' I have been looking for you 
 everywhere. Bell told me she left you hiding 
 somewhere in the garden, and I have just sent 
 up for my cloak, determined to search for you 
 myself.' 
 
 1 Bell was quite right, dear,' said John, 
 slowly and with great effort. ' I was hiding, 
 as she said ; but as she did not come to find
 
 ' WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE.' 287 
 
 me, I thought I had better make the best of 
 my way without her.' 
 
 c Not before you were required, sir. I 
 was waiting for you to give me my monthly 
 cheque. Don't you know that to-day is the 
 twenty - fourth, when I always pay my old 
 pensioners and garden people?' 
 
 ' Is to-day the twenty-fourth ?' asked John 
 Claxton, his face flushing very red, as he fum- 
 bled in his pocket for his note-book. 
 
 6 Certainly, John. Thursday the twenty- 
 fourth, and — ' 
 
 1 I must go,' said John Claxton hoarsely, 
 after he had found his note-book and looked 
 into it ; 1 1 must go to London at once.' 
 
 ' To London, John ?' 
 
 'Yes, at once ; particular appointment with 
 Mr. Calverley for to-day. I cannot think how 
 I have forgotten it; but I must go.' 
 
 ' You are not well enough to go, John ; 
 •you must not.' 
 
 c I tell you I must and will !' said John 
 Claxton fiercely. ' I shall come back to-night ; 
 or, if I have to go off out of town, I will tell
 
 288 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 you where to send my portmanteau. Don't 
 be angry, dear. I didn't mean to be cross — 
 I didn't indeed; but business — most import- 
 ant business.' 
 
 He spoke thickly and hurriedly, his veins 
 were swollen, and his eyes seemed starting 
 out of his head. 
 
 1 Won't you wait for Davis's coach, John T 
 said Alice softly. ' It will start in half an 
 hour.' 
 
 c No, no; let it pick me up on the road. 
 Tell Davis to look out for me ; a little walk 
 will do me good. Give me my hat and coat ; 
 and now, God bless you, my darling. You 
 are not angry with me? Let me hear that 
 before I start.' 
 
 'I never was angry with you, John. I 
 never could be angry with you so long as I 
 live.' 
 
 He wound his arms around her and held 
 her to his heart ; then with rapid shambling 
 steps he started off down the high-road. He 
 walked on and on ; he must have gone, he 
 thought, at least two miles ; would the coach
 
 'when doctors disagree. ' 289 
 
 never come ? The excitement which sustained 
 him at first now began to fail him ; he felt his 
 legs tottering under him ; then suddenly the 
 blindness and the deafness came on him again, 
 the singing in his ears, the surging in his 
 brain; and he fell by the roadside, helpless 
 and senseless. 
 
 The delightfully -interesting case of Mr. 
 Piggott of the Eookery had brought together 
 Doctor Haughton and Mr. Broadbent, after 
 a separation of many years, and led them to 
 renew the old friendship, which had been 
 interrupted since their student days at St. 
 George's. Nature was not doing much for 
 Mr. Piggott, and the case was likely to be 
 pleasantly protracted ; so that on this very 
 day Doctor Haughton had asked Mr. Broad- 
 bent to come and dine and sleep at his house 
 in Saville-row, where he would meet with 
 some old friends and several distinguished 
 members of the profession ; and the pair were 
 rolling easily into town in Doctor Haughton's 
 carriage, with the black bag, containing Mr. 
 
 vol. i. u
 
 290 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 Broadbent's evening dress, carefully placed 
 under the coachman's legs. 
 
 What is this ? A knot of people gathered 
 by the roadside, all craning forward eagerly, 
 and looking at something on the ground. The 
 coachman's practised eye detects an accident 
 instantly, and he whips up his horses and 
 stops them just abreast of the crowd. 
 
 'What is it?' cried the coachman. 
 
 ' Man in a fit,' cried one of the crowd. 
 
 ' That be blowed,' said another ; ' he won't 
 have any more of such fits as them, I reckon. 
 The man's dead ; that's what he is.' 
 
 Hearing these words Mr. Broadbent opened 
 the door and pushed his way among the crowd. 
 Instantly he returned, his face full of hor- 
 ror. 
 
 'Good God! ? he said to his companion, 
 'who do you think it is? The man — the 
 very man about whom I was speaking to you 
 just now — Claxton.' 
 
 Doctor Haughton descended from the car- 
 riage in a more leisurely and professional 
 manner, stepped among the people, who
 
 'when doctors disagree.' 291 
 
 made way for him right' and left, knelt by 
 the prostrate body,, lifted its arms and applied 
 his fingers to its wrists. Then he shook his 
 head. 
 
 ' The man is dead,' he said ; 'there can be 
 no doubt about that.' And he bent forward 
 to look at the features. Instantly recognising 
 him, he sprang back. 'Who did you say this 
 man was?' he said, turning to Mr. Broadbent. 
 
 'Claxton — Mr. Claxton, of Rose Cottage.' 
 
 ' Nothing of the sort/ said the doctor. ' I 
 knew him well ; it is Mr. Calverley, of Great 
 Walpole-street.' 
 
 'My good sir,' said Mr. Broadbent, 'I 
 knew the man well. I saw him only y ester- 
 day.' 
 
 ' And I knew Mr. Calverley well. He was 
 one of Chipchase's patients, and I attended 
 him when Chipchase was out of town. We 
 can soon settle this — Here, you lad, just stand 
 at those horses' heads — Gibson,' to his coach- 
 man, 'get down, and come here. Did you 
 ever see that gentleman before ?' pointing to 
 the body.
 
 292 THE YELLOW FLAG. 
 
 The man bent forward and took a long 
 and solemn stare. 
 
 ' Certainly, sir,' he replied at length, touch- 
 ing his hat ; ' Mr. Calverley, sir, of Great Wal- 
 pole-street. Seen him a score of times.' 
 
 1 What do you think of that ?' said Doctor 
 Haughton, turning to his companion. 
 
 1 Think !' said Mr, Broadbent, 4 I will tell 
 you what I think — that Mr. Claxton of Rose 
 Cottage and Mr. Calverley of Great Walpole- 
 street were one and the same man !' 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 BOBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.
 
 fit/'. 
 
 /Wl-
 
 UNIVERSrtY OF ILLINOI3-URBANA 
 
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